Friday, September 4, 2020

 

Last night I went to bed at 10:45, got up twice during the night, and woke at 5:15 with a start by the beginning of a cramp. Or maybe I dreamt it. A minute later I heard a loud peal of thunder and was aware that it was raining. I got up and put a light banket over my sheet. I woke/got up at 8am and was aware I had had a continuation of my first day in university dream: I had a bed but no storage with others in what seemed a separate room. I went into the next room where I saw bed after bed. I asked one young man how many were there and was told 43. Later a young man showed me another entrance where there was a coat closet and a refrigerator. I was aware I had already skipped a reading class.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 1 and losing 3. My new rating is 1207.

Today is Laura’s birthday. Teresa asked ME how old she is. I tried to help her remember: “remember that day you had all that pain? What year was that?” She didn’t remember. I texted Laura and today she is 23 years young.

I had a 2-hour chess lesson with Juan Carlos. As usual he first tests me for about an hour with a number of mate-in-2 puzzles. Then we play a game so I can practice the Sicilian Defense. We used the time control 15 minutes plus 15 seconds (for each move). For the first time when we ran out of time he said I played well and he resigned. Later when I checked, the computer said I had a decisive advantage.

I gave myself a haircut cutting all areas a little shorter than last time. When Teresa returned she complemented me but showed my one side in back that is shorter than the other.

 

Dr. Sanjay Gupta replied “This is pretty frightening” to a top Penn State doctor revealing that up to 35 percent of Big Ten athletes who had Covid-19 now show signs of heart inflammation.

 

South Dakota is one of the nation's hot spots for COVID-19 infections. That didn't stop another large-scale event from kicking off Thursday.

The rural South Dakota State Fair, which reported an attendance of 205,000 people last year, is set to run through Labor Day with more hand-washing stations, social distancing reminders and an encouragement — but not a requirement — for attendees to wear masks. It comes on the heels of the state's two largest events: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and the The Sioux Empire Fair.

In the weeks following those events, South Dakota has emerged as a virus hotbed, according to data analysis. State and national health experts say the rise in cases is likely fueled by a combination of factors, including school reopenings, small gatherings and major events.

 

A new report from the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on Thursday night revealed new and galling details about President Donald Trump’s stunning level of contempt for members of the military — particularly those who have died or been injured in battle.

Here are seven of the most notable details from the report:

1.The real reason Trump decided not to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery during his 2018 trip to France.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.

 

2.Trump’s dismal view of dying in war.

“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

 

3.Trump’s reaction to the death of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war whom the president long hated — was even worse than it appeared.

When McCain died, in August 2018, Trump told his senior staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge of this event, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” and he became furious, according to witnesses, when he saw flags lowered to half-staff. “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,” the president told aides.

 

4.Trump demeaned the intelligence of people who joined the military who serve under his command.

According to eyewitnesses, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, Trump turned to aides and said, “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?”

 

5.Trump couldn’t even show respect for his own appointee’s son.

Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

 

6.Trump has greatly exaggerated the extent of his efforts to comfort the families of fallen service members.

Trump recently claimed that he has received the bodies of slain service members “many, many” times, but in fact he has traveled to Dover Air Force Base, the transfer point for the remains of fallen service members, only four times since becoming president. In another incident, Trump falsely claimed that he had called “virtually all” of the families of service members who had died during his term, then began rush-shipping condolence letters when families said the president was not telling the truth.

 

7. Perhaps worst of all, Trump showed contempt and disgust for veterans disabled at war.

Trump has been, for the duration of his presidency, fixated on staging military parades, but only of a certain sort. In a 2018 White House planning meeting for such an event, Trump asked his staff not to include wounded veterans, on grounds that spectators would feel uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. “Nobody wants to see that,” he said.

 

The ugly numbers are finally in on the 2017 Trump tax rewrite — and the rich made out like bandits. The first data showing how all Americans are faring under Donald Trump reveals the poor and working classes sinking slightly, the middle-class treading water, the upper-middle-class growing, and the richest among us luxuriating in rising rivers of greenbacks.

 

 

From hurricanes to coastal flooding, climate change will force millions of people around the world to reconsider where they live - but where will they go? In the US alone, 13 million people could be forced away from the coasts by 2100. The question is where will these people go? And how will cities prepare?

 

As you‘ve probably heard by now, on Thursday night, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that while in France in 2018, Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery because he didn’t want his hair to get messed up in the rain and didn’t think it was important to honor those killed in war because, as he apparently said at the time, they were “suckers” and “losers.” Both Trump and the White House immediately denied the comments, as they do every time a story comes out that makes him look bad, with the infamous draft dodger taking to Twitter to “swear” he never said such things while telling yet additional lies:

In fact, as it’s been previously reported, John McCain’s funeral did not require presidential approval. Also, in 2015 Trump publicly told a room full of people that the late senator, who spent five and a half years in a Hanoi prison where he was routinely tortured, wasn’t a war hero, because he was captured. And not only has Trump called McCain a loser, he retweeted a story that quoted him calling McCain a loser. So it’s more than a little believable that Trump, who constantly lies about everything all the time, said exactly what Goldberg reported, though that didn’t stop him from unleashing a seven-minute tirade on the steps of Air Force One furiously denying the comments.

 

@RealDonaldTrump: I was never a big fan of John McCain, disagreed with him on many things including ridiculous endless wars and the lack of success he had in dealing with the VA and our great Vets, but the lowering of our Nations American Flags, and the first class funeral he was given by our.... ..Country, had to be approved by me, as President, & I did so without hesitation or complaint. Quite the contrary, I felt it was well deserved. I even sent Air Force One to bring his body, in casket, from Arizona to Washington. It was my honor to do so. Also, I never called.. ....John a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is more made up Fake News given by disgusting & jealous failures in a disgraceful attempt to influence the 2020 Election!

 

In fact, as it’s been previously reported, John McCain’s funeral did not require presidential approval. Also, in 2015 Trump publicly told a room full of people that the late senator, who spent five and a half years in a Hanoi prison where he was routinely tortured, wasn’t a war hero, because he was captured. And not only has Trump called McCain a loser, he retweeted a story that quoted him calling McCain a loser. So it’s more than a little believable that Trump, who constantly lies about everything all the time, said exactly what Goldberg reported, though that didn’t stop him from unleashing a seven-minute tirade on the steps of Air Force One furiously denying the comments.

“It’s a disgrace that a magazine is able to write it,” Trump told reporters, according to a White House pool report. “And anybody that—if they really exist, if people really exist that would have said that, they’re low-lifes and they’re liars. And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. So, I just think it’s a horrible, horrible thing. It made a great evening into, frankly, a very sad evening when I see a statement like that. No animal, nobody, what animal would say such a thing? And especially since I’ve done more, I think, than almost anybody to help our military. To get the budgets of our military, to get the pay raises. So I just think it’s a horrible thing that they’re allowed to write that.”

Meanwhile, shortly after The Atlantic story was published, the Washington Post reported that a former senior administration official confirmed that Trump regularly made disparaging comments about veterans, in addition to this choice take on soldiers missing in action:

In one account, the president told senior advisers that he didn’t understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action because they had performed poorly and gotten caught and deserved what they got, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

Also, he thinks he deserves a badge of honor for making up a foot injury to get out of the draft:

Trump believed people who served in the Vietnam War must be “losers” because they hadn’t gotten out of it, according to a person familiar with the comments. Trump also complained bitterly to then Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that he didn’t understand why Kelly and others in the military treated McCain, who had been imprisoned and tortured during the Vietnam War, with such reverence. “Isn’t he kind of a loser?” Trump asked, according to the person familiar with Trump’s comments.

 

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has disputed a story in The Atlantic claiming that President Donald Trump called fallen World War I soldiers “losers.” Bolton told the New York Times Friday that “I was there” and “I didn’t hear that.”

 

A five-year-old tweet from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is getting renewed attention amid reports that President Donald Trump once disparaged dead American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.”

The tweet in question came shortly after Trump attacked the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for getting captured and tortured by enemy forces during the Vietnam War, and it slammed the future president for showing no appreciation for the sacrifices made by service members.

“At the heart of [Trump’s] statement is a lack of respect for those who have served,” he wrote. “A disqualifying characteristic to be president.”

 

President Trump's New COVID-19 Adviser Is Making Public Health Experts Nervous.

Dr. Scott Atlas has literally written the book on magnetic resonance imaging. He has also co-authored numerous scientific studies on the economics of medical imaging technology.

"He's an MRI guy," says Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. "If I was confused about some brain lesion and what the MRI findings were, I'd be happy to call him up."

But President Trump has tapped Atlas for a very different role — as an adviser on the coronavirus pandemic. As such, he is counseling the president on life-and-death decisions about the virus, which has already killed more than 180,000 Americans so far this year.

That has Jha and others worried.

"He has no expertise in any of this stuff," Jha says. "He's been bringing out arguments that have been refuted week after week, month after month, since the beginning of this outbreak."

Here are some of Atlas' ideas and why they have scientists and public health experts fretting.

The controversial strategy known as "herd immunity"

In April on the conservative Steve Deace Show, Atlas spoke in favor of allowing the virus to pass through the younger segments of the population, while trying to protect older Americans.

"We can allow a lot of people to get infected," he said. "Those who are not at risk to die or have a serious hospital-requiring illness, we should be fine with letting them get infected, generating immunity on their own, and the more immunity in the community, the better we can eradicate the threat of the virus."

He described the process by name as "herd immunity" and described it as a "basic principle" of biology and immunology.

It is true that building up immunity can limit or even stop the spread of a virus like COVID-19, says Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

But in the past, that strategy has only worked through vaccination. The idea that you somehow could allow the virus to spread through healthy populations without also putting older and sicker Americans at risk is naive, he says.

"It's very difficult to protect vulnerable populations once the virus is transmitting extensively," he says. "We haven't seen any success of that."

Murray's group estimates that if the virus were allowed to spread easily, deaths could exceed 360,000 by December. Even if the roughly 50% of the population the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers vulnerable to complications from COVID-19 were somehow protected, potentially thousands of young and healthy Americans would die.

"COVID is dramatically more risky for everybody than the flu," he says. "There's just no comparison. It's at least an order of magnitude worse — tenfold or more."

Moreover, people face a range of experiences with COVID-19. It's not a dichotomy of death or recovery. There is increasing evidence that some people who beat COVID-19 have lingering side effects. CDC data indicates that roughly a third of COVID survivors ages 18-34 suffer health effects like fatigue and cough for weeks after they're no longer infectious. There's also reports of strokes and more serious complications, though the data isn't quite clear on how common that is.

"I'm not so cavalier as to say, 'It's fine. You might have long-standing lung damage, you might have long-standing heart damage, but at least you won't die, it's OK,' " Jha says.

Economy against public health

In his frequent media appearances, Atlas often talks about the economic toll of lockdowns — arguing that restrictions are doing as much, if not more damage than COVID-19 itself.

Open schools, while minimizing some of the risks

Atlas wants to see schools nationwide opened as quickly as possible.

 

Darkest days are behind us ... or not

In his email statement to NPR, Atlas said, "Americans today should have cautious optimism as we move beyond the worst phase of this pandemic."

 

The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City used to tower over the multiple entities that Trump Entertainment Resorts ran along the boardwalk including the former Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Castle, Trump’s World Fair, and the former Trump Marina. The Trump Plaza, which opened in 1984 as Harrah’s at Trump Plaza, closed in 2014 after years of financial struggle including a narrowly averted bankruptcy and competition from the Trump Taj Mahal. Now, as reported by the publication Jersey Digs, the Trump Plaza will be “imploded” on January 29, 2021 a little more than a week after the next U.S. Presidential inauguration.

 

 

Teresa left at 4:30 and returned at 6:45. We took a taxi to La Mesa where we had a patacon with avocado and shredded beef. We also shared a plate of 6 small empanadas. With our Cokes the total came to 31mil.

 

The US has 6,117115 ð 6,154,383 ð 6,217,833 coronavirus cases with 185,200+ ð 186,300+ ð 187,600+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 633,339 ð 641,574 ð 650,062 cases with 20,888 deaths.  Medellin has 48,689 ð 48,968 ð 49,932 cases, an increase of 958 from September 3^rd to 4^th. Envigado has a total of 2,651 cases, an increase of 94 from September 3^rd to 4^th.

 

Joke of the day

One dark night in Dublin, a fire started inside the local chemical plant. In the blink of an eye, it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around. When the firefighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fireman in charge and said, "All our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I will give 50,000 pounds to the fire department that brings them out intact."

But the roaring flames held the firefighters off. Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now 100,000 pounds to the fire station who could bring out the company's secret files. But still, the firefighters could not get through.

From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby rural township volunteer fire brigade, composed mainly of old men over 65. To everyone's amazement, that little run-down fire engine roared right past all the newer sleek engines that were parked outside the plant. Without even slowing down it drove straight into the middle of the inferno.

Outside, the other firemen watched as the old timers jumped off right in the middle of the fire and fought it back on all sides. It was a performance and effort never seen before. Within a short time, the old timers had extinguished the fire and had saved the secret formulas. The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to 200,000 pounds and walked over to personally thank each of the brave firefighters.

The local TV station caught the thank you on film and asked the chief, "What are you going to do with all that money?"

"Well," said Paddy, the 70-year-old fire chief, "the first thing we're gonna do is fix the brakes on that bloody fire truck."