Coronavirus News (292)

McConnell casts doubt on massive pre-Election Day stimulus deal as Pelosi sounds upbeat about talks with administration  Asked when Americans could expect relief amid the coronavirus pandemic if a deal isn't reached now, Clyburn replied, "When we change this administration." ........ In a test of competing proposals, a vote McConnell called Tuesday related to a standalone bill to extend the Paycheck Protection Program garnered a handful of Democratic votes but fell short of the 60 votes it would ultimately need to be adopted. And a separate vote pushed by Democrats on a House-passed comprehensive stimulus bill fell short of a majority. The Senate is set to vote Wednesday on a roughly $500 billion proposal, similar to one Democrats rejected this summer. It's also expected to fail.

Asean governments need a change of mindset if they want to follow Vietnam’s lead in attracting foreign investment Vietnam has become a hub for foreign direct investment in the past decade, with steady compound annual growth of 10.4 per cent between 2013 and 2019 Some may say this is thanks to its young labour force and proximity to China, but the appeal of a stable political environment cannot be underestimated .......... those countries with the strongest economic foundation have the best chance of emerging from the crisis intact. .......... Few countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) could claim to be as economically strong as Singapore. Yet there is one that has been quietly shoring up its resources and laying a solid foundation for growth.

China GDP: economy grew by 4.9 per cent in third quarter of 2020 China’s growth picks up from 3.2 per cent in the second quarter and a contraction of 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 Industrial production and retail sales grew by 6.9 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively from a year earlier as investment turned positive for the first time this year ............ The world’s second-largest economy has recovered strongly after shrinking by 6.8 per cent in the first three months of the year – the first official contraction since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 

With Covid-19 Under Control, China’s Economy Surges Ahead Exports jumped and local governments engaged in a binge of debt-fueled construction projects. Even consumer spending is finally recovering. .............  The United States and other nations are expected to report a third-quarter surge too, but they are still behind or just catching up to pre-pandemic levels. .......... China’s lead could widen further in the months to come. It has almost no local transmission of the virus now, while the United States and Europe face another accelerating wave of cases. ........... China’s model for restoring growth may be effective, but may not be appealing to other countries. Determined to keep local transmission of the virus at or near zero, China has resorted to comprehensive cellphone tracking of its population, weekslong lockdowns of neighborhoods and cities and costly mass testing in response to even the smallest outbreaks. .................  Under ordinary circumstances, most Chinese are compelled to save for education, health care and retirement because of a weak social safety net. 

McConnell warns White House against making stimulus deal as Pelosi and Mnuchin inch closer GOP leader suggests Democrats are not negotiating in good faith and could disrupt Supreme Court nomination ......... McConnell told reporters Tuesday that if a deal were reached and passed by the House with President Trump’s support, he would put it on the Senate floor “at some point” — but he did not commit to doing so before the election. .........  with the negotiators “several hundred billion” dollars apart and also at odds over the extent of state and local money. ........ Trump, for his part, has brushed aside complaints from Senate Republicans and said they will ultimately back a package if he tells them to. “It’s very simple: I want to do it even bigger than the Democrats,” Trump said. “They’ll be on board if something comes.”  

West lags East in curbing COVID

Biden Wants To Transform America

Coronavirus News (291)

An Undercover Trip Into the Rageful Worlds of Incels and White Supremacists online chat rooms where lonely men find succor in misogyny and white supremacy .......... the “social isolation and erotic frustration” that seemed to drive them ........ the language of extremists tends to occupy the space between risible and profoundly dumb .......... Contemporary white supremacy is a mishmash of old anti-Semitic tropes, racist pseudoscience and bizarre fantasia — what Lavin calls a “bigot’s pastiche.” ......... (Neo-Nazis famously love to use “88,” because the eighth letter in the alphabet is H, and 88 signifies “Heil Hitler”; I learned from Lavin’s book that some enterprising Christian neo-Nazis have also started using “83,” for an oxymoronic “Heil Christ.”) ............... Radicalization often happens online nowadays .........  American and European “accelerationists” who are trying to incite a race war. ......... “bigotry and Nazism should have a social cost.” ......... a cadre of “launderers” who repackage far-right ideas into edgy-but-not-quite-bannable videos that get them clicks and converts on YouTube. ......... “Let us hold it to the light — this wet, rotting, malodorous thing — and let it dry up and crumble into dust and be gone.”

Just Like You, Claire Messud Never Read ‘A Brief History of Time’  You know, often when you meet writers, they disappoint. There’s no reason for a brilliant writer to be good company. ......... Each of us has our own literary taste, just as in music or food. 

Reed Hastings, the Founder of Netflix, Keeps His Library in His Pocket   

Matthew McConaughey he knows there are people who think, “Gosh dang, McConaughey just eases right into everything — the guy doesn’t seem to have any bumps, doesn’t get hit crossing the road.” He said he wrote “Greenlights” partly as a corrective to this perception, to show how much effort it has taken to get where he is. ........... No one can escape hardship, he said, but he can share the lessons “that helped me navigate the hard stuff — like I say, ‘get relative with the inevitable’ — sooner and in the best way possible for myself.” ...........  “I’m still continuously testing and updating my philosophies, practically daily” ............  The book’s first chapter dramatizes a scene from 1974 where McConaughey watched the couple fight ferociously — his mother having broken his father’s nose with a telephone while he brandished a ketchup bottle — before his parents had sex on the kitchen floor. Image ........... “It’s a state of being that I work at, continuously, daily, and I break a sweat to get it.” ............ someone who is perpetually preparing himself for opportunities and actively steering himself toward them. .......... “People underestimate the utter intentionality of what Matthew’s done. He’s really good at going from A to B to C. He’s got a plan and he’s just brave enough and brazen enough to execute it.” ........... “He wasn’t discovered in a bar — he went over to the guy who he heard was casting it. Matthew’s always playing the long game.” ............. a practicing Methodist but also describes himself as “an optimistic mystic,” forever fine-tuning his personal dials in search of further broadcasts from the universe. ...............  That approach to existence has sent McConaughey hunting for what he calls “greenlights” — the traffic signals that mean go, which he prefers to spell as a single word and which he believes take skill and acumen to identify. ............   You’re making choices. They matter.” .......... “It’s his way of wanting to be heard on another level” ....... “It’s another level of communication that you can’t get in a role.” ..........  “Even the most powerful actors — Denzel Washington, Daniel Day-Lewis — are still at the mercy of the parts they’re being offered. Actors need these other outlets.” ............ “If you’re high enough, the sun’s always shining.” ............  (“Don’t leave crumbs”; “Dissect your successes”; “A roof is a man-made thing”). .............  “All of a sudden, my wife was like, ‘Get in the truck, load up your food, water and tequila, and don’t come back until you’ve got something,’” he recalled. “So, bam, I called a friend with a cabin and hit the desert.” .........  “Could this actually be a banner year, where things got started?” he asked. “Where we got cleansed? A little evolution would be nice.”

Doctors May Have Found Secretive New Organs in the Center of Your Head They appear to be a fourth pair of large salivary glands, tucked into the space where the nasal cavity meets the throat. ......... Any modern anatomy book will show just three major types of salivary glands: one set near the ears, another below the jaw and another under the tongue. “Now, we think there is a fourth” ......... we are in 2020 and have a new structure identified in the human body.”