Music: Trio Mediaeval — ‘Rolandskvadet’
Tax-dollars for Trump: $300 million HHS ad campaign is designed put a positive spin on the pandemic
Politico reports: The health department is moving quickly on a highly unusual advertising campaign to “defeat despair” about the coronavirus, a $300 million-plus effort that was shaped by a political appointee close to President Donald Trump and executed in part by close allies of the official, using taxpayer funds. The ad blitz, described in some budget documents as the “Covid-19 immediate surge public advertising and awareness campaign,” is expected to lean heavily on video interviews between administration officials and celebrities,…
Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans show signs of past coronavirus infection, large national study finds
The Washington Post reports: Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans showed signs of past infection with the novel coronavirus as of late July, suggesting that most of the country may still be vulnerable to infection, according to one of the largest studies of its kind published Friday in the journal the Lancet. That proportion is an estimate based on the percentage of dialysis patients whose immune systems produced coronavirus antibodies. It does not indicate exactly how many Americans may be…
Justice Department promotes Trump’s disinformation on voting
The New York Times reports: In the effort led by President Trump to create a misleading impression of widespread voter fraud, administration and campaign officials have seized on nine mail-in military ballots in a Pennsylvania county that Mr. Trump won by 20 points in 2016. Federal officials have disclosed that they are investigating whether local elections officials improperly discarded the ballots, at least seven of which were cast for Mr. Trump, they said. A Justice Department official said on Friday…
Legal acumen: Why Amy Coney Barrett deserves to be on the Supreme Court
Noah Feldman writes: Like many other liberals, I’m devastated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, which opened the way for President Donald Trump to nominate a third Supreme Court justice in his first term. And I’m revolted by the hypocrisy of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s willingness to confirm Trump’s nominee after refusing to even allow a vote on Judge Merrick Garland. Yet these political judgments need to be distinguished from a separate question: what to think about Judge Amy…
Why the right-wing has a massive advantage on Facebook
Politico reports: Throughout 2020, Democrats have denounced Facebook with growing ferocity as a “right-wing echo chamber” with a “conservative bias” that’s giving an edge to Donald Trump in November. But Facebook says there’s a reason why right-wing figures are driving more engagement. It’s not that its algorithm favors conservatives — the company has long maintained that its platform is neutral. Instead, the right is better at connecting with people on a visceral level, it says. “Right-wing populism is always more…
Investors that manage $47tn demand world’s biggest polluters back plan for net-zero emissions
The Guardian reports: A group representing investors that collectively manage more than US$47tn in assets has demanded the world’s biggest corporate polluters back strategies to reach net-zero emissions and promised to hold them to public account. Climate Action 100+, an initiative supported by 518 institutional investor organisations across the globe, has written to 161 fossil fuel, mining, transport and other big-emitting companies to set 30 climate measures and targets against which they will be analysed in a report to be…
Ancient microbial life used arsenic to thrive in a world without oxygen
Purple microbial mats offer clues to how ancient life functioned. Pieter Visscher, CC BY-ND By Pieter Visscher, University of Connecticut; Brendan Paul Burns, UNSW, and Kimberley L. Gallagher, Quinnipiac University Billions of years ago, life on Earth was mostly just large slimy mats of microbes living in shallow water. Sometimes, these microbial communities made carbonate minerals that over many years cemented together to become layered limestone rocks called stromatolites. They are the oldest evidence of life on Earth. But the…
Music: Mats Eilertsen Trio & Trio Mediæval — ‘Stillheten’
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker calls Trump’s dismissal of peaceful transfer of power ‘appalling and outrageous’
NBC Boston reports: Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker launched into a passionate defense of mail-in voting Thursday that included fiery criticism of President Donald Trump’s recent refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses this fall to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “A huge part of this nation’s allure, to the extent it exists, is the peaceful transmission of power based on the vote of people in this country,” Baker said. “Mail-in balloting has been with…
‘Everyone sees the train wreck coming’ as Democrats brace for Trump refusing to accept defeat
Politico reports: Following his defeat in the 2016 Iowa caucus, Donald Trump accused Ted Cruz of cheating and said the results should be nullified. After winning the presidency that fall, Trump insisted, without evidence, that there was “serious voter fraud” in three states he lost to Hillary Clinton. Now, running behind Joe Biden in the polls, the president complains the outcome will be “rigged.” After more than four years of nonstop voter fraud claims, insinuations that he might not accept…
At Pentagon, fears grow that Trump will pull military into election unrest
The New York Times reports: Senior Pentagon leaders have a lot to worry about — Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, Syria, Iran, China, Somalia, the Korean Peninsula. But chief among those concerns is whether their commander in chief might order American troops into any chaos around the coming elections. President Trump gave officials no solace on Wednesday when he again refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power no matter who wins the election. On Thursday he doubled down by saying…
Trump has always been a sore loser
Timothy L. O’Brien writes: [A]mid all the hand-wringing over what he may or may not do, don’t let Trump snatch away your own agency and attention. David Axelrod, as canny and experienced a political observer as there is, reminded everyone not to get overly distracted by Trump’s performance art. “You do wonder if the POTUS would sooner have us talking about his outrageous comments on the election than the 202,000 dead of COVID-19 or the 870,000 additional Americans who filed…
America’s global reputation is in free-fall
The New York Times reports: Myanmar is a poor country struggling with open ethnic warfare and a coronavirus outbreak that could overload its broken hospitals. That hasn’t stopped its politicians from commiserating with a country they think has lost its way. “I feel sorry for Americans,” said U Myint Oo, a member of parliament in Myanmar. “But we can’t help the U.S. because we are a very small country.” The same sentiment prevails in Canada, one of the most developed…
Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine PR stunt could cast a long shadow
By Olga Dobrovidova, Undark, September 24, 2020 In August, the Russian government unveiled, with pomp and flair, “the world’s first registered vaccine against Covid-19.” Although the vaccine — known officially as Gam-COVID-Vac but marketed as Sputnik V for a global audience — has yet to demonstrate its safety and efficacy in a phase III trial, an emergency use authorization was issued to make it available for limited use in the general public. This month, the horse finally caught up with…
Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
Sharon Begley writes: Whether crows, ravens, and other “corvids” are making multipart tools like hooked sticks to reach grubs, solving geometry puzzles made famous by Aesop, or nudging a clueless hedgehog across a highway before it becomes roadkill, they have long impressed scientists with their intelligence and creativity. Now the birds can add one more feather to their brainiac claims: Research unveiled on Thursday in Science finds that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their…