The Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities across 14 states, called for rolling blackouts and power outages because the supply of reserve energy had been exhausted.
— Read on 6abc.com/10342320/
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In Houston, where county leaders had warned that the freeze could create problems on the scale of massive hurricanes that slam the Gulf Coast, one electric provider said power may not be restored to some homes until Tuesday. More than 500 people were hunkering down at one shelter, but Mayor Sylvester Turner said other warming centers had to be shut down because those locations, too, lost power.
State officials said soaring demand and cold weather knocking some power stations offline had pushed Texas’ system beyond the limits.
“This weather event, it’s really unprecedented. We all living here know that,” said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. He defended preparations made by grid operators and described the demand on the system as record-setting.
This new film being reviewed by the DAILY BEAST appears to be that very type if film: It is a horror that targets the ugliness of the influencer culture of Twitter, YouTube, and other social media companies..
From Nick Schager, a few notable quotes from the piece:
Writer/director Jennifer Harrington wades into these digital waters with Shook, a thriller that’s heavy on censure and woefully light on scares. A Shudder exclusive premiering on the horror streaming platform on Feb. 18, its tale concerns Mia (Daisye Tutor), a young, pretty blonde influencer whose claim to fame are makeup videos for a cosmetics brand. The phoniness of Mia’s vocation is underscored by the film’s introductory scene, in which she and two other women—including “beauty influencer of the year” Genelle (Genelle Seldon)—pose for the paparazzi, only for Harrington to cut to a master shot of this newsworthy event, which is really just a staged red carpet that’s been constructed in an abandoned parking lot. This entire world’s phoniness is thus laid bare succinctly, and sharply.
The opening urine:
That’s not the only pointed thing about Shook’s opening; when her dog pees all over her swanky dress, Genelle rushes off to a nearby bathroom, where she winds up getting stabbed through the chin with her designer high heel shoe. Subsequent headlines indicate that this slaying is related to a spate of recent Southern California attacks by a killer that primarily preys on dogs, and in the aftermath of her colleague’s demise, Mia takes to social media to proclaim, “I’m shook. Seriously.” Given that everything about these individuals is performative bullshit, shook she most certainly is not. In fact, she barely gives it another thought, instead turning her attention to her own dilemma: having to watch her sister Nicole’s (Emily Goss) dog Chico and, in the process, miss out on a big livestream with her boyfriend Santi (Octavius J. Johnson) and friends Lani (Nicola Posener) and Jade (Stephanie Simbari).
Shook slowly develops into a wannabe-nightmare in which Mia is harassed by unbelievable threats from Kellan, who snatches Chico and then promises to kill her friends (and the pooch) if she doesn’t answer his questions and play his games…
But in the end it appears the film gets a negative score:
Shook’s revelations further underscore the disingenuousness of influencers—what they say, what they do, who they claim to be—and, by extension, everything seen and heard on Instagram et al. Yet in a 2021 grappling with a tidal wave of democracy-undermining disinformation, such notions come off as dully obvious. The cast’s performances are uniformly bland, and Harrington’s inability to bestow Mia or her cohorts with distinctive personalities turns them into mere vehicles for her material’s familiar message. Worse, however, is that the cat-and-mouse game which eventually kicks into gear is clumsily staged, its helter-skelter rhythm doing much to neuter any menace or peril. It’s also borderline illogical, hinging on incidents that make no sense regardless of the explanations provided by characters’ dialogue.
Why Shook—a movie about pulling the curtain back on social media influencers’ narcissism and insincerity—revolves around dog murders is anyone’s guess, but such randomness is in keeping with the endeavor’s general sloppiness.
Perhaps the reason for the mundane nature of the dog mystery is because social media is devoid of things that matter.. the influencer culture is scripted. It’s without human emotion. So why not have a story line that borderlines on boring mindlessness.
Have you noticed normal content going haywire lately?
If there was social media in ancient times, perhaps the same would have occurred.
History, we can learn, brings out the best and the worst in people. Times when we are challenged, especially in a long-duration event, can make us recoil into the worst of humanity..
After 9/11, the last time the world was shook to its core, a large swath of people chose to go with antiquated racist beliefs and attack Muslims.. It was the “kinder and gentler” George W. that actually did the right thing and made it a policy as a nation to visually be seen with Muslims and have events that mitigated the zealous rage against them. Of course the next choice the American government made was to embroil itself into two wars in the Middle East that largely decimated any good feelings after September 11…
But during COVID, we are also reminded of the similar events in history in which societies became enraged and inflamed. Just because WE are living through something does not mean WE are the first. That belief system is extremely selfish and narcissistic.
Now narcissism? Maybe that is surging in the modern era more than past times. 😉
Adam Crigler used to feed his YouTube following a politics-free diet of chatter about aliens, movies, skateboarding and video games. Then came the pandemic. Now, he devotes much of his talk show to his assertion that mask mandates are an assault on personal freedom and that Democrats somehow stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Result: a much bigger audience.
“The pandemic has made more people want to blame someone else because they’ve lost their jobs or they’re lonely,” Crigler said.
And so many others.
But when this pandemic ends–and it will–what happens to society? How do we go back to mindless videos on social media again.. Or do we?
Does it change back? Or does a new generation forget mindlessness and innocence .. until the next generation is born and makes it happen..?
The entire nation is facing a massive, complex, and historic winter storm this week. When leaders told us months ago that we had the prospects of a dark winter, only HAARP could expect it being this dark. This week perhaps it the darkest of them all..
Temperatures on one side of the Gulf Coast were a balmy 73 in Tampa. But Texas was shivering .. Just 27 in Austin. 18 in Houston.. And 5 single digits in Dallas!
Along with that, millions are without power nationwide and at least 11 are dead as a result of the large winter storm sweeping the entire United States!
Nearly 170 million people are under winter weather advisories Monday, with icy roads, power outages, and dangerously low temperatures threatening to snarl traffic and paralyze cities from coast to coast! At least 11 people have died in weather-related vehicle accidents since cold temperatures took hold of the country. Nine died in three separate incidents in Texas Thursday, one person was killed in Kentucky, and another died in a wreck in Oklahoma Sunday…
Snowing in Texas.
10 degrees and snowing in Little Rock Arkansas..
Thundersnow in Galveston Texas.
2 million without power in the lone star state.
Winter weather warnings.
Wind chills.
Half of the nation’s map is deeply frozen..
The state of Texas is now performing rolling blackouts as a way to save the grid!
But some are Twitter are saying their power has been out for 8 hours plus, and their homes are quickly dipping into the 40s and the 30s…
It was reported this weekend that David Boreanaz, one of the most successful Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumni, has been publicly silent since Charisma Carpenter came forward to accuse Buffy franchise creator Joss Whedon of abusing his power during the show’s production. Boreanaz deleted every post on his Instagram page, leaving just a trailer for the new season of his CBS series. Fans lashed out and criticized Boreanaz for not commenting on the allegations against Whedon while other Buffy stars have spoken out to support Carpenter..
Until now.
\Perhaps/ some PR firms had to test waters on the best response, since clearly no response stopped being an option..
On Sunday, David Boreanaz became the next name to go public with his support of Carpenter, responding to the actress’s original post with the message, “I am here for you to listen and support you. Proud of your strength♥️🙏”.
Should this be miraculous or should this be scary?
More from the article:
Through nanotechnology, engineers at MIT in the US have transformed spinach into sensors capable of detecting explosive materials. These plants are then able to wirelessly relay this information back to the scientists.
When the spinach roots detect the presence of nitroaromatics in groundwater, a compound often found in explosives like landmines, the carbon nanotubes within the plant leaves emit a signal. This signal is then read by an infrared camera, sending an email alert to the scientists.
This experiment is part of a wider field of research which involves engineering electronic components and systems into plants. The technology is known as “plant nanobionics”, and is effectively the process of giving plants new abilities.
There have been rumors and speculation for over a year: Just when did COVID-19 actually begin.. if you remember back to the early days of the pandemic lockdowns, many reported feeling sicker than normal in November and December 2019. Italy had various reports of strange lung diseases in the autumn of 2019.. and a nursing home in the United States had a not so average outbreak in the late summer..
Speculation and rumor aside, fact finders are now on the case of just when–and where–did COVID come from.
A growing body of evidence suggests the coronavirus was spreading globally months before the first cases in a Wuhan market captured global attention last December.
The team assessed medical records from more than 230 clinics across Hubei — the province where Wuhan is located — to look for clues. More than 90 patients in the province were hospitalized with pneumonia or coronavirus-like symptoms in October and November 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
This finding lends credence to other research from China that shows people were getting sick in Wuhan in November and early December. One analysis, based on satellite images of Wuhan hospitals and online searches for COVID-19 symptoms in the area, suggested the virus may have started circulating there as early as late summer.
According to an April report, 13 of the 41 original cases had no link to the market — which suggests the market wasn’t the origin site of the pandemic.
The WHO team confirmed the virus didn’t make its initial jump from animals to humans at the Huanan market. Evidence suggests the virus was circulating elsewhere in Wuhan before the market outbreak happened, Liang Wannian, a member of China’s National Health Commission who assisted with the WHO investigation, said in a press conference Tuesday.
Hong Kong health authorities are taking no chances with a mysterious outbreak of viral pneumonia in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, warning of symptoms similar to Sars and bird flu as they step up border screening and put hospitals on alert.
“The situation in Wuhan is unusual, and we are not sure about the reasons behind the outbreak yet,” said Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said after an urgent night-time meeting with officials and experts on New Year’s Eve. “Since we are now in the holiday season, and Hong Kong has close transport ties with Wuhan, we must stay alert.”
Seeds of confusion were planted early! Mask? Or no mask!? Human transmission! Or safe!
As the year 2019 ended an “unidentified” virus was identified in Wuhan.
New Years celebrations ushered in the roaring 20s of the 21st century.
Meanwhile, backstage, officials were scrambling for answers.
The cause of mysterious pneumonia cases in the Chinese city of Wuhan remains unknown, health authorities in the city said Sunday, as the number of infected people rose to 59 from 44 on Friday.
Seven of the sick are listed as critically ill, down from 11 on Friday. The number of close contacts of cases under medical observation has risen to 163.
Sunday’s statement, the third from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission about the incident, is the first to give information about when people became infected. The first person known to have become ill began to show symptoms on Dec. 12 and the last date of symptom onset among the sick was Dec. 29, the statement said.
But the rest of the press information aged even worse, a clear sign that early reports were taking what China was releasing as fact.
A NEW JERSEY mayor claimed he had COVID in November 2019.. the media at the time called his claim unfounded. “I was definitely feeling sick when I was there, and fought my way through it,” he told NJ Advance Media on Thursday. After returning home Nov. 21 from the convention, Melham said a doctor diagnosed his worsening symptoms — including a 102-degree fever, chills, hallucinations and a sore throat that ended up lasting for three weeks — as a bad case of the flu. “I have never been sicker in my entire life,” Melham said, though he acknowledged that he did not have the respiratory problems often associated with the coronavirus.
ABC NEWS reported that intelligence was looking at a spreading virus in November 2019. “”The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing,” the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. “But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on.””
A report in September 2019 talked about interesting symptoms of the vaping epidemic.. Respiratory symptoms reported by patients included shortness of breath, pain associated with breathing and a cough. Other symptoms included fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, the release said. But the cases displayed “no clear infectious cause and all required hospitalization.”
Dr Li Wenliang was an active user of Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, over the past 10 years. He posted his last words on February 1: “Today the nucleic acid test result turns positive,” he wrote of the test that confirmed he had Covid-19. “The dust has settled, and the diagnosis is finally confirmed.”
THERE HAVE BEEN RUMORS FOR YEARS ABOUT THE BEHAVIOR OF JOSS WHEDON ON VARIOUS MOVIE SETS.. Now the Buffy stars are coming back from the dead to slay..
Charimsa Carpenter expressed dismay over Whedon’s behavior on the set of BUFFY.. she played a high school cheerleader Cordelia Chase in three seasons if BUFFY and five seasons of ANGEL. She alleged that Joss Whedon was abusive towards her on the set…
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg have publicly expressed support for their former co-star Carpenter ..
Saying she could “no longer be silent” after previously making “excuses for his behaviour”, the actress claimed Whedon “abused his power” during the series’ run, including “ongoing, passive-aggressive threats to fire” her, and discriminating against her after became pregnant in 2002.. She alleged that Whedon called her in for a meeting in which he asked whether she was going to “keep it”, before describing her as “fat” to colleagues and putting stress on her pregnancy by making her work a late-night shoot as a “retaliatory” measure.
Several religious websites were shocked to learn that Tom Brady considers his wife a good witch..
Even more, the 7-time Super Bowl champion player also said his wife Gisele erects altars and performs rituals so he will win.. something he claims he “stopped questioning a long time ago.”
Gisele apparently has Tom Brady “protection stones” to secure his fate..
When this information was presented to the consuming masses in 2019, Brady had just won his 6th Super Bowl while playing for the New England Patriots.. He told media,
“She always makes a little altar for me at the game, because she just wills it so much,” Brady said. “So she put together a little altar for me that I can bring with pictures of my kids, and I have these little special stones and healing stones and protection stones, and she has me wear this necklace, and take these drops she makes, and I say all these mantras, and I stopped questioning her a long time ago.”
While some have pondered few have spoken about the need for regular COVID vaccines..
“Unfortunately, as [the virus] spreads it can also mutate,” he told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell during a Healthy Returns Spotlight event. “Every time it mutates, it’s almost like another click of the dial so to speak where we can see another variant, another mutation that can have an impact on its ability to fend off antibodies or to have a different kind of response not only to a therapeutic but also to a vaccine.”
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Meanwhile, other vaccine related news is making rounds.. there are fears that some who received the Moderna shot have developed a rare blood disorder. While more investigation and medical research is necessary, the New York TIMES article about the possibility have caused alarm.. Denise Grady writes of the fear, but the battle against bad data:
More than 31 million people in the United States have received at least one dose, and 36 similar cases had been reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, VAERS, by the end of January. The cases involved either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, the only two authorized so far for emergency use in the United States. But the reporting system shows only problems described by health care providers or patients after vaccination, and does not indicate whether the shots actually caused the problems.
The AP report on a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It found that while 67% of Americans plan to get vaccinated or have already done so, 15% are certain they won’t and 17% say probably not. Many expressed doubts about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness..
