Opinion | Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in
He has bankrolled elections, stoked riots and ignored laws. We mustn’t make the mistake of playing nice with the world’s richest bully, says Guardian Europe columnist Alexander Hurst
Read in The Guardian: https://apple.news/A4jH5dCk2SLW3_f3ksBg33A
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Editorial | On Insecurity Minister Ben-Gvir’s watch, any critic of Israel’s government will be ‘dealt with’
People used to warn that if Israeli democracy continued to degenerate, life here would become “like in benighted regimes.” There’s no longer any reason to say “if” and “like.” Israel has become a state in which it’s dangerous to be a citizen who opposes the government.
Read in Haaretz: https://apple.news/Abfvor-HiTp6gAdMxvS8_kw
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Only acceptable outcome for Putin: Ukraine’s complete destruction
Russian President Vladimir Putin is doubling down on his war with Ukraine by deploying North Korean troops and threatening NATO, while the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reports that at least 30 North Korean soldiers have been killed and wounded in weekend battles.
Read in The Hill: https://apple.news/AcFtSPhl3S-2IM-EXmJK51A
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Have a poem. As always, the title is a link to learn more.
Blues Franchise David Henderson
Line from a letter, “Blues Franchise.” I believe it is a motif language rather than thought—intimately
Blues as art as theme as exhibition
Up on a midtown metropolis edifice
Billboard façade 50 feet tall thirty feet wide: BLUE SMOKE
Of a black femme-like face framed by her fingers tapered upward in the V of her palms
Looking off, her eyes below her painted on eyebrows
And Caucasoid wig solid black
touching off of a violet plunging deeper into the decorated pigment
A frame furls hints of blue in a spectral geometry
Framing tightly the face, reposed
A white strap over one deep ochre shoulder as background
Could be trans-shim or a delightful Caledonia,
red skein of a lipstick kiss imprinted invisibly in a nano dimension
Replications across the marquees of legions of subway cars
Her face on the mini billboard above the seat next to
The moving doors
Always looking somewhere else as the
Masses travel to all destinations
Blues smoke surrounding whatever stage as forum
For the franchise
Forever after for as far as the past goes.
Entering the negative space of a corporate behemoth
A lobby of the skyscraper museum or loft like enclosures
interlocking directorates of high art residencies.
Consumer beware of what you purchase with your eyes,
The presence of your body
*
Out of the blue
You
Out of the blue
And into the blues
You
Out of the blue
You
Out of the blue
Vanish into the blue
you
Copyright © 2024 by David Henderson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 19, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
Vermont Freedom To Marry Passes, and more on this date:
| December 20, 1946 The morning after Viet Minh forces under Ho Chi Minh launched a nighttime revolt in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, French colonial troops cracked down on the communist rebels. Ho and his soldiers immediately fled the city to regroup in the countryside. That evening, the communist leader issued a proclamation that read:  Ho Chi Minh, Paris 1946 “All the Vietnamese must stand up to fight the French colonials to save the fatherland. Those who have rifles will use their rifles; those who have swords will use their swords; those who have no swords will use spades, hoes, or sticks. Everyone must endeavor to oppose the colonialists and save this country. Even if we have to endure hardship in the resistance war, with the determination to make sacrifices, victory will surely be ours.” The first Indochina War thus began. |
| December 20, 1960 North Vietnam announced the formation of the National Front for the Liberation of the South (usually known as the National Liberation Front or NLF), designed to replicate the success of the Viet Minh, the umbrella nationalist organization that successfully liberated Vietnam from French colonial rule.  National Liberation Front flag Ho Chi Minh biography (two separate links.) |
December 20, 1990 Kansas reservist Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn refused orders to serve in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) and was later sentenced to prison. The Kansas medical board withdrew her hospital privileges. “The issue was not whether I belonged in the military but whether the military belonged in the Middle East waging war. I did not want to focus on the personal decision. I was trying to focus on the decision for which each and every American would have to be responsible.” — Yolanda Huet-Vaughn What if they gave a war and nobody came? |
| December 20, 1994 100,000 Chechnyan civilians linked hands in a 65 km-long human chain (40 miles) to protest the Russian invasion of their country and attack on their capital, Grozny. Read more OR TRY HERE if you don’t have an account with the NYWT. |
| December 20, 1999 The Vermont Supreme Court rulled in Baker v. State of Vermont that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded couples of the opposite sex. History of the Freedom to Marry |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december20
Had a pro-tr*ns activist rush the stage during a speaking engagement
Another stupid lie.
As anyone who saw the video here on JMG knows, said activist stood up at her seat in the audience and was instantly hustled out by security.
She never even left her row of seats.
Enjoy having these people being forced to use the women’s restroom, according to your beliefs, dumbass.
This trans man is ready to help!
Mace wants this trans man to be forced to use the women’s public bathroom.
From the merchandise site:
It’s Nancy Mace here. The Left wants to NORMALIZE the idea of a NAKED MAN walking into our private spaces.
This Is What Happens When Tropical Cyclones Collide
December 19, 2024 Imma Perfetto
In April 2021, tropical cyclones Seroja and Odette clashed in the southeastern Indian Ocean, just north-west of Australia, before finally merging completely.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology describes this interaction as rare: “Seroja produc[ed] torrential rainfall and devastating floods in parts of Indonesia and Timor Leste. Later, it interacted with Tropical Cyclone Odette via the Fujiwara effect, a phenomenon rarely observed in the Australian region. Finally, it strengthened into a category 3 tropical cyclone producing a severe impact in the Mid-West region of Western Australia, unusually far south for a coastal crossing of a Severe Tropical Cyclone.”
These types of convergences are one of the most extreme interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere on Earth. But with the number and intensity of tropical cyclones increasing because of global warming, understanding their impacts has become more important than ever.
“Seroja first of all stalled the smaller cyclone Odette and then merged with it 3 days later,” says Oliver Wurl of the University of Oldenburg in Germany. After the cyclones merged, Seroja abruptly changed course by 90 degrees.
The whole encounter lasted for about a week.
“This chain of events not only influenced weather patterns but also triggered a previously unobserved interaction with the ocean underneath,” says Wurl.
In a new report in in the journal Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, Wurl and colleague Jens Meyerjürgens analysed the encounter between the 2 relatively weak tropical cyclones and found effects that have only been observed with much stronger systems.
They did this by combining satellite data, measurements of the upper ocean, such as salinity and water temperatures obtained from ARGO floats and autonomous drifters, and numerical modelling.
The researchers found that sea-surface temperatures dropped by 3°C in the aftermath of the merge due to cold water upwelling towards the sea surface from depths of 200m.
Given cyclones’ intensity as a Category 1 on the Hurricane Scale, this cooling effect and depth of upwelling was “exceptionally high” – on the scale observed in Category 4 or 5 hurricanes.
“As a result of the interactions of a cyclone with the ocean and the upwelling of cold, deep water, the ocean absorbs additional heat from the air and then transports it to higher latitudes – a crucial process that influences the climate worldwide,” explains Wurl.
The researchers conclude that the simultaneous formation and interaction between tropical cyclones could increase in the future with global warming and, with it, the extreme thermodynamic responses of the upper ocean.
The Ultramarine project – focussing on research and innovation in our marine environments – is supported by Minderoo Foundation.
This is really an old topic, isn’t it….or should I say, isn’t it?? Should I give inflection to the question or to the statement? Frankly, I think the real war on Christmas is how we have forgotten Christmas.
I remember when I was young and we would go to the 11:30 pm Christmas Eve Service at our church. I didn’t want to go. I was tired, I’d eaten a huge meal at Grandma’s, and I wanted to play with my new toys.
But, Mom said it was our obligation to go. I don’t think she used those words. It was likely more like ‘Get your butt in the car and smile, dammit’, but you get my point. We were going whether we wanted to or not.
One of my favorite parts of the service – I had to be there, may as well enjoy what I could of it – was the point where we would all have our little candle and sing Silent Night. In the intervening years I’ve studied scripture and religion and psychology and sociology and I know many of the forces that impact the psyche in such an event, but I will die believing nothing so magical as being part of that majestic song together. Voices rising in approximations of the right keys, resounding off the walls and my heart and my mind as the flickering lights of our candles lent the moment collective peace. I so long to return to that moment of quiet tranquility amidst the press of folks setting down their varied tribulations.
Leaving the church at the end of the service was always a bit of a quiet catharsis. My mind felt a bit too wide, my heart a bit too full, and I just felt like it was a whole new world through those opening church doors.
So, when I hear people talk about ” the magic of Christmas ” this is what I think upon. I know I am supposed to contemplate the humble arrival of our promised savior. I feel guilty when I realize that I don’t. Maybe I’m too presuming, maybe I make too light of the impossible to imagine. Maybe I’m a bad Christian. I mean, that is what Christmas is supposed to be all about, isn’t it? The Triumphant Arrival of Christ in Bethlehem!! But, it’s not quite that for me. What I think on is the deafening absence of my worries, my failures, my unmet needs all in that quiet reverberation of out of tune mid-westerners singing Silent Night.
AS YOU walk among the streets and shops and hear Happy Holidays, know that not everyone comes together in the name of Christ. Not everyone knows Him, not everyone wants to know Him. Some come for love, some for loneliness, some for simple expediency and sales in the shops. What some need most is to hear a genuine heart-felt greeting from someone who cares, even if only in passing. I think that is Christmas.
Hugs.
As landowners resist, Texas’s border wall is fragmented and built in remote areas
At least a third of landowners approached by state officials have refused to let wall be built on their properties. That’s forced the state to largely build on ranchland in remote areas, or erect sections that are full of gaps.
Read in The Texas Tribune: https://apple.news/AjVDqLClDReWyNnqtm2TcdA
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Scottie's Playtime 