Well I hope that everyone had a better weekend than I did. My favorite little buddy, Fritz the cat, passed away. He had definitely gone over his nine lives and will be missed…
I’ve got all new gift articles for the month:
Trump Trials: A gun and a gag order
https://wapo.st/458s0WV
Crisis (temporarily) averted
House prepares for next hurdle: Efforts to oust McCarthy as speaker
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/01/kevin-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-house-speaker/
Fat Bear Week is saved!
Sprots!
Former Boston Red Sox pitcher and 2-time World Series champion Tim Wakefield dies at age 57
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/sport/mlb-tim-wakefield-dies-spt-intl/index.html
Simone Biles makes history on opening day of qualifying at World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/sport/simone-biles-world-gymnastics-championships-qualifying-spt-intl/index.html
Stonks!
Dow futures jump more than 100 points after lawmakers avert government shutdown: Live updates
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/01/stock-market-today-live-updates.html
Today in cute:
Have a great day!
@MegMegMcGee I’m sorry for your loss. We never have enough time with our furry friends. 💔
Sorry about Fritz. That’s sad news.
Oh Meg, I’m so sorry about your Fritz!💔💝💞💗💓
@MegMegMcGee It’s hard to lose our frens. I feel for you. Walk free, Fritz.
This week is Nobel Week, and Kati Karikó DID actually win the prize which she so rightfully deserves!!!!!!🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗
She and Drew Weissman met at a copier at the University of Pennsylvania, back in the 90’s, and got to talking–Kati had been studying mRNA since her work in the ’80’s, on the AIDS virus–where it wasn’t a fit, and she’d hoped that someday, she’d live long enough to see her findings on mRNA become useful…
It obviously was the key for the Covid-19 vaccines, and it’s an incredibly deserved prize! (I was hoping she’d get it, but honestly NEVER expected it to happen THIS soon!!!!!)
😃🤗😁
https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/katalin-kariko-and-drew-weissman-penns-historic-mrna-vaccine-research-team-win-2023-nobel
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/16/us/katalin-kariko-covid-19-vaccine-scientist-trnd/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/covid-vaccine-technology-pioneer-i-never-doubted-it-would-work
https://nypost.com/2020/12/05/this-scientists-decades-of-mrna-research-led-to-covid-vaccines/
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/how-drew-weissman-and-katalin-kariko-developed-mrna-technology-inside-covid-vaccines/
It’s hard to think of anything that’s had a bigger impact than the mRNA Covid vaccine. Totally deserving.
Absolutely deserving–you’re 100% right!😉
But the reason it honestly DID shock me, that they won it today, was because too often the Women who’ve helped to make really impactful advances in the sciences honored by the Nobels don’t manage to get the recognition for it–because so often, it’s come for their peers, after those women passed away.
Rosalind Franklin is one of the biggest–it was HER photographs & research that won Watson &Crick’s Nobel–yet most folks don’t KNOW about her…
It’s the “20 Women vs 600+ Men” as winners thing, that made me figure we were going to have to wait *at least* a decade before Karikó got her due.
https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/ingeniouswomen/rosalindfranklin/index.html#:~:text=Rosalind%20Elsie%20Franklin%2C%20born%20on,Dark%20Lady%20of%20the%20DNA%22.
https://theworld.org/stories/2019-10-09/only-20-nobels-sciences-have-gone-women-why
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/30/europe/nobel-science-prizes-scn/index.html
Well deserved, and what we were able to do with Covid in that amount of time was nothing short of a miracle — and might just be scratching the surface of what those types of vaccines can do in the future.
… well, for those of us smart enough not to think they’re full of microchips or whatever.
If only he would.
Trump’s latest rambling rally: ‘I will take electrocution every single time‘
Quote:
“So, let me ask you,” Trump said in his rally speech. “Let’s say a boat goes down and I’m sitting on top of a big powerful battery and the boat is going down, do I get electrocuted? … But if I’m sitting down and that boat’s going down and I’m on top of a battery, and the water starts flooding in, I’m getting concerned. But then I look ten yards to my left and there’s a shark over there. So I have a choice of electrocution or a shark. You know what I’m going to take? Electrocution. I’ll take electrocution every single time. Do we agree? But these people are crazy.”
It’s unknown if Trump meant to be flipping his statement to say he’s pro-EV.
Meanwhile, Biden gave a long, detailed interview on policy with lots of back and forth with the questioner, and you know the drumbeat from the Peter Baker crowd will continue whether he can live for another week.
https://www.propublica.org/article/biden-interview-trump-supreme-court-ethics
Maybe they’ll shout some more questions to him across the cemetery where his late wife and kids are buried and pretend he couldn’t hear them.
We’re seeing exactly the same tactics as Swiftboating. And just like Swiftboating, the political press has decided to go along with the GOP and just ask questions. But only about one guy, or maybe lump them both together as if there was any actual question which one is capable.
My first thought was that this bizarre and incoherent torrent of nonsense received precisely zero coverage from mainstream outlets. In the meantime, we get crap like this:
Some Democrats fear Bidenomics branding is backfiring
The source? Polls. Which have proven to be completely useless in gauging the sentiments of voters, largely because they don’t talk to a representative sample.
Way down at the bottom:
There’s a relentless, practically creepy way the political press plays around with the way it decides what matters.
Trump is cracked in the head? It’s not news! Why not? Because it doesn’t matter! Why doesn’t it matter? Because it’s not news!
Likewise, they play games all the time when deciding who is responsible for something. Months after Biden takes office, inflation takes off due to a Covid-broken economy he inherited, and he’s responsible. Inflation subsides after his administration takes massive steps to fix the supply chain, but it becomes a passive voice story about things just improving.
As far as the latest GOP meltdown, following the previous one just months ago, the political press goes passive voice and refuses to pin the blame where it belongs:
https://nitter.net/JamesFallows/status/1708493555927236671
Which is crazy on two levels. One because it is true information audiences need, and another basic level because stories with heroes and villains sell more than Mumblecore.
BDC, your mention of the way the press treats Trump’s dealings, compared to Biden’s reminds me of this “Great Deal!” (🙄🙄🙄) that Trumpty-dumpty “negotiated” which Fox and the *rest* of the idiots in the national press then blamed Biden for, when oil & gas prices predictably shot through the roof🙃
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-trump-saudi-specialreport-idUSKBN22C1V4
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/trump-saudi-arabia-russia-opec-oil-deal-role
Yeah, we knew this. Their voters don’t, though.
New data shows GOP is actually the party of wealthy tax cheats, not workers
Quote: We get it. Republicans are protecting their wealthy voters and donors—many of whom are literal lawbreakers—by crippling the IRS’ ability to collect funds that are already owed. But what does any of this have to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop?
Sorry to hear about Fritz, @MegMegMcGee. Condolences.
Truly sorry for your loss.
Aww, Meg, sorry about the kitty. Always tough, and I hope Fritz’s memory is a blessing!
Sorry about Fritz Meg!
My niece’s boyfriend is a caddie at Pebble Beach & was with Dwyane Wade when he got his first hole in one the other day…
Wade is a producer of this short documentary about the dads of trans kids. One of my semi-distant relatives is one of the dads. It’s been picked up by Netflix but I don’t think they have a launch date yet.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81700362
He is definitely a good dude. My niece’s boyfriend really enjoyed being with him.
Today’s Trump fraud trial went straight to damages and skipped the usual trial over whether he even committed it.
Why? Because his attorneys failed to check off some boxes and submit a completely routine form requesting a trial.
https://nitter.net/hugolowell/status/1708851585869140399
He’s facing $250 million in fines sought by the NY Attorney General, along with surrendering critical business certifications.
He’s at the trial, by the way, because he’s dodging deposition in a case brought by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.
This is another scoop for Hugo Lowell with The Guardian, who notably does not play the access game of reporters like Maggie Haberman and Josh Dawsey. Funny how they keep missing important news.
Huh. One might think that it’s important to A. hire competent attorneys and B. pay them. I wonder if that’s Trump’s takeaway from this debacle?
LOL, no. He’s gonna keep stiffing the hired help.
He got Maggie Haberman on the front page yesterday with a headline about how Trump is really the winner.
If the Trump access reporters were interested in serious reporting, they’d be asking questions whether he has the tools to actually pull off what he says he wants to do. Instead, it’s all confirmation bias. Which is why they regularly miss big scoops and play catchup when their narratives collapse.
im sorry for your loss @megmegmcgee
Deepest Sympathy on Fritz’s passing over the rainbow bridge. He was an awesome, hard core boy. @megmegmcgee
I’m sorry to hear about Fritz. He was a lovely and very handsome cat.
So sorry about Fritz. He has an excellent name and he sounds like an excellent cat!
Just adding my condolences on your loss @megmegmcgee