As confrontations between Black Lives Matter protesters and police erupted across the country earlier this month, some Oregonians, mostly older people, saw a Facebook ad pushing a headline about how a Republican politician “Wants Martial Law To Control The Obama-Soros Antifa Supersoldiers.” Needless to say, there was no army of left-wing “supersoldiers” marching across Oregon, …
Monthly Archives: July 2020
Pittsburgh Seemed Like a Virus Success Story. Now Cases Are Surging. – The New York Times – Self-delusion led many to go out as if nothing had changed.
The main source of the current outbreak is largely undisputed. People who had been cooped up for months flocked to the city’s bars and clubs, crowding shoulder-to-shoulder like old times on East Carson Street. Complaints poured into the health department about bars ignoring the pandemic rules. “It was almost like the entire city turned 21,” said Dr. Adalja, who said that he took walks past crowded bars that he suspected would turn into hot spots.
Kyle Majerick, a 29-year-old insurance salesman whose evenings before the virus were typically filled with intramural soccer games, happy hours and charity and networking events, was more than ready to have a few beers with friends when the bars reopened. He said he took care to avoid the most crowded spots.
“You go from having something to do every single night to, ‘OK, where am I going to order takeout from and sit at my condo by myself,’” he said. Sitting at a half-empty outdoor bar patio and ordering from a list of options on his phone, instead of a touchable table menu, he said, felt safe.
“It was a change of scenery, which was a breath of fresh air,” Mr. Majerick, who has not had symptoms, said.
Harper’s free speech letter has ‘moved the needle’, says organiser
Not in defense of free speech really – in defense of being able to continue to use out of date humor and fiction tied to colonialism, great good old days when wealthy elites were in control, minorities and ethnic groups could be exploited/controlled, and statues of traitors left alone.

Thomas Chatterton Williams defends letter as critics say it disregards marginalised views
The organiser of an open letter decrying “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism” has said companies such as Netflix and the New York Times will have to take into account the views of its signatories, after a counter letter accused the first letter’s backers of failing to recognise those “silenced for generations”.
A debate about free speech, privilege and the role of social media in public discourse continued over the weekend as the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams, who signed the first letter along with more than 150 prominent authors, thinkers and journalists including JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood, argued that it had “moved the needle”.
Indonesia military academy hit by coronavirus outbreak, nearly 1,300 test positive, SE Asia News & Top Stories – The Straits Times
BANDUNG, INDONESIA (AFP) – Nearly 1,300 people at a military academy in Indonesia have tested positive for the coronavirus, an official said, as the country struggles to contain the epidemic.. Read more at straitstimes.com.
How California failed at coronavirus testing from the start – Los Angeles Times – Deceptive headline – US failed, not California alone
Federal officials grappling with a shortage of test kits issued narrow testing criteria; that meant key local spreaders in the state’s budding outbreak were going unnoticed and untraced. Contact tracers were never alerted, for example, to people such as Margaret Cabanis-Wicht and her husband, a 41-year-old movie director in Rancho Palos Verdes who had attended a January gala in Beijing with hundreds from across China.
Source: How California failed at coronavirus testing from the start – Los Angeles Times
Leaving Airplane Middle Seats Empty Could Cut Coronavirus Risk Almost In Half, A Study Says
A new research paper from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that blocking out the middle seat on airplanes could cause the likelihood of passengers being infected with coronavirus to drop by nearly half, just as some airlines are starting to book flights to capacity again.
Source: Leaving Airplane Middle Seats Empty Could Cut Coronavirus Risk Almost In Half, A Study Says
Israel protests in Tel Aviv — What Now News 24

Image Credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90 On Saturday, thousands of people took to the streets, to voice their frustration over the way Israel President, Benjamin Netanyahu’s handled the economic woes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Tel Aviv on Saturday night, was full of protesters, some with masks, but with no social distancing. The protests were apparently […]
Israel protests in Tel Aviv — What Now News 24
7 Ways To Stop The Record-Breaking Rise Of COVID-19
super seven
By Annemarie MannionMyCarolinaLife.com

Now is not the time to lose focus on fighting COVID-19.
South Carolina is in the midst of a record-breaking streak of new cases, and Horry County has been designated a hot spot for the illness.
“If we’re going to stop the spread in our community and across the state, people need to be careful and take every precaution possible to protect themselves and others,” says Dr. Gerald Harmon, vice president of medical affairs at Tidelands Health, our region’s leader in COVID-19 testing and response. “It’s important to remember we are still learning the best ways to treat this virus, and there’s still a long way to go before any type of vaccine will be ready.”
Here are seven steps you can take to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in our community:
Proudly Wear A Mask
COVID-19 is…
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German students in US urge Berlin to take stand against new visa rules

“We’re counting on your support,” students wrote in an open letter to Angela Merkel’s government. Under new pandemic rules, international students face expulsion from the US if their schools offer online-only classes.
Why Did a Tech Executive Install 1,000 Security Cameras Around San Francisco?
Sounds cool but can also feed vigilantism.

The New York Times explains why Chris Larsen installed over a thousand surveillance cameras around San Francisco to monitor 135 city blocks:
It sounds sinister. A soft-spoken cryptocurrency mogul is paying for a private network of high-definition security cameras around the city. Zoom in and you can see the finest details: the sticker on a cellphone, the make of a backpack, the color of someone’s eyes… While violent crime is not high in the city, property crime is a constant headache. Anyone who lives here knows you shouldn’t leave anything — not a pile of change, not a scarf — in a parked car… locals are tired of the break-ins.
So how do they reconcile “defund the police” with “stop the smash and grabs”? Mr. Larsen believes he has the answer: Put security cameras in the hands of neighborhood groups. Put them everywhere. He’s happy to pay for it…. Here is what he is doing: Writing checks for nearly $4 million to buy cameras that record high-definition video of the streets and paying to have them maintained by a company called Applied Video Solutions. The rest is up to locals in neighborhood coalitions like Community Benefit Districts, nonprofits formed to provide services to the area. Here is how the project works: Neighbors band together and decide where to put the cameras. They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner, and in San Francisco many home and business owners want them. The footage is monitored by the neighborhood coalition. The cameras are always recording…
As proponents of Mr. Larsen’s network see things, they get the safety of a surveillance state without the state… It is arguably more compelling evidence in court because the video is monitored by a third-party intermediary who can testify that it is a continuous feed. It is time stamped. And because the network covers many blocks, the footage can tell a broader story than a single camera about an event that might be moving from block to block, in the case of, for example, a fight…. “This has underscored the importance of not just cameras but of communitywide camera coverage,” Mr. Larsen said.
“Body cams show some pretty core weaknesses because we don’t have universal access to police body cam footage, and there’s a fundamental conflict of interest if the video shows something bad for the department.” The answer is more cameras, he said, and then keep that footage in the hands of citizens. He argued that trust will come in the form of full city camera coverage, so police can play a smaller, more subtle role. Individual vigilantism will not work, he argued, but strong neighborhoods with continuous video feeds on every corner will. “That’s the winning formula,” Mr. Larsen said. “Pure coverage.”
The locally-stored footage is erased after 30 days. Thought it’s not covered by the city’s newly-enacted ban on facial recognition software, Larsen says “We’re strongly opposed to facial recognition technology. Facial recognition is too powerful given the lack of laws and protections to make it acceptable.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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