Around the housing complex where I live there are wild turkeys that wander around. I know that turkeys can get aggressive, and have heard of them even attacking vehicles. There seem to be a lot of videos online about them being particularly aggressive towards, for some reason, letter carriers.
Brian Melican has an interesting article in the April 20, 2020 issue of the New Statesman about three cities and how their failed responses to previous pandemics led to sweeping changes in the structure of the cities: Marseille, France in 1720 during the plague; Hamburg, Germany during the cholera epidemic in 1892; and Östersund, Sweden during the flu pandemic of 1918. It is a familiar story that resonates today about how business and civic leaders put the interests of commerce and low budgets ahead of the best scientific advice of the day, that overcrowding, poverty, unsanitary conditions, and lack of access to clean water and health services contribute to the widespread outbreaks of disease.
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One of the most flamboyant personalities in the world of rock and roll, whose music hugely influenced generations of rock musicians who among other things copied his signature high-pitched ‘woo’, died today at the age of 87.
Here he is performing in 1995.
Here is a supercut of bits of his greatest hits.
In analyzing a situation using data, one of the common errors that one can fall into is that of sampling error, when one bases one’s conclusion on a sample that is not representative of the population at large. That is how many stereotypes and prejudices arise, because people form judgments about entire groups based on their experiences with just a few members of that group that they happen to encounter in their own lives.
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As I have said before, it is an iron rule in the US that any law or regulation that deals with taxes or economic or business regulatory issues will have loopholes that enable the rich to get richer, while at the same time placing increased hurdles in the path of the poor. We saw how the stimulus package supposedly meant for small businesses had most of the money immediately snapped up by big companies, including publicly traded ones and even professional basketball teams because they had the lawyers to quickly file the paperwork and the big banks that were tasked with disbursing the money found it most profitable and least work to shovel it to their bigger clients. Small companies who were the intended beneficiaries got shut out before they knew the doors were even open.
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Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe from back in 2015 explains the template used.
(Via Rob Beschizza)
A black Michigan state lawmaker was escorted by six heavily armed people, five black and one Hispanic, as she attended the state legislative building.
Sarah Anthony’s escort. The lawmaker said her experience during the rightwing protest was ‘one of the most unnerving feelings I’ve ever felt in my life’. Photograph: Courtesy of Michael Lynn Jr./Merica20tolife
Lost in the other news is this story of a group of Americans who apparently tried to launch an attack on Venezuela’s government but the plot was foiled even before it got off the ground and the plotters, that included two former members of the US Special Forces, were captured by Venezuelan fishing villagers and handed over to the authorities. The similarities of this botched attempt at overthrowing the Venezuelan government to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba during the Kennedy administration in 1962 has led to the label ‘Bay of Piglets’ for this one.
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