I'd like us to just get rid of it altogether

SI

Of course. But which one do we keep?

DST - "Spring Forward" and "Fall Back" mean that during the Summer the time is +1 hours, meaning more light in the evenings.

Which I hate. I know there are lots of people on the other side, but it should never still be daylight at 9:30 at night.

You are clearly fucked in the head. We should stay in summer time and never... ever... fall back.

Be the nervous drunk - spring back, fall forward!

I hate it being dark at 5pm.

Strong agree

I LOVE it! Fall behind is THE BEST!

Doesn't matter if you live underground!

If we don't fall back, the sunrise in late December for me in Pittsburgh would be 8:40 AM. I went and looked at Detroit a further west city in the eastern time zone and Christmas morning would be 9 AM for sunrise. That also doesn't feel right and I'm not sure of the benefit of having the sunset in December at 6 PM vs. 5PM would be. The further North and East that sunset make make a difference. In Boston the earliest sunset is around 4:15 PM.

Part of the reason for falling back is to make sure it is light when children are going to school and for farming.

Even with DST there were times in Oregon where we were at the busstop in the morning and it would be dark

Don't discount for Trump Corp's ability to always find an even worse alternative for a position.

I'm on this side of things but that's because I live in the south so we get a lot of hours of light and I'd rather be getting up with the sun close to up or up. That said, I would take year round DST over this rotating nonsense we have now.

SI

Y'all just need to move to Arizona

If Daylight Savings Time is so horrible why hasn't Joe Biden abolished it?

Why not split it and move the time by 30 minutes?

At least we aren't like Jhina.

They're about 5 time zones wide but the entire country is in the same time zone. The distance between Beijing and Urumqi is about the same as between NYC and Albuquerque. So when Xi wakes up with a boner to kill more Uighur, his troops have an extra 2.5 hours of darkness to get a jump on them.

Barr had the DoJ look into filing charges against the Seattle Mayor over the protests and autonomous zone.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...seattle-mayor/

That's definitely not in the "arresting your enemies" level stuff. Trump term 2 will be an absolute horror show if it comes to that.

SI

Trump has said on multiple days, the he read Woodward's book, "last night."

I'd be glad to stick with one just to eliminate one of the annoyances I deal with it work: when a client asks to meet "at 9:00 EST" during spring/summer/early fall. It takes everything within me not to send a meeting request for 10am EDT when that happens.

Mark Meadows explained away Dr. Redfield's vaccine comments by saying he isn't close to the process of how and when vaccines will be distributed. Why is the head of the CDC not close to the process?

Rhetorical question, I assume.

Does he like it so much that he reads it every night?

He does not strike me as a reader. But he does strike me as someone who would obsessively consume anything about himself night after night.

Maybe Melania reads it to him every night as a bedtime story?

Is this like where the Bible is his favorite book but he can't name his favorite verse?

"Yeah, yeah - I read it all the time"

SI

There are so many good verses. I don't want to focus on just one. Terrific book. Read it all the time.

It probably won't change anything, but it should make Trump livid:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...aking-news-bar

Good thing we kept the corrupt Clintons out of the WH.

Holy shit, this video.

🚨🚨🚨
NEW from @RVAT2020.
Olivia Troye, VP Pence's lead staffer on the COVID task force, resigned two months ago. Now she speaks out:
"No matter how hard you worked...the president was going to do something detrimental to keeping Americans safe. It was awful. It was terrifying." pic.twitter.com/nkz2WncE9i

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 17, 2020

These ghouls realizing they torpedoed their careers and are now frantically trying to salvage their reputations.

Won't change anything, I suspect.

And, yeah, she should have come forward months ago. But she's coming forward now, so good for her on that.

A lot of people on the inside will never come forward.

It's shitty these people resign and wait months to say anything. They've done nothing to help the situation.

The systems are designed for department leaders or whistle blowers to come forward. What Trump has done is flood every part of the government with people so unqualified they're afraid to speak out because they're not getting another job close to as good as the one they currently have. Good employees are difficult to replace. You can avoid that difficulty altogether by hiring easy to replace stooges.

If we're able to get through the Trump administration its going to take years to flush these people out and fill the positions Trump has purposely left vacant.

If Trump was up 5 points in the polls she would not be coming forward.

But people like Troye are generally lower level staff, who can get their careers completely screwed by doing thing like this and people in these positions (inc Troye) have consistently said they are scared shitless by coming out and having their names on this stuff. Especially considering how petty Trump is and how many lengths he's gone through to screw people who crossed him. This isn't as easy as people seem to believe it is.

That seems a vastly 'underdiscussed' issue. The big, splashy hirings/firings at the top are bad, but not nearly as bad as the purge a step or two below those.
His ideal department consists of loyal/afraid/Desperate figure heads and an army of drones just happy to be there and/or really dependent on somehow keeping their jobs no matter what it takes.

I mean, within a couple days both Caputo and Barr launched big sweeping attacks on people employed by government institutions for doing their damed job rather.

That seems a vastly 'underdiscussed' issue. The big, splashy hirings/firings at the top are bad, but not nearly as bad as the purge a step or two below those.
His ideal department consists of loyal/afraid/Desperate figure heads and an army of drones just happy to be there and/or really dependent on somehow keeping their jobs no matter what it takes.

I mean, within a couple days both Caputo and Barr launched big sweeping attacks on people employed by government institutions for doing their damed job rather.

This is well worth the good while it takes to read: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...rnment/606793/

And it doesn't even touch yet on what has been happening to Public Health Agencies in recent months and only in passing stuff like the EPA.

Law and order crowd has been quiet about this.

Oregon residents are illegally stopping drivers at gunpoint during wildfire evacuations, sheriff says - KTVZ

Because the "Law and Order crowd" really just supporst a White Nationalist police state.

They say "Law and Order" as code.

I like how Trump is leveraging Taiwan in his fight against China and believe it is the right thing to do now. I assume this is driven by Pompeo who also had a nice win with UAE-Bahrain-Israel normalization process and, November politics notwithstanding, I hope SA will do the same soon.

It would have been good if Pompeo could have created a coalition in Asia to effectively confront/deter China's more aggressive plays in the region (e.g. Spratleys) but probably won't have time before (more than likely) being kicked out.

I hope Biden doesn't leave Taiwan hanging and he put someone competent (Rice maybe?) in charge to spearhead a China strategy.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/17/polit...ale/index.html

It's shit like this that is the cause for a growing, bipartisan suspicion towards a COVID vaccine.

Exactly.

I take stuff like this as a sign that people on the inside know he is toast and would rather get out in front of if then go down with the ship.

A fucked up version of the prisoners dilemma.

I tend to agree and my comment wasn't meant to be an indictment of her choice to speak up now. I don't think it's going to do much and I don't blame her for a certain group ignoring what she's saying. It's more frustration with how deep the rot of our government has reached in less than 4 years.

Barr is a great example of just how bad things are. As we get closer to the election he's not even hiding his dreams of a right wing Christian, authoritarian government. His career is over if Trump loses and he's focused on purging the DoJ of Dems to the point that who the hell is left to speak up? How many departments in our government are in a similar situation?

Piggybacking off my earlier post about doing things just to piss people off, I'd include playing Fortunate Son at campaign rallies as one of those things that probably draws a ton of LOLs amongst the Trump insiders.

We’re not terribly far from Trump telling people not to take the vaccine that he himself has been touting...

Meanwhile, Biden says he is the first in his family to go to college. The Trumpsters on Twitter is jumping up and down on "his great great grandfather had a bachelor's degree" like they have caught him on something.

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This is an interesting series on Medium, written by an author in Sri Lanka who is telling the story of "COVID underdogs", basically "non-developed" countries that handled COVID better than the best we're hearing about from "developed" countries.

He has an article talking about the racism in the coverage and you can tell it's what motivated him: https://medium.com/indica/the-overwh...e-78e37e4ce6e8



But the interesting ones are the case studies:
Mongolia: https://medium.com/indica/covid-unde...a-3b0c162427c2
Sri Lanka: https://medium.com/indica/covid-unde...a-db6eca164a35
Ghana: https://medium.com/indica/covid-unde...a-b77ca29192a7

I think there are a couple of others, but these were the ones I read about how different places with different people and different problems had different successful responses.

• Mongolia had literally 0 local transmission. They had imported cases but 0... 0(!!!!) local transmission.
• Sri Lanka, with a dense population of 21 million, had more cases in their navy than in the civilian population.
• Ghana, which has a per capita income of $7K per year had more testing early on than South Korea and had drones (MF'ing drones!!) to do rural lab testing.

And, at the end of the day, it's a reminder about just how much we've screwed this up. And how much we should be listening to other places rather than broadcasting our screw-ups around the world.

SI

Another country worth mentioning is Uruguay, especially seeing how things look all around them. (and not just Covid, the country also is just about a case study of how to prosper using what americans would call 'socialist' policies while not having the inherited and inherent advantages of, say, Sweden or Norway).

While i agree with the sentiment (for example i will be the first to be pissed when people will claim countries in South America or Africa don't have knowledgeable people at all levels and know how diseaese prevention is done. It's laughable to suggest really, given their experience dealing with many more and more dangerous infectious diseases than 'We' do) and this is obviously sth that happens ...

There are also circumstances that help them of course, which have less to do with agency than just circumstance (connectivity, timing, population makeup, culture both private and work, population makeup etc, etc). And just because the absolutes are wrong (like with Mongolia being basically a desert in the middle of nowhere) it doesn't mean it isn't a big factor regardless. There's a scale, not an either/or.

And it's also undeniably true that just looking at numbers will never tell you much about many countries (often by their own judgement btw. India for example is perfectly aware that they have no idea at all how many people actually die from Covid. Why ? Because they don't have any idea how many people actually die, period. Only 60% of deaths are ever recorded, much less soon or with noting the cause of death. Makes public health a nightmare) and with an undoubted lack of coverage on the ground it's hard to get any sort of picture.

Two things can be true at the same time. And just like their response can be judged as great it can also be judged as not applicable to countries/regions with vastly different circumstances, both ways (Germany's response has a snowballs chance in hell at working in Africa or Asia. But neither has the mongolian modell any chance at being applicable or being accepted in a Western nation. It just doesn't).
Neither does their early response teach anybody anything for right now. It needs to be studied and taken into heavy consideration for the future (and given it's due !) but it's not a big help now.

Another country worth mentioning is Uruguay, especially seeing how things look all around them. (and not just Covid, the country also is just about a case study of how to prosper using what americans would call 'socialist' policies which even the current center-right government upholds).

Uruguay wages successful fight against COVID-19 | World| Breaking news and perspectives from around the globe | DW | 22.08.2020

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

While i agree with parts of the sentiment (for example i will be the first to be pissed when people will claim countries in South America or Africa don't have knowledgeable people at all levels and know how diseaese prevention is done. It's laughable to suggest really, given their experience dealing with many more and more dangerous infectious diseases than 'We' do all the time) and this is obviously sth that happens ...

There are also circumstances that help them (connectivity/mobility, timing, population makeup, culture both private and work, acceptance of institutions, etc). And just because the absolutes are laughably wrong (like with Mongolia being basically a desert in the middle of nowhere with a few tent villages in the minds of many) it doesn't mean it isn't a big factor regardless. There's a scale, not an either/or.

And it's also undeniably true that just looking at numbers will never tell you much about many countries (often by their own judgement btw. India for example is perfectly aware that they have no idea at all how many people actually die from Covid. Why ? Because they don't have any idea how many people actually die, period. Only 60% of deaths are ever recorded, much less soon or with noting the cause of death. Makes public health a nightmare) and with an undoubted lack of coverage on the ground it's hard to get any sort of picture.
And that's sth that happens within western nations as well. If Nowhereville, Iowa or a village in Bavaria does sth better than anybody it still will be an uphill battle to have it become accepted in New York or Berlin.

And with Covid it also happens within Europe for example. 99% of people won't know and 99% of media will never report that f.e. the Faroe Islands managed to develop their own Covid Test and Lab structure within days or that the Czech Republic was the first to be all in on masks or that Norway was doing pretty much everything perfectly and is even looking good economically compared to most.

Two things can be true at the same time. And just like their response can be judged as great it can also be judged as not applicable to countries/regions with vastly different circumstances right now, that goes both ways (Germany's response has a snowballs chance in hell at working in Africa or Asia. But neither has the mongolian modell any chance at being applicable or being accepted in a Western nation. It just doesn't).
Neither does their early response teach anybody anything for right now. It needs to be studied and taken into heavy consideration for the future (and given it's due !) but it's not a big help now.

There's just no one size fits all response, not early and especially not now. (just blindly copying sth isn't helping, see the french testing desaster i mentioned in the other thread.)

But very enlightening and thanks for sharing !

As an aside: One danger is also the opposite: Seeing the low numbers in some regions and just assuming that nothing major could happen there and not having any urgency to enable them to have access to therapeutics and vaccines.

He needs a therapist.

"The people I like the best are the people that are less successful because it makes you feel so powerful. I always say it. Never go out with a successful person."

This guy is so broken inside.pic.twitter.com/fWFtcxu9yW

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) September 18, 2020

His defenders eat that shit up though. They think he’s hilarious.

Being rich gives you a lot of options. But it does not guarantee that you will choose the right ones.

Some people do, however.

I could not help of think of our President and his cabinet of emotionally stunted billionaires when I read this this morning:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenb.../#162d46c33a2a

So he's basically saying none of his wives have been successful. At least until they met him anyway. That'll be a great conversation piece over KFC.

Trump has managed to make a tax cut unpopular.

Americans,, welcome to tax positivity pic.twitter.com/xCjTJ2yyAF

— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) September 18, 2020

Dems backing off of a marijuana leagalization bill because of the fear that the GOP might use it against them is so damned on-brand.

South Carolina finally allows that the virus is a legitimate reason to request an absentee ballot

Aren't the payroll taxes one of the most regressive taxes we have at the moment? They should be eliminated assuming they were replaced with a more progressive tax.

Just eliminate the income limit, then it won't be regressive and it will help Social Security's insolvency issues.

https://www.feedstuffs.com/news/trum...campaign-rally

Another $13 billion for farmers. Do I get a pat on the pack for pulling myself up by the bootstraps by selling the farm and getting off the dole?

Some really interesting posts there sterlingice and whomario and I agree. There are differences in certain regions/countries, but it is the height of arrogance and racism that the West dismisses their accomplishments against Covid. The clear evidence, at least, is that those countries took the virus seriously and moved against it quickly. There are lessons to be learned, but why would anyone pay attention to "shithole countries" after all.

Despite the fact that over 2/3 of Americans support this? Yeah, that makes sense. I would bet most people that think it is still a dangerous drug and remain illegal are going to vote for trump anyway.

Apparently Trump got some polling feedback that he's not doing well with Puerto Ricans in Florida.

President Trump says the reason they’re now rolling out the aid package for Puerto Rico — weeks before the election — is because it took a long time to get ready.

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 18, 2020

"I'm the best thing that has ever happened to Puerto Rico"- President Donald Trump, 9.18.20

— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) September 18, 2020

If by "best thing that ever happened" he means "was the President who treated you so disgustingly that it eventually led to your statehood just to make it slightly less likely that someone like me could ever happen to you again" he could be right.

I hope someone recorded the

"Can't we just deport them?"

"Sir, we can't deport them, they are Americans"

"What do you mean they are Americans? I thought that you said earlier that they are from Puerto Rico."

"Yes sir. Of course. You are right. But let's try one more time. Remember when we had out those maps and explained the difference between states and territories . . . "

discussion that inevitably happened before this.

That basically did happen, in the aftermath of the hurricane.

As Trump panders to the Puerto Ricans he so thoroughly detested and insulted for so much of his presidency, let's remember what Elaine C. Duke, his former acting secretary of homeland security, revealed just a couple of months ago. pic.twitter.com/RmMmvekZnL

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 18, 2020

Also kind of insane that it seems to have just now occurred to them that by leaving Puerto Rico completely devastated, they might incentivize people to leave and move to Florida.

"We just thought that they'd starve and die in the street like dogs. It never occurred to us that they had intelligence and decision making ability."

And now this, alleged deal to avoid extradition for Assange

Assange lawyer says Trump offered deal to avoid extradition

This statue of Melania is not what I expected.

A new bronze statue of first lady Melania Trump was unveiled in Slovenia this week, after a wooden version of the memorial was burned in July. pic.twitter.com/0nVGXShV1E

— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 18, 2020

Still better than the Lucille Ball statue.

It's really interesting to me when we see how some of those countries reacted versus the crap in this thread here about the Baylor game getting cancelled:

According to a source, **at least** one Baylor football player who would have missed the game tomorrow against Houston tested negative at least FIVE times in the last 12 days.

Because of contact tracing.

Think about that.
— Colt Barber (@Colt_Barber) September 18, 2020

It's really interesting to me when we see how some of those countries reacted versus the crap in this thread here about the Baylor game getting cancelled.

Like this gem:


Yes, that's exactly the point. We are overly cautious because we don't know for sure who gets sick with a virus that spreads exponentially so we don't take extra risks. THAT. IS. EXACTLY. THE. POINT.

SI

The absolute dumbest party to ever exist. Who's the scapegoat going to be when they lose to a reality TV host again this time?

They find popular positions and then torpedo them because they're afraid to upset some Republicans who will never vote for them (despite them thinking they can sway them).

2016 should have seen the implosion of the party and new leadership put in from top to bottom.

Well it's reusable, gotta give the artist that.

My neighbor just put up a flag pole. American flag. Cool. Then a big ol' Trump 2020 flag. And he is on the side I drive past. Great.
Wanted me to jimp in a picture with him and the flag. Told him no. He asked dont you support the president. I said no. I did follow up with I do not support our political system or either major party.

This reminds me of a conversation I had at work with someone that really isn't very political. How many things has Trump ruined the perception of? If is see an American flag on your car I assume you're a Trump supporter.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died; it is the end of times.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/10030...ity-dies-at-87

Oh fuck

McConnell will do the right thing I'm sure.

Good bye Roe v Wade (among others). It was nice knowing you.

It's going to be great when McConnell just ignores the whole can't fill a SCOTUS position in the election year thing.

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Well, shit.

Of course he will, just like before.....

Hype aside, this is now definitely the most important election of our lifetime.

He's already said he will and laughed while saying it.

Oh no, sad to hear. McConnell will keep the seat open until after the election to help drive up GOP turnout and then he'll ram it through in the lame duck after Biden wins.

Journalistic equivalent to premature ejaculation.

Tik Tok to be banned starting Sunday.

1st amendment anyone?

Meanwhile, somewhere in his crypt, Mitch has cracked open a bottle of his finest Kentucky bourbon and is deciding whether it's more advantageous to hold the seat until after the election to ramp up Trump enthusiasm and ram it through in the lame duck or do it before the election so they can rule in Trump v Biden. I mean, I'm sure he's already made this calculation but that's what I'm picturing in my head.

SI

Ted Cruz has already said the nomination and vote must come before the election. The most punchable face in America has spoken.

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Also, Biden announced tonight if they do ram through a justice this year, the Dems will add two seats to the Supreme Court next year.

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I was on edge with everything before. Trying to bide my time, be patient, wait out fucking idiots. But now? Feel like the kicks just keep coming. No let up. It brings out the very worst in me, and my vindictive bad side. I can't even. I just can't.

I think they'll try to ram it through in the lame duck, especially if Biden wins. They'll use it as a life line to Trump and endangered Senators to help drum up GOP support in the election. Better vote for us or Biden will nominate a radical liberal. If there's a Trump v. Biden election case they can rule with 8 justices and at best Roberts could force a tie.

Shoot if Trump loses he will try and coerce the supreme court to overturn the election and declare him the winner. OR he will declare martial law and become our first dictator.

The question is, does the military back Trump?

I haven't seen this anywhere but I've been doing other stuff, too. Where did you see this?

SI

Read it on Twitter from a reporter, but it might have been wishful thinking.

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If Biden wins it will be much harder for McConnell to hold 50 votes in the lame duck session. It's much safer to do it before the election.

If you think Trump is going to go down in flames and you want to jockey for position in the non-Trump wing of the GOP, this might be a good chance.

SI

If Kelley wins in Arizona, according to election law there he could actually be seated November 30th. McSally has already said she wants to vote on Trump's choice. That might be a consideration on the time line.

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