Sat - Dumb and Dumber. Crazy and Crazier. Evil and Eviler

Skip the Balloons.  Save a Life.

A global helium shortage has doctors worried about one of the natural gas’s most essential, and perhaps unexpected, uses: MRIs.

Strange as it sounds, the lighter-than-air element that gives balloons their buoyancy also powers the vital medical diagnostic machines. An MRI can’t function without some 2,000 liters of ultra-cold liquid helium keeping its magnets cool enough to work. But helium — a nonrenewable element found deep within the Earth’s crust — is running low, leaving hospitals wondering how to plan for a future with a much scarcer supply.

“Helium has become a big concern,” said Mahadevappa Mahesh, professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Baltimore. “Especially now with the geopolitical situation.”

Helium has been a volatile commodity for years. This is especially true in the U.S., where a Texas-based federal helium reserve is dwindling as the government tries transferring ownership to private markets.

Until this year, the U.S. was counting on Russia to ease the tight supply. An enormous new facility in eastern Russia was supposed to supply nearly one-third of the world’s helium, but a fire last January derailed the timeline. Although the facility could resume operations any day, the war in Ukraine has, for the most part, stopped trade between the two countries.

Now, four of five major U.S. helium suppliers are rationing the element, said Phil Kornbluth, president of Kornbluth Helium Consulting. These suppliers are prioritizing the health care industry by reducing helium allotments to less essential customers.

What's It All Mean?  Beats Me!





Republican activists who believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump have crafted a plan that, in their telling, will thwart cheating in this year’s midterm elections.



FILE - Ballot boxes are lined up as employees test voting equipment at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, Oct. 19, 2022, in Miami, in advance of the 2022 midterm elections on Nov. 8. Republican activists who believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump have crafted a plan that, in their telling, will thwart cheating in this year's midterm elections. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

FILE - Ballot boxes are lined up as employees test voting equipment at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, Oct. 19, 2022, in Miami, in advance of the 2022 midterm elections on Nov. 8. Republican activists who believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump have crafted a plan that, in their telling, will thwart cheating in this year's midterm elections. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

© Provided by The Associated Press

The strategy: Vote in person on Election Day or — for voters who receive a mailed ballot — hold onto it and hand it in at a polling place or election office on Nov. 8.



The plan is based on unfounded conspiracy theories that fraudsters will manipulate voting systems to rig results for Democrats once they have seen how many Republican votes have been returned early. There has been no evidence of any such widespread fraud.

Fox is Fatal

It is official. Blacks are now less likely to die of COVID than whites in general. And conservative whites are more likely to die than liberal whites. Why? Medical and social scientists will tease causation and trends out of the data. And write scholarly papers dense in statistics and details. But we can keep it simple. Conservatives are morons.

Chess Nuts Suing In An Open Court

A 19-year-old chess grandmaster is seeking $100 million in a federal lawsuit alleging a rival chess player and others destroyed his career with false accusations of cheating, elevating a controversy that has roiled the chess world since September.

Hans Niemann filed the lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis against chess world champion Magnus Carlsen, who has suggested Niemann cheated during his upset win over Carlsen at the Sinquefield Cup tournament in St. Louis.

Niemann is seeking damages from Carlsen; Carlsen’s company Play Magnus Group; online chess site Chess.com; Hikaru Nakamura, an American grandmaster who is an influential streaming partner on Chess.com; and Chess.com executive Danny Rensch.

It alleges the defendants worked together to defame and libel Niemann after his Sinquefield Cup win.

Dispensing PEZ Justice

On the list of strange ways to make money is a career path that's hard to make up: a PEZ smuggler.

PEZ, the small candy tablets that are loaded into colorful dispensers, have collectors who will pay very high prices for rare pieces. And Steve Glew was happy to step in to provide the supply.

A new documentary, "The Pez Outlaw," chronicles the story of Glew, a man from a small town in Michigan who made millions of dollars smuggling rare PEZ candy dispensers from Eastern Europe to the United States.

"In 11 years, I earned $4.5 million," Glew told ABC News Prime's Linsey Davis. He recalled one single shipment of PEZ dispensers worth $500,000.

Glew would acquire PEZ dispensers directly from the European factory where they were made and then sell them to collectors in the United States; in some cases, for thousands of dollars each.

The documentary has elaborately restaged incidents from Glew's career as a so-called PEZ outlaw in the 1990s, including encounters with the police and ultimately someone called the "Pezident," the head of U.S. distribution for the PEZ corporation, who eventually took Glew out of business.

I Am Not Sure Why This Was Illegal