“The prospects of another round of coronavirus relief appeared even more grim Wednesday after a call between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin moved them no closer to cracking a stalemate,” CNBC reported on Aug. 12, 2020. Recap: House Democrats passed [...]
Archive for August, 2020
August 12th, 2020 - 9:00 pm § in Misc.
Books: Compact War Histories
These excellent books are histories of entire wars condensed to a single, easy-to-read volume. Written by reputable historians and similarly formatted: They analyze causes, strategies, and battles in chronological order with maps. This makes them handy reference guides; you can read the whole book, [...]
August 12th, 2020 - 6:04 pm § in Politics
Florida sheriff’s office mask ban
Political grandstanding and law enforcement don’t mix. But it happens when top cops are elected, as most sheriffs are, and isn’t new. Latest example: Sheriff Billy Woods of Marion County, in north-central Florida, has decreed that masks won’t be worn in his office. Not by sheriff&#[...]
August 12th, 2020 - 3:10 am § in Politics
Why Biden chose Harris, and what it means
Compiled from news sources and commentaries, with my own insights and observations Joe Biden probably picked Kamala Harris as his running mate partly because he’s not taking the November election for granted, even though he currently leads in polls. In that respect, Harris was “the stron[...]
August 11th, 2020 - 11:48 pm § in Misc.
Disgusted with city council, Seattle’s female black police chief quits
Carmen Best, Seattle’s personable and popular police chief, is done with the Seattle City Council and will retire after a 28-year career with the Seattle Police Department and two years as chief during a tumultuous period of BLM protests. Best said she wasn’t intimidated by the protester[...]
August 11th, 2020 - 10:38 pm § in Racism
Klansman gets 6 years for plowing into protesters
A Virginia Klan leader and “propagandist for Confederate ideology” who revved his engine before plowing into BLM protesters, then reportedly boasted, “they scattered like cockroaches. It’s kind of funny if you ask me,” got 6 years in prison on misdemeanor charges of assault[...]
August 11th, 2020 - 3:00 am § in Politics
Could Lindsey Graham lose?
RealClearPolitics rates the race a “tossup” For the first time in years, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has a “credible” who’s “an exceptionally well-funded, politically connected, centrist Democrat who is forcing election observers to wonder if South Carolina might, [...]
August 10th, 2020 - 11:40 pm § in Donald Trump
Query: How many times has Trump been wrong about Covid-19?
Answer: Every time. “First Trump said the pandemic would not take hold of the United States, but it did.” “Then he said it would simply disappear and it didn’t.” “Then the President said it was safe to open state economies before the pathogen was fully under cont[...]
August 10th, 2020 - 6:58 pm § in Schools & Colleges
The reasons for going to college and what you learn there
This is a draft, which I’ve written based on my memory of experiences long ago, and it’s still being revised, so bear with me. I may leave things out, get others wrong, or be out-of-date. I’m sure college has changed in some ways; I suspect it has become easier, because most people[...]
August 10th, 2020 - 2:28 pm § in Misc.
Windstorms ravage Iowa, Illinois
A line of severe thunderstorms with 100+ mph winds, known in weather parlance as a “derecho” (from a Spanish word), rumbled across Iowa and northern illinois on Monday, Aug. 10, 2020, destroying homes, damaging croplands, and leaving over a million people without power. Iowa’s gove[...]