"Katz, it’s probably worth noting, is from the Philadelphia suburbs of South Jersey, right in the heart of the hotspot of 'Mischief Night.' Mischief Night is so common as a term there, so built into the season and the place, that those of us from this area—I’m from southeastern Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia—continue to be shocked that this is a local phenomenon." Soaping windows, ah, the memories. (Grokked from Fred Clark)
"Our cultural reappraisal of the European witch-hunts began in the 1960s, when second wave feminists reinterpreted these pogroms as patriarchy’s 'original sin': brutal, three-century campaigns that destroyed ancient female practices and means of income, from traditional midwifery to the ale business (once dominated by ale women, who wore pointed hats to signify their trade and kept cats to chase rodents away). For Marxist theorist Silvia Federici, author of the seminal Caliban and the Witch, the witch-hunts were the last volley in the defeat of artisan peasants and the rise of capitalist wage labour. Here was women’s 'great historic defeat', on whose burning stakes the bourgeois ideals of dependent, domestic womanhood were forged." (Grokked from Deborah Beale)
"It's the stuff of nightmares, or science fiction: a parasite that wants to get inside an animal's mouth, where it attacks — and replaces — the tongue. That's the incredibly specific, terribly icky job of the tongue-eating louse… Luckily for humans, the isopod doesn't affect people. But the Atlantic croaker and other fish are less fortunate, as a recent Facebook posting by the Galveston Island State Park in Texas shows."
"An estimated 2,500 Chinook salmon died before they could reach their spawning grounds in Whatcom County in September… Lummi Nation officials say a triple whammy of warm water, low flows, and bacteria killed 80% or more of Chinooks returning to the South Fork Nooksack River."
"Across the country, employers are firing workers for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates. Some people are opting to quit their jobs rather than take the shot… These workers represent only a tiny fraction of overall employees, not even 1% in some workplaces. But it can add up to thousands of people in many states." I can't wait for it to hit my hospital. I expect that will be sometime near Thanksgiving.
"In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world’s poorest people."
"The past two months have seen the end of expanded unemployment benefits, many employers raising wages 20% or more, 8 million jobless people actively looking for work, and another 6 million people sidelined from the labor force… Although some employers and politicians blamed federal stimulus and relief money for keeping workers off the job, the end of those programs as early as June in some states has not brought about a noticeable bump in hiring, according to the latest Beige Book from the Federal Reserve." I think some of this story is a little bit hyperbolic, but an interesting take on the economy and employment.
"Earlier this year, an insistent cry arose from business leaders and Republican governors: Cut off a $300-a-week federal supplement for unemployed Americans. Many people, they argued, would then come off the sidelines and take the millions of jobs that employers were desperate to fill… Yet three months after half the states began ending that federal payment, there’s been no significant influx of job seekers."
"Yesterday I rented a boat and took the leader of one of Flexport's partners in Long Beach on a 3 hour of the port complex. Here's a thread about what I learned." Note the City of Long Beach is now allowing the stacking of containers to 5 high to help free chassises to start taking containers away from the ports. But it remains to be seen if the truck yards can actually stack them that high (most front loaders I know of don't go that high).
"Ethiopia has carried out two airstrikes in Tigray as the government intensifies a nearly week-old campaign of aerial bombardment against the rebellious forces who control most of the region."
"Israel's deputy foreign minister said on Sunday that the Biden administration may shelve its plan to reopen a U.S diplomatic mission for Palestinians in Jerusalem after Israel voiced opposition to such a move."
"A coalition of civil rights groups sued the state of Oklahoma on Tuesday over a law limiting instruction about race and gender in public schools. It is the first federal lawsuit to challenge a state statute implemented to prevent the teaching of critical race theory… The suit, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, argues that HB 1775, which took effect in May, violates students’ and teachers’ free speech rights and denies people of color, LGBTQ students and girls the chance to learn their history."
Oh look, actual voter fraud… "Speaking to a Las Vegas news station in November, Donald Kirk Hartle described being 'surprised' by the possibility that someone had stolen his dead wife’s mail-in ballot and used it to vote in the 2020 election. 'That is pretty sickening to me, to be honest with you,' he told KLAS-TV… But this week, the Nevada attorney general filed two charges of voter fraud against Mr. Hartle, 55, claiming that he was the one who forged his wife’s signature to vote with her ballot." Oh, wait… "Mr. Hartle, a registered Republican…" never mind. Move along people, nothing to see here.
"Former President Donald Trump's new social media platform, TRUTH Social, has been given 30 days to comply with the software's terms of license before its access is terminated. If it fails to comply, the platform may face legal action or have to rebuild from scratch."
"Rudy Giuliani's former associate Lev Parnas was convicted on six counts related to "influence buying" campaign finance schemes."
"Sean Parnell may have the backing of former President Donald Trump, but the Pennsylvania Republican also has significant personal baggage that is raising concerns about the GOP's ability to hold one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country next year." All of Trump's vetting comes down to who is willing to kiss his ass more.
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