"Bruce Willis is retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia… The 67-year-old actor's family shared the news on Instagram Wednesday, writing alongside a photo of him on their Instagram feeds, 'To Bruce's amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities.'" Oh that sucks. And I think it's weird that the media completely ignores his acting on the TV series Moonlighting.
"A line of severe storms packing isolated tornadoes and high winds ripped across the Deep South overnight, killing at least two in the Florida Panhandle, toppling trees and power lines and leaving homes and businesses damaged as the vast weather front raced across several states."
"A wildfire burning near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Sevier County, Tennessee, has grown to more than 3,700 acres and impacted more than 100 structures, County Mayor Larry Waters said in a news conference Thursday."
Incoming! "The hotbed of sun activity, known officially as AR2975, sent out a powerful X-class flare that has already created a temporary blackout in shortwave radio signals in the Americas, according to SpaceWeather.com. (AR2975 has already burped more than 17 moderate-sized flares in recent days, but this outburst is a bit more powerful.)"
"A batch of dome-shaped ice volcanoes that look unlike anything else known in our solar system and may still be active have been identified on Pluto using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, showing that this remote frigid world is more dynamic than previously known."
"The Hubble Space Telescope has glimpsed the most distant single star it's ever observed, glimmering 28 billion light-years away. And the star could be between 50 to 500 times more massive than our sun, and millions of times brighter." Yeah, but it's really, really tiny.
"Eating avocados reduced the risk of heart attacks in both men and women, including when eaten in place of butter, cheese or processed meats, a new study found." Straps on helmet, "Here we go again."
"In the U.S., ivermectin prescriptions soared to 88,000 per week last August, from a baseline of 3,600, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue a warning against using the drug. The CDC said its poison control center had witnessed a fivefold increase in calls related to ivermectin overdoses and adverse effects… Maybe that madness is coming to an end as, on Wednesday, a large-scale scientific study showed that ivermectin has “no significant effects” in treating COVID." No, it won't. People are still taking hydroxychloroquine. The people taking ivermectin aren't doing so because of "science", in fact they're doing it for the exact opposite.
"Hospitals have had difficulty deciding who gets priority when ECMO, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is in short supply. It's not an exact science. And there are precious few ECMO beds, especially when some patients linger for months on the machine, only to die."
"President Joe Biden is announcing an unprecedented release of oil from US reserves and taking steps to punish oil companies for not increasing production from unused leases on federal land, the White House says."
"Russian forces are continuing to hold their positions and carry out shelling strikes around Kyiv, according to British intelligence, despite promises from Moscow this week to scale back its military activity near the Ukrainian capital… The head of the U.K.’s intelligence and security agency said in a speech Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has 'massively misjudged' the situation in Ukraine, and that the Russian leader’s advisors were afraid to tell him the truth about what was happening on the ground." I've seen this movie before.
"Over the last 24 hours, the Pentagon has seen "less than 20%" of the Russian troops that had been around Kyiv moving northward as they "reposition" into Belarus so they can be re-equipped for possible action in eastern Ukraine, the Pentagon's top spokesman said Wednesday." Gee, Putin lied? Why that's so strange.
"Russian soldiers who seized the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster drove their armoured vehicles without radiation protection through a highly toxic zone called the 'Red Forest', kicking up clouds of radioactive dust, workers at the site said… The two sources said soldiers in the convoy did not use any anti-radiation gear. The second Chernobyl employee said that was 'suicidal' for the soldiers because the radioactive dust they inhaled was likely to cause internal radiation in their bodies." Alpha emitters are like the sledgehammers of ionizing radiation, but they can be shielded by something as simple as a sheet of paper (or a paper bunny-suit). So you're relatively safe until they lodge in your lungs and intestines and then boy-hoodie are they fucking bad. But the good thing is all the radioactive iodine released decayed to irrelevance long ago. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
It's the Daily Beast so… "Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials… The troops, who dug trenches in a contaminated Red Forest near the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, are now reportedly being treated in a special medical facility in Gomel, Belarus." Stay safe my Russian friends.
"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday night that Russia's invasion has reached a "turning point," as Russian forces launch attacks in the Donbas region of Ukraine while bombarding Kyiv and other key cities."
"Russia has doubled down on its threat to cut off natural gas supplies to Western countries that refuse to pay in rubles, raising new concerns about an energy supply crunch and rationing in Europe." Yeah, that'll happen.
"Public school teachers in Florida are now banned from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity after Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the controversial 'Parental Rights in Education' bill." Chasing the lowest common denominator. So Republicans goal is to conform all of society to the farthest right individual in a crowd. This is another symptom of them knowing they're about to lose in the public perception and they're trying to assert as much of the concept of "the tyranny of the minority" as possible. And liberals need to fight these laws by saying, "No, it's not acceptable that schools don't teach kids these things. So if you want 'parental rights', these are mine and you will conform to this or we will sue."
Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "A group of anonymous employees at The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) has spoken out in an open letter, warning the company not to take political stances that alienate some workers and parts of Disney's audience, and claiming that Disney has become 'an increasingly uncomfortable place to work' for those who don't agree with 'explicitly progressive' policies." What a crock.
"President Biden's budget proposal for the coming fiscal year includes a new minimum tax on billionaires and increased funding for police and gun violence prevention… It also calls for additional defense spending and ongoing support for Ukraine's effort to repel Russia. And it includes elements of Biden's 'Build Back Better' agenda, which is stalled in Congress." Again, the President's Budget document is always a fantasy, but it helps start the conversation.
"The North Carolina congressman Madison Cawthorn will not face immediate disciplinary action over his claim to have been invited to orgies and to have seen Washington figures using cocaine… After meeting Cawthorn on Wednesday, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, told reporters the comments were 'unacceptable'." So just so we're clear here: going to a fascist convention, hanging out with Nazis and neo-confederates, exposing yourself to kids, paying for sex with minors, committing voter fraud, and redirecting campaign dollars to line individual's pockets is all totally okay. But suggest conservative may have "fun" (for different definitions of fun) is totally out of bounds.
"Scavino and Navarro have said executive privilege prevents their cooperation with subpoenas from the Democratic-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. The subpoenas compel them to produce documents and testify." Only the president can invoke "executive privilege," it is not something an individual can claim for themselves.
"Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack on January 6 last year that should have been reflected in the internal presidential call log from that day but was not, according to two sources familiar with the matter." I know people have been talking about "burner phones" and all the rest, but seriously, they just erased the phone records. And they didn't do it well.
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