Toni Morrison, and so it goes.
"Story tellers are often gifted with a steady drip of new ideas that could become stories. The often discussed issue, of course, is when that drip of ideas starts to become a distraction from our current project." (Grokked for Steve Brust, I think)
"There and Back Again", an essay by my friend Sarah Goslee. Fuck cancer.
"In hospitals around the world, the snakelike duodenoscope is regarded as an indispensable tool for diagnosing and treating diseases of the pancreas and bile ducts… But these fiber-optic devices have a remarkable drawback: Although they are inserted into the upper part of the small intestine through the mouth and constantly reused, they cannot be sterilized by the usual methods." They also break easily and the lenses get foggy quickly. I've been in procedures were we've gone through 3 to find on that works properly.
"The Philippines has declared a 'national dengue epidemic' after at least 622 people lost their lives from the mosquito-borne disease this year."
"Glaciologists at the University of California, Irvine, uncovered subtle movements of Antarctic ice with a kind of measurement called synthetic-aperture radar interferometric phase data. By using a satellite to bounce radar signals off a patch of ice, researchers can determine how quickly that ice is moving toward or away from the satellite. Combining observations of the same spot from different angles reveals the speed and direction of the ice’s motion along the ground." Ah, better maps to tell us just how boned we are.
"French inventor Franky Zapata made history as the first person to cross the English Channel by hoverboard, taking off Sunday from Sangatte on France's northern coast and touching down near Dover, England."
How goes Brexit? "Lawmakers who want to stop no deal are threatening to bring the government down with a vote of no confidence. That would likely trigger an election, but could that happen before Brexit?"
How goes the Trade War? "China’s central bank has firmly rejected the U.S. Treasury’s designation of Beijing as a currency manipulator, saying the accusation has 'seriously' undermined the international financial order and risked further market turmoil."
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both fell 3 percent. Oil crashed. The spread between three-month and 10-year Treasury rates—the “yield curve,” which has historically served as a prescient indicator of the economy—inverted to its widest level since 2007, the year the U.S. fell into the Great Recession." Don't worry, this morning (before market open) Dow futures are up.
"North Korea continued to ramp up its weapons demonstrations by firing two presumed short-range ballistic missiles into the sea Tuesday while lashing out at the United States and South Korea for continuing military exercises that the North says could derail fragile nuclear diplomacy."
"The United States has the 28th-highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world: 4.43 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017 — far greater than what is seen in other wealthy countries." And I want you to look at the graph of the countries with the highest rates of violent gun deaths worldwide, notice anything familiar? Like the ethnicities we see seeking asylum in the US at our Southern Border.
"Facing pressure to take action after the latest mass shooting in the U.S., Ohio’s Republican governor urged the GOP-led state Legislature Tuesday to pass laws requiring background checks for nearly all gun sales and allowing courts to restrict firearms access for people perceived as threats." Yeah, they won't pass here in Ohio.
"US authorities are investigating the shootings in El Paso that left 22 people dead as a possible case of 'domestic terrorism'. How big a threat is this kind of terror and how is the US combating it?… Police believe the white suspect, Patrick Crusius, drove hundreds of miles across Texas to a Hispanic-majority city to carry out his attack."
"Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine heard it during a Sunday night vigil for victims of the mass shooting in Dayton. His speech was partly drowned out by many in the large crowd repeatedly shouting, 'Do something!'" Don't worry, even crippled as it is, the NRA is still a powerful force in politics and (with the help of Russian money) will continue to influence US politics. Nothing important will happen. Not even a s secondary benefit of increased services for mental health.
And I'll just repeat one of my tweets here. "For anyone harboring (or knows someone) the thoughts of, '2nd amendment is there so the government is afraid of us/we can overthrow a tyrant' look at Dayton. He had a semi-automatic AND body armor. Yet police shot him dead in 1 minute. Do you think government is afraid of you?"
"Ten new pro-gun laws will take effect in Texas in four weeks, less than a month after 22 people died in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso." Because Texas. Also, the process is already politicized by the gun-rights side of the argument. They just don't want to cede that ground.
"Cesar Sayoc, the Florida bodybuilder and nightclub bouncer who mailed inoperative pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and media figures seen as critical of President Trump, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a federal judge in New York on Monday."
"Authorities say a 55-year-old Florida man pulled a gun on a late-arriving furniture delivery team, saying he’s 'shot people for less.'" Good thing this member of our well-regulated militia had a gun to protect himself from the surge of late delivery people so he can enjoy more freedom. I'm sure he was just "standing his ground."
"'Service providers, device manufacturers, and application developers are developing and deploying encryption that can only be decrypted by the end user or customer, and they are refusing to provide technology that allows for lawful access by law enforcement agencies in appropriate circumstances,' Barr proclaimed." Uh, yeah, Bob.
"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign tweeted out a photo of satirical tombstones over the weekend, including one featuring an election opponent’s name, hours after the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that claimed the lives of 22 people." Of course he's not worried about the timing or the visual. This is just standard GOP tactics.
"Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday night after a photo surfaced on social media, showing a group of young men 'groping and choking' a cardboard cutout of the freshman congresswoman — while wearing shirts that read 'Team Mitch.'"
"The conservative group Judicial Watch on Monday announced a legal challenge to California's new law that prevents President Trump from appearing on the state's 2020 primary ballot unless he discloses his tax returns."
"White House senior adviser Stephen Miller wasn't getting an immigration regulation he wanted. So he sent a series of scorching emails to top immigration officials, calling the department an "embarrassment" for not acting faster… The regulation in question would allow the Department of Homeland Security to bar legal immigrants from obtaining green cards if they receive certain government benefits. The rule will likely be released in the coming days, according to a pair of current and former Trump officials briefed on the timeline." Himler without the whimsy. Remember how the Trump administration came in on a platform of no new regulations? Yeah. That was only about business polluting and economically raping their employees. For everybody else, we're fucked. Conservatives are all about regulations, when it's about you and me.
"In the 2 1/2 years that Trump has been in office, his administration has appointed nearly 1 in 4 of the nation's federal appeals court judges and 1 in 7 of its district court judges."
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