Tracker

Looks like we get Rod Black calling the game. Dammit.

And more profitable, too.

This Tennessee Republican Nearly Died From COVID. Now He’s Fighting Masks. “I can promise you one thing, I have been so sorry for that,” he says in a recording that surfaced along with the allegations in 2018. “I’ve lived with that and you don’t know how hard it has been for me.” A third student charged that he had attempted to molest her. But Byrd never admitted nor explicitly denied what the three alleged, saying only, “I have done nothing wrong or inappropriate during my term as state representative.” The then speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, Beth Harwell, called on Byrd to resign. He refused and joined many of his fellow Republican representatives in wrongdoing of another kind when the pandemic hit. Byrd was complicit in an effort to minimize the coronavirus threat as no worse than the flu. He opposed such basic mitigation measures as masking and social distancing. He was one of 55 Tennessee Republican representatives who signed a resolution in June of last year alleging that “[the] mainstream media has sensationalized the reporting on COVID-19 in the service of political agendas.” In November, just as Tennessee was reporting a record high number of new COVID-19 cases, Byrd and other members of the House Republican caucus ignored public health recommendations against large gatherings and held a three-day retreat. The event was in the lodge at Pickwick Landing State Park in Byrd’s district. Byrd hosted a big dinner at a nearby restaurant on the first night and of course he was among the many who did not wear a mask. The day before Thanksgiving, Byrd tested positive for COVID-19. He was flown by helicopter from his hometown of Waynesboro to Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville and he issued a plaintive statement on Dec. 7. “Please pray for God’s healing for my lungs, and that He will give me strength and endurance as I battle this virus.” He spent 55 days on a ventilator in the ICU. “My wife and family prayed for a miracle while facing the very real prospect of planning my funeral,” he said in the statement. He was one of the lucky ones who survived after needing to be intubated. But he was initially unable to use his limbs. And he began to suffer liver failure. On June 12, he received a liver transplant. He was still recovering on July 29, when he arrived in a wheelchair at the House chamber. Harwell had stepped down to make an unsuccessful run for governor. Her successor, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, said a prayer for Byrd, who had missed the entire legislative session. Byrd solemnly took a renewed oath of office. “Life is a miraculous gift that I am humbled beyond all odds and explanation to receive a second chance at living,” he said in a statement released later by the caucus. But Byrd made no mention of those who did die after being convinced by pandemic-denying elected officials such as himself that COVID is just like the flu. Byrd uttered not a syllable of apology for having contributed in however small a way to the deaths of hundreds of thousands by hampering our fight against the virus. In failing to voice any concern for the effect his words and deeds as an elected official might have had on others, Byrd initially seemed just a typically monstrous minimizer who has suddenly decided that “COVID is real and it is very dangerous” after it nearly killed him. But Byrd has now outdone himself and proven to be among the lowest of the low. On Wednesday night, Byrd joined all 73 members of the House Republican caucus in petitioning Gov. Bill Lee to call a special session of the legislature to prohibit local mask mandates and keep businesses from barring the unvaccinated. Tennessee Republican David Byrd Nearly Died From COVID. Now He’s Fighting Masks. (thedailybeast.com)

The single biggest factor, IMO, is the PCs smearing themselves with feces at every opportunity and undercutting their own leader.

If the Argos haven't given the Bombers a "safe word", that is on them. Seriously, if the Lions could beat the Stumps, nothing is guaranteed in the CFL Bombers better not get complacent or else.

Welcome to the constant agony and ecstacy forum.

Followed by the traditional backstabbing of the PC leader after the usual wringing of hands by the PC rank and file all the while claiming that they did not see this coming and have no idea how it happened.

Fear not. Everything is going according to plan. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Thank God for free speech! Otherwise, how would we know who the idiots among us are?

Four school teachers in one Florida county die in one day from COVID as DeSantis continues to ban mandates Four school teachers in Broward County, Florida just died from COVID-19 in one day. Three were unvaccinated, CNN reports (video below.) Republican Governor Ron DeSantis continues to refuse to allow any mask or vaccine mandates as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths explode in his state. “Within a 24-hour span, we had an assistant teacher pass away, a teacher at her school pass away, an elementary teacher pass away and another teacher at a high school," Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco told CBS News. Broward County's School Board this week voted to defy DeSantis' ban on masks mandates. Florida recorded 24,869 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, far more than any state in the nation. Less than half of Florida's total population is fully vaccinated. Four school teachers in one Florida county die in one day from COVID as DeSantis continues to ban mandates - Alternet.org

We should expect a lot of flubs and oopsies for the first two or four games.

A brief reprieve for Yamasaki.

No real zing on that pass, but effective nonetheless.

Good lord! If an O-line cannot get less than a yard with two tries with a one yard gap, that is pathetic.

Good stuff by Lions

A lot of damage has already been done, but better late, etc.

Actually, both QBs slinging the ball noticeably better than last week.

Lindell emphatically denies ever having said anything like that, and it is just a vicious rumour spread by Antifa.

That Reilly played at all tells us two things: his injury or injuries are such that a week or two off isn't going to amke any difference and that there is no better alternatives.

In the atmosphere that the GOP under Trump has created, there emerged a dark underbelly that had been careful not come out into the light. The Trump/GOP attitude is that those in power are there because of some sort of divine right to rule with impunity, no matter what travesty they choose to commit.

'We can't live forever': Marjorie Taylor Greene gives bizarre argument against Covid vaccine approval U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has spent the week attacking what will soon be FDA final approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Thursday was no different, with the Georgia Republican falsely denigrating the effectiveness of the vaccine and falsely claiming that hospitals across the country are not overflowing with COVID patients. "We're human, we can't live forever," Greene, a far right wing conspiracy theorist, antisemite, white nationalist, and purveyor of coronavirus disinformation told the far right wing streaming website Real America's Voice. "We are going to catch all kinds of diseases and illnesses," she added, suggesting that vaccine mandates, which have existed since before the United States was founded, would turn the nation into "an authoritarian regime." 'We can't live forever': Marjorie Taylor Greene gives bizarre argument against Covid vaccine approval - Alternet.org

Very, very nice to have options, particularly when those options are going to confuse the spit out of the opposition. I hope that it doesn't confuse our side.

‘Indictment is ready’: Matt Gaetz ‘will face charges’ says former NY prosecutor A former New York State prosecutor say U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will be prosecuted by federal authorities and insists the "indictment is ready." Tristan Snell, who served as assistant attorney general for New York state and is now the founder and the managing partner of Main Street Law helped lead the prosecution against Trump University that resulted in a $25 million settlement. Snell has been sharing what he says he knows, via Twitter, and on Wednesday laid out the "Gaetzgate" case as he sees it. "What we know," Snell writes, is that the "indictment is coming in the next few weeks, either in August or just after." "Also clear that the US Attorney's Office is taking very strong positions with Gaetz and his counsel and is ready to indict Gaetz and others," Snell claims. "What's really going on is that the feds are applying a lot of pressure on Gaetz to flip and cooperate — if the feds are taking a strong position, it's to get cooperation," he adds. "But what would Gaetz be able to cooperate on?" "Gaetz could cooperate on the existing case they have open in federal court in Orlando — adding to the testimony from Gaetz's buddy Joel Greenberg." Greenberg is the former Florida tax collector who was indicted on 33 federal charges, including theft, sex trafficking of a minor, stalking, and multiple counts of fraud. As part of a plea deal in May Greenberg pleaded guilty to six counts, including sex trafficking. ‘Indictment is ready’: Matt Gaetz ‘will face charges’ says former NY prosecutor - Alternet.org Trump-loving Minnesota GOP strategist arrested for allegedly sex trafficking minors: report. Another Republican has been arrested under suspicion of underage sex trafficking. According to the Daily Beast, wealthy Minnesota GOP strategist Anton Lazzaro was arrested in Minneapolis Thursday morning, the FBI confirmed. Lazzaro, who has appeared on Fox News and was known for showing off his wealthy and lavish lifestyle on social media, was indicted on five counts of sex trafficking of a minor and three counts of obstruction of justice. "U.S. Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson ordered that Lazzaro remain jailed until a court hearing next week, after prosecutors claimed six victims had asked for additional protection from Lazzaro," said the report. "It's their strong wish that the United States proceed with a recommendation of detention," said Judge Thorson, referring to the requests of the survivors. The court documents say that Lazzaro is accused of recruiting at least five underage victims for paid sex between May and December of 2020 and attempting to recruit a sixth. The indictment says he then "knowingly and intentionally interfered" with the FBI's investigation as he became aware of it. The indictment accuses Lazzaro of having "recruited" at least five underage victims for paid sex between May and December last year, and trying to entice a sixth. It also says he "knowingly and intentionally interfered" with the investigation as it closed in on him. Lazzaro would appear on Fox to promote former President Donald Trump and other GOP officials. He's been photographed with Trump, Pence, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and former Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA). Trump-loving Minnesota GOP strategist arrested for allegedly sex trafficking minors: report - Alternet.org

'DOJ has no choice now': Legal experts are stunned by new evidence of Trump's post-election corruption Legal experts are weighing in on Wednesday evening's bombshell report in The New York Times that the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta resigned on January 4 rather than be fired by then-President Donald Trump for refusing to say the election was rigged and there had been massive voter fraud, which Trump had been falsely claiming. Trump had appointed Byung Pak to be the U.S. Attorney in mid 2017. Hours after top DOJ officials either warned or pressured him – or both – on Jan. 3, that he would be fired, Pak sent his letter of resignation to the President. On Wednesday he told the Senate Judiciary Committee what had happened. "DOJ has no choice now, they must open a criminal investigation on Trump," says attorney Ron Filipkowski, a former Republican turned Democrat, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis infamously fired a Health Dept. data analyst. 'DOJ has no choice now': Legal experts are stunned by new evidence of Trump's post-election corruption - Alternet.org

Scientists Reversed Aging in Mouse Brains With Poo Transplants From Young Mice In 1895, on turning 50, Elie Metchnikoff became increasingly anxious about aging. As a result, the Russian Nobel prize-winning scientist, and one of the founders of immunology, turned his attention away from immunology and towards gerontology – a term that he coined. He was fascinated by the role that intestinal bacteria play in health and disease and suggested that people from parts of eastern Europe lived longer because they ate a lot of fermented foods containing lactic acid bacteria. Although popular at the time, this theory linking gut microbes to healthy aging was largely ignored by scientists until relatively recently. We now recognize the importance that the trillions of bacteria, known as the gut microbiome, have in regulating health and disease. Evidence has been accumulating for almost a decade that the microbiome composition changes with age. In 2012, research by my colleagues at University College Cork showed that diversity in the microbiome was linked to health outcomes in later life, including frailty. But we still didn't know much about the effect of the microbiome on brain aging. In 2017, we revisited Metchnikoff's ideas, putting them in the context of brain aging, and showed that aging induced changes in the microbiota and immune system, and was associated with cognitive decline and anxiety. However, this study, like many in the field, only showed an association between aging and these factors. It did not prove that one thing caused the other. In a subsequent study, we went a step further in showing that a microbiota-targeted diet enriched with the prebiotic inulin (a prebiotic feeds the beneficial bacteria in the gut) could lessen the effects of aging in the brains of middle-aged mice. Yet it still wasn't clear whether the microbiota itself caused the slowing of brain aging. In our latest study, we show that by taking the microbiome from young mice and transplanting them into old mice, many of the effects of aging on learning and memory and immune impairments can be reversed. Using a maze, we showed that this fecal microbiota transplant from young to old mice led to the old mice finding a hidden platform faster. The immune connection Aging is associated with an increase in inflammation across all systems in the body, including the brain. It is clear that immune processes play a key role in brain aging, with a growing emphasis on the role of a specific immune cell, the microglia. Ironically, these are the same class of cells that Metchnikoff visualized down the microscope, albeit in other tissues, in the late 1800s. We now also know that the activation of these cells is under constant regulation by the gut microbiome. So the next part of the puzzle was to see if the negative effects of aging on immunity are also reversible by transplanting the microbiota from young mice to old. Indeed, a lot of the inflammation was lessened. Finally, we showed that chemicals in a region of the brain involved in learning and memory (the hippocampus) were more like that of young mice following the microbiota transplant. Our results show conclusively that the microbiome is important for a healthy brain in old age. Was Metchnikoff's step away from immunology premature in understanding the secrets of ageing? Indeed, the relative contribution of the immune changes seen in the mice receiving young microbiota to the overall rejuvenation effects deserves further study. But two big questions remain. What are the exact mechanisms at play? And can we translate these remarkable findings to humans? Working with a controlled situation of mice – which have very defined genetics, diets, and microbiome – is very different from looking at humans. We need to be careful to not over-interpret these findings. We are not advocating fecal transplants for people who want to rejuvenate their brain. Instead, these studies point towards a future where there will be a focus on microbiota-targeted dietary or bacteria-based treatments that will promote optimum gut health and immunity in order to keep the brain young and healthy. Such strategies will be a more palatable elixir indeed. Metchnikoff's overall tenets appear to be correct: protecting your gut microbes may be the secret to the fountain of youth. With advances in healthcare, longevity has markedly increased. And although we cannot stop the march of time, we can develop treatments that will protect our brains from deterioration and we have more than a gut feeling targeting the microbiome may be one such way. However, much work is still needed, though, to better understand how gut microbes are able to press rewind on some of the hallmarks of an aging brain.