Peace and Cooperation in Orbit

"People have problems on Earth. On orbit we are one crew. I think ISS is a symbol of the friendship and cooperation, like symbol of the future exploration of space," Shkaplerov said as he handed over the keys.

What a shame that this unity between Russians and Americans in space no longer exists on Earth. Still, I found the farewell ceremony from the ISS quite moving, and I was also impressed by the amazing camera-work, a far cry from the grainy black & white images of my childhood. See this video clip.

Cartoon of the Day

By A.F. Branco.
 

Vile Terrorist Attack in Israel

While the world is focused on Russia's war against Ukraine, we also are dealing with a pandemic as well as this horror in Israel: Two mothers of 3, a Chabad rabbi, a brother of 4: The terror victims named. Doris Yahbas, 49, Laura Yitzhak, 43, and Menahem Yehezkel, 67, were stabbed to death; Moshe Kravitzky, 50, died when terrorist rammed his bicycle. The ISIS-suppporter terrorist was subsequently killed.

Terrorism and COVID aren't going to go away just because you're no longer paying attention.

Support in Space

 

From NPR:  "Russian cosmonauts board Space Station wearing blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine". 

This idea was out of this world! But they had to wait till they got this far away from Putin to be able to make such a brave gesture of support!

Declaring an Emergency for the Wrong Reasons

Unbelievable! Congressional liberals press Biden to declare emergency and restrict fossil fuels

"Liberals in Congress are pressing President Joe Biden to invoke emergency powers to push ahead with Democrats' climate change agenda and to put new restrictions on fossil fuels, even while gasoline remains at its highest per-gallon price on record.

"With legislation stalled in Congress, the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus released a slate of policy recommendations Thursday for Biden to pursue, calling on him to use executive action to deal with a list of topics his "Build Back Better" agenda sought to address, including the development of more green energy technologies and placement of restrictions on new fossil fuel production."

Enough with this obsession with climate change! They are deliberately sabotaging our country rather than encouraging energy independence. Instead, why don't they declare an emergency at the Southern border, or declare an emergency to stop violent crime, or declare an emergency regarding COVID funding?

In Denial About COVID

This cartoon that I spotted on Twitter sums up the attitude I keep hearing. The post is by segacs, who wrote,  "Millions of people will never wake up, because they're dead. Politicians deciding to pretend the pandemic is over won't bring them back or help their grieving loved ones. We can't bring back those we've lost. But we can prevent more needless deaths. #COVIDisntOver."

Begging for COVID Funding

This is outrageous:  "White House begs Congress for Covid funding amid concern about Omicron sister variant."  Congress had better act quickly, or are they all "tired" of COVID?

EricFeigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) tweeted:

"HORRIFYING—White House warns that US has run out of money for:

📌test, treat & vaccinate uninsured
📌Monoclonal antibody drugs cut 30%
📌Paxlovid (that reduces severe COVID risk by 90%) now cut—only 20 mil available.

Congress dropped the ball on funding!"

Update on BA.2

Katelyn Jetelina, Your Local Epidemiologist, has an update on the uptick of cases of BA.2 across the globe and what it means for the United States:

"Throughout the pandemic, the U.S. has lagged Europe trends by a few weeks. Right now only ~10% of our cases are due to BA.2. But once this starts reaching the 50% threshold, we can expect cases to start increasing. This combined with removed mitigation measures should land us with an uptick in April/May."

I'm glad she's paying attention to these important things for us, because the pandemic is certainly not over.

March 11, 2022: Second Anniversary of the Pandemic

It seems like it's been much longer than only two years. Imagine how many more Americans would have died from COVID-19 if we hadn't produced those miracle vaccines in such a short period of time!

From The Conversation: COVID pandemic 2nd anniversary: 3 things we got wrong, and 3 things to watch out for.

Harmful Green Energy Obsession

Why would a president prefer to buy oil from Iran, Russia, and Venezuela during a crisis than simply produce more oil in his own country and help his own citizens? I just can't understand this mentality, but I guess their citizens will be grateful.

From PJ Media: "This isn’t rocket science: gas prices are hitting astronomical new heights every day because Old Joe Biden closed the Keystone Pipeline, ended our energy independence, and forced us to rely on supplies of Russian oil that have become problematic in all kinds of ways with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet even as the crisis intensifies, Biden’s handlers refuse to reverse course and restore America’s own oil supplies; instead, it is courting authoritarian regimes, as if paying Russia for oil wasn’t enough financing of tyranny already. Next in line: Venezuela."

People's Convoy of Covidiots

Here's an article about the so-called People's Convoy that is trying to tie up the DC Beltway this week to protest COVID restrictions despite the fact that most of them have already been lifted.

To save face, the leader of this group should change their mission to a protest of Putin's war and use those trucks to collect and transport food and supplies for the Ukrainians. Then they'd be seen as heroes rather than zeroes!

COVID Isn't Over

I came across an interesting Twitter thread called #covidisntover. It's a relief to see that other people are also aware that it's not over and that we have to remain vigilent.  I can't remember the last time I saw a long segment about COVID on CNN or the other networks. 

A tweet from Cat Herding Science Nerd read  "Has everything become so fake, so superficial, so manipulated, that we actually believe we can pretend our way out of a deadly, disabling pandemic because we’re 'tired of' it? Seriously? That’s not how it works".

 

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