I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Linkee-poo Wednesday Jan 26

Peter Robbins, and so it goes.

"A SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon after spending almost seven years hurtling through space, experts say… The booster was originally launched from Florida in February 2015 as part of an interplanetary mission to send a space weather satellite on a million-mile journey."

"The center of our Milky Way galaxy is home to a multitude of intriguing features -- including nearly a thousand mysterious magnetic strands, according to a new telescope image… The pairs and clusters of strands stretch for nearly 150 light-years in length and are equally spaced. The bizarre structures are a few million years old and vary in appearance. Some of them resemble harp strings, waterfalls or even the rings around Saturn."

"A federal appeals court in Virginia heard a landmark case Tuesday that seeks to hold major fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in climate change. The court's decision in the case will have implications for a raft of similar cases brought by cities, counties and states across the country."

"The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, found that people who go on to develop long Covid have lower levels of certain antibodies in their blood soon after they are infected with the coronavirus."

"Two-thirds of people recently infected with the Omicron variant say they had already had Covid previously… The findings come from a large, continuing study, React, swab-testing thousands of volunteers in England… More work is needed to know how many are true reinfections - but the results reveal the groups that appear to be more likely to catch Covid again… They include healthcare workers and households with children or lots of members under one roof."

"But the drug is in short supply. The federal government controls distribution. It has shipped around 300,000 doses to health care providers and has ordered 1.2 million doses to date. Around 7 million people in the U.S. could benefit from the drug… The Department of Health and Human Services, which manages the process, did not respond to questions about supply and distribution… The scarcity has forced some doctors to run a lottery to decide who gets it."

"The Federal Reserve is expected to signal at its meeting this week that it is ready to raise interest rates as soon as March and that it will consider other policy tightening, reversing the easy policies it put in place to fight the pandemic."

"Treasury Department officials warned on Monday that this year's tax season will be a challenge once the IRS starts processing returns on January 24. That's largely due to the IRS' sizable backlog of returns from 2021. As of December 23, the agency had 6 million unprocessed individual returns — a significant reduction from a backlog of 30 million in May, but far higher than the 1 million unprocessed returns that is more typical around the start of tax season."

"Here’s how it works: two vehicles position themselves far enough apart to support the container, which is lowered by a crane. The vehicles then use their short- and long-range cameras to navigate the rails. Because each rail vehicle has everything it needs, it doesn’t have to be part of a long train. In theory, one container supported by two Parallel Systems vehicles could move from origin to destination by itself. In reality, though, they’ll likely end up traveling in platoons." Lots of talk about the train, very little about the rail infrastructure. So, again, solving the wrong end of the problem.

"The data allowed him to build a statistical model analyzing the change in reported property crimes in relation to the growth of the camps… 'On average, an increase in the number of tents and structures in (a homeless camp) is not associated with any increases in property crime — very close to zero,' Lanfear says… He's still finalizing his project, which has yet to be published, and he admits people may have trouble accepting his conclusion."

"Shane Lee Brown is suing the police departments in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nev., and several officers after they jailed him for six days, instead of a white man with a similar name who is taller, nearly twice as old and a convicted felon."

"The bill sponsored by Book, a Democrat, gets its first committee hearing Tuesday. It would strengthen Florida's revenge porn law by making it a felony to buy, sell or trade stolen sexually explicit images from someone's phone or other digital devices. It would also make disseminating altered or created sexually explicit images, known as deepfakes, a felony."

"Russia warned Wednesday it would quickly take 'retaliatory measures' if the U.S. and its allies reject its security demands over NATO and Ukraine, raising pressure on the West amid concerns that Moscow is planning to invade its neighbor." That's cute. You really forget how brinksmanship works when you don't do it all the time.

"Russian authorities have added imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and some of his top allies to the country's registry of terrorists and extremists, the latest move in a multi-pronged crackdown on opposition supporters, independent media and human rights activists." Stay safe, my Russian friends.

"Donald Trump had about $93 million in cash during the final year of his presidency, a sum substantially smaller than he had claimed to have in the bank in previous years, Forbes reported Monday." It's all a giant grift.

"A panel of federal court judges has blocked Alabama's new congressional map, drawn by Republican state lawmakers, from taking effect… In an opinion released late Monday, the judges sided with plaintiffs, including the ACLU of Alabama and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), writing that under the map, 'Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress.'"

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