I don’t do war crimes porn, which is all over the MSM now. I look for the helpers. There are more of us than of them, but they are far noisier. When there are trials or other forms of active karma, we can talk.
Good News for Us
After a rollicking ride, Pope Francis finally kicks open the doors of the church to same-sex couples
Yes, for realz.
New Mexico court rejects GOP lawsuit seeking to strike down Democratic-drawn congressional map
Michigan Democrats advance bill to expand automatic voter registration
Overnight News Digest: Claudia Goldin awarded economics prize for work on women's pay
I will at some point write up Goldin, Claudia Dale. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-19-505077-6 for Readers and Book Lovers.
Future Crunch: Good News
In the last three decades humanity has made extraordinary strides in combating the threat of communicable disease. In 1990, diseases like malaria and tuberculosis made up almost a third of the global health burden, but by 2019 that had fallen to around a sixth. Overall, the number of healthy years of life lost due to infectious diseases more than halved during this period.
Following a successful pilot that increased the number of teenage girls attending school in seven Nigerian states from 900,000 to over 1.6 million, the World Bank has approved $700M to roll the program out over 18 more states, reaching an estimated 8.6 million girls, as well as teachers, administrators, families, and communities.
Bad News for Them
The House
House Republicans had a secret meeting yesterday to agree on a Speaker candidate. As if.
The whole kerfuffle is supposedly over McCarthy making too nice with President Biden and House Democrats on funding the government. Both Scalise and Jordan told the Party in private that Republicans were going to have to fund the government, and that they weren’t going to be able to get any of the draconian cuts on their wish list through.
So, what is this fight actually about? Chris Hayes was laughing over this on the news last night.
Steve Scalise won the Party election, 113-99, over “Gym” Jordan. In a functioning Party, that would make him Speaker in the formal vote on the House floor today.
Ah, ah, not so fast. Even some House Republicans publicly admit that theirs is nothing like a functioning Party. Several Deadender Losers whose guy lost refuse to vote for the winner. Even though the guy who lost supports Scalise. Even Matt Gaetz, who led the drive to dump McCarthy, supports Scalise. The Roll of Dishonorable Disfunction leads off with these two.
- Nancy Mace says Scalise, “David Duke without the baggage”, is too extreme.
- Maximum delusionalist Chip Roy says Scalise is not too extreme enough.
Nov. 2024
Evening Brief: RFK Jr.'s campaign could soon haunt Trump, by kos
His anti-vaxxer, anti-science, anti-abortion, anti-Semitic campaign is drawing more voters from Trump than from Biden. (Disclosure: I am one of many who got his bogus anti-vaxxer children’s charity booted from Facebook.)
The BLOAT
NYT: Prosecutors Ask if Trump Will Blame His Lawyers as Defense in Election Case
The special counsel asked a judge to require the former president to disclose whether he would blame poor legal advice for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
If so, Smith stated in the filing, prosecutors should have access to more communications between the parties.
Formally, that would be an Advice of Counsel defense.
Do fish swim? Do bats fly?
Witnesses for the Prosecution
Fani Willis Issues Subpoenas For RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel And Alex Jones For Chesebro's Trial
George Woss’sname
George Santos—10 new Federal charges in superseding indictment, including wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Rep. Santos faces new charges he stole donor IDs, made unauthorized charges to their credit cards
A Tale of a Tuberville
Yes, indeed. Who are the voters going to believe, them or their own lying eyes?
Srsly?
Ken Paxton to file criminal complaints against Texas House impeachment managers
Molly Ivins would laugh, and laugh, and laugh…
[sigh] We all miss Molly.
Molly Ivins can’t say that…
Can she?
Billboard in Texas
No Comment
Conservative PAC leader’s meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes escalates GOP infighting
Science! Animals! Weirdness!
ESO's [modestly named] Extremely Large Telescope construction at halfway mark
Some think that this will end up as the largest telescope ever to be built when it is finished in 2028. The idea is that computers and atomic clocks will be able to handle visible light interferometry sometime after that. Then we will be able to use arrays of smaller telescopes to synthesize one with an aperture as large as the Earth. (We have been doing that with much longer wavelength radio telescopes for a long time.) Then we will be able to do the same with multiple space telescopes.
Oarfish, the Real Sea Serpent
Research to Reverse Diabetic Neuropathy, by Mokurai for Kos Diabetes Group
Renewable Tuesday 10/10 We're Doing This, by Mokurai for Climate Brief
In 1990, Jimmy Carter expressed the hope that he would outlive Guinea worm. He is now 99, and cases are down from 3.5 million when he started to 6 so far in all of 2023.
Funny or Fuggedaboudit