Linkee-poo Saturday July 16

Ivanka Trump, and so it goes.

"People experiencing a mental health crisis have a new way to reach out for help in the U.S. Starting Saturday, they can simply call or text the numbers 9-8-8… Modeled after 911, the new three-digit 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is designed to be a memorable and quick number that connects people who are suicidal or in any other mental health crisis to a trained mental health professional."

"I just checked, and there are no Italian restaurants on Mars. So there goes one explanation for an odd object photographed by NASA's Perseverance rover on Tuesday. It isn't spaghetti. Nor is it a sea creature or a hair ball. It looks like a tangle of string or shredded material that's clinging together… The image comes from one of the rover's front-facing hazard avoidance cameras that keep an eye on the landscape to protect Percy when it's driving or using its robotic arm." And a stoic faced martian just off camera sheds a single tear.

"When Vincent Van Gogh was low on money he took to painting on both sides of the canvas, but over the years some of his reverse side paintings were covered up and lost. Now, another of his hidden self-portraits has been discovered, this time at the National Galleries of Scotland… The self-portrait was revealed during an X-ray of an 1885 painting by Van Gogh, Head of a Peasant Woman, as the museum was prepping for an upcoming exhibition on impressionism, which is scheduled to open at the end of the month."

"Jim Thorpe has been reinstated as the sole winner of the 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon in Stockholm — nearly 110 years after being stripped of those gold medals for violations of strict amateurism rules of the time."

"At least six people have died after a dust storm fueled by wind gusts topping 60mph caused a pileup on the Interstate 90 freeway in Montana, authorities said… At least 20 vehicles were involved in the crash on Friday evening. Sgt Jay Nelson of Montana highway patrol said authorities believed weather was the cause."

"Joe Manchin’s decision to kill off sweeping US climate legislation has been called 'nothing short of a death sentence' for younger people and a livable climate on Earth, amid an outpouring of anger and despair from activists, scientists and even many of the US Senator’s Democratic colleagues." At this point, if we could reduce CO2 emissions through the big things, we could continue some benefits that almost necessitate continued CO2 emissions. Things like beef production, some plastics, and maybe concrete. The more we delay, the more of those extras we must add to the mix when we eventually must decarbonize.

"President Joe Biden said on Friday that he will take executive action on climate change as talks among Senate Democrats on possible legislation faltered, and he encouraged them to pursue a smaller deal focused on health care, in part to lower health costs in the face of high inflation."

"Due to the current #heatwave, a lot has been happening this week for the French #nuclear power production." The waters are getting too hot to run the reactors at full capacity.

"The BA.5 omicron subvariant, which is now the most prevalent coronavirus strain in the United States, is four times more resistant to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study… The strain, which is considered 'hypercontagious,' according to the Mayo Clinic, is more defiant against messenger RNA vaccines, which include Pfizer and Moderna."

"A Texas man, not his 13-year-old son, was driving the pickup truck that crossed into the oncoming lane and struck a van carrying New Mexico college golfers, killing nine people, and he had methamphetamine in his system, investigators said Thursday." First reports are often wrong.

"Vladimir, whose surname has been removed due to the sensitive nature of the situation, is part of what he considers Russia’s 'second wave' of migration following the war.This includes those who took longer to prepare to leave the country — such as people with businesses or families who wanted to let their children finish the school year before leaving."

"Oksana Urbanska walked through the rubble in the center of her native city Thursday, voicing fury at what she described as a deliberate strike against civilian buildings, including a medical clinic and local shops."

"Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka's interim president Friday until Parliament elects a successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned after mass protests over the country's economic collapse forced him from office."

"Arizona Department of Corrections director David Shinn said Arizona communities would 'collapse' without cheap prison labor, during testimony before the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Thursday." This article on the Arizona prison system just keeps getting worse as you read it. JFC, all the people involved in setting up this system need to be investigated and at the very least removed from office. And their assumptions about the private prison ownership… "'You have to guarantee that they're going to have people there, and they're going to have a profit that they make, they're going to have income,' Kavanagh said. 'No one's going to enter into a contract when you can't guarantee the income that they expect. That's kind of based on basic business.'" No. That's exactly opposite of why the private prison system was initiated. Because "private industry" can "be more flexible" and act faster to changing conditions. If this isn't modern slavery wrapped in corruption, I don't know what it is. Cause it certainly ain't a penal system.

"Soon after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, dozens of prosecutors nationwide — including at least five in Texas, representing some of the state's most populous counties — declared they would not pursue charges against people who seek or provide abortions… In response, a group of conservative Texas legislators have hatched a plan to circumvent those local district attorneys: allow prosecutors from other parts of the state to enforce the laws for them." Cruelty is the point.

"But citing costs, the Postal Service’s plan to replace about 165,000 of the current gas guzzling delivery trucks includes just a fraction of EVs… Sixteen states — including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware — are now suing USPS over the plan. The Postal Service’s move has angered Democratic members of Congress, climate activists, and postal workers themselves."

"It’s difficult to summarize a 122-page plan, but these House Republicans made little effort to curtail their ambitions. If the Republican Study Committee’s plan were implemented, Social Security and Medicare would be partially privatized, food stamps would be slashed, Head Start would be phased out, Medicaid funding would be decimated, the Affordable Care Act would be weakened, labor unions would be undermined, the EPA would be gutted, abortion would be banned, birthright citizenship would be eliminated, Donald Trump’s border wall would be funded, and even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would see its doors permanently closed." What conservatives want. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)

"The road to building The Pryde, a Boston housing development aimed at LGBTQ+ seniors, has been surprisingly smooth. That's what made last weekend's homophobic vandalism all the more shocking… Among the slurs and death threats covering the perimeter of the construction site, which takes up nearly an entire city block of the Hyde Park neighborhood, were messages saying, 'We will burn this,' 'die slow,' and 'die by fire.'"

"A watchdog says the U.S. Secret Service deleted many of the text messages sent during a two-day period surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol… The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, told Congress the messages were deleted after his office asked for them." Someone's head will roll.

"The House panel investigating the attack on the Capitol issued a subpoena Friday to the Secret Service after a Homeland Security official briefed committee members about the Secret Service erasing text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021… In a letter to Secret Service Director James Murray, Committee chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the panel wanted any pertinent text messages and other records tied to Jan. 6. He said the request was being made after the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general notified congressional committees of allegations that the Secret Service had erased text messages after the internal watchdog requested records of electronic communications surrounding the Jan. 6 riot."

"People delete text messages and other electronic messages for many reasons: to free up room on their device; to break contact after a sour conversation; and, from time to time, to wipe out a conversation, for one reason or another… But deleting a digital correspondence isn't as easy as you might think. For starters, depending on the program you're using, the recipient still has a copy of the message you sent them. And that data might live on in cloud storage."

"House Republicans are plotting revenge on the select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, as the GOP weighs a broader effort to re-litigate some of Donald Trump's biggest election grievances if it recaptures the House majority… The former President has been itching for payback and leaning heavily on his Capitol Hill allies to defend him against a recent slew of damaging revelations about his role in the deadly attack on the US Capitol. Now, as Republicans search for ways to undermine those findings, their party has started to lay the groundwork to investigate the select committee itself."

"In North Carolina's high-profile U.S. Senate race this November, the Green Party may not have the chance to play spoiler… That's because the state Board of Elections, which is controlled by Democrats, has — so far — refused to give the Green Party a spot on the ballot, citing possible fraud in their ballot petition… That's sparked complaints from the Green Party — along with Republicans — that the board is undermining the Green Party to boost Democratic Senate candidate Cheri Beasley as she faces off against Republican nominee Ted Budd."