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

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Linkee-poo pre-eclipse

"Baron, author of the 2017 book American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World, wants others to witness its majesty too. On April 8, millions of people across North America will get that chance — a total solar eclipse will appear in the sky. Baron promises it will be a surreal, otherworldly experience. 'It's like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world.'"

"When the container ship Dali struck the base of the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday morning, it set off a rapid chain of events. The bridge crumpled into the Patapsco River, its twisted metal draped over the ship and its thousands of containers. Eight construction workers and their cars tumbled into the water. Two of the workers are dead; four are still missing and presumed dead. And the whole disaster is now blocking one of the country's busiest ports, the Port of Baltimore."

"A few weeks ago, something from the heavens came crashing through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home, and NASA is on the case… In all likelihood, this nearly 2-pound object came from the International Space Station. Otero said it tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida."

"During times when energy is abundant and cheap to produce, SRP pumps water from Saguaro Lake - one of the reservoirs it manages at a lower elevation - uphill to this reservoir. Then at times when energy production slows, SRP can release that same water back downhill to produce power. Then the process starts over again… This method of storing electricity has become especially critical as SRP has invested more in solar power."

"A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown." But I'm sure your choice to drive a small car is what will save us.

"But while hundreds of thousands of new residents have flocked to (Florida) on the promise of beautiful weather, no income tax and lower costs, nearly 500,000 left in 2022, according to the most recent census data. Contributing to their move was a perfect storm of soaring insurance costs, a hostile political environment, worsening traffic and extreme weather, according to interviews with more than a dozen recent transplants and longtime residents who left the state in the past two years."

"On Monday, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced that a person who was exposed to dairy cattle presumed to be infected with bird flu had also caught the virus." Ahhh…

"Unauthorized enrollment or plan-switching is emerging as a serious challenge for the ACA, also known as Obamacare. Brokers say the ease with which rogue agents can get into policyholder accounts in the 32 states served by the federal marketplace plays a major role in the problem, according to an investigation by KFF Health News… Indeed, armed with only a person's name, date of birth, and state, a licensed agent can access a policyholder's coverage through the federal exchange or its direct enrollment platforms. It's harder to do through state ACA markets, because they often require additional information." Here's the thing, in my profession anything like this would result in the loss of the license, removal from the national registry, and a lifelong ban from working in healthcare.

"So anyone who's been told they have cancer must wrestle with difficult decisions about sharing the news. Do you tell little kids in the family? Elderly relatives? Colleagues at work? All your friends and neighbors?"

"You've heard that it's a tough time to buy a house, but exactly how tough is it?… A pair of recent studies predicts that you'd need to earn more than $100,000 per year to comfortably afford a typical home in much of the U.S. right now."

"The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) appears poised to mandate a SawStop-type safety brake on all new table saws sold in the United States. The move would follow years of failed efforts and false starts by the agency to impose such a standard."

"Tesla has canceled the long-promised inexpensive car that investors have been counting on to drive its growth into a mass-market automaker, according to three sources familiar with the matter and company messages seen by Reuters… The automaker will continue developing self-driving robotaxis on the same small-vehicle platform, the sources said."

"All of the world’s billionaires younger than 30 inherited their wealth, the first wave of “the great wealth transfer” in which more than 1,000 wealthy people are expected to pass on more than $5.2tn (£4.1tn) to their heirs over the next two decades." And now you know why the conservatives were hell bent on removing the inheritance tax, but not willing to reform Medicaid claw back actions.

"José Andrés, the founder of the World Central Kitchen that feeds people in war and disaster zones, said Monday that his organization has lost 'several' of its international volunteers in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip… The Israeli military said in a statement it is investigating the report 'at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.'"

"Iran said Monday that Israel killed two of its generals and several others in an airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus… Iranian state media said at least seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite overseas wing, known as the Quds Force, were killed when Israeli F-35s struck the building with six rockets, almost entirely demolishing it. Syrian state media said the airstrike leveled the Iranian embassy annex." That is what's called an escalation. I would like to be generous and say that it was a mistake, but unfortunately it's too easy to see this as deliberately provoking a response from Iran, widening the war in an attempt to justify the harshness and continuation of operations in Gaza.

"A doctor at a field hospital for detained Palestinians at Israel’s Sde Teiman army base has described 'deplorable conditions' and 'routine' amputations due to handcuff injuries, according to an exclusive report from the newspaper Haaretz."

"Michigan U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg suggested that nuclear weapons should be dropped on Gaza, which his office said was a metaphor to 'support Israel’s swift elimination of Hamas… It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick,' Walberg says in a video circulating on social media, referencing the Japanese cities that the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on at the end of World War II." What an asshole.

"This would certainly be a worrying world news development. Earlier that week, Israel had conducted an airstrike on Iran's embassy in Syria, killing two generals as well as other officers. Retaliation from Iran seemed like a plausible occurrence… But, there was one major problem: Iran did not attack Israel. The headline was fake… Even more concerning, the fake headline was apparently generated by X's own official AI chatbot, Grok, and then promoted by X's trending news product, Explore, on the very first day of an updated version of the feature."

"Meta blocked a newspaper’s critical report about it on Facebook and its other social sites for hours, sparking a backlash that intensified after the company appeared to subsequently block links to the website of an independent journalist who republished the report."

"Newly released law enforcement footage captures the moment California police fatally shot an unarmed 15-year-old girl who was a reported kidnapping victim."

"Voters in Enid decided by a nearly 20-point margin Tuesday to remove a City Council member over his ties to white nationalist groups… Judd Blevins lost his seat on Enid’s six-member City Council by 268 votes, according to unofficial results from the Oklahoma State Election Board. Nearly 1,400 people turned out, about a quarter of Ward 1’s registered voters and hundreds more than voted when Blevins was first elected last year." Good.

"A judge ruled this week that a top Georgia Republican Party official, who has promoted former President Donald Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud affecting the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, has repeatedly voted illegally… Brian Pritchard, first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and a conservative talk show host, was fined $5,000 for voting illegally and registering to vote while serving a sentence for a felony conviction. Pritchard was also ordered not to commit further violations, to face public reprimand for his conduct and to pay the State Election Board's investigative costs." There's a lot to unpack in there.

"Former President Donald Trump posted a $175 million bond Monday in his New York civil fraud case. Meanwhile, a judge approved the expansion of Trump's gag order in his hush-money case to include the judge's family."

"At RePlatform in Las Vegas, GabPay got to be the hero. But it's also possible that the company was part of why Stripe froze the conference's money in the first place. A few weeks earlier, a news story by Mother Jones about the event highlighted a promotional appearance that GabPay's executives had made on far-right conspiracy theorist Stew Peters' streaming show." It's so amazing that we keep hearing from all these people who have been "cancelled." It's almost like the claim of being cancelled is bullshit.

"Before Clark's testimony, his lawyer talked about wanting to prevent him from having to repeatedly assert his Fifth Amendment right and 'avoid us being on MSNBC for no good reason.'… Once his testimony got underway, Clark repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right, as well as law enforcement privilege, deliberative process and attorney-client privilege."

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