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

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

Jul 12 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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From Crazytown:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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KGB's daily agglomeration of stuff I find interesting:

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

Among other things, today is

On this date:

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

Birthdays

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

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Miscellany

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

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

Colby would be official Wisconsin cheese under bill.

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

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

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The urgent quest for a coronavirus treatment involves door-to-door blood collection and a llama named Winter.

National Day of Reason in Unreasonable Times...
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Published Thursday, May 07, 2020 @ 12:04 AM EDT

May 07 2020

Today is Thursday, May 7, the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 238 days remain until the end of the year.

Let no man boast himself that he has got through the perils of winter till at least the seventh of May.
-Anthony Trollope

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Among other things, today is Make-A-Book Day, National Barrier Awareness Day, National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, National Cosmopolitan Day, National Day of Prayer, National Day of Reason, National Roast Leg of Lamb Day, National Tourism Day, Paste Up Day, and World Password Day.

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Today is The National Day of Reason, a secular celebration for humanists, atheists, and other secularists and freethinkers in response to the National Day of Prayer, a legal holiday in the United States. The day is celebrated on the first Thursday in May of every year, to coincide with the National Day of Prayer, which many atheist and secular groups view to be unconstitutional. The purpose of the National Day of Reason is to "celebrate reason—a concept all Americans can support—and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government intrusion into the private sphere of worship." The National Day of Reason is also meant to help build community among the non-religious in the United States. This year, the U.S. House introduced House Resolution 947 to recognize today as a National Day of Reason. The resolution was introduced by Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and cosponsored by fellow Congressional Freethought Caucus members Huffman (D-CA), Holmes Norton (D-DC), and McNerney (D-CA). In related news, this is the Secular Week of Action.

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Remembering Darren McGavin (May 7, 1922 – February 25, 2006), whose 1972 television film The Night Stalker was the highest-rated original TV movie on US television up to that time, earning a 33.2 rating and 48 share.

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On this date in 1824, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 was first performed in Vienna. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven's greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of western music.

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On this date in 1967, The Mamas and the Papas' "Monday, Monday" reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for three weeks. It was the group's only #1 hit.

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Remembering Edwin H. Land (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991), American scientist and inventor, co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.

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Remembering Anne Baxter (May 7, 1923 – December 12, 1985).

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Remembering Jimmy Ruffin (May 7, 1936 – November 17, 2014)

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NASA working with Tom Cruise to film movie on the International Space Station. Cruise narrated the 2002 IMAX documentary film Space Station 3D, which was filmed by astronauts during the assembly of the International Space Station. A short science fiction film named Apogee of Fear was filmed on the space station in 2008 by Richard Garriott, who paid for his trip to orbit on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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What your morning coffee really does to your brain. To get the most positive impacts of your daily caffeine intake, drink coffee between 10 in the morning and 12 noon or between 2 in the afternoon and 5 in the evening. Or, do as I do, use it as your sole beverage.

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Trump quote of the day: "Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon."

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Conservative militia group prepares for societal collapse by training as hairstylists, nail technicians. Ok, it's The Onion, but these days, who knows?

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New York Rabbi claims hot air from hair dryer will kill Coronavirus

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A frontline nurse treating coronavirus in New York has claimed that patients are "literally being murdered" by medical negligence and mismanagement every day, but that "nobody cares because they're all minorities."

Another nurse:

I will give zero apologies for what I'm about to say because while we're busy working to save people's lives we're also growing really concerned about the conspiracy theory BS that's seeming to become a bigger problem than #covid19. We don't have time while we're working to save lives to also be on social media explaining, with the depth of knowledge most of us have acquired over years and decades, how to understand with scrutiny the science of everything that's happening right now and why the science is so important. So, if you don't know how to keep a #SARSCoV2 patient alive and you're posting your opinion on vaccines, population control, Bill Gates, shutdown hoax, deep state, your personal liberty to go out in public without a mask or whatever bullsh*t crap fake news is about to come next let me just say this… The health care professionals I know, including myself, give the SAME high quality heart and soul, brains and brawn, care to the victim and the drunk driver. We WILL fight for your life if you end up on life support whether you got #coronavirus accidentally or because your dumb ass went out to protest the lockdown without a mask. So, have a little respect and know that if you don't know what the f**k you're talking about it's okay to just shut the f**k up right NOW. This is not a joke.
-Nurse Eric

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"We are not essential. We are sacrificial." A New York City subway conductor who had Covid-19 returns to work.

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The President Is Unraveling. The country is witnessing the steady, uninterrupted intellectual and psychological decomposition of Donald Trump... the past dozen days have proved we're at the point in his presidency where Donald Trump has become his own caricature, a figure impossible to parody, a man whose words and actions are indistinguishable from an Alec Baldwin skit on Saturday Night Live.

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Barack Obama will headline a televised prime-time commencement address for the Class of 2020. ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC will simultaneously air the special May 16 at 8 p.m. Eastern along with more than 20 other broadcast and digital streaming partners.

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A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, "What is the earliest sign of civilization?" The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon.

Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, "A healed femur."

A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend.

Mead explained that where the law of the jungle- the survival of the fittest- rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur.
-Ira Byock

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Irish return an old favor, Helping Native Americans battling the virus. More than 170 years ago, the Choctaw Nation sent $170 to starving Irish families during the potato famine. A sculpture in County Cork commemorates the generosity of the tribe, itself poor. In recent decades, ties between Ireland and the Choctaws have grown. Now hundreds of Irish people are repaying that old kindness, giving to a charity drive for two Native American tribes suffering in the Covid-19 pandemic. As of Tuesday, the fund-raiser has raised more than $1.8 million to help supply clean water, food and health supplies to people in the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Reservation, with hundreds of thousands of dollars coming from Irish donors, according to the organizers.

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The coronavirus has mutated and appears to be more contagious now, new study finds. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed, but the researchers noted that news of the mutation was of "urgent concern" considering the more than 100 vaccines in the process of being developed to prevent Covid-19.

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COVID-19 Strategy: The Japan Model... Has Japan found a viable long-term strategy for the pandemic?

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Trump asks why taxpayers should help bail out blue states. Maybe because most of the states who pay more money to the federal government than they receive are blue states. Sen. Mitch McConnell's home state of Kentucky ranks third in the most money received from the federal government, receiving $148 billion more than it contributes.

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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.

Categories: Anne Baxter, Covid-19, Darren McGavin, Donald Trump, Edwin H. Land, Ira Byock, Irish, Jimmy Ruffin, Kentucky, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mamas and the Papas, Medicine, Mitch McConnell, Music, National Day of Reason, Native Americans, The Onion, Tom Cruise, YouTube

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