Post by mhbruin on Jan 5, 2022 9:38:26 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 514 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesdays)
Reservoirs are still low, but they take time to refill and it may take the spring snow melt.
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Macron is No Macaroon. He is a Tough Cookie.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been accused of using divisive, vulgar language after he used a slang term to say he wanted to make life difficult for unvaccinated people.
"I really want to piss them off, and we'll carry on doing this - to the end," he told Le Parisien newspaper.
Three months ahead of a presidential election, opponents of Mr Macron said his words were unworthy of a president.
MPs halted debate on a law barring the unvaccinated from much of public life.
The session in the National Assembly was brought to a standstill for a second night running on Tuesday as opposition delegates complained about the president's language, with one leading figure describing it as "unworthy, irresponsible and premeditated".
The legislation is expected to be approved in a vote this week, but it has angered vaccine opponents and several French MPs have said they have received death threats over the issue.
Not Getting Vaccinated is "unworthy, irresponsible and premeditated"
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Is the Sun Screen SPF 100?
The new James Webb telescope has passed a major milestone in its quest to image the first stars to shine in the cosmos.
Controllers on Tuesday completed the deployment of the space observatory's giant kite-shaped sun shield.
Only with this tennis court-sized barrier will Webb have the sensitivity to detect the signals coming from the most distant objects in the Universe.
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Yo, Ho, Ho and 20,000 Bottles of Rum
Taiwan is sharing tips with the public on how to drink and cook with rum after it bought 20,000 bottles of Lithuanian rum bound for China.
State-run media said Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTL) purchased the rum after learning that it could be blocked from entering China.
It comes after Lithuania established a de facto embassy in Taiwan, a potential sign of growing ties between them.
China downgraded its diplomatic relations with Lithuania days after.
The Lithuanian de facto embassy bears the name Taiwan rather than "Chinese Taipei", the name used by many foreign nations to avoid offending China.
20,000 Bottles of Rum on the Wall, 20,000 Bottles of Rum
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The Official Airline of the Pac-12 Makes the List
The world's safest airline for 2022 revealed
The flag carrier airline for New Zealand was awarded first place "due to its excellent incident record, number of cockpit innovations, pilot training and very low fleet age," according to Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of the Australian-based website.
Etihad Airways took second place, while Qatar Airways came in third, with Singapore Airlines and TAP Portugal achieving fourth and fifth place respectively.
Noticeably missing from the top five is Qantas, which held the title of world's safest airline from 2014 to 2017, as well as 2019 to 2021 (no clear winner could be found in 2018).
Australia's flag carrier takes seventh place this time due to a "slight increase in incidents coupled with the fleet age."
AirlineRatings.com's safest airlines for 2022:
1. Air New Zealand
2. Etihad Airways
3. Qatar Airways
4. Singapore Airlines
5. TAP Air Portugal
6. SAS
7. Qantas
8. Alaska Airlines
9. EVA Air
10. Virgin Australia/Virgin Atlantic
11. Cathay Pacific Airways
12. Hawaiian Airlines
13. American Airlines
14. Lufthansa
15. Finnair
16. KLM
17. British Airways
18. Delta Air Lines
19. United Airlines
20. Emirates
AirlineRatings.com has also produced a list of the world's safest budget airlines, which are listed alphabetically as they are ranked equally, once again.
The top 10 safest low-cost airlines are: Allegiant Air, easyJet, Frontier Airlines, Jetstar Group, Jetblue, Ryanair, Vietjet Air, Volaris, Westjet and Wizz Air.
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WTF Is White-Person Food?
A news anchor in Missouri was deeply hurt when a viewer criticized her for being "very Asian" but within hours, Asian Americans across the country stood up for her.
Last week, an unidentified woman called CNN affiliate KSDK in St. Louis, Missouri to complain that Michelle Li, an anchor and reporter at the station, mentioned her choice of New Year's meal during a segment on food traditions for the holiday.
The 42-year-old anchor had said at the end of the segment that she ate dumpling soup and explained it is "what a lot of Korean people do."
Her comments prompted a viewer to call the station and leave a minute-long message Li described as racist.
"Hi, this evening your Asian anchor mentioned something about being Asian, and Asian people eat dumplings on New Year's Day. And I kind of take offense to that because what if one of your white anchors said, 'Well White people eat this on New Year's Day'. I don't think it was very appropriate that she said that, and she was being very Asian. I don't know. She can keep her Korean to herself," the caller said on the voice message.
"Alright, sorry. It was annoying. Because, if a White person would say that, they would get fired (chuckles). So, say something about what White people eat. Alright, thank you," the caller added.
Italians Like Pasta, Germans Might Eat Sauerkraut, French Might Eat Cheese. But White People? White Bread?
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COVID Is No Djoke
Australians are reacting with fury to the news that tennis star Novak Djokovic’s has been given “an exemption permission” to travel to play in the Australian Open amid a surge in Covid cases in the country.
The world's top-ranked male player, who has refused to reveal if he is vaccinated against Covid, wrote on social media Tuesday that he had the exemption permission and was headed “Down Under.” The statement ended months of uncertainty about his participation because of Australia's strict Covid-19 vaccination requirements.
Among the most prominent critics was a visibly angry Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said on Wednesday that Djokovic should not get special treatment to enter the country, which has had some of the world’s toughest border restrictions and only started to allow some international travel in November.
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Give Me Ham on Five. Hold the Mayo.
The Mayo Clinic is firing roughly 700 employees who failed to comply with the nonprofit medical center's mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy.
Workers at the Mayo Clinic had been given until Monday to get their first dose of a vaccine or obtain a medical or religious exemption to the rule. They were also expected not to delay on receiving a second dose if they had already gotten the first jab.
Hundreds of employees failed to meet those requirements and were let go, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement shared with NBC News on Wednesday.
"Nearly 99 percent of employees across all Mayo Clinic locations complied with Mayo’s required Covid-19 vaccination program by the Jan. 3 deadline," the clinic said of its staff, which consists of around 73,000 workers.
The Mayo Clinic said that approximately 1 percent of its staff, or around 700 people, would be "released from employment."
Oveur, Over
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It's Only One Month, But Encouraging
Companies hired at the fastest pace in seven months in December ahead of escalating concerns over surging Covid cases, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP.
Private job growth totaled 807,000 for the month, well ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for 375,000 and the November gain of 505,000. The November total was revised lower from the initially reported 534,000.
The total was the best for the job market since May 2021′s 882,000 figure.
Hiring was broad-based, though leisure and hospitality led with 246,000 new positions. Trade, transportation and utilities contributed 138,000, professional and business services increased by 130,000 and education and health services added 85,000.
While service-related professions led with 669,000 new hires, the goods-producing side also showed strong gains. Manufacturing rose 74,000 and construction contributed 62,000 to the total.
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As Usual With Coal Joe, No One Really Knows What He is Saying
Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) on Tuesday night floated smaller changes to the Senate rules that would stop short of the filibuster reforms being pushed for by many of his Democratic colleagues.
Manchin, coming out of a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats involved in the negotiations, didn't pledge to vote for any specific rules reforms but appeared open to smaller changes.
"I think the filibuster needs to stay in place, any way, shape or form that we can do it," Manchin said, asked about keeping the current rule that requires most legislation to get 60 votes to advance through the Senate.
Manchin added that he was still "optimistic" that Republicans could back smaller changes to the Senate rules with an eye toward making it easier to get bills onto the Senate floor for debate.
One idea Manchin said he would support would be getting rid of the 60-vote hurdle currently required to start debate on legislation. Manchin has raised potentially scrapping the procedural roadblock in talks he's had with GOP senators on the Senate's rules.
Meanwhile, ...
A political "dark money" group led by a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is launching a $1 million ad campaign in West Virginia to pressure Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to keep the filibuster rules intact.
One Nation, an advocacy group that is not required to disclose its donors, released the radio, television and digital ads Wednesday. The campaign, which is scheduled to run for 12 days and was first shared with NBC News, uses clips of Manchin vowing he will not get rid of the filibuster.
"Call Senator Manchin. Tell him to keep his promise. Tell him to protect the Senate filibuster," a narrator says in the 30-second ad.
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How Many Kids Is Enough?
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I Don't Expect Enough Candidates to Die to Make a Difference
Elephant In The Room: Yes, More Trump Voters Have Likely Died Of COVID Than Biden Voters. No, It Likely Won't Make Much Difference.
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Do You Live Near An Ocean? You Are in Hurricane Country
"This represents an important, under-estimated risk of climate change," Physicist Joshua Studholme, IPCC author and staff at Yale's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
For the first time in three million years, storms will expand into Earth's middle latitudes this century due to the exponential rise of Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
In the journal Nature Geoscience, research has found that tropical storms will migrate north or south depending on which hemisphere the wind storms develop. The study highlights references to two recent hurricanes, Henri, in 2021 that barreled into Connecticut and Rhode Island and Alpha, the first recorded storm that slammed into Portugal in 2020. Due to the heating of the atmosphere and oceans, violent storms will be slower, drop heavier rainfalls, and have more powerful storm surge as a result of sea-level rise.
Sea-level rise has begun to be a threat multiplier for the world’s coastal cities with the rapid melting of the planet's ice caps and thermal expansion that will cause severe damage to the Northeast's coastal infrastructure, much of which is already in disrepair due to Republican obstruction.
If You Don't Live Near an Ocean, You are in Tornado Country
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"Robbed At Gunpoint in Oakland"
"Who is Amy Schneider?"
.......................
Reigning “Jeopardy!” champion Amy Schneider was robbed at gunpoint over New Year’s weekend in Oakland, California.
Schneider, an Oakland resident, tweeted about the robbery to her 52,000 followers, saying she was shaken up but otherwise OK.
“Hi all! So first off: I’m fine. But I got robbed yesterday, lost my ID, credit cards and phone. I then couldn’t really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything,” the Oakland resident said in her post.
Oakland police said in a statement they were still investigating the armed robbery that occurred Sunday afternoon and had not yet made any arrests.
Schneider, the first transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions, won again on Tuesday’s show bringing her impressive winning streak to 25 consecutive victories, earning her $897,600 in winnings so far.
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Henry Billings Brown
Louisiana’s governor planned to posthumously pardon Homer Plessy on Wednesday, more than a century after the Black man was arrested in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow a Jim Crow law creating “whites-only” train cars.
The Plessy v Ferguson case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ushered in a half-century of laws calling for “separate but equal” accommodations that kept Black people in segregated schools, housing, theaters and other venues.
Gov. John Bel Edwards scheduled the pardon ceremony for a spot near where Plessy was arrested in 1892 for breaking a Louisiana law requiring Black people to ride in cars that the law described as “equal but separate” from those for white customers. The date is close to the 125th anniversary of Plessy’s guilty plea in New Orleans.
Relatives of both Plessy and the judge who convicted him were expected to attend.
Who Wrote the Opinion in Plessy v Ferguson?
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I Think Is Silly, When there is Real Anti-Semitism Around
Jon Stewart called out the goblins in “Harry Potter” films as antisemitic caricatures.
The fantastical, hook-nosed beings who control Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the movie adaptations of author J.K. Rowling’s book series perpetuate negative stereotypes of Jews, the comedian said in a December episode of “The Problem With Jon Stewart” podcast that went viral on Twitter this week.
Stewart, who is Jewish, likened the creatures to “a caricature of a Jew” from the early-20th century antisemitic text, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Accusations of antisemitism have been leveled at the “Harry Potter” franchise before. “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson made a similar point to Stewart in 2020 after Rowling drew outrage with anti-trans comments.
The woods in “Harry Potter” are “controlled by centaurs, the schools are run by wizards and ghosts, but who controls the banks? Jews, obviously,” Davidson said. “Little, giant-nosed Jew goblins. And I can say that because as you can see, I’m half Goblin.”
Here is the Traditional View of Goblins
A goblin is a monstrous creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures, first attested in stories from the Middle Ages. They are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. They are almost always small and grotesque, mischievous or outright malicious, and greedy, especially for gold and jewelry. They often have magical abilities similar to a fairy or demon. Similar creatures include brownies, dwarfs, duendes, gnomes, imps, and kobolds.
It Seems Reasonable That Rowling Would Have Goblins Be Bankers. Would Centaurs Makes Sense?
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Timmy Has Fallen Into Well. Lassie, Do Something!
A big round of pats is in order for Tinsley.
A loyal dog by that name likely saved the lives of two people on Monday after she attracted the attention of police and led them to a wrecked pickup truck, New Hampshire State Police said on Facebook.
On Monday night, a state trooper and officers from the Lebanon Police Department responded to a report of a loose dog on Interstate 89 near Lebanon and located Tinsley, a 1-year-old Shiloh Shepherd.
According to police, when they approached Tinsley, she ran off along the highway, crossing the border into Hartford, Vermont. While following her, officers spotted a damaged section of guardrail and a badly mangled vehicle that had rolled over.
Police then discovered that the two occupants of the vehicle had been ejected and were hypothermic and seriously injured.
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I Don't Know About "Wax On", But Wax is WAY Off.
The dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school has condemned one of his school’s own professors for making racist remarks about Asians, saying that their recent comments were “xenophobic and white supremacist”.
Professor Amy Wax, who specializes in social welfare law and labor and family economics law, appeared as a guest on economist Glenn Loury’s podcast when she called the influx of “Asian elites” into the United States problematic and made other racist statements, including a call for less immigration from Asian countries.
In a scathing response, Dean Theodore Ruger acknowledged that while Wax’s comments were protected by freedom of speech and she held tenure at the college, they were “diametrically opposed to the policies and ethos of this institution”.
“They serve as a persistent and tangible reminder that racism, sexism and xenophobia are not theoretical abstractions but are real and insidious beliefs in this country and in our building,” Ruger said of Wax’s comments.
In the podcast Wax asserted that most Asian Americans are Democrats and questioned whether or not “the spirit of liberty beat in their breast”.
“As long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration,” Wax said.
She went on to criticize diversity and inclusion initiatives and said immigrants should be “abjectly grateful” rather than critical of the United States. Of diversity as a general concept, Wax said she was not convinced there were no downsides.
Wax has come under fire before for previous arguments she made at the National Conservatism Conference in 2019 for “cultural distance” or “taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites”.
In 2017, Penn law school alumni petitioned Ruger to take action against Wax for inaccurate statements that Black students didn’t graduate at the top quarter of their class and rarely graduated in the top half.
Despite the condemnation, Wax maintains her employment at the university. Ruger said Wax will only be teaching elective classes in future and will no longer teach required courses.
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5G and Airlines. Is It Really a Problem?
Late Monday, Verizon and AT&T agreed to a two-week delay rolling out their new 5G technology.
The technology was slated to launch on Wednesday, but in response to fears that the 5G service will impact airline safety – and amid threats from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground or divert flights at a time when the travel industry is already playing catch-up from recent weather and Covid-related flight disruptions – the telecom companies agreed to a pause.
Here’s what you need to know about the controversy:
What is 5G?
5G is the newest generation of cellular network, following 4G, which was introduced in late 2009 and is used on most US cell phones today. Nearly every ten years since 1980, a new generation network has arrived, offering faster speeds and expanded capabilities. At the simplest level, 1G allowed for phone calls, 2G brought messaging, and 3G provided Internet access. Today, on 4G, users can download apps, stream video, and more, with relative ease and speed.
The fifth generation is expected to offer new levels of speed – making it possible, for example, to download a movie to one’s phone in seconds – and allow more devices to be connected to a network at once. The latter is increasingly important in our crowded cellular landscape. (Ever been in a concert or stadium unable to send messages?)
“Those types of data rates could enable virtual reality applications or autonomous driving cars,” Harish Krishnaswamy, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University, told Live Science.
Why is the US airline industry concerned about 5G?
To execute the upgrade, cellular networks plan to move operations onto a new band of radio frequencies called the C-Band. Last year, Verizon and AT&T spent a combined $67bn acquiring the C-Band spectrum licenses needed to upgrade their networks to 5G, according to Forbes.
But some aircraft regulators worry that planes’ radio altimeters, which measure how far above ground a plane is to help pilots land their crafts in low visibility situations and also operate on C-Band frequencies, could be disturbed by 5G.
Can 5G and the aviation industry coexist?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the FAA and telecom carriers all agree that 5G and airline travel can exist together. In fact, they already do in nearly 40 countries.
The telecom companies have pointed out that there have not been any accidents in other countries where 5G is operational and American airlines regularly fly to those countries.
The FAA, too, has said that “5G and aviation have safely coexisted in other countries”. That’s because in those regions, “power levels have been reduced around airports and the industries have worked together prior to deployment”, the agency said in a 3 January statement.
So what’s the problem in the US?
The discussions over how the transition should take place in the US, however, have been brewing for years and intensified in recent months.
Verizon and AT&T had initially planned to launch 5G in December and until last week, appeared unwilling to postpone it further. But amid pushes from both Steve Dickson, the head of the FAA, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, to delay the rollout to allow for further coordination, they relented on Monday.
Both companies have proposed several measures to mitigate the possible impact of the switch to 5G, including reducing the strength of their 5G around airports and helipads, and operating 5G service at lower power levels nationwide for the first six months.
The FAA has thanked the companies for those proposals, but said the pause remained necessary to create “additional time and space to reduce flight disruptions associated with this 5G deployment”. It remains unclear what specific actions will be taken in the two-week period.
“At Secretary Buttigieg’s request, we have voluntarily agreed to one additional two-week delay of our deployment of C-Band 5G services,” an AT&T spokesperson said by email. “We also remain committed to the six-month protection zone mitigations we outlined in our letter. We know aviation safety and 5G can coexist and we are confident further collaboration and technical assessment will allay any issues.”
“While the airline industry faces many challenges, 5G is not one of them,” Hans Vestberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon, said in an email to employees today.
“In November, we agreed to pause activation until January to give the FAA more time for their analysis. We also voluntarily offered to implement a number of temporary proactive protective measures, including reducing 5G power levels near airports and directing 5G nodes away from airports … Despite our efforts and the overwhelming scientific data, the FAA still has not resolved all of its questions.”
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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 | |
| Jan 5 | 1,117,999 | 245,278,020 | 206,797,799 | ||
| Jan 4 | 1,093,005 | 244,947,293 | 206,581,659 | 554,328 | 1,238 |
| 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 | 73.9% | 62.3% | 34.9% |
| % of Population 5+ | 78.5% | 66.2% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 84.0% | 71.3% | 38.0% |
| % of Population 18+ | 85.9% | 73.0% | 49.8% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 87.7% | 59.4% |
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesdays)
| 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.
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Macron is No Macaroon. He is a Tough Cookie.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been accused of using divisive, vulgar language after he used a slang term to say he wanted to make life difficult for unvaccinated people.
"I really want to piss them off, and we'll carry on doing this - to the end," he told Le Parisien newspaper.
Three months ahead of a presidential election, opponents of Mr Macron said his words were unworthy of a president.
MPs halted debate on a law barring the unvaccinated from much of public life.
The session in the National Assembly was brought to a standstill for a second night running on Tuesday as opposition delegates complained about the president's language, with one leading figure describing it as "unworthy, irresponsible and premeditated".
The legislation is expected to be approved in a vote this week, but it has angered vaccine opponents and several French MPs have said they have received death threats over the issue.
Not Getting Vaccinated is "unworthy, irresponsible and premeditated"
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Is the Sun Screen SPF 100?
The new James Webb telescope has passed a major milestone in its quest to image the first stars to shine in the cosmos.
Controllers on Tuesday completed the deployment of the space observatory's giant kite-shaped sun shield.
Only with this tennis court-sized barrier will Webb have the sensitivity to detect the signals coming from the most distant objects in the Universe.
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Yo, Ho, Ho and 20,000 Bottles of Rum
Taiwan is sharing tips with the public on how to drink and cook with rum after it bought 20,000 bottles of Lithuanian rum bound for China.
State-run media said Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTL) purchased the rum after learning that it could be blocked from entering China.
It comes after Lithuania established a de facto embassy in Taiwan, a potential sign of growing ties between them.
China downgraded its diplomatic relations with Lithuania days after.
The Lithuanian de facto embassy bears the name Taiwan rather than "Chinese Taipei", the name used by many foreign nations to avoid offending China.
20,000 Bottles of Rum on the Wall, 20,000 Bottles of Rum
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The Official Airline of the Pac-12 Makes the List
The world's safest airline for 2022 revealed
The flag carrier airline for New Zealand was awarded first place "due to its excellent incident record, number of cockpit innovations, pilot training and very low fleet age," according to Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of the Australian-based website.
Etihad Airways took second place, while Qatar Airways came in third, with Singapore Airlines and TAP Portugal achieving fourth and fifth place respectively.
Noticeably missing from the top five is Qantas, which held the title of world's safest airline from 2014 to 2017, as well as 2019 to 2021 (no clear winner could be found in 2018).
Australia's flag carrier takes seventh place this time due to a "slight increase in incidents coupled with the fleet age."
AirlineRatings.com's safest airlines for 2022:
1. Air New Zealand
2. Etihad Airways
3. Qatar Airways
4. Singapore Airlines
5. TAP Air Portugal
6. SAS
7. Qantas
8. Alaska Airlines
9. EVA Air
10. Virgin Australia/Virgin Atlantic
11. Cathay Pacific Airways
12. Hawaiian Airlines
13. American Airlines
14. Lufthansa
15. Finnair
16. KLM
17. British Airways
18. Delta Air Lines
19. United Airlines
20. Emirates
AirlineRatings.com has also produced a list of the world's safest budget airlines, which are listed alphabetically as they are ranked equally, once again.
The top 10 safest low-cost airlines are: Allegiant Air, easyJet, Frontier Airlines, Jetstar Group, Jetblue, Ryanair, Vietjet Air, Volaris, Westjet and Wizz Air.
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WTF Is White-Person Food?
A news anchor in Missouri was deeply hurt when a viewer criticized her for being "very Asian" but within hours, Asian Americans across the country stood up for her.
Last week, an unidentified woman called CNN affiliate KSDK in St. Louis, Missouri to complain that Michelle Li, an anchor and reporter at the station, mentioned her choice of New Year's meal during a segment on food traditions for the holiday.
The 42-year-old anchor had said at the end of the segment that she ate dumpling soup and explained it is "what a lot of Korean people do."
Her comments prompted a viewer to call the station and leave a minute-long message Li described as racist.
"Hi, this evening your Asian anchor mentioned something about being Asian, and Asian people eat dumplings on New Year's Day. And I kind of take offense to that because what if one of your white anchors said, 'Well White people eat this on New Year's Day'. I don't think it was very appropriate that she said that, and she was being very Asian. I don't know. She can keep her Korean to herself," the caller said on the voice message.
"Alright, sorry. It was annoying. Because, if a White person would say that, they would get fired (chuckles). So, say something about what White people eat. Alright, thank you," the caller added.
Italians Like Pasta, Germans Might Eat Sauerkraut, French Might Eat Cheese. But White People? White Bread?
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COVID Is No Djoke
Australians are reacting with fury to the news that tennis star Novak Djokovic’s has been given “an exemption permission” to travel to play in the Australian Open amid a surge in Covid cases in the country.
The world's top-ranked male player, who has refused to reveal if he is vaccinated against Covid, wrote on social media Tuesday that he had the exemption permission and was headed “Down Under.” The statement ended months of uncertainty about his participation because of Australia's strict Covid-19 vaccination requirements.
Among the most prominent critics was a visibly angry Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said on Wednesday that Djokovic should not get special treatment to enter the country, which has had some of the world’s toughest border restrictions and only started to allow some international travel in November.
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Give Me Ham on Five. Hold the Mayo.
The Mayo Clinic is firing roughly 700 employees who failed to comply with the nonprofit medical center's mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy.
Workers at the Mayo Clinic had been given until Monday to get their first dose of a vaccine or obtain a medical or religious exemption to the rule. They were also expected not to delay on receiving a second dose if they had already gotten the first jab.
Hundreds of employees failed to meet those requirements and were let go, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement shared with NBC News on Wednesday.
"Nearly 99 percent of employees across all Mayo Clinic locations complied with Mayo’s required Covid-19 vaccination program by the Jan. 3 deadline," the clinic said of its staff, which consists of around 73,000 workers.
The Mayo Clinic said that approximately 1 percent of its staff, or around 700 people, would be "released from employment."
Oveur, Over
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It's Only One Month, But Encouraging
Companies hired at the fastest pace in seven months in December ahead of escalating concerns over surging Covid cases, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP.
Private job growth totaled 807,000 for the month, well ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for 375,000 and the November gain of 505,000. The November total was revised lower from the initially reported 534,000.
The total was the best for the job market since May 2021′s 882,000 figure.
Hiring was broad-based, though leisure and hospitality led with 246,000 new positions. Trade, transportation and utilities contributed 138,000, professional and business services increased by 130,000 and education and health services added 85,000.
While service-related professions led with 669,000 new hires, the goods-producing side also showed strong gains. Manufacturing rose 74,000 and construction contributed 62,000 to the total.
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As Usual With Coal Joe, No One Really Knows What He is Saying
Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) on Tuesday night floated smaller changes to the Senate rules that would stop short of the filibuster reforms being pushed for by many of his Democratic colleagues.
Manchin, coming out of a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats involved in the negotiations, didn't pledge to vote for any specific rules reforms but appeared open to smaller changes.
"I think the filibuster needs to stay in place, any way, shape or form that we can do it," Manchin said, asked about keeping the current rule that requires most legislation to get 60 votes to advance through the Senate.
Manchin added that he was still "optimistic" that Republicans could back smaller changes to the Senate rules with an eye toward making it easier to get bills onto the Senate floor for debate.
One idea Manchin said he would support would be getting rid of the 60-vote hurdle currently required to start debate on legislation. Manchin has raised potentially scrapping the procedural roadblock in talks he's had with GOP senators on the Senate's rules.
Meanwhile, ...
A political "dark money" group led by a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is launching a $1 million ad campaign in West Virginia to pressure Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to keep the filibuster rules intact.
One Nation, an advocacy group that is not required to disclose its donors, released the radio, television and digital ads Wednesday. The campaign, which is scheduled to run for 12 days and was first shared with NBC News, uses clips of Manchin vowing he will not get rid of the filibuster.
"Call Senator Manchin. Tell him to keep his promise. Tell him to protect the Senate filibuster," a narrator says in the 30-second ad.
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How Many Kids Is Enough?
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I Don't Expect Enough Candidates to Die to Make a Difference
Elephant In The Room: Yes, More Trump Voters Have Likely Died Of COVID Than Biden Voters. No, It Likely Won't Make Much Difference.
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Do You Live Near An Ocean? You Are in Hurricane Country
"This represents an important, under-estimated risk of climate change," Physicist Joshua Studholme, IPCC author and staff at Yale's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
For the first time in three million years, storms will expand into Earth's middle latitudes this century due to the exponential rise of Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
In the journal Nature Geoscience, research has found that tropical storms will migrate north or south depending on which hemisphere the wind storms develop. The study highlights references to two recent hurricanes, Henri, in 2021 that barreled into Connecticut and Rhode Island and Alpha, the first recorded storm that slammed into Portugal in 2020. Due to the heating of the atmosphere and oceans, violent storms will be slower, drop heavier rainfalls, and have more powerful storm surge as a result of sea-level rise.
Sea-level rise has begun to be a threat multiplier for the world’s coastal cities with the rapid melting of the planet's ice caps and thermal expansion that will cause severe damage to the Northeast's coastal infrastructure, much of which is already in disrepair due to Republican obstruction.
If You Don't Live Near an Ocean, You are in Tornado Country
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"Robbed At Gunpoint in Oakland"
"Who is Amy Schneider?"
.......................
Reigning “Jeopardy!” champion Amy Schneider was robbed at gunpoint over New Year’s weekend in Oakland, California.
Schneider, an Oakland resident, tweeted about the robbery to her 52,000 followers, saying she was shaken up but otherwise OK.
“Hi all! So first off: I’m fine. But I got robbed yesterday, lost my ID, credit cards and phone. I then couldn’t really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything,” the Oakland resident said in her post.
Oakland police said in a statement they were still investigating the armed robbery that occurred Sunday afternoon and had not yet made any arrests.
Schneider, the first transgender contestant to qualify for the Tournament of Champions, won again on Tuesday’s show bringing her impressive winning streak to 25 consecutive victories, earning her $897,600 in winnings so far.
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Henry Billings Brown
Louisiana’s governor planned to posthumously pardon Homer Plessy on Wednesday, more than a century after the Black man was arrested in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow a Jim Crow law creating “whites-only” train cars.
The Plessy v Ferguson case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ushered in a half-century of laws calling for “separate but equal” accommodations that kept Black people in segregated schools, housing, theaters and other venues.
Gov. John Bel Edwards scheduled the pardon ceremony for a spot near where Plessy was arrested in 1892 for breaking a Louisiana law requiring Black people to ride in cars that the law described as “equal but separate” from those for white customers. The date is close to the 125th anniversary of Plessy’s guilty plea in New Orleans.
Relatives of both Plessy and the judge who convicted him were expected to attend.
Who Wrote the Opinion in Plessy v Ferguson?
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I Think Is Silly, When there is Real Anti-Semitism Around
Jon Stewart called out the goblins in “Harry Potter” films as antisemitic caricatures.
The fantastical, hook-nosed beings who control Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the movie adaptations of author J.K. Rowling’s book series perpetuate negative stereotypes of Jews, the comedian said in a December episode of “The Problem With Jon Stewart” podcast that went viral on Twitter this week.
Stewart, who is Jewish, likened the creatures to “a caricature of a Jew” from the early-20th century antisemitic text, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Accusations of antisemitism have been leveled at the “Harry Potter” franchise before. “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson made a similar point to Stewart in 2020 after Rowling drew outrage with anti-trans comments.
The woods in “Harry Potter” are “controlled by centaurs, the schools are run by wizards and ghosts, but who controls the banks? Jews, obviously,” Davidson said. “Little, giant-nosed Jew goblins. And I can say that because as you can see, I’m half Goblin.”
Here is the Traditional View of Goblins
A goblin is a monstrous creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures, first attested in stories from the Middle Ages. They are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. They are almost always small and grotesque, mischievous or outright malicious, and greedy, especially for gold and jewelry. They often have magical abilities similar to a fairy or demon. Similar creatures include brownies, dwarfs, duendes, gnomes, imps, and kobolds.
It Seems Reasonable That Rowling Would Have Goblins Be Bankers. Would Centaurs Makes Sense?
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Timmy Has Fallen Into Well. Lassie, Do Something!
A big round of pats is in order for Tinsley.
A loyal dog by that name likely saved the lives of two people on Monday after she attracted the attention of police and led them to a wrecked pickup truck, New Hampshire State Police said on Facebook.
On Monday night, a state trooper and officers from the Lebanon Police Department responded to a report of a loose dog on Interstate 89 near Lebanon and located Tinsley, a 1-year-old Shiloh Shepherd.
According to police, when they approached Tinsley, she ran off along the highway, crossing the border into Hartford, Vermont. While following her, officers spotted a damaged section of guardrail and a badly mangled vehicle that had rolled over.
Police then discovered that the two occupants of the vehicle had been ejected and were hypothermic and seriously injured.
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I Don't Know About "Wax On", But Wax is WAY Off.
The dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school has condemned one of his school’s own professors for making racist remarks about Asians, saying that their recent comments were “xenophobic and white supremacist”.
Professor Amy Wax, who specializes in social welfare law and labor and family economics law, appeared as a guest on economist Glenn Loury’s podcast when she called the influx of “Asian elites” into the United States problematic and made other racist statements, including a call for less immigration from Asian countries.
In a scathing response, Dean Theodore Ruger acknowledged that while Wax’s comments were protected by freedom of speech and she held tenure at the college, they were “diametrically opposed to the policies and ethos of this institution”.
“They serve as a persistent and tangible reminder that racism, sexism and xenophobia are not theoretical abstractions but are real and insidious beliefs in this country and in our building,” Ruger said of Wax’s comments.
In the podcast Wax asserted that most Asian Americans are Democrats and questioned whether or not “the spirit of liberty beat in their breast”.
“As long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration,” Wax said.
She went on to criticize diversity and inclusion initiatives and said immigrants should be “abjectly grateful” rather than critical of the United States. Of diversity as a general concept, Wax said she was not convinced there were no downsides.
Wax has come under fire before for previous arguments she made at the National Conservatism Conference in 2019 for “cultural distance” or “taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites”.
In 2017, Penn law school alumni petitioned Ruger to take action against Wax for inaccurate statements that Black students didn’t graduate at the top quarter of their class and rarely graduated in the top half.
Despite the condemnation, Wax maintains her employment at the university. Ruger said Wax will only be teaching elective classes in future and will no longer teach required courses.
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5G and Airlines. Is It Really a Problem?
Late Monday, Verizon and AT&T agreed to a two-week delay rolling out their new 5G technology.
The technology was slated to launch on Wednesday, but in response to fears that the 5G service will impact airline safety – and amid threats from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground or divert flights at a time when the travel industry is already playing catch-up from recent weather and Covid-related flight disruptions – the telecom companies agreed to a pause.
Here’s what you need to know about the controversy:
What is 5G?
5G is the newest generation of cellular network, following 4G, which was introduced in late 2009 and is used on most US cell phones today. Nearly every ten years since 1980, a new generation network has arrived, offering faster speeds and expanded capabilities. At the simplest level, 1G allowed for phone calls, 2G brought messaging, and 3G provided Internet access. Today, on 4G, users can download apps, stream video, and more, with relative ease and speed.
The fifth generation is expected to offer new levels of speed – making it possible, for example, to download a movie to one’s phone in seconds – and allow more devices to be connected to a network at once. The latter is increasingly important in our crowded cellular landscape. (Ever been in a concert or stadium unable to send messages?)
“Those types of data rates could enable virtual reality applications or autonomous driving cars,” Harish Krishnaswamy, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University, told Live Science.
Why is the US airline industry concerned about 5G?
To execute the upgrade, cellular networks plan to move operations onto a new band of radio frequencies called the C-Band. Last year, Verizon and AT&T spent a combined $67bn acquiring the C-Band spectrum licenses needed to upgrade their networks to 5G, according to Forbes.
But some aircraft regulators worry that planes’ radio altimeters, which measure how far above ground a plane is to help pilots land their crafts in low visibility situations and also operate on C-Band frequencies, could be disturbed by 5G.
Can 5G and the aviation industry coexist?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the FAA and telecom carriers all agree that 5G and airline travel can exist together. In fact, they already do in nearly 40 countries.
The telecom companies have pointed out that there have not been any accidents in other countries where 5G is operational and American airlines regularly fly to those countries.
The FAA, too, has said that “5G and aviation have safely coexisted in other countries”. That’s because in those regions, “power levels have been reduced around airports and the industries have worked together prior to deployment”, the agency said in a 3 January statement.
So what’s the problem in the US?
The discussions over how the transition should take place in the US, however, have been brewing for years and intensified in recent months.
Verizon and AT&T had initially planned to launch 5G in December and until last week, appeared unwilling to postpone it further. But amid pushes from both Steve Dickson, the head of the FAA, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, to delay the rollout to allow for further coordination, they relented on Monday.
Both companies have proposed several measures to mitigate the possible impact of the switch to 5G, including reducing the strength of their 5G around airports and helipads, and operating 5G service at lower power levels nationwide for the first six months.
The FAA has thanked the companies for those proposals, but said the pause remained necessary to create “additional time and space to reduce flight disruptions associated with this 5G deployment”. It remains unclear what specific actions will be taken in the two-week period.
“At Secretary Buttigieg’s request, we have voluntarily agreed to one additional two-week delay of our deployment of C-Band 5G services,” an AT&T spokesperson said by email. “We also remain committed to the six-month protection zone mitigations we outlined in our letter. We know aviation safety and 5G can coexist and we are confident further collaboration and technical assessment will allay any issues.”
“While the airline industry faces many challenges, 5G is not one of them,” Hans Vestberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon, said in an email to employees today.
“In November, we agreed to pause activation until January to give the FAA more time for their analysis. We also voluntarily offered to implement a number of temporary proactive protective measures, including reducing 5G power levels near airports and directing 5G nodes away from airports … Despite our efforts and the overwhelming scientific data, the FAA still has not resolved all of its questions.”
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