DEO Jalopy

Posted on by Thor

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the online Florida Unemployment system known as Connect as an old Jalopy in the Datona 500. As politicians do, he blamed his predecessor Rick Scott for the failings of the system. Florida has had more than 3.48 million unemployment applications filed since mid-March. Only California had more first-time claims.

The Orlando Weekly reported that the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) distributed $13 billion in state and federal assistance to 1.8 million unemployment claimants. The bulk of the money came from a $600-a-week federal unemployment benefit, which expired at the end of July. Connect was designed by the previous Governor Rick Scott and it could not handle the massive number of unemployment claims that began pouring in after the pandemic hit the state in March. The system, which cost nearly $78 million dollars to design was put in place in 2013.

The firm hired to design the site, Deloitte Consulting, got the job by offering the lowest bid. The firm has just on another bid to handle the states Medicaid data. In an interview Monday with Miami television reporter Jim DeFede, DeSantis said, “I mean having studied how it was internally constructed,” DeSantis said, “I think the goal was for whoever designed, it was, ‘Let’s put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way, so people just say, oh, the hell with it, I’m not going to do that.” The DeSantis administration was left having to fix a system that could not keep up with demand in the middle of economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19. The state has spent more than $120 million in contracts to prop up the flawed unemployment process during the pandemic.

So, is the DEO Connect site now working? Of course not. Representative Anna Eskamani reported that, “The DEO is aware that a LOT of people are missing both back pay and their $600 payments. DEO has made this issue a priority to address and assures us that money is being released daily. In July the CONNECT system did finally provide a way to at least track $600 FPUC payments.”

For many people who apply for benefits, the online nightmare feels like a full time job. Many feel they are being denied wrongly. Those that are denied are given no reason. DeSantis said that people should not have to keep re logging into the broken system to certify their weeks in order to get paid, but his administration followed up with exactly the opposite information. The Governor ordered work search requirement suspended but people were being denied for not meeting those requirements. FOX 13 Tampa reporter Craig Patrick pointed out that call center questions are seldom answered and responses run in circles. The whole system seems designed to be sure applicants get frustrated and leave in frustration.

Wesh 2 News reported a DEO response, “We are asking Floridians to be patient as we take action to increase our ability to serve those whose employment has been negatively impacted by the mitigation efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.”

Starting July 25, 2020 those $600 payments, going to about 25 million Americans, will stop, which could cause a flood of evictions as people can no longer pay rent. Law makers in Washington have not been able to come to an agreement about what can be done. The system is a wreck.

Grave Threat

Posted on by Thor

The Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate, just issued a report on the Russian Interference in the 2016 election. It is a smoking gun showing the ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia. The Trump Campaign’s interaction with Russia  during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat the the Republican-led  committee concluded.

The report details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman. Paul Manafort, had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and that other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid. The 1000 page report echos the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation while adding new evidence and details. Mueller’s report was a criminal probe, while the Senate investigation was a counterintelligence effort with the aim of ensuring that such interference wouldn’t happen again.

One of the most damning sections of the report was about the close ties between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russsian oligarch, whom the committee describes as a Russian intelligence officer. Manafort shared internal Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik and says there is “some evidence” Kilimnik may have been connected to Russia’s effort to hack and leak Democratic emails. Much of the report is redacted.

The Committee reviewed a meeting Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., took in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer he believed to have connections with the Russian government with the goal of receiving information harmful to his father’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump and senior campaign officials sought to obtain advance information on WikiLeaks‘ email dumps through Roger Stone, and Trump spoke to Stone about WikiLeaks, despite telling the special counsel in written answers he had “no recollections” that they had spoken about it. Roger Stone was fond guilty of lying to Congress, but Trump pardoned him. WikiLeaks were released to the public right after Trumps pussy grab comments. Trump had said in written answers to Mueller he didn’t recall conversations with Stone about WikiLeaks releases. He clearly lied.

US intelligence officials are warning that Russia continues to target the 2020 election, specifically Trump’s 2020 opponent Joe Biden. “Campaigns should recognize that campaign staff are attractive targets for foreign intelligence services. The threat is ongoing.” the committee said. redacted information in the report that has not yet been released to the public is “directly relevant to Russia’s interference in the 2020 election.

When ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Trump if his his campaign would accept such information from foreigners like  Russia or hand it over the FBI, Trump said, “I think maybe you do both,” he continued, “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening,” Trump continued. “If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”

President Donald Trump has told aides he’d like to hold an in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the November election, according to four people familiar with the discussions. Past meeting have had no one else in the room. they have met five times and what was said is a mystery.

COVID Plumes

Posted on by Thor

According to a study published in the journal Physic of Fluids published on August 17, 2020, wearing masks should be mandatory when entering a public bathroom. USA Today reported that urinals may shoot plumes of inhabitable COVID-19 particles into the air. COVID-19  can be found in a person’s urine or stool and flushing urinals can generate an upward flow projecting particles further than a toilet flush. It is also advisable to close a toilet seat before flushing it. anti-diffusion improvements are urgently needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Researcher Xiangdong Liu said in a press release “Anti-diffusion improvements are urgently needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

Liu and other researchers from Yangzhou University in China simulated urinal flushing using computer models and estimated that, within just five seconds of flushing, virus particles could reach a height of more than 2 feet off the ground.

“Potentially, it could contaminate other surfaces you would touch – the handle, the tap,” said Charles Gerba, a professor of virology at the University of Arizona. “The concern is also – was there anything left over from the person who was there before? Aerosolization from the previous user you may potentially inhale?” At least two studies – one in Tokyo and one in Guangzhou, China – have found COVID-19 RNA in patients’ urine. It’s still unclear whether COVID-19 can transmit through urine and infect another person, Gerba said. More research needs to be done.

Research on particles kicked up in “plumes” has been around for about two decades now, said Joshua Santarpia, a professor of pathology and microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center specializing in bio-aerosols.

“What’s worse, two of COVID-19 reemerging confirmed cases in Beijing have been reported to be infected from a public toilet, which practically proves the danger from the public restroom,” the researchers wrote.

Gutting USPS

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President Donald Trump is gutting the USPS to rig the up upcoming presidential election. For months he has been claiming that mail in ballots will result in election fraud. To restrict access to the ballot box he is literally removing mail boxes from street corners. His basic premise seems to be that he can not win the popular vote, so he will make it more difficult to vote. With the COVID-19 pandemic raging across the country many states are taking steps to make mail in voting a safer option to vote.

The new postmaster general Louis DeJoy is a right-wing millionaire who donated millions to the Trump campaign. DeJoy also has investment in shipping companies that are direct competitor to the post office. AS an investor he would make money by helping to destroy the USPS. Known as the “Friday Night Massacre,” DeJoy dismantled mail sorting equipment and remove mailboxes from the streets. Congress was called back to the hill to have a hearing about the election meddling and Dejoy is set to testify by Friday August 21, 2020.

Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general in 1775 and the organization is older than the government itself. It has a rich history of delivering mail to rural residents and city dwellers alike. Some people rely on the USPS to deliver prescription drugs and other essentials. I have personally noticed the slow down since I have been waiting weeks for a shipment to come in. This is the largest grab for power by the president so far. It is an authoritarian move to discredit, the press, the scientists and then find a way to break the very fabric of democracy by discrediting and trying to remove free elections.

Short Transmission

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Dr. Akinyemi Ajayi told Nadeen Yanes of News 6, “Children below 5-6 age, do not transmit the virus as easily, for a number of reasons,” . “One, they do not have the lung capacity, two if they are breathing, they do not generate large plumes and they are also shorter, much closer to the ground.” That changes when a child is 9 or 10, their transmission is nearly the same as an adult he said.

This quote struck me as particularly medieval. The very notion that any virus carried by children would remain closer to the ground seems insane since the virus is airborne, to be carried wherever it wants to go. My first thought is that teachers should be supplied stilts in addition to the other PPE supplied. I also am amazed he stated, “if they are breathing.”

While many droplets will fall to the ground within a six foot radius, some can remain airborne for up to three hours and travel up to 27 feet. Lydia Bourouiba, an associate professor at MIT, has researched the dynamics of exhalations (coughs and sneezes, for instance) for years at The Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory and found exhalations cause gaseous clouds that can travel up to 27 feet.

On Monday August 17, 2020 the Orange County School Board will have an emergency meeting to discuss recommendations made by the district’s new Medical Advisory Committee regarding the reopening of schools. The meeting called just days before in-person instruction begins in Orange County on Aug. 21, 2020. “Some of us don’t feel like that is necessarily the best thing to do,” Dr. Ajayi said. “Also realize that we are at a point now that we are just a week from school.”

Here are the recommendations regarding reopening:

  • Allow for school re-openings but with staggered start dates
  • Reopen only elementary schools scheduled on Aug. 21
  • Reopen middle, high schools at a later date, possibly one week later depending on what is feasible for the district

Schools will require masks to be worn at all times with little to no exceptions, require more contact tracing and rapid testing in schools and more training for teachers and staff on how to properly wear PPE. Teacher Nick Anderson pointed out, “Every work site has teachers that can tell you about the frustration about trying to keep the soap dispensers filled on a daily basis, going days without even having paper towels refilled.”

Misinformation was shared over 50 times on a teachers Facebook Group about COVID-19 cleaning procedures. This information was falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins University. This information was proven false back in April, 2020. It is scary that teachers are entrusted to keep kids safe and they sharing false information moving forward.

School sports in Florida remain a political football. The state’s High School Athletic Association decided on Friday that the game can go on. It voted to allow member schools to start their practices on August 24, 2020 the season will begin September 4, 2020. CBSN reported that, nearly 800 schools are a part of the association. The fall season consists of bowling, cross country, football, golf, swimming and diving, and girls volleyball. As part of the approval for the season, coaches will have to make a “COVID waiver form” available to the schools. As of today, August 7, 2020 Florida has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University.

Pre-Pandemic: Kaş

Posted on by Thor

Kaş is a seaside tourist town on the Mediterranean coast in southwestern Turkey. The town center has whitewashed houses and buildings covered in gorgeous bougainvillea. Touristy knick knack shops line the streets. At the end of this very steep and narrow Roman Era pedestrian street is the Lion’s Tomb. The Tomb is a 4th century BC Lycian sarcophagus in a tiny shaded square northeast of the harbor.

The Lion’s Tomb is an elevated three-part sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is classic Lycian, with a pointed arch lid  which is reminiscent of an up-turned boat. Two lions heads project from each side of the lid, hence the tomb’s name. The Lion’s tomb is open at all times with no entry fee, and is nicely lit at night.

After three months of Covid-19 lock down, the Turkish government is allowing domestic and international flights and letting bathhouses, hotels and historic sites to reopen for tourists. Hotel reservations have started to pick up since the second half of June, 2020.

Turkish Airlines will fly to the US with three flights per week to Chicago (starting June 19), Washington DC (starting June 19), Los Angeles (starting June 24), and Miami (starting June 22). Passengers will be required to get an HES code in order to fly internationally, clearing them for takeoff by proving they are not infected with COVID-19 or under quarantine. Additionally, Turkish Airlines has announced more direct flights between Europe and the Anatolia region, where Kaş is located, bypassing the Istanbul hub.

In the new normal, those who think they can overcome COVID-19 only by making a couple of small adjustments will disappear. Americans are unlikely to be allowed as tourism re-opens since they seem incapable of making any adjustments. The aim is to revise the list of acceptable countries every two weeks based on developments.

Turkey’s easing of COVID-19 measures started as early as on May 11, 2020 when the government reopened shopping malls, albeit with new physical distancing and hygiene rules. This was followed by more steps on June 1, 2020 including the reopening of cafes, restaurants and similar places, as well as parks, beaches and recreation. The government also resumed international flights on June 11, 2020 and announced that all tourism facilities, theaters and concert halls would reopen on July 1, 2020. Turkey has seen a new surge in the number of cases since the re-opening with over 1000 new cases a day reported.

Hey, should you visit and need a tomb, I know of one at the top of a slippery and steep hill. It comes with lion’s heads.

Pre-Pandemic: Greek Island of Meis

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The Greek island of Kastellorizo – or Meis, as it’s known in Turkey is a short ferry ride from Kaş in Turkey. It is a hilly little island with plenty of gorgeously colorful tile roofed homes. Kastellorizo is  the name given to the island when it was administered by Italy, and it means Red Castle.

A hike up the hills outside of town offered an overall vista of the town below, but this is the only sketch I squeezed in for the day. The town itself is fascinating to explore with narrow alley ways between building and many staircases going up hills. This peaceful island is worthy of weeks of exploration with a sketchbook in hand.

The quiet waters around this island have become a scene of international contention. Turkey and Greece, NATO allies, vehemently disagree over overlapping claims to oil and gas drilling rights in the region based on conflicting views on the extent of their continental shelves in waters dotted with mostly Greek islands. Tensions rose when Turkey sent a seismic research ship, Oruc Reis, on Monday August 10, 2020 to a disputed area of the Mediterranean, accompanied by warships, days after Greece signed a maritime deal with Egypt. The maritime deal set the sea boundary between the two countries and demarcated an exclusive economic zone for oil and gas drilling rights.

The deal was a response to a similar agreement between Turkey and Libya’s Tripoli-based government last year that has spiked tensions in the East Mediterranean region. The Turkey-Libya deal was widely dismissed by Egypt, Cyprus and Greece as an infringement on their economic rights in the oil-rich sea. The European Union says it’s a violation of intentional law that threatens stability in the region.

Hakar said Turkey would continue to defend its “rights, ties and interests” in coastal waters. “It should be known that our seas are our blue homeland. Every drop is valuable,” he said. Turkey says it has the longest coastline in the eastern Mediterranean but that it is penned in to a narrow strip of waters due to the extension of Greece’s continental shelf, based on the presence of many Greek islands near its shore.

Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over sea boundaries but recent discoveries of natural gas and drilling plans across the east Mediterranean have exacerbated the dispute.

Tensions in the eastern Mediterranean took a dangerous new turn on Aug. 13 as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ramped up his hawkish rhetoric against Greece. He warned Greece that if it were to attack a Turkish seismic research ship deployed off a small Greek island, it would “pay a heavy price.” His assertive stance in the eastern Mediterranean maritime dispute is being challenged by a bloc comprising Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel and France.

France, a NATO ally has deployed warships to disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean in support of Greece. France’s move came after a phone call Wednesday August 12, 2020 between French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The Elysee Palace said in a statement that France was going to “temporarily reinforce” its military presence in the eastern Mediterranean so as to “better monitor” the area and ensure that “international law is respected.”

European Union foreign ministers were holding urgent talks Friday August 14, 2020 on military tensions between Greece and Turkey as the neighboring countries’ navies continued a game of brinkmanship over eastern Mediterranean drilling rights.

The Wonderful World of Testing

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Walt Disney World cast members will get COVID-19 testing after a dispute about cast safety fought by the actors Union. Florida will begin providing COVID-19 testing for Walt Disney World cast members this week, ending a nearly two-month dispute with Actors’ Equity Association, a union that represents stage actors at the park. According to Disney, the testing site will be run by the Florida Division of Emergency Management and will be located on Disney property, though not in the park. Testing will be available to Disney employees and visitors, as well as Florida residents.

According to Kate Shindle, president of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union has signed a memorandum of understanding with Disney for hundreds of actors to return to work. The union began pushing Disney World to offer testing for its members in late June, before the park’s July reopening. Disney asked several hundred Union actors to return to work in July, but they refused to provide testing at the time. Those actors could not get back to work until the dispute was resolved. The Union claimed that Disney “retaliated” against its members over their demand for regular Covid-19 testing for employees. The Actors’ Equity Association represents about 750 actors at Disney World. Actors had to battle the broken Department of Economic Opportunity system to survive.

Disney officials said in a notice to its workers that there would be a dedicated testing lane for its workers and their families, and that reservations could be made for testing starting Thursday August 17, 2020. “As a reminder, testing is voluntary and cast members will not be paid for testing time,” the notice said. The testing center will be located outside the Disney Maingate Complex in Kissimmee, Florida, and will be open from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. The tests will be administered cast member’s vehicles, and results will take three to five days.

Disney said Tuesday August 4, 2020 that it lost $4.72 billion in the three months that ended June 27, 2020 compared to a profit of $1.43 billion in the year-earlier period. Disney could be on track to lose around $1 billion in earnings before interest and taxes each month from its parks being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many Disney Theme park projects are likely to be canceled due to the financial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

No Escape

Posted on by Thor

There are about 95,000 inmates in Florida prisons. Last month, the number of inmates who had died from COVID-19 was 29, this month that number of deaths has surged to 70. In Florida, an estimated 11,000 inmates are now infected by the virus.

The virus continues to spread rapidly in the prison system, July and August have been the deadliest months since the start of the pandemic. Florida prisons are simply not set up to deal with treating the illness, much less stop the spread. In the prisons there is plenty of misinformation about how to protect against the highly contagious disease.

Two corrections officers also died this month from complications of COVID-19, according to corrections officials and the Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union that represents officers. The virus has even infected top-ranking officials in the department. Corrections Secretary Mark Inch and Deputy Secretary Ricky Dixon were diagnosed with the disease in early August.

Prisons hit hardest by the virus are Columbia Correctional Institution, which has had 1,317 inmate cases; Lowell Correctional Institution, which has had 909; Santa Rosa Correctional Institution, which has had 793; Graceville Correctional Facility, which has had 656; and Taylor Correctional Institution, which has had 561, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Also, 1,946 corrections workers had tested positive as of Friday August 7, 2020. At least 48 Brevard County Jail inmates tested positive for COVID-19 after results came back from the first round of widespread testing of the inmate population conducted the first week of August 2020.

At Columbia Correctional Institution, corrections workers are thoroughly cleaning the facility and enforcing a mask requirement for inmates and staff. Despite the preventive measures, inmates and workers are getting sick because not much else can be done now that COVID-19  is inside the prison and it is nearly impossible to maintain social distancing.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that Debra Bennett, a former inmate and current prisoner advocate, has organized donations of masks, gloves, bleach, face shields, soap, toilet paper and other necessities to Homestead Correctional Institution, where 302 inmates are infected. When she dropped off supplies, she noticed that some guards were not wearing masks or any other PPE. On the day of her latest delivery, two female prisoners at Homestead had died from COVID-19. Bennett knew both women well.

On the federal level, Attorney General William Barr released a memo that ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to identify “at-risk inmates who are non-violent and pose minimal likelihood of recidivism and who might be safer serving their sentences in home confinement.” His plan, however, was criticized because these inmates will be identified by an algorithm that the Marshall Project reports is biased toward white people. The Marshall Project reported that 100,000 prisoners have been released across the country during the duration of the pandemic.

As more inmates and workers test positive, prisoners and criminal-justice reform advocates are pleading with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to do more to address the problem. Denise Rock, executive director of the nonprofit inmate-advocacy group Florida Cares, wants DeSantis to grant the early release of certain inmates, particularly low-level nonviolent offenders and prisoners who have six months left in their sentences, to help address the spread of the virus in the system. But House Criminal Justice Chairman James Grant, R-Tampa, said in an interview that he does not think it is an “acceptable approach” to let people out of prison because of the pandemic.

During the 2020 Florida legislative session, lawmakers proposed bills to help streamline the process of releasing sick or elderly inmates, the populations most at risk of dying from the disease. Both bills went nowhere. The Orlando Sentinel reported that many of the Florida inmates who died of COVID-19 were eligible for parole.

Back in April when the prison system had just 73 cases, Governor DeSantis told reporters, “I don’t see how in a time of pandemic where people are on edge already (that) releasing felons into society would make a whole lot of sense. I think it makes everything we are doing with social distancing more difficult.”

5G COVID Conspiracy Theory

Posted on by Thor

5G is the next generation of wireless network technology that is steadily being rolled out across the United States and around the world. It provides faster data speeds and network capacity than existing 4G LTE technology.

An implausible 5G Conspiracy theory is based on the strange notion that the launch of 5G caused the spread of COVID-19. With social media platforms plagued by the spread of misinformation, this idea circulated like wildfire. The basic premise was that COVID-19 was man-made or something evil, a sort of viral Frankenstein. One version of the conspiracy goes like this, the COVID-19 pandemic is part of a strategy conceived by global elites to roll out vaccinations with tracking chips that would later be activated by 5G, the technology used by cellular networks.

More than 70 cellphone towers were set on fire in the United Kingdom in April and May because of their alleged link to the spread of the virus. Other arsonists struck around the world, while a woman in North Carolina fired her gun at cell phone workers as they worked on a tower. This is like the villagers taking to the streets with torches and pitchforks to corner the monster.

This level of fear inspired irrationality reminded me of the 1938 Orson Wells produced radio play War of the Worlds. This radio broadcast had residents in New Jersey running for the hills  and shooting at water towers thinking the Martians were attacking. The mind can become unhinged in times of crisis.

“The weight of scientific evidence has not effectively linked exposure to radio frequency energy from mobile devices with any known health problems,” the FCC noted.  I’m left wondering why these conspiracy theorists wear face masks if they believe the towers cause the infection. Tech companies have had struggled to combat COVID-19 misinformation. As long as the pandemic has been in the news, there has been an endless torrent of false information about it.

“People are drawn to conspiracy theories during periods of crisis and uncertainty, and this is certainly one of those times,” Karen Douglas, a professor of psychology told the HuffPost. By connecting dots, conspiracy theories take the unknown out of the equation and give people a sense of control. Even if the belief is untrue, having some sort of explanation for what’s going on can be soothing.

The reality of the situation is that COVID-19 was naturally caused, and we don’t know how to stop it from spreading yet. That is scary. If a person believes 5G towers caused COVID-19, they have something concrete to fight rather than facing the unknown. A study from Princeton University found that social isolation is linked to dark, superstitious thinking. People have more time for conspiratorial thinking. People who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to be associated with prejudice, violence and crime.

Of course the president of the United States is often guilty of spreading these conspiracy theories leading to a perfect storm of stupid. He has even Tweeted that the CDC and media are lying about the virus to hurt his re-election chances. He has troubles with his priorities. He loves throwing gasoline on the fire.

One thing we can all do to prevent the spread of conspiracy theories is to look for trusted, reliable information backed by facts and science and maybe some art.