Elsewhere for December 6, 2020

You should read this for 12/06/2020:

Art, Music, and Film

Netflix Removes ‘Chappelle’s Show’ From Service Upon Request From Dave Chappelle Who Blasts ViacomCBS For Licensing His Show Without Paying Him
Missing Australian Masterpiece Spent 115 Years Hiding in Plain Sight

Biden Begins

GSA ready to begin transition; Biden to name first female heads of national intelligence, treasury

Earlier Monday, Biden announced several picks for top jobs in national security and foreign relations, and is also expected to name Janet L. Yellen as treasury secretary, according to three people in close communication with aides to the president-elect.
The nominations are: Alejandro Mayorkas to head the Department of Homeland Security, the first immigrant in that position; Avril D. Haines as director of national intelligence, the first woman in that position; and former secretary of state John F. Kerry as special presidential envoy for climate.

Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language

H/T Andy W: With Ni’Var, Discovery Pays Homage to an Original Star Trek Fanzine
Nora Roberts explains it to a Debra The blog post on Nora Roberts’ own blog is here. Debra starts demonstrating full-on entitlement and Dunning-Krueger here. Never, ever do this to a writer. It makes me miss a former boss’s response to an annoying customer: “You can’t buy our books. We don’t want you as a customer.”
Why Some Libraries Are Ending Fines
Ellen Muehlberger @emuehlbe on coining doom scrolling: Here at the end of 2020, you might be wondering: who invented the best word of the year, namely “doomscrolling”?

Coronavirus | COVID-19

Most coronavirus cases are spread by people without symptoms, CDC now says

æCDC and others estimate that more than 50% of all infections are transmitted from people who are not exhibiting symptoms,”

Mask Mandates Work To Slow Spread Of Coronavirus, Kansas Study Finds

Researchers analyzed coronavirus infection rates in Kansas following a statewide mask mandate. They found that counties that chose to enforce the mandate saw their cases decrease. Counties that chose to opt out saw their cases continue to rise.

Food and Drink

10 Indian Instant Pot Recipes for Rich, Comforting Flavor Fast Butter chicken, palak paneer, lentils, dal . . .

History and Archaeology

“Crazy, Noisy, Freaked-Out Dance Music for Weirdos”: The queer legacy of 3909 Sunset Boulevard
‘Sistine Chapel of the ancients’ rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

One of the world’s largest collections of prehistoric rock art has been discovered in the Amazonian rainforest.
Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients”, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of animals and humans created up to 12,500 years ago across cliff faces that stretch across nearly eight miles in Colombia.
Their date is based partly on their depictions of now-extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that hasn’t roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the palaeolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses.

Science and Nature

On A Tour Of ‘America’s Amazon,’ Flora, Fauna And Glimpses Of Alabama’s Past

In his new book, Saving America’s Amazon: The Threat to Our Nation’s Most Biodiverse River System, Raines explores the remarkable array of flora and fauna, as well as the history, found in this vast river delta on the Alabama Gulf Coast. Think pitcher plant bogs, purple iris fields, colorful dart fish and tiny seahorses.

Society

H/T Elizabeth A. G.M. Drops Its Support for Trump Climate Rollbacks and Aligns With Biden

General Motors turned its back Monday on the Trump administration’s legal fight to nullify California’s strict fuel economy rules, signaling that it was ready to work with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to reduce climate-warming emissions from cars and trucks.
The decision by Mary Barra, the General Motors chief executive, to withdraw her company’s support for Trump administration efforts to strip California of its ability to set its own fuel efficiency standards was a striking reversal. It was also a signal that corporate America is moving on from President Trump.

How can you be LGBTQ+ at an evangelical university? In secret

Technology

Standing with Dr. Timnit Gebru — #ISupportTimnit #BelieveBlackWomen

Until December 2, 2020, Dr. Gebru was one of very few Black women Research Scientists at the company, which boasts a dismal 1.6% Black women employees overall. Her research accomplishments are extensive, and have profoundly impacted academic scholarship and public policy. Dr. Gebru is a pathbreaking scientist doing some of the most important work to ensure just and accountable AI and to create a welcoming and diverse AI research field.
Instead of being embraced by Google as an exceptionally talented and prolific contributor, Dr. Gebru has faced defensiveness, racism, gaslighting, research censorship, and now a retaliatory firing. In an email to Dr. Gebru’s team on the evening of December 2, 2020, Google executives claimed that she had chosen to resign. This is false. In their direct correspondence with Dr. Gebru, these executives informed her that her termination was immediate, and pointed to an email she sent to a Google Brain diversity and inclusion mailing list as pretext.

SetApp: A Suite of macOS Apps for a Single Price Affiliate link for a great collection of 75+ apps for a single price.

Women’s Work

Prof Sarah Gilbert: The woman who designed the Oxford vaccine
H/T Jasmine: Portraits of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Favorite Collars and the Stories Behind Them
Remarkable story of Madagascar’s last queen emerges from Surrey attic

Trumpery

Computer repairman at center of Hunter Biden laptop scandal closes shop
H/T: Chris Johnson The Trump Regime Ends as It Began: Full of Clumsy Palace Intrigue, Serial Incompetence, and Wild Paranoia

Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department’s work on election fraud, the people said…
Stirrup had also extended job offers to political allies for positions at some of the highest levels of the Justice Department without consulting any senior department officials or the White House counsel’s office and also attempted to interfere in the hiring process for career staffers, a violation of the government’s human resources policies, one of the people said.

Pay It Forward and Make It Better