Post by mhbruin on Jan 4, 2022 9:23:29 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 513 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation
Reservoirs are still low, but they take time to refill and it may take the spring snow melt.
--------------
Like Father, Like Spawn
Two of Donald Trump's children have refused to testify to a fraud inquiry into the family's business.
Donald Jr, 44, and Ivanka, 40, were ordered to give evidence by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
--------------
Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down
China has put a second city into total lockdown after just three asymptomatic Covid cases were discovered.
Yuzhou - which has a population of 1.1 million - saw its transport system shut down and all but essential food stores closed overnight.
It follows a similar lockdown in Xi'an, where 13 million have been confined to their homes since 23 December.
The strict measures come ahead of the Lunar New Year and the Winter Olympics due to be held in Beijing.
This May Not Be An Endless Summer, But It Seems Like An Endless Story
--------------
I Wonder If AON Will Report This Story About Their Sugar Daddy, AT&T
Two of the biggest US phone firms have agreed a government request to delay the rollout of 5G services this week.
The US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made the request over concerns about aviation safety.
Plane makers have warned that C-Band spectrum 5G wireless signals may interfere with sensitive aircraft electronics and could disrupt flights.
The phone companies both announced they had accepted the proposed two-week delay late on Monday.
What Are They Going to Get Done in Two Weeks?
--------------
Iran Has Assets?
A Canadian court has awarded C$107m (£62m; $84m), plus interest, to the families of six people who died when a plane was downed near Tehran in 2020.
The family members awarded compensation by Ontario's Superior Court of Justice lost spouses, siblings, children, nieces and nephews.
Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was hit by two missiles after taking off. Iran has said it mistook the aircraft for a US missile. All 176 people on board died.
They included 55 Canadians and 35 permanent residents of Canada. The relatives had filed a civil lawsuit against Iran and other officials who they say were to blame for the incident.
It was not immediately clear how the money would be collected from Iran. The relatives' lawyer, Mark Arnold, said his team would look to seize Iranian assets in Canada and abroad, which could include oil tankers.
Just What Every Grieving Family Wants: An Oil Tanker.
--------------
Judge Tells Elden, "Nevermind".
A judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit against Nirvana made by Spencer Elden, who appeared as a naked baby on the cover of their album Nevermind.
Elden sued the band last year, alleging sexual exploitation, and that the artwork constituted child sexual abuse.
Now 30, he said the infamous image had caused him "extreme and permanent emotional distress" as well as loss of wages and "enjoyment of life".
Nirvana filed to dismiss last month, saying Elden's arguments lacked merit.
"Elden's claim that the photograph on the Nevermind album cover is 'child pornography' is, on its face, not serious," their lawyers said, noting that anyone who owned a copy of the record would "on Elden's theory [be] guilty of felony possession of child pornography".
They continued by noting that, until recently, Elden had seemed to enjoy the notoriety of being the "Nirvana baby".
Smells Like a Try to Cash In.
--------------
They Just Want to Make Sure the Guards at the Concentration Camps Can Buy a Tesla
Electric car maker Tesla has been criticised in the US after opening a showroom in China's controversial Xinjiang region.
The company, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, opened the showroom in the city of Urumqi on New Year's Eve.
However, the move has been welcomed by some in China.
China has been accused of slavery and genocide against the Uyghur minority group in the resource-rich western region of the country.
Do They Ask Them To Remove Their Swastikas Before Entering the Showroom?
--------------
Hit the Road Jack!
Devin Nunes, a Republican who has represented California since 2003, has officially resigned from Congress, ending a nearly 20-year stint in the House of Representatives.
Nunes, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, announced in December that he was leaving Congress at the end of 2021 to become CEO of the Trump Media & Technology Group. His departure also comes as midterm elections kick off in which he faced the threat of a more-Democratic district through redistricting.
"Hit the Road, Devin!" Doesn't Really Work
--------------
A Case of Premature Inoculation.
A New York teacher has been arrested for allegedly injecting a minor with a Covid-19 vaccine without the consent of his parents, police have said.
Laura Russo, 54, was arrested on New Year's Eve in Sea Cliff after police were informed that she had allegedly injected a 17-year-old boy with a vaccine, the Nassau County Police department said in a news release on Monday.
According to the department, the 17-year-old boy had visited Russo's home, where she administered what was believed to be a Covid vaccine to him. It is unclear how she came to obtain the vaccine.
Police said that the boy's mother called the authorities after her son told her he had gotten the jab.
"The mother had not given permission or authority to have her son injected with a Covid vaccine," the department said.
--------------
The Shared Fiction That Is As Old as Civilization
Calvin Becerra went viral earlier this year for a less-than-ideal reason. He got bamboozled out of what he claims is some $2 million in cryptocurrency and NFTs and complained on Twitter about the incident. Scammers pretended to be interested in buying one of his NFTs in a Discord channel and tricked him by saying they could help him fix a problem with his crypto wallet. During troubleshooting, they raided his wallet. The experience, he says, “felt like death.” He’s gone to great lengths to get the stolen digital assets back, paying hundreds of thousands more dollars to retrieve the tokens, including, most importantly, his three bored apes.
For many outsiders, it’s hard to grasp paying so much money for a trio of cartoon monkeys once, let alone twice. At some point, you’ve just got to let sunk cost be. But Becerra, 40, insists it’s worth it — he believes in NFTs, or at the very least, the moneymaking power of them. “They’re important to me because of the value that they will continue to increase by,” he says. “They’re huge.”
He’s right that NFTs — non-fungible tokens, little digital assets that exist on a blockchain — are having a moment. What’s not really clear is why. Then again, everything about money feels a little strange at the moment. Between NFTs, crypto, and GameStop, AMC, and other meme stocks, money has rarely felt more fake. Or, at the very least, value has rarely felt so disconnected from reality.
The concept of value is a fuzzy one, and valuation is often more art than it is science. Psychology has always played a role in money and investing — and there have always been bubbles, too, where the price of an asset takes off at a rapid pace and disconnects from the fundamental value. As Jacob Goldstein wrote in Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, all money is sort of a collective myth. “Money feels cold and mathematical and outside the realm of fuzzy human relationships. It isn’t,” he wrote. “Money is a made-up thing, a shared fiction. Money is fundamentally, unalterably social.”
I Thought This Was an Interesting Story
Tale as Old As Time
--------------
This Is About As Republican As You Can Get
Some of the guiltiest purveyors of misinformation and deadly public policy are the Republican officials in Texas. Whether it is Sen. Ted Cruz and his blindingly sociopathic hypocrisy, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s alternate race-baiting and declaration that grandparents should sacrifice their lives for capitalism, or Gov. Greg Abbott suing the Biden administration to stop the enactment of mask mandates, Texas Republicans have invited the fourth COVID surge in the form of the omicron variant into their state. Of course, people like Abbott are utterly shameless. He has alternated between telling the federal government to stop overreaching, and using his office to completely overreach on behalf of spreading COVID-19.
Guess who wants big government to step in and bail him out now? You get one guess.
On New Year’s Eve, Abbott asked the federal Biden administration to help open more COVID-19 testing sites in the Lone Star State, as well as for more shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments. He needs these because, as in many other areas of the country, the virus is surging once again. Of course, places like Texas are in more serious need of these treatments as hospitalizations and severe cases are also surging in the state. Abbott, who has rarely promoted vaccinations but was an early booster receiver, tested positive for the virus this past August.
The Party of Hypocrisy
--------------
Where's Waldo?
A year after a pro-Trump mob bent on overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election sacked the U.S. Capitol, the hunt for suspects is nowhere near over.
In fact, the feds are still actively searching for hundreds of known rioters. Authorities are still looking for the person they say planted pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the night of Jan. 5, and have not slowed in their efforts. Meanwhile, two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe Donald Trump’s so-called Big Lie that the election was somehow stolen from him, and nearly 40 percent of that group think violence is the only way to “save” the country, according to recent polling.
--------------
It Was All a Bunch of Martian, FBI, BLM Creatures
--------------
I Am Pretty Sure She Isn't a Democrat
Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘Democrat or an idiot’, fellow Republican says
Dan Crenshaw, a Texas congressman and former Navy Seal, threw the barb back at the Georgia congresswoman in a spat over his support for using the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to operate Covid testing sites.
--------------
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 | |
| Jan 4 | 1,093,005 | 244,947,293 | 206,581,659 | ||
| Jan 3 | No Data | 491,652 | 1,165 | ||
| Jan 2 | No Data | 438,082 | 1,174 | ||
| Jan 1 | No Data | 411,871 | 1,151 | ||
| Dec 31 | No Data | 391,098 | 1,135 | ||
| Dec 30 | 1,234,917 | 243,527,564 | 205,811,394 | 360,276 | 1,144 |
| Dec 29 | 1,042,911 | 243,182,423 | 205,638,307 | 316,277 | 1,100 |
| Dec 28 | 1,091,279 | 242,813,374 | 205,420,745 | 277,241 | 1,085 |
| Dec 27 | 1,034,442 | 242,433,620 | 205,196,973 | 240,408 | 1,096 |
| Dec 26 | No Data | 206,577 | 1,041 | ||
| Dec 25 | No Data | 196,511 | 1,053 | ||
| Dec 24 | No Data | 195,713 | 1,108 | ||
| Dec 23 | 1,189,954 | 241,520,561 | 204,740,321 | 192,453 | 1,199 |
| 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 |
| 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 | 73.8% | 62.2% | 34/7% |
| % of Population 5+ | 78.4% | 66.2% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 83.5% | 71.1% | 37.7% |
| % of Population 18+ | 85.9% | 73.0% | 49.5% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 87.6% | 59.1% |
--------------
California Precipitation
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 158% | 170% |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 156% | 170% |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 145% | 151% |
| Snow Water Content - North | 135% | 134% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 148% | 148% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 160% | 158% |
Reservoirs are still low, but they take time to refill and it may take the spring snow melt.
--------------
Like Father, Like Spawn
Two of Donald Trump's children have refused to testify to a fraud inquiry into the family's business.
Donald Jr, 44, and Ivanka, 40, were ordered to give evidence by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
--------------
Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down
China has put a second city into total lockdown after just three asymptomatic Covid cases were discovered.
Yuzhou - which has a population of 1.1 million - saw its transport system shut down and all but essential food stores closed overnight.
It follows a similar lockdown in Xi'an, where 13 million have been confined to their homes since 23 December.
The strict measures come ahead of the Lunar New Year and the Winter Olympics due to be held in Beijing.
This May Not Be An Endless Summer, But It Seems Like An Endless Story
--------------
I Wonder If AON Will Report This Story About Their Sugar Daddy, AT&T
Two of the biggest US phone firms have agreed a government request to delay the rollout of 5G services this week.
The US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made the request over concerns about aviation safety.
Plane makers have warned that C-Band spectrum 5G wireless signals may interfere with sensitive aircraft electronics and could disrupt flights.
The phone companies both announced they had accepted the proposed two-week delay late on Monday.
What Are They Going to Get Done in Two Weeks?
--------------
Iran Has Assets?
A Canadian court has awarded C$107m (£62m; $84m), plus interest, to the families of six people who died when a plane was downed near Tehran in 2020.
The family members awarded compensation by Ontario's Superior Court of Justice lost spouses, siblings, children, nieces and nephews.
Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was hit by two missiles after taking off. Iran has said it mistook the aircraft for a US missile. All 176 people on board died.
They included 55 Canadians and 35 permanent residents of Canada. The relatives had filed a civil lawsuit against Iran and other officials who they say were to blame for the incident.
It was not immediately clear how the money would be collected from Iran. The relatives' lawyer, Mark Arnold, said his team would look to seize Iranian assets in Canada and abroad, which could include oil tankers.
Just What Every Grieving Family Wants: An Oil Tanker.
--------------
Judge Tells Elden, "Nevermind".
A judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit against Nirvana made by Spencer Elden, who appeared as a naked baby on the cover of their album Nevermind.
Elden sued the band last year, alleging sexual exploitation, and that the artwork constituted child sexual abuse.
Now 30, he said the infamous image had caused him "extreme and permanent emotional distress" as well as loss of wages and "enjoyment of life".
Nirvana filed to dismiss last month, saying Elden's arguments lacked merit.
"Elden's claim that the photograph on the Nevermind album cover is 'child pornography' is, on its face, not serious," their lawyers said, noting that anyone who owned a copy of the record would "on Elden's theory [be] guilty of felony possession of child pornography".
They continued by noting that, until recently, Elden had seemed to enjoy the notoriety of being the "Nirvana baby".
Smells Like a Try to Cash In.
--------------
They Just Want to Make Sure the Guards at the Concentration Camps Can Buy a Tesla
Electric car maker Tesla has been criticised in the US after opening a showroom in China's controversial Xinjiang region.
The company, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, opened the showroom in the city of Urumqi on New Year's Eve.
However, the move has been welcomed by some in China.
China has been accused of slavery and genocide against the Uyghur minority group in the resource-rich western region of the country.
Do They Ask Them To Remove Their Swastikas Before Entering the Showroom?
--------------
Hit the Road Jack!
Devin Nunes, a Republican who has represented California since 2003, has officially resigned from Congress, ending a nearly 20-year stint in the House of Representatives.
Nunes, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, announced in December that he was leaving Congress at the end of 2021 to become CEO of the Trump Media & Technology Group. His departure also comes as midterm elections kick off in which he faced the threat of a more-Democratic district through redistricting.
"Hit the Road, Devin!" Doesn't Really Work
--------------
A Case of Premature Inoculation.
A New York teacher has been arrested for allegedly injecting a minor with a Covid-19 vaccine without the consent of his parents, police have said.
Laura Russo, 54, was arrested on New Year's Eve in Sea Cliff after police were informed that she had allegedly injected a 17-year-old boy with a vaccine, the Nassau County Police department said in a news release on Monday.
According to the department, the 17-year-old boy had visited Russo's home, where she administered what was believed to be a Covid vaccine to him. It is unclear how she came to obtain the vaccine.
Police said that the boy's mother called the authorities after her son told her he had gotten the jab.
"The mother had not given permission or authority to have her son injected with a Covid vaccine," the department said.
--------------
The Shared Fiction That Is As Old as Civilization
Calvin Becerra went viral earlier this year for a less-than-ideal reason. He got bamboozled out of what he claims is some $2 million in cryptocurrency and NFTs and complained on Twitter about the incident. Scammers pretended to be interested in buying one of his NFTs in a Discord channel and tricked him by saying they could help him fix a problem with his crypto wallet. During troubleshooting, they raided his wallet. The experience, he says, “felt like death.” He’s gone to great lengths to get the stolen digital assets back, paying hundreds of thousands more dollars to retrieve the tokens, including, most importantly, his three bored apes.
For many outsiders, it’s hard to grasp paying so much money for a trio of cartoon monkeys once, let alone twice. At some point, you’ve just got to let sunk cost be. But Becerra, 40, insists it’s worth it — he believes in NFTs, or at the very least, the moneymaking power of them. “They’re important to me because of the value that they will continue to increase by,” he says. “They’re huge.”
He’s right that NFTs — non-fungible tokens, little digital assets that exist on a blockchain — are having a moment. What’s not really clear is why. Then again, everything about money feels a little strange at the moment. Between NFTs, crypto, and GameStop, AMC, and other meme stocks, money has rarely felt more fake. Or, at the very least, value has rarely felt so disconnected from reality.
The concept of value is a fuzzy one, and valuation is often more art than it is science. Psychology has always played a role in money and investing — and there have always been bubbles, too, where the price of an asset takes off at a rapid pace and disconnects from the fundamental value. As Jacob Goldstein wrote in Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, all money is sort of a collective myth. “Money feels cold and mathematical and outside the realm of fuzzy human relationships. It isn’t,” he wrote. “Money is a made-up thing, a shared fiction. Money is fundamentally, unalterably social.”
I Thought This Was an Interesting Story
Tale as Old As Time
--------------
This Is About As Republican As You Can Get
Some of the guiltiest purveyors of misinformation and deadly public policy are the Republican officials in Texas. Whether it is Sen. Ted Cruz and his blindingly sociopathic hypocrisy, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s alternate race-baiting and declaration that grandparents should sacrifice their lives for capitalism, or Gov. Greg Abbott suing the Biden administration to stop the enactment of mask mandates, Texas Republicans have invited the fourth COVID surge in the form of the omicron variant into their state. Of course, people like Abbott are utterly shameless. He has alternated between telling the federal government to stop overreaching, and using his office to completely overreach on behalf of spreading COVID-19.
Guess who wants big government to step in and bail him out now? You get one guess.
On New Year’s Eve, Abbott asked the federal Biden administration to help open more COVID-19 testing sites in the Lone Star State, as well as for more shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments. He needs these because, as in many other areas of the country, the virus is surging once again. Of course, places like Texas are in more serious need of these treatments as hospitalizations and severe cases are also surging in the state. Abbott, who has rarely promoted vaccinations but was an early booster receiver, tested positive for the virus this past August.
The Party of Hypocrisy
--------------
Where's Waldo?
A year after a pro-Trump mob bent on overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election sacked the U.S. Capitol, the hunt for suspects is nowhere near over.
In fact, the feds are still actively searching for hundreds of known rioters. Authorities are still looking for the person they say planted pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the night of Jan. 5, and have not slowed in their efforts. Meanwhile, two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe Donald Trump’s so-called Big Lie that the election was somehow stolen from him, and nearly 40 percent of that group think violence is the only way to “save” the country, according to recent polling.
--------------
It Was All a Bunch of Martian, FBI, BLM Creatures
--------------
I Am Pretty Sure She Isn't a Democrat
Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘Democrat or an idiot’, fellow Republican says
Dan Crenshaw, a Texas congressman and former Navy Seal, threw the barb back at the Georgia congresswoman in a spat over his support for using the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to operate Covid testing sites.
--------------
