Several things from recent days:
- Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule — Remember how I told you that 4,500 of the 8,000 satellites orbiting the Earth at this moment belong to Elon Musk? And that the web access his Starlink network makes possible saved Ukraine’s bacon early on in the present war? Only, the Ukrainians stay nervous because Elon is way ambivalent about wanting to keep helping? Well, if you can possibly read, or listen to, this story, you need to. (I’m never sure how many things, if any, nonsubscribers are allowed to read.) It’s a more extended piece, by Ronan Farrow, that provides a kind of scary picture of this guy that so many people on this planet are now depending on.
- Ukrainians Embrace Cluster Munitions, but Are They Helping? — And while we’re at it, how about those depleted uranium shells, which are so effective at penetrating those tanks the Russians keep throwing at them? Oh, the answer to that question in the headline is, that they’re no magic wand, “but some Ukrainian troops say they are making a difference in fighting Russian forces.”
- Mysterious ‘skin-like’ golden orb found on ocean floor off Alaska coast — This was weird. To me, it looks human-made — like a broken Christmas tree decoration. But scientists seem to think it’s natural. See the picture above. And here’s a video.
- American conservatives are not more Catholic than the pope — I just shared this because that headline made me tweet, “Isn’t it bizarre that we live in a world so messed up that someone would feel the need to say that?” Unfortunately, we do.
- The sexually explicit welcome-to-NC State package — This was interesting to me because you know how right-wing groups are always complaining that the “liberal media” are suppressing news that would support the right’s perception of things? This may be a case of that, sort of. I got this in an email from such a group, and went looking for actual news stories about it, all I found was some local TV news coverage. I don’t know for sure what happened. I only know we didn’t get packages like that when I started college. But you could go into the drug store at Cornell Arms and buy products that said, “Our Cocks are Always Game.”
- What about that Burning Man thing? — My daughter wanted to go to Burning Man, but it didn’t work out. Her good friend of many years did go, and has told her the coverage of all the problems was ridiculous; she had no trouble leaving. I’m glad to hear it. But what I want to ask y’all is, have any of y’all been to anything like this? And why? I’m pretty sure that from the moment I arrived at something like this, even if everything went as planned, I’d feel trapped, and want to go home. A big mass of people? Outside? I don’t think so.
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Wisconsin Republicans are trying to impeach a newly elected state supreme court justice before she has heard any cases.
Wisconsin forces state supreme court justices to campaign and run for election. It’s typical for them to have campaigns and take positions on issues because they have to win election.
Supreme court elections there are “officially” non-partisan but this is a considered a huge joke because the parties back candidates, and legislators push certain candidates and also campaign openly for them.
Dan Abrams had Phillip Bump on from the Washington Post on his Sirius radio show today to discuss the effort of Republicans.
Bump pointed out that Democrats in Wisconsin have won state offices with about 54% of the vote in the most recent elections, but Republicans have gerrymandered the state to where they have 2/3s of the Senate and House.
Bump also talked about how Republicans have worked to take away the powers of the elected Democratic governor who is now in his 2nd term.
The grand jury in Georgia recommended that charges be brought against Lindsey Graham. The local DA chose not to bring the charges.
This is regrettable. She should have brought charges against him.
The Republican Secretary of State has said numerous times he believed that Lindsey Graham was asking him to find a way to toss out legal votes for Joe Biden.
Dan Abrams also discussed this on his show today. Dan said Lindsey Graham and Michael Flynn are playing the victim card. Instead of appreciating the fact the DA chose not to bring charges against them against the grand jury’s directive, they are whining about the process and talking about how this is political retribution. Dan correctly pointed out both prefer to play the victim and that the DA not pursuing charges hurts their victim credibility so they have to act like a victim anyway.