Thursday, November 26, 2020

In The News (20)

Groupthink Has Left the Left Blind A constricted view of the world leaves progressives surprised by the world as it is.

IVANKA TRUMP WAS MY BEST FRIEND. NOW SHE’S MAGA ROYALTY We met at an all-girls school on the Upper East Side and were inseparable for more than a decade. Gradually, though, our differences divided us—“Why would you tell me to read a book about fucking poor people?” she once asked—and I watched her blow up her carefully curated image of refined privilege to embrace her father wholesale. 

Pfizer to seek Covid-19 vaccine approval 'within days' as trial shows 95 percent efficacy "With hundreds of thousands of people around the globe infected every day, we urgently need to get a safe and effective vaccine to the world," Pfizer said.

In Georgia, a Republican Feud With Trump at the Center Double-crossing. Accusations of lying and incompetence. And a bitter divide over whether to endorse President Trump’s false claims of fraud. The G.O.P. in Georgia has a messy feud unfolding, with two Senate seats up for grabs.

शव व्यवस्थापनमा सेना : मुस्किलको घडीमा मलामी

गल्ती कमजोरीको गम्भीर समीक्षा गरौं, समय नलम्ब्याऔं : माधव नेपाल

पार्टीभित्रै आरोप लागेपछि ओलीलाई हटाउनैपर्छ : बाबुराम भट्टराई

महाधिवेशनतिर अग्रसर कांग्रेस, विवाद भने कायमै

China-Australia relations: Canberra reached out to Beijing at ‘every possible level’, minister says Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham reiterated claims that the ‘ball is in China’s court’ in their ongoing trade dispute Canberra will not change positioning on human rights issues, after China said statements on issues like Hong Kong and Xinjiang are fraying ties

China’s R&D, tech investment inflows show deepening global economic integration despite US decoupling push Incoming foreign direct investment to China rose for a seventh consecutive month in October to US$12.4 billion, despite rising geopolitical tensions Investment in China’s hi-tech service industry led the way in the first 10 months of the year, while money flowing to the industrial sector slowed

China now has the nuclear strength to hit back at a first strike, former PLA colonel says The military has built an ‘underground Great Wall’ of tunnels to hide and move its arsenal of ballistic missiles, Wang Xiangsui tells Moganshan forum The defences add up to a credible ability to mount a second strike, resulting in a deterrent effect, he says

Coronavirus hunters pick up another piece of the trail in Italy New research suggests the pathogen infected people across the country months before it was detected in China Antibodies specific to the coronavirus were found in blood samples from lung cancer screening tests going back to September last year

French president takes China rhetoric off the table in low-key meeting with US Secretary of State Pompeo Macron is among world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden on winning US election but meets key Trump administration member on post-election tour Global security and terrorism among subjects discussed as Macron faces radical Islamists in his own country

Ant Group IPO resumption will depend on how company adapts to new fintech rules, CSRC official says International investors have reacted to the suspension of Ant’s IPO ‘quite well’ Fang Xinghai says Ant’s dual listing in Hong Kong and in Shanghai was expected to be the biggest fundraising on record

Here’s Why People Are Calling Elon Musk a “Space Karen” "What's bogus is that Space Karen didn't read up on the test before complaining to his millions of followers." ....... “Two tests came back negative, two came back positive,” the mercurial billionaire tweeted on November 13. “Same machine, same test, same nurse.”

UN OFFICIAL WARNS OF “FAMINES OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS” IN 2021  WFP head David Beasley told The Associated Press that the agency needs to raise $5 billion just to avert global famine, and another $10 billion to feed malnourished children around the world. Otherwise, he said, “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.” 

This Pandemic Board Game From 2017 Is Almost Too Perfect for 2020 The impossible, made possible: A timely board game, that's fun as hell.

What’s Ahead for the U.S. Economy?  “When your R is bigger than 1, you get explosive growth,” Ricco said. “Our analysis shows that the number of states where R is greater than 1 — in that danger zone — is almost near 50 right now. It’s a pretty dire situation.” ....... “We’re basically stuck in neutral right here until the virus is suppressed.” ........ over the 10-year budget window of 2021–2030, the Biden platform would raise $3.375 trillion in additional tax revenue and increase spending by $5.37 trillion. .......... Over a 10-year period, the largest new revenue-raisers in the Biden tax plan are the corporate tax ($1.4 trillion), payroll taxes ($992.8 billion) and individual income taxes ($944 billion). Over that same period, the two biggest areas of new net spending would be education ($1.9 trillion) and infrastructure and R&D ($1.6 trillion). ...............  “It’s the older rich people that don’t like Biden’s world,” he noted. “They face a lot of taxes, and they don’t get a lot of benefits from the spending program. At the other end, the lower-income folks really do like Biden’s world.” ....... Almost 80% of the increase in taxes under the Biden tax plan would fall on the top 1% of the income distribution. ......... 75% of the tax falls on capital owners and 25% falls on workers in the form of lower wages over time. ............ the top 0.1% of households, who will experience a bump from 30.6% to 43% if the tax changes are implemented in 2021. ......... The education plan, which will boost spending by $1.9 trillion over 10 years, includes provisions for universal pre-K schooling, two years of debtless college education and free public college for students from low-income families. The infrastructure and R&D plans totaling $1.6 trillion cover investments in water infrastructure, high-speed rail, clean energy R&D, 5G and artificial intelligence. ...................... In health care, the study estimated that Biden’s proposals would lower average prescription drug prices by about 60%, by allowing consumers to import those drugs from abroad and for Medicare to negotiate prices. .......... A stimulus focused on lower-income people who are more likely to consume that money will prove more effective

Beyond Philanthropy: How Corporate America Can Advance Racial Equity




In The News (19)

Hong Kong opposition activist Joshua Wong put in solitary confinement with lights on 24 hours a day, after X-ray reveals ‘a shadow’ in his stomach Wong put in single cell in medical ward and source says he is to be there for several days The 24-year-old was remanded in custody in Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre on Monday
‘प्रचण्डलाई फेरि महानायक बन्ने अवसर छ’ ‘प्रचण्ड र माधव कमरेडबीचको उच्च तहको सहकार्यले कम्युनिस्ट आन्दोलनलाई बचाउँछ’
Douglas Stuart Wins Booker Prize for ‘Shuggie Bain’ The autobiographical novel, about the lonely gay son of an alcoholic mother in 1980s Scotland, was one of four debut books in this year’s shortlist.
Lockdowns Aren’t Funny. But You’ve Still Got to Laugh. In theaters before the second shutdown, and online once playhouses were closed, actors and comedians have tried to cheer up France. 


Mnuchin’s Inglorious Endgame The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to curtail the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending programs is a gamble with no upside.
America Is Letting the Coronavirus Rage Through Prisons It’s both a moral failure and a public health one.
Saudi Arabia and Human Rights Activists Fight Over Kingdom’s Image at G-20 As the summit’s host, the kingdom hopes to showcase its advances, while critics see an opportunity to pounce. But the virtual event will have a lower profile.

At Wharton, a New Leader Confronts the Culture Wars Erika James recently took over the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Already, she is enmeshed in debates about race, politics and the role of business in society. ..........  Diversity and inclusion, inequality, climate change, immigration and, more broadly, the role of business in society are all part of the conversation, in the boardroom and the classroom. ..........  I’ve spent the past 20 years looking at the dark side of the business. There is never a shortage of case studies to study or to write about. .......  We’re going to have coursework and reading material and discussions on corporate social responsibility. We have to. ............. We don’t all necessarily need to agree on everything, but we do need to understand how to engage with and respect the views and opinions and beliefs of all of our community members. I think business schools are struggling with that, as are companies. ............. In 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, the galvanizing efforts of C.E.O.s and executives is unlike anything that I had ever seen before. ............. when you’re the best, it is very easy to become complacent ........ There just aren’t a lot of us.

‘No One Is Listening to Us’ More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this.

In The News (18)

My Covid-19 Bubble Is Enormous Getting together with family for Thanksgiving without quarantining beforehand is like “bringing a loaded pistol for Grandma’s head” .......... “You’re going to say ‘Hi’ at Thanksgiving, ‘It’s so nice to see you,’” he said in a recent briefing, and then “you’re either going to be visiting her by FaceTime in the I.C.U. or planning a small funeral by Christmas.” 

The Lady and the Trump Unfeeling royals offer no respite from unfeeling Republicans. .......... this country is shot to hell and running on empty. ...... It’s outrageous that Congress left town for the holidays this weekend without passing Covid relief. ........  when Blair had to beg Queen Elizabeth to show more emotion ......... describes the palace as “a cold frozen tundra, an icy dark, loveless cave with no light, no hope, anywhere, not even the faintest crack.” ............. Dream on, Donald. Of his wooing, Diana told a friend, “He gives me the creeps.” Di, we know how you feel. 


Politics, Science and the Remarkable Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine The furious race to develop a coronavirus vaccine played out against a presidential election, between a pharmaceutical giant and a biotech upstart, with the stakes as high as they could get. ............  Few corporate competitions have unfolded with so much at stake and such a complex backdrop. 

‘प्रचण्डलाई फेरि महानायक बन्ने अवसर छ’ ‘प्रचण्ड र माधव कमरेडबीचको उच्च तहको सहकार्यले कम्युनिस्ट आन्दोलनलाई बचाउँछ’

It’s Time to Hunker Down A devastating surge is here. Unless Americans act aggressively, it will get much larger, very quickly. .......... Good news is arriving on almost every front: treatments, vaccines, and our understanding of this coronavirus. ........ Pfizer and BioNTech have announced a stunning success rate in their early Phase 3 vaccine trials—if it holds up, it will be a game changer. Treatments have gotten better too. A monoclonal antibody drug—similar to what President Donald Trump and former Governor Chris Christie received—just earned emergency-use authorization from the FDA. Dexamethasone—a cheap, generic corticosteroid—cut the death rate by a third for severe COVID-19 cases in a clinical trial. ............. We may soon get cheaper, saliva-based rapid tests that people can administer on their own, itself a potential game changer. .............  a devastating surge is now under way. And worse, we are entering this dreadful period without the kind of leadership or preparation we need, and with baseline numbers that will make it difficult to avoid a dramatic rise in hospitalizations, deaths, and potential long-term effects on survivors. ........... it’s not just confirmed cases that are on the rise. The United States is also experiencing a steep increase in hospitalizations, as well as about 1,500 reported deaths a day; those are the highest numbers since mid-May, and they are still rising sharply. ............. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine—or Moderna’s vaccine—may be available in the United States to health-care workers and other high-priority people as early as the end of this year. But it won’t be distributed widely until well into 2021, even in the best-case scenario—and the Pfizer vaccine needs two doses, about 21 days apart. ......... we desperately need to flatten the curve again before hospitals nationwide are overrun ............ The bottleneck for medical care isn’t just lack of space, or even equipment, which we may be able to increase, but staff—trained nurses and doctors who can attend to patients, and who cannot be manufactured out of thin air. ........... Fewer nonurgent but important surgeries, more overworked medical staff, and overburdened emergency rooms could all contribute to worsening health outcomes for many other viruses that peak in winter months, like influenza, as well other ordinary medical conditions. ................ This seasonality is not a huge surprise, which makes our lack of preparation even more tragic. The 1918 flu pandemic saw an earlier, milder wave in the spring; a lull in the summer; and a deadlier surge starting in the fall. Other coronaviruses endemic to us are also sharply seasonal, tending to peak in winter. This may be because the humidity and temperature conditions of fall and winter favor the virus more. It may also be because we spend more time indoors during the winter. Most likely, it’s a combination, along with other factors (less vitamin D? less light?). Whatever the causes, public-health experts knew a fall and winter wave was a high likelihood, and urged us to get ready. But we did not. ....................... Once the numbers are this large, it’s very easy for them to get much larger, very quickly—and they will. When we start with half a million confirmed cases a week, as we had in mid-October, it’s like a runaway train. Only a few weeks later, we are already at about 1 million cases a week, with no sign of slowing down. ................ We are barely nine or 10 months into this pandemic, and we have not experienced a full-blown fall or winter season. Everything that we may have done somewhat cautiously—and gotten away with—in summer may carry a higher risk now, because the conditions are different and the case baseline is much higher. ............... More people at the grocery store will be positive. A casual gathering of friends may be harder to hold outdoors. Even transmission from surfaces may pose a higher risk now, because lower humidity levels may improve the survivability of the virus. ......................  any gathering outside one’s existing quarantine pod should be avoided for now—especially if it is indoors. ....................  Pods should not expand unless absolutely necessary. .............. Shop in bulk, so you can do fewer trips to the store. ........... Many colleges are ending school and sending students home, for what could be a country-wide super-spreader event. ........... It might also be time for ordinary people to consider using higher-quality masks (N95s and KN95s)—something that public-health experts have long recommended. ............ As long as they are put on and taken off carefully (use hand sanitizer before and after), such masks are reusable after being left in a paper bag or breathable container for at least five days ..........  We are no longer in the open-ended, dreadful period of spring 2020, when we did not know if we’d even have a vaccine, whether any therapeutics would work, and whether we’d ever emerge from the shadow of this pandemic. We can see the cavalry coming, but until it’s here, we need to lock ourselves down once again.

How Many Americans Are About to Die? A new analysis shows that the country is on track to pass spring’s grimmest record. ............  the virus has, with ruthless regularity, killed at least 1.5 percent of all Americans diagnosed with COVID-19 over the past four months. .............. predicting the virus’s death toll in the near term has become a matter of brutal arithmetic: 150,000 cases a day, times 1.5 percent, will lead to 2,250 daily deaths. .................. In the spring, an enormous outbreak hit the New York metro area, infecting perhaps 20 percent of all New Yorkers, more than 1.6 million people. But up through mid-May, as the initial outbreak wound down, fewer than 200,000 cases were confirmed with PCR tests. (Almost 16,000 people had died in New York City alone by then.) ............... three out of four infections still go unconfirmed. ..............  How many people might die during the third surge? ........... the lagged case-fatality rate has averaged 1.8 percent since August ............ Every 100,000 cases would mean roughly 1,800 dead Americans a few weeks later. ............. the country would hit an average of 2,000 deaths a day on November 30. ......... For all our talk of better treatments and more widespread testing, we do not yet see evidence that those factors have led to major declines in the death rate over the past three months. ........... the standard of care is likely to fall in places experiencing major surges. Treatment of severe COVID-19 is an intricate and laborious process; understaffed and exhausted units are unlikely to sustain the level of care that has improved the case-fatality rate. ............. the entire state of Iowa is now out of staffed hospital beds, with more than 3,000 cases being diagnosed every day. ............... The pandemic is out of control and many, many people are dying. The longer we continue along our current path, the higher the death toll will rise.




‘No One Is Listening to Us’ More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this. ........... health-care workers do not have the luxury of looking away: They’re facing a third pandemic surge that is bigger and broader than the previous two. In the U.S., states now report more people in the hospital with COVID-19 than at any other point this year—and 40 percent more than just two weeks ago. ................  Some health-care workers told me that COVID-19 patients are the sickest people they’ve ever cared for: They require twice as much attention as a typical intensive-care-unit patient, for three times the normal length of stay. ...............  Hospitalizations lag behind cases by about two weeks; by Thanksgiving, today’s soaring cases will be overwhelming hospitals that already cannot cope. “The wave hasn’t even crashed down on us yet,” Perencevich said. “It keeps rising and rising, and we’re all running on fear. The health-care system in Iowa is going to collapse, no question.” .............. This cumulative knowledge means that death rates from COVID-19 are much lower now than they were in the spring. Flattening the curve worked as intended, giving health-care workers some breathing room to learn how to handle a disease that didn’t even exist this time last year. ............. If death rates have fallen thanks to increasing medical savvy, they might rise again as nurses and doctors burn out. ............ Every day, they’ll need to be flipped onto their stomach, and then onto their back again—a process that requires six or seven people. They’ll have several tubes going into their heart and blood vessels, administering eight to 12 drugs—sedatives, pain medications, blood thinners, antibiotics, and more. All of these must be carefully adjusted, sometimes minute to minute, by an ICU nurse. None of these drugs is for treating COVID-19 itself. “That’s just to keep them alive,” Neville, the Iowa nurse, said. An ICU nurse can typically care for two people at a time, but a single COVID-19 patient can consume their full attention. Those patients remain in the ICU for three times the length of the usual stay. ............... a third pandemic surge that is bigger and broader than the previous two. .................. Nurses and doctors are also falling sick themselves. “The winter is traditionally a very stressful time in health care, and everyone gets taken down at some point” ............  The third COVID-19 surge has intensified this seasonal cycle, as health-care workers catch the virus, often from outside the hospital. ...........  “but now the entire nation is on fire.” No one has reinforcements to send. ...........  COVID-19 has eaten away at the emotional core of their work. “To be a nurse, you really have to care about people,” Neville said. But when an ICU is packed with COVID-19 patients, most of whom are likely to die, “to protect yourself, you just shut down. You get to the point when you realize that you’ve become a machine. There’s only so many bags you can zip.” .............. across the country, doctors and nurses have struggled with the same anxieties as everyone else—loneliness, extra child-care burdens, the stress of a tumultuous year, fear. “The lines between our personal lives and our careers have completely gone” ...............  “I’ve had conversations with people who’ve been nurses for 25 years, and all of them say the same thing: ‘We’ve never worked in this environment before’” ...........  As hard as the work fatigue is, the “societal fatigue” is harder ........... He is tired of walking out of an ICU where COVID-19 has killed another patient, and walking into a grocery store where he hears people saying it doesn’t exist. ............ The next months will be bleak. .......... ending a steady stream of gaslighting and misinformation from the federal government itself. ............ Biden will inherit a health-care system that is battered at best and broken at worst, a polarized electorate, and many local leaders who are doubling down on bad policies. Trump won Iowa by eight points ...........  the best strategy remains the obvious one: Keep people from getting infected at all. ...... Once again, the nation must flatten the curve. This need not involve a lockdown. We now know that the coronavirus mostly spreads through the air, and does so easily when people spend prolonged periods together in poorly ventilated areas. People can reduce their risk by wearing masks




Sunday, November 22, 2020

In The News (17)

U.S. Passes 12 Million Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Cases of COVID-19 are rising at an alarming rate in nearly every state as the nation approaches Thanksgiving. The cumulative case count passed 12 million on Saturday, six days after the previous million mark was crossed, which was six days after the previous million........ To avoid an even starker increase in the spread of the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging people to not travel for Thanksgiving at all. The CDC says Thanksgiving should be spent only with people actively living in your own household for at least 14 days before the holiday, advice many medical professionals are echoing.   




सावधान ! मधुमेहका रोगीलाई कोरोनाले छिटो संक्रमण गर्न सक्छ ! महामारीमा मधुमेह रोगीको स्वास्थ्य अवस्था झन जटिल बन्दै : वीर अस्पतालका मधुमेह रोग विशेषज्ञ डाक्टर दीपक मल्ल
Elon Musk: First Mars City Will Start With Glass Domes "At least a future spacefaring civilization — discovering our ruins — will be impressed humans got that far." 
100 Notable Books of 2020 The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review

Trump Using Last Days to Lock In Policies and Make Biden’s Task More Difficult At a wide range of departments and agencies, Mr. Trump’s political appointees are going to extraordinary lengths to try to prevent Mr. Biden from rolling back the president’s legacy.

US coronavirus cases top 12 million. An expert says spread is now 'faster' and 'broader' than ever November already accounts for almost a quarter of all Covid-19 cases ......... the real case count is likely to be "multitudes" higher than the 12 million reported because not enough people are getting tested. ......... more than 50% of Covid-19 infections are spread by people who exhibit no symptoms. .......... a negative test result will not guarantee a person isn't carrying the virus to a Thanksgiving gathering, because a test won't necessarily pick up on fresh infections .............. in the 24 counties that required people to wear masks in public, there was a net decrease of 6% in cases. Meanwhile, in counties without the mandate, the disease continued to surge, with a net increase in cases of about 100%. 

Bill Gates on his WFH schedule during the pandemic, including what he likes about it  he hasn’t been to a physical office since March. .......... Now, “it’s a simpler schedule.” .......... traveling can also disrupt “being thoughtful,” as well as his reading time and even his sleep quality ............. These days, Gates said, he has mostly been reading about the pandemic ........... Gen-Z adults, those ages 18 to 23, reported the highest levels of stress during the pandemic compared to other generations.  

Here’s what President-elect Joe Biden wants to include in a coronavirus stimulus bill It is possible that Democrats could take control of the Senate when Georgia hosts a runoff election for two seats in January, potentially making it easier to pass a bill. ......... millions of people could lose unemployment benefits altogether by December 31, 2020 and housing advocates warn about an impending eviction crisis if more relief isn’t made available. ........ he will work with Congress to extend the extra $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits that expired at the end of July for “however long this crisis lasts.” ......... Biden has advocated making all testing and treatment for Covid-19 free for everyone, including any possible vaccines. 

Biden calls for Congress to pass another coronavirus relief package. But there’s no sign of a stimulus deal as holidays approach  Biden said he supports a stimulus package like the HEROES Act, the $3 trillion relief package passed by House Democrats in May, that included provisions for enhanced unemployment benefits, a second stimulus check, aid for state and local governments and housing relief. He also noted that sick leave and more money for child care are economic imperatives 

What's next for the Trump show? "They don't want the ride to end," when Trump leaves office. .........  focusing instead on his TV star bona fides and his packed rallies. "He is," declared Ruddy, "a very great TV personality." ........... Trump has been building his persona since his early days in New York City, when, before completing a single building project, he sold himself as a rich, sexy and much sought-after young man. "He looks ever so much like Robert Redford," a New York Times reporter gushed in 1976. Over time, celebrity became Trump's main product. As Donald Trump played Donald Trump on TV and at public events, he netted hundreds of millions of dollars more in some years than he earned in his real estate business ............. Trump's true money-making talent lies in media and not real estate .......... Trump ran for President in 2016 not to gain office but to increase his visibility ......... The campaign was a "political infomercial" ...... $2 billion worth of free publicity as the press became transfixed by his tirades and insults ............ allowed Trump to expand his fan base to include 70 million voters and 90 million followers on Twitter. ............ From the Trump family's perspective, January 20, 2021 need not mark not an end, but a beginning. To quote Kimberly Guilfoyle, "The best is yet to come!"

When the World Seems Like One Big Conspiracy Understanding the structure of global cabal theories can shed light on their allure — and their inherent falsehood........ at its heart, Nazism was a global cabal theory based on this anti-Semitic lie: “A cabal of Jewish financiers secretly dominates the world and are plotting to destroy the Aryan race. They engineered the Bolshevik Revolution, run Western democracies, and control the media and the banks. Only Hitler has managed to see through all their nefarious tricks — and only he can stop them and save humanity.” ...........  Global cabal theories argue that underneath the myriad events we see on the surface of the world lurks a single sinister group. .............. Global cabal theories are able to attract large followings in part because they offer a single, straightforward explanation to countless complicated processes. Our lives are repeatedly rocked by wars, revolutions, crises and pandemics. But if I believe some kind of global cabal theory, I enjoy the comforting feeling that I do understand everything. ............ The skeleton key of global cabal theory unlocks all the world’s mysteries and offers me entree into an exclusive circle — the group of people who understand. It makes me smarter and wiser than the average person and even elevates me above the intellectual elite and the ruling class .............. The key premise of global cabal theories is that it is relatively easy to manipulate the world. .............. Particularly remarkable is this group’s ability to see 10 moves ahead on the global board game. .............. it is incredibly difficult to predict and control human affairs. ......... Lenin, for example, would never have won power in Russia by avoiding the public gaze. And Stalin at first was much fonder of scheming behind closed doors, but by the time he monopolized power in the Soviet Union, his portrait was hanging in every office, school and home from the Baltic to the Pacific.  









Friday, November 20, 2020

In The News (16)

Detailed Turnout Data Shows How Georgia Turned Blue By Nate Cohn, Matthew Conlen and Charlie SmartNov. 17, 2020 Democrats have long dreamed of turning Georgia blue, with young voters and nonwhite voters leading a progressive charge. Now, a blue Georgia is a reality, but with a winning coalition that might have stunned the party not that long ago. ......... Republican candidates won more votes than Democrats in the state’s two Senate contests, even as President Trump was defeated at the top of the ticket. ............ the relatively low Black share of the electorate could mean that Democrats have the potential for a better showing, perhaps even in the two Senate runoffs in January. ............. Over all, Mr. Biden ran well ahead of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing in well-educated, wealthy and increasingly diverse precincts around Atlanta, while making relatively few gains elsewhere in the state.  





Groupthink Has Left the Left Blind A constricted view of the world leaves progressives surprised by the world as it is.   ....... Trump once again stunned much of the liberal establishment by dramatically beating polling expectations to come within about 80,000 votes of another Electoral College victory. .......... The old liberal left paid attention to complexity, ambiguity, the gray areas. A sense of complexity induced a measure of doubt, including self-doubt. The new left typically seeks to reduce things to elements such as race, class and gender, in ways that erase ambiguity and doubt. The new left is a factory of certitudes. ......... Trump won a majority of the vote of white women against both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. ......... He also improved his vote share over 2016 with both Latino and Black voters, while losing most of the advantage he previously had with college-educated white males — precisely the demographic his policies had supposedly done most to favor. ............. “Trump did a much better job at understanding Hispanics. Sometimes, Democrats see Hispanics as monolithic.” Latino voters in his South Texas district were particularly turned off by progressive rhetoric about defunding the police, opposition to fossil fuels and decriminalizing border crossings. .......... People are rarely reducible to a single animating political consideration. Nor should they be subject to a simple moral judgment. Motives are complicated ..................  the unemployment rate reached record lows before the pandemic hit   


American health care workers issue a call to arms for wearing masks as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the United States, breaking records nearly every day for deaths — and cases — in state after state. ........... the frustration felt by some of the nation’s health care workers over the refusal of so many Americans to wear masks ..........  It’s a call to arms. “We put our lives on the line daily to keep you safe. So, do something for us. Wear. A. Mask,” the caption reads.  

Hospitals Know What’s Coming “We are on an absolutely catastrophic path,” said a COVID-19 doctor at America’s best-prepared hospital. ........... One unit solely provides “comfort care” to COVID-19 patients who are certain to die. “We’ve never had to do anything like this,” Angela Hewlett, the infectious-disease specialist who directs the hospital’s COVID-19 team, told me. “We are on an absolutely catastrophic path.” ..............  “We’re watching a system breaking in front of us and we’re helpless to stop it,” says Kelly Cawcutt, an infectious-disease and critical-care physician. ............ “I don’t see how we avoid becoming overwhelmed,” says Dan Johnson, a critical-care doctor. People need to know that “the assumption we will always have a hospital bed for them is a false one.” ............. What makes this “nightmare” worse, he adds, “is that it was preventable.” The coronavirus is not unstoppable, as some have suggested and as New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, and Hong Kong have resoundingly disproved—twice. Instead, the Trump administration never mounted a serious effort to stop it. Whether through gross incompetence or deliberate strategy, the president and his advisers left the virus to run amok, allowed Americans to get sick, and punted the consequences to the health-care system. And they did so repeatedly, even after the ordeal of the spring, after the playbook for controlling the virus became clear, and despite months of warnings about a fall surge. .............   UNMC’s preparations didn’t fail so much as the U.S. created a situation in which hospitals could not possibly succeed. “We can prepare over and over for a wave of patients,” says Cawcutt, “but we can’t prepare for a tsunami.” ...........  with the third national surge, “all the trends have gone out the window,” Sarah Swistak, a staff nurse, told me. “From the 90-year-old with every comorbidity listed to the 30-year-old who is the picture of perfect health, they’re all requiring oxygen because they’re so short of breath.” ................  UNMC is struggling not because of any one super-spreading event, but because of the cumulative toll of millions of bad decisions. ..........  When the hospital first faced the pandemic in the spring, “I was buoyed by the realization that everyone in America was doing their part to slow down the spread,”  Johnson says. “Now I know friends of mine are going about their normal lives, having parties and dinners, and playing sports indoors. It’s very difficult to do this work when we know so many people are not doing their part.” The drive home from the packed hospital takes him past rows of packed restaurants, sporting venues, and parking lots. ................ the Midwest has taken entirely the wrong lesson from the Northeast’s ordeal. Instead of learning that the pandemic is controllable, and that physical distancing works, people instead internalized “a mistaken belief that every curve that goes up must come down,” he said. “What they don’t realize is that if we don’t change anything about how we’re conducting ourselves, the curve can go up and up.” ............... some of the people who get infected over Thanksgiving will struggle to enter packed hospitals by the middle of December, and be in the ground by Christmas. .................  Patients with strokes and other urgent traumas aren’t getting the normal level of attention, because the pandemic is so all-consuming. ........... “many of us feel like we haven’t had a day off since this thing began” ........ people with COVID-19 are far sicker than the average patient. In an ICU, they need twice as much attention for three times the usual stay. To care for them, UNMC’s nurses and respiratory therapists are now doing mandatory overtime ............... “I used to be able to leave work at work, but with the pandemic, it follows me everywhere I go,” she said. “It’s all I see when I come home, when I look at my kids.” ............. Long and other nurses have told many families that they can’t see their dying loved ones, and then sat with those patients so they didn’t have to die alone. Lindsay Ivener, a staff nurse, told me that COVID-19 had recently killed an elderly woman whom she was caring for, the woman’s husband, and one of her grandchildren. A second grandchild had just been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19. “It just tore this whole family apart in a month,” Ivener said. “I couldn’t even cry. I didn’t have the energy.”  



Thursday, November 19, 2020

In The News (15)





China GDP: Xi Jinping says ‘completely possible’ to double size of economy by 2035, despite foreign hostility China can become a high-income country by 2025 and double size of economy by 2035, President Xi Jinping says Xi also says the country can rely on its domestic market for growth as the world grows less friendly .........  double the size of its economy, as well as per capita income, by 2035

Barack Obama: ‘I could not have a trade war’ with China due to global financial crisis Former US president Barack Obama explains that he was ‘hamstrung’ on dealing with China’s trade policies by global economic meltdown Obama says he ‘had to make sure we did not start a trade war that tipped the world into a depression’, on the back of the global financial crisis of 2008-09 ...... China’s role in the global economic recovery from the crisis, caused in large part by defaults on subprime mortgages in the United States, “hamstrung” his ability to tackle China’s “mercantilist policies that violated international trade rules”, Obama said in remarks made to the The Atlantic, which expanded on similar themes in his new book, A Promised Land.

Abandoning its loose approach to virus controls, Sweden clamps down. “Don’t go to the gym, don’t go the library, don’t have dinner out, don’t have parties — cancel!” .......... While Sweden’s number of Covid-19 deaths still pales in comparison to those of some European countries like Italy or Spain, it is more than 10 times higher than in Finland or Norway. Over the past five days, Sweden has recorded more than 15,000 new infections and Mr. Lofven warned that “it will get worse.”  

The Coronavirus Is Airborne Indoors. Why Are We Still Scrubbing Surfaces? Scientists who initially warned about contaminated surfaces now say that the virus spreads primarily through inhaled droplets, and that there is little to no evidence that deep cleaning mitigates the threat indoors. .......... All over the world, workers are soaping, wiping and fumigating surfaces with an urgent sense of purpose: to fight the coronavirus. But scientists increasingly say that there is little to no evidence that contaminated surfaces can spread the virus. In crowded indoor spaces like airports, they say, the virus that is exhaled by infected people and that lingers in the air is a much greater threat. ............  Hand washing with soap and water for 20 seconds — or sanitizer in the absence of soap — is still encouraged to stop the virus’s spread. ......... Viruses are emitted through activities that spray respiratory droplets — talking, breathing, yelling, coughing, singing and sneezing. .......  the virus could stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhaled — particularly in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation. .......... the coronavirus could spread by air in any indoor setting ........ indoor aerosol transmission could lead to outbreaks in poorly ventilated indoor places like restaurants, nightclubs, offices and places of worship. .......... transmission of infectious respiratory droplets was the “principal mode” .........  coronavirus droplets could spread through air vents in offices  

McDonald’s Is Making a Plant-Based Burger; You Can Try It in 2021 One of those options is plant-based foods, and not just salads and veggie burgers, but “meat” made from plants. Burger King was one of the first big fast-food chains to jump on the plant-based meat bandwagon, introducing its Impossible Whopper in restaurants across the country last year after a successful pilot program. Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts) uses plant-based patties in its Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwiches. ......... McDonald’s announced last week that it will debut a sandwich called the McPlant in key US markets next year. Unlike Dunkin’ and Burger King, who both worked with Impossible Foods to make their plant-based products, McDonald’s worked with Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat, which makes chicken, beef, and pork-like products from plants.  ......... customizing the items displayed on the drive-thru menu based on the weather and the time of day, and recommending additional items based on what a customer asks for first (i.e. “You know what would go great with that coffee? Some pancakes!”). ......  Drive-throughs, shouting your order into a fuzzy speaker with a confused teen on the other end, and burgers made from beef? So 2019.

China Macro Economy 


Monday, November 16, 2020

In The News (14)



Karl Rove to helm massive GOP fundraising drive for Georgia runoffs Rove is serving as national finance chair for a joint fundraising effort between the NRSC and Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. ......... Haley is also seen as a likely 2024 presidential contender. ....... the fund, which was formed by NRSC chair Todd Young, took in nearly a quarter of its overall goal since it was launched last week. 

I Was a Military COVID Planner. The Vaccine Rollout Is Going to Be a Nightmare. WHAT CAVALRY? Our long winter with COVID could turn into a slog through the spring and summer, even with an effective vaccine. ........... The incoming administration will inherit one of the most daunting challenges any president has ever faced: planning and executing a national mass-vaccination campaign in the middle of a global pandemic. ........... With cases spiking to over 10 million, the virus is everywhere, and spreading deeply into every corner of the country. ............. in 2019, Texas budgeted $17.7 million for infectious disease surveillance, prevention, and epidemiology—and over $400 million for border security. So even when a vaccine is delivered, it will be going to a state that is understaffed and underfunded. .............  The Pfizer vaccine, now the leading contender, will require ultra-cold storage of at least -94 degrees Fahrenheit and two rounds of shots. Another leading vaccine candidate from Moderna also requires cold storage, albeit not to the same extent, according to the company. Typically, hospitals and large clinics have this capability. Small towns lacking even the most basic health clinics do not. .............. An uncoordinated federal roll out of vaccines requiring ultra-cold storage could leave state and local governments competing for resources much like they were competing for PPE earlier in the pandemic. .......... it just isn’t realistic to think the military can replicate the hard work of state and local health-care planners. ....... Instead of a military miracle, it will take nearly flawless coordination between local, state, and the federal government to execute the plan. Our long winter with COVID could turn into a slog through the spring and summer even with an effective vaccine. ...........  One can also hold out hope that a successful vaccination campaign can begin to restore America’s tattered faith in its public institutions. Either way, the people in isolated, underserved communities from rural Texas to hallowed-out manufacturing cities to the overwhelmed Dakotas deserve our best shot.

Fauci says Biden transition is key to quick distribution of Covid vaccine  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the "incompetent" Trump administration has not "thought through" the vaccination distribution process. ........  by the end of December, there will be doses of vaccines available for people in the high-risk category from both Pfizer and Moderna ..... "The vaccines are effective. We want to get it approved as quickly as we possibly can. We want to get doses to people starting in December, and then we want to really get the ball rolling as we get into January, February and March," Fauci said.

‘We could effectively end this pandemic in 2021’ with Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines Both Pfizer and Moderna are using mRNA-based vaccines, a new technology that uses genetic material to generate an immune response.   

Sunday, November 15, 2020

In The News (13)

The Pandemic Is Showing Us How Capitalism Is Amazing, and Inadequate Why big business needs big government and vice versa.

What Democrats Are Up Against in Georgia The Senate contenders face not just Republicans but also the state’s political history, which shows that change doesn’t come easy.........  Georgia has almost 160 counties, second in number only to the state of Texas. The story goes that the legislature carved out small counties so that a farmer in a mule-drawn wagon could make it to the courthouse and back in a single day. The real consequence was that under Georgia’s county-unit system, the more rural counties there were, the more leverage they would have against urban interests in Atlanta. ........... The field general of the conservative culture wars of the 1990s was a Georgia Republican, Representative Newt Gingrich, who played a singular role in bringing forth the scorched-earth tactics of the modern Republican Party.  ...........  “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty,” Mr. Gingrich told the Georgia College Republicans in 1978 during his third, and ultimately successful, race for Congress. “We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire, but are lousy in politics.”  ......... What Mr. Gingrich pioneered in culture-war politics Mr. Trump has escalated. Two days after Election Day, Donald Trump Jr. was in Georgia at a rally outside Republican Party campaign headquarters, castigating Republicans who did not defend his father’s specious claims of fraud. ............. Two Democratic victories would not only give Democrats control of the Senate but could also help turn the page on Donald Trump’s influence in American politics.

The Evolving Travel ‘Experience’: Virtual, Actual and In Between Socially distanced craft classes, virtual tango lessons, a city tour accompanied by an avatar guide: how experience companies — which now include Amazon — are adapting to the pandemic.

How to Have Better Family Meals 

Biden Can’t Be F.D.R. He Could Still Be L.B.J. He has the power to make transformational progress look like “C’mon Man” common sense. Will he use it? 

How the Polls Got the Election Wrong, According to One Pollster Who Got It Right

COVID-19 Is Out of Control. What Can We Do? We need a one-two punch to knock the virus down and then keep it down.

सहरभरि शंकास्पद संक्रमित उपत्यकाका मेयरहरुलाई गृहमन्त्रीले भने , ‘लकडाउन गर्ने योजना बनाउँदैछौं ।’

Japan’s New Leader Sets Ambitious Goal of Carbon Neutrality by 2050 The announcement, coming weeks after a similar pledge by China, will require a major overhaul of the infrastructure in Japan, which remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels.


A New Breakthrough Just Brought City-Wide Quantum Communication Into Reach


In The News (12)

Smart Concrete Could Pave the Way for High-Tech, Cost-Effective Roads  Of the 614,387 bridges in the US, for example, 39 percent are older than their designed lifetimes .......... The cost to repair and improve nationwide transportation infrastructure ranges from nearly US$190 billion to almost $1 trillion. ......... These new systems self-monitor the condition of roads and bridges quickly and accurately and can, sometimes, even repair themselves. ............. At an early stage of a crack, for example, self-healing pavement would activate super absorbent polymers to absorb water and produce concrete-like material that fills in the crack. Cracks as small as a few microns could be healed to prevent significant damage by preventing or delaying the later stages of the freeze-thaw cycle.  


You Can Buy This Electric Car for $7,999 in California

Why We Need a Collective Vision to Design the Future of Health

This Coronavirus Surge Does Not Have to Be So Horrific America is entering a difficult period. But the outcome is not foregone. ........... The nation is entering its third, and potentially most dreadful, coronavirus surge. Earlier this month, the daily nationwide case count reached 100,000 for the first time. On Thursday it passed the 160,000 mark. Hospitalizations are at their highest point yet. Unlike previous surges, there is no epicenter. The virus is spreading everywhere. ............ Death isn’t the only bad outcome of contracting the coronavirus. Debilitating symptoms can last for months, and some doctors worry they may lead to permanent disability. Also, lower death rates are contingent on a high standard of care, which will be difficult to maintain across the country as case counts grow. In any case, death tolls are a lagging indicator. ................. “It’s like we survived the Titanic............Now we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg and pretending that the tip is the whole thing.” ........... If Americans want to get the current surge under control through this long, dark winter, they need to skip indoor gatherings, including for the holidays. They need to avoid nonessential travel. They must wear face masks in all public places. They all need to practice social distancing. They need to quarantine when they think they’ve been exposed to the virus and isolate if they get a positive test result, even if no symptoms emerge.  

Here’s How Trump’s Stalling Risks Our National Security I’ve seen my share of presidential transitions. The administration hurts the country by not cooperating with President-elect Biden. ........... Tragically, but not surprisingly, Mr. Trump appears determined to take a final wrecking ball to our democracy and  national security on his inevitable way out the door.

China-Led Trade Pact Is Signed, in Challenge to U.S. The deal sealed on Sunday stands as a potent symbol of Beijing’s growing economic sway in Southeast Asia at a time of uncertainty over Washington’s economic ties with the region.

Before ‘I Have a Dream,’ Martin Luther King Almost Died. This Man Saved Him. The untold story of the patrolman who took charge when the civil rights leader was stabbed in Harlem.

Economic Demands Test Biden Even Before Inauguration With the recovery slowing and coronavirus cases surging, Democrats must decide whether quick action on federal aid is more important than its scale.

Newton’s Daunting Masterpiece Had a Surprisingly Wide Audience, Historians Find The discovery suggests that “Principia” had a stronger impact on Enlightenment science than previous research suggested............ It had a reputation for unreadability. ......... First editions of the Principia, the scholars say, today sell for between $300,000 and $3,000,000 on the black market and at auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. They estimate that the book’s first edition consisted of some 600 and possibly as many as 750 copies — hundreds more than the 250 or so that historians had previously assumed.




In The News (11)

Was Reagan a Precursor to Trump? A New Documentary Says Yes “The Reagans,” a new Showtime docu-series, presents Ronald Reagan as an early practitioner of dog-whistle politics. But some historians and journalists disagree with that position...............  a glorified actor who won election with a coded racist appeal to white voters ........... The episode opens with 40-year-old footage of Reagan in Mississippi, affirming his support for “states’ rights” at a county fair filled with white voters. ............. his 1980 campaign slogan — “Make America Great Again” .......... the parallels between a movie star and a reality television star, both of whom knew how command the attention of the American public and the media. .............. the notion of Reagan as an early practitioner of dog-whistle politics, a member of the generation of politicians who used coded appeals directed at an attuned audience of white voters. .................. “Reagan is the antithesis of Trump in so many ways,” he added. “He was uniformly courteous and nice and decent to people. Trump, by the way he acts, has made us see that human decency in a political leader is important. Second, he was a compromiser. He always said that he was willing to take half a loaf. He got legislation through because of that.” ..............  the former president’s invocation of states’ rights was halfhearted, buried midway into his speech, inserted at Lott’s suggestion. (And to what end? Reagan barely squeaked by Jimmy Carter in Mississippi.) ................ impressed that this former actor clocked in for the 60-second advertisement at 57 seconds ........... “What was really astonishing to me was seeing how much film there was of Reagan in the act of dog whistling,” Tyrnauer said. “And some of his dog whistles at the time would be considered foghorns today.” ................. The coronavirus crisis is not his first experience with either a pandemic or a president who failed to deal with one: Reagan largely ignored the deadly AIDS epidemic during its early years, and the documentary presents this as one of his most consequential failures as president. ...................... Tyrnauer argues that Reagan has been protected by historians, Republicans and journalists because of his political success and likability.  

Padma Lakshmi: Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris Moved Me to Tears Imagine how wide the ripples of impact can be when a woman of color is vice president. ...........  When I first came to this country at age 4 from India, walking around New York City, I was excited to see all kinds of people — with different colors of skin, styles of dress and ways of moving through the world. But slowly I became aware of a different world, through magazines and TV, where almost everyone was white. ........... I figured out how to navigate the time a boy called me the N-word when I was 11; and navigate the times I auditioned for acting roles in my 20s, only to be told they weren’t “going ethnic”; and navigate the times in my 30s when I didn’t know to negotiate full credit for my work. ............... Over the summer, I learned that Ms. Harris’s mother’s family comes from the same city in India as my family. Her grandparents lived right around the corner from mine in the Besant Nagar area of the city of Chennai. Our grandfathers might have strolled together in the same walking group of retirees on Elliot’s Beach. ...................  President Trump’s attacks on women, on people of color and on immigrants feel personal to us. As he allows a pandemic to run rampant in our country and even threatens our democracy, it feels like a betrayal that so many Americans persist in supporting him. His vitriol encourages those who hate us. In comments under my Instagram and Twitter posts, people frequently tell me, “Go back to your country.” .............. The Trump era she is ending empowered people to show their racism nakedly, in slights and jeers and acts of violence.  

A Republican Senate Would Be Bad for Business What’s bad for America would be bad for corporations, too. ...........  Corporate interests appear to imagine that they will flourish under a Biden presidency checked by Republican control of the Senate. ......... Divided government is all too likely to mean paralysis at a time when we desperately need strong action. ..........  Despite the vaccine news, we are still on track for a nightmarish pandemic winter ........... I’m not sure how many people realize just how ruinous a prospect we’re facing for the next few months. .......... By the time Biden is finally inaugurated we may well be having the equivalent of a 9/11 every day. .........  In addition to bringing death as well as long-term health damage for many survivors, the exploding pandemic will bring immense economic hardship. ............ What we need, clearly, is a very large-scale program of disaster relief, providing families, businesses and, not least, state and local governments with the help they require to avoid financial ruin until a vaccine arrives. And you might think that a Republican Senate would be willing to work with the Biden administration on such an obviously necessary program. That is, you might think this if you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past 12 years. ..................  The good news is that the misery will abate when we finally have widespread distribution of a vaccine. In fact, we’ll probably see a sharp jobs recovery late next year. .................  We desperately need to spend trillions on repairing our crumbling infrastructure, caring for our children and meeting the urgent need for action against climate change. .......... given where we are, divided government would mean paralysis in a time of crisis, which could very well be catastrophic for everyone. The truth is that even in its own interests, the big money should be rooting for Democrats in those Georgia runoffs.

 


In The News (10)

Are Cities Our Greatest Invention?  the cities that spread across the Indus Valley in today’s Pakistan were watery Edens: They had no temples or palaces but granaries, assembly halls and systems for sewage and water that may instead have been the sacred centers of the communities’ lives. ................. Hell was Babylon, or what it stood for — the “original Sin City,” rife with the unsavory aspects of urbanity decried since at least 2000 B.C. A line from the Hebrew Bible might easily have appeared in a recent political ad: “Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!” Ditto the 18th-century writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau describing the city as “depraved by sloth, inactivity, the love of pleasure.” .............. Dinocrates of Rhodes imposed a grid of streets on the anarchy of the Greek public space, making Alexandria encyclopedic; irregular Athens, by contrast, was “spontaneous and experimental.” When Romans conquered the world, they brought their built environment with them, like a subdivision to the wilderness. Bathing, Wilson argues, made the barbarous clean, Roman and urban. ..................  The author links Baghdad’s messier, more organic development with a dynamism that generated some of the ideas it took Europe centuries to comprehend. .........  Into the 1600s, Amsterdam made a kind of meta-trade of urbanization, with the government connecting corporations, banks and merchants to create the world’s first securities market and its attendant financial devices. Forwards and futures, hedges and margin-buying were inventions Amsterdamers classified as windhandel, or trading in the wind, as opposed to trading something tangible. .................   Friedrich Engels called Manchester’s poor neighborhood “Hell upon Earth.” Ideologues that came to be known as the Manchester School believed their free trade policies would lead to a world harmony that — spoiler alert! — has yet to arrive. ......................   Tenochtitlan, bigger than Paris in the 1500s ............... Crucial to Lisbon’s conquest of land and bodies were the papal bulls that granted Portugal the right to, in 1455, take slaves and then, in 1493, to “discover” land — lay claim, in other words, to territory inhabited by non-Christians. .................  in a chapter titled “Annihilation,” which compares Hitler’s destruction of Warsaw to the American bombing of Tokyo. In landscapes of horrific violence, the most damaged communities find creative ways to survive.   


Abby Phillip Is Next-Gen CNN In an election dominated by fast-talking policy dudes, her deliberate commentary and context stood out. ..........  And while “Donald Trump’s political career began with the racist birther lie,” she continued, “it may very well end with a Black woman in the White House.” ............ and asked Mr. Trump if he hoped Mr. Whitaker would tamp down on the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. “What a stupid question that is,” he said. “What a stupid question. I watch you a lot, you ask a lot of stupid questions.” ............. “He insults a lot of people and a lot of the time, the insults aren’t true.” 

The Post-Presidency of a Con Man Out of office, Trump might seem a lot less formidable.  .......... It’s hard to tell whether Donald Trump is attempting a coup or throwing a tantrum. ...........  most of the money is actually going to a PAC, Save America, that “will be used to underwrite Mr. Trump’s post-presidential activities.” ........ Trump is considering starting a digital media company to undermine Fox News, which he now regards as disloyal. ............ and will be a favorite for the party’s nomination in 2024. ........ “If he runs in 2024, he’ll certainly be the front-runner, and then he’ll probably be the nominee.” ........... he’s personally on the hook for $421 million in debt, most of it coming due in the next four years. If a long fight with the I.R.S. goes against him, he could owe at least $100 million more. ...........  There are several examples of once-formidable right-wing leaders reduced to footnotes after leaving office.

Trump Floats Improbable Survival Scenarios as He Ponders His Future There is no grand strategy. President Trump is simply trying to survive from one news cycle to the next. 

‘Women’s Work’ Can No Longer Be Taken for Granted New Zealand is pursuing a century-old idea to close the gender pay gap: not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value. ......... Instead of “equal pay for equal work,” supporters of pay equity call for “equal pay for work of equal value,” or “comparable worth.” They ask us to consider whether a female-dominated occupation such as nursing home aide, for instance, is really so different from a male-dominated one, such as corrections officer, when both are physically exhausting, emotionally demanding, and stressful — and if not, why is the nursing home aide paid so much less? ................ the gender pay gap remains a feature of nearly every economy on earth. ............. caring for elderly people was just as demanding and dangerous as better-paid jobs mostly performed by men, including, notably, prison guards .......... other female-dominated occupations, including midwives, social workers and school support staff ........... Economics 101 says wages are set by the intersection of a supply curve and a demand curve — if demand for say, data scientists is high, and there aren’t enough of them to fill the available roles, data scientists will have more pricing power over their wages. But in the real world (and, sometimes, in Economics 201), most people recognize that wages encapsulate a host of other factors: monopoly and monopsony (buyer’s monopoly) power, the quirks of a given firm or institution, and, most relevant to pay equity, social beliefs about the relative value of a job. These social beliefs inevitably intersect with biases like racism and sexism, which then manifest in ways both formal and informal. ............... Most job evaluation methodologies ignored what the sociologist Arlie Hochschild called “emotional labor” — adjusting one’s feelings in order to competently perform a job ................ pay equity, when done properly, challenges us to think deeply and objectively about a job and its components. This can be a messy process, one that requires unlearning decades of bias about gender and work, as well as political good will and a spirit of collaboration. ............  What skills are being deployed to, say, deal with someone who is angry and doesn’t want to be there, and several hours later, with someone who is needy and crying, all while maintaining meaningful boundaries? To describe this capacity to navigate “these emotionally complex situations — how to be both emotionally present but not emotionally enmeshed,” as Ms. Ross put it, the group eventually came up with the term “emotional dexterity.” .............  hesitated to classify “listening” as a skill, arguing that anyone can listen ..............  active listening entails not just hearing, but also picking up on what goes unsaid, the way things are said and what that means in context .............. air traffic controllers, for example, “operate within a highly codified environment,” which reduces the need for interpersonal skills.) ..................  problem-solving skills, physical demands, interpersonal skills and emotional demands .................  many social workers found the analysis of their work “more valuable” than the pay raise itself ................ Several New Zealanders pointed to the unanimous vote on the pay equity law as an important sign of where the public had moved on the issue. .......... The thing that so many of today’s most underpaid and essential workers have in common is simply that they are women. ............   New Zealand’s experience in the coming years will serve as an experiment in what happens when an entire society, led by a feminist prime minister, decides, in effect, to say yes. 






In The News (9)

Powerful Aide to Boris Johnson Quits in Britain, Report Says Dominic Cummings, who masterminded the Brexit campaign in 2016 and helped vault Mr. Johnson into office, resigned amid fierce infighting. 

London Police to Recruit 40% of Officers From Minority Backgrounds The Metropolitan Police also announced a review of all road traffic stops, as Commissioner Cressida Dick acknowledged that her force was “not free from racism or discrimination.” ......... The London Metropolitan Police will aim to hire 40 percent of new recruits from Black, Asian, and other minority backgrounds by 2022, Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Friday ......... the Metropolitan Police should be more inclusive; work more closely with local communities; and gain the trust of minorities, who are treated differently than white Londoners.  ....... Mr. Khan said that the Black Lives Matter protests this summer had highlighted the need to change the perceptions of the police ....   the goal was for 16 percent of the force to be from minority backgrounds by 2022, and 28 percent by 2030 ......... officers will also review footage from body cameras to identify potential patterns in the use of stop-and-frisk tactics, and how de-escalation methods could be used more frequently. 

How Exercise Might Affect Immunity to Lower Cancer Risk Working out may enhance the immune system’s ability to target and eradicate cancer cells, a study in mice suggests. ...........  highly active people were found to be much less likely to develop 13 different types of cancer than people who rarely moved.   

Trump Remade His Party and the World He transformed both the Republican coalition and the way other countries see America. His legacy will be with us for generations.  


Why Trump is suddenly replacing Pentagon officials with loyalists It seems scary, but the answer may be simpler than you think.




घरघरमा ‘अनियन्त्रित’ फैलिएको कोरोना संक्रमण : कहाँ चुक्यो नेपाल ? अब गर्ने के ? कतै वरदान त कतै अभिशाप बन्यो लकडाउन, के यो समयको बर्बादी मात्रै हो ?

Election Showed a Wider Red-Blue Economic Divide Some partisan differences were scrambled, but places with brighter future prospects swung toward Biden.

Biden Wants to Be the Climate President. He’ll Need Some Help From Xi Jinping. The U.S.-China relationship is at its lowest point in a half century, but there are also converging interests on global warming.........  Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi, though, are locked in a very difficult relationship that makes climate cooperation a bit like a couple in divorce court trying to plan their child’s wedding. ............. The countries represent the two biggest economies, two leading military powers and the two biggest sources of the climate problem, together producing 40 percent of the greenhouse gases that currently go up into the atmosphere and heat the planet to dangerous levels. ............ and nudging other major emitters — India, Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil — to do their part. .......... There’s conflict over trade. China’s human rights abuses are hard for Washington to ignore, and growing nationalist sentiment in both countries makes diplomacy politically tougher. ........ climate change offered Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi a real opening to work together. .......... could spur healthy competition over clean energy technology and, in turn, drive down prices of renewable power for the rest of the world. ............. China would have to peak its carbon emissions by 2025, five years earlier than the country has promised, and phase out coal by 2040 in order to keep global temperatures close to the upper limits laid out in the Paris Agreement. ............. China’s addiction to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, which supplies the bulk of the country’s electricity despite its expansion of solar and wind power. ............. Four of the world’s top coal-plant builders are Chinese. 




2020 Shows Why the Electoral College Is Stupid and Immoral It doesn’t just distort presidential elections. It infects the entire political process.