samhexum

Trump pointed out that Sweden is “paying heavily” for its decision not to lockdown the country as coronavirus deaths in the Scandanavian country begin to rise. “Despite reports to the contrary, Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown. As of today, 2462 people have died there, a much higher number than the neighboring countries of Norway (207), Finland (206) or Denmark (443),” the president wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “The United States made the correct decision!” Unlike many of its Nordic neighbors and countries in Europe, Sweden did not impose strict restrictions on its citizens and allowed many businesses, including restaurants and hair salons, and schools to remain open. By contrast, Finland declared a state of emergency on March 16 and shut down schools, restaurants and bars on April 1 and Denmark announced the first round of closures on March 11. Sweden’s death rate per 1 million population – 244 – is significantly higher than Finland, 37, Denmark, 76, and Norway, 38, according to worldometers, which has been tracking the number of worldwide cases. Finland has 4,995 cases, Norway has 7,710 and Denmark has 9,158. Sweden, with a population of 10.3 million, has 20,301 cases. The World Health Organization on Wednesdaypraised Sweden as a “model” for fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, said Wednesday there are “lessons to be learned” from the Scandinavian nation, which has largely relied on citizens to self-regulate. “I think there’s a perception out that Sweden has not put in control measures and just has allowed the disease to spread,” Ryan told reporters. “Nothing can be further from the truth.” SEE ALSO WHO lauds lockdown-ignoring Sweden as a 'model' for countries going forward Japanese island hit by second wave of coronavirus after ending lockdown early Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido — the first area of the country to see a major coronavirus outbreak — was forced back into lockdown after lifting its stringent restrictions too early, according to new reports. The prefecture of 5.3 million people, known for its rugged mountainous terrain and history of farming and fishing, went into lockdown in late February in response to a sharp acceleration in infections, which largely stemmed from its annual Sapporo Snow Festival, TIME reported. The region, at first, was lauded for quickly containing the outbreak with a 3-week lockdown, but when prefectural governor Naomichi Suzuki lifted the restrictions, a second wave of infections slammed the island even harder, according to the report. The region was forced back into lockdown. “Now I regret it, we should not have lifted the first state of emergency,” Dr. Kiyoshi Nagase, chairman of the Hokkaido Medical Association, who helped coordinate the government response, told the outlet. The island’s story serves as a wake-up call for leaders of other nations — including the US — as they consider loosening restrictions, Kazuto Suzuki, Vice Dean of International Politics at Hokkaido University, told TIME. “Hokkaido shows, for example, that what’s happening in the U.S. with individual governors opening up is very dangerous; of course you can’t close interstate traffic but you need to put controls in place,” he said. “That’s what we now know: Even if you control the first wave, you can’t relax.” Japan has so far confirmed about 15,000 coronavirus cases, including about 700 from the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo in February, Kyodo News reported Thursday. About 470 deaths have been reported. The Tokyo metropolitan government confirmed 46 new infections Thursday, according to the report. The country is considering extending its nationwide state of emergency until the end of May to help contain the spread of the virus, government sources told the outlet Thursday. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to seek opinions from a panel of experts Friday before coming to a decision.

I think I once saw him be a dinner guest on Annabel Langbein's cooking show.

Dozens of bodies found in U-Haul trucks outside NYC funeral home Police found dozens of bodies being stored in unrefrigerated trucks outside a Brooklyn funeral home and lying on the facility’s floor Wednesday, law enforcement sources told The Post. Between 40 to 60 bodies were discovered either stacked up in U-Haul box trucks outside Andrew Cleckley Funeral Services in Flatlands or on the building’s floor, after neighbors reported a foul odor around the property, sources said. The corpses were stacked on top of each other in the trucks. Fluid leaking from inside created a terrible smell and caused neighboring store owners to call the police, according to sources. NYPD detectives were joined by several other city agencies investigating the trucks at the Utica Avenue facility Wednesday evening, with the section of the street closed off to the public. John DiPietro, who owns a neighboring property, said he had observed cadavers being stored in the trucks for at least several weeks during the coronavirus pandemic. “You don’t respect the dead that way. That could have been my father, my brother,” he said. “You don’t do that to the dead.” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was on the scene, but could not confirm any details of the storage. Adams said the city needed to ramp up staff for a “bereavement committee” to deal with the surging deaths due to the coronavirus. “We need to bring in funeral directors, morgues, [medical examiners], clergies … when you find bodies in trucks like this throughout our city, treating them in an undignified manner, that’s unacceptable.” Police called in the state Department of Health. A spokesman at the agency said the department is actively looking into the matter, but couldn’t comment further. In addition to the two U-Hauls holding corpses, the facility had two more refrigerated trucks also storing bodies and a third box truck of empty caskets, police sources said. The funeral home told officers that the bodies were supposed to be going to a crematorium but they didn’t come and pick them up, sources told the Post. Corpses began being stored in the trucks after the company’s freezer stopped working correctly, an anonymous official told the New York Times. The owner of Pemco supplies, a kitchen appliance parts supplier nearby the funeral home, called the situation a “disaster.” “They were storing them in U-Haul trucks; we knew what was going on but not the extent,” the owner said. “One thing to be [killed] by the coronavirus, another to be treated inhumanly.” Calls to the funeral company, went unanswered Wednesday afternoon. Workers, some not wearing protective equipment, could be seen taking bodies from the facility into the night. A tarp was extended from the building to shield the process as Dodge Caravan minivans backed up onto the sidewalk to receive the corpses. A gentle wind occasionally blew the tarp back to reveal the body bags as they were wheeled into the minivans on gurneys. “You don’t see this all over the city — especially in a residential neighborhood,” one shocked cop told The Post. “Never seen anything like this.”

Two golden pups are delivering locally brewed suds to a growing ’brew dogs’ fan base Golden Retrievers Buddy, 3, and Barley, 1, are now part of the delivery staff at family-owned Six Harbors Brewing Co. in Huntington, Long Island, which was forced to switch from on-site sales to curbside pickup and delivery during the coronavirus lockdown. They’re very good brew boys. Golden Retriever’s Buddy, 3, and Barley, 1, are now part of the delivery staff at family-owned Six Harbors Brewing Co. in Huntington, which was forced to switch from on-site sales to curbside pickup and delivery during New York’s coronavirus lockdown. The patron-greeting pair were pupset their fans stopped showing up to buy hand-brewed and canned ales, pilsners, and lagers — and pet Buddy and Barley while they waited, brewery owners Karen and Mark Heuwetter told the Daily News. “We’ve had to change our business model," Mark Heuwetter said. “We created an online store and now people can have curbside or delivery. We took the dogs on a few trips and people were loving the dogs when they came...so we added them." “The dogs make a nice compliment to the delivery service. They put smiles on people’s faces," he said. The brewery even developed a makeshift four-pack of their signature brew to hang around the dogs’ necks during their delivery runs. The four-pack is empty, but Buddy and Barley quickly earned the social media moniker “brew dogs.” “Buddy and Barley love people," Heuwetter said. "At the brewery they’d just walk table to table and people would just pet them and continue their conversations and the dogs would sit there until they’d stop petting and then they’d move to the next table,” he said. The brewery—celebrating two years of business in May, and one of a handful of essential-businesses in Huntington still open during the lockdown — expected a massive hit to the 95% of revenue that came from over-the-counter sales. Instead, they said, business is booming thanks to “brew dogs.” “We are finding out—and maybe it’s because of what’s happening right now—our online store is generating so much sales...that depending on the day we are matching or exceeding what we did before isolation and I think it’s because of the dogs,” Mark Heuwetter said. According to the Heuwetters, customers are now submitting orders specifically requesting that Buddy and Barley show up on the delivery drop-off. “We just wanted to create something different...and it’s morphed into this whole thing of the brew dog show...people request Buddy and Barley,” Mark Heuwetter said. And if all that floof isn’t enough, patrons can get a picture with the pups when they arrive at the door to share on social media.

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/armpit-appreciation-thread-dedicated-to-pitman.136691/page-239#post-1905353

Will there really be a beef shortage? What else is there to eat?

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/daily-pietro-boselli.124490/page-20#post-1905320

Pietro Boselli strips completely naked for jaw-dropping Earth Day beach shoot Look, hot men posting thirst-traps on Instagram under the guise of celebrating a serious event is obviously one of the scourges of the 21st century: But there's no denying that in rare cases, they can keep your eyes focused firmly on your screen rather than rolling into the back of your head. One such exception is that of 'world's hottest math teacher' and model Pietro Boselli, who celebrated Earth Day on Monday (22 April) by getting back to nature with a series of jaw-dropping nude images on Instagram. With just a carefully-placed shell to protect his modesty, the former University College London lecturer left followers shell-shocked (sorry) as he stripped off in honor of the international day of environmental activism. As for Pietro, well, as far as awareness-raising goes, we can certainly think of worse ways to get our attention - just promise us you'll all go recycle your plastics after you're done drooling... Meanwhile, you can check out more of Pietro's hottest moments here.

I think the show has wound up better as a result of losing Roseanne. Instead of being a possibly tired reboot, it became more of a spin-off with Darlene & Becky moving front and center, though DJ is still barely used. And Dan surely has been given more interesting stories than he would've gotten as Roseanne's foil. It's not a great show, but I enjoy it and hope it lasts awhile. And Peg Bundy Katey Sagal has been an excellent addition as Dan's new love. Did anybody ever read or hear anything about why they chose to exclude Jackie's son (Andy) from the show? He didn't even have to appear; he could've just been mentioned as being in the military (or prison) to explain his absence if they didn't want to include another character. But why pretend she never had a child?

I've enjoyed all 3 episodes so far. Michael Bubble (or is it Bubbly? I always forget) is next week.

An octopus has been spotted in the now crystal clear canals of Venice under coronavirus lockdown. The eight-legged visitor has left Venitian scientists confused after it was seen swimming near the Piazzale Roma last week and reported to scientists at the city’s Institute of Marine Sciences. Local Italian experts believe that the octopus has either escaped from a fish market or come from the Adriatic Sea, or it could have been popped in the water by local pranksters. Director of Venice’s Natural History Museum, Luca Mizzan, said: “It’s really very strange that an octopus can get there in that environment so far from the sea and close to the hinterland. “Nothing can be ruled out even if it’s a joke. The video shows that he is a visibly healthy octopus, he is not afraid,” he told Corriere del Veneto. Octopuses are a very rare sight in the lagoon around Venice that has seen jellyfish, crabs and schools of fish return to the waters since the tourists and boats all left. Since the water has stopped being constantly churned by boats, the sediment has settled and the clearer water means that people can now see the fish. Noise pollution has decreased dramatically which encourages living things that would otherwise have been frightened off. Local scientists believe the water has not been this clear in living memory. Zoologist Andrea Mangoni said: “The flora and fauna of the lagoon have not changed during lockdown. What has changed is our chance to see them.” Mangoni’s film of a jellyfish swimming slowly through translucent canal water has gone viral on social media. Mangoni says life in Venice these days is “like being on a coral reef”. He added “The number of colours and lifeforms is extraordinary, which makes the lagoon unique,” he said. But local experts have warned that the few months of lockdown won’t suffice to make a significant impact on the quality of the lagoon’s ecosystem. Tourists are expected to return to the city in June when Italy plans to reopen bars and restaurants.

Man named Tupac Shakur files for unemployment in Kentucky Tupac Shakur lives — in Kentucky. Kentucky Gov. Andy Bashear apologized to a local resident bearing the famous rapper’s name — after he used Shakur as an example of “bad apples” using fake names for unemployment filings, according to a report. “We had somebody apply for unemployment for Tupac Shakur here in Kentucky,” Beshear said Monday night, referencing the West Coast icon who was killed in the 90s, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. “And that person may have thought they were being funny, they probably did. Except for the fact that because of them, we had to go through so many other claims.” Except gaining unemployment benefits are no laughing matter for Shakur, 46, who lives in Lexington, the paper said. Shakur, who goes by his middle name, “Malik,” worked as a restaurant cook before the coronavirus pandemic shut down shops across the state, according to the outlet. “I’ve been struggling for like the last month trying to figure out how to pay the bills,” Shakur told the paper. Shakur is among more than 20 million Americans seeking jobless aid as COVID-19 has shut down the country. He applied for unemployment insurance as soon as he could on March 13, and wondered why the money hadn’t come more than a month later — until he realized it was because the government thought it was a prank. “I’m hurt, I’m really embarrassed and I’m shocked,” Shakur told the Herald-Leader. “He needs to apologize. That’s just my name.” Beshear reportedly called Shakur personally to apologize Tuesday morning. His office told the paper it originally could not verify Shakur’s identity and that it was now working to process his claim. Shakur forgave Beshear for the mistake and was appreciative for the call, the Herald-Leader reported. “I understand, he’s dealing with a lot,” Shakur said. “Mistakes happen.”