Cold Archives - Event Decor Supply

Posted on 17 April 2022 by admin

‘SNL’: Bowen Yang’s Easter Bunny and Famous People Parodies Do Current Events Jokes in Cold Open (Video)

It’s Easter weekend and so it is that “SNL” kicked off its latest episode with an Easter-themed cold open. Well, ostensibly, as the Easter theme really just provided a different way for “SNL” to run through a grab bag of celebrity impressions and mildly amusing jokes about recent events without any real point other than “hey, remember this thing that happened?”

Also yes, James Austin Johnson’s Trump showed up because, we don’t know, apparently there is a law that says Trump is the only president “SNL” is allowed to notice anymore? But, Bowen Yang played the Easter Bunny, and he’s always great, and Cecily Strong’s impression of Marjorie Taylor Greene at least had some teeth, which was fun.

So, Yang’s Easter Bunny started it off with some jokes about how maybe he’s actually at Coachella on drugs, inroduces himself as the “freakiest man-sized bunny with no-backstory” who doesn’t use elf slave labor like Santa. Then he says that Easter is “about renewal and rebirth,” which is why he invited “people form all walks of life” to detail their hopes for Easter.

Tiffany Cross’ MSNBC Panel in Hysterics Over ‘Atlanta’ Scene Satirizing White People’s Nervousness Over Reparations (Video)

Of course, they turned out to not be from “all walks of life,” which might have been interesting, just from recent headlines. First up was Kate McKinnon as Anthony Fauci for some jokes about COVID-19.

Next was Cecily Strong as Greene, who had two pretty good jokes at the expense of the extremist right wing politician.

The first was, “I’ve been saying to my Muslim and Jewish colleagues, ‘happy Easter.”

The second came at the end of her appearance when she said “happy Easter and God bless Russia, I mean America.”

Next, Chris Redd came out as New York Mayor Eric Adams, playing him as a vaguely sexual harass-y weirdo. But, the joke had teeth when Redd mocked the way the NYPD and Mayor Adams have gloated about catching the Brooklyn subway shooter.

“We got him. We got the shooter. Sure it took 30 hours, and the suspect turned himself in, but we got him. Case closed,” Redd joked.

This was followed by Mikey Day as Elon Musk, who joked that he wanted to buy Easter for $43 billion peeps. Next was Chloe Fineman as Britney Spears, followed by Kyle Mooney as “Jesus Christ… just kidding I’m Jared Leto.” And finally, Johnson showed up to do his increasingly exhausting Trump impression.

‘Outer Range’ Creator Answers Burning Questions About Episodes 1 and 2

That’s about it. And you can watch parts of it Below.

But first, real talk: Johnson’s impression is quite amazing, we obviously think he has some talent. But it’s 2022. Literally, it’s 20 – [f-word]ing 22. It’s been 13 months since Joe Biden, a guy with many things to make fun of or even just notice exists and is running the country, took office. He’s even been in the news for something other than “calling in to Fox News and saying bigoted stuff and lies.” And Johnson, who by the way is very talented, could even do the impression.

Yet for some reason, “SNL” still does several-minutes-long *Trump* bits like it’s 2017 and we’re all still processing the fact that the electoral college exists. Who can say why but if we’re being honest, it would be nice to have like, even a month off. Like maybe limit Trump parodies to when he actually does something newly weird, or alarming, or tries to overthrow the election again, or when he inevitably runs in 2024.

Anyway:

Posted on 19 March 2022 by admin

Minnesota seeing more big rain events, less extreme cold

RENVILLE, Minn. — Starting Wednesday afternoon and continuing into the night, the rains fell.
One day later, the August 11, 2016 headline in the West Central Tribune summed up the flooding that resulted throughout much of Willmar as a “1,000 year event.”

Expect more of them.

Pete Boulay, climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said we are seeing an increasing frequency of mega-rainfall events.

Boulay, and Todd Peterson, of the Sand County Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa, were featured speakers at the Hawk Creek Watershed Project’s annual meeting on March 9 in Renville.

Boulay said the state has been seeing temperatures rise by an average of one-half degree each decade.

Despite last year’s drought, Boulay said our weather has otherwise been trending wetter and warmer. The change is most pronounced since the 1970s. Our weather in the 1950s and 1960s was more benign or consistent, he said.

While variability and big swings remain the Minnesota norm, there are obvious trends based on more than 100 years of weather data.

During the winter, we are seeing fewer cold extremes. He pointed to the records kept by the Opjorden family at their home outside of Milan since 1897. Luther Opjorden, who continues the practice his grandfather started, records fewer days with low temperatures of minus-30 or minus-40 degree temperatures compared to his father or grandfather.

That might seem like a good thing, but Peterson and Boulay both noted that those bitter cold days are beneficial to agriculture and forestry in the state. They help keep in check a wide variety of pests, especially invasives like the Emerald Ash Borer.

We experienced some of our wettest years from 2010-2019. Areas in the Hawk Creek watershed recorded a “surplus” of moisture over the norm ranging from 30 to 50 inches during this time frame.

Our recent drought began showing itself in late 2020, but a surplus of moisture in the ground helped carry crops through the season. The drought we experienced from late 2020 and through 2021 until fall was the worst since 1987-89, according to Boulay. One of the worst droughts ever was the “one hit wonder” in 1976, which was followed by the 1987-89, 2012 and 2021 droughts.

Moisture levels in western Minnesota are recovering. Soil moisture and stream flows are back to normal, although lake levels have not yet fully rebounded from the 2021 drought, according to Boulay. Parts of eastern Minnesota are still drier than the norm. He also pointed out that to the west into South Dakota, the drought conditions continue.

Peterson, with the Sand County Foundation, said the changing climate adds to the urgency needed to adopt farming practices that reduce erosion and benefit soil health. He said we continue to lose our topsoil at 23 times the rate that soil can be formed by natural processes. Mega-rain events and other trends exacerbate the soil losses. In Iowa, the rate of topsoil loss has actually increased.

In the last 40 years, we have been losing an average of five tons of topsoil per acre per year on cultivated ground. That amounts to the thickness of a dime per year. Stack 40 dimes on top of one another and the loss is put into perspective. “We’ve lost half of our topsoil, folks,” said Peterson.

The Sand County Foundation was founded by conservationist Aldo Leopold, and focuses on working with the owners of private lands. Roughly 50 percent of the land in the U.S. is private and 70 percent of that is in agricultural use, he pointed out.

Three-fourths of the sediment the Mississippi River carries as its leaves Minnesota for the Gulf of Mexico comes from the Minnesota River basin, he said.

Big rainfall events like this August 10-11, 2016 event in Willmar are increasing in frequency, according to state climatologist Pete Boulay. The former S & F Furniture store in Willmar was among the local businesses that had to deal with flood waters from the rain event. Boulay spoke at the Hawk Creek Watershed Project annual meeting on March 9.

Posted on 15 March 2022 by admin

Resurging COVID-19 events related to cold-chain food or packaging contamination

Study: Time course and epidemiological features of COVID-19 resurgence due to cold-chain food or packaging contamination. Image Credit: Sorn340 Studio Images/Shutterstock

In a recent study published in the latest issue of the Biomedical Journal, researchers reviewed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resurgence events in China related to frozen food and packaging contaminated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

They identified one of the weak links of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic where patient zero often remained hidden and was hard to detect, such that the infectious disease outbreak was apparent only after a while and by that time had spread uncontrollably. The current review findings could help devise more effective COVID-19 mitigation and intervention strategies for the future.

Background

After the first COVID-19 outbreak of late 2019 in Wuhan, China, several incidences of COVID-19 resurgence events related to frozen food or packaging contamination have been reported as China imports frozen food from countries where the COVID-19 epidemic is ongoing.

Most of these events reported since July 2020 traced back to frozen shrimp imported from Ecuador. Later, in September 2020, the live SARS-CoV-2 virus was isolated from the outer packaging of imported frozen cod carried by the two stevedores found to be SARS-CoV-2-positive during a routine nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) testing of the personnel in Qingdao Port, China. According to the authors, this event is the first known case where live SARS-CoV-2 was detected on cold-chain food in the world, confirming that it can survive on cold-chain food packaging and spread through cross-border transportation.

Perhaps SARS-CoV-2 itself is not responsible for the material surface contamination. In lieu, the enclosed and highly humid environment of food packaging and processing facilities and transportation favors the material-to-human SARS-CoV-2 spread. To date, epidemiological features of such COVID-19 outbreaks and the risk of this transmission route remain unclear.

In the present study, researchers conducted a literature search on the official website of the Centers for Disease Control of China and local authorities to identify COVID-19 resurgence events related to cold-chain food or packaging contamination. Additionally, they gathered the relevant epidemiological events and laboratory evidence to support their work.

Incidences of COVID-19 resurgence in China

On August 6th, 2020, in Yingkou, Liaoning Province, China, three packaged food samples were SARS-CoV-2-positive, whereas all 43 employees and 306 personnel of the enterprise tested SARS-CoV-2-negative in the NAAT and antibody tests. This finding led researchers to one of the most intriguing findings of this literature review that SARS-CoV-2 does not transmit via eating or buying cold-chain food products. Thus, it is evident that only the port staff, especially the stevedores, were at high risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 as they came in direct contact with virus-contaminated materials and needed COVID-19 vaccination on priority.

Further, this finding led to the understanding that successful COVID-19 transmission to humans occurs through the material surface only when – i) a human (host) comes in direct contact with the SARS-CoV-2-contaminated material surface, including food packaging and ii) the human carrier sheds the virus to the surface.

Interestingly, SARS-CoV-2 stays viable (live) and stable on material surfaces, such as cardboard and plastic, for days, particularly under refrigerated (4°C) and frozen (-10 to -80°C) conditions; however, when it finds another human body through direct contact, it rapidly disseminates via human-to-human transmission.

Incidences of COVID-19 resurge in other countries

A rather popular COVID-19 resurgence event occurred in Auckland, New Zealand in August 2020. After 102 consecutive days of zero local cases of COVID-19 in Auckland, authorities reported four lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in one Auckland household with no overseas travel history. Notably, one of the SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals in this household worked with a cold-chain company.

Within two days, three more employees tested SARS-CoV-2-positive, and seven family members of these cold-chain workers also tested positive. By October 2020, there were 179 origin-unknown cases with a C.12 lineage of SARS-CoV-2, designated as the outbreak of Auckland August Cluster.

Likewise, similar outbreaks have occurred in several other countries, including Australia, Japan, Germany, and the United States, among workers of food processing facilities.

Additionally, there have been multiple cruise ship outbreaks of norovirus in the United States between July and October 2019. The present food provisioning review traced this infection to imported frozen raspberries from China, which then had to be recalled. Workplace conditions, such as prolonged close contact with coworkers, shared workspace and transportation, and congregate housing, also add to the risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

According to the data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States, between March 1^st and May 31^st, 2020, there were 28,364 reported cases and 132 deaths among workers in 382 meat and poultry processing facilities in several US states. Often these workplaces were crowded and highly humid, overall, conducive for human-to-human, human-to-material, and material-to-human transmissions.

Conclusions

To conclude, the study highlights the significance of surveying materials and the entire territory where imported products arrive as frequent human testing alone does not suffice. Additionally, the study data suggest that regular sampling and proper disinfection of imported products are effective ways to detect SARS-CoV-2 and prevent its spread on material surfaces.

In 2021, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China issued a series of technical guidance for the prevention of COVID-19 transmission related to cold-chain food and controlled occurrence of several community-level outbreaks with the potential to turn into an epidemic.

Posted on 15 February 2022 by admin

It’s Too Cold Even for Some Winter Olympic Events, Forcing Rescheduling

The four-man biathlon relay race scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday has been moved to 2:30 p.m. due to exceptionally cold temperatures at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Stadium.

During the relay biathletes ski three laps and shoot twice, meaning they will spend about 20 to 30 minutes out in the cold on the track — in addition to the time they spend waiting for their turn. They also risk frostbite on their hands, since their trigger fingers are exposed while shooting.

At 11 a.m., the temperature at the stadium was 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit and was expected to drop to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit by 6 p.m. That means the racers would face dangerous conditions.

Those were air temperatures and did not take into consideration the wind, which was blowing at almost 5 mph. The wind chill makes the actual temperature feel closer to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.