Tues - "We Will Go to Heaven, and They Will Simply Croak"

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

To the thief who took my anti-depressants: I hope you're happy.
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We're #1!!  Again

New York reached 1,040 cases as of Monday, said the most recent information released by the city. That accounts for about a quarter of all of the confirmed cases in the US.

The US leads the world in confirmed cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). As of Monday, there were 3,846 confirmed cases in the US and 18,095 globally, the CDC said. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency on Saturday.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

Don't Let Greg Decide

They'll Accept Anyone With an "R" Behind Their Name

Republicans were unhappy when extremist Doug Mastriano won the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary, with some describing his nomination as a “disaster” or “suicide mission.” But, being Republicans, they’re falling right in line behind Mastriano.

“When you play team sports, you learn what being part of a team means,” one top Pennsylvania Republican recently said. The Republican Governors Association (RGA) hasn’t done much for Mastriano so far, but “The job of the RGA is to elect Republican governors, and that’s what we’re going to do in this cycle,” its head, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey recently told CNN, saying the organization could support Mastriano.

Republican leaders might not like Mastriano. They might not be personally on board with his conspiracy theories. But he is their nominee, and that’s that.

What that means is this: Republicans are supporting a candidate for governor of a major state who sent more than 50 tweets hashtagged QAnon and promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. They’re falling in line behind a candidate who has described COVID-19 as “a government-sponsored virus” and spread misinformation about vaccines. This guy, who Republicans are saying is part of the team sport they are playing, has a campaign consultant who recently said that he does not want Jewish people in the conservative movement. “We don’t want people who are atheists. We don’t want people who are Jewish [...] This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country,” Andrew Torba, the Mastriano consultant and Gab CEO, said. And when he said explicitly, he meant exclusively—no matter how prominent the conservative might be: “Ben Shapiro is not welcome in the movement unless he repents and accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.”

The Worst Hearings He's Never Seen


Why Aren't Stupid People Represented on the Committee?



Plus They Are Old.  Most are Over 17

What If His Daughter Needs an Abortion?

A Republican lawmaker attended his gay son’s wedding just three days after joining the majority of his GOP colleagues in voting against a House bill that would codify federal protections for same-sex marriage.

The gay son of Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., confirmed to NBC News on Monday that he “married the love of [his] life” on Friday and that his “father was there.” NBC News is not publishing the names of the grooms, neither of whom is a public figure.

Thompson’s press secretary, Maddison Stone, also confirmed the congressman was in attendance.

“Congressman and Mrs. Thompson were thrilled to attend and celebrate their son’s marriage on Friday night as he began this new chapter in his life,” Stone said in an email, adding that the Thompsons are “very happy” to welcome their new son-in-law “into their family.”
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

12 Ways Biden and the Dems are Protecting the Environment.

1. Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accords!

Biden signed an order to rejoin the Paris climate accords that President Trump exited last year, sending the United Nations a document that will make the U.S. party to the agreement in 30 days. The international pact aims to push all countries to slash their greenhouse gas emissions

2. Biden expanded wind farms

Biden has been working behind the scenes to make huge changes in energy production. This is one outcome.

The administration in March announced a coordinated effort to bolster offshore wind energy projects in the United States in order to jump-start a "clean energy revolution."

As part of that initiative, which spans multiple government agencies, the Departments of the Interior, Energy and Commerce committed to a shared goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the US by 2030. The Interior Department estimates that reaching that goal would create nearly 80,000 jobs.

3. Biden and the Democrats made the largest investment in railroads since Amtrak was created

4. Biden revoked the Keystone XL pipeline permit

Biden revoked the presidential permit for the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would have transported fossil fuels from Canada across the United States -- a project climate activists have protested for years. The order also directs federal agencies to start reversing and revising other Trump administration rules, including restoring protections and banning drilling in several national parks and national monuments and setting stricter emissions and fuel economy standards for vehicles.

5. Biden protected endangered species

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have proposed rescinding two 2020 rules put in place by former President Donald Trump, a move that would allow the agencies more power to prevent development in endangered species’ habitats, part of a larger White House effort to undo policies Trump passed during office.

6. Biden increased use of renewable energy

Biden Orders Federal Vehicles and Buildings to Use Renewable Energy by 2050

Under an executive order, the federal government would phase out the purchase of gasoline-powered vehicles, and its buildings would be powered by wind, solar or other clean energy.

7. Biden is cleaning up long ignored toxic sites

After decades, some of America’s most toxic sites will finally get cleaned up

New funding and the revival of a long-lapsed tax on chemical makers in the bipartisan infrastructure law mean cities like Newark will get money to restore toxic Superfund sites.

President Biden signed legislation reviving a polluter’s tax that will inject a new stream of cash into the nation’s troubled Superfund program. The renewed excise fees, which disappeared more than 25 years ago, are expected to raise $14.5 billion in revenue over the next decade and could accelerate cleanups of many sites that are increasingly threatened by climate change.

The Superfund list includes more than 1,300 abandoned mines, radioactive landfills, shuttered military labs, closed factories and other contaminated areas across nearly all 50 states. They are the poisoned remnants of America’s emergence as a 20th-century industrial juggernaut.

The 49 sites receiving money from the infrastructure law include a neighborhood in Florida with soil contaminated from treating wooden telephone poles, a former copper mine in Maine laced with leftover metals, and an old steel manufacturer in southern New Jersey where parts of the Golden Gate Bridge were fabricated.

8. Biden Halted federal aid to new fossil projects overseas

The Biden administration has ordered an immediate halt to new federal support for coal plants and other carbon-intensive projects overseas, a major policy shift designed to fight climate change and accelerate renewable energy worldwide.

9. Biden Protected Trees

2021 was a game-changing year for trees

The year started out bleak for some of the nation’s most important forest ecosystems. The outgoing Trump administration slashed federal protection for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest — the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest — and finalized a rule to stop protecting more than 3 million acres of the Pacific Northwest that’s home to the northern spotted owl, a threatened bird.

Biden reversed these policies, and others, after taking office.

“We’ve now had 12 months to get us back to where we were in 2016,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director at the Center for Western Priorities, a research and advocacy group. “I don’t know if you can call that progress as much as it is stopping the bleeding.”

But in January, Biden also announced that the US would aim for “30 by 30” — a goal of conserving at least 30 percent of the nation’s land and water by 2030, which dozens of other countries have committed to.

“We’ve never seen a president make that kind of big conservation promise right off the top,” Weiss said.

10. Biden reduced climate emissions from cars

The Biden administration finalized a rule Monday to cut climate pollutants from new cars and light trucks, which will keep billions of tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere and change the kinds of vehicles Americans drive.

11. Biden protected 3 million acres of land

Biden used an executive order to protect 1.36 million acres in Bears Ears — slightly larger than the original boundary that President Barack Obama established in 2016 — while also restoring the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante monument. Biden also reimposed fishing restrictions in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New England that Trump had opened to commercial fishing.

12. Biden is making light bulbs more efficient

The Biden administration took a major step late Friday toward ensuring most new light bulbs do not waste the bulk of the energy they use, but it is unclear how long inefficient bulbs will remain on the market. The Department of Energy

DOE proposed to require that everyday light bulbs meet an efficiency standard—easily achieved by today’s LEDs—that had been set to take effect last year before the Trump administration prevented it from doing so.

Each additional month that light bulb standards are delayed costs consumers nearly $300 million in needless energy bills and causes 800,000 tons of preventable carbon dioxide emissions over the lifetime of the inefficient bulbs sold in that month.

He's Not Biden His Time

The first major prescription drug legislation in nearly 20 years. More than $50 billion to subsidize computer chip manufacturing and research. A bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.

After a turbulent stretch in which much of President Biden’s legislative agenda seemed to be foundering, the president and his party may be on the cusp of significant wins in Congress that the White House hopes will provide at least a modest political boost.

Most politically resonant is a bill to let Medicare negotiate drug prices, a hugely popular idea that Democrats have been pursuing for more than 20 years. Even before that — possibly within days — Congress is likely to pass a bill providing $52 billion to the U.S. semiconductor industry, intended to bolster the U.S. economy and cut China’s influence. “We’re close, so let’s get it done,” Biden said of the bill on Monday. “So much depends on it.”
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Invasions Have Consequences

Day 153

Fighting

Russian air attacks have intensified in the Donetsk region, officials said, hitting the cities of Bakhmut, Kramatorsk, Chasiv Yar, Sloviansk and Kostyantynivka, as well as surrounding villages.

Rescuers continue to search under the rubble for three more survivors in an arts and leisure centre in Chuhuiv, 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, after Russian troops fired at least 10 rockets were fired at the town.

The United Kingdom has said there was “no indication” a Ukrainian warship and a stock of anti-ship missiles were at the dockside in Odesa port on Sunday after Russia earlier said it had destroyed those targets with high-precision missiles.

A South Carolina man serving as a medic in the Ukrainian military was identified by his commanding officer over the weekend as one of two United States citizens killed in action last week.




Diplomacy

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara expects Kyiv and Moscow to uphold their commitments under a deal they signed on the export of Ukrainian grains.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday, becoming the first Latin American president to make the trip to Ukraine.

Moscow could try to skew the forthcoming Italian national election by spreading fake news on social media to favour pro-Russian parties, the head of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party Enrico Letta has said.

The Eurovision contest, the world’s largest live music event, is going to be hosted by the UK on behalf of Ukraine next year due to safety concerns, the European Broadcasting Union has said.

Economy

Russian energy giant Gazprom said gas flows to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will be slashed to 20 percent from Wednesday due to maintenance issues.

Energy ministers from European Union countries will meet on Tuesday and are expected to approve a weakened emergency proposal to curb their gas demands, with opt-outs allowing some nations to follow different paths to prepare for Russian supply cuts.

The Czech Republic’s gas stores are 80 percent full, Prime Minister Petr Fiala has said, as the country and other EU member states continue to boost storage to protect against risks of a halt to Russian supplies.

HIMARS Are In Hi Demand

The M142 HIMARS, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems supplied to Ukraine by the United States, have become a symbol of Russian vulnerability.

In the occupied southern Kherson oblast, posters appeared in July featuring a picture of a HIMARS system and words threatening retribution on the Russians for “looting, killing, rape, destruction”.



Now, the Eastern European countries most worried about a future Russian attack are arming themselves.

Poland and the Baltic States have drawn the lesson that they are among the most effective weapons in stopping the Russian advance in Ukraine, and are ordering hundreds of launch systems at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Polish defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced on May 26 that he had requested 500 HIMARS launchers plus ammunition – an enormous number which he said would involve extensive co-production.

Estonia would buy six launchers and ammunition worth $500m, the US Department of State said on July 15. Latvia made public its request for $300m in launchers and rockets a week later. And Lithuania is expected to follow suit.

“The agreement to unblock Odesa would have been impossible without HIMARS. It’s now very clear that the war will end earlier if we arm Ukraine faster,” Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on July 22, referring to Russia’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea.

“The Baltics will become a single theatre of war for Russia,” said Estonian defence minister Kusti Salm, explaining the regional coordination on defence procurements.

"We Will Go to Heaven, and They Will Simply Croak"  The Russian Suicide Cult.


Russian Fuel Depots Make Nice Bonfires


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The MerrickLand Terrapins Dawdle Into Action.  The Hare Still Has a Huge Lead.

Marc Short, a top aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, testified in front of a federal grand jury last week investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, becoming the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration to do so thus far, according to multiple reports.

Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff for almost two years, confirmed to ABC News and CNN that he had testified before a grand jury convened by the Department of Justice after he was served with a subpoena.

“I can confirm that I did receive a subpoena for the federal grand jury, and I complied to that subpoena,” he told CNN on Monday. “But under advice of counsel, I really can’t say much more than that.”

It’s unclear what information Short shared during his testimony, but his appearance is a significant moment in the Justice Department’s investigation into the events leading to the assault on the Capitol. The New York Times added that another top official, Greg Jacob, who was Short’s counsel in the Trump White House, also appeared before the grand jury.
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A Setback for the Hare

A Georgia judge on Monday blocked Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from investigating Burt Jones, a Republican state senator, as part of the investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state.

Jones is one of 16 fake Trump electors who signed on to the “unofficial electorate certificate” in a plan to subvert the Electoral College in the 2020 election.

Jones is currently running for lieutenant governor in Georgia against Democrat Charlie Bailey. Willis hosted a campaign fundraiser for Bailey last month and donated to his primary campaign earlier this year.

In his ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said Willis’ office may “ask witnesses about the Senator’s role in the various efforts the State Republican party undertook to call into question the legitimacy of the results of the election. What her office may not do is make sure of any such evidence to develop a case against the Senator.”

Last week, McBurney criticized Willis during a hearing for hosting the fundraiser for the Democratic candidate. “It’s a ‘What are you thinking’ moment,” the said at the time. “The optics are horrific.”

The Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia can select a replacement district attorney’s office that can question Jones, according to Georgia law.

Peter Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said in a statement that as of Monday, “no decision has been made as to whether or not an appointment will be made. Staff and I are reviewing the Court’s decision and researching case law.”

But the Hare Isn't Taking a Nap

Georgia’s special grand jury investigation into Donald Trump’s bid to upend the 2020 presidential election results in the state is featuring the heaviest hitter to date: Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

Kemp was scheduled to present testimony on Monday to prosecutors to reveal what he knows about the former president’s pressure campaign to try to wrangle a change in Georgia votes after his loss, both Bloomberg and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Instead of appearing in person, Kemp was to present a “sworn recorded statement” in the investigation launched by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The 23-member special grand jury also subpoenaed various documents concerning Trump’s efforts to manipulate the vote from Kemp’s office, including phone logs, text messages and emails.
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The Trillion-Dollar Buildings

Saudi Arabia is embarking on an ambitious plan to build the world’s largest structure in the northwest of the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper reported, after viewing hundreds of pages of confidential planning documents that revealed for the first time the lay-out for the plan.

The structure, known as the Mirror Line, will be comprised of two glass reflective buildings measuring up to 488 metres (1,600 feet) high, running parallel for 120 kilometres (75 miles) across coastal, mountain and desert terrain.

The two buildings will be connected via walkways, and a high-speed train will run underneath them. The structure is expected to cost a whopping $1 trillion upon completion, and is projected to house five million people who will be able to travel end-to-end within a 20-minute stretch.

The documents seen are from 2021, and include concept designs such as integrated vertical farming, a marina for yachts, and a sports stadium built up to 305 metres (1,000 feet) above ground.

The structure is the epicentre of Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman’s zero-carbon smart city project called Neom, which will cost another $500bn to build and is the size of the US state of Massachusetts.



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Whose Panda Is It Anyway?

They’re widely loved for their plumpness and clumsy antics, but giant pandas lack distinguishable facial features, making it difficult for scientists and keepers to tell them apart and thus keep track of them.

Now researchers at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China have pioneered new technology that uses artificial intelligence to identify the creatures, allowing them to monitor the animals both within the sanctuary and in the wild.

Facial recognition technology used on humans and other animals such as chimpanzees is not nuanced enough to identify the giant pandas, which are considered a national symbol of China.

“They lack a distinguishable biological characteristic,” Chen Peng, a researcher at the Chengdu base, told NBC News in early July. This is due in part because of their furry faces and lack of facial expressions.

Panda identification is becoming easier thanks to a growing database of images and videos that have been analyzed in recent years to detect slight differences between the animals. Better recognizing individual pandas — and thus better understanding panda populations — can help with conservation, researchers say.

The use of AI technology can also reduce the human time and labor required to study the pandas, who mostly live alone and are scattered throughout vast bamboo forests.

Over 200,000 images and 10 terabytes of video data have been collected from over 600 pandas, both living and deceased, at the Chengdu research base so far.

Given that giant pandas mostly eat and sleep (Sounds a lot like previous guy), keeping tabs on them is far from thrilling.
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