FEMA boss: Hurricane season? What hurricane season?
It's National Itch Day!
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled on Monday after the head of the U.S. disaster agency said he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources familiar with the situation.
In the wake of deep cuts, NOAA says it will hire for ‘mission-critical’ weather service positions. Hundreds of weather forecasters were fired and other federal NOAA employees were put on probationary status in February, followed by a later round of more than 1,000 cuts at the agency. By April, nearly half of NWS forecast offices had 20% vacancy rates. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also been affected.
Death by a thousand (paper) cuts… the GOP plan to kill Medicaid. (Video)
A Texas cop searched license plate cameras nationwide for a woman who got an abortion. Authorities in Texas performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras while looking for a woman who they said had a self-administered abortion, including cameras in states where abortion is legal.
The secret history of Trump’s private cellphone. Trump treats his direct line to the world as an enhancement of—not a risk to—his presidency. “I’ve been on the phone with him before, and he’s just said, ‘I’ve got to go. I have someone from another country calling,’” an outside adviser told us. “He doesn’t even know which country. He just sees the number and thinks, This might be a foreign leader I want to talk to.” (Gift article)
Elon Musk’s real drug problem is much worse than you think. What happens when you mix ketamine, ecstasy, and mushrooms with far-right ideology? Spoiler: The results aren’t pretty.
Find out how much time it would take for you to make as much as these highly paid CEOs. Come to think of it, don’t. It’s depressing.
Shirt of the day (click on image)
KGB Quote of the Day:
There is nothing to be learned from history anymore. We're in science fiction now.
--Allen Ginsberg (Wikipedia link)
(More Allen Ginsberg quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
Chimborazo Day, Impersonate Authority Day, Love Conquers All Day, National Chocolate Macaroon Day, National Egg Day, National Itch Day, Repeat Day, World Bicycle Day, World Cider Day, and World Clubfoot Day. Details here and here.
On This Day:
1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States was completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.
1937 – Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, married Wallis Simpson. (Video)
1943 – The Zoot Suit Riots began in Los Angeles. (Video)
1956 – Rock and roll music was banned at public gatherings by Santa Cruz, California. (Video)
1965 – Gemini IV was launched, the second crewed spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini and the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Pilot Ed White performed the first American spacewalk. (Video)
1967 – Aretha Franklin's cover of the Otis Redding song "Respect" reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Video)
1969 – The last original episode of Star Trek aired on NBC. (“Turnabout Intruder”). Alas, it was a stinker. (Video)
1985 – "Larry King Live" debuted on CNN, airing each weeknight through December, 2010. (Video)
1988 – "Big," a film directed by Penny Marshall and starring Tom Hanks, premiered in the US. (Video)
(For comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1925 – Tony Curtis, American actor (died 2010) (Video)
1926 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (died 1997) (Video)
1929 – Chuck Barris, American game show host and producer (died 2017) (Video)
1936 – Larry McMurtry, American novelist and screenwriter (died 2021) (Video)
1951 – Jill Biden, American educator, First Lady of the United States (Video)
1961 – Lawrence Lessig, American lawyer, academic, and author, founded the Creative Commons (Video)
1967 – Anderson Cooper, American journalist and author
(That time I did the weather with Anderson Cooper and Juju Chang on ABC World News Now: Video)
(Complete list of today’s birthdays.)
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Old KGBReport.com archives (not the stuff here on Substack)
Current weather in South Park, PA (Personal station on Weather Underground)
KGB Quotations Database Search (KGB Quote-A-Matic)
DCL Dialog Online (an archive of my DCL Dialogue columns which appeared in DEC Professional (later renamed Digital Age) magazine from March, 1987 through December, 1995.)