Saturday, July 31, 2021
Friday, July 30, 2021
Thursday, July 29, 2021
Some Thoughts re the Military Today
William Astore spent 24 years in the Air Force, retiring in 2007 and becoming a history professor. He does not think highly of our military today. Here are his thoughts on what we should do:
1. No more new nuclear weapons. It’s time to stop “modernizing” that arsenal to the tune of possibly $1.7 trillion over the next three decades. Land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles like the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, expected to cost more than $264 billion during its lifetime, and “strategic” (nuclear) bombers like the Air Force’s proposed B-21 Raider should be eliminated. The Trident submarine force should also be made smaller, with limited modernization to improve its survivability.
2. All Army divisions should be reduced to cadres (smaller units capable of expansion in times of war), except the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the 10th Mountain Division.
3. The Navy should largely be redeployed to our hemisphere, while aircraft carriers and related major surface ships are significantly reduced in number.
4. The Air Force should be redesigned around the defense of America’s air space, rather than attacking others across the planet at any time. Meanwhile, costly offensive fighter-bombers like the F-35, itself a potential $1.7 trillion boondoggle, should simply be eliminated and the habit of committing drone assassinations across the planet ended. Similarly, the separate space force created by President Trump should be folded back into a much-reduced Air Force.
5. The training of foreign militaries and police forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan should be stopped. The utter collapse of the U.S.-trained forces in Iraq in the face of the Islamic State in 2014 and the ongoing collapse of the U.S.-trained Afghan military today have made a mockery of this whole process.
6. Military missions launched by intelligence agencies like the CIA, including those drone assassination programs overseas, should be halted and the urge to intervene secretly in the political and military lives of so many other countries finally brought under some kind of control.
7. The “industrial” part of the military-industrial complex should also be brought under control, so that taxpayer dollars don’t go to fabulously expensive, largely useless weaponry. At the same time, the U.S. government should stop promoting the products of our major weapons makers around the planet.
8. Above all, in a democracy like ours, a future defensive military should only fight in a war when Congress, as the Constitution demands, formally declares one.
9. The military draft should be restored. With a far smaller force, such a draft should have a limited impact, but it would ensure that the working classes of America, which have historically shouldered a heavy burden in military service, will no longer do so alone. In the future America of my military dreams, a draft would take the eligible sons and daughters of our politicians first, followed by all eligible students enrolled in elite prep schools and private colleges and universities, beginning with the Ivy League. After all, America’s best and brightest will surely want to serve in a military devoted to defending their way of life.
10. Finally, there should be only one four-star general or admiral in each of the three services. Currently, believe it or not, there are an astonishing 44 four-star generals and admirals in America’s imperial forces. There are also hundreds of one-star, two-star, and three-star officers. This top-heavy structure inhibits reform even as the highest-ranking officers never take responsibility for America’s lost wars.
Pivoting to America
Tuesday, July 27, 2021
Meet a chicken with its head cut off
This is Miracle Mike, also known as Mike the Headless Chicken. He was beheaded on 10 September 1945 but lived 18 months. The beheading was not very good as the axe missed Mike’s jugular vein, plus one ear and most of his brain stem; Mike didn’t die.
Mike’s unlikely survival has everything to do with how his skeleton was shaped, Wayne J. Kuenzel, a poultry physiologist and neurobiologist at the University of Arkansas, told Rebecca Katzman at Modern Farmer. Because a chicken’s skull includes two huge holes for holding its eyes in place, its brain fits snuggly into the remaining space at a 45-degree angle. This means you could slice the top bit of the brain off while still leaving a good portion - with the cerebellum and the brain stem - behind. “Because the brain is at that angle,” Kuenzel told Katzman, “you still have the functional part that’s so critical for survival intact.”
His owner fed him by depositing food and water into Mike’s exposed oesophagus via a little eyedropper. He even got small grains of corn sometimes as a treat.
He was featured in Time Magazine and Life, got his name in the Guinness Book of Records, and had his own sideshows, giving the American public the chance to meet ‘Mike the Headless Wonder Chicken’. In the 18 months that he spent without his head, he grew from a mere 2.5 pounds to almost 8 pounds.
They still love Mike in Colorado. Every third weekend of May, locals will hold an annual Mike the Headless Chicken Festival, where they can enjoy music, contests, and food.
Monday, July 26, 2021
Kids win titles
The winners of the Women's Street Skateboarding contest at the Tokyo Olympics:
They are pretty young. From the left they are silver medalist Rayssa Leal of Brazil (age 13), gold medalist Momiji Nishiya of Japan (also age 13), center, and bronze medalist Funa Nakayama of Japan (the old one at 16) show their medals.
They are pretty young. From the left they are silver medalist Rayssa Leal of Brazil (age 13), gold medalist Momiji Nishiya of Japan (also age 13), center, and bronze medalist Funa Nakayama of Japan (the old one at 16) show their medals.
The number of workers at nursing homes and long-term health care...
is not good. More than 40% of the nation’s nursing home and long-term health care workers have yet to receive vaccinations according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ProPublica has an excellent article on the subject.
Seven months after the first vaccines became available to medical professionals, only 59% of staff at the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are fully or partially vaccinated — with eight states reporting an average rate of less than half. Twenty-three individual facilities had vaccination rates of under 1%, the data showed.
Vaccine refusal is regional and often aligns not only with individuals’ political alignment but also with their preferred news sources and which social media they follow. Louisiana has the lowest statewide average: Just 44.5% of the staff at its long-term care facilities have been at least partially vaccinated, according to CMS data released last week.
Florida, the second lowest-vaccinated state, had a rate of just under 46% among its nursing home and long-term care staff, with Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and Wyoming all showing rates of less than 50 percent, according to the data.
A separate American Association of Retired Persons analysis, released last week, showed that only one in five of the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes were able to hit a goal, set by two industry trade groups, of vaccinating 75% of their staff by the end of June.
Seven months after the first vaccines became available to medical professionals, only 59% of staff at the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are fully or partially vaccinated — with eight states reporting an average rate of less than half. Twenty-three individual facilities had vaccination rates of under 1%, the data showed.
Vaccine refusal is regional and often aligns not only with individuals’ political alignment but also with their preferred news sources and which social media they follow. Louisiana has the lowest statewide average: Just 44.5% of the staff at its long-term care facilities have been at least partially vaccinated, according to CMS data released last week.
Florida, the second lowest-vaccinated state, had a rate of just under 46% among its nursing home and long-term care staff, with Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and Wyoming all showing rates of less than 50 percent, according to the data.
A separate American Association of Retired Persons analysis, released last week, showed that only one in five of the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes were able to hit a goal, set by two industry trade groups, of vaccinating 75% of their staff by the end of June.
Sunday, July 25, 2021
Saturday, July 24, 2021
Friday, July 23, 2021
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Talk about stupidity
The International Handball Federation has fined the members of Norway's women's beach handball team 150 euros each. Why? Because the players wore shorts, instead of the required bikini bottoms, during a game over the weekend.
The Federation requires women to wear bikini bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg.” The sides of the bikini bottoms must be no more than four inches. Men, on the other hand, can wear shorts as long as four inches above their knees as long as they are “not too baggy.”
This sport is not alone in being so stupid. Badminton World Federation decreed that women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the elite level in order to help revive flagging interest in women’s badminton.
This sport is not alone in being so stupid. Badminton World Federation decreed that women must wear skirts or dresses to play at the elite level in order to help revive flagging interest in women’s badminton.
Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Monday, July 19, 2021
Sunday, July 18, 2021
A different ice cream
The ice cream started being sold on July 14 and is already listed as “out of stock” on Van Leeuwen’s website, but it was also being sold at Van Leeuwen scoop shops.
Saturday, July 17, 2021
Tomorrow is National Ice Cream Day
In fact, July was declared National Ice Cream Month by President Reagan in 1984. The third Sunday of the month is considered National Ice Cream Day.
Here are some places you can get a deal:
Here are some places you can get a deal:
Burger King: Get a free vanilla soft serve cup or cone with a $1 purchase.
Cumberland Farms: Receive an Ultimate Scoop Crème Brulee Crunch for $3.99 — $1.50 off the regular price.
Dairy Queen: Participating stores are offering $1 off any size Dipped Cone through the mobile app, excluding kid cones. One deal per person.
McDonald’s: Check out the app for coupons and freebies.
Whole Foods Market: Until July 20, get 35% off all ice cream and frozen treats. Prime Members save an extra 10%.
And you may be able to get a deal locally at Bloom Hill Farm on Cottage Grove.
Friday, July 16, 2021
Some scary numbers
Here are some comments by Wall Street on Parade regarding the current banking structure:
"According to the Fed’s own data, it has approved 3,576 bank mergers, while denying zero merger applications, since January 1, 2006.
since 1999 he number of federally-insured banks and savings institutions has collapsed from a total of 10,220 to 4,978 as of March 31, 2021
But the decline in the number of overall banks fails to capture the gargantuan concentration of assets at just four banking behemoths: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank. According to the March 31, 2021 report from the Federal Reserve, just four banks own $9 trillion in assets of the total $22.56 trillion in assets owned by all 4,978 federally-insured banks and savings associations in the country.
To put it more poignantly, those four banks represent just 0.08 percent of all the banks in the country while controlling 40 percent of the assets.
In short, the Fed has effectively seized control of the nation’s economic future, transferring wealth from the farms, small businesses and factory floors of America to the trading floors on Wall Street, forcing the working class, in order to survive, to go deeper and deeper into debt on credit cards – which are conveniently owned by these same banks.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but the largest bank of all, JPMorgan Chase – which has racked up an unprecedented five felony counts from the U.S. Department of Justice in the last seven years for money laundering and rigging markets – owns $3.2 trillion of those assets while serving as custodian of a mind-numbing $29 trillion of other people’s assets.
In short, the Fed has effectively seized control of the nation’s economic future, transferring wealth from the farms, small businesses and factory floors of America to the trading floors on Wall Street, forcing the working class, in order to survive, to go deeper and deeper into debt on credit cards – which are conveniently owned by these same banks."
"According to the Fed’s own data, it has approved 3,576 bank mergers, while denying zero merger applications, since January 1, 2006.
since 1999 he number of federally-insured banks and savings institutions has collapsed from a total of 10,220 to 4,978 as of March 31, 2021
But the decline in the number of overall banks fails to capture the gargantuan concentration of assets at just four banking behemoths: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank. According to the March 31, 2021 report from the Federal Reserve, just four banks own $9 trillion in assets of the total $22.56 trillion in assets owned by all 4,978 federally-insured banks and savings associations in the country.
To put it more poignantly, those four banks represent just 0.08 percent of all the banks in the country while controlling 40 percent of the assets.
In short, the Fed has effectively seized control of the nation’s economic future, transferring wealth from the farms, small businesses and factory floors of America to the trading floors on Wall Street, forcing the working class, in order to survive, to go deeper and deeper into debt on credit cards – which are conveniently owned by these same banks.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but the largest bank of all, JPMorgan Chase – which has racked up an unprecedented five felony counts from the U.S. Department of Justice in the last seven years for money laundering and rigging markets – owns $3.2 trillion of those assets while serving as custodian of a mind-numbing $29 trillion of other people’s assets.
In short, the Fed has effectively seized control of the nation’s economic future, transferring wealth from the farms, small businesses and factory floors of America to the trading floors on Wall Street, forcing the working class, in order to survive, to go deeper and deeper into debt on credit cards – which are conveniently owned by these same banks."
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Super Mario is hot
It's a game made by Nintendo. On Friday, an unopened copy of Super Mario 64 sold at auction for $1.56 million.
It was the best-selling game on the Nintendo 64 and the first to feature the Mario character in 3D.
I guess Nintendo produces games people love. An unopened copy of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda sold at auction Friday for $870,000. A few months ago the auction house sold an unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. that was bought in 1986 and forgotten about in a desk drawer for $660,000.
It was the best-selling game on the Nintendo 64 and the first to feature the Mario character in 3D.
I guess Nintendo produces games people love. An unopened copy of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda sold at auction Friday for $870,000. A few months ago the auction house sold an unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. that was bought in 1986 and forgotten about in a desk drawer for $660,000.
Monday, July 12, 2021
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Collective Effervescence
Today's NY times has an interesting article on this topic, which is about what makes us happy. Here are some excerpts I found interesting:
"Research has found that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others as when they’re alone. Even exchanging pleasantries with a stranger on a train is enough to spark joy. That’s not to say you can’t find delight in watching a show on Netflix. The problem is that bingeing is an individual pastime. Peak happiness lies mostly in collective activity."
"We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field. And during this pandemic, it’s been largely absent from our lives."
"Collective effervescence happens when joie de vivre spreads through a group. Before Covid, research showed that more than three-quarters of people found collective effervescence at least once a week and almost a third experienced it at least once a day. They felt it when they sang in choruses and ran in races, and in quieter moments of connection at coffee shops and in yoga classes."
"But as lockdowns and social distancing became the norm, there were fewer and fewer of these moments."
"As some countries start to reopen, collective effervescence will happen naturally — and it already is." Psychologists find that in cultures where people pursue happiness individually, they may actually become lonelier. But in cultures where they pursue happiness socially — through connecting, caring and contributing — people appear to be more likely to gain well-being. happiness lives in the kinds of moments that we celebrated in the early days of Covid, when people found solidarity singing together out their windows in Italy, using dish soap to turn their kitchen floors into treadmills in Brazil, and clapping and banging pots with spoons to honor essential workers around the world."
"Research has found that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others as when they’re alone. Even exchanging pleasantries with a stranger on a train is enough to spark joy. That’s not to say you can’t find delight in watching a show on Netflix. The problem is that bingeing is an individual pastime. Peak happiness lies mostly in collective activity."
"We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field. And during this pandemic, it’s been largely absent from our lives."
"Collective effervescence happens when joie de vivre spreads through a group. Before Covid, research showed that more than three-quarters of people found collective effervescence at least once a week and almost a third experienced it at least once a day. They felt it when they sang in choruses and ran in races, and in quieter moments of connection at coffee shops and in yoga classes."
"But as lockdowns and social distancing became the norm, there were fewer and fewer of these moments."
"As some countries start to reopen, collective effervescence will happen naturally — and it already is." Psychologists find that in cultures where people pursue happiness individually, they may actually become lonelier. But in cultures where they pursue happiness socially — through connecting, caring and contributing — people appear to be more likely to gain well-being. happiness lives in the kinds of moments that we celebrated in the early days of Covid, when people found solidarity singing together out their windows in Italy, using dish soap to turn their kitchen floors into treadmills in Brazil, and clapping and banging pots with spoons to honor essential workers around the world."
What do you think?
Saturday, July 10, 2021
Friday, July 09, 2021
Thursday, July 08, 2021
Wednesday, July 07, 2021
Tuesday, July 06, 2021
Be careful where you sit
A man in Austria woke up at about 6 and, naturally, visited his toilet. After sitting down he “felt a ‘nip’ in the genital area.” He looked in the toilet and, lo and behold, saw a 5-foot python.
The reptile, which apparently escaped from a neighbor’s apartment and may have slithered through the drains, was cleaned and handed back to its owner.
The man's next door neighbor has 11 non-venomous constrictor snakes and a gecko in his apartment, in terrariums and drawers. The snake apparently had escaped unnoticed from the neighbor's apartment.
A reptile expert was called to retrieve the snake, which was returned to his owner. The victim sustained only minor injuries, police said.
Monday, July 05, 2021
Women in the military in the Ukraine
Women soldiers practicing for the Ukrainian Independence Day parade. The photo has generated a lot of protests by both women and men; it's likely the high heels will not be worn.
High heels have been part of dress uniform regulations in place since 2017. And, in retaliating against the protesters, the military issued photos of women from other countries — including what appeared to be the United States — wearing heels during military events.
Sunday, July 04, 2021
Was this the "world's most extreme heatwave in modern history?"
A couple of meteorologists think so. Meteorologist Bob Henson and former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane scientist Jeff Masters have said, "Never in the century-plus history of world weather observation have so many all-time heat records fallen by such a large margin than in the past week's historic heatwave in western North America."
The deaths in British Columbia last week included 500 "sudden and unexpected" deaths, which are believed to be connected to the record temperatures that the region has suffered in recent days. Ninety percent of the small village of Lytton in British Columbia was destroyed by the fires that accompanied the heat wave, which reached 121 degrees on Tuesday.
And then NOAA said that 55 U.S. stations had the highest temperatures in their history in the week ending June 28; "More than 400 daily record highs were set. Over the past year, the nation has experienced about 38,000 daily record highs versus about 18,500 record lows, consistent with the 2:1 ratio of hot to cold records set in recent years."
The deaths in British Columbia last week included 500 "sudden and unexpected" deaths, which are believed to be connected to the record temperatures that the region has suffered in recent days. Ninety percent of the small village of Lytton in British Columbia was destroyed by the fires that accompanied the heat wave, which reached 121 degrees on Tuesday.
And then NOAA said that 55 U.S. stations had the highest temperatures in their history in the week ending June 28; "More than 400 daily record highs were set. Over the past year, the nation has experienced about 38,000 daily record highs versus about 18,500 record lows, consistent with the 2:1 ratio of hot to cold records set in recent years."
Saturday, July 03, 2021
Friday, July 02, 2021
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