archer

There's been just WAY too much happening this past week to be able to include everything as a topic of conversation.
 
But Texas' governor proclaimed early in the month that most already-existing drop off boxes for ballots around the state had to be removed and that no county could have more than one. (Understand that some counties in Texas are larger than the state of Delaware and a heck of a lot of them are larger than Rhode Island.)
 
In addition to that, in order to put a ballot in the drop off box, you had to show ID and sign a document stating that you were dropping off your ballot.
 
In Houston, there were lines which were hours long *for the ballot drop-off box*. There had been twelve drop off boxes in that country before the governor ordered eleven of them removed because doing that would (among other things) "limit voter confusion".
 
Anyway, a federal judge overturned the governor's order...pointing out that Texas had multiple drop off boxes in previous elections with no signs of voter confusion or voter fraud.
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/520460-federal-judge-shoots-down-texas-proclamation-allowing-one-ballot-drop
 
Also missed as a topic of conversation among the flurry of recent events, Ohio was ordered to rescind their "only one drop off box per county" rule.
 
 
As they say in Zombieland, "Enjoy the little things."

That looks really great. I could see something like this test making it into a rulebook.
 
But I can't comment further on the "A score of 1 indicates an ability to model basic emotions, a very limited ability to read emotions of others and no real empathetic capacity" part without moving the discussion to the political thread.  
 
 

Mutate : "You poor person, something bad happened to you, didn't it? I supported the Americans with Disabilities Act, you know."
 
The same person reacting to a Mutant : "Get back! Something is wrong with your genes! I will NOT have you dating my daughter!"

There's been just WAY too much happening this past week to be able to include everything as a topic of conversation.
 
But Texas' governor proclaimed early in the month that most already-existing drop off boxes for ballots around the state had to be removed and that no county could have more than one. (Understand that some counties in Texas are larger than the state of Delaware and a heck of a lot of them are larger than Rhode Island.)
 
In addition to that, in order to put a ballot in the drop off box, you had to show ID and sign a document stating that you were dropping off your ballot.
 
In Houston, there were lines which were hours long *for the ballot drop-off box*. There had been twelve drop off boxes in that country before the governor ordered eleven of them removed because doing that would (among other things) "limit voter confusion".
 
Anyway, a federal judge overturned the governor's order...pointing out that Texas had multiple drop off boxes in previous elections with no signs of voter confusion or voter fraud.
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/520460-federal-judge-shoots-down-texas-proclamation-allowing-one-ballot-drop
 
Also missed as a topic of conversation among the flurry of recent events, Ohio was ordered to rescind their "only one drop off box per county" rule.
 
 
As they say in Zombieland, "Enjoy the little things."

In the Superhero world, not scientific terms.
  A Mutant is someone born with super powers that their parents or ancestors didn’t.  Example;  Any one of the X-men, Sub-Mariner, Captain Comet, etc.
  A Mutate is someone who was changed by an outside force.  Example;  Any one of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Captain America, etc.
 
  The idea for racists in the Marvel Universe is that Mutants are literally a different species, Homo Superior who will someday replace humans as the dominant species on the planet.
  Mutates on the other hand are “just regular folks” that something happened to.
  Whether you’re setting up the camps to to hold Jews, Japanese, Mexicans or Mutants when it’s prejudice, it doesn’t have to make sense.
 

And folks think I'm nuts for using other search engines like Duckduckgo
 
 

Something which escaped my notice earlier in the day. Trump put out a video.
 
Not really interested in the content but in his appearance.
 
 
My wife has COPD, asthma, restricted breathing beyond that, and the lungs of a 90 year old according to her pulmonologist. So she tends to notice little things about people and their breathing. For example she noticed, before I did, how labored Trump's breathing was in that video he staged just as he was going to the hospital.
 
In this video, she noticed that Trump's lips are white...which is a sign of low blood oxygen. The lips go either white or blue when the person's oxygen drops below a certain level.
 
This is known as cyanosis and happens only when the blood oxygen goes below 85%.
 
A normal reading would be 97-99%. Someone is considered to be in distress if their reading drops below 94%.
 
This is a sign that he should be in the hospital or at least be on the way to the hospital because his lungs aren't functioning likely either because of infection or a blood clot in the lungs.
 
Blood clots are one of the known risks which come from being on steroids for your breathing problems.
 
A blood clot in the lungs (aka a pulmonary embolism) can be fatal. Roughly 10% of people who get one die almost instantly.
 
Also note that he has a two tone face, the upper half of his face is a different color than the lower half of his face. Either his makeup artist is having a bad day or something else is going on.
 
In any case, this doesn't seem to be a great sign about how the president is handling being ill.

I can point to specific federal laws which Hillary admitted on camera which she broke in association with her emails. One time, I added up the number of those potential charges, crimes for which some people are currently sitting in federal prison, and came up with the combined sentences being somewhere far north of 30,000 years. Now I voted for her and actively campaigned for her anyway because she was/is so much better than Trump...which says more about Trump than it does Hillary.
 
But the FBI didn't want to her prosecuted on relatively minor procedural crimes in the Obama era. And Trump when he could have chosen to prosecute Hillary for those things has instead made zero attempt to do so.
 
But Trump isn't arguing to prosecute Hillary for that.
 
Biden has bragged, on camera, about how he withheld federal funds from Ukraine until it fired a prosecutor the US government didn't like. A prosecutor who just happened to be in charge of the (mostly inactive) criminal case investigating his son's company in that country. Biden's staff argued at the time that he should personally distance himself from the matter and let someone else handle it if it had to be done. I could see trying to argue Biden's involvement as a grounds for impeachment if Biden held public office at the moment, particularly in light of the Trump impeachment case. 
 
But Trump isn't arguing to "prosecute" Biden for that.
 
I could argue that Obama did some unethical things in regard to Fast and Furious. But Trump isn't bringing up that incident.
 
Trump's argument is that the intelligence services looked into the Russian connections of the Trump campaign staff because the intelligence services hated Trump rather than because his staff had a lot of provable continuing contacts with a hell of a lot of unsavory Russians.
 
But because the intelligence services couldn't conclusively prove that the Russian connections to his staff or the Russian meddling in the 2016 election was the one thing which caused the margin of victory for Trump...Trump is now saying that everyone who was involved in the investigation on any level or who knew anyone who was involved with the investigation on any level should be thrown in jail.
 
That is really "next level" mentally disturbed. And it isn't something Trump has been saying before this point in time.
 
I'm looking forward to whatever Pelosi is going to bring forward this week as a suggested refinement to the 25th amendment to remove a president from office for mental instability.
 
< /rant >

I can point to specific federal laws which Hillary admitted on camera which she broke in association with her emails. One time, I added up the number of those potential charges, crimes for which some people are currently sitting in federal prison, and came up with the combined sentences being somewhere far north of 30,000 years. Now I voted for her and actively campaigned for her anyway because she was/is so much better than Trump...which says more about Trump than it does Hillary.
 
But the FBI didn't want to her prosecuted on relatively minor procedural crimes in the Obama era. And Trump when he could have chosen to prosecute Hillary for those things has instead made zero attempt to do so.
 
But Trump isn't arguing to prosecute Hillary for that.
 
Biden has bragged, on camera, about how he withheld federal funds from Ukraine until it fired a prosecutor the US government didn't like. A prosecutor who just happened to be in charge of the (mostly inactive) criminal case investigating his son's company in that country. Biden's staff argued at the time that he should personally distance himself from the matter and let someone else handle it if it had to be done. I could see trying to argue Biden's involvement as a grounds for impeachment if Biden held public office at the moment, particularly in light of the Trump impeachment case. 
 
But Trump isn't arguing to "prosecute" Biden for that.
 
I could argue that Obama did some unethical things in regard to Fast and Furious. But Trump isn't bringing up that incident.
 
Trump's argument is that the intelligence services looked into the Russian connections of the Trump campaign staff because the intelligence services hated Trump rather than because his staff had a lot of provable continuing contacts with a hell of a lot of unsavory Russians.
 
But because the intelligence services couldn't conclusively prove that the Russian connections to his staff or the Russian meddling in the 2016 election was the one thing which caused the margin of victory for Trump...Trump is now saying that everyone who was involved in the investigation on any level or who knew anyone who was involved with the investigation on any level should be thrown in jail.
 
That is really "next level" mentally disturbed. And it isn't something Trump has been saying before this point in time.
 
I'm looking forward to whatever Pelosi is going to bring forward this week as a suggested refinement to the 25th amendment to remove a president from office for mental instability.
 
< /rant >

I don't say this flippantly...but I hope the Republican Party implodes because they get *crushed* in the elections, and the leadership is called to account for their abject willingness to sacrifice all their principles.  The counter-argument is, well...then what?  What would rise in its place?  

Biden campaign quickly sold out of a “Truth Over Flies” fly swatter
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/520156-biden-campaign-sells-out-truth-over-flies-swatter-after-fly-lands-on-pence

Something which escaped my notice earlier in the day. Trump put out a video.
 
Not really interested in the content but in his appearance.
 
 
My wife has COPD, asthma, restricted breathing beyond that, and the lungs of a 90 year old according to her pulmonologist. So she tends to notice little things about people and their breathing. For example she noticed, before I did, how labored Trump's breathing was in that video he staged just as he was going to the hospital.
 
In this video, she noticed that Trump's lips are white...which is a sign of low blood oxygen. The lips go either white or blue when the person's oxygen drops below a certain level.
 
This is known as cyanosis and happens only when the blood oxygen goes below 85%.
 
A normal reading would be 97-99%. Someone is considered to be in distress if their reading drops below 94%.
 
This is a sign that he should be in the hospital or at least be on the way to the hospital because his lungs aren't functioning likely either because of infection or a blood clot in the lungs.
 
Blood clots are one of the known risks which come from being on steroids for your breathing problems.
 
A blood clot in the lungs (aka a pulmonary embolism) can be fatal. Roughly 10% of people who get one die almost instantly.
 
Also note that he has a two tone face, the upper half of his face is a different color than the lower half of his face. Either his makeup artist is having a bad day or something else is going on.
 
In any case, this doesn't seem to be a great sign about how the president is handling being ill.

Q: "Don't I have a father?"
 
A: "You wish."

What stretches my disbelief is the number times a member of the team says they hear or see something that no one else senses only to then be deemed mentally unstable. You'd think that after the first two separate occurrences of imperceptible phenomena that Stargate Command would learn to be a little more open-minded and not so quick to judge.

Remember when the Republicans were a political party rather than a personality cult?

Well, if there was any evidence that the administration was "aggressively protecting the vulnerable" then maybe that would be a real strategy, even if I disagreed with it.
 
But the administration has put out a mandate that nursing homes have to test, without giving them money or testing kits. They haven't provided PPE sufficient for nursing homes or VA hospitals, much less more broadly.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US includes those who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old...according to the government.
 
I have asthma, a heart condition, diabetes, and am old. The government knows all of that because it is my healthcare insurance provider and I take medicine for all of that and it's on my medical information from my doctor which he has to send to them.
 
The government hasn't done a damned thing to try to protect me. Or even checked in on me to see if I'm protecting myself.
 
Zip, nada, nothing.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US (who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old) are more than 100 million people (roughly a third of the population). To protect that number of people, there would have to be a massive governmental effort of some sort...and there isn't one.

OMG, it's jumped species!

Remember when the Republicans were a political party rather than a personality cult?

I can see clearly now, the pain is gone.
I can eat all popsicles in my way....
 
RIP

I've talked myself blue in the face trying to explain to people, in real life and online, that pointing out where evolution doesn't show you every answer to every last question at this point in time IS NOT proof that God created the universe.
 
I've resorted to repeating their arguments back to them then saying "I knew it! Fairies are responsible for everything!"
 
Sometimes I just get blank looks then I have to explain my fairies comment.
 
But sometimes I get a flicker of recognition from them that even if they disprove evolution completely (good luck), they haven't taken a single step forward toward proving that God created the universe.

Well, if there was any evidence that the administration was "aggressively protecting the vulnerable" then maybe that would be a real strategy, even if I disagreed with it.
 
But the administration has put out a mandate that nursing homes have to test, without giving them money or testing kits. They haven't provided PPE sufficient for nursing homes or VA hospitals, much less more broadly.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US includes those who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old...according to the government.
 
I have asthma, a heart condition, diabetes, and am old. The government knows all of that because it is my healthcare insurance provider and I take medicine for all of that and it's on my medical information from my doctor which he has to send to them.
 
The government hasn't done a damned thing to try to protect me. Or even checked in on me to see if I'm protecting myself.
 
Zip, nada, nothing.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US (who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old) are more than 100 million people (roughly a third of the population). To protect that number of people, there would have to be a massive governmental effort of some sort...and there isn't one.

Isn't that just a re-skinning of Mark Zuckerberg?  

Well, if there was any evidence that the administration was "aggressively protecting the vulnerable" then maybe that would be a real strategy, even if I disagreed with it.
 
But the administration has put out a mandate that nursing homes have to test, without giving them money or testing kits. They haven't provided PPE sufficient for nursing homes or VA hospitals, much less more broadly.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US includes those who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old...according to the government.
 
I have asthma, a heart condition, diabetes, and am old. The government knows all of that because it is my healthcare insurance provider and I take medicine for all of that and it's on my medical information from my doctor which he has to send to them.
 
The government hasn't done a damned thing to try to protect me. Or even checked in on me to see if I'm protecting myself.
 
Zip, nada, nothing.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US (who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old) are more than 100 million people (roughly a third of the population). To protect that number of people, there would have to be a massive governmental effort of some sort...and there isn't one.

Well, if there was any evidence that the administration was "aggressively protecting the vulnerable" then maybe that would be a real strategy, even if I disagreed with it.
 
But the administration has put out a mandate that nursing homes have to test, without giving them money or testing kits. They haven't provided PPE sufficient for nursing homes or VA hospitals, much less more broadly.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US includes those who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old...according to the government.
 
I have asthma, a heart condition, diabetes, and am old. The government knows all of that because it is my healthcare insurance provider and I take medicine for all of that and it's on my medical information from my doctor which he has to send to them.
 
The government hasn't done a damned thing to try to protect me. Or even checked in on me to see if I'm protecting myself.
 
Zip, nada, nothing.
 
The "vulnerable" in the US (who have heart conditions, asthma, other lung problems, diabetes, and who are old) are more than 100 million people (roughly a third of the population). To protect that number of people, there would have to be a massive governmental effort of some sort...and there isn't one.