Hey, Mom! The Explanation.

Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.

Saturday, December 18, 2021

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2496 - Jesus was Born to a Teen Mom - Jesus Gets Women's Rights - Bizarro World - Weekly Hodge Podge for 2112.18


A Sense of Doubt blog post #2496 -  - Jesus was Born to a Teen Mom - Jesus Gets Women's Rights - Bizarro World -  Weekly Hodge Podge for 2112.18

Greetings readers, Thanks for tuning in.

I think this is one of my BEST Weekly Hodge Podges EVER.

There’s a new ad campaign in town that’s doing an artful and elegant job drawing parallels between the struggles of contemporary women and Christ and Christ’s mother.

It’s so simple: “Jesus was born to a teen mom.”

And the campaign is called “he gets us.”

It’s an ad campaign the cross-cultural agency Lerma/ and it is funded by anonymous billionaires from the faith-based non-profit Servant Foundation.

It’s my kind of campaign, drawing on Christian ethics and ideologies without being evangelical or trying to heavily recruit people into some church that might not align with my worldview (as most of them do not).

What a simple parallel.

“Jesus was born to a teen mom.”

Sure, the realities of the time were different, motherhood started more often for young girls in those times.

But for all I know it was just as hard then for young girls suddenly tasked with motherhood as it is today for teenaged moms who will be deprived of other choices if the RIGHT gets its way.

In the world of the RIGHT, women are what they always have been: divine vessels for childbirth with no other choices. If pregnant, they have a “holy” obligation to carry that child to term regardless of how/why it was conceived, regardless of the age of the mother, regardless of any health risks to the mother, regardless of the mother’s own ability to make her own choices for HER BODY.

And these same people who have appointed themselves the morality police – their version of morality – want to be able to decline to be vaccinated against a deadly and continually mutating virus that has caused the greatest pandemic since the Influenza outbreak of 1918-1920, which still dwarfs the Covid-19 pandemic as at least 25 million people died worldwide and some estimates put the number at as many as 100 million.

Same argument. “You can’t tell me what to do with my body.”

I could easily argue the hypocrisy of this line of magical thinking, but really the argument should be about how these things are not analogous.

A fetus is not contagious. A fetus is not something that will make someone ill and at the risk of dying. A fetus may be growing, but it’s not mutating into a different fetus form that may be more deadly and more contagious than the previous fetus. A fetus will not hospitalize someone in a healthcare system that is already overwhelmed with other people made ill and at risk of dying by their fetuses.

No, these two things are not the same.

The ONLY similarity is the idea of FREEDOM OF CHOICE.

AntiVaxxers argue that they should be able to decline being injected with a vaccine that they feel that they do not need or want, their freedom of choice, which many on the RIGHT continually conflate with the freedoms set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

In a similar vein, in terms of choice, why is woman not allowed to make a CHOICE about a fetus that will grow inside of her for nine months and then be a human that either enters the adoption system or the mother tries to raise and clothe and teach and feed and love regardless whether she has the means, desire, and/or resources to do so.

Also, a CHOICE, but not at all the same kind of choice.

But if women cannot have the right to choose whether to be pregnant and give birth and must be sacred vessels tied through some fuzzy ideology to their alleged “biological destiny,” then people should not have a choice about being vaccinated to protect themselves and others, to reduce the patient load on hospitals, to slow or halt mutations, to help us reach herd immunity against a virus that has so far killed over five million worldwide in about two years. Still, not quite as many as cancer but starting to gain on those totals (about 9.5 million annually).

And so, let’s re-frame the narrative.

These so-called morality police do not seem to have a very firm grasp on the stories in their own holy book and how Jesus Christ, if these stories are actually accurate, was a huge supporter of women’s rights.

Also, let’s not gloss over the reality that Mary Magdalene may have not been a “prostitute” at all but simply the wife of Jesus whose story was convoluted by patriarchal and sexist men throughout history to serve their own ends.

“We try to uncover moments and stories in scripture that maybe are not often talked about in the story of Jesus. Stories about how he dealt with anxiety, stories about how he treated women equally and fought for their rights, how he befriended troublemakers, corrupt government bureaucrats and violent nationalists, and then he made them befriend each other because of their love for him” (Bonilla, AdAge article).

This ad campaign – “he gets us” – was launched after research revealed that 54% of American adults are unsure about their faith or have a nominal faith in Jesus (Bonilla).

That’s staggering because the RIGHT wants us all to believe that America is Christian nation and that nearly everyone – or as they feel nearly everyone who matters – is Christian.

The research also showed that most people surveyed believe that the world would be a better place if “everyone lived Christ’s
teachings on peace, love, and forgiveness” (Bonilla).

Brilliant.

So true.

“Peace, love, and forgiveness.”

I am trying. Really, I am. I am trying really hard to apply those concepts to the RIGHT.

But some of these people are literally discussing armed Civil War online daily and asked a U.S. rep at a rally in Idaho about when they can start shooting the libs with their guns.

These people in Texas created a law by which someone can sue someone that they don’t even know for having an abortion.

These are people who thinks it’s funny when a congressional rep makes a video showing himself killing a colleague (and a woman).

An angry parent PUNCHED a school board member: (Guess which side? Right or Left?)

These are people who are acting out like petulant children because they are so triggered by the LEFT’s ethics of peace, love, and forgiveness.

And yet, isn’t that what we still need to do? We need to heal before we live in Bizarro world, in which everything is opposite of how it should be and we’re all dead.

It’s not easy. I feel so much outrage toward these people, and I know they are stoked to the same indignant self-righteousness as they feel there are protecting their freedoms and they way of life they value, this vague idea MAGA has about the time, some undisclosed time in the past, when America was great.

Meanwhile, we need more peace, love, and forgivess.

Jul 10, 2015


Elvis Costello

REMASTERED IM HD!
The new deluxe album ‘Look Now’ out now, order here: https://ElvisCostello.lnk.to/LookNow
Explore more music from Elvis Costello: https://lnk.to/wWTFS

Music video by Elvis Costello & The Attractions performing (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding. (C) 1979 Elvis Costello

#ElvisCostello #PeaceLoveAndUnderstanding #Remastered

Okay, so this blog post.

I have been doing this new thing in which I copy less content and write more about what’s in the content and link the content.

I hope you like the grab bag. Here we go...

Dec 7, 2021




He Gets Us



This is a story about people jumping to conclusions and judging others without grace or mercy. And it’s also a story of incredible grace and forgiveness.

Mary was a teenager dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. Just imagine what this young girl must have felt. Imagine her telling her parents she was pregnant. What would they think? And what would the rest of her community say? She would undoubtedly be judged harshly by everyone she knew. She would be called names. She would have brought shame on her family because she wasn’t married yet. Even worse — her boyfriend wasn’t even the father. This sort of thing wasn’t just taboo in their culture, it was against the law. 

Joseph knew the baby couldn’t possibly be his. He hadn’t ever slept with her. He would have been heartbroken. He forgave her for what he could only imagine was a total betrayal. 

After he forgave her, Joseph had a dream and a vision that changed his mind. He decided to marry her and raise the child as his own. Imagine his experience. He no doubt had to defend his new bride from people who judged her — people who didn’t know the whole story. Imagine how many of his friends and family would try to talk him out of devoting himself to this seemingly untrustworthy young girl.

But in spite of all of these circumstances, and in spite of all the people who judged them, they were committed to one another and to their son, who would go on to start a radical movement of grace, forgiveness, and love that would change the world.  


https://adage.com/article/agency-news/jesus-gets-rebranded-skeptics-new-ad-campaign/2384611



JESUS GETS REBRANDED FOR SKEPTICS IN NEW AD CAMPAIGN

Effort from Lerma/ draws parallels between Christ's story and contemporary struggles
By Brian Bonilla. Published on December 02, 2021.

"A girl got pregnant,” the video starts. “She was scared. Her parents thought her boyfriend was the father but it wasn’t his."

This might sound like an episode of a reality TV series, but it's part of a new ad campaign to make Jesus Christ more relatable to the masses by trying to bridge the gap with skeptics.

Cross-cultural agency Lerma/ led the creative for the "He Gets Us" campaign, which is funded by an anonymous group of billionaire donors from the faith-based nonprofit the Servant Foundation. The effort, budgeted at more than $10 million across 10 test markets in preparation for being taken nationwide, introduces the website HeGetsUs.com.

See Ad Age’s 2021 Year in Review here.

The ads have “one singular focus,” Jon Lee, principal at Lerma/ said. That is “to invite people, particularly people who may be skeptical about Christianity, to rethink Jesus as an inspiring and human figure that we can learn a lot from regardless of what your beliefs are.”

The campaign features 15- and 30-second videos centered around key themes such as teen pregnancy, anxiety, and struggle that are meant to draw parallels between Jesus’ experience as told by the Christian faith and people's contemporary experience. Each video includes a black-and-white picture montage set to background piano music while a woman narrates. 

The teen mom video shows her journey from finding out she’s pregnant all the way to the birth of her child. The narration includes simple and short sentences that coincide with each picture that is shown on screen and tells the story of Jesus’ birth.

Each video ends with the tagline, “He gets us. All of us,” with the word “us” in yellow letters before the two words collapse onto each other and spell out “Jesus” with the letters “U” and “S” still tinted yellow.

“We wanted to find a way to tell the story differently with no gatekeepers, and where skeptics could come and have a conversation about Jesus, if they'd like, without any expectation of conversion or church attendance or anything that might go along with those kinds of conversations in other instances,” Lee said.

The campaign's test markets include Charlotte, North Carolina; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Orlando, Florida; Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix, Arizona; Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; Portland Oregon; Kansas City, Missouri; Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Michigan-based agency Haven oversaw the overall project, while Lerma/ led the creative, Chicago-based agency KSM handled media, and OneMagnify led web design. Other than the website, the campaign will run across local TV spots, digital videos and out-of-home. The effort also includes an optional 7-day virtual Bible plan on the Bible app YouVersion.

The goal of the campaign is to establish “He Gets Us” as a brand and tell the story of Jesus in a non-political way that doesn’t focus on converting people to Christianity according to Lee, who said success in these markets will be identified by level of engagement. 

“We wanted people to know that no matter what your thoughts are about Jesus, the story of Jesus is the story of a man who dealt with all of the struggles that we deal with every day. We try to uncover moments and stories in scripture that maybe are not often talked about in the story of Jesus. Stories about how he dealt with anxiety, stories about how he treated women equally and fought for their rights, how he befriended troublemakers, corrupt government bureaucrats and violent nationalists, and then he made them befriend each other because of their love for him. These are the kinds of stories that today may inspire a different expectation or a different understanding of Jesus than what people currently have.”

Ad viewers curious about learning more are encouraged to connect through live chat, connect in person with someone local, or “Text for prayer and positive vibes.” Those who do are connected with “informed Christians,” or volunteer ministers from local churches, Lee said. 

Prior to approaching Lerma/ in September, the client conducted research over a four-month period, an agency spokeswoman said.

Phase one of the research included a quantitative study via online interviews of 5,000 U.S. adults. Phase two was a qualitative study done through Qualboard, an online discussions platform, with 35 self-identified “skeptics” and 20 “cultural Christians” (people who grew up in a Christian environment, but don’t practice the faith). Phase three included another quantitative study of online interviews of 3,000 U.S. adults who identify as skeptics and cultural Christians. 

Ultimately the client found that 54% of American adults are unsure about their faith or have a nominal faith in Jesus. More than half of skeptics are open to exploring more about Jesus, and nearly all skeptics and cultural Christians believe the world would be a better place if everyone lived Christ's teachings on peace, love and forgiveness. 

Lee says he isn't worried that the campaign could offend some strict traditionalists in the Christian community. "These aren’t stories that I think devout Christians don't want to tell. I think that we're just simply telling them in a way that's designed to be more winsome to people who don't already know these stories."

Lee said he formed a team of eight people from various faiths and ideologies such as Christians, skeptics, and pan spiritualists for the effort. This is common practice for Lee, who works with faith-based clients such as the Salvation Army and the American Bible Society as well as some churches and non-profits. Lee has also done work for companies that aren’t faith-based but have Christian values, such as Interstate Batteries and Nature Nate’s Honey Co.

The full-scale campaign is expected to roll out sometime next year.




4,217,352 views

Nov 29, 2021


He Gets Us

He’d made powerful enemies. He knew they’d come for him soon. He would be arrested, tortured, and executed.
 
Jesus dealt with his anxiety the way many of us do. He went to one of his favorite quiet places - a garden of old growth olive trees on the side of a mountain. He brought his friends along to support him while he wrestled with his emotions. But when it was time for him to pray he separated himself a little, probably so they wouldn’t hear what he had to say. 
 
He started to ask God to give this responsibility to somebody else - to make this problem go away somehow, but he knew God wasn’t going to answer that prayer. 
 
Jesus said his soul was grieved to the point of death - that’s how we described the anxiety. There were reports that he was so upset that he was sweating, in some accounts it even suggests he was sweating blood. 
 
Just like you and me, he was doing his best to deal with it, and just like us, his coping mechanisms didn’t work so well.  
 
His friends fell asleep. Despite his prayers, he still had the same impossible job to do. And the men who were hunting him found him that night, right there in the garden.
 
Yet, despite this total failure to quell his anxiety, Jesus found the strength to face his accusers and submit to them willingly and without violence - knowing that his death would only further spread his message of radical love.











Capitol Rioters Are Being "Pumped Full" Of Critical Race Theory In Jail. Apparently, they are also victims of racism according to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Oh boo fucking hoo. This is probably appropriate punishment for Trump-brainwashed, white supremacists.

Can there be some lynchings?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/decoding-hate-symbols-seen-at-capitol-insurrection

After all, these fucks set up a gallows!

I know, I know. I am being divisive. I don't want to be divisive. I don't even like Mike Pence. In fact, he might be a worse president than Trump. But these assholes were chanting how they wanted to hang him among others and had set up a gallows, so I have a hard time mustering sympathy than mean black people are turning the tables on these fucks.

But hey, University of Oregon students are requesting that Critical Race Theory be required study at their school as a GRADUATION REQUIREMENT.

I am so glad I live here, in reality, and the Pacific NW, where people care about ending racism and do not see a critical theory first used to study racism in law school as divisive and dangerous fear-bait meant to indoctrinate kindergarteners to hate white people or themselves if they are white.

Though white people hating themselves for racism that they do not experience and perpetuate through action or even inaction is hardly a terrible self-analysis journey for most white people to take.

Like these students at UofO, I fear that the fear-mongering of Propaganda TV and the Right's Freaky Fear Meltdown over the bad stuff that they do and allow to continue but wish to deny might result in restrictions on the teaching of CRT in higher ed. Though I have never taught CRT directly from the original or even most direct offshoots of its scholarship, the basic concepts have been ones I have introduced in class rooms for my entire career, and I do not see any compelling reason to stop talking about the important issue of racism in America.

Because when the Right is freaking out about CRT, what they are really freaking out about is the reality of racism for everyone who doesn't look like Laura Ingraham or Tucker Carlson. "SHHH. Let's pretend it's not happening, and maybe it will go away." AS IF.

I love WONKETTE.

If that's not too subtle.

Because it's awesome. And because its writers keep me posted on the vitriol spewing forth like projectile vomit from the mouths of Right Wingnuts with microphones, like Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson, so I don't have to actually WATCH any FOX "News" or listen to Alex Jones' rancid, festering rotten rubbish heap of insanity and loathsome depravity.

Like ALEX JONES claiming that Joe Biden dropped some kind of weather nukes on Kentucky to whip government into a frenzy to take climate change seriously and pass legislation to fund all his Green Deal New Deal ideas.

Why is no one squirting lithium down this guys throat with a turkey baster for fuck's sake?

How does this guy even still have a media platform after claiming Sandy Hook wasn't really, getting his ass sued by parents who are still grieving almost ten years later, and losing these lawsuits like the loser he is? HOW HOW HOW??

And then there is why does she have the same first name as my mother Taylor Greene, who shows ZERO compassion for all the people of Kentucky who are dead, grieving the dead, who lost their homes, who are devastated, nope. She has to be an asshole about climate change.


I know I pay a lot of lip service to healing the division in this country, working with the Right, listening to their views, trying to find common ground, but people like MTG seem incapable of even the most basic human empathy, kinda like their monarch and insurrectionist-in-chief DJT.

Disgusting.

Because... NORTH DAKOTA, one of the more vile states in the country... is responsible for this:




I can't.

I just can't even.

Okay, the FOX Propagandists are still all upset that some arsonist burned down their half-a-million dollar Christmas tree (to which, I say, GOOD! Wish I had done it.) and this criminal is back on the streets and some how this a failure of Biden's bad governing???

Peter Doocy - SHUT UP.


And this, because MARK MEADOWS (Trump's former Chief of Staff) is a moron...

In summary and in conclusion, Mark Meadows handed over evidence to the Select Committee that not only admits that some of his communications are not privileged, but also contains prima facie evidence that he failed to comply with federal records retention laws. Compare this to Kash Patel, the Forrest Gump of every Russia and Ukraine scandal for four years, who appears to be cooperating with the Committee, and Steve Bannon, who totally stiff-armed the subpoena and got indicted for contempt of Congress, but at least had the sense not to hand over incriminating documents.

So in case you were wondering who's the stupidest person subpoenaed so far, looks like we have a winner



Yeah, this guy is a disgrace and an embarrassment to those who elected him to Congress before he became Trump's stooge.



In North Carolina’s largest newspapers today, the News & Observer, an editorial ran calling Mark Meadows—who rode a wave of “extreme gerrymandering” to Congress; said he wanted to “send Obama home to Kenya“; co-founded the Freedom Caucus; helped shut down the government in 2013; groveled to become Trump’s chief of staff; convinced Trump to not institute a mask mandate; cast aside COVID-19 protocols himself; helped abet Trump’s attempt to retain power; pushed the Department of Justice to challenge the election’s integrity; drove us toward the insurrection; texted with Fox News hosts on Jan. 6, who were freaking out when they realized it had gone too far; lied about his role in all of that in his book; and was held in contempt last night by the House—an “embarrassment” and a “disgrace.”

Well, hard to argue with that. I agree.

So, congratulations, Mark Meadows. You’ve long embarrassed me personally as a fellow North Carolinian. But I’m glad to see so many others finally see how you’re up there with former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms—the harbinger of all the “racist, divisive, pro-government (when it favors the wealthy), and anti-democratic” lawmakers to come—as the worst of the worst.

You can read the full editorial here. 

The RIGHT is scrambling so much to defend their reckless criminals who tried to steal the election for Trump that they are now arguing GRAMMAR in the editing of a text Adam Schiff showed for why Meadows should be held in contempt by Congress.

They are quibbling over content in an EM Dash that would make all the difference: "in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence."

In a  text about how Pence should just ignore electoral votes from states that did not favor Trump.

And somehow Hamilton's "guidance" and a veiled threat of judicial precedence (which doesn't exist) makes all the difference??

This is CLASSIC logical fallacy red herring argument. Or as they say in court, when one cannot win by arguing the case on the merits, then introduce a red herring to deflect from the real issue at hand.

Really?

How stupid do they think we are?

If you read the link, there's also BEGGING THE QUESTION, another logical fallacy.

Not surprised. The RIGHT's entire "platform" is currently built on a house of cards of logical fallacies.

Sometimes the LEFT is not much better...



Chris Cillizza is upset that Harris is not saying things.

During an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Tal Kopan, the vice president said she wouldn’t be distracted by bullshit stories about her old-school headphones or badass copper pots. Cillizza claims what stood out for him is what Harris didn’t say, which makes me wonder how irrelevant his high school book reports were: “The Great Gatsby is not a book about dancing Jellicle cats, and that’s what I find most interesting.”

Can we please have a moment of sanity??

via GIPHY

And here's a good question:

What if MEDIA had to cover the war on democracy as if it were an actual war??

Tell us more MOTHER JONES.




Just putting this right here in case you need further evidence that Fox "News" is propaganda garbage full of lies and misinformation. But let's not forget how so many people are eating that shit with a big ol' fork, and so this business model of total dangerous, brainwashing bullshit is working for them. AND I wish I had burned down their fucking Jingoist Christmas tree.








https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/12/07/0219254/mysterious-galaxy-without-dark-matter-puzzles-astronomers

Mysterious Galaxy Without Dark Matter Puzzles Astronomers (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD  from the hide-and-seek dept.
Astronomers say they've located six galaxies that appear to have either very little or absolutely no dark matter. The team will present its findings in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. CNET reports:Mentioning that they'd previously been told "measure again, you'll see there will be dark matter around your galaxy," the researchers zeroed in on one seemingly dark-matter-free region dubbed AGC 114905 to strengthen their evidence. Lurking 250 million light-years away from Earth, it's about the size of the Milky Way, with a thousand times fewer stars. So it's rather dim. The researchers used a standard technique to detect the presence of dark matter in AGC 114905 that involves graphing the position and rotation speed of the galaxy's gas. After 40 hours of scrutiny with the high-powered Very Large Array Radio Telescope in New Mexico, they found the movements of the gas were perfectly explainable by normal matter alone.

"The problem remains that the theory predicts that there must be dark matter in AGC 114905," Pavel Mancera Piñabut of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningenour and an author of the study, said in a statement, referring to classic dark matter hypotheses. "Observations say there isn't -- in fact, the difference between theory and observation is only getting bigger." One caveat, the team says, is that perhaps the angle at which they viewed AGC 114905 affected their observational results. "But that angle has to deviate very much from our estimate before there is room for dark matter again," Tom Oosterloo of Astron at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and co-author of the study, said in a statement.

And if they're correct? The team offers up a few reasons for why AGC 114905 may not have any dark matter. For instance, what if super large galaxies nearby somehow stripped it of the force? As a rebuttal, though, Mancera Pinabut says there don't seem to be any such galaxies in the vicinity. Further, he says, "in the most reputed galaxy formation framework, the so-called cold dark matter model, we would have to introduce extreme parameter values that are far beyond the usual range. Also with modified Newtonian dynamics, an alternative theory to cold dark matter, we cannot reproduce the motions of the gas within the galaxy."




We live in a world increasingly more and more like BIZARRO World, the opposite world of the "anti-Superman" in DC Comics.



Like the latest nonsense from Tucker Carlson, in which he claims to have information from a "reliable" source that having Covid-19 "feminized" him, made him less of a man. Of course, this is pathetically stupid because Tucker Carlson is pathetically stupid, and yet, it's also great messaging for the FOX-loving MAGA crowd. Nothing stokes their fears more than fear of being a girly-man. Though one would think that it would be the vaccine that feminizes you not Covid itself. Wouldn't this claim, if true, be a reason to get vaccinated if you were in fear of your masculinity being compromised?

In another sign of opposite world, the LEFT are the ones dividing the country and not the right, according to wingnut media.


Let’s look some more at these polling numbers:

71% of Democrats wouldn't go on a date with someone with opposing views, versus 31% of Republicans.

41% of women would go on a date with someone who voted for the opposing candidate, compared to 67% of men.

Maybe Republicans think that a relationship can survive if a couple’s only shared value is a love of Marvel movies. Republicans must think a lot of themselves if they assume Democrats are obligated to date people who consider it overly “woke virtue-signaling” to wear a mask and use someone’s preferred pronouns.




The White Power Hour hosts were all in a titter the other day about some holiday tree burning down and then had to stage a propaganda rally to relight it?? 

Also, the We-Just-Keep-Our-Klan-Robes-in-Our-Closets-Now hosts cannot figure out why the suspect who allegedly committed arson by burning down their tree isn't guilty (oh yeah allegedly) of a hate crime. Because fuck you assholes. I might want to burn down something called the "All American Christmas Tree," too. What even is that??

And while we're on the subject of BATSHIT CRAZY -- which in our new world is now an actual scientific term for the frenzy, angst, and drama of the GOPQ as they will heretofore be known, God Bless them all -- among the hoarded Willy Wonka Golden Tickets and other goodies turned over by Mark Meadows to the Jan. 06 Select Committee was a whole power point proving the fraud, the stolen election. Just look at exhibit A of why BATSHIT CRAZY is now a scientific term:




Please, please help them with their brains. Clearly, alien nano-worms have burrowed into their cerebellum and cerebral cortexes, laid a bazillion eggs, and colonized a new nano-worm-world.

WTAF???

And then there's politicians acting badly because acting badly is the new moral value on the right. Common sense? Don't need it. Listen to science? What has science ever done for me? Nope. Let's try to tank vaccine mandates and mandatory testing because we're not living in the worst pandemic in American history, save maybe the small pox epidemic, and soon OVER A MILLION PEOPLE will have died in the U.S. alone in two years from this virus. But we don't need to do anything to stop it, to protect people, nope. That would infringe on their "freedoms." Yup.

HELP ME SPOCK!

Monica Belluci... she's so beautiful then and now.











And a few more things before you dive into the really hodge-podge-tastic melange of links and variousness...

More evidence is coming out that insurrectionists at the capitol on Jan. 6th 2021 were armed and ready to kill people, such as the case of Mark Mazza of Indiana who had a special Taurus revolver known as "The Judge" and who assaulted a police officer during the riot with a baton. Check the link. The gun was loaded with special ammunition. Here's a guy who was ready to kill people. "You're very special, and we love you," as Trump said to them in his video that called them off. DISGUSTING.

The SENATE is BROKEN; end the Filibuster NOW!!! Just putting this here for your contemplation.


Trump Claims His Administration Rescued Christmas In Bizarre Newsmax Interview
Dec 17, 2021




RING OF FIRE

During a truly bizarre interview with Newsmax host Mike Huckabee that aired this week, Donald Trump made the claim that his administration "rescued" Christmas, and that before he came into power people had stopped saying "Merry Christmas." This is a Republican lie that has persisted for decades now, with right wingers believing that Christmas has somehow been under attack, even though that's literally never happened from a President. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins talks about this absolutely stupid conversation between Trump and Huckabee. 


MEANWHILE, back on Planet Earth...


Boston Police used secret treasure trove of money to buy spy tech for cell phone espionage.

Microsoft is gutting the WIN11 Control Panel.

Federal court blocks Texas' unconstitutional social media law. Supposedly, social media discriminates against "conservative" users by not letting them spread lies masked as facts or plan insurrection on their social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook. Boo hoo.

You know, anyone with half-a-brain and not even a Supreme Court level knowledge of the U.S. Constitution knows that government manipulation of public discourse is forbidden by the First Amendment.

HELLO???!!!

AND THIS...

https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/12/16/1421244/us-builds-new-software-tool-to-predict-actions-that-could-draw-chinas-ire

US Builds New Software Tool To Predict Actions that Could Draw China's Ire (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash  from the closer-look dept.
U.S. military commanders in the Pacific have built a software tool to predict how the Chinese government will react to U.S. actions in the region like military sales, U.S.-backed military activity and even congressional visits to hotspots like Taiwan. From a report:Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks was briefed on the new tool during a visit to the United States Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii on Tuesday. "With the spectrum of conflict and the challenge sets spanning down into the grey zone. What you see is the need to be looking at a far broader set of indicators, weaving that together and then understanding the threat interaction," Hicks said in an interview aboard a military jet en route to California. The tool calculates "strategic friction," a defense official said. It looks at data since early 2020 and evaluates significant activities that had impacted U.S.-Sino relations. The computer-based system will help the Pentagon predict whether certain actions will provoke an outsized Chinese reaction. In October, the Chinese military condemned the United States and Canada for each sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait, saying they were threatening peace and stability in the region. The incident and others like it have fueled demand for the tool, the U.S. official said, to ensure the United States does not inadvertently upset China with its actions.





Booster Doses are Powerful, May Fight Omicron, Researchers Find
Last week researchers at Northwestern University calculated that one week after a Covid-19 booster shot, median antibody levels were 23 times higher than before the shot.

This Thursday the Times of London reported that another study foun...

Fake Covid-19 Vaccine Certificates Are Being Advertised On the Dark Web
Criminals have been selling fake vaccine certificates online and may be able to fool an EU system designed to verify the certificates' validity, researchers warn. BankInfoSecurity reports: [A] report released last week, "COVID-19 Vaccination Certificat...

Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten Harder to Understand
"I used to be able to understand 99% of the dialogue in Hollywood films," writes professional film blogger Ben Pearson. "But over the past 10 years or so, I've noticed that percentage has dropped significantly — and it's not due to hearing loss on ...

Twitter Admits 'Coordinated and Malicious' Activity Weaponizing Its New Privacy Policy
CNN reports: Twitter acknowledged on Friday that a new policy it unveiled this week to protect users from harassment is being abused by malicious actors — days after journalists, left-wing activists and self-described "sedition hunters" reported ...

Those Cute Cats Online? They Help Spread Misinformation
"Videos and GIFs of cute animals — usually cats — have gone viral online for almost as long as the internet has been around..." writes the New York Times.

"Now, it is becoming increasingly clear how widely the old-school internet tr...

Australia Is the Drunkest Country In the World, Survey Finds
Australians have been named the heaviest drinkers in the world after spending more time drunk in 2020 than any other nation. The Guardian reports: An international survey (PDF) has found Australians drank to the point of drunkenness an average of 27 ti...

Hackers Are Spamming Businesses' Receipt Printers With 'Antiwork' Manifestos
Dozens of printers across the internet are printing out a manifesto that encourages workers to discuss their pay with coworkers, and pressure their employers. Motherboard reports: "ARE YOU BEING UNDERPAID?" one of the manifestos read, according to seve...

Amazon Ordered to Hold Another Union Vote in Alabama
America's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) "has ordered a new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama," reports the Associated Press, "based on objections to the first vote that took place in April." The move, announced Monday, is a...

Bitcoin, Ether, Other Cryptocurrencies Suddenly Drop More Than 16%
"Cryptocurrency was down by as much as 20% Saturday, hitting its lowest point in months," reports MarketWatch: Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, was down 18% at $46,571.84 at about 7 a.m. ET, according to data from CoinDesk. It tempo...

JetBrains Announces 'Fleet' IDE to Compete with Microsoft's Visual Studio Code
On Monday JetBrains (creators of the Kotlin programming language and makers of the integrated development environment IntelliJ IDEA) made an announcement: a preview for a lightweight new multi-language IDE called Fleet using IntelliJ's code-processing eng...



ALSO, I had some good feedback on my critique of the "Let's Go Brandon" stupidity from two weeks ago: 

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2482 - Let's Go Brandon Stupidity - Weekly Hodge Podge for 2112.04


Here's that link:


ADVENTURE COMICS 285 - pg21- http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2006/04/tales-of-bizarro-world-part-1.html






As Ice Melts, Arctic Ecosystem Confronts Emboldened Killer Whales (nytimes.com)

Posted by EditorDavid  from the whale-tales dept.
The hunting grounds are apparently widening for one of "nature's most effective predators" reports the New York Times, warning of "potentially significant consequences for animals up and down the food chain...."

"As sea ice has receded, killer whales — which are actually dolphins — are now venturing to parts of the sea that were once inaccessible, and spending more time in places they were once seen only sporadically," according to data presented by research scientist Brynn Kimber (who works in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Mammal Laboratory).Arctic sea ice has declined significantly in the four decades since satellite monitoring began. Roughly 75 percent of ice volume disappeared in the last 15 years alone, and the remaining ice is thinner and of poorer quality, said Amy Willoughby, a marine mammal biologist with NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center. The loss of ice coupled with warming waters and atmospheric temperatures has affected every level of the Arctic ecosystem. Large mammals like polar bears have struggled to navigate shrinking habitats, while the marine algae at the base of the Arctic food chain blooms sooner and more abundantly than ever before.

In recent years, scientists have noticed similar upheaval in the behavior of the region's marine mammals. Orca are feasting more often on bowhead whales. Scientists and Indigenous Arctic communities have noted a growing number of bowhead whale carcasses in the northeastern Chukchi and western Beaufort seas with signs of orca attack....

"Killer whales are really intelligent," said Cory Matthews, a research scientist with the Arctic region of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "They consume really fast. If a new area opens up, they can get in there maybe within the next year and exploit a prey population that could be perhaps really slow to respond to those changes."


Trump Got Free Speech Wrong in Suit Over Ban, Twitter Says
Twitter asked a federal judge to throw out Donald Trump's lawsuit over his ban from the platform for stoking the U.S. Capitol riot, arguing the company's right to free speech is at stake -- not the former president's. From a report: Twitter's First Amen...

'China Will Soon Lead the US in Tech'
Graham Allison, a professor of government at Harvard, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, writing in a column for WSJ: Last year China produced 50% of the world's computers and mobile phones; the U.S. produced only 6%. China produces 70 solar panels...

US Wins Appeal Over Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing the prospect of imminent extradition to the US after the UK High Court granted an appeal by the US government against an earlier (January) refusal by a UK judge to extradite him on mental health grounds. From a re...

Mercedes Beats Tesla To Hands-Free Driving On the Autobahn
Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz won regulatory approval to deploy a hands-free driving system in Germany ahead of Tesla, gaining an edge in the race to offer higher levels of automation in one of the world's most competitive car markets. Bloomberg: The auto...

Revisiting the 'Tsar Bomba' Nuclear Test
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The detonation of the first nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 is seared into our collective memory, and the world has been haunted by the prospect of a devastating nuclear apo...

Tyson Foods To Spend $1.3 Billion To Automate Meat Plants
Tyson Foods plans to spend more than $1.3 billion to increase automation in meat plants over the next three years, Chief Executive Donnie King said on Thursday, as a U.S. labor shortage has limited production while demand is booming. Reuters reports: M...

Year After Cyberpunk Debut, CD Projekt No Nearer Redemption
A year since the botched premiere of CD Projekt SA's Cyberpunk 2077, things haven't got a whole lot better for the struggling Polish video-game studio. From a report: The shares are down 54% in that time and analyst price targets indicate a further 15% ...

Japanese Scientists Develop Glowing Masks To Detect Coronavirus
A team of scientists at a university in western Japan has developed masks that glow when exposed to ultraviolet light if they contain traces of the coronavirus, using antibodies extracted from ostrich eggs. From a report: The team at Kyoto Prefectural U...

Better.com CEO Vishal Garg Steps Back As Employees Detail How He 'Led By Fear'
Better.com CEO Vishal Garg is "taking time off" after he made the controversial decision to fire 900 workers via a Zoom call last week. While he said he is "deeply sorry" for the way the lay-offs were handled, multiple current and former employees view thi...

NYC, Facing Housing Crisis, Targets Illegal Airbnb Owners
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Airbnb recently announced that it had its best quarter ever, reflecting a surging thirst for travel and tourism as the pandemic's grip loosens. But in New York City, the company is at the cent...



https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/12/06/155251/companies-linked-to-russian-ransomware-hide-in-plain-sight

Companies Linked To Russian Ransomware Hide in Plain Sight (nytimes.com)

Posted by msmash  from the closer-look dept.
When cybersleuths traced the millions of dollars American companies, hospitals and city governments have paid to online extortionists in ransom money, they made a telling discovery: At least some of it passed through one of the most prestigious business addresses in Moscow. From a report:The Biden administration has also zeroed in on the building, Federation Tower East, the tallest skyscraper in the Russian capital. The United States has targeted several companies in the tower as it seeks to penalize Russian ransomware gangs, which encrypt their victims' digital data and then demand payments to unscramble it. Those payments are typically made in cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies like Bitcoin, which the gangs then need to convert to standard currencies, like dollars, euros and rubles.

That this high-rise in Moscow's financial district has emerged as an apparent hub of such money laundering has convinced many security experts that the Russian authorities tolerate ransomware operators. The targets are almost exclusively outside Russia, they point out, and in at least one case documented in a U.S. sanctions announcement, the suspect was assisting a Russian espionage agency. "It says a lot," said Dmitry Smilyanets, a threat intelligence expert with the Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. "Russian law enforcement usually has an answer: 'There is no case open in Russian jurisdiction. There are no victims. How do you expect us to prosecute these honorable people?'" Recorded Future has counted about 50 cryptocurrency exchanges in Moscow City, a financial district in the capital, that in its assessment are engaged in illicit activity. Other exchanges in the district are not suspected of accepting cryptocurrencies linked to crime.

https://slashdot.org/story/21/12/04/187207/fsfs-anti-drm-campaign-plans-bad-review-protest-against-disney


FSF's Anti-DRM Campaign Plans Bad-Review Protest Against Disney+ (fsf.org)

Posted by EditorDavid  from the welcome-to-Tomorrowland dept.
For their fifteenth International Day Against DRM this Friday, the Free Software Foundation's "Defective by Design" campaign is "calling on you to help us send a message to purveyors of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)".

And this year they're targeting Disney+The ongoing pandemic has only tightened the stranglehold streaming services have as some of the most dominant forms of entertainment media, and Disney+ is among the worst of them. After years of aggressive lobbying to extend the length of copyright, based on their perceived need to keep a certain rat from entering the public domain, they've now set their sights on "protecting" their various franchises in a different way: by shackling them with digital restrictions. If Disney's stated mission is to keep "inspiring hope and sparking the curiosity of all ages", using DRM to limit that curiosity remains the wrong move.

This year, we'll be using one of Disney's own means of spreading their "service" and the DRM bundled with it: their mobile app. If you're an existing user of the Google Play (Android) or Apple App Stores, you can support the International Day Against DRM by voicing your objection to Disney's subjugation of their users. Streaming services like Netflix and Peacock have the same issues, but by targeting a newer one with such massive investment and capital behind it, we can make sure that we're heard. Disney+ is new: that gives it time to change.

Disney+ is placed near the top of the most frequently downloaded apps on both the Google Play and Apple App Stores. We invite you to write a well-thought objection to Disney's use of DRM, with a fitting review. It is the perfect way to let the corporation, and other users intending to use its services know Disney's grievous mistake in using DRM to restrict customers who already want to view their many films and television shows. It will give you a chance to give them the exact rating that any service that treats its users so poorly: a single star.

DRM isn't the only problem with the Disney+ app. It's also nonfree software. If you're not already an Android or iOS user, we don't recommend starting an account just to participate in this action. You can also choose to send an email to Disney executives following our template.
They're urging supporters to also share the actions they've taken on social media using the tag #DayAgainstDRM. (And there's also an IRC channel "to discuss and share strategies for anti-DRM activism," with more anti-DRM actions still to come.



Another Porn Site Says Banks Forced It To Stop Paying Sex Workers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: AVN Stars, a platform where sex workers can sell porn clips, announced on Wednesday that it will no longer allow creators to monetize their content on the site beginning January 1. In a press release...

Trump's Social Media Site Quietly Admits It's Based On Mastodon
mrflash818 shares a report from PCMag: To avoid a lawsuit, Donald Trump's social media site is quietly acknowledging the computer code powering the platform comes from Mastodon. Trump's "Truth Social" site now features a dedicated section labeled "open ...

New York Anime Convention Possibly Infected With Omicron
Long-time Slashdot reader Aighearach shares a report from Reuters: President Joe Biden on Thursday laid out his strategy to fight the coronavirus as the highly contagious Omicron spread across the globe with winter coming and hours after the first know...

US Satellites Are Being Attacked Every Day According To Space Force General
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Drive: U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blin...

Musk Says Tesla's Cybertruck Will Have Four-motor Variant
Tesla boss Elon Musk said on Friday the electric-car maker's much-anticipated Cybertruck would come with a high- end four-motor variant. From a report: "Initial production will be 4 motor variant, with independent, ultra fast response torque control of ...

Amazon Charges Sellers Fees That Are High Enough To Offset Losses from Prime, a New Report Says
The massive reach of Amazon's e-commerce platform is appealing for any small business that wants to sell its products online. But a new report suggests that the cost of doing business can become a Faustian bargain for a third-party seller, as the fees that...

Scientists Raise Concerns Over Baby Genome Sequencing Plan
Scientists have raised concerns about a proposed overhaul of newborn screening that could lead to the UK becoming the first country to offer whole-genome sequencing for every baby. From a report: Speaking before the publication of plans for an NHS pilot...

The Coronavirus in a Tiny Drop
To better understand the coronavirus's journey from one person to another, a team of 50 scientists has for the first time created an atomic simulation of the coronavirus nestled in a tiny airborne drop of water. From a report: To create the model, the r...

Microsoft Makes Breakthrough In the Quest To Use DNA As Data Storage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Microsoft, one of the pioneers of DNA storage, is making some headway, working with the University of Washington's Molecular Information Systems Laboratory, or MISL. The company announced in a new resear...

Debt Collectors Can Now Text, Email and DM You On Social Media
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: New rules approved by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that took effect on Tuesday dictate how collection agencies can email and text people as well as message them on social media to seek repayment...





https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/12/09/0016222/this-massive-planet-shouldnt-exist

This Massive Planet Shouldn't Exist (gizmodo.com)


Posted by BeauHD  from the hide-and-seek dept.
fahrbot-bot shares a report from Gizmodo:Scientists have spotted an unusually large exoplanet in orbit around b Centauri, a massive two-star system that is visible to the unaided eye. With a combined weight of roughly 10 Suns, it's now the heaviest star system known to host a planet. The details of this discovery were published today in Nature. The newly discovered planet, called "b Cen (AB)b," is likely a gas giant and is heavier than 10 Jupiters combined, making it one of the most massive planets ever discovered. It orbits the b Centauri binary system, which is located 325 light-years from Earth and has a combined mass of nearly 10 Suns. At 52 billion miles from its host stars, this planet has one of the widest orbits ever detected. By comparison, Pluto orbits the Sun at around 3.3 billion miles, so yeah, that's an unbelievable separation. Until now, planets had not been found in orbit around star systems weighing more than three solar masses. Astronomers didn't think planets could form around systems like this, so it's forcing a major rethink of what's possible in terms of planetary architectures and the conditions under which planets can form.

That a planet exists in this star system is indeed surprising. Young stars have protoplanetary disks around them, from which planets eventually emerge. A hot star system like b Centauri, however, is not supposed to be conducive to planetary formation, owing to tremendous amounts of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation. This high-energy radiation "tends to destroy the disks in a very short time," and it was "thought that this wouldn't give planets enough time to form in the disk before it disappeared," [said Markus Janson, an astronomer at Stockholm University and the first author of the study]. Yet there it is -- a full fledged planet around the b Centauri system. [...] A neat observation is how the ratio between the masses of the star system and its planet closely matches that of our Sun and Jupiter. But that's where the comparison ends, as the scale of b Centauri is far vaster, as the planet is 10 times the mass of Jupiter and with an orbit that's 100 times wider. [...]

From an astrobiological perspective, Janson added that b Centauri is "possibly one of the worst places in the galaxy to host life." Together, the binary pair spew enormous amounts of UV and X-ray radiation, "which would sterilize any surface that is exposed to it," so "life on any surface in the system is certainly not very likely." Still, Janson did not rule out the possibility that life could exist in subterranean oceans, matching ongoing speculation about basic life existing on Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Enceladus.



Texas School Book Purge Heating Up, Almost To Fahrenheit 451

Doktor Zoom
December 09, 2021 09:28 AM

This scene in Francois Truffaut's 1966 adaptation freaked me out when I was a kid.

Texas school districts' War on Books keeps getting bigger and stupider, because nothing gets people riled up like a good old culture war driven by fear of feminism, gays, and noisy people of color who might upset Meemaw. Last week, the school district in Leander, Texas, banned 11 books from classrooms. Now, one of the state's largest districts, North East Independent School District in San Antonio, is "reviewing" more than 400 books in school libraries because they were on that list of scary books on race, sexuality, and gender cobbled together by a state rep who needed to make a name for himself, because he'd like to get elected state attorney general.

It's all a spinoff of the national rightwing freakout over "critical race theory" and trans rights and education, the latest iteration of the drive to punish public education for all the perceived ills in America. As of yet, no school librarians have been publicly stoned to death, but if that happens it'll probably be because some angry parent got the idea from one of the books banned in Leander, the graphic novel adaptation of Shirley Jackson's story 'The Lottery."

Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.

Sometimes It Starts With A Dildo

In Leander, a suburb just north of Austin, the district adopted a new English Language Arts curriculum last year, and a number of parents complained to the school board earlier this year about several of the books that were included as optional reading. You read that right: Parents were mad about books that weren't actually being assigned to read, but which some tender high schooler might choose to read. You see, one of the books that students could choose was In the Dream House: A Memoir, by Carmen Maria Machado, which is about surviving an abusive lesbian relationship and includes a mention of a dildo. The horror! One angry parent showed up at a school board meeting, pulled a pink rubber sex toy from her bag, and said "This is what we're asking our children to read."

The school board launched an urgent review of all 120 books on the optional reading list in the curriculum, even though of course the curriculum had been approved by the board before it went into use. (Not that anyone would expect a school board to do homework.) Last week, the board announced that 11 books would be banned and no longer allowed in classroom libraries. No rationale for their removal was included on the list announcing their removal. Nine of the books will at least remain in school libraries in the district. Machado's Dream House, however, will not, nor will another memoir, Brave Face, by Shaun David Hutchinson, because it too has the ghey. It must be terrible, because look, the word "Queer" is right there on the cover:



Here are all 11 of the already optional books banned in the Leander ISD (all with Wonkette-gets-a-cut linkies, because we're servicey!)

Gotta protect the kids from all those dangerous comic books, we guess, especially if there's gay or sex stuff in them. Seems to us the most dangerous dildos in Leander aren't in a book.


It's Only Censorship If You Call It Censorship

Meanwhile, in San Antonio, the North East ISD said this week that it had already been busy reviewing books in its system when state Rep. Matt Krause sent his very important letter to Texas schools demanding they search for potentially illegal books that he thought might violate Texas's cookie-cutter law banning "critical race theory" and all other bad things in schools. Krause's letter included an astonishingly arbitrary list of more than 850 titles; it really does appear to have compiled by a keyword search for books discussing abortion, feminism, gay rights, race, sexuality and sex education, among other topics. ("Pink is a Girl Color" ...and other silly things people say, for instance. Radical feminism from brainwashed pathetic commie nazi left wing liberal pigs!) Krause wanted schools to report back on how many copies of each title the schools had, what they paid for them, and where in the school — classroom, library, Soros adrenochrome sex dungeon & teachers' lounge — the books were located.

Well wouldn't you know it, North East ISD was pretty happy to raise its hand and say Lookie Mr. Krause, we're already complying! Also you forgot homework! In an email to NPR, school district spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor explained that the school district quickly found it owned 414 of the books on Krause's (absurdly arbitrary) list, out of some 800,000 books owned by the district, and that school staff were asked to review the 414 books "out of an abundance of caution and to make sure they don't contain any obscene or vulgar material." But don't worry! It's not censorship!

"For us, this is not about politics or censorship, but rather about ensuring that parents choose what is appropriate for their minor children," Chancellor wrote.

She said the process is moving quickly, with more than 100 books having been reviewed and deemed age-appropriate in a matter of days.

Most are appropriate and will remain on the shelves, she added, but some may contain content that "needs further review to ensure the books are accessible based on age appropriateness."

Chancellor also explained that the district just wanted to make sure that if some books aren't quite age appropriate, they might be moved around a bit, but certainly not banned or censored heavens no never. For instance maybe a book in an elementary school library really belongs in the middle school collection. She also suggested an absolutely non-censorish scenario in which maybe

a book at the high school level needs to be placed in a separate section that requires parental permission. [...] The idea is more of a reorganization and a reshuffle — the purpose is not to remove books.

Isn't that great? Nobody will be kept from reading about puberty, trans people, abortion, or lynching! Kids just won't have access to some books unless they get permission from a parent, and why would any kid not want their loving mom or dad to know they wanted to read The Journey Out: A Guide for and About Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Teens, for example? Absolutely no censorship happening here. And we suppose a kid could always tell his dad he needs the book for a research paper on why gay people are a threat to America, right? (To be clear, that's a title we found on Krause's list; as of yet, the school district doesn't appear to have actually moved any materials to a restricted section of the library.)

To further assist parents and keep the community safe from inappropriate ideas, North East ISD is also

forming a book review committee to determine which books may need to go in a separate section of the library and launching an electronic tool that parents can use to see which library books their children are checking out.

Again, we can't see how anyone would possibly object. Heck, it might even bring families closer together so they can have thoughtful conversations like "You checked out books about what? That's it, get the fuck out of my house!"

Happily, we can count on teens to sometimes be a lot more adult about matters than the decent church-going alleged grownups who want to protect them from reading books. NPR also notes that local high schoolers are pushing back against the attempt to restrict their ability to read freely with an online petition to keep the "Krause list" off their school libraries; in less than a week, it's already gotten over 2,500 signatures.

The kids know what this is really about, that's for damn sure:

These books serve an important place in our community, as they not only provide important educational resources on Black history, they also provide a safe haven for young LGBTQ students who take comfort in this representation. Many black and lgbtq students in NEISD are appalled and hurt by NEISD’s decision to comply with Matt Krause and suppress our harmless resources and stories.

The moms are mad, but the kids are all right.

[PEN America / NPR / Atlantic]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please give $5 or $10 a month, since George Soros simply is not coming through for us. We bet we're blocked on a lot of school computer networks!

Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.



https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/12/13/0547221/the-new-normal-us-blames-this-winters-severe-tornados-on-climate-change

'The New Normal': US Blames This Winter's Severe Tornado's on Climate Change (msn.com)

Posted by EditorDavid  from the earth's-day dept.
More than 100 Americans were feared dead this weekend — including six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Illinois — after severe storms and tornados tore through the central U.S. And "thousands upon thousands" of buildings were flattened, reports the Times.

The head of America's Federal Emergency Management Agency (or FEMA) "says the agency has seen a rise in intense storms and severe weather patterns that it anticipates to continue as a result of climate change," reports Insider.Speaking on morning news shows on Sunday, Deanne Criswell shared the agency's plans to prepare for increasing rates of deadly storms as the country faces the "crisis of our generation."

"This is going to be our new normal," Criswell said on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper...

Criswell's remarks come after severe storms and tornadoes ripped through six states, killing an estimated 80 people in Kentucky in what the state's governor, Andy Beshear, said on Saturday "is likely to be the most severe tornado outbreak in our state's history." They also follow a year marked by historic storms that caused unprecedented damage across the country, including winter storms that left large swaths of Texas without power and killed an estimated 210 people, rampant forest fires on the West Coast that have produced harmful smoke traveling thousands of miles across the nation, and severe hurricanes that ravaged much of the East Coast this spring....

"There's going to be a lot to learn from this event and the events that we saw through the summer," she told George Stephanopoulos [on his Sunday morning interview show]. "We're seeing more intense storms, severe weather, whether it's hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires. And one of the focuses my agency is going to have is, how can we start to reduce the impacts of these events as they continue to grow?"
The FEMA official underscored just how unusual the weather was this weekend, according to the Huffington Post:"We do see tornadoes in December, that part is not unusual. But at this magnitude, I don't think we have ever seen one this late in the year," she said. "But it's also historic. Even the severity and the amount of time this tornado or these tornadoes spent on the ground is unprecedented."

Tornadoes usually last only a few minutes when thunderstorm updrafts lose energy. But once Friday night's storms formed, experts said unprecedented strong wind shear appeared to have prevented the twisters from dissipating â resulting in a disaster that lasted hours and traveled more than 200 miles at over 50 miles per hour.
In fact, the Times reports that the state of Kentucky witnessed the longest distance ever covered by a single tornado in U.S. history.





PANDEMIC

THE WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT

Photo of flu patients during the First World War



If you prefer your data in a visual format, here's the current map from COVID Exit Strategy, using data from the CDC and the COVID Tracking Project.

I want to add this link to the weekly report. It's important to remember:

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1983 - Is Coronavirus more contagious and more deadly than the flu? YES.



ALSO... I am seeing a big discrepancy between the Johns Hopkins data in death totals and WORLDOMETER data, which aggregates data from many more sources. Could this be the slow down due to the change in how the CDC obtains the data, having it filter first through Health and Human Services department.

WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT - JOHNS HOPKINS

Anyway, as usual, here's the weekly links to the data about cases (lower than reality) and deaths (lower than reality, also) due to COVID-19.



Data can be found here, as always: 

This is also a good data site:
Worldometer - Coronavirus info

Last updated: December 18, 2021, 16:27 GMT

 United States

Coronavirus Cases:

51,611,479

Deaths:

826,719

Recovered:

40,475,399

About Worldometer
Worldometer manually analyzes, validates, and aggregates data from thousands of sources in real time and provides global COVID-19 live statistics for a wide audience of caring people around the world.
Over the past 15 years, our statistics have been requested by, and provided to Oxford University Press, Wiley, Pearson, CERN, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), The Atlantic, BBC, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology, Science Museum of Virginia, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Kaspersky, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Amazon Alexa, Google Translate, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the U2 concert, and many others.
Worldometer is cited as a source in over 10,000 published books and in more than 6,000 professional journal articles and was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world.
THE CORONAVIRUS IS MUTATING NOW WHAT?

Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic - The Atlantic

A Red Cross worker in the United States, 1918


Good morning. The U.S. may soon offer booster shots to every adult. We’ll explain why.

Receiving a booster in Anchorage.Ash Adams for The New York Times

Boosters for all?

The federal government’s guidance on Covid booster shots has often been confusing, but it looks as if it’s about to become much simpler.

The F.D.A. appears to be on the verge of authorizing Moderna and Pfizer booster shots for all adults in the U.S. If it does, anyone over 18 can get a booster, as long as it’s been at least six months since their last shot. (The C.D.C. has said that adults who received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine should get a booster at least two months later.)

Dr. Anthony Fauci has become “a very, very relentless advocate” for boosters, The Times’s Sharon LaFraniere, who covers the federal government’s response to the pandemic, told us. “He keeps pointing out that the data is getting stronger.”

Today we’ll walk you through what’s compelling regulators to widen eligibility, who needs the shots most and how to get one.

Why now?

First, immunity is waning. While experts debate the pace at which the vaccines become less effective, there’s strong evidence that they do lose some of their ability to prevent Covid infections. (These charts show the decline.) While the vaccines’ protection against severe disease mostly holds, some studies suggest they become somewhat less effective at doing so, particularly for older people or others with underlying medical conditions.

Second, expanding booster access is simpler than asking Americans to consult a list of rules to determine whether they’re eligible. As our colleague Apoorva Mandavilli put it, “It’s easier to just tell people to get them.”

Third, broadening eligibility to all adults would bring the U.S. in line with the approach of other countries, including Israel and Canada. Several U.S. states have begun expanding booster access on their own, essentially declaring that they couldn’t wait for the federal government.

“Critics would say that the C.D.C. is starting to look more like a caboose than a locomotive,” Sharon says. If the agency recommends boosters for all adults, “they’re just authorizing what’s already happening.”

Who should get one?

The government has already recommended that older adults, people 50 and up with underlying medical conditions and those who are immunocompromised get an additional shot. And the C.D.C. has allowed boosters for many others.

“I’ve urged everyone I know who is higher risk to get a booster,” Zeynep Tufekci, the sociologist and Times Opinion columnist, writes.

Some experts believe that the urgency for younger, healthier Americans to get a booster is lower. But others have started to make the case for it. “All vaccinated adults would benefit from a booster,” Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University wrote yesterday in The Atlantic.

Why? Cases are rising again — as of Wednesday, the U.S. was averaging over 88,000 new cases a day, up 23 percent from two weeks ago — and another winter surge seems possible, particularly in parts of the country with lower vaccination rates. (Look up your county’s numbers.) That increases the urgency of getting more Americans as much protection as they can.

Chart shows 7-day daily average.Source: New York Times database

And although new infections are concentrated among the unvaccinated, Jha notes, breakthrough infections have become more common. For younger and healthier adults, getting a booster can lessen the chances of getting sick and of spreading the virus to someone more vulnerable.

And boosters appear to work. Evidence from Israel, which has offered extra shots to all adults, suggests that a third Pfizer dose increases protection against infection to a level similar to the vaccine’s initial efficacy.

How do I get one?

Once the government broadens eligibility, you’ll be able to go to your local pharmacy, a doctor’s office or anywhere else where vaccines are available.

Mixing and matching different types of vaccines seems to provide a stronger immune response, Apoorva says, especially if you get a Moderna one after two Pfizer shots or following the single-dose of J.&J.

Is it ethical?

Some public health experts have urged the U.S. and other countries not to make boosters widely available. They argue that doing so will limit the supply of shots for the rest of the world, especially for residents of less wealthy countries.

But as Sharon notes, the U.S. government has already stockpiled enough vaccine doses to give boosters to the adult population. And the Biden administration, under pressure to increase the supply to poor nations, is planning to expand manufacturing capacity with the goal of producing at least a billion more doses a year.

Millions of doses have already been distributed to pharmacies and clinics around the U.S. “They cannot be recaptured and sent abroad,” Jha writes. “Either we use those doses here or we throw them away.”

More on the virus:


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That's all folks.

I am back next week, one day late, with the Christmas edition.

Fare thee well.

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- Days ago = 2360 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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