Trump is the Light – The Media is the Moth

For years, scientists have tried to explain why moths and other insects are attracted to lights, but scientists are not entirely sure why!

In today’s media driven world Donald Trump is the light. Even as his role as president of the United States will likely end on January 20, 2021 the media continues to attend his rallies and columnists continue to write about his behavior. I counted ten articles about his actions on this morning’s CNN web site. Two more on the NYT web site and another four offered by the Washington Post.

The fascination is obvious to me. Donald Trump provides everyone an interesting exciting alternate reality. It’s something like a Twilight Zone reality.

From Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone introduction to each program.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call … The Twilight Zone.

The news media just can’t resist the Donald Trump light. Just like moths, the press will be tracking the light as long as it continues to burn.

Match.com making fun of the year 2020

A new advertisement for Match.com making fun of the year 2020 has gone viral online.

The ad opens with a scene of Satan in hell, sitting on his fiery throne apparently depressed at a lack of success finding love.

In the next scene, Satan encounters a young woman who tells him her name is “2020.”

The couple hits it off, with supplemental scenes showing the two stealing toilet paper from bathrooms and taking a selfie in front of a dumpster fire.

“I just don’t want this year to end,” Satan says to the woman at one point.

“Who would?” she replies.

Actor Ryan Reynolds shared the video, made by his advertising company, with his more than 16 million Twitter followers on Wednesday in a tweet that racked up 21,000 retweets and more than 203,000 likes.

“A match made in hell is still a match,” Reynolds said.

West San Fernando Valley Isn’t a Suburb Anymore

The Promenade 2035 project will include a new sports arena, two hotels, a 28-story office tower and more than 1,400 new apartments. This development, that will take 15 years to complete, will impact the West San Fernando Valley bringing more residents, businesses, and traffic. The idea of the suburban life style will be gone.  It is the price citizens of this city will pay for having an area that so many want to enjoy. L.A. approves $1B ‘mini-city’ in west San Fernando Valley with sports arena, hotels, office and apartment units | KTLA

L.A. approves $1B ‘mini-city’ in west San Fernando Valley with sports arena, hotels, office and apartment units

Biden talks to NYT’s Thomas Friedman

I am calling Joe Biden’s approach to his job as president, Bidenism. His will likely be a slow but well thought out leadership.

As reported on Politico Playbook the cautious JOE BIDEN spoke to TOM FRIEDMAN of the NYT: “Biden: ‘We’re Going to Fight Like Hell by Investing in America First’”: “Biden’s top priority, he said, is getting a generous stimulus package through Congress, even before he takes office. … But the big question is whether he can get it past McConnell today or tomorrow if the Republicans continue to hold the Senate. A significant number of Republican senators could decide that they want to become deficit hawks again under a President Biden, after four years of uncontrolled spending under Trump that has brought the national debt to record highs.

“Biden was careful about how he talked about McConnell, who has been careful not to call Biden ‘president-elect.’ Biden obviously wants to keep the prospects of cooperation open — but also make clear that he may have more leverage with the American people than the G.O.P. realizes if Senate Republicans opt for full-on obstruction.

“‘Let me put it this way,’ he said, ‘There are a number of things that when McConnell controlled the Senate that people said couldn’t get done, and I was able to get them done with [him]. I was able to get them to, you know, raise taxes on the wealthy.’ ‘I think there are trade-offs, that not all compromise is walking away from principle,’ Biden added. ‘He knows me. I know him. I don’t ask him to embarrass himself to make a deal.’ …

“On China, he said he would not act immediately to remove the 25 percent tariffs that Trump imposed on about half of China’s exports to the United States — or the Phase 1 agreement Trump inked with China that requires Beijing to purchase some $200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services during the period 2020 and 2021 — which China has fallen significantly behind on. ‘I’m not going to make any immediate moves, and the same applies to the tariffs,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to prejudice my options.’”

Your Neighborhood Mall May Be Closing

The 2020 edition of Black Friday did not offer the usual scenes of bustling stores and shoppers lined up outside discount chains and electronics retailers. Instead, most people bought online, if they bought at all.

American malls are dying out. Retail complexes all over the US are being clobbered by store closures sweeping the country. Retailers announced more than 8,600 closings in 2019 and according to a report done by Credit Suisse, between 20% to 25% of malls will close by 2022.

One of the biggest reasons that so many stores are failing is that people aren’t shopping the same way they used to. Rather than spending whole afternoons walking around the mall, many people prefer to shop in their pajamas at home. Shopping isn’t a pastime like it used to be — it’s more transactional.

The Covid-19 pandemic is putting another nail in the mall coffin. “It’s not Black Friday. It’s not people waiting in line the way we’re used to,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at The NPD Group. Cohen said in hours of driving around retail centers, he saw lines only outside Macy’s flagship New York City store and a suburban Best Buy. “All the other stores, you would have thought it was like any other Friday in November,” he said.

I drove around my nearby Westfield Topanga Mall in Canoga Park California. The traffic cones were in place to guide the cars but there were no cars to guide. Visitors had no problem driving into the parking structure.

Mall giant Simon Property Group’s pursuit of Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand and J.C. Penney illustrates how deeply the pandemic has reshaped the retail sector. Simon Property Group operates 175 U.S. malls and outlets, including the King of Prussia mall outside Philadelphia.

The Famed Mall of America in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota has three anchor stores and one is vacant. It’s behind on its mortgage payments, but has entered into a forbearance agreement with the special servicer on its loan that could help the megamall avoid foreclosure, even as it wrestles with lower customer traffic during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It all seems like a fool’s errand. Growing numbers of Americans have decided there are better ways to spend an afternoon than walking through a mall. The virus only reinforces that decision.

The Sad Case of Denial

Donald Trump is in denial.

A simple and clear refutation of the president came Friday from a Trump appointee, when Judge Stephanos Bibas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit wrote a unanimous opinion rejecting the president’s request for an emergency injunction to overturn the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results.

“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Bibas wrote. “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

Donald Trump says the courts don’t understand what is going on. Sequestered in the White House and brooding out of public view after his election defeat, rageful and at times delirious in a torrent of private conversations, Trump was, in the telling of one close adviser, like “Mad King George, muttering, ‘I won. I won. I won.’ ”

Trump Claims FBI And Justice Department May Have Helped Rig Election. “This is total fraud,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo during the interview on Fox Business’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” adding: “And how the FBI and Department of Justice—I don’t know—maybe they’re involved, but how people are getting away with this stuff—it’s unbelievable.”

Wait there is at least one other possibility. The U.S. election was manipulated by scheming from a dead Venezuelan strongman, by a computer system capable of flipping Trump votes to Joe Biden ones across the country, and by something weird happening in Germany. If that’s not enough, the communists are coming as reported in the Chicago Tribune.

Donald Trump is president until January 20, 2021. He has already damaged our democracy by claiming elections are fraudulent. What more can he do? This really is a frightening time for the United States.

Twenty-fifth Amendment here we come or will there be a Coup?

Recognizing Commercial Art

This piece of art caught my eye on the Washington Post web site.

Jiaqi (Jackie) Wang is an illustrator and animator originally from China, currently based in Los Angeles. Jiaqi graduated with a MA Animation At London College Of Art. She specializes in 2D moving images and motion graphics. Her work revolves imagination about daily life, full of colors, visual design, and character design.

This link will enable you to admire her talent.  It is worth your time. jiaqiwang

Effective Drugs

Efficacy is the ability to perform a task to a satisfactory or expected degree. The word comes from the same roots as effectiveness, and it has often been used synonymously, although in pharmacology a distinction is now often made between efficacy and effectiveness. Efficacy can be defined as the performance of an intervention under ideal and controlled circumstances, whereas effectiveness refers to its performance under ‘real-world’ conditions.

Adequate testing of any new drug is mandatory.  What are the side effects and how likely are they to occur?

Pulled from the market in 1961, thalidomide caused approximately 10,000 children to be born with deformed limbs, brain defects, or other developmental deformities.  In July of 1962, president John F. Kennedy and the American press began praising their heroine, FDA inspector Frances Kelsey, who prevented the drug’s approval within the United States despite pressure from the pharmaceutical company and FDA supervisors. Kelsey felt the application for thalidomide contained incomplete and insufficient data on its safety and effectiveness. Among her concerns was the lack of data indicating whether the drug could cross the placenta, which provides nourishment to a developing fetus. While thalidomide is not a vaccine the message seems obvious to me.

My own wife started taking Tumeric on advise from her doctor to ease her arthritis pain. The non-prescription drug is advertised as a potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant and may also help improve symptoms of depression and arthritis.  The doctor did not warn her about any side effects.  But there are some: stomach upset, nausea, dizziness, or diarrhea. She suffered from diarrhea even after she stopped taking the medication for four months.  That led to her having a colonoscopy that found nothing but an irritation to her colon.

Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, confirmed to Bloomberg on Thursday the British pharmaceutical giant was likely to run an additional global trial to evaluate the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine.

In our rush to obtain a vaccine for Covid-19 (Warp Speed) will side effects be known?   Side effects may not be known for many months. We may want the vaccination but I will be standing at the back of the line.

“I’m the President of the United States”

President Trump condemned a reporter after being asked if he would concede the election if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden.

How many judges must tell you that without proof you cannot claim the election was fraudulent? Today, Friday November 27. Federal appeals court denies Trump campaign effort to revive Pennsylvania lawsuit saying ‘claims have no merit.‘

Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, who oversaw the case, began the scathing ruling stating: “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”