Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

John Kerry family private jet emitted estimated 116 metric tons of carbon over past year

Data compiled by the flight tracking firm FlightAware and obtained by Fox News show that John Kerry’s family Gulfstream GIV-SP spent around 22 hours and 22 minutes in the air over the past year.

Using Paramount Business Jets emissions calculator, Fox News found that Kerry’s planed accumulated an estimated 116 metric tons of carbon between trips dating from Feb. 9, 2020, to Jan. 10, 2021. 

For comparison, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. That calculation assumed a car that drives around 11,500 miles per year with a fuel economy of about 22.0 miles per gallon.

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Playing favorites? Hospital boards, donors get COVID shots

While millions of Americans wait for the COVID-19 vaccine, hospital board members, their trustees and donors around the country have gotten early access to the scarce drug or offers for vaccinations, raising complaints about favoritism tainting decisions about who gets inoculated and when.

In Rhode Island, Attorney General Peter Neronha opened an inquiry after reports that two hospital systems offered their board members vaccinations. A Seattle-area hospital system was rebuked by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee after it offered COVID-19 vaccination appointments to major donors. And in Kansas, members of a hospital board received vaccinations during the first phase of the state’s rollout, which was intended for people at greater risk for infection.

Hospitals in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia also have faced questions about distributing vaccines, including to donors, trustees and relatives of executives.

The disclosures could threaten public confidence in a national rollout already marked by vaccine shortages, appointment logjams and inconsistent standards state to state for determining who’s eligible.

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Constitutional ban on legal cannabis advances in Idaho

As legal marijuana becomes a reality in every corner of the U.S., Idaho is putting up a fight.

State lawmakers on Friday moved forward with a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar the legalization of marijuana in Idaho in an attempt to keep the growing nationwide acceptance of the drug from seeping across its borders.

Idaho is one of only three states without some sort of policy allowing residents to possess products with even low amounts of THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. Residents can cross the state border in nearly every direction and find themselves in a place where marijuana can be bought for recreational or medicinal purposes. Support for medicinal marijuana use is growing among some residents — with legalization activists trying to get an initiative on the state ballot in 2022.

It’s made some lawmakers in the deep-red state nervous, particularly after voters in the neighboring state of Oregon decriminalized the personal possession of drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine last November.

The joint resolution to ban all psychoactive drugs not already legal in Idaho won approval along a 6-2 party-line vote in the Senate State Affairs Committee. The list of substances would change for drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

But the primary target over the two days of testimony on Monday and Friday was marijuana as Idaho finds itself surrounded by states that have legalized cannabis.

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Rep. Stephen Lynch Tests Positive for COVID-19

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced Friday.

Lynch, who had already received both doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, was tested for the virus after a staff member in his Boston office tested positive earlier in the week. The congressman received his positive test Friday afternoon.

Lynch’s office says that he did continue to follow COVID-19 safety protocols, such as social distancing and wearing a mask, even after receiving the vaccine.

A statement from Pfizer said that it can take seven days for protection from the second dose to kick in. However, the statement from Lynch’s office said the congressman received the second dose vaccine before attending President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, nine days before his positive test.

Lynch, who represents the state’s 8th Congressional District, also tested negative for COVID-19 prior to the inauguration.

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COVID-19: Life won’t return to normal for at least two years, expert warns, saying pandemic ‘isn’t over until it’s over globally’

Life globally will not return to normal for two or three years based on the rate of the current vaccination rollout, it has been warned – but there are early signs jabs are reducing cases in the UK.

Speaking to Sky News, Dr Clare Wenham, assistant professor of global health policy at London School of Economics, said the COVID-19 pandemic will not be over until the world’s population is protected.

“At the moment, the data is showing it’s going to be 2023/24 before the global vaccines are distributed to everybody,” she said.

“That’s a long time. And distributing some now might be able to get us back to normal life sooner.”

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