Mon -Rising Prices Lead to Increased Supply and Lower Demand

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

I told my carpenter not to carpet my steps.  He gave me a blank stair.


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China Isn't Willing to Gamble On COVID

Macau closed all its casinos for the first time in more than two years on Monday after a coronavirus outbreak in the world's biggest gambling hub.

Authorities have ordered non-essential businesses, which includes over 30 casinos, to shut for a week.

The city has recorded 1,526 Covid cases since the middle of June according to official figures.

Gaming shares slipped on Monday over concerns of tougher rules in the Chinese special administrative region.

Around 19,000 people have been put in mandatory quarantine as the city tackles its worse Covid-19 outbreak since early 2020.

Schools and entertainment venues, including bars and cinemas, had already been closed under earlier guidelines.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

Will Manchin Kill This One, Too?

In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has stepped up negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., about a filibuster-proof bill to pass major economic policies with only Democratic votes.

They agreed on a series of provisions over the two-week break, including steps to lower prescription drug prices and raise taxes on some high earners, with plans to use the revenue to extend the life of Medicare, congressional sources familiar with the talks said.

The Democrats will continue to negotiate other policies in the bill, including energy and climate change funding, as well as additional tax revenue. They may also add money to lower premiums under the Affordable Care Act, which Manchin has been noncommittal about.

Democrats are looking at $500 billion in spending and $1 trillion in revenue, two sources with knowledge of the negotiations said, with the goal of putting half the savings toward deficit reduction, a top Manchin priority.

6 Fireflies in a Jar

Trump is an extremely tedious dude to have had in our face for seven years and running. My former New York Times colleague David Brooks wrote it best: “We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.”

Better objects of our scrutiny—and far more compelling to me—are the slavishly devoted Republicans whom Trump drew to his side. It’s been said before, but can never be emphasized enough: Without the complicity of the Republican Party, Donald Trump would be just a glorified geriatric Fox-watching golfer. I’ve interviewed scores of these collaborators, trying to understand why they did what they did and how they could live with it. These were the McCarthys and the Grahams and all the other busy parasitic suck-ups who made the Trump era work for them, who humored and indulged him all the way down to the last, exhausted strains of American democracy.

Not Even Republicans Want This.  The QOP Doesn't Care



Previous Guy Knows How to Pick a Loser





If you missed it, here is my summary of the Senate races

Jesus Had Multiple Personality Disorder



TucKKKer Doesn't Care



Are They Running Out of Topics For Fake Outrage?

Fox News dedicated a segment on Sunday to complaining that Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation makes visitors feel bad by educating them on true aspects of American history.

“Fox & Friends” weekend hosts Rachel Campos-Duffy and Pete Hegseth brought up an article published in the New York Post Saturday that accused the Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the Founding Father of “going woke” and offering visitors “a harangue on the horrors of slavery.”

Jefferson owned more than 600 people in his lifetime, including 400 who were enslaved at Monticello. The estate is owned by the nonprofit Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which works to preserve its history and educate people about the third American president.

According to Hegseth, Monticello is now all about “how terrible Thomas Jefferson was because he was a slave owner” and presents a “one-sided point of view that makes Thomas Jefferson a bad guy in his own home.”

Campos-Duffy complained that there is a sign in the museum that questions if Jefferson’s line in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” is being lived up to in the U.S. today.

She also took issue with an international bestselling anti-racism book for sale in the gift shop.

“All of these sort of books that are damning of America and suggesting that we’re still a racist country are for sale in the gift shop,” she added.

Everyone Knows Bannon is Worried About His Trial That Begins Next Week. The DOJ Isn't Having Any of His BS.

“The defendant apparently has not told the committee he wishes to provide documents responsive to the subpoena, so his eleventh-hour efforts do nothing to begin to cure his failure to produce records. Instead, his continued failure to comply with the subpoena’s document demand while claiming he now will testify suggests his actions are little more than an attempt to change the optics of his contempt on the eve of trial, not an actual effort at compliance,” Vaughn wrote.

The only thing that has changed since Bannon first refused to comply with the Jan. 6 committee subpoena is that “he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default,” the five-page brief states.
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The Justice Department revealed in an early Monday morning court filing that federal investigators interviewed former President Donald Trump's attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with Steve Bannon's criminal contempt case.

Prosecutors say that Clark confirmed in the interview that at no point did Trump ever invoke executive privilege over Bannon's testimony -- and directly contradicted other claims made by Bannon's defense team in their case.

They further suggest Bannon's recent efforts in conjunction with Trump to offer to finally testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack are no more than a stunt to try and make him more a sympathetic figure to the jury he's set to face next week.

"All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability," prosecutors say.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

The Corn From Outer Space

At first glance they are identical to any other ears of wheat swaying in the wind all over the world. But the vast fields of crops in north-eastern China are no ordinary plants – they were created in outer space.

They are a variety known as Luyuan 502 and are China's second most widely grown type of wheat. The plants were bred from seeds that were flown into orbit 200 miles (340km) above the Earth's surface. Here, in the unique low gravity environment and outside the protective magnetic shield of our planet, they picked up subtle changes to DNA that gave them new qualities that made them more tolerant to drought and able to better resist certain diseases.

They are an example of a growing number of new varieties of important food crops that are being bred on spacecraft and space stations while orbiting our planet. Here they are subjected to microgravity and are bombarded by cosmic rays, which trigger the plants to mutate – a process known as space mutagenesis.

While some of the mutations leave the plants unable to grow, others can be advantageous. Some become hardier and able to withstand more extreme growing conditions while others produce more food from a single plant or grow faster or require less water. When brought back to Earth, seeds from these space-bred plants undergo careful screening and further breeding to create viable versions of popular crops.

Mitch Must Hate This



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Invasions Have Consequences

Day 138

Fighting

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there had been no let-up in Russian attacks on his country, with 34 air raids conducted in the past 24 hours, including strikes that killed at least 15 people in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar.

There was no comment about the Chasiv Yar attack at a Russian defence ministry briefing on Sunday.

The head of Ukraine’s president’s office, Andriy Yermak, called it an act of “terrorism”, saying Russia should be on the list of “state terrorist sponsors”.

Ukraine’s army has trapped Russian forces in the area of the village of Bilohorivka, about 50km (30 miles) east of Sloviansk, from where they are shelling the surrounding settlements and carrying out air attacks, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said.

Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, urged civilians in the Russian-occupied southern region of Kherson to evacuate as Ukraine’s armed forces were preparing a counterattack there.  (Important!  While Putin Focuses on Donbas, Ukraine Thinks the South is the Critical Theater.)

Diplomacy

Ukraine’s defence minister said Western-donated high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) were making a “huge” difference on the battlefield after a senior United States official said the Biden administration would be sending four more HIMARS as part of a $400m weapons package.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and raised concerns about Beijing’s alignment with Moscow.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman characterised United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s early departure from Bali, before last week’s G20 meeting, as a “deep boycott” of the Russian delegation, state news agency TASS reported.

Economy

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany starts annual maintenance on Monday, with flows expected to stop for 10 days, but governments, markets and companies are worried Moscow might extend the shutdown.

Siemens said Canada’s decision to allow a turbine to be sent from its repair shop in Canada to Germany was a necessary first step towards returning it to the Russian pipeline it operates, and that it was aiming to get it there as soon as possible.

The French government is preparing to totally cut off Russian gas supplies, which it sees as the most likely scenario in its forward planning.

It Takes a LONG Time to Arm and Train a Million Soldiers

Ukraine plans a "million-strong army" equipped with Nato weapons to retake the south of the country from occupying Russians, the defence minister says.

Retaking the areas around the Black Sea coast was vital to the country's economy, Oleksii Reznikov said.

However, the comments are more of a rallying cry than a concrete plan, analysts say.

It Sure Looks That Way



A Good Overview of the War

More than four months have passed since the beginning of the Russian invasion of #Ukraine. During the war, Russian and Ukrainian strategy has evolved. Today, an update on Russia’s #strategy in Ukraine. 1/22

2/ The aim of this is to provide insights into how Putin has evolved his ‘theory of victory’ in #Ukraine, and therefore provide a foundation for developing Ukraine’s (and the West’s) defeat mechanisms against Russia.

Read the whole thing here
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"Lions on the Beach" is Not a New Cocktail

The coastal areas of the western Indian state of Gujarat are now home to more than 100 lions. Experts say it shows that their natural habitat is shrinking.

The Gir forest in Gujarat - the only natural habitat of the Asiatic lion - had around 400 lions in 2020, according to a state forest department estimate. The rest of the state has around 275 lions, of which 104 have spread themselves across 300km (186 miles) of Gujarat's coastline.

Conservationists say the unusual movement is happening because the natural habitat of lions has become overcrowded.

"Normally, it is difficult for lions to adapt to a coastal habitat, but they have no option because of scarcity of land," Dr Nishith Dhariya, a wildlife scholar, says.

Lions were once widespread across Gujarat, but their numbers shrank to a mere dozen in the early 20th Century, mainly due to hunting and drought.

Since then, conservation efforts have helped their population soar in the dry, deciduous Gir forests. But many experts have said for years that the Gir sanctuary has become too small for the territorial animals.

Forest officers say the lions began reaching coastal regions in the 1990s because of territory wars.

"A lion normally requires a territory of around 100-sq-km (38-sq-mile), and this area also includes three-four lionesses living with their cubs. As the cub grows into an adult, he either takes over the territory from the old lion or leaves the pride to find a new territory," says Shyamal Tikadar, a top state forest official.

The lions reach coastal areas because they usually follow the Heran river, which passes through the Gir forest and meets the Arabian sea in Somnath district.

This means that people like Uday Shah - who has a farmhouse by the sea in Veraval district, 80km (50 miles) away from the Gir forest - are now used to seeing lions regularly on the beach.

"We were scared at first when we saw them, but now they don't bother us," he says.




More Lions Own the Beach


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The Horse That Launched a Thousand Tweets.

Popular Indian food aggregator Swiggy has clarified that a man riding a horse in a recent viral video is not one of its delivery executives.

The video showed the man galloping on a rain-soaked road in Mumbai city carrying a bag with Swiggy's logo.

It generated a range of responses, from appreciation of the man's commitment to his job to criticism for Swiggy.

But Swiggy said that the horse-rider was a teenager who had "borrowed" a delivery bag.

The company had launched a "horse-hunt" and announced a reward to trace the man after the video went viral.

On Sunday, it said in a tongue-in-cheek statement that "both man and animal had been identified".

Swiggy said Sushant, 17, was not its employee but "a typical teenager who borrows things and forgets to return them".

"In this case, what he borrowed was the Swiggy delivery bag," it added.



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The QOP is Losing the Abortion Issue.  The Dog Caught the Car.

Nearly one-third of Americans (32%) say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, compared with 46% who say a candidate’s position on abortion is just one of many important factors and 19% who do not see abortion as a major issue when voting. The proportion who say a candidate must share their views has increased considerably, from 20% in 2020. PRRI has asked this question since 2018, and the previous high mark was 25%, in 2019. The proportion who do not see abortion as a major issue is, likewise, at a low mark — in 2020, 26% said it was not a major issue, and the previous low mark was 22% (also in 2019).

In a substantial reversal, slightly more Americans who say abortion should be legal in most or all cases also say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views (34%) than do those who say it should be illegal in most or all cases (31%). In 2020, 15% of those who supported abortion legality in most or all cases said they would only vote for a candidate who shares that view, compared with 29% among those who said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. Additionally, those who know someone who has had an abortion (37%) are more likely than those who do not (29%) to say they will only vote for someone who shares their views on the issue.

The same trend is apparent by party affiliation, with Democrats becoming more activated on the issue. In the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, 43% of Democrats say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, compared with 17% in the fall of 2020. Independents have become eleven percentage points more likely to say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their abortion views (25% vs. 14% in 2020), but Republicans have held steady (31% vs. 32% in 2020).



I Believe the Children Are Our Future



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Make Sure to Keep Your Bright Smile in the Hospital.  It Could Save Your Life.

To most patients, a useless hospital toothbrush would be a mild inconvenience. But to Giuliano, a nursing professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, it was a reminder of a pervasive “blind spot” in U.S. hospitals: the stunning consequences of unbrushed teeth.

Hospital patients not getting their teeth brushed, or not brushing their teeth themselves, is believed to be a leading cause of hundreds of thousands of cases of pneumonia a year in patients who have not been put on a ventilator. Pneumonia is among the most common infections that occur in health care facilities, and a majority of cases are non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia, or NVHAP, which kills up to 30% of those infected, Giuliano and other experts said.

But unlike many infections that strike within hospitals, the federal government doesn’t require hospitals to report cases of NVHAP. As a result, few hospitals understand the origin of the illness, track its occurrence, or actively work to prevent it, the experts said.

Many cases of NVHAP could be avoided if hospital staffers more dutifully brushed the teeth of bedridden patients, according to a growing body of peer-reviewed research papers. Instead, many hospitals often skip teeth brushing to prioritize other tasks and provide only cheap, ineffective toothbrushes, often unaware of the consequences, said Dian Baker, a Sacramento State nursing professor who has spent more than a decade studying NVHAP.
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Rising Prices Lead to Increased Supply and Lower Demand.  Then Prices Drop.  Funny How That Works.

The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline plunged 19 cents over the past two weeks to $4.86 per gallon.

Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said Sunday that the continued decline comes as crude oil costs also fall.

“Assuming oil prices do not shoot up from here, motorists may see prices drop another 10-20 cents as the oil price cuts continue making their way to street level,” Lundberg said in a statement.

The average price at the pump is down 24 cents over the past month, but it's $1.66 higher than it was one year ago.
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