Friday, August 7, 2020

 

Quarantine Day 143.

Today is a national holiday – Batalla de Boyacá.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got up once during the night, again at 4:30, gave up getting back to sleep at 5am so I got up.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 2 and losing 2. I was winning the 3^rd game when I lost my internet connection. (I took a photo of the message “You have lost your connection and your game will auto-resign in 60 seconds” and sent it to Juan Carlos asking for advice as to how to prevent this in the future.) I was winning the 4^th game when I lost on time. (On further analysis I had a mate in 1 at the time but missed it under time pressure.) I had the black pieces for 3 of my games. My rating stayed the same at 1250.

I went back to bed at 6am, finally fell asleep and woke/got up at 9am.

I beat Teresa 4 games to 3 in parcheesi.

I had a 2-hour chess lesson with Juan Castro. I asked him about my internet and he recommended I connect my laptop directly to the router.

 

A 56-year-old man with the coronavirus attending a single church service in Ohio led to the infection's spread to at least 91 other people across five counties.

Gov. Mike DeWine posted a graphic to his Facebook page Wednesday detailing how the virus spread over a three-week period from the date of the church service on June 14 to July 4.

"It spread like wildfire," the governor said at a news conference Tuesday where the graphic was displayed. "Very, very scary."

DeWine noted on his Facebook page, "All it takes is one person to cause tremendous #COVID19 spread."

 

James Patterson is exasperated. “I don't understand why President Trump can’t just bite the bullet and say, ‘Look - wear a damn mask. It will save lives.’ It’s so simple.” Tired of seeing the country caught up in a self-destructive debate about mask regulations, Patterson has launched his own “I Care About You” campaign. In a short, heartfelt video posted online, the best-selling writer tries to cut through the political quagmire by saying, “I wear a mask because I care about you. I care about you if you're a Republican. I care about you if you’re a Democrat.” He plans to run newspaper ads promoting masks too. 

Patterson's fervency on this subject has been heightened by a nonfiction book he's working on about the lives of nurses. “If you talk to nurses, you would wear a mask,” he says. He has no patience for libertarian resistance. “Not wearing a mask is the equivalent of driving around drunk and going through red lights,” he says. “That this can be political is just insanity”.

 

President Trump’s own intelligence officials just released a statement confirming something we all know: Russia is interfering in our election with the express goal of harming Trump’s opponent, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

But there’s another element to this surprise move that is also worth noting: In so doing, Trump’s intel officials made it a whole lot harder for Trump’s allies to push narratives they’ve been using to smear Biden.

In an interview, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said the new statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) confirmed the need for members of Congress to be extra-cautious about Russian efforts to manipulate them with disinformation.

“Members of Congress are on notice and need to be very careful not to advance narratives that may be coming from the Kremlin,” Schiff told us.

The new ODNI statement contains this judgment:

“We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia “establishment.” This is consistent with Moscow’s public criticism of him when he was Vice President for his role in the Obama Administration’s policies on Ukraine and its support for the anti-Putin opposition inside Russia. For example, pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach is spreading claims about corruption – including through publicizing leaked phone calls – to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party. Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television.”

 

The US has 4,821,668 ð 4,879,202 ð 4,932,093 coronavirus cases with 158,300+ ð 159,500+ ð 160,500+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 345,714 ð 357,710 ð 367,196 cases with 12,250 deaths.  Medellin has 23,158 ð 23,968 ð 24,785 25,991 cases, an increase of 1,206 from August 6^th to 7^th. Envigado has a total of 1,501 cases, an increase of 53 from August 6^th to 7^th.

 

Joke of the day

A Russian scientist and a Czech scientist had spent their lives studying the grizzly bear. Each year they petitioned their respective governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone to study the bears.

Finally, their request was granted and they immediately flew to New York and on west to Yellowstone Park. 
They reported to the ranger station and were told that it was the grizzly mating season and it was too dangerous to go out and study the animals. They pleaded that this was their only chance and finally the ranger relented.

The Russian and the Czech were given portable phones and told to report in every day. For several days they called in, and then nothing was heard from the two scientists. The rangers mounted a search party and found the camp completely ravaged, with no sign of the missing men.


They followed the trail of a male and a female bear. They found the female and decided they must kill the animal to find out if she had eaten the scientists because they feared an international incident. They killed the female animal and opened the stomach to find the remains of the Russian. One ranger turned to the other and said: “You know what this means, don’t you?”

The other ranger responded: “Of course...The Czech is in the male.”