Obsidian Wings

It Ain't Necessarily So

by wj

I think we are overdue for an explicitly Open Thread. So here are a couple of totally unrelated items to kick us off.

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The US Stimulus Checks (technically “Economic Impact Payments”) are finally coming out. Ours just arrived. While President Trump’s name is right there on the front, his signature (contrary to what I had expected) is not.

Everything I have read indicated that they would be $1,200 per person; $2,400 for a married couple filing jointly. At least if your income was under something like $75,000 per person. Yet when ours arrived, the amount was more like $890. For two. (And no, we don't make anywhere near the threshold amount.) No document included to indicate how the amount was figured. In fact, nothing was in the envelope but the check itself. Seems a bit odd.

Has anyone else gotten their check yet? And did you see the same kind of lack of explanation?

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I see that, while Trump is pushing businesses to reopen, much of the stimulus money voted by Congress remains unspent
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/05/18/treasury-coronavirus-bailout-fund-cares-act/
But then, talking about doing things is ever so much easier than actually doing things to help make them happen.

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NASA’s daily Astronomy Picture of the Day is one of my regulars. Today featured Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars. What struck me was just how straight it is. In fact, if I didn’t know it was on a planet, I would have assumed that I was looking at a sphere which had gotten grazed by a bullet. Hmmm....

As noted -- Open Thread

Mowing on Tuesdays

by JanieM

I once wrote something to the effect that God invented black flies to remind us that nothing is perfect, even the month of May.

I wrote hastily.

Comparisons

5/24/20: Graphs below the fold have been updated to today (Worldometer data).

I don't have time to update my own deaths-per-million comparison graph, but the OWID graph for selected countries is here, and you can of course tweak the list for your own purposes. Notable since last time: the UK has caught up with Italy (both with 542 acc' to Worldometer), and the US is re-converging on Ireland. They were at about the same level when I started paying attention, then Ireland had something of a spike (you can see it in the graph), but now the difference is closing again.

5/20/20: Graphs of Worldometer's daily death tally for US and UK added below the fold.

Leaving aside for the moment a discussion of the complexities, I thought I'd offer this graph of total deaths per million of population for selected countries. The data is from Our World of Data, which offers their full database for anyone to use freely -- something I was unable to find on Worldometer.

We were talking a while back about deaths per million in different countries, and I've been wanting to make a graph of those numbers ever since. But without an actual database to work from, it was too tedious.

Tedious no more, because of OWID providing their data for the taking.

I am debating how far to take this project. If I keep it going, I'll put a link in the sidebar.

COVID Science and speculation

by liberal japonicus

Another post for COVID science and stuff. No politics please

Fred Willard RIP

by liberal japonicus

Fred Willard, brilliant comedic actor, passed away. Over at LGM, they posted this Martin Mull show that features him. Funny stuff, take a look below the break.

Kawasaki syndrome

by liberal japonicus

This is something I wrote for a local group, with some additions and changes for here. The sotry about my daughter is almost 20 years ago, so everyone is fine.

Something different

by liberal japonicus

I'm just going to post a few things that pop up for me, these two might be of interest.

Humans Created Earliest Modern Artifacts in Europe

and

New Dates Push Back Arrival of Modern Humans in Europe

If there are any regulars who would like to try their hand at posting, now is the time! Operators are standing by!