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Mr. T, UFOs, volcanoes, hurricanes, brainless sleep
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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."

This guy bought a fake COVID-19 vaccine card on Etsy.

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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Mr. T, Star Wars, Newhart, CDC muzzled, NASA chief quits, Chuck E. Cheese cheats, Distraction!
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Published Thursday, May 21, 2020 @ 12:00 AM EDT
May 21 2020

Note: KGB Report will return on Tuesday, May 26. The Memorial Day weekend is when we traditionally clean up, reconfigure, and re-wire the office. And it's been a tough year...

Today is Tuesday, May 21st, the 142nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 224 days remain until the end of the year.

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Among other things, today is American Red Cross Founder's Day, Ascension, Brown Bag It Thursday, Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Hummus Day, I Need a Patch for That Day, National Apéritif Day, National Memo Day, National Notebook Day, National Strawberries and Cream Day, National Waiters and Waitresses Day, Rapture Party Day, Sister Maria Hummel Day, and World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.

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Mr. T is 68 today. (Video)

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On this day in 1980, The Empire Strikes Back was released. (Video)

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The last episode of Newhart aired on this day in 1990. (Video)

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'We've been muzzled': CDC sources say White House putting politics ahead of science.

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GOP fronts 'pro-Trump' doctors to prescribe rapid reopening.

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Two dam breaches in central Michigan force mass evacuations. (Video)

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Uh oh. Study shows 70% of consumers would rather watch new movies at home. 13% say they are more likely to watch at a local cinema (with 17% not sure).

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Trump threatens to withhold aid to two states over expanded voting by mail. President Trump on Wednesday threatened to halt federal funding to Michigan and Nevada over the distribution of absentee ballots in those states amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that has left more than 90,000 Americans dead.

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NASA's head of human spaceflight abruptly resigns, citing 'mistake'. The source familiar with the reason for Loverro's departure said the issue centered on contracts that were awarded earlier this year for development of lunar landers, or vehicles that can carry astronauts to the moon's surface.

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Trump announces executive order 'suspending' regulations impeding US economy. The order is about "instructing federal agencies to use any and all authority to waive, suspend and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery," Mr Trump said before signing it with a large black felt pen.

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Windows 10 warning: anger at Microsoft rises with serious new failure. Microsoft’s new KB4556799 Windows 10 update is causing a myriad of problems for users, including Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) crashes, deleted data, performance issues, broken audio and more. And users are not happy.

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Will government mandate COVID-19 vaccinations? The Congressional Research Service says the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that "The states' general police power to promote public health and safety encompasses the authority to require mandatory vaccinations."" And states have all exercised that authority for children, usually allowing for some exceptions. CRS also says, "Congress, as a result of various enumerated powers in the Constitution, likewise has some authority over public health matters, including regulation of vaccination."

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Chuck E. Cheese tricks Grubhub customers with sneaky new name.

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Borowitz:

Trump Fears Painting of Obama at White House would spy on him.

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Thoughts of the day:

Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.
-Daniel J. Boorstin

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
-Charles Bukowski

I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
-E.L. Doctorow

All scientifically possible technology and social change predicted in science fiction will come to pass, but none of it will work properly.
-Neil Gaiman

You have more to do than you can possibly do. You just need to feel good about your choices.
-David Allen

Distraction! (Video)




Things are really rough out there.
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Categories: Andy Borowitz, Bob Newhart, CDC, Chuck E. Cheese, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Microsoft, Mr. T, NASA, Star Wars, Vaccines, Windows


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