Friday, January 22, 2021

Alternative McSweeny's Titles Part 6

 I never liked MEDICARE, but I was forced to pay into it my entire working life. I suddenly have to be a socialist to enroll?

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Alternate McSweeny's Articles, Part 5

 

1619 And The Arrow of Time

 The idea behind the 1619 Project, is that the "real" founding of the United States was in 1619, when the first slave was brought here.

The problem is that the United States didn't exist until 1776.  We were part of the British Empire and did not rule our own affairs.  Whatever happened 157 years before our founding, has no bearing on what we created in 1776.

But, what if 1776 was itself about slavery?  Like, if the British were about to outlaw it and so we were motivated to be independent because of this, undesirable change.  The British outlawed slavery in 1833.

So we founded a new nation to protect slavery, 57 years before our masters outlawed it?  That is some real thinking ahead, or the 1619 Project is complete bullshit.

L'enfer, c'est les autres

 Sartre:  Hell is other people.

Americans:  Hell is other Americans.

Most Americans believe the biggest threat to America's way of life is other people in the country and domestic enemies

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Inauguration Day Markers:

As of today, Worldometer has US Covid deaths at 415,038 and the Bloomberg vaccine tracker says that 35,990,150 vaccine doses have been distributed to the states.

Let's check back every so often and see how it goes from here.

The 7-day average as of the 20th is 912k and the 20th itself had 1.6 million administered.


UPDATE June 2nd

1.5 Million doses administered June  1st

610,438 Deaths

Alternative McSweeny's Titles, part 4

 

Piano Sheet Music

I never really learned to play the piano, but I could pick-out a tune if I had music and piano available.  What I just realized, and maybe will try, should I ever have music and a piano, is to turn the sheet music on its side.

The problem with sheet music is that higher and lower notes are arranged along a vertical line, but the keyboard runs horizontally left to right. It seems as if it would be easier if what you saw mapped to the finger positions. You'd have to read the music top to bottom instead of left to right, but I don't think that's a challenge.

An additional advantage would be that the bass cleft would be on the left and the treble on the right, just like the hands which play them.

I Plan To Cut President Biden Some Slack

 No. Not for when he insinuated that Mitt Romney would re-institute slavery.  And also not for perpetuating the lie that Trump praised white supremacists

What I will cut him some slack for is the election fraud which may have gained him the presidency.  I doubt Biden could engineer his way out of a paper sack, let alone engineer voter fraud in half a dozen states.

What Biden ought to do, especially since he is very unlikely to run for re-election anyway, is propose a bipartisan commission to investigate the safeguards which protect the integrity of elections.  He would gain a lot of goodwill across the isle by saying:  

I don't think fraud determined this election, but close to half the people have doubts about this.  We need to audit and then work to make a system which inspires confidence that the outcome is legitimate and encourages every eligible voter to exercise their right to vote.

I doubt he'll do this, but I am putting down a marker:  If he does this, it would be praiseworthy. 

Monday, January 18, 2021

Lies, All Lies!

 My Father in law, who is in his 80s, called his local town health dept. here in MA to see when he could get his vaccine.  They told him that they had not received their allocation from the federal government.

Bloomberg:

JurisdictionDoses distributedDoses administered % shots used
Massachusetts669,325257,17538.4

Update: According to mass.gov/covid, people over 75 or with 2 comorbidities will have no priority until the start of Feb.

Alternate McSweeny's Titles part 3