Thursday, September 03, 2020

It's Happening! 5 Butterflies so far! More hatching soon.

 



43 comments:

  1. Senate Report Shows What Mueller Missed About Trump and Russia [Click] “At nearly 1,000 pages, the Senate report is by far the best and most thorough examination of the Trump-Russia story to date, and puts the narrower and more legalistic Mueller Report to shame.” “The report reveals the true nature of the counterintelligence threat posed by a president willing and eager to accept the help of a foreign adversary to win American elections.” And yes, he engaged in sexual hanky-panky, and the Russian government knew about it.

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    1. How long before it is available on Amazon?

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    2. ...and Audible?

      Actually, I wonder if the NLS will record it. They do sometimes put out important government reports.

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    3. Oops--there is a link on the fifth line of the Intercept article to the entire article!

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    1. Donald Trump, Then and Now
      September 3, 2020 By Taegan Goddard

      “If you told a Republican to vote twice, they’d get sick at even the thought of it.”

      — President Trump, in May.

      “If you get the unsolicited ballots… send it in early, and then go and vote.”

      — Trump, to his supporters yesterday.

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    2. Like I've always said, he doesn't so much lie as open his mouth and wait to hear what comes out. Somehow, though, I doubt a court of law would make much of the distinction.

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  3. Another good reason to vote for Bernie (not that more is needed): he uses the subjunctive case!

    “Oh that it were, but it’s not.”

    — Bernie Sanders, when asked on MSNBC about President Trump’s characterization that Joe Biden has adopted his “socialist agenda.”

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    1. Subjunctive, like Indicative, is a mode.

      Yes, indeed, Bernie is a pleasure to listen to. He speaks in full, well formed, well turned sentences. And it goes without saying that what he says in those lovely sentences is intelligent, well thought out and motivating. I'll never understand why so many people hate him so much.

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    2. I'm quite certain that one of my grade-school English teachers spoke of the "subjunctive case," but that was a long time ago and perhaps I misremember; or perhaps she was mistaken. Grammatical "mood" or "mode" (Fowler says they are the same thing) is new to me, and I find it confusing. But evidently the subjunctive is indeed a type of grammatical mood or mode. Both case and subjunctive are nearly extinct in English as a practical matter. Although case is essential to understanding Latin and Anglo-Saxon (for but two examples), the more modern/evolved Indo-European languages are beasts of a different color. I learn something every day if I am not careful. Thanks, Cat. Here is a thread on the grammatical structure of “would that it were”? [Click] The discussion roughly approximates Fowler, albeit with far less detail. I find myself thinking that a college course in conversational Anglo-Saxon would be good fun, but I doubt such is on offer hereabouts.

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  4. I had cataract surgery on my right eye in February, but then the pandemic lock-down came. So I just got the left eye done last night. I went in for my post-op check-up and after finishing the eye chart reading I asked the nurse, "What did I do with my glasses?" And she said, "Um, you're wearing them."

    I just want to say that I totally blame trump, McConnell, Barr, DeJoy and Tucker Carlson for the hit my cognitive abilities have taken from living under constant and never-ending levels of stress the like of which I have not experience in more than thirty years.

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    1. I wish I could put all my decline at their feet. They _are_ to blame for all the email that is taking up so much of my time. But I really need to get busy and finish my book before I lose it completely.

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    2. Glad you got your surgery done, Susan.

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    3. Rock on, Susan! 😎

      We’re in the same soup. Whatever the central underlying cause, it’s exacerbated by the eejits. Maybe a better word is: exasperated?

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  5. OHIO: As of Thursday afternoon, there have been at least 127,112 confirmed or probable cases in the state, 4,226 deaths, and 13,663 hospitalizations, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

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  6. A new Quinnipiac poll in Florida shows Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race, 48% to 45% among likely voters.

    A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania shows Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the presidential race, 52% to 44% among likely voters.

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  7. Trump Consumed By Reports on His Health [Click] Even if he has to invent them. But this is not news.

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    1. I clicked through to the full article and thought it was worthwhile. I wonder if the Senate might remove Donald after the election; his madness might become even more manifest then.

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    2. It wouldn't surprise me. If he loses, he won't be able to cope. As to the Senate removing him, I shouldn't hold my breath, even if they have to cart him off to St. Elizabeth's. McConnell will still be in charge of the lame duck session, don't forget.

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    3. I don't expect that the Senate will put a can over Trump, even if it should become obvious that is the GOP's only hope of survival. Historical curiosity note: it is St. Elizabeths Hospital, not St. Elizabeth's, because the act officially establishing it omitted the apostrophe and was never corrected. Which reminds me that "Athens" is a plural. Dare I say that I think that may be obvious from the case in Latin? I don't remember exactly, but the agreement required among gender, case and number made it clear when I came across it in Latin. It is evidently the same in Greek, at least of the ancient variety.

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  8. Currently (1PM) temperature only 91F, AQI 78 ("Moderate"), reported visibility 3 miles, little blue in the sky. As we were walking this morning, the sky cleared and was largely blue by the time we finished. Warm but not hot, nice little breeze. The smoke does seem to have increased since then. As we were walking we encountered a neighbor who was getting ready to take a jaunt in one of his airplanes. I speculated that he might have to get up above four thousand feet to get out of the smoke; he said that when he was returning from Oregon last week he had to climb to 11,000 feet to do so.

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    1. Oh, and I didn't need to wear an N95 mask while walking this morning, which is a notable improvement since yesterday.

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  9. The Pandemic Has Created a Class of Super-Savers [Click]


    A Stranger Helped My Family at Our Darkest Moment [Click] This is in ways the exact opposite of the previous column—but in ways the same.

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  10. The Economist: It’s Nearly Impossible to Steal an Election In the U.S. [Click] I’m not sure of that, but it’s at least a lot harder to do so now than it used to be.

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  11. A new Morning Consult poll in Colorado finds John Hickenlooper (D) leading Sen. Cory Gardner (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 39%.

    In the presidential race, Joe Biden leads Donald Trump, 51% to 41%.

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  12. Generation Work-From-Home May Never Recover [Click] “The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices.” This is interesting, but I never worked in an office, so it doesn’t connect well.

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    1. But you worked in a lab, didn't you, Alan?

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    2. There is a paragraph that essentially says, "People are different." But it's not clear how seriously the author takes that.

      For me, I first set up a home office in 1978. (I'd previously been an academic.) Then I got an office job for six years before becoming freelance again. It did take a bit of adjustment, including finding substitutes for the in-person office interactions, but I adapted. The author never seems to think about these adaptations.

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  13. VT: 1637 (+0?)
    58 deaths (29 days)
    152 active cases
    Recovered:1436 (+1)
    In Hospital 1 ( 0)
    Tests 140,882 (+1786)

    It took me awhile to parse out the numbers today, because the official tally said +7 cases but the total was the same as yesterday! Turns out that yesterday's numbers were adjusted down by 7, before today's +7 were added.

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  14. We did our main weekly grocery shopping today in the early afternoon. We expected that there would be a lot more and busier shoppers than usual, preparing for their holiday super-spreader barbecues and other get-togethers, but that wasn't the case. It was rather light to begin with, then increased a bit. We didn't see anybody heading out of Costco with an oversize TV set, either. Wouldn't there normally be some sort of big ball games on TV this weekend, probably Monday?

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  15. I just checked the makeup of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly (provincial parliament/legislature) and see it hasn't changed since I last looked a couple of years ago. The Liberals are the conservative party, the New Democratic Party is the big leftist party, and they are very close to 50% of the seats each. The Green Party, although very small, can control the balance of power. My cousin up there tells me that their riding is represented by a Green, who has done well for them. Sounds like my kind of place. But with the Cascadia Fault nearby, I think I would take disaster preparedness very seriously.

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