July 30, 2021

One in five flight attendants endured a 'physical incident' as union demands action

Nearly one in five flight attendants say they have gotten into a “physical incident” this year with a passenger, and their union is calling for criminal prosecution of people who act up on planes.

A union survey supports what airlines and federal officials have been saying: there has been a surge in unruly passengers this year, who sometimes become violent.

The most common trigger is passengers who refuse to follow the federal requirement that they wear face masks during flights, according to the survey by the Association of Flight Attendants. Alcohol is the next largest factor, with flight delays also playing a role, according to the union.

The union said nearly 5,000 flight attendants responded to its survey from 25 June through 14 July and 85% said they have dealt at least once this year with an unruly passenger. The union said 17% “reported experiencing a physical incident”. ............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/29/flight-attendant-union-criminal-prosecution-unruly-passengers

July 30, 2021

Biblical plague of mosquitoes......

.... OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but all the rain over the last month+ has produced ideal conditions for mosquitoes in southeast Michigan -- they're everywhere and they're effing huge this year. (An anti-vax nut in my condo complex is convinced the swarm is lab-created to force the covid vaccine on people. Seriously.)

July 29, 2021

What to expect if you get a breakthrough case of COVID-19

(Salon) On July 24, Kurt Suchman, a 26-year-old freelance writer living in Seattle, started to drink a seltzer that they couldn't taste.

"I tried another seltzer, and I was like, 'okay I can't really taste it,' and then I pulled out a jar of horseradish and shoved my nose in it," Suchman said. "I was like, 'I guess I can kind of smell it,' but at that point I was definitely a little freaked out."

Suchman made an appointment for a COVID-19 test the next morning, which is when they started to feel "feverish." Eventually, their test results confirmed what they expected: Suchman had COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated in May with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Suchman racked their brain trying to figure out how they got it. Suchman had not been in proximity of anyone with symptoms. Had it happened when Suchman traveled to Arkansas for a family emergency? Or perhaps at karaoke night?

....(snip)....

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breakthrough cases were always expected to occur in small numbers, as no vaccine is 100% effective; the highest efficacy rate of any of the COVID-19 vaccines was 95% when they were originally studied in 2020 and early 2021. That number has diminished as more mutations have sprung up. Indeed, according to some studies, the three available COVID-19 vaccines are less effective in preventing infection from the delta variant due to its unique mutations.

Fortunately, all three vaccines are still very good at protecting against severe illness and death — meaning that if you do have a breakthrough infection, it will very likely be mild. .......(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/29/what-to-expect-if-you-get-a-covid-19-breakthrough-case/

July 29, 2021

Florida man injured after sticking his arm in jaguar pen at local zoo

He must have been easy to spot.

A Florida man got clawed by a jaguar at the Jacksonville Zoo Wednesday, after he jumped over a safety barrier and stuck his arm into an enclosure, local reports said.

The man, who wasn’t publicly identified but is in his 20s, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, local outlet WJXT reported.

Witnesses told the station that the predatory park visitor had egged on the big cats before he hopped over a gate and into the “Range of the Jaguar” exhibit. ..........(more)

https://nypost.com/2021/07/28/florida-man-injured-after-sticking-his-arm-in-jaguar-pen-at-zoo/

July 28, 2021

How long before 45 claims he's never heard of Susan Wright?

A falling stock? Donald Trump-backed candidate loses U.S. House race to GOP's Jake Ellzey.
David Jackson
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON – The market value of a Donald Trump election endorsement just took a hit.

A Trump-endorsed candidate lost Tuesday to a fellow Republican in a closely watched Texas congressional race, undermining Trump's claims that his endorsement is essential to a candidate's success and emboldening his political opponents ahead of the 2022 elections.

The victory by Texas state legislator Jake Ellzey makes Trump's endorsement look something like a new smartphone in a world of rapidly evolving technology, analysts said.

"Yeah, it’ll still do stuff for you, and you’d rather have it than nothing, but it’s becoming more obsolete by the day," said Republican strategist Liz Mair. "And its firepower looks increasingly weak when contrasted with newer models."

Ellzey scored a come-from-behind victory over Trump-backed Susan Wright, the widow of the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, in a special congressional election runoff near Dallas. Ellzey took more than 53% of the vote in Texas' 6th Congressional District, with results from almost all precincts reported. ............(more)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/07/28/jake-ellzey-wins-us-house-seat-over-trump-backed-rival-texas/5397842001/

July 28, 2021

Detroit's Marble Bar will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for admission

(Detroit Free Press) One popular Detroit nightspot will require proof of vaccination at the door.

On Monday, The Marble Bar on Holden, south of Grand Boulevard and west of the Lodge Freeway, announced it would require patrons to show proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test results in order to be admitted into the venue.

The emergence and spread of the Delta Variant was cited as the reason for the additional safety measures in a post to the bar's Instagram page. ..........(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/07/27/covid-19-vaccination-negative-test-for-marble-bar-admission/5387957001/

July 28, 2021

Florida man shoots himself while showing off gun at bar

A man accidentally shot himself while showing off his gun at a bar in Florida, local reports say.

According to the Pensacola News Journal, the incident happened on Thursday night at O’Riley’s Uptown Tavern in Pensacola. Police told WEAR-TV the self-shooter is 28-year-old Carlos Feituuaki Tuifua, who survived and is recovering.

Surveillance video viewed by the Journal showed how the accident unfolded. At 11pm, Mr Tuifua was sitting at the bar talking to a man and a woman. About a minute later, he pulled out a handgun and showed it to them for a few seconds.

Then, the Journal reported, Mr Tuifua made a sudden gesture “as if he were putting the gun into an invisible holster” below his shoulder, but instead shot himself in the torso. .............(more)

https://news.yahoo.com/florida-man-shoots-himself-while-142143606.html

July 28, 2021

Vaccine Mandates Finally Have Some Momentum

Vaccine Mandates Finally Have Some Momentum
By Matt Stieb


With the Delta variant causing deaths and hospitalizations to spike in unvaccinated regions of the United States, there has been a renewed effort, joined by some unlikely voices, to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. Amid this push — and fear of the Delta wave — the messaging appears to be having some effect. After stalling out for months, vaccination rates have gone up in several states hit hard by the virus in July. Throughout the U.S., almost 780,000 shots were administered on Sunday, up over 200,000 from the seven-day average just a week before. And with Delta threatening to launch yet another wave of cases this fall, some state and local governments, private employers, and at least one federal agency are now finally doing more to mandate their own firewalls of vaccination.

Just as one of the first real jolts of the pandemic began in the sports world, the momentum for vaccine mandates picked up with the NFL’s announcement last week that teams would face severe penalties for failing to vaccinate their players — including the forfeiture of games if a club experiences an outbreak among players who have not gotten the shot. Then on Monday, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all 340,000 municipal employees in the city must either be vaccinated or test negative for COVID on a weekly basis or more by the time schools open in mid-September. (That workforce includes the New York Police Department, which reported last week that it had administered shots to just 43 percent of its service members.) California, where 75 percent of eligible residents are vaccinated, also announced Monday that all public and private health-care workers and 246,000 state employees will need to show proof of vaccination or test negative weekly beginning next month.

These programs are clearly designed to drive more employees toward vaccination, while also offering a less convenient alternative of frequent testing. Adopting a hard vaccine mandate, on the other hand, remains a difficult proposition in the United States. Because COVID vaccines are still only approved by the Food and Drug Administration under emergency use authorization, it is difficult for state governments and private businesses to require their employees get vaccinated. As STAT News noted earlier this year, the “same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant emergency use authorization also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to ‘ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.’” Full FDA approval of America’s three COVID vaccines may still be months away. Nevertheless, federal courts have recently upheld some employers’ decisions to require shots, including a federal judge in Texas dismissing a lawsuit from Houston Methodist Hospital employees fighting a vaccine mandate, and a federal judge in Indiana ruling that Indiana University could require students coming back to campus in the fall to get vaccinated. .............(more)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/vaccine-mandates-finally-have-some-momentum.html

July 28, 2021

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, still a mendacious sack of crap.....

The former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has urged people in Arkansas to “pray about it” before considering whether to get what she dubbed the “Trump vaccine” against Covid-19.

Sanders is running for Arkansas governor. In an opinion piece for the Arkansas Democrat Chronicle, headlined “The reasoning behind getting vaccinated”, she mostly used her platform to criticise Democrats and Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden.

Sanders did offer tentative encouragement for people in her state to get the coronavirus vaccine.

“To anyone still considering the merits of vaccination,” she wrote, “I leave you with this encouragement: Pray about it, discuss it with your family and your doctor.

“Filter out the noise and fear-mongering and condescension, and make the best, most informed decision you can that helps your family, community, and our great state be its very best.” ..................(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/27/sarah-sanders-promotes-trump-vaccine-pray-about-it

July 27, 2021

Adam Kinzinger getting quite emotional....

..... a Republican who is a decent human being. I guess it happens from time to time.