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Facebook's relaxed gun policy, shrinkflation, NASA now looking for UFOs...
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Published Thursday, June 09, 2022 @ 4:36 PM EDT
Jun 09 2022

Leadership

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Facebook's ban on gun sales gives sellers ten strikes before booting them. But someone reports your harmless satirical cartoon, and you're off the platform.

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NASA joins the hunt for UFOs. In an interview with The Washington Post last year, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he had seen the classified UAP report when he was serving in the Senate. "The hair stood up on the back of my neck,"" he said.

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'Shrinkflation' accelerates globally as manufacturers quietly shrink package sizes. A small box of Kleenex now has 60 tissues; a few months ago, it had 65.

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Did the assault weapons ban of 1994 bring down mass shootings? The risk of a person in the U.S. dying in a mass shooting was 70% lower during the period in which the assault weapons ban was active. The proportion of overall gun homicides resulting from mass shootings was also down.

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New York City is a lot safer than small-town America. Rising homicide rates don't tell the whole story. When you dig deeper into data on deaths, you'll find the more urban your surroundings, the less danger you face.

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NASA's James Webb telescope was hit by a micrometeroid. The event was significant enough for NASA to pick up a "marginally detectable effect in the data," but not enough to affect the telescope's performance.

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Oops. Microsoft has accidentally released Windows 11 for unsupported PCs. If you managed to install Windows 11 on an unsupported PC and were expecting only Release Preview updates for Windows 10, you should be able to rollback the unexpected upgrade in the settings section of Windows 11.

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Google Maps now helps you find fresh air. Just as wildfire season begins.

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Michigan GOP candidate Kelley charged for Capitol riot role. Ryan Kelley, one of five Republican candidates for Michigan governor and an ardent defender of former President Donald Trump, was charged with misdemeanors Thursday for his role in the 2021 postelection riot at the U.S. Capitol.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration upgrades Tesla Autopilot safety probe, step before possible recall. The auto safety agency in August opened a preliminary evaluation to assess the performance of the system in 765,000 vehicles after a series of crashes in which Tesla vehicles struck stopped emergency vehicles.

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Vladimir Putin mysteriously postpones marathon TV phone-in for first time in 18 years. Vladimir Putin has postponed his annual TV Q&A session amid rumours over his health and in the wake of his invasion of Ukraine that is widely perceived to have been a military failure.

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Kremlin Receives Almost 42,000 Complaints on Missing Ukraine Soldiers. The Russian government has not released any official figures on its Ukraine death toll since March 25, when it said that 1,351 men had died during the conflict.

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An experimental cancer drug had a 100% success rate. A tiny group of people with rectal cancer just experienced something of a scientific miracle: their cancer simply vanished after an experimental treatment.

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Miscellany:

Birthdays:

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On this date in:

  • 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.

Today is:

Donald Duck Day, National Earl Day, National Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie Day, World APS Day, and Writers' Rights Day.

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Comments and observations:

Ultra-conservative theocratic men running everything is called Sharia Law over there and Scalia Law over here.
-John Fugelsang

I hear people say that Republicans are afraid of Donald Trump - no, they're not. They are him, they are sticking with the guy who gives them permission to be their worst selves.
-Mary Trump

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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: Crime, Drugs, Economics, Facebook, Google, Guns, James Webb Telescope, Mass shootings, Microsoft, NASA, Ryan Kelley, Shrinkflation, Tesla, UAPs, UFOs, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Windows


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Guns, needles, Jan. 6, stagflation, cheap pizza...
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Published Tuesday, June 07, 2022 @ 4:03 PM EDT
Jun 07 2022

Thoughts and prayers

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Uvalde teacher who lost 11 kids in his classroom says 'there is no excuse' for officers' delay in taking down gunman. "You're supposed to protect and serve. ... There is no excuse for their actions. And I will never forgive them."

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Most Americans don't accept the mass slaughter of children. Why does the GOP? (Washington Post gift article.)

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Fox News Channel to skip live primetime broadcast of Jan. 6 committee hearings because of course. Fox News will be the only major news network not to air the entire Jan. 6 Committee hearings live, and instead will provide its own coverage "as warranted" through the filter of its regular prime-time programs and hosts.

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Nightclub needle attacks puzzle authorities across Europe. It's not just France: Britain's government is studying a spate of "needle spiking" there, and police in Belgium and the Netherlands are investigating scattered cases, too.

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The 'Benjamin Button' effect: Scientists can reverse aging in mice. The goal is to do the same for humans. Using proteins that can turn an adult cell into a stem cell, researchers have reset aging cells in mice to earlier versions of themselves. In the first breakthrough, published in late 2020, old mice with poor eyesight and damaged retinas could suddenly see again, with vision that at times rivaled their offspring's.

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World Bank warns global economy may suffer 1970s-style stagflation. The World Bank on Tuesday slashed its global growth forecast to 2.9% and warned that many countries could fall into recession as the economy slips into a period of stagflation reminiscent of the 1970s.

Domino's Pizza offering half off all online pizza orders until June 12. All regularly priced pizza items are part of the deal, including specialty pizza offerings like Brooklyn style or pan pizzas. The deal can be applied to pick-up or delivery orders.

Target is ramping up discounts. Here's why. Target is stuck with too much home decor and too many TVs. To clear out the glut, it will ramp up discounts.

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Five biggest Supreme Court cases to watch. The U.S. Supreme Court tends to issue its biggest decisions in June. With a conservative super majority of justices, the public is focused on what new precedents the court could set - or even overturn.

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The GOP drive to install thousands of poll workers sets off alarms. Raises alarms that Republican election deniers could infiltrate official election operations and undermine the process.

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They thought they bought Obamacare plans. What they got wasn't insurance.

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10 secrets snack companies don't want you to know. Well, this is depressing.

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Neural 'poisonous flowers' could be the source of Alzheimer's plaque, says study.

Neuroscience says this simple sleep habit literally cleans your brain. We're not sure why it works. But it seems to have a significant effect.

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Paramount sued over 'Top Gun' copyright as 'Maverick' soars at the box office.

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Miscellany:

Birthdays

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On this date in:

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Today is:

Daniel Boone Day, June Bug Day, National CAPHPACH Day, National Chocolate Ice Cream Day, Trial Technology Day, and VCR Day


Categories: Aging (Ageing), Alzheimer's Disease, Domino's Pizza, Economics, Elections, Fox News, Mass shootings, Needle spiking, Obamacare, Paramount Pictures, Republicans, Stagflation, Supreme Court, Target, Top Gun, Uvalde school shooting


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

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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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Depp/Heard, Southern Baptists, Climate, Sharkcano!
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Published Tuesday, May 24, 2022 @ 6:45 PM EDT
May 24 2022

For what it's worth, I've managed to avoid for the most part the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard spectacle. For those keeping track, though, on social media, Johnny Depp is winning public sympathy over Amber Heard. The hashtag #IStandWithAmberHeard has earned about 8.2 million views, compared to 15 billion views for #JusticeForJohnnyDepp. Closing arguments are expected to start on Friday. Also, The Johnny Depp–Amber Heard trial is not as complicated as you may think. The entirety of the case rests on twelve words.

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Active shooter incidents rose over 50% in 2021 compared to 2020. As opposed to passive shooters? I guess this is one way to avoid using the more accurate but NRA-unfriendly "mass shootings".

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South Asia's intense heat wave a 'sign of things to come'. Indian cities and Pakistan consistently saw temperatures above 45°C (113°F) in the past weeks. In Pakistan, scorching temperatures over 50°C (122°F) were recorded in some places like Jacobabad and Dadu. Parts of the Indian capital New Delhi saw temperatures reaching 49°C (120°F) this month.

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Top Southern Baptists plan to release secret list of abusers. ...the largest Protestant denomination in America, said Tuesday that they will release a secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse. Also: 'I was just 16': Pastor's 'adultery' confession in church goes off the rails. With video, no less.

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'Predator' spyware let government hackers break into Chrome and Android, Google Says. A shady private surveillance company sold access to nearly half a dozen powerful security flaws in Chrome and Android last year to government-affiliated hackers, Google revealed Monday.

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Georgia was deliberately destroying unopened and unexpired baby formula.

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The profound impact of giving American families a little more cash. Six months of payments lifted millions of children out of poverty. Then they stopped. The effects of the expanded tax credit's expiration were just as stark as its introduction: Child poverty increased 41 percent the first month after the credit expired, according to the researchers at Columbia.

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Can you ditch cable and go with Verizon or T-Mobile's 5G home internet? Not really.

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Shell Oil consultant quits, says company causes 'extreme harm' to planet. Oil giant's expansion plan prompted resignation email accusing firm of dismissing climate risks.

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Florida man does it again: Appeals court: Florida law on social media unconstitutional. A Florida law intended to punish social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, dealing a major victory to companies who had been accused by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis of discriminating against conservative thought.

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Clarence and Ginni Thomas are telling us exactly how the 2024 coup will go down. Also, guess who? The Supreme Court just condemned a man to die despite strong evidence he's innocent. He would have received a new trial if the Supreme Court hadn't changed the law.

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Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is 81 today.

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Tweets, observations, and diversions:

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Births increase in US for first time in seven years. Births remained below "replacement" level, the rate necessary to fully replace the number of people in the current adult generation. I know I like to think of us Generation Jonesers as irreplaceable.

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Republicans are complaining about declining birth rates after making America a place where nobody in their right mind would want to raise a child.
-Middle Age Riot

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'Sharkcano' is erupting! NASA satellite images capture a plume of discolored water emitting from the Kavachi Volcano, where mutant sharks live in an acidic underwater crater.

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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: 5G, Amber Heard, Android, Baby formula, Birthrate, Bob Dylan, Child Poverty, Chrome, Clarence Thomas, Climate change, FBI, Florida, Georgia, Google, Johnny Depp, Mass shootings, Ron DeSantis, Sharkcano, Shell Oil, Southern Baptists, Supreme Court


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Mass shootings, Medicare, space tourists, Alito, aging as a disease, dumping Depp, MickeyD defects
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Published Monday, May 16, 2022 @ 4:26 PM EDT
May 16 2022

It's 19 weeks into the year and America has already seen 198 mass shootings. "This is planned violence. There is, in every one of these cases, always a trail of ... behavioral warning signs."

A fringe conspiracy theory, fostered online, is refashioned by the G.O.P. (NY Times free story) Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.

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Potentially alive 830-million-year-old organisms found trapped in ancient rock. What could go wrong?

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Americans can expect to pay a lot more for medical care in retirement. No kidding. A 65-year-old couple retiring this year can expect to spend an average of $315,000 in health-care and medical expenses in their retirement, according to a new estimate by Fidelity Investments. That's 5% higher than last year's estimate.

And what do they get for it? One in four Medicare patients harmed in hospitals, nearly half preventable. Among the roughly 1 million Medicare patients who were discharged from hospitals in October 2018, a total of 258,323 experienced an adverse or temporary harm event during their stay. And 12% experienced events that led to longer stays, lifesaving interventions, permanent harm, or death. "This projects to 121,089 Medicare patients having experienced at least one adverse event during the 1-month study period," the report stated.

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Whiny space tourists say they were too busy on the space station. They wanted to look out the window.

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The other scary thing about Alito's draft ruling on abortion... The dissents Alito stakes his argument on don't have to do with only abortion. They suggest threats to other constitutional rights, such as contraception access or LGBTQ protections. (Washington Post free article.)

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"I cannot survive on $260 a week": US retail and fast-food workers strike. Workers who bore the brunt of the Covid pandemic at billion-dollar companies such as Dollar General, McDonald's and Wendy's are leading a surge in action.

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Pennsylvania US Senate candidate Fetterman suffers stroke but says he's 'well on my way to a full recovery'. Don't bet against anybody who looks like Thanos. Election Day is tomorrow. Don't miss it.

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Yale research identifies causes of cancer. TL;DR: Essentially, being a living being on Earth.

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Confirmed: Disney Officially Replaces Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. Though the Mouse House still uses Johnny Depp's likeness for new Jack Sparrow merchandise, as well as features the man in their famous Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at Disney Parks, Disney has officially dumped Depp forever.

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Pizza has a delivery problem. The difficulty finding and keeping employees has hampered businesses across multiple sectors, but the restaurant industry has been hit particularly hard, leading to shorter operating hours and longer wait times for customers.

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The strange post-Trump politics of the Pennsylvania republican primaries. A few theories for why the former President's endorsement of Mehmet Oz failed to clear the field.

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Before Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, only 20% of Finland's citizens were in favor of joining NATO. Now it's 75%.

And in response...

Russian state TV suggests deploying nuclear weapons against Finland, Sweden. "Their official reason [to join NATO] is fear. But they'll have more fear in NATO. When NATO bases appear in Sweden and Finland, Russia will have no choice but to neutralize the imbalance and new threat by deploying tactical nuclear weapons," presenter Dmitry Kiselyov reportedly said on the channel.

Remember the old truism that the United States was never involved in conflicts with countries that had McDonald's franchises? McDonald's to leave Russia for good after 30 years.

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Aging, and the chronic diseases that come with it, is considered just an inevitable part of life. But what if it wasn't? What if aging itself was a disease- a disease that can be treated? Many scientists are doing just that, and the results are nothing short of shocking. Just how close are we to a cure for aging?

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Tweets, observations, and diversions:

Things you discover looking up other things: Back when rat infestations were commonplace, people found that rats loved chewing on paper. In an effort to save your notes while also offering a bit of papery delicacy to disease-carrying rodents, companies added wide margins to all four sides of notebook paper.

Some clickbait just doesn't work. "Unsettling Don Knotts secrets you never knew." Don't think so.

Trump supporters are white people for whom being born white in America wasn't enough of an advantage.
-Middle Age Riot

Questions for the people who are scared of becoming a minority: Why is that? Are minorities treated differently?
-Padma Lakshmi

You don't really think the party that yawned while its public health policies killed over 1,000,000 Americans with COVID is ever going to care if its ahistorical Second Amendment fetish kills thousands of Americans with gun violence, do you?
-Mrs. Betty Bowers


Categories: Abortion, Aging (Ageing), Cancer, Disney, Elections, Finland, Joe Scott, John Fetterman, Johnny Depp, Mass shootings, McDonald's, Medicare, Medicine, Mehmet Oz, NATO, Pirates of the Carribean, Pizza, Replacement Theory, Republicans, Retirement, Russia, Science, Space, Supreme Court, Sweden, Ukraine, Unions


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Shootings, sugar, shrinkflation, stop putting garlic up your nose
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Published Wednesday, July 07, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT
Jul 07 2021

More than 230 people die in shootings over the Fourth of July weekend.

Up to 1,500 businesses affected by ransomware attack, U.S. firm's CEO says.

Study links early-onset colorectal cancer with sugar-sweetened drinks. (Video)

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is less effective at preventing Delta variant infections (64%) than other variants (94.3%), but still protects against severe illness, preliminary Israeli study says.

The U.S. military is testing a pill that could delay aging.

Beware of "shrinkflation,"" inflation's devious cousin. "Consumers tend to be price conscious. But they're not net-weight conscious. They can tell instantly if they're used to paying $2.99 for a carton of orange juice and that goes up to $3.19. But if the orange juice container goes from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, they're probably not going to notice."

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From Crazytown:

Qufos

QAnon followers think secret trials will be held for COVID rule enforcers- 'Nuremberg 2.0'.

QAnon spreads Biden photo online claiming it shows Trump is secretly in the White House.

The Trump kids look likely to turn on their dad... Ivanka will go first. The former president is not in immediate danger of jail, but his problems are piling up fast. Not least the fact that, in his family, loyalty means nothing.

GETTR, the pro-Trump social media platform, gottrd hacked on its launch day.

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

  • 1456 - A retrial verdict acquitted Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.
  • 1863 - The United States began its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.
  • 1865 - Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt were executed for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate US President Abraham Lincoln
  • 1907 - Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.
  • 1928 - Sliced bread was sold for the first time (on the inventor's 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.
  • 1930 - Construction begins on Boulder (Hoover) Dam
  • 1954 - Elvis Presley made his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right". (Video)
  • 1981 - US President Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • 1992 - The New York Court of Appeals ruled that women have the same right as men to go topless in public.
  • 2035 - Launch date of NASA's Aries 3 mission to Mars in the novel and movie "The Martian"

Birthdays

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Miscellany

Remembering Richard Donner: With "Superman" and the "Lethal Weapon" Films, he made the blockbuster era both bigger and smaller. Trivia: Donner directed all the live action segments of the first season of Hanna-Barbera's kid show, "The Banana Splits."

Please stop putting garlic up your nose on TikTok, doctors request.

Man bitten by neighbor's escaped python while sitting on the toilet. Why was the python sitting on the toilet?

Labor Department announces plans to stop counting jobs and just enjoy economy.(satire: The Onion)

Charlotte flight to Bahamas canceled when high schoolers refuse to wear masks.

There is a sunken continent hidden under Iceland and scientists dubbed it Icelandia. Other Iceland news: Four-day work week 'an overwhelming success' in Iceland.

Time to cancel police dogs, experts say. Police K-9s are "grossly, disproportionately" used against people of color, inflict gruesome lifelong injuries, and often attack people who have committed minor crimes. I oppose their use because the dogs are unaware of the danger in which they're often placed. To them, it's just a game.

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Categories: Covid-19, Dogs, Fact check, Health, Inflation, Mass shootings, QAnon, Ransomware, Richard Donner, UFOs


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Meet the New Year, same as the old year...
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Published Tuesday, January 01, 2013 @ 3:01 AM EST
Jan 01 2013

KGB Report welcomes you to 2013: May this arbitrary, transient point in your solipsistic sense of the space-time continuum delineate the initiation of a series of random events which trend in a manner which you perceive to be favorable.


Categories: Barack Obama, Cartoons, Elections, History, Holidays, Mass shootings, New Years, Photo of the day, Politics, Second Amendment, The Big Bang Theory, U.S. Constitution, WTF?


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Tea Party Nation Knows What Causes Shootings: Unions, Loud Stereos and Sluts
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Published Wednesday, December 19, 2012 @ 1:59 AM EST
Dec 19 2012

by RICH ABDILL
(from Wonkette.)

There was a pretty bad shooting on Friday, and the only thing anybody can talk about is Why It Happened. Logical folk (i.e. us) have been saying it probably had something to do with guns and mental health, but people who don't want that to be true have been saying there isn't any evidence for it, despite all the evidence for it.

In their stead, however, they have been providing all sorts of other factors that are much more obvious, and do not require evidence. This is lucky because they do not have any.

The gun-massacre by the guy with seriously questionable mental health was not exacerbated by guns or mental health care, see, it was abortion pills, obviously. Also to blame: children who do not bum-rush gunmen, because they're stupid. Also, courtesy of Mensa Brain-Astronaut Glenn Beck: Fisher-Price toys. DEFINITELY NOT GUNS.

But there is more. There is sooo much more, and it was decided by Tea Party Nation, so you know it's real, and not a petty, steaming pile of Puritanical extremist propaganda that travels so far afield from the issues at hand that one can't help but wonder what they think the issues actually are. Tell us, Tea Party Brain Timothy Birdnow, what are we to do, to stay not dead?

Homeschool. Take away the power of the radicals in the classrooms. Makes your kids safer, too.

Yes. Guns are not the problem, leaving the house is the problem. That's where they shoot people! And teach evolution!

Back Right to Work legislation for the public sector. Teacher’s unions have helped cement much of this in place. As long as we have group think in the classrooms we will never see the end of this.

There was a shooting! DESTROY UNIONS. This is a real thing. This is a serious thought. Why, Birdnow? What is the “this” we will “never see the end of”? Why are unions so bad?

There was a time when teachers actually spanked children; now a teacher is in peril if he verbally chastises a bad kid.

Ah, cool. Destroy the unions, they are preventing children from being beaten in public, and this is causing school shootings. Next tip:

Call evil out. We have to stop being sorry and start being angry. This is not a time for national grief so much as a time for national anger. We should stop tolerating this sort of thing. Indeed, stop tolerating any bad behavior.

Not guns, mind you. “Bad behavior.” Like what?

If you see kids jumping ahead in line, say, call them out. If you see punks bothering their neighbors call them out. Say something to the idiot blaring his car stereo. Say something to the foul-mouthed teens. Tell the brats to pull up their pants; nobody wants to see their filthy underwear and pimply behind.

Again, a polite reminder that this is a real thing that people believe with their brains. The way to prevent mass shootings is to tell people to pull up their pants, because if we stop putting up with bad behavior, people will magically stop using murder machines to murder.

(Also, about that car stereo thing: A man in Florida (of course) confronted some teens about their loud stereo. They started arguing with him, so he killed one of them with… wait for it… A GUN.)

Also, the problem is not that people with certain conditions lose the ability to reason between right and wrong, the problem is that weenie liberals WON'T TEACH ‘EM:

The idea of restoring standards of right and wrong never occur to anyone on the Left. Last night on television a reporter referred to the shooter’s “damaged mind and broken soul” as if he were somehow a VICTIM! In the old days we would not call this anything but a heinous crime, a horrible mass murder of innocent children.

Translation: “You know what I miss? The days where we didn't understand mental illness and just electrocuted people. We should do that still. Fuck ‘em. Let's get mad.”

The next one is a doozy:

Work to devolve power back to the parents, the local officials, and the communities. A society that is top-down will inevitably lead to alienation of the sort we have seen here… As an FBI profiler said on television last night, he undoubtedly felt powerless and sought to remedy that. Why does a twenty year old feel powerless? He could leave his mother’s home at any time at his age. He feels powerless because he has lived in an over-bureaucratized society, one run ultimately from a far-away central location.

(Just to make sure you're following: The implication here is that a man shot up a school because of a centralized government.)

He has been coddled all his life, given free rein to indulge his senses but not to face the responsibilities that freedom necessitates. He was an eternal juvenile, a child who was not allowed to grow up. He lived in a world of the Progressives making, not in reality.

Progressives made this young man feel helpless. It's only logical! If we were more focused on states' rights, he would have felt magnificent, and free, and would have been not as shooty. Again, IT WAS NOT GUNS OR MENTAL HEALTH. REALLY. IT WASN'T.

On to the most logical cause of shootings:

Restrict the sex in movies, television, on the internet.

There is it! There's the money quote. Obviously slutty thoughts cause shootings. NOT GUNS.

There is a reason why young people commit these sorts of crimes, and sex plays no small part. Their passions are eternally inflamed, and they wander the Earth with no outlet for their overstimulated glands.

Taking a quiet pause for “overstimulated glands” causing shootings.

[I]t has traditionally been understood that a sexually robust individual will fight harder and more aggressively… Even if they were to live promiscuously (a very bad thing for society) they still cannot find adequate outlets for their passions, which have grown to titanic volume.

Titanic volume! Look how slutty kids are these days. No wonder they're shooting people! They aren't having enough sex! (Also: If they do have enough sex, that is “a very bad thing for society.” In case you were thinking we could get through any argument without some slut-shaming.)

The only answer is to follow the other societal coping mechanism, which is to tone down the sexual stimulation, encourage chastity and modesty.

OK. OK this blog post has to stop. It's too much. It is too much stupid. The next item on the list is how Trayvon Martin probably got himself shot because of marijuana, and after that… oh. Oh man here comes another blockquote:

Support the creation of local organizations to act as "neighborhood watch" for schools. Had George Zimmerman been at the front door instead of some mechanical card reader those children would still be alive.

I can't feel my legs. It's too much. The room is spinning. School shootings happen because there are not random, armed civilians at the door. And the only people against this would be unions.

I have to stop. I can't write anymore. It hurts. My face hurts, what's wrong with my hands…

10.Go back to church. We need God more than ever, need prayer.

OH GOD. STOP WITH THE BLOCKQUOTES. It hurts, it hurts. We get it, it wasn't guns. It was anything but guns. Literally anything. Does anyone have an inhaler?

[Tea Party Nation via ThinkProgress]

(Read the original post here.)


Categories: Mass shootings, Rich Abdill, Second Amendment, Tea Party, Wonkette


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"Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears"
(permalink)

Published Tuesday, December 18, 2012 @ 5:58 AM EST
Dec 18 2012

Our Moloch

Garry Wills in The New York Review of Books

Few crimes are more harshly forbidden in the Old Testament than sacrifice to the god Moloch (for which see Leviticus 18.21, 20.1-5). The sacrifice referred to was of living children consumed in the fires of offering to Moloch. Ever since then, worship of Moloch has been the sign of a deeply degraded culture. Ancient Romans justified the destruction of Carthage by noting that children were sacrificed to Moloch there. Milton represented Moloch as the first pagan god who joined Satan’s war on humankind:

First Moloch, horrid king, besmear’d with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears,
Though for the noise of Drums and Timbrels loud
Their children’s cries unheard, that pass’d through fire
To his grim idol. (Paradise Lost 1.392-96)

Read again those lines, with recent images seared into our brains—“besmeared with blood” and “parents’ tears.” They give the real meaning of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday morning. That horror cannot be blamed just on one unhinged person. It was the sacrifice we as a culture made, and continually make, to our demonic god. We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice children to him daily—sometimes, as at Sandy Hook, by directly throwing them into the fire-hose of bullets from our protected private killing machines, sometimes by blighting our children’s lives by the death of a parent, a schoolmate, a teacher, a protector. Sometimes this is done by mass killings (eight this year), sometimes by private offerings to the god (thousands this year).

The gun is not a mere tool, a bit of technology, a political issue, a point of debate. It is an object of reverence. Devotion to it precludes interruption with the sacrifices it entails. Like most gods, it does what it will, and cannot be questioned. Its acolytes think it is capable only of good things. It guarantees life and safety and freedom. It even guarantees law. Law grows from it. Then how can law question it?

Its power to do good is matched by its incapacity to do anything wrong. It cannot kill. Thwarting the god is what kills. If it seems to kill, that is only because the god’s bottomless appetite for death has not been adequately fed. The answer to problems caused by guns is more guns, millions of guns, guns everywhere, carried openly, carried secretly, in bars, in churches, in offices, in government buildings. Only the lack of guns can be a curse, not their beneficent omnipresence.

Adoration of Moloch permeates the country, imposing a hushed silence as he works his will. One cannot question his rites, even as the blood is gushing through the idol’s teeth. The White House spokesman invokes the silence of traditional in religious ceremony. “It is not the time” to question Moloch. No time is right for showing disrespect for Moloch.

The fact that the gun is a reverenced god can be seen in its manifold and apparently resistless powers. How do we worship it? Let us count the ways:

1. It has the power to destroy the reasoning process. It forbids making logical connections. We are required to deny that there is any connection between the fact that we have the greatest number of guns in private hands and the greatest number of deaths from them. Denial on this scale always comes from or is protected by religious fundamentalism. Thus do we deny global warming, or evolution, or biblical errancy. Reason is helpless before such abject faith.

2. It has the power to turn all our politicians as a class into invertebrate and mute attendants at the shrine. None dare suggest that Moloch can in any way be reined in without being denounced by the pope of this religion, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre, as trying to destroy Moloch, to take away all guns. They whimper and say they never entertained such heresy. Many flourish their guns while campaigning, or boast that they have themselves hunted “vermin.” Better that the children die or their lives be blasted than that a politician should risk an election against the dread sentence of NRA excommunication.

3. It has the power to distort our constitutional thinking. It says that the right to “bear arms,” a military term, gives anyone, anywhere in our country, the power to mow down civilians with military weapons. Even the Supreme Court has been cowed, reversing its own long history of recognizing that the Second Amendment applied to militias. Now the court feels bound to guarantee that any every madman can indulge his “religion” of slaughter. Moloch brooks no dissent, even from the highest court in the land.

Though LaPierre is the pope of this religion, its most successful Peter the Hermit, preaching the crusade for Moloch, was Charlton Heston, a symbol of the Americanism of loving guns. I have often thought that we should raise a statue of Heston at each of the many sites of multiple murders around our land. We would soon have armies of statues, whole droves of Heston acolytes standing sentry at the shrines of Moloch dotting the landscape. Molochism is the one religion that can never be separated from the state. The state itself bows down to Moloch, and protects the sacrifices made to him. So let us celebrate the falling bodies and rising statues as a demonstration of our fealty, our bondage, to the great god Gun.

December 15, 2012, 5:25 p.m.

Link to original article here.


Categories: Gary Wills, Mass shootings, Moloch, New York Review of Books, Second Amendment


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Sigh.
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Published Sunday, December 16, 2012 @ 12:10 AM EST
Dec 16 2012

Hey, t-shirt person.

If the "loving" god who demands your worship isn't bright enough to correctly interpret the establishment clause of the United States Constitution, and is so petty and vindictive as to turn his back and allow the slaughter of 20 innocent babies, then I have no use for either of you.

If you don't think teachers should be unionized but they should be armed, cancel basic cable.
-@LOLGOP

If more guns made things safer America would have the lowest murder rate on Earth.
 
The NRA reminds you their right to shoot more clay pigeons without reloading is just a bit more important than your life.
 
Welcome to America, where some of you will have an easier time buying an assault rifle than marrying who you love.
-John Fugelsang

Once, millions of Americans correctly argued the Constitution gave them the right to own other human beings, too. We changed.
-Jason Cochran

If the reason to have a thing is to protect yourself against people with the same thing, maybe that thing is a bad thing.
-@TheTweetofGod

It took two minutes, between 9:36am to 9:38am to kill 26 children and their teachers. How many hunters encounter 26 deer in two minutes?
-Roland Scahill

Too many conservatives refuse to regulate assault rifles, but they're fine with regulating the female reproductive organs. Because liberty.
-Bob Cesca

Sorry, but prayers and giving your kids hugs fix nothing; only having the balls to stand up to our insane selfish gun culture will.
-Bill Maher


Categories: First Amendment, Mass shootings, Religion, Second Amendment, WTF?


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