Post by mhbruin on Apr 14, 2022 9:52:36 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 566 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 12)
There is some rain and snow in Northern California this week.
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When You Teach a Wolf to Meditate, He Becomes Aware Wolf
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
All The News That's Fit to Print ... In Our Book Coming Out Next Year.
In late 2020, Donald Trump told then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about his plans to overturn his election loss—and McConnell remained silent because saying publicly that Trump should stop trying to overturn the election would have jeopardized Republican chances in January 2021’s Georgia Senate runoffs. That’s the flaming corrupt disaster of U.S. politics part. The flaming corrupt disaster of U.S. media part is that we are learning this now, in 2022, because some New York Times reporters saved it for a book.
Yes, once again we are learning information that it would have been good to learn at the time it was happening, or at least as soon as reporters became aware of it, more than a year later so that people with regular salaried jobs as reporters can juice their book sales.
The reporters this time are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns. Back in February, it was fellow New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who waited for her book to reveal that White House residence staff would find toilets clogged with paper and believed that Trump was trying to flush documents. In Nov. 2021, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl came out with a book revealing that, in the run-up to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had sent Mike Pence’s top aide a memo outlining a plan to overturn the election. In September 2020, Bob Woodward released a book revealing that in February and March of that year, Trump had repeatedly told him how dangerous the coronavirus was, in complete contradiction to his public message or his administration’s actions, and admitted that he “wanted to always play it down.”
Who Is the Real Elon Musk?
Elon Musk is a shady plutocrat who has historically benefited from good PR, but his current shenanigans with Twitter might put a little dent in that. After becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder—and violating securities law by failing to disclose it in a timely fashion—Musk was briefly poised to join the company’s board. Then that fell apart, with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal including the interesting detail that Musk’s entry onto the board would have been contingent on a background check. Now, Musk has announced an offer to buy Twitter and make it a private company, which he says would “unlock” the company’s “extraordinary potential.”
Musk’s signature company, Tesla, lost one racism discrimination lawsuit, with an initial judgment of $137 million recently reduced to $15 million. Other Black employees describe a horrifyingly, overtly racist environment at Tesla’s California plant, spurring a major discrimination lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The idea of Musk being the last word on acceptable speech at a major social media platform is alarming, to say the least.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in a letter to the head of Twitter’s board.
“However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form,” he wrote. “Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
Again, there’s reason to worry about a societal imperative for free speech as determined by someone who oversees a company at which Black employees are assigned particularly difficult work in a section of the factory referred to as “the plantation,” a Black worker was fired after complaining that a supervisor called him and other Black workers “monkeys,” and use of the N-word was “the norm. It was Tesla’s tradition.” Musk may not be in that factory every day doing those things himself, but he owns it. Literally.
Musk’s takeover bid came with a threat (which he insisted, super believably, was “not a threat”): If he’s not successful, he would “need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.” In other words, he would dump his stock, to the detriment of other shareholders. On the other hand, Twitter would not be owned by Elon freaking Musk.
Musk’s self-presentation is as a completely self-made billionaire (never mind his dad’s emerald mine lurking in the background), but even as he rails against taxing people like himself, he’s benefited significantly from government funding through his career, as Greg Sargent and others have pointed out. As of 2015, his companies had gotten $4.9 billion in government money.
The $150 million or so Musk made by not complying with securities law and revealing his Twitter stock purchases in a timely fashion isn’t the only time he’s gotten in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission, either. In 2018, he had to step down as Tesla’s chair and paid $40 million in penalties ($20 million from himself and $20 million from Tesla) after he … used tweets to claim he was taking Tesla private, causing “significant market disruption.” Sound familiar?
This is not a trustworthy or honest person.
Where Can I Get a "Hybrid of Satan" T-Shirt?
Nicely Has Nice Things to Say About Hitler
A Tennessee Republican wants the state’s unhoused population to draw inspiration from Adolf Hitler. No, seriously.
While debating a bill on Wednesday that would criminalize homeless camps on public property in the state, State. Sen. Frank Niceley (R) decided to share with the chamber “a little history lesson on homelessness.”
That lesson: Hitler was homeless for a spell, too, but by golly, then he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and “went on to lead a life that got him in the history books.”
And here’s the full quote:
I wanna give you a little history lesson on homelessness. In 1910, Hitler decided (decided??) to live on the streets for a while. So for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses. And then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books. So, a lot of these people it’s not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life, or in Hitler’s case a very unproductive life. I support this bill.
Previous Guy Brags About How Well He Knows Vlad the Invader.
Former President Donald Trump skipped another opportunity to call Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions evil on Wednesday, then boasted about how well he knew the dictator.
“I knew Putin very well. Almost as well as I know you, Sean,” Trump told his close confidante, Fox News host Sean Hannity, as the network aired graphic images of dead bodies and the damage left by Russian troops in Ukraine.
“I will tell you, we talked about it, we talked about it a lot, he did want Ukraine, but I said, ‘You’re not going into Ukraine,’” Trump continued. “He would never, ever have gone into Ukraine.”
Minutes earlier, Hannity had prompted Trump to denounce Putin.
“I asked you the last time you were on, whether you think that this is evil in our time,” Hannity said. “Do you believe this is evil in our time?”
Trump did not answer the question; instead ,he ranted about NATO.
“Don’t forget, I rebuilt NATO,” Trump falsely claimed.
Why Is It That Only Republicans Commit Voter Fraud?
Two Florida men admitted to casting more than one ballot in the 2020 presidential election and have agreed to attend adult civics lessons as part of a deal with prosecutors.
Charles Franklin Barnes Jr., 64, and Jay Richard Ketcik, 63, are both residents of The Villages, a Sumter County retirement community famous for its residents’ seemingly boundless support for Donald Trump, who continues to baselessly claim that widespread voter fraud cost him a second term. There is no evidence that voter fraud occurred in the last presidential election at a scope beyond the usual small number of cases ― let alone enough to tip the scales of history.
Ketcik is a registered Republican, according to public records, while Barnes has no official party affiliation.
Voter fraud is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Both men agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion program with State Attorney Bill Gladson, according to court documents obtained by HuffPost. The agreement, meant for first-time and nonviolent offenders, means they can avoid jail time if they stick to the requirements.
Barnes and Ketcik must complete 50 hours of community service, meet regularly with a supervising officer and agree not to consume excessive alcohol or illegal drugs in order to avoid further prosecution.
They must also attend a 12-week adult civics class based on a specific textbook ― “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” by Florida educator Doug Oswald ― that meets two hours a week. The pair must pass the class with a C grade or better.
I Was Working in the Lab, Late one Night When My Eyes Beheld an Eerie Sight: Laura Ingraham
Laura Ingraham’s estranged gay brother, Curtis Ingraham, on Tuesday called the Fox News host “a monster” over her support for anti-LGBTQ legislation and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Curtis Ingraham responded to a clip from “The Ingraham Angle” in which his sister criticized schools for teaching students about sexuality and gender identity.
“It’s dubbed a queer-inclusive curriculum,” Laura Ingraham said in a segment titled “Doom & Groom.” “Gone are the days when they’re just teaching about human reproduction. Now, by fifth grade, they’re taught about sexual expression.”
Curtis Ingraham called out his sister’s supposed concern for children’s well-being in a tweet.
“This is rich coming from my Putin-loving sister who seems okay with children being killed in Ukraine,” he wrote. “Looks like she has a new trope in hand to further rile and anger her followers. What a monster!”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Today's Best Hippos. We Are Happy to See This Tucker Reproduce.
Fiona the hippo, the Cincinnati Zoo's social media darling, will soon be a big sister -- much to the zoo's surprise.
The zoo announced that Bibi, Fiona's 23-year-old mother, is pregnant.
"Bibi's big bundle of joy is expected to arrive late summer 2022," the zoo wrote on Twitter.
Fiona became an international celebrity after being born six weeks premature in 2017. Whereas typical hippos are born at around 100 pounds, Fiona was just 29 pounds at birth -- a record-breaking low weight for a hippo -- but managed to survive against all odds. The zoo used social media to share the vulnerable newborn's journey, attracting thousands of visitors who traveled to Cincinnati just to visit the baby hippo. Now a healthy adult, Fiona weighs a formidable 1,300 pounds.
Fiona's father, Henry, died in 2017, according to the Cincinnati Zoo. But in 2021, the zoo welcomed 18-year old male hippo Tucker, who quickly became "enamored" with Bibi, according to a press release.
Bibbi and Fiona
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Invasions Have Consequences
The Latest
Russian warship evacuated: Conflicting reports have emerged from the Russians and Ukrainians about an incident involving a Russian warship in the Black Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the Moskva was evacuated after a fire onboard detonated ammunition, seriously damaging the vessel, according to Russian state media. But Odesa state regional administrator Maxim Marchenko claimed Ukrainian forces hit the ship with "Neptune" missiles, causing serious damage to it.
Bridge destroyed as Russians crossed: A Ukraine special-operations unit destroyed a bridge as a Russian convoy crossed it while it headed toward Izium in southeastern Kharkiv region, the Command of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claimed in a statement Thursday. They said the Ukrainian unit destroyed the bridge with an explosive charge as a convoy of a Tiger armored vehicle and several trucks crossed it.
Nearly 200 children now killed: Some 197 children have died and 351 have been injured during the war in Ukraine, the country's prosecutor general said Thursday, citing figures from juvenile prosecutors. Bodies of children aged four and 10 were found along with the burnt body of a 17-year-old boy in Hostomel and Bucha, officials said.
New, heavier weapons: For the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US is providing Kyiv with high-power capabilities, including Mi-17 helicopters and 18 155 mm Howitzer cannons. The new weapons package represents the starkest sign to date that the war in Ukraine is shifting, to deal with the type of fighting that’s likely to take place in the Donbas region — open terrain rather than the close fighting in urban and wooded areas. The EU has also approved an additional 500 million euros for military equipment for Ukraine.
Evacuations resume: Nine evacuation routes for civilians to leave besieged Ukrainian cities have been agreed for Thursday, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Telegram post. Vereshchuk said there were no evacuation routes on Wednesday, adding Russians blocked buses in the Zaporizhzhia region and violated the ceasefire in the Luhansk region.
The fight for Mariupol: The commanders of two Ukrainian units defending besieged Mariupol said they were able to join forces, as Russia claimed advances in the city. It comes as Ukrainian forces remain blockaded inside Mariupol. The Russian military has repeatedly claimed to have taken strategic positions in the city, but has also faced stiff resistance. On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said Mariupol's commercial seaport had been captured.
You Can't Get a Big Mac, But You Can Get Eye Shadow.
The French beauty brand L'Occitane says it will keep its shops in Russia open despite the invasion of Ukraine.
The firm told the BBC it had discussed closing its stores "at length" but said it had not because it wanted to protect staff from potential "retaliation".
It has stopped shipping to Russia but website sales still seem to be open.
Hundreds of international brands including L'Oreal and Estee Lauder have already closed shops and ceased online sales in Russia in protest at the war.
Some customers criticised L'Occitane for its decision and called for a boycott of the brand which is sold at more than 3,085 retail outlets worldwide and had sales of €1.5bn (£1.3bn) last year.
The cosmetics firm, which has spas and stores in Russian cities including Moscow and St Petersburg, said it could not take the "risk" of closing its shops.
Let's Say It All Together: "It's the Logistics, Stupid."
Think about modern warfare and it's likely images of soldiers, tanks and missiles will spring to mind. But arguably more important than any of these is something on which they all rely: the humble truck. Armies need trucks to transport their soldiers to the front lines, to supply those tanks with shells and to deliver those missiles. In short, any army that neglects its trucks does so at its peril.
Yet that appears to be exactly the problem Russia's military is facing during its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, according to experts analyzing battlefield images as its forces withdraw from areas near Kyiv to focus on the Donbas.
Photographs of damaged Russian trucks, they say, show tell-tale signs of Moscow's logistical struggles and suggest its efforts are being undermined by its reliance on conscripts, widespread corruption and use of civilian vehicles -- not to mention the huge distances involved in resupplying its forces, or Ukraine's own highly-motivated, tactically-adept resistance.
"Everything that an army needs to do its thing comes from a truck," says Trent Telenko, a former quality control auditor for the United States' Defense Contract Management Agency, who is among those parsing the images for clues as to how the war is going.
"The weapon isn't the tank, it's the shell the tank fires. That shell travels by a truck," Telenko points out. Food, fuel, medical supplies and even the soldiers themselves -- the presence of all of these rest on logistical supply lines heavily reliant on trucks, he says. And he has reason to believe there's a problem with those supply lines.
Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, sees another "bad sign" for Russian truck logistics: its use of civilian trucks to replace military ones lost in battle.
"Civilian trucks are not made to military grade. They're not made to carry the loads, they're not made to carry the specific pieces of equipment," and in many cases cannot even operate off roads, O'Brien says.
The rigors of war are already trying enough for the sturdiest military grade truck, let alone a civilian one.
"A single mile in peacetime, if you drive it in wartime is like 10 or 20 miles (16 to 32 km) because you are pushing the truck hard with huge payloads," O'Brien says.
Switching between the two introduces a maintenance problem, as spare parts may not be compatible. And, as O'Brien points out, "You don't want to have to get a new truck every time an old one breaks down."
At Least They Can Still Visit Chernobyl
Russia announced sanctions on Wednesday against 398 members of the US Congress to "mirror" the Biden administration's sanctions last month on the State Duma.
"These persons, including the leadership and chairmen of the committees of the lower house of the US Congress, are included in the Russian "stop list" on an ongoing basis," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The statement said that the new measures bar blacklisted members of Congress from entering Russia.
It said the list was created on "the basis of reciprocity," referring to when the US Treasury Department sanctioned 328 members of Russia's lower house of parliament on March 24 as retaliation against the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.
Several prominent members and leaders of the House, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were not included in Russia's list on Wednesday as they were already blacklisted, the statement added.
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Do They Have Trans Time Lords on Gallifrey?
A new Doctor Who podcast spin-off series is making the show more female and LGBTQ+ than ever before.
Doctor Who: Redacted, written by a transgender woman and with a transgender star, premieres on BBC Sounds this week.
It's the story of three young women who make a conspiracy theory podcast about a mysterious blue box that crops up throughout history.
They also end up having an encounter of their own with a certain time-travelling alien.
"It's a real first for the Doctor Who universe to have a cast that's completely led by women and completely led by queer women," writer Juno Dawson tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.
The Jodie Whittaker era has already explored LGBTQ+ themes, including time travel assistant Yaz having a crush on The Doctor - which will be revisited in a new TV special.
"It's important that every person who comes to Doctor Who brings their own little identity," adds Juno.
"And of course, as a transgender woman myself it was important to me to see the lead character being trans as well."
It's Enough to Make Gov. DeathSentence's Head Explode
In the span of what seemed like a week, old-school bigotry felt mainstreamed. Sitting members of Congress, cable news hosts, and conservative intellectuals coalesced around “ok, groomer” discourse as a new way to attack LGBTQ Americans — not just the teachers these bills are targeting. Their attacks come in a country that is more accepting of queer Americans than at any other time in history; about eight in 10 Americans back nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people. But suddenly, it seemed, 20th-century homophobia acquired a modern, QAnon-esque edge.
“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children,” Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s press secretary, tweeted at the beginning of March. On his talk radio show last week, conservative activist Charlie Kirk tied same-sex marriage and the acceptance of LGBTQ Americans to corrupting children: “We’re talking about gay stuff more than any other time. Why? Because they are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.”
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It's OK to Look Up
A comet with a nucleus 50 times bigger than normal is barrelling towards Earth at 22,000 miles per hour.
Nasa's Hubble telescope has determined the comet's icy nucleus has a mass of about 500 trillion tonnes and is 85 miles (137km) wide - larger than the US state of Rhode Island.
But not to worry. The closest it will get is one billion miles away from the Sun, and that won't be until 2031.
It was first spotted in 2010 but only now has Hubble confirmed its size.
And it's larger than any comet ever seen by astronomers before.
"We've always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance," said David Jewitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "Now we confirm it is."
Just Don't Look South
When temperatures in Antarctica soared to 38 degrees Celsius above normal -- around 70 Fahrenheit -- in March, a teetering ice shelf the size of Los Angeles collapsed. Scientists don't know what role the extreme temperatures may have played in the event, but the heat rushed in through what's known as an atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture that transports warm air and water vapor from the tropics to other parts of the Earth.
A new study published Thursday shows that these "rivers in the sky" -- which dump rain and snow when they make landfall -- are also causing extreme temperatures, surface melt, sea-ice disintegration and large ocean swells which are destabilizing ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, a long, spindly mountain chain that points northwards to the tip of South America.
These conditions were observed during the collapse of two of the peninsula's ice shelves -- Larsen A and B -- in the summers of 1995 and 2002, respectively. And now, as the climate crisis is projected to warm the Earth further, the biggest remaining ice shelf, Larsen C, is also at risk of total collapse, the study says.
The authors of the study, published in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, used algorithms, climate models and satellite observations to determine that 60% of the peninsula's calving events -- where an iceberg breaks off an ice shelf or glacier -- were triggered by atmospheric rivers between 2000 and 2020.
Or Is It Ok to Look Up?
U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that a small space rock that traveled through the skies of Papua New Guinea in 2014 before crashing off the northeast coast was in fact a meteor that traveled from another solar system.
The meteor (actually it is a meteorite), known as CNEOS 2014-01-08, crash-landed on Jan. 8, 2014. It was actually identified as an interstellar meteor in a 2019 study co-written by Amir Siraj, who at the time was an undergraduate student at Harvard University, and Abraham Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard.
But it was not confirmed to be an interstellar meteor until the U.S. Space Command released a document on the discovery.
In the document, U.S. Space Force Lt. Gen. John Shaw said officials reviewed additional data related to Siraj and Loeb's finding and "confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory."
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As If Crypto Weren't Enough Gambling Already
Online casino gambling in the U.S. is illegal in all but six states, kept in check by strict rules that make it hard for users to move money in and out of regulated internet casinos.
But those rules don’t hold up so well when it comes to bitcoin.
Internet casinos that offer users a way to gamble using cryptocurrencies are booming, sidestepping regulations while operating and advertising with near impunity. Dozens of websites operating outside the U.S. now offer a way to quickly begin gambling, many with few checks on users’ backgrounds.
“This segment has exploded in a very short amount of time, and as a decentralized system, it makes it even more difficult to figure out how to go after them,” said Alex Costello, the vice president of government relations at the American Gaming Association, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of U.S. casinos and registered sports betting companies.
“We are a highly regulated industry for good reason: anti-money-laundering concerns, responsible gaming concerns,” Costello added.
Those with gambling addictions have another reason — a lack of mechanisms to prevent them from playing. One gambling addict who spoke to NBC News but asked not to be identified said crypto casinos do not offer the same addiction-mitigation features as mainstream gambling services, such as being able to ban yourself.
“I’d done everything I could locally to stop myself from doing it, and all of a sudden there was this Hail Mary,” he said. “I could self-exclude 20 times and it wouldn’t make any difference, because you can just go back and make another account.”
Would You Trust a Slot Machine in an Unregulated Casino to Be Fair? Now Make it a Virtual Slot Machine.
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First There is the Loss. Then There is the Interrogation.
When COVID grievers tell others about their loss, they tend to get the same responses. Do you know how they were exposed? Did they have a preexisting condition? Were they vaccinated? Every griever I interviewed has faced these questions, from online trolls and close friends alike, and with shocking immediacy. People regularly ask Rekha if her dead mother was vaccinated before they offer condolences or sympathies. “It’s not just one time; it’s all the time,” she said. “It’s all the time,” Kristin Urquiza echoed. “Pretty much from every person,” says Christina Faria, who lost her mother, Viola, late last year.
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Blow Ye Winds of the Morning. Blow Ye Winds, Hi Ho.
A study published on Wednesday in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics reinforces the growing consensus that the hurricane threat to vulnerable coastal communities will keep increasing. The research shows global warming has “contributed to a decisive increase in Atlantic Ocean hurricane activity” in the last 40 years and doubled the chances for extreme seasons like 2020.
That was the most active hurricane season on record, when tropical storms started early, ended late and included 11 tropical systems hitting the United States, with seven major hurricanes and one subtropical system even making it all the way to Portugal. Every single mile of the U.S. Atlantic coastline was under a tropical storm watch or warning during the 2020 season.
The study reinforces the growing consensus that vulnerable coastal communities need to prepare more for years like 2020, said lead author Peter Pfleiderer, a research scientist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit climate science and policy think tank.
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This Should Get a Rise Out of Some of You.
An ecology professor has just come up with a theory about the Loch Ness Monster that is sure to stimulate controversy.
Michael Sweet, who is a professor in molecular ecology at the University of Derby, recently suggested on Twitter that “Nessie” isn’t a monster at all, but just a whale penis.
Sweet said that many sea monster stories reported by explorers were inspired by what he called “tentacled and alienesque appendages emerging from the water.”
But while many of the observers may have believed the appendages breaking the ocean surface might be part of something “more sinister lurking beneath,” Sweet said that in many cases, “it was just whale dicks.”
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Mr. Mortgage Rising
Mortgage rates hit 5% this week, the highest level since February 2011, continuing a stunning ascent since the start of 2022.
The rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage jumped more than a quarter-point in a week from 4.72% last week, according to Freddie Mac. In the last five weeks alone, the rate has climbed 1.24 percentage points and is 1.89 points higher than at the end of last year.
The rapid rise in rates exacerbates an already ugly affordability crisis for homebuyers as the traditional buying season gets underway, while shutting out most homeowners from refinancing into a lower rate.
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I'm Sorry if This Section is Depressing, But KEEP WEARING YOUR MASK!
The problem with declaring victory over COVID is that everyone drops their guard down. It is next to impossible to get people to take COVID seriously again once this happens
Variants, Variants
The World Health Organization said on Monday it is tracking a few dozen cases of two new sub-variants of the highly transmissible omicron strain of the coronavirus to assess whether they are more infectious or dangerous.
It has added BA.4 and BA.5, sister variants of the original BA.1 omicron variant, to its list for monitoring. It is already tracking BA.1 and BA.2 — now globally dominant — as well as BA.1.1 and BA.3.
The WHO said it had begun tracking them because of their "additional mutations that need to be further studied to understand their impact on immune escape potential."
Long COVID
Already Had It?
Thing is, the risk does NOT go down with each re-infection, and *points to above* we have a variant that is great at re-infection now. The risk DOES go down with vaccines, but IT IS NOT ELIMINATED. That means you aren’t out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, even with a mild or asymptomatic course of infection!
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 |
| Apr 9 | 28,339 | 509 |
| Apr 8 | 28,169 | 516 |
| Apr 7 | 26,286 | 471 |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.2% | 65.8% | 45.3% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.1% | 70.0% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.9% | 74.2% | 47.0% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.6% | 75.7% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.5% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 12)
There is some rain and snow in Northern California this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 15% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 27% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 24% |
When You Teach a Wolf to Meditate, He Becomes Aware Wolf
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
All The News That's Fit to Print ... In Our Book Coming Out Next Year.
In late 2020, Donald Trump told then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about his plans to overturn his election loss—and McConnell remained silent because saying publicly that Trump should stop trying to overturn the election would have jeopardized Republican chances in January 2021’s Georgia Senate runoffs. That’s the flaming corrupt disaster of U.S. politics part. The flaming corrupt disaster of U.S. media part is that we are learning this now, in 2022, because some New York Times reporters saved it for a book.
Yes, once again we are learning information that it would have been good to learn at the time it was happening, or at least as soon as reporters became aware of it, more than a year later so that people with regular salaried jobs as reporters can juice their book sales.
The reporters this time are Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns. Back in February, it was fellow New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who waited for her book to reveal that White House residence staff would find toilets clogged with paper and believed that Trump was trying to flush documents. In Nov. 2021, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl came out with a book revealing that, in the run-up to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had sent Mike Pence’s top aide a memo outlining a plan to overturn the election. In September 2020, Bob Woodward released a book revealing that in February and March of that year, Trump had repeatedly told him how dangerous the coronavirus was, in complete contradiction to his public message or his administration’s actions, and admitted that he “wanted to always play it down.”
Who Is the Real Elon Musk?
Elon Musk is a shady plutocrat who has historically benefited from good PR, but his current shenanigans with Twitter might put a little dent in that. After becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder—and violating securities law by failing to disclose it in a timely fashion—Musk was briefly poised to join the company’s board. Then that fell apart, with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal including the interesting detail that Musk’s entry onto the board would have been contingent on a background check. Now, Musk has announced an offer to buy Twitter and make it a private company, which he says would “unlock” the company’s “extraordinary potential.”
Musk’s signature company, Tesla, lost one racism discrimination lawsuit, with an initial judgment of $137 million recently reduced to $15 million. Other Black employees describe a horrifyingly, overtly racist environment at Tesla’s California plant, spurring a major discrimination lawsuit by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The idea of Musk being the last word on acceptable speech at a major social media platform is alarming, to say the least.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in a letter to the head of Twitter’s board.
“However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form,” he wrote. “Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
Again, there’s reason to worry about a societal imperative for free speech as determined by someone who oversees a company at which Black employees are assigned particularly difficult work in a section of the factory referred to as “the plantation,” a Black worker was fired after complaining that a supervisor called him and other Black workers “monkeys,” and use of the N-word was “the norm. It was Tesla’s tradition.” Musk may not be in that factory every day doing those things himself, but he owns it. Literally.
Musk’s takeover bid came with a threat (which he insisted, super believably, was “not a threat”): If he’s not successful, he would “need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.” In other words, he would dump his stock, to the detriment of other shareholders. On the other hand, Twitter would not be owned by Elon freaking Musk.
Musk’s self-presentation is as a completely self-made billionaire (never mind his dad’s emerald mine lurking in the background), but even as he rails against taxing people like himself, he’s benefited significantly from government funding through his career, as Greg Sargent and others have pointed out. As of 2015, his companies had gotten $4.9 billion in government money.
The $150 million or so Musk made by not complying with securities law and revealing his Twitter stock purchases in a timely fashion isn’t the only time he’s gotten in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission, either. In 2018, he had to step down as Tesla’s chair and paid $40 million in penalties ($20 million from himself and $20 million from Tesla) after he … used tweets to claim he was taking Tesla private, causing “significant market disruption.” Sound familiar?
This is not a trustworthy or honest person.
Where Can I Get a "Hybrid of Satan" T-Shirt?
Nicely Has Nice Things to Say About Hitler
A Tennessee Republican wants the state’s unhoused population to draw inspiration from Adolf Hitler. No, seriously.
While debating a bill on Wednesday that would criminalize homeless camps on public property in the state, State. Sen. Frank Niceley (R) decided to share with the chamber “a little history lesson on homelessness.”
That lesson: Hitler was homeless for a spell, too, but by golly, then he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and “went on to lead a life that got him in the history books.”
And here’s the full quote:
I wanna give you a little history lesson on homelessness. In 1910, Hitler decided (decided??) to live on the streets for a while. So for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses. And then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books. So, a lot of these people it’s not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life, or in Hitler’s case a very unproductive life. I support this bill.
Previous Guy Brags About How Well He Knows Vlad the Invader.
Former President Donald Trump skipped another opportunity to call Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions evil on Wednesday, then boasted about how well he knew the dictator.
“I knew Putin very well. Almost as well as I know you, Sean,” Trump told his close confidante, Fox News host Sean Hannity, as the network aired graphic images of dead bodies and the damage left by Russian troops in Ukraine.
“I will tell you, we talked about it, we talked about it a lot, he did want Ukraine, but I said, ‘You’re not going into Ukraine,’” Trump continued. “He would never, ever have gone into Ukraine.”
Minutes earlier, Hannity had prompted Trump to denounce Putin.
“I asked you the last time you were on, whether you think that this is evil in our time,” Hannity said. “Do you believe this is evil in our time?”
Trump did not answer the question; instead ,he ranted about NATO.
“Don’t forget, I rebuilt NATO,” Trump falsely claimed.
Why Is It That Only Republicans Commit Voter Fraud?
Two Florida men admitted to casting more than one ballot in the 2020 presidential election and have agreed to attend adult civics lessons as part of a deal with prosecutors.
Charles Franklin Barnes Jr., 64, and Jay Richard Ketcik, 63, are both residents of The Villages, a Sumter County retirement community famous for its residents’ seemingly boundless support for Donald Trump, who continues to baselessly claim that widespread voter fraud cost him a second term. There is no evidence that voter fraud occurred in the last presidential election at a scope beyond the usual small number of cases ― let alone enough to tip the scales of history.
Ketcik is a registered Republican, according to public records, while Barnes has no official party affiliation.
Voter fraud is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Both men agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion program with State Attorney Bill Gladson, according to court documents obtained by HuffPost. The agreement, meant for first-time and nonviolent offenders, means they can avoid jail time if they stick to the requirements.
Barnes and Ketcik must complete 50 hours of community service, meet regularly with a supervising officer and agree not to consume excessive alcohol or illegal drugs in order to avoid further prosecution.
They must also attend a 12-week adult civics class based on a specific textbook ― “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution” by Florida educator Doug Oswald ― that meets two hours a week. The pair must pass the class with a C grade or better.
I Was Working in the Lab, Late one Night When My Eyes Beheld an Eerie Sight: Laura Ingraham
Laura Ingraham’s estranged gay brother, Curtis Ingraham, on Tuesday called the Fox News host “a monster” over her support for anti-LGBTQ legislation and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Curtis Ingraham responded to a clip from “The Ingraham Angle” in which his sister criticized schools for teaching students about sexuality and gender identity.
“It’s dubbed a queer-inclusive curriculum,” Laura Ingraham said in a segment titled “Doom & Groom.” “Gone are the days when they’re just teaching about human reproduction. Now, by fifth grade, they’re taught about sexual expression.”
Curtis Ingraham called out his sister’s supposed concern for children’s well-being in a tweet.
“This is rich coming from my Putin-loving sister who seems okay with children being killed in Ukraine,” he wrote. “Looks like she has a new trope in hand to further rile and anger her followers. What a monster!”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Today's Best Hippos. We Are Happy to See This Tucker Reproduce.
Fiona the hippo, the Cincinnati Zoo's social media darling, will soon be a big sister -- much to the zoo's surprise.
The zoo announced that Bibi, Fiona's 23-year-old mother, is pregnant.
"Bibi's big bundle of joy is expected to arrive late summer 2022," the zoo wrote on Twitter.
Fiona became an international celebrity after being born six weeks premature in 2017. Whereas typical hippos are born at around 100 pounds, Fiona was just 29 pounds at birth -- a record-breaking low weight for a hippo -- but managed to survive against all odds. The zoo used social media to share the vulnerable newborn's journey, attracting thousands of visitors who traveled to Cincinnati just to visit the baby hippo. Now a healthy adult, Fiona weighs a formidable 1,300 pounds.
Fiona's father, Henry, died in 2017, according to the Cincinnati Zoo. But in 2021, the zoo welcomed 18-year old male hippo Tucker, who quickly became "enamored" with Bibi, according to a press release.
Bibbi and Fiona
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Invasions Have Consequences
The Latest
Russian warship evacuated: Conflicting reports have emerged from the Russians and Ukrainians about an incident involving a Russian warship in the Black Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the Moskva was evacuated after a fire onboard detonated ammunition, seriously damaging the vessel, according to Russian state media. But Odesa state regional administrator Maxim Marchenko claimed Ukrainian forces hit the ship with "Neptune" missiles, causing serious damage to it.
Bridge destroyed as Russians crossed: A Ukraine special-operations unit destroyed a bridge as a Russian convoy crossed it while it headed toward Izium in southeastern Kharkiv region, the Command of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claimed in a statement Thursday. They said the Ukrainian unit destroyed the bridge with an explosive charge as a convoy of a Tiger armored vehicle and several trucks crossed it.
Nearly 200 children now killed: Some 197 children have died and 351 have been injured during the war in Ukraine, the country's prosecutor general said Thursday, citing figures from juvenile prosecutors. Bodies of children aged four and 10 were found along with the burnt body of a 17-year-old boy in Hostomel and Bucha, officials said.
New, heavier weapons: For the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US is providing Kyiv with high-power capabilities, including Mi-17 helicopters and 18 155 mm Howitzer cannons. The new weapons package represents the starkest sign to date that the war in Ukraine is shifting, to deal with the type of fighting that’s likely to take place in the Donbas region — open terrain rather than the close fighting in urban and wooded areas. The EU has also approved an additional 500 million euros for military equipment for Ukraine.
Evacuations resume: Nine evacuation routes for civilians to leave besieged Ukrainian cities have been agreed for Thursday, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Telegram post. Vereshchuk said there were no evacuation routes on Wednesday, adding Russians blocked buses in the Zaporizhzhia region and violated the ceasefire in the Luhansk region.
The fight for Mariupol: The commanders of two Ukrainian units defending besieged Mariupol said they were able to join forces, as Russia claimed advances in the city. It comes as Ukrainian forces remain blockaded inside Mariupol. The Russian military has repeatedly claimed to have taken strategic positions in the city, but has also faced stiff resistance. On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said Mariupol's commercial seaport had been captured.
You Can't Get a Big Mac, But You Can Get Eye Shadow.
The French beauty brand L'Occitane says it will keep its shops in Russia open despite the invasion of Ukraine.
The firm told the BBC it had discussed closing its stores "at length" but said it had not because it wanted to protect staff from potential "retaliation".
It has stopped shipping to Russia but website sales still seem to be open.
Hundreds of international brands including L'Oreal and Estee Lauder have already closed shops and ceased online sales in Russia in protest at the war.
Some customers criticised L'Occitane for its decision and called for a boycott of the brand which is sold at more than 3,085 retail outlets worldwide and had sales of €1.5bn (£1.3bn) last year.
The cosmetics firm, which has spas and stores in Russian cities including Moscow and St Petersburg, said it could not take the "risk" of closing its shops.
Let's Say It All Together: "It's the Logistics, Stupid."
Think about modern warfare and it's likely images of soldiers, tanks and missiles will spring to mind. But arguably more important than any of these is something on which they all rely: the humble truck. Armies need trucks to transport their soldiers to the front lines, to supply those tanks with shells and to deliver those missiles. In short, any army that neglects its trucks does so at its peril.
Yet that appears to be exactly the problem Russia's military is facing during its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, according to experts analyzing battlefield images as its forces withdraw from areas near Kyiv to focus on the Donbas.
Photographs of damaged Russian trucks, they say, show tell-tale signs of Moscow's logistical struggles and suggest its efforts are being undermined by its reliance on conscripts, widespread corruption and use of civilian vehicles -- not to mention the huge distances involved in resupplying its forces, or Ukraine's own highly-motivated, tactically-adept resistance.
"Everything that an army needs to do its thing comes from a truck," says Trent Telenko, a former quality control auditor for the United States' Defense Contract Management Agency, who is among those parsing the images for clues as to how the war is going.
"The weapon isn't the tank, it's the shell the tank fires. That shell travels by a truck," Telenko points out. Food, fuel, medical supplies and even the soldiers themselves -- the presence of all of these rest on logistical supply lines heavily reliant on trucks, he says. And he has reason to believe there's a problem with those supply lines.
Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, sees another "bad sign" for Russian truck logistics: its use of civilian trucks to replace military ones lost in battle.
"Civilian trucks are not made to military grade. They're not made to carry the loads, they're not made to carry the specific pieces of equipment," and in many cases cannot even operate off roads, O'Brien says.
The rigors of war are already trying enough for the sturdiest military grade truck, let alone a civilian one.
"A single mile in peacetime, if you drive it in wartime is like 10 or 20 miles (16 to 32 km) because you are pushing the truck hard with huge payloads," O'Brien says.
Switching between the two introduces a maintenance problem, as spare parts may not be compatible. And, as O'Brien points out, "You don't want to have to get a new truck every time an old one breaks down."
At Least They Can Still Visit Chernobyl
Russia announced sanctions on Wednesday against 398 members of the US Congress to "mirror" the Biden administration's sanctions last month on the State Duma.
"These persons, including the leadership and chairmen of the committees of the lower house of the US Congress, are included in the Russian "stop list" on an ongoing basis," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The statement said that the new measures bar blacklisted members of Congress from entering Russia.
It said the list was created on "the basis of reciprocity," referring to when the US Treasury Department sanctioned 328 members of Russia's lower house of parliament on March 24 as retaliation against the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.
Several prominent members and leaders of the House, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were not included in Russia's list on Wednesday as they were already blacklisted, the statement added.
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Do They Have Trans Time Lords on Gallifrey?
A new Doctor Who podcast spin-off series is making the show more female and LGBTQ+ than ever before.
Doctor Who: Redacted, written by a transgender woman and with a transgender star, premieres on BBC Sounds this week.
It's the story of three young women who make a conspiracy theory podcast about a mysterious blue box that crops up throughout history.
They also end up having an encounter of their own with a certain time-travelling alien.
"It's a real first for the Doctor Who universe to have a cast that's completely led by women and completely led by queer women," writer Juno Dawson tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.
The Jodie Whittaker era has already explored LGBTQ+ themes, including time travel assistant Yaz having a crush on The Doctor - which will be revisited in a new TV special.
"It's important that every person who comes to Doctor Who brings their own little identity," adds Juno.
"And of course, as a transgender woman myself it was important to me to see the lead character being trans as well."
It's Enough to Make Gov. DeathSentence's Head Explode
In the span of what seemed like a week, old-school bigotry felt mainstreamed. Sitting members of Congress, cable news hosts, and conservative intellectuals coalesced around “ok, groomer” discourse as a new way to attack LGBTQ Americans — not just the teachers these bills are targeting. Their attacks come in a country that is more accepting of queer Americans than at any other time in history; about eight in 10 Americans back nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people. But suddenly, it seemed, 20th-century homophobia acquired a modern, QAnon-esque edge.
“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children,” Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s press secretary, tweeted at the beginning of March. On his talk radio show last week, conservative activist Charlie Kirk tied same-sex marriage and the acceptance of LGBTQ Americans to corrupting children: “We’re talking about gay stuff more than any other time. Why? Because they are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.”
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It's OK to Look Up
A comet with a nucleus 50 times bigger than normal is barrelling towards Earth at 22,000 miles per hour.
Nasa's Hubble telescope has determined the comet's icy nucleus has a mass of about 500 trillion tonnes and is 85 miles (137km) wide - larger than the US state of Rhode Island.
But not to worry. The closest it will get is one billion miles away from the Sun, and that won't be until 2031.
It was first spotted in 2010 but only now has Hubble confirmed its size.
And it's larger than any comet ever seen by astronomers before.
"We've always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance," said David Jewitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "Now we confirm it is."
Just Don't Look South
When temperatures in Antarctica soared to 38 degrees Celsius above normal -- around 70 Fahrenheit -- in March, a teetering ice shelf the size of Los Angeles collapsed. Scientists don't know what role the extreme temperatures may have played in the event, but the heat rushed in through what's known as an atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture that transports warm air and water vapor from the tropics to other parts of the Earth.
A new study published Thursday shows that these "rivers in the sky" -- which dump rain and snow when they make landfall -- are also causing extreme temperatures, surface melt, sea-ice disintegration and large ocean swells which are destabilizing ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, a long, spindly mountain chain that points northwards to the tip of South America.
These conditions were observed during the collapse of two of the peninsula's ice shelves -- Larsen A and B -- in the summers of 1995 and 2002, respectively. And now, as the climate crisis is projected to warm the Earth further, the biggest remaining ice shelf, Larsen C, is also at risk of total collapse, the study says.
The authors of the study, published in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, used algorithms, climate models and satellite observations to determine that 60% of the peninsula's calving events -- where an iceberg breaks off an ice shelf or glacier -- were triggered by atmospheric rivers between 2000 and 2020.
Or Is It Ok to Look Up?
U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that a small space rock that traveled through the skies of Papua New Guinea in 2014 before crashing off the northeast coast was in fact a meteor that traveled from another solar system.
The meteor (actually it is a meteorite), known as CNEOS 2014-01-08, crash-landed on Jan. 8, 2014. It was actually identified as an interstellar meteor in a 2019 study co-written by Amir Siraj, who at the time was an undergraduate student at Harvard University, and Abraham Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard.
But it was not confirmed to be an interstellar meteor until the U.S. Space Command released a document on the discovery.
In the document, U.S. Space Force Lt. Gen. John Shaw said officials reviewed additional data related to Siraj and Loeb's finding and "confirmed that the velocity estimate reported to NASA is sufficiently accurate to indicate an interstellar trajectory."
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As If Crypto Weren't Enough Gambling Already
Online casino gambling in the U.S. is illegal in all but six states, kept in check by strict rules that make it hard for users to move money in and out of regulated internet casinos.
But those rules don’t hold up so well when it comes to bitcoin.
Internet casinos that offer users a way to gamble using cryptocurrencies are booming, sidestepping regulations while operating and advertising with near impunity. Dozens of websites operating outside the U.S. now offer a way to quickly begin gambling, many with few checks on users’ backgrounds.
“This segment has exploded in a very short amount of time, and as a decentralized system, it makes it even more difficult to figure out how to go after them,” said Alex Costello, the vice president of government relations at the American Gaming Association, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of U.S. casinos and registered sports betting companies.
“We are a highly regulated industry for good reason: anti-money-laundering concerns, responsible gaming concerns,” Costello added.
Those with gambling addictions have another reason — a lack of mechanisms to prevent them from playing. One gambling addict who spoke to NBC News but asked not to be identified said crypto casinos do not offer the same addiction-mitigation features as mainstream gambling services, such as being able to ban yourself.
“I’d done everything I could locally to stop myself from doing it, and all of a sudden there was this Hail Mary,” he said. “I could self-exclude 20 times and it wouldn’t make any difference, because you can just go back and make another account.”
Would You Trust a Slot Machine in an Unregulated Casino to Be Fair? Now Make it a Virtual Slot Machine.
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First There is the Loss. Then There is the Interrogation.
When COVID grievers tell others about their loss, they tend to get the same responses. Do you know how they were exposed? Did they have a preexisting condition? Were they vaccinated? Every griever I interviewed has faced these questions, from online trolls and close friends alike, and with shocking immediacy. People regularly ask Rekha if her dead mother was vaccinated before they offer condolences or sympathies. “It’s not just one time; it’s all the time,” she said. “It’s all the time,” Kristin Urquiza echoed. “Pretty much from every person,” says Christina Faria, who lost her mother, Viola, late last year.
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Blow Ye Winds of the Morning. Blow Ye Winds, Hi Ho.
A study published on Wednesday in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics reinforces the growing consensus that the hurricane threat to vulnerable coastal communities will keep increasing. The research shows global warming has “contributed to a decisive increase in Atlantic Ocean hurricane activity” in the last 40 years and doubled the chances for extreme seasons like 2020.
That was the most active hurricane season on record, when tropical storms started early, ended late and included 11 tropical systems hitting the United States, with seven major hurricanes and one subtropical system even making it all the way to Portugal. Every single mile of the U.S. Atlantic coastline was under a tropical storm watch or warning during the 2020 season.
The study reinforces the growing consensus that vulnerable coastal communities need to prepare more for years like 2020, said lead author Peter Pfleiderer, a research scientist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit climate science and policy think tank.
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This Should Get a Rise Out of Some of You.
An ecology professor has just come up with a theory about the Loch Ness Monster that is sure to stimulate controversy.
Michael Sweet, who is a professor in molecular ecology at the University of Derby, recently suggested on Twitter that “Nessie” isn’t a monster at all, but just a whale penis.
Sweet said that many sea monster stories reported by explorers were inspired by what he called “tentacled and alienesque appendages emerging from the water.”
But while many of the observers may have believed the appendages breaking the ocean surface might be part of something “more sinister lurking beneath,” Sweet said that in many cases, “it was just whale dicks.”
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Mr. Mortgage Rising
Mortgage rates hit 5% this week, the highest level since February 2011, continuing a stunning ascent since the start of 2022.
The rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage jumped more than a quarter-point in a week from 4.72% last week, according to Freddie Mac. In the last five weeks alone, the rate has climbed 1.24 percentage points and is 1.89 points higher than at the end of last year.
The rapid rise in rates exacerbates an already ugly affordability crisis for homebuyers as the traditional buying season gets underway, while shutting out most homeowners from refinancing into a lower rate.
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I'm Sorry if This Section is Depressing, But KEEP WEARING YOUR MASK!
The problem with declaring victory over COVID is that everyone drops their guard down. It is next to impossible to get people to take COVID seriously again once this happens
Variants, Variants
The World Health Organization said on Monday it is tracking a few dozen cases of two new sub-variants of the highly transmissible omicron strain of the coronavirus to assess whether they are more infectious or dangerous.
It has added BA.4 and BA.5, sister variants of the original BA.1 omicron variant, to its list for monitoring. It is already tracking BA.1 and BA.2 — now globally dominant — as well as BA.1.1 and BA.3.
The WHO said it had begun tracking them because of their "additional mutations that need to be further studied to understand their impact on immune escape potential."
Long COVID
Already Had It?
Thing is, the risk does NOT go down with each re-infection, and *points to above* we have a variant that is great at re-infection now. The risk DOES go down with vaccines, but IT IS NOT ELIMINATED. That means you aren’t out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, even with a mild or asymptomatic course of infection!
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