Ridley’s Believe It Or Not March 17, 2021
CV World Cases: The CV pandemic across the
planet continues the new year with cases now over 121 million at 121,596,795
with 516,542 new cases (a .43% increase) 20,859,047 which are
active, 100,737,748 closed with 98,050,708 recoveries (97.33% and 97.33%
yesterday) and 2,687,040 deaths (2.67% and 2.67% 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 over 30
million at 30,263,597 with 94,494 new cases (a .31% increase) with 7,303,176
active cases of which 9,339 (.13% of active cases and back to daily decreases
and a now a decrease now of 19,932 from a peak of 29,271 on December 31) are in
serious or critical condition, 22,960,421 closures, 549,929 of which
have been deaths (2.40% and 2.40% yesterday) and 22,410,492 of which have
been recoveries (97.60% and 97.60% yesterday). Our death rate percentage
continues to improve and after many months is now .27% lower than the world
rate and now .14% lower than Canada which has the socialized type medicine
Biden may well want to implement here but at least has approved 4 vaccines as
opposed to our 3 and on a deaths per million population measurement
on a steady climb to 1655 ranks behind Belgium (1942), UK (1847) which had
passed us despite leading world in testing), Hungary (1807), Italy (1712), and Bulgaria (1675) and only
slightly worse than Portugal (1643), Spain (1556), Mexico (1502), Peru
(1482), France (1395), Sweden (1304) that never closed its economy down like we
did but has recently been experiencing a steady rise in deaths,
Brazil (1322), Poland (1270), Argentina (1188) Switzerland (1168),
Chile (1138), and Bolivia (1018) and we have now conducted 383,290,011
tests (now at 1,153,192/M) compared to number 2 now France at 886,272/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 1,581,087/M.
US Vaccinations: In the U.S. as of 3/17/2021
117 million doses have been given, 2.47 million per day in the last week
(sounds impressive but if the rate does not increase it will take us now
reduced to some 5 months to have 75% of the population vaccinated which many
believe is necessary to develop herd immunity. In California 13,161,027 total
doses have been given (74.7% of doses received to again remain below U.S.
average of 76.6%), but with the pressure of a certain recall coming endangering
Newsom, California has moved up from 42nd to 38th out of 50 in terms of the
percentage of doses administered as a percentage of doses delivered to the
states and at 11.0% of its population fully vaccinated is still at 44th
in terms of percentage of residents vaccinated. A long way to go to get herd
immunity and lagging behind in terms of getting vaccines received into arms and
percentage of population vaccinated compared to other states and a great reason
to recall this inept governor.
Non CV Case News: Hypocrisy is alive and well
with John Kerry, our Climate Czar, was photographed maskless reading a
book but not sucking down a
cocktail on a an American Airlines
flight in clear violation of CDC mask wearing rules on planes (at least the
carbon warrior hypocrite was not on his
family’s private jet); while Biden refuses to go to the Southern Border and
refuses to listen to the warnings of the CBP that the surge in illegals and
unaccompanied minors is a crisis, some officials are revealing to Fox that it
is and the statistics of record illegal and unaccompanied minors bear them out;
the NYT inanely allowed one of its “contributors” Damon Young of The Root to less than 24 hours after the
shooter’s arrest play the racist card in describing the shootings by a “sex
addicted” gunman who happened to be white; any advertiser with a brain in their
head should be pulling ads from the Cack News Network as the purveyor of “fake
news” and advocacy “journalism” has seen its ratings fall 47% among prime time viewers aged 27-54 (wonder if hacks like
Lemon, Tapper, Cuomo, Stelter and Ruhle in search of new employment can find
journalism objectivity classes they either missed or slept through in college);
Vanita Gupta, Biden’s nominee for Associate AG, has a father who owns
businesses in Mexico that pay a minimum wage of $1.50 an hour as she advocates
a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour; while Blues were quick to rally around
inept Newsom after it became almost a certainty that enough signatures would be
submitted to permit a recall, the MSM has been slower to get involved until now
when Carter Evans of the Consistently Biased System asked a Newsom spokesman
whether the Gavin Recall Movement has been hijacked by Reds (some statistics
suggest 38% of the petition signers are Blues and Indies); backers of a recall
effort for L.A. DA Gascon have formally started the process and have started
the 160 day clock to obtain 580,000 signatures of registered voters to place a
recall on the ballot https://recallgeorgegascon.com/; as Biden blames
Trump for the exploding border crisis leave it to a political cartoonist to
reveal the inanity and hypocrisy of Biden’s assertions: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow.
Chicago Gun Violence: HeyJackass.com is
back to show that through March 16, 2021, gun violence involving
mostly persons of color shooting persons of color in Chicago is alive and well
with 596 persons shot of whom 108 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 “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy “ by Red Foley,
the fact that you can enjoy Rabelaisian humor; and a quote from Charles
River Associates on the Bay of Pigs Invasion, secure
in the knowledge that if you want to send a gift for any memorable events
like Mother’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. St. Patrick’s Day—commemorating the
death of the Patron Saint of Ireland St. Patrick and the contributions of the
Irish to our society, culture and history with some return of the celebrations
that were victims of the CV lock downs last year and another year of delayed
large St. Patrick’s Day Parades, including the one in New York City that was
first held on this day in 1762.
2. Take Down Tobacco
National Day of Action—founded by Tobacco Free for Kids in 1996 and celebrated on the 3rd
Wednesday in March to promote the end of smoking in teens which had been declining
but is back on the rise again with the advent of e-cigarettes.
3. 1950 Number One
Song—the
number 1 song in 1950 on this day with a run of 4 weeks in that position was “Chattanoogie
Shoe Shine Boy” by Red Foley to
share number 1 status with 11 other songs that year. Here is a recording of “Chattanoogie Shoe
Shine Boy” by Red Foley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6QaW0a7DeM
Red was a country music singer and songwriter
and one of the icons of developing country music after WWII and achieved fame
as the first singer to achieve a million record sale gospel record. He died in
his sleep at age 58 on September 19, 1968 of respiratory failure after an Opry
concert.
4. Word
of the Day—today’s word of the day as we end the “q’s” to start the “r’s”
tomorrow is “Rabelaisian” which means coarsely
hilarious and probably describes humor that would run afoul of the PC warriors.
5. To Dance the Life
Away—celebrating
the birth on this day in 1938 of the man who was considered to be the “most
talented male dance ever” Rudolf Nureyev who is also noted as the first star
ballet performer to defect from the Soviet Union. Openly gay and infected by
HIV since 1984 he continued to perform as his prowess was not diminished until
the early 90’s to finally die from AIDS on January 6, 1993 at the age of 54.
On
this day in:
a. 1891 a
ship truly misnamed for its passengers and crew, the SS Utopia collided with a moored British battleship in the Bay of Gibraltar,
the HMS Anson and sank within 20 minutes,
killing 562 of the 880 passengers and crew aboard her.
b. 1960 President Eisenhower signed
the National Security Council directive that would ultimately lead to the ill-fated
Bay of Pigs Invasion after President Kennedy took office.
c. 1968 as a result of U.S. Army testing of
nerve gas at Skull Valley, Utah, 6,000 sheep were found dead and the event was memorialized
in a movie starring and directed by George C. Scott, Rage.
d. 1973 Sal
Veda took a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph called “Burst of Joy” of released
Vietnam War POW Lt. Col Robert Stirm meeting his wife and children at the Travis
Air Force Base tarmac, racing across the tarmac after years of captivity.
e. 1985 Richard
Ramirez “The Night Stalker” committed the first of 2 of his crime spree 14
murders that terrified Los Angeles and the Bay Area until he was caught on
August 31, 1985. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death but managed to
appeal his way to stays of execution until he died of B-Stage Lymphoma complications
on June 7, 2013 sparing the state the cost of years of appeals as he avoided a
date with the needle.
Reflections on the failing
to provide air support and the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion: ““The
former president is said to have asked Kennedy why air cover had been
withdrawn, and Kennedy responded by expressing fear that the Soviets would
“make trouble”[45] in Berlin. Eisenhower countered, “That is exactly the
opposite of what would really happen.”[46] Eisenhower also prophetically told
the president that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the
Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do." Sure enough,
the Soviets quickly formed the opinion that Kennedy was "too young, intellectual,
not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations ... too intelligent
and too weak." Kennedy's ability to conduct American foreign policy was
understandably in question, and it would be eagerly put to the test by
Khrushchev. Moreover, Fidel Castro remained”
― Charles River Editors, The Bay of
Pigs Invasion:President Kennedy’s Failed Attempt to Overthrow Fidel Castro.
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© March 17, 2021 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet
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