The Biden administration is purchasing 500 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to donate to the global supply, the White House said Thursday. That will provide enough shots to fully vaccinate 250 million people.
The U.S. is donating 200 million doses this year and 300 million doses in the first half of 2022, the White House said. All of the doses will be distributed through COVAX — the global entity that is working to ensure equitable access to COVID testing and vaccines — and will be given to 92 low- and middle-income countries and the African Union.
President Biden will announce the purchase Thursday in his remarks before the Group of Seven summit in Britain. The White House says the vaccines will begin shipping in August.
Two-year-old Lila, a black Labrador retriever, will serve as the department’s full-time emotional support animal.
[…]
Lila joins the force several months after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol building. The chaos of that days left more than 100 officers injured.
Officers have reported suffering from stress, anxiety and other emotional issues following the insurrection. They’ve also complained of not having enough support from the department — as well as lawmakers they protect.
IMO keeping some nat’l guard units around/available until cap police get back to full force would give them a lot more emotional support.
Can’t wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth over TC Energy’s decision to drop Keystone XL.
So the buzz is that America’s allies can count on America again.
Kamala coulda handled the PR on her trip to Central America a bit better, particularly the comment about having not been to the border. The better answer – “Yet. I’ll be visiting very soon.”
That’s a pretty shitty cartoon 🥁
(honestly i don’t get it)
after a lifetime of simply not stepping into the doggie droppings, when i found myself living on the beach it was kind of strange having to pick up the dookie in a bag and carrying it around with me till i could find a proper recptacle. I also didn’t dig contributing all that plastic. Now I’m off the beach and the dookie stays where it was dropped until nature steps on it. I hate plastic.
bink, i might be wrong about the cartoonist’s message. could be the unseen pooper is not vlad but *donald doodoo who left messes all over the world for joe to clean up.
*note the hearts drawn around the word “bark” – could be denotes the former guy’s bromance.
And from the WTF are we doing to our planet GROSS file… Wapo:
TURKEY LAUNCHES MASSIVE EFFORT TO VACUUM UP THICK LAYER OF ‘SEA SNOT’ CHOKING ITS COAST
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged Tuesday to rid the Sea of Marmara of the “scourge” of marine mucilage, as workers embarked on a massive effort to vacuum up the foul-looking substance that has been plaguing coastal communities.
Thick layers of the viscous, slimy mucus colloquially known as “sea snot” have been wreaking havoc along Turkey’s coastline for months, choking harbors and clogging up fishermen’s nets while suffocating marine life. Scientists say that untreated sewage, agricultural runoff and other forms of pollution are responsible for the phenomenon, but that warming water temperatures caused by climate change appear to be making it even worse.
The unappetizing muck has become a source of national embarrassment and rising anger. On Tuesday, Erdoğan vowed to designate the Sea of Marmara, which is between the Black and Aegean Seas, as a conservation area.Meanwhile, government officials launched a massive cleanup operation, using tanker trucks with suction hoses that park along the shoreline and effectively act as giant vacuum cleaners.Similar methods have been used to remove toxic blue-green algae from waterways in Florida.
[…]
Now, I love boating and water sports, but not gonna go to Turkey for it. Not anytime soon.
International opinions of the United States have become markedly more positive since President Biden took over from former President Trump, according to a new survey released as Biden prepares for his debut on the global stage at a Group of Seven (G7) summit.
Of 12 nations surveyed by the Pew Research Center, a median 75 percent expressed confidence in Biden, more than four times the 17 percent who said the same of Trump in 2020. Twenty-two percent said they have no confidence in Biden, compared with 83 percent who said so of Trump at the end of his presidency.
And a median 62 percent of people in these 12 countries now have a positive view of the U.S. under Biden, according to the survey, whereas 34 percent had such a view under Trump last year.
[…]
According to the survey, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain are among countries that have seen a sharp increase in U.S. favorability among their populations this year.
In other nations, opinions are more mixed. Just under half of those in Australia have positive views and the U.S. approval rating has declined in Taiwan from 68 percent in 2019 to 61 percent, a figure that is still high.
Haven’t kept up with politics this week. OSH says Hi! She’s very busy taking care of grandchildren. She has the most adorable twin grands… one a boy… the other a girl. We had a very good (and hot) visit!
harking back to that emotional support dog for the cap police, they may need a few more and throw in a few trained german shepards for protection.
Papathanasiou warned that morale is low within the Capitol Police ranks and that the police force urgently needs to boost its retention and recruiting efforts. He noted that the Capitol Police is more than 200 officers below its authorized level, while about 70 officers have left the force since Jan. 6.
“Officers are already working 6-day weeks. They are already working double shifts. If Congress does not act, the older officers will retire as soon as they are eligible, and the younger officers will simply go to other agencies. We literally will not have enough officers to accomplish our mission. It is that serious,” Papathanasiou said.
@JenniferJJacobs
Biden meets Boris Johnson. Flotus’s jacket says “LOVE” on the back.
Replying to
@JenniferJJacobs
“Well, I think that we’re bringing love from America,”
@FLOTUS told me when I asked what her “LOVE message meant. “I think that this is a global conference and we’re trying to bring unity across the globe and I think that’s important right now that you have a sense of unity.”
[hmm, a bit of flotus-flotus trolling on memories of that “i don’t really care. do u” jacket mel wore going down to the border to see the immigrant children in cages?]
Jamie, I literally laughed out loud when I read that Twitter funny. What a hoot.
Hmmm, that LOVE message is a bit more positive that the message Melanoma had on the back of her jacket when she visited the Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, TX – I Really Don’t Care Do You?
Attn fans: Randy Rainbow is going on tour
PSA: the captcha on the login for this site is case-sensitive
Bink, so is Devo – going on tour that is.
Dang- they had better be careful they don’t whip it
…out of shape
Hell’s coming to dinner in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Lake Mead is at only 36% of capacity, will be at a record low for the 3rd time in 6 years. Wapo.
Opinion by Peter Annin
June 9, 2021 at 10:49 a.m. EDT
Peter Annin is director of the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., and author of “The Great Lakes Water Wars.”
Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, is a lifeblood for 25 million people in the Southwest. But for the third time in six years, it’s about to hit a record low. Water levels have fallen more than 140 feet since 2000, leaving the reservoir only 36 percent full.
Today, Mead is rimmed by a broad white bathtub ring marking how far water levels have fallen during the Colorado River’s 22-year megadrought. The Bureau of Reclamation says the new low record will be set on Thursday, a sober climate-change milestone.
Mead has always managed to bounce back from prior lows. But the Bureau’s latest 24-month forecast shows the reservoir stubbornly staying in record territory through year’s end. That has never happened since Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s.
Hence, the federal government is expected to declare an unprecedented “shortage” on the river this summer, prompting mandatory water cuts, especially in Arizona. “This is a day we knew would come at some point … and we’ve been preparing for this moment for at least a couple of decades,” said Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, which delivers Colorado River water to 80 percent of the state’s population.
Cooke and others continue to push for more conservation. Perhaps no conservation effort is more telling than the water cops in Las Vegas. During a ride-along last month, I watched water waste investigator Perry Kaye nab four homeowners for illegal lawn-watering in just 50 minutes. Nevada is a weird place. Prostitution is legal. Weed is, too. But midday lawn-watering can bring an $80 fine.
…
Fanciful water-diversion schemes have been around for half a century. They are enormously controversial, especially in the Great Lakes region. These proposals all rely on the same false foundation. “We ship oil around the world, so why not water?” Answer: Because ecosystems don’t depend on oil for survival. Water diversions bring serious harm to originating watersheds, which is why the Great Lakes region banned them in 2008.
The smartest Western water managers are investing in technologies that provide a diverse supply of drought-resistant local water options. California has 12 seawater desalination plants, and six more have been proposed. Meanwhile, Scottsdale, Ariz., has built one of the largest potable water recycling facilities in the country, which turns sewage into drinking water. Los Angeles has pledged to recycle 100 percent of its sewage by 2035. “Water reuse,” says Patricia Sinicropi, executive director of the WateReuse Association, “is the future of water management.”
If that’s the future, then Hoover Dam is the past. That expansive white ring circling Lake Mead is a reminder that the harrowing water struggles of the past will likely pale in comparison with those of our climate-changed future, testing water officials like never before.
I was out in Las Vegas in the very early 2000s and side tripped to Lake Mead. I am stunned at the difference between what it looked like at those turbine intake towers then and now. Even them folks were talking about the white bathtub ring, although I’d estimate that it was maybe 30 feet above the lake’s surface then. Water restrictions and power restrictions in the SW corner of the country. That’s some serious shit we’re talking.
At this stage of their lives, they could easily pull something that could keep them off stage for months. But they could still wear the cool hats – or Jetsons lampshades, whichever they are.
Life is a touch better when you see that “hot” actress is older than you are. I get tired of trying to guess ages and I am so very wrong. Except for those born before 2000 (the babies which I always say they are twenty) I am usually way off with my guesses. I think it goes with my not remembering faces or names. One learns to be a good teller of less than the truth that way.
We spent most of the day in Woods Hole…. it’s nice to rub elbows with brilliant people who are working for the betterment of our planet instead of to make money…
A wall isn’t a solution. Diplomacy, financial aid, private investment in businesses in Central America and Mexico, etc., will help in ways that a wall can not.
“…hackers claimed to have obtained 780 gigabytes of data from EA (EA), including the Frostbite source code, which is the game engine that powers the FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield series of video games, among others.
The hackers claimed to offer “full capability of exploiting on all EA services.” They also claimed to have stolen software development tools…”
If folks are paying the hackers in cryptocurrency, wouldn’t there be a way to trace the transfer or mark it in some way?
“…you don’t have to provide any identifying information to start a bitcoin account. Bitcoin is effectively anonymous, and law enforcement can’t freeze your bitcoin account like they could your bank account….”
“Every bitcoin transaction since the network launched in 2009—billions of them—has been recorded and stored in a permanent, inalterable public ledger, which anybody can view and analyze at any time. This ledger is called the blockchain.”
“But tracking that money’s movement across the entire network is daunting. There is an entire cottage industry of software companies designing sophisticated programs to do just this for law enforcement and regulated online exchanges.“
“Because the scammers know their movements can be traced, they typically move their illicit gains across hundreds, or even thousands, of transactions. They might control dozens of other wallets and move the money back and forth.“
My question stands. Is there a way to mark a transfer of crypto for ransom, like low-jack so it’s never lost?
Dear Know Everything = I read where if I had vaccination against a deadly virus I was filled with strange and very weird magnetic things. Should I be concerned about going in the public where they might have door keys or automation machines? I know my neighbor friend, a char woman, with a strange contraption in her room, has a wonderful assortment of instruments, some filled with iron. What if those are rhythmic in action? Should I resist? I have notice iron items sticking to my forehead, but I pay little attention to those that do not hurt much.
Sister Clara
The last we heard from Clara was some sort of wild noise. A few weeks later several of her trail hands appeared, all with glazed over eyes and muttering they need a beer and whiskey. They all said there was no story, there was no story.
My question stands.
…just us morons, here, but yeah, you already know anything done online can be traced
hint: see upper right of above thread cartoon
it’ll also be over for her ‘unless it’s over down there too
the yanks are coming, the yanks are coming
cbsnews:
over here, the labs are coming
The U.S. Capitol Police Are Adding An Emotional Support Dog To The Force : NPR
IMO keeping some nat’l guard units around/available until cap police get back to full force would give them a lot more emotional support.
Can’t wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth over TC Energy’s decision to drop Keystone XL.
So the buzz is that America’s allies can count on America again.
Kamala coulda handled the PR on her trip to Central America a bit better, particularly the comment about having not been to the border. The better answer – “Yet. I’ll be visiting very soon.”
That’s a pretty shitty cartoon 🥁
(honestly i don’t get it)
after a lifetime of simply not stepping into the doggie droppings, when i found myself living on the beach it was kind of strange having to pick up the dookie in a bag and carrying it around with me till i could find a proper recptacle. I also didn’t dig contributing all that plastic. Now I’m off the beach and the dookie stays where it was dropped until nature steps on it. I hate plastic.
bink, i might be wrong about the cartoonist’s message. could be the unseen pooper is not vlad but *donald doodoo who left messes all over the world for joe to clean up.
*note the hearts drawn around the word “bark” – could be denotes the former guy’s bromance.
My take is that it’s just this.
And from the WTF are we doing to our planet GROSS file… Wapo:
Now, I love boating and water sports, but not gonna go to Turkey for it. Not anytime soon.
Today’s Twitter Funny
the hill:
Haven’t kept up with politics this week. OSH says Hi! She’s very busy taking care of grandchildren. She has the most adorable twin grands… one a boy… the other a girl. We had a very good (and hot) visit!
harking back to that emotional support dog for the cap police, they may need a few more and throw in a few trained german shepards for protection.
the hill:
Replying to
@JenniferJJacobs
“Well, I think that we’re bringing love from America,”
@FLOTUS told me when I asked what her “LOVE message meant. “I think that this is a global conference and we’re trying to bring unity across the globe and I think that’s important right now that you have a sense of unity.”
[hmm, a bit of flotus-flotus trolling on memories of that “i don’t really care. do u” jacket mel wore going down to the border to see the immigrant children in cages?]
Jamie, I literally laughed out loud when I read that Twitter funny. What a hoot.
Snopes has seen that same email with other politicians.
Hmmm, that LOVE message is a bit more positive that the message Melanoma had on the back of her jacket when she visited the Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, TX – I Really Don’t Care Do You?
Attn fans: Randy Rainbow is going on tour
PSA: the captcha on the login for this site is case-sensitive
Bink, so is Devo – going on tour that is.
Dang- they had better be careful they don’t whip it
…out of shape
Hell’s coming to dinner in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Lake Mead is at only 36% of capacity, will be at a record low for the 3rd time in 6 years. Wapo.
I was out in Las Vegas in the very early 2000s and side tripped to Lake Mead. I am stunned at the difference between what it looked like at those turbine intake towers then and now. Even them folks were talking about the white bathtub ring, although I’d estimate that it was maybe 30 feet above the lake’s surface then. Water restrictions and power restrictions in the SW corner of the country. That’s some serious shit we’re talking.
At this stage of their lives, they could easily pull something that could keep them off stage for months. But they could still wear the cool hats – or Jetsons lampshades, whichever they are.
Life is a touch better when you see that “hot” actress is older than you are. I get tired of trying to guess ages and I am so very wrong. Except for those born before 2000 (the babies which I always say they are twenty) I am usually way off with my guesses. I think it goes with my not remembering faces or names. One learns to be a good teller of less than the truth that way.
We spent most of the day in Woods Hole…. it’s nice to rub elbows with brilliant people who are working for the betterment of our planet instead of to make money…
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/10/texas-mexico-border-wall-greg-abbott/
Greg has lost his flippin’ mind.
A wall isn’t a solution. Diplomacy, financial aid, private investment in businesses in Central America and Mexico, etc., will help in ways that a wall can not.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/tech/electronic-arts-hack/index.html
“…hackers claimed to have obtained 780 gigabytes of data from EA (EA), including the Frostbite source code, which is the game engine that powers the FIFA, Madden, and Battlefield series of video games, among others.
The hackers claimed to offer “full capability of exploiting on all EA services.” They also claimed to have stolen software development tools…”
If folks are paying the hackers in cryptocurrency, wouldn’t there be a way to trace the transfer or mark it in some way?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-hackers-use-bitcoin-and-why-it-is-so-difficult-to-trace-11594931595
“…you don’t have to provide any identifying information to start a bitcoin account. Bitcoin is effectively anonymous, and law enforcement can’t freeze your bitcoin account like they could your bank account….”
“Every bitcoin transaction since the network launched in 2009—billions of them—has been recorded and stored in a permanent, inalterable public ledger, which anybody can view and analyze at any time. This ledger is called the blockchain.”
“But tracking that money’s movement across the entire network is daunting. There is an entire cottage industry of software companies designing sophisticated programs to do just this for law enforcement and regulated online exchanges.“
“Because the scammers know their movements can be traced, they typically move their illicit gains across hundreds, or even thousands, of transactions. They might control dozens of other wallets and move the money back and forth.“
My question stands. Is there a way to mark a transfer of crypto for ransom, like low-jack so it’s never lost?
Dear Know Everything = I read where if I had vaccination against a deadly virus I was filled with strange and very weird magnetic things. Should I be concerned about going in the public where they might have door keys or automation machines? I know my neighbor friend, a char woman, with a strange contraption in her room, has a wonderful assortment of instruments, some filled with iron. What if those are rhythmic in action? Should I resist? I have notice iron items sticking to my forehead, but I pay little attention to those that do not hurt much.
Sister Clara
The last we heard from Clara was some sort of wild noise. A few weeks later several of her trail hands appeared, all with glazed over eyes and muttering they need a beer and whiskey. They all said there was no story, there was no story.
…just us morons, here, but yeah, you already know anything done online can be traced
NEW THREAD