Here is the short cut to the full COVID report for Wednesday.
COVID is winning the battle against us. 48 states reported “new cases” data on Tuesday and 28 of them were in the red zone, so it’s COVID 28, America 20.
The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID is up 45% in just one week.
Here is Wednesday’s red zone chart:
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In international news, Cuba reported the world’s worst per capita outbreak for the seventh consecutive day.
“15,000-year-old viruses discovered in Tibetan glacier ice”
I hope they weren’t discovered by Val Kilmer.
… which could be:
A new horror film
A new rock band
A real thing in Big Bend National Park
It’s not as bad as it sounds. (I just love sensationalized headlines.) The acid they squirt is basically common vinegar, harmless to humans, so they sort of make their own hot and sour lobster soup. They are not lobsters, of course. “The whip scorpion, more commonly called a vinegaroon in Texas, is a member of the arachnid family but poses little danger to humans, unlike its cousins, the scorpion and the spider.”
Here’s how Google Translate renders it (probably awkwardly). I can’t help. I don’t know enough French.
Summer of famine
Titane: a rare experience. Lengthy and frequent nudity from Agathe Rousselle, the breasts of Garance Marillier (see a little more) and Anaïs Fabre.
Annette: beautiful but boring. The breasts of Marion Cotillard.
Upcoming films:
Tralala: the Larrieu brothers tick off a new cinematographic genre with a light and pleasant film. Very sensual nude scene by Mélanie Thierry, who mainly offers us her ass, to see a little more.
Eiffel: classic biopic. Emma Mackey’s breasts in a sex scene.
I comete: naturalistic Corsica.
Nos frères ennemis: another oriented re-reading of the events in Algeria. The Luxembourgish breasts of Vicky Krieps.
Amants: we knew Nicole Garcia more inspired. Stacy Martin at “oilp.” (??)
Si demain: Fabienne Godet continues her quest for meaning.
La troisième guerre: the hard work of a soldier ensuring “vigipirate” (Google obviously encountered some problems translating this one)
Rouge: man pollutes to live!
Tout nous sourit: small vaudeville
Vagabondes: street school, where we keep our clothes.
Hunted: Lucie Debay gets hunted but does not suffer the extreme outrages.
L’origine du Monde: Parisianiste (I had never noticed that Vincent Macaigne was the double of François Hollande). Karin Viard still and always very naked (it will still be necessary to ensure that there has not been recourse to digital special effects because Karin appears particularly sharp and the 2 actors exhibit the cocks of porn actors).
Ni Dieux, Ni Maitres: from the right of cuissage to the Middle Ages. Flore Grimaud’s heavy chest.
Isn’t this a song?
No, not that gay anthem by Paul Shaffer.
This one:
They’re rioting in Africa
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes in Florida
And it’s raining cocaine
Twelve million dollars worth of cocaine lands on somebody’s roof in Sardinia
It did break a solar panel when it landed, but the homeowners could easily have paid for that if they hadn’t informed the police. Do you think Farmers will cover it? They’ve seen a thing or two.
The main problem is that they have to kill every single one because “one pregnant rat can take over a 4-square-mile island in just two years.”
“The combined effects of rising sea levels and nodal cycle modulations of tidal amplitude lead to acute inflections in projections of future high tide flooding”
In human language, that means the moon is heading into a recurring cycle that makes high tides higher and low tides lower, while rising sea levels make those high tides very, very high.
In actionable terms, this is a good time to unload your oceanfront property, and move away from low-lying coastal areas. It may be cold in Minnesota, but you shouldn’t plan a retirement move to the Outer Banks, Charleston, Savannah or Miami.
NASA explains: “The higher seas, amplified by the lunar cycle, will cause a leap in flood numbers on almost all U.S. mainland coastlines, Hawaii, and Guam.”
“The Finnish Reindeer Herders Association is testing out a new way to make the large mammals more visible to drivers: reflective paint.”
“Methamphetamine in waterways may be turning trout into addicts”
I’ll never forget that night in 1971 when I saw Meth-Addicted Trout open for Country Joe and the Fish.
This indictment is much narrower than you might think, and the charges against the corporation are probably less significant than you might assume.
First of all, a good chunk of this consists of actions taken by Allen Weisselberg to benefit Allen Weisselberg and his family. He was using the Trump Organization to pay for things like his vacation homes and private schools for his grandchildren, and was not accounting for those as income. Based on what we know now, there is no reason to believe that Trump himself approved these shenanigans, and Trump may even be shocked to have found out about it now (as far as we know – but the point is that we don’t know). I’m not sure how the incorporation defines the ownership of Trump’s company, so I don’t know exactly how the company’s profits pass through to Trump himself, but it is possible that Weisselberg was paying for those things out of Trump’s personal pocket, which means he may have been cheating his boss as well as the tax man. Anyway, the most serious accusation against Weisselberg is that he cheated his way out of nearly a million dollars in taxes. He pleaded not guilty, but it’s difficult to imagine what defense he might present. The whole thing seems cut-and-dried.
(The indictment mentions that the scheme also benefited other company executives besides Weisselberg. Nobody is letting on who they are or what legal liability they may have, if any.)
As for the charges against the Trump Organization, well, they are trifling in the grand scheme of things. Since the executive perks should be defined as income, the Trump Organization should have been paying payroll taxes on those amounts. How big a deal is that? I quote the Post: “If Trump’s companies were convicted, they could face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.” Hundreds of thousands? Really? Big fuckin’ deal. They can probably pay that out of petty cash. They probably have that much hidden in the floorboards for emergency bail money.
There may be some more significant charges to appear subsequently, but so far, it’s a tale of one embezzler. People like Rachel Maddow may try to persuade you otherwise, but up to this point Godfather Trump remains Teflon Don – nothing we have seen so far sticks to him.
Somewhere in the afterlife, he is still looking for those weapons of mass destruction.
“The Onion Looks Back At Donald Rumsfeld And The Power Of Following Your Dreams“
Former member Jessica Joan gave an impassioned victim statement during the proceedings, in which she described Mack as “a demon of a woman” who had groomed her to be a “sex slave.” “Allison Mack is the most evil monster I’ve ever met,” she said. “She sought me out like a predator stalking their prey.”
So, stop pulling your punches there, Jessica, and say what’s on your mind.
Or maybe he’s really dead. You make the call.
“John McAfee, the 90s software magnate-turned-globe-trotting fugitive, was found dead on Wednesday afternoon in a Spanish prison cell just hours after a court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges. McAfee was 75.”
“According to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, which cited a statement from the Catalan Departamento de Justicia confirming the death, attempts by jail staff to resuscitate McAfee were unsuccessful. Reuters confirmed the department’s statement, which said the death was most likely a suicide.”
But it’s not a certainty because of the complicated process. Sources say that the new ranked-order voting system will not permit an official result until mid-July.
Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and a conservative talk show host, won the GOP nomination in a landslide.
Yes, the National Park Service is once again offering bear safety tips — and that includes this advice: “Do not push a slower friend down … even if you feel the friendship has run its course.” (Their posts are consistently amusing.)
From Recapped:
“Ilana Glazer has her first nude scenes in False Positive. Ilana first shows her bouncing breasts during a very dark sex scene. Later you can somewhat see Ilana’s breasts through some bubbles while she is in the bath. Near the end of the film, Ilana is naked and covered in blood as she enters the bathroom. We see Ilana’s butt and breasts as she looks in the mirror.
False Positive is now playing at Tribeca and will be available to stream on Hulu on June 25.”
It is the largest moon in the solar system, larger even than the planet Mercury and the ex-planet Pluto. (Ah, Pluto, we hardly knew thee.)
Some scientists speculate that Ganymede may have an ocean layer that contains more water than the entire planet Earth.
“They not only came back to the land of the living but were also able to reproduce asexually.” Previously this had only happened to Tony Randall.
“A multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life – a dream of many fiction writers.”
Because he used press conferences and public appearances as part of his strategy, because he took on infamous and high profile clients in newsworthy trials, and because he developed some ethical issues of his own, Bailey was perhaps the most famous defense attorney since Clarence Darrow.
He was known as a master of cross-examination, and many think that his skillful cross-ex of Mark Fuhrman was the trigger for the jury to declare “not guilty” in the OJ trial. Bailey lured the officer into committing perjury very blatantly, thus placing the entire prosecution under a cloud.
How could Trump fail? I am shocked.
When I saw this, I almost choked on my nightly meal – the same thing I eat every night: Trump Steaks washed down with Trump Vodka.
Temporarily halting 100% of Bulgaria’s economy and forcing their government to dig deep into its strategic olive oil reserve.
A new reference source from internet legend Johnny Moronic
I learned about their amazing communication skills in a linguistics class, but apparently that’s not their only talent.
Well, that's it for humanity. We've had a decent run but if bees have mastered the screw-top lid I think this is the beginning of the end. pic.twitter.com/XyHonJ2q73
— Michael Moran (@TheMichaelMoran) May 25, 2021
Starting June 15, 2021, items showing sexual content or sexually suggestive poses will no longer be allowed on eBay.com. The “Everything Else > Adult Only” will no longer be available as a category. No new listings will be allowed in the Adult Only category and good-til-cancelled listings will be ended upon their renewal date.
“The monstrosity going to Captain Bezos: a 417-foot superyacht that’s so massive it has its own ‘support yacht’ with a helipad, according to Bloomberg. The estimated cost, not including the boat’s support boat, is $500 million.”
In terms of accurate reporting, the USA actually looks better than many other countries. While the analysts estimate that American deaths are probably about 1.5 times as many as the officially reported total, the excess death rates elsewhere during the COVID era indicate that many countries are underreported by vast multiples. For example, Russia has reported 109,000 fatalities, but the analysts estimate that the actual total is 591,000; Mexico has reported 217,000 fatalities, but the analysts estimate that the correct total is 653,000.
