“There were five mass shootings this weekend. On Friday night, four people were shot in Louisville, Kentucky. On Saturday, four people were wounded in a domestic shooting at a home in Vidor, Texas, and two people were killed and two others were injured in an apartment in Lubbock, Texas. Also on Saturday, a man in Hialeah, Florida, shot his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend, her adult daughter, and a police officer before being killed by police. And on Sunday, four men were wounded in a shooting in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York.”
Author: danelabonte
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Birthday cake
“…[former Acting Navy secretary Thomas] Modly said he fired [former USS Theodore Roosevelt Captain Brett] Crozier [without an investigation] so as not to get into a situation where Trump would think that he needed to intervene.”
“Modly said he was aware that his predecessor [Richard Spencer] lost his job because the Navy “got crossways with the president,” and “I didn’t want that to happen again.”
For context, Spencer was fired in November 2019 by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper after Spencer tried to encourage Trump to not interfere in military justice proceedings against disgraced and convicted Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher.
“Trump notified Congress late Friday evening that he intended to fire Michael Atkinson, a pivotal figure in his impeachment last year, because he had lost confidence in him. On Saturday, Trump made it clear that the move had been retaliatory, telling reporters that Atkinson was a “disgrace” and had done “a terrible job” because he had provided an anonymous whistleblower complaint to Congress — a move that was required by law.”
“Atkinson said in the statement, sent to reporters late Sunday, that “it is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial inspector general, and from my commitment to continue to do so.”
“Atkinson was required by law to notify Congress of the complaint, which was written by an anonymous intelligence official and detailed Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democrats. The inspector general had deemed it urgent and credible, meaning that he was required to share it with the House and Senate intelligence committees. But the acting director of national intelligence at the time, Joseph Maguire, overruled him for several weeks.”
“As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.”
As with any other poison, viruses are usually more dangerous in larger amounts. Small initial exposures tend to lead to mild or asymptomatic infections, while larger doses can be lethal.
Despite the evidence for the importance of viral dose, many of the epidemiological models being used to inform policy during this pandemic ignore it. This is a mistake.
People should take particular care against high-dose exposures, which are most likely to occur in close in-person interactions — such as coffee meetings, crowded bars and quiet time in a room with Grandma — and from touching our faces after getting substantial amounts of virus on our hands. In-person interactions are more dangerous in enclosed spaces and at short distances, with dose escalating with exposure time. For transient interactions that violate the rule of maintaining six feet between you and others, such as paying a cashier at the grocery store, keep them brief — aim for “within six feet, only six seconds.”
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/opinion/coronavirus-viral-dose.html)
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Callie surveying her domain
This afternoon Callie migrated to the other end of the couch to use the arm rest and pillow to comfortably survey her domain out the windows.
(https://www.instagram.com/p/B-h4MzknvVN/?igshid=kv4cjiuxi8hu)
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Callie napping
Callie taking her morning nap next to me on the couch during this cold and rainy morning
(https://www.instagram.com/p/B-hVfVAn9Mt/?igshid=175vyef9w91bt)
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RIP Bill Withers
I listen to Ain’t No Sunshine all the time.
Bill’s also famous for Lean on Me.
Plus he also did Just The Two of Us with Grover Washington Jr.
But one of my favorites is Lovely Day.
Lovely Day was covered, or more accurately re-imagined, by Alt J and transformed into something entirely different but still so satisfying.
In a spate of recent celebrity musician deaths including Kenny Rogers and Adam Schlesinger, and in the midst of the numerous COVID-19 deaths, Bill’s death struck me because I love his music. RIP Bill.
danelabonte 