KGB Report

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)

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

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Today is May 6, is the 127th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 239 days remain until the end of the year.

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Among other things, today is Bike To School Day, Great American Grump Out, International No Diet Day, Joseph Brackett Day, National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day, National Beverage Day, National Crêpe Suzette Day, National Nurses Day, National School Nurse Day, National Tourist Appreciation Day, No Homework Day, Occupational Safety and Health Professional Day.

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As a maskless Trump tours an Arizona plant making face masks, someone plays "Live and Let Die" over the PA system...

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Remembering Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985):

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On this day in 1937, the German zeppelin Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed while attempting to dock with its mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey. 36 persons were killed, including one on the ground.

Trivia: The Hindenburg was supposed to be filled with helium instead of flammable hydrogen, but the sole source of helium, the United States, refused to sell it to Germany. Although abundant in the universe, helium is very scarce on Earth. The only commercially viable reserves are a few natural gas wells, mostly in the US, that trap it from the slow alpha decay of radioactive materials within the Earth. By human standards, helium is a non-renewable resource that cannot be practically manufactured from other materials. When released into the atmosphere, e.g., when a helium-filled balloon leaks or bursts, helium eventually escapes into space and is lost.

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On this date in 1994, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiated at opening of the Channel Tunnel between England and France.

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Willie Mays is 89 today.

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Bob Seger is 75 today.

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Tom Bergeron is 65 today.

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Murder hornets doubt they can do as much damage as Trump. (Borowitz)

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Oh, jeez. Anti-vaccination leaders seize on coronavirus to push resistance to inoculation. Leaders of the anti-vaccination movement, who in recent years have seen their efforts frustrated as U.S. states have adopted stricter laws promoting the inoculation of children, are seizing on the anxiety and social unrest generated by the virus and the government attempts to contain it.

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Octopus-like creatures inhabit Jupiter's moon, claims space scientist.

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Find a vaccine. Next: Produce 300 million vials of it. Scaling up the manufacturing of syringes and other medical products required to deliver a vaccine to millions of Americans will be just as important as the vaccine itself.

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Will Covid-19 go away in the summer and return in the fall? While heat and humidity harm the virus in the lab, that's not the same as real life.

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Trump says he shares his famed uncle's science genius. A friend says the uncle ‘would have been horrified.' The famed scientist John G. Trump once explained his theory of how to treat one malady by the “direct injection of electrons” into patients' skin. To treat another disease, he cited tests that showed it was possible to use electrons to “destroy or inactivate hepatitis virus in blood plasma.” But, President Trump's uncle said, “We unfortunately were not able to persuade anybody to try this,” because there had been “some casualties among volunteers.”

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In Japan, the ‘Murder Hornet' is both a lethal threat and a tasty treat. Long before the insects found their way to American shores, some Japanese prized them for their numbing crunch and the venomous buzz they add to liquor.

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Virus-afflicted 2020 looks like 1918 despite science's march. Modern science quickly identified today's new coronavirus, mapped its genetic code and developed a diagnostic test, tapping knowledge no one had in 1918. That has given people more of a fighting chance to stay out of harm's way, at least in countries that deployed tests quickly, which the U.S. didn't. But the ways to avoid getting sick and what to do when sick are little changed. The failure of U.S. presidents to take the threat seriously from the start also joins past to present.

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One in five Wendy's is out of beef. Around 1,000, or 18%, of Wendy's 5,500 US restaurants are not serving any hamburgers or other meat-based items, according to an analysis of online menus at every location conducted by financial firm Stephens. Wendy's is "more exposed" to the shortage sparked by the coronavirus pandemic because of its reliance on fresh beef compared with its competitors, the note said.

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Think murder hornets are bad? Alabama police search for "aggressive chicken" attacking people at ATMs.

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

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Categories: 1918 Pandemic, Andy Borowitz, Animals, Bob Seger, Channel Tunnel, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Hindenburg, John G. Trump, Jupiter, Murder Hornet, Orson Welles, Spanish Flu, Tom Bergeron, Vaccines, Wendy's, Willie Mays

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Quotes of the day- Orson Welles:
 
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 - October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, writer and producer who worked extensively in theater, radio and film. He is best remembered for his innovative work in all three media, most notably Caesar (1937), a groundbreaking Broadway adaption of Julius Caesar and the debut of the Mercury Theatre; The War of the Worlds (1938), the most famous broadcast in the history of radio; and Citizen Kane (1941), which is consistently ranked as one of the all-time greatest films. (Click for full article.)

A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what's for lunch.

Ecstasy is not really part of the scene we can do on celluloid.

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

Gluttony is not a secret vice.

Hollywood is Hollywood. There's nothing you can say about it that isn't true, good or bad. And if you get into it, you have no right to be bitter- you're the one who sat down, and joined the game.

I don't regard my career as something so precious that it comes before my convictions.

I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.

I don't take art as seriously as politics.

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.

I have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.

I passionately hate the idea of being “with it.” I think an artist is always out of step with his time. He has to be.

I started at the top and worked down.

If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo de Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.
(spoken by Orson Welles in the film The Third Man)

It's about two percent movie-making and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life.

Living in the lap of luxury isn't bad, except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

Old age is the only disease you don't want to be cured of.

The director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered.

The ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left.

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.

There are three intolerable things in life- cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.

We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.

When you are down and out, something always turns up- and it is usually the noses of your friends.

(YouTube video: Welles' final interview. He died a few hours after this taping.)

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Categories: Orson Welles, Quotes of the day

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Quotes of the day- H.G. Wells:
 
Herbert George "H.G." Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946) was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing textbooks and rules for war games. Together with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, Wells has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction". His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

A time will come when men will sit with history before them or with some old newspaper before them and ask incredulously, “Was there ever such a world?”

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature's inexorable imperative.

Advertising is legalized lying.

An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.

Mankind which began in a cave and behind a windbreak will end in the disease-soaked ruins of a slum.

Civilization is a race between disaster and education.

Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community.

Cynicism is humour in ill health.

Every time Europe looks across the Atlantic to see the American Eagle, it observes only the rear end of an ostrich.

Go away. I'm all right.
(attributed last words)

Heresies are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for truth.

How small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem at a distance of a few million miles.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions, great or small.

I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.

If we don't end war, war will end us.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.

Our true nationality is mankind.

Religion is pickled God.

Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use. It is time she held her hand.

The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in the course of taking hold of it.

The uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf. It's almost a law.

There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.

(YouTube video: Orson Welles and H.G. Wells meet for the first time in )

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Categories: H.G. Wells, Orson Welles, Quotes of the day, War of the Worlds, YouTube

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