Tracker

Fear not. Everything is going according to plan. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Thank God for free speech! Otherwise, how would we know who the idiots among us are?

Four school teachers in one Florida county die in one day from COVID as DeSantis continues to ban mandates Four school teachers in Broward County, Florida just died from COVID-19 in one day. Three were unvaccinated, CNN reports (video below.) Republican Governor Ron DeSantis continues to refuse to allow any mask or vaccine mandates as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths explode in his state. “Within a 24-hour span, we had an assistant teacher pass away, a teacher at her school pass away, an elementary teacher pass away and another teacher at a high school," Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco told CBS News. Broward County's School Board this week voted to defy DeSantis' ban on masks mandates. Florida recorded 24,869 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, far more than any state in the nation. Less than half of Florida's total population is fully vaccinated. Four school teachers in one Florida county die in one day from COVID as DeSantis continues to ban mandates - Alternet.org

We should expect a lot of flubs and oopsies for the first two or four games.

A brief reprieve for Yamasaki.

No real zing on that pass, but effective nonetheless.

Good lord! If an O-line cannot get less than a yard with two tries with a one yard gap, that is pathetic.

Good stuff by Lions

A lot of damage has already been done, but better late, etc.

Actually, both QBs slinging the ball noticeably better than last week.

Lindell emphatically denies ever having said anything like that, and it is just a vicious rumour spread by Antifa.

That Reilly played at all tells us two things: his injury or injuries are such that a week or two off isn't going to amke any difference and that there is no better alternatives.

In the atmosphere that the GOP under Trump has created, there emerged a dark underbelly that had been careful not come out into the light. The Trump/GOP attitude is that those in power are there because of some sort of divine right to rule with impunity, no matter what travesty they choose to commit.

'We can't live forever': Marjorie Taylor Greene gives bizarre argument against Covid vaccine approval U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has spent the week attacking what will soon be FDA final approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Thursday was no different, with the Georgia Republican falsely denigrating the effectiveness of the vaccine and falsely claiming that hospitals across the country are not overflowing with COVID patients. "We're human, we can't live forever," Greene, a far right wing conspiracy theorist, antisemite, white nationalist, and purveyor of coronavirus disinformation told the far right wing streaming website Real America's Voice. "We are going to catch all kinds of diseases and illnesses," she added, suggesting that vaccine mandates, which have existed since before the United States was founded, would turn the nation into "an authoritarian regime." 'We can't live forever': Marjorie Taylor Greene gives bizarre argument against Covid vaccine approval - Alternet.org

Very, very nice to have options, particularly when those options are going to confuse the spit out of the opposition. I hope that it doesn't confuse our side.

‘Indictment is ready’: Matt Gaetz ‘will face charges’ says former NY prosecutor A former New York State prosecutor say U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will be prosecuted by federal authorities and insists the "indictment is ready." Tristan Snell, who served as assistant attorney general for New York state and is now the founder and the managing partner of Main Street Law helped lead the prosecution against Trump University that resulted in a $25 million settlement. Snell has been sharing what he says he knows, via Twitter, and on Wednesday laid out the "Gaetzgate" case as he sees it. "What we know," Snell writes, is that the "indictment is coming in the next few weeks, either in August or just after." "Also clear that the US Attorney's Office is taking very strong positions with Gaetz and his counsel and is ready to indict Gaetz and others," Snell claims. "What's really going on is that the feds are applying a lot of pressure on Gaetz to flip and cooperate — if the feds are taking a strong position, it's to get cooperation," he adds. "But what would Gaetz be able to cooperate on?" "Gaetz could cooperate on the existing case they have open in federal court in Orlando — adding to the testimony from Gaetz's buddy Joel Greenberg." Greenberg is the former Florida tax collector who was indicted on 33 federal charges, including theft, sex trafficking of a minor, stalking, and multiple counts of fraud. As part of a plea deal in May Greenberg pleaded guilty to six counts, including sex trafficking. ‘Indictment is ready’: Matt Gaetz ‘will face charges’ says former NY prosecutor - Alternet.org Trump-loving Minnesota GOP strategist arrested for allegedly sex trafficking minors: report. Another Republican has been arrested under suspicion of underage sex trafficking. According to the Daily Beast, wealthy Minnesota GOP strategist Anton Lazzaro was arrested in Minneapolis Thursday morning, the FBI confirmed. Lazzaro, who has appeared on Fox News and was known for showing off his wealthy and lavish lifestyle on social media, was indicted on five counts of sex trafficking of a minor and three counts of obstruction of justice. "U.S. Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson ordered that Lazzaro remain jailed until a court hearing next week, after prosecutors claimed six victims had asked for additional protection from Lazzaro," said the report. "It's their strong wish that the United States proceed with a recommendation of detention," said Judge Thorson, referring to the requests of the survivors. The court documents say that Lazzaro is accused of recruiting at least five underage victims for paid sex between May and December of 2020 and attempting to recruit a sixth. The indictment says he then "knowingly and intentionally interfered" with the FBI's investigation as he became aware of it. The indictment accuses Lazzaro of having "recruited" at least five underage victims for paid sex between May and December last year, and trying to entice a sixth. It also says he "knowingly and intentionally interfered" with the investigation as it closed in on him. Lazzaro would appear on Fox to promote former President Donald Trump and other GOP officials. He's been photographed with Trump, Pence, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA). Trump-loving Minnesota GOP strategist arrested for allegedly sex trafficking minors: report - Alternet.org

'DOJ has no choice now': Legal experts are stunned by new evidence of Trump's post-election corruption Legal experts are weighing in on Wednesday evening's bombshell report in The New York Times that the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta resigned on January 4 rather than be fired by then-President Donald Trump for refusing to say the election was rigged and there had been massive voter fraud, which Trump had been falsely claiming. Trump had appointed Byung Pak to be the U.S. Attorney in mid 2017. Hours after top DOJ officials either warned or pressured him – or both – on Jan. 3, that he would be fired, Pak sent his letter of resignation to the President. On Wednesday he told the Senate Judiciary Committee what had happened. "DOJ has no choice now, they must open a criminal investigation on Trump," says attorney Ron Filipkowski, a former Republican turned Democrat, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis infamously fired a Health Dept. data analyst. 'DOJ has no choice now': Legal experts are stunned by new evidence of Trump's post-election corruption - Alternet.org

Scientists Reversed Aging in Mouse Brains With Poo Transplants From Young Mice In 1895, on turning 50, Elie Metchnikoff became increasingly anxious about aging. As a result, the Russian Nobel prize-winning scientist, and one of the founders of immunology, turned his attention away from immunology and towards gerontology – a term that he coined. He was fascinated by the role that intestinal bacteria play in health and disease and suggested that people from parts of eastern Europe lived longer because they ate a lot of fermented foods containing lactic acid bacteria. Although popular at the time, this theory linking gut microbes to healthy aging was largely ignored by scientists until relatively recently. We now recognize the importance that the trillions of bacteria, known as the gut microbiome, have in regulating health and disease. Evidence has been accumulating for almost a decade that the microbiome composition changes with age. In 2012, research by my colleagues at University College Cork showed that diversity in the microbiome was linked to health outcomes in later life, including frailty. But we still didn't know much about the effect of the microbiome on brain aging. In 2017, we revisited Metchnikoff's ideas, putting them in the context of brain aging, and showed that aging induced changes in the microbiota and immune system, and was associated with cognitive decline and anxiety. However, this study, like many in the field, only showed an association between aging and these factors. It did not prove that one thing caused the other. In a subsequent study, we went a step further in showing that a microbiota-targeted diet enriched with the prebiotic inulin (a prebiotic feeds the beneficial bacteria in the gut) could lessen the effects of aging in the brains of middle-aged mice. Yet it still wasn't clear whether the microbiota itself caused the slowing of brain aging. In our latest study, we show that by taking the microbiome from young mice and transplanting them into old mice, many of the effects of aging on learning and memory and immune impairments can be reversed. Using a maze, we showed that this fecal microbiota transplant from young to old mice led to the old mice finding a hidden platform faster. The immune connection Aging is associated with an increase in inflammation across all systems in the body, including the brain. It is clear that immune processes play a key role in brain aging, with a growing emphasis on the role of a specific immune cell, the microglia. Ironically, these are the same class of cells that Metchnikoff visualized down the microscope, albeit in other tissues, in the late 1800s. We now also know that the activation of these cells is under constant regulation by the gut microbiome. So the next part of the puzzle was to see if the negative effects of aging on immunity are also reversible by transplanting the microbiota from young mice to old. Indeed, a lot of the inflammation was lessened. Finally, we showed that chemicals in a region of the brain involved in learning and memory (the hippocampus) were more like that of young mice following the microbiota transplant. Our results show conclusively that the microbiome is important for a healthy brain in old age. Was Metchnikoff's step away from immunology premature in understanding the secrets of ageing? Indeed, the relative contribution of the immune changes seen in the mice receiving young microbiota to the overall rejuvenation effects deserves further study. But two big questions remain. What are the exact mechanisms at play? And can we translate these remarkable findings to humans? Working with a controlled situation of mice – which have very defined genetics, diets, and microbiome – is very different from looking at humans. We need to be careful to not over-interpret these findings. We are not advocating fecal transplants for people who want to rejuvenate their brain. Instead, these studies point towards a future where there will be a focus on microbiota-targeted dietary or bacteria-based treatments that will promote optimum gut health and immunity in order to keep the brain young and healthy. Such strategies will be a more palatable elixir indeed. Metchnikoff's overall tenets appear to be correct: protecting your gut microbes may be the secret to the fountain of youth. With advances in healthcare, longevity has markedly increased. And although we cannot stop the march of time, we can develop treatments that will protect our brains from deterioration and we have more than a gut feeling targeting the microbiome may be one such way. However, much work is still needed, though, to better understand how gut microbes are able to press rewind on some of the hallmarks of an aging brain.

Now, who could have possibly been able to see that coming?

'No doubt' Canada now in 4th wave of COVID-19 as cases spike across much of the country There is growing concern about a fourth wave of COVID-19 as cases start to climb again across much of Canada, with the increase being overwhelmingly driven by unvaccinated people in western provinces. With COVID-19 cases rising in multiple provinces after a summer lull, more signs point to Canada entering an expected fourth wave of the pandemic — one which could be dramatically different from earlier surges, thanks to rising vaccination rates, but not entirely pain-free. The country's seven-day average for new daily cases is now close to 1,300 — an increase of nearly 60 per cent over the previous week, with cases ticking back up mainly in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec. "We're absolutely in the fourth wave," said Dr. Peter Juni, who is the scientific director of Ontario's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. "There's no doubt about that." But unlike previous waves, which overwhelmed various hospital systems and led to catastrophic death in long-term care facilities, there is hope this spike won't be quite so dire. High vaccination uptake across the country has changed the game: Roughly 60 per cent of Canadians are now fully vaccinated, and research continues to show leading vaccines offer high levels of protection from serious illness, even against the fast-spreading delta variant. "We can effectively have more cases in our population without having as severe an impact on our health-care system," explained Ashleigh Tuite, an epidemiologist with the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. "But that doesn't mean that we're out of the woods." Multiple experts who spoke to CBC News stressed the need to keep precautions like mask-wearing in place to avoid the worst of what this wave could bring, while also striving to ensure as many Canadians as possible get their shots. "The point is we can't go back to normal," said Juni. "Because we continue to have a challenge with the large proportion of people who remain unvaccinated." (You may notice that he did not use the word "idiots" instead of "people".)

.......and beyond.....

Lawsuit says OAN touted a 'mathematician' to call the election rigged — but he's really a swing set installer One week after Joe Biden was sworn in as President One America News (OAN) aired a segment featuring a man they introduced as an "expert mathematician" who claimed to have uncovered evidence of election rigging and that Donald Trump actually won re-election. That man, according to a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems Tuesday against the far right wing media outlet, is not an expert mathematician, but a swing set installer and convicted drug dealer. Back on January 27 OAN hosted Ed Solomon, "who claimed to have found evidence within precinct-level reporting that the election was rigged by an algorithm," VICE reports. "The basis of Solomon's claim is that he found several precincts throughout the country reporting exactly the same results at various times throughout the vote tabulation process." OAN host Christina Bobb asked Solomon what the statistical probability of such an occurrence might be. "You can use the binomial probability formula, and the chance of that event happening is one over ten to an exponent so large there's not enough stars in the universe—there's not enough atoms in the universe to explain the number. It can't happen naturally," Solomon replied. Lawsuit says OAN touted a 'mathematician' to call the election rigged — but he's really a swing set installer - Alternet.org

It may be time for God to hit the "reset" button. It's apparently happened before, and will probably happen again.