There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Friday, October 27, 2017

Linkee-poo waddles to the weekend

It's been a long damn week.

"A visitor from interstellar space has likely been spotted in our solar system for the first time ever." Calm down everyone, it's just a asteroid. Although I believe that's what people initially thought the space-arc was in Rendezvous With Rama.

Ever walk into a Wilson's store and think, "Wow, this is how I'd like to be buried." Well, there are leather coffins. (Grokked from John)

"McGee writes that the voodoo we see in the movies was lightly inspired by religion but is primarily the brainchild of Hollywood producers and long ago travel writers. And it has a very specific purpose…" And that would be racial coding.

"Five years after Superstorm Sandy was supposed to have taught the U.S. a lesson about the dangers of living along the coast, disaster planning experts say there is no place in America truly prepared for climate change and the tempests it could bring." That's because we have a political party wedded to fossil fuel money who deny the climate is changing (and even more so that humans are responsible for it).

"Days after activists filed a lawsuit over the security of Georgia's election systems, the university housing the servers at the center of the case wiped them of all data." Yep. Well, the state has decided to use a different vendor and there is the possibility of the FBI having copies of the data, but that's a major violation. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)

"But even as (President Trump) vowed to alleviate the scourge of drug addiction and abuse that has swept the country… Mr. Trump fell short of fulfilling his promise in August to declare 'a national emergency' on opioids, which would have prompted the rapid allocation of federal funding to address the issue… His directive does not on its own release any additional funds… and the president did not request any, although his aides said he would soon do so." Given the pace on this, "soon" will mean sometime in January. Maybe. If his feet are still held to the fire. But he's also going to fight the opioid epidemic with "really tough, really big, really great advertising". Cause that worked so well in the Reagan era. So basically he still believes this is a failure of moral character, not a socio-economic reaction to circumstances, and then a health issue once the user is addicted. Just say no, kids. Keep in school.

"On the same day President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, the co-founder of a prominent opioid medication manufacturer has been arrested on fraud and racketeering charges." Okay, well that's interesting. And while the article doesn't state it, it would be my guess the investigation started before last year's election.

"Amid the Trump administration's efforts to arrest people living in the country illegally, the Department of Homeland Security is looking at locations for five new detention centers around the country that could hold thousands of detainees." Good news if you're in the private prison business.

"President Trump took to Twitter on Friday to deride political mega-donor Tom Steyer as 'wacky & totally unhinged,' firing back at a California billionaire who is funding and starring in a television ad campaign calling for Trump’s impeachment."

Remember how Trump said he was going to release all the documents relating to the assassination of JFK? "President Donald Trump has blocked the release of hundreds of records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, bending to CIA and FBI appeals, while the National Archives came out Thursday night with a hefty cache of others." Yeah, he didn't.

No comments: