Thursday, April 30, 2020

Mmmm...Cake...as April folds...


21 comments:

  1. Covid-19 crisis will wipe out demand for fossil fuels, says IEA [Click] “Renewable electricity may be only source to withstand biggest shock in 70 years.” Very impressive.

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    1. Very good point! Solar creates energy when it’s sunny, no matter what humans are doing. The wind still blows.

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    2. Seems to me it is extremely optimistic to think the current situation will change anything long term. The fossil fuel companies still have all but bottomless pockets and they still have their bought-and-paid-for members of Congress. Ordinary people may see the sense in and necessity for switching to renewables, but it's never gonna happen. Even with big coal dying before our eyes, the fossil fuel lobby is simply too powerful.

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    3. The quote Alan posts refers to the short term. The IEA is predicting a long-term impact, but it will be smaller. At least in the US, coal was already on its way out. And note, as the article does, that "fossil fuel" companies are not limited to producing fossil fuels.

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    4. Much of the alleged value of oil companies is in purported reserves of oil valued at market prices that will not be seen again for years, if ever. I expect that they have borrowed heavily against those now "stranded assets."

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    5. I was going to respond by coining the phrase "There is a God."

      Y'know, it just may be that Mother Nature is God. At very least, they're in cahoots!

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    6. I was talking with God about that just yesterday, and She agrees.

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  2. “Coronavirus cases are still rising in the District of Columbia, where more than 200 people have died of the disease. The House decided it was too dangerous to return to the Capitol. But Mitch McConnell’s Senate is coming back anyway,” Politico.com reports. [Click]

    “The Senate majority leader is gambling that 100 senators can safely meet on the Senate floor and throughout the Capitol complex. Many of them will travel across the country for the Senate’s reopening, risking exposure on airplanes and in airports. And 49 senators are aged 65 or older and at greater risk [from] the deadly disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Plus, the senators’ return will bring back hundreds of staffers and Capitol employees.”

    As memory serves me, symptoms may occur in as little as two days after infection, on average five days after, 90% in ten days and 97% in two weeks. I think I may reasonably expect that GOP senators may be somewhat less likely to maintain sanitary precautions than Democratic senators. This could throw a monkey wrench into GOP control of the Senate.

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    1. ". . .hundreds of staffers and Capitol employees” sounds like a serious underestimate. I'd expect something in the low thousands.

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    2. Can't staffers and Capitol employees refuse to go in to work? That is, they are salaried employees who get paid regardless, not wage and gig workers? And I should think the capitol employees would be unionized, which would give them another layer of protection, so to speak. My point being, surely noone can force these workers back, even if McConnell can browbeat his fellow senators.

      My senators are among those over sixty-five, and I don't want either one of them to contract Covid!

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    3. “The Capitol’s attending physician said Thursday that coronavirus tests will be available for staffers and senators who are ill, but not enough to proactively test all 100 senators as the chamber comes back in session,” Politico.com reports. [Click]

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  3. From The Guardian:



    Joe Biden’s campaign said he and Bernie Sanders had reached an agreement to ensure Sanders’ supporters and proposals are adequately represented at the party’s convention.

    Biden’s team argued the agreement, which involves supporters of Sanders filling some delegate slots to reflect the results of primarie, would help to bring the party together before the convention. The campaign also specified that Sanders’ supporters would be represented in the New York delegation, even though the state canceled its primary.

    Biden’s campaign said in a statement, “While Senator Sanders is no longer actively seeking the nomination, the Biden campaign feels strongly that it is in the best interest of the party and the effort to defeat Donald Trump in November to come to an agreement regarding these issues that will ensure representation of Sanders supporters and delegate candidates, both on the floor and in committees.”

    Sanders suspended his campaign earlier this month, but he had said he will remain on states’ ballots to continue to win delegates in order to influence the party’s platform at the convention.

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    1. Does anyone here believe what Biden says? Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't. Wouldn't believe him if he told me the sky was blue. And even if there has been an agreement come to, I don't trust him to abide by it.

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    2. "adequately represented" is in the eye of the beholder.

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    3. What really makes me angry and sad is that Biden seems to be getting away with sexual assault and DT has definitely gotten away with sexual assault, yet get to be President, while Bernie is the one of the three who hasn't assaulted women and his ideas for Medicare For All and free college tuition would have made this time we are in SO much easier. How can the nation not see all this and insist we have Bernie?

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  4. OHIO: 18,027 and 975 deaths.

    I strongly believe social distancing should be maintained for at least another month, but the oligarchs are hot to get the serfs back out there filling up coffers for them. As usual in our current society what is good for the rich overrules what is good for the people.

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  5. Red States Are Screwed, Too. [Click] “GOP leaders are acting as if they have an upper hand on this issue, because only Democratic strongholds like New York and Illinois are in trouble. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. . .
    “It’s unclear why, exactly, some Republicans appear convinced that only political entities that happen to be run by Democrats are about to experience a financial rout.”

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  6. Replies
    1. "An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"

      R. Kipling, "Manadalay"

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