(11) The Milky Way and Comet A3
photo by Patrick Maddox
shared with permission
10/20/24, Milton, Vermont
photo by Patrick Maddox
shared with permission
10/20/24, Milton, Vermont
Posted by
listener
at
1:00:00 AM
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From Heather Cox Richardson's Daily Letter yesterday:
ReplyDeleteDepartment of Transportation reached a record settlement of $50 million with American Airlines, whose damage to wheelchairs and dangerous physical assistance to disabled passengers has broken laws. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both legs in combat in the Iraq War, praised the fine and commented: “When an airline damages or breaks someone’s wheelchair, it’s like breaking their legs.”
"The era of tolerating poor treatment of airline passengers with disabilities is over," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. "With this penalty, we are setting a new standard of accountability for airlines that violate the civil rights of passengers with disabilities. By setting penalties at levels beyond the mere cost of doing business for airlines, we're aiming to change how the industry behaves and prevent these kinds of abuses from happening in the first place.”
A reader called to my attention that the recent Federal Election Commission filings showed one significant difference in the expenditures of the two presidential campaigns. The Harris campaign spent $34,550.02 on sign language interpreting services. The Trump campaign spent $0.00.
1. I do hope Mr. Buttigieg is right.
Delete2. It seems that the Trump campaign didn't spend much on assistance for senile speakers.
OK, that second one is mean.
----Alan
No it isn't. It's an accurate observation.
DeleteVT: Some not so Gouda news
ReplyDeleteThe link to WCAX doesn’t seem to work; maybe the original has been deleted. Here is the NBC5 Story [Click]
Delete—-Alan
{listener}
DeleteHow odd…it still works for me.
Here it is in unclickable (cut and paste) raw form:
https://www.wcax.com/2024/10/25/dairy-disaster-truck-transporting-cheese-crashes-berlin/
Ah, but they changed it to take out the pun. The title originally was “Some not so Gouda news”! Must have upset someone.
I'm glad to hear the driver sustained only minor injuries and noone else was hurt, but what a terrible waste of cheese. Don't suppose any of it was salvageable?
DeleteIt looked like most of the crates were intact.
Delete------Alan
He’s ‘Obsessed’: What Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally Is All About [Click] “It won’t come cheap. The campaign will probably shell out at least $1 million to rent Madison Square Garden, pay union labor to build the stage, and manage the event, a source familiar with the discussions said. The arena can hold nearly 20,000 people. . . . But Trump is not actually selling out the arena; admission is free.” May include a fundraiser.
ReplyDelete—Alan
{listener}
DeleteHaving it there will rally the Nazi crowd.
Maybe, though I doubt Nazis are bright enough to remember the connection. Even if they are, I'm looking forward to pictures of him addressing a nearly empty arena and to the resulting tantrum .
DeleteHigh-stakes pension plebiscite could turn Uruguay’s election into its ‘Brexit moment’ [Click]
ReplyDelete——Alan
{listener}
ReplyDeleteNew WSJ Report says Musk has has secret conversations with Putin
The Wall Street Journal reports that Elon Musk has been speaking regularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2022. Gordon Lubold, who contributed to the WSJ report, joined CNN's Jim Acosta to discuss the reporting. The Kremlin denied regularly speaking with the tech CEO and Musk declined to comment. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
* has had
DeleteNone of this is surprising, unfortunately.
DeleteYou saw where the DOJ has finally sent a cease and desist letter with regard to Musk paying people to register, or to vote, or whatever? Took them long enough, and nobody thinks Musk will take any notice, but at least it will be on the record for when Harris' DOJ gets on the case.
Pennsylvania county says it discovered up to 2,500 potentially fraudulent voter registration attempts
ReplyDeleteFrom CNN's Danny Freeman and Jeremy Herb
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, election and law enforcement officials are probing an effort to potentially register up to 2,500 fraudulent voters.
“Through this staff’s normal review process, as many as 2,500 completed voter registration forms are being researched for potential fraud stemming from two separate dropped batches by individuals,” Ray D’Agostino, the vice chairman of the Lancaster County Board of Elections, said at a news conference.
The Board of Elections is led by two Republicans and one Democrat. D’Agostino said the fraudulent applications did not appear to be from one party or the other.
The Pennsylvania Department of State told CNN it would send a statement on the allegations later this afternoon.
What officials found: Election officials notified the Lancaster County district attorney’s office when staff found inconsistencies with multiple “stacks” of applications.
At Friday’s news conference, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said the detectives found fraud on applications, including inaccurate addresses and personal identifying information, duplicate handwriting, and signatures that did not match.
Some people who were listed on the applications with correct information told investigators they did not request or complete the form, Adams added.
“Thus far, of the investigations that we have completed, we have determined that 60% have been fraudulent,” Adams said. She added that investigators still have more applications to vet, and she expects that process to be completed later today.
County officials said the applications appear to be connected to a “large-scale canvassing operation” that dates back to the mid-summer, when canvassers solicited prospective voters at grocery stores, parks and other public spaces, but did not elaborate further on the organization suspected to be responsible.
“Our systems work”: D’Agostino said catching the problem was an example of their processes working.
“The people of Lancaster County and the nation can feel secure that our systems work, that our election in Lancaster County is secure, and we will hold accountable those who threaten it with fraud or anything else,” said Josh Parsons, the Board of Elections chairman.
This could be interesting!
Delete-----Alan
It could be bloody embarrassing if it's traced back to Dems. Entertaining if traced back to Reps of course.
DeleteYes.
Delete-----Alan
The offending person is bent on "securing a significant victory for liberty-loving Republicans in the 2024 election." With all due respect, might "liberty-loving Republicans [who would vote for Trump] be some sort of cryptid?
Delete----Alan
^^^^^ OOPS! This was meant to go under the Erie nuns story. Can't remove it, but will repost it in the intended place.
Delete-----Alan
Wil filled out his ballot today and dropped it in the box at the Town Clerk's Office. He said it felt so good to do it!
ReplyDeleteRemarkably, our town has 12 Justices of the Peace and this year NO Republicans ran for that office. There were 13 candidates for the 12 positions, including 12 Dems and 1 Indy.
Gee.
Delete----Alan
The thing that amazes me is the number of justices of the peace; is it such an unpeaceful place that a dozen of them are necessary to keep it under control? Or do they take turns?
DeleteWithin the past 72 hours, two major newspapers have declined to endorse a candidate for president, raising concerns they fear retaliation from a Trump administration.
ReplyDeleteThere was uproar, outrage and multiple residnations among the Washington Post’s current and former staffers and other notable figures in the world of American media after the newspaper’s leaders on Friday chose to not endorse any candidate.
In a statement on X, Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, called the paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty”.
At the Los Angeles Times, the editorials editor, Mariel Garza, resigned this week over the owner’s decision to kill off the editorial board’s planned endorsement of Harris.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza told Columbia Journalism Review’s editor, Sewell Chan. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
I am appalled. -- nordy
residnations = resignations -- nordy
DeleteI think both the WaPo and the LA Times are well past their glory days.
Delete-----Alan
Washington Post editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, has resigned.
DeleteThe Resignation
DeleteIt's actually worse for the L.A. Times IMO since their endorsement was already known. I read about it some time ago. Then to have it pulled was quite a blow.
DeleteInterestingly, while newspaper brass are showing their true colors UBS, which according to the writeup would seem to be more comfortable with a Trump presidency, shows a 40% probability of a Trump win with a divided Congress as against a 65% probability of a Harris win with a divided Congress. They're not endorsing anybody, just saying what they think the probabilities are. But if Trump hears about it, they're going to be on his enemies list, which doesn't seem to bother them.
DeleteUBS---- the Swiss bank & financial services company?
Delete-----Alan
The same.
DeleteDon't mess with nuns!
ReplyDelete“We want to call Cliff Maloney to account for his blatantly false post that accuses our sisters of fraud," Sister Stephanie Schmidt, prioress, said in a news release that was also posted to the sisters' Facebook page. "We do live at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery and a simple web search would alert him to our active presence in a number of ministries in Erie. We also want to alert those who subscribe to X and other social media platforms to be vigilant and seek additional information before accepting these posts as truth. A free republic depends on free and fair elections. It depends equally on a discerning and conscientious citizenry who do not unquestioningly accept the word of anyone who has a social media platform."
Benedictine Sisters of Erie fighting claim on social media of voter fraud at monastery
"Don't mess with nuns" immediately calls to mind a movie: The Blues Brothers.
Delete------Alan
The idiot who made the claim of fraud obviously isn't Catholic, or he would know that messing with nuns tends to land the messer in deep shit.
DeleteIt gets better. These particular Erie nuns include famous author Joan Chittister. She is also a friend of Stephen Colbert. I hope he does a segment from there!
DeleteAnd! Joan Chittister spoke at the rally Harris recently had in Erie.
DeleteAnd, by the way, Benedictine nuns KNOW how to pray!!
The offending person is bent on "securing a significant victory for liberty-loving Republicans in the 2024 election." With all due respect, might "liberty-loving Republicans [who would vote for Trump] be some sort of cryptid?
Delete----Alan
Liz Cheney and Sr. Joan Chittister discuss the election, politics and future
DeleteFree, non-partisan Election Peacemaking Training
DeleteSo, these nuns, who number 53 (but no one lives there?), have, in just the past week, announced non-partisan election de-escalation training for pollworkers and others, have had their most famous nun speak at the Harris rally and sit down for a conversation with Liz Cheney. Yet, the Republicans innocently accused them of voter fraud? I'm so glad they are looking into suing the guy (and group) who posted this crap. That guy is the CEO of the Republican group, too.
DeleteHoly smokes! He *really* doesn't know what he's up against!
DeleteLooking forward to the Sister and the Congresswoman. Now, that's one team I would NOT want to cross!
Yeah, and not just any Sister, but Joan Chittister! Whoo!
DeleteSeventy-five infected as cases rise in US E coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s [Click] Yesterday we received a notice from Costco about possible listeria contamination of a food we had purchased there. I had tossed the box to make room in the freezer so couldn’t identify the lot number, and threw away the remaining half. I wondered if that might be the cause of the severe vomiting I had recently, but that is not a reported typical symptom of listeriosis.
ReplyDelete——Alan