Life Among the Ruins
Posted By: mrdj, 3/7/2023 11:27:29 PM
American society is facing three existential crises not unlike those that overcame the late Roman, and a millennium later, terminal Byzantine, empires. Most know the result of such Medieval street living is unhealthy, violent, and lethal for all concerned. Yet no one knows—or even seems to worry about—how to stop it. So public defecation, urination, fornication, and injection continue unabated. Progressive urban pedestrians pass by holding their noses, averting their gazes, and accelerating the pace of their walking.
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Life Among the Ruins
16 replies
American society is facing three existential crises not unlike those that overcame the late Roman, and a millennium later, terminal Byzantine, empires. Most know the result of such Medieval street living is unhealthy, violent, and lethal for all concerned. Yet no one knows—or even seems to worry about—how to stop it.
So public defecation, urination, fornication, and injection continue unabated. Progressive urban pedestrians pass by holding their noses, averting their gazes, and accelerating the pace of their walking.
At first glance, the story of Rebekah Jones—a brave “COVID-19 scientist” standing up to a corrupt right-wing machine—looks like a bombshell. When the Florida Department of Health (DoH) fired her last May, Jones claimed she had been terminated for refusing to falsify case numbers to support Governor Ron DeSantis’ plans to reopen the economy. Overnight, she became a heroine. She launched her own COVID-19 dashboard, raised half a million dollars, and gathered a Twitter army of 378,000.
USC Suspended a Communications Professor
for Saying a Chinese Word
That Sounds Like a Racial Slur 9 replies
for Saying a Chinese Word
That Sounds Like a Racial Slur 9 replies
Greg Patton is a professor of clinical business communication at the University of Southern California. During a recent virtual classroom session, he was discussing public speaking patterns and the filler words that people use to space out their ideas: um, er, etc. Patton mentioned that the Chinese often use a word that is pronounced like nega.
"In China the common word is 'that, that that that,' so in China it might be 'nega, nega, nega, nega,'" Patton explained to his class. "So there's different words you'll hear in different cultures, but they're vocal disfluencies."
California Apocalypto
8 replies
Power outages, fires, water shortages, rising taxes, crumbling and congested highways, dismal schools, lawlessness... It is now August in California.So we can expect the following from our postmodern state government. There are the now-normal raging wildfires in the coastal and Sierra foothills. And they will be greeted as if they are not characteristic threats of 500 years of settled history, but leveraged as proof of global warming as well as the state’s abject inability to put them out.
When the inept state can’t extinguish them as it has in the past, it suggests that it’s more “natural” to let them burn.
You can see the dissenting opinions of Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh here; Justice Alito's opinion is joined by Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh. The Justices in the majority (Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan), who decline to issue an injunction pending appellate review, haven't written an opinion (though note that injunctions from the Supreme Court pending appellate review are extraordinary remedies).
A just-enacted San Antonio City Council resolution provides, in relevant part (emphasis added):
WHEREAS, COVID-19 is a public health issue, not a racial, religious or ethnic one, and the deliberate use of terms such as "Chinese virus" or "Kung Fu virus" to describe COVID-19 only encourages hate crimes and incidents against Asians and further spreads misinformation at a time when communities should be working together to get through this crisis; and
WHEREAS, the Jewish community has been targeted with blame, hate, antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories about their creating, spreading and profiting from COVID-19; and
WHEREAS, to target and stigmatize specific communities for the COVID-19 outbreak and world- wide spread creates
‘Larry King Live’ episode
with Tara Reade’s mom
removed from CNN catalog.
Campaign collusion? 24 replies
with Tara Reade’s mom
removed from CNN catalog.
Campaign collusion? 24 replies
The damning 1993 CNN video featuring Tara Reade’s mother lamenting that her daughter was preyed on by then-senator Joe Biden has been removed from Google Play.
Some on social media reacted by accusing CNN of “actively colluding with the Biden campaign to cover up evidence of Joe Biden’s sexual assault.”
Liberal Twitter user J.L. Hamilton posted a screenshot of the Google Play catalog of “Larry King Live.” The show aired on CNN from 1985 to 2010.
Noticeably missing was the August 11, 1993 episode, where Tara Reade‘s mother, Jeanette Altimus, called in to “Larry King Live”
An engineer deliberately ran a train off the tracks at high speed near the Port of Los Angeles in an attempt to crash into and damage the USNS Mercy hospital ship, prosecutors say.
The Pacific Harbor Line train derailed Tuesday, running through the end of the track and crashing through barriers, finally coming to rest about 250 yards from the docked naval ship.
Federal prosecutors allege train engineer Eduardo Moreno, 44, of San Pedro intended to hit the ship, saying he thought it was "suspicious" and did not believe "the ship is what they say it's for.'"
Last September, "sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations" talked to CNN about the Census Case. It was not clear who spoke to the media. Was it one or more Justices? Law clerks? Court staff? People who were in touch with the Justices or law clerks? These leaks were troubling. Confidential deliberations should remain confidential–especially when press reports paint some members of the Court in an unfavorable light. These disclosures corrode collegiality. Indeed, there have been new rounds of rumors about leaks in the Title VII SOGI cases.
Taylor Schertz stayed on the move as she considered the four pig carcasses dangling in front of her, their hooves pierced by gleaming silver hooks. A clockwise sweep to the left to gauge their exposed innards. A dip back to the right for a better view of the flanks dotted by inspection stamps. A plunge forward to inspect each veined hide up close.
A former FBI translator has been charged with doctoring transcripts in which his own name appeared on intercepts of phone calls placed by a terrorism suspect. Abdirizak Jaji Raghe Wehelie, 66, of Burke, Virginia, was arrested Saturday at an airport after returning to the U.S. on an international fight, according to Josh Stueve, a spokesman for the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Wehelie made an initial appearance Monday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, where he is charged with making false statements and obstructing an investigation.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized after a fall at a hotel in Washington, DC.
“This evening, Leader McConnell tripped at a local hotel during a private dinner. He has been admitted to the hospital where he is receiving treatment,” a spokesperson for the Kentucky Republican said in a statement.
No additional details were provided.
The 81-year-old is the Senate’s longest-serving GOP leader, known for helping the party achieve key Republican priorities, including stocking the Supreme Court with conservative justices, passing Trump-era tax cuts and frequently thwarting Democrats’ legislative agenda.
Tucker Carlson confessed to his producer that he 'hated Trump passionately', according to files unsealed by a judge on Tuesday as part of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit.
Dominion is suing Carlson's network, Fox News, in a $1.6 billion case, claiming that the media company defamed the voting firm by questioning their technology and methods. Fox is fiercely contesting the allegations.
On Tuesday, Carlson's private messages were among a trove of emails and other communications unsealed by the judge.
Manu Raju is a Democrat activist and CNN reporter who camps out in congressional hallways to ask questions that help advance his party’s political agenda. He’s done it for years. Whether the Democrats are doing their Brett Kavanaugh smear, impeachment shenanigans, Russia-collusion hoax, or anything else, he’s there to ask questions that help his team. He’s been doing it for so long that you’d have to be something of an idiot to fall for it, much less more than once.
First Lady Jill Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were slammed Wednesday for presenting a biological male from Argentina with an award for women on International Women's Day. This year's annual International Women of Courage Awards ceremony at the White House honored "11 extraordinary women from around the world who are working to build a brighter future for all," according to a State Department press release.
Argentinian Alba Rueda was introduced at the ceremony as a "transgender woman
Four U.S. citizens who were kidnapped in Mexico by the notorious criminal and drug syndicate Gulf Cartel have lengthy criminal rap sheets.
Latavia McGee, Eric Williams, Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border town Matamoros on Friday when they were caught in crossfire and abducted. Brown and Woodard didn't survive.
DailyMail.com can reveal that Williams was previously busted for 'distributing crack near a school,' while McGee has been slapped with 'unlawful conduct towards a child,' when her daughter tested positive for amphetamines.
Syracuse leaders are considering a program focusing on mental health, education, career placement and possibly providing a weekly $100 stipend to people associated with gangs as an incentive to maintain positive behavior.
President Joe Biden condemned House Republicans on Wednesday for allowing Fox News host Tucker Carlson to access and air previously unseen security footage of January 6 that showed police officers appearing to stand by passively as people poured into the U.S. Capitol.
The rebuke from the president came in response to an internal memo from U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger which criticized “Tucker Carlson Tonight” for broadcasting some of the video and commentary he claimed was offensive and misleading. (Video) “More than 140 officers were injured on Jan 6,” Biden said in a tweet. “I’ve said before: How dare anyone diminish or deny
California Gov. Gavin Newsom took aim at Walgreens on Monday after the pharmacy store chain announced that it would not be shipping abortion medication to at least 20 states across the U.S. "California won't be doing business with @walgreens -- or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk," Newsom tweeted. "We're done." So, what does that mean? We're not sure. And it seems Newsom's office isn't completely sure either. When asked what tangible actions would result from Newsom's online proclamation, a spokesperson for the governor's office told SFGATE: "California is reviewing all relationships between Walgreens
WASHINGTON — In a cheerfully decorated common room at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with floral paintings adorning violet walls, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania begins most days meeting with his chief of staff, who arrives around 10 a.m. carrying a briefcase full of newspaper clips, statements for him to approve, legislation to review and other business of the day. (Snip) Doctors caring for him have said Fetterman should limit his exposure to cable television, the internet and social media — a major information detox for someone whose obsession, and occupation, is politics. Fetterman, 53, rushed back to the campaign
The death of a former White House staffer who served in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations has been baselessly tied to Hillary Clinton, reviving a long-running conspiracy theory that claims without evidence the Clintons were behind the deaths of several political opponents during their political careers, Newsweek Misinformation Watch found. (Snip) During the Clinton presidency, Hyde was a White House special assistant and she served as a senior adviser at the State Department in the Obama administration. She also acted as counsel to the 9/11 commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004, focussing on crisis management
President Joe Biden's budget blueprint will include a 5.2% raise for federal employees, one of the largest peacetime military budgets in recent history and plans to save Social Security and Medicare.
It won't include cuts to federal spending, which Republicans have pushed for a strategy to bring down the $31.4 trillion federal deficit.
Instead, Biden will pay for his proposals with a series of new taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
The combo of more spending and taxes will likely make his budget dead on arrival when it reaches Capitol Hill as Republicans, who control the House, prepare to hammer him as a tax-and-spend Democrat.
Rather than trying to get to the bottom of how the pandemic began, Representative Raul Ruiz (D., N.M.) spent his allotted time during Wednesday morning’s hearing on Covid’s origins berating one of the witnesses over a book he wrote ten years earlier on the human genome, implying that the book was motivated by racism.
Ruiz, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, used his opening statement and much of his first round of questioning to argue that his Republican colleagues had compromised the panel’s efforts to investigate Covid’s origins by calling Nicholas Wade as a witness.
“Today’s hearing marks a concerning step