Wednesday, February 3, 2021

February 2, 2021 Ridley's Believe It Or Not Groundhog Day

 

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not February 1, 2021

      CV World Cases: The CV pandemic across the planet continues the new year with surging cases now over 104 million at 104,201,132 with 282,634 new cases (a .27% increase) 25,921,374 of which are active, 78,274,276 closed with 76,017,993 recoveries (97.12% and 97.12% yesterday) and 2,253,283 deaths (2.88% and 2.88% yesterday) to continue the trend of increased cases with increased recovery percentages and decreased death percentages with some plateaus.

      CV USA Cases: Total cases now nearing 27 million at 26,973,143 with 62,625 new cases (a .23% increase) with 9,837,340 active cases of which 23,883 (.24% of active cases and a decrease now of 5,388 from a peak of 29,271 on December 31) are in serious or critical condition, 17,135,803 closures, 456,129 of which have been deaths (2.66% and 2.66% yesterday) and 16,679,674 of which have been recoveries (97.34% and 97.34% yesterday). Our death rate percentage continues to improve and after many months is now .22% lower than the world rate and .08% lower than Canada which has the socialized type medicine Biden may well want to implement here  and on a deaths per million population measurement on a steady climb to 1373 ranks behind Belgium (1818), UK (1586) which had passed us despite leading world in testing), and Italy (1479) and only slightly worse than Bulgaria (1322), Hungary (1312),   Spain (1279), Portugal (1279), Peru (1239), Mexico (1226), France (1171), Sweden (1166) that never closed its economy down like we did but has recently been experiencing a rapid rise  deaths, Switzerland (1091), Argentina (1062),  Brazil (1055), Poland (991), Chile (966), and Bolivia (887) and we have now conducted  315,053,498 tests (now at 948,540/M) compared to Russia at 702,192/M) as we are conducting  more tests in number and on a per capital basis for all nations (other than those nations that contain small populations like Bahrain, Denmark,  Israel, Malta, Singapore and UAE) other than the U.K. which remains off the testing charts with tests at 1,078,606/M.
       US Vaccinations: In the U.S. as of 2/1/2021 32.8 million doses have been given, 1.34 million per day in the last week. In California 3,523,111 total doses have been given (62.2% of doses received), but typical of Newsom’s ineptness and the power of growing signatures on his recall petition, California has slightly improved is now at 38th out of 50 in terms of the percentage of doses administered as a percentage of doses delivered to the state (tied with Illinois  and only .5% ahead of 39th Missouri (61.7%) and 7.7% ahead of last place Alabama (54.5%). A long way to go to get herd immunity but some improvement relative to other states but still a good reason to recall this inept governor. As of 2/1/2021 in California we have reduced hospitalizations to 15,212 with COVID-19 patients hospitalized occupying 24.5% of all hospital beds.

      Non CV Case News: Our VP Harris puts her money where her leftist ideology resides as the consequences of her support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund that posted bail for rioters “protesting Floyd’s death after police subdued him with a knee to his neck as news released that one such beneficiary of her misguided priorities Thomas Mosley has been arrested again for possessing controlled substances while carrying a firearm; Amazon is having a changing of the guard as Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO to become executive chairman and Andy Jassy will take over as CEO (doubt if the company will change its political outlook and monopolistic proclivities);  looks like the nation will soon learn whether Biden learned anything from the “lead from behind” and “lines in the sand” as China appears to believe in dealing with Biden he will not stand up to Chinese aggression; China is already in provocation mode with respect to Taiwan claiming independence of that island means “war” (worst nightmare may be occurring much sooner than we thought possible as China perceives that the U.S. is headed by a senile, frail president whose son and family have been compromised and he is preoccupied with executive orders that will do little if anything to address the major problems facing us); Schumer is clueless when it comes to the issue of why we need to chill out and ramp down ad hominen attacks and try to seek compromise not necessarily on core principles but where we can find common ground as he is ranting that even if the Senate acquits Trump, the Blues should censure him (sadly for Schumer, Trump is no McCarthy and such a move will further energize his base and do nothing other than shred Biden’s call for unity; even with a sycophant MSM press corps Psaki is proving she is not the media star she thought she would be as she seemed to mock a branch of the service “The Space Force”; the billionaires who foolishly supported Biden will soon be facing Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax on net worth in excess of $50 million starting out at 2% and then rising as much as 6% (although I would prefer the billionaires continue to be engaged in philanthropy rather than trusting our inept federal government, reducing even slightly by taxes the corrupting influences of wealthy money going to support leftist causes would be a good thing); the recall Gavin Newsom movement continues to gather signatures over 1.2 million and may have reached 1.3 million and enhanced by his failed policies the latest of which is the disaster of a vaccine rollout is fortunately moving forward to the required goal of 1.5 million signatures. https://recallgavin2020.com/petition/

          Chicago Gun Violence: HeyJackass.com is back to show that through February 1, 2021,  gun violence involving persons of color shooting persons of color in Chicago is alive and well with 253 persons shot of whom 54 have died.

As always, I hope you enjoy today’s holidays and observances, factoids of interest for this day in history, a musical link to “Bump Bump Bump” by B2K feat. P. Diddy, the fact that you do not suffer from pygia and a quote by Edward Abbey on Stalingrad and its clones, secure in the knowledge that if you want to send a gift for any memorable events like Father’s Day, college graduations, birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient. Please contact me for the details on the pricing.

          1. Groundhog Day—celebrating the tradition carried on by groundhogs like Punxsutawney Phil for the last 134 years that if a groundhog sees his shadow on this day we are in for 6 more weeks of winter (in a rebuff to climate change fanatics, Phil saw his shadow so if the tradition holds true we are in for 6 more weeks of winter).

          2. Sled Dog Day—not sure who created this observance or when but since observed on February 2, it has to commemorate the 1925 race to beat a diphtheria raging in Nome, Alaska when a sled dog team entered Nome on this day in 1925 after covering 674 miles in 5 ½ days to deliver serum to defeat the diphtheria epidemic.

          3. 2003 Number One Song—the number 1 song in 2003 on this day with a run of 1 week in that position was “Bump Bump Bump” by B2K feat. P. Diddy to join 10 other number 1 songs and to join 9 other acts reaching number 1 for the first time.  Here is a recording of B2K feat. P. Diddy performing “Bump Bump Bump”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgiX53hjAPc

          4. Word of the Day—today’s word of the day is “pygia” which means a pain in the rump which too many members of each party think describes too many of the members of the other party which explains to some extent the degree of gridlock we are plagued with.

5.  Cover Girl Beyond Compare—celebrating the birth on this day in 1954 of supermodel Christie Brinkley who graced 3 consecutive Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues and was married 4 times, one of which was for 9 years with Billy Joel—definitely proof positive that true beauty defies the aging process.

On this day in:

a. 1887 Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania celebrated its first Groundhog Day, a tradition that continues to this day.

          b. 1935 Leonard Keeler administered polygraph tests (“lie detector tests”) to two murder suspects, the first time such evidence was admitted in a U.S. criminal trial.

          c. 1943 in what many consider the turning point for the Third Reich, the Soviets accepted the surrender of the last organized German units in Stalingrad, with some 90,000 survivors of the Wehrmacht being marched into a captivity from which only some 5,000 would survive to return home years later.

d. 1989 like a dog dragging its tail the last armored column of Soviet troops left Kabul, Afghanistan bringing an end, after 8 years of war made much harder with Reagan supplying Stingers to the Afghans to start shooting down Soviet choppers, to their “Vietnam.”

          e. 2000 Philippe Binant demonstrated Texas Instruments DLP Cinema Projection technology in Paris for Toy Story 2 to the ultimate of theater goers worldwide.

Reflections on Stalingrad and its clones:” The industrial way of life leads to the industrial way of death. From Shiloh to Dachau, from Antietam to Stalingrad, from Hiroshima to Vietnam and Afghanistan, the great specialty of industry and technology has been the mass production of human corpses.” Edward Abbey, noted 20th Century American essayist and critic.  

Please enjoy the poems on events of interest on my twitter   account below (if you like them, retweet and follow me) and follow my blogs. Always good, incisive and entertaining poems on my blogs—click on the links below. Go to www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com for Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—This Day in History,  poems to inspire, touch, emote, elate and enjoy and poems on breaking news items of importance or go to  Ridley's Believe It Or Not for just This Day in History.

 © February 2, 2021 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet

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