Dubai seeds clouds on the weekend, gets floods by Tuesday, but no, it was climate change

Dubai Grinds to Standstill as Cloud Seeding Worsens Flooding

 

The Gulf state’s National Center of Meteorology dispatched seeding planes from Al Ain airport on Monday and Tuesday to take advantage of convective cloud formations, according to Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist. The NCM on Wednesday said the seeding had taken place on Sunday and Monday, and not on Tuesday. ... The latest storms followed heavy rains earlier this year, according to Habib at NCM. The seeding planes have flown seven missions, he added. “For any cloud that’s suitable over the UAE you make the operation,” he said.

Thankfully NASA determines an object which weighed 1.6 pounds and smashed through a Florida man's roof wasn't the bag lost by two female astronauts last November

Nope, it was a 5,800 pound pallet heaved over the side of the ISS in March 2021.

Go big or go broke I always say.

NASA confirms space junk that hit Florida home came from space station

Astronauts accidentally drop tool bag during ISS spacewalk

Object from the sky crashes through Naples family’s ceiling and floor

 

“It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all,” said Alejandro Otero.

 

Bug spray and vanilla extract flying off the shelves in South America amid dengue fever outbreak expected to top record 4.5 million cases from 2023

Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina are the hardest hit, with more than 3.5 million cases, 83% of which are concentrated in Brazil, according to the Pan American Health Organization.

More.

Transqueers intimidate and harass feminists marching against new hate speech law in Edinburgh, Scotland

 Women Scotland, a campaign group, told The Telegraph: “It’s pure harassment and intimidation. They are deliberately going out to cause upset. Women are trying to talk about their lives and are being subject to torrents of sexist and homophobic abuse.”

More.

Guttmacher: Over 1 million abortions in 2023, 60% by pill

From the story:

 [The 2022 Supreme Court decision] led to a growing reliance on a two-pill regimen to terminate pregnancies, with U.S. abortions administered by pill increasing 10% since 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.

The Institute's report is published every three years and based on data collected from U.S. abortion providers.

The survey found over 1 million total abortions were provided through the U.S. healthcare system in 2023, the first time that number exceeded a million since 2012. ...

The survey likely undercounted the number of abortions in the U.S. since it did not account for terminations obtained outside the formal U.S. healthcare system, such as those done with pills mailed from abroad.

Push

 Eroding bluffs could send California homes tumbling into the ocean. What can be done?

"I don't feel no ways tired" to stop messing with you now

 Year after disappearing, informant in Trump probe found dead at high school...

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For now, the Pfizer vaccine appears to be the one to get, if you've got the choice, because the coronavirus is mutating

The new Novavax vaccine is just 49% effective vs. the new South Africa coronavirus strain B.1.351 which emerged last October and was just reported in two cases in South Carolina.

Johnson & Johnson's new vaccine is just 57% effective against it.

Moderna says its vaccine is "far less effective against the South Africa strain".

Pfizer's vaccine appears to be the most robust of them all, "only slightly less effective against the South Africa variant compared with the others."

Story here.

Note to Nancy Pelosi on impeachment from Pocahonky campaign: Every second that passes undermines the process a little bit

Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, said the [Iowa] delay was concerning and disappointing. “Every second that passes undermines the process a little bit,” he said.

13 million young adults 18-29 use marijuana but the FDA's Scott Gottlieb is shocked, shocked I tell you, by 3.6 million young vapers

This administration, like the rest of this country, is completely effed up.

US orders restriction on e-cigarette sales; youth use surges:

Tampa (AFP) - US regulators Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on sales of e-cigarettes, as national data showed a 78 percent single-year surge in vaping among young people, with two-thirds using fruit and candy-flavored products. ...

"These data shock my conscience," said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, referring to the latest data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey. ...

A total of 3.6 million US youths reported vaping at least once in the past month, the data showed.

"These increases must stop. And the bottom line is this: I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes," said Gottlieb.

Meanwhile Gallup reported in August that 24% of the 54 million Americans aged 18-29 regularly or occasionally use marijuana, over three and half times as many as vape, but the FDA's Gottlieb isn't in the headlines over that.

Uganda prepares to vaccinate as Ebola threatens from Congo

From the story here:

Uganda, which has had five Ebola outbreaks since 2000, says it is preparing to begin vaccinations as needed. The health ministry in Congo, which is facing its 10th outbreak, says more than 12,000 people have been vaccinated so far.

Hey Justice Kennedy: A generation of vipers can't be magically taught to use enlightened civic discourse

Anthony Kennedy, miserable cretin, quoted here:

"Perhaps we didn't do too good a job teaching the importance of preserving democracy by an enlightened civic discourse," he said. "In the first part of this century we're seeing the death and decline of democracy."

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

-- Matthew 12:34

Like Trump, Joe Biden was taken over by the body snatchers long ago

Biden in 2018: says Ford "deserves an FBI investigation today."

Biden in 1991: "[T]he next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything, obviously doesn’t understand anything."

Yahoo/AFP story features Jean-Claude Trichet trying to rewrite financial crisis history and rescue his reputation

In the story here, Trichet portrays himself as seeing everything coming in August 2007 and acting accordingly through the end of his tenure as head of the ECB in 2011.

Unfortunately for Trichet, who saw nothing coming, the record of his interest rate hikes in the summer of 2008 (!) in the teeth of the crisis and repeated in the spring of 2011 cannot be erased!

Of course, he doesn't mention those.

Mario Draghi immediately reversed Trichet's course, nine days after assuming the leadership of the ECB. 

China's Belt and Road initiative involves some partners in debt distress

China's 'Silk Road' project runs into debt jam:

China's massive and expanding "Belt and Road" trade infrastructure project is running into speed bumps as some countries begin to grumble about being buried under Chinese debt. First announced in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, the initiative also known as the "new Silk Road" envisions the construction of railways, roads and ports across the globe, with Beijing providing billions of dollars in loans to many countries.

Trump expands infrastructure of the coming police state, body scanners coming to LA subway system

This will be in mass transit countrywide before you know it, and then in every public building and on every roadway. And then on your street, and on your house. There will be no escape from the surveillance of Big Sis.

If you object to the surveillance, you won't be able to ride or eventually do other things you take for granted now under the free republic. In effect this will be no different than the Chinese social credit system, which denies travel, and other "privileges", to people who receive low scores for not cooperating with the state's demands in matters of politics or religion.

From the story here:

Los Angeles' subway will become the first mass transit system in the U.S. to install body scanners that screen passengers for weapons and explosives, officials said Tuesday.

The deployment of the portable scanners, which project waves to do full-body screenings of passengers walking through a station without slowing them down, will happen in the coming months, said Alex Wiggins, who runs the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's law enforcement division.

The machines scan for metallic and non-metallic objects on a person's body, can detect suspicious items from 30 feet (9 meters) away and have the capability of scanning more than 2,000 passengers per hour. ...

Signs will be posted at stations warning passengers they are subject to body scanner screening. The screening process is voluntary, Wiggins said, but customers who choose not to be screened won't be able to ride on the subway.

21 million people in the world receive treatment for HIV and continue to spread the disease

1.8 million new infections last year.

NOT DISCUSSED here.

Rumor has it that the Capital Gazette was dying for readers

US paper attacked in shooting covers its own tragedy

Michael Daniel testimony to Senate: Obama administration (Susan Rice) ordered him to stand down in Russian hacking investigation in summer 2016

The story here says

"The view that the Obama administration failed to adequately piece together intelligence about the Russian campaign and develop a forceful response has clearly gained traction with the intelligence committee."

No shit. 

Trump reestablishes the right tone about the US in space, recommits to exploring and taming the new frontier

Quoted here:

"My administration is reclaiming America's heritage as the world's greatest spacefaring nation," Trump said in the East Room, joined by members of his space council. "The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers."