COVID-19 and Temperature Checks

I see a lot of companies starting to “open up” during our running COVID-19 pandemic. Right at the top, almost invariably I find the line item that, paraphrased “All employees are temperature checked before they start work.” and then it goes on and on from there.

I think it is worthwhile to start a conversation to illuminate understanding on what temperature checks really are. They are not quickie medical tests to determine if someone is infected or not with COVID-19. They are simply a very easy diagnostic tool to isolate vectors of COVID-19 transmission. Remember, that COVID-19 can infect you without your knowledge, it can replicate in your body without your knowledge, and by the time your immune system calls for a fever, to begin work on fighting the infection, COVID-19 has already been in your system and active and spreading the entire time, back to a standard period of about two weeks.

What temperature checks that fail do, is show you that you have a vector in your midst. Save your bus fare, because when someone is showing a temperature elevation they have been sick for at least a week if not two. These people should be interviewed to see where they have been so that those who have come in contact with them can be tested and quarantined.

So, while companies want to re-open because of economic pressure, which I do fully understand, a temperature check, a good thing to do mind you, is pretty much just identifying a bomb that has been slowly going off for two weeks. It is not testing, it is not contact tracing, and it is not quarantine. You haven’t found a sick person as much as you have found a Typhoid Mary or a Typhoid Marv.

We need to test everyone. We need a vaccine. We need masks, hand-washing, and social distancing. Everything else is just a carefully monogrammed pillow invitation for COVID-19 to spread and kill more people.

Ugly White People, Wearing Masks, and Leaving Facebook

So earlier today, after leaving our local megamart, which in this case is Meijer I was beset by wave after wave of ugly white people not wearing masks. I just cannot stand it, the absolute gall to put the public health at risk all because you want to be a dick about it. It is just beyond acceptable, even in our broken world, so I wrote a Facebook Post. I called them for what they are. Ugly White Pig Fuckers.

The Facebook AI flagged it as “Hate Speech” and so, since I have a long track record of calling out Russians for their shenanigans along with I’m sure other infractions that I have long since forgotten, I have been put in a time-out corner for three days on Facebook.

Almost everyone that I care about is on a shared Signal group, it’s a virtual pub where all my loved ones are also there and I can vent, and listen to my loved ones vent, and we can laugh and share things and because Signal is end-to-end encrypted, there is nobody there to tell me what I can or cannot say.

Very much like this blog too. I always mean to write more here on the blog, and this time-out from Facebook for 3 days is actually not a punishment but rather an invitation I think, to fully abandon the platform. The toxic people, the toxic stories, the endless and sensationalized bottom-of-the-barrel scrape that the wall has become. If I want to visit a wreched den of scum and villainy, at least Reddit doesn’t pretend that it is anything else than just another cultural latrine. Facebook is just a lemon-scented cultural latrine.

I pay for this blog and the service, so I can say whatever I please here without an obnoxious censorship AI locking my account out. Plus, it’s like TV, if you don’t like what I write on this blog, you are very much invited to forget all about it. Just don’t point your browser here, I will not be offended.

So instead of sharing things on Facebook, I’ll share them on this blog. The activity will pick up, maybe if I’m very lucky there will be a new community like Imzy, or perhaps something like LiveJournal before the filthy Russians got their grasping little fingers all over it. Everyone who reads the blog should know, I’m left AF, and while I am not Antifa, I am Antifa sympathetic, especially with the notion that anyone of good standing and solid heart will not hesitate to punch Nazi scum in the face.

So don’t look for me on Facebook. Look for me here. To Hell with Facebook.

Also… WEAR YOUR !@#$ MASKS IN PUBLIC!

The Future of Power?

The California PG&E outage is a clear note about what happens when you ignore your infrastructure and you don’t have a regular preventative maintenance schedule. PM can cost a lot, but as we see in California, does it really?

I started wondering about alternatives to high tension power lines in California. You couldn’t really bury any of it, with so many quakes, maybe. So what else? Microwave transmission? Maybe make it auto-aiming so if there is a quake and the tower moves a little, it can reacquire the source faster? Or perhaps spread out the generation stations, like solar reflector installations, to distribute the load and increase the production rate…

But then these ideas lead me to truly knackers ideas. If you are going to go this far, why not just also install immense Tesla coils and then outfit cars with wireless AC receivers and then the entire automobile fleet can be electric and not need charging, since you can skip batteries, it’s much easier and cheaper.

But if we did — then we might be able to use addressable frequencies per vehicle or overlay a data stream on top of the power itself, so a car that did a hit and run or is involved in an OJ chase could be remotely turned off. But man, with enough coils dotting the landscape, powered by solar reflector stations you could drive from coast to coast with ease. We could possibly make covered tunneled roadways and then increase the speed, then automate the entire thing so after you get past human reaction limits, your car can accelerate to a comfy cruising speed of 350mph or higher.

I want to trade an immense battery bank for honeycombed graphene and kevlar car bodies so I’m traveling safely even if I impact at ridiculously high speeds. Or I want a car that automatically fills with a gassy rubber filler and ejects the passenger compartment upon a catastrophic impact event, like we have with fighter jet ejection systems. And an adorable theme-able packed parachute, maybe Hello Kitty? 😉

But an entire truck fleet that is automated and powered by solar reflector stations and tesla coils. Zero emissions. Poof, just like that. I suppose I like solar reflectors more because they mean business. Plus you could put the parabolic mirrors on gantries say twenty feet up, and then have open pasture underneath for cows, chickens, and sheep. Or grow shade-happy crops?

These power stations might, if there are enough of them, raise the albedo of the local area and then you nip greenhouse effect at the beginning of the cycle. You’re channeling the incoming solar radiation elsewhere. It isn’t heating up water or pavement or farmland. It’s being soaked up by hungry devices like trucks and cars and trains.

I sort of wonder what an airplane with a wireless AC box would look like? Different jet technology, based on electrics not on jet fuel. And the tons of carbon saved. You could replace the jet fuel with new safety equipment, like foam bursters and ejection systems in case of some sort of failure in the air. The plane just falls apart, the cabin fills with sticky goop, and it parachutes to earth safely.

We would be free of oil completely. It would rewrite the entire narrative.

2020 Democratic Debates

While the Democrats were sorting out the first debate cycle with twenty candidates for the office of President of the United States, I had a chance to live-chat it out with a beloved family member. I have copied some of the things I said in this chat because as usual, when I start to work extemporaneously some significant things tend to fall out onto the page, or in this case, into the chat.

These are all my perceptions of the candidates. Mostly first impressions. It is also worthwhile to mention that I have already picked my candidate from the field, Pete Buttigieg.

  • On the NBC Electoral Theme Music:
    • “I’ve got PTSD from the theme music. I heard it while making dinner. Muttered “fucking hell”
  • On Trump et al:
    • If you’re talking about Trump, McConnell, or Graham – you aren’t talking about what you would do.
  • On Cory Booker:
    • Something is terribly wrong with corys eyes.
    • The right eye doesn’t follow.
  • On Jay Inslee:
    • And Inslee has an old speech impediment he is trying to overcome.
  • On Amy Klobuchar:
    • Klobuchar must go
    • She has anger issues, and she is cruel.
  • On Beto O’Rourke:
    • Beto comes across as frustrated and angry.
  • On John Delaney:
    • Delaney has a caught-raccoon smirk
  • On Kirsten Gillebrand:
    • I can’t forgive Gillebrand for what she did to Al Franken.
    • Gillibrand isn’t looking at the camera.
  • On Andrew Yang:
    • He’s not there to win.
    • He’s there to get people to talk
  • On Bernie Sanders:
    • Bernie’s Hands Attack!
      Almost gave Biden a Karate-Chop
    • Bernie just applies volume.
  • On Michael Bennet:
    • None of these people can count.
    • One or two words!
  • On John Hickenlooper:
    • Hickenlooper has a hardon for government jobs and socialism.
  • On Kamala Harris:
    • She’s got an ax to grind.
  • General Debate Behavior, many candidates (not Pete):
    • One thing! God damnit!
    • They break out in babble when they see a camera.
  • On Taxation:
    • Let’s go back to 1957. Taxes.
    • We did it before. We can do it again! Make the IRS 1957 again!
    • Maybe we cut back on the military a bit.
    • Maybe we tax corporations, a bit.
    • Maybe we adjust the tax rates, a bit.
    • Maybe if we cut the poor tax to zero, cut middle class to say 10%, say to 75,000 we year, perhaps those people will have more buying power. Maybe the money we spend heats up the economy. Maybe. A bit.
    • So, the trap is “How will you pay for all your fancy dancy social programs?” Ooooh. I think we can find the money.
    • So, maybe we reject the narrative that we are a hard-scrabble lot struggling to make ends meet. Apple has a trillion dollars in Cash.
    • So, maybe there is some room for a chat. A bit. Just a little bit.
    • Or you know, we could nationalize the companies and eat the rich.
  • On GOP:
    • When you are attacking the GOP, you aren’t talking about your policies.
    • Witness the agonies of trickle-down economics. You’ll notice that we’ve swallowed the sales brochure from Ronald Reagan so thoroughly that we can’t imagine a world any other way.
  • On Universal Basic Income:
    • UBI tickles me. This is a natural consequence of trickle-down economics.
    • And how will we prevent mass starvation once automation eliminates all the jobs?
    • But that reveals the true nature of America. We hate the poor. We can’t give them cash. They are filthy gimmes. They’ll waste it on frivolities. They won’t buy yachts. They’ll buy bread. Tsk tsk tsk.
    • This is trickle downs time to burn.
    • This is why socialism is so remarkable. What I find fascinating is the spittle and vitriol when you mention socialism. UBI downright causes a stroke.
  • On Healthcare, and the inflection with Undocumented Immigrants:
    • Is healthcare a human right?
  • On Healthcare, Generally:
    • And what happens when we incentivize illness?
    • If a profit-seeking organization cures illnesses, they are actively denying profit.
    • So, are the pharmaceutical companies actually working in our best interest?
    • Healthcare from the very start. No stress about illnesses. No having to pawn wedding rings for insulin.
  • On Economics:
    • What entertains me is just how much of the kool-aid we have all internalized. We’ve written the GOP economic plan into our assumptions. So we don’t talk about anything else. We battle from the right to the ultra-right because the land has been gated off from the right to the center and all the way left.
  • On Religious Hypocrisy:
    • Oh, hey, Jesus. Oh them? Those are filthy sick poor people. They are drains on our economy. Why are you crying? Why are you shaking? Wait! Why did you flip over the dinner table?!
  • On Climate Change:
    • Ah, climate.
    • We missed the tipping point. 1973.
    • Just! A! Bit!

These were all the instant reactions while I watched the debate performances. There were some very notable and memorable candidates on both nights. JuliĂĄn Castro was the most earnest in the first night’s debate, he was passionate and clear about many topics and especially about border and immigration policy. I found Elizabeth Warren to be the most experienced and professional in the first night’s debates, she has a drum, and she beats it well. I think that may be what may disturb other folks if they aren’t on board with the Warren drumbeat, they flee. I think Elizabeth Warren is the most polarizing of all the candidates for both nights, either you are very into what she is saying, or you are very not into what she is saying. Cory Booker in the first night’s debates carries himself with notes borrowed from Joe Biden, especially framing himself coming from a damaged or disadvantaged hometown. The negative threads started to collect around Cory Booker as he came across as more prosecutorial as the first debate night concluded. The first night had us agreeing that Castro, Warren, and Booker won that night.

The second night had the headlines of today in large blinking neon. The second night was overwhelmed by the conflict between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I fear that Joe Biden has lost his bid, because the frame in which he was speaking was already covered in a story from the New York Times about the bussing issue which became the focus from Harris, and Joe Biden neglected the very thing that was the pinnacle of both nights, which I will cover in the last paragraph. Bernie Sanders came across as desperate, angry, loud, and impatient. Bernie lost us when he decided that screaming was the answer, overwhelming your opponent with your voice, it was disrespectful and painted Bernie as a Daedalus watching his hopes drop out of the sky in flames. I am firmly against both Gillibrand and Klobuchar because they are unfit in their own ways for the office of President. Gillibrand for being opportunistic and unable to follow basic directions and Klobuchar for being abusive and cruel.

The winner of both nights, the man who came out on top was the candidate that I had already decided on, Pete Buttigieg. The question started a conversation about the police shooting incident in South Bend, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg looked squarely in the camera and without blinking or looking away said in a clear calm voice, “I couldn’t get it done.” This demonstrates something I have never seen in any political debate in memory, the honest admission of fault and expression of humility to everyone who was watching the event. The calm, direct line was the most potent sentence uttered during the entire debate by anyone at all, for both nights. These events are built around pandering and seduction, powered by platitudes and lies, sweeping generalizations that deny reality to present the candidates in the best possible light. When something else, something novel, something new appears, it causes the entire Universe to stop, everything rotates around that one moment, and then everything resumes. It takes a proud man to flog his best qualities, but it takes the best man to trot out his failure and actually level with the citizens. There was no way to get through a police shooting like this, except this one way. The events in South Bend, because Pete Buttigieg took the hard road, makes him more my candidate for President, because he was honest, looked directly into the camera, and said the hardest thing. This is precisely, to pick up the thread from before, exactly what Joe Biden failed to do. Anyone can dodge their past, it takes real courage to skip the dodge, skip the obvious, easy road of peddling bullshit and express sincere regret and humility. We have been led by an unspeakable individual for a long while now, totally incapable of even looking at this sort of humility before everyone in the country and that is why I regard Pete Buttigieg as my candidate. I also put my money on this very thing. It was his humility before everyone, his raw courage, and honesty that made me a donor. I expect I will give more as we go along. Bravo, Mayor Pete, Bravo! Well Done, Sir.

Circling The Drain

Endless solicitations for donations and requests for money for political campaigns make up 75% of my email junk folder.

The absolute meaninglessness and crassness arrives every single day, multiple times a day. Everyone is doing it, and so they all feel like this is the best way to spend their time and what they should be doing.

“If you aren’t doing your job, you should be fundraising.”

But lets stab the pause button on all of it. What is your job? These people all are part of a great machine known as representative democracy here in the United States of America. But since the primary form of political power and political speech is actually money, we can dispense with vast sections of what used to be political reality. Senators no longer need to deliberate, Representatives no longer need to represent. Political animals no longer need to do anything other than raise and spend money. That’s all there is to it. The money is the fuel and the Machiavellianism is the toolbox that the fuel is channeled through.  The dark triad runs politics: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psycopathy.

So I get messages from Jon Hoadley, from Gary Peters, and a rogues gallery of other political animals all seeking just one solitary thing. Money. The toolbox has only one tool in it, the sopping paint-roller of fear. Money to buy writing about fear, and to instill it into the population. To squeeze us all using fear, appeals to fear, declarations of fear, condemnations using fear, it’s all the same message. We need money to terrorize you all, so that you will all give us more money, so we can ramp up the terror. More fear, more money, more fear, more money.

This is why politics is broken. This is why all of the norms are shattered. This is why the world is slowly and inexorably circling the drain. There is nothing else, no other messaging. No other communication. They don’t represent us, they simply solicit for money and vomit forth giant sopping loads of fear.

Fuck fear, fuck money, and fuck politics. This is why they fail, this is why it’s all crap.

This all came to a head with my US Senator, Gary Peters. I honestly don’t know who he is or what he stands for. The only time I ever got any communication from him, or I should say, is copy machine and letter folder, and envelope printer, and postal meter, was yesterday in a solicitation for money. I didn’t read anything in the actual letter. I just folded it up and slipped it in the recycling bag at home. It’s the same thing I do with the mental image of whoever Gary Peters is, I fold him up, and slip him into the recycling bag in my head. Right along with Gary Peters is Jon Hoadley. Whoever he is, whatever he stands for, the only time I hear from him is when he wants money. Again, I don’t care about him or what he represents, because it is all meaningless. It’s money, it’s fear, it’s politics.

Don’t ask us for money. Don’t make that ALL that you do. Engage with us, reach out to us, there are a lot of us but isn’t that a part of your actual job? And so, we return to the previous line above for a point: “If you aren’t doing your job, you should be fundraising.” And the answer is written as plain as day, you just aren’t doing your job. So all you are doing is fundraising and thinking that that is your job. That is why we are so very tired of all of you. You don’t know us, you don’t talk to us, you don’t represent us. You spend no time actually interested in your constituents and think that this is all a game of celebrity political whack-a-mole.

There is no love lost. It’s all lazy, mendacious, and corrupt. You wear a bright blue vest with the word DEMOCRAT written on it, and so we vote for you. Not because of who you are, but because we have reduced everything down to two colors. We vote and we elect you into office and we know that nothing will be accomplished, that the very best any of us have to hope for is a kind of silent trudging through the maintenance of the status quo. Life has a ritual, a pattern, a routine. As long as the routine is not affected, all the rest of it is just inconsequential political theater.

So, trot about on the political stage and waste your lives doing nothing for nobody. We aren’t watching, we don’t really care, you are all completely out of touch with the rest of us, that all of this is just an immense comedy. It’s a sham and we all know it. But none of us care to fight it out because there is no hope of change. There is nobody who will listen, there is nobody who actually cares, there is just another meaningless fear-driven solicitation for money.

 

 

Pete Buttigieg Donation

Everytime I see Pete Buttigieg or hear him speak I am overwhelmed with awe and respect. He isn’t spending time listening for reply, there is no wool gathering, and he isn’t lying.

He may be a longshot, but so was Obama, and he won. So I plunked down $25 for Pete Buttigieg through actblue.com. I have also decided who I want to win the Democratic primary and the presidency of the United States.

Who does he pick for VP? Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, or even Joseph Biden. That’s his decision in the end, but anyone in that set would do very well.

Pete Buttigieg

Last night, on the way back from Chicago we started to talk about the littered Democratic landscape, who was running and who each of us liked. The candidate docket feels like Santa’s List, it just spills on and on and on. Warren, Biden, Beto, Bernie. I have thoughts on all of them, but knew next to nothing about Pete Buttigieg. That was until this morning. I read some more, found a subreddit for him, and watched a clip of him interact with Al Sharpton. I could give or take Al Sharpton, but what the clip contained had enough substance to move me.

I still don’t know who I want for the Democratic candidate, but Pete Buttigieg is climbing the charts.

What I want to see is an interview between him and Rachel Maddow. I respect and trust Rachel to ask really good questions and help us all discover more about this candidate. It’s just a matter of time.

Boeing as Microsoft

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/boeing-sold-safety-feature-that-could-have-prevented-737-max-crashes-as-an-option/

Ars wrote an article about the 737 Max aircrafts safety system gap. Boeing made a key function for safety an expensive add-on. God, that smells like a Microsoft joint, doesn’t it? Hahahahahaha. Make your flight choices clear when you buy tickets: I don’t want to fly on Boeing aircraft.

And then, in related news, a touch of quid pro quo between Nikki Hayley and Boeing, too. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/nikki-haley-nominated-for-board-seat-at-boeing/

Hilarious.

Giveaway Messaging

The Hyatt could give any newspaper away for free. This is what they chose:

Not the USA Today or the Times or even the Chicago Tribune. No. The Wall Street Urinal.

That’s targeted and meaningful. No. This is Chicago. Not New York. And even still, if it was New York, then it should be the Times anyways! Not this toilet paper rag. Tsk tsk tsk.

What Is Their Nature?

Mmmm… question first, what do they fear. Then question what do they covet. Find this and know the nature of the man.

I adapt the tone a touch, what drives modern man is what they fear and what they covet.

Fear more than anything else. Fear drives most. Fear of loss, fear of the truth, fear of the other. How do you respond?
Well, if you have no fear and you do not covet, then one would possibly say that one is clear minded enough to start having a rational conversation.
With the notion that we all think we are having rational conversations but we are riddled with fear. So we are not. We imagine we would like to be, but we are not. In many ways, this is why people get that feeling that folks are not listening, that all of this is just opera. It’s a lot of singular arias screamed into the void.

Question: what do you fear?

Heights.
People with power.
I fear the extinction of bees.
I fear the end of our world.
And I fear that the reason why the night sky is so static and so dull is that no culture has survived their own folly. That the Fermi Paradox is true. That the universe is a dead sterile place with nothing in it because life defeats itself before it can succeed and make a breakthrough. And then I see it in my own species and I feel a little sad because of it.