How to play Scrabble. Classic Ze Frank. Funny - YouTube
Larry David: “I basically want to address the idiots out there…. You’re passing up a fantastic opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to stay in the house, sit on the couch and watch TV!” twitter.com/gavinnews…
The US is losing jobs drastically faster than other nations -- by design
Emmanual Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at the University of California, Berkeley, writing at the New York Times: According to some projections, unemployment might rise to 30% in the second quarter of 2020 in the US, far beyond what other nations are seeing.
Elsewhere, “governments are protecting employment. Workers keep their jobs, even in industries that are shut down. The government covers most of their wage through direct payments to employers. Wages are, in effect, socialized for the duration of the crisis.”
Then, when the crisis ends, workers and businesses just pick up where they left off.
But in the US, we’re relying on improved unemployment benefits. You suffer the stress of losing your job, you have to apply for unemployment, which is burdensome and swamps the system.
Many Americans will find that when the crisis ends, their jobs are gone, with many of their former employers out of business.
That’ll slow down recovery, whereas in Europe, people will just get back to work.
And as they’re losing their jobs, Americans also lose health insurance.
There’s a saying that when the US goes to war, it mis-applies the lessons of the last war. That’s what’s going on here. Conservatives and progressives were both rightly appalled by the lesson of the 2008 bailout, when we propped up broken businesses and rewarded the thieving and incompetent investors and managers who crashed the economy, while abandoning middle class and poor victims to fend for themselves.
But the situation is different now. Yes, we still have an economy that rewards greed, stealing and incompetence, but coronavirus is slaughtering both good businesses and badly run businesses. Government’s goal should just be to press the pause button on the entire economy, then resume, and fix structural problems, when the crisis passes.
Via Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic.
Cory says: “The package also needs to create Covidcare For All, universal health coverage for the duration of the emergency (and beyond, ideally – once Americans get a taste for it).”
A major medical staffing company just slashed benefits for doctors and nurses fighting coronavirus
Yes, you read that right. The company, Alteon Health, slashed benefits to emergency room healthcare workers during the pandemic. These emergency room healthcare workers are literally the most important people in the world right now.
Isaac Arnsdorf at ProPublica:
Alteon Health, a staffing company backed by private-equity firm Frazier Healthcare Partners, will cut salaries, time off and retirement benefits for providers, citing lost revenue. Several hospital operators announced similar cuts.
Most emergency room providers in the US work for companies like Alteon – staffing companies with contracts with hospitals. Coronavirus is eating into those companies' profits.
Steve Holtzclaw, CEO of Alteon Health, delivered bad news to employees Monday: “Despite the risks our providers are facing, and the great work being done by our teams, the economic challenges brought forth by COVID-19 have not spared our industry.”
The memo announced that the company would be reducing hours for clinicians, cutting pay for administrative employees by 20%, and suspending 401(k) matches, bonuses and paid time off. Holtzclaw indicated that the measures were temporary but didn’t know how long they would last.
In other words: Thanks for risking your lives and families to save the rest of us. Now go fuck yourselves.
The cuts are coming at a time when these emergency room workers are accruing the cost of living apart from their families to avoid infecting loved ones.
One doctor said he’s getting a $20,000 annual pay cut.
He said, “This decision is being made not by physicians but by people who are not on the front lines, who do not have to worry about whether I’m infecting my family or myself. If a company cannot support physicians during the toughest times, to me there’s a significant question of integrity.”
That’s far more diplomatic than I would use.
Hospital operators, including Tenet Healthcare, Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Atrius Health, are also announcing cuts.
Another Alteon physician said he had been planning to ask for time off to go help out in New York, where the coronavirus outbreak is the worst in the nation. Now he has no paid time off, and he thinks his employer won’t support him if he gets sick. He said if his pay drops he’ll have to look for a new job.
“I have a huge loan payment. I have rent. I have groceries. I’m not going to sacrifice my life for when I get sick and they’re going to say, ‘You were replaceable,’” the physician said. “I cannot believe they did that to us."
Tell me again why it would be bad for the US to have Medicaire for all?
Seth Davis was stranded at Los Angeles Airport for three months after his wallet was stolen Christmas Eve.
Until a few days ago, he and his seizure dog, Poppy, lived at Terminal 6, sleeping on the floor behind a pillar.
Stranded and homeless at LAX. Then coronavirus hit - Los Angeles Times
Devastating story, by Maria L. La Ganga with photographer Francine Orr:
Davis had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and epilepsy. He had been in foster care or adult protective services for most of his three decades. He survived on Social Security and food stamps. As Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day, his wallet was stolen. Then his identity was hijacked and his bank account plundered.
What was already a precarious life began to spin out of control.
Davis and Poppy were not sick, yet the coronavirus hit them hard. The agencies that could help them, he said, had been mostly overwhelmed or closed in recent weeks. On Tuesday evening he had $5 and change. Poppy was out of dog food.
They were homeless and alone.
You’ve maybe heard that about half of Americans are one paycheck away from disaster and ruin. Davis is one of those people. $350 made all the difference to him between a comfortable, albeit difficult, life, and homelessness.
Loss of taste is a warning sign for COVID-19 so if you wear any of the following, immediately self-isolate:
- Socks with sandals
- side-cut tank tops
- Shoes with velcro fasteners
- Ugg boots
- Pajama pants in public
A year ago today I was at San Diego Airport and saw this tile for sale at one of the shops. For the rest of my life, I will regret not purchasing it.
That sad moment when you realize it may be time to throw one of your favorite T-shirts into the rag bag.
Las Vegas, with 150,000 vacant hotel rooms, has the homeless sleeping on the ground in parking lots. - Mario Koran at The Guardian
That time there was a Communist revolution inside the online game Runescape - Emilie Rākete at The Spinoff
“… armed with both the revolutionary science of Marxism and dragon battleaxes, the RuneScape communists were militarily undefeatable. Within three months, the communists controlled 95% of Server 32.”
Joe Biden is getting a pass on sexual assault and misbehavior allegations
Arwa Mahdawi at Common Dreams: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”
Joe Biden said that. The same standard should apply to the accuser against him.
OpenTable will allow people to reserve shopping times at supermarkets - Taylor Lyles at The Verge
Trials in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Good idea.
I’m due to make another supermarket run in a day or two.
You shouldn’t use Zoom; it’s a privacy disaster. - John Gruber at Daring Fireball
I agree … but I gotta be honest here; I’m following the course of least resistance and using Zoom anyway.
Gruber advises using Zoom on the iPhone or iPad, where you must use Zoom. I’m going to think about whether I can somehow elevate my iPad to give me a good camera angle on Zoom.
Similarly, I’m very active on Facebook despite strong misgivings about its business model. Path of least resistance. It’s where the people are.
High Fidelity at 20: the sneakily dark edge of a comedy about bad breakups
Scott Tobias at The Guardian: High Fidelity is the story of a self-centered jerk who learns to become less of a self-centered jerk.
Also, this: “One of the film’s most insightful and endearing qualities is how much it’s willing to poke fun at Rob, Barry, and Dick’s record-clerk arrogance without belittling their passions entirely.”
Love this movie.
Didn’t even try watching the new gender-crossed TV series. I am not offended by the gender-crossing. I do feel like the main character is a male archetype, and doesn’t work as a young woman. But if they can make it work, that’s cool.
It’s just the TV series did not look appealing to me. And the movie already exists – it is perfect as is, it cannot be improved.
His actual name is “Victor Von Doom.” Shouldn’t that have been kind of a red flag?
📷I saw this sign today on my walk. No, I have not got religion. I am still the same nonebelieving Jew I’ve always been. I just like the sign.
I have seen it a million times before but this is the first time I’ve really taken a second to look at it.
A Las Vegas farm feeds 4,000 pigs slops made from waste food from casinos. The farm is now struggling.
Tiana Bohner at Fox5 Las Vegas:
“Pigs are a lot like us so they love sweets, candies, ice cream,” Las Vegas Livestock co-owner Hank Combs said. “They like meat and potatoes. They’re not a big fan of salads and produce, but they will eat it.
On a normal day, the farm would get 20 tons of food from casinos and restaurants across the valley. Once the strip shut down and casinos closed, their food source was cut off…..
Months before the coronavirus outbreak, Combs and his company developed and designed a new system. The first of its kind, it can un-package anything, allowing them to use the food inside sauce packets and milk jugs.
The farm blends the food then boils it.
Farm scraping by to feed 4,000 pigs without Las Vegas Strip leftovers
Via John Gruber at Daring Fireball, who notes this as an example of the extraordinary interconnectedness of the present-day economy.