For future reference:

How to Ungoogle yourself is a handy website with alternatives for Google's products and actionable steps you can take.

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Quotable

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action...Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests." Gore Vidal, Imperial America, 2004
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The COVID-19 pandemic: Five years later

Five years ago today, the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. By then it was pretty obvious what was headed our way. After all, it was hard not to doom scroll during the first couple months of 2020 as Covid-19 spread from Wuhan to the rest of China and shortly thereafter Europe and the rest of the planet. The data we were seeing on reputable news sites and health sites were already frightening. Obviously that only continued to get worse for a while.  My life at the very start of 2020 was really no different from the previous year aside from the increasingly grim news from across the Pacific Ocean. I attended events held by a couple local organizations I belong to (including my county's Democratic Party meetings each month), went out once a week with my wife for a meal together, taught my classes and attended or led committee meetings where I work, did the usual grocery shopping, and otherwise tried to carve out some time to walk along some of the riverfront trails (which typic...
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