Saint ..

 

Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint.

Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid.

Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. 

Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. 

Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. 

Man may have been made in the image of God,

but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.

Stephen King , The Stand.

Filth..

 

 We're talking about the end of Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York City — undoubtedly the worst mayor in American history. 

So tonight, we say "goodbye." Now, Bill de Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm Jr., and he did what no other mayor dreamed possible. In just a few short years, he has completely ruined New York City. 

By almost every measure, he has been a complete and utter disaster. Since Bill de Blasio took over, murders in New York City have spiked by nearly 50 percent.

Rapes are up by 26 percent. According to a report by BusyBee, which looked at data from the American Housing Survey along with other federal data, New York City is by far the dirtiest city in the country. New York City also had more than 2 million homes with pest infestations, which include rats, roaches, and mice. 

A state audit confirmed the filth, with most inspected city blocks and sidewalks found to be dirty. 

During his failed run for president, de Blasio cost taxpayers $320,000 by using the NYPD as security detail. Now he still hasn't paid that back and his office hasn't said if he ever will. That's in addition to the 850 million taxpayer dollars de Blasio's wife supposedly lost track of while overseeing her Thrive NYC mental health scheme.

These are just a few of the reasons why we'll be happy to see Bill de Blasio leave. 

Cluster..

 

The investigation into a cluster of omicron infections in Nebraska suggests the heavily mutated variant has a shorter incubation period and causes similar or milder symptoms compared to past variants for people who are vaccinated or previously infected, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC released findings from an epidemiological investigation into six omicron cases confirmed from a single household in Nebraska.

A 48-year-old man who returned to the U.S. on Nov. 23 from a conference in Nigeria experienced symptoms a day later and tested positive for the virus on Nov. 26. The man, who was unvaccinated and had a prior history of symptomatic infection in 2020, reported he was not wearing a mask when he had close contact with a masked individual who was coughing at the international conference on Nov. 20.

Not vaccinated, not wearing a mask, and visiting Nigeria got a mild disease of Covid Omicron. Just a thought.

Ironic..

 

The rapidly spreading omicron variant poses a problem for the White House as officials try to convince a skeptical public that vaccine mandates are necessary. 

Opponents of mandates are seizing on early evidence that shows vaccines are not as effective at stopping transmission of the new strain, which they say undermines the administration's key arguments for championing them. 

This week, airlines were forced to cancel thousands of flights as COVID-19 swept through its flight crews and other employees.

Many U.S. airlines require their employees to be fully vaccinated, and anti-mandate groups claimed that hundreds of otherwise-healthy crew members were sidelined, unable to help alleviate the worst of the shortages because of their vaccination status.

So with failure of the current vaccine, Firing thousands in healthcare and other industries, who didn't want to be vaccinated, and start training the National guard to perform jobs of these people who have years of experience. Ironic Huh.  Just a thought.

Anti Vaxx..

 

A total of 2.49 million COVID-19 cases within the past week outpaced the previous record of 1.7 million cases from Jan. 3-9, 2021, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data.  The entirety of November had just 2.55 million cases, the analysis shows.

The U.S. recorded 647,067 million cases Thursday; more than 2 million were notched in the last four days. 

With both the omicron and delta variants infecting people, the U.S. is now averaging about 356,000 cases per day – and more than four cases every second.  

The relatively low number of deaths in contrast to high case counts may support early evidence that omicron is more contagious but less severe. 

So vaccinations didn't help millions who got infected though they are vaccinated.

Many unvaccinated people end up hospitalized, but what other diseases they have that landed them in there? 

Should we get new vaccine to target the new variant? 

Should the politicians continue with the same song and dance that started when we had the vaccines?

Should we change our way of lives in the large dense Cities by improving the Quality of Lives, and reduce the dense populations in Buses, Trains, workplaces? 

Or we just keep singing the same song?

 Just a "lost" thought.

Wonderful..

 

 Truly the most wonderful time of the year, cheers Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella, because Mayor de Blasio, “a bumbling punchline of a politician, is finally leaving office.” And though “it’s tempting to . . . focus on the clownish moments,” we’d be missing out on “the spectacular failures and hypocrisies of his policy initiatives.”

 Indeed, “his only real flashes of political acumen were when he was rubbing disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a thin-skinned blowhard and fellow authoritarian who couldn’t help but take the bait.” Hizzoner’s “ ‘progressive’ tendencies only manifested themselves in authoritarian diktats against New Yorkers who weren’t powerful enough to fight back.” 

Yet the mayor “never had a real interest in taking on the injustices perpetrated by the government he ostensibly controlled. nor fixing anything with housing, transportation etc.”
Just "Somone's" thought.

History..

 

Horrific scenes seen in previous Covid-19 waves are “now history,” according to John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and the U.K. government’s life sciences advisor.

Bell analyzed data from the U.K., where cases are breaking records and hospital admissions are at their highest since March. He said that the number of people in ICUs who are vaccinated remains “very, very low

The horrific scenes that we saw a year ago intensive care units being full, lots of people dying prematurely that is now history in my view and I think we should be reassured that that’s likely to continue.”

He added: “The disease does appear to be less severe, and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital. They don’t need high-flow oxygen, average length of stay is apparently three days, this is not the same disease as we were seeing a year ago.”

Out..

 

Gift..

 

Boasting ..

 

Critics panned President Biden on social media for boasting about his 2021 economic record.

"We’re ending 2021 with what one analyst described as the strongest first-year economic track record of any president in the last 50 years," Biden said on Twitter Wednesday. "Let’s keep the progress going."

"And at the end of 2021, with what one analyst described as the ‘strongest first-year economic track record of any President in the last 50 years’: nearly 6 million new jobs, a record number for a new President, because of my staff and my Cabinet.

is there any boasting Mr. President of the Gas prices that you personally shot it down, increased the prices worldwide and enabled the OPIC to get rich from the USA and other European Countries?

Is there any boasting Mr. President on the Build Inflation Back Better where employed people can't afford today's prices under your status?

Is there any boasting on your achievement on 2021 of managing and prevent the death from Covid which reached 800,000 plus, that you and the VP promised great actions similar to the Ebola Epidemic?   Just a "Basted" thought.

Fraud..

 

Mayor-elect Eric Adams announced a new office in City Hall that will crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in city government and his first targets will be the bloated budgets of the Department of Education, Department of Correction and New York City Housing Authority.

“We are not giving taxpayers their money’s worth every day and that’s what we are going to change. making sure our government is going to work for our taxpayers,” Adams said Tuesday in launching the newly created Mayor’s Office of Risk Management and Compliance.

“We’re going to be rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in our agencies,” Adams said from Brooklyn Borough Hall where he’s serving his final days as borough president.

That begins with rooting out the other guy who just waste it.  

Just a thought.

Crisis..

 

Fault..

 

Adam..

 

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. 

First published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. 

By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets.^[1]

Failed..

 

Someone has to say it, and I derive no pleasure from doing so. But here goes:

The Omicron wave is exposing the limits of COVID-19 restrictions, which are clearly failing. These include ferociously debated vaccine passports and masking policies that have done little, if anything, to tame skyrocketing numbers throttling the Northeast. 

Hard-hit travel, leisure and small businesses — especially restaurants — are bearing the brunt of questionable protocols. 

And for the record, it’s not just America. China's aggressive zero-COVID policies that have exacerbated global supply chain problems aren’t doing much to curb the spread there, either.

“Policies, tools and communication must adapt to where we are now two full years into the pandemic. “Vaccines have been invaluable to bring us to this point, but mandating drives away customers, good employees, job candidates, and creates more division inside (and outside) of organizations.”

The preponderance of Omicron-fueled breakout infections, and the attendant shutdowns of (highly vaccinated) New York City venues, Apple Stores and Broadway shows, are undermining illusions of safety. It's also questioning an underlying premise that effectively cleaved society into castes of vaccinated and unvaccinated.

 With this fallure, there is something else not being done. Crowded offices, street, stadium, buses, subway system etc and the quality of life needs to be improved.  Just a "Dense" thought

Busyness..

 

Our jobs can provide us with a sense of competence, which contributes to wellbeing. Researchers have demonstrated not only that labor leads to validation but that, when these feelings are threatened, we're particularly drawn to activities that require effort – often some form of work – because these demonstrate our ability to shape our environment, confirming our identities as competent individuals.

Work even seems to make us happier in circumstances when we'd rather opt for leisure. This was demonstrated by a series of clever experiments in which participants had the option to be idle (waiting in a room for 15 minutes for an experiment to start) or to be busy (walking for 15 minutes to another venue to participate in an experiment).

Yet the researchers found that those who'd spent 15 minutes walking ended up significantly happier than those who'd spent 15 minutes waiting – no matter whether they'd had a choice or a chocolate or neither. In other words, busyness contributes to happiness even when you think you'd prefer to be idle. Animals seem to get this instinctively: in experiments, most would rather work for food than get it for free.

But even in the realm of leisure, our unconscious orientation towards busyness lurks in the background. A recent study has suggested that there really is such a thing as too much free time and that our subjective wellbeing actually begins to drop if we have more than five hours of it in a day. Whiling away effortless days on the beach doesn't seem to be the key to long-term happiness.

Just a "leisure" thought.

Mild..

 

Omicron is “not the same disease we were seeing a year ago” and high Covid death rates in the UK are “now history”, a leading immunologist has said.

Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and the government’s life sciences adviser, said that although hospital admissions had increased in recent weeks as Omicron spreads through the population, the disease “appears to be less severe and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital”. Fewer patients were needing high-flow oxygen and the average length of stay was down to three days, he said.

“There is early encouragement from what we know in South Africa that you have fewer hospitalizations and that the number of days that they stay in hospital if they do go into hospital is also lower than in previous variants,” he told the BBC.

Unethical Bafoon .

 

Over the last decade, we voted him into City Hall twice, made him a punching bag on a regular basis and turned to him for leadership during one of the lowest points in the city’s history — the COVID-19 pandemic.

By now, almost everyone has an opinion of the Manhattan-born, Massachusetts-raised and Brooklyn-claiming mayor. He is, at turns, a progressive or an unethical buffoon, too anti-cop, a micromanager and just plain lazy. 

Still not entirely clear is how history will judge the man. Clarity on that may take several years or even decades to come by and even then, historians and political scientists will still debate the finer points.

However, the city is deteriorating. More towers are being built in favor of the builders who donate much to the politicians, streets are dug, sewar are old, water pipes and the belly of the beast deteriorates. Six inches of snow or rain will call for an emergency State of the city. Go figure. Not to mention the crowds, and Covid and the massive death.  Just a thought.

Froze..

 

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing home death toll from COVID-19 telling them “we froze” out of fear that the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned.

The stunning admission of a coverup was made by secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] tweets

“He starts tweeting that WE, killed everyone in nursing homes,” DeRosa said. “He starts going after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, starts going after [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, starts going after [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer.

“And basically, we froze.” 

We weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, was going to be used against US while WE weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.

By then, Cuomo's five Million Dollar book deal, the Media deliberate misinformation calling him a Hero, the various sexual interaction with 11 women employed and De Rosas's 200,000 plus salary among other acts.

Notice, the four States mention in this investigation were all Democrats.!!!! The Biden Administration is Democrats and all what we have to investigate is the Inserection, and the death of thousands of older Americans is.... better buried.

Failure..

 

President Biden told Americans that he understands "how tired, worried and frustrated you are" about the latest COVID-19 case surge in the U.S. and announced several new steps to deal with the highly contagious omicron variant.

Most notably, the government plans to buy a half-billion at-home COVID test kits and mail them to people who want them, with deliveries beginning in January.

Biden defended his administration's performance in dealing with the fast-spreading variant against criticism the White House had not acted quickly enough. The administration's response, Biden said "was not a failure," and he asserted that "I don't think anybody anticipated it would spread as rapidly as it did."

The president also sought to reassure Americans that despite the latest wave of the virus, the nation is better off than it was last March.
Comment:

This administration is out of touch in every aspect. Disorganized as their mouth continue to yak how better we are. We are not bitter. Look and the lines to get tested for Covid before Christmas and they promise to get it after the Holidays.

Either Covid became a surprise to this admin or the testing. 

 Just a "disorganized" thought.

Cali..

 

Parts of California are getting a White Christmas after all, with snowfall pounding mountains across the state.  Other areas of California, however, saw a wet and rainy Christmas as storms continue to drench the state, causing flash flooding and evacuations in some areas over the holiday period.

Officials with the University of California, Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory wondered on Twitter if the recent snowfall could break the snowiest December record of 179 inches (4.6 meters) set in 1970.

There’s been at least 119 inches (3 meters) recorded so far this month , according to The Mercury News, with more expected over the next 72 hours.

In the San Bernardino National Forest, crews are working on a $4.2 million emergency project to repair a section of State Route 18 that washed down a hillside late Thursday after heavy rain, according to The San Bernardino Sun.  

The roadway is a major route to Big Bear Lake and the closure near Panorama Point could be “several days if not weeks,” the newspaper reported. 

The Los Angeles area is likely to see rain and mountain snow for the next week, according to the National Weather Service, with temperatures significantly below normal through the middle of the week.

No one said it is climate change or just being unprepared.  Just a thought.

Weddington..

 

Sarah Ragle Weddington was an American attorney, law professor, and member of the Texas House of Representatives best known for representing "Jane Roe" in the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the United States Supreme Court.

Sarah Waddington, an attorney who argued and won the Roe v Wade supreme court case which established the right to abortion in the US, has died aged 76.

Susan Hays, a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday and the Dallas Morning News confirmed it.

“At 27 she argued Roe to [the supreme court] (a fact that always made me feel like a gross underachiever). Ironically, she worked on the case because law firms would not hire women in the early 70s, leaving her with lots of time for good trouble.”

don't..

 

Shineth..

 

Robotic..

 

Kamala Harris was once viewed as an heir apparent to Biden, but Democrats are reportedly considering other alternatives as well should the president decide not to seek reelection.

Harris' performance in public has frequently been panned, alternatively as oddly inappropriate or robotic. She frequently sticks to her script.

But her passion was on display Friday during the taping of an interview with media personality Charlamagne Tha God. When he suggested that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was the de facto president given his ability to derail Biden's agenda, Harris would have none of it.

"It’s Joe Biden, and don’t start talking like a Republican, about asking whether or not he’s president," Harris said angrily. "And it's Joe Biden, and I'm vice president, and my name is Kamala Harris."

Is Hillary waiting in the wings?

Hybride..

 

On Wednesday, Apple announced that it would once again postpone its plan to bring employees back to the office. It isn't the first time, and Apple isn't the first company to put plans on hold as Covid-19 cases surge in many areas across the world. Apple had said it planned to implement a hybrid work arrangement starting in February, with most employees coming to the office three days a week.
Now, however, Apple says it's taking a different approach, and it might be the first return to the office plan that makes sense. That's according to a report from Bloomberg, which cited a memo from Tim Cook to employees. 

The idea is that employees who feel comfortable returning to the office can do so. For everyone else, the company is keeping everything the same. Well, with the exception of the fact that Apple is now giving employees $1,000 to use for their work-from-home needs, as a part of the company's "commitment to a more flexible environment." According to Bloomberg, that includes retail employees. 

"These funds are intended to help you with your home workspace and can be used as you see fit," Cook said in the memo.
There are two things that stand out. The first is that the company seems to finally have recognized that the best thing you can do for your employees is to give them flexibility and control over their work environment.  

Plant .

 

Researchers looked at nearly 850 people over age 65 living in two different regions in France. In addition to tracking their diet over a 12-year period, participants regularly underwent five different types of neuropsychological tests to detect signs of cognitive decline.)

Participants who ate more polyphenol-packed foods and those with certain metabolites showed significantly lower risk of cognitive impairment and dementia as they aged. These include apples, blueberries, cocoa, coffee, green tea, mushrooms, oranges, pomegranates, and red wine.

"The takeaway from the study is that a higher intake of fruits, vegetables, and other plant-based foods provides polyphenols and other bioactive compounds that could help reduce risk of cognitive decline related to aging," says study lead Cristina Andrés-Lacueva, Ph.D., from the Nutrition and Food Science Department at the University of Barcelona in Spain.

Not only do these foods seem to be protective on their own, but they may also work in concert together to boost brain health, she adds. That's particularly true if they push out less-healthy dietary choices like artificial sweeteners, which proved to have a negative impact on cognitive impairment in the study.

Active..

 

In a new study, researchers have identified an association between light-intensity physical exercise in older adults and a reduced risk of dementia.

The researchers split participants into four groups depending on how active they were: inactive, insufficiently active, active, and highly active.

They found that insufficiently active participants had a 10% reduced risk of developing dementia compared with inactive participants.

Active participants had a 20% reduced risk, while highly active participants had a 28% reduced risk.

The findings remained the same even after accounting for age, sex, and incidence of stroke and other comorbidities.

Medical News Today spoke with Dr. Boyoung Joung, a professor of internal medicine at Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and the study’s corresponding author. He said that “[i]n our study, we would like to emphasize that even light-intensity physical activity, as opposed to total sedentary behavior, could lead to a reduction in risk of dementia.”

“Therefore, older adults who cannot perform activity beyond moderate-intensity physical activity, due to frailty or comorbidities, could benefit from light-intensity physical activity.”