Today is Friday, May 8, the 129th day of the year in the Gregorian
calendar. 237 days remain until the end of the year.
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Among other things, today is Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks a Voice,
Free Trade Day, Iris Day, Military Spouse Appreciation Day, National
Coconut Cream Pie Day, National Give Someone a Cupcake Day, National
Have a Coke Day, National Public Gardens Day, National Student Nurses
Day, No Socks Day, Pesach Sheni, Provider Appreciation Day, Time of
Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives during the
Second World War, Victory in Europe Day, World Ovarian Cancer Day, and
World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day.
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According to Wired, Covid-19's
scary blood clots aren't that surprising. According to the author,
"researchers have long known about the link between infectious diseases
and blood clotting. There's even data to suggest a heightened risk of
fatal heart attacks—a related complication—among those who get plain old
influenza." Swell.
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Here's
that CDC document that the Trump mob said "would never see the light of
day." Nice work, Associated Press. The
plan is to have no plan. "There is no genius there, only a damaged
human being playing havoc with our lives." Speaking of having no plan, one
of Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus. So,
what's next? A
senior administration official said he expects the president to begin
publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his
predictions for the final death count and damages him politically.
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Of course, the big question the country is asking today is Which
Supreme Court justice flushed the toilet during oral arguments?
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Not only is our economy tanking, but so is our respect for the rule of
law: The Justice Dept. is dropping charges
against the former Trump aide Michael Flynn, a stark reversal for a
defendant who'd twice pleaded guilty.
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How can there be anything worse than Murder Hornets? How about the
brain-eating killer songbird apocalypse? No worries, though. The
songbirds in question (a certain population of great tits) eat only bat
brains. Of course, bats harbor zillions of viruses, which could be
transferred to the birds, and... can you say "avian flu"?
We'll probably end up doing ourselves in. Think the coronavirus is
nasty? How about a human-engineered pandemic (which the current
SARS-CoV-2 most certainly isn't, conspiracy theories notwithstanding).
Check out #3 on this video. The observation that our "outbreak response
protocols are rapidly improving" is almost laughable given our current
situation. But the video is over a year old, and I don't think anyone
could have predicted how one man could ignore and even sabotage medical
science.
By the way, I heartily recommend the SciShow
channel on YouTube. They have thousands of brief, cogent, and
entertaining videos covering an astonishingly large range of subjects.
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Harry
S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972), the 33rd President of
the United States, was famous for the sign on his desk:
While this concept is totally foreign to the current President, some
things don't change. As Truman observed: "A liar in public life is a lot
more dangerous than a full, paid up Communist, and I don't care who he
is."
More Truman quotes here.
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On this date in 1886, pharmacist John
Stith Pemberton first sold his carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola",
which was originally was marketed and sold as a patent medicine.
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Remembering the original voice of Elmer
Fudd, Arthur
Q. Bryan (May 8, 1899 – November 18, 1959).
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On this day in 1912, Paramount
Pictures Corporation was founded as Famous Players Film Company.
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Remembering Bob
Clampett (May 8, 1913 – May 2, 1984), best known for his work on the Looney
Tunes animated series from Warner
Bros. Clampett directed 84 cartoons later deemed classic and
designed some of the studio's most famous characters, including Porky
Pig, Daffy
Duck, and Tweety.
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Remembering Saul
Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996), the innovative graphic designer
and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture
title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.
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Remembering Don
Rickles (May 8, 1926 – April 6, 2017), the insult comedian aka "The
Merchant of Venom" and "Mr. Warmth."
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On this date in 1962, the Broadway musical A
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum had its first of 965
performances, winning six Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best
Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (Zero
Mostel).
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Fifty years ago today, The
Beatles' twelfth and final studio album, Let
It Be, was released about a month after the group's breakup. The
album spent four weeks atop the Billboard albums chart (June 13 - July
4) and has sold over four million copies since its initial release.
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Those were the days... on this date in 1980, the World
Health Organization" confirmed the eradication of smallpox.
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Remembering Ricky
Nelson (May 8, 1940 – December 31, 1985), who grew up on the
long-running television series The
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet where he became a pop star. His last
hit, 1972's Garden
Party, reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100. Nelson and six
others were killed when his refurbished DC-3 aircraft crashed on
December 31, 1985, on a "comeback tour."
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If 24/7 news coverage of the pandemic isn't enough, you can curl up with
a book: Everything
you ever wanted to know about pandemics in 'The End Of October'.
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Daniel
and Valerie Zane, married 71 years, die two days apart. "He said
that the end of Val's life was like being in the foxhole at the Battle
of the Bulge, but even that was easier," Mr. Hettwer said. "He said that
at least in war, you have all your soldiers around you. You have the
camaraderie." Mr. Zane had always seemed to be a survivor. "We thought
he would have more time with us," Robin Zane said. "In the end, it was
almost as if she had said, 'I'm not going alone,' and as if he had said,
'You're not going alone.'"
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You're
doing it wrong. Only 1 in 75 households are cooking chicken safely.
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The
Trump administration is reversing nearly 100 environmental rules. Here's
the full list.
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Why stop with destroying the environment? Trump
vows complete end of Obamacare law despite pandemic. While the
president has said he will preserve some of the Affordable Care Act's
most popular provisions, including guaranteed coverage for preexisting
medical conditions, he has not offered a plan to do so, and his
administration's legal position seeks to end all parts of the law,
including those provisions. (That's because he's a pathological liar.)
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What else can Trump destroy upon which we all depend? Trump
ally named next postmaster general. Louis DeJoy, who is currently
overseeing fundraising for this year's Republican National Convention in
Charlotte, N.C., will assume the post, the Postal Service's board of
governors announced Wednesday.
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Americans died from covid-19 at the rate of about one every 42 seconds
during the past month. That ought to keep any president awake at night. Not
Donald Trump.
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"Confronted with America's worst public health crisis in generations,
President Trump declared himself a wartime president. Now he has begun
doing what past commanders have done when a war goes badly: Declare
victory and go home."
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Three
Russian doctors have fallen from hospital windows in two weeks, amid
reports of dire conditions. The exact circumstances of the separate
incidents in the last two weeks remain unclear and they are being
investigated by police, but they underscore the enormous strains that
Russian doctors and nurses have faced during the outbreak. Reports said
two of the doctors had protested their working conditions and the third
was being blamed after her colleagues contracted the virus.
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It's come to this: Cornhole
Mania 2020 to Air on ESPN and ESPN2.
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3.2
million filed for unemployment benefits last week.
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New
research shows a rise in food insecurity without modern precedent.
Among mothers with young children, nearly one-fifth say their children
are not getting enough to eat, according to a survey by the Brookings
Institution, a rate three times as high as in 2008, during the worst of
the Great Recession.
Things are getting really rough out there. Please consider donating to Feeding
America.
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