Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Friday, February 26. 2021Friday morning linksRevising the Canon: How Andy Warhol Became the Most Important American Modern Artist I thought he was a con-man, but I wish I had bought some. High-speed rail update:
First They Came For Milo. The business model switched from a free exchange of ideas to a protection racket so fast we never even noticed. NY Times Opinion: School Closures Have Been An Epic Disaster For Children (And Democrats Are To Blame) With COVID vaccine rolling and cases receding, open up all classrooms! California board member compares reopening schools to 'White supremacist ideology' and 'slavery' The Atlantic: You have been vaccinated. It doesn't matter What??? Travel Restrictions Have No End In Sight As European Leaders Worry About New Variants Student was not victim of racism for 'eating while black' at $80k Smith College and made up details that ruined the lives of four campus workers and led to controversial anti-bias training that employee resigned over Cornell Daily Sun Interviews Professor William Jacobson Re Critical Race Training Database "You Have Permanently Changed Them": Rand Paul Grills HHS Nominee Rachel Divine Over Parental Consent For Trans Minors New California Bill Would Fine Retailers With Separate "Girls" & "Boys" Sections Psaki On Biden Keeping Migrant Kids In ‘Containers’ Versus ‘Cages’: ‘We Only Have A Couple Of Choices’ Trump's tax returns and related records turned over to Manhattan district attorney Trust me, they will find mistakes The U.S. Air Force Just Admitted The F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed Comments
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Tax returns. Correct me if I'm wrong. They don't have crime upon which to base their demand for the taxes; they want the tax forms to look for a potential crime? Per Robert Barnes, Trump has layers of tax accounts and lawyers between him and the IRS. That said, we know that its purpose is to hamstring Trump and harass business associates.
You can only hope that the unintended consequences are costly to them. Re Covid and the vaccine.
Covid mutates faster than the yearly flu. It's mutations are scary. That is they are either more deadly or more contagious. The mutations are not affected by the current vaccines. The likely scenario for the next few years or decades is that Covid will mutate rapidly and continously for years with each variant killing millions of people before a vaccine can be produced. That is the reality and it is scary. If I were a judge, such a release would be conditional on an agreement that if the records were "inadvertently" leaked, the DA would have 30 days to file charges against the person responsible of face removal from office and disbarment.
The four victims need to sue for defamation. That's the only way this is going to stop. Put the shoe on the other foot.
Re Andy Warhol
Your first instinct was correct, BD. Andy Warhol was a con man, devoid of artistic talent and, more importantly, anything of interest to say. Though he did have a considerable talent for self-promotion. Great story on the Grease Gun, amidst the flotsam of current and past politics and culture posted today.
It almost makes me believe we still have a common culture here in the USA. The Low Spark of High-Speed Rail: It ain't EVER gonna fly... Pie in the Sky will wind up on our faces.
NY Times Opinion: School Closures Have Been An Epic Disaster For Children (And Democrats Are To Blame): I trust nothing (NOTHING) the NYT prints, but this...maybe... California board member compares reopening schools to 'White supremacist ideology' and 'slavery': California Crazy, again, and again, and again... The Atlantic: You have been vaccinated. It doesn't matter: Ah, the ATLANTIC! Out to sea/ocean without a paddle or an innertube. New California Bill Would Fine Retailers With Separate "Girls" & "Boys" Sections: Just pile it up altogether on the floor, and let the kids select what they want. "A federal judge in Texas ruled on Thursday that an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) temporarily halting evictions amid the pandemic is unconstitutional."
Finally! How did this take so long? I saw Warhol on a Love Boat rerun the other day. With Tom Bosley.
If what you say is true Anon, then finding vaccines is a Sorcerer's Apprentice task. We'll never create vaccines fast enough to deal with the ever mutating virus. We'll always be behind the curve, playing catch up. If that's the case, where will it all end?
re Trump's tax returns and related records turned over to Manhattan district attorney
They are going to hound Trump to the grave, bankrupting him if they can. Any political outsider or GOP presidential wannabe should take heed. Anon overstates the case. It is true that new diseases are more volatile and while most mutations make little difference, there is a greater incidence of significantly different characteristics. Some of those will be more difficult to deal with, maybe even very difficult.
However, those are maybes. It is possible that some variants that respond less well to the vaccines could spread enough that we cannot contain them. It is also possible that we can isolate the cases when they are few in number enough that the variant just dies out. Nightmare scenarios are always still possible, but there isn't one happening yet. I thought the funniest take on Warhol (and maybe accurate in many ways) was in Men In Black III.
..."Your cover is safe". "In your mind, Yah. I'm so out of ideas I'm painting Soup Cans and Bananas, for Chrissake!" I was surprised to see the NYT covering some of this politically damaging stuff, which they usually bury. Then I remembered that since Trump has not been re-elected, the game changes. Not that you can revert to trusting them, but you will again see them cover scandals because they sell fishwrap (or whatever the online equivalent metaphor is). There's plenty of time to change back in preparation for the 2020 elections. They in fact sometimes use these times to cull their own herd of politicians who might be more trouble than they are worth the next time around. They will eventually cut Cuomo loose, taking the short term hit to Democratic reputations in order to not have him visible when it counts.
The current vaccines were engineered to provoke an anti-body response to one of the "spike" proteins on the viral shell. It was thought that a major mutation that would make the vaccines ineffective would also reduce the ability of the virus to infect cells. If there is an equally effective mutation of the protein, then a new vaccine can be developed to provoke reactions to multiple proteins within the virus. It may be that frequent iterations of the vaccine are required in the future, much as the influenza vaccine today, but to say that this is a battle that can't even be fought greatly overstates the problem.
Re: President Trump. He was the best we had for generations. THE one -- the other side can't stand that idea! They are out to destroy him in order to make sure we never get another leader willing to stand up to them. One more example of their Anti-American philosophy!
The Republican party is a shambles we do need third parties in our local states. Exactly. It's interesting, too, how no one has mentioned what penalty the student should face, given that she lied and hurt people with her lies.
Hi AVI: Sorry to intrude on your post but I thought this YouTube video, on Human Origins, might be of interest to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSCV_XFcVPU You wish you had bought some Andy Warhol?
I was offered an acre of land on Hilton Head for $40. I declined because there was no bridge and very few houses. No sewage. - only outhouses. Residents had to take boats (Owned or ferry which ran twice a week) to shop for groceries, et al. Any one want to guess what that acre would be worth today? Biden’s Controversial Statement About Minority Internet Literacy Quickly Defended by Globalist Cronies
https://humanevents.com/2021/02/25/bidens-controversial-statement-about-minority-internet-literacy-quickly-defended-by-globalist-cronies/ Imagine if Trump had said the same thing? Hey, by the way, John Durham is resigning the day after tomorrow. Gee that was quick, huh, considering that whole Last-Five-Years Muh-Russia Orange-Man Stuff, and all? I guess his report will be coming out any day now.
I feel your pain. In the thirties, my father-in-law bought several lots near the ocean in Manhattan Beach. His father-in-law convinced him to "sell those worthless sand dunes".
We and "I" don't know yet if I overstated the case. I pray that I am wrong. It appears to me that this virus was weaponized by the Chinese and it escaped the lab. It seems to have traits that are unlike and more aggressive than more common viruses that we are familiar with. Time will tell. I will be overjoyed to be wrong.
Best hide under your bed for the rest of your life then. It's the only way to be truly safe.
Good news! John Durham has surfaced. No one knows where he has been or what he has been doing.
Bad news! He is retiring/abandoning ship without delivering a report or indicting anyone. Perhaps he has left honest and competent people to finish the job. Just kidding. More likely he either sold out or was threatened so badly that he is now simply praying he isn't suicided. Because being insulting and accusing other people of cowardice after not reading them carefully is always so helpful.
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Tracked: Feb 28, 09:49
Tracked: Feb 28, 10:03