In the news, Sunday, February 9, 2020

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FEB 08      INDEX      FEB 10

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from BBC News (UK)

Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay: Dunkirk mastermind museum approved
Plans have been approved for a museum at the family home of the man who masterminded the evacuation of Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo, which saw the rescue of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers, was run under the command of Vice-Admiral Bertram Home Ramsay. By 1943 he was appointed naval commander in chief for Operation Overlord, the projected Allied invasion of northern France. The ships under his command landed one million troops in France in one month starting from D-Day in June 1944.

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

The 7 Most Important Factors for Getting Rich
Some people believe that becoming rich is a question of luck. I disagree. Whether chance presents you with a good opportunity or not is not the key question.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

LETTERS:
Pitts owes an apology
Leonard Pitts just can’t help himself. He represents what the left thinks about Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters — including independents — that the left is just smarter than the rest of us! If we were smarter we would see things the way he does!  - Greg Schuster

Report: Idahoans split on breaching the four lower Snake River dams
A new poll from Boise State University indicates that Idahoans are roughly split in their support for removing the four lower Snake River dams in Washington to save the Gem State’s threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead. The fifth annual Idaho Public Policy Survey, conducted by the university’s School of Public Service and the Idaho Policy Institute, covered several topics, including people’s feelings about the direction of the state, education, growth, and budget and taxes. On the dams and salmon issue, respondents were statistically tied, with 40% in favor of breaching and 38.3% opposed. Another 21.7% were unsure.

Lindsey Graham says DOJ will handle information from Giuliani on Bidens
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday that the Justice Department is vetting information that President Donald Trump’s personal attorney has delivered regarding Hunter Biden’s work on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.Graham, citing an early-morning conversation with Attorney General William Barr, said that Rudy Giuliani is giving his information to national security experts and that he would back off his own plans to use the Senate Judiciary Committee as a vehicle to investigate the Biden family.

A look at Rep. Matt Shea’s legal career: Recently laid off, he’s sued bad drivers and a state university

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In the news, Saturday, February 8, 2020

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FEB 07      INDEX      FEB 09

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from BBC News (UK)

Doctor wanted for remote isle ... fainthearted need not apply
Colonsay, jewel of the Inner Hebrides, is looking for a new GP. The successful candidate will need a taste for adventure.

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

The Price of Repaying Student Loans for 10 Years Instead of Investing

Financial counselors have long stressed that the “miracle of compounding” becomes increasingly powerful the longer any funds are held. By delaying investing because of student loan debt, young people lose more than many realize.

Margaret Thatcher on Socialism: 20 of Her Best Quotes

In 1979, the Iron Lady assumed the premiership of a country riven with labor strife, racked by stagflation and run down by decades of nanny government. Britain struggled on all fronts as the sick man of Europe. For the most part, Thatcher didn’t propose to fix big problems through small tweaks as other cowardly or unprincipled politicians were suggesting. She set about, in her words, to “roll back the frontiers of the state.” She wanted to reinvigorate the country by restoring a culture of entrepreneurship and respect for private property.

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from KXLY 4 News (ABC Spokane)

After years of skyrocketing costs, lawmakers across the US push for caps on life-saving insulin payments

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Socialism Always Fails
Socialists tell us that if the rest of us will give them total power over our lives, this time they will provide prosperity, and unlike previous socialist regimes, they won’t strip us of our liberties. We should have as much confidence in their words as the loved ones of Laura Hillier had in the empty promises of Canadian medical officials.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Sue Lani Madsen: Farmers have to balance their interests with those of urban landowners
Farmers have always faced the risk of weather. Trade wars are not new, and farmers who spoke off the record said standing up to China has been a long time coming. They’ll wait it out like an untimely summer thunderstorm at harvest. Explaining farming to a software engineer in San Francisco or an investment trust out of New York is a new kind of risk in a country increasingly divided between urban and rural culture.

Joe Walsh: My party has become a cult
When I announced my primary challenge to President Donald Trump last year, I knew running against him for the GOP nomination was the ultimate long shot. Even now, after impeachment, after three years of vulgarities, inanities, betrayals and racist screeds, he has a 94% approval rating among Republicans in the latest Gallup poll. My chances are slim – don’t worry, I know.

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Them Dam Writers Online in the Star Index

Beginning with the July 31, 2019 issue, The Star, a weekly newspaper in Grand Coulee, Washington, began featuring a history column from "Them Dam Writers," with which this blog participates. In addition to the history column, other articles appearing in The Star which are of particular interest will be featured in this blog, including articles from the past



2020

Jan      Feb      Mar      Apr      May      Jun      Jul      Aug      Sep      Oct      Nov      Dec


2019

Jan      Feb      Mar      Apr      May      Jun      Jul      Aug      Sep      Oct      Nov      Dec

July - December, 2019

Jan      Feb      Mar      Apr      May      Jun      Jul      Aug      Sep      Oct      Nov      Dec

Them Dam Writers Online in the Star, February 2020

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back      Them Dam Writers Online Index      next

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February 5, 2020




Also of interest in this issue:




February 12, 2020

In the news, Friday, February 7, 2020

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FEB 06      INDEX      FEB 08

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Wickard v. Filburn: The Supreme Court Case That Gave the Federal Government Nearly Unlimited Power

The Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers, which means the federal government is only authorized to do things that are specifically listed in the Constitution.

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from The Guardian (UK)

Charles Dickens Museum's new exhibits – in pictures
The Charles Dickens Museum, located in the townhouse in Bloomsbury, London, into which the writer moved with his young family in 1837, has acquired a private collection of more than 300 items, including unpublished letters, personal objects, portraits, sketches, playbills and books.

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from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Heroes of Progress, Pt. 37: James Elam and Peter Safar

This week, our heroes are James Elam and Peter Safar, the two physicians who discovered and popularized modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation, also known as CPR. Elam and Safar’s modern method of CPR is taught to people across the world as the go-to way to resuscitate an unresponsive person. The World Economic Forum has estimated that Elam and Safar’s CPR technique has already saved 5 million people and continues to save hundreds of thousands of people every year.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Trump takes revenge in purge of witnesses after his acquittal
Two days after he was acquitted by the Senate for abuse of power and obstruction, President Donald Trump exacted vengeance Friday against two administration officials who gave damaging testimony during the House impeachment inquiry, firing his ambassador to the European Union and ousting the top Ukraine expert at the National Security Council.

House passes Puerto Rico aid in face of Trump veto threat
The Democratic-controlled House on Friday passed a $20 billion-plus aid package for Puerto Rico, where a swarm of earthquakes last month set back the island territory’s slow, troubled recovery from the hurricane devastation of 2017. But the White House has promised to veto the legislation, charging the island’s government of mismanagement and weak financial controls. It arrives in the Senate as a dead letter anyway. Puerto Rico’s non-voting congressional delegate, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, a Republican, urged Democrats to look for common ground in hopes of getting agreement on an aid package the White House might accept.

Trump’s ex-Navy secretary endorses Bloomberg for president
The former Navy secretary who was fired after criticizing President Donald Trump said Friday he is endorsing Democrat Michael Bloomberg for president. Bloomberg’s campaign said former Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer was set to announce the endorsement during an event at a maritime center and museum in Norfolk, Virginia.

Trump ousts officials who testified in impeachment inquiry
Taking swift and harsh action against those who crossed him, President Donald Trump on Friday ousted two government officials who had delivered damaging testimony during his impeachment hearings. Trump made the moves just two days after his acquittal by the Senate.

Judge weighs challenge to Tim Eyman’s $30 car tab measure
A King County Superior Court judge who has already temporarily blocked initiative promoter Tim Eyman’s latest $30 car tab measure from taking effect said he hopes to rule next week on whether it’s constitutional.

Feds fight $1 million Hanford fine. It increases $30,000 every week the fight continues
A fine of more than $1 million issued by the state of Washington to the Department of Energy is excessive and unlawful, DOE said in an appeal of the penalty filed this week.

Henry Olsen: Trump’s address on his acquittal showcases why people hate him. And love him.
President Donald Trump inspires devotion and hatred in nearly equal measures. His Thursday address celebrating his acquittal by the Senate showed exactly why that’s the case.

Anger and virus cases grow in China; death toll at 722
The number of confirmed cases of the new virus has risen again in China while fatalities increased to 722 on Saturday including an American, as the ruling Communist Party faced anger and recriminations from the public over the death of a doctor who was threatened by police after trying to sound the alarm about the disease over a month ago. The government announced that another 3,399 people had been diagnosed over the last 24 hours, reversing two days of declines, and raising the total accumulated number of cases on the mainland to 34,546.

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In the news, Thursday, February 6, 2020

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FEB 05      INDEX      FEB 07

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from National Review  RIGHT BIAS

Pornography Is a Public-Health Problem
Should we ban online pornography? This question has been greatly exercising the Right. Many libertarians say no, since to do so would be an affront to free speech. Many social conservatives say yes, since not to do so would be an affront to the common good. Both positions are compelling, which is why they are unhelpful as a starting point. A better place to begin is the apolitical medical research establishing the facts about porn beyond a reasonable doubt, to be followed by a dogged public-health campaign, and then targeted political action.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Trump says U.S. operation killed al-Qaida leader in Yemen
President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. at his direction has conducted a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen that killed Qassim al-Rimi, an al-Qaida leader who claimed responsibility for last year’s deadly shooting at the Naval Air Station Pensacola where a Saudi aviation trainee killed three American sailors.

Trump administration moves ahead on shrinking Utah monuments
The U.S. government implemented final management plans Thursday for two national monuments in Utah that President Donald Trump downsized. The plans ensure lands previously off-limits to energy development will be open to mining and drilling despite pending lawsuits by conservation, tribal and paleontology groups challenging the constitutionality of the president’s action.

Trump unleashes fury at impeachment enemies at prayer event
President Donald Trump unleashed his fury against those who tried to impeach him at a prayer breakfast Thursday, a day after his acquittal by the Senate. “As everybody knows, my family, our great country and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people,” Trump said at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. He spoke from a stage where he was joined by congressional leaders, including Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who led the impeachment charge against him.

Japan finds 41 more cases on ship as virus alarm doctor dies
Japan on Friday reported 41 new cases of a virus on a cruise ship that’s been quarantined in Yokohama harbor while the death toll in mainland China rose to 636, including a doctor who got in trouble with authorities in the communist country for sounding an early warning about the disease threat.

Chinese doctor, silenced by police after trying to raise coronavirus alarm in Wuhan, dies from disease
A Chinese doctor who was silenced by police for trying to share news about the new coronavirus long before Chinese health authorities disclosed its full threat died Thursday after falling ill, his friends and colleagues said. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, became a national hero and symbol of the Chinese government’s systemic failings last month. Li, 34, had tried to warn his medical school classmates Dec. 30 about the existence of a contagious new virus that resembled the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Chinese scientists ask for patent on U.S. drug to fight virus
Scientists in the city at the center of China’s virus outbreak have applied to patent a drug made by U.S. company Gilead Sciences Inc. to treat the disease, possibly fueling conflict over technology policy that helped trigger Washington’s tariff war with Beijing. The government-run Wuhan Institute of Virology said this week it applied for the patent in January along with a military laboratory. An institute statement acknowledged there are “intellectual property barriers” but said it acted to “protect national interests.”

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In the news, Wednesday, February 5, 2020

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FEB 04      INDEX      FEB 06

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________

from Bloomberg

Media/News Company

Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

Companies are searching for ways to deal with the tens of thousands of blades that have reached the end of their lives.

A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer. The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones nestled against one another. ... Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

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from Conciliar Post

A VIEW FROM ABOVE

I flew over the Great Plains. There I saw the grid of man laid out in straight lines marking plots and straight roads making access a higher priority than aesthetic.

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from The Hollywood Reporter

Magazine in Los Angeles, California

Kirk Douglas, Indomitable Icon of Hollywood's Golden Age, Dies at 103
Kirk Douglas, the son of a ragman who channeled a deep, personal anger through a chiseled jaw and steely blue eyes to forge one of the most indelible and indefatigable careers in Hollywood history, died Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 103. “It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103,” son Michael Douglas wrote on his Instagram account. “To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the Golden Age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to.” Nominated three times for best actor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — for Champion (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Lust for Life (1956) — Douglas was the recipient of an honorary Oscar in 1996. Arguably the top male star of the post-World War II era, he acted in more than 80 movies before retiring from films in 2004.

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from Military Times

and Air Force Times, Army Times, Marine Corps Times, and Navy Times

This brutal World War II battle holds lessons for future Pacific fights
An island invasion followed by a “bloody brutal urban brawl.” It’s one piece of a larger Pacific fight against a peer adversary that spread its control across the region, thwarting U.S. military might. The future fight against China or echoes of the past? This week marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Manila, an often overlooked fight that saw some of the war’s worst atrocities, heaviest urban combat and the U.S. Army diving into a Pacific island campaign that stretched across the theater.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

from The Washington Post

Newspaper in Washington, D.C.

Bomb cyclone to drag atmospheric river to Europe, while jet stream may propel trans-Atlantic flights at speed of sound
A bomb cyclone is about to explode over the North Atlantic, and will help drag the weather system drenching the Southeast United States and its accompanying atmospheric river all the way to Europe. This weather system will smash into Britain after riding along a roaring jet stream reaching speeds over 250 mph. Air passengers hitching a flight along the same jet stream will have an extra-fast ride. The weather system forecast to slam into Britain has been named Ciara, and is expected to unleash heavy rains and strong to damaging winds. Ciara will have its origins from the storm in the Southeast United States, which has generated tornadoes, flooding rain and heavy snow.

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In the news, Tuesday, February 4, 2020

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FEB 03      INDEX      FEB 05

________

________

from Conciliar Post

I HAVE NOT KNOWN GREAT EVIL – A LAMENT FROM A PLACE OF PRIVILEGE
I have not known great evil. Yet it haunts my past and shapes my present. Who can say that the enslavement, brutal lynching, and systematic dehumanization of a kidnapped race does not haunt America and the world? Who can hear the reported words of a young girl who inexplicably survived the gas chamber saying “I want my mommy,” and not think the world forever marred by the unspeakable evil of the Shoah. That girl was subsequently shot, by the way. How can one respond to such things and hold to hope, let alone sanity?

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from The Economist

Companies warn of economic crisis as China fights the coronavirus
Rarely have plans in China fallen apart so swiftly, so publicly. On January 12th the leaders of Hubei declared that the province’s GDP would grow by 7.5% this year. They also vowed to make the province a stronger link in high-tech supply chains. They made no mention of a mysterious new virus that was causing pneumonia and spreading fast through the cities and towns under their watch. But less than two weeks later its scale was too big to ignore. Under intense pressure to act, they placed the entire province under quarantine, hemming in 60m people and rendering their flashy economic targets almost certainly unreachable this year. Their focus instead shifted to stopping the illness and keeping people supplied with necessities. Share prices in mainland China have fallen by 10% since January 20th. Factories and offices, already shut for the new-year holiday, were supposed to reopen in recent days but many have stayed shut.

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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California

March Routes, Trade Routes, Plague Routes
War and trade have been the great abettors of epidemic disease throughout history. Despite remarkable advances in public health practices, sanitation, medicine, and awareness over the past century and a half, the old patterns persist, if—for now—on a less-lethal scale. Just a decade ago, United Nations peacekeepers from Nepal carried cholera to Haiti. Thousands died. As you read this, a multi-sided conflict in eastern Congo and its vicinity challenges health workers struggling to fight Ebola.

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from MyNorthwest.com

Media/News Company in Seattle

Rantz: Democrats and Socialists broke the Iowa caucus

As of late Tuesday, the Iowa Democratic party wasn’t confident in its reporting. The Iowa caucus system is in disarray. Candidates have been deeply hurt by the nonsense unfolding. But not all of them.

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from The Roman Anglican  (blog)

An Anglican review on art and history, based in Rome.

EXAMPLES OF BAD CONSERVATION AND GOOD CONSERVATION: ITALY, DIOCESE OF GIBRALTAR
During the Grand Tour, Italy became a hot destination for British travellers coming to enjoy the beautiful weather and the splendour of both classical and religious art and architecture. During the late 19th century Italy was disseminated with English chapels and churches. Not only did the big cities such as Rome or Florence have two or three congregations each, but even the smallest resort towns in the middle of Tuscany or in the alps ended up with an Anglican chapel of some sort. Especially with the rising popularity and affordability of trains, Italy became a popular destination for both the middle and upper classes. Two different examples of these are the churches that were founded in Florence and Sanremo. The first being the principal meeting place of the largest English community of the continent, in a city that prided itself with the title of capital of the Renaissance, the other being a leisure destination at the heart of the Italian Riviera, and much desired in the summer months to escape the scorching weather of the larger cities. In this brief article we will see how the two main English churches founded in these two cities can be taken as examples of good and bad preservation of our cultural heritage, as although the two still exist, are no longer in use with the Anglican congregations, both having sold recently during the second half of the twentieth century.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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