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We have arrived at the third Friday in September. September, that most blesséd of months, when superior people are born.

By the time this scheduled post publishes on FontFolly.Net, there may well be significant rain falling just outside my windows.

This was a more difficult Friday Five to assemble than usual. I could have easily filled two more categories! I could have filled out a separate category for the Nicki Minaj cousin’s friends swollen testicles stories alone!

Anyway, it’s time for this week’s Friday Five in which I bring you: three stories that need special categories, plus the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about deplorable people, five stories about the pandemic, and five stories about vaccine lies (plus something I wrote and some notable obituaries).

This Week in the Children’s Shows from Times Gone By:

Why Is Everyone Freaking Out About Former ‘Blue’s Clues’ Host Steve?

This Week in My Favorite NFL Player Who Isn’t a Seahawk:

Carl Nassib forces game-winning fumble as Raiders win first-ever NFL game with out gay player

Carl Nassib’s debut as an openly gay NFL player is a big deal – Los Angeles Times

Stories of the Week:

At 101, This Woman From Maine Is Still Hauling Lobsters With No Plans To Stop

NASA Is Launching A New Telescope That Could Offer Some Cosmic Eye Candy

Why Is America So Bad at Keeping People Alive? – This story is NOT about COVID.

Ancient spider caring for her offspring is trapped in 99 million-year-old amber

Some birds learn to recognize calls while still in their eggs – Prenatal sound perception is more widespread than previously thought, new research suggests

Stories of Interest to Queers and Our Allies:

Twitter is celebrating the start of #BiWeek – Over half of LGB people identify as bisexual I need to get myself a t-shirt or a button that says, "I’m not bi, but my husband is."

Revisiting the gay dentist framed as an AIDS murderer: He “didn’t do it.”

DOJ expands probe into anti-LGBTQ prison violence in Georgia after 44 murders in the past year – The DOJ is investigating allegedly deplorable conditions in Georgia prisons, like inmates wielding machetes and toilets overflowing because staff turned them off

New Zealand bill to ban LGBTQ conversion practices receives record 100,000 submissions – Activists hopeful the majority of submissions will be in favour, amid previous signs of support and large social media campaign

Twitch sues users who targeted LGBTQ gamers with threatening ‘hate raids’ – The trolls doxxed LGBTQ and POC Twitch users, providing their personal information and leaving links to gory videos on their chat streams

This Week in Haters, Deplorables, and Liars:

Colorado pastor who mocked AIDS deaths and spread vaccine conspiracy theories dies from COVID-19

MyPillow CEO Repeatedly Tried to Get Ads Back on Fox. They Keep Rejecting Him

Former Republican House Speaker reaches settlement for molesting teen boy – Disgraced Republican Dennis Hastert is out of prison, but he’s still on the hook for the hush money he promised to pay the victim

OR HS Students Engaged In Virtual ‘Slave Trade’ Of Black Students – Oregon’s Newberg High School has banned Black Lives Matter and Pride symbols in its school as too divisive but its students were just caught engaging in a group chat “joke” that involved virtual slave trading of Black students

Who Had ‘Dan Quayle Saves The Republic’ On Their Bingo Card? – Mike Pence was under pressure from Trump not to certify the electoral college votes. He turned to former vice-president Dan Quayle for advice

This Week in the Pandemic:

Seattle area to require COVID-19 vaccine to enter indoor venues It’s the whole county, and we’re not the first in the nation to do this.

Republicans are still a bigger obstacle to vaccination than Black Americans

Unvaccinated COVID-19 hospitalizations cost taxpayers billions of dollars

Unvaccinated are 5X more likely to catch delta, 11X more likely to die – Three fresh CDC studies show vaccines holding up against delta

Delta variant vaccinated vs. unvaccinated: This new CDC chart shows how well COVID-19 vaccines work – Fully vaccinated individuals have a much greater chance of not being impacted by COVID-19, whether that impact is via infection, hospitalization, or death

This Week in Vaccine Misinformation:

Joy Reid To GOP: Your ‘Creepy Little’ COVID Cult Killed Your CA Recall – Joy Reid hilariously mocked Republicans’ love for COVID that is killing their politics along with many of their followers: “You may want to ingest horse dewormer and attend far too many funerals, but we, we don’t.”

NH State Rep Switches To Dem Over GOP’s Anti-Vax Nonsense – He said he had been content to ride out the rest of his term until state Republican leaders held a rally Tuesday in opposition to President Biden’s vaccine mandates for federal and private sector workers

Nicki Minaj is now fighting with Trinidad’s Health Minister & Joy Reid as MAGA crowd cheers her on – Nicki’s got a new group of friends who are rallying to her defense while the rest of the world calls out her blatant Trump-level lies bonus related link: Andrew Giuliani tweets his support of Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s swollen testicles

Dr. Peter Hotez Blasts Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham for Vax Disinformation: ‘Authoritarian Effort to Discredit Science’

Jimmy Kimmel Returns, Blasts Alex Jones Over Ivermectin Endorsement, Choice Of Beverage – “We’ve still got a lot of pandimwits out there”

In Memoriam:

Jane Powell, Spirited Star of Movie Musicals ‘Royal Wedding,’ ‘Seven Brides,’ Dies at 92

Jane Powell, Hollywood golden-age musicals star, dies at 92

Norm Macdonald, Comedian and ‘Saturday Night Live’ Star, Dies at 61

Things I Wrote:

Marriage Equality is a larger part of U.S. history than the confederacy