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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
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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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KGB Cap
KGB Merch

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
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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
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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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No shirts, pants or undies needed on bike ride, just a mask.

Manchin madness, McDonald's AI, caffeine danger, lab leak theory
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Published Tuesday, June 08, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

Jun 08 2021

Manchin's opposition clouds future of Dems' elections bill. "Voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen," Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia wrote. But how can you have bipartisan support when one of the parties has dedicated itself to subverting the democratic process?

CO₂ concentration levels hit record high, show no impact from pandemic. Although carbon emissions fell 17 percent globally in spring 2020, they were on the rise again by September, with research from the World Meteorological Organization indicating they fell only a net 6.4 percent last year.

McDonald's is testing Siri-style AI technology at drive-thrus. Reminds me of the joke Jay Leno made when the chain announced it would start using robots in their kitchens: "You just know these were the robots that weren't smart enough to work for NASA."

Five ways to keep your brain sharp as you age. I'm certain one of them should be avoiding cable news.

Fact check: Video falsely presents joke as confession to QAnon blood-harvesting conspiracy theory. I'm no longer wondering - a large portion of our population is insane.

I just want to point out that "Who is the President of the United States?" is a question they ask people to tell if they are sane.
-Paula Poundstone

Warning: high caffeine consumption may increase risk of blinding eye disease. It works out to about three or four cups of coffee per day. Swell.

Frozen in siberian permafrost for 24,000 years, microscopic animal comes back to life. Gee, what could go wrong?

The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the fight to uncover Covid-19's origins. State Department investigators say they were repeatedly advised not to open a "Pandora's box."

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

Among other things, today is

On this date:

1789 - James Madison introduced twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress. Ten were eventually adopted, known as the Bill of Rights.
1887 - Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator.
1912 - Carl Laemmle incorporated Universal Pictures.
1949 - George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.
1964 - Jan and Dean released the single "The Little Old Lady (from Pasadena)". (Video)
1966 - the National Football League and American Football League announced a merger effective in 1970.
1968 - Gary Puckett and Union Gap released "Lady Willpower". (Video)
1979 - "The Source," the first computer public information service, went online.
1984 - the film "Ghostbusters" was released. (Video)
1988 - Nippon Airways announced that painting eyeballs on jets cut bird collisions by 20%.

Birthdays

1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, designed the Price Tower and Fallingwater (d. 1959).
1910 – John W. Campbell, American science fiction writer and editor (d. 1971).
1918 – Robert Preston, American captain, actor, and singer. (Video)
1925 – Barbara Bush, American wife of George H.W. Bush, 41st First Lady of the United States (d. 2018)
1927 – Jerry Stiller, American actor, comedian and producer (d. 2020) (Video)
1933 – Joan Rivers, American comedian, actress, and television host (d. 2014). (Video)
1940 – Nancy Sinatra, American singer and actress. (Video)
1951 – Bonnie Tyler, Welsh singer-songwriter. (Video)
1955 – Tim Berners-Lee, English computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Miscellany

UK commandos fly over the sea with new jet pack. It's the 21st century. This is way overdue.

Putin says he has no intention of reinstating Trump. "I think if I were planning to put Trump back in power, I would know about it,"" the visibly annoyed Putin said. (Andy Borowitz)

The average home goes through 2,184 pounds of laundry a year — the weight of an adult black rhinoceros. Kids may be a large part of the reason why. The average child goes through three outfits on a typical day.

Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Caffeine, Coffee, Covid-19, Environment, Joe Manchin, McDonald's, QAnon, Voting

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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
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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..."

Cartoon: shortest life spans
Dave Whamond | Copyright 2021 Cagle Cartoons

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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"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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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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