Fire Florida

I just created a MoveOn petition, “Fire Florida”.

It would mean a lot to me if you took a moment to add your name…

To Congress: Declare Florida to be an independent country, no longer part of the United States of America, and with no representation in Congress or the Electoral College.

Details: Florida is demonstrably full of morons. Their inability to understand that a contagious disease is contagious, their inability to elect state-wide officials with even an iota of a clue, not to mention their complete lack of driving skills, means that Florida is a dead weight on America and costs us billions of taxpayer dollars. We must get Florida out of our country whether they can spell America or not. Fire Florida!

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/fire-florida

Real change happens when everyday people like you and I come together and stand up for what we believe in. Together we can reach heaps of people and help create change around this important issue.

After you’ve signed the petition please also take a moment to share it with others. It’s super easy – all you need to do is forward or share this link on Facebook or Twitter.

Did the moon sink the Titanic?

The Titanic rammed an iceberg and sank on April 14, 1912. There were so many icebergs in the normal shipping lanes at that time that shipping lanes were moved south. Perhaps because on January 4th of that year…

It was the closest approach of the moon to the Earth in more than 1,400 years, and this configuration maximized the moon’s tide-raising forces on Earth’s oceans.
…the unusually high tide in Jan. 1912 would have been enough to dislodge many of those icebergs and move them back into the southbound ocean currents, where they would have just enough time to reach the shipping lanes for that fateful encounter with the Titanic.

https://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2012/March-2012/Titanic030512.html

Coronavirus catastrophe

An analysis of how the United States ended up with one of the world’s most catastrophic responses to COVID-19.

Coping with a pandemic is one of the most complex challenges a society can face. To minimize death and damage, leaders and citizens must orchestrate a huge array of different resources and tools. Scientists must explore the most advanced frontiers of research while citizens attend to the least glamorous tasks of personal hygiene. Physical supplies matter—test kits, protective gear—but so do intangibles, such as “flattening the curve” and public trust in official statements. The response must be global, because the virus can spread anywhere, but an effective response also depends heavily on national policies, plus implementation at the state and community level. Businesses must work with governments, and epidemiologists with economists and educators. Saving lives demands minute-by-minute attention from health-care workers and emergency crews, but it also depends on advance preparation for threats that might not reveal themselves for many years. I have heard military and intelligence officials describe some threats as requiring a “whole of nation” response, rather than being manageable with any one element of “hard” or “soft” power or even a “whole of government” approach. Saving lives during a pandemic is a challenge of this nature and magnitude.
It is a challenge that the United States did not meet.

It’s a fascinating read. Sections:

The Flight Plan
The Air Traffic Controllers
The Emergency Checklist
The Pilot
The Control Systems
The Crash Landing

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/how-white-house-coronavirus-response-went-wrong/613591/