Ridley’s Believe It Or Not February 18, 2021
CV World Cases: The CV pandemic across the planet continues the new year with surging cases now over 110 million at 110,779,817 with 1,406,468 new cases (a 1.29% increase) 22,615,961 of which are active, 88,176,614 closed with 85,262,581 recoveries (97.22% and 97.22% yesterday) and 2,449,746 deaths (2.78% and 2.78% 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 28 million at 28,512,285 with 213,289 new cases (a .75% increase) with 9,327,979 active cases of which 18,208 (.20% of active cases and a decrease now of 11,063 from a peak of 29,271 on December 31) are in serious or critical condition, 19,184,306 closures, 504,692 of which have been deaths (2.63% and 2.63% yesterday) and 18,679,614 of which have been recoveries (97.37% and 97.37% yesterday). Our death rate percentage continues to improve and after many months is now .15% lower than the world rate and now .04% 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 1519 ranks behind Belgium (1875), UK (1753) which had passed us despite leading world in testing), Italy (1571), and Portugal (1548) and only slightly worse than Hungary (1455), Spain (1426), Bulgaria (1409), Mexico (1374), Peru (1332), France (1276), Sweden (1243) that never closed its economy down like we did but has recently been experiencing a rapid rise in deaths, Brazil (1140), Switzerland (1136), Argentina (1113), Poland (1099), Chile (1030), and Bolivia (960) and we have now conducted 342,242,483 tests (now at 1,027,126/M) compared to Russia at 739,172/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 1,235,106/M.
US Vaccinations: In the U.S. as of 2/17/2021 57.4 million doses have been given, 1.61 million per day in the last week (sounds impressive but if the rate does not increase it will take us some 9 months to have 75% of the population vaccinated which many believe is necessary to develop herd immunity. In California 6,435,184 total doses have been given (up to 76.5% of doses received), but typical of Newsom’s ineptness and because more than 1.5 million recall signatures have been turned in, due to the power of growing signatures on his recall petition, California has fallen back and is now at 36th out of 50 in terms of the percentage of doses administered as a percentage of doses delivered to the states. A long way to go to get herd immunity and little improvement relative to other states and a great reason to recall this inept governor. As of 2/17/2021 in California we have reduced hospitalizations to 8,855/M with COVID-19 patients hospitalized occupying 15.1% of all hospital beds.
Non CV Case News: Perseverance, launched from Florida on July 30, 2020 and after a journey of 293 million miles, has successfully soft landed as one of the most advanced NASA space probes launched to spend the next 2 years exploring the Martian surface at 650 feet per day and looking for evidence of life or building blocks for it; the bloom has wilted off the Cuomo rose, as he is now being attacked by members of his own party for the nursing home death scandal and Blue State Assemblyman Ron Kim who is one Cuomo’s fiercest critics is alleging Cuomo called him and threatened to destroy him and his political career (the vestiges of objectivity long lost in Alec Baldwin’s soul surface to state that if true Cuomo should resign); Cuomo by 1 vote was able to push through legislation granting immunity to nursing home operators who conveniently contributed $1.25 million to his campaign coffers (looks like the Albany Swamp is a close second to the D.C. Swamp; in a photo opt moment somewhat rivaling in the public’s mind Newsom’s French Laundry moment violating his own lock down orders, Sen. Cruz is caught flying down to Cancun with his daughters to Cancun and returning the next day (not illegal like Newsom, but adds fuel to the fire that the elite are above the sufferings of the mere mortals); many parents have thought for years that teachers’ unions put the interests of their members over the best interests of the children they are teaching, but in Oakley the school board was caught on open mics mocking and degrading parents who had the audacity to want their elementary school aged children to attend in class teaching; the winds of unity called on by Biden have ceased to exist among Blues and shifted to disunity, as Blue Rep Huffman slams freshman Rep Boebert of having a “gun fetish” with her Zoom background of firearms; with D.C. looking more and more like an armed camp under martial law, when will our civilian rulers start demanding the removal of the National Guard and questioning the advisability of Pelosi’s pick of rabid anti-Red partisan General Honore to head up security for the Capitol?; signature drive continues to insure a recall in the event that any of the 1.5 million signatures already received are not valid to insure Newsom is put on a recall ballot where he needs to be given his unmitigated ineptness: https://recallgavin2020.com/petition/
Chicago Gun Violence: HeyJackass.com is back to show that through February 17, 2021, gun violence involving mostly persons of color shooting persons of color in Chicago is alive and well with 353 persons shot of whom 76 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 “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran, the fact that you are not just a querulist but one who takes action when a problem presents itself and a quote from Chelsea Manning on her intent when releasing classified material, 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. National Drink Wine Day—celebrating a beverage that humans have been drinking for a long, long time but completely curious of who started the holiday or when or why this day but at least know it is one of the easier ones to celebrate by opening a bottle of one’s favorite wine to share with friends.
2. National Battery Day—commemorating the invention of the battery by Italian scientist Allesandro Volta who was born on this day in 1745 which represents an invention that we could not live without and which Texans since rely for a good portion of their electric power from renewable resources must wish today that they had a lot more of.
3. 2017 Number One Song—the number 1 song in 2017 on this day with a run of 11 weeks in that position not continuous was “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran to join 11 other number 1 songs. Here is a recording of Ed Sheeran singing “Shape of You” https://www.youtube.com/watch/JGwWNGJdvx8 Sheeran is a 30 year old English who started recording early on in 2004 and has sold millions of records and is raking in the dough with his musical talents.
4. Word of the Day—today’s word of the day is “querulist” which is one who complains which unless that person is prepared to do something to correct the problem is useless.
5. She’s the Letter Woman Who Sells Vowels--celebrating the birth on this day in 1957 of Vanna White who is the noted co-host of Wheel of Fortune who has been on the show as the regular hostess since December 13, 1982 and is on contract to remain there to 2022.
On this day in:
a. 1791 Congress passed a law admitting Vermont as the 14th state after it had been acting as a quasi state for 14 years.
b. 1957 John Bolton who was convicted of murdering his wife on July 11, 1956 so he could continue his affair with her sister had the dubious distinction of being the last person to be executed in New Zealand which occurred on this day in 1957 in a hanging that was botched so his death did not come quickly through a broken neck but rather by being strangled slowly to death which is probably one of the reasons that shortly thereafter New Zealand abolished capital punishment.
c. 1970 the Chicago Seven were found not guilty of conspiring to commit a riot at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968.
d. 2001 former FBI agent Richard Hanssen was arrested for spying for personal enrichment for the Soviet Union and then Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union from 1979 to 2001. He ended up pleading guilty and is now serving consecutive sentences without possibility of parole in a SuperMax Prison where he is rotting in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.
e. 2010 WikiLeaks published reams of classified documents by then Bradley Manning now known as Chelsea Manning who was convicted of stealing government property and was sentenced to 35 years in prison which President Obama commuted to time served before leaving office.
Reflections on Mannings’ treasonous acts with or without a grain of salt: "I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others." Chelsea Manning
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 18, 2021 Michael P. Ridley aka The Alaskanpoet
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