Sat: The QOP, Joe McCarthy, and Putin,.Oh My! | Bru1zone Open Forum (troll free)

mhbruin
Executive Member

Posts: 13,183

Sat: The QOP, Joe McCarthy, and Putin,.Oh My! Jun 17, 2023 8:30:43 GMT -8

Quote

Post by mhbruin on Jun 17, 2023 8:30:43 GMT -8

If Gov DeathSentence Isn't Bad Enough for Florida

As Americans flock to the beach this summer, they're often greeted with disconcerting news: Their destination might be smelly with dead fish or rotting seaweed — and danger often lurks from rip currents or even shark attacks.

In a warming world, those problems are set to get worse, experts say.

"The climate is changing and it's changing drastically," said Todd Crowl, director of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University in Miami. "It is measurable and happening."

No single ruined beach day should be directly attributed to a warming globe. But the rise in both atmospheric and ocean temperatures is rapidly altering the stretches of coastline where land and water meet.

The most obvious impact is rising sea levels that over years will erode beaches, threaten coastal homes and swamp stretches of coastline. But some climate change effects are less obvious and beginning to unfold right now.

This year could be a portent of even more extreme, seashore-ruining, events. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday that global ocean temperatures hit a record high in May, the second consecutive month where ocean temperatures broke a record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

mhbruin
Executive Member

Posts: 13,183

Sat: The QOP, Joe McCarthy, and Putin,.Oh My! Jun 17, 2023 8:32:02 GMT -8

Quote

Post by mhbruin on Jun 17, 2023 8:32:02 GMT -8

A QOP Attorney is Found Mentally Incompetent

A federal judge on Friday found Kellye SoRelle — an attorney for the Oath Keepers and girlfriend of the right-wing group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes — mentally incompetent to stand trial as scheduled next month on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta of D.C. postponed SoRelle’s trial indefinitely, finding — based on reports by defense and government medical experts — that she was suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering her unable to understand the proceedings against her or to assist properly in her defense.

Mehta ordered the defendant to begin treatment near Junction, Tex., where she lives, while both sides searched for an inpatient hospital facility where she could be held for months to determine whether competence could be restored. The reports and the nature of SoRelle’s condition were not made public.

“We’ll continue to toll time [to trial] until we have an answer on competency,” Mehta said at a brief hearing Friday afternoon.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy of D.C. and Assistant Federal Defender Horatio Aldredge of Austin cautioned that it could take months to find a suitable health facility. Defendants taken into custody by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for competence assessments often spend longer behind bars awaiting transport, bed space and review than they might serve for minor offenses if found guilty and sentenced. Both sides said they would see whether they could find a facility in Texas near SoRelle, who lives about two hours west of Austin and San Antonio.

mhbruin
Executive Member

Posts: 13,183

Sat: The QOP, Joe McCarthy, and Putin,.Oh My! Jun 17, 2023 8:34:14 GMT -8

Quote

Post by mhbruin on Jun 17, 2023 8:34:14 GMT -8

Tag That Bag

Out of the post-pandemic travel chaos, a hero has emerged.

Unassuming and undercover, this hero has spent much of the past year traveling the globe, stepping in when airlines mess up to save people’s precious vacations.

Its name? Well, it goes by a few. To you, it may be Tile, Chipolo, Pebblebee or – its best-known incarnation – AirTag. That’s right: compact, portable and potentially snatching your perfect vacation from the jaws of lost luggage disaster, the travel accessory of the moment is the humble luggage tracker.

We’ve seen it month after month, after airlines and airports laying off staff led to travel chaos throughout 2022. Not enough baggage handlers and exploding numbers of travelers meant bags not being loaded onto planes, bags not being taken fast enough off planes, unattended bags piling up by the thousands in airports – and many of them lost.

The bag mishandling rate was up 74.7% in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to data from SITA, which offers various IT solutions (including baggage tracking) for the aviation industry. Out of every 1,000 bags to take to the skies, 7.6 were lost last year, compared to 4.35 per 1,000 in 2021 and 5.6 per 1,000 in 2019.

Bags for international flights are eight times as likely to be mishandled than those on domestic flights, due to the likelihood of them being transferred (connections account for nearly half the incidents). However, you don’t have to have a complex itinerary for the airline to lose your bag – a whopping 17% of mishandled bags in 2022 were simply never loaded onto the plane in the first place.

“The sudden surge in travel has led to increased disruptions that are compounded by a shortage of skilled staff,” Thomas Romig, vice president for safety, security and operations of the Airports Council International (ACI) wrote in a report this year for SITA.

And 2023 could be even worse, according to Rory Boland, editor of UK-based consumer magazine Which? Travel.

“There remain significant problems with lost luggage this year, and this is likely to be worse still in the peak travel period this summer. That’s not just the odd bag going missing, but planes taking off with no luggage because staff shortages meant it wasn’t possible to load them in time,” he warns.

If losing a bag doesn’t sound like the worst thing that could happen on vacation, that probably means you haven’t ever lost one. “If you’ve lost a bag once you’re probably scarred for life,” says tech writer Kate Bevan, to whom it’s happened twice.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get a call or an email saying your missing bag has been located. If you’re not, you’ll be waiting indefinitely, always wondering what happened to that piece of luggage.

But if you put a tracking device inside it, as more and more people are finding, you can tell the airline where it is.

And while knowing where it is doesn’t guarantee you’ll get it back, you have more of a fighting chance.

“For me, tracking devices are essential because they help you help the airline find your luggage faster, but also offer peace of mind that you will get your belongings back at some stage,” says Boland.

How simple luggage trackers became the hottest travel accessory

mhbruin
Executive Member

Posts: 13,183

Sat: The QOP, Joe McCarthy, and Putin,.Oh My! Jun 17, 2023 8:38:05 GMT -8

Quote

Post by mhbruin on Jun 17, 2023 8:38:05 GMT -8

Maybe Previous Guy Should Have Tried This

Newbern is a Black-majority town in rural Alabama that, according to residents, has never had an election. Patrick Braxton ran to become its first Black mayor in 2020. With no opponent, he ascended into the office by default, but you’d never know it. The previous mayor, Haywood "Woody" Stokes III, is still serving as mayor, despite the fact that he failed to submit the necessary paperwork to even run for the role. Before Braxton, the position of mayor in this town had always been passed down from white friend to white friend.

Stokes initially tried to dissuade Braxton from running because he said the town of 245 people couldn’t support an election. After all, Stokes said, they “don’t have ballots or machines to do it.” So Braxton headed to the county seat of Greensboro and got all the paperwork he needed, following the rules to the letter, and shelling out the funds for the filing fee. Stokes didn’t bother to do any of that. Braxton assumed office and was advised that he should appoint the town council members, marking the first time the Black-majority council truly represented the majority-Black town. In November 2020, the council and Braxton were all sworn into office together.

But it appears a conspiracy to hold power by the former council was created soon after the swearing-in. Former members of the predominantly white town council, all of whom failed to file their own required paperwork, held an undisclosed and illegal meeting to arrange a special election to fill their own seats.

Their first order of business was to hold another meeting—with no public notice—and reappoint the former mayor, Stokes, as the new mayor.

These “council members,” Gary Broussard, Jesse Leverett, Voncille Thomas, and Willie Tucker, claimed they were informed that council membership must be chosen through an election, contradicting the town's long-standing practice. They themselves had not been elected. They never said who told them about this supposed rule. Braxton maintains that neither he nor the town's residents were notified of this special election, and none of the residents interviewed by a reporter from Tread were aware of the special election, either.

As a result, since November 2020, Braxton has been locked out of the town hall and unable to carry out his mayoral duties. Confused? So are the square-mile town’s residents:

Alabama town gets first Black mayor, but the previous one won't leave