Lucky

I cannot fathom why @Unicornis so committed to keeping his views here a priority. He's on vacation in Belize! He may be right, and I hope that he is, but do I want to bet my health on it? No, I don't.

My condolences to the Google butts!

I like the way he concludes his profile: "If you want me? It as simple as dropping your cocks, grabbing your socks, & texting me"

I have never once heard of Ash Barty. Did she use to go by Ash Wednesday?

Coincident with the rise of the BA.2 variant, government funding for COVID is running out. It seems as if nothing has been learned about preparedness in the last two years. latimes.com: The percentage of Omicron subvariant BA.2 cases is rising in Los Angeles County, a trend seen elsewhere nationwide as officials sound the alarm about Congress’ failure to provide critical funding for vaccinations, tests and anti-COVID drugs. Officials in L.A. County and nationally have warned about the risk to public health if new pandemic federal funding fails to be approved. There is no money left to reimburse doctors for COVID care for uninsured Americans, and funds will soon run out to provide vaccinations, Xavier Becerra, the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, said this week. According to data released Thursday, 14.7% of coronavirus samples analyzed for L.A. County between Feb. 27 to March 5 were the highly contagious BA.2 subvariant. That’s more than double the previous week’s figure of 6.4%. L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer continued to urge residents to adhere to the strong recommendation issued by her department and state health officials to continue masking in indoor public settings. “Along with the increasing circulation of the more-infectious BA.2 subvariant, everyone, especially those who are at elevated risk or live with someone at elevated risk, should wear a high-quality mask and get vaccinated and boosted,” Ferrer said in a statement Thursday. More recent national estimates have suggested BA.2 will quickly become dominant soon. BA.2 comprised an estimated 35% of analyzed samples between March 13 and March 19; the previous week, it made up 22%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Southwestern U.S. — which includes California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii — BA.2 made up an estimated 41% of coronavirus samples. The previous week, it was 28%. And for the first time, BA.2 is the now estimated to be the dominant subvariant in the Northeast, making up more than half the analyzed coronavirus cases in New York, New Jersey and New England. BA.2 is believed to be 30% to 60% more contagious than the earlier Omicron subvariant. BA.2, however, doesn’t appear to result in more severe illness, and it’s likely that people recently infected with the earlier Omicron subvariant will have a decent degree of at least short-term immunity to BA.2. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-25/percentage-of-omicron-subvariant-ba-2-rising-in-l-a-county

It is optional! Read the post by @RadioRobabove.

I didn't care for the black background at all. Thanks for the info on how to change it!

Hmm...I think now it is going to be June 1.

Like me! I enjoy balls and nuts at the game!

It's titled Watergate A New History, and it's written by Garrett M. Graff, the director for cyber initiatives at the Aspen Institute and author of several books. Without the notes and index, it still takes up almost 700 pages. And, it's an interesting read. It would be easier if we hadn't just been through the Trump presidency to engage in presidential acts of 50 years ago. Nixon might seem saintly in comparison. But so tired am I of reading about presidential misdeeds that the Watergate book is not getting the attention I want to give it. In order to keep it to one volume, things are mentioned that deserve more attention. The idea that General Al Haig was in over his head is only suggested in a footnote. But the book does allow me to revisit the Nixon years. Most of the principals are dead now, and it does seem like a long time ago. But that's history, isn't it? Anyway, I just passed page 500.

Recently I applied for and received the Capitol One Venture X credit card. Among its benefits are a $200 credit for an Airbnb or VRBO rental, and a $300 travel credit when travel is booked through their travel desk. So I searched for properties in San Diego for Gay Pride Weekend, perhaps now known as LBGTQIA Weekend. I grant you that San Diego in July is an attractive and popular location, especially given the heat here. My search did not result in any deals appealing to me. Airbnb has so many fees added to the list price, that the list price is a joke. Hotels are competitive, if not cheaper And hotels have housecleaning...at least they used to! Sad to say, using the Capitol One travel desk for hotels was not so appealing either, as I can find better prices on my own. That $300 credit seems built into the prices. Just my opinion now. I already have a hotel booked for free with my points on another card. One night of it, that is. Anyone here have preferences when traveling to San Diego?

That's a long time ago, @WilliamM Were the showers similar to what we have now?

No, but I respect what he is doing.

I remember those troubled times when we didn't know if the site would be here in the next hour. Fawkes hadn't made it easy to find things. @Cooper's first priority was to see if he could get medical help as Daddy lay on the floor. He did get the cops there and then tuned his attention to saving the website. Daddy had left no heir. I think Cooper worked 20 hour days helping find people who could help both Daddy and the website. Now he is our chief administrator, and I, for one, think he is doing a wonderful job. I am glad that so many have joined as moderators to help ease his burden.

Riverside County has had a drop in cases by 53% in the last two weeks. A local hospital has no Covid cases in their ICU. That is still a higher rate than last summer. But, New York City is up 38% in the last two weeks. That suggests, to me, that the European rise is coming this way. In the meantime, I take comfort that the death rates are down. And I hope that I am wrong about the new wave.

He's delightfully cute!

April 17th, Easter Sunday!

Wasn't it in March of last year when @Cooperwas saving the website? Once it was known that Guy Fawkes had passed, efforts were made to secure the site. I think without @Coopernone of us would be posting today. Granted, others came along. A guy named, I think, @RadioRobbecame very helpful too.🙂 Anyway, thanks to all who saved the site. But it starts with @Cooper!

It didn't stay in great shape! Today's LA Times reports: Since Dec. 1, Southern California has recorded 10,103 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people — the highest of the state’s five regions, according to a Times analysis of data from the California Department of Public Health. Infection rates were 7,714 per 100,000 people in the Bay Area, 7,341 in the San Joaquin Valley, 6,459 in Greater Sacramento and 4,892 in Northern California, data showed.... ...Of California’s 58 counties, L.A. had the highest overall case rate during the Omicron surge. San Diego was third; Imperial, fourth; San Bernardino, eighth; Riverside, ninth; Santa Barbara, 10th; and Ventura, 11th. These high case rates reflect a staggering number of infections. Combined, the seven Southern California counties tallied 2.1 million new coronavirus cases in the last three and a half months — including 1.2 million in L.A. County alone. The massive caseload was fueled by Southern California’s testing — the most per capita of any region, The Times’ analysis showed. But experts have long noted that official infection counts are likely to be incomplete, as some people may never get screened or have their results disclosed to public health agencies. Exacerbating that issue is the availability of at-home tests, which were widely used during the Omicron surge but are not reliably reported. Regardless of the actual count, the sheer enormity of cases had devastating effects throughout the region. More than 7,500 Southern Californians died from COVID-19 — a rate of 32.2 per 100,000 people from Dec. 1 through March 14.https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-18/omicron-deaths-cases-hit-southern-california-hardest-in-state

Story on the news tonight was that airport workers in South America were collaborating with workers at JFK to smuggle cocaine...in the cockpit! Apparently the pilots didn't know it was there. Maybe that's why the police met this flight.

President Obama isn't the only DC resident to get COVID. Biden had to cancel a meeting with the Irish Prime Minister when the latter tested positive. He had just spent time with Nancy Pelosi! From the nytimes.com: A flurry of high-profile coronavirus cases in the nation’s capital — including in people who have been around President Biden — has raised new questions about the trajectory of the two-year-old pandemic, even as the White House has signaled confidence in the country’s ability to resume normal activities... ...In the past week, Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, tested positive for the virus, ...At least nine House Democrats received positive tests this week after a party retreat in Philadelphia and late-night voting at the Capitol. But the recent cases in Washington, and the spread of yet another variant around the world, highlight a challenge for Mr. Biden and his team: how to embrace the country’s desire to move on while being careful not to declare victory over a virus that is still making people sick and killing more than 1,000 Americans each day. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/us/politics/washington-coronavirus-cases.html

Sleep experts say that regular time works best! I agree. From wapo.com: Sleep experts widely agree with the Senate that the country should abandon its twice-yearly seasonal time changes. But they disagree on one key point: which time system should be permanent. Unlike the Senate, many sleep experts believe the country should adopt year-round standard time. After the Senate voted unanimously and with little discussion Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a statement cautioning that the move overlooks potential health risks associated with that time system. (The legislation, which would take effect next year, must get through the House and be signed by President Biden to become law.) “We do applaud stopping the switching during the course of the year and settling on a permanent time,” said Jocelyn Cheng, a member of the AASM’s public safety committee. But, she added, “standard time, for so many scientific and circadian rationales and public health safety reasons, should really be what the permanent time is set to.” Senate votes unanimously to make daylight saving time permanent The AASM made this stance clear in 2020 when it released a position statement recommending that the country institute year-round standard time. Its reasoning, in part, is that standard time is more closely associated with humans’ intrinsic circadian rhythm, and that disrupting that rhythm, as happens with daylight saving time, has been associated with increased risks of obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and depression. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/03/16/daylight-saving-bill-health-effects/

The Washington Post reports that the surge in Europe is worrisome to the US, as previous surges there moved on to the States. Excerpts: A surge in coronavirus infections in Western Europe has experts and health authorities on alert for another wave of the pandemic in the United States, even as most of the country has done away with restrictions after a sharp decline in cases. Infectious-disease experts are closely watching the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2, which appears to be more transmissible than the original strain, BA.1, and is fueling the outbreak overseas. In the past two years, a widespread outbreak like the one now being seen in Europe has been followed by a similar surge in the United States some weeks later. Many, but not all, experts interviewed for this story predicted that is likely to happen. China and Hong Kong, on the other hand, are experiencing rapid and severe outbreaks, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/03/16/covid-ba2-omicron-surge/

I doubt escorts are ready, willing, and able to sell out their clients. Granted, some kind of coercion would make that different.

From nytimes.com: A year and a half ago, when it came time to cast a particular scene in the pilot episode of “Minx,” the showrunner Ellen Rapoport sifted through hundreds of photos of background actors, which had already been sorted into piles. “Like: small ones, big ones, crooked ones, foreskin,” Rapoport recalled. “I just wanted it all.” (The photos were not of the actors’ faces.) “Minx,” a cheeky comedy set in 1970s Southern California, swaggers onto HBO Max on Thursday. ...the pilot includes a minute-long scene in which about 18 men audition, bottomless, for the privilege. As Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” plays, the men strip off. They strut. They dance. They karate chop. ...While breasts are a common locus of desire, a flaccid penis often has a more comic or pathetic aspect. (“They’re kind of funny,” Rapoport said.) And current standards permit that only flaccid penises can be shown in any sexual situation. ... Most of the ones that appear in mainstream TV or film are silicon prosthetics, and they are often oddly large. “It’s very rare to just see a normal penis,” Horeck said. Enter “Minx.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/arts/television/minx-hbo-max-male-nudity.html