Watermelon!

I have found my new favoritest watermelon ever.

Started inside at the beginning of May, planted out in the garden by the end of May. Nice compact plant that barely spilled over the sides of the 4′ stock tank I planted it in. We had some stupid hot weather early this year that might have made them ripen early, but I just picked the 2nd melon off the one plant. Both a bit smaller than the one pictured above.

I failed to get a picture of the melons, but here’s what they look like inside:

I’m ruined now for any other watermelon. These are OMG SWEET and so flavorful. I may never eat another watermelon variety again. If you do container gardening these might do quite nicely in a large pot on a deck.

I might have to try staggered planting next year and see if I can extend the ripening season so I can have more them…..


Links 8/31/22

NJ teachers union puts out ad calling parents extremists

Physical buttons better than touch screens in cars

Biological impurities in covid vax

Singapore acknowledges that children need to see faces

Wait, so HCQ is good again?

U of I admits that they plan to sell student/employee saliva samples taken as part of covid testing

Western U requiring Vax and Mask for this school year

Georgetown U masking and vax requirements

NJ’s largest school district keeps mask mandate

Twitter thread: 15 million people will lose medical coverage once public health emergency is ended (just in case you were wondering why they don’t want to end it before elections)

Last week I posted a link about how DC was mandating the vax for children for the school year. This week: there will be no virtual school for unvax’d students either. Either get the shot or don’t go to school. Bets on whether they’ll charge the parents for the children’s truancy? Someone must have finally gotten through to her, cause they then pushed the deadline out to January.

I’d swear I posted this before, but maybe not: a recounting of pediatric deaths in LA. Twitter thread.

The Lost Boys of Covid

You know, people literally lost their jobs for saying this over the last two years.

Moderna sues Pfizer

China gets upset when volleyballers are required to wear masks.

Beverly Hills store issues mask BAN due to masked robberies

Twitter thread: 2021 predictions coming true already

Excess Non-Covid Death numbers. Everyone keeps putting these behind paywalls, trying to find non-paywalled (or easily bypassed paywalls) for my links pages has been frustrating. The non-paywalled articles don’t tell me much. But if the data I’m getting is right, our excess deaths, not caused by covid, are through the roof, and not JUST from suicide either.

another 775Mill to Ukraine

RAF recruitment policy puts pause on hiring white males

White people banned from some off Berkeley off campus housing

The earth’s temperature hasn’t risen for the last 15 years

Saudi firm hasn’t been required to pay for water in AZ for years

The amount of water required to grow specific foods

Fire at onion processing plant

Fire at flour mill

Twitter thread: Nitrogen fertilizer producers cutting back

Ford to lay off 3000 workers

80% of the IRS’s revenue will come from small businesses

IRS audits the poor at 5 times the rate of anyone else

Vancouver getting first Canadian electric fire truck, it pumps less water, the batteries will only last for 90 minutes of use, and costs 20% more than the better pumping diesel powered trucks.

Los Angeles tried to get one, but it sprung a leak, and had to be sent back for repairs

Aus bank decides that it will stop giving loans for new gas/diesel powered cars, only used gas cars and electric vehicles, effective 2025

Cost of replacement batteries for cars

VA trying to un-link itself from CA’s car laws

Doctor asks dad to take pictures of toddlers body for medical diagnosis for virtual medical visit. Google decides its child porn, locks dad out of ALL of his google accounts, sends data to police, refuses to let him back into his accounts when police say there’s nothing wrong. (non-paywalled version)

Los Angeles wants to force hotels to house the homeless in any empty rooms

NY Gov says republicans need to leave NY

Some good news about Monkeypox

Canada plans digital ID program

Grand Jury recommends removing 4 Broward school board members over Parkland shooting

Forgiven student loans may be taxed

University of Washington had a study that showed negative results of “gender affirming care” and they hid it.

Twitter thread: French electricity prices just jumped, from 45 Euros to 1000 Euros

East Coast USA faces winter with low fuel supply

The myth of maternal instinct

Tugboat strike in Vancouver

Restaurant to stop catering to vegans due to their attitude

FBI agent destroyed evidence to frame pro-Trump prisoner

The same people keep winning the Maryland lotteries, over and over

Return of the rare Ojibwa horse


Just….no

Ok look. I made it very clear what I thought of the 2020 shut down of the world. I think the whole PPP loan was a mess in the making and a bad idea with good intentions. I firmly believe that there are people who got PPP loans who shouldn’t have. And I also will be NOT shocked to learn that there are people who took PPP loans who used them for things they shouldn’t have.

That doesn’t change the fact that loan forgiveness was written into the contract of the PPP loan. You take a PPP loan, you use it to pay your employees instead of laying them off or firing them, your loan is forgiven.

PPP loans are nothing like student loans.

But apparently whoever is running the White House Twitter account isn’t aware of that fact:

I’m not a huge fan of student loan forgiveness. For a variety of reasons.

I did have student loans myself, though not tons thanks to my parents. And I’ll also admit that my parents helped me pay off the loans I did have. I empathize, A LOT, with the folks who are stuck unable to pay their loans. I empathize less with the folks who took those loans to pay for degrees that were extremely unlikely to turn into lucrative jobs. But lets be honest here. Society has decided that in order to be successful you must go to college. Teenagers want to be successful. College tuition has gotten stupid expensive cause they know people will pay it. Its a vicious cycle.

IF we’re going to forgive some portion of unpaid student loans it needs to be part and parcel of fixing the college degree cost system. No, I don’t know the correct way to do that, I’m not generally a fan of the .GOV getting into the middle of things and that holds true here. But without fixing the system thats causing those loans its going to make absolutely no difference in the long term.

And it pisses off the rest of the country who paid theirs, or avoided them completely, which really isn’t useful. Meanwhile farmers are paying astronomical funds to buy the equipment they need to feed everyone. Tradesmen are paying large sums for the specialty trucks they need, or other big equipement. All things needed just to keep the world turning, and all things being ignored.

But stupid social media posts by those, supposedly, in charge of things comparing apples to oranges doesn’t help either.


Links (8/24/22)

I normally try to only do link dumps once a week, but I didn’t get them done for a couple weeks, and now I have so many…so here’s a 2nd one this week, and I still have more to go

Children who were toddlers or younger during the Covid waves are way behind in speech and ability to read faces.

The CDC keeps putting out bad study after bad study on covid.

Aus recommends vax for under 5yrs old only in cases of extreme immune compromise.

Denmark has stopped the vax campaign untill the fall wave hits. Also, no longer gives the vax to under 18’s without a specific doctor’s reference of severe compromised immunity.

Masks not mandatory in Ontario schools this fall.

Facemask trash harming wildlife

High-school grads starting college, are completely unprepared due to covid

Child vax mandates increase school inequality

New Orleans mandates covid vax for children as young as 5 in order to receive schooling

Philly school district mandates masks for prekindergartners for the year

Comparing European child covid response to the USA‘s

Philippines still hasn’t reopened schools

Covid rules mean 8yr old recovering from being shot/paralyzed can only see his family once a week

1-5 seriously ill black americans were unable to get health care during covid disruptions, regardless of health insurance status. The numbers are worse American Indians, and only slightly better for whites.

Preprint from Thailand: the cardiovascular effects of the vax on children under 18 could be even worse than previously suspected. A look at the study.

Healthcare workers fired over vaccine mandate awarded $10million

Shanghai citizens flee from risk of lockdown in Ikea

Iceland: rate of reinfection from Omicron

.GOV Headstart program requires children as young as 2 to wear facemasks

Cali elementary school calls police after 4yr old refuses to wear a mask

Gasoline demand is lower now than it was in 2020. Which probly don’t say good things for the economy.

France still does all its voting on paper, in person, and hand counted. ID required.

A breakthrough in battery technology, given to China.

Carbon Dioxide shortage

I’m pretty sure thats illegal: NYC Mayor requesting photos of of all applicants applying for city jobs, in order to increase diversity

Princeton to use diversity filter to choose vendors

Minneapolis says it will lay off white teachers first

Sure, zombie pigs sounds like a good idea….NOT

Resurrecting the Tasmanian Tiger

New shipping rules could cut shipping availability by 75%

No good deed goes unpunished

Trying to stop the carp invasion

Trans activists admits (on social media) to sending hormones to youth without a prescription. Gets miffed when people notice.

2017: IRS apologizes for targeting people and groups by their political stance.

IRS audits the poor at 5 times the rate of everyone else

UK expects to have power outages in January

Spain cracking down on AC use

2016: FBI ran a website of child porn

FBI agent arrested for crimes against children

FDA expands monkey pox vaccine use to children with no trials

First off: if you love dogs don’t read THIS link. 2nd-first confirmed case of human to dog transmission of monkey pox. 3rd-if you treat your dog in a reasonably humane manner you don’t have anything to worry about

A look at whats behind the farm cuts

Serbian Farmers joining the protests

NY Gov signs law to remove the term “inmate” from use

Biomarker for POTS found

2018: Google bought Mastercard data to use to target ads for items bought offline

I had no idea Phonics had been REMOVED from schools!

Cali math curriculum guidelines

2014 electric car: replacement battery costs more than the car, but it doesn’t matter, cause the batteries aren’t available anyway

Hospital warns of shortage of children’s tylenol and similar meds

The original baby drop box

The most ridiculous duel in history

200 sex trafficking victims found

Your John Deere tractor can run DOOM


Links

Twitter thread: Clive’s Farm

Inflation is making it harder on farmers, even in FL where they did pretty well.

Loss of more farmland

Study: the effect of news media on mass shooting frequency

I see the news media is finally catching up: Thousands report changes to menstrual bleeding after vax

China allows use of HIV drug for Covid

CDC and various .GOV officials ordered Big Tech to censor vax discussion

1200 reported deaths from Pfizer’s vax within the first 90 days

Evusheld however might actually work as advertised.

Leading causes of death from March ’20 to October ’21 (For under 35’s, Covid wasn’t in the top 5, Suicide however was)

NYC finally lifts its toddler mask mandate completely

OSHA fit test on surgical mask (twitter thread)

School districts mandating the Covid vax for children for school

Paxlovid reinfection rate is 40%

Kentucky city is cleaning up vacant lots by giving them to the neighbors

FDA warns of brain-swelling and vision loss due to puberty blockers

That mass grave at a school in Canada might not be

Do dogs prefer praise or food?

New rabies vax on the way

Container shipping is still backed up

US’s biggest container ports also world’s least efficient

Irony at its finest: electric bus bursts into flame one day after electric car law signed

Credit Card that limits your spending based on your calculated CO2

Norway to start tracking all food purchases. More.

Israel tightens restrictions on the use of cash. More.

Modern day slave markets, more.

Hershey warns it won’t be able to meet consumer demand for Halloween candy

Shields Health Care Group announces a data breach

British man arrested for posting meme that “caused anxiety”

State of Emergency announcements for Monkey Pox: 1, 2, 3,

The Best Toy Ever

I’ve a bunch more links, but thats all I have time for today. At least they weren’t ALL depressing this time!


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