Good morning. 
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:34 AM and sunset 8:27 PM, for 14h 53m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM (canceled).
On this day in 64, the Great Fire of Rome causes widespread devastation and rages on for six days, destroying half of the city.
Recommended for reading in full —
Jennifer Rubin reports Biden is right. Purveyors of vaccine disinformation are killing people:
President Biden hit the nail on the head Friday in response to a question about platforms such as Facebook that amplify scientifically false anti-vaccines claims, and deter people from getting lifesaving shots. “They’re killing people,” he said. “I mean they really, look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that’s — they’re killing people.”
One can quibble over whether Facebook or a mendacious Fox News host actually affects an individual’s decision to avoid vaccination, but it is hard to deny they can reinforce life-threatening behavior. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
Once more playing the right-wing gotcha game, Fox News’s Peter Doocy on Friday, ostensibly in response to a comment made by White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the handful of people on Facebook who promote most anti-vaccine content on the platform, demanded to know why the White House is spying on people’s social media profiles. That was a ridiculous, demonstrably false assertion. Perhaps if Fox News personnel paid attention to credible news accounts, they would be less inclined to make such wild accusations.
NPR, for example, reported: “Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.” The report cited Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, who told NPR: “The ‘Disinformation Dozen’ produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.” This is not the government “spying” on people or suppressing free speech. This is the administration reiterating independent research based on information in the public domain.
Psaki addressed the obviously false premise of Doocy’s question. “We’re in regular touch with all of you and your media outlets … as we are in regular touch with social media platforms. This is publicly open information, people sharing information online. Just as you are all reporting information on your news stations,”she said.
Bethany Dawson reports 20% of Americans believe the conspiracy theory that microchips are inside the COVID-19 vaccines, says YouGov study:
A new study has found that 1-in-5 Americans believe that it is “definitely true” or “probably true” that there is a microchip in the COVID-19 vaccines.
The study by YouGov in conjunction with The Economist has found that 30-44-year-olds are most likely to believe this widely debunked conspiracy, with 7% of people from this age group saying that it is “definitely true” and 20% of them saying it is “probably true.”
Less than half of people surveyed (46%) said that it is “definitely false.”
The conspiracy suggesting that vaccines are a tool to implant microchips into people has been widespread across the globe, acting as one of the major tales of misinformation that has punctuated the pandemic.
There has never been any evidence to support the idea that microchips are a part of the vaccine rollout.
Despite this, false videos and content describing the false-microchip idea in great detail continue to circulate and find an audience on social media.