Desdemona Despair – Page 79 – Blogging the End of the World™

A plaque depicts Donald Trump as a “Hero of the Freedomsurrection”, part of an art installation in New York City’s Flatiron Plaza on 6 January 2022. The plaques were created by Trevor Noah and “The Daily Show” to commemorate the first anniversary of Trump's coup attempt and his co-conspirators in the insurrection. Trump’s plaque reads, “No hero played a bigger part in the Freedomsurrection than President Trump himself. Though too humble to willingly release documents detailing the full scope of his efforts to stop the tyrannical will of the people, we do know he fought tirelessly to install turnover-friendly allies in the Justice Department and directed officials to ‘just say the election was corrupt’ and ‘leave the rest to me.’ While his efforts were not enough to keep him in the White House, his bravery on January 6 will never be forgotten, unless Republicans retake Congress and disband the committees investigating it.” Photo: The Daily Show

January 6, 2022

Trevor Noah trolls Trump and conservatives with Capitol insurrection monuments – “Heroes of the Freedomsurrection honors eight of the patriots who tried to overthrow their country on January 6, 2021 – and failed miserably”

By Christi Carrasstaff 6 January 2022 (Los Angeles Times) – Trevor Noah and The Daily Show are commemorating the Jan. 6 insurrection in their own special way. On Thursday, the hit Comedy Central program erected a series of “monuments” holding former President Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Fox News pundit Tucker […]

Journalist George Monbiot weeps over the enormity of the climate crisis during an interview on “Good Morning Britain”, 18 November 2021. In a column on 4 January 2022, he wrote, “I tried, for the thousandth time, to explain what we are facing, and suddenly couldn’t hold it in any longer.” Photo: ITV / Insulate Britain / YouTube

January 6, 2022

Monbiot: Watching “Don’t Look Up” made my whole life of climate campaigning flash before me – “It’s very hard to talk about it without crying, because it’s the end of everything”

By George Monbiot 4 January 2022 (The Guardian) – No wonder journalists have slated it. They’ve produced a hundred excuses not to watch the climate breakdown satire, Don’t Look Up: it’s “blunt”, it’s “shrill”, it’s “smug”. But they will not name the real problem: it’s about them. The movie is, in my view, a powerful […]

An ocean heatwave is shown in this map off the coast of New South Wales, Australia, 30 December 2021. Graphic: OceanCurrent

January 6, 2022

Extreme marine heatwave as waters off Sydney set to break temperature records – “It appears now to be reaching record levels and will likely be the hottest January on record”

By Graham Readfearn 4 January 2022 (The Guardian) – Waters off Sydney are undergoing an extreme marine heatwave with temperatures likely at their highest levels on record for January. Satellite data is showing the ocean surface off the coast of Sydney at 3C above normal, with swimmers and surfers reporting conditions that feel more like […]

Daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in Indiana, 4 January 2022. Graphic: Covid Act Now

January 5, 2022

Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40 percent among people ages 18-64 – “A three-sigma or one-in-200-year catastrophe would be a 10 percent increase over pre-pandemic, so 40 percent is just unheard of”

By Margaret Menge 1 January 2022 (The Center Square) – The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people. “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” […]

Armed Trump coup supporters surround the home of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on 5 December 2020, as part of an organized harassment and intimidation campaign planned by convicted felon Bernard Kerik and other Trump insurrectionists. Photo: Genevieve Peters / Facebook / CNN

January 5, 2022

Trump coup plan included harassment and intimidation campaign against election officials – “I’ll never forget the moment armed protestors gathered outside my home in the dark of night last December”

By Andrew Feinberg 4 January 2022 WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Independent) – Allies of former president Donald Trump planned a campaign of harassment and intimidation against election officials and “weak” Republicans that was to culminate in what would become the worst attack on the US Capitol since the Burning of Washington in 1814, according to new […]

Daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in Miami-Dade County Florida, 31 December 2021. By the beginning of 2022, Covid-19 cases in Florida had risen by 948 percent in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drove a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the U.S. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed “hysteria” and the Federal government. Graphic: Covid Act Now

January 4, 2022

COVID-19 cases rise by 948 percent in Florida as Omicron drives huge wave across U.S. – “It’s every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA” – Gov. DeSantis attacks scientists for “bad policy”

By Alexandra Villarreal 3 January 2022 (The Guardian) – Covid-19 cases in Florida have risen by 948% in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the US. Even as Dr Anthony Fauci – Joe Biden’s top medical adviser – cautioned the public to look at hospitalizations and […]

Astronomers Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her PhD adviser, Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), discover a “planet killer” comet that will impact the Earth in just over six months the Netflix film “Don’t Look Up”. Naturally, the scientists are ignored by politicians and the commercial mass media. Photo: Netflix

January 3, 2022

Climate scientists love “Don’t Look Up” – Satirical film “captures the madness I see every day”

By Eithne Dodd 1 January 2022 (Buzz) – The Netflix film Don’t Look Up has divided opinion between critics and audiences. One of the most popular pieces of content on Netflix’s platform since it debuted, Rotten Tomatoes, a site that gives a cumulative critical score show’s just a 55 per cent approval from critics. So while many […]

Truck drivers bound for Metro Manila celebrate Christmas Eve 2021 under a makeshift tent along the national highway in Surigao City as the Lipata port remained closed due to heavy damage from Super Typhoon Rai (Odette). Photo: Erwin M. Mascariñas / Philippine Daily Inquirer

January 2, 2022

Death toll from Super Typhoon Rai passes 400 – People in wrecked city of Surigao see hope in New Year amid typhoon ruins

By Divina M. Suson and Erwin M. Mascariñas 2 January 2022 SURIGAO CITY, Surigao del Norte, Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer) – When asked about their fishing boats during a disaster damage assessment just days after Typhoon Odette (international name: Rai) struck on 16 December 2021, many fishermen in the city’s coastal villages replied, “zero visibility.” […]

Three SARS-CoV-2 lineages identified in white-tailed deer. (A) The number of weekly COVID-19 cases in humans in Ohio is presented from October 2020 – September 2021, shaded by the proportion of viruses sequenced each week in Ohio that belong to one of five Pango lineages (or “Other”). (B) Summary of six human-to-deer transmission events observed in Ohio, with putative deer-to-deer transmission. Graphic: Hale, et al., 2021 / Nature

January 2, 2022

Covid is rampant among deer, research shows – “The sheer possibility that these things are happening and it’s unknown makes this very unsettling”

By Evan Bush 2 January 2022 (NBC News) – Humans have infected wild deer with Covid-19 in a handful of U.S. states and there’s evidence the virus has been spreading between deer, according to recent studies, which outline findings that could complicate the path out of the pandemic. Scientists swabbed the nostrils of white-tailed deer […]

COVID-19 virus concentration in U.S. sewage and new daily clinical cases per 100,000 people, 26 January 2020 - 22 December 2021. Wastewater samples in December 2021 revealed record levels of COVID-19 virus across the U.S. Clinical data: USAFacts. Graphic: Biobot Analytics

January 2, 2022

Wastewater samples reveal record levels of COVID-19 across U.S.

By Alicia Victoria Lozano 2 January 2022 (NBC News) – With at-home Covid-19 tests in high demand and their efficacy in question, health departments from California to Massachusetts are turning to sewage samples to get a better idea of how much the coronavirus is spreading through communities and what might be in store for health care […]