Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
Telling the Archbishop to “Fuck off’ is an unusual way to start a story. Then when it is followed by a dead body it peaks your interest right away. Postmark Berlin is my third book by Anne Emery, all have been in Collins-Burke Mystery Series, and I have enjoyed all three. I’ll also add that Anne Emery is an award winning writer of Crime fiction.
Continue reading “Postmark Berlin: A Mystery by Anne Emery”
I had written earlier about the armed protests against state decisions on stay-at-home orders and shutdown of non-essential business.
I just read an interesting article on this in The Atlantic online. It is not a very long article and is well worth your time if you have any interest.
Why is this allowed? Protests against state order to stay-at-home or a lockdown are being protested in many states. Of course protest is our right and a good thing when the people disagree with the government. But if is accompanied by heavy enough arms to terrify other citizens, is it a good thing?
Here is a quote in the running for worst prediction of year.
And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.
President Trump, February 26, 2020
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/
The couple of days part is definitely wrong.
Pretty good job just indicates pretty low standards in the Trump administration.
But extra points for leaving out the part about about the road to zero running through over a million cases and well over 80,000 deaths.
President Trump is offering a false choice. He wants to open the economy and bring prosperity back to America. His Democratic enemies want to keep the county shut-down for years to make him look bad.
Vice President Biden discussed this and the behavior of the President in failing to address this COVID-19 crisis in the today’s Washington Post. It is worth reading-
Joe Biden: How the White House coronavirus response presents us with a false choice
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and many of his fellow Republicans will gladly bailout the airlines but draw the line at helping the states provide help to Americans sick or otherwise dealing with the many problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
This is a bad idea for many reasons.
As the Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland and head of the National Governors Association said:
The last thing we need in the middle of an economic crisis is to have states all filing bankruptcy all across America and not able to provide services to people who desperately need them.
These seems especially unfair as much of the problem in the United States is due to the failure of President Trump to address this problem when it was smaller and more manageable.
President Abraham Lincoln led the United States through a civil war and is considered one of our greatest Presidents. President Trump is misleading us through the COVID-19 crisis as he has misled us often in the past 3 years. And could be reelected.
The Lincoln Project would like to correct that problem.
See their current ad – https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=t_yG_-K2MDo&feature=emb_logo
To just follow-up briefly on my previous post where I asked about stupid or just misinformed, I wanted to give you an example of how people are misinformed.
Yesterday there was a news article about a New York City bar owner who died of COVID-19 because he was misinformed about the threat by Fox News and President Trump. Read about it here-
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/nyregion/coronavirus-jjbubbles-joe-joyce.html
It says a lot about the sad state of things here when you cannot believe either certain news outlets or the President of the United States. Sadder still is that people will die because of the misinformation. Probably many people.
These protests are endangering both the participants and the general public. These relatively small groups (a few thousand) are gathering to protest various stay-at-home orders and social distancing practices that governors across the country have put in place to save lives and flatten the curve of COVID-19 illness and death. Protesters wanted to end this now and did not practice social distancing, endangering all of us.
You may want to read the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in this –
https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/the-world-has-seen-protests-against-epidemic-lockdowns-before-these-are-different/
President Trump announced that the United States will cut-off funding to the World Health Organization. As those who have read this blog probably know, I am not a big fan of President Trump and don’t think very highly of his ideas or actions. But cutting off funding to the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic has to be one of his worst ideas.
Continue reading “Defunding WHO”
The full title is Excel Basics In 30 Minutes: The beginner’s guide to Microsoft Excel, Excel Online, and Google Sheets. The title both under-promises and over-promises. I felt I got the basics down in an hour or so. But there are several topics in the book that I consider more than basic but someone who wants to do a good bit with Excel might consider basic. It is good that the author decided to include Google Sheets. I happen to have Excel on my computer but many people do not and find Google Sheets a good option.
Continue reading “Beginner’s guide to Microsoft Excel, Excel Online, and Google Sheets”
Last year Pennsylvania introduced “no excuse” voting by mail. So I guess we are fairly lucky in this state. Many states do not allow mail-in voting.
There is a bill in the Senate that would require states to offer this option in 2020 and have contingency plans for future problems with voting. The bill also provides the states with federal funds to help implement this act. I believe that is an important thing this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency.
Continue reading “Vote by mail”
Social distancing measures in effect are apparently slowing down the increase in coronavirus cases and most Americans are doing the right thing. I see that some are opposing these measures.
Continue reading “Social distancing and Ammon Bundy”
President Trump told us of the CDC recommendation to wear a cloth face covering when in public to prevent the spread of coronavirus during his COVID-19 briefing Friday. But then he immediately undermined that message. The cited article starts like this:
Continue reading “The worst announcement of the new CDC recommendation”
Should we continue to maintain social distancing? That is, remain at home to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The way I look at it is –
1. President Trump wants to end distancing by Easter
2. Experts say don’t end it in the next few weeks
I think we should listen to the public health experts.
Continue reading “Not the time to ease social distancing”