Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Rushed To Judgement

Milwaukee normally has 180 voting sites; because of coronavirus, fewer than 12 polling places will be open April 7

We need not be endangering people, voters and election workers, by encouraging gatherings of many in confined areas. The election can wait. We needn't stress our election processing machinery with exponentially large numbers of absentee ballots to collect and count. We should also not be rushing many voters, now, along with coronavirus, into trying to obtain and mail, or drop-off, their absentee ballot. Democracy shouldn't be rushed, expedited or forced. The election can be postponed to ensure proper debate, turnout and processing. 

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Greed, Preparedness, Science And Leadership

I'm seeing a lot of "Jesus has got this," "God will take care of this," "Pray," "Put your faith in the Lord," and such on the social media.

But, if God is all powerful, didn't he/she cause/create this? And, if he/she allowed/caused this, and can fix/alleviate this, isn't he/she just a bit of an asshole/sadist for allowing/causing such in the first place?

Not really the kind of entity I want to worship.

If anything, this episode should teach us about greed, preparedness, science and leadership.

We should stop measuring life by the stock market. Businesses only care about the bottom line; we should stop looking to them for good public policy.

We have the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control - we should be listening to them. We had a Global Health Security and Biodefense office (pandemic response team), but Donald Trump closed it.

We should be thinking more about our family, friends, neighbors and community, instead of ourselves and the misleading/lying baboon some call president.

We should be voting for public servants and leaders that have the knowledge, background and skill-set equal to the task. We need better and smarter people running things, not average Joe's and run-of-the-mill folks you'd like to have a beer with.

Hopefully this catastrophe will catapult our society toward more equality, better advocacy and implementation of science, a cleaner environment, less consumerism and a sense of community, where we realize there is so much more that we agree, than disagree, about.

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Bezos, And Others Of The Richest Among Us, Display Truly Despicable Greed

Amazon, Owned by World's Richest Man, Soliciting Public Donations To Pay Workers' Sick Leave
Corporate America Fleeced Us Again
Amazon soliciting public donations to pay workers' sick leave
Menards Accused of Price Gouging

Donald Trump, Republicans Trying To Profit Off Pandemic

As usual, Donald Trump and the Republicans are putting party before country. They are trying to profit from a global pandemic. They would also rather see people die than to have their cronies lose money. These are truly repugnant human beings. None of whom should be public servants.

DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency
Democrats Block Senate Coronavirus Bill, Calling It A ‘Corporate Bailout’
Senate approves massive $2 trillion coronavirus emergency package
Coronavirus: US overtakes China with most cases
Trump Says COVID-19 Deaths May Be the Price We Pay For A Strong Economy — Just Like Traffic Deaths
No Thanks, I Will Not Immolate Myself on the Altar of Your Stock Portfolio
‘I would rather die than kill the country’: The conservative chorus pushing Trump to end social distancing
Trump says he won’t comply with key transparency measures in the coronavirus stimulus bill
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly in the Two-Trillion-Dollar Stimulus

Saturday, March 21, 2020

"Robots Are Taking Over" Isn't Supported By The Data

Democrats, Avoid the Robot Rabbit Hole Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages Andrew Yang Is Ross Perot for Millennials Blame the policies, not the robots

Shelter-In-Place Reading

Coronavirus Bailouts Shouldn’t Reward Investors And CEOs, Democrats Say ‘So tired of the rich profiting from every cataclysm’ Visualizing the History of Pandemics Trump’s Company Paid Bribes to Reduce Property Taxes, Assessors Say Why the US Sucks at Building Public Transit The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff The Shopko Swindle — rewarding wealth instead of hard work Sen. Ron Johnson: We Shouldn’t Shut Down Economy Just Cause Up to 3.4 Percent of Infected Population Could Die Republicans suddenly find a bailout they can back Four senators sold stocks before coronavirus threat crashed market

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Trump-Virus





For Further Reading:
‘He’s gonna get us all killed’: sense of unease after Trump coronavirus speech

Midweek Reading

The Foxconn Road to Ruin
‘Middle Class’ Joe Biden has a corruption problem – it makes him a weak candidate
Trump and the GOP have created a giant mess. Will Democrats have to clean it up again?
Coronavirus Is a Reason to Worry About the Economy—the Stock Market Plunge Is Not
There is hard data that shows "Bernie Bros" are a myth
The Rules of Contagion — a study of how a virus spreads
How the drug industry got its way on the coronavirus

Trump-Speak

Joe Biden Explaining Why Bernie Sanders Is The Best Candidate To Beat Trump

Pneuma