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This week's interesting shit.

1. The Trump-Trump 2020 ticket

Trump has never liked Mike Pence. He feels judged by Pence, with his goody two-shoes christian habits. He needed Pence in 2016 to give hime some acceptability among fundamental evangelicals back then, but a lot has changed.

The embrace by the fundies of Trump has done as even the Bible could have predicted, totally compromised them. "You can't serve both God and Mammon." With their absolutely hysterical, insouciant embrace of the Liar-in-Chief King Vulgarian, they can't turn against him now without having to do the biggest climb-down of their lives. And they won't do that. Their pride won't let them (and of course, pride comes before a fall).

However, the Dems have squandered the opportunity. By refusing to embrace a forward-looking vision, and instead putting forth Joe Biden, another geriatric with dementia and a history of really bad policies, they have thrown the 2020 election before the primaries finish.

So it will be the Republican pig in chief, who also suffers from dementia, against the Democratic hair-sniffer (what's up with that anyway? His handlers can't get him to stop?)

At least the Soviet genotocracy was able to get rid of the politburo members who lost their grip, mostly quietly. Here, getting rid of Trump under Article 25 would have led to Pence, the Armageddon-is-coming VP, having the ability to start the process of the end of the world.

So now that Trump doesn't need Pence, and evangelicals have no alternative to doubling down and voting for him again, what is Trump doing?

He might not be all there, but even he can smell the opportunity this provides. Put Pence in charge of Covid-19, and let him take the fall for the ensuing screw-up. After all, it's not like Pence has a great record on health ("smoking doesn't kill", halting a needle exchange program that led to the biggest outbreak of AIDS in his state as governor).

So he'll be able to ditch Pence with impunity. People will want a sacrifice, after all. And then Trump can announce that Ivanka Trump will be his running mate in 2020. Talk about an October surprise!

This sets up 4 terms for The Donald - 2 as president, 2 as vice president, all legal. And anyone criticizing it will be labelled a misogynist.

2. Will covid-19 spread be curtailed by summer?

Update: a few hours after posting this, Italy (pop. 61 million) locked down 16 million people , no weddings or funerals, no going to the movies, no public sports events, schools closed, etc. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

For anyone counting on summer to make a difference in the spread of coronavirus, Italy is on the Mediterranean. We can't afford to hope for a "summer fix." Only time will tell.

3. Have you noticed changes in people's behaviour due to Covid-19?

While certain areas, such as Northern Italy, have failed to contain the coronavirus, there's still hope here. When I'm working with the public, I'm washing my hands every hour. Monday I'm bringing in my own bottle of hand sanitizer even though we have bottles hanging around - after all, everyone is touching those bottles. The odds are very low, but not zero, and we need to do everything we can to contain this for as long as possible. Especially since some of my co-volunteers will be coming back from cruises over then next couple of weeks.

One of the things my sister does is run adult dance classes. She has two cancer patients on chemo, so anyone who's left the country is barred from attending until they've been back in the country for two weeks. Doesn't matter if they have no symptoms, because we now know that some of the super carriers also had no symptoms.

She's also doing the hand washing thing. It's far more effective than hand sanitizer, but seriously, 20 seconds? Try two minutes. And use a nail brush. Adults are no better than kids when you tell them to wash their hands.

Have you noticed any changes in behaviour from covid-19?

4. Number of straight people in UK falls to 94.6% The guardian is reporting that the number of people who identify as straight in the UK has dropped below 95%.

In 2018, there were an estimated 1.2 million people aged 16 years and over who identified as LGB. Young people, aged between 16 and 24, were the most likely to identify as LGB at 4.4%.

Given the ongoing stigma, the true numbers are no doubt higher, everywhere in the world. Including the people around you. Or maybe you're in the closet and would like to say so anonymously?

5. Trudeau in trouble

The majority of Canadians are not impressed with Justin Trudeau. No surprise there.

6. The Yukon moves to year-round daylight savings time

The CBC is reporting that The Yukon is not going to roll back their clocks an hour in the fall. They join Saskatchewan in going to year-round daylight savings time.

Alberta and British Columbia are mulling the move.

(BC) Premier John Horgan has said he will wait to see whether neighbouring Washington, Oregon and California go with permanent daylight time before pushing ahead with the bill. Those states have taken steps to move to one time year-round, but still need approval from the U.S. Congress to make it law.

I'm sick and tired of winter sundown before 4 pm. If I'm going to get up in the dark either way in the winter, at least give me a bit of afternoon sunlight to look forward to.