Post by mhbruin on May 3, 2022 9:12:18 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 576 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 27)
We had some rain up north this week.
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Short Editorial: This Is Not Really About Abortion. It's About White Men.
Let me be clear. I am not saying any of this is true of all evangelicals. However, it is true for many of them and drives their agenda.
A significant portion of evangelicals believe that we should be a patriarchal society, where men make the decisions and women are submissive. They believe that women should stay at home and raise children. Essentially, they are the Taliban.
These views are challenged by birth control and abortion that allow women more freedom to have sex.
Gay people and gay marriage challenge their idea of a relationship where the man rules.
There is also a strong element of racism, for many who find inter-racial relationships and marriage disturbing.
I believe their agenda is to totally eliminate rights guaranteed by the right to privacy. They want to:
Abortion is just the beginning. They used the imagery of "protecting babies" as a way to rally support, but it hides a bigger agenda.
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My Fear of Moving Stairs is Escalating
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
I'll Be Interested in Hearing His Defense for Shooting an Unarmed Kid in the Back
A former Philadelphia police officer has been charged with murder for fatally shooting a 12-year-old boy in the back during a chaotic foot chase in early March.
Authorities say that Edsaul Mendoza, 26, engaged in a "tactically unsound" pursuit of Thomas "TJ" Siderio and shot him despite knowing he was unarmed.
Police believed a friend of his was involved in the theft of a weapon.
Mr Mendoza was arrested on Sunday.
According to a presentment of facts released by Philadelphia's District Attorney, Mr Mendoza was part of a group of four plainclothes officers who confronted Thomas and a 17-year-old friend - identified in court documents as "NK" - on 1 March. The officers believed that NK was "tangentially connected" to a stolen firearm investigation.
When they attempted to stop the boys, "a shot went off" and broke a rear passenger window, the presentment added. When the boys attempted to flee, Mr Mendoza chased Thomas and fired at him three times.
The third shot, the document alleges, took place even though Mr Mendoza knew that Thomas' weapon had been discarded some 40ft (12m) away. Thomas had stopped running at the time the final shot was fired.
"Thus, when Mendoza fired the third and fatal shot, he knew the 12-year-old, five-foot tall, 111-pound Thomas Siderio no longer had a gun and no ability to harm him," Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner told reporters on Monday.
"But he fired a shot through his back nonetheless, killing him."
How Does a Stock Exchange Allow a Fat Finger to Crash the Market?
US banking giant Citigroup has said that one of its traders made an error in the so-called stock market "flash crash" in Europe on Monday.
A flash crash is an extremely fast fall in the price of one or more assets, often caused by a trading mistake.
Trading was briefly halted in several markets after major share indexes plunged just before 8am GMT on Monday.
Nordic stocks were hit the hardest, while other European indexes also plummeted for a short time.
"This morning one of our traders made an error when inputting a transaction. Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it," the New York-based bank said in a statement late on Monday.
The flash crash caused European shares to fall suddenly on a day when trading was particularly thin due to public holidays around the world.
Sweden's benchmark Stockholm OMX 30 share index was one of the hardest hit, falling by 8% at one point, before recovering most of those losses to end the day 1.87% lower.
Flash crashes can be caused by human error, or so-called "fat finger" trades - a reference to someone incorrectly typing the details of a trade.
Reports of His Demise Were Severely Exaggerated
Chinese district authorities have fired four officials after an elderly patient from a Shanghai care home was believed to be dead and loaded into a hearse.
On Sunday, online videos emerged showing two people who appear to be mortuary workers placing the body bag into a vehicle.
The workers are later seen pulling the bag open, and one can be heard saying the patient is still alive.
The incident has sparked widespread anger on Chinese social media.
Officials in the Shanghai district of Putuo confirmed the incident late on Monday, adding that the patient had since been taken to hospital and was in a stable condition.
Four officials, including the deputy director of the local civil affairs bureau and the director of the care home, were fired. A doctor identified only by their surname Tian, also had their medical license revoked.
She is Either Incredibly Gullible or a Liar. The People Who Vote for Her Are Just Gullible
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that a reported Supreme Court draft opinion circulated in February that suggests Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would be among the majority of conservative justices to support overturning Roe v. Wade went against what they said during their confirmation hearings.
"If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office," Collins said in a statement released by her office.
Ahead of the Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation hearings in 2018, in which he faced — and repeatedly denied — accusations of sexual assault, Collins met with him in her office to discuss his views. At the time, Collins, who supports abortion rights, said his opinion on whether Roe v. Wade sets a precedent would influence her decision on whether to back his nomination.
Collins told reporters after her conversation with him that Kavanaugh assured her that the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling protecting a woman's right to an abortion is "settled law."
Isn't It Ironic? The Burn a Ton of Coal, Creating Warming. It Gets So Hot, They Are Short of Coal to Burn.
An unusually early and brutal heat wave is scorching parts of India, with acute power shortages affecting millions as demand for electricity surges to record levels.
Supplies of coal at many thermal power plants are running perilously low, spawning daily power outages in several states. The shortages are sparking scrutiny of India’s long reliance on coal, which produces 70 percent of the country’s electricity.
The situation highlights India’s pressing need to diversify its energy sources, as demand for electricity is expected to increase more than anywhere else in the world over the next 20 years as the densely populated country develops, according to the International Energy Agency.
The shortages hit as blisteringly high temperatures are sweeping over parts of the country, prompting authorities to close schools, sparking fires at gigantic landfills and shriveling crops as a cool spring turned suddenly into unrelenting heat.
Eleanor Clift Misses the One Most Responsible: Mitch McConnell
The one person most responsible for the looming loss of abortion rights—aside from the president who appointed three anti-Roe justices—is Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who in October of 2018 became the 50th and deciding vote in the Senate for Brett Kavanaugh. [...]
Collins won a fifth term in the Senate in 2020, and her re-election wasn’t even a close call. She was too eager to believe all that fluff about stare decisis, and now a constitutional right that has been in place for 50 years is about to be shattered on the wing of a promise to her that predictably turned out to be a lie.
Susan Collins told the women of America that they could trust her to protect their reproductive freedom. She let us down.
I Am Sorry to Remind You That Michele Bachmann Exists.
Remember Michele Bachmann? She is the former Republican member of Congress from Minnesota who asked God about whether or not she should run for Senate, and God said, “No.” Bachmann’s belief that we were in the “End Times” dates back about nine years at this point, so her general prognosticating has never been particularly good. It has been a few years since anybody was forced to care about what Michele Bachmann had to say about anything. But a couple of months ago, Bachmann started doing the rounds, figuring her Bible-y brand of bullshit is back in fashion.
In November, Bachmann proclaimed to Americans that “children have almost a zero-rate of dying from COVID,” and that “just when COVID is really being extinguished” we should not have children vaccinated against the virus that has killed just under 1 million Americans and more than 6 million people worldwide. She followed up that appearance by heading over to Fox News to praise Sarah Palin’s irresponsible appearance at a restaurant—after Palin tested positive for COVID-19.
I'm Sorry to Remind You That Rudy Exists. How Creepy Is This?
OMG!!! Jared Still Exists, Too!!
Putin Sounds More Like Hitler Every Day
More than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia in the past two months, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday, according to the state-owned news agency TASS.
Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said those included 11,550 people, including 1,847 children, in the previous 24 hours, “without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities.”
He said those civilians “were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions” of Donetsk, Lugansk and other parts of Ukraine, according to the report. No details were provided on the location or circumstances of the moves.
Putin Ghosts the Pope. How Many Divisions Does the Vatican Have?
Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper he had offered to travel to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin to try to end Russia's war in Ukraine and suggested the invasion might have been provoked by NATO’s eastward expansion.
Francis said he made the offer about three weeks into Russia's invasion, via the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, but has yet to hear back.
Popes for decades have sought to visit Moscow as part of the longstanding effort to heal relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, which split with Rome more than 1,000 years ago. But an invitation has never been forthcoming.
TucKGBer Blathers On. Somehow He Connects Ukraine with Hillary Clinton
Tucker Carlson said Monday that U.S. aid to help Ukraine defend against Russia’s barbaric invasion is revenge for Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election.
“We don’t arm Ukraine so we can help the Ukrainians. They are merely unfortunate pawns in all of this,” the Fox News host claimed on his prime-time show. “We arm Ukraine so that we can punish Russia. Why? For stealing Hillary Clinton’s coronation.”
Carlson attempted to vilify the Biden administration for providing military support to Ukraine by claiming it was tied to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in 2019 determined that “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion” through social media manipulation to disparage Clinton and a hacking effort to obtain emails from her campaign.
“Democrats have convinced themselves Russia stole the presidency which rightfully belonged to Hillary Clinton,” Carlson said. “.. And that’s why they are taking us to war with Russia.”
The right-wing host also insisted the U.S. doesn’t aim to save lives or protect Ukraine, but merely wants to generate regime change in Russia as “payback for the 2016 election.”
ULTA Beauty Gets Ugly
Ulta Beauty is apologizing for sending a newsletter to customers with a subject line containing a "very insensitive choice of words."
In an email sent Sunday, the chain wrote "Come hang with Kate Spade" promoting the brand's line of perfumes. That prompted some subscribers to share the email on social media and ridicule Ulta for the subject line's apparent connection to the designer's death by suicide.
Spade was found dead by hanging at her Manhattan apartment in 2018. The creator of an accessible handbag line and other products, the 55-year-old designer suffered from anxiety and depression, her husband previously said.
"Ulta, you might need to speak to your marketing staff," a Twitter user wrote. Another person added that this was "not the best word choice."
The beauty company said it regretted the email.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Amazon Can Read the Polls. 69% of Americans Want to Keep Roe.
Amazon.com Inc., the second-largest U.S. private employer, told its staff on Monday it will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for non-life threatening medical treatments including abortions, according to a message seen by Reuters.
The decision makes the online retailer the latest company after Citigroup Inc., Yelp Inc. and others to respond to Republican-backed state laws curbing abortion access, helping employees bypass them. It shows how companies are eager to retain and attract talent in locations that remain important to their operations despite legal changes impacting employees’ health.
I Don't Think Jimmy Hoffa Is Available
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Invasions Have Consequences
Starry, Starry Skies In Staryy Saltov
Staryy Saltov, sometimes translated as Stariy Saltiv, lies east of Ukraine, and has been in Russian hands for much of the war.
The city lies on the eastern bank of a long bridge over the Pechenihy Reservoir, created by a dam over the Donets river. You might remember this old video from early March on the horrendous losses Russia suffered while taking that region. Today, it was announced liberated by the Twitter account of a purported local.
Translation:
Old Saltov is ours! Ours control the territory right up to the Rubezhansky bridge. The orcs completely blew up the bridge during the retreat. Behind the dam, in the direction of Volchansk, they burned a bunch of orc equipment, but the territory is still behind them. An armored personnel carrier of the Horde drove through my apiary during the retreat, there are losses in evidence
I don’t know why, but the detail about the apiary makes it more believable! Staryy Saltov is around 15 kilometers from yesterday’s front lines, which would suggest a collapse in Russia’s lines (and likely a strategic retreat). But of course, no one is hanging their hats on this one tweet. Ukrainian general staff announced yesterday:
I See Izyum
In the Izyum axis, Russia made some incremental gains.
Lyman and Yampil are on the north side of the Donets river, so Ukraine has room to fall back to the next defensive layer, behind the river. As long as those towns are fully evacuated, Ukraine has plenty of ground to spare. It’s a miracle they’ve lasted this long on the Russian-separatist side of the Donets. Losing those cities isn’t catastrophic, it’s likely inevitable. It just means Ukraine gets to move behind the river, where the defenses are even stronger. Land for blood.
Incidentally, that river is the reason Izyum was so important—it finally gave Russia a river crossing, the only one thus far in this axis.
Do You Think I Am Too Responsible to Pass on a Rumor? Think Again. Then Think Again Before Believing This.
The mainstream media establishment isn’t really reporting this yet, so more confirmation is needed before we can be sure, but according to the Telegram channel General SVR, per Business Standard News, an anonymous “former high-ranking Kremlin military figure” says that Russian dictator and war criminal Vladimir Putin is about to give up power temporarily so as to undergo surgery for abdominal cancer.
But he has other problems as well, the source says:
He also suffers from "Parkinson's disease and schizoaffective disorder", which carries symptoms of schizophrenia including hallucinations and mania.
Here's the "source".
I Don't Know Who Karl Is
“Russia’s offensive energy seems to be fading. Last week they lost at least 10 BTGs worth of equipment. That’s really significant. More difficult to assess how many KIAs but it can’t be good. Under these circumstances they can’t retain the offensive pace.”
“There are signs of Russian desperation. It’s not adequate for a top commander such as Gen. Valery Gerasimov [Russia's chief of the general staff] to lead units on the ground himself. It is fairly certain that he stayed there last week, Thursday through Saturday..."
"This means he wasn’t satisfied with the progress and went to take charge himself. This didn’t help at all.”
“Russia has had the most progress near Zaporizhzhia but Ukraine has now been able to stop that as well. Russian advances near Izyum, Severodonetsk and Slovyansk have been extremely minimal and have come with heavy losses.”
“Ukraine has had success in Kharkiv. The north side has been deblocked. The Russians can still shell the city only from the east. It might still have hold of the Belgorod-Izyum highway but Ukraine has the highway on artillery range. The Russian supply line is not safe.”
“Ten days ago there was a threat of the Russians’ surrounding Severodonetsk. There is no sign of anything as such happening now.”
“Russia’s massive losses, such as 40 tanks a day, still allowed them to advance only 2-3 km a day. There is no sign that they’re bringing in new units or equipment. There has been no such movement in several days.”
“Expect Ukrainian counter-offensives to scale up but I don’t want to speculate on when. In Kyiv it started 1.5 to 2 weeks after Russia’s strong offense stopped. According to that logic, there are still 1.5 weeks to go.”
“Ukrainian counter-offensives will not be so large-scale. They will need to go carefully so as not to weaken themselves so much that they’d need to retreat. We can expect counterattacks as in Kharkiv soon also in Izyum, Severodonetsk.”
“Russia’s main strength has been forcing Ukraine to leave ground with massive artillery fire. Ukraine has already received but maybe not deployed Western-supplied artillery that has a larger range than Russia’s. Ukraine will soon be able to shell Russian artillery positions.”
“Russian units in Moldova don’t have capability to change the situation in Ukraine but the risk is related to them going against Moldova. Doubtful if they could succeed even against an extremely weak Moldovan army. Doubtful, too, if Ukraine and Romania would allow it to happen.”
“It is also questionable if Transnistria’s elite would allow this. They have been able to export to the EU through Moldova and there is a certain degree of economic integration between Transnistria and Moldova.”
“Today is the anniversary of the 2014 Odessa Trade Union Building fire. No serious related provocations or terrorist acts have been recorded so far. The Ukrainian SBU has kept a close eye on this.”
“Russia’s targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure, supply lines has had an effect but the railway network in Central Ukraine is so dense, it allows rerouting. The Zatoka bridge (bombed 2 or 3 times now) isn't important militarily but it breaks Ukraine’s trade line to Romanian ports.”
“It’s noteworthy that there have been increased attacks on infrastructure and military objects inside Russia. It’s fairly certain that at least in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk that has been Ukraine’s work. War is reaching Russia’s homes, it’s no longer just a TV war for them.”
“Also noteworthy is Russia’s childish mistakes such as leaving the Snake Island patrol boats as open targets or Lavrov’s statement on Jews. Israel has kept a very low profile until now but such statements didn't leave them an option but to react.”
“Russia will not get a notable win before May 9. A theoretical chance that there could be an agreement that Ukrainian troops leave Mariupol before that. They would need to be able to leave with guns in hands..."
"Can Putin show this as a win if they’ve already long ago declared conquering the city?”
“It would be emotionally important for Ukraine not to let the troops still in Azovstal die in the end of hunger. Such an agreement would allow Russia to move around 3-5 BTGs. Such agreement is possible but unlikely before May 9.”
“Putin has a few very bad hands to play. He can’t afford losing the war. One option is general mobilization which would be a blow to the economy. The reserve units would need training and equipment that they don’t have. Takes a lot of time.”
“I can’t exclude that he will use a tactical nuclear weapon. The risk for him: Russia’s General Staff will tell him to fuck off. Then he’d be a dictator without an instrument of power. It would be the end for him..."
"Militarily neither of the options would make sense but would hasten the end of the war.”
“It’s unclear how bad the losses for Ukraine have been. Earlier estimates said 2,500-3,000 men. By now this can be doubled. Such losses should still be manageable for Kyiv.”
“The thing to watch out for: talks in the West about the importance of peace while not saying anything about the aggressor. Considering what Russia is doing in Ukraine, such talk is a cynical crime..."
"Peace is not the most important thing right now but chasing the aggressor out of the country is.”
He Probably Won't Need It. He Will Probably Commit "Suicide", Like the Other Oligarchs.
Fiji's High Court on Tuesday ruled that a massive Russian-owned yacht can be seized by U.S. authorities.
American and Fijian officials claim the Cayman Islands-flagged Amadea is the property of Suleiman Kerimov, an oligarch who built his fortune on gold mining. Kerimov was sanctioned in March by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But an attorney who represents Millemarin Investments, the company the $325 million ship is registered to, said it's not owned by Kerimov. Instead, he argued in court that corporate paperwork traces the ship's ownership to Eduard Khudainatov, a former executive at Russia's state-owned Rosneft oil company who has not been sanctioned.
What If Russia Mobilizes?
Whether Vladimir Putin calls a general mobilization or not will be irrelevant.
Say he does—then what? Russian logistics are stretched to the breaking point, unable to keep up with whatever they have in theater at this moment. They have a conscript class of 130,000 currently in progress. Are they going to throw them all into Ukraine at once? Draft even more?
How will they feed 130,000 (or more) new soldiers, when they can’t even take care of what’s there now? What vehicles will they ride? What dusty and rusty old Soviet-era equipment will they dig up from pilfered reserve stocks to equip them?
I suspect is these new conscripts will be sent to existing units to replace combat losses, just like Russia has done all war. Ineffective units will become even more so, low morale will reach even deeper lows, and forget about any notion of unit cohesion.
Human waves. That’s the only way Russian volunteers and conscripts can be used in the war. They're not going to learn combat skills. The original invading force lacked them, and they were supposedly trained.
These poor souls will be sacrificed en masse to Putin’s megalomania as Ukrainian artillery shreds them to pieces. This is a war crime, not on the Ukrainian people, but on Russia’s youth itself.
If Russia Declares War on Ukraine, Does That Give Ukraine Free Rein to Attack Targets in Russia?
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You Can Lead a Horse's Ass to a Vaccine, But You Can't Make Him Take It.
A major threat to the next pandemic: Vaccine hesitancy
Scientists can make safe and effective vaccines against novel pathogens. The bigger challenge is persuading everyone to use them.
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Remember When the Mob Ran Las Vegas?
A body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the the newly exposed bottom of Nevada's Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest U.S. reservoirs — and officials predicted the discovery could be just the first of more grim finds.
“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains," Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Spencer told KLAS-TV on Monday.
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What Could Be More American Than Mongolian Mutton?
The hamburger has a well-traveled history.
According to Motz, the hamburger's origin story starts in 13th-century Mongolia when Mongols and Tatars were fighting.
"Apparently, the Tatars had a taste for raw mutton. They would ride all day long with raw mutton under their saddles. When they finally set up camp, they would take this raw, warm mutton, chop it up, probably add some spices or something, and eat it that way."
Hamburger History
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This May Seem Like a Repeat of Yesterday's Story, But This One is Based on a Different Scientific Paper
Their virus symptoms were minor. Then they had long Covid.
Emerging research suggests that a small portion of people who now live with long Covid may have showed no Covid-19 symptoms at all when they were initially infected -- or their symptoms were mild or unusual.
One preprint paper, posted last year to the server MedRxiv, featured an analysis of more than 1,400 medical records in California for people who tested positive for Covid-19. It found that roughly 32% of those reporting long-haul symptoms more than 60 days following a Covid-19 diagnosis had no symptoms at the time of their initial Covid-19 test.
"I've seen similar stuff in clinic, as well. Patients coming in with either no symptoms or some very mild symptoms like sore throat, cough, maybe some sneezing, and a few weeks later, debilitating headaches, inability to get up in the morning or just unrelenting fatigue and weakness. And before we knew that long Covid was really a phenomenon, we didn't know what to do," said Dr. Ali Khan, who specializes in internal medicine at Oak Street Health in Chicago.
In some people, "we are seeing the coronavirus itself interact with almost every single part of the human body, which is just so atypical for most diseases, particularly most viruses. So we see that in some people -- even in people whose initial infections were silent -- it can work in the bloodstream to cause you to be more likely to get a blood clot," he said. "For other people, that coronavirus is attacking the nerves, and it's causing nerve pain; it's causing headaches; it's causing longstanding sciatica that many of my patients are dealing with."
The Paper
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| May 2 | 60,410 | 318 | |
| May 1 | 57,020 | 307 | 2,072 |
| Apr 30 | 56,581 | 310 | 1,882 |
| Apr 29 | 56,166 | 308 | 1,946 |
| Apr 28 | 54,696 | 311 | 1,955 |
| Apr 27 | 53,133 | 334 | 1,941 |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | 1,889 |
| Apr 25 | 47,407 | 330 | 1,840 |
| Apr 24 | 44,416 | 314 | 1,779 |
| Apr 23 | 45,413 | 315 | 1,629 |
| Apr 22 | 44,308 | 311 | 1,642 |
| Apr 21 | 40,744 | 346 | 1,647 |
| Apr 20 | 42,604 | 375 | 1,609 |
| Apr 19 | 40,985 | 385 | 1,582 |
| Apr 18 | 37,132 | 380 | 1,564 |
| Apr 17 | 35,212 | 373 | 1,542 |
| Apr 16 | 34,972 | 379 | 1,532 |
| Apr 15 | 34,778 | 399 | 1,510 |
| Apr 14 | 35,475 | 446 | 1,490 |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 | 1,477 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 | 1,463 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 | 1.447 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 | 1,443 |
| 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 | |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.5% | 66.0% | 45.6% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.3% | 70.2% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 87.1% | 74.5% | 47.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.9% | 76.0% | 49.1% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 90.0% | 68.3% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 27)
We had some rain up north this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 81% (74%) | 79% (70%) | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 67% (61%) | 65% (58%) | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 62% (57%) | 60% (54%) | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 29% | 15% | |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 33% | 27% | |
| Snow Water Content - South | 23% | 24% |
Short Editorial: This Is Not Really About Abortion. It's About White Men.
Let me be clear. I am not saying any of this is true of all evangelicals. However, it is true for many of them and drives their agenda.
A significant portion of evangelicals believe that we should be a patriarchal society, where men make the decisions and women are submissive. They believe that women should stay at home and raise children. Essentially, they are the Taliban.
These views are challenged by birth control and abortion that allow women more freedom to have sex.
Gay people and gay marriage challenge their idea of a relationship where the man rules.
There is also a strong element of racism, for many who find inter-racial relationships and marriage disturbing.
I believe their agenda is to totally eliminate rights guaranteed by the right to privacy. They want to:
- Ban all abortion
- Ban contraception
- Eliminate gay marriage
- Criminalize sodomy
Abortion is just the beginning. They used the imagery of "protecting babies" as a way to rally support, but it hides a bigger agenda.
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My Fear of Moving Stairs is Escalating
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
I'll Be Interested in Hearing His Defense for Shooting an Unarmed Kid in the Back
A former Philadelphia police officer has been charged with murder for fatally shooting a 12-year-old boy in the back during a chaotic foot chase in early March.
Authorities say that Edsaul Mendoza, 26, engaged in a "tactically unsound" pursuit of Thomas "TJ" Siderio and shot him despite knowing he was unarmed.
Police believed a friend of his was involved in the theft of a weapon.
Mr Mendoza was arrested on Sunday.
According to a presentment of facts released by Philadelphia's District Attorney, Mr Mendoza was part of a group of four plainclothes officers who confronted Thomas and a 17-year-old friend - identified in court documents as "NK" - on 1 March. The officers believed that NK was "tangentially connected" to a stolen firearm investigation.
When they attempted to stop the boys, "a shot went off" and broke a rear passenger window, the presentment added. When the boys attempted to flee, Mr Mendoza chased Thomas and fired at him three times.
The third shot, the document alleges, took place even though Mr Mendoza knew that Thomas' weapon had been discarded some 40ft (12m) away. Thomas had stopped running at the time the final shot was fired.
"Thus, when Mendoza fired the third and fatal shot, he knew the 12-year-old, five-foot tall, 111-pound Thomas Siderio no longer had a gun and no ability to harm him," Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner told reporters on Monday.
"But he fired a shot through his back nonetheless, killing him."
How Does a Stock Exchange Allow a Fat Finger to Crash the Market?
US banking giant Citigroup has said that one of its traders made an error in the so-called stock market "flash crash" in Europe on Monday.
A flash crash is an extremely fast fall in the price of one or more assets, often caused by a trading mistake.
Trading was briefly halted in several markets after major share indexes plunged just before 8am GMT on Monday.
Nordic stocks were hit the hardest, while other European indexes also plummeted for a short time.
"This morning one of our traders made an error when inputting a transaction. Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it," the New York-based bank said in a statement late on Monday.
The flash crash caused European shares to fall suddenly on a day when trading was particularly thin due to public holidays around the world.
Sweden's benchmark Stockholm OMX 30 share index was one of the hardest hit, falling by 8% at one point, before recovering most of those losses to end the day 1.87% lower.
Flash crashes can be caused by human error, or so-called "fat finger" trades - a reference to someone incorrectly typing the details of a trade.
Reports of His Demise Were Severely Exaggerated
Chinese district authorities have fired four officials after an elderly patient from a Shanghai care home was believed to be dead and loaded into a hearse.
On Sunday, online videos emerged showing two people who appear to be mortuary workers placing the body bag into a vehicle.
The workers are later seen pulling the bag open, and one can be heard saying the patient is still alive.
The incident has sparked widespread anger on Chinese social media.
Officials in the Shanghai district of Putuo confirmed the incident late on Monday, adding that the patient had since been taken to hospital and was in a stable condition.
Four officials, including the deputy director of the local civil affairs bureau and the director of the care home, were fired. A doctor identified only by their surname Tian, also had their medical license revoked.
She is Either Incredibly Gullible or a Liar. The People Who Vote for Her Are Just Gullible
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that a reported Supreme Court draft opinion circulated in February that suggests Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would be among the majority of conservative justices to support overturning Roe v. Wade went against what they said during their confirmation hearings.
"If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office," Collins said in a statement released by her office.
Ahead of the Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation hearings in 2018, in which he faced — and repeatedly denied — accusations of sexual assault, Collins met with him in her office to discuss his views. At the time, Collins, who supports abortion rights, said his opinion on whether Roe v. Wade sets a precedent would influence her decision on whether to back his nomination.
Collins told reporters after her conversation with him that Kavanaugh assured her that the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling protecting a woman's right to an abortion is "settled law."
Isn't It Ironic? The Burn a Ton of Coal, Creating Warming. It Gets So Hot, They Are Short of Coal to Burn.
An unusually early and brutal heat wave is scorching parts of India, with acute power shortages affecting millions as demand for electricity surges to record levels.
Supplies of coal at many thermal power plants are running perilously low, spawning daily power outages in several states. The shortages are sparking scrutiny of India’s long reliance on coal, which produces 70 percent of the country’s electricity.
The situation highlights India’s pressing need to diversify its energy sources, as demand for electricity is expected to increase more than anywhere else in the world over the next 20 years as the densely populated country develops, according to the International Energy Agency.
The shortages hit as blisteringly high temperatures are sweeping over parts of the country, prompting authorities to close schools, sparking fires at gigantic landfills and shriveling crops as a cool spring turned suddenly into unrelenting heat.
Eleanor Clift Misses the One Most Responsible: Mitch McConnell
The one person most responsible for the looming loss of abortion rights—aside from the president who appointed three anti-Roe justices—is Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who in October of 2018 became the 50th and deciding vote in the Senate for Brett Kavanaugh. [...]
Collins won a fifth term in the Senate in 2020, and her re-election wasn’t even a close call. She was too eager to believe all that fluff about stare decisis, and now a constitutional right that has been in place for 50 years is about to be shattered on the wing of a promise to her that predictably turned out to be a lie.
Susan Collins told the women of America that they could trust her to protect their reproductive freedom. She let us down.
I Am Sorry to Remind You That Michele Bachmann Exists.
Remember Michele Bachmann? She is the former Republican member of Congress from Minnesota who asked God about whether or not she should run for Senate, and God said, “No.” Bachmann’s belief that we were in the “End Times” dates back about nine years at this point, so her general prognosticating has never been particularly good. It has been a few years since anybody was forced to care about what Michele Bachmann had to say about anything. But a couple of months ago, Bachmann started doing the rounds, figuring her Bible-y brand of bullshit is back in fashion.
In November, Bachmann proclaimed to Americans that “children have almost a zero-rate of dying from COVID,” and that “just when COVID is really being extinguished” we should not have children vaccinated against the virus that has killed just under 1 million Americans and more than 6 million people worldwide. She followed up that appearance by heading over to Fox News to praise Sarah Palin’s irresponsible appearance at a restaurant—after Palin tested positive for COVID-19.
I'm Sorry to Remind You That Rudy Exists. How Creepy Is This?
OMG!!! Jared Still Exists, Too!!
Putin Sounds More Like Hitler Every Day
More than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia in the past two months, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday, according to the state-owned news agency TASS.
Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said those included 11,550 people, including 1,847 children, in the previous 24 hours, “without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities.”
He said those civilians “were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions” of Donetsk, Lugansk and other parts of Ukraine, according to the report. No details were provided on the location or circumstances of the moves.
Putin Ghosts the Pope. How Many Divisions Does the Vatican Have?
Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper he had offered to travel to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin to try to end Russia's war in Ukraine and suggested the invasion might have been provoked by NATO’s eastward expansion.
Francis said he made the offer about three weeks into Russia's invasion, via the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, but has yet to hear back.
Popes for decades have sought to visit Moscow as part of the longstanding effort to heal relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, which split with Rome more than 1,000 years ago. But an invitation has never been forthcoming.
TucKGBer Blathers On. Somehow He Connects Ukraine with Hillary Clinton
Tucker Carlson said Monday that U.S. aid to help Ukraine defend against Russia’s barbaric invasion is revenge for Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election.
“We don’t arm Ukraine so we can help the Ukrainians. They are merely unfortunate pawns in all of this,” the Fox News host claimed on his prime-time show. “We arm Ukraine so that we can punish Russia. Why? For stealing Hillary Clinton’s coronation.”
Carlson attempted to vilify the Biden administration for providing military support to Ukraine by claiming it was tied to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in 2019 determined that “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion” through social media manipulation to disparage Clinton and a hacking effort to obtain emails from her campaign.
“Democrats have convinced themselves Russia stole the presidency which rightfully belonged to Hillary Clinton,” Carlson said. “.. And that’s why they are taking us to war with Russia.”
The right-wing host also insisted the U.S. doesn’t aim to save lives or protect Ukraine, but merely wants to generate regime change in Russia as “payback for the 2016 election.”
ULTA Beauty Gets Ugly
Ulta Beauty is apologizing for sending a newsletter to customers with a subject line containing a "very insensitive choice of words."
In an email sent Sunday, the chain wrote "Come hang with Kate Spade" promoting the brand's line of perfumes. That prompted some subscribers to share the email on social media and ridicule Ulta for the subject line's apparent connection to the designer's death by suicide.
Spade was found dead by hanging at her Manhattan apartment in 2018. The creator of an accessible handbag line and other products, the 55-year-old designer suffered from anxiety and depression, her husband previously said.
"Ulta, you might need to speak to your marketing staff," a Twitter user wrote. Another person added that this was "not the best word choice."
The beauty company said it regretted the email.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Amazon Can Read the Polls. 69% of Americans Want to Keep Roe.
Amazon.com Inc., the second-largest U.S. private employer, told its staff on Monday it will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for non-life threatening medical treatments including abortions, according to a message seen by Reuters.
The decision makes the online retailer the latest company after Citigroup Inc., Yelp Inc. and others to respond to Republican-backed state laws curbing abortion access, helping employees bypass them. It shows how companies are eager to retain and attract talent in locations that remain important to their operations despite legal changes impacting employees’ health.
I Don't Think Jimmy Hoffa Is Available
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Invasions Have Consequences
Starry, Starry Skies In Staryy Saltov
Staryy Saltov, sometimes translated as Stariy Saltiv, lies east of Ukraine, and has been in Russian hands for much of the war.
The city lies on the eastern bank of a long bridge over the Pechenihy Reservoir, created by a dam over the Donets river. You might remember this old video from early March on the horrendous losses Russia suffered while taking that region. Today, it was announced liberated by the Twitter account of a purported local.
Translation:
Old Saltov is ours! Ours control the territory right up to the Rubezhansky bridge. The orcs completely blew up the bridge during the retreat. Behind the dam, in the direction of Volchansk, they burned a bunch of orc equipment, but the territory is still behind them. An armored personnel carrier of the Horde drove through my apiary during the retreat, there are losses in evidence
I don’t know why, but the detail about the apiary makes it more believable! Staryy Saltov is around 15 kilometers from yesterday’s front lines, which would suggest a collapse in Russia’s lines (and likely a strategic retreat). But of course, no one is hanging their hats on this one tweet. Ukrainian general staff announced yesterday:
I See Izyum
In the Izyum axis, Russia made some incremental gains.
Lyman and Yampil are on the north side of the Donets river, so Ukraine has room to fall back to the next defensive layer, behind the river. As long as those towns are fully evacuated, Ukraine has plenty of ground to spare. It’s a miracle they’ve lasted this long on the Russian-separatist side of the Donets. Losing those cities isn’t catastrophic, it’s likely inevitable. It just means Ukraine gets to move behind the river, where the defenses are even stronger. Land for blood.
Incidentally, that river is the reason Izyum was so important—it finally gave Russia a river crossing, the only one thus far in this axis.
Do You Think I Am Too Responsible to Pass on a Rumor? Think Again. Then Think Again Before Believing This.
The mainstream media establishment isn’t really reporting this yet, so more confirmation is needed before we can be sure, but according to the Telegram channel General SVR, per Business Standard News, an anonymous “former high-ranking Kremlin military figure” says that Russian dictator and war criminal Vladimir Putin is about to give up power temporarily so as to undergo surgery for abdominal cancer.
But he has other problems as well, the source says:
He also suffers from "Parkinson's disease and schizoaffective disorder", which carries symptoms of schizophrenia including hallucinations and mania.
Here's the "source".
I Don't Know Who Karl Is
“Russia’s offensive energy seems to be fading. Last week they lost at least 10 BTGs worth of equipment. That’s really significant. More difficult to assess how many KIAs but it can’t be good. Under these circumstances they can’t retain the offensive pace.”
“There are signs of Russian desperation. It’s not adequate for a top commander such as Gen. Valery Gerasimov [Russia's chief of the general staff] to lead units on the ground himself. It is fairly certain that he stayed there last week, Thursday through Saturday..."
"This means he wasn’t satisfied with the progress and went to take charge himself. This didn’t help at all.”
“Russia has had the most progress near Zaporizhzhia but Ukraine has now been able to stop that as well. Russian advances near Izyum, Severodonetsk and Slovyansk have been extremely minimal and have come with heavy losses.”
“Ukraine has had success in Kharkiv. The north side has been deblocked. The Russians can still shell the city only from the east. It might still have hold of the Belgorod-Izyum highway but Ukraine has the highway on artillery range. The Russian supply line is not safe.”
“Ten days ago there was a threat of the Russians’ surrounding Severodonetsk. There is no sign of anything as such happening now.”
“Russia’s massive losses, such as 40 tanks a day, still allowed them to advance only 2-3 km a day. There is no sign that they’re bringing in new units or equipment. There has been no such movement in several days.”
“Expect Ukrainian counter-offensives to scale up but I don’t want to speculate on when. In Kyiv it started 1.5 to 2 weeks after Russia’s strong offense stopped. According to that logic, there are still 1.5 weeks to go.”
“Ukrainian counter-offensives will not be so large-scale. They will need to go carefully so as not to weaken themselves so much that they’d need to retreat. We can expect counterattacks as in Kharkiv soon also in Izyum, Severodonetsk.”
“Russia’s main strength has been forcing Ukraine to leave ground with massive artillery fire. Ukraine has already received but maybe not deployed Western-supplied artillery that has a larger range than Russia’s. Ukraine will soon be able to shell Russian artillery positions.”
“Russian units in Moldova don’t have capability to change the situation in Ukraine but the risk is related to them going against Moldova. Doubtful if they could succeed even against an extremely weak Moldovan army. Doubtful, too, if Ukraine and Romania would allow it to happen.”
“It is also questionable if Transnistria’s elite would allow this. They have been able to export to the EU through Moldova and there is a certain degree of economic integration between Transnistria and Moldova.”
“Today is the anniversary of the 2014 Odessa Trade Union Building fire. No serious related provocations or terrorist acts have been recorded so far. The Ukrainian SBU has kept a close eye on this.”
“Russia’s targeting Ukraine’s infrastructure, supply lines has had an effect but the railway network in Central Ukraine is so dense, it allows rerouting. The Zatoka bridge (bombed 2 or 3 times now) isn't important militarily but it breaks Ukraine’s trade line to Romanian ports.”
“It’s noteworthy that there have been increased attacks on infrastructure and military objects inside Russia. It’s fairly certain that at least in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk that has been Ukraine’s work. War is reaching Russia’s homes, it’s no longer just a TV war for them.”
“Also noteworthy is Russia’s childish mistakes such as leaving the Snake Island patrol boats as open targets or Lavrov’s statement on Jews. Israel has kept a very low profile until now but such statements didn't leave them an option but to react.”
“Russia will not get a notable win before May 9. A theoretical chance that there could be an agreement that Ukrainian troops leave Mariupol before that. They would need to be able to leave with guns in hands..."
"Can Putin show this as a win if they’ve already long ago declared conquering the city?”
“It would be emotionally important for Ukraine not to let the troops still in Azovstal die in the end of hunger. Such an agreement would allow Russia to move around 3-5 BTGs. Such agreement is possible but unlikely before May 9.”
“Putin has a few very bad hands to play. He can’t afford losing the war. One option is general mobilization which would be a blow to the economy. The reserve units would need training and equipment that they don’t have. Takes a lot of time.”
“I can’t exclude that he will use a tactical nuclear weapon. The risk for him: Russia’s General Staff will tell him to fuck off. Then he’d be a dictator without an instrument of power. It would be the end for him..."
"Militarily neither of the options would make sense but would hasten the end of the war.”
“It’s unclear how bad the losses for Ukraine have been. Earlier estimates said 2,500-3,000 men. By now this can be doubled. Such losses should still be manageable for Kyiv.”
“The thing to watch out for: talks in the West about the importance of peace while not saying anything about the aggressor. Considering what Russia is doing in Ukraine, such talk is a cynical crime..."
"Peace is not the most important thing right now but chasing the aggressor out of the country is.”
He Probably Won't Need It. He Will Probably Commit "Suicide", Like the Other Oligarchs.
Fiji's High Court on Tuesday ruled that a massive Russian-owned yacht can be seized by U.S. authorities.
American and Fijian officials claim the Cayman Islands-flagged Amadea is the property of Suleiman Kerimov, an oligarch who built his fortune on gold mining. Kerimov was sanctioned in March by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But an attorney who represents Millemarin Investments, the company the $325 million ship is registered to, said it's not owned by Kerimov. Instead, he argued in court that corporate paperwork traces the ship's ownership to Eduard Khudainatov, a former executive at Russia's state-owned Rosneft oil company who has not been sanctioned.
What If Russia Mobilizes?
Whether Vladimir Putin calls a general mobilization or not will be irrelevant.
Say he does—then what? Russian logistics are stretched to the breaking point, unable to keep up with whatever they have in theater at this moment. They have a conscript class of 130,000 currently in progress. Are they going to throw them all into Ukraine at once? Draft even more?
How will they feed 130,000 (or more) new soldiers, when they can’t even take care of what’s there now? What vehicles will they ride? What dusty and rusty old Soviet-era equipment will they dig up from pilfered reserve stocks to equip them?
I suspect is these new conscripts will be sent to existing units to replace combat losses, just like Russia has done all war. Ineffective units will become even more so, low morale will reach even deeper lows, and forget about any notion of unit cohesion.
Human waves. That’s the only way Russian volunteers and conscripts can be used in the war. They're not going to learn combat skills. The original invading force lacked them, and they were supposedly trained.
These poor souls will be sacrificed en masse to Putin’s megalomania as Ukrainian artillery shreds them to pieces. This is a war crime, not on the Ukrainian people, but on Russia’s youth itself.
If Russia Declares War on Ukraine, Does That Give Ukraine Free Rein to Attack Targets in Russia?
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You Can Lead a Horse's Ass to a Vaccine, But You Can't Make Him Take It.
A major threat to the next pandemic: Vaccine hesitancy
Scientists can make safe and effective vaccines against novel pathogens. The bigger challenge is persuading everyone to use them.
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Remember When the Mob Ran Las Vegas?
A body inside a barrel was found over the weekend on the the newly exposed bottom of Nevada's Lake Mead as drought depletes one of the largest U.S. reservoirs — and officials predicted the discovery could be just the first of more grim finds.
“I would say there is a very good chance as the water level drops that we are going to find additional human remains," Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Spencer told KLAS-TV on Monday.
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What Could Be More American Than Mongolian Mutton?
The hamburger has a well-traveled history.
According to Motz, the hamburger's origin story starts in 13th-century Mongolia when Mongols and Tatars were fighting.
"Apparently, the Tatars had a taste for raw mutton. They would ride all day long with raw mutton under their saddles. When they finally set up camp, they would take this raw, warm mutton, chop it up, probably add some spices or something, and eat it that way."
Hamburger History
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This May Seem Like a Repeat of Yesterday's Story, But This One is Based on a Different Scientific Paper
Their virus symptoms were minor. Then they had long Covid.
Emerging research suggests that a small portion of people who now live with long Covid may have showed no Covid-19 symptoms at all when they were initially infected -- or their symptoms were mild or unusual.
One preprint paper, posted last year to the server MedRxiv, featured an analysis of more than 1,400 medical records in California for people who tested positive for Covid-19. It found that roughly 32% of those reporting long-haul symptoms more than 60 days following a Covid-19 diagnosis had no symptoms at the time of their initial Covid-19 test.
"I've seen similar stuff in clinic, as well. Patients coming in with either no symptoms or some very mild symptoms like sore throat, cough, maybe some sneezing, and a few weeks later, debilitating headaches, inability to get up in the morning or just unrelenting fatigue and weakness. And before we knew that long Covid was really a phenomenon, we didn't know what to do," said Dr. Ali Khan, who specializes in internal medicine at Oak Street Health in Chicago.
In some people, "we are seeing the coronavirus itself interact with almost every single part of the human body, which is just so atypical for most diseases, particularly most viruses. So we see that in some people -- even in people whose initial infections were silent -- it can work in the bloodstream to cause you to be more likely to get a blood clot," he said. "For other people, that coronavirus is attacking the nerves, and it's causing nerve pain; it's causing headaches; it's causing longstanding sciatica that many of my patients are dealing with."
The Paper
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