‘There’s a new COVID booster at pharmacies, and the simple thing to say about it is this: It’s good, it’s free, and you should get it. Unfortunately, the process of getting one of these shots isn’t going smoothly for everyone, with some people being told they’ll need to pay for it, and some having appointments canceled at the last minute. Let’s talk about what’s going on, and what you can do about it.
The underlying reason for the confusion, by the way, is that we are no longer in the national public health emergency that was declared in early 2020. This means that certain vaccination and testing programs no longer operate the way they used to. Previously, state-run vaccine programs coordinated shipment and payment for vaccines; now, it’s up to manufacturers, pharmacies, and insurance companies to fold COVID vaccination into their “business as usual” operations. And that transition has been a bit bumpy….’ (Lifehacker)
Month: September 2023
What If the Robots Were Very Nice While They Took Over the World?
‘First it was chess and Go. Now AI can beat us at Diplomacy, the most human of board games. The way it wins offers hope that maybe AI will be a delight….’ (WIRED)
Oops! Indicted donald trump reportedly buys gun, until spokesperson takes it back
‘donald trump admired a Glock handgun today during a campaign stop in South Carolina with Marjorie Taylor Greene cheering him on. “I want to buy one,” the MAGA conman said. (See video posted by The Recount.)
His campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, even posted a video (different angle from the one below) about Trump’s shopping spree at the gun store, tweeting, “President trump purchases a @GlockInc in South Carolina!” (See image at bottom of this post.)
And then, after the tweet went viral, it mysteriously disappeared. And Cheung suddenly denied the purchase.
Hmm, looks like somebody just remembered that the former one-term president is also a four-times indicted crook — and perhaps not the best match under federal law to purchase or possess a handgun….’ (Boing Boing)
Is America uniquely vulnerable to tyranny?
‘In their new book Tyranny of the Minority, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt — the authors of How Democracies Die — argue America’s founders faced [a problem analogous to Scylla and Charybdis]: navigating between two types of dictatorship that threatened to devour the new country.
The founders, per Levitsky and Ziblatt, were myopically focused on one of them: the fear of a majority-backed demagogue seizing power. As a result, they made it exceptionally difficult to pass new laws and amend the constitution. But the founders, the pair argues, lost sight of a potentially more dangerous monster on the other side of the strait: a determined minority abusing this system to impose its will on the democratic majority.
“By steering the republic so sharply away from the Scylla of majority tyranny, America’s founders left it vulnerable to the Charybdis of minority rule,” they write….’ (Vox)
Happy Mabon, Fall Equinox
“The Witches’ Thanksgiving and the second harvest. Day and night are of equal length, looking forward to the days’ shortening. The Autumn Equinox is the time of the descent of the Goddess into the Underworld. We also bid farewell to the Harvest Lord who was slain at Lammas. Welsh legend brings us the story of Mabon, who dwells, a happy captive, in Modron’s magickal Otherworld — his mother’s womb. Only in this way can he be reborn.”
Nishimura green comet: how to see it before it vanishes for 400 years
‘A newly discovered green comet is zipping by Earth and is now visible for the first time in more than 400 years.
Comet Nishimura was discovered by amateur Japanese astronomer Hideo Nishimura on Aug. 11 and named after him….’ ( Linah Mohammad via NPR )
Potential threat in Palin’s words: “What’s the use in being a good guy?”
‘Sarah Palin has a gift for uttering semi-coherent statements that make her out to be a victim of nefarious agents of the deep state. Whenever she or any of her MAGA compatriots stumble into mishaps or display questionable judgment and subsequently face repercussions, Palin is quick to weave a narrative of misunderstood heroes facing unjust punishment.
In a recent appearance on Newsmax, hosted by Eric Bolling, Palin voiced her discontent regarding the prison terms handed to members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their attempts to overthrow the US government:
It’s so disheartening, the examples that you’ve given, Eric. It makes the populace lose a lot of faith in our government and that’s an understatement. Unfortunately, what this leads to, when we recognize the examples that you just gave, the two-tier different justice systems that apply according to politics, you know it makes the good guy think “what’s the use in being a good guy?” We’re gonna be punished, you know, we’re picked on, is what we are under this system. But we can’t feel helpless and hopeless.
Palin seems to suggest that she and her fellow pseudo-patriots should abandon their “good guy” personas. These “good guys” have been found guilty by a jury of their peers of participating in a seditious conspiracy to violently subvert the Presidential election and impose a dictator. It makes you wonder; what does she want them to do as “bad guys?”…’ (Boing Boing)
Video reportedly shows UFO fleet flying out of active volcano in Mexico
‘Webcam video … of Mexico’s Popocatépet volcano showed a fleet of UFOs exiting the crater and zipping off into the sky. This shouldn’t be a surprise as, according to Coast to Coast, Popocatépetl has long been thought to be an entrance to a secret UFO base deep within the Earth’s core. This is undeniable proof of that theory unless you somehow believe the wildly outlandish proposition that what you’re seeing is actually a line of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites crossing the sky at an angle that makes them appear to be exiting the volcano….’ (Boing Boing)
“May this be a lesson to build a society that knocks down walls and builds bridges”
‘As the U.S. government built its latest stretch of border wall, Mexico made a statement of its own by laying remains of the Berlin Wall a few steps away. The 3-ton pockmarked, gray concrete slab sits between a bullring, a lighthouse and the border wall, which extends into the Pacific Ocean…
Shards of the Berlin Wall scattered worldwide after it crumbled in 1989, with collectors putting them in hotels, schools, transit stations and parks. Marcos Cline, who makes commercials and other digital productions in Los Angeles, needed a home for his artifact and found an ally in Tijuana’s mayor…
President Joe Biden issued an executive order his first day in office to halt wall construction, ending a signature effort by his predecessor, Donald Trump. But his administration has moved ahead with small, already-contracted projects, including replacing a two-layered wall in San Diego standing 18 feet (5.5 meters) high with one rising 30 feet (9.1 meters) and stretching 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) to the ocean..’ (POLITICO)
Interestingly, Tijuana’s mayor Montserrat Caballero, who is married to an American living in San Diego, used to negotiate the Tijuana-San Diego border crossing with frequency. However, since alerted by US intelligence to credible threats against her (probably cartel-related) and an assassination attempt on her bodyguard, she and her son have been living in a military barracks in Tijuana under Mexican government protection.
People Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Make Daily Life Worse
‘A majority of Americans say their concern about artificial intelligence in daily life outweighs their excitement about it, according to a Pew Research Center survey of more than 11,000 US adults. The results come at a time when a growing number of people are paying attention to news about AI in their daily lives. Pew has run this survey twice before and reports that the number of people more concerned than excited about AI jumped from 37 percent in 2021 to 52 percent this month….’ (WIRED)
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