What you will see here

Scattered Acres is going to be a site for random thoughts. Here in the time of coronavirus, there will be some commentary about the passing political, economic, environmental, social and cultural scene. There is much to be said about all of these.

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The Electoral College has got to go

Do you know how close Joe Biden came to losing the election? Terrifyingly close! According to the vastest figures available on line, Biden won Arizona and 11 Electoral votes by 10,457 popular votes, Georgia’s 16 Electoral votes by 11,779 popular votes, and Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral votes by 20,682 popular votes. Biden won these three states by 42,918 votes. Together they account for 37 Electoral votes which, if gone to Trump, would have caused a tie in the Electoral College and thrown the election into the House where Trump wins the majority Republican states.  OK, a tie. But additionally, if Nebraska’s single Biden Electoral vote from the 2nd Congressional District hadn’t gone to Biden by 22,091 votes, Trump wins. Or if Nevada’s 6 Electoral votes hadn’t gone to Biden by 33,596, Trump wins.  Under the Constitutional provisions for the Electoral College and the custom of winner-take-all by states, Biden won the presidency by a mere 65,009 votes. Imagine that. The loss of a ...
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Election legitimacy needs a landslide

Donald Trump has defined the landscape for the general election. It’s rigged no matter who wins. He has questioned voting by mail. He has sent in his lackey, Louis DeJoy, a big Republican donor, to sabotage the US Postal Service which now admits it cannot handle a deluge of voting by mail. He claims the process is fraught with fraud. Fearing loss by popular vote and in the electoral college, Trump has undermined the legitimacy of the election. There are three possible election outcomes. The first is that Trump will squeak a narrow victory as the electoral college distorts the popular vote as it did in 2016. The second is that Biden will win the popular vote and gain a narrow victory in the electoral college. It’s in the states with close votes that the claims of rigging will be raised. In either of these cases - a narrow Biden win or a close Trump win - legitimacy of the victor will be questioned.  There is only one outcome that can set the republic back on course. That is a Democr...
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The coronavirus and age

Here’s some data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as of August 3 as reported by the Boston Globe . For the population from 20 to 79 years of age, the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 ranges from about 1,700 to 2,000 per hundred thousand people. This means that one out of every 50 to 60 people in that age range has experienced a coronavirus event. By contrast, for people over 80, it one out of every 18 people.  The death rate from COVID-19 climbs with age regardless. At 70 to 79 one out of every 303 people in the Commonwealth dies from coronavirus; at 80 and older it’s one out of every 54. It is inescapable that the old folks among us are more apt to suffer from the virus and we are more likely to die from it.  I am alarmed at the incompetence of the COVID-19 challenge at the highest level of government. For oldsters, the risks of disease and death are much higher than the general population - and unacceptably and massively greater than the risks from guns or ...
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