Many years ago, Jim got a BA in Radiation Biophysics from the University of Kansas. He then got a PhD in Molecular Biology from UCLA and did postdoctoral research in yeast genetics at UC Berkeley and mouse retroviruses at Stanford. He joined biosys in Palo Alto, producing insect parasitic nematodes for pest control. In the early 1990’s, he moved to Gainesville, FL and founded a company that eventually became Entomos. He left the firm as it reorganized into Pasteuria Biosciences and chose not to found a new firm due a clash of values with venture capital investors, who generally lack all values. Upon leaving, he chose to be a stay at home dad, gentleman farmer, cook and horse wrangler. He discovered the online world through commenting at Glenn Greenwald’s blog in the Salon days and was involved in the briefly successful Chris Dodd move to block the bill to renew FISA. He then went on to blog at Firedoglake and served a brief stint as evening editor there. When the Emptywheel blog moved out of Firedoglake back to standalone status, Jim tagged along and blogged on anthrax, viruses, John Galt, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is now a mostly lapsed blogger looking for a work-around to the depressing realization that pointing out the details of government malfeasance and elite immunity has approximately zero effect.
In the US, “job creators” just can’t grasp the idea that workers are humans who need food and shelter during the time that, through no fault of their own, they can’t work. The idea of paying workers to do nothing simply never can be entertained, even if it literally means life or death.
The New York Times analysis of when counties shut down average travel below two miles a day has a remarkable similarity to voting by county in the 2016 presidential election. The implication from these data is that Trump and southern governors are selectively killing Republican voters in the South.
There are sad parallels between the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina and the situation now faced there with COVID-19. It appears likely that once again, our country will fail large numbers of those who most desperately need our help.
Donald Trump’s touting of chloroquine as a COVID-19 cure on Friday resulted in a death Monday in Arizona when a couple ingested an aquarium version of the compound. Now, with 6 of his 7 most lucrative properties shut down, he wants to drop social distancing directives so he can “restart the economy”. Such a move so soon very likely will kill over a million Americans.
Cutoms and Border Protection completely botched the rollout of Trump’s new “screening” of passengers returning from Europe. At least thirteen airports reported delays of 3-7 hours to clear Customs. During these delays, passengers were standing shoulder to shoulder, likely spreading a virus that can be very contagious even when the carrier shows no symptoms.
We now enter the liminal space where public awareness of the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak is reaching most of the US population. Important measures for social distancing are now coming into place. How we act in the time while the outbreak gets even worse and we eventually reach the point of lowering the rate of new infections will have a huge impact on many lives. Please think about how you can help someone who needs it.
The hero class cannot offshore their health to Galt’s Gulch and must come face to face with the fact that in a pandemic, every single human being is equal.
In 2018. Donald Trump dismantled the pandemic response structure that Barack Obama had built during the Ebola outbreak. That, coupled with his administration needlessly restricting access to COVID-19 testing, has led to the virus likely spreading much more widely in the US than would have been the case with early widespread testing followed by appropriate isolation of infected individuals.
To Ted Yoho, all we need to say is that your time for promoting hate in the US Congress is coming to an end at the end of this year. Your views will eventually lose out, and peace and justice will eventually come to our country. There are simply more people who are working for peace and justice than there are promoting hate. Even within our current Congress, which has many Republicans who endorse the bulk of the racist Republican agenda, you were outvoted by over 100-1 on the issue of lynching being a hate crime. The Senate and House versions of this legislation will soon be synchronized, and even if your racist President chooses to veto, there are enough votes to override this last-ditch effort to spread hate.
Jim here. I am quite late to getting to a post on the new coronavirus, but headlines yesterday finally forced me to move ahead and gather info today. First, watch this incredibly informative video from the World Health Organization. It gives very good information on the biology of the virus and what’s going on in […]