Mon:Freedom for QOP Memebers Who Want to Pal Around with Naz

Anti-Semitism is a Hummus-ongous Problem

A Philadelphia software engineer posted a video of protesters circling a falafel restaurant run by a James Beard Award winner who is Jewish. The protesters associated the chef and owner with Israel's bombing of Gaza.

Taking to social media on Sunday, a man identifying himself as Jordan , who works for Bloomberg, posted the video and some details about what he observed.

"Goldie, Goldie you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide," the protesters chanted.


"They continued their march down the street, but not before vandalizing the front windows," he wrote. "To clarify, I witnessed them placing stickers on the front door and windows of the restaurant. I just walked by," and the stickers read "Free Palestine" and "This is Genocide."

"Serving falafel" is genocide? Questioned Jordan.

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum explained that the restaurant Goldie is run by Michael Solomonov, who has a number of establishments in the area bringing culinary creations from Israel to the United States.

Calling the protesters an "antisemitic mob," Frum said, "They demand a boycott of Jewish goods. Michael Solomonov is a James Beard Award-winning chef. He makes some of the best hummus outside Israel, as well as outstanding lamb and other dishes. It all ships via Goldbelly.

Catch a Wave and You're Sitting on Top of the World

The world’s oceans may be vast, but they are getting crowded. Coastal areas are congested with cargo ships, international commercial fishing fleets, naval vessels, oil rigs and, soon, floating platforms for deep-sea mining .

But the Pacific Ocean is going to get even busier: Nearly 600 square miles of ocean off California have been leased for floating wind farms , with more expected. Now the state is considering hosting another renewable energy technology in the sea: Blue power, electricity created from waves and tides.

A new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October instructs state agencies to study the feasibility and impacts of capturing ocean movement to create power and report back to the Legislature by January 2025.

The goal is to jumpstart an industry that could fill in the power gaps as California tries to achieve its goal of transitioning to an all-renewable electric grid by 2045.

But for all the interest in renewable energy — and the government subsidies — public investment in ocean energy has lagged. And the technology that would make the projects more efficient, cost effective and able to withstand a punishing sea environment is still under development.

So far, a handful of small demonstration projects have been launched off the West Coast, although none has produced commercial power for the grid. Through 2045, the California Energy Commission’s new projections for future power do not include any wave and tidal power. Yet energy experts say there is great potential along the Pacific coast.

“Of all the energies out there, marine energy has been the slowest to develop. We are kind of where land-based wind was 20 or 30 years ago,” said Tim Ramsey, marine energy program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office .

Energy from waves and tides is generated by an action that the ocean almost always provides — movement. Although wave and tidal devices take different forms, most capture the ocean’s kinetic motion as seawater flows through cylinders or when floating devices move up and down or sideways. In some cases, that movement creates hydraulic pressure that spins a turbine or generator.

Blue power: Will ocean waves be California’s new source of clean energy?

Here’s Nikki Haley’s path to the Republican nomination

Haley, however, doesn’t need to win Iowa to secure the GOP nomination. What she needs is a boost coming out of the Hawkeye State.

That’s what happened to Democrat Gary Hart in 1984. He finished a distant second to Walter Mondale in Iowa, though he did better than the pre-caucus polls had suggested.

Indeed, history shows us that the best way to predict the New Hampshire primary results is to take into account the pre-primary polling in the Granite State as well as how much candidates outperform their polling in Iowa.

It's a Swing and a Mississippi

Mississippi is good at doing things badly. The benighted state is close to the bottom in almost every social metric. And it ranks dead last in life expectancy. The one thing it does well is vaccinate its children. Mississippi did not permit a religious or philosophical object to the state’s mandatory vaccination policy. As a result, Mississippi had the highest childhood vaccination rate in the US.

A cynic might say, given Mississippian’s abysmal life expectancy, mandatory vaccines are ineffective. That would ignore the obvious and profound salutary effects of mass vaccination in keeping millions alive — and cavalierly dismiss the two-century medical record of the efficacy of vaccines.

Unfortunately for current Mississippians and those yet to be born, the state’s commitment to that one aspect of good health has been stripped away in the name of religious freedom. In July, the state permitted parents citing religious objections to deny their children the life and health benefits of vaccination after a federal judge sided with a “medical freedom” group.

Within four months, 2,100 Mississippi schoolchildren were officially exempt from vaccination on religious grounds. Another 500 are exempt because their health precludes vaccination. Dr. Daniel P. Edney, the state health officer, warns that when the total number of exemptions climbs above 3,000, Mississippi will again face the risk of deadly diseases that had been eradicated in the state.

The Sack(ler)s of Shit May Not Be Off the Hook, Yet.

The Supreme Court on Monday is hearing arguments over a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would shield members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids.

The agreement hammered out with state and local governments and victims would provide billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic. The Sacklers would contribute up to $6 billion and give up ownership, and the company would emerge from bankruptcy as a different entity, with its profits used for treatment and prevention.

But the justices put the settlement on hold during the summer, in response to objections from the Biden administration.

The issue for the justices is whether the legal shield that bankruptcy provides can be extended to people such as the Sacklers, who have not declared bankruptcy themselves. Lower courts have issued conflicting decisions over that issue, which also has implications for other major product liability lawsuits settled through the bankruptcy system.

No One Has Ever Told Me I Have Rizz.

In the year of creative language like "Barbenheimer," "Swiftie" and "yeet," one word has risen to the top as the word that captures 2023.

The Oxford University Press announced Monday the 2023 Word of the Year is "rizz."

A slang word popularized by social media, rizz was chosen from a pool of eight words by language experts with input from the public.

"Given that last year, ‘goblin mode’ resonated with so many of us after the pandemic, it’s interesting to see a contrasting word like rizz come to the forefront, perhaps speaking to a prevailing mood of 2023, where more of us are opening ourselves up after a challenging few years and finding confidence in who we are," president of Oxford Languages Casper Grathwohl said in a press release.

Here is what to know about rizz and some other words that were in the running for the Oxford Word of the Year 2023.

"Rizz" is believed to be short for "charisma," describing one's ability to flirt and attract someone romantically. It can be used as a noun or a verb, depending on the context.

To rizz is someone is to attract or seduce them, Oxford defines.

To have rizz is to have the ability to charm others through communicating.

I Don't Know What Goblin Mode is Either.