Thursday, August 13, 2020

 

Quarantine Day #149.

Last night I went to bed at 11pm and quickly fell asleep. I got up 2-3 times during the night. When I got up at 2:30 I noticed it was raining. Teresa got up before 6am and I at 6:30. She was just leaving to get in line at eps so she could get her injection – or maybe an appointment or prescription for it. We’re going to meet up again for lunch.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 2, drawing 1, and losing 1. I had the white pieces in the 1^st game and was winning with a queen and 5 pawns against his 2 pawns but his king could hide behind my pawns. I was running out of time so as not to lose on time I quickly picked up the last of his pawns. Even though my clock ran out it was a draw as he had insufficient material to mate me. I was one move away from checkmating him so maybe in the future I should concentrate on that even if it might mean I lose on time.

In the 2^nd game I had the black pieces and my opponent played an unorthodox opening, and not very well, and I had his queen on the 11^th move. He soon resigned.

In the 3^rd game I had the black pieces and played the sicilian defense. It was a back and forth game but he eventually resigned.

In the 4^th game had the black pieces and played the Dutch defense. It was a close back and forth game that I eventually lost on time.

I left the apt at 7:30 for my 1-hour walk. I saw a red Ford Mustang convertible parked outside the Arizona building. I was back at the apt by 8:30.

I watched the first 20 minutes of the Today show then took my shower.

I left the apt at 9:45 and walked to the mall. I recycled a few plastic bottles then I went up to the 2^nd floor of the mall where I paid for our cellphone service at Claro. I bought a “bottle” of Play-Doh in Dollar City. (My idea is to put a little in the base of the parcheesi pawns to make them a little more bottom heavy.) In Exito I paid the Une and epm bills. I picked up a few things and returned to the apt in a taxi.

I was back by 11am and Teresa had already returned. She said someone would call her next week about the injection.

I’ve been working on Chess.com’s chess puzzles and am having difficulty staying over 1800.

About 2pm we had a quick shower but it didn’t last very long.

We left the apt at 3:15 and took a taxi to Pricesmart. Like last time there was a line to enter. I showed Teresa the bucket of gourmet Popsy ice cream but she decided it was too big. I chose instead a box of 24 Klondike bars. We picked up about $160 of groceries and waited in a long line to pay. We were back at the apt by 5:15.

 

Texas Coronavirus positivity rate reached 24 percent, and It's just weeks until schools reopen.

 

At a Wednesday press briefing, President Donald Trump laid out some of his objections to a Democratic proposal to provide additional aid to individuals and states who are struggling financially during the pandemic. He specifically named two provisions that he finds unacceptable: $3.5 billion in funding for elections that could be used to fund mail-in voting, and $25 billion in funding for the post office.

 

President Donald Trump has shocked many Americans with his declaration that he doesn’t want to give the United States Postal Service enough funding to count ballots that have been sent via mail.

When asked by Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo about extra funding for the Post Office during a Thursday morning interview, Trump explicitly tied his refusal to give the USPS what it needed with his desire to block mail-in voting.

 

“Now they need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said. “But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

“Donald Trump knows that if the people are heard in November, he and Republicans up and down the ballot will lose,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “This is what we’re up against—and this is why we have to fight back with all we’ve got.”

Voting rights advocates on Thursday took aim at Republicans in Congress for remaining silent in the face of President Donald Trump’s open admission that he is blocking funding for the U.S. Postal Service with the express purpose of stopping an expansion of mail-in ballot access ahead of the November elections.

Interfering with our voting system. Isn’t that a treasonable act?

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Thursday that the Senate will not hold any more votes until Sept. 8, though members will remain on 24-hour notice in case a coronavirus stimulus deal is reached.

 

Appearing Wednesday night on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News, Pence said, "We've already created more jobs in the last three months than Joe Biden and Barack Obama created in their eight years in office."

Pence's "last three months" time frame is absurd: he is boasting about the addition of about 9.3 million jobs in May, June and July right after a loss of about 22.2 million jobs in March and April; the economy is still down nearly 13 million jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. (Also, many of the added jobs were people returning to their previous jobs after temporary layoffs.) And even if you accept Pence's dishonest premise, it's not true that these last three months saw more jobs added than were added in the eight years of the Obama administration.

 

The U.S. is surely losing the war on COVID-19, but it did not have to be this way. Of the G-7 countries—the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Japan, Germany and Italy—only we have an outbreak that continues to spin out of control. Some other nations, like New Zealand, have even come close to eradicating COVID-19 entirely (a somewhat easier feat in a less populated and more isolated country, to be sure). Depressingly, in the months before the pandemic, the U.S. was considered to be among the countries best prepared to handle a major outbreak.

At this point, we can start to see more clearly why the nation has foundered so miserably. A failure of political leadership at all levels; a distrust of scientists, the media and expertise in general; and deeply ingrained cultural attitudes about individuality and the values placed on life have all combined to result in a horrifically inadequate pandemic response compared to what are traditionally considered the U.S.’s peer nations.

 

A top federal health official is issuing a dire warning: Follow recommended coronavirus measures or risk having the worst fall in US public health history.

"For your country right now and for the war that we're in against Covid, I'm asking you to do four simple things: wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and be smart about crowds," said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

New coronavirus cases in the U.S. topped 50,000 for the second day in a row, as countries around the world struggled to curb the virus’s spread.

 

The U.S. attempt to return children to the classroom this fall has turned into a slow-motion train wreck, with at least 2,400 students and staff either infected with COVID-19 or self-isolating because of exposure, and the vast majority of large school districts opting to go online this summer amid rising cases of the virus.

 

President Trump repeated his attacks against mail balloting, saying it would lead to “the greatest rigged election in history” and “the greatest fraud ever perpetrated.”

At the same time, his own absentee ballot to vote in Florida’s primary election on Tuesday was en route to Mar-a-Lago. According to the Palm Beach County elections website, the president and first lady Melania Trump both requested absentee ballots on Wednesday.

 

In the evening we had a little more rain.

 

The US has 5,152,393 ð 5,196,556 ð 5,253,529 coronavirus cases with 164,400+ ð 165,400+ ð 166,900+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 410,453 ð 422,519 ð 433,805 cases with 14,145 deaths.  Medellin has 30,704 ð 31,654 ð 32,523 cases, an increase of 869 from August 12^th to 13^th. Envigado has a total of 1,801 cases, an increase of 88 from August 12^th to 13^th. Unsure if we have leveling off or not.

 

Joke of the day

In 1900, fathers passed on clothing to their sons. 
Today, kids wouldn't touch Dad's clothes if they were sliding naked down an icicle.