Elsewhere for January 24,2021

You should read this for 1/24/2021:

If you read nothing else, read this: Donald Trump’s new reality

Art, Music, and Film

Gaze in wonder at this astonishingly high-res scan of an iconic painting

For the past hour, I’ve been avoiding work by browsing this amazingly high-resolution scan of Johannes Vermeer’s iconic Girl with a Pearl Earring. With a total resolution of 93,205 x 108,565, PetaPixel notes the scan is believed to be the first 10 billion pixel panorama ever created, allowing you to zoom in close enough to turn the tiniest flecks of paint into puddles and minuscule cracks into crevasses. The scan appears to have been posted online early last year.

Biden Begins

Here’s What Biden Plans To Do In His 1st Day As President
Statement from President Biden and Vice President Harris on the 48th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language

NO BOOK DEALS FOR TRAITORS Over 300 publishing professionals have signed; editors, authors, reviewers, agents.
After Capitol Riot Backlash, Sen. Josh Hawley’s Book Will Hit Shelves In May

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has a new publisher for his book The Tyranny of Big Tech. Simon & Schuster dropped the title after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, saying Hawley played a role in fomenting the mob attack that threatened House and Senate members.

Here’s a great book to boycott. It’s a stupid premise, written by someone who doesn’t know anything about tech, who fomented insurrection.

Coronavirus | COVID-19

Nursing home staffers attended a 300-person superspreader wedding. Now six residents have died.

Now, health officials say the wedding also included some guests whose job is caring for among the most vulnerable to coronavirus: nursing-home residents. At least six residents have now died of covid-19 at two nursing homes where staffers tested positive for the virus after attending the wedding, the local department announced in a Thursday news release.

4,400 Moderna Vaccine Doses Not Kept Cold Enough May Be Unusable

Maine health officials discovered that a majority of Moderna vaccine shipments received across the state on Monday were not kept adequately cold during transport, meaning 4,400 doses may have to be thrown out.
Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, made the announcement during a “sad and somber” coronavirus briefing on Tuesday and said the problem extends to other states as well.
Shah said 35 of the 50 sites that received the vaccine a day earlier reported that “the thermometer on the outside of the boxes … showed that at some point the required minimum temperature had been exceeded.”

Report: Biden Admin Discovers Trump Had Zero Plans For COVID Vaccine Distribution
U.S. Will Remain In WHO, Fauci Announces, As Biden Reverses Trump Move
After Sparring With Trump, Fauci Says Biden Administration Feels ‘Liberating’

Fauci was a fixture at White House coronavirus briefings early on in the pandemic, but was noticeably absent after publicly contradicting Trump. Last November, the former president publicly implied he was considering removing the doctor from his coronavirus task force.
“Obviously I don’t want to be going back over history, but it was very clear that there were things that were said — be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that — that really was uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact,” Fauci said Thursday at a White House press briefing.

Still going to the grocery store? With new virus variants spreading, it’s probably time to stop.<

“Shopping for five minutes in the grocery store is a lot better — six times better — than shopping for 30 minutes,” said Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since the odds of becoming infected rise the longer you’re exposed. “Picking up groceries at the curbside is even better, and having them delivered is even better still.” (If you’re able to get groceries delivered or pick up curbside, it will also help reduce the number of people in stores, potentially cutting the risk for essential workers or shoppers who can’t order online.) . . . When you do have to be around other people, use a mask — but not just any mask. The other lesson of the new variants, Frieden told Vox, is that we need to get better at masking.
“The fact that [the variants] are so infectious suggests to me having a better mask is a good idea,” Frieden said. When it comes to avoiding an infection, “a surgical mask is better than a cloth mask, a tight-fitting surgical mask is better than a loose-fitting mask, and an N95 is better than a surgical mask.”

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Education

Essex academic’s imposter ‘copied work and tattoos’

The 40-year-old said the imposter, who was studying for a masters degree in the US, used a variety of fake identities to get him to send over unpublished research.
He said the student then submitted the work as his own and presented it at conferences.
“He also dressed like me, posed for photos matched to ones of me, told people he had done things that I’d done, and most scarily of all, copied my hand tattoos exactly,” Dr Lodder posted on Twitter.

History and Archaeology

Keeping Warm the Roman Way This Getty blog post has one of the best pictures exposing the hypocaust heating system of a Roman house that I’ve ever seen.

Science and Nature

‘One of a kind’: calls to protect Alabama’s 60,000-year-old underwater forest

When divers jump into a particular stretch of water off the coast of Alabama, they travel back to a time before humans arrived in the new world.
Submerged below the waters are the remains of a cypress tree forest that grew 60,000 years ago, but was inundated by the Gulf of Mexico and preserved from decomposition beneath sediment. Nothing like Alabama’s underwater forest, in terms of age or scale, has ever been found.

Society

After the Editorial Board called on Sen. Ron Johnson to either resign or be expelled from office for his role in spreading disinformation about the presidential election, the senator asked for space to respond. We are providing him that courtesy today. We also are taking the rare step of footnoting Johnson’s commentary to provide additional context so that readers have a fuller understanding of the senator’s actions.
The Ignominious Deceits of Congressman Cawthorn

Throughout his short but meteoric political career, Cawthorn has used his disability to tell a story of overcoming: Despite great adversity, he claims to have achieved excellence through grit and physical strength. Many of his campaign ads featured images of Cawthorn intubated and hospitalized alongside videos of him lifting weights and hurtling forward in a racing wheelchair. But his claims of sporting success—like his accounts of education and business acumen—have often been misleading.

Technology

Twitter to hand over White House accounts to Biden: What you need to know

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

Katie Porter is off the House Financial Services Committee. We’re all worse off for it.

When Democrats took back the House of Representatives in 2018, a number of the freshman representatives quickly emerged as media stars. One was Katie Porter, who used her platform on the Financial Services Committee to highlight the ways in which the banking and finance industries could take advantage of Americans.
Over the past two years, Porter (D-Calif.) schooled JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon — who earns tens of millions of dollars annually — on the realities of how a teller at one of his banks could not get by earning $16.50 an hour. She also revealed that Kathy Kraninger, the thoroughly unqualified Trump appointee charged with protecting Americans’ personal finances as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, couldn’t define an annual interest rate or explain how it works. . . . If you are an American desperately seeking help with your finances and looking for someone, anyone in Washington to listen, arcane congressional protocols are the least of your concerns. You want a champion. You want a Katie Porter.

Judi Dench: ‘In my mind’s eye I’m six foot and willowy and about 39’

💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰 The Cult of Donald J. Trump and Mob Rule 🤥🤥👖🔥

‘I am not a terrorist’: Retired Navy SEAL speaks after Capitol siege

The video shows Adam Newbold, 45, from Lisbon, Ohio, who the Navy confirmed is a retired reserve SEAL special warfare operator, in a car on his return home from Washington, telling his Facebook followers that he was “proud” of the assault on the U.S. Capitol building earlier that day.

New Mexico County Commissioner Arrested in DC for Involvement in Capitol Riot

A New Mexico county official and founder of the group Cowboys for Trump who had vowed to return to Washington after last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol to place a flag on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk has been arrested Sunday by the FBI. According to court documents, Griffin told investigators that he was “caught up” in the crowd, which pushed its way through the barricades and entered the restricted area of the U.S. Capitol, but he said he did not enter the building and instead remained on the U.S. Capitol steps.
A video posted to Griffin’s personal Facebook page shows Griffin in the restricted areas, according to the affidavit.
On Thursday, Griffin said he planned to travel with firearms to Washington, D.C., for Biden’s inauguration.

Hundreds of Parler videos from Capitol riot republished in chronological timeline
FBI moves on alleged members of extremist groups Oath Keepers, Three Percenters

Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray. . . Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; “encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building.” . . Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was “that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.” . . [also arrrested were] Watkins and Crowl were among about 10 individuals recorded at the U.S. Capitol wearing combat helmets, ballistic goggles, tactical vests and Oath Keepers patches who “move[d] in an organized and practiced fashion and force[d] their way to the front of the crowd” to lead the siege and break-in, FBI affidavits said.

Rioter Charged With Assaulting Officer In Incident Captured On Viral Video
Nearly 1 In 5 Defendants In Capitol Riot Cases Served In The Military

As a violent mob descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lawmakers and aides hid wherever they could, waiting for military and police to arrive. But many of those who stormed the Capitol were military veterans themselves, who had once sworn to protect the Constitution. In fact, an NPR analysis has found that nearly one in five people charged for their alleged involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol appears to have a military history.

Trumps Fired WH Chief Usher On Their Way Out The Door

“The Trumps sent the butlers home when they left so there would be no one to help the Bidens when they arrived,” one unnamed source, described as “a well-placed official not associated with the incoming Biden team,” told the latter publication.

Self-styled militia members planned on storming the U.S. Capitol days in advance of Jan. 6 attack, court documents say

Self-styled militia members from Virginia, Ohio and other states made plans to storm the U.S. Capitol days in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, and then communicated in real time as they breached the building on opposite sides and talked about hunting for lawmakers, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
While authorities have charged more than 100 individuals in the riot, details in the new allegations against three U.S. military veterans offer a disturbing look at what they allegedly said to one another before, during and after the attack — statements that indicate a degree of preparation and determination to rush deep into the halls and tunnels of Congress to make “citizens’ arrests” of elected officials.

Organizers of Trump Rally Had Been on Campaign’s Payroll

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign paid more than $2.7 million over two years to individuals and firms that organized the Jan. 6 rally that led to rioters storming the U.S. Capitol, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The payments, which span Trump’s re-election campaign, show an ongoing financial relationship between the rally’s organizers and Trump’s political operation. They were all made through Nov. 23, the most recent date covered by Federal Election Commission filings, which is before the rally was publicly announced.

US man charged with threatening to ‘assassinate’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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