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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:04:38 GMT -8
My friend told me he was going to a fancy dress party as an Italian island. I said to him, “Don't be Sicily.”
I Understand that Nuclear Power Doesn't Produce Greenhouse Gases. But It Produces Radioactive Waste, and This Stuff Happens.
The owner of one of Minnesota's two nuclear power plants said it will temporarily power down the facility on Friday to repair a recurring leak of radioactive water discovered this week, occurring as state regulators had been monitoring the effects of an initial spill four months ago.
Xcel Energy said in a news release Thursday that there is "no risk to the public or the environment" with the latest incident at the Nuclear Generating Plant in Monticello.
The company added that the leak of water containing tritium, a mildly radioactive form of hydrogen, is "fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water." This second leak involved hundreds of gallons of radioactive water, according to the utility company, far less than the 400,000 gallons that was discovered leaking in late November.
But some Monticello residents surrounding the plant — located 38 miles northwest of Minneapolis and upstream of the Mississippi River — say they have concerns about what a recurring leak presents and the delay in finding out about the initial spill.
At Least We Can Trust What the Power Company Says. Big Companies Never Lie About This Stuff
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:08:36 GMT -8
In General I Support Trans People's Rights Including Their Right to the Health Care They Want, But I Have No Problem With This
Track and field banned transgender athletes from international competition Thursday, while adopting new regulations that could keep Caster Semenya and other athletes with differences in sex development from competing.
In a pair of decisions expected to stoke outrage, the World Athletics Council adopted the same rules as swimming did last year in deciding to bar athletes who have transitioned from male to female and have gone through male puberty. No such athletes currently compete at the highest elite levels of track.
Another set of updates, for athletes with differences in sex development (DSD), could impact up to 13 current high-level runners, WA President Sebastian Coe said. They include Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion at 800 meters, who has been barred from that event since 2019.
Semenya and others had been able to compete without restrictions in events outside the range of 400 meters through one mile but now will have to undergo hormone-suppressing treatment for six months before competing to be eligible.
Coe conceded there are no easy answers on this topic, which has turned into a societal lightning rod involving advocates who want people assigned female at birth to be able to compete on even footing and others who don’t want to discriminate against transgender and DSD athletes.
OTOH, No One Has Any Idea How to Keep Sports "Fair".
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:11:18 GMT -8
I Can't Wait to See Russia Try to Take These On With Their WWII Tanks
News came on Thursday that U.S.-supplied Abrams M1 tanks may arrive in Ukraine sooner than expected. That’s because, as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made clear, the U.S. is going to tap the existing stock of older M1A1 tanks rather than wait for new export models of the M1A2 tank to roll off the line. This means that Ukraine will be getting something less than the most up-to-date model, but they’ll be getting it much sooner.
Based on yesterday’s Pentagon briefing, the decision to go with sooner over better appears to have come from Ukraine. According to Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, “DoD, in close coordination with Ukraine, made the decision to buy the M1A1 variant which will enable us to significantly expedite delivery timelines, and deliver this important capability to Ukraine by the fall of this year.” The number of vehicles slated for delivery still seems to be 31. At least for now.
The M1A1 and M1A2 share the same 120mm gun and much of the same structure. Many of the additional armor packages designed for the A2 also work with the A1. Most of the differences between the two are actually internal, with the A2 having improved thermal sights and a new weapons station for the tank commander that includes its own thermal display. That allows the commander to identify and tag potential new targets even as the gunner is already working on an existing target. The A2 also has improved tracks, designed to last longer with fewer repairs. The final configuration of the tanks bound for Ukraine is unclear—there are a lot of options that still fall within the M1A1 family—but it looks like they will be in Ukraine later this year.
Maybe the Russians Can Find Some Flintlock Guns for the Infantry
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:18:24 GMT -8
Meanwhile the QOP Ignores the Public
Eight in ten Americans (80%) favor laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing. This includes 48% who strongly support such laws. About one in five Americans (18%) oppose these laws, including 7% who strongly oppose them. Support for these protections has increased over the past few years: around seven in ten Americans favored nondiscrimination provisions in 2015 (71%), 2017 (70%), 2018 (69%), and 2019 (72%), before rising to 76% in 2020 and 79% in 2021.[5]
Overwhelming shares of Democrats (90%) and independents (82%), as well as two-thirds of Republicans (66%), favor nondiscrimination provisions for LGBTQ people. Since 2015, support has increased by 12 percentage points among Democrats (78% to 90%) and nine percentage points among independents (73% to 82%). Support among Republicans has increased by five percentage points (61% to 66%).
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:21:48 GMT -8
QOP Wanted to Pretend to Protect Freedom and Accidentally Really Did It
The reason why a judge just blocked Wyoming’s abortion ban.
These attacks did not succeed. The [Affordable care Act] bill became law, and Obamacare is popular now that it has been in full effect for nearly a decade without anyone being forced to stand before a death panel. But there is at least one lasting legacy of these attempts to characterize the Affordable Care Act as an attack on patients’ right to decide whether and when to seek health treatments.
In many states, opponents of Obamacare effectively took the GOP’s talking points and turned them into state constitutional amendments protecting patients’ ability to obtain health care that the government might not want them to have. Wyoming’s amendment, for example, provides that “each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”
According to Quinn Yeargain, a law professor at Widener University, similar amendments are on the books in several other states.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:24:00 GMT -8
Gov DeathSentence Has a Terrible Record. Who's Pointing It Out?
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:38:22 GMT -8
When a Mother of Liberty Speaks, We Should Listen
Dildos in the Bible?
Frustrated by the books being removed from school libraries, a Utah parent says there’s one that hasn’t been challenged yet, but that they believe should be, for being “one of the most sex-ridden books around.”
So they’ve submitted a request for their school district in Davis County to now review the Bible for any inappropriate content.
“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”
An Incomprete List
Samson and Delilah: she seduces him, then robs him of his masculinity.
Judah has sex with his widowed daughter-in-law, thinking she is a prostitute.
Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar.
Lot’s daughters get him drunk and have sex with him
Noah (the “righteous man in his generation”) gets drunk and is found naked by his son Ham.
The Song of Songs is an extremely powerful paean to sex between two people who are not married.
David commits adultery with Bathsheba, then has her husband killed so he can marry her.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:38:59 GMT -8
Maybe If They Added Free Condoms, It Would Have Passed
An Idaho bill aimed at providing students with free feminine hygiene products in school failed on Monday after Republicans slammed the prospect as “woke” and “liberal.”
The one-page House Bill 313, introduced on March 13, would have required that public and public charter schools provide students with free tampons, sanitary napkins and other menstrual products.
Dissenting Republicans decried the bill as “woke” and overly generous.
“This bill is a very liberal policy, and it’s really turning Idaho into a bigger nanny state than ever,” said state Rep. Heather Scott, according to The Daily Beast. “It’s embarrassing not only because of the topic but because of the actual policy itself. So you don’t have to be a woman to understand the absurdity of this policy. And you don’t have to feel that you’re insensitive to not address this.”
The cost of the bill would have been $735,400 — $435,000 allocated toward product dispensers and the remainder for the actual menstrual products, according to the fiscal note.
The cost of the products was calculated at about $3.50 per student for 85,825 female students.
“It’s not a lot of money in the state’s budget,” Republican state Rep. Rod Furniss said on March 16 to the House Education Committee before the bill failed, according to the Idaho Statesman. “Today is a step to preserve womanhood, to give it a chance to start right, to not be embarrassed or feel alienated or ashamed, or to feel like they need to stay home from school due to period poverty.”
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:40:37 GMT -8
Did You Know the Senate Has Ethical Standards?
The Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday for soliciting campaign contributions for a fellow GOP candidate while at the U.S. Capitol.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), chair of the ethics committee, and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the vice chair, wrote a letter to Graham on Thursday saying an investigation found their colleague had “directly solicited” campaign contributions for Herschel Walker, who lost his bid for one of Georgia’s Senate seats last year. Graham did so at least five times during a Nov. 30, 2022, appearance on Fox News while standing in the Russell Senate Office Building.
“The committee is charged with upholding the ethical standards of the U.S. Senate, a responsibility both broader than and distinct from criminal law,” the pair wrote. “The public must feel confident that members use public resources only for official actions in the best interests of the United States, not for partisan political activity.”
“Your actions failed to uphold that standard, resulting in harm to the public trust and confidence in the United States Senate.”
I Wonder How Upset Lindsey Is About Being Admonished
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:42:55 GMT -8
Who Could Possibly Predict Problems in Giving a Gun to a 15-Year-Old With Mental Problems?
The parents of a teenager who killed four students at a Michigan high school can face trial for involuntary manslaughter, the state appeals court said Thursday in a groundbreaking case of criminal responsibility for the acts of a child.
The murders would not have happened if the parents hadn’t purchased a gun for Ethan Crumbley or if they had taken him home from Oxford High School on the day of the shooting, when staff became alarmed about his extreme drawings, the appeals court said.
The court noted that the legal threshold at this stage of the case is fairly low under Michigan law.
“Whether a jury actually finds that causation has been proven after a full trial, where the record will almost surely be more expansive — including evidence produced by defendants — is an issue separate from what we decide today,” the court said in a 3-0 opinion.
James and Jennifer Crumbley are accused of failing to secure a gun and ignoring the mental health needs of their son before the shootings. Besides the deaths of four students, seven people were wounded.
Crumbley, 16, has pleaded guilty to terrorism and murder and could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. He was 15 at the time of the November 2021 shooting.
Attorneys for the parents insist that what would happen that day was not foreseeable. They acknowledge that bad decisions were made but not ones that should rise to involuntary manslaughter charges.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:44:05 GMT -8
The Wacko is Going to Waco
The Houston Chronicle has called out former President Donald Trump for planning his first major 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas, on Saturday.
In an editorial on Thursday, the paper suggested the location was not so much a dog-whistle to extremists, but a “blaring air horn of a Mack 18-wheeler.” Waco is inextricably linked to the 1993 Branch Davidian siege, which has sparked yearslong anti-government conspiracy theories.
Waco has become a symbol, “an Alamo of sorts, a shrine for the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers and other anti-government extremists and conspiracists,” the editorial said.
“Militia members and conspiracists know exactly what Trump’s Waco visit symbolizes,” the paper continued, noting that Trump’s campaign insists his visit during the 30th anniversary of the siege is “purely coincidental.”
The editorial listed multiple reasons why people should visit Waco, but not because of Trump.
“Don’t bother with a bombastic, bullying candidate inclined to incitement and bent on ‘retribution,’” it said. “His appearance is ample reason to stay home.”
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:50:31 GMT -8
A Zebra with Seoul
A young zebra had a rare day out when he ran away from a zoo in Seoul and trotted around the streets of the South Korean capital, before being sedated and captured a few hours later.
Sero, a 3-year-old male whose Korean name refers to his vertical stripes, escaped from the Seoul Children’s Grand Park zoo on Thursday afternoon by breaking through the wooden deck around his enclosure, according to zoo officials.
In the hours that followed, Sero ran amok in a nearby residential area in eastern Seoul as people looked on in shock. Social media was instantly flooded with photos and videos of the zebra bumping into traffic and galloping through narrow alleyways.
“Watching a video of Sero in the middle of traffic, I was so moved that the drivers were being so careful with our Sero,” Cho Kyung-wook, the head of the animal welfare department at the zoo, told NBC News in a telephone interview on Friday.
"I'm Sorry I Was Late for Work. Traffic Was Stopped by a Zebra."
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 8:57:19 GMT -8
It Seems Better Than This
 The image of gunmen in a row firing in unison at a condemned prisoner may conjure up a bygone, less enlightened era. But the idea of using firing squads is making a comeback. Idaho lawmakers passed a bill this week seeking to add the state to the list of those authorizing firing squads, which currently includes Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Fresh interest comes as states scramble for alternatives to lethal injections after pharmaceutical companies barred the use of their drugs. And Better Than ThisIf reliability means the condemned are more likely to die as intended, then one could make that argument. An Amherst College political science and law professor, Austin Sarat, studied 8,776 executions in the U.S. between 1890 and 2010 and found that 276 of them were botched, or 3.15%. The executions that went wrong included 7.12% of all lethal injections — in one notorious 2014 case in Oklahoma, Clayton Locket writhed and clenched his teeth after midazolam was administered — as well as 3.12% of hangings and 1.92% of electrocutions. By contrast, not a single one of the 34 firing squad executions was found to have been botched, according to Sarat, who has called for an end to capital punishment. I Wuold Have No Objection to the Death Penalty, If Our Justice System Didn't Sentence So Many Innocent Men to It, and It Were Not Far More Common for People of Color.
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 9:01:33 GMT -8
While They At It, They Should Ban Underage Drinking.
Children and teens in Utah would lose access to social media apps such as TikTok if they don’t have parental consent and face other restrictions under a first-in-the-nation law designed to shield young people from the addictive platforms.
Two laws signed by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox Thursday prohibit kids under 18 from using social media between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., require age verification for anyone who wants to use social media in the state and open the door to lawsuits on behalf of children claiming social media harmed them. Collectively, they seek to prevent children from being lured to apps by addictive features and from having ads promoted to them.
What? They Already Did? That's Why It's Called "Underage"? Then Why Are Kids Still Drinking? Doesn't Passing a Law Fix It?
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Post by mhbruin on Mar 24, 2023 9:05:03 GMT -8
Hasn'tt He Already Brought Enough Death and Destruction to the US?
Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.
The posting after midnight on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, was his latest — and most explicit — allusion to violence that could follow an indictment stemming from an investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whom Trump called a “degenerate psychopath.”
Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”
In a post on Thursday, Trump criticized those who have called for his supporters to remain peaceful. Over the weekend, Trump urged a “PROTEST” over his potential arrest in the case, which he wrongly predicted would happen Tuesday.
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