Post by mhbruin on Nov 23, 2021 9:13:03 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 453 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
The last time we administered 2 million doses in a day was May 13. However, we weren't doing boosters then.
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UberEats Smokes
Uber is making its first foray into the marijuana market, as Uber Eats users in Ontario, Canada will soon be able to order cannabis products on the app.
Customers will be able to place orders in a dedicated section of the app for cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke and then pick them up at a nearby store.
The firm refused to be drawn on whether it will roll out the offering further across Canada and the US.
Canada's marijuana market is worth around CAD$5bn (£3bn; $4bn) a year.
Uber Eats users will have to verify their age on the app and then will be able to pick up their orders within an hour, the company said.
Under Canadian law, although marijuana use has been legal since 2018, it is still illegal to deliver it.
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The RNAissance
Barely a year ago, Anna Blakney was working in a relatively inconspicuous, niche field of science in a lab in London. Few people outside of her scientific circles had heard of mRNA vaccines. Because none yet existed. Attendees at an annual conference talk she gave in 2019 could be counted in the tens, not hundreds. Today, she's in hot demand: an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and a science communicator with 253,000 followers and 3.7 million likes on TikTok. She was, she admits, in the right place at the right time to ride a once-in-a-generation wave of scientific progress. She even gave this new era a name: "the RNAissance".
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have now heard of – and have received – an mRNA vaccine, from the likes of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. But even when Blakney started her PhD at Imperial College London in 2016, "a lot of people were sceptical as to whether it could ever work". Now, "the whole field of mRNA is just exploding. It's a game changer in medicine," she says.
It's such a game changer that it raises some very big, exciting questions: could mRNA vaccines provide a cure for cancers, HIV, tropical diseases, and even give us superhuman immunity?
The full article
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If Dirty Toenails Can Get You Shot, I Know a Couple of Guys Who Are in SERIOUS Danger
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They Have Solved One of the Great Mysteries. No It's Not About Jimmy Hoffa.
Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of Thanksgiving is the cranberry sauce — and we're not talking about why people eat it: Why are the labels on Ocean Spray cans upside down?
Observant consumers have noticed that the labels on jellied cranberry sauce cans are flipped, meaning the rounded edge that's typically on the bottom of most canned goods is on top of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce cans.
According to Ocean Spray, that's intentional: It creates a seamless serving experience.
The cans are "filled and labeled upside down with the rounded edge on top and the sharp can-like edge on the bottom to keep the jelly whole," an Ocean Spray spokesperson told CNN Business. That creates an air bubble on the rounded side (a.k.a. the top) so customers can "can swipe the edge of the can with a knife to break the vacuum and the log will easily slide out."
This process has been in use since the early 2000s.
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There's Too Much CO2 in the Atmosphere, But Not Enough For Beer?
Beer makers are searching high and low for carbon dioxide, commonly used to carbonate brews — a shortage that cropped up in the U.K. even before the pandemic. Metal parts for machinery, aluminum for cans, and even malt and hops are also hard to come by.
“We can’t count on our suppliers to have inventory,” said Bill Cherry, the founder and brewmaster of Switchback Brewing Co. in Burlington, Vermont. “So we’ve been working really hard, and the way we’ve protected ourselves is we kind of became our own warehouse for this stuff.”
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What a Nightmare!
A Hawaii man who was incarcerated and in a mental institution for more than two years because of a case of mistaken identity has sued the state, some Honolulu police officers, public defenders and doctors.
Joshua Spriestersbach, 50, repeatedly told authorities he was not Thomas Castleberry, a man who had a warrant out for his arrest for allegedly violating probation in a 2006 drug case, his attorneys said in the lawsuit, filed Sunday.
But police, public defenders and doctors at Hawaii State Hospital, where Spriestersbach had been treated before, ignored his plight.
Those who should have been advocating for him used his "protests regarding his identity as evidence of his incompetency," the suit said. "He was forced to take psychiatric medications in increasing doses until he became catatonic, all because Joshua continued to assert that he was not Thomas R. Castleberry and had not committed any of Thomas R. Castleberry’s felony crimes."
The suit alleges a violation of civil rights, false imprisonment, medical malpractice and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Spriestersbach's 32-month detention began while he was waiting in a line for food and fell asleep. Spriestersbach had been approached by police in Honolulu at least twice before. The first time, he had given officers his grandfather's name, William C. Castleberry, which he would use on occasion, according to the suit.
Note to the Police: William and Thomas Are Different Names.
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Could Congress Be Losing It's Dumbest Member?
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert announced Monday that he is running for attorney general of Texas, throwing his hat in the ring for what's expected to be one of the most closely watched state races in 2022.
Gohmert, who has been in Congress since 2005, said in a video announcement that he has already raised $1 million in his bid to unseat fellow Republican Ken Paxton. If he is elected, Gohmert said, he will prioritize "election integrity," push back against "unconstitutional mandates" and clamp down on border crossings.
"A priority will be election integrity so that every legal vote counts," Gohmert said. "If you allow me, I will not wait to be my busiest until after there's some bad press about legal improprieties. I'll start boldly protecting your rights on day one."
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Seven Dumb Things Louie Gohmert Has Said
Gays Will Die If You Put Them on a Desert Island
“If you want a long-term study on what’s the best building block for the family, you can take couples, man and wife couples, put them on an island where they have everything they need to sustain a society. Take all male couples, put them on an island, everything they need to survive. Take all women couples, put them on an island, and all they need to survive. Come back in 100 years and see which building block has been most effective in perpetuating their society and I think it’ll tell you all you need to know.”
The Supreme Court Thinks It’s Jesus Because It Legalized Same-Sex Marriage
The Supreme Court said…‘We are your God. Forget what God, Moses, Jesus ever said, we are your God now, the five of us in the majority, you do as we tell you.’ We have two of them [Ginsburg and Kagan] who had done same-sex marriages before they participated, they were disqualified, but they illegally participated, it’s an illegal decision, and it’s time to start impeaching judges and remove them from the Supreme Court.”
Appointing an Openly Gay Army Secretary is like Approving of Child Rape
“What do you think [Afghan fighters] will think when they hear that not only did we tolerate what was being done to their boys by people under our authority but we turn around and approve a Secretary of the Army that they as moderate Muslims believe is just an atrocious thing? They’re going to think that that is quite consistent with us approving of what was going on between the older men in authority and these boys.”
Christians Are Being Persecuted Even Though They’re 71% of the U.S. Population
“Now Christians are the only people that it is politically correct to persecute. And we’ve got to see that turned around or we’re not going to continue to see the blessings that America has experienced in the past… It is extremely unfortunate that Christians all over the country now are being persecuted for believing what Moses said.”
I’m Against Gun Control Because Gay Marriage Leads to Sex with Animals
”I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said ‘Surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn’t you? How would that be problematic?’…
And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit ; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?
There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.”
If You Let Gays in the Military They’ll Massage Each Other And We’ll Be Too Relaxed to Win Wars
“I’ve had people say, ‘Hey, you know, there’s nothing wrong with gays in the military. Look at the Greeks.’ Well, you know, they did have people come along who they loved that was the same sex and would give them massages before they went into battle. But you know what, it’s a different kind of fighting, it’s a different kind of war and if you’re sitting around getting massages all day ready to go into a big, planned battle, then you’re not going to last very long.”
Foreign Mothers Have Babies in the U.S. Just To Turn Them Into Terrorists
”I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby. And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, twenty…thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.”
It Would Be Hard to Find Seven Intelligent Things He Has Said
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Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are Being Rewarded by Republican Mega-Donors
Both have been feted by Texas donor G. Brint Ryan at his $18 million mansion in Dallas. He advised the former guy on taxes during the 2016 campaign and says of Manchin and Sinema that they are “out of step with their party, but I tend to believe that they’re in the right.” He has a tax consulting firm and one of is partners, Jeff Miller, is a “close political adviser” to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Ryan and his firm are all-in on the two turncoats according to the Times: “In the days around the fund-raisers at his home, Mr. Ryan, his employees, his company’s political action committee and a relative’s law firm combined to donate nearly $80,000 to Ms. Sinema’s campaign and more than $115,000 to Mr. Manchin’s.”
The two have set personal bests for fundraising this year, Sinema raking in $2.6 million in the first three quarters—“two and a half times as much as she raised in the same period last year”—and Manchin $3.3 million, which is a whopping 14 times as much as his haul from last year. Both are up for reelection in 2024, so this push isn’t to save their seats in a difficult midterm election for Democrats. More likely, at least in Sinema’s case, it’s to try to scare off a primary challenger. She’s been on an image-rehab tour for the past week or so. She spent most of the year sabotaging Biden behind the scenes, not making her demands public and earning the wrath of fellow Democrats and particularly the activists in Arizona who get her elected.
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Apple Makes Life Easier for Stalkers
Last Monday, a woman in Jonesboro, Arkansas was on her way to work when she got an alert on her iPhone—someone was using a tracking device to follow her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a false alarm. She told local ABC affiliate KAIT that someone had placed one of Apple’s new AirTags on her trunk.
“On my way to work and I went to hook my phone up to listen to music and then it popped up I have an AirTag following and I’m like, no,” said the woman.
Apple released its AirTag device in April of this year.
After a long weekend of shopping for a Christmas tree, she said she has no idea when this was put on her car. “And as soon as it got eye level, I jumped. Cause it was taped right here,” she said.
This woman may have been among the latest to find out that it’s almost too easy for someone to remotely stalk you with an AirTag.
Apple introduced the AirTag in April, billing it as a way to help users find lost keys, bags, clothes and electronic devices as well as lost cars. If you have an iPhone, you can use the “Find My” utility to find any item where you’ve placed an AirTag.
But Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler discovered in May that it’s also an all-too-handy tool for stalking. As part of an experiment not long after the AirTag rolled out, fellow reporter Jonathan Baran put an AirTag into Fowler’s bag. The results?
"After placing an AirTag in my bag, my colleague was able to find my whereabouts with remarkable precision. Once he associated the AirTag with his iPhone, the tag’s location showed up in an iPhone app called Find My, included free with iPhones. (It started as a way to find lost Apple products and has now expanded to other things.)"
"When I was riding a bike around San Francisco, the AirTag updated my location once every few minutes with a range of about half a block. When I was more stationary at home, my colleague’s app reported my exact address."
These location reports are transmitted to the AirTag’s owner via Bluetooth.
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You Won't Believe What the RNC Is Paying For
Donors to the Republican National Committee (RNC) might believe that their dollars are going to support congressional campaigns in 2022 or creating a war chest for the next GOP presidential candidate in 2024. But a lot of those dollars are being spent right now on something that most contributors might not expect: Donald Trump’s legal costs. Trump, who is neither a holder of any office nor an announced candidate for any race, is collecting six-figure payments from the RNC to cover the cost of legal fees.
That’s a highly unusual, and possibly unique, situation all on its own. However, as The Washington Post reports, the payments being made to Trump aren’t even connected to his ongoing efforts to withhold information from the House Select Committee on Jan. 6. The payments aren’t even in connection to Trump’s long-running effort to block the House Ways and Means Committee’s legal right to see his tax returns. The RNC has actually paid out at least $121,670 to a law firm trying to protect Trump from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and New York Attorney General Letitia James in their criminal investigation of Trump’s financial activities in New York.
It’s astounding evidence of how the Republican Party currently serves as a front for Trump—and it comes as The Washington Post is also reporting an expansion into the investigation of Trump’s endless grifting.
And the Grift Goes On
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Aaron Rodgers Gets a Stern Lecture
Radio host Howard Stern ripped unvaccinated Aaron Rodgers as a “fuckhead” and taunted the Green Bay Packers quarterback over his treatment for a bad toe on his SiriusXM show on Monday.
“This fucking Aaron Rodgers, he’s a scumbag because he lied,” Stern told a caller talking about unvaccinated NFL players, who can’t play after testing positive for COVID-19.
Rodgers misled fans by saying he was “immunized,” but the lie was revealed when he became infected. He then made a series of wild vaccine claims.
“Forget about the fact that he didn’t take the vaccine, he lied to everybody,” Stern continued in audio shared by Mediaite. “He put people in danger. People have families. He’s a fuckhead and the NFL should be ashamed of themselves.”
“Now I hear he has a toe injury. Let me ask you something: When he had the toe injury, did he go to the doctor or did he go to Joe Rogan?” asked Stern, referencing Rodgers’ admission that he’d sought advice from the podcast host who himself has courted controversial, misleading and selfish opinions on the shots.
“Who fixed his toe?” said Stern. “I bet you he went to a doctor. So he goes to doctors for everything else, but on the vaccine he’s listening to Joe Rogan. What the fuck is going on? We’ve got to put our faith in science.”
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Coming to a Gas Pump Near You
President Joe Biden is releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the nation's emergency stockpile to lower energy costs amid a recent spike in gas prices and soaring inflation, the White House announced Tuesday.
Thirty-two million barrels will be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next several months and will be replaced in the years ahead. Another 18 million barrels that Congress already had authorized for sale will be released in the coming months.
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Diving Into a Cesspool
The U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol said on Monday it issued subpoenas to Alex Jones, founder of the right-wing website Infowars, and Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump.
The committee also issued subpoenas seeking documents and testimony from Dustin Stockton, a political activist linked to longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Stockton's fiancee, Jennifer Lawrence.
Stockton and Lawrence were members of the group We Build the Wall, which was raided by federal agents in August 2020 as part of a fraud investigation.
It also issued a subpoena to Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump.
The panel has now issued more than three dozen subpoenas and received testimony from more than 200 witnesses.
Speaking of Cesspools, ...
A Congressional subcommittee aimed at investigating financial fraud during the pandemic broadened its probe into online lending this week to include two of the most prominent processors of coronavirus assistance.
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent letters to Blueacorn and Womply on Tuesday requesting information about fraud prevention. Both emerged as major players that fused tech and financing to speed up lending through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
Womply had no lending experience before COVID-19 and Blueacorn did not exist, yet together the companies captured more than $3 billion in fees — eclipsing any of their direct competitors.
The startups are not banks but worked as middlemen, marketing to struggling businesses and quickly approving loans with partner banks, with backing by the Small Business Administration. The companies make their money by capturing the government-paid fee for facilitating the loans.
“Unfortunately, many of these fees may have been earned by processing fraudulent or ineligible loan applications,” wrote Clyburn in his letter requesting a trove of internal compliance documents, including “emails, chat room logs and transcripts, direct electronic messages and minutes” that discussed financial crimes.
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This Isn't Shoplifting.
A recent wave of brazen thefts at luxury and department stores such as Louis Vuitton and Nordstrom coincides with a nationwide rise in organized retail crime.
A majority of retailers said stores are increasingly being targeted and that attacks have become more violent after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail association headquartered in Washington, D.C.
With the most popular Christmas shopping period kicking off this week with Black Friday, many retailers are concerned they could be in store for similar attacks to those seen over the past week.
On Sunday, San Jose police said a group of at least four people stole $40,000 of items from a Lululemon store, The Mercury News reported.
On Saturday, more than 80 people stormed a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek, California, armed with crowbars and wearing ski masks, smashing shelves, running away with bags and boxes with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Three arrests were made by police.
The night before, a series of lootings of stores like Burberry, Bloomingdales, Hermes and Fendi took place in San Francisco's Union Square shopping area.
And last Wednesday, over a dozen people robbed a Louis Vuitton store in a Chicago suburb, snatching $120,000 worth of merchandise.
"Organized retail crime continues to be a serious threat to retailers across the country," said Jason Straczewski, vice president of government relations and political affairs for the National Retail Federation. "The financial impact is considerable, as these crimes not only affect retailers’ bottom lines with asset loss and store operation disruptions, but more importantly jeopardize the safety of employees and customers."
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High Stakes With Iran
As Iran and world powers prepare to resume negotiations next week on reviving a nuclear deal, the U.S. and its allies are already debating a list of "Plan B" options if the negotiations collapse, Western diplomats, former U.S. officials and experts say.
With chances for a breakthrough at the talks in Vienna looking remote and Iran at odds with U.N. nuclear inspectors, U.S. and European officials face a grim set of choices — from ramped-up sanctions to potential military action — as Iran’s nuclear program advances into dangerous territory.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that the U.S. was "prepared to turn to other options" if the negotiations fail, and Israel has made it clear that it is ready to take military action if necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"There are a cascading set of consequences for all of this coming undone. I just don’t see how this comes to a happy conclusion," said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.
According to European diplomats, former U.S. officials and experts, the possible options include:
-Persuading China to shut off oil imports from Iran.
-Ramping up sanctions, including targeting oil sales to China.
-Pursuing a less ambitious interim nuclear deal.
-Launching covert operations to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
-Ordering military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or supporting Israeli military action.
If the discussion in Vienna fail, the situation could soon resemble the tense standoff between the U.S. and Iran before the 2015 nuclear agreement, when Israel seriously contemplated a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and Washington and Europe imposed tough sanctions on Tehran, former U.S. officials say.
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The Statue Doesn't Represent a Slave Holder. It Represents a Very Significant Founder of Our Nation
A statue of Thomas Jefferson has been removed from city hall in New York, because the founder and third president enslaved people.
A work crew spent several hours on Monday freeing the 884lb, 7ft statue from its pedestal in the council chambers and carefully maneuvering it into a padded wooden crate, for the short journey to the New York Historical Society.
The city public design commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor, Bill de Blasio, voted earlier in the day to exile the statue, sculpted in 1833, to the society on a 10-year loan.
Exiling A Statue? Huh?
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It's Not Black and It's Not Limited To Friday
Facing scarce year-end inventories and a shortage of workers, retailers are turning "Black Friday" into a month-long event.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, said on Monday it had already started "Black Friday" discounts
Rival big-box retailer Target on Sunday began running its own Black Friday sales, such as up to 30% off Samsung and TCL flat screen televisions, and 50% off headphones.
And "Happy Hour" Doesn't Usually Last An Hour, and Most People Don't Seem That Happy
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The last time we administered 2 million doses in a day was May 13. However, we weren't doing boosters then.
Doses Administered 7-Day Average | Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses | Number of People Fully Vaccinated | New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Nov 22 | 1,521,815 | 230,732,565 | 196,398,948 | ||
| Nov 21 | 1,774,196 | 230,298,744 | 196,284,442 | 91,021 | 985 |
| Nov 20 | 2,136,513 | 229,837,421 | 196,128,496 | 90,823 | 996 |
| Nov 19 | 1,952,717 | 229,291,004 | 195,920,566 | 92,852 | 1,047 |
| Nov 18 | 1,870,564 | 228,570,531 | 195,713,107 | 94,260 | 1,069 |
| Nov 17 | 1,811,047 | 228,175,638 | 195,612,365 | 88,482 | 1,032 |
| Nov 16 | 1,608,906 | 227,691,941 | 195,435,688 | 85,944 | 1,028 |
| Nov 15 | 1,582,519 | 227,133,617 | 195,275,904 | 83,671 | 1,029 |
| Nov 14 | 1,375,998 | 226,607,653 | 195,120,470 | 80,823 | 1,043 |
| Nov 13 | 1,370,279 | 226,157,226 | 194,951,106 | 80,590 | 1,049 |
| Nov 12 | 1,335,066 | 225,606,197 | 194,747,839 | 78,552 | 1,038 |
| Nov 11 | No Data | 73,218 | 999 | ||
| Nov 10 | 1,316,294 | 224,660,453 | 194,382,921 | 76,458 | 1,051 |
| Nov 9 | 1,316,228 | 224,257,467 | 194,168,611 | 74,584 | 1,078 |
| Nov 8 | 1,300,925 | 223,944,369 | 194,001,108 | 73,312 | 1,078 |
| Nov 7 | 1,265,361 | 223,629,671 | 193,832,584 | 71,867 | 1,068 |
| Nov 6 | 1,254,975 | 223,245,121 | 193,627,929 | 71,327 | 1,079 |
| Nov 5 | 1,283,684 | 222,902,939 | 193,425,862 | 71,517 | 1,071 |
| Nov 4 | 1,188,564 | 222,591,394 | 193,227,813 | 71,241 | 1,102 |
| Nov 3 | 1,068,184 | 222,268,786 | 192,931,486 | 70,431 | 1,109 |
| Nov 2 | 1,112,624 | 221,961,370 | 192,726,406 | 71,029 | 1,130 |
| Nov 1 | 1,243,313 | 221,760,691 | 192,586,927 | 74,798 | 1,190 |
| Oct 31 | 1,203,517 | 221,520,153 | 192,453,500 | 71,207 | 1,151 |
| Oct 30 | 1,114,502 | 221,221,467 | 192,244,927 | 71,690 | 1,156 |
| Oct 29 | 1,008,247 | 220,860,887* | 191,997,869 | 69,197 | 1,104 |
| Oct 28 | 1,086,543 | 221,348,530 | 191,242,432 | 68,177 | 1,086 |
| Oct 27 | 959,348 | 220,936,118 | 190,990,750 | 68,792 | 1,129 |
| Oct 26 | 796,148 | 220,648,845 | 190,793,100 | 68,151 | 1,098 |
| Oct 25 | 786,321 | 220,519,217 | 190,699,790 | 65,953 | 1,159 |
| Oct 24 | 768,503 | 220,351,217 | 190,578,704 | 59,129 | 1,122 |
| Oct 23 | 772,744 | 220,145,796 | 190,402,262 | 64,096 | 1,188 |
| Oct 22 | 770,307 | 219,900,525 | 190,179,553 | 70,153 | 1,277 |
| Oct 21 | 795,156 | 219,624,445 | 189,924,447 | 71,550 | 1,257 |
| Oct 20 | 831,213 | 219,381,466 | 189,709,710 | 73,966 | 1,257 |
| Feb 16 | 1,716,311 | 39,670,551 | 15,015,434 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | |
| % of Total Population | 69.5% | 59.2% |
| % of Population 12+ | 80.3% | 69.2% |
| % of Population 18+ | 82.2% | 71.0% |
| % of Population 65+ | 99.9% | 86.4% |
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Uber
Uber is making its first foray into the marijuana market, as Uber Eats users in Ontario, Canada will soon be able to order cannabis products on the app.
Customers will be able to place orders in a dedicated section of the app for cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke and then pick them up at a nearby store.
The firm refused to be drawn on whether it will roll out the offering further across Canada and the US.
Canada's marijuana market is worth around CAD$5bn (£3bn; $4bn) a year.
Uber Eats users will have to verify their age on the app and then will be able to pick up their orders within an hour, the company said.
Under Canadian law, although marijuana use has been legal since 2018, it is still illegal to deliver it.
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The RNAissance
Barely a year ago, Anna Blakney was working in a relatively inconspicuous, niche field of science in a lab in London. Few people outside of her scientific circles had heard of mRNA vaccines. Because none yet existed. Attendees at an annual conference talk she gave in 2019 could be counted in the tens, not hundreds. Today, she's in hot demand: an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and a science communicator with 253,000 followers and 3.7 million likes on TikTok. She was, she admits, in the right place at the right time to ride a once-in-a-generation wave of scientific progress. She even gave this new era a name: "the RNAissance".
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have now heard of – and have received – an mRNA vaccine, from the likes of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. But even when Blakney started her PhD at Imperial College London in 2016, "a lot of people were sceptical as to whether it could ever work". Now, "the whole field of mRNA is just exploding. It's a game changer in medicine," she says.
It's such a game changer that it raises some very big, exciting questions: could mRNA vaccines provide a cure for cancers, HIV, tropical diseases, and even give us superhuman immunity?
The full article
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If Dirty Toenails Can Get You Shot, I Know a Couple of Guys Who Are in SERIOUS Danger
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They Have Solved One of the Great Mysteries. No It's Not About Jimmy Hoffa.
Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of Thanksgiving is the cranberry sauce — and we're not talking about why people eat it: Why are the labels on Ocean Spray cans upside down?
Observant consumers have noticed that the labels on jellied cranberry sauce cans are flipped, meaning the rounded edge that's typically on the bottom of most canned goods is on top of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce cans.
According to Ocean Spray, that's intentional: It creates a seamless serving experience.
The cans are "filled and labeled upside down with the rounded edge on top and the sharp can-like edge on the bottom to keep the jelly whole," an Ocean Spray spokesperson told CNN Business. That creates an air bubble on the rounded side (a.k.a. the top) so customers can "can swipe the edge of the can with a knife to break the vacuum and the log will easily slide out."
This process has been in use since the early 2000s.
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There's Too Much CO2 in the Atmosphere, But Not Enough For Beer?
Beer makers are searching high and low for carbon dioxide, commonly used to carbonate brews — a shortage that cropped up in the U.K. even before the pandemic. Metal parts for machinery, aluminum for cans, and even malt and hops are also hard to come by.
“We can’t count on our suppliers to have inventory,” said Bill Cherry, the founder and brewmaster of Switchback Brewing Co. in Burlington, Vermont. “So we’ve been working really hard, and the way we’ve protected ourselves is we kind of became our own warehouse for this stuff.”
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What a Nightmare!
A Hawaii man who was incarcerated and in a mental institution for more than two years because of a case of mistaken identity has sued the state, some Honolulu police officers, public defenders and doctors.
Joshua Spriestersbach, 50, repeatedly told authorities he was not Thomas Castleberry, a man who had a warrant out for his arrest for allegedly violating probation in a 2006 drug case, his attorneys said in the lawsuit, filed Sunday.
But police, public defenders and doctors at Hawaii State Hospital, where Spriestersbach had been treated before, ignored his plight.
Those who should have been advocating for him used his "protests regarding his identity as evidence of his incompetency," the suit said. "He was forced to take psychiatric medications in increasing doses until he became catatonic, all because Joshua continued to assert that he was not Thomas R. Castleberry and had not committed any of Thomas R. Castleberry’s felony crimes."
The suit alleges a violation of civil rights, false imprisonment, medical malpractice and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Spriestersbach's 32-month detention began while he was waiting in a line for food and fell asleep. Spriestersbach had been approached by police in Honolulu at least twice before. The first time, he had given officers his grandfather's name, William C. Castleberry, which he would use on occasion, according to the suit.
Note to the Police: William and Thomas Are Different Names.
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Could Congress Be Losing It's Dumbest Member?
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert announced Monday that he is running for attorney general of Texas, throwing his hat in the ring for what's expected to be one of the most closely watched state races in 2022.
Gohmert, who has been in Congress since 2005, said in a video announcement that he has already raised $1 million in his bid to unseat fellow Republican Ken Paxton. If he is elected, Gohmert said, he will prioritize "election integrity," push back against "unconstitutional mandates" and clamp down on border crossings.
"A priority will be election integrity so that every legal vote counts," Gohmert said. "If you allow me, I will not wait to be my busiest until after there's some bad press about legal improprieties. I'll start boldly protecting your rights on day one."
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Seven Dumb Things Louie Gohmert Has Said
Gays Will Die If You Put Them on a Desert Island
“If you want a long-term study on what’s the best building block for the family, you can take couples, man and wife couples, put them on an island where they have everything they need to sustain a society. Take all male couples, put them on an island, everything they need to survive. Take all women couples, put them on an island, and all they need to survive. Come back in 100 years and see which building block has been most effective in perpetuating their society and I think it’ll tell you all you need to know.”
The Supreme Court Thinks It’s Jesus Because It Legalized Same-Sex Marriage
The Supreme Court said…‘We are your God. Forget what God, Moses, Jesus ever said, we are your God now, the five of us in the majority, you do as we tell you.’ We have two of them [Ginsburg and Kagan] who had done same-sex marriages before they participated, they were disqualified, but they illegally participated, it’s an illegal decision, and it’s time to start impeaching judges and remove them from the Supreme Court.”
Appointing an Openly Gay Army Secretary is like Approving of Child Rape
“What do you think [Afghan fighters] will think when they hear that not only did we tolerate what was being done to their boys by people under our authority but we turn around and approve a Secretary of the Army that they as moderate Muslims believe is just an atrocious thing? They’re going to think that that is quite consistent with us approving of what was going on between the older men in authority and these boys.”
Christians Are Being Persecuted Even Though They’re 71% of the U.S. Population
“Now Christians are the only people that it is politically correct to persecute. And we’ve got to see that turned around or we’re not going to continue to see the blessings that America has experienced in the past… It is extremely unfortunate that Christians all over the country now are being persecuted for believing what Moses said.”
I’m Against Gun Control Because Gay Marriage Leads to Sex with Animals
”I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said ‘Surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn’t you? How would that be problematic?’…
And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit ; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?
There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.”
If You Let Gays in the Military They’ll Massage Each Other And We’ll Be Too Relaxed to Win Wars
“I’ve had people say, ‘Hey, you know, there’s nothing wrong with gays in the military. Look at the Greeks.’ Well, you know, they did have people come along who they loved that was the same sex and would give them massages before they went into battle. But you know what, it’s a different kind of fighting, it’s a different kind of war and if you’re sitting around getting massages all day ready to go into a big, planned battle, then you’re not going to last very long.”
Foreign Mothers Have Babies in the U.S. Just To Turn Them Into Terrorists
”I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby. And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, twenty…thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.”
It Would Be Hard to Find Seven Intelligent Things He Has Said
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Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are Being Rewarded by Republican Mega-Donors
Both have been feted by Texas donor G. Brint Ryan at his $18 million mansion in Dallas. He advised the former guy on taxes during the 2016 campaign and says of Manchin and Sinema that they are “out of step with their party, but I tend to believe that they’re in the right.” He has a tax consulting firm and one of is partners, Jeff Miller, is a “close political adviser” to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Ryan and his firm are all-in on the two turncoats according to the Times: “In the days around the fund-raisers at his home, Mr. Ryan, his employees, his company’s political action committee and a relative’s law firm combined to donate nearly $80,000 to Ms. Sinema’s campaign and more than $115,000 to Mr. Manchin’s.”
The two have set personal bests for fundraising this year, Sinema raking in $2.6 million in the first three quarters—“two and a half times as much as she raised in the same period last year”—and Manchin $3.3 million, which is a whopping 14 times as much as his haul from last year. Both are up for reelection in 2024, so this push isn’t to save their seats in a difficult midterm election for Democrats. More likely, at least in Sinema’s case, it’s to try to scare off a primary challenger. She’s been on an image-rehab tour for the past week or so. She spent most of the year sabotaging Biden behind the scenes, not making her demands public and earning the wrath of fellow Democrats and particularly the activists in Arizona who get her elected.
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Apple Makes Life Easier for Stalkers
Last Monday, a woman in Jonesboro, Arkansas was on her way to work when she got an alert on her iPhone—someone was using a tracking device to follow her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a false alarm. She told local ABC affiliate KAIT that someone had placed one of Apple’s new AirTags on her trunk.
“On my way to work and I went to hook my phone up to listen to music and then it popped up I have an AirTag following and I’m like, no,” said the woman.
Apple released its AirTag device in April of this year.
After a long weekend of shopping for a Christmas tree, she said she has no idea when this was put on her car. “And as soon as it got eye level, I jumped. Cause it was taped right here,” she said.
This woman may have been among the latest to find out that it’s almost too easy for someone to remotely stalk you with an AirTag.
Apple introduced the AirTag in April, billing it as a way to help users find lost keys, bags, clothes and electronic devices as well as lost cars. If you have an iPhone, you can use the “Find My” utility to find any item where you’ve placed an AirTag.
But Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler discovered in May that it’s also an all-too-handy tool for stalking. As part of an experiment not long after the AirTag rolled out, fellow reporter Jonathan Baran put an AirTag into Fowler’s bag. The results?
"After placing an AirTag in my bag, my colleague was able to find my whereabouts with remarkable precision. Once he associated the AirTag with his iPhone, the tag’s location showed up in an iPhone app called Find My, included free with iPhones. (It started as a way to find lost Apple products and has now expanded to other things.)"
"When I was riding a bike around San Francisco, the AirTag updated my location once every few minutes with a range of about half a block. When I was more stationary at home, my colleague’s app reported my exact address."
These location reports are transmitted to the AirTag’s owner via Bluetooth.
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You Won't Believe What the RNC Is Paying For
Donors to the Republican National Committee (RNC) might believe that their dollars are going to support congressional campaigns in 2022 or creating a war chest for the next GOP presidential candidate in 2024. But a lot of those dollars are being spent right now on something that most contributors might not expect: Donald Trump’s legal costs. Trump, who is neither a holder of any office nor an announced candidate for any race, is collecting six-figure payments from the RNC to cover the cost of legal fees.
That’s a highly unusual, and possibly unique, situation all on its own. However, as The Washington Post reports, the payments being made to Trump aren’t even connected to his ongoing efforts to withhold information from the House Select Committee on Jan. 6. The payments aren’t even in connection to Trump’s long-running effort to block the House Ways and Means Committee’s legal right to see his tax returns. The RNC has actually paid out at least $121,670 to a law firm trying to protect Trump from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and New York Attorney General Letitia James in their criminal investigation of Trump’s financial activities in New York.
It’s astounding evidence of how the Republican Party currently serves as a front for Trump—and it comes as The Washington Post is also reporting an expansion into the investigation of Trump’s endless grifting.
And the Grift Goes On
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Aaron Rodgers Gets a Stern Lecture
Radio host Howard Stern ripped unvaccinated Aaron Rodgers as a “fuckhead” and taunted the Green Bay Packers quarterback over his treatment for a bad toe on his SiriusXM show on Monday.
“This fucking Aaron Rodgers, he’s a scumbag because he lied,” Stern told a caller talking about unvaccinated NFL players, who can’t play after testing positive for COVID-19.
Rodgers misled fans by saying he was “immunized,” but the lie was revealed when he became infected. He then made a series of wild vaccine claims.
“Forget about the fact that he didn’t take the vaccine, he lied to everybody,” Stern continued in audio shared by Mediaite. “He put people in danger. People have families. He’s a fuckhead and the NFL should be ashamed of themselves.”
“Now I hear he has a toe injury. Let me ask you something: When he had the toe injury, did he go to the doctor or did he go to Joe Rogan?” asked Stern, referencing Rodgers’ admission that he’d sought advice from the podcast host who himself has courted controversial, misleading and selfish opinions on the shots.
“Who fixed his toe?” said Stern. “I bet you he went to a doctor. So he goes to doctors for everything else, but on the vaccine he’s listening to Joe Rogan. What the fuck is going on? We’ve got to put our faith in science.”
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Coming to a Gas Pump Near You
President Joe Biden is releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the nation's emergency stockpile to lower energy costs amid a recent spike in gas prices and soaring inflation, the White House announced Tuesday.
Thirty-two million barrels will be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next several months and will be replaced in the years ahead. Another 18 million barrels that Congress already had authorized for sale will be released in the coming months.
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Diving Into a Cesspool
The U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol said on Monday it issued subpoenas to Alex Jones, founder of the right-wing website Infowars, and Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump.
The committee also issued subpoenas seeking documents and testimony from Dustin Stockton, a political activist linked to longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Stockton's fiancee, Jennifer Lawrence.
Stockton and Lawrence were members of the group We Build the Wall, which was raided by federal agents in August 2020 as part of a fraud investigation.
It also issued a subpoena to Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump.
The panel has now issued more than three dozen subpoenas and received testimony from more than 200 witnesses.
Speaking of Cesspools, ...
A Congressional subcommittee aimed at investigating financial fraud during the pandemic broadened its probe into online lending this week to include two of the most prominent processors of coronavirus assistance.
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent letters to Blueacorn and Womply on Tuesday requesting information about fraud prevention. Both emerged as major players that fused tech and financing to speed up lending through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.
Womply had no lending experience before COVID-19 and Blueacorn did not exist, yet together the companies captured more than $3 billion in fees — eclipsing any of their direct competitors.
The startups are not banks but worked as middlemen, marketing to struggling businesses and quickly approving loans with partner banks, with backing by the Small Business Administration. The companies make their money by capturing the government-paid fee for facilitating the loans.
“Unfortunately, many of these fees may have been earned by processing fraudulent or ineligible loan applications,” wrote Clyburn in his letter requesting a trove of internal compliance documents, including “emails, chat room logs and transcripts, direct electronic messages and minutes” that discussed financial crimes.
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This Isn't Shoplifting.
A recent wave of brazen thefts at luxury and department stores such as Louis Vuitton and Nordstrom coincides with a nationwide rise in organized retail crime.
A majority of retailers said stores are increasingly being targeted and that attacks have become more violent after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail association headquartered in Washington, D.C.
With the most popular Christmas shopping period kicking off this week with Black Friday, many retailers are concerned they could be in store for similar attacks to those seen over the past week.
On Sunday, San Jose police said a group of at least four people stole $40,000 of items from a Lululemon store, The Mercury News reported.
On Saturday, more than 80 people stormed a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek, California, armed with crowbars and wearing ski masks, smashing shelves, running away with bags and boxes with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Three arrests were made by police.
The night before, a series of lootings of stores like Burberry, Bloomingdales, Hermes and Fendi took place in San Francisco's Union Square shopping area.
And last Wednesday, over a dozen people robbed a Louis Vuitton store in a Chicago suburb, snatching $120,000 worth of merchandise.
"Organized retail crime continues to be a serious threat to retailers across the country," said Jason Straczewski, vice president of government relations and political affairs for the National Retail Federation. "The financial impact is considerable, as these crimes not only affect retailers’ bottom lines with asset loss and store operation disruptions, but more importantly jeopardize the safety of employees and customers."
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High Stakes With Iran
As Iran and world powers prepare to resume negotiations next week on reviving a nuclear deal, the U.S. and its allies are already debating a list of "Plan B" options if the negotiations collapse, Western diplomats, former U.S. officials and experts say.
With chances for a breakthrough at the talks in Vienna looking remote and Iran at odds with U.N. nuclear inspectors, U.S. and European officials face a grim set of choices — from ramped-up sanctions to potential military action — as Iran’s nuclear program advances into dangerous territory.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that the U.S. was "prepared to turn to other options" if the negotiations fail, and Israel has made it clear that it is ready to take military action if necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"There are a cascading set of consequences for all of this coming undone. I just don’t see how this comes to a happy conclusion," said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.
According to European diplomats, former U.S. officials and experts, the possible options include:
-Persuading China to shut off oil imports from Iran.
-Ramping up sanctions, including targeting oil sales to China.
-Pursuing a less ambitious interim nuclear deal.
-Launching covert operations to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
-Ordering military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities or supporting Israeli military action.
If the discussion in Vienna fail, the situation could soon resemble the tense standoff between the U.S. and Iran before the 2015 nuclear agreement, when Israel seriously contemplated a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and Washington and Europe imposed tough sanctions on Tehran, former U.S. officials say.
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The Statue Doesn't Represent a Slave Holder. It Represents a Very Significant Founder of Our Nation
A statue of Thomas Jefferson has been removed from city hall in New York, because the founder and third president enslaved people.
A work crew spent several hours on Monday freeing the 884lb, 7ft statue from its pedestal in the council chambers and carefully maneuvering it into a padded wooden crate, for the short journey to the New York Historical Society.
The city public design commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor, Bill de Blasio, voted earlier in the day to exile the statue, sculpted in 1833, to the society on a 10-year loan.
Exiling A Statue? Huh?
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It's Not Black and It's Not Limited To Friday
Facing scarce year-end inventories and a shortage of workers, retailers are turning "Black Friday" into a month-long event.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, said on Monday it had already started "Black Friday" discounts
Rival big-box retailer Target on Sunday began running its own Black Friday sales, such as up to 30% off Samsung and TCL flat screen televisions, and 50% off headphones.
And "Happy Hour" Doesn't Usually Last An Hour, and Most People Don't Seem That Happy
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