[Marshall, Texas] On March 29, 2021, Mr. Jerry Cargill presented a check in the amount of $150,000 to the City of Marshall to assist with the construction of the new Marshall Pet Adoption Center. This check represents the second scheduled installment of a commitment, from Friends of Marshall Animals, to raise $450,000 from private donors towards the construction of this much-needed facility.
The City of Marshall would like to thank the Friends of Marshall Animals’ private donors for their ongoing funding efforts and contributions. Tax deductible contributions may continue to be made to Friends of Marshall Animals, Inc., P.O. Drawer V, Marshall, TX 75671, and at FriendsofMarshallAnimals.org online, or by visiting their Facebook page: facebook.com/FriendsOfMA/
Photographed are Mr. Jerry Cargill, local businessman and philanthropist, presenting the $150,000 check to Marshall City Manager Mark Rohr.
Amanda Smith —
Thank you to all of the wonderful people who have donated so far – and especially to Steve Carlile and Jerry Cargill for their heroic fundraising efforts and collaboration with Friends of Marshall Animals.
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Editor’s note: I have known one person that was bitten by a Brown Recluse. It took him about 6 months to fully recover.
About 4 years ago I had a Doctor appointment. That morning they called and postponed it because our Dr. was in surgery. Two days later they called back and cancelled my appointment because our Doctor had died on the operating table. We thought that he was the one doing the operation. He had been bitten by a Brown Recluse. He had tried treating himself instead of getting help. He was fairly young (late 40’s) and the best Doctor we had ever had.
Brown Recluse Spider . . ..
At this time of year, this is worth seeing.
Show these pictures to your spouse, your kids, grand kids, and friends. It could save their lives. Remember what this Spider looks like and be careful while cleaning, as told below.
It’s summertime & cleanup is going on. Be careful where you put your hands. They like dark spaces & woodpiles. Also cool areas in the attic……………………………………..
The Brown Recluse Spider is the most
dangerous spider that we have here in the USA.
A person can die from it’s bite. We all should know what the spider looks like.
Send this around to people you love, because it is almost summer time.
People will be digging around, doing yard work, spring cleaning, and sometimes in their attics.
Please be careful.
Spider bites are dangerous and can have permanent and highly negative consequences.
They like the darkness and tend to live in storage sheds or attics or other areas that might not be frequented by people or light.
If you have a need to be in your attic, go up there and turn on a light and leave it on for about 30 minutes before you go in to do your work.
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EVs produce fewer emissions overall than their gas-powered counterparts, but there are caveats
Editor’s note: This article contains excerpts for a Wall Street Journal. Their article is much more complete and contains great graphics. I would encourage readers to go to that article. If you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal click here
By Russell Gold, Jessica Kuronen and Elbert Wang
Published March 22, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. ET
Carmakers including General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG are retooling their companies to make electric vehicles on the premise that their battery-powered motors are cleaner than gas-burning engines.
Are EVs really better for the environment, though? A close look at all the factors shows they are — but it’s a complex answer with some asterisks.
The environmental cost of a car includes both building it and fueling it. That means factoring in emissions associated with oil drilling and power plant smokestacks, as well as from mining metals such as nickel and cobalt that are needed for electric-car batteries.
How quickly the U.S. fleet switches from combustion engines to electric motors will have a huge effect on the country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. Light-duty vehicles currently contribute 17% of the U.S. total.
To help prevent the global average temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius, a goal of the Paris Agreement, cumulative U.S. vehicle emissions should be limited to 39 gigatons between 2019 and 2050, according to the University of Toronto researchers.
We looked at four possible scenarios for the future, using the University of Toronto data. In all four, cumulative emissions continue to rise steeply. Two scenarios stay under the 39 gigaton goal—barely. It comes down to reducing gasoline consumption, which has a bigger effect on cumulative emissions than a rise in demand for electricity and minerals with EVs.
SCENARIO 1 — BUSINESS AS USUAL
What happens if gasoline-powered engines continue to dominate for the foreseeable future?
In this scenario, where EVs don’t reach more than 10% of new car sales by 2050, gasoline demand is basically flat.
Emissions from U.S. vehicles would be nearly 49 gigatons, well above the target to stay within Paris Agreement levels.
SCENARIO 2 — HYBRID NATION
What happens if drivers, worried about where they could charge their EVs, flock to hybrids instead?
Gasoline consumption would fall in half and emissions would be lower, but still above the 39 gigatons to stay on target to meet the Paris goals.
SCENARIO 3 — CALIFORNIA DREAMING
What if states push aggressive mandates similar to California, which said last fall that it wanted all new cars sold in the state to be EVs by 2035?
Emissions would drop to 35.4 gigatons—below the two-degree threshold. Electricity use would grow astronomically, as would demand for minerals, but gasoline would shrink to 8% of 2020 levels.
SCENARIO 4 — MIX OF STRATEGIES
What if the U.S. promotes EVs, and also pursues other strategies to reduce emissions, such as improving fuel efficiency, making cars lighter and decreasing miles traveled per person?
Emissions would fall the most. Gas demand would drop. Electricity and minerals demand would rise—but not as sharply as in the California-style scenario.
No matter what kind of engines they run on, cars add to greenhouse gas emissions. But the data show that switching from gas to electric vehicles will make a huge impact.
Consumers making individual choices between cars will make a difference. So will policy decisions made by governments and investments by companies as we drive into the future.
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CORONAVIRUS INFO PROVIDED BY DR. JIM HARRIS – 03/24/2021
“The average number of new cases in Harrison County reached five yesterday, a 10 percent increase from the day before. Since January of last year, at least 1 in 14 people who live in Harrison County have been infected, and at least 1 in 652 have died.”
Hopkins Cited:
1. Major Coronavirus Variant Found in Pets for First Time (Science) Two reports released this week have found the first evidence that dogs and cats can become infected by B.1.1.7, a recent variant of the pandemic coronavirus that transmits more readily between people and also appears more lethal in them. The finds mark the first time one of the several major variants of concern has been seen outside of humans.
NIAID’s statement, issued just after midnight on March 23, said that its data and safety monitoring board expressed concern that AstraZeneca’s announcement was based on “outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.” The data and safety monitoring board notified AstraZeneca and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority of its concerns.
In a two-page letter to AstraZeneca and federal authorities on Monday, an independent panel of medical experts that was helping oversee the vaccine’s clinical trial in the United States said the company had essentially cherry-picked data that was “most favorable for the study as opposed to the most recent and most complete.”
But the independent oversight board said in its letter that the vaccine’s efficacy may have been between 69 percent and 74 percent. The letter reprimanded AstraZeneca for an overly rosy description of the trial data. (J. Harris: That’s not too bad if accurate. The FDA and the company have had communication trouble for a year or two — but so have other people.)
The company said on Tuesday that the interim results appeared to be “consistent” with more recent data collected during the trial. AstraZeneca said it would immediately share its latest efficacy data with the monitoring board. The company said it would reissue fuller results within 48 hours.
Many millions of people have received the AstraZeneca shot worldwide, including more than 17 million in Britain and the European Union, almost all without serious side effects. In an effort to increase public confidence, many European political leaders have gotten the injections in recent days. The AstraZeneca vaccine has also been administered in the past week to leaders in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
Globally, ageism affects billions of people: at least one in two people hold ageist attitudes against older adults,5 with rates much higher in lower-income countries (figure). In Europe, the only region for which data about ageism are available for all age groups, one in three people have experienced ageism, with rates highest among 15–24 year olds.
The Global Report on Ageism makes three recommendations for concrete actions that all stakeholders can take to combat ageism. First, invest in effective strategies to prevent and respond to ageism. Second, fund and improve data and research to better understand ageism and how to address it. Third, build a movement to change the narrative around age and ageing. The promise of the Decade of Healthy Ageing can only be fully realised if ageism is recognised as a social determinant of health and tackled.
“Effective vaccines with high uptake are likely to be an essential element in the long-term control and potential elimination of COVID-19. However, experience with other diseases has shown that elimination is difficult and generally requires a targeted multi-strategy approach.35 The same is likely to be true for SARS-CoV-2, with eradication unlikely to be feasible in the short-term and requiring a global perspective. Although mass vaccination will inevitably reduce R and disease prevalence, other measures, such as intensive test, trace, and isolate strategies, will be needed to target pockets of infection. Maintaining low levels [KEEPING THE LEVELS LOW] of infection is likely to be key to the success of test, trace, and, isolate strategies and in reducing the risk of vaccine escape.37 Ultimately, whether we achieve the eradication of SARS-CoV-2 is likely to depend on the long-term natural history of the infection and the public health importance attached to this goal.
(J. Harris: Except for the summary (maybe) this very long, virtually incomprehensible British statistical article is saying “it ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings” and the singing isn’t going to start just because we vaccinate a lot of people. To eradicate Covid will take a long time and will require testing, tracing, and quarantines, and I would suggest masks, distance, and good sense….
I wonder what statisticians talk about at cocktail parties? With whom? Do they even get invited to parties? Come to think of it, who goes to parties anymore, anyway?
Sen. Jon Kennedy of Louisiana in a floor debate on tightening gun restrictions used the analogy of the number of people killed annually by drunk drivers.
He made a point, but not a valid one when linked to gun safety measures.
However, this country could easily and quickly put a severe dent in the drunk driving problem in the country.
Impose tougher restrictions: First offense, $10,000 fine, 30 days in jail and confiscation and public sale of vehicle; second offense, $25,000 fine, year in jail and confiscation of vehicle.
There might be a bunch of drunks walking around but durn few drunk drivers.
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1. What Happens When a Person Is Simultaneously Infected With Two Different SARS-CoV-2 Variants? (Global Biodefense) Scientists in Brazil recently reported that two people were simultaneously infected with two different variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This co-infection seemed to have no effect on the severity of patients’ illness, and both recovered without needing to be hospitalised. Although this is one of the few such cases recorded with SARS-CoV-2 – and the study is yet to be published in a scientific journal – scientists have observed infections with multiple strains with other respiratory viruses, such as influenza. This has raised questions about how these viruses may interact in an infected person, and what it could mean for generating new variants.
2. Roche Releases Test for SARS-CoV-2 Variants (Homeland Preparedness News) Roche recently announced the launch of a new cobas SARS-CoV-2 Variant Set 1 Test to detect and differentiate between viral variants, recognizing the growing prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, such as those first seen in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil. “Viruses naturally evolve over time,” Thomas Schinecker, CEO of Roche Diagnostics, said. “While most mutations do not have a clinical impact, some variants need to be tracked carefully as they seem to spread more easily and quickly.
How else can anyone explain the Republican push to inhibit voting by creating roadblocks to discourage every possible citizen from voting?
This was a recent headline in a major publication: “Republican Voter Suppression Efforts Are Targeting Minorities, “. This is not liberal hogwash; it is a fact based on laws being pushed or passed in states with legislatures that are predominately Republican.
Why? Why would any party try and prevent folks from voting? In this case, the answer is simple: For the GOP headknockers, it seems to be easier to exclude voters than move the ideological bar of the party to appeal to a larger segment of citizens.
It apparently does not bother GOP party stalwarts that preventing entire groups of people designated by either race or religion or sex from voting is, by any degree or standard, an unAmerican activity.
The United States is a democracy, a democratic socialist republic that hinges its very existence on the “will of the people.” Its very existence as a true democracy depends on citizen participation at every level of government.
The GOP has shown its reluctance to change as the nation’s demographics and cultural mores have changed; it would rather fight — and lose — than change. The party would rather curb freedom than accept that change is inevitable; if there is no change, the alternatives are stagnation or decline.
Stagnation. Decline. Both words are apt descriptions of the Republican party, circa 2021.
Today’s Republican Party is flailing around like a broken-wing, spavined gnat, with no clear direction and no clear purpose. The party and its elected representatives are edging closer to being a lackluster, ineffective megaphone for a party with a mouthy majority of racists, bigots, conspiracy theorists and plain ol’ “aginners”, those brainless know-nothings whose entire life philosophy is pinned to the notion “I ain’t fir it, so I must be agin it.”
The Era of Trump brought unwieldy change to the party, but it was change that took the party away from
its historic roots of small government, free trade, maintaining a strong international presence and a balanced national budget.
Now, right now, the party must reverse course if it intends to remain a viable nation political force.
But, sadly, it won’t as long as the leaders worship at the image of Donald Trump. And that shadow of a human being is not going to walk away from the spotlight of celebrity. He has tasted the power of mob exhumation and he still craves the feeling it gives him.
Trump is not going anywhere. And, it seems, his subjects are in no hurry to cast him out.
To quote Mr. T from TV’s A-Team, “I pity the fools!”
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Yes! Unforced errors can cost you an election. Let me give you an example. President Trump totally bungled the CODID-19 response. He was not reelected to a second term. I strongly believe that Trump would be President today if he had not made this unforced error.
Unfortunately, President Biden appears to be following in Trump’s footsteps when it comes to unforced errors.In fact I fear Biden is outperforming Trump in this area.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me say I don’t like writing this article. I voted for Biden. I had high hopes for him. I want him to be reelected but because of his unforced errors I see the chances of that fading away just 50 days into his administration.
Today all the oxygen in Washington is being consumed by the immigration problems at the southern border. Biden finds himself with that problem because of an unforced error he made. He decided to take on the complex issue of immagration in his first 100 days. Unfortunately this mistake may insure he is a one term President and the Republicans did not have to lift a finger.
Years back when I worked for a living, one of my rules of engagement was — never take ownership of someone else’s problem until you have a well throughout plan for solving that problem.
At this point I am reminded of Colin Powel’s pottery barn rule — if you break it. You own it.
Some may say Biden had to take on immigration now. That is not the case. Sure the immigration policy for the US needs work but not now. Biden needed a well thought out solution before he broke the pot.
A flawed statuesque is always better as a solution than uncontrolled chaos.
Whoever advised Biden to make this a top priority might look for other work. Clearly this is not his strong suit. I don’t recommend shifting the blame. The person that the top should be the first to get the blame if they signed off of the approach.
So expanding of Powell’s pottery barn story:
Very early in his administration, Joe Biden picked up the immigration pot and hammer. Without much thought he used a hammer (sometimes called an executive order) to break the pot. Shocked by the smell of the liquid in the pot which was running over his hands, he lost his balance. While trying to regain his balance, he stepped into a mature pile that he had not noticed.
So now Joe finds himself with shit on his shoes, god knows what on his hands and a broken pot.
This is the story of an unforced error.
I wish I could suggest a solution. I can’t. I do know is that fixing the immigration problem has become a lot more difficult because Joe broke that pot.
Sadly, that at this point Joe does not smell very good.
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Some elements of living in America circa 2021 are obvious:
1. The county is divided along political philosophy lines, lines which have been horribly blurred in the last few years
2. The “leaders” of both parties are predominately old and white;
3. The Democratic Party is in temporary control of two of the branches of government, the executive and legislative;
4. Both major political parties have problems with fringe sects alienating potential voters;
5. The Republicans must ease former President Donald Trump out of his Top Dawg position in the party if they ever expect to win back the White House;
And,
6. In order to be relevant again in national elections, the GOP must work honestly and fervently to be more inclusive to people of color and not just continue to pay lip service to that necessity.
Right now, in multiple states, the Republican Party, through its elected state officials, are taking action that will GUARANTEE Democtuc Party gains in both houses of Congress in 2022 and beyond.
By passing state laws to curtail the ability of all citizens to easily cast votes, the GOP is continuing to label itself as the Party of Racism. It is impossible to support gerrymandering, pass laws aimed at restricting voting by blocs of citizens, and create obstructions aimed a creating hardships and instructions to vote for people of a particular skin hue without being labeled “racists”. An open “racist” can win a regional or statewide race in some cases, but not a national race, not anymore.
Voting is a right of all eligible citizens, not a play-pretty to be manipulated to benefit a particular party.
Republicans,!in order to remain relevant in the national political landscape, must adapt to the needs of citizens…all citizens, not just the stereotypical gun-totin’, lily-white fat cats who, as a cartoonish group, are science-denying, militia-lovin’, Neanderthals.
The 2021 election, where GOPers pushed Trump’s racist, god-image ideology, resulting in him being a one-term failure and turning the Senate “blue”, should have served as a wake-up call to the party. But from the numerous bills introduced to suppress votes of groups that normally vote for Democratic Party candidates, the GOP seem determined to ride the horse Dead Man Walking.
Trump does not care about any political party…and he has tried them
all on for size. Trump cares about one thing: Trump. Period.
Every day that the GOP hangs on Trump’s coattails, the party is getting deeper in the political quicksand that will drag the party into darkness and oblivion.
The newest GOP representatives and senators — the QAnon cheerleaders, the blatant racists, the science-deniers — are, today, seen as the party’s future.
Goodbye, GOP. You were a great party once, until you sold your soul to a man with the heart of a film-flam artist, the tact of a runaway bulldozer and the empathy of a bowling ball.
You backed his play, time and time again, despite the warning signs that he was a party-destroyer, not a unifier.
Now, it’s time to make a break from
the past and build a party for the future or play second fiddle on the national stage for generations to come.
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Last week a wrote an article titled, “United States on the Verge of Losing Its Technological Superiority”
The article focused exclusively on Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, interview by Fareed Zakaria. Mr. Schmidt is the chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. This blue ribbon committee, composed of 15 people, was tasked to do an assessment of the role of AI in the future and the United States position in the field.
As I aways do I posted a lead to the article on facebook along with the link. As expected very few people clicked on the link. Based on 15 years of experience, I was not surprised. “Tits” alway out sell “science” – particularly in Texas.
What was surprising is none of the posts linked to the article were related to science. Hell – they weren’t even related to tits. Every one of the posts was a political statement; none addressed anything discussed in the article.
When I wrote the article I was careful to focus exclusively on science and engineering.
This really valids a concern that I believe Mr. Schmidt has. He stressed the urgent need to move now if the US has any hope of winning this race with China — politics will ensure that the US comes out on the losing end.
Unfortunately, there is other evidence that politics will lose the technology competition with China. Look at how the US handled COVID-19.
The United States has had more deaths from C-19 and more cases of C-19 than any other country in the world. I believe the major reason for this is that we made addressing C-19 a political issue not a science issue. 15 years ago who would have thought wearing a mask would be considered a political statement. Government entities lined up against each other based on their political leaning.
We could have done much better fighting C-19 if we had been driven by science and politics had stayed on the sidelines.
Sure over 500,000 people in this country are dead from C-19 but that is small potatoes compared to what is at stake in the AI competition with China. In my opinion this competition is even more important than addressing climate change.I say this because based on all I read the results AI competition will be determined in the 10 to 20 year timeframe. The critical dipping point of addressing climate change is in the 40 to 50 year range. After that point we will be on a downhill slope that can’t be reversed.
If the US loses the race to remain the technology superpower in the world and China replaces us, they will be the dominant economic powerhouse within 30 years and able to dictate how nations like the US address climate change. So China policy, not US policy, will dictate the approach for addressing climate change in the critical stage.
This country is in a high stakes game and we are not in a position to win the war. A country in the middle of a civil war is not positioned well to win a foreign war at the same time. So I believe the winner of the AI competition has already been decided.
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