#2020election #trumpmotives #trump After two and a half years of a Trump presidency that has brought tears, shame, discourse and discord, polarization and an avalanche of democratic candidates, I have come to realize Trump's motives are not inherently evil, nor irrational. No, they are fully rational and always anchored in popularity and money. You can take almost any issue that has come up since his presidency began and you can categorize it into one of those two buckets; popularity, money or both. Take the following examples: North Korea...

#era #politics #wartactics The Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA, was first introduced close to 100 years ago, in 1923. As the name states, its goal is to provide equal rights for everyone and therefore eliminate any "legal" distinction between a man and a woman. At present, there are such legal distinctions in issues such as divorce, property and marriage. In a recent episode of This Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed the Amendment and the struggle it has been to ratify it. I am all for equal rights, the...

#fda #drugs #elderly One of the most important jobs our various Federal agencies provide is public safety. For example, the EPA is charged with making sure we have clean air and drinking water. The FAA with providing safe air travel. And the FDA is charged with providing Americans with safe food and drugs. When a new drug is created (not a generic), it goes through a lengthy approval process at the FDA. There are many phases to bring a new drug to market, from the initial viability of...

#vaccines #malaria For most folks in the US, Malaria is something they hear about in the news, the global news segment. In a country of over 300 million people, Americans are seldom affected by the parasite (1700 cases annually). Unlike other illnesses we've become accustomed to hearing about, malaria is a parasite that, after transmission, matures and reproduces in the liver. Once matured, the parasite moves into the blood stream, where it finds a home in our red blood cells. So far, the only way to deal with...

This is the symptom that I find to be the most obnoxious. It reminds me of a small child that requires constant attention. I imagine a baby or toddler being hungry or thirsty, and their reaction to not getting their needs addressed immediately. I imagine the need for constant encouragement as they learn to babble, pickup stuff, walk, and generally get around in the world. Trump was elected in 2016 and he's had more rallies post-election than he did during his campaign. Just this year he's had 6...

#science #reflection #mirrors #honeycomb Have you ever looked closely at a bicycle reflector? If you have, you will have seen the honeycomb pattern deep inside. What you are seeing is less honeycomb and more a stitching of multiple reflecting surfaces at a right-angle to each other. Mirrors are a great reflecting surface. When you shine a light to them, the light will reflect at an angle directly opposite, this is known as the law of reflection. For example, in this diagram, P is the light being projected onto...

#npd #trump #2020Election In our series of NPD symptoms expressed by Trump, we've reached one that I had not seen to this extent yet. In the past, at rallies, interviews, or speeches, he'd shown it with "little" nicknames he uses for people. Remember sleepy..., low-energy..., crooked..., shady..., and on and on. They are actually funny, even if he uses them to belittle people. Only, these attacks are Trump while in public, and he knows it. He knows he has to be likeable, even funny. What we end up...

#libra #stablecoin #potentialforcatastrophe #potentialforgood Yesterday, an association of 28 companies, most notably Facebook, Mastercard, Visa, Uber, Lyft, eBay, Vodafone, Coinbase, and Kiva, released a whitepaper for a new cryptocurrency called Libra (oddly enough, that translates to pound in Spanish). The goal of this cryptocurrency, according to the whitepaper, is to facilitate payments between the billions of people that are unbanked in the world. While banking is not a new concept for most people in developed countries, in the rest of the world, it can be either too expensive...

#evangelicals #trump #2020Election I've written a few articles here on religion, one about its possible genesis and another on the power it has over our decisions and choices. Today I was listening to a new episode from Throughline (below) where their focus was on the birth of what we have come to know as religious evangelicals in the US. To be fair, the word refers to anyone that preaches and follows a Christian faith (there are various denominations), and seeks to convert others in the process. Which means...

#trump #2002 #trumppresidency #uspresidency #isthisathing In one of those "Is this really a thing?" situations that is the Presidency of Trump, the chair of the Federal Elections Commission, sent a letter informing candidates, and the American public, that it is illegal to receive or accept anything of value from a foreign national... Let me make something 100% clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection...