Sure, the crash-landing rocket didnât hit any populated areas, but it was still a bad time for some fish. A rocket launched in April came crashing back down to Earth this weekend, with nobody quite sure where it was going to wind up until it eventually splashed down in the ocean several hundred miles south of Mumbai. NASA is pissed that Chinese space agencies arenât doing enough to prevent that from happening again.
Cruises may soon skip Florida, a disease hub. Floridaâs new laws, banning businesses from requiring proof of vaccination, may force cruise lines to skip the state. The ban was pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis, a staunch advocate of enfeeblement and decrepitude. The elderly remain at highest risk of dying from COVID â I still canât understand why Republicans have decided to take a stance that will kill their largest voter base.
Literally zero vaccines have been provided to entire countries in Africa. Chad, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Eritrea are among those still waiting. Africa accounts for just one percent of global vaccinations. Haiti has also not begun vaccinations.
It was Mother's Day. Sorry, probably should have reminded you of that last week. Anyway, I hope yours was as nice as this one.
My sister surprised my mom last night in Palm Springs after a year and a half apart. Iâll be joining them this week in LA. Iâm never gonna tire of these reunions, especially with my best friends on this planet! pic.twitter.com/5IM95c8hvK
â Lauren Peikoff (@laurenpeikoff) May 8, 2021
âThus, I give up the spear!â Rescuers managed to save what looks to be a juvenile minke whale that got beached on the river Thames in London. Whales have made their way to London before â a Beluga made his home there for several months from 2018 to 2019. Past rescues havenât always been successful, so this is a happy ending all around. Whew.
Poor whale stuck in the Thames⌠đ˘đ˘đ˘ #richmond #whale pic.twitter.com/m4nYAKRYjT
â Neda Tootoonchi đ (@nedatutu) May 9, 2021
Breaking news: Cities are crowded and loud. If you enjoy tearing your hair out in frustration at interminably slow back-and-forth battles of urban planning, run-donât-walk to follow the new âTales from the Seattle Hearing Examinerâ Twitter feed, which documents NIMBY complaints to the city. Most of what youâll see are a real eye-roll, with neighbors who somehow think that a major city is obligated to provide them with the same level of privacy, nature, and quiet as the country; but there are also a few more nuanced grievances, like the cityâs plan to kill a 100-year-old tree thatâs rendered a sidewalk impassable.
"Residents...are likely to be significantly and adversely impacted...through the nearly complete elimination of natural daylight in private residences, health impacts associated with loss of light, loss of privacy,
loss of air quality, wind, and safety impacts..." pic.twitter.com/P2Eg7IOyqp
â Tales from the Seattle Hearing Examiner (@HearingSeattle) May 9, 2021
COVID infections are leveling off. I guess thatâs better than going up. King Countyâs getting on average 347 new infections per day, with 117 hospitalizations â higher than what those numbers need to be for stuff to re-open. It sucks, but we need to keep limiting our activities in unventilated spaces. (Australia is considering overhauls to building ventilation codes to prevent future pandemics.) I had a dream this weekend about being in a movie theater again, but they wouldnât show the movie because it wasnât safe and I nearly cried, because we were all there to see Cats (2019).
Freeways are for suburbs, not cities. Multiple drivers crashed into a pedestrian and each other along I-5 this weekend, killing William Gladue, 63, of Tacoma. Analysts say that drivers in Seattle are going 15% faster than they were in 2019. The sooner Seattle can get rid of I-5 altogether, the better.
Yes, that's milk. pic.twitter.com/sn6s33UA3D
â WSDOT Tacoma (@wsdot_tacoma) May 7, 2021
A shooting in the ID could have been much worse. Police claim to have arrested a 29-year-old in connection to a shooting that injured one 58-year-old man in a brief shootout. No word on what precipitated the shooting, other than âan altercation with several subjects.â Other mass shootings this weekend: Seven killed in Colorado; four injured in New Jersey; two killed and three injured in Philadelphia; one killed and seven injured in Phoenix; ten injured and two killed in three separate California mass shootings; four injured in Detroit; four killed and one injured in Maryland; four injured in Milwaukee. Meanwhile Oregon just took steps toward allowing schools to ban firearms, which they should do immediately, unless they like mass shootings.
Now you can work more weirdly. Facebook added a new feature to the Quest 2 that allows you to put your real-life desk into VR, blending your real workspace and your virtual workspace. The feature is experimental, and if you want it to work with your keyboard you need to have a specific Logitech model. Still, thereâs a lot of promise here for your workspace to eventually become a sort of tabletop holodeck.
Old man wants kids off lawn. The Seattle Times published an op-ed headlined âThank God for policeâ by someone named John Wilcox, who is upset that people sometimes protest in the streets. His complaints about the May Day protests: They marched the wrong way up a one-way street; they got in the way of cars; they looked too much like ninjas. John Wilcox, in case youâre curious, is a retired business consultant, specializing in payment packages for corporate executives.
Elon Musk on SNL wasnât even interesting enough to be a fiasco. There was nothing too great, nothing too terrible, nothing you need to actually waste your time watching. An average episode, in other words. Turns out being rich doesnât make you interesting. The only point worth talking about is that he said during his monologue that heâs autistic. Reaction from people with autism, as you can imagine, was mixed.
Or are we just getting hornier? The New York Times has conducted an in-depth investigation into the question âare animated dads getting hotter?â I do not know the answer BUT I understand why Rose did what she did.
That new Resident Evil is a real good one. The months of horny anticipation for the giant lady are now at an end, and we can all get spooped. So far, Iâve found the most terrifying aspect to be that the game briefly expects you to look after a baby.