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Kyle Rittenhouse claims he's going to Texas A&M. The university begs to differ.

California bees are ruled fish, recalls, gas prices, why your whole family has Covid but you test negative
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Published Monday, June 06, 2022 @ 3:10 PM EDT

Jun 06 2022

Open carry

California bees can legally be fish and have the same protections, a court has ruled. In a lucky loophole for insects, mollusks, and other spineless creatures falling under the umbrella term "invertebrate," the act itself defines a "fish" as "a wild fish, mollusk, crustacean, invertebrate, amphibian, or part, spawn, or ovum of any of those animals." Expanding the definition of fish to include invertebrates makes them eligible for greater protection from the Fish and Game Commission, wrote the court.

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Trump-Backed Senate Candidate Blames U.S. gun violence on 'black people' in unhinged interview Conservative GOP candidate Blake Masters-who has pushed the White nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory-shared his thoughts on why there’s a gun violence problem in the United States.

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My family got Covid. So why did we test negative? The key to this household mystery may lie in our vaccination status, experts say. Because the virus doesn't replicate as quickly in vaccinated people, they may be less likely to test positive for Covid-19 after coronavirus exposure, because their immune system "keeps the viral load below the level of detection," said Juliet Morrison, a microbiologist at the University of California, Riverside.(New York Times gift article. You're welcome.)

These supplements can be dangerous, says pharmacist. If you see these at your local drug store, just leave them on the shelf.

Tea recalled because of Mexican strawberries tainted with hepatitis A virus. Urban Remedy Organic Revitalizing Tea Tonic Strawberry Hibiscus Rose sold in California, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, Maryland, Wisconsin, Texas, Wyoming, Missouri, Maine, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Utah between May 17 and May 29.

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This House Republican says 'you can't even lie to Congress' if you are a Republican. Ah, good ol' Louie Gohmert.

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Scientists have figured out why childbirth became so complex and dangerous. A study finds that complex human childbirth and cognitive abilities are a result of walking upright.

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Why US gas prices are at a record, and why they'll stay high for a long time. "Anything goes from June 20 to Labor Day. We could certainly see the national average approach $6."

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The world's biggest four-day work week pilot begins in the UK. The pilot, which will last for six months, involves 3,300 workers spanning 70 companies, ranging from providers of financial services to a fish-and-chip restaurant.

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Older patients who consume alcohol regularly report better quality of life before and after surgery. Older adults (aged 60 or older) who consume potentially unhealthy amounts of alcohol report significantly better mobility, self-care and fewer problems undertaking daily activities after surgery compared to their peers who abstain from alcohol or drink at very low levels.

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Abbott Nutrition restarts baby formula production in reopened Michigan plant. The company said it will restart the production of EleCare, a formula for children who struggle to digest other products, along with other specialty and metabolic formulas. Abbott aims for an initial EleCare product release around June 20 and is working to meet guidelines to resume production of Similac and other formulas.

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Miscellany:

Birthdays:

1892 - Donald F. Duncan Sr., founder of Duncan Toys Company, who popularized the yo-yo. (d. 1971)
1936 - Levi Stubbs, American soul singer; lead vocalist of the Four Tops (d. 2008) (Video)
1947 - Robert Englund, American actor; best known for Nightmare on Elm Street

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On this date in:

1816 - Snow fell in Albany, New York and Dennysville, Maine, part of a "year without a summer" which followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the previous year.
1844 - The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was formed by Sir George Williams in London
1892 - The Chicago "L" elevated rail system began operation.
1932 - The Revenue Act of 1932 was enacted, creating, among other things, the tax on gasoline in the United States (one cent per US gallon)
1933 - The first drive-in theater opened in Camden, New Jersey.
1934 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
1942 - The United States Navy defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway.
1944 - D-Day: Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, the largest seaborne invasion in history began.
1968 - Robert F. Kennedy died from gunshot wounds inflicted by assassin Sirhan Sirhan 25 hours earlier.
1971 - Final broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS.
1978 - TV news magazine "20/20", premiered on ABC.
1984 - The first playable version of the videogame Tetris was produced.
1991 - NBC announced Jay Leno would succeed Johnny Carson as host of "The Tonight Show".

Today is:

Atheist Pride Day, Drive-in Movie Day, National "Thank God It's Monday" Day, National Applesauce Cake Day, National Churro Day, National Eyewear Day, National Gardening Exercise Day, National Higher Education Day, National Hunger Awareness Day, National Yo-Yo Day (see Donald F. Duncan Sr., above), and Russian Language Day.

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Comments and observations:

It doesn't matter how rich you get or how much stuff you have.. there's only ever one junk drawer per home.
-Elayne Boosler

The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to stop electing other bad guys.
-George Takei

If there's a special place in Hell for women who don't help other women, there's a super special place for Amy Coney Barrett.
-Middle Age Riot

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Friends and patients of the late Lawrence J. Nelson, MD... A memorial will be held Sunday, June 12 at noon at the George Irvin Green Funeral Home, 3511 Main Street, Munhall.

Categories: Alcohol, Baby formula, Bees, Blake Masters, Childbirth, Conspiracy Theorists, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Gas Prices, Great Replacement, Guns, Kyle Rittenhouse, Louie Gohmert, Racism, Recalls, Supplements

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Sgt. Pepper; Fails: news, pay, pharmacists, PA House, memory, dinos, burgers, viruses, Abbott, Trump
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Published Thursday, May 26, 2022 @ 7:54 PM EDT

May 26 2022

Take us to your lobbyists

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We're off on Monday, Memorial Day. Have a great weekend! See you Tuesday.

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It was 55 years ago today.... (May 26, 1967)

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Baseless anti-trans theory about Uvalde shooting spreads online, touted by U.S. congressman. The photos that social media users are claiming show the shooter are actually of three different transgender women wearing skirts. Somehow related: 329 years later, last Salem 'witch' who wasn't is pardoned.

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CEO pay rose 17% in 2021 as profits soared. How else can they pay for their gasoline? (Average workers gained 4.4%; inflation is 7%.)

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Your pharmacist might be permanently out to lunch. Pharmacists in America are struggling, and many are leaving the profession. Over the next ten years, it is estimated that America will see a nationwide decline of at least two percent of its pharmacists, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

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Pennsylvania House votes against taking up gun bill after Texas killings. "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between."-James Carville

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FDA-approved drug could combat middle-aged memory loss. GoodRx says the current formulation, currently approved for treating HIV, costs a little under $500/mo on average.

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Most dinosaurs were warm-blooded after all. So you can cross that one off your list.

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The photographic evidence presented in a lawsuit over fast-food burger sizes. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked. If I ever received a burger that actually looked like on in the ads, I'd be suspicious.

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Viruses that were on hiatus during Covid are back- and behaving in unexpected ways. The pandemic-induced disruption of normal mixing patterns means we have far less recently acquired immunity... we haven't been generating the levels of antibodies that would normally be acquired through regular exposure.

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Trump must answer questions under oath in New York AG probe into business practices, appeals court says. The ruling noted that the Trumps at their depositions could invoke their constitutional right against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions.

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Does the second amendment actually give you the right to own a gun?

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Like many Republicans, Governor Greg Abbott calls Texas school shooting a mental health issue, yet in April he slashed $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs. Texas ranked last out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care, according to the 2021 State of Mental Health in America report.

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Why humans get less sleep than other primates. No cable tv. Also, we're measuring captive primates, not wild animals. How well could you sleep in a zoo? Related: Insomnia sufferers in England now have a prescription alternative to pills. Drilling down: An app that promotes sleep hygiene.

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The mystery of why so many lifelong smokers never get lung cancer may be solved. It's all in the genes.

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Tweets, observations, and diversions:

Stevie Nicks is 74 today and Pam Grier is 73.

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Friends and patients of the late Lawrence J. Nelson, MD... A memorial will be held Sunday, June 12 at noon at the George Irvin Green Funeral Home, 3511 Main Street, Munhall.

Categories: Cancer, Covid-19, Dinosaurs, Donald Trump, FDA, Greg Abbott, Income inequality, McDonald's, Memory Loss, PA House, Pharmacists, Primates, Salem Witch Trials, Second Amendment, Sgt. Pepper, Sleep, Smoking, Uvalde school shooting, Viruses, Wendy's

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Firearms are now the leading cause of death for U.S. children.

All guns, all the time
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Published Wednesday, May 25, 2022 @ 7:08 PM EDT

May 25 2022

School

update
(The New Yorker)

The Onion: 'No way to prevent this,' says only nation where this regularly happens.

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Senator Chris Murphy's desperate plea for gun action: "Spare me the bullshit about mental illness," Murphy said. "We don't have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness because we're not an outlier on mental illness... We're an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to get their arms on firearms. That's what makes America different."

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Noted American historian Heather Cox Richardson makes it clear: The idea that massacres are "the price of freedom," as right-wing personality Bill O'Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history. (Thanks to friend and reader Paul Stockhausen for reminding me to check my newsletter emails.)

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Governor: Texas gunman said he was going to shoot up school. The murderer sent private, one-to-one text messages on Facebook that were "discovered after the terrible tragedy," company spokesman Andy Stone said. He said Facebook is cooperating with investigators.

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From Columbine to Robb, 169 dead in US mass school shootings. Here's a complete chronological list.

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AP full coverage: Uvalde school shooting

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Mass shootings: the Supreme Court may be about to make the problem worse.

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Guns are just dandy, but Texas bans the possession of or promoting the use of more than six dildos.

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Texas Republican leaders promised action on gun safety after the El Paso shooting. Instead, they passed permitless carry.

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Why the Senate protects Supreme Court justices from protesters but won't protect kids from mass shootings

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Guns are banned during Trump's upcoming speech at the NRA conference. Of course they are.

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Beto O'Rourke interrupts Texas governor's press conference on shooting

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Donald Trump's plot for revenge against state politicians who didn't overturn the 2020 presidential election results failed. Badly.

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Tweets, observations, and diversions:

Mass killers are frequently too insane to stand trial but rarely too insane to buy AR-15s.
-John Fugelsang

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I bet the folks who wrote the Second Amendment never thought a well-regulated militia would spend so much time killing children.
-Mrs. Betty Bowers

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If you think gun violence is strictly a mental health issue, you're crazy.
-Middle Age Riot

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Daring someone to come and try to take your AR-15 away from you is a pretty good reason to have your AR-15 taken away from you.
-Jeff Tiedrich

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Don't even suggest arming teachers. Some of y'all don't even trust us to select library books.
-Amanda Lee

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Friends and patients of the late Lawrence J. Nelson, MD... A memorial will be held Sunday, June 12 at noon at the George Irvin Green Funeral Home, 3511 Main Street, Munhall.

Categories: Beto O'Rourke, Chris Murphy, Donald Trump, Georgia, Greg Abbott, Gun laws, Heather Cox Richardson, Mass shootings, NSA, Paul Stockhausen, Second Amendment, Sex Toys, Supreme Court, Texas, Uvalde school shooting

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'Stuck with the bill': How Florida insurance companies going under leaves buyers out to dry.

Past taxes, monkeypox, cat parasites, She-Hulk, meteor storms, Florida, first strikes, egads...
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Published Thursday, May 19, 2022 @ 7:09 PM EDT

May 19 2022

No formula, AR-15s

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We're late today for good reason....

So I get a certified letter from my local township claiming that I and my late first wife owe back wage taxes for several years beginning in the year 2000. 2000!? Even an inveterate packrat like myself doesn't have income tax returns from 22 years ago. For that matter, I don't even remember what I had for breakfast. Suffice it to say this could be painful. Interesting fact you should keep in mind: there's no time limit on collecting past-due taxes if you didn't file a tax return for the year(s) in question. So make certain you always file. I don't ever remember not filing, so it looks like I'm spending the weekend in the garage going through cartons of old files. I've scanned everything from about 2005 onward, and I can find just about any document from that time period in a maximum of an hour. I was going to scan the old stuff, but I thought "seven years is enough," as the experts tell us. Ugh.

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Rare monkeypox outbreak in U.K., Europe and U.S.: What is it and should we worry? Good news: Masking not required.

Speaking of icky things, The parasite that controls cat minds may infect billions of people. The clue is in their eyes. Toxoplasma gondii, is probably the most successful parasite in the world today. This microscopic creature is capable of infecting any mammal or bird, and people across all continents are infected. Once infected, a person carries Toxoplasma for life. So far, we don't have a drug that can eradicate the parasite from the body. And there is no vaccine approved for use in humans. Across the world, it's estimated 30-50% of people are infected with Toxoplasma.

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Disney+ releases new trailer for Marvel's 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law'. Disney says, 'She-Hulk: Attorney at Law' follows the main character as she "navigates the complicated life of a single, 30-something attorney who also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch superpowered hulk." And unlike Cartoon Network's 'Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law,' it looks like they're serious, more or less. Disney destroyed Star Wars; looks like their ongoing implosion of Marvel is proceeding on schedule.

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May 31st could be the most powerful meteor storm in generations, or nothing at all. "Welcome to the wonderful world of meteor shower predictions and prognostications."

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Interesting history: George Wallace, the angry White populist who paved the way for Trump.

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Ukrainian medic is captured after documenting war. Harrowing and heartbreaking footage. No one has seen or heard from her since her capture.

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The long-term care dilemma: Who will take care of you? Medicare won't. My 95-year-old mother took out a long-term care policy 30 years ago, only to discover she's to "healthy" to get any benefits from it. I guess the solution is to not get old.

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Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Yuri Borisov, has said that Russia cannot launch a first nuclear strike. "According to our doctrine, according to our strategy, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation would use a nuclear strike only in retaliation. According to the doctrine, we would not be the first to attack. Now, don't you feel better?

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TOKYO (AP) - The money was supposed to be COVID-19 assistance for low-income households in a small Japanese town, but it was mistakenly wired to a bank account of a resident who refused to return it and spent most of it on online gambling, police said.

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So what else is new? Donald Trump has taken to Truth Social to baselessly suggest mail-in ballots were fraudulent in Pennsylvania, where his chosen Senate candidate Dr Mehmet Oz is locked in a tight battle with former hedge fund executive David McCormick.

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Egads.

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Tweets, observations, and diversions:

"The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine."
-Former President George W. Bush

Madison Cawthorn has just written that "the time for gentile politics as usual has come to an end."
-Michael Beschloss

The House has passed a bill to crack down on price gouging at gas stations by a vote of 217-207. Every single republican voted NO.
-Brian Tyler Cohen

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In case you didn't notice, KGB Report is now Monday-Thursday. Have a great weekend. See you on the 24th.

Categories: Aging (Ageing), Covid-19, Disney+, Donald Trump, Doug Mastriano, Florida, Gambling, George Wallace, Insurance, Mehmet Oz, Meteors, Monkeypox, Nuclear weapons, She-Hulk, Taxes, Toxoplasma gondii, Ukraine, Yuri Borisov

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Marilyn, Donovan, Bono, Musk, Trump, book bans, iPods, Las Vegas stiffs and climate change
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Published Tuesday, May 10, 2022 @ 5:22 PM EDT

May 10 2022

Marilyn

Warhol's 'Marilyn,' at $195 million, shatters auction record for an American artist. Not bad for a kid from Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. (NY Times free article)

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Elon Musk says he'll reverse Donald Trump's Twitter ban. Swell.

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The next book ban: States aim to limit titles students can search for. Republican lawmakers across the country are proposing legislation that would target online library databases and library management technology- tools built by a half-dozen large companies that catalogue millions of books, journals and articles that students peruse for assignments.

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Baby formula shortage worsens: About 40% of popular brands sold out across US. The ongoing infant formula shortage isn't over yet- and appears to be getting worse.

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Ukraine is rebuilding cities as fast as Russia destroyed them. (Washington Post free article).

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Earth given 50-50 chance of hitting key warming mark by 2026. The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40% and a decade ago it was only 10%.

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Oddly-related climate story: Bodies surfacing in Lake Mead recall mob's time in Las Vegas. "There's no telling what we'll find in Lake Mead," former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Monday. "It's not a bad place to dump a body."

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The end of an era: Apple discontinues iPod touch, ending 20 year run of iconic 'iPod' brand. The number of devices made obsolete in my lifetime is into two figures and growing...

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Speaking of obsolete technology, on this date in 1975, Sony introduced the Betamax videocassette recorder.

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Donovan (Donovan Phillips Leitch ) is 76 today.

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Bono (Paul David Hewson) is 62 today.

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Microsoft to help cover workers' travel costs for abortions. The software maker will "support employees and their enrolled dependents in accessing critical health care- which already includes services like abortion and gender- affirming care- regardless of where they live across the U.S.," according to a statement Monday. "This support is being extended to include travel expense assistance for these and other medical services where access to care is limited in availability in an employee's home geographic region."

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Tweets and observations:

Last week, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said her confidence in the court had been "had been rocked" because justices lied during their confirmations about their intent to overturn Roe v. Wade. This week, she's voting to block Democrats' effort to codify Roe v. Wade.
-No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen

Good morning to everyone who reported treason through proper channels and not book deals, @MarkTEsper
-Rachel Vindman!

Republicans want to keep women pregnant so their swollen feet hurt too much to stand in line for six hours and vote against them.
-Middle Age Riot

The President, whether Democrat or Republican, is not in charge of baby formula.
-Paula Poundstone

The people protesting outside the homes of the justices are just tourists engaging in legitimate political discourse.
-Covie_93

Categories: Abortion, Andy Warhol, Apple, Betamax, Bono, Book bans, Climate change, Donald Trump, Donovan, Elon Musk, iPod, Lake Mead, Las Vegas, Marilyn Monroe, Microsoft, Republicans, Sony, Ukraine

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Six fully vaccinated people who attended an outdoor wedding caught the Delta variant, but people with Pfizer and Moderna shots survived, study says.

Black Widow slays, Covid surges, Delta to Lambda, Domino's secrets, don't Mr. Clean your teeth
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Published Tuesday, July 13, 2021 @ 12:25 AM EDT

Jul 13 2021

'Black Widow' Stunner: Disney's streaming revenue reveal may be game-changer. It takes something really major to get me into a movie theater these days.

It may sound strange, given a year of panic over school closures and reopenings, a year of masking toddlers and closing playgrounds and huddling in pandemic pods, that among children the mortality risk from COVID-19 is actually lower than from the flu.

FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine.

The 'Lambda' variant is now found in 29 countries. Here's what we know about it. Lambda? What about Epsilon through Kappa?

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From Crazytown:

Fox News hosts smear Covid vaccine, despite outbreaks among unvaccinated.

With Covid surging, GOP members continue to discourage vaccination. (Video)

Don Jr. bombs at CPAC as crowd cheers low vaccination rates: A Closer Look. (Video)

Neighbors see Trump waiting by mailbox for reinstatement notice. "When the mail truck comes, he gets this excited look on his face." (Satire: Andy Borowitz)

Student charged with putting Hitler quote in school yearbook.

Allen Weisselberg removed as officer of Trump Organization subsidiaries.

A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God's authority, and is central to Donald Trump's GOP. They forget about that pesky U.S. Constitution: "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (Article VI, paragraph 3). It's the only place in the entire Constitution where the word "ever" appears, so the founders were pretty clear on their intent, no?

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1832 - The source of the Mississippi River was discovered by American geographer Henry Schoolcraft
1863 - New York City draft riots: In New York City, opponents of conscription began three days of rioting which will be later regarded as the worst in United States history.
1865 - Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the "New-York Tribune" reportedly told his readers to "Go west, young man"
1871 - World's first championship cat show was organized by Harrison Weir and held at the Crystal Palace in London.
1917 - A vision of the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to children in Fatima, Portugal
1923 - The Hollywood Sign was officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
1955 - The last execution of a woman in Britain, Ruth Ellis, took place at Holloway Prison, London
1960 - Democrats selected John F. Kennedy as their nominee for President.
1973 - Watergate scandal: Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a secret Oval Office taping system to investigators for the Senate Watergate Committee
1977 - An electrical blackout in New York City lasted nearly 24 hours, contributing to widespread fires and looting.
2013 - Black Lives Matter movement created in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Birthdays

1864 - John Jacob Astor IV, American businessman and soldier (richest passenger aboard the Titanic) (d. 1912)
1913 - Dave Garroway, American journalist and television personality (d. 1982) (Video)
1926 - Robert H. Justman, American director, producer, and production manager ("Star Trek")(d. 2008) (Video)
1928 - Bob Crane, American actor (d. 1978) (Video)
1940 - Sir Patrick Stewart, English actor, director, and producer (Video)
1941 - Robert Forster, American actor and producer (d. 2019) (Video)
1942 - Harrison Ford, American actor and producer (Video)
1946 - Cheech Marin, American actor and comedian (Video)
1951 - Didi Conn, American actress and singer (Video)
1957 - Cameron Crowe, American director, producer, and screenwriter (Video)

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Miscellany

Can mankind be unified by an extra-terrestrial threat? The reaction to Covid has shown that the 'unity through crises' model of the global ruling class has backfired. Moot point. Any advanced civilizations monitoring us know to avoid us.

Duh. TikTok trend of whitening teeth with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is not safe, dentists say.

8 secrets Domino's doesn't want you to know.

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Categories: Allen Weisselberg, Black Widow, Christians, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Fox News, Marvel, Republicans, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert

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Infections rise in 42 states; Fauci says it's 'horrifying' to see people cheer lack of vaccinations.

Shark week, rich guys in space, fake news, divinely empowered entities immune from laws
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Published Monday, July 12, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jul 12 2021

In case you missed it, a play-by-play of the Virgin Galactic flight hosted by Stephen Colbert.

This pizza chain owner who pays $16 an hour says there's no labor shortage, just a shortage of businesses willing to pay a decent wage. "If you aren't paying your employees enough to cover basic survival costs, what possible incentive could a person have to take that job?"

Last week's fake news: Graphene in vaccines, fake delta variant, kneeling Biden, veteran snub...

How did my phone number end up for sale on a US database? Ah, the wonders of technology. And social media.

Cold weather virus in summer baffles docs, worries parents. RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of cold-like symptoms but can be serious for infants and the elderly. Cases dropped dramatically last year, with people staying home and social distancing, but began cropping up as pandemic restrictions eased.

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From Crazytown:

Trump on Jan. 6 insurrection: 'These were great people'.

Trump wins 2024 CPAC straw poll With 70 percent. (Video)

A seven point plan to reinstate Donald Trump as president 'in days, not years' was handed out at CPAC. It's insane, but constitutional. Sort of.

A Pennsylvania woman who allegedly stormed the Capitol and told a police officer to "bring Nancy Pelosi out here now... we want to hang that f***ing bitch" has filed court documents claiming to be a divinely empowered entity immune from laws.

"F--k him": Rupert Murdoch reportedly made the call to bury Trump's election night dreams in a shallow grave.

Heineken suffers Twitter boycott from anti-vaxxers over disco-themed pro-vaccination ad.

Trump sues eighty-one million voters for banning him from White House.(Satire: Andy Borowitz)

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

This is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. (Video)

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1804 - Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton died after being shot in a pistol duel by Vice President Aaron Burr
1862 - The Medal of Honor was authorized by the United States Congress.
1906 - Alfred Dreyfus was found innocent in France
1909 - Congress passed The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allowing it to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population.
1940 - Frederick McKinley Jones received a patent for an air conditioning unit for trucks carrying perishable goods. He later co-founded Thermo King
1960 - The Etch a Sketch toy was introduced, selling for $2.99
1972 - Democrats nominated George McGovern for US president in Miami, Florida
1973 - A fire destroyed the entire sixth floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States near St. Louis, MO.
1976 - First "Family Feud" game show debuted on ABC hosted by Richard Dawson (Video)
1979 - "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park: fans riot destroying disco records and causing the Chicago White Sox to forfeit the second game of a double header to the Detroit Tigers
1984 - Geraldine Ferraro became the first US female major-party vice-presidential candidate, after Walter Mondale selected her as his Democratic Party running mate

Birthdays

100 BC - Julius Caesar, Roman politician and general (d. 44 BC)
1817 - Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet, and philosopher (d. 1862)
1854 - George Eastman, American businessman, founded Eastman Kodak (d. 1933)
1884 - Louis B. Mayer, Russian-born American film producer, co-founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (d. 1957)
1895 - Buckminster Fuller, American architect and engineer, designed the Montreal Biosphère (d. 1983)
1895 - Oscar Hammerstein II, American director, producer, and songwriter (d. 1960)
1908 - Milton Berle, American comedian and actor (d. 2002)
1909 - Joe DeRita, American actor (Curly-Joe of The Three Stooges) (d. 1993)
1917 - Andrew Wyeth, American artist (d. 2009)
1934 - Van Cliburn, American pianist and composer (d. 2013) (Video)
1937 - Bill Cosby,American actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter
1943 - Christine McVie, English singer-songwriter and keyboard player (Video)
1948 - Ben Burtt, American director, screenwriter, and sound designer ("Star Wars") (Video)
1948 - Richard Simmons, American fitness trainer and actor (Video)
1951 - Cheryl Ladd, American actress
1978 - Michelle Rodriguez, American actress

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Miscellany

Unopened Legend of Zelda game from 1987 sells for $870,000.

Giant pandas are no longer endangered, thanks to conservation efforts, China says. But they're still "vulnerable."

Colby would be official Wisconsin cheese under bill.

Holding up on that wake-up coffee until the cortisol wears off...

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Categories: Covid-19, Donald Trump, Fact check, Fox News, January 6, Medicine, Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch, Shark Week, Social Media, Stephen Colbert, Unemployment, Virgin Galactic

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"Fleet of 10 UFOs" spotted hovering near International Space Station on NASA live stream.

Shortage of workers, patio furniture; Covid resurgence; UFOs, lightning, and grasshoppers, oh my!
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Published Thursday, July 08, 2021 @ 1:16 AM EDT

Jul 08 2021

(KGB Report will return on Monday, July 12.)

Job openings in restaurants and hotels were slightly higher in May while the number of people quitting jobs in those places also inched up, to just over 700,000. Overall, 3.6 million people quit their jobs in May. That's down from a record four million in April but still a high level of turnover.

There's a shortage of patio furniture. Really.

Earth may not be in any danger from asteroids. Chinese researchers to use rockets to deflect them. At China's National Space Science Center, researchers found in simulations that 23 Long March 5 rockets hitting simultaneously could deflect a large asteroid from its original path by a distance 1.4 times the Earth's radius.

17 tips to live comfortably off just a Social Security check. These articles are written by kids in their 20s who don't fully appreciate the potential effects of what they're suggesting. One's perspective is a bit different when you reach the age that classic radio stations start playing "oldies" first released when your kids were in high school.

New UC Berkeley study suggests cell phones sharply increase tumor risk. Researchers took a comprehensive look at statistical findings from 46 different studies around the globe and found that the use of a cell phone for more than 1,000 hours, or about 17 minutes a day over a ten year period, increased the risk of tumors by 60 percent.

Pandemic Potpourri:

Moderna starts human trials of an mRNA-based flu shot. Moderna says it hopes to eventually create combination vaccines that could protect people against flu, COVID-19, and other respiratory infections with one shot.

About 160 Covid-19 infections are linked to a Texas church youth camp- including cases of the Delta variant. Of the roughly 160 people infected, six (about 3.7%) had been vaccinated.

COVID and the brain: researchers zero in on how damage occurs.COVID and the brain: researchers zero in on how damage occurs. Also: Fitbit data points to lingering physical changes for some Covid-19 sufferers. On average, it took 79 days for the elevated resting heart rate of people with covid-19 symptoms to drop back to normal, the study found.

Delta variant slams Missouri as ICUs fill and ventilators run low. This should probably be in the "Crazytown" section. As Alex Haley said, "Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you." (More reality quotes)

Amid uptick in cases, Oklahoma sees high hospital admission rate for COVID-19 patients. Across the state, nearly 28% of people who have had a positive COVID-19 test in the last two weeks were admitted to hospital...

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From Crazytown:

Trump sues Twitter, Facebook, Google and CEOs Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Pichai. The three related lawsuits, filed in federal court in Florida, allege the tech giants have violated plaintiffs' First Amendments rights. Of course, if Trump or his lawyers had actually read the Constitution, he'd know the First Amendment only addresses the government infringing upon speech, not social networks whose user agreements you violated by inciting an insurrection. Anyway, he's using it as another fundraising ploy.

Ivanka Trump is probably next on the chopping block: former federal prosecutor. Experts say the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is likely looking into "consulting fees" paid to Ivanka despite her having been a full-time employee of the Trump Organization.

Book says Trump praised Hitler during same trip that he disparaged U.S. war dead.

Giuliani's law license in Washington suspended.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1776 - Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) were rung after John Nixon delivered the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States
1797 - Senator William Blount of Tennessee was expelled by the Senate and became the first US federal official to face impeachment.
1889 - The first issue of The Wall Street Journal was published.
1889 - John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain in 75 rounds in the last championship bare-knuckle boxing match.
1932 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.
1994 - Kim Jong-il began to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.
2011 - Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

Birthdays

1838 - Eli Lilly, American soldier, chemist, and businessman, founded Eli Lilly and Company (d. 1898)
1838 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German general and businessman, founded the Zeppelin Airship Company (d. 1917)
1839 - John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Company(d. 1937)
1908 - Nelson Rockefeller, American businessman and politician, 41st Vice President of the United States (d. 1979)
1914 - Billy Eckstine, American singer and trumpet player (d. 1993)
1926 - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-American psychiatrist and author (d. 2004)
1930 - Jerry Vale, American singer (d. 2014)
1934 - Marty Feldman,English actor and screenwriter (d. 1982) (Video)
1935 - Steve Lawrence, American actor and singer
1944 - Jeffrey Tambor, American actor and singer
1947 - Kim Darby, American actress (Video)
1949 - Wolfgang Puck, Austrian-American chef, restaurateur and entrepreneur
1951 - Anjelica Huston, American actress and director
1952 - Jack Lambert, American football player and sportscaster
1958 - Kevin Bacon, American actor and musician (Video)

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Miscellany

Wanna delay aging? Get castrated, scientists say. "It's not an ideal solution." Ya think?

Beating a literally dead horse: 'Night of the Animated Dead' to adapt zombie classic. I maintain George Romero's original 1968 classic is the only zombie movie you need to see. Everything else is egregiously derivative.

Grasshoppers invade western US in largest swarms in 35 years, plaguing farmers and ranchers.

More than 710,000 lightning strikes in Western Canada in 15 hours as unprecedented heatwave and wildfires hit British Columbia and Alberta.

12-foot python escapes inside Louisiana's largest mall.

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Categories: Adolf Hitler, Astronomy, Climate change, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Economics, Health, NASA, Rudy Giuliani, Social Security

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Sun erupted with biggest solar flare in four years in early Fourth of July fireworks (video). Also, Independence Day fireball: Amazing videos show bright meteor changing night sky into day in Idaho.

Solar flares, Idaho fireballs, Loser-Palooza overflights, National Fried Chicken Day, The Truth
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Published Tuesday, July 06, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jul 06 2021

Over 40 percent of the global workforce is considering leaving their jobs this year. Also, Since the pandemic, employees are leaving the workforce or switching jobs in droves. For many, employers have played a big part in why they're walking away.

Not real news: A look at what didn't happen last week.

Amazing New York times documentary of January 6 insurrection. (Video) Funny, they don't look like tourists.

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From Crazytown:

Marjorie Taylor Greene reports sightings of Jewish space lasers across U.S. (on July 4) (satire, Andy Borowitz in The New Yorker).

Pence got ten minutes to talk about 'how hard he was working' during weekly lunches before Trump turned on the TV and began complaining, book says.

Rioters accused of erasing content from social media, phones.

Epic-est of Epic Trolls Fly 'Loser-Palooza' Planes Over Donald Trump Event in Florida. Every Time Trump claims a non-stolen election was stolen from him, a troll gets its wings. In this case, literally.

Trump seemingly acknowledges facts of prosecutors' case against Trump Organization while criticizing charges over 'fringe benefits'. (Video)

Trump: 'One Law for Hungry Pizza Thieves, Another for Me'. Trump endorsed a textbook for his scam Trump University. This is from Trump University Asset Protection 101: Tax and Legal Strategies of the Rich: "When you own your own business, you determine how much income tax you pay." That's not true, but it sure tells you how Trump thinks.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1785 - US Congress unanimously resolved the name of US currency to the "dollar" and adopted decimal coinage
1854 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the United States Republican Party was held.
1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.
1892 - Three thousand eight hundred striking steelworkers engaged in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.
1898 - U.S. Senate adopts the House-passed Newlands Resolution, annexing Hawaii
1919 - The British dirigible R34 landed in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.
1928 - "Lights of New York" the first all-talking full-length feature film, was released by Warner Bros.
1933 - The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was played in Chicago's Comiskey Park. The American League defeated the National League 4-2.
1942 - Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
1947 - The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.
1947 - Alleged and disputed Roswell UFO incident (Video)
1957 - John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles.
1964 - The Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night" released in U.K. (Video)
1990 - The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded.
1994 - "Forrest Gump" released (Video)

Birthdays

1747 - John Paul Jones, Scottish-American captain (d. 1792)
1887 - Marc Chagall, Belarusian-French painter and poet (d. 1985)
1918 - Sebastian Cabot, English-Canadian actor (d. 1977) (Video)
1921 - Nancy Reagan, American actress and activist, 42nd First Lady of the United States (d. 2016)
1922 - William Schallert, American actor; president (1979-81) of the Screen Actors Guild (d. 2016) (Video)
1925 - Merv Griffin, American actor, singer, and producer, created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (d. 2007) (Video)
1925 - Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1981) (Video)
1927 - Janet Leigh, (b. Jeanette Helen Morrison) American actress and author (d. 2004) (Video)
1931 - Della Reese, (b. Delloreese Patricia Early) American actress and singer (d. 2017) (Video)
1935 - Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
1937 - Ned Beatty, American actor (d. 2021) (Video)
1937 - Gene Chandler, American singer-songwriter and producer ("Duke of Earl") (Video)
1946 - George W. Bush, American businessman and politician, 43rd President of the United States
1946 - Sylvester Stallone, American actor, director, and screenwriter (Video)
1951 - Geoffrey Rush, Australian actor and producer(Video)
1979 - Kevin Hart, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter

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Miscellany

How technology destroyed the truth. (Video)

Who decides what is true?

Ukraine criticized for making female cadets parade in heels.

The CIA's plan to spy... with cats.(Video)

Authorities: Guard hid pills in Rice Krispies treats.

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Categories: Donald Trump, Fact check, January 6, Jewish space lasers, July 4, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Pence, The Big Lie, The Sun, The Truth, Unemployment

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Bill Cosby was set free because of a deal he made with a DA who went on to represent Trump in his second impeachment trial.

Cosby out, Weisselberg in, Rummy dead, Trump ranks #41, oldest living man
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Published Thursday, July 01, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jul 01 2021

Trump Organization and its CFO indicted by Manhattan grand jury, report says. The indictments against the organization and Weisselberg will stay sealed until Thursday afternoon, the report said. The Post also reported, citing sources, that Weisselberg is expected to surrender Thursday morning. Many are expecting Weisselberg to flip on Trump.

Dozens of people have died in Canada amid an unprecedented heat wave that has smashed temperature records. Before Sunday, temperatures in Canada had never passed 45°C (113°F). Canada broke its temperature record for a third straight day on Tuesday - 49.6°C (121.3°F) in Lytton, British Columbia.

California wildfire grows to 13,000 acres, threatens marijuana farms.

Unexpected pandemic effects: 'Great Resignation' gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect. 95% of workers are now considering changing jobs, and 92% are even willing to switch industries to find the right position, according to a recent report by jobs site Monster.com. So much for the too much government unemployment benefits theory. Detail via NextDraft. "People are forgetting that restaurant workers have actually experienced decades of abuse and trauma. The pandemic is just the final straw." (Turnover is a way of life; the average job tenure for hourly food service workers is less than two months...)

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has died at the age of 88. Guess you could say Rummy's passed on that great known unknown.

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From Crazytown:

Inside gun-surrendering criminal Mark McCloskey's very sad St. Louis rally. "Noted local criminal Mark McCloskey played host to a barbecue/political rally on Sunday afternoon, drawing tens of admirers to the sweltering parking lot of a closed outlet mall in St. Louis County to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the time he pulled a gun on a crowd of people who otherwise would never have noticed or cared he existed. Despite the fact that none of the big names who had been billed to speak at the June 27 event showed up, and despite the fact that ticket sales were so dismal attendance was opened to the public for free at the last minute, St. Louis' most gun-surrendering lawyer plowed right ahead with the First Annual Pink Shirt Guy BBQ and RINO Roast in the St. Louis Mills parking lot. Grievance and untethered delusion topped the menu at the event, with McCloskey and a roster of speakers largely unknown outside the fever swamps of the far right taking turns condemning everything from critical race theory (their newest and most nonsensical bogeyman) to "cultural Marxism" (George Soros' fault of course, but how dare you level accusations of antisemitism) to the "radical left" agenda of (hahahahaha) Joe Biden. The whole gun-and-pony show was in service of McCloskey's deeply stupid run for U.S. Senate, because if there's one thing that qualifies a man for public office in the Republican party in 2021 it's a willingness to point a firearm at those with whom you disagree politically."

Trump debuts at 41st in C-SPAN presidential rankings. This survey marks Trump's first appearance on the list, on which the one-term president placed higher than only three other presidents: Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and the perpetually last-ranked James Buchanan. Barack Obama moved up to the number 10 spot.

The 2024 GOP Presidential campaigns are already staring. And they're insane (video).

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

July is Bank Account Bonus Month, Cell Phone Courtesy Month, Cord Blood Awareness Month, Hitchhiking Month, Horseradish Month, Independent Retailer Month, Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month, Lasagna Awareness Month, Lost Pet Prevention Month, Minority Tourism Month, National Anti-Boredom Month, National Baked Bean Month, National Bison Month, National Blueberry Month, National Cleft & Craniofacial Awareness & Prevention Month, National Culinary Arts Month, National Doghouse Repairs Month, National Family Reunion Month, National Hemp Month, National HIV Awareness Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National Park and Recreation Month, National Peach Month, National Picnic Month, National Water Gardening Month, Plastic Free July, Sarcoma Awareness Month, Unlucky Month for Weddings, UV Safety Awareness Month, Wild About Wildlife Month, World Watercolor Month, and Worldwide Bereaved Parents Awareness Month.

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1846 - Adolphe Sax patented the saxophone
1836 - Congress accepted the estate from an heir of British scientist James Smithson that was eventually used to create the Smithsonian Institution
1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg began
1867 - The British North America Act took effect as the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia joined into confederation to create the modern nation of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada. This date is commemorated annually in Canada as Canada Day, a national holiday
1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally came into existence
1881 - The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States
1903 - Start of first Tour de France bicycle race
1908 - SOS was adopted as the international distress signal
1931 - United Airlines began service (as Boeing Air Transport)
1931 - Wiley Post and Harold Gatty became the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engined monoplane aircraft
1957 - The International Geophysical Year began
1963 - ZIP codes were introduced for United States mail
1979 - Sony introduced the Walkman. By 2010, when production stopped, Sony had built about 200 million cassette-based Walkmans.
1984 - The PG-13 rating was introduced by the MPAA in response to the gore and violence in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Birthdays

1869 - William Strunk Jr., American author and educator (The Elements of Style) (d. 1946)
1892 - James M. Cain, American author (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Serenade, Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity) and journalist (d. 1977)
1899 - Charles Laughton, English-American actor and director (d. 1962) (Video)
1902 - William Wyler, French-American film director (Wuthering Heights, Jezebel, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Ben-Hur) , producer and screenwriter (d. 1981) (Video)
1906 - Estée Lauder (née Josephine Esther Mentzer), American businesswoman, co-founded the Estée Lauder Companies (d. 2004)
1916 - Olivia de Havilland, British-American actress (d. 2020) (Video)
1920 - Harold Sakata, Japanese-American wrestler and actor (Goldfinger) (d. 1982) (Video)
1931 - Leslie Caron, French actress and dancer (Video)
1934 - Jamie Farr, American actor (M*A*S*H) (Video)
1934 - Sydney Pollack, American actor, director and producer (d. 2008)
1935 - David Prowse, English actor (Darth Vader) (d. 2020)
1939 - Karen Black, American actress (d. 2013) (Video)
1941 - Twyla Tharp, American dancer and choreographer
1942 - Geneviève Bujold, Canadian actress
1945 - Debbie Harry (b. Angela Trimble), American singer-songwriter and actress (Video)
1952 - Dan Aykroyd, Canadian actor, producer and screenwriter (Video)
1960 - Evelyn "Champagne" King, American soul/disco singer (Video)
1961 - Diana, Princess of Wales (b. Diana Frances Spencer) (d. 1997)
1967 - Pamela Anderson, Canadian-American model and actress

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Miscellany

It's so dry in California right now that drinking water is literally tasting like dirt.

112-year-old Puerto Rican dubbed world's oldest living man.

Ocala (Florida) Fire Chief whose ex-wife went on naked rampage at Outback, fired for creating uncomfortable work environment.

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Categories: Allen Weisselberg, Bill Cosby, Climate change, Covid-19, Donald Rumsfeld, Donald Trump, Environment, Florida, Mark McCloskey, Unemployment

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Hotter than the human body can handle: Pakistan city broils in world’s highest temperatures (126°F) (Video)

Collapses, shortages, excess heat, Democratic burritos, hailstone margaritas
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Published Wednesday, June 30, 2021 @ 12:17 AM EDT

Jun 30 2021

Condo owners in Surfside building were facing assessments for $15 million worth of repairs. Payments were set to begin a week after the building's deadly fall.

Gas stations are running out of gas ahead of the holiday weekend. It's the shortage of tank truck drivers coupled with rising demand that is causing supply chain bottlenecks and shortages. Experts say a growing number of stations are reporting that they are simply not able to get gas delivered- at any price.

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From Crazytown:

70 percent

Blame Democrats for the rise in Chipotle burrito prices. (Video)

Out-of-practice Trump forgets to strand rally crowd in parking lot. (Andy Borowitz)

What underlies the G.O.P. commitment to ignorance? Closed-mindedness and ignorance have become core conservative values, and those who reject these values are the enemy, no matter what they may have done to serve the country.

Trump Organization sues New York City for closing golf course after January 6 riots. That could be a big mistake.

Tucker Carlson says 'Biden administration is spying' on him. The television personality offered no additional evidence to support his claim, which drew scrutiny from several users on social media.

Giuliani son gets no votes from Republican leaders in bid for New York governor. Andrew Giuliani, who has traded off his surname, embarrassed by poll that indicates Lee Zeldin will challenge Andrew Cuomo.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1892 – Actions culminating in the Homestead Strike began
1905 – Albert Einstein sent the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduced special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik
1908 – The Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history, results in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia. (Video)
1938 - Superman first appears in DC Comics' Action Comics series issue #1
1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. (Video)
1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, was founded.

Birthdays

1901 - Willie Sutton, American bank robber (d.1980)
1917 – Susan Hayward, American actress (d. 1975)
1917 – Lena Horne, American actress, singer, and activist (d. 2010) (Video)
1930 - Thomas Sowell, American economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution
1934 – Harry Blackstone Jr., American magician and author (d. 1997) (Video)
1942 - Robert Ballard, American professor explorer and discoverer (wrecks of the Titanic, Bismarck, and USS Yorktown)
1943 – Florence Ballard, American pop/soul singer (The Supremes)(d. 1976)
1956 – David Alan Grier, American actor, singer, and comedian
1959 – Vincent D'Onofrio, American actor (Video)
1966 – Mike Tyson, American boxer and actor (Video)
1985 – Michael Phelps, American swimmer

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Miscellany

A record-breaking hailstone fell near San Antonio. A bigger one went into margaritas.

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Categories: Climate change, Covid-19, Democrats, Donald Trump, Environment, Fox News, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Shortages, Superman, Surfside collapse, The Big Lie, Tucker Carlson

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Return to Crazytown, you can't beat the Grim Reaper...
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Published Tuesday, June 29, 2021 @ 10:35 AM EDT

Jun 29 2021

Some system issues today, so things are a bit abbreviated.

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From Crazytown:

The former president held a rally in Ohio over the weekend. He didn't disappoint. (Video). Also (Video).

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1613 - Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, England, went up in flames during a performance of Henry VIII. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale. It was rebuilt in the following year
1863 - After the National Banking and Currency Act was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1863, First National Bank in Davenport was the first bank in the country to open under its provisions. It was the first First National Bank
1927 - The Bird of Paradise, a U.S. Army Air Corps Fokker tri-motor, completed the first transpacific flight, from the mainland United States to Hawaii
1956 - The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System
1975 - Steve Wozniak tested his first prototype of the Apple I computer
2007 – Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone

Birthdays

1900 - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator, best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (d. 1944)
1910 – Frank Loesser, American composer and conductor (d. 1969)
1911 – Bernard Herrmann, American composer and conductor (d. 1975) (Video)
1919 – Slim Pickens, American actor and rodeo performer (d. 1983) (Video)
1920 – Ray Harryhausen, American animator and producer (d. 2013) (Video)
1941 – Stokely Carmichael, Trinidadian-American activist (d. 1998)
1944 – Gary Busey, American actor

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Miscellany

Ageing process is unstoppable, finds unprecedented study. Research suggests humans cannot slow the rate at which they get older because of biological constraints.

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Categories: Aging (Ageing), Donald Trump

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These businesses found a way around the worker shortage: Raising wages to $15 an hour or more.

Inflation, cybercrime, another ocean, Toobin returns, misremembering the Alamo
(permalink)

Published Friday, June 11, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jun 11 2021

(Note: KGB Report will be on vacation until June 28)

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Another jump in prices tightens the squeeze on US consumers. And Deutsche Bank issues dire economic warning for America. If the U.S. economy descends into an inflation spiral like that experienced after World War II, we could be on the brink of excruciating economic pain. As Donald Trump's more or less sole lender, they know about economic pain.

Why Democrats are voting on bills that have no chance of passing. A vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act this week marked the start of this process, which will soon include votes on a series of Democratic priorities that will likely fail. These votes are intended to demonstrate Democrats’ commitment to issues like voting rights protections and gun control, while underscoring how willing Republicans are to obstruct these policies.

Half of the pandemic's unemployment money may have been stolen. Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say.

You know those scary television ads about Biden weaponizing the IRS? You really have nothing to worry about if you're a normal person or business. The plan is aimed at legally owed but uncollected taxes, which could total over $7 trillion over the next ten years.

Study shows Bitcoin is actually traceable. The F.B.I.’s recovery of Bitcoins paid in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack showed cryptocurrencies are not as hard to track as it might seem. But ransomware rolls on: JBS says it paid $11 million ransom after cyberattack. And hacker known as Max is 55-year-old woman from Russia, US says.

National Geographic says there’s a fifth ocean on Earth. The 130-year-old exploration and education nonprofit marked World Oceans Day on Tuesday by declaring that the waters around Antarctica will now be known as the Southern Ocean - the planet’s fifth ocean.

Americans could be cut off from the internet over copyright claims. A court ruled that ISPs can avoid liability by kicking customers off the internet. The ruling is being challenged.

Well, this is awkward: Jeffrey Toobin is back at CNN eight months after exposing himself on Zoom.

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From Crazytown:

No, Trump's not delusional - it's actually much worse than that. Trump's Big Lie about the election and fantasies of "reinstatement" aren't delusional. They're devious strategies./p>

21 QAnon-linked candidates are running for office in 2022. Newsweek asked them about Q. Lots of fun evasions here.

Gohmert asks if federal agencies can change Earth's or moon's orbits to fight climate change. "Did the tree lady call back with the moon answer?" (Video)

Poll: US image abroad rebounds sharply with Biden in office. In 12 of the surveyed countries, a median of 75% expressed confidence in Biden, compared with 17% for Trump in 2020. A median of 62% across 12 nations had a favorable overall opinion of the U.S., while only 34% held that view last year.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1742 - Benjamin Franklin invented his Franklin stove
1776 - The Continental Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
1920 - During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading United Press to coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".
1935 - Inventor Edwin Armstrong gave the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.
1962 - Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly became the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
1963 - Alabama Governor George Wallace defiantly stood at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they were able to register.
1963 - Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc self-immolated himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.
1963 - John F. Kennedy addressed Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which would revolutionize American society by guaranteeing equal access to public facilities, ending segregation in education, and guaranteeing federal protection for voting rights. (Video)
2001 - Timothy McVeigh was executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
1937 - Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races", was released in the US (Video)
1982 - "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" was released (Video)
1993 - "Jurassic Park" released, sets box office weekend record of $502 million (Video)

Birthdays

1864 - Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (d. 1949) (Video)
1910 - Carmine Coppola, American flute player and composer (d. 1991)(Video)
1910 - Jacques Cousteau, French biologist, author, and inventor, co-developed the aqua-lung (d. 1997)
1913 - Vince Lombardi, American football player, coach, and manager (d. 1970
1925 - William Styron, American novelist and essayist
1933 - Gene Wilder, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2016) (Video)
1945 - Adrienne Barbeau, American actress
1956 - Joe Montana, American football player and sportscaster
1959 - Hugh Laurie, English actor and screenwriter (Video)
1969 - Peter Dinklage, American actor and producer (Video)

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Miscellany

Dog ejected from vehicle in Idaho crash found herding sheep.

We've been telling the Alamo story wrong for nearly 200 years. Now it's time to correct the record. Thank heavens John Wayne isn't around to hear this...

Ice block containing frozen poo crashes into the street from passing airplane. At least it wasn't alien.

Automobile semiconductors, meat, wood products, food service employees... what next? Glad you asked: New Orleans strip club offering contract bonuses due to exotic dancer shortage.

Signs of the Apocalypse: Crocs with stiletto heels.

Zombie sea slugs (video) and dangerous little ticks.

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Categories: Alamo, Bitcoin, CNN, Cryptocurrency, Democrats, Dogs, Donald Trump, Environment, Filibuster, Inflation, Internet, IRS, Jeffrey Toobin, Joe Biden, Louie Gohmert, National Geographic, QAnon, Republicans, Taxes, The Big Lie, Unemployment

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Cicadas, reining in the crazy, nun embezzlement, Jesus gets an accountant
(permalink)

Published Thursday, June 10, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jun 10 2021

Reporters traveling to the United Kingdom for President Joe Biden's first overseas trip were delayed seven hours after their chartered plane was overrun by cicadas.

(Video) Rachel Maddow: GOP succeeds in wasting Democrats' time in power. You would think they would have learned something from the Obamacare debacle.

Jobless in PA livid over new unemployment system errors as state declares victory. When's the best time to migrate to a new system using an entirely different platform and paradigm? Probably not during a pandemic with a record number of claimaints. Duh.

Susan Collins sad that Joe Manchin has replaced her as most annoying Senator. "It's only fitting that the baton be passed to an obscure senator from West Virginia," she said. (Andy Borowitz)

Biden disliked Putin before it was cool. For more than 20 years, Joe Biden has questioned Vladimir Putin's true intentions.

US to buy 500 million Covid vaccine doses for world. But let's draw the line at free beer and lottery tickets, ok?

San Francisco may be first major US city to hit herd immunity, experts say. City still recording small number of Covid cases per day but they don't appear to be triggering wider outbreaks.

From Crazytown:

Trump returns as a diminished TV draw. Not having the nuclear codes kind of diminishes the drama, I guess...

QAnon at a crossroads: leaders try to rein in the crazy. With Q silent and Trump out of office, QAnon's heroes are trying to pump the brakes on the right's most popular nutty conspiracy theory.

'5G towers,' other conspiracies flourish at hearing on vaccine bill. "They can put a key on their forehead, it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think there's a metal piece to that. There's been people who have long suspected that there was some sort of an interface, yet to be defined interface, between what's being injected in these shots and all of the 5G towers." (Video)

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1692 - Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop was hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft and Sorceries".
1752 - Benjamin Franklin tested the lightning conductor with his kite-flying experiment
1845 - Andrew Jackson's African Grey parrot "Poll" was removed from his funeral for swearing at The Hermitage, Tennessee. Funeral attendee William Menefee Norment recorded: "Before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering, a wicked parrot that was a household pet got excited and commenced swearing so loud and long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house
1847 - The Chicago Tribune began publishing.
1854 - The United States Naval Academy graduated its first class of students.
1924 - first political convention broadcast on radio (Republicans at Cleveland)
1935 - Dr. Robert Smith (Doctor Bob) took his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio.
1947 - Saab produced its first automobile.
1964 - United States Senate broke a 75-day filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.
1966 - The Mamas and the Papas win a gold record for "Monday, Monday" (Video)
1974 - "Feel Like Makin' Love" single released by Roberta Flack (Video)

Birthdays

1886 - Sessue Hayakawa, Japanese actor (The Bridge on the River Kwai) and producer (d. 1973) (Video)
1895 - Hattie McDaniel, American actress (Gone with the Wind)(d. 1952) (Video)
1915 - Saul Bellow, Canadian-American novelist, essayist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
1918 - Barry Morse, English-Canadian actor and director (d. 2008) (The Fugitive, Space: 1999) (Video)
1921 - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (d. 2021)[
1922 - Judy Garland, American singer, actress, and vaudevillian (d. 1969) (Video)
1928 - Maurice Sendak, American author and illustrator (d. 2012) ("Where the Wild Things Are") (Video)
1929 - James McDivitt, American general, pilot, and astronaut (Gemini 4, Apollo 9)
1933 - F. Lee Bailey, American criminal defense attorney (Sam Shepard; Boston Strangler; Patty Hearst; OJ Simpson)(d. 2021)
1949 - Kevin Corcoran, actor (Swiss Family Robinson, Babes in Toyland), born in Santa Monica, California (d. 2015) (Video)
1959 - Eliot Spitzer, American lawyer and politician, 54th Governor of New York (Video- Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer)
1965 - Elizabeth Hurley, English model, actress, and producer
1968 - Bill Burr, American comedian and actor (Video)

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Miscellany

Rio de Janeiro's Christ statue: 'Thou shalt not bribe'. The Rio branch of the international accounting firm KPMG has signed an agreement with the administration of the Sanctuary of Christ the Redeemer to ensure operations are aboveboard.

Retired nun will plead guilty to stealing more than $835K from Catholic school ...to "pay for expenses that the order would not have approved, much less paid for, including large gambling expenses incurred at casinos and certain credit card charges..."

"Not a good day to get tacos..."two Florida men flying to get tacos when their small plane went down in the Everglades."

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Categories: Andy Borowitz, Cicadas, Clergy, Computers, Congress, Covid-19, Democrats, Donald Trump, Florida, Jesus, Joe Biden, Joe Manchin, QAnon, Rachel Maddow, Republicans, Susan Collins, Vladimir Putin

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An anti-vaccine film targeted to black Americans spreads false information

Martian watermelons, rich untaxed, beware the Delta Variant, they broke the Internet
(permalink)

Published Wednesday, June 09, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jun 09 2021

New York Times: Fields of watermelons found on Mars, police say. Authorities say rise of fruit aliens is to blame for glut of outer space watermelons. Oops.

The secret IRS files: trove of never-before-seen records reveal how the wealthiest avoid income tax. In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world's richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row. The reaction? Biden administration investigates 'illegal' leak of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett's tax information.

Beware the Delta Variant. A new and deadlier variant of Covid-19 may cause another wave this summer among the unvaccinated and those who only received the first shot.

Fastly outage: why it just broke Amazon, Reddit, Twitch and much of the internet. As Corinne Cath-Speth, a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford Internet Institute and the Alan Turing Institute pointed out on Twitter, this means "a technical hiccup in a single company can have huge ramifications." Here's an more detailed and mostly non-technical explanation of CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) (Video).

And if that wasn't bad enough, CyberNews reported that an anonymous forum poster uploaded a 100GB text file containing 8.4 billion entries of passwords.

Global crime bust involving U.S., 15 other nations nabs hundreds, drugs, cash. Authorities worldwide have arrested hundreds of suspects connected to organized crime after decrypting messages sent over an FBI-controlled smartphone application popular with the criminal underworld.

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From Dementialand:

Rejecting Biden's win, rising Republicans attack legitimacy of elections. The next generation of aspiring G.O.P. congressional leaders has aggressively pushed Donald Trump’s false fraud claims, raising the prospect that the results of elections will continue to be challenged through 2024.

How America fractured into four parts. People in the United States no longer agree on the nation's purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?

Trump feared Democrats would replace Biden with Michelle Obama, book claims. Donald Trump called Joe Biden a "mental retard" during the 2020 election, a new book says, but was reluctant to attack him too strongly for fear the Democrats would replace him with Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama.

QAnon supporter who chased Capitol police officer says he was deceived by 'pack of lies'. His attorney said he "fell victim to this barrage of internet sourced info" and came to the Capitol at the urging of former President Trump to "demonstrate that he was a 'true patriot.'"

Wisconsin ex-pharmacist gets prison for ruining vaccine. A former pharmacist in Wisconsin who purposefully ruined more than 500 doses of COVID-19 vaccine was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday. He is an admitted conspiracy theorist who believes he is a prophet and vaccines are a product of the devil. He also professed a belief that the Earth is flat and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were faked.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

68 - Roman emperor Nero committed suicide, after quoting Vergil's Aeneid, thus ending the Julio-Claudian dynasty and starting the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
1856 - Five hundred Mormons left Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.
1934 - first appearance of Donald Duck in the cartoon, "The Wise Little Hen".
1954 - Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashed out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings, giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" (Video)
1958 - "The Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley hit #1 in the U.S. (Video)
1959 - The USS George Washington was launched, the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. (Video)
1973 - Secretariat (March 30, 1970 - October 4, 1989) won the U.S. Triple Crown. He still holds the fastest speed records in all three races.
1980 - Comedian Richard Pryor suffered burns from freebasing cocaine. (NSFW Video)
1989 - "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" premiered in USA. This was the one directed by Shatner. The less said the better.

Birthdays

1672 - Peter the Great, Russian emperor (d. 1725)
1891 - Cole Porter, American composer and songwriter (d. 1964) (Video)
1910 - Robert Cummings, American actor, singer, and director (d. 1990) (Video)
1915 - Les Paul, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2009) (Video)
1916 - Robert McNamara, American businessman and politician, eighth United States Secretary of Defense (d. 2009)
1922 - John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Anglo-American pilot and poet (d. 1941); author of the poem "High Flight."
1930 - Marvin Kalb, American educator and newscaster (CBS/NBC, Meet the Press)
1931 - Jackie Mason, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1934 - Jackie Wilson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1984) (Video)
1961 - Michael J. Fox, Canadian-American actor, producer, and author
1961 - Aaron Sorkin, American screenwriter, producer, and playwright
1963 - Johnny Depp, American actor
1981 - Natalie Portman, Israeli-American actress

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Miscellany

Hartlepool's monkey statue
(Sky News)

Hartlepool's monkey statue to be given 'explanatory sign' to avoid offending visitors. Unless you're a visitor from France: "Legend states that the animal was the only survivor of a shipwreck off the northeast coast of England and because the villagers had never seen a monkey before, they mistook it for a Frenchman and convicted it of being a spy."

Las Vegas woman crushes three watermelons in 7.5 seconds for world record. Olson used her thighs to smash three watermelons in 7.5 seconds, nearly halving Ukrainian bodybuilder Olga Liashchuk's Guinness World Record of 14.65 seconds.

I really wasn't planning to, but here's another good reason: FDA issues warning not to eat cicadas if you're allergic to seafood. The insects share a family relation to shrimp and lobsters.

South African woman gives birth to decuplets. A South Africa woman who was expecting eight babies is believed to be a new record holder after she gave birth to 10 infants.

Categories: Covid-19, Cybercrime, Donald Trump, Internet, IRS, January 6, QAnon, Republicans, Taxes, The Big Lie

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Donald Trump gave his big speech with his pants on backwards? No, he didn't.

Trump's backward pants, Apple scams, fast food secrets, singers' birthdays
(permalink)

Published Monday, June 07, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jun 07 2021

Apple's tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams. Nearly two percent of Apple's top-grossing apps on one day were scams — and they have cost people $48 million.

AP's not real news: what didn't happen last week: Claim about airline meeting on vaccine liability is false; Cervical cancer screening letter is routine, not linked to COVID-19 vaccines; US military did not arrest Dr. Deborah Birx; and Dominion Voting Systems lawsuits against Powell and Giuliani are ongoing. I'm really beginning to wonder if a large portion of our population is insane.

I'm a billionaire politician, but you, a regular person, have to save the world. Purchase your world-saving equipment from Amazon. Amazon cares about bringing people together, as long as those people aren't coming together to form a union.

Sackler family empire poised to win immunity from opioid lawsuits While Purdue Pharma has twice pleaded guilty to federal crimes relating to its opioid marketing schemes, no member of the Sackler family has faced criminal charges.

25 secrets fast-food chains don't want you to know. My favorite: "the tastes and aromas of fast food items are often manufactured at special chemical plants in New Jersey." Why does the lab's New Jersey location make it seem worse?

MeidasTouch.com made a $184,854 TV buy with this ad on Fox News this week. Fox News denied airing the ad. You know what to do...

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is Daniel Boone Day, June Bug Day, National Chocolate Ice Cream Day, and VCR Day.

On this date in 1776, Richard Henry Lee presented the Lee Resolution to the Continental Congress. The motion was seconded by John Adams and led to the United States Declaration of Independence. (Video)

On this date in 1942, the battle of Midway ended in American victory. (Video)

On this date in 1955, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to appear in a live telecast on color television.

On this date in 1965, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, prohibiting the states from criminalizing the use of contraception by married couples.

On this date in 1968, Sirhan Sirhan was indicted for the assassination of US Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

On this date in 1969, Tommy James and the Shondells released their single Crystal Blue Persuasion. (Video)

On this date in 1972, the musical "Grease" opened at the Broadhurst Theater in New York City, where it ran for 3,388 performances. (Video)

Birthdays

1917 – Dean Martin, American singer, actor, and producer (d. 1995) (Video)
1940 – Tom Jones, Welsh singer and actor (Video-when you're over 80 and still the coolest dude in the room...)
1952 – Liam Neeson, Irish-American actor
1958 – Prince, American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor (d. 2016) (Video)
1959 – Mike Pence, 48th Vice President of the United States, 50th Governor of Indiana
1974 – Bear Grylls, English adventurer, author, and television host

Miscellany

After years of detecting land mines, a heroic rat is hanging up his sniffer. In four years he has helped to clear more than 2.4 million square feet of land. In the process, he has found 71 land mines and 38 items of unexploded ordnance.

Single's ad

Speaking of UFOs and related topics: "Preserving our way of life, because we care about the future - just not yours":

(This is a joke, of course...)

Categories: amazon.com, Apple, Associated Press, Battle of Midway, Bear Grylls, Dean Martin, Donald Trump, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Fast food, Fox News, Grease, January 6, Liam Neeson, Mike Pence, Opioids, Prince, Richard Henry Lee, Robert F. Kennedy, Sacker family, Sirhan Sirhan, Supreme Court, Tom Jones, Tommy James

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Why America's gas pipelines are an easy target for hackers. (Video)

UFOs: can't rule out aliens; F. Lee Bailey; caffeine and your brain
(permalink)

Published Friday, June 04, 2021 @ 1:22 AM EDT

Jun 04 2021

I want to believe

U.S. finds no evidence of alien technology in flying objects, but can’t rule it out, either. The report determines that a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology, the officials said. That determination would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots who reported seeing unexplained aircraft might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret. But that is about the only conclusive finding in the classified intelligence report, the officials said. And while a forthcoming unclassified version, expected to be released to Congress by June 25, will present few other firm conclusions, senior officials briefed on the intelligence conceded that the very ambiguity of the findings meant the government could not definitively rule out theories that the phenomena observed by military pilots might be alien spacecraft.

Whistleblower threatens run for Congress if Pentagon UFO report watered down. The hotly anticipated Pentagon report on UFOs may be nothing but space junk, warns a former Department of Defense employee.

F. Lee Bailey dies at 87.

Regular caffeine consumption – from coffee, cola, or energy drinks – affects brain structure."Our results do not necessarily mean that caffeine consumption has a negative impact on the brain, but daily caffeine consumption evidently affects our cognitive hardware, which in itself should give rise to further studies."

"SpongeBob" and "Transformers" cost u.s. taxpayers $4 billion, study says. A new report details ViacomCBS's use of a labyrinthine tax shelter to sell rights to its shows and films overseas.

The ugly truth behind your fancy rewards credit card. America’s poor foot much of the bill for credit card points, miles, and cash back. "The American payment system has evolved into a reverse Robin Hood whereby middle-class and working-class Americans who pay with a debit card, prepaid card, or cash are subsidizing the wealthy, who pay less for everything..."

Donald Trump is getting worse. The former President is only listening to "the bottom of the bottom of the crazies in the barrel."

Science fiction for the demented: QAnon grifter tells followers she can time travel — and says Trump will be "reinstated".

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is Audacity to Hope Day, Hug an Atheist Day, Hug your Cat Day, International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, National Cheese Day, National Cognac Day, National Doughnut Day, National Gun Violence Awareness Day, National SAFE Day, and Old Maid's Day.

On this day in 1411, Charles VI granted a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.

On this day in 1940, Winston Churchill delivered his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to the UK Parliament's House of Commons.

On this day in 1974, the Cleveland Indians held a Ten Cent Beer Night promotion. A ninth inning drunken fan riot interrupted the game, which the Indians forfeited. Another Ten Cent Beer Night was held on July 18, but with a two cup limit.

On this day in 1982, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" was released in the US. Its first day box office gross set a world record.

Birthdays

1907 – Rosalind Russell, American actress
1924 – Dennis Weaver, American actor and director
1928 – Ruth Westheimer, German-American sex therapist and author
1936 – Bruce Dern, American actor
1937 – Freddy Fender, American singer and guitarist (d. 2006)
1937 - Gorilla Monsoon, American professional wrestler, play-by-play commentator, and booker
1944 - Michelle Phillips, American singer, songwriter, actress, and former model
1961 – El DeBarge, American singer-songwriter and producer
1971 – Noah Wyle, American actor and producer
1975 – Russell Brand, English comedian and actor
1975 – Angelina Jolie, American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian, and activist

Categories: Caffeine, Coffee, Credit Cards, Donald Trump, F. Lee Bailey, QAnon, Ransomware, Taxes, UFOs

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Stupidity as a defense, KGB on WNN, Orson Welles on Noah
(permalink)

Published Thursday, June 03, 2021 @ 10:25 AM EDT

Jun 03 2021

Defense for some Capitol rioters: election misinformation. Falsehoods about the election helped bring insurrectionists to the Capitol on Jan. 6, and now some who are facing criminal charges for their actions during the riot hope their gullibility might save them or at least engender some sympathy.

Earth's ancient climate warns that we need to take urgent action, study suggests. "If we allow fossil fuel burning to continue to grow, our grandchildren may experience CO2 levels that haven't been seen on Earth for around 50 million years, a time when crocodiles roamed the Arctic"...

Pupil size is a marker of intelligence. There is a surprising correlation between baseline pupil size and several measures of cognitive ability.

Trump blog page shuts down for good. "...asked online later Wednesday whether the move was a "precursor" to the former president joining another "social media platform,"" Miller replied: "Yes, actually, it is. Stay tuned!" Someone should say something to them about the status of MySpace...

Danish radio journalist interviewed man while having sex with him at swingers club. "My mother just thinks it's funny and laughs, my father thought it was really cool." That explains a lot.

Aquakarma: A boat burst into flames after its passengers allegedly harassed a group flying LGBTQ pride flags.

Millions of Americans could face eviction as housing protection expires in June. Around 15% of adult renters are not current on their housing payments, according to an analysis by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Florida Man: 'Stand your ground' defense rejected in iguana killing. A judge has rejected the “stand your ground” defense of a Florida man who said he beat an iguana to death only after it attacked him, biting him on the arm.

Candidate interrupted by sex toy on drone, punched at event. A New Mexico sheriff who is running for mayor of Albuquerque was interrupted while on stage at a campaign event by a flying drone with a sex toy attached to it and a man who punched him.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is Chimborazo Day, Corpus Christi, National Chocolate Macaroon Day, National Egg Day, National Itch Day, National Moonshine Day, Repeat Day, and World Clubfoot Day.

Birthdays

1925 – Tony Curtis, American actor (d. 2010)
1926 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (d. 1997)
1929 – Chuck Barris, American game show host and producer (d. 2017)
1936 – Larry McMurtry, American novelist and screenwriter (d. 2021)
1961 – Lawrence Lessig, American lawyer, academic, and author, founded the Creative Commons
1967 – Anderson Cooper, American journalist and author

That time I did the weather with Anderson Cooper and Juju Chang on ABC World News Now. (Video)

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Special bonus: a wonderful monologue by Orson Welles from an old Dick Cavett show. (Video)

Categories: ABC World News Now, Cartoons, Dick Cavett, Donald Trump, Environment, Florida, January 6, Orson Welles

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"A new inauguration date is set": Inside the latest QAnon conspiracy theory to "reinstate" Trump.

Shortages explained, more QAnon lunacy, the return of Arthur Treacher.
(permalink)

Published Wednesday, June 02, 2021 @ 10:20 AM EDT

Jun 02 2021

Why there are so many shortages. (It's not Covid-19.)

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Flynn says he didn't endorse Myanmar-style coup after he appears to back plan in video exchange. Are these people not aware of the existence of video recording technology?

An Amazonian tribe may have discovered the secret to keeping the brain from aging. Some secret... good diet, exercise. Just once I'd like it to be some indigenous plant that can be synthesized in a home kitchen.

The pandemic is getting worse, even when it seems like it's getting better.

Contrary to earlier research, Vitamin D may not protect against COVID-19.

Remember Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips? It's coming back.

You have a week to opt-out of Amazon Sidewalk. Do it now. "If the idea of sharing part of your network with the neighbors is totally fine with you, please consider the fact that Amazon is a company of liars who cannot be trusted."

After 75,000 Echo arbitration demands, Amazon now lets you sue it. The change apparently was brought about by a surge in arbitration demands over revelations that Amazon's Echo devices were sometimes recording and saving conversations without consent, including those involving children. Those recordings allegedly ran afoul of laws in several states that require consent before recording and data collection.

Humans are causing mass extinction at a rate not seen since the last major extinction event. A new study suggests that we are entering a period of mass extinction comparable to the one 66 million years ago.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is American Indian Citizenship Day, Global Running Day, I Love My Dentist Day, National Bubba Day, National Leave the Office Early Day, National Rocky Road Day, National Rotisserie Chicken Day, National Tailors' Day, and Yell "Fudge" at the Cobras in North America Day.

Birthdays

1740 – Marquis de Sade, French philosopher and politician (d. 1814)
1937 – Sally Kellerman, American actress
1941 – Stacy Keach, American acto
1944 – Marvin Hamlisch, American composer and conductor (d. 2012)
1948 – Jerry Mathers, American actor ("Leave it to Beaver")
1953 – Cornel West, American philosopher, author, and academic
1955 – Dana Carvey, American comedian and actor
1972 – Wayne Brady, American actor, comedian, game show host, and singer
1977 – Zachary Quinto, American actor and produce
1978 – Justin Long, American actor
1979 – Morena Baccarin, Brazilian-American actress
1982 – Jewel Staite, Canadian actress

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(Grandma and Edie, 1972)

My paternal grandmother, Esther Schotting, passed away on this date in 1979. She and my grandfather raised me for the most part; they and the late Earle Wittpenn are mainly responsible for the person I am today. I remember her watching me as I walked home from elementary school in the afternoon, or crossing Eighth Avenue to go to Isaly's or McCrory's. She was always at a window, always looking for me.

In her last years, when I was changing buses to go to my job in Pittsburgh, she was there in the window in the apartment on Ann Street. I probably looked like an idiot, waving in the dark to no one visible. But I knew she was there.

The only time I ever saw my grandmother in a church was when I got married. She claimed she was an "old-time Baptist" and liked listening to Mahalia Jackson records and watching Billy Graham on the tv.

The local Baptist minister graciously agreed to conduct her service. I was holding up pretty well, until he ended his eulogy to a woman he never met with a poem by Margaret Widdemer that precisely described her:

She always leaned to watch for us,
Anxious if we were late,
In winter by the window,
In summer by the gate.

And though we mocked her tenderly,
Who had such foolish care,
The long way home would seem more safe
Because she waited there.

Her thoughts were all so full of us,
She never could forget!
And so I think that where she is
She must be watching yet.

Waiting till we come home to her,
Anxious if we are late,
Watching from Heaven’s window,
Leaning on Heaven’s gate.

Categories: amazon.com, Arthur Treacher, Covid-19, Donald Trump, QAnon

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Samuel E. Wright, voice of Sebastian the crab in The Little Mermaid, dead at 74. (Video)

Signs of the Apocalypse, QAnon and UFOs, traditional values
(permalink)

Published Wednesday, May 26, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

May 26 2021

Signs of the Apocalypse, #913. Game over, man. It has begun...

(Another link if video is missing.)

Signs of the Apocalypse, #914. Almost as scary- you don't need to be Douglas Trumbull or Jim Cameron to pull this off. Just about anyone can do this with easily obtainable software.

New grand jury seated for next stage of Trump investigation. Nope. Not gonna get excited. Been burned before...

Even worse: Arizona's Secretary of State 'stripped' of duties after criticizing election audit.

Republicans worried blind worship of Trump overriding traditional values like blind worship of Reagan. (The Onion)

Trumpland: QAnon crowd convinced UFOs are a diversion from voter fraud. "They want you talking about aliens because they don’t want you talking about Maricopa," Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson tweeted. You know things are bad when the story about the UFOs is true.

Social media heavyweights wooed for Pfizer smear campaign. Social media influencers in France with hundreds of thousands of followers say a mysterious advertising agency offered to pay them if they agreed to smear Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine with negative fake stories.

Germany gives greenlight to driverless vehicles on public roads. Germany has adopted legislation that will allow driverless vehicles on public roads by 2022, laying out a path for companies to deploy robotaxis and delivery services in the country at scale. While autonomous testing is currently permitted in Germany, this would allow operations of driverless vehicles without a human safety operator behind the wheel.

Missed opportunity: Tom Hanks, a life-long Star Trek fan, almost played Zefram Cochrane in "Star Trek: First Contact."

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is National Blueberry Cheesecake Day, National Cherry Dessert Day, National Paper Airplane Day, National Senior Health & Fitness Day, Sally Ride Day, World Dracula Day, World Lindy Hop Day, World Product Day, and World Redhead Day.

Events:

1647 - Alse Young was the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies
1805 - Lewis and Clark see the Rocky Mountains for the first time.
1828 - Mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser is discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg
1868 – The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal by one vote.
1896 – Charles Dow published the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
1897 – Dracula by Bram Stoker was published in London.
1927 – The last Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
1967 – The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the UK. (Video)
1975 - Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy single was released. (Video)
1978 - first legal gambling casino opened in Atlantic City.

Birthdays

Isadora Duncan (b. Angela Isadora Duncan, May 26, 1877 – September 14, 1927)
Al Jolson (b. Asa Yoelson, c. 1885 – October 23, 1950)
John Wayne (b. Marion Robert Morrison, May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979)
Jay Silverheels (b. Harold Jay Smith, May 26, 1912 – March 5, 1980)
Peter Cushing (May 26, 1913 – August 11, 1994)
Peggy Lee (b. Norma Deloris Egstrom, May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002)
James Arness (b. James King Aurness, May 26, 1923 – June 3, 2011)
Miles Davis (b. Miles Dewey Davis III, May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991)
Dr. Jack Kevorkian (b. Murad Jacob Kevorkian May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011)
Stevie Nicks (b. Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks, May 26, 1948)
Pam Grier (b. Pamela Suzette Grier, May 26, 1949)
Sally Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012)
Bobcat Goldthwait (b. Robert Francis "Bobcat" Goldthwait, May 26, 1962
Lenny Kravitz (b. Leonard Albert Kravitz, May 26, 1964)
Helena Bonham Carter (b. May 26, 1966)

Cartoon: National Holiday

Delusional

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We're taking an extended Memorial Day holiday and will resume on Tuesday, June 1.

Categories: Arizona, Cartoons, Covid-19, Deep Fakes, Donald Trump, Jim Carrey, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, Signs of the Apocalypse, Star Trek, The Big Lie, Tom Hanks

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This guy bought a fake COVID-19 vaccine card on Etsy.

Mr. T, UFOs, volcanoes, hurricanes, brainless sleep
(permalink)

Published Friday, May 21, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

May 21 2021

"You pity the fool because you don't want to beat up a fool. You know, pity is between sorry and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won't have to beat him up. So that's why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don't know no better. That's why I pity them."
-Mr. T (b. Lawrence Tureaud is 69 today.)

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Reality Checks:

YouTube termintated the "Truth About Vaccines" channel. The channel had about 75,000 subscribers but some of its videos had a much broader reach, including one that had over 1.5 million views and featured Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement.

Vax and scratch... New York offers $5M lottery for newly vaccinated. Why not? It appears to work.

When your company is named Covid, you've heard all the jokes. "You know, we get a lot of customers who always want to come up with our new taglines ... 'Covid, we had it first.' Or 'The only thing that's contagious is our quality.' We get all kinds of jokes from people. And a lot of people call and they talk to us and they just, 'can you believe that?' And you just smile a little bit and say, 'yeah,' and you just tell some of the stories that's happened because of it. But, yeah, it's OK."

Hundreds of PPP loans went to fake farms in absurd places. An online lending platform called Kabbage sent 378 pandemic loans worth $7 million to fake companies (mostly farms) with names like "Deely Nuts" and "Beefy King."

QAnon believers see Trump's mounting legal troubles as part of 'the plan.' "Do you think they realize how much MOAR powerful Trump will be after being falsely arrested?"

The myth of labor shortages. One of the few ways to have a true labor shortage in a capitalist economy is for workers to be demanding wages so high that businesses cannot stay afloat while paying those wages. But there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the U.S. economy does not suffer from that problem. If anything, wages today are historically low.

They have been growing slowly for decades for every income group other than the affluent. As a share of gross domestic product, worker compensation is lower than at any point in the second half of the 20th century. Two main causes are corporate consolidation and shrinking labor unions, which together have given employers more workplace power and employees less of it.

Former President Obama on UFOs: "What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there's footage and records of objects in the skies, that we don't know exactly what they are, we can't explain how they moved... And The Onion has a summary of what's in the Pentagon report on UFOs, including the revelation that most UFOs were acquired by United Airlines in 1998 as part of a $7 billion merger. Also: How to talk about the Pentagon's UFO report without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

111-year-old Australian recommends eating chicken brains. Of course he does.

Kevin McCarthy proposes removing January 6th from month of January. (Andy Borowitz)

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Nature:

Alaskan volcano may erupt... Due to low-level volcanic ash emissions and the detection of explosion signals, scientists at the USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) have upgraded the color code and alert level at the Semisopochnoi volcano. Semisopochnoi is the easternmost land location in the United States and North America, located just 9.7 miles west of the 180th Meridian in Alaska. (It's eastern because it extends beyond the International Date Line.)

U.S. government forecasts above-normal 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. They predict 3-5 major hurricanes, six to ten moderate hurricanes, and ten to 14 tropical storms. A storm expected to form off Bermuda this week.

Sleep evolved before brains. Sleep affects metabolism pervasively in the body, suggesting that its influence is not exclusively neurological.

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Researchers are restarting a DNA study of the remains of Christopher Columbus to try to settle the question of his nationality. Given his drop in popularity, one has to wonder if this is so the Italians can blame the Portugese.

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Ford's F-150 pickup truck has been the best-selling vehicle in America for decades. A $40K all-electric version may help push the transition away from internal combustion engines. In the meantime, a semiconductor chip shortage has halted production of the F-150, Bronco Sport, and others.

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Federal authorities have seized 68 big cats from an animal park in Oklahoma featured in Netflix's "Tiger King" citing recurring inhumane treatment and improper handling of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act.

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Colonial Pipeline paid hackers $4.4 million to restore its computer systems. In the old days before the Internet, companies who needed to network computers did so by obtaining dedicated leased lines from the telephone company. While expensive, it makes hacking from outside sources far more difficult, since breaking into a system requires actual physical access to the circuit connecting the sites or to a system directly connected to the private network. Also, systems providing essential services should be isolated from the public Internet. (I guess some executives never saw the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. Also, cybercrime is now a major industry- with its own trading markets and even CSR.

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Senators expected to announce deal on US Postal Service reform. It would eliminate the absurd law that required the postal service to pre-pay $5 billion a year in mandatory retiree health care benefits, and require future retirees to enroll in Medicare.

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"I hate everybody including you." The art of saying "no."

Categories: Andy Borowitz, Barack Obama, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Mr. T, QAnon, The Big Lie, UFOs, Unemployment, YouTube

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Covid-19 vaccines do not contain magnetic microchips.

Cockroaches and Cher, reality check, Charles Grodin
(permalink)

Published Thursday, May 20, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

May 20 2021

"I've come back so many times. Someone once told me that after World War III, the only things that will still be around are cockroaches and Cher."
-Cher (Cher is 75 today. Born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946)

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On this date in 2015, David Letterman, after 33 years on late night, hosts the "Late Show with David Letterman" for the last time.

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Reality check:

Trump fans claim their ballots were fed to chickens. And then the chickens were incinerated to destroy the evidence.

A state senator in Texas falsely claimed at a hearing that animal tests were "stopped" because the "animals were dying" and that "they didn’t do the human testing."

QAnon revives America's "Satanic Panic."

Arizona's election audit is worse than you think.

This IRS letter isn't a scam, and you should keep it.

A fungus is pushing cicada sex into hyperdrive and leaving them dismembered.

New York's probe into Trump Organization is now a criminal inquiry.

House approves January 6 commission over GOP objections. Lawmakers passed the bill in a 252-175 vote, with 35 Republicans joining all Democrats in support. Of course, unless ten GOP senators go along, it's an exercise in futility.

An amazing photo of a west Texas thunderstorm.

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Pittsburgh's Charles Grodin (April 21, 1935 – May 18, 2021) was valedictorian of his class at Peabody High School and was elected class president all four years. An accomplished actor, I remember him mainly from his many appearances as a talk show guest with an attitude:

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The World Health Organization says overworking is a major killer worldwide. So I'm outta here.

Categories: Arizona, Charles Grodin, Cher, Conspiracy Theorists, Covid-19, Donald Trump, IRS, January 6, Johnny Carson, QAnon, The Big Lie, The Tonight Show, Weather, World Health Organization

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PSP Frontotemporal Dementia

Trump, dementia, asteroids, Twitter, laboring from home under duress.
(permalink)

Published Wednesday, May 27, 2020 @ 12:00 AM EDT

May 27 2020

Today is Wednesday, May 27, the 148th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 218 days remain until the end of the year.

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Among other things, today is Cellophane Tape Day, National Grape Popsicle Day, National Gray Day, National Senior Health & Fitness Day®, Nothing to Fear Day, Old-Time Player Piano Day, Sunscreen Protection Day, and World Product Day.

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On this day:

in 1837, American folk hero Wild Bill Hickock (d. August 2, 1876) was born.
in 1907, Silent Spring author Rachel Carson (d. April 14, 1964) was born. Quotes by Rachel Carson.
in 1911, Vincent Price (d. October 25, 1993) was born.
in 1911, Hubert H. Humphrey (d. January 13, 1978) was born. Quotes by Hubert H. Humphrey
in 1922, Christopher Lee (d. June 7, 2015) was born.
in 1923, Henry Kissinger was born. Quotes by Henry Kissinger
in 1933, Walt Disney's cartoon 3 Little Pigs was released. It won the Academy Award Best Animated film in 1934;
in 1934, Harlan Ellison (d. June 28, 2018) was born. Quotes by Harlan Ellison
in 1935, Lee Meriwether was born.
in 1936, Louis Gossett Jr. was born.
in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic.
in 1941, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk in the North Atlantic.
in 1962, the Centralia mine fire was ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine. It could burn for another 250 years.
in 1995, actor Christopher Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition in Culpeper, Virginia. Quotes by Christopher Reeve

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Where U.S. coronavirus cases are on the rise... Twenty U.S. states reported an increase in new cases of COVID-19 for the week ended May 24, up from 13 states in the prior week, as the death toll from the novel coronavirus approaches 100,000, according to a Reuters analysis.

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The coronavirus is deadliest where Democrats live. Democrats are far more likely to live in counties where the virus has ravaged the community, while Republicans are more likely to live in counties that have been relatively unscathed by the illness, though they are paying an economic price. Counties won by President Trump in 2016 have reported just 27 percent of the virus infections and 21 percent of the deaths — even though 45 percent of Americans live in these communities, a New York Times analysis has found.

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Remembering Sara Little Turnbull, whose bra cup design became the N95 mask.

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New hormone that stimulates sexual functions in fish could lead to novel infertility treatments in humans.

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Asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs struck earth at “deadliest possible” angle. Related: Meteor that blasted millions of trees in Siberia only 'grazed' Earth, new research says.

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Twitter refuses to remove Trump's false tweets, but in some cases has begun fact-checking them.

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America's unemployment numbers are stabilizing. That's not a good thing.

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Kate Mulgrew might 'move to Ireland' if Trump wins second term.

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McConnell: Talking about fifth coronavirus bill 'in the next month or so'.

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NOAA's outlook for US summer weather—and hurricane season... wet, dry, and windy.

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'Something isn't right': U.S. probes soaring beef prices. One hundred years ago, U.S. antitrust prosecutors broke down monopolies in meatpacking. But can they do it again?

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Thoughts of the day:

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.
-Charles Caleb Coulton

I was thinking that we all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.
-Peter De Vries

If you cast your bread upon the water and you have faith, you'll get back cash. If you don't have faith, you'll get soggy bread.
-Don King

Population density is a term that has two meanings.
-William W. Webb

Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
-Julian Barnes

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You are not working from home. You are laboring in confinement, under duress.

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Things are really rough out there.
Please consider donating to Feeding America
.

Categories: Astronomy, Bismarck, Centralia Mine Fire, Christopher Lee, Christopher Reeve, Climate change, Covid-19, Democrats, Donald Trump, Frontotemporal Dementia, Golden Gate Bridge, Harlan Ellison, Henry Kissinger, Hubert H. Humphrey, Kate Mulgrew, Lee Meriwether, Louis Gossett Jr., Mitch McConnell, NOAA, Rachel Carson, Republicans, Three Little Pigs, Twitter, Unemployment, Vincent Price, Weather, Wild Bill Hickock

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