Category: USA

Mixed signals on Covid vaccine timeline, effectiveness

Australia, Health, Science, USA

Over in the United States, Fuhrer Trump is maintaining that a Covid-19 vaccine is in the offing. Or to use his word, a vaccine will be available “momentarily.”

Trump made the dubious assertion Monday after leaving the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was being treated for coronavirus. He has since recovered and is now claiming that his infection was a “blessing from God.”

Experts in the US have been unequivocal in contradicting the president’s vaccine timeline. For example, Dr Paul Pottinger, a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, told USA Today that a widely available vaccine is “many, many months” away.

“Remember, there’s always that delay between when we know something is safe and effective and when it is then available to be generally deployed,” he explained. “But, there will not be a safe, generally effective, generally deployable vaccine any moment, I’m very confident of that.”

Australian officials appear to be in agreement with that assessment. The new Budget papers state that it is “very unlikely” that a Covid vaccine will be available to the Australian public by next summer.

The best case scenario, according to the papers, would see a vaccine distributed to Australians beginning July 1 2021.

It’s a far cry from what Canberra told us just last month, which was that a percentage of the population could be vaccinated by January thanks to early access to Oxford’s AstraZeneca vaccine. The government has earmarked $1.8 billion to secure 84 million doses of Covid vaccines when they become available. It said it expects to have 3.8 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine by February.

As I wrote previously, the AstraZeneca trial has been suspended twice after two participants came down with alarming neurological symptoms. It has yet to be resumed in the US.

Speaking to ABC, Australian Medical Association President Omar Khorshid raised doubts about how effective the vaccine will be once its approved.

“The most likely outcome is that the vaccine is partially effective, limited in the number of people who develop a response or it’s only effective for a short duration.”

It’s worth noting that, according to World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, there is “hope” that a vaccine will be ready before the end of the year.

Twitter intensifies effort to suppress QAnon, now one degree away from Aussie PM

Australia, Government, Main, Politics, Social Issues, Social Media, Technology, Technology News, USA

Twitter is broadening its crackdown on people who post content supportive of the “QAnon” movement. In case you’re not aware, QAnon folks believe that US President Donald Trump is locked into a covert power struggle with a bunch satanic pedophiles who control the world behind the scenes.

In other words, people like Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier who raped God knows how many children while hobnobbing with prominent people like Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and, funnily enough, Donald Trump, who has publicly embraced his QAnon followers. Epstein allegedly hanged himself last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In August it was reported that Twitter had banned over 7,000 QAnon-linked accounts.

“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” the @TwitterSafety account posted 21 July. “In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called ‘QAnon’ activity across the service.”

This act of censorship led media outlets to question whether Twitter would apply the same standards to accounts held by elected officials or political candidates. There are apparently 15 QAnon supporters running for public office in the US this year—all Republicans, presumably.

Last week Twitter announced that elected officials who promulgate QAnon via their tweets will “will no longer be actively recommended by Twitter.” Which sounds like they’re not quite prepared to drop the ban hammer on politicians yet. Though it’s almost certainly just a matter of time.

QAnon isn’t confined to the US. Far from it. The movement is spreading around the world as if it’s being carried by Fast Courier Australia.

In fact, Twitter just shut down an account belonging to a close friend of our very own Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The Guardian identified him as Tim Stewart, whose wife was and might still be on Morrison’s staff. Twitter said Stewart was “permanently suspended for engaging in coordinated harmful activity.”

Stewart denies that he and Morrison have ever discussed QAnon together. What do you think?

Trump backs down, supports TikTok deal

Asia, Business, China, Countries, Data Management & Networks, Digital Systems Technology, General, Social Media, Technology, USA

TikTok’s US operations got a new lease on life Sunday after President Donald Trump announced that he was supporting a deal between the Chinese app’s parent company ByteDance and American tech company Oracle.

“I have given the deal my blessing,” Trump said. “I approve the deal in concept.”

So much for all of his anti TikTok histrionics. Just a few days ago he stated that, beginning Sunday, he would prohibit Americans from downloading the app. This came after he said he was “conceptually” opposed to a deal that allowed ByteDance to hold onto a majority stake of TikTok.

But Trump has given his “blessing” to a deal that does just that.

As Reuters reports, the deal places TikTok in the hands of a new company called TikTok Global. While headquartered in the US, TikTok Global is majority owned by ByteDance, which has an 80 percent stake. What remains is split between Oracle Corp (12.5 percent) and Walmart (7.5 percent).

Critically, though, all of TikTok’s user data from the US will be hosted by Oracle. The user data question was the main sticking point, as Washington argued that the Chinese Communist Party had access to TikTok’s databases, putting the privacy and security of American users at risk. Indeed, Trump and his lackeys routinely and melodramatically asserted that TikTok posed a grave “national security threat” to the United States.

Again, Trump previously stated that he would not support a deal that resulted in ByteDance retaining a majority stake. But he’s moved the goal posts and is justifying his reversal by pointing to the fact that approximately 40 percent of ByteDance stock is owned by American investors.

Add that 40 percent to Oracle’s 12.5 percent and Walmart’s 7.5 percent, and Americans technically have a majority stake. So goes the new argument, which your average online tutor will tell you is specious at best.

Of course, Trump will approve the deal not because it satisfies his administration’s “national security” concerns, but because it gives him one more thing to boast about in the run up to the presidential election on 3 November.

A new national poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News has Democratic nominee Joe Biden up 8 points on Trump.

Mozilla wants to know about your negative YouTube experiences

General, Info Tech, Main, Social Media, Software, Technology, Technology News, USA

Remember Mozilla’s #YouTubeRegrets survey? Neither do I, but the company has parlayed it into a new browser extension called RegretsReporter, which collects info sent by users to investigate “why YouTube recommends what it does.”

A “YouTube Regret” is a complaint about a video that was recommended to you by YouTube’s algorithm. As Mozilla writes on its website, “With the RegretsReporter extension, you can immediately take action to send us recommended videos that you regret watching—like pseudoscience or anti-LGBTQ+ content.”

This all began last October when Mozilla shared 28 different anecdotes about bad YouTube recommendations, though to be fair the users seem to be at fault most of the time.

One person searched “fail videos” because they wanted to see people “fall or get a little hurt.” They proceeded to click on videos showing “minor” car accidents, which eventually led to videos of severe car accidents. Go figure. There’s a lot to be said for precision in the context of an online search. If I want to find an adwords agency in Sydney, for instance, that’s what I’m going to type in. Vague searches turn up mixed results.

In another #YouTubeRegret, a“10-year-old sweet daughter” who allegedly wanted to watch some tap dancing videos wound up taking a deep dive into “contortionist videos that give her horrible unsafe body-harming and body-image-damaging advice.” Now, this sweet daughter’s guardian says, she is “restricting her eating and drinking” and shouting “Work to eat! Work to drink!”

One guy even blames YouTube’s recommendations for his failed marriage. You see, “YouTube just kept feeding her [his wife] paranoia, fear and anxiety one video after another,” and now “she refuses to even consider professional help because she no longer trusts anyone.” So much for personal responsibility.

Anyhow, Mozilla now has the RegretsReporter, the goal of which, Mozilla says, is to discover the answers to burning questions like:

“What kinds of recommended videos do users regret watching? Are there usage patterns that lead to more regrettable content being recommended? What does a YouTube rabbit hole look like, and at what point does it become something you wish you never clicked on?”

Let’s hope we get the answers soon—the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Trump, economists criticize Fed’s interest rates cut

Countries, Financial News, North America, Politics, Regions, Regulation News, USANo Comments

The Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point failed to pacify US President Donald Trump, who has routinely hit out at Fed chair Jerome H. Powell for keeping rates too high. The federal funds target rate range is now 2% to 2.25%.

“As usual, Powell let us down, but at least he is ending quantitative tightening, which shouldn’t have started in the first place – no inflation,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “We are winning anyway, but I am certainly not getting much help from the Federal Reserve!”

Trump went on to say that he would like to see further and more aggressive rate cutting going forward.

“What the Market wanted to hear from Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve was that this was the beginning of a lengthy and aggressive rate-cutting cycle which would keep pace with China, The European Union and other countries around the world.”

But Trump was not the only one critical of the cut. Two Fed officials also disagreed with the decision, albeit for different reasons.

CNBC reports that Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Kansas City Fed President Esther George—who had both expressed misgivings about a potential rate cut—both voted against the measure, arguing that rates ought to remain unchanged.

“Given that the economy is quite strong, given that I do think that inflation is going to be very close to 2%, and given that the growth in the economy is satisfactory, I think that’s an environment where you don’t have to take a lot of action,” Rosengren told CNBC.

Others were critical as well. Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, slammed the rate cut as an “unwise decision,” arguing that “The Fed’s decision today is like in the days when doctors bled their patients to heal them.”

He added that, in his view, the Fed “manufactur[ed] reasons to cut interest rates despite a strong economy with no recession signs apparent anywhere out on the horizon.”

The decrease was the first since 2008, when the Fed hacked rates down to almost zero percent in the midst of massive economic fallout caused by the US subprime mortgage crisis.

Boeing Awaits Fate, Passengers Wait

Countries, North America, Oceania, Regions, Technology News, USANo Comments

Hundreds of Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger airplanes remain grounded across the world pending conclusion of an ongoing investigation into two fatal crashes, only months apart, in 2018 and 2019. Some airlines are finding it difficult to cope with their diminished fleets. If you find your flight delayed, this may be why.

The crashes and causes

Shortly after takeoff on 29 October 2918, Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board. The plane was reported to have entered the sea at a sharp angle, and an investigation pointed out that a likely flaw in an automated system that controlled the aircraft’s pitch, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). 

On 10 March 2019, just over four months later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, traveling from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, crashed under similar circumstances. Two minutes after takeoff, the plane’s MCAS engaged, sharply pitching the aircraft back towards the ground. Over the course of the next four minutes, the pilots struggled to disengage the MCAS while retaining other forms of automated/assisted control. Flight data shows drastically fluctuating rates of climb, descent, and air speed. The MCAS engaged a second time; shortly after, the aircraft struck the ground at nearly 1100 kilometers per hour, killing all 157 persons aboard.

Boeing’s new best-seller..

The Boeing 737 was developed in the 1960’s and is the most popular commercial passenger aircraft. The 737 MAX was introduced in 2011, featured larger engines, and became Boeing’s fastest-selling plane ever. Put briefly, the engine’s increased weight made stalling more likely in some ascent conditions. The MCAS was designed to detect these stalls and adjust engine and tail fin angles to push down the plane’s nose to counteract them.

..and how it was (allowed to be) made

The MCAS directly caused both flights. This having been established, inquiries into the development and implementation of the system are now underway, with Boeing currently under investigation by the Justice Department and FBI. A former Boeing engineer has reported that developers were under explicit commands to minimize the cost of the 737 renovation (to the 737 MAX) as well as to downplay changes in design and features in order to more smoothly pass Federal Aviation Administration standards. FAA certification processes are partially outsourced to airline producers, one of those being Boeing.

Fallout

Much of the reignited discussion of the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion focuses on how a country could knowingly (the fail switch that actually sparked the temperature spike was discovered, but not revised, due to anticipated costs) endanger its citizens and the world. How reckless of them! 

We now have a crater in Ethiopia, with debris reaching up to nine meters into the ground, made by a plane that was hastily created, certified, and sold by a company across the world. Take it from there.

Fall in Asian markets reflects pessimism over US-China trade deal

Asia, China, Countries, Financial News, North America, Politics, Regions, Regulation News, South East Asia, USANo Comments

Negotiations between Washington and Beijing over a trade deal may be ongoing, but that doesn’t mean people are optimistic about the potential for a settlement, as evinced by the fall in Asian markets during early trading Wednesday.

The decline came in the wake of a Twitter rampage from US President Donald Trump—who has been less than consistent (one might say erratic) on this issue—in which he lit into China for not importing more agricultural products from the US and took credit for the Asian country’s allegedly failing economy.

“China is doing very badly, worst year in 27 – was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now – no signs that they are doing so. That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through. Our Economy has become MUCH larger than the Chinese Economy is last 3 years,” he wrote.

Continuing he wrote:

“My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit.”

And in conclusion:

“China has lost 5 million jobs and two million manufacturing jobs due to the Trump Tariffs. Trumps [sic] got China back on its heels, and the United States is doing great.”

Trump did not provide any sources to back up the stated figures, but then I probably didn’t have to tell you that.

MarketWatch summed up the immediate fallout, reporting that “Japan’s Nikkei slid 1% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index  fell 1.3%. The Shanghai Composite retreated 0.8% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite lost 0.5%. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% as North Korea tested more short-range ballistic missiles, and benchmark indexes in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia all fell. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2%.”

Individual stocks were also down.

MarketWatch reports that, in addition to Trump’s unpredictability, an ongoing trade dispute between South Korea and Japan is roiling markets. Said dispute stems from Tokyo’s decision to deny South Korea a special trade status known as “white country.”

Alarming percentage of food delivery drivers eat from orders

Asia, Australia, Countries, FMCG, North America, Oceania, Regions, Regulation News, Social Issues, Technology News, USANo Comments

Think twice next time you’re about to tip the man or woman delivering food to your house. According to a recent survey conducted by US Foods, nearly 30 percent of delivery drivers have swiped something from a customer’s food order.

The survey interviewed some 500 delivery drivers who worked for various apps (including UberEats, GrubHub and DoorDash). Twenty-eight percent of those drivers confessed to having taken food from a customer’s order prior to delivering it, while more than half (54 percent) admitted to thinking about doing so.

From the report: “We’re sorry to report that sometimes, impulse gets the best of deliverers, and they violate their sacred duty by taking some of the food!”

As you might expect, customers (1,500 of whom were polled by US Foods as part of the same study) are less than thrilled by the idea of a delivery driver lifting a bit of their meal. US Foods asked customers to to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 meaning “no big deal” and 10 meaning “absolutely unacceptable”), how upset they would be to learn that such a thing occurred, and the average response was 8.4. No surprise there.

Meanwhile, 85 percent of customers said they would like their order to come with a sticker or label which, if broken, would indicate that the delivery boy/girl had gotten hungry on the drive over.

Taking food from an order is of course a violation of company policy: if caught, drivers are liable to be fired.

On the flip side, drivers had some bones to pick as well. Sixty percent of those surveyed said they were “consistently irritated” by a lack of tips. MarketWatch reports:

“On the customer side, 95% of those surveyed said they tipped their drivers, though 66% said service and delivery fees — which don’t go to the driver — affected how much they tip. $5 was the average tip for about one in three customers, but 57% of customers said they tipped less than that. Just 11% said they tipped an average of $6 or more.”

Upon hearing this news, customers might be even less inclined to tip, further enraging delivery drivers and leading them to retaliate by, well, stealing some food. Sounds like a vicious cycle.

Lawyer for Epstein accusers says wealthy sex offender may have bounty on his head

Countries, North America, Politics, Regions, Social Issues, USANo Comments

A lawyer representing several alleged victims of billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein recently speculated that the convicted sex offender’s life may be in danger from people who do not want him to testify.

Spencer Kuvin represents three of Epstein’s many accusers. His comments came after news reports that Epstein, a former acquaintance of current US President Donald Trump as well as previous President Bill Clinton, had possibly attempted to kill himself in his jail cell last week.

According to various sources, Epstein was found lying on the floor of his cell in the fetal position, half-conscious with markings on his neck. Some speculated that he had attempted to hang himself, while others stated that Epstein’s may have staged the suicide attempt so as to be granted a transfer to a different jail.

In support of the latter theory, a source said Epstein’s injuries were superficial and inconsistent with a genuine suicide attempt.

Yet another theory holds that Epstein was assaulted by fellow inmates.

In response, Kuvin stated during an interview with the Sun Online:

“I question whether or not it was a true suicide attempt that Mr. Epstein was involved in in jail or whether or not there may be some powerful people who just don’t want him to talk.”

Kuvin seems to be implying, as others already have, that Epstein has incriminating information about certain individuals who have the power to prevent him from talking in court.

“If he goes on trial, everyone he’s been in contact with will ultimately be fair game,” Kuvin said, adding, “If he’s going to implicate anyone in power that has the ability to reach in and somehow get to him, his life is definitely in jeopardy.”

The 66-year-old was arrested and indicted earlier this month on sex trafficking charges. He stands accused of sexually assaulting dozens of underage girls—some as young as 14—at his properties in New York City and Palm Beach.

He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Epstein previously served a 13 month sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges.