Sunday, July 18
Spain's Top Court Rules Lockdown Unconstitutional
While upholding most terms of the state of emergency, the court said provisions ordering the population off the streets except for shorts shopping trips, unavoidable work commutes and other essential business violated Spain’s Constitution.
The court issued a brief statement that described the ruling as a split decision. State broadcaster TVE said six magistrates were in favor and five against. The full decision is expected to be released in the coming days.
According to TVE, the court majority ruled that the limitations on movement violated citizens’ basic rights and the state of emergency was a constitutionally insufficient mechanism to do that. The six magistrates said a state of exception, which does allow the government to suspend basic rights, would have been necessary.
Justice Minister Pilar Llop said that her government “will uphold but does not share the decision” on the inadequacy of the emergency declaration “that saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”
“The home confinement rule declared under the state of emergency, along with the exemplary behavior of citizens, allowed us to stop the virus,” Llop said, adding that it was similar to orders given by other European governments.
The Constitutional Court made its ruling in response to a lawsuit brought by Spain’s far-right Vox party. Vox leader Santiago Abascal called Wednesday for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to step down.
“We cannot celebrate the decision because we have proof that the government was willing to break the law and tarnish the constitution,” Abascal said.
Spain’s government declared the state of emergency on March 14, 2020, three days after the World Health Organization said the spread of the coronavirus had become a pandemic. With Spain’s hospitals filling up, Sánchez’s left-wing coalition government won parliamentary backing, including from Vox lawmakers, for the state of emergency.
During the first six-week confinement period, Spaniards could not go out even for exercise, and Vox withdrew its support for the lockdown.
The lockdown helped reduce the number of new daily cases. The Spanish government gradually relaxed its pandemic restrictions once the worst of the emergency had passed. Since then, Spain has used a myriad of measures to control infections. The country has reported a pandemic death toll to date of 81,000. TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...
Unemployment Insurance Benefits
About 1.8 million out-of-work Americans have turned down jobs because of the generosity of unemployment insurance benefits, according to Morning Consult poll results released Wednesday.
Why it matters:- U.S. businesses have been wrestling with labor supply shortages as folks capable of working have opted not to work for a variety of reasons.
- One of the more politically controversial reasons has been the availability of unemployment insurance benefits, in particular emergency provisions that were introduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By the numbers: Morning Consult surveyed 5,000 U.S. adults from June 22-25, 2021.
- Of those actively collecting unemployment benefits, 29% said they turned down job offers during the pandemic. In response to a follow-up question, 45% of that group said they turned down jobs specifically because of the generosity of the benefits.
- Extrapolating from the 14.1 million adults collecting benefits as of June 19, Morning Consult concluded that 1.8 million people turned down job offers because of the benefits.
Furthermore, all 1.8 million won’t necessarily find employment quickly as jobs once offered to them may have been filled by others.
What they’re saying: Morning Consult chief economist John Leer cautions against concluding that this completely validates calls to cut unemployment benefits early.
The bottom line: "Getting people to move from relying on unemployment insurance to wage income doesn't just automatically happen," Leer tells Axios. "There's going to be some searching and matching frictions at work."
Saturday, July 17
Two Soups
My wife and I have a small garden every summer that consists ofd squash, zucchinis, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes. We did not use a tiller to break up the ground but built boxes out ot 2X6's and each box is devoted to each vegetable. we plant about 9 of each...
And, we have a dehumidifier in the basement that pulls out the water from the moisture that we use to water our garden each day... do we save any money between using water from the city or buying electricity to operate the dehumidifier... not sure, and don't really care. With an abundance of squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, I have created (not from any recipe just off the top of my head as the mood strikes me) the following soups:
- Dice up 4-6 cumcumbers
- 1 large onion
- 1-2 large tablespoon of minched garlic
- a ton of coarse pepper
- 1 frozen package of spinach artichoke dip
- 1/2 cup of Ranch Dressing
Cook until soft then use a submersible mixer and blend until smooth.
2 Meals at 320 calories each
Eat cold or hot
Second... is my vege spaghetti...
- Dice up 3-5 middle size zucchini
- Dice up 3-5 yellow squash
- Dice up 1 large onion
- Chop up 1-2 cups of mushrooms
- 1-2 large tablespoons of minced garlic
- 1 jar of spaghetti sauce or pizza sauce
- 1 package of Ramen Noodles - beef flavored
Cook on low-medium heat in a large fying pan until veges are a little soft but not mushy. Pour in the sauce and cook for 20 minutes on low heat. Dump in noodles, cover, and cook for 15 minutes on low heat. Break noodles up until all are separated and stir around so that they are evenly divided among all the ingredients.
2 meals at 415 calories each.
Reheat in microwave on full power for 2-3 minutes or until as hot as you desire.
The Edge of Chaos
The team used varying levels of electricity on a nanowire simulation, finding a balance when the electric signal was too low when the signal was too high. If the signal was too low, the network's outputs weren't complex enough to be useful; if the signal was too high, the outputs were a mess and also useless.
"We found that if you push the signal too slowly the network just does the same thing over and over without learning and developing. If we pushed it too hard and fast, the network becomes erratic and unpredictable," says physicist Joel Hochstetter from the University of Sydney and the study's lead author.
Keeping the simulations on the line between those two extremes produced the optimal results from the network, the scientists report. The findings suggest a variety of brain-like dynamics could eventually be produced using nanowire networks.
Conceptual image of randomly connected switches. (Alon Loeffler)"Some theories in neuroscience suggest the human mind could operate at this edge of chaos, or what is called the critical state," says physicist Zdenka Kuncic from the University of Sydney in Australia. "Some neuroscientists think it is in this state where we achieve maximal brain performance."
For the simulations, nanowires 10 micrometers long and no thicker than 500 nanometers were arranged randomly on a two-dimensional plane. Human hairs can be up to around 100,000 nanometers wide, for comparison. TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...
Profound Implications
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| Peering down a row of magnets leading to the particle storage ring at Fermilab’s Muon g-2 experiment. The results have theoretical physicists around the world frantically working through ideas for explanations. Credit: Photo by Cindy Arnold/Fermilab |
The news that muons have a little extra wiggle in their step sent word buzzing around the world this spring.
The Muon g-2 experiment hosted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced on April 7 that they had measured a particle called a muon behaving slightly differently than predicted in their giant accelerator. It was the first unexpected news in particle physics in years.
Everyone’s excited, but few more so than the scientists whose job it is to spitball theories about how the universe is put together. For these theorists, the announcement has them dusting off old theories and speculating on new ones.
“To a lot of us, it looks like and smells like new physics,” said Prof. Dan Hooper. “It may be that one day we look back at this and this result is seen as a herald.”
Gordan Krnjaic, a fellow theoretical physicist, agreed: “It’s a great time to be a speculator.”
The two scientists are affiliated with the University of Chicago and Fermilab; neither worked directly on the Muon g-2 experiment, but both were elated by the results. To them, these findings could be a clue that points the way to unraveling the last mysteries of particle physics—and with it, our understanding of the universe as a whole.
The Muon g-2 experiment hosted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced on April 7 that they had measured a particle called a muon behaving slightly differently than predicted in their giant accelerator. It was the first unexpected news in particle physics in years.
Everyone’s excited, but few more so than the scientists whose job it is to spitball theories about how the universe is put together. For these theorists, the announcement has them dusting off old theories and speculating on new ones.
“To a lot of us, it looks like and smells like new physics,” said Prof. Dan Hooper. “It may be that one day we look back at this and this result is seen as a herald.”
Gordan Krnjaic, a fellow theoretical physicist, agreed: “It’s a great time to be a speculator.”
The two scientists are affiliated with the University of Chicago and Fermilab; neither worked directly on the Muon g-2 experiment, but both were elated by the results. To them, these findings could be a clue that points the way to unraveling the last mysteries of particle physics—and with it, our understanding of the universe as a whole.
The Muon g-2 ring sits in its detector hall amidst electronics racks, the muon beamline, and other equipment. This impressive experiment operates at negative 450 degrees Fahrenheit and studies the precession, or “wobble,” of particles called muons as they travel through the magnetic field. Credit: Reidar Hahn/Fermilab Setting the Standard
Based on century-old experiments and theories going back to the days of Albert Einstein’s early research, scientists have sketched out a theory of how the universe—from its smallest particles to its largest forces—is put together. This explanation, called the Standard Model, does a pretty good job of connecting the dots. But there are a few holes—things we’ve seen in the universe that aren’t accounted for in the model, like dark matter.
No problem, scientists thought. They built bigger experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, to investigate the most fundamental properties of particles, sure that this would yield clues. But even as they looked more deeply, nothing they found seemed out of step with the Standard Model. Without new avenues to investigate, scientists had no idea where and how to look for explanations for the discrepancies like dark matter.
Then, finally, the Muon g-2 experiment results came in from Fermilab (which is affiliated with the University of Chicago). The experiment reported a tiny difference between how muons should behave according to the Standard Model, and what they were actually doing inside the giant accelerator. TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...
A Digital Euro
PRESS...
The European Central Bank said Wednesday it is launching a two-year investigation on whether to introduce a digital version of the euro that would complement cash, taking a cautious step toward introduction as central bankers around the world eye digital currencies and their potential impact on policy and the financial system.
The ECB said in a statement that the digital euro must be able to meet consumers’ needs while helping prevent illegal activity such as money laundering and must not have an adverse impact on financial stability and monetary policy.
Digitalization “is reaching all areas of our lives,” Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB’s executive board, wrote in a blog post. “The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has shown just how fast such change can happen. And this is affecting the way we pay. We are increasingly buying digitally and online.”
He said that there were many questions to be answered and that “a decision about whether or not to issue a digital euro will only come at a later stage.” If the idea gets a green light at the end of two years, it would take three more to actually develop the digital euro. TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...
Friday, July 16
A Routine of Routines
For the next 3 weeks, I have no doctor's appointments or treatments of anykind except an unexpected trip to the clinic, I suppose should anything out-of-the-ordinary arise with which might cause me some concern.
My tasks because weekly maintenance of the yard, trash, recycle, and the cleaning of the pool, along with daily activities of hygiene, writing and posting articles and/or poems, blog maintenance, and adding to my in progress novels, of which I currently have 4, but can obviously only focus on one at a time.
There are no out-of-town vacation plans scheduled nor are there any plans to go to restaurants although we will no doubt go out for breakfast or brunch at least once a week.
Outside of watching FOX News in the mornimg, for me, the television screen will remain off and there are no plans or desire to stream anything to my cell phone or laptop or tablet.
Our 3 cats pretty much take care of themselves durimng the day, except when they take a notion that they need attention and/or food and then become a pestering pet until I get up off of my dead ass and do something for them.
My health remains stable and good and I will always spend a couple of hours every other day to prepare some type of meal that will last me 2-3 days with the focus being on squash, zucchini, tomatoes, or cucumbers out of our garden.
Our Consciousness
What’s going on in your head right now? Presumably you’re having a visual experience of these words in front of you. Maybe you can hear the sound of traffic in the distance or a baby crying in the flat next door. Perhaps you’re feeling a bit tired and distracted, struggling to focus on the words on the page. Or maybe you’re feeling elated at the prospect of an enlightening read. Take a moment to attend to what it’s like to be you right now. This is what’s going on inside your head.
Or is it? There’s another, quite different story. According to neuroscience, the contents of your head are comprised of 86 billion neurons, each one linked to 10,000 others, yielding trillions of connections.
A neuron communicates with its neighbour by converting an electrical signal into a chemical signal (a neurotransmitter), which then passes across the gap in between the neurons (a synapse) to bind to a receptor in the neighbouring neuron, before being converted back into an electrical signal. From these basic building blocks, huge networks of electro-chemical communication are built up. TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...
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