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.”

Different..

Vice President Kamala Harris is of the view that if she were a white man, the media coverage of her would be different. 

This is according to a report from The New York Times, which spoke to several White House sources about Harris' current position in the administration. 

Harris has been confiding in allies that she thought the news would cover her differently if she were white and male, attributing some of her negative press coverage — particularly in conservative media outlets — to race and gender.

Harris and President Joe Biden have struggled with historically low job approval ratings, with Harris more unpopular than any vice president in modern history.

With that rating and problems accumulating, it is better to be someone else. 

Just a thought.