Fearsome Forebodement

6410 Independence Way
Childhood home of the great & powerful Wizard Of eVille

I grew up in Arvada, Colorado. At least, that's where I spent my "developmental years" (age 13 - 21).

It was a sizable place at about 80,000 population back then, but never much more than a bedroom community, where you had the wife and kids stashed in 3-bedroom ranch-style tract home that looked almost exactly like everybody else's joint - Dad carpooled into Denver while Mom either stayed home or did some secretarying for the local insurance company or whatever.

Sleepy and uneventful and exactly the way it should be in a low-stress upwardly mobile middle class white suburban landscape.

But this is USAmerica Inc, where the shit is never far from your own backyard, and will eventually get to your place.

WaPo:

Police officer killed in ‘ambush’ by man who ‘expressed hatred’ of law enforcement, officials say

A veteran police officer and a bystander were gunned down in a Denver suburb on Monday in what authorities now describe as a targeted attack by someone who “expressed hatred” for members of law enforcement.

The episode in Arvada, a city of more than 120,000 people, was at least the third high-profile shooting in Colorado during the past three months. The investigation into the incident is still ongoing, but Police Chief Link Strate said Tuesday that the officer, Gordon Beesley, “was targeted because he was wearing an Arvada police uniform and a badge.” He was a 19-year veteran of the department.

“Officer Beasley was ambushed by someone who expressed hatred of police officers,” Strate said at a news conference.

The shooting was “a deliberate act of violence,” Strate added, but officials “believe this is an isolated incident.” He identified the second victim as 40-year-old John Hurley and described him as a “good Samaritan” who intervened in the violence.

“He is a true hero who likely disrupted what could have been a larger loss of life,” Strate said.

- more behind the pay wall - 

We used to pull some pretty squirrely shit in Jr High and High School - sometimes just to get the cops out for a little exercise. There's still an element of that in some of the crap going on, but the stakes are obviously a lot higher, and there's always that shitty paranoid feeling that somebody wants it this way. Like somebody sees us as scorpions in a jar, and they're going to shake that jar to keep us at each other's throats while "they" profit in some way that's not apparent to us.

Arvada's been around since the late 1800s. Officer Beesley is the first cop ever to be killed by gunfire in the line of duty.

There's just too much that isn't being made public on this one and I've got a real bad feelin'.

HELTER SKELTER,

MOTHERFUCKER

Today's Pix

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Today's Tweet

In case you were wondering why we can't get universal healthcare, and we still have 40 million people either living in poverty now or teetering on the brink, and why so many kids or getting stuck in the cycle of ignorance, drugs, and crime.

and

and

and

Watch the U.S. Navy use a 40,000-pound explosive on its new aircraft carrier, to ensure the ship is hardened to withstand battle conditions. pic.twitter.com/MFG4bkLCtK

— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 21, 2021

COVID-19 Update

World

New Cases:   279,919 (⬆︎ .16%)
New Deaths:      6,049 (⬆︎ .16%)

USA

New Cases:   9,306 (⬆︎ .03%)
New Deaths:     213 (⬆︎ .04%)

Yesterday, June 21, 2021:

6,049 Un-Vaccinated people

were killed by COVID-19

177.3 million vaccinated

Including more than 150 million people who have been fully vaccinated in the United States.

In the last week, an average of 1.13 million doses per day were administered, a less than 1% decrease over the week before.

Except for the Hot Spots, the numbers for USAmerica Inc remain pretty encouraging.

Here's a vid-cap I got from Mayo, showing 60 days of Avg Dly Cases per 100K, and projecting out an additional 2 weeks:

Also, our little experiment in Darwinian Selection may be starting to catch up with the Anti-Vax gang. ie: here comes that Delta strain, guys - the monster is hungry.

WaPo:

Models predict U.S. coronavirus infections could surge this fall if vaccination rates lag, former FDA chief says

Scott Gottlieb also expressed concern about U.K. study showing brain-tissue shrinkage after covid-19

(Brain tissue shrinkage!?! Great - exactly what we can't afford in the MAGArube population -  ain't that just won-fuckin'-derful)

The transmission of the more contagious delta variant in the United States could spur a fall surge in coronavirus infections if only 75 percent of the country’s eligible population is vaccinated, former Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb said Sunday.

Although Gottlieb cited one projection forecasting an increase in infections reaching as high as 20 percent of last winter’s peak, he called that an “aggressive estimate,” saying he doesn’t “think it’ll be quite that dire.” But he said states with low vaccination rates already are showing a concerning rise in cases with the spreading of delta, which is up to 60 percent more contagious than earlier variants.

Delta variant could become dominant strain in U.S. this summer, CDC head says

“So Connecticut, for example, where I am, shows no upsurge of infection, but Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri show very substantial upsurges of infections. That’s based entirely on how much population-wide immunity you have based on vaccination,” Gottlieb said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program.

He urged a renewed vaccination push closer to the fall, as people prepare to return to school and work, when he said they may be more open to the shots.

- more -

Today's Yesterday

So last night at about 11:30 was the actual Summer Solstice - fine - sue me.

Today's Tweet

Amen10

You don't start with a solution and work your way backwards from there.

You start by acknowledging the problem, and then you work your way forward.

And I can't believe we have to say that - having to state the obvious - the basics on how you go about addressing and solving problems - be here we fucking are.

I hope you will take a couple of minutes to watch this. Her name is Melanie Moore and she is from Georgia.
The whole country needs to hear this. Please watch. pic.twitter.com/YghWd7XcEG

— 🌊🌸Melissa 🌸 (@MeliMels99) June 19, 2021

COVID-19 Update

World

New Cases:   295,714 (⬆︎ .17%)
New Deaths:      6,263 (⬆︎ .16%)

USA

New Cases:   4,422 (⬆︎ .01%) Woot woot!
New Deaths:       86 (⬆︎ .01%) ditto

Yesterday, June 20th, 2021

0 Vaccinated people

and

6,263 Un-Vaccinated people

were killed by COVID-19

177.1 million vaccinated

Including more than 149.7 million people who have been fully vaccinated in the United States.

In the last week, an average of 1.23 million doses per day were administered,

an 11% increase over the week before.

The weekend slump this week was majorly significant. USAmerica Inc showed the numbers of New Cases and New Deaths were down where they were back when they started keeping track of such things in March 2020.

That's a nice big fat fuckin' deal.

WaPo has a rundown:

The disease caused by the novel coronavirus has killed at least 601,000 people in the United States since February 2020 and enveloped nearly every part of the country.

But as more and more Americans are vaccinated, the U.S. portion of the pandemic seems to be receding.

The deadliest month was January 2021, when an average of more than 3,100 people died every day of covid-19. On six days that month, the number topped 4,000. On Feb. 22, the U.S. death toll surpassed half a million people.

But numbers dropped in January and February. By mid-May, fewer than 30,000 people were testing positive for the virus per day — roughly one-tenth of the January peak — and fewer than 600 per day were dying.

Meanwhile, the pace of vaccinations peaked at more than 4 million on some days in April, racing against time as new, more transmissible variants of the virus began to spread. By late May, more than 60 percent of adults had received at least one dose of vaccine.

- snip -

Seven-day averages show trends better than single-day values, because states’ reporting of new cases and deaths tends to drop or stop altogether on weekends.

Numbers have fluctuated as testing and reporting criteria have evolved, particularly in areas that were hit early. Three spikes in the deaths chart above reflect large, one-time adjustments in 2020: In mid-April, New York City added more than 3,700 deaths. On June 25, New Jersey added more than 1,800. And in September, The Post changed its methodology for reporting deaths in New York and added a one-day increase of more than 2,700. Other single-day spikes have occurred as states have updated their reporting procedures and are noted below those charts.

Health officials, including the country’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, have said the virus has killed more people than official death tolls indicate.

- more -

The piece goes on to characterize things in rather stark terms - which is not to say we shouldn't be hopeful. As always, let's just proceed with caution.

Developing

The conspiracy fantasies that have grown out of the COVID-19 mess wouldn't be funny if they weren't couched in such tragedy.

Here's a thread that keeps popping up on the Twitter Machine.

OK, hold on there a minute, Skeezix - slow your roll.

You really think 9 jillion un-vaccinated spermatazoons are going to be more valuable than a few hundred unvaccinated eggs?

A coupla things come to mind for me right off.

First, you still don't know jack shit about Supply & Demand.

Second - since the dynamics ain't changed, you still ain't gettin' laid.

The variations on the Elimination Fantasy are rife, and when they dress it up in Dr Strangelove terms, it just gets so fucking creepy.

And I think maybe "Spike Protein" is a great nickname for my penis - it's more up-to-date (and it scans better) than "Oscar The One-Eyed Pocket Snake".

A Video

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Today's Today (NSFW)

You'd have to be pretty tight with the old man

to pull this one off.

Anyway - enjoy your day, guys