tingilinde

the happiest states

If the US doesn't do well in happy country rankings, how about comparing the states?

As always the metrics are suspect, but NJ does well for emotional health and physical well-being.

 

 

important elections

For 200,000 dead Americans, we don't need to question what was the most important election of their lives. It was the last one.  For those who won't die from COVID-19 in the next six months or so the most important election is on the third of November.

 

predatory capitalism

Cory Doctorow with a tale from our golden age of predatory capitalism,

 

a new standard of care

A dramatic dentist - on several fronts.

The sort of person Trump might admire.  The headline is click-baity, but still...

 

 

 

dark skies at the roof of the world

The India-China border is an interesting place to do astronomy.  (via The New Yorker)

snip

...

In 2006, when Tundup was seventeen, a team from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (I.I.A.) arrived in Merak with a strange and lofty purpose. They wanted to build the world’s largest solar telescope there, in a village with no power and no phones, and which was reachable only by some of the highest motorable mountain passes in the world. To start, they installed the smaller pilot instrument that Tundup helps manage. The telescope was fabricated and tested in Nanjing, with the aid of the I.I.A.’s Chinese colleagues, before arriving at its home just outside the western limits of Tibet.

Today, the telescope’s readings are decoded by researchers in South India, but the device itself is supervised by young men and women from Merak. “This has been our philosophy,” G. C. Anupama, the dean of the I.I.A., which has its headquarters in Bangalore, said. “And it has a twofold advantage. Local people have pride in being involved in scientific activity—we’re not leaving them isolated—and then, in situations like today, they keep the observatories running. The data is still coming in. The science is not affected.”

...

 

 

 

national hubris and pandemic response

A belief in exceptionalism kills

 

a balanced song for these times

friluftsliv

Open-air living in Norway and possibly a healthy way to deal with the virus in other parts of the world.

 

 

nature is healing!

This raises any number of questions.

 

qanon is just a nazi cult

Some argue it's a right wing photo-religion for people with a poor grasp of reality mixed with paranoia.  Others argue it's just a form of Nazism.  Both cases are probably valid. Here's a take on it being a Nazi cult.

a tip of the hat to Matt