March 14, 2020

Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway's boards

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/13/business/bill-gates-microsoft-berkshire-boards/index.html

New York City (CNN Business)Bill Gates is stepping down from the boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway. In a press release Friday, Microsoft announced that its 64-year-old co-founder was leaving its board to "dedicate more time to his philanthropic priorities."

"It's been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years," Mirosoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a written statement. "Microsoft will continue to benefit from Bill's ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward. I am grateful for Bill's friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him to realize our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." Gates will continue serving as technology adviser to Nadella and other Microsoft leaders, the company said.

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With an estimated net worth of over $100 billion, Gates is the second richest person in the world after Amazon's Jeff Bezos, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. He has worked on global health, industrial development and education initiatives through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since transitioning out of day-to-day duties at Microsoft in 2008.

Gates's role as chair of Microsoft's board ended in 2014. He plans to do more work to tackle climate change, according to the company.

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March 14, 2020

WaPo : Why Joe Biden is the antidote to this virus

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/13/why-joe-biden-is-antidote-this-virus/

Joe Biden isn’t inspiring. He fluttered some hearts when he first ran in 1987, but he is far less inspirational now, at 77, than he was in his prime. That’s part of the reason, despite his far-above-the-rest résumé, that Biden’s candidacy stumbled before it succeeded. Democrats were looking for something new and improved before they recognized it was time to settle for Biden.

This is all fine — better than fine, actually. If 1964 was a time for choosing, as Ronald Reagan put it when he went on TV to argue for Barry Goldwater, 2020 is a time for settling, in the multiple senses of that word. It is a time for settling on a candidate whom a broad majority of Democrats, and Americans, can agree. It’s a time for settling the country down, after three-plus years of ugliness and the divisiveness that both preceded and created the Trump phenomenon. It is a time for settling for Biden.

Biden is candidate as comfort food, calming and familiar. After flirtations with the new (Pete Buttigieg), the provocative (Bernie Sanders) and the planner (Elizabeth Warren), Biden is, it turns out, the one we’ve been waiting for. He is not the candidate, and would not be the president, of hope and change; he is the avatar of normalcy.

This was, even before the coronavirus, Biden’s fundamental argument: that his would be a restoration presidency — of American values, of America’s place in the world. And, perhaps even more, of a president who does not whip through three White House chiefs of staff and three national security advisers (Trump is on his fourth, in both cases); who does not tweet and attack incessantly; who can be counted on, if not for the “bold, persistent experimentation” of an FDR, then at least for capable governance. Biden’s campaign this summer and fall will not be a battle for adopting Medicare-for-all. It will be, as he said in announcing his candidacy, a “battle for the soul of this nation,” a rejection of an administration he described as “an aberrant moment in time.”

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March 13, 2020

Why hasn't @Twitter suspended this account?

https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1238497906421837825
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1238488692924141569
https://twitter.com/adrienneelrod/status/1238514752885833728

March 13, 2020

Premier League announce all fixtures suspended amid coronavirus outbreak

Man City vs Arsenal was the first Premier League game to be postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak - now Man City and Manchester United's forthcoming fixtures are on hold

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/premier-league-fixtures-suspended-coronavirus-17916604

The Premier League have announced that all upcoming fixtures have been postponed, and the league suspended until April 3rd, due to fears over the spread of coronavirus. The COVID-19 disease has hit the football world over the past week or two, with Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta and Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi both testing positive and self-isolating. Everton, Leicester and Man City players are also self-isolating and UEFA have announced that next week's Champions League and Europa League games have been postponed due to the spread of the illness.

Manchester City's midweek game against Arsenal was the first in the Premier League to be called off amid coronavirus fears and the Gunners' weekend fixture with Brighton followed suit after the news about Arteta emerged. That prompted Premier League officials to hold an emergency meeting on Friday morning to decide the best way forward. And, as expected, they announced a mass postponement of matches effect immediately, meaning the next two weekends of fixtures will not go ahead, including the FA Cup quarter-finals.

The EFL have also suspended all their fixtures until April 3rd, which is immediately after the next international break. A joint statement from the Premier League, FA, EFL and Women's Super League said: "Following a meeting of Shareholders today, it was unanimously decided to suspend the Premier League with the intention of returning on 4 April, subject to medical advice and conditions at the time.

"Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said: “Above all, we wish Mikel Arteta and Callum Hudson-Odoi speedy recoveries, and everyone else affected by COVID-19. “In this unprecedented situation, we are working closely with our clubs, Government, The FA and EFL and can reassure everyone the health and welfare of players, staff and supporters are our priority.

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March 13, 2020

Saudi oil company apologizes for dressing migrant worker as human sanitizer dispenser

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/saudi-oil-company-apologizes-dressing-migrant-worker-human/story?id=69534120

https://twitter.com/ImpactPolicies/status/1237747608161935360

March 13, 2020

The Trump Administration Will Move Ahead With Its Plan To Kick People Off Of Food Stamps Despite The

Coronavirus Outbreak

Should you go to work and risk contact with sick people, or stay home and risk losing your SNAP benefits? Many people may face this choice as the White House refuses to postpone its controversial rule change.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/coronavirus-food-stamps-trump-administration

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is moving ahead with its plan to enact strict work requirements on people who use food stamps despite the coronavirus pandemic — a move that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing their eligibility for the program. People could soon be forced to work public-facing jobs when they should stay home or else risk losing access to the assistance they get to buy food.

The Department of Agriculture confirmed this week it is sticking to its timeline to tighten work requirements starting April 1. People without a disability or children must work 20 hours per week to qualify for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps.

The White House projects 700,000 people would lose SNAP eligibility. Lauren Bauer, a fellow with the Brookings Institution, filed access to information requests for figures from all 50 states and projected the number of people losing assistance would be much higher, at 1.3 million to 1.5 million.

But those projections all came out before the novel coronavirus swept across the United States, causing a wave of self-quarantines and threatening economic downturn. +“That number is going to be much, much higher,” she said. “It’s going to cause harm both to the people who are eligible for SNAP, but it’s also going to cause harm for the economy.”

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March 13, 2020

How Denmark's 'ghetto list' is ripping apart migrant communities

Copenhagen and other cities are planning mass housing evictions in a ‘social experiment’ to encourage integration

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/how-denmarks-ghetto-list-is-ripping-apart-migrant-communities



From the outside, Copenhagen’s Mjølnerparken housing estate is pretty unremarkable. Located just beyond the Danish capital’s hip Victorian tenement belt, this sturdy-looking complex of squat red-brick 1980s blocks surrounded by lawns seems quintessentially Scandinavian – green, tidy and even a little prim. The estate is nonetheless at the heart of a storm, shaken by a drastic set of policies that Danish media have called “the biggest social experiment of this century”. Mjølnerparken has, along with 28 other low-income neighbourhoods nationwide, been classified by the Danish government as a “ghetto”.

Denmark has compiled this “ghetto list” annually since 2010; the criteria are higher than average jobless and crime rates, lower than average educational attainment and, controversially, more than half of the population being first or second-generation migrants. The government essentially sees these neighbourhoods as irremediable urban disasters, and in May 2018 it proposed dealing with them by mass eviction and reconstruction. The homes of up to 11,000 social housing tenants could be on the chopping block.

Understandably, many residents are reeling. “This is a beautiful place to live,” says Asif Mehmood, 52, a Pakistani-born taxi driver who has lived on the Mjølnerparken estate for 26 years. His building has been selected to be cleared, renovated and turned into private rental. “Of course there have been problems here – but if a fire in a building is traced to a single gas leak, surely the best idea is to fix the leak. It’s not to clear out the entire building and start again. That’s what is happening here, though. Instead of solving a limited problem, they want to clear the whole block.”

In addition, the law itself applies differently in these neighbourhoods. The first stage of the government’s so-called ghetto deal set higher penalties for crimes, and allowed for collective punishment – by eviction – of entire families if one of their members commits a criminal act. Other laws seem designed to force the integration in Danish society of immigrant communities. Pre-school children must spend at least 25 hours a week in state kindergartens with a maximum migrant intake of 30%, and face language tests. Otherwise their families’ benefits can be revoked. But the most stringent part of the plan came into force on 1 January 2020, when these areas must slash their public housing stock to no more than 40%. To achieve this within 10 years, entire blocks will be emptied and converted into private and co-operative housing, from which people on low incomes will be barred. In some cities (though not Copenhagen) the blocks will simply be demolished.

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my thoughts

Much of this has been pushed by a combined centre-right/centre-left (with far right wingers tossed in as well) coalition that uses the Swedish example to drive fear. Norway and Finland do the same thing, with Norway being the least punitive (Finland simply has far less immigrants than the other Big 4 Nordics, but they also can be the most RW at times.) but even they are far beyond Sweden and have many problematic policies as well. Sweden as whole is more passive aggressive and many adhere to an 'out of sight, out of mind' stance that leads to vast immigrant/refugee clusters shoved out into the middle of nowhere or on the fringes of the larger Swedish metropolitan areas like Stockholm, Göteborg (Gothenburg), and Malmö (in Skåne, the far south of Sweden, across the Öresund from Copenhagen and the rest of Sjælland aka Zealand.) The greater Malmö area, at over 50%, has the highest percentage of non European-descent 1st and 2nd generation immigrants of any EU standalone metro area over 100,000 in population.

Danish - Swedish Refugee debate with English Subtitles



4 plus year old video (NOT the article, that is brand new), but still very relevant

March 13, 2020

The Atlantic Daily : Trump is making things worse

via email, no main link




MARCH 12, 2020

Caroline Mimbs Nyce
Senior associate editor

A lot has happened in the past 24 hours. (My colleague joked that yesterday “was a long year.”) Today, we’ll focus on how the Trump administration is handling this outbreak. We’ve also got a new guide to “social distancing.”



Last night, President Donald Trump addressed the nation. It didn’t go very well. As he spoke, financial futures began crashing, perhaps reflecting a lack of confidence in the executive branch’s response plan.

David Frum, a staff writer and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote a scathing review of the president’s address, calling it “the worst action yet in a string of bad actions.” “This crisis is not of Trump’s making,” he writes. “What he is responsible for is his failure to respond promptly.”

Some additional reading on the Trump administration’s handling of this outbreak: Americans are looking to the president for answers. They aren’t getting them, Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official, argues. The misinformation coming from the White House is being amplified by a propaganda machine. And it’s dangerously effective.

Some conservative figures are intentionally misnaming the virus—to make a point. There’s a reason why Trump calls it a “foreign virus,” the contributing writer Ben Zimmer argues. The European travel ban just doesn’t make sense. The U.K. is presently exempted. But what happens, our London-based staff writer Tom McTague asks, when things there get as bad as in Italy or France?

Tip of the day: Here’s what you should—and shouldn’t—do during a period of “social distancing.”

March 12, 2020

The Atlantic : Why Trump Intentionally Misnames the Coronavirus

When conservative figures continually refer to the “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus,” it’s clear they’re doing it to make a point. When it comes to the popular naming of infectious diseases, xenophobia has long played a prominent role.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/03/why-trump-intentionally-misnames-coronavirus/607900/

In President Donald Trump’s Oval Office address yesterday about the threats of the novel coronavirus, he went out of his way to label it a “foreign virus.” “This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” Trump said, in words that betrayed the isolationist leanings of his chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller. The speech took a typically Miller-esque approach to the coronavirus pandemic: Blame foreigners, and close up U.S. borders.

The “foreign virus” line drew immediate criticism, including from CNN’s Jim Acosta, who told Chris Cuomo following the address, “I think it is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia to use that kind of term in this speech.” This comes on the heels of a number of Republican politicians, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, making a point of referring to the “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus.” The World Health Organization, in officially giving the disease caused by the virus the name COVID-19, sought to avoid just this type of geographic stigmatization.

When it comes to the popular naming of infectious diseases, xenophobia has long played a prominent role. Susan Sontag, in her 1988 work, AIDS and Its Metaphors (a follow-up to her extended essay from a decade earlier, Illness as Metaphor), observed that “there is a link between imagining disease and imagining foreignness. It lies perhaps in the very concept of wrong, which is archaically identical with the non-us, the alien.”

Syphilis, which ravaged Europe beginning in the late 15th century, is a famous case of what Sontag calls “the need to make a dreaded disease foreign.” “It was the ‘French pox’ to the English, morbus Germanicus to the Parisians, the Naples sickness to the Florentines, the Chinese disease to the Japanese,” she wrote. (The name “syphilis” originated in an epic Latin poem written in 1530 by the Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro, about a shepherd boy named Syphilis cursed with the disease by the god Apollo. The poem was called Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus, “Syphilis or the French Disease.”)

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March 12, 2020

The Economist : Covid-19 is spreading rapidly in America. The country does not look ready

Uncle Sam v the coronavirus

There are structural reasons why America finds a response to the pandemic hard

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/03/12/covid-19-is-spreading-rapidly-in-america-the-country-does-not-look-ready



WASHINGTON, DC

When a new disease first took hold in Wuhan, the Chinese authorities did not have the luxury of advanced notice. Their initial strategy, in the crucial early weeks of what would become the global pandemic covid-19, was obfuscation and censorship, which did nothing to halt the spread of the virus that causes the disease. Only now, months after the first cases were reported, have new transmissions slowed to close to zero—and only after an unprecedented, draconian lockdown for hundreds of millions of citizens.

America, by contrast, had the luxury of several weeks’ notice. Yet the crucial early weeks when it could have prepared for the spread of the disease were squandered, in a country with some of the world’s best epidemiologists and physicians. As of March 11th, almost 1,300 Americans had been diagnosed with covid-19. Several times more probably have the disease undetected and are transmitting it within communities. And still the country looks behind in its preparations for what now threatens to be a bruising pandemic. (For more coverage of covid-19 see our coronavirus hub.) America’s decentralised authority, expensive health care and skimpy safety-net will all make the pandemic response harder to deal with. The uncertainty is high, but a plausible scenario—one-fifth of the population falling ill, and a 0.5% fatality rate—would lead to 327,000 deaths, or nine times that of a typical flu season.

How America got here was the result of two significant failures—one technical, the other of messaging. A country of America’s size could probably not have avoided a serious outbreak of covid-19. But with enough information, the early spread of the disease could have been slowed. That lowers the peak of the outbreak, lightening the load on hospitals when they are most overstretched, thereby saving lives. It also gives the health service and the government time to prepare, and the population a chance to learn how to respond.

However, in America the testing regime has worked badly, because of faulty test-kits manufactured by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc) and tangles in administrative red tape between the cdc and the Food and Drug Administration (fda), another government agency. “The debacle with the tests probably reflects underlying budget cuts. You can’t have surge capacity if you’ve already been cut to the bone,” says Scott Burris, director of the Centre of Public Health Law Research at Temple University. In 2010 the cdc budget was $12.7bn in current dollars; today it is $8bn. Whether skimpy budgeting, bureaucratic blockages or both were to blame is as yet unclear and sure to be the subject of a future investigation.

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