Links 8/13/2020 – Church Security

Cities Lose Lawsuit Against FCC’s 5G Rules Axios. Now might those cities be pissed off enough to wink and nod at their cops, who will be over-busy due to Covid-19 cutbacks if they weren’t already, to severely deprioritize investigating accidents that involve 5G installations? After all, protecting life and limb is more important, especially of locals who vote for municipal authorities.

Forest Fires Are Setting Chernobyl’s Radiation Free Atlantic (David L)

Baghdad heat is world’s climate change future Washington Post (resilc)

#COVID-19

A man arrives to check into a hotel, is told by the front-desk clerk the hotel requires a temperature check.

The entitled guest objects, attacks the clerk, comes to regret it quickly.

A satisfying outcome, but a reminder of the undue burden on low-paid workers (video: @em_com): pic.twitter.com/3sFAjDylom

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 12, 2020

Science/Medicine

This “Do’s and Don’t’s” List From the 1918 Pandemic Proves We’ve Learned Absolutely Nothing in 100 Years Distractify (David L)

‘AeroNabs’ Promise Powerful, Inhalable Protection Against COVID-19 UCSF (dougied). UCSF has been doing tons of work on existing drugs as treatments and prophylactics.

Covid Vaccine: Nationalism Will Only Make the Coronavirus Pandemic Much Worse Bloomberg

‘A Smoking Gun’: Infectious Coronavirus Retrieved From Hospital Air New York Times (David L)

Selective and cross-reactive SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitopes in unexposed humans Science (David L)

COVID-19 Could Increase Risk of Memory Loss. Here’s What We Know Science Alert (Chuck L)

US

Principals and Teachers Call on de Blasio to Delay the Start of In-Person School Chalkbeat

Tweet below has photo that goes with this story: Cherokee closes high school after district reports 900 in quarantine Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Scores of Georgia high school seniors, mask-less, posed close together for photos on Aug. 3. Now the school is shut, and the district has 59 students and staff with #COVID19 and 900 more quarantined https://t.co/ce8h73IDuw pic.twitter.com/HYDesCjIj6

— David Beard (@dabeard) August 13, 2020

Grief in Florida Nation. One of my brothers just moved to Tampa. Big time denial. Everything is wonderful…

Annapolis receives donation of 40,000 surgical masks from Changsha, China Capital Gazette (furzy)

Americans give up citizenship in record-smashing numbers as expats find ‘pandemic & political climate too much to bear’ – report RT (Chuck L)

Europe

Brussels region makes masks mandatory Politico

Australia

Biggest Meatworks in Australian State Shut as Cases Multiply Bloomberg

Political Responses

A Government Too Broken to Write $600 Checks New Republic

Trump administration’s coronavirus hospital data reporting system leading to delays Axios (resilc)

Finance/Economy

Relief talks stumble again as Trump asserts a deal is ‘not going to happen’ Washington Post. UserFriendly: “And I thought Hillary surrounded herself with a wall of sycophants . Either that or he is trying to lose.”

NCAA Reminds Boosters That Full Bribes Still Due Even If Football Season Canceled Onion

San Francisco Fed chief says some jobs may never come back Financial Times. Two of my favorites top the list: gyms and movie theaters.

The Economy Is Mortally Wounded Charles Hugh Smith (Chuck L)

Old Blighty

We’re in recession, and worse than almost anyone else, which is this government’s fault Richard Murphy

100,000 A-Level Results Could Be Downgraded. Students Like These Are Most At Risk HuffPost UK

Ministers bid to quell revolt over England A-levels by allowing mock exam results Guardian

US government official in response to the explosion that devastated much of Beirut and killed dozens of people:

“I don’t see how you can react to this kind of event with anything but ‘maximum pressure'”https://t.co/Z2IiqerpyE

— Sam (@sonofnariman) August 12, 2020

New Cold War

Putin and Russia are facing a very serious crisis in Belarus The Saker (Chuck L)

Summary executions and widespread repression under Bolivia’s interim government reports rights advocates from Harvard and University Network for Human Rights Human Rights@Harvard Law

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Homeland Security Details New Tools For Extracting Device Data at US Borders CNet. Enough to make one have an empty machine when traveling…but what do you do about e-mailing? Amusingly if you kept a short list of passwords on paper that was coded, it would never occur to them to look for that.

‘The police failed in their public sector equality duty by using a technology that is known to result in both racial and sexual discrimination’ – @weareproprivacy on the court ruling against facial recognition technology https://t.co/t1ljhgGWoM

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) August 13, 2020

Trump Transition

Here’s More Evidence That Trump Is an Algorithm Bloomberg

Bob Woodward obtains Trump-Kim Jong-un letters for new book Rage Guardian (David L)

Congress Members Ask FBI to Investigate Trump-Adelson Phone Call Haaretz

2020

UserFriendly: “Literally the only thing Biden has going for him”:

If they win, Biden and Harris will be the first President/Vice President in 40 years not to have an Ivy League degree.

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) August 11, 2020

Kamala Harris Is Biden’s VP Pick — Here’s What It Means For The Election And Beyond FiveThirtyEight (resilc)

How FiveThirtyEight’s 2020 Presidential Forecast Works — And What’s Different Because Of COVID-19 FiveThirtyEight (furzy). I hate that we are supposed to care. He was wrong the last time.

U.S. Politics: Odds to Win the Presidential Election BetOnline. Note these prediction markets are only as good as their bettors. The Brexit betting was famously off (showed Remain would win by ~6 points) due to the fact that the average amount of the Remain wager was 3x the Leave bet. In other words, the dollar weight obscured that far far more people were betting for Leave than Remain, and that was the better proxy. Nevertheless, from the e-mailed commentary:

Immediately following Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate — according to BetOnline’s Sportsbook Brand Manager Dave Mason — Trump’s odds to win the 2020 election improved from +135 (27/20; 42.55% implied probability) to +105 (21/20; 48.78% implied probability).

Joe Biden is still the favorite to win, however his odds have receded from as high as -160 (5/8) in June to -135 (20/27) today.

Progressives Didn’t Want Harris for V.P. They’re Backing Her Anyway. New York Times (UserFriendly)

The Case for Trump Claremont Review of Books. UserFriendly: “From the guy that called 2016 the ‘Flight 93 election.’”

QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene wins Georgia Republican primary BBC

Race to Replace Joe Kennedy in Congress Heats Up Intercept (resilc)

L’affaire Jeffrey Epstein

Ghislaine Maxwell moans about conditions at ‘hell-hole’ Brooklyn jail Daily Mail (resilc)

Gunz

Zoom class interrupted when student’s mother fatally shot The Hill 🙁

1/n Fascinating new study a) reproduces the backfire effect we observed in our 2018 Twitter bot study; but also b) identifies a possible antidote: exposing people to more of their own views first, then gradually exposing them to opposing views: https://t.co/2OgIBJMe7C pic.twitter.com/CaMkzQaWGz

— Chris Bail (@chris_bail) August 8, 2020

Rise in Covid-19 cases will weigh on demand for oil, warns IEA Financial Times

Diseased Chicken for Dinner? The USDA Is Considering It Bloomberg (Dr. Kevin)

Class Warfare

Uber CEO Says Its Service Will Probably Shut Down Temporarily in California if It’s Forced To Classify Drivers as Employees CNBC. And what happens when they are not missed?

Black Mothers in New York Are More Likely to Have Life-Threatening Complications in Childbirth Wall Street Journal

Antidote du jour (CV, who worries the rich dudes moving into his area will ruin things, including his nature shots):