Nemesis Archives - Page 29 of 47 - Alex's Asteroid Astrology

March 2nd, 2020 at 08:36am by Alex Miller

Coronavirus Update: First US Death

The coronavirus continues to spread globally, with the first deaths in the United States, Australia and Thailand, all announced within a 12 hour period on Leap Day. Genuine awareness of the economic threat it poses seemed to sink in during the prior week, manifesting as a panicked sell-off on Wall Street to the tune of 3600 points, some 11% of its volume, the worst week since the financial crisis of 2008. February 27^th saw the largest single-day drop in Dow history, shedding 1191 points. Of course, Fearless Leader says it’s just a hyped-up conspiracy by the Fake News Media to discredit him, the Dow drop occurred because investors were depressed by the paucity of viable candidates in the Dem primary (but shouldn’t that make these alleged Trump-lovers happy?), and coronavirus will just “disappear one day … like a miracle.”

February 22nd, 2020 at 09:42am by Alex Miller

DNI DOA: Trump’s War on Intel

On Thursday, February 20^th, Donald Trump ejected acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire from his post, replacing him with partisan hack Richard Grenell. The position was created in the wake of the 9-11 attacks to coordinate the output of 17 intelligence agencies and provide useful, integrated information to the President and Congress, relating to national security. All Executive Branch employees serve at the pleasure of the President, and Trump was well within his rights to make this change. The question is: why now?

February 19th, 2020 at 08:07am by Alex Miller

AAA Profile: Michael Bloomberg

Roiling the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination of late is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the ninth-richest man in the US. Bloomberg’s political consistency has been his inconsistency: a registered Democrat until 2001, he became a Republican to run for mayor, then during his second term dumped that Party affiliation while he successfully prosecuted the case for ending New York’s mayoral term limits, winning a third term in 2009 as an Independent. In 2018 he once again registered as a Democrat, before announcing his entry into the 2020 presidential race on November 24, 2019.

February 9th, 2020 at 03:11pm by Alex Miller

Aster-Obit: Kirk Douglas

On February 5^th, 2020, Academy Award nominee Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103. He was a film icon in the ‘50s and ‘60s, with starring roles in such notable films as “Champion” (1949), “Young Man with a Horn” (1950), “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), “Lust for Life” (1956) and “Spartacus” (1960). Nominated as Best Actor three times, Douglas never snagged that top accolade, but was given an honorary Oscar in 1996 for “50 years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community.” Not merely an on-screen presence, Douglas also wrote and produced, and founded a Hollywood dynasty, including his son, actor/producer Michael.

February 7th, 2020 at 10:31am by Alex Miller

Of Verdicts, Voting & Verbiage

It’s been quite a week! The impeachment “trial” verdict, the Iowa caucus, and the State of the Union (SOTU) speech. By rights, we ought to take them in order, but as of this writing (2/6/20), the debacle that was the Iowa caucus is still not quite over, despite starting on Monday, so we’ll save that for last, in hopes we might get complete clarity by deadline. And we’ll begin with the President’s speech to the nation before the joint session of Congress at 9 PM on Tuesday, February 4^th.

February 3rd, 2020 at 07:59am by Alex Miller

The Coronavirus Outbreak

On January 7, 2020, the Chinese government announced that it had isolated the cause of a new strain of flu-like contagion, which it named the novel (“new”) coronavirus. Part of a large class of viruses which include the common cold, MERS and SARS, the new disease had already claimed at least one life, in late December 2019, before it was identified. To date at least 259 people have succumbed to the virus, which has now spread to more than a dozen countries, with upwards of 12,000 known to be infected. Over 60 million people have been put on lock-down in China, and international researchers are racing to develop a vaccine before the contagion becomes a worldwide pandemic. The US government announced that as of February 2^nd, all foreign nationals who had visited China in the past 14 days would be barred from entering the country, and all Americans returning from China would be placed in quarantine.