Cactus Watcher Strikes Again

From ABC: Governor's attempt to ban student mask mandates rejected by Florida school districts.

The same thing is happening in Arizona. Governor bans mandates, school districts establish them anyway. If politicians insist on acting stupidly, they are going to get ignored.

...
Saying one thing and meaning something else and people mostly understanding: I didn't notice this at least twice while reading through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but doing some translating of it, this stuck out like a sore thumb. Harry is under the Invisibility Cloak and Hagrid is leading Madame Maxime to see the dragons. Harry doesn't know what's going on yet and thinks to himself, is Hagrid trying to show him Madame Maxime? He could see her any old time he wanted... she wasn't exactly hard to miss... What JKR says is that Maxime is easy to miss. She wanted to say Maxime was hard to miss. Ah, English is tricky!

Trump's coronavirus mask standoff reveals the dangerous ripples of fragile masculinity
It's an editorial which begins:
Imagine being so scared of appearing vulnerable (to a deadly virus) that you're willing to potentially hurt yourself, or others — or even die — to keep up the masquerade.

It's a powerful statement, but it would have been more effective if the editorial had been written by a man. Trump's disdain for women as anything but adornments, means he wouldn't stop and think about this the way most of the rest of us do. Of course if a man had said it, Trump would just say something more damaging and less true about him, in a lame attempt to keep his tough guy image the same way not wear a mask does.

Private equity firms now control many hospitals, ERs and nursing homes. Is it good for health care?

Not exactly news and of course it's not good for health care. The failure of Democrats (who then controlled both the House and the Senate) to unite behind public health care when Obamacare was being debated was a major disaster. And I'm convinced it's harmed health care around the world.

From NBCnews: For little work, silent partner in coronavirus contract sold protective gear to U.S. for double the cost

This is why I get so angry at the news sometimes. This came up last night under a different headline with the company name in big print. First of all, the company involved (W. W. Grainger) is no silent partner. I guarantee you, their name is all over the paperwork required by the government. Second, anyone who knows anything about W. W. Grainger (mostly people who've worked in management in a wide variety of industries), knows that W. W. Grainger is a retailer. Du Pont is a manufacturer of the products involved. They don't sell these products directly, they sell to wholesalers and in this case a retailer, all of whom make their money by a mark up from what they pay to the manufacturer. Why doesn't Du Pont sell these things directly to the government? Because selling to the U. S. government is a giant pain in the ass. Among other stupid decisions, Donald Trump and his cronies have thrown the Paperwork Reduction Act in the trash.* So companies that are willing to sell to the U. S. government directly, have to keep up with whatever new crap the bureaucrats come up with. And then there are inspections. You can't just send the purchase to the government. They have to inspect a sample at the place it's going to be shipped from. It's a good idea, believe me. The government saves a fortune not having to return obvious junk. But having someone with the inspector(s) to answer questions and make sure all the paper work is in order and available to the inspector(s) costs the seller money. There is of course another inspection after the products are delivered to the government. And if any thing goes wrong at either inspection, it's the responsibility of the seller, in this case Grainger, to deal with the manufacturer and make it right. Grainger is a retailer. Their mark up is always substantial. Add in all the crap they have to go through to get the government to even look at the products, and paying double what Grainger paid the manufacturer isn't all that surprising or even unreasonable, particularly on otherwise inexpensive items.

The reporter writing up the article doesn't know any of this and his higher ups really don't care as long as it sounds like a juicy story.

*You should have seen the ridiculous special "easy" retired person's income tax form I had to fill out this year. It was about a third longer than last year's for no damn reason. I do my taxes on the computer so my work was about the same. But it came out with a third more forms somebody at IRS was going to have to go through to make sure I and the millions of other seniors didn't cheat somewhere. Granted, with my income it will be little more than a glance. But it's time for a worker that all of us are paying for.

Neither fake nor news: from ABCnews Trump's own words contradict claim he's always viewed coronavirus as 'very serious'. They have to remember unless Trump is being insulted he has the memory of a fruit fly.

This from an ABCnews poll 3 in 4 Americans' lives changed by pandemic, just shows 1 out of 4 Americans are stoned, drunk or otherwise completely out of it.

Our government: always two steps ahead of the curve. from NBCnews House of Representatives studying 'remote' voting as coronavirus hits Congress. Will they have months of hearings about whether they have to vote in person?

Florida Lawyer's Pants Catch Fire During Florida Arson Trial
nbcnews

Liar, liar, pants on fire! Yes, his client was convicted.

German inmates dine on McDonald's
abcnews

Failed food supply contract negotiation. A choice for lunch of regular hamburger, regular cheeseburger or veggie burger. Inhumane treatment! They can't even have the new bigger Big Mac! I wonder how many hardened criminals order the veggie burger. No word about fries. No word about dinner. Bockwurst, pretzels and beer from the nearest bar?

US Navy Poised to Take Ownership of Its Largest Warship abcnews

Being an editor and writing headlines is an important responsibility even in this era of the Internet when the headlines don't have to both fit and fill a specific spot on a newspaper. Editors should have experience and a broad knowledge of a lot of subjects. Most of all they should read the article for which they are writing a headline and not make assumptions that are not appropriate. The person who wrote this headline doesn't know squat about the Navy and its ships, and didn't take a second to check whether what they were intending to write made sense. The article clearly states the ship is the largest *destroyer*. The leap from that to the largest warship is both dramatic and inappropriate. As big as it is, the new destroyer Zumwalt is dwarfed by every aircraft carrier in the fleet!

Changing the subject: Take a look at the second paragraph of the article and see who the captain of the Zumwalt is!

Rainfall Totals: Satruday, April 30, 2016 http://www.abc15.com/news/state/rainfall-totals-satruday-april-30-2016

Glad I'm not the only one with trouble self-editing. Notice the address of the article had the same mistake.

I get endless (probably too much) amusement from reading and misreading headlines. One of the joys of the Internet is that there are so many more places to find things it's easy to find slip ups or things to poke harmless fun at.

Non Sequitur: from cbs5az.com, Man who scaled cliff to propose arrested for drugs
Huh? Turns out the guy wanted to do something memorable while calling his girl on a cell phone to ask her to marry him. As he was climbing down, he got stuck on the cliff face and had to be rescued, at which point the rescuers noticed he was acting even goofier than the usual guy who'd just proposed. No word on whether she said yes.

Magic Misread, dangling modfier division: from abc15.com, Veteran run over by SUV trying to break up fight
Which goes to show commas are useful or breaking up fights with SUVs is a poor idea. (The veteran survived.)

The wonders of science: from nbcnews.com, Scientists discover rare planet that has three stars
Which could imply there is something rare about the planet other than the fact they haven't discovered many three-star systems with planets yet.