Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[CGVT]

My brother and his wife chose this week to vacation at a beach house in Destin, Florida. I don't think they've had any sunshine yet. They leave Saturday to come back north, and will likely be driving smack thru the remains of Sally.

I told him he should have came to the mitten .. but nooooooo......

Your brother should pack his shit and head home now.

[lineygoblue]

I think he may leave early. He's keeping an eye on the weather channel for local developments.

[Dr. Strangelove]

At his town hall tonight Trump attacked Biden for NOT implementing a mask mandate ( presumably meaning during H1N1) then pivoted to say many people think masks are bad for you anyways.

And he said “herd mentality” will make the virus go away.

[CGVT]

Starting to get a little nastier here.

Sustained winds about 30kts and steady rain. Some pretty serious gusts, probably about 50kts or so. It is going to get steadily worse through the night and tomorrow.

Power has flickered a few times and internet has been a bit spotty.

[lineygoblue]

Israel signed peace agreements with 2 of their Arab neighbors today, and indications are, more are to follow. Israel has now signed 4 peace agreements with its Arab neighbors. Egypt and Jordan have had peaceful relations with Israel for decades.

And, in Gaza, the "palestinians" noted the day by firing rockets into Israel, targeting Israeli civilians.

And somewhere, John Kerry and Barack Obama think that Trump got this all wrong.

Blessed are the peacemakers?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Woman at town hall asks Trump why he never wears a mask. Trump says many people think it’s bad to wear them. Moderator asks “who!?”. Trump says restaurant waiters.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Starting to get a little nastier here.

Sustained winds about 30kts and steady rain. Some pretty serious gusts, probably about 50kts or so. It is going to get steadily worse through the night and tomorrow.

Power has flickered a few times and internet has been a bit spotty.

Hope you're making it through ok. They say it nearly strengthened to a Cat 3 right before landfall. Pensacola has ended up getting hit with the eastern eyewall, the strongest part of the storm.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Reportedly Pensacola NAS has already received over 2 feet of rain

[Jeff Buchanan]

We're gonna see some massive flooding from Sally with rescue and recovery ops severely limited for days. Wind damage will compound the recovery efforts. Post Katrina like problems revisited for Mobile east to Pensacola. 2020 just sucks. Read a couple of pieces yesterday on the toll taken from stress and anxiety over multiple shitty events occurring pretty much simultaneously. I'm basically unaffected by all of them and so are my kids. Minor inconveniences - life goes on for us - but, man, I can feel the discouragement. It's in the background all the time. Historically, hope has been a hallmark of Americans facing similar shitiness. That few people trust government at all levels to develop appropriate responses to all of this is dampening that tradition.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Fuckin' Climate Change.

Fuckin' Trump.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm just going to post this quote that appeared in my NYT's news feed this morning without my usual lengthy comment except this: It is reflective of a realistic appraisal of how humanity is to move forward in a world that will find the SARS-CoV-2 experience frequently repeated. Developing coordinated global approaches to future viral outbreaks, having the tools to "maintain equilibrium" in the face of them is key to restoring faith and hope that the stupid things done in response to COVID won't be repeated.

“It’s not possible to stop the virus,” said Emmanuel André, a leading virologist in Belgium. “It’s about maintaining equilibrium. And we only have a few tools available to do that.”

[Mike]

Here's a feel good story. An Ohio High School staged a Patriot's Day celebration this past Friday to honor those who died on 9/11. Two players, one the son of a firefighter, the other the son of a police officer, carried "thin red line" and "thin blue line" flags onto the field to commemorate the first responders who died that day.

Everyone swelled with pride. Totally kidding! Their school board fucking suspended the players from all team activities for their daring stunt. Turns out they asked permission to use the flags as part of the ceremony and were told no but did it anyway. They have since been reinstated.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-high...thin-blue-flag

[CGVT]

Lost power at about 1:00. Blowing like hell right now. I have whitecaps on my pool. Ha! Lost two sections of privacy fence so far and it looks as if we are going to lose some landscape trees. I forgot to fill up thermoses of coffee last night. Tried to use the inverter in the car but I haven’t used it in months. Of course it doesn’t work...

[Hannibal]

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[Jeff Buchanan]

This is getting some but not a lot of press ..... the WTO ruled that American tariffs placed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration are illegal. The written finding reports the US did not make it's case that China was stealing US intellectual property and it's subsidies of Chinese companies in key economic sectors put American products produced in those sectors at a competitive disadvantage.

Of course the Chinese are making hay on the finding declaring the WTO finding exculpatory. Fuck them. The Chinese are compromising global fair trade provisions on a massive scale ..... it's no wonder the US has basically neutered that fucking organization. The US neutering of the WTO involves it's unwillingness to certify any of the WTO's nominations to the appeals board. It is that entity that issues final, legally binding findings. Now, they can't do that. So, the US can simply give a deserved big finger to the WTO.

I doubt a Biden/Harris win will change the US position on the WTO that has simmered for decades under multiple administrations. The Trump administration just made the behind the scenes discord very public calling out the Chicoms in the process. I don't think, however, that position bolstered the credibility of the US position on trade with China. That's largely due to Trump's shitty messaging and the appearance that his FP initiatives have disrupted decades of global cooperation on multiple fronts. That view predominates even though his administration has been spot on in shinning the light on the abuse of the US by the UN, the WTO and the WHO..... all of these organizations facilitating the rise of Communist China, the PRC at the expense of western democracies. It doesn't help that the EU has been pretty much a leftist sack of shit unwilling to push back against Chinese expansionism.

It is very possible that a Biden presidency will try to walk back the hardball Trump played. The impact on American global prestige and influence that follows is TBD. The Chinese' rising influence and power is well established. Take for instance, Xi's recent claims that how China's and the PRC's handling of SARS-CoV-2 in that country demonstrates, "the superiority of Communist/Socialist governance compared to western democracies." That's a pretty bold fucking statement right there that, if you're paying attention, you ought to be rightly concerned. Put Xi's claims next to Liney's concerns about the not so subtle drift in American politics to the radical left espoused by the "Squad" with Kamala Harris in a position to give that bunch of crazies an influential place in the Biden presidency and even I can get on Liney's bandwagon of concern. Hanni's way past the "concern" point and DSL is just whistling past the graveyard of Pax Americana.