You should read this for 11/082/2020:
The Dodgers won the World Series.
Trump and Pence are out (and I devoutly hope headed for prison)
Kamela Harris and Joe Biden are the VP Elect and President Elect
It should have been Warren, but I’m happy with Biden and Harris.
Art, Music, and Film
Ammonite is not the evolutionary leap for lesbian film it thinks it is
Engage! A brief history of ‘TNG’ memes
Tom Baker: ‘Being loved pleases me very much indeed’
Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language
Coronavirus | COVID-19
Supermarket staff: ‘We feel unsafe when customers don’t wear masks’
Arron’s worked at a supermarket in Wrexham for seven years. He loves his job, his colleagues and his regular customers.
But he’s looking for new work now because of shoppers who don’t wear face masks.
“There are people who work and shop in supermarkets who still have a fear of catching Covid – me being one of them,” he says. “It really does bother me.”
Covid: Antibodies ‘fall rapidly after infection’
The Imperial College London team found the number of people testing positive for antibodies has fallen by 26% between June and September.
They say immunity appears to be fading and there is a risk of catching the virus multiple times.
‘A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci warns of covid-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trump’s response
“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert, said in a wide-ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
A woman died of coronavirus on a plane. Her fellow passengers were never notified.
Covid: How to survive a winter lockdown, from those who’ve done it
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tests positive for coronavirus
“We’re not going to control the pandemic,” Meadows said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Oct. 25. “We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations.”
Meadows has for months openly brushed off the importance of wearing masks during the pandemic. On Election Day, Meadows visited the Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, where he was photographed not wearing a mask.
Food and Drink
A spice boom has left manufacturers scrambling, and packaging materials can’t keep up
A guide to lentils: How to choose and use the tiny protein-packed powerhouses See this recipe: Greek Lentil and Spinach Soup With Lemon</>
History and Archaeology
Science and Nature
Water ice on the Moon may be easier to reach than we thought, new studies claim
Student ‘blown away’ after capturing Mars in back garden
Society
Traveller families win court battle over living on land they own
The War Comes Home: The Evolution of Domestic Terrorism in the United States
White supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020, according to new CSIS data. Anarchists, anti-fascists, and other like-minded extremists orchestrated 20 percent of the plots and attacks, though the number of incidents grew from previous years as these extremists targeted law enforcement, military, and government facilities and personnel.
Technology
SetApp: A Suite of macOS Apps for a Single Price Affiliate link for a great collection of 200+ apps for a single price.
Women’s Work
“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman,” Elizabeth said to her soldiers, “but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.”
2 Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize In Chemistry For Genome Editing Research
The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded this year to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their work on “genetic scissors” that can cut DNA at a precise location, allowing scientists to make specific changes to specific genes.
“This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true,” the Nobel Committee said in announcing the prize.
Marysville girl one of country’s first to earn Eagle Scout
BaronFig: $10.00 off on quality notebooks and writing instruments. BaronFig makes super notebooks and planners in several sizes and colors, with dot grid, blank, or lined paper. The BaronFig Squire pen is magnificent.
💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰
Trump was way worse than I feared in 2016. Here’s how.
About Trump’s behavior, of course, we had more than foreshadowing — we had ample evidence of who he was and how he might govern. The candidate who couldn’t bring himself to denounce former Klansman David Duke became the president who saw “very fine people, on both sides” of the protests in Charlottesville. The candidate who launched his campaign with the warning that Mexican rapists and other criminals were flooding across the border became the president who separated migrant mothers from their babies. The candidate who denounced “fake news” became the president who accused the media of being the “Enemy of the People.”
The candidate who complained about the “rigged” election became the president who refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. The candidate who led “lock her up” chants about his 2016 opponent became the president who asserted that his 2020 opponent, his opponent’s son, his predecessor and his previous opponent should all be thrown in jail, and who criticized his own attorney general for failing to be aggressive enough in going after these political enemies.
Top Trump adviser bluntly contradicts president on covid-19 threat, urging all-out response
A top White House coronavirus adviser sounded alarms Monday about a new and deadly phase in the health crisis, pleading with top administration officials for “much more aggressive action,” even as President Trump continues to assure rallygoers that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic.
The real reason Trump is terrified of losing the presidency: fear of prosecutio
If Trump loses the election, there may be calls to investigate and prosecute him for possible crimes involving obstruction of justice, violating the emolument clause of the constitution, and/or tax fraud, among others. Citizen Trump would face investigation without the luxury of “executive privilege” or the legal chicanery of the attorney general, William Barr, who has acted more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s top law enforcement official, to protect him. Accordingly, Trump has even more reason to lie, cheat and sow discord in order to retain office, because losing the White House could land him in court or even behind bars.
The painful simplicity of Trump’s new Turkey scandal “The Halkbank scandal is simple: a foreign dictator asked Trump to corrupt his own country’s justice system, and the Republican president gladly said yes.”
USPS processed 150,000 ballots after Election Day, jeopardizing thousands of votes
Despite assurances from Postal Service leaders that agency officials were conducting daily sweeps for misplaced ballots, the mail service acknowledged in a court filing Thursday that thousands of ballots had not been processed in time, and that more ballots were processed Wednesday than on Election Day.
. . .
Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump financier who took over the agency in June, first-class mail delivery rates have steadily declined, especially in urban areas that are bastions of Democratic voters. DeJoy said in public statements that facilitating an election in which a record 198 million Americans were eligible to vote by mail was his “sacred duty” and that the agency was up to the task. But the Postal Service’s summer struggles bled into election season almost immediately as Americans began voting in October.
. . .
The agency also removed more than 700 high-speed mail sorting machines, close to 15 percent of its inventory, over the summer, a decision that cut the Postal Service’s processing capacity by 21.4 million pieces of paper mail per hour. The agency routinely moves 450 million mail items a day.
Almost immediately, postal performance suffered. In the first five weeks after DeJoy’s policies took effect, more than 7 percent of the nation’s first-class mail was delayed.
Pay It Forward and Make It Better
D.C. woman, 90, watches gym classes from her window all day. When the gym found out, they painted her a mural
This Is Joe Biden When No One Is Watching
Something Wonderful
In Historic Move, Colorado Voters Decide To Reintroduce Gray Wolves
In a move criticized as “ballot box biology,” passage means Colorado will become the first state where voters direct the reintroduction of gray wolves rather than the federal government. Those previous efforts have brought populations of wolves back to the northern Rockies, New Mexico, Arizona and the Carolinas.
One complicating factor is the Trump Administration’s recent decision to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list.
If it survives expected legal challenges, it could make Colorado’s task easier, since state wildlife managers won’t need permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage the species. But it also may mean the state won’t be able to receive federal grants for the project.
Why hundreds of parrots visit this same terrace every day
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