Seattle Press
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Call a new Russian friend!
One hundred and thirty million Russians can be wrong. But they're not blind or deaf or stupid. Perhaps we can help them understand what's going on in Ukraine. It might cost a few cents per minute, but it just might work. Call or text a new Russian friend today. Some possible messages follow.

To call a Russian phone from the USA, first dial 01 for for international numbers, then one for calls from the USA, then 7 for Russia, then add a 3 or 4 digit city (area) code (NOT beginning with 6 or 7, because those are in Kazakhstan, go figure!), then add the individual phone number, which will have either 3 or four numbers, making a total of ten after the country code 7. Area codes beginning with 9 are for mobile phones.

E.g., to call Ivan Ivanovich Ivanetz in Irkutsk,

Continues...

TextForFree

Trump's Covid-19 Task Force Should Resign
The election may be over, but the pandemic is not, especially in the USA. It's likely we'll continue "winning" well into 2021. During the past week we have experienced over 100,000 cases five times, and a death rate of 1,000 cases per day seems to be baked into the cake.

The nationalists among us may note that India is overtaking the US in the absolute number of cases, but they should also note that they have four times our population and a fraction of our medical capability (not as a matter of talent, just as a function of wealth). Japan, on the other hand, with 38 percent of our population has just 108,151 cases and five deaths, respectively one percent as many cases and 0.0002 percent as many deaths. This is incontrovertibly a difference of policy; it is the same disease.

Continuing our current policies for another 73 days is an foolish, even insane, approach. We can project an additional death toll of 70,000 at least, plus deaths among the newly infected, at today's reduced rate, of at least (100,00 per day X 73 days = 7.3MM * .0240 = ) 175,000, totaling 412,000 attributable to the current regime.

In a parliamentary system, the current adminstration would be gone this week, which if so—coupled with changes in public health measures—could save tens of thousands of lives.

The current task force should resign forthwith, recognizing that their approach has been fruitless. There is no excuse for retaining them solely because the Founders had to travel to the capital on horseback.

To extend the trans-Pacific comparison, if the task force members do not deign to resign, they might consider what might have been expected of them during Japan's samurai era.

(Graphic: Kaiser Family Foundation; https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/fact-sheet/coronavirus-tracker/)
November 3 Bridge Recommendation: Zero, no Trump
Perhaps you're considering voting to re-elect Donald Trump because of his stellar perfornance in combatting Covid-19. You might want to consider the actual numbers, so you can be prepared for your excoriation at Thanksgiving dinner in 2022 (no one will be holding Thanksgiving dinner this year and possibly next.)

In fact, some number between 290,000 and 545,000 of our fellow citizens will die before Inauguration Day 2021. Your vote cannot change that. You can only change what happens thereafter. Please choose wisely. Here is some castor oil for what ails us.

It's not hard to understand the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US or to anticipate the (lack of) results from federal efforts to control its spread. Consider the adjacent graph (click it for a larger view), which tracks deaths and projected deaths as the US responds to the nine million cases reported to date (which probably represent a somewhat larger real number). The horizontal axis is tiime since the reporting of the fifth death (left) until the present (right).

The blue line shows the number of deaths reported daily as a fourteen-day moving average. An early peak in April is followed by another in July and August, and we are now experiencing an even higher and rising death toll in October. If this looks like waves to you, you are correct, It appears we are now experiencing a third surge in deaths. Oh my, surely no one could have foreseen this!

Well, maybe.

Consider the red line. It shows the projection of deaths through Inauguration Day 2021, calculated as the seven-day moving average number of new cases daily since February, multiplied by the then-known death rate, which peaked at 7.2% in April. Thus it appeared on April 22 that over 640,000 persons would die. At that time, three months into the epidemic, public concern over what would come to be called a pandemic, was still rising slowly despite the deaths of over 30,000 residents of New York and New Jersey. The red line shows the projection based only on what is known at the time. Note that at this time it is again rising.

Throughout the winter and spring, the appointment of a presidential task force was accompanied by continued denials by the President and numerous subordinates that the disease was not serious and would "just go away." There were no serious attempts to impose health discipline on the general population. However, by April 22, the peak day of new cases in the first surge, over 45,000 Americans had died, and the case load exceed 825,000. Could it be that the US government, which had won WWII and put men on the moon, had gotten it wrong?

Happily for those screaming "hoax!" the number of new cases began to drop as the initial points of infection, coastal cities with large levels of international travel from Asia and Europe, began to impose health care policies like social distancing and masking. The nation heard the first cries of "we're winning" from the President and his supporters. Meanwhile the daily death toll fluctuated between 300 and 3,000, as those infected in the first wave continued dying. Inconsiderate of them.

The temporary decline after April occurred despite the inaction or floundering of the federal government.. Those states and cities with competent governments took action to acquire necessary resources. More importantly, the medical establishment shared information about what was and was not working in the care of infected persons who became sick or were hospitalized.

The green line and the purple line take account of the fact that some proportion of those already infected will die. The green line shows the estimate based on the average ratio of deaths:cases over the entire pandemic (since February); the purple line uses the ratio as of the then-current data. Because the "latent" deaths are included, a decline in new cases (which is not happening) has little effect on the number of deaths.

By contrast, in South Korea, which imposed strict requirements limiting public gatherings, social distancing and personal hygiene, the number of infections and deaths per capita is a tiny fraction of the US rates. In Singapore, which "quarantined" its people in the first weeks of the world pandemic, the infections and deaths are about one percent of the US rate.

Data source

Biden Announces Task Force to Reunite Separated Immigrant Children, Parents
El candidato demócrata y ex-vice-presidente Joe Biden ha anunciado que en el primer día de su presidencia, formará un grupo de trabajo ejecutivo para encontrar y reunir los padres y niños separado en la frontera de los EEUU y México. La dicha separación ya es en su tercer año para algunos de los estimados 545 niños cuyos padres no se han identificado, por causa de la incompetencia y falta de empatía de los funcionarios fronterizos, bajo la dirección de la administración actual. Tristemente, es probable que algunas reuniones nunca se realizarán, un resultado—en mi opinión—indiscutiblemente en las manos del Pres. Donald Trump.

Democratic candidate and former Vice-president Joe Biden has announced that on the first day of his presidency he will form a task force reporting to him to find and reunite the children and parents separated by the immigration policies of the US along the southern frontier. That separation is now in its third year for some of the affected children due to the incompetence and lack of empathy of frontier officials, all under the guidance of the present administration. Sadly it is likely that some reunions will never happen, a result that in my opinion is incontestably in the hands of Pres. Donald Trump.
Publishing and film rights available...
A literary scenario: The head of state of a large, heavily armed nation that dominates the world in military and commercial power is losing his grip on reality due to age and an undiagnosed disease. His advisors and sycophants close ranks to hide his disabilities from the public.

As his condition worsens he is often trundled off to various governmental or private estates, lodges and other venues, publicly "to rest" and privately to be treated for symptoms of the malady by practitioners sometimes accused of quackery. His family, sometimes suspected of scheming against him, swirls about performing their usual daily routines and when asked about his condition asserts that nothing is amiss.

At times he is incommunicado; at other, more lucid times he is presented as the spokesman of the nation, making public pronouncements on issues of the day under close watch of government officials lest he make false, misleading or outright dangerous statements that might lead to civil unrest or even to war.

No, not that head of state! I refer, of course, to the theme of "The Madness of King George III," by Alan Bennett, the book (1992), play and movie (1994). (Slight variations in title.) All parallel scenarios are purely coincidental.
It's all Obama's Fault
I await anxiously the FOX News report — based on a shocking exposé by Rush Limbaugh — of how Barack Obama Sr. conceived the creation of the coronavirus way back in 1956 when he was a student in Kenya and later, with the connivance of his wife the junior anthropology professor and his US in-laws the furniture salesman and the branch bank manager and funded by the global Communist menace, conspired posthumously to maneuver his son Barack Jr. into the US presidency, wherein he was able during brief breaks in meetings with Chinese President Xi to arrange for the laboratory formulation of the new virus. Truly diabolical!
Washington caucuses: Same problems as Iowa?
In The Guardian of Sat 8 Feb 2020, Karine Jean-Pierre writes "The real outrage about Iowa? The Democratic party silencing black voters.

"If Democrats want to dismantle white supremacy, they can start right now by dismantling a caucus system that ignores black voters

The results from Iowa are in: there are no results.

On Thursday, three days after the caucuses began on Monday, the Associated Press announced that due to irregularities and how close the race is, it would be unable to declare a winner.

Confusion and a lack of information are the story coming out of Iowa right now. But there’s another story worth telling: that, no matter who wins, the results won’t be representative of the Democratic race for president writ large. And that’s because the Democratic nomination process, by starting in Iowa and New Hampshire, systematically drowns out the voices and power of black voters.

‘Right now, there’s a spotlight shining on Iowa. I hope we use it to illuminate the real injustice of the caucuses.’

It may behoove the Democratic Party of Washington State to be sure its own house is in order.

Read the Jean-Pierre article

Shifting Seattle to public transportation
Some advocacy group has been posting photographs supposedly of alternative modes of transportation in the Seattle. Note to the noncognoscenti: these photographs show the only level street in all of downtown Seattle, specifically on Second Avenue.

Any other route—for example any street crossing Second Avenue itself and continuing more than a block or so—requires climbing hills at 45° angles. It is a popular fantasy of the sandals and ponytail set that cars can be completely replaced by other means of transportation. The reality is that residents of the urban area travel not in straight lines as shown but in thousands of sporadic and random trips among millions of random destination. Most of those trips originate and end outside the municipality of Seattle in other municipalities whose local governments' propensity for competition exceeds their desire for cooperation.

By far the greater problem is the storage of all the needed vehicles between trips; paradoxically, Seattle is allowing high-density construction without parking, which adds to the backup in congested areas. Walking or cycling on the few level streets in the metropolitan area may be a healthful alternative for twentysomethings, but it is surely inappropriate for taking children to after-school activities or elderly residents to appointments or shopping.

Greater Seattle and surrounding counties are in the process of building a fixed-rail transit system, whose origins and destinations in addition to downtown Seattle include several suburban shopping malls, many of which are in decline under pressure from online purchase and delivery systems. That system, like many in older eastern cities, maybe come maladapted to future residential working patterns.

Happily a better solution is on the horizon in the form of autonomous vehicles that are not owned by their occupants but instead respond to short-term demand for travel between random origins and destinations without regard for arbitrary starting and ending times such as the eight-hour workday. In the interim, buses are the alternative that offers both predictable routing and flexibility. The challenge is not technological but social, as buses hardly confer high social status on their riders.

Sadly, the political battle is the most intractable part of this problem. The overwhelming disparity of the funds available to the automobile and gasoline lobbies compared to the alternative approaches makes it unlikely that rationality will prevail.
Lindsey Graham Deprecates Impeachment Inquiry Transcripts
A friend posted on social media a link to a social media article labeled "Lindsay Graham says he won't read impeachment transcripts," and he has also full-throatedly supported Tr*mp in other forums. Another friend asked, "what happened to him? John McCain must be turning over in his grave."

It seems rather obvious: He's positioning himself as Tr*mp's successor, knowing he'd whomp VP Mike Pence in primaries. By appearing to support Tr*mp now, he can preserve rapport with the crazies while potentially appealing to a wider audience.

Would a deposed Tr*mp support Pence or Graham?
TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW 'Net Domain Renewed During, After Campaign
Pres. Trump has claimed that he had no pending deals in Russia after the beginning of his presidential campaign. Yet consider the Internet domain trumptowermoscow.com. It was registered in 2008 by "The Trump Organization" and has been renewed annually including three times (2015, 2016 and 2017) since the presidential campaign of 2016 began.

If indeed the project was to end before the election campaign of 2016 as Pres. Trump has asserted, why would registrants renew the related domain afterward, most recently in July 2017, through 2018? It certainly contradicts the statement that the candidate had no pending deals in Russia. It would appear that someone within The Trump Organization is at the very least hedging his bet, and as everyone knows, that "organization" is totally controlled by one person.

Two reasons for the contradiction suggest themselves: Either (a) that oft-cited, unnamed "low ranking employee who is no longer with the company" failed in his/her responsibility to cancel it, or (b) there was never any intent to abandon the project unless the presidential bid faiiled. Take your choice.

Of course there may be other possible reasons for the unnecessary renewal, such as poltergeists, an undiscovered email from Hillary or surreptitious actions by unnamed conspirators out to get The Donald.

Following is the WHOIS query —which anyone can execute— that shows the original registration and status (standard disclaimers & terms omitted). The standard terminal inquiry, which obscures the name of the registrant using a privacy device of the registrar, is followed by the public report from whoisxy.com (LINK) which reveals the name of the registrant.

As Deep Throat might have said had he lived longer, "follow the domain."

STANDARD INQUIRY
whois trumptowermoscow.com
Domain Name: TRUMPTOWERMOSCOW.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1508992055_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2017-06-28T20:25:51Z
Creation Date: 2008-07-17T20:24:44Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2018-07-01T03:59:59Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: 480-624-2505
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Name Server: NS49.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS50.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2017-09-13T16:41:49Z <<<

WHOISXY.COM
WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Domain Name: TRUMPTOWERMOSCOW.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Registrant Name: General Counsel
Registrant Organization: The Trump Organization
Name Server: NS49.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server: NS50.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned

©2017 A. R. Clark
Big Energy Has another Option
The Guardian reported (earlier in October) that "a renewable energy revolution could end the world’s rising demand for oil and coal in the 2020s, decades ahead of forecasts from oil and mining companies."

Comment: With the tiniest nudge from the US government, which still sets the tone for the world economy, the rate of conversion to sustainable energy could be accelerated. Even the current energy companies could benefit: Though they have historically made $ by the sale of fuels and related products (plastics, another problem area), they have also created the world's greatest systems of logistics and commodity management.

So why are they dragging their feet? Converting to this service function as their primary function could guarantee their continuation regardless of the decline of fuels. One would think shareholders who value long-term appreciation would support this approach in huge numbers. As for the speculators, who gives a damn?
Trump, Flynn and the Nature of Lying
I cannot be the only one who has realized Donald Trump has incriminated himself.

Headline: “Trump tweets from motorcade he fired Flynn for lying to Pence, FBI.” (Chicago Tribune ). See also accompanying “Tweet” from Dec 2.

This appears to be prima facie evidence from Trump’s own tiny fingers that he knew of Flynn’s lies to the FBI well before they were publicly documented.

Supposedly the FBI discovered the lies in the summer, and Flynn’s guilty plea became public only last week. If Trump knew in February and did not reveal his knowledge, he clearly participated in a conspiracy to cover up Flynn’s crime. Both ignorance and knowledge of a fact cannot simultaneously be true.

The problem with lying, to the FBI or to the nation, is that one cannot keep the lies straight. In this case, Trump cannot have known in February that Flynn would lie to the FBI later in the spring or summer. So either he knew in February that the lies were coming — a clear indication of conspiracy — or he made up his prior knowledge yesterday. Either way, he either was or is a liar.
A Day in the Life of Joe the Conservative
"Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffee pot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good, because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take, because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan, because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast: bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat, because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents, because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean, because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees, because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation, because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays for these standards, because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get worker's compensation or an unemployment check, because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home, because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured, because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his insured mortgage and his below-market student loan, because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world, because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration, because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.

The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension, because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe has enjoyed throughout his day.

Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Bill De

(Republished after Facebook; original venue unknown.)
Interior Dept. Shamed into Abandoning Fee Hike
Alt National Park Service Reports:
Attn: Your voices have been heard! The Interior Department is backing off from substantially raising the entrance fee for national parks after more than 100,000 Americans wrote to complain about the proposed hikes. Last October, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed raising the entrance fee for 17 major parks from $25 to $70, a change that would mark the largest price increase since World War II.

The idea that public parks should show a profit is as public policy patently insane.

As of 2016, the National Park Service has an annual budget of about $3 billion and an estimated $12 billion maintenance backlog. The National Park Services budget is divided into two primary areas, discretionary and mandatory spending (Wikipedia). That annual budget is about $10 per citizen. For another $2 each per year (total about $1 per month per citizen) we could create a sinking fund that would clear the repair deck in about 40 years, leaving the National Parks as they were in my childhood. Maintaining that $12 fee or (saints preserve us doubling it to a whopping $24 per year could make the parks free to all forever. (Feel free to suggest a progressive income related rate structure.)

The (R)eally selfish people who came up with the fee increase idea don't care a whit about the parks. The Secretary of the Interior who oversees this is the beloved Ryan Zinke (often referred to as Who?, yes the guy who took a batallion of security agents along on his European vacation at public expense), the same guy who wants to strip mine most of North America and charge bargain rates to industry for whatever is exposed. Like most of the current Cabinet, he was appointed not as a steward but as a liquidator of the national patrimony (if this were the 19th Century I'd have added "upon the altar of Mammon," but I won't go there.)