SeniorJunior

" America: The Only Advanced Country  Without Universal Health Care" Yeah, yeah, I know, but socialism ....! For another perspective, what do people in countries WITH  universal health care think about all that?                                                                             Oh dear... The New York Times has put together a straightforward little work of communications art*, methinks, in this six minute video. I love it, but I suspect the profiteers who lobby so long and so furiously to maintain their super profitable status quo hate it.   Watch it here (clickey, clickey) Other Duffer rants on Health Insurance. *Consultantitus Attack Countries with universal healthcare include Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden,  Switzerland , Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

 Indulging My Catastrophe Imagination (Hey, I write sci-fi)   " T he warning signs of a longer pandemic" (Headline in Axios*) The perfect pla ce for a sci-fi extrapolation!   With active cases of Covid-19 mutating into Covid-21 being so numerous,  there is a (darn near) inevitable end-game story.  Thus... The End IF:     - The South African variant “evades the Pfizer vaccine”      - The UK B-1.1.7 variant is “50% more transmissible”      - More young people are getting Covid and it’s making them sicker (news pending)     - New mutations are popping up like Orville Redenbacker's best... THEN:   One or more sci-fi-horror stories are being written in the mystical language  of statistics.  ( 3σ ) Dramatis personae     -  “ Heartless Dodger ”     A new variant will dodge ALL vaccines     -  “ Brain Drainer ”   A mean mutation will turn “long Covid” into insta-dementia:      -  “ Coin Flip Killer ”  Badass   variant will be 50% fatal:  Dodger, Drainer and Killer meet, share RN

...AND FOR A GAIL COLLINS COLUMN! (Nobody calls 'em "columns" any more, I know, I know)  Almost every morning I scan the NYTimes and WaPo - mostly the Opinion sections - and clack out a few words of "comments." The general Net gratification of a few "likes," or in the case of the Times "Recommendeds" is there, and at the Times they have two layers up, the "Times Pick" which guarantees a lot of Recommends, and even higher, "NYT Replies," wherein the columnist herself responds to selected comments.  Joy unending, I suppose. I have not experienced it. However, this is a modest pick, which I hereby share with you.  Gail is talking about the infrastructure proposal and will Congress go along. will duff Tijeras, NM 6h ago Times Pick Just post a lot of pictures of what China has done in the last decades. Whole new, shiney, super modern cities, more high speed rail in one province than in all of Europe, never mind the U.S. with o