DISPATCHES FROM ABC NEWS: Sunny Hostin Blames Climate Change For Solar Eclipse.

The View cohost Sunny Hostin believes that Monday’s solar eclipse, which has been known for decades when the exact date and time it would take place, only happened because of climate change.

Oh, did I say decades?

Sorry – I meant THOUSANDS of years in advance thanks to what is known as the Saros Series. A three-second Google search taught me that, but let’s not let facts get in the way of her spewing her cup of BS.

Hostin With Her Most Insane Rant Yet

“We’ve got a solar eclipse, we’ve got an earthquake… also, I learned that cicadas are coming!” Hostin said, as she didn’t have the time to do a quick Google pronunciation lookup of how to actually pronounce cicadas since she butchered that as well.

“Si-CAH-Dahs ar coming!” Hostin said again, prompting Whoopi Goldberg to correct her as “Si-CAY-Duhs” and the TV control room executive producer probably throwing their hands up in the air.

It didn’t stop there though. “For the first time in a hundred years or so [the cicadas are coming], for the first time in many, many years actually” before Whoopi then had to cut Hostin off again. “No, no. Every 17 years this happens,” Goldberg cut in as if she was back filming Sister Act and scolding a student.

“That’s not what I read,”noting before then brilliantly… and I mean brilliantly, saying the solar eclipse, earthquake and cicadas “would lead [people] to believe that climate change is happening.”

… I’m sorry, what?

After Rosie’s fire doesn’t melt steel line, Joy Behar exclaiming that Antifa doesn’t exist, and Whoopi’s belief that apparently Stanley Kubrick filmed the moon landings, America’s Newspaper of Record is left with little choice: NASA Sends Rover To Search For Intelligent Life On ‘The View.’

To paraphrase Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song,” pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘Cause there’s bugger all down here at ABC.

COFFEE: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Drinking Coffee Might Reduce Risk of Colorectal Cancer Recurrence, Study Finds.

UNEXPECTEDLY: San Francisco’s Train System is Still Running on Floppy Disks.

In 1998, San Francisco installed the latest cutting-edge technology to run the train network: floppy disks. A quarter of a century later and the city’s transportation agency is still using the same system.

People under the age of 30 might not know what a floppy disk is; an archaic way of storing data (think USB stick). But the workers at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) sure do as they are still using obsolete tech to automate the movement of light rail vehicles.

“We were the first agency in the U.S. to adopt this particular technology but it was from an era when computers didn’t have a hard drive so you have to load the software from floppy disks onto the computer,” Mariana Maguire, SFMTA Train Control Project, tells ABC 7.

“It’s like if you lose your memory overnight, and every morning, somebody has to tell you hey ‘this is who you are and what your purpose is what you have to do today,’” adds Maguire.

The SMFTA uses five-inch floppy disks to automatically control trains inside the subway. “With each increasing year risk of data degradation on the floppy disks increases and that at some point there will be a catastrophic failure,” says SMFTA director Jeffrey Tumlin.

Flashback: “Shades of the New Yorker cover from 2013, which showed Obama with Gordon Gekko’s brick-sized cell phone and Kathleen Sebelius crossing her fingers while Jay Carney nervously inserted a five-inch floppy disk into the TRS-80-era Obamacare server. Not to mention the speeches that Newt Gingrich was giving during the heady Contract With America days of 1994 and 1995, when he would hold up in one hand a vacuum tube, and in the other a microchip. As he explained, vacuum tubes were still in use in some FAA-regulated Air Traffic Control towers in America.” As I wrote back in 2019 responding to a Bloomberg News article that exclaimed:

San Francisco rarely conjures images of creaky, decades-old technology, but that’s what’s running a key swath of its government, as well as those of cities across the U.S.

“Now who’s being naive, Kay? When I lived in Silicon Valley, the numerous power outages were a reminder that the businesses trying to bring you the 21st century were reliant upon a power grid that, thanks to the NIMBY nature of Bay Area leftists, hadn’t been upgraded since the 1960s heyday of Pat Brown, Jerry’s dad.

HOW IT STARTED: Community groups pressure City Council members to defund Oakland police.

—ABC7 News, June 15th, 2020.

How it’s going: Oakland Crime Wave: Burglaries Nearly Doubled over Last Three Years as Arrests Cut in Half.

The city of Oakland has experienced a dramatic crime surge since 2020 as arrests plunge and the police department struggles to fill vacancies.

From 2020 to 2023 burglaries increased by 99 percent, motor-vehicle theft surged by 72 percent, robberies jumped by 53 percent and homicides went up 16 percent, according to a supplemental police report on the Oakland public safety committee’s April 9 agenda. Arrests plummeted by 50 percent over the same period.

The newly released data, first reported by the Center Square, demonstrates that the public-safety situation in Oakland has not significantly improved since the Oakland police department released a city-wide crime report at the end of 2023 showing that robberies in the city had spiked by 38 percent, burglaries went up 23 percent and motor-vehicle theft surged by 44 percent compared to the same period the previous year. An analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle found roughly one out of every 30 city residents was the victim of car theft last year.

Staffing levels at the Oakland police department have gone down from 749 in 2019 to 696 over the past year, according to the newly released data. Police are projecting approximately 91 retirees in 2024. Only 9.5 percent of Oakland police officers live within city limits and many come from nearby cities and counties. The Oakland police department staff is roughly a quarter black, white, and latino, reflecting the city’s population.

As crime surges and staffing levels fall, Oakland is facing a decline in arrests: Arrests dropped from 12,911 in 2016 to 5,576 last year, according to a report by the city’s finance department. The city went without a police chief for over a year, until mayor Sheng Thao (D) announced the appointment of Floyd Mitchell as the city’s police chief in late March. Mitchell will begin his duties in late April or early May after previously serving as the police chief of Lubbock, Texas.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco:

Traffic citations issued by SFPD are down 97% (!!) since 2014. This is alarming and it's part of why our streets are dangerous and reckless driving is tolerated.

We must enforce the law – this must change to save lives. Supervisors need to demand better. pic.twitter.com/pzcSH4mrb5

— Danny Sauter 李爾德 For Supervisor (@DannySauter) April 9, 2024

Gooder and harder, Bay Area.

BE PREPARED: ThermoPRO 3-in-1 Forehead, Ear, and Bottle Thermometer for Kids and Adults. #CommissionEarned

UNC LAUNCHES SCHOOL OF CIVIC LIFE AND LEADERSHIP. It chose Duke classicist and Civil Discourse leader Jed Atkins as inaugural dean, too, which is a good sign: “Students surveyed in Duke’s program, Atkins said, are more likely than other students to have a faculty member as a mentor, to be friends with someone with different beliefs and have a sense of purpose. He also said these students are less likely to be anxious or lonely.” The reaction to the school from some UNC faculty suggests that maybe they could stand having a couple of friends with different beliefs…

EV FAILURES: Edmunds bought a Fisker Ocean, warns others not to make the same mistake.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE INEVITABLE IS THAT IT ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAPPEN: Amateur performers embrace VR porn on Apple Vision Pro.

A LOVELY TRIBUTE FROM CHRIS QUEEN: Mountain Men: Oliver Anthony and My Dad.

VISIT: The Mighty 8th Air Force Museum.

WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT: Here’s How Biden’s EV Agenda Will Take From The Poor And Give To The Rich. “EVs benefit from direct subsidies, such as the IRA’s $7,500 consumer tax credit, but they also will increasingly benefit from a hidden cross-subsidy whereby manufacturers drop their prices and offset those losses by boosting prices of ICE vehicles, experts explained to the DCNF.”

IT SEEMS TO BE EVERYWHERE BUT THIS CASE IS EXTREME: The Rage of the Entitled White Woman. “Marcotte is so wrong on so many levels that her identification of male troubles as a product of the unrequited sexual tension of MAGA males is par for the course.”

READER FAVORITE: Yes4All Kettlebell Vinyl Coated Cast Iron. #CommissionEarned

CLEANIN’ UP THE TOWN: Dolton trustees hire former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as special investigator.

Dolton trustees have hired former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as a special investigator, to be paid $400 an hour and tasked with probing spending habits of Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard.

Henyard is likely to veto the action as illegal, and a letter from an attorney for the village threatened trustees with a lawsuit if they proceeded to hire Lightfoot.

The former mayor and former assistant U.S. attorney starts work Tuesday, probing what the trustees said is “excessive and unauthorized use of village funds” by Henyard that has resulted in Dolton having a deficit of more than $5 million.

There was loud clapping and cheering from an audience of approximately 200 residents after Lightfoot’s hiring was approved by four trustees who are at odds with Henyard and have repeatedly clashed with the mayor. Henyard and two other trustees did not attend Monday’s meeting.

Trustees also want Lightfoot to investigate a May 2023 trip to Las Vegas by Henyard, two village trustees and some village employees.

Henyard is not-so-affectionately known as the “worst mayor in America,” despite some fierce competition.

SPACE: What a total solar eclipse looks like from space: NASA shared the eerie view of moon’s shadow passing over Earth.

KILL YOUR TELEVISION: It’s Official: Your Roku Box Is the Work of the Devil.

NOW SOLVE THE CONTEMPORARY ONES: Early medieval money mystery solved.

CORN, POPPED: Democratic tensions over Israel threaten to boil over at Chicago convention. “I do think at the convention, for sure, I would be really surprised if there weren’t significant protests on this issue, and unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a lot that Biden can do between now and then to change that.”

HORMONAL NEWS: Exploring how oxytocin interacts with testosterone while humans play a game modeling intergroup conflict.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Pathetic Bush Republicans Don’t Grasp That They’re Vestigial and Won’t Be Making a Comeback.

WELL, GOOD: Pancreatic cancer vaccine prevents recurrence for three years in small trial.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Brazen NYC gangbanger who’s already racked up 9 arrests this year keeps getting cut loose due to woke bail reform. “Alleged Latin Kings member Emmanuel Santiago, 32, keeps ending up in cuffs even as he faces seven open cases in the Bronx on charges ranging from intent to sell dangerous drugs, grand larceny of cars, possession of weapons, and allegations of domestic violence, according to law enforcement sources.”

IT’S THE BRIBES, THREATS, AND LAWFARE ELECTION: Biden Announces New Plan to Bribe 25 Million Student Loan Borrowers.

GET IN SHAPE: ASICS Men’s Gel-Nimbus 26 Running Shoe. I wear the women’s version of this shoe and love how supportive it is if you have to walk on hard surfaces like streets or roads. #CommissionEarned

NORFOLK SOUTHERN REACHES $600 MILLION SETTLEMENT IN EAST PALESTINE TRAIN-DERAILMENT SUIT:

Norfolk Southern announced Tuesday it reached a $600 million settlement agreement to resolve all class-action lawsuits within a 20-mile radius of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment last year.

The settlement, if approved by a court, would result in compensation to individuals and small businesses impacted by the train derailment, and it would resolve personal-injury claims from within 10 miles of the incident. Norfolk Southern is not admitting guilt as part of the settlement.

“The agreement is designed to provide finality and flexibility for settlement class members.  Individuals and businesses will be able to use compensation from the settlement in any manner they see fit to address potential adverse impacts from the derailment,” Norfolk Southern said in a statement.

Norfolk Southern has provided over $100 million in community assistance to East Palestine and the surrounding areas to help residents recover from the train derailment. The plaintiffs of the class-action lawsuit said in a court filing Tuesday they will be filing a motion to have the judge approve the settlement within ten days, CNN reported.

Exit quote: “Former president Donald Trump and his supporters pointed to the accident and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s delayed visit to the area as another example of Democrats neglecting middle America. President Joe Biden only visited East Palestine earlier this year more than a year after the train derailment took place.”