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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:34:31 GMT -8
Looking for an author of a book about dinosaurs? Try Sarah Topps.
A Not So Happy New Year in Russia
The clock in the Kremlin's Spassky Tower strikes midnight.
The Russian national anthem plays.
Then Channel One TV kicks off 2023 with a pop song: "I'm Russian and I will go all the way…I'm Russian, to spite the world."
Next on Top of the (patriotic) Pops: "I was born in the Soviet Union, I was made in the USSR!"
I change channels. At the Russia-1 New Year party, one of the station's most famous war correspondents is holding a champagne glass, toasting 2023 and wishing for "more good news than bad from the front line".
Sitting with him are men in military fatigues. A Moscow-installed official from Russian-occupied Ukraine declares: "I wish us all peace. But peace will only come after our victory."
You get the gist. This year's festive extravaganzas on Russian TV are a strange mixture of let's party and let's win on the battlefield.
This is not normal TV fare for a New Year's night in Russia. Then again, this is not a normal New Year's night. "Normal" disappeared 10 months ago when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There was nothing "normal" about Vladimir Putin's New Year address to the Russian people. For his annual speech the president normally stands alone outside the Kremlin. This year, standing behind him, were men and women in combat uniforms.
In his speech last year, the Kremlin leader pointed out that "New Year's Eve is literally filled with good cheer and happy thoughts".
Good cheer and happy thoughts were in short supply this time round.
President Putin used the address to promote the Kremlin's alternative reality: that in this conflict Russia's the hero and Ukraine and the West are the villains.
"For years, Western elites hypocritically assured us of their peaceful intentions…but in fact, they encouraged the neo-Nazis in every possible way," President Putin said.
"Defending our Motherland is the sacred duty we owe to our ancestors and descendants."
When the Kremlin talks about "defending our Motherland", keep in mind that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine. Not the other way around.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:36:20 GMT -8
What's the Opposite of "Brexit"?
Croatia has switched to the euro and entered Europe’s passport-free zone – two important milestones for the country after joining the European Union (EU) nearly a decade ago.
At midnight on Sunday, the Balkan nation bid farewell to its kuna currency and became the 20th member of the eurozone.
It is now the 27th nation in the Schengen zone, the world’s largest passport-free travel area, which enables more than 400 million people to move freely around its members.
The Crentry?
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:39:19 GMT -8
While I Sympathize with the Women, This Seems Like Shopping For Defendants With Deep Pockets.
Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase are asking a federal court to throw out lawsuits that claim the big banks should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein, the high-flying financier who killed himself in jail while facing criminal charges.
The banks said in filings late Friday they didn’t commit any negligent acts that caused harm to the women who filed the lawsuits and that the lawsuits failed to show that they benefitted from Epstein’s sex trafficking.
The filings in federal district court in New York came about a month after two women who were both identified as Jane Doe sued the banks and the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein had a home on a small island that he owned.
The lawsuits, which seek class-action status to represent other Epstein victims, claim that the banks knowingly benefitted from Epstein’s sex trafficking and “chose profit over following the law” to earn millions of dollars from the financier.
They suggested that the banks should have steered clear of Epstein after his 2006 arrest in Florida — he eventually pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution — and fallout from a federal investigation and news coverage.
“Without the financial institution’s participation, Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme could not have existed or flourished,” the lawsuits claim.
JPMorgan Chase said Friday that the Jane Doe in its case “is entitled to justice ... But this lawsuit against JPMC is directed at the wrong party, is legally meritless, and should be dismissed.”
Deutsche Bank said it provided “routine banking services” to Epstein from 2013 to 2018, and the lawsuit “does not come close to adequately alleging that Deutsche Bank ... was part of Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring.”
Not That Deutsche Bank is Innocent of Money Laundering
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:40:48 GMT -8
When Zelensky Spoke to Congress, He Had a Little Nugget for US History Buffs
“Just like the Battle of Saratoga, the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.”
Saratoga was no small victory. An entire British Army had surrendered to an American force. The British strategy of dividing the colonies was in tatters, and back in Quebec, there were serious worries that the Americans would take a second swing at traveling north. Most importantly, the French decided to finally take the chance of recognizing the American colonies and began negotiations leading to the vital American-French alliance that would persist through the end of the war.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:42:46 GMT -8
Cruelty is Not a Bug. It's a Feature.
There was a brief moment of hope that the GOP's poor results in the midterm elections might cause Republicans as a whole to "moderate," or at least pull away from noxious MAGA extremism. After all, data demonstrates that entirely accurate perceptions of the party's radicalism led independents — and even a small but crucial number of normally Republican voters — to break for the Democrats. But examples like these and countless others have made clear that the opposite is happening. Republicans aren't backing away from MAGA. They're doubling down. The cruelty that has come to define the party is only likely to intensify in the next year, resulting in more vicious attacks on LGBTQ people, more dehumanizing treatment of migrants, more deranged conspiracy theories, more pregnant people denied medical care with specious "pro-life" arguments, and more winking approval of political violence.
There are many possible explanations for why the GOP is going so dark, most of which revolve around the fact that the party's authoritarian base voters and its big-money donors have a lot more influence than potentially winnable independent voters do. But the unnecessary, gratuitous viciousness of so much of this stuff — seriously, no one asked Ron DeSantis to relitigate the pandemic! — makes that kind of bloodless explanation seem unsatisfying. It's time to ask a different question: Is it possible that GOP leadership is composed of the same unhinged sadists as their voting base?
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:45:44 GMT -8
The Internal Russian War of the “Motherf*ckers”
The intervention by Wagner Boss Yevgeny Prigozhin came after a foul-mouthed video from his rank-and-file mercenaries attacking Russia's top general, accusing him of leaving them to do all the hard fighting.
It is the latest salvo in a bitter rift between Russia's formal military leaders and Wagner, the private army smiled upon by President Vladimir Putin and which is supporting the country's invasion of Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is backing up his mercenaries who were caught on tape calling the chief of the Russian Army a “motherf*cker.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a scathing response Tuesday to a video that surfaced days earlier in which Wagner mercenaries are seen cursing out Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
“To the Chief of the General Staff: you are a fucking motherfucker. We have nothing to fight with, we have no rounds. The guys are dying for us there, and we’re fucking sitting here, not helping. We need rounds, we want to fuck everyone up. We are fighting against the entire Ukrainian army near Bakhmut. Where are you? It’s about time you help us. There’s nothing else to fucking call you except motherfucker!” one of the fighters said in the video.
While Russian media had suggested the men in the video might have actually been “Ukrainian nationalists” dressed up as Wagner fighters in a bid to undermine the war, Prigozhin quickly shot down that conspiracy theory.
“The guys asked me to pass along, that when you’re sitting in a warm office, it’s hard to hear the problems on the frontline, but when you’re dragging the dead bodies of your friends every day, and seeing them for the last time, then supplies are very much needed. And you want everyone to stir and at least in some way to think about how it is for those on the frontline,” Prigozhin said.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:49:55 GMT -8
The Billionaire Boys Club
93 year old Billionaire and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus is a doctrinaire Plutocrat who blames ‘woke people’ and workers who demand a decent wage for the decline of capitalism.
In 2016 and again in 2020 Bernie Marcus was one of Donald Trump’s top donors. He also is a big donor to Ron DeSantis. Marcus calls Trump’s policies as ‘spot on’ and he calls Biden “the worst president in the history of this country.”
The list of potential obstacles to entrepreneurial success in the United States today is long, according to Bernie Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot Inc.: human resources executives, government bureaucrats, regulators, socialists, Harvard graduates, MBAs, Harvard MBAs, lawyers, accountants, Joe Biden, the media and “the woke people.”
“Thanks to “socialism,” he says, “nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.'”
“We used to have free speech here. We don’t have it,” Marcus says. “The woke people have taken over the world. You know, I imagine today they can’t attack me. I’m 93.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:54:27 GMT -8
Who Won the Week?
The green energy sector, as 38% of U.S. power came from clean sources this year, up from 8% twenty years ago
Judge Peter Thompson, for laughing the MAGA loser of Arizona governor's race, Kari Lake, and her bogus "election fraud" lawsuit out of court…and fining her $33k in court fees
The snow removers and power restorers working round the clock in the wake of last week's bomb cyclone
The long arm of the law, as Michigan MAGA terrorists Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. are sentenced just shy of 20 years in prison for plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
The House Ways & Means Committee, for releasing 6 years of pathological liar Donald Trump's tax returns to the public
President Biden: the "under-the-radar" POTUS ends 2022 with near-universal agreement that he had a stellar year of accomplishments
Environmentalist Greta Thunberg, whose epic spat with misogynist "toxic influencer" Andrew Tate on Twitter led to his location and arrest on sex trafficking charges in Romania
Housing Works Cannabis Company, the first licensed dispensary in New York to open its doors for public sales of recreational marijuana
The journalistic and legal ton of bricks that fell on the big dumb head of MAGA Rep-elect George Santos, who appears to have lied about every aspect of his life
Local Iowa TV sportscaster Mark Woodley, who was sent out on overnight snow reporting duty during last week's blizzard and jovially whined and complained his way into our hearts
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:56:14 GMT -8
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 9:58:05 GMT -8
They Will Be Happy to Have a New Year
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 10:02:17 GMT -8
The Last Thing the QOP Seems to Want if For People With Guns to Know How to Handle Them Safely.
Alabamians woke up Sunday with the right to carry a gun without a license.
The change, implemented by a state law passed last year, marked a major milestone: half of America’s 50 states now allow people to carry handguns without first seeking a permit.
Thirteen years ago, only two states — Vermont and Alaska — allowed its residents the unfettered right to carry a gun, relying on the Constitution’s Second Amendment as a blanket permit for all.
Since 2010, however, nearly two dozen states have followed suit, with 11 of them passing permitless carry laws in the last three years alone.
The growing movement has chalked up wins in state legislatures with remarkable speed, drawing cheers from gun rights advocates while raising fears among reformers that the changes will lead to more guns in the street — and likely more violence.
“If you are a law-abiding citizen, you should fully be able to exercise all of your constitutional rights,” said Andi Turner, legislative director for the Texas Rifle Association. “Half the states of the union are now recognizing it.”
Permit systems generally require applicants to demonstrate safe gun handling, as well as show knowledge of often-complicated gun laws and the use of lethal force.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 10:04:12 GMT -8
How to Lose 60% of Your Next Worth or How To Fail in Business Without Even Trying
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has become the first human being in history to lose a mammoth $200 billion in net worth, Bloomberg reported.
It wasn’t too long ago that Musk became the second individual ever to amass a personal fortune of more than $200 billion. That happened in January 2021, just months after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos accomplished the same feat.
Much of Musk’s lost billions have been swallowed up by the plummeting value of his shares in Tesla, the electric vehicle company of which he is CEO. That value has dropped 65% this year, and dove 11% last Tuesday alone, as Bloomberg noted Friday.
Musk’s fortune to date peaked in November 2021 at $340 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. He’s now worth a not-too-shabby $137 billion, per Bloomberg, but that’s still a steep dive from 2021.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 10:09:36 GMT -8
They Say You Can't Be Too Rich or Too Thin, But Being Rich May Help to Be Thin.
An Eli Lilly drug if approved for weight loss could become the best-selling drug of all time, but concerns are mounting about who will actually be able to afford it.
Experts are confident that the drug, called tirzepatide, will be granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration sometime next year. If that’s the case, it would join two other popular — and expensive — recently approved weight loss drugs on the market, Wegovy and Saxenda, both from the drugmaker Novo Nordisk.
Annual sales of tirzepatide could hit a record $48 billion, according to an estimate from Bank of America analyst Geoff Meacham. Another Wall Street analyst, Colin Bristow at UBS, estimated the drug would reach $25 billion in annual sales — a figure that would still surpass the record $20.7 billion set by AbbVie’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira in 2021.
Kelly Smith, a spokesperson for Eli Lilly, declined to comment on what tirzepatide will cost. Outside experts said it is possible the drugmaker could price it similarly to Wegovy, which carries a list price of around $1,500 for a month’s supply, and Saxenda, which costs about $1,350 for a month’s supply.
If the FDA confirms the drug’s effectiveness, a “fair” price for tirzepatide could be around $13,000 annually, or around $1,100 a month, said Dr. David Rind, the chief medical officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a research group that helps determine fair prices for drugs.
The drugs have been shown in clinical trials to be highly effective for weight loss. All three drugs — which are given as injections — work in a similar way: They’re a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which mimic a hormone that helps reduce food intake and appetite.
However, Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide also imitates a second hormone, called GIP, which along with reducing appetite, may also improve how the body breaks down sugar and fat.
A phase 3 clinical trial found a high dose of tirzepatide helped patients lose 22.5% of their body weight on average, or about 52 pounds, better than any medication currently on the market. Most patients in the trial had a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or higher. In trials, Wegovy and Saxenda reduced body weight by around 15% and around 5%, respectively.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 10:11:58 GMT -8
The New QOP Congress Has BIG, HUGE, ENORMOUS Plans
Incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent a letter Friday to the Republican conference outlining the agenda for the first few weeks of the session of the Republicans’ tiny new majority. That is, if they can actually get a speaker elected, because they can’t do any business at all until that’s accomplished.
Once they get past that hurdle, Scalise promises they’ll “begin bringing up meaningful, ‘ready-to-go’ legislation” that will “address challenges facing hard-working families on issues ranging from energy, inflation, border security, life, taxpayer protection, and more.”
It probably won’t come as a big surprise that the bills Scalise lists in his letter don’t do any of that. He also omits as “and more” three pieces of punitive, politicized abortion legislation. They sure learned their lesson from November!
That forced birth agenda includes codifying the long-standing Hyde Amendment that prevents federal funding for abortion and “funding for any insurance plan that includes abortion on demand.” That’s private health insurance coverage they’re talking about. They’ll also vote on a cruel “born-alive” bill that would require medical personnel provide care to infants born with conditions that will keep them from surviving outside the womb for any amount of time, torturing the babies in their only minutes on Earth with futile medical interventions and preventing parents from having the experience of being with their newborn for whatever time they’ll live. It’s just sick.
Speaking of sick, they have a gotcha bill to try to force Democrats on the record “condemning the recent attacks on pro-life facilities, groups, and churches.” Recent attacks? On churches for being “pro-life”? In the U.S.? Outside of the synagogues and the Black churches, that is.
They do have some energy-related bills, mostly attempting to tie President Joe Biden’s hands if we’re faced with another oil shortage with a bill that “prohibits non-emergency drawdowns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve without a plan to increase energy production on federal lands.” Sorry, America, you can’t have both affordable gas and pristine national parks and recreation areas.
There’s also plenty of immigrant-bashing to be had, including a bill that “requires the National Instant Criminal Background Check system (NICS) to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and relevant local law enforcement when a firearm transferee is illegally present in the United States.” So they found a gun restriction that they can support on a thing that probably never happens.
Oh, and they’ll try to repeal the increase in funding for the IRS that Democrats passed this year. They sure don’t want the agency to be able to investigate their well-heeled donors for tax fraud.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 1, 2023 10:16:22 GMT -8
This is the Result of a Gonzaga Education?
John Stockton, a Basketball Hall of Famer and NBA career assists and steals leader, is a soft-spoken man who projects calm rationality. It is a mask. Underneath his aw-shucks exterior is a fevered conspiracy theorist who says the COVID vaccine has killed thousands of professional athletes.
Last week he offered his junk science on Michele Tafoya’s misnomered (at least in this case) ‘Sideline Sanity With Michele Tafoya’ show. The host reasonably asked Stockton if he had evidence for his assertion, saying, “I would be derelict if I did not ask you this question John because there’s one article here, and quite a few mention this, that you claimed that 100, 150 athletes have dropped dead since the vaccine came out — where did you get that information?”
Stockton answered Tafoya by explaining where he got his information. And he told her he had a “system” for information validation. In his words,
“I got it from a lot of places, otherwise I would never have had the confidence to share it. And that’s the beauty of it. I have quite a system I go through before I open my mouth, especially with statistics.”
“I knew at the time 150 was dramatically low and I thought it was in the area of 300. So when I went and spoke at the Spokesman-Review we had a nice interview and they asked then of course whatever fact check.org or.com came out and said well that’s baloney. I went back and I looked again.
"I have names, pictures, faces, where they played. I had over 300 at the time so I felt pretty secure with my little 150. And people had to come out and argue that. And I had the proof in my hands OK with the names so it’s way more than that now. I think it’s in the thousands now. But don’t quote me on that one. It’s not 3000, but it might be. It’s a big number.”
And You Should See What He Learned About Obama's Birth Certificate!
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