Post by mhbruin on Dec 25, 2021 9:09:46 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 500 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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Happy Saturnalia!
May you enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate.
I Tried Not to Be Cynical on Christmas, but Then I Read the News
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We Seem To Always Have a Story Like This To Mark the Season
Police in Liverpool, UK arrested a man after 100 iPads meant as gifts for sick children were stolen.
The iPads, worth over $90,000, were stolen at night from outside a children's hospital, reports say.
Police arrested the man after finding footage of 40 iPads being sold to a tech store in the city.
But This is New
President Joe Biden was subjected to a right-wing anti-Biden slur during a Christmas Eve call with NORAD's Santa tracker.
Biden and the first lady were speaking with families around the country who had called into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to receive an update on Santa's location when one parent ended the conversation by saying: "Let’s go Brandon."
The president did not appear to recognize that the phrase is used by the right wing as a euphemism for "f--- Joe Biden," and responded: "Let’s go Brandon, I agree."
Nothing Like the MAGA Christmas Spirit:Peace on Earth and Bad Will Toward Man.
And Really Bad Will Toward Woman.
But Then There Are Good People
Thousands of people across England are spending a few minutes of Christmas Day to line up under leaden winter skies to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as the omicron variant fuels a surge in infections across the country.
The Good Health Pharmacy in north London is one of dozens of vaccination sites that kept their doors open Saturday to administer “jingle jabs" amid a government push to offer booster shots to all adults by the end of the year.
Pharmacist Fenil Lalji said the shop’s owners decided to stay open because they lost a family member to the pandemic and wanted to do what they could to help others stay safe.
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Damn! I Have To Cancel My Vacation in Chad.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added eight destinations to its highest-risk category for travel on Monday, including the world's No. 2 most-visited nation before the pandemic started.
In its weekly update of Covid-19 travel advisories, the CDC advised against travel to tourist favorite Spain at this time. In 2019, Spain received more international visitors than nearly every other nation in the world, except France, according to figures from the UN's World Tourism Organization.
The CDC also added seven more places -- spanning the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East as well as Europe -- to its "Level 4: Covid-19 Very High" category. They are:
• Bonaire
• Chad
• Finland
• Gibraltar
• Lebanon
• Monaco
• San Marino
The CDC places a destination at Level 4 when more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents are registered in the past 28 days.
Three tiny destinations in Europe -- Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino -- provide a cautionary example about traveling to places without reliable statistics. They all shot up to Level 4 on Monday from the CDC's "unknown" risk category. Destinations are put there when there is a lack of reliable information coming from them to the CDC.
I Had to Look Up Bonaire
Bonaire is an island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is Kralendijk, near the ocean on the lee side of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of Venezuela.
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Remember When COVID Was An Old-Person Disease?
--------------
Cover Your Nose With Confidence
And If You Don't Cover Your Nose, You Are Not Protected
--------------
What Was Christmas Like On the Year You Were Born?
I'll Bet You Were Just Wondering That
Miracle on 34th Street was released in my year.
--------------
A Christmas Gift For Us All
Thank you, Joni
--------------
Just Go Cyrus!
Cyrus Vance has had a years-long investigation into Donald Trump, his organization, and his family. Inflating or deflating the value of his properties to take advantage of bank loans he otherwise would not receive and ease his tax burden. He has left office now, and a new DA takes over the case, who has promised to continue the investigation.
Vance had promised to decide whether to indict Trump by the end of the year but the NY courts are on holiday from December 6 to January 2nd, 2022.
From 2017
These are dark times for Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., as two high-profile investigative reports—about Harvey Weinstein and Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr.—have revealed that Vance has a suspicious habit of declining to prosecute some of New York’s most powerful people, while, uh, also accepting campaign donations from their lawyers.
Last week, a joint bombshell by The New Yorker, WNYC, and ProPublica revealed Ivanka and Donald Jr. narrowly avoided criminal fraud charges in 2012 for allegedly misleading potential buyers at the flailing Trump Soho Hotel—because Vance dropped the mounting case after a meeting with Donald Trump Sr.’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. Kasowitz had donated $25,000 to Vance’s reelection campaign before the meeting (money Vance later returned) and went on to donate and raise a total of more than $50,000 in the months after the case against the Trump kids disappeared. Vance now says that, roughly five years later, he’ll return that money, too—but even a lawyer who was on the Trump defense team said Vance’s intermingling with Kasowitz “didn’t have an air you’d like.”
His Departure Will Be Another Gift To Us All
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A Bunch of Scientists Are Going to Have a Nervous Month
It was the best Christmas present NASA could have asked for.
The agency’s James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s largest and most powerful telescope built to date, successfully blasted into orbit Saturday. The launch marked the long-awaited start of the Webb telescope’s mission, after more than 30 years of development and countless delays.
The $10-billion observatory, billed as the successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, is designed to study the early days of the universe, roughly 100 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars flickered on in the cosmos.
The tennis court-sized observatory launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket at 7:20 a.m. ET from a European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The observatory’s liftoff had been postponed several times, including earlier this month to investigate a faulty data cable and more recently because of bad weather at the South American launch site.
Now that the telescope has reached space, it begins a harrowing, monthlong journey to its designated orbit around the sun, more than a million miles away from Earth.
As Webb travels to its final destination, key parts of the observatory that were folded up to fit inside the rocket will need to unfurl in space. Some of the most nerve-racking stunts will come roughly five days after launch, when the telescope’s huge multilayered sunshield is stretched out and its massive gold-coated primary mirror unfolds.
But Why Name a $10 Billion Telescope After the Guy Who Wrote "MacArthur Park"?
--------------
The Previous Guy Speaks the Truth For a Moment, and The Right Wants to Wash His Mouth Out With Ivermectin
Devoted far-right followers of former President Donald Trump are finally turning on him — and all it took was a series of enthusiastic public statements endorsing COVID-19 vaccines.
It started on Sunday when Trump revealed during a rally with longtime conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly that he had received a booster shot, a fact that attendees greeted with boos.
"Don't, don't, don't," Trump responded after hearing the boos. "That's alright, it's a very tiny group up there," he added, pointing to a section of the crowd.
He doubled down on his endorsement of vaccines Wednesday during an interview with online commentator Candace Owens, saying definitively, "the vaccine worked."
"But some people aren't taking it. The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take their vaccine," Trump said. "If you take the vaccine, you're protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good. And if you do get it, it's a very minor form. People aren't dying when they take their vaccine."
The comments angered many of Trump's biggest supporters online, sending alternative social media networks like Telegram and Gab into a frenzy. Prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander led the charge against Trump, denouncing the twice-impeached former president for the comments.
"Trump, stop. Just stop. Have your position (backed by Fauci) and allow us to have ours (which is backed by science). This losing is getting boomer level annoying," Alexander wrote on Telegram, Insider reported.
Jones, who has been a steadfast Trump supporter for years, insinuated that Trump had abruptly switched allegiances as a result of his vaccination.
"Hell, we're fighting Bill Gates and Fauci and Biden and the New World Order and Psaki and the Davos Group ... and now we've got Trump on their team!" Jones said during a broadcast of his "Infowars" program Tuesday.
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CDC doesn't do a good job of reporting around holidays.
Doses Administered 7-Day Average | Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses | Number of People 2 or More Doses | New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Dec 27 | |||||
| Dec 26 | No Data | ||||
| Dec 25 | No Data | ||||
| Dec 24 | No Data | ||||
| Dec 23 | 1,189,954 | 241,520,561 | 204,740,321 | ||
| Dec 22 | 1,283,244 | 241,583,543 | 204,818,717 | 176,097 | 1,213 |
| Dec 21 | 1,542,936 | 241,132,288 | 204,578,725 | 161,261 | 1,223 |
| Dec 20 | 1,554,261 | 241,881,712 | 204,098,982 | 149,331 | 1,188 |
| Dec 19 | 1,558,720 | 241,571,084 | 203,926,479 | 132,659 | 1,169 |
| Dec 18 | 1,562,366 | 241,205,528 | 203,727,446 | 127,445 | 1,182 |
| Dec 17 | 2,065,555 | 240,775,382 | 203,479,206 | 125,775 | 1,182 |
| Dec 16 | 2,043,207 | 240,321,022 | 203,159,327 | 122,296 | 1,179 |
| Dec 15 | 1,795,384 | 239,975,167 | 202,748,005 | 119,546 | 1,187 |
| Dec 14 | 1,904,464 | 239,553,956 | 202,504,037 | 117,950 | 1,143 |
| Dec 13 | 1,951,329 | 239,274,656 | 202,246,698 | 117,890 | 1,147 |
| Dec 12 | 1,984,721 | 239,008,166 | 201,975,235 | 116,742 | 1,131 |
| Dec 11 | 2,020,853 | 238,679,707 | 201,688,550 | 116,893 | 1,131 |
| Dec 10 | 1,721,570 | 238,143,066 | 201,279,582 | 118,575 | 1,146 |
| Dec 9 | 1,583,662 | 237,468,725 | 200,717,387 | 118,052 | 1,089 |
| Dec 8 | 1,611,831 | 237,087,380 | 200,400,533 | 118,515 | 1,092 |
| Dec 7 | 1,781,389 | 236,363,835 | 199,687,439 | 117,488 | 1,097 |
| Dec 6 | 1,780,807 | 236,018,871 | 199,313,022 | 117,179 | 1,117 |
| Dec 5 | 2,264,301 | 235,698,738 | 198,962,520 | 103,823 | 1,154 |
| Dec 4 | 2,009,864 | 235,297,964 | 198,592,167 | 105,554 | 1,150 |
| Dec 3 | 1,700,056 | 234,743,864 | 198,211,641 | 106,132 | 1,110 |
| Dec 2 | 1,428,263 | 234,269,053 | 197,838,728 | 96,425 | 975 |
| Dec 1 | 1,116,587 | 233,590,555 | 197,363,116 | 86,412 | 859 |
| Nov 30 | 1,152,647 | 233,207,582 | 197,058,988 | 82,846 | 816 |
| Nov 29 | 937,113 | 232,792,508 | 196,806,194 | 80,178 | 804 |
| Nov 28 | No Data | 72,008 | 719 | ||
| Nov 27 | No Data | 72,139 | 721 | ||
| Nov 26 | No Data | 73,962 | 742 | ||
| Nov 25 | No Data | 82,440 | 887 | ||
| Nov 24 | 898,833 | 231,367,686 | 196,168,756 | 93,931 | 989 |
| Nov 23 | 1,126,545 | 230,669,289 | 195,973,992 | 94,266 | 982 |
| Nov 22 | 1,521,815 | 230,732,565 | 196,398,948 | 93,668 | 1,009 |
| Nov 21 | 1,774,196 | 230,298,744 | 196,284,442 | 91,021 | 985 |
| Feb 16 | 1,716,311 | 39,670,551 | 15,015,434 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 72.8% | 61.7% | 31.5% |
| % of Population 12+ | 83.0% | 70.9% | 34.2% |
| % of Population 18+ | 85.0% | 72.6% | 46.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 87.5% | 56.6% |
Happy Saturnalia!
May you enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate.
I Tried Not to Be Cynical on Christmas, but Then I Read the News
--------------
We Seem To Always Have a Story Like This To Mark the Season
Police in Liverpool, UK arrested a man after 100 iPads meant as gifts for sick children were stolen.
The iPads, worth over $90,000, were stolen at night from outside a children's hospital, reports say.
Police arrested the man after finding footage of 40 iPads being sold to a tech store in the city.
But This is New
President Joe Biden was subjected to a right-wing anti-Biden slur during a Christmas Eve call with NORAD's Santa tracker.
Biden and the first lady were speaking with families around the country who had called into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to receive an update on Santa's location when one parent ended the conversation by saying: "Let’s go Brandon."
The president did not appear to recognize that the phrase is used by the right wing as a euphemism for "f--- Joe Biden," and responded: "Let’s go Brandon, I agree."
Nothing Like the MAGA Christmas Spirit:
And Really Bad Will Toward Woman.
But Then There Are Good People
Thousands of people across England are spending a few minutes of Christmas Day to line up under leaden winter skies to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as the omicron variant fuels a surge in infections across the country.
The Good Health Pharmacy in north London is one of dozens of vaccination sites that kept their doors open Saturday to administer “jingle jabs" amid a government push to offer booster shots to all adults by the end of the year.
Pharmacist Fenil Lalji said the shop’s owners decided to stay open because they lost a family member to the pandemic and wanted to do what they could to help others stay safe.
--------------
Damn! I Have To Cancel My Vacation in Chad.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added eight destinations to its highest-risk category for travel on Monday, including the world's No. 2 most-visited nation before the pandemic started.
In its weekly update of Covid-19 travel advisories, the CDC advised against travel to tourist favorite Spain at this time. In 2019, Spain received more international visitors than nearly every other nation in the world, except France, according to figures from the UN's World Tourism Organization.
The CDC also added seven more places -- spanning the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East as well as Europe -- to its "Level 4: Covid-19 Very High" category. They are:
• Bonaire
• Chad
• Finland
• Gibraltar
• Lebanon
• Monaco
• San Marino
The CDC places a destination at Level 4 when more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents are registered in the past 28 days.
Three tiny destinations in Europe -- Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino -- provide a cautionary example about traveling to places without reliable statistics. They all shot up to Level 4 on Monday from the CDC's "unknown" risk category. Destinations are put there when there is a lack of reliable information coming from them to the CDC.
I Had to Look Up Bonaire
Bonaire is an island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is Kralendijk, near the ocean on the lee side of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of Venezuela.
--------------
Remember When COVID Was An Old-Person Disease?
--------------
Cover Your Nose With Confidence
And If You Don't Cover Your Nose, You Are Not Protected
--------------
What Was Christmas Like On the Year You Were Born?
I'll Bet You Were Just Wondering That
Miracle on 34th Street was released in my year.
--------------
A Christmas Gift For Us All
Thank you, Joni
--------------
Just Go Cyrus!
Cyrus Vance has had a years-long investigation into Donald Trump, his organization, and his family. Inflating or deflating the value of his properties to take advantage of bank loans he otherwise would not receive and ease his tax burden. He has left office now, and a new DA takes over the case, who has promised to continue the investigation.
Vance had promised to decide whether to indict Trump by the end of the year but the NY courts are on holiday from December 6 to January 2nd, 2022.
From 2017
These are dark times for Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., as two high-profile investigative reports—about Harvey Weinstein and Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr.—have revealed that Vance has a suspicious habit of declining to prosecute some of New York’s most powerful people, while, uh, also accepting campaign donations from their lawyers.
Last week, a joint bombshell by The New Yorker, WNYC, and ProPublica revealed Ivanka and Donald Jr. narrowly avoided criminal fraud charges in 2012 for allegedly misleading potential buyers at the flailing Trump Soho Hotel—because Vance dropped the mounting case after a meeting with Donald Trump Sr.’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. Kasowitz had donated $25,000 to Vance’s reelection campaign before the meeting (money Vance later returned) and went on to donate and raise a total of more than $50,000 in the months after the case against the Trump kids disappeared. Vance now says that, roughly five years later, he’ll return that money, too—but even a lawyer who was on the Trump defense team said Vance’s intermingling with Kasowitz “didn’t have an air you’d like.”
His Departure Will Be Another Gift To Us All
--------------
A Bunch of Scientists Are Going to Have a Nervous Month
It was the best Christmas present NASA could have asked for.
The agency’s James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s largest and most powerful telescope built to date, successfully blasted into orbit Saturday. The launch marked the long-awaited start of the Webb telescope’s mission, after more than 30 years of development and countless delays.
The $10-billion observatory, billed as the successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, is designed to study the early days of the universe, roughly 100 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars flickered on in the cosmos.
The tennis court-sized observatory launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket at 7:20 a.m. ET from a European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The observatory’s liftoff had been postponed several times, including earlier this month to investigate a faulty data cable and more recently because of bad weather at the South American launch site.
Now that the telescope has reached space, it begins a harrowing, monthlong journey to its designated orbit around the sun, more than a million miles away from Earth.
As Webb travels to its final destination, key parts of the observatory that were folded up to fit inside the rocket will need to unfurl in space. Some of the most nerve-racking stunts will come roughly five days after launch, when the telescope’s huge multilayered sunshield is stretched out and its massive gold-coated primary mirror unfolds.
But Why Name a $10 Billion Telescope After the Guy Who Wrote "MacArthur Park"?
--------------
The Previous Guy Speaks the Truth For a Moment, and The Right Wants to Wash His Mouth Out With Ivermectin
Devoted far-right followers of former President Donald Trump are finally turning on him — and all it took was a series of enthusiastic public statements endorsing COVID-19 vaccines.
It started on Sunday when Trump revealed during a rally with longtime conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly that he had received a booster shot, a fact that attendees greeted with boos.
"Don't, don't, don't," Trump responded after hearing the boos. "That's alright, it's a very tiny group up there," he added, pointing to a section of the crowd.
He doubled down on his endorsement of vaccines Wednesday during an interview with online commentator Candace Owens, saying definitively, "the vaccine worked."
"But some people aren't taking it. The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take their vaccine," Trump said. "If you take the vaccine, you're protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good. And if you do get it, it's a very minor form. People aren't dying when they take their vaccine."
The comments angered many of Trump's biggest supporters online, sending alternative social media networks like Telegram and Gab into a frenzy. Prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander led the charge against Trump, denouncing the twice-impeached former president for the comments.
"Trump, stop. Just stop. Have your position (backed by Fauci) and allow us to have ours (which is backed by science). This losing is getting boomer level annoying," Alexander wrote on Telegram, Insider reported.
Jones, who has been a steadfast Trump supporter for years, insinuated that Trump had abruptly switched allegiances as a result of his vaccination.
"Hell, we're fighting Bill Gates and Fauci and Biden and the New World Order and Psaki and the Davos Group ... and now we've got Trump on their team!" Jones said during a broadcast of his "Infowars" program Tuesday.
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