PARASITE OF THE WEEK
A top House Republican criticized the $400 weekly federal unemployment benefit in the White House stimulus plan, saying the GOP doesn't want 'wasteful spending'
Joseph Zeballos-Roig

Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas on Capitol Hill. Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

Rep, Kevin Brady criticized elements of the White House plan, including a $400 federal unemployment benefit.

"The worry is: 'How much wasteful spending will we have to swallow to do this?" Brady said in a Fox Business interview.

Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee, expressed concern that a $400 federal unemployment benefit disincentivizes work.

Numerous studies indicate an earlier $600 federal benefit didn't keep people out of the labor force.

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Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas — the ranking Republican on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee — was critical of elements within the White House's stimulus proposal on Thursday, including a $400 weekly federal unemployment benefit.

During an interview with Fox Business, Brady said many Republicans are reluctant to back a stimulus plan with a big price tag.

"The worry is: 'How much wasteful spending will we have to swallow to do this?" Brady said, adding he wanted the federal government to prioritize spending on thwarting the coronavirus and aiding the jobless.

But he expressed concern that a $400 federal supplement to state unemployment checks would disincentivize people from seeking work, arguing many would earn more out of work than on the job as a result.

It's a claim often made by Republicans about the economic impact of the $600 federal unemployment benefit that expired in late July. Numerous studies show it didn't keep jobless people out of the workforce.

Brady said "targeted help" was needed, particularly to airlines moving ahead with layoffs and the restaurant industry.

Read more: BlackRock's investment chief breaks down why Congress passing a second round of fiscal stimulus is 'quite serious' for markets and the economy — and pinpoints which sectors will benefit in either scenario

House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi are pressing for a $2.2 trillion stimulus plan. It includes a $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit, another wave of $1,200 stimulus checks, and aid to cash-strapped states and small businesses.

Meanwhile, the White House put forward a $1.6 trillion virus aid proposal containing many of the same measures, but lower spending amounts.

Brady's remarks underscore the opposition to significant federal spending among GOP lawmakers. Many in the GOP say they're opposed to stimulus plans since it would grow the federal debt. Lawmakers have approved over $3 trillion in federal aid since the pandemic began devastating the economy in the spring.

Negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Pelosi stretched into their fifth day on Thursday. The California Democrat assailed the White House's proposal in a Bloomberg TV interview.

"This isn't half a loaf. What they're offering is the heel of the loaf... and you really can't just say, well, just take this," she said.


Read more: Stimulus talks press on as dealmakers push for another boost to unemployment payments. Here's everything you need to know about the rescue package.

More than half of Americans at risk of shutoffs as economic crisis causes utility bills to pile up

Published on October 1, 2020 By Matthew Chapman RAW STORY

Couple worried as they analyze bills (Shutterstock)

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that more than half of Americans are at risk of water, power, or gas shutoffs as unpaid utility bills pile up from the economic crisis — and emergency protections put in place by states begin to lapse.

“At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many states acted quickly to ensure their residents would not lose their power or other utilities if their jobs or wages were slashed,” reported Tony Romm. “Now, however, only 21 states and the District of Columbia still have such disconnection bans in place. That leaves roughly 179 million Americans at risk of losing service even as the economy continues sputtering, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which is tracking the moratoria. Millions more in nine other states are set to lose their protections starting Thursday and throughout the fall, the group found.”

“Americans nationwide also appear to be racking up massive unpaid bills in the process,” continued the report. “Electric and gas debts alone threaten to reach or exceed $24.3 billion by the end of the year, according to a new NEADA analysis, released Thursday, based on roughly two dozen’ states regulatory filings. In some cases, the delinquencies appear to be severe. In Indiana, for example, more than 112,000 households are behind 120 days or more on their power bills, a Washington Post analysis of the largest local energy companies’ records found. The debt, totaling millions of dollars, is four times greater than the arrears accrued during the same period in 2019, the data shows.”

“The torrent of missed electric, water and gas payments underscores the severe cash crunch that continues to plague Americans nearly seven months after the deadly coronavirus sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin,” said the report. “Nationally, nearly one-third of adults still say they face difficulty meeting their regular household expenses, according to the most recent survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. That dour figure is compounded by the fact that 837,000 new workers filed for unemployment assistance last week, the U.S. government reported Thursday.

Data from companies in many key states paint a grim picture.

“In Wisconsin, residents fell behind on their electricity bills in August: An average of three in 10 customers at five electric and gas utilities missed payments, totaling $235 million in arrears, state records show,” said the report. Meanwhile, “More than 68,000 Nevada residents and small businesses were behind on their payments last month, the Nevada Power Company recently told regulators, and half are past due by more than 90 days.”

Already, the shutoffs are beginning, with horrible consequences for some people.

“This Tuesday marked 67 days of darkness for Kenneth Parson. He fell behind on his utility bills in the spring — and his lights went off, and stayed off, starting at the end of July,” said the report. “No power meant no refrigerator, so Parson, a 62-year-old with diabetes in Griffin, Ga., had no choice but to store his temperature-sensitive insulin on ice in a small cooler. He didn’t have an easy way to cook at home, either, so his wife, Cheryl, took to preparing some meals for him in a neighbor’s kitchen.”

Lawmakers in Washington have spent months trying to craft a second round of stimulus, which could give millions of people the relief they need to pay these bills. However, Senate Republicans, House Democrats, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have wildly different terms for the bill, making a deal hard to reach.

You can read more here. PAYWALL

Trump supporters swallow voter fraud claims for one very simple reason: NYT reporter

Published on October 1, 2020 By Travis Gettys RAW STORY

Trump supporters (Shutterstock)

One of the reasons President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about voter fraud resonate with his supporters is they simply don’t know anyone who’s voting for Joe Biden.

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters interviewed Trump supporters around the country who are sure Democrats can’t win without cheating, and he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that was setting up a dangerous dynamic for the post-election period.

“Because of the geographical separation that people have from one another of different political views, often, these days, they don’t know anybody who is not voting for Trump,” Peters said. “So on Election Day or election week, whenever we know who the winner of the presidential election is, if it’s not Donald Trump, there’s a sizable chunk of people who are going to say, ‘How is this possible? I don’t know anyone who is voting for Biden.'”

This distorted view is further propped by Fox News and other conservative media outlets, which frame negative stories about the president as partisan attacks by his enemies.

“That’s why it’s so important for Trump and his pro-Trump media boosters to insist that he’s doing so well, that he’s winning,” Peters said. “Winning is such a key part of the Trump brand, so even after a night like Tuesday night where you had members of his own campaign staff and White House staff really shaking their heads at his performance, the message coming out of them publicly, at least, was the president really killed it. He was in an unfair fight against two people debating him, the moderator and Joe Biden, so, you know, he really beat the spread. We think he did a great job under such trying circumstances and the media is going to lie to you, that’s why it’s so important to put that narrative out there.”

“If you are a Trump voter, it’s better for you to be energized and mobilized by the sense, false as it is, that you’re winning,” he added, “and that’s something that I talk to Democrats and they’re really worried about because Democrats don’t, for the most part, have the same sense of energy and momentum. In fact, they’re quite anxious they might lose, and I think that that’s something that, frankly, Trump has an advantage on.”

        DIANE ARBUS, NYC. 1968

     ACTUAL PHOTO CAPTION

Facebook removes Trump campaign ads with misleading claims about refugees

Claims Biden immigration policies risked more Covid-19 as company also blocks ads delegitimizing election results


Kari Paul Thu 1 Oct 2020 
 

Facebook has rejected ads from the Trump campaign. 

Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters


Facebook has removed a number of ads from the Trump campaign for making misleading and inaccurate claims about Covid-19 and immigration.

On Wednesday the social media platform took down the Trump-sponsored advertisements which claimed, without evidence, that accepting refugees would increase Americans’ risk of Covid-19. The ad, which featured a video of Joe Biden talking about the border and asylum seekers, claimed, also without evidence, that the Democratic candidate’s policies would increase the number of refugees from Syria, Somalia and Yemen by “700%”. More than 38 versions of the ad were run on Facebook and were seen by hundreds of thousands of people before the company removed them.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said in a statement to NBC news the ads violated its policies. A version of the advertisement can still be seen in Facebook’s library but is now inactive, meaning it is not being run across any Facebook products.

Facebook's long-awaited oversight board to launch before US election

“We rejected these ads because we don’t allow claims that people’s physical safety, health, or survival is threatened by people on the basis of their national origin or immigration status,” a Facebook spokesman, Andy Stone, told NBC News in a statement.

The removal is the latest action taken against the Trump administration as social media platforms attempt to rein in misinformation ahead of the 2020 elections. It follows other removals of Trump ads including one in June, which featured a Nazi symbol. The company removed another Trump ad in 2018 saying it violated its rules against “sensational content”.

Following the removal of the ad on Wednesday, Courtney Parella of the Trump campaign doubled down on the advertisement’s claims in a statement. She did not cite the source of the 700% figure featured in the ad.Facebook is also changing its policies to prevent ads that delegitimize election results, project manager Rob Leathern tweeted on Wednesday. Under the new policies, ads cannot prematurely declare victory, present any method of voting as fraudulent or corrupt, or make accusations of voter fraud. The changes to these policies apply to both Instagram and Facebook and apply immediately as of Wednesday, he said.

“While President Trump took decisive action to restrict travel from China to slow the spread of coronavirus and saved countless lives, Joe Biden was busy calling the president xenophobic and armchair quarterbacking his pandemic response,” she said.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although Facebook removed the ads regarding refugees and Covid-19, other misleading advertisements remain on the platform. One ad shows Joe Biden with a headphone photoshopped to his ear, perpetuating the false claim that the presidential candidate somehow cheated in the debates.

The advertisement appears to have been launched on the day of the debate but remains active on the platform, with more than 800 versions still active. The ads have been viewed by more than 3.6 million people, the majority of whom are in the key election states of Florida and Pennsylvania, according to Facebook data.

The Trump campaign’s ads have led to the “earpiece” conspiracy theory spreading organically on other social media platforms, including TikTok, according to the watchdog group Media Matters. The group has found four examples of TikTok videos espousing the theory that have been viewed more than 560,000 times. A spokesperson for TikTok said the videos violate its policies on disinformation and it is working to remove them as they are posted.

“You would not have seen the proliferation of conspiracy theories on TikTok today if there was not already an intense saturation of this idea from the Trump campaign yesterday,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters. “They sort of seeded the ground with this idea until the users themselves were driving it.”

Recognising vocational routes into chemistry

I HAVE ADVOCATED FOR THIS INTEGRATION OF

OF POST SECONDARY EDUCATION AND NO TUITION

Picture: © West Suffolk College

3 August 2020

The Royal Society of Chemistry has awarded accredited status to a vocational programme for the first time, reflecting the increasing importance of apprenticeships as a route into the chemical science profession.

On 6 May, the RSC’s Registration Committee met and approved the accreditation of West Suffolk College (Bury St Edmunds) for the delivery of the Level 3 Advanced Apprenticeship Laboratory Technician Standard with the Level 3 Cambridge Technical Extended certificate in Applied Science.

Accredited status is a marker of quality for a higher education programme – assuring prospective students that the programme is of a high standard.

The Royal Society of Chemistry has been awarding accredited status to degree level programmes for many years, but this is the first time we have extended accreditation beyond degrees. The new initiative reflects the growing importance of vocational routes into the chemical sciences. Accrediting apprenticeship programmes not only helps prospective apprentices to choose a high quality programme, but it also helps employers to secure the best quality training for their apprentices.

As a supporter of the Technician Commitment, the Royal Society of Chemistry is committed to recognising the professional status of the technical workforce. Opening up accreditation of the Laboratory Technician apprenticeship programmes is an important step towards this aim.

In order to attain accredited status, West Suffolk College had to complete a detailed application – showing how the programme met the key requirements for accreditation – and then go through a rigorous peer review process. A team of assessors conducted a site visit and met with apprentices on the programme and representatives of their employers.

The assessors noted: "West Suffolk College staff go that extra mile to ensure that the apprentices receive a good learning/training experience, to equip them to succeed and to create a nurturing environment. Apprentices value the support that they receive from the college and the staff here."

Catriona Bacon, Head of Health, Science and Social Care said: "I am immensely proud of leading the team in our science apprenticeship delivery and to receive this accolade.  We are continually working very hard with our learners and employers to ensure our learners receive the outstanding learning, supporting and enhancing their professional development and growth in such fast moving and specialist vocation."

Laraine Moody, Vice Principal for Employer Engagement said: "I am absolutely delighted that the hard work and dedication of the team has led to West Suffolk College becoming the first college to receive this amazing accolade. We are delighted to work with such an incredible organisation as The Royal Society for Chemistry and look forward to our learners and employers benefitting from this wonderful partnership."

Katie Dryden-Holt, Interim Vocational Skills Programme Manager at the RSC said: "The quality of provision at West Suffolk College really shone through- the nurturing environment created by the team at the college, coupled with excellent teaching and employer engagement will put West Suffolk College’s apprentices in a great position as they embark on their careers."

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The holy grail myth

The true value of a scientific quest comes from the journey, not the goal writes Philip Ball

BY PHILIP BALL 28 SEPTEMBER 2020 CHEMISTRY WORLD

Source: © Getty Images

Golden opportunities lie on the route to holy grails

The holy grail was originally neither holy nor a grail (a chalice-like cup). It first featured in a romance, Perceval ou le Conte du Graal written by the Frenchman Chrétien of Troyes around 1190. This poem tells the tale of the Arthurian knight Percival, who encounters the ‘grail’ – more like a shallow dish with miraculous powers – while dining with the magical Fisher King. The image perhaps derived from old Celtic myths, but later translators of Chrétien’s popular tale turned it into a holy relic: Christ’s chalice from the last supper, used to collect his blood at the crucifixion.

All this seems a peculiar metaphor for setting scientific grand challenges. But it might be more apt than you’d think, especially for chemistry. One of the translators of Chrétien’s romance was Wolfram von Eschenbach, a German knight and poet who allegedly could neither read nor write but worked by dictation. In his Parzival, composed in the early 13th century, Wolfram interprets the grail as a stone, also called the lapis exilis, which could confer eternal youth like the elixirs of the alchemists. The philosopher’s stone that could transform base metals to gold was sometimes identified with this wondrous lapis.

Is this just fantasy?

Like the grail, the philosopher’s stone was a figment of the imagination that you could waste a lifetime seeking – hardly a good model for a target of scientific research. Except … you could discover other useful things on the way. In the nineteenth century, when alchemy was frequently mocked as deluded fantasy, Justus von Liebig had the perception to note its value. Without the philosopher’s stone to act ‘powerfully and constantly on the minds and faculties of men [sic]’, he wrote, ‘chemistry would not now stand in its present perfection’. For in order to know that the stone did not exist, ‘it was indispensable that every substance accessible … should be observed and examined’. This is not an entirely fair picture of alchemy – practitioners were doing much else besides seeking the marvellous stone, not least making dyes, medicines and soaps – but it does express the value of a motivational goal for research as a generator of useful spin-offs. As Professor Waldman tells Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, when the naïve young medical student confesses his admiration of alchemists, ‘The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.’


The art of successful science often lies in being prepared to reorient your research goals

It’s with this sentiment in mind that we might consider the value of setting ‘holy grails’ for chemistry. All of those considered in this issue are more achievable than the philosopher’s stone, and indeed in many of the cases (artificial enzymes, unnatural selection, C–H bond activation) the goal is to improve on what we already have. But the art of successful science often lies in being prepared to reorient your research goals when something unexpected but interesting turns up. Whether it is William Perkin trying to make quinine in the 1850s and ending up launching the synthetic dye industry, or Hideki Shirakawa contemplating a visiting scientist’s error in a synthesis of polyacetylene in the 1960s and realising he had a conducting polymer on his hands, it can pay to switch your quest when a lucky accident occurs.
Grail rules, OK?

This might be considered the first rule of a scientific holy grail: the value may lie in the journey, not the destination. (Percival never reaches the grail in Chrétien’s unfinished poem.) The second rule is not to succumb to obsessive pride and lust for your goal, as Parzival does in von Eschenbach’s version: he ends up doing some dumb and reprehensible things on his quest, and suffers as a result.


There’s a danger that scientific holy grails become sticking plaster technofixes

The third rule is to remember that panaceas – whether grails, philosopher’s stones or elixirs – don’t really exist. Yes, grand scientific challenges have the potential not only to stimulate new ideas and discoveries but also to alleviate urgent problems: artificial photosynthesis, for example, could offer abundant clean energy, while room-temperature superconductors could help to make more efficient use of it. But there’s a danger that scientific holy grails become sticking plaster technofixes. Some would consider a colony on Mars to be a desirable holy grail, but if that is portrayed as a way of saving humanity from the harm we are wreaking on our own planet, we should be as wary of it as of the evil magician Klingsor in Richard Wagner’s operatic version of Parzival.

Such technofixes have, in other words, a tendency to perpetuate rather than address underlying problems. Right now there are few more tempting holy grails than vaccines and better tests for Covid-19, but professor of public policy Shobita Parthasarathy has warned that ‘We can’t just ‘tech’ our way out of the pandemic.’1 For everyone to benefit, the disadvantaged communities that have been hardest hit must be included in the way such innovations are developed and applied – and ultimately we need to tackle the socioeconomic inequalities that the crisis has highlighted. Often, our real problem is not that we have failed to find the grail, but that we have created the need to look for it.

References

1 S Parthasarathy, Nature, 2020, 585, 8 (DOI: 10.1038/d41586-020-02495-y)

 Alchemy in the time of coronavirus

Has the coronavirus given a literal shot in the arm to the ancient proto-science cum transformational philosophy called alchemy?

 

September 22, 2020, 4 Jug Suraiya in Juggle-Bandhi | Science, World | TOI

In medieval Europe, alchemy was an occult science whose practitioners sought to transmute base metals, such as lead, into ‘noble’ metals like gold, through a process called chrysopoeia. While this was deemed to be the ‘esoteric’, or practical, goal of alchemy, its ‘estonic’, or secret, aspect was an inner transformation of the human spirit by which ignorance was transmuted into gnosis or transcendental knowledge.

The word alchemy is said to be derived from the Arabic al-Kimiya, but the roots of this ancient crypts-science have been traced back to the China of the 7th century BC, from where it went to Europe, via Greece, and to what later was to become the Islamic world.

As it spread like a great banyan tree, alchemy sprouted numerous offshoots, including the so-called ‘philosopher’s stone’ and the ‘elixir of life’ which gave immortality to its recipient.

In Christendom, alchemy was deemed to be a form of witchcraft, a heresy which could invoke the penalty of the ‘auto defe’, the inquisitional execution of being burned alive at the stake.

Alchemists formed an underground cult, cloaking their rites and rituals in symbols and arcane signs, some which are extant today in societies such as that of the Free Masons.

As a beacon of humankind’s never-ending quest for knowledge, alchemy found an eloquent platform in literature, as exemplified by Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus who traded his soul to the Devil for the power of boundless knowledge. In Rabindra Sangeet, we have mention of the ‘poroshmoni’, or philosopher’s stone which the poet’s soul yearns for.

Its philosophical subtext apart, alchemy is seen by several science historians as being the precursor of modern chemistry, the alchemist’s crucible morphing into the test-tube and petri dish of the laboratory.

Never has this connect between alchemy and contemporary science been more evident than it is today when the world is in the grip of a pandemic which might more aptly be called a panic-demic.

A vaccine that can prevent or cure Covid-19 has become the new ‘philosopher’s stone’, the latter-day ‘elixir of life’. There are reportedly over 140 formulations currently undergoing trials at various levels.

Governments and charitable foundations such as that of Bill and Melinda Gates have ploughed in billions to fund the search for a surefire ‘silver bullet’ which will put paid once and for all to the dread virus which has overturned the world’s economic, social and political applecart causing wreckage from which it will take countries years, if not decades, to recover.

But even as an overload of information – and an equal, perhaps greater, amount of misinformation – about the virus and its possible antidotes spreads even faster than the pathogen itself, many of the protocols regarding the development of the various vaccines and the progress of the human trials involving them are shrouded in secrecy as nations, and the pharmaceutical companies tasked with making and testing potential cures, vie with each other to try and take the lead in this race for redemption from the menacing spectre of the virus.

In recent times many skeletons have tumbled out of the clandestine cupboards of ‘Big Pharma’, such as the thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s. Reports that the Phase 3 trials of a frontrunner vaccine were temporarily suspended after a volunteer developed severe side effects, and the subsequent taciturnity regarding the issue by the company concerned, has raised widespread doubts about the safety of these medicinal miracles in the making.

With the Devil waiting in the wings to claim him, Faustus enjoined a resurrected Princess of Troy, “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.” Today’s white-jacketed Faustus clone, hypodermic syringe in hand, might well say “Sweet vaccine, make us immune with a jab.” Is that a Satanic chuckle we hear in the background?

Thai People Do Not Have ‘Magic Blood’ To Ward Off COVID-19–WTF, America

Indi Samarajiva
September 22, 2020

Thailand worked hard and fought back COVID-19 with public health. Instead of seeing that, however, The New York Times asked if it was something in their blood. We’re talking about magic oriental blood, in 2020. I’m serious

Is there a genetic component in which the immune systems of Thais and others in the Mekong River region are more resistant to the coronavirus? Or is it some alchemy of all these factors that has insulated this country of 70 million people? (NYT) 

This is literal racism. Instead of looking at what Thai people did, they’re asking if it’s something in their veins. Because Thai people couldn’t possibly just be competent, it must be alchemy. This sort of coverage is awful, and it’s endemic. 

 

Recently the NY Post (dumpster fire) said: Scientists can’t explain the puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa.  Well no, they can, it’s bog standard public health. They have excellent scientists in Africa, you know.

This is just racism, and western coverage is almost all like this. They attribute agency to rich/white nations like Germany or New Zealand but luck to anyone poorer or dark. And it’s just not true. Poorer nations have done better than the rich because they had robust public health responses. Because they worked together. Because they reacted early. These are all lessons worth learning, but the west is unable to learn them because they’re simply too racist to see.

For once, this racism isn’t killing us in the Dirty South. We’re living. This time it’s killing you.
The Real World

When The New York Times or western media talks about the world, they’re not talking about the world. They’re talking about white people or, at a stretch, the rich.

For example, David Leonhardt imagines the world in 2022… and only talks about America. Some more generous writers include Europe in the world, and thus dub Europe’s COVID response excellent. But it’s not. It’s a burning trash can next to a dumpster fire, good only in comparison. The rest of the world is actually eliminating or suppressing this thing, but you can’t see that if you only see white.

The white world, of course, stretches to New Zealand, and there they have found their great white hope. But that’s where the world ends. Europe, here be dragons, then New Zealand.

At a stretch, white people can also see money, so they might extend the world to South Korea, Japan, UAE. But that’s it. That’s the end of the world. People are either white, rich, or they don’t exist.

This, however, is not the world. Just open a map. The world is full of people and the humans you ignore are actually a majority. We are human, we exist, and, stubbornly, competently, brilliantly; we persist. Western media is literally missing most of the world because they’re so structurally racist and that means they’re missing most information as well. They’re missing the real story of COVID-19.
The Real Story

The real story is that “developing” nations have done remarkably better at fighting COVID-19 than the rich and white. The real story starts precisely where the western map ends. Here be dragons. We be dragons.

The real story is that places like Vietnam and Mongolia have completely kicked COVID-19’s ass. The real story is that places like Rwanda and Ghana have innovated and survived. There are countless stories like this — from Sri Lanka to Trinidad & Tobago, but you wouldn’t know because we’re not rich or white. But you should know. Because we’re right. This information could save your life.

Instead, however, the western media anoints white Germany a COVID leader, despite having an outbreak the size of Iraq’s. They should be looking at Vietnam. Vietnam has the same population, much less wealth and has had a dramatically better response. Nearly 10,000 people have died in Germany, compared to 35 in Vietnam. Every two days, Germany has as many cases as Vietnam did total. What are you learning here? To feel good about your race while dying? Why not learn from the best?

The other great white darling is New Zealand, which has had an excellent response, but is also the most remote place on earth. Meanwhile, there are places which shared a land border with China — like Mongolia — that nonetheless survived, and densely populated nations in Africa, like Ghana, or Senegal, or Rwanda that all did well. How? You don’t know, you’re like, “wait, what if we try a white woman.“ You’re missing the point.

Worst, countless column pixels have been devoted to abject failures like Sweden, as if they’re somehow a model. A model of what? Killing your people, economy and reputation at the same time? Real models in the Caribbean or Africa are ignored while people debate whether everyone should just get the disease. Honestly, WTF is wrong with you people? Just get the disease? When poor nations like mine have just eliminated it and moved on? There is a real story happening across the world which you can’t see, because you define the world so narrowly.
The World Is The World

In the Dirty South, we are constantly excluded from the world via euphemism. You talk about the “developed” world or the “industrialized” world or “advanced” nations. But what does that mean? How developed are you if you don’t have public health? How industrialized are you if you cannot distribute tests and PPE? How advanced are you if your people won’t even wear a mask?

These words are now just naked euphemisms for rich and white. They’re codewords for racism and classism. “Advanced” and “developed” have been obliterated by COVID-19 and if you don’t see that, COVID will happily obliterate you.

We are advanced. We are developed. We are the world.

For your own health, see us. Learn about how early, aggressive action in Mongolia prevented them from having any local transmission at all. Learn about how Ghana used pooled testing to make the most of scarce resources. Learn how Sri Lanka shut down completely for two months with just 100 cases, and is now completely normal.

I understand you’re used to seeing us as disaster areas, but this has made us disaster masters. Poor nations have almost uniformly reacted quickly, decisively and survived. We have a lot to show you, if you could take the racist scales from your eyes.

The racism of COVID coverage is overwhelming, and for once it’s not overwhelming us. We’re fine. My kids are in school. We’re having birthday parties. We’re living. This time, your racism is overwhelming you.

See the original article on ScaryMommy.com

The Historical Lessons Embedded In Alchemical Recipes
10th Century Lab Report From Historian Pamela Smith

An original page from a manuscript in the "Secrets of Craft and Nature" project, which offers English and French translations of alchemical recipes and texts. Bibliothèque nationale de France (CC0)

The Historical Lessons Embedded In Alchemical Recipes
10th Century Lab Report From Historian Pamela Smith
By Mark Riechers
Published:
Saturday, September 26, 2020

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Science history students at Columbia University don’t have to imagine what it was like to be an alchemist. If they take one of historian Pamela Smith’s courses, they can spend a semester reading medieval alchemical manuscripts describing recipes for making emeralds or turning silkworms into gold. Then they re-create the experiments in a lab.

Smith said recreating ancient experiments is less about transmutation for credit and more about exploring the headspace of people living in a very different time and in a very different world.

"I think that realizing those different understandings and not putting them on a hierarchy from primitive to modern is very important," Smith told Anne Strainchamps of "To the Best of Our Knowledge."

She argues that because of their different relationship to the world — as we understand it through some of these recipes — we can infer that they might handle the issues of our time, like catastrophic climate change, very differently.

"The worldview that saw humans as a part of nature might have led to a different kind of attitude toward nature that would not have landed us in this crisis," she said. "To be aware that different ways of understanding the universe might have value, I think, is important."

Among the translated alchemical recipes, some true panacea do exist. Smith cited a literature professor at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom who, in re-creating a cure-all potion for eye infections, discovered a solution that could fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But for the most part, she and her students are attempting to create riches mainly to understand the scientific minds of another era.

Here are two recipes Smith and her students tried to replicate, along with their findings.

The transcript highlights below have been edited for clarity and length.
Emeralds

Take ground rock crystal (mainly silica and red lead, which is powdered bright orange). Then take a little copper to add the green. Then add some salts, and heat it all together.

Results: "The grad students and the post-doc who was working with them tried it about 10 times and just got ash," Smith said. "Then they got black glass. Finally, on about the eighth try, they got green. Beautiful green emeralds."

Conclusion: "The interesting thing about these very ancient recipes for imitation gemstones is that they don't refer to them as imitation. The value is in the actual skill that goes into the imitation. (And) it really does take skill."
Gold

Acquire silkworm eggs. You can grow silkworms in a vessel of horse dung, Smith said.

"(It) sounds very exotic, but that's a very, very common thing that you see in recipes at this time, because horse dung and cow dung actually are host to thermophilic bacteria," Smith said. "It stays a constant temperature as long as the bacteria stays alive. So actually, it's a very good way to keep something warm at a constant low temperature."

One you have silkworms, feed them mulberry leaves until they are big enough to fight each other to the death. Then feed the victor gold leaf, and heat the vessel, killing the victor. Finally, use the resulting powder to make gold.

Results: "We found a supplier in Long Island or somewhere who could get us silkworm eggs," Smith said. "The student grew the silkworms — he had to keep the silkworms at a constant temperature of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We even called up the stables in New York City, but there was no way that we could actually have a pile of manure or composting anywhere on campus. And besides, it was winter and it wouldn't have worked. So what the student did was (find a nice warm spot) at the top of the boiler in his apartment building.

"He was finally able to buy mulberry chow, silkworm chow, on the internet, and they grow bigger," she said. "You continue to feed them egg yolks, and they grow bigger. And then you feed them gold leaf. And eventually the recipe says they will kill each other off and there will be one kind of 'super' silkworm left."

"The whole vessel is sealed, then you're supposed to put a ring of coals around that vessel, You're supposed to heat it to kill the silkworm and turn it into powder (that is) supposed to be able to make things gold."

Conclusion: "I don't think it could ever actually work... the importance of this recipe is in its symbolism and in its antiquity," Smith said. "These people have the focus on the same kinds of questions we have, like what generates life, what can regenerate growth, like growth of a limb or growth of an organ. So the focus is the same. But the way they're answering them is often different within a different cosmic understanding."

"People understood nature through religious texts and practices," she continued. "So it's not surprising that something that gave rise to new life or gave rise to the ability to a noble a metal or some other material would be compared to Jesus's resurrection."

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MONOPOLY FINANCE CAPITALI$M
Goldman Sachs reportedly just landed GM's $2.5 billion credit card business, its second co-branded deal after the Apple Card
Tyler Sonnemaker

Goldman Sachs trading booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Ramin Talaie/Corbis/Getty Images


Goldman Sachs won the bid for General Motors' credit-card business for roughly $2.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The Wall Street giant beat out Barclays, acquiring more than one million GM cardholders and the $8.5 billion they spend annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This is Goldman Sachs' second co-branded card, following the Apple Card, as it looks to expand its consumer-lending business.

The bank recently shuffled its organizational structure to create a new standalone consumer division that includes its Marcus lending unit.

Goldman Sachs is picking up General Motors' credit-card business for a price tag of roughly $2.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, as it doubles down on its push into consumer lending.

Goldman beat out UK-based Barclays for the deal, which gives it more than one million GM cardholders and the approximately $8.5 billion they spend annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Goldman and GM did not respond to requests for comment.

The paper initially reported in August that Goldman was looking to acquire GM's card business away from Capital One, which currently issues GM's three cards — the BuyPower Card, a business card, and a card for GM employees and suppliers — and has a year left on its contract.

According to Thursday's report, Goldman and Capital One have reached an agreement on the general terms of the deal, such as top-line price, and plan to finalize the details in the next few weeks.

Landing GM's card business would be Goldman's second co-branded consumer credit card and another significant step into the consumer-lending business, following its underwriting of the Apple Card, which launched in 2019.

On Wednesday, Business Insider's Dakin Campbell reported that Goldman has shuffled its divisions to create a new standalone consumer division that includes its Marcus lending unit. Strategy chief Stephanie Cohen and Tucker York, the head of its private-wealth business, will co-lead the new unit, which will be named the Consumer and Wealth Management Division. The changes will go into effect on January 1.


Get the latest Goldman Sachs stock price here.

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