Science Magazine: Do US a favor (an open letter to Trump)

H. Holden Thorp - Editor-in-chief of Science magazine

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6483/1169.full

(boldface emphasis is mine - DMH)

(snip)
“Do me a favor, speed it up, speed it up.” This is what U.S. President Donald Trump told the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference, recounting what he said to pharmaceutical executives about the progress toward a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
(snip)
. . .although the steps required to produce a vaccine could possibly be made more efficient, many of them depend on biological and chemical processes that are essential. So the president might just as well have said, “Do me a favor, hurry up that warp drive.”
(snip)
A vaccine has to have a fundamental scientific basis. It has to be manufacturable. It has to be safe. This could take a year and a half—or much longer. Pharmaceutical executives have every incentive to get there quickly—they will be selling the vaccine after all—but thankfully, they also know that you can't break the laws of nature to get there.

Maybe we should be happy. Three years ago, the president declared his skepticism of vaccines and tried to launch an antivaccine task force. Now he suddenly loves vaccines.

But do us a favor, Mr. President. If you want something, start treating science and its principles with respect.

Thurs 1pm EDT: Biden to speak to us on Coronavirus

(cross-posted from DailyKos)

Joe Biden to deliver address on the virus

On Thursday afternoon, at 1pm ET, Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver an address on the coronavirus in Wilmington, Delaware. As WaPo's Matt Viser pointed out, "Expect it, in many ways, to be different from the address just given from the Oval Office."

WASHINGTON — What transpired Wednesday night in the two hours after President Trump’s remarks to the nation on the coronavirus was some of the most disruptive and unsettling news we can remember — at least in a 120-minute span.

The NBA season suspended. Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson test positive for the coronavirus. Dow futures dropped. A staffer in Sen. Maria Cantwell’s, D-Wash., D.C. office tested positive.

The disease, the disruption and the fear are spreading fast.

And at 1:00 p.m. ET, Democrat Joe Biden gets a contrast moment with President Trump, when he delivers remarks on the coronavirus from Delaware.

This week, Mister Market, Mother Nature and Lady Karma. . .

. . .are giving Trump and the GOP the finger and a vote of no confidence.

Daily Trump Temperament Advisory System

Biden: Trump, Release Your Tax Returns Or SHUT UP.

Did Pence just wipe his nose with his hand at the press conference?

. . .or did he just smell a fart?



https://twitter.com/NewGopforUSA/status/1232891149737697280

Jumping Cats. . .an oldie but goodie. . .

Happy Valentine's Day, DU Gang!

and thanks for the hearts!

Dwyane Wade's Love For His Daughter Is An Act Of Resistance

by Dave Zirin, sportswriter for The Nation magazine

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/dwyane-wade-trans-child/

https://twitter.com/EdgeofSports/status/1228001204107653122
The Wade-Union family is doing nothing less than modeling for the country how to love your trans child.

What every LGBTQ person wishes for, and deserves: a father as supportive as Dwyane Wade.” So wrote Cyd Zeigler, the founder of Outsports, a website devoted to LGBTQ issues in sports. Dwyane Wade is an icon: a recently retired basketball superstar, a future Hall of Famer, and currently a hoops television talker on TNT. And now, as Zeigler wrote, we can add another honorific to his name: “America’s Dad for our time.”

Dwyane Wade is not doing anything special, or at least not anything that an ideal society should perceive as special. He is simply being a loving father. But in our society, warped as it is by a stunning array of hatreds, love can often be a radical act. The issue at hand is that one of Wade’s children is trans. Dwyane Wade and his wife, actor Gabrielle Union, love their 12-year-old daughter, Zaya, and this week the entire family is proudly introducing her to the world as their trans child. (Technically, Zaya is Union’s stepdaughter, but it’s clearly a distinction without a difference in the Wade-Union household.)
(snip)
What this family is doing is nothing less than modeling for the country how to love a trans child. Such an act in this transphobic culture, happening at a time when anti-trans legislation in this election year just happens to be popping up in statehouses around the country, feels important. It feels like nothing less than an act of resistance.

"Dial 1-800-UTTER-BS" - Frank Figliuzzi's (ex-FBI) Conspiracy Hotline

MSNBC “Deadline: White House” host Nicolle Wallace was completely shocked to learn that the Department of Justice has started a formal process to receive conspiracy theories from Rudy Giuliani.

“Attorney General William P. Barr acknowledged Monday that the Justice Department would evaluate material that Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, had gathered from Ukrainian sources claiming to have damaging information about former vice president Joe Biden and his family — though Barr and other officials suggested Giuliani was being treated no differently than any tipster,” The Washington Post reported Monday.

The AG was confirming an assertion made by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

“What?” Wallace shouted after playing the clip.
“Rudy writes crap on napkins and like hands it to Lev Parnas,” she reminded. “What the bleep was that?”