FairAndUNbalanced.com

 

From John Scalzi at Whatever:

At the doctor’s office, of course, it was full compliance; all the receptionists, nurses and doctors wore masks (mostly basic disposable surgical masks) and wore them the entire time they were working on me. I also wore mine the entire time, as I was not there for anything that involved anyone needing me to breathe on them, or them looking down my throat. I suspect it would be a bad time for anyone trying to argue in a medical office that masks weren’t needed or required.

Then I went to Kroger, to pick up some things, and the mask-wearing percentage dropped significantly. Who were wearing masks? Well, it wasn’t middle-aged-and-younger dudes, I can tell you that much; not counting the dudes working, I was the only man my age or younger wearing a mask. Older men (and older people in general) were wearing masks, probably because regardless of their political positions it’s been drilled into their heads by now that older people are more susceptible to the ravages of COVID-19 than younger people. That said, of the younger men I saw not wearing masks, a rather lot of them had, how best to put it, obvious co-morbidity factors. It probably wouldn’t be great for them if they got sick.

Anecdotally, this has been the way of it for a while now out here: If you’re a man visibly under the age of 60 (and here where I live, in a county that is 98.5% white, this means basically white men under the age of 60), you’re far more likely not to be wearing a mask out in public, and in the retail sphere, than you are to be wearing one. Now, note that Kroger and nearly all other retail establishments have signs at the entrances telling customers that masks are required; the dudes are ignoring them and the retail workers (all of whom are masked) are not stopping them, because we’ve all seen the videos of people completely losing their shit when asked to wear a mask, and retail doesn’t pay enough for that sort of nonsense. Over the age of 60, men wearing masks becomes more common, because they don’t want to die. In my experience the ratio of women of all ages wearing masks is the inverse of the men under 60; most women wear masks, but some don’t.

– More –
 

 

From Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes:

I suddenly remembered a piece I read long ago in Reader’s Digest, it must have been in the Sixties. I wondered if I might possibly track it down. It concerned a white man who disguised himself as black to try and find out how Blacks were treated in the latter days of segregation in America’s deep South. There’s been talk recently of white people’s inability to see beyond their own privilege. I’ve been having difficulty myself in understanding the widespread unrest arising from the Black Lives Matter movement, even in places where few Blacks are to be found, or aren’t noticeably discriminated against.

I was amazed how easy it was to discover the tale online, It’s very well-known, published in book and film as Black Like Me; reported as “required reading in schools and colleges in the United States”. Mostly, the author learned how others react to your skin. In this sense, it was literally a superficial investigation. His experiment lasted no more than six weeks, yet enough to start feeling the the hopelessness of being forever the underdog. He found his sense of self damaged, as if he were indeed unworthy.

What is it really like to be black—as opposed to being the product of European culture over several millennia, not merely white ?

– More –
 

 

From Ned Lips at The Moderate Voice:

The Presidential election is NOT normal. It is a game, with rules, played on a big board that is the United States and it is about winning points on that Board. It is not about winning the national popular vote, and I know it’s weird, but it’s the law and that will NOT change.

If the candidates want to win, and they know this as well as anyone, they know they have to play the game. In this game, as is the case in many games, most of the spaces on the Board are already decided and therefor are simply irrelevant. They are going to go one way or the other, just as they have for a long time.

IGNORE national polls. They DO NOT matter, and are, quite frankly, harmful.

If you live in or near Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin, get out and do whatever you can to promote your candidate, get more of your party to register to vote, get any IDs they need, and then vote any way they can, as early and as often as permitted.

If the Dems swing the three northern States, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which they lost by ridiculously tiny margins in 2016, THEY WILL WIN no matter what happens in Ohio and Florida, so both parties must show up in these states.

– More –
 

 

From Tommy Christopher:

Sarah Sanders and Hope Hicks Hunted Trump’s Alleged Apprentice ‘N-Word’ Tape Per New Report

Former White House press secretaries Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Hope Hicks were both involved with the hunt for a rumored clip of President Donald Trump using the n-word during an outtake from The Apprentice, according to a new report.

A damaging new Washington Post report, compiled from “interviews with more than two dozen current and former officials,” adds some new reporting on the n-word tape that had long been rumored to exist when ousted White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman confirmed its existence in her 2018 book.

– More –
 

 

From The Journal of Improbable Research:

… to determine the function and integrity of EpiPens … if accidentally placed through a washing machine cycle

(1) Loading some EpiPens (the little injection devices many people use to treat a bad allergic reaction) into washing machines, and then (2) washing them, and then (3) firing those washing-machine-washed EpiPens into hunks of meat was the basis for an experiment.

Details are in the study…

– More –
 

 

From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

CNN tells us that a Federal Judge ruled that the USPS must prioritize election mail, and became the second judge to order a reversal of Postmaster Grifter, er, General Louis DeJoy’s policy changes:

US District Judge Victor Marrero in New York’s Southern District became the second federal judge to side against USPS in the past week. A judge in Washington state ordered many similar changes on Friday and blasted the Trump administration for what he called a “politically motivated attack” on USPS.

Marrero made several specific orders, including:

• treating all ballots as first-class mail (something that Bastian also ordered),
• paying for necessary overtime in the weeks surrounding the election.
• a detailed plan about how the USPS will guarantee that election-related mail is delivered on time

Marrero said if he doesn’t get that plan by Friday, he’ll impose his own plan.

Pretty neat, huh?

– More –
 

 

From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Evangelicals love it when well-known unbelievers/atheists die. This gives them an opportunity to pass judgment on their lives and consign them to eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. While Johnson lets his mythical God and errant, fallible Bible do the talking, make no mistake about it, he thinks Justice Ginsburg is presently being tormented by God in Hell. According to Johnson — err, I mean God — Ginsburg was a vile, evil person who was an enemy of True Christianity®. Instead of seeing her as a defender of the First Amendment, Johnson sees Justice Ginsburg as a threat to attempts to promote Christian nationalism (and she was).

As is always the case with Evangelical zealots, the important issues of our day are banning abortion and make it illegal, and turning back attempts to give LGBTQ people equal rights and protections under the law. I have no doubt that Johnson, a resolute Bible thumper, believes abortion and homosexual are capital crimes worthy of death.

Johnson’s latest screed is yet another example of why Evangelical Christianity is the most hated religion in America, right up there with Islamic suicide bombers.

– More –
 

 

From Frances Langum:

Florida has NO IDEA how much any of the 58,000 ex-felons who’ve applied to vote, owe in court costs. So the state is SITTING on ALL the applications. ALL of them.

You may recall that Florida Republicans circumvented the will of their people, who voted in 2018 to allow ex-felons (except murderers and sex-offenders) to vote once they were released from prison.

The Republican legislature and governor found a loophole: those ex-felons also had to pay their court costs and fines in order to be eligible for voting.

But Florida has no database or billing structure in place to tell ex-felons what they owe, and finding out may take years of “research.”

As a result, Florida is sitting on the 58,000 requests they have received from ex-felons for voting rights. ALL of them.

Any effort by a billionaire to “pay off the fines” so those affected can vote this year? What if no one in the state can tell Michael Bloomberg what the final bill is?

– More –
 

 

From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

Since then, it’s been sobering and sad to see just how many of them and people like them are similarly afflicted with this viral, collective mental illness; otherwise normal human beings who’ve fully taken leave of their senses and amplified the kinds of baseless, fantastical fiction they’d have laughed at a few short years ago—all to ironically justify their political affiliation with a predator by substituting the disturbing reality in front of them that is true—for the greater conspiracy they need to be true.

And it would all be a laughable farce if these people weren’t so dangerous: if their fringe conspiracies hadn’t gone mainstream in political races and churches; if their self-righteous autobiographies weren’t making them so willing to ratify violence and to place so many innocent people in danger; if their vile, irresponsible myths weren’t driving people to behavior that can only be described as unstable and criminal.

That’s the thing about self-delusion: it’s a gateway drug to full-blown psychosis. When you’ve convinced yourself that you’re saving trafficked children, you’ll excuse and justify just about anything and you’ll believe just about everything. Combine this fear-fueled brainwashing with gun-loving bravado, Bible-thumping fervor, and a president who understands the power of weaponized lies—and we’re at the precipice of an irreparable collective break from reality. These people are becoming untethered from the world as it is.

– More –
 

 

From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Ginsburg had been dead only a few hours when McConnell said a Trump pick would get a vote in the Senate — and other Republicans are following McConnell’s lead and breaking their promise. They will try to put another right-winger on the Court before January (when it is likely a new president will be inaugurated).

Honesty, morality, and ethnics mean nothing to these Senate Republicans. They only care about trying to hold on to power, and assuring a court to make sure rich white men and corporations are protected.

I doubt they’ll do it before the election, since some GOP senators would be hard pressed to explain that to the voters. But in the two months after the election (and before the new Congress is seated), they will have their chance — and they will seat a new Trump justice (giving right-wingers a 6 to 3 advantage on the court).

Republicans don’t care about women’s rights (including Roe vs. Wade), minority rights, voting rights, or the environment. A 6 to 3 majority of right-wingers on the court would endanger all of those. It could set this country back 50 years — and insure the changes last for a generation.

What are Democrats to do? They may be left with only one option.

– More –