…amidst all the other kinds of crazy the news provides it’s easy to forget the ones that have been stubbornly hanging around for a while…so to start somewhere out in the wilderness

Britain was not expelled from the European Union, although some of the dismay at the consequences of Brexit would make more sense in that scenario. Customs checks at the border are likened to a blockade. Rules that apply to all non-EU countries are described as punishment beatings. The expectation that Boris Johnson uphold the treaty he signed is cast as unreasonable spite.

This is all consistent with the sacred rule of English Euroscepticism, according to which “Europe” must always be understood in terms of things done to us by them; never things we do to ourselves.
[…]
Immovable facts of geography and economics are making Britain’s reliance on the rest of Europe impossible to ignore, and the Conservative party is slinking back to its happy place: self-righteous victimhood, with Brussels as the forever enemy.

It is not all the way there yet. The economic picture is clouded by the pandemic, which disrupted flows of goods and people in ways that are not easy to disaggregate from Brexit. Ministers can explain labour shortages, broken supply chains and sparsely stocked supermarket shelves exclusively as ravages of Covid. Hauliers, logistics companies and exporters are quicker to cite bureaucracy at borders that were frictionless when Britain was part of the single market.
[…]
That does not mean the prime minister is invulnerable on Europe. The Tory party will always demand pugnacity at a pitch that is incompatible with grown-up diplomacy. The method so far has been to capitulate to the EU on substance, covering the retreat with incendiary rhetoric. But that game becomes increasingly dangerous when the dispute is over the Northern Ireland protocol. Brussels might get a portion of the blame, but if the Good Friday agreement goes up in flames on Johnson’s watch, and he somehow dodges the charge of arson, he is still on the hook for negligence.
[…]
Happily for the Tories, there is no pressure from the opposition. Keir Starmer wants to woo back voters who abandoned his party because they felt it had stopped listening to them on the whole suite of issues relating to the referendum, from immigration control to the democratic principle of honouring the result once the votes had been counted. That relationship will not be fixed with lectures on the enduring folly of Brexit. Labour sees no route back to power treading the European side in arguments that Johnson can frame in terms of national dignity.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/24/brexit-failure-remainers-shelves-empty-eu

…mind you…some things are harder to ignore than others

But in the latest series of food shortages that have hit British supermarkets and restaurants — exacerbated by a perfect storm from the fallout with Brexit, a declining number of truck drivers, and the coronavirus pandemic — Nando’s announced on Tuesday that it had to close around 50 of its stores across England, Scotland, and Wales temporarily because of a shortage of chicken.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/world/europe/nandos-chicken-shortage-closures-britain.html

Milkshakes are off the menu at McDonald’s in England, Scotland and Wales, leaving customers definitely not “lovin’ it” after supply chain issues.
[…]
It is understood to be caused by a shortage of lorry drivers owing to post-Brexit EU immigration rules, Covid-19 restrictions and self-isolation guidance.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/24/mcdonalds-runs-out-of-milkshakes-due-to-supply-chain-issues

Nando’s, KFC, McDonald’s: Why are fast food chains running out of things? [BBC]

…now I haven’t been in a mcdonalds in a long time…but even I can see how people are gonna notice when they run out of milkshakes…can you even imagine?

…speaking of things it’s hard not to notice

Britain’s failure to persuade the US to extend the evacuation from Afghanistan into September does not mean the “special relationship” with Washington is over, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said.

He made the comment in an interview following the virtual G7 summit, which resulted in Joe Biden rejecting calls from the UK and other European partners for the evacuation mission from Afghanistan to be extended beyond 31 August.

In a series of broadcast appearances, Raab also admitted that “with the benefit of hindsight” he should not have been on holiday in Crete when the Taliban were taking over Kabul.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/25/dominic-raab-afghanistan-us-special-relationship-after-evacuation

…that’s right…when it all went to shit over there the british foreign secretary was on his hols…& successfully persuaded his boss boris that he could stay for another couple of days & not hurry back to…you know…do his fucking job…but that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing their level best to make out that “if it wasn’t for the US” they’d do all sorts of shit…except…well…they can’t do any of that shit without the US…& a certain maker of shitty deals has well & truly tied joe’s hands when it comes to any kind of bargaining position…so there’s folks shit out of luck everywhere you look…not least if you decide to go look for yourself…& presumably take up some seats that could have gone to people trying to get out for reasons that aren’t some kind of political stunt

Leaders in the Biden administration and on Capitol Hill took steps Wednesday to discourage members of Congress from taking further unauthorized trips to Kabul, delivering sharp rebukes to a pair of lawmakers who made such a journey this week and warning others not to follow.

The moves came in response to Tuesday’s visit to the evacuation by Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), a pair of Iraq War veterans who have pressed President Biden to move faster to help vulnerable Afghans.

The statements came as two other lawmakers were heading toward Afghanistan on Wednesday, according to a Biden administration official who was not authorized to discuss their plans. The official said the House members, whose names could not be confirmed, were in Europe and had requested passage to Afghanistan. The Pentagon rejected the request, the official said.
[…]
The congressmen were only in Kabul for hours, leaving on a flight used for evacuating Americans and Afghans. But it was enough to prompt officials to vigorously warn anyone else who might be considering such a trip.
[…]
Even traditionally circumspect officials made little secret Wednesday of their frustration that the two lawmakers had thrust themselves into such a landscape.
[…]
Moulton and Meijer had initially traveled from the United States to Qatar via a commercial flight that they paid for, according to Tim Biba, a spokesman for Moulton. From there they “figured out a way onto an empty military flight going into Kabul,” Biba said.
[…]
One official said the administration had received “troubling reports” that the pair “were not honest about their identifies on the manifest on the aircraft.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the details of the lawmakers’ travel.
[…]
Upon landing in Kabul, Meijer and Moulton disclosed they were lawmakers to U.S. diplomats and commanders, Meijer said in an interview, to further avoid the churning confusion at the airport, where numerous militaries and government officials are active.

During their brief time at the airport, the pair met with service members, diplomats and civilians, all of whom were scrambling to evacuate thousands of Americans, U.S. allies and vulnerable Afghans by Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline.
[…]
The pair were flown out of Kabul via a military plane that included evacuees. Moulton said the lawmakers “insisted on leaving in a plane that was not full, in a seat designated for crew, so that we didn’t take a seat from someone else.”

U.S. leaders move to shut down further freelance trips to Kabul [NYT]

…I get why they’d make sure to stress that last part…& I get why a person might think more about how that whole mess is going down could be made clear than has been…although I still think turning up in that spot & saying “oh, by the way we’re from congress & we’d like to speak to some folks” is about the last thing anyone on the ground probably wanted to hear that day

The bipartisan criticism also poured in Wednesday from rank and file lawmakers, including from Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He told MSNBC that he was “shocked” to hear about the trip.

“I actually think this is a pretty irresponsible thing for these two members to do,” Crow said. “The bottom line is we are just trying to secure our troops and soldiers, we’re trying to get as many people out as possible and the only thing that I thought about when I heard this is how many Afghan women and children were not able to be evacuated yesterday because they had to pull Marines off the line or out of rest to provide security for VIPs? It shouldn’t have happened.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/bipartisan-criticism-pours-after-congressmen-take-clandestine-afghanistan-trip

…seems like there’s a lot about afghanistan that arguably shouldn’t have happened…& trying to talk around that isn’t doing anyone any favors, either

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, a retired rear admiral, recently said that during the long U.S. undertaking in Afghanistan “the goals did migrate over time.” Did the goals themselves have agency — minds of their own? Why do so many people, particularly in government, engage in such gaseous talk? Because it envelops in abstract, obfuscating vocabularies things that are awkward to defend. And because we are decades into the “leakage of reality” from American life.

President Biden says the Taliban is “going through sort of an existential crisis about do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government.” Which is worse, if he means this, or if he doesn’t? The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, says “we expect the Taliban to respect women’s rights” and “to be respectful of humanitarian law.” No sentient person expects anything of the sort.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaims three musts: “Afghans and international citizens” who wish to leave Afghanistan “must” be allowed to. Roads, airports and border crossings “must remain open.” “Calm must be maintained.” “Must,” lest nice people frown? State Department spokesman Ned Price is pleased that the U.N. Security Council has asked the Taliban to create a government that is “united, inclusive, and representative, including with the full and meaningful participation of women.” If this were even remotely possible, why were 20 years and $2 trillion devoted to resisting the Taliban?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/25/biden-administrations-gaseous-obfuscation-afghanistan-isnt-helping/

…but I’m short on time & have probably been on about that enough that we can maybe skip over it for today…although…speaking of people being checked out when they ought to be on deck

with California’s gubernatorial recall election under way, Newsom is fighting for his political life. The Democratic governor of a deep blue state could narrowly lose his seat to a fringe rightwing radio host – in large part due to inertia and apathy among voters.

Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one in California – but while the former are distracted and disengaged this year, the latter are riled up, political strategists and pollsters say. By voting at higher rates, Republicans could capture the governor’s seat for the first time in a decade.
[…]
“Turnout is likely to be far higher among Republicans than Democrats and ‘no party preference’ voters. And, since nearly all Republicans favor Newsom’s ouster, a larger proportion of likely voters are voting yes,” said Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director.
[…]
“Newsom doesn’t have to worry about the Democratic base voting for the recall,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor who has advised Republican candidates. “He has to worry about them not voting at all.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/25/california-governor-recall-gavin-newsom-larry-elder

…I know the weather’s nice in california…when things aren’t literally on fire anyway…but seriously…what the fuck is that about when there’s people all over the place trying to prevent the GOP from being able to ignore their votes…how do you have a vote that could keep another of them off the table & just think “nah, I can’t be bothered”?

Brace Yourself for the Man Who Could Become California’s Governor [NYT]

…& speaking of fucking with votes…it maybe doesn’t have great odds of getting through the senate…but there’s literally no good reason for that

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act passed 219-212 on a party-line vote.

The bill now faces an uncertain future in the US Senate, where it needs the support of 10 Republican senators to overcome the filibuster and pass. While Senator Joe Manchin, a key Democratic swing vote, supports the bill, just one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has indicated that she does.

The House passed a similar version of the legislation in 2019, gaining just one Republican vote, but it never passed the Senate, which was then under GOP control.
[…]
The legislation is one of two pillars of congressional Democrats’ push to protect voting rights. It sets a 25-year look-back period for assessing voting rights in jurisdictions. If courts have documented at least 15 voting rights violations in a state over that period, the state will have to get any change in voting rules approved by the federal government before it goes into effect (if the violation is committed by the state as a whole only 10 violations are required to trigger federal oversight).

The updated formula comes eight years after the US supreme court said the formula in the law that determined which states were subject to pre-clearance was outdated and struck it down. Voting advocates have said that ruling, in a case called Shelby County v Holder, has offered states a green light to discriminate against Black voters.
[…]
The states that would have to get election changes approved are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas, Peyton McCrary, a former justice department historian, testified earlier this month. Several large counties in the US, including Los Angeles county in California, Cook county in Illinois, Westchester county in New York, Cuyahoga county in Ohio, and Northampton county in Virginia could also be covered, according to McCrary.

The law also outlines several procedures that would be subject to federal pre-clearance everywhere in the country, including changes to voter ID laws, reductions in polling locations and changes in policies that determine who gets removed from the voter rolls.

Republicans decried the measure as unnecessary, saying it gives the federal government too much power to oversee elections.
[…]
While federal pre-clearance is the most touted portion of the bill, the legislation also includes several other new provisions to protect voting rights. It essentially undoes a supreme court decision from earlier this year that makes it extremely difficult to bring challenges to voting laws under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It also strengthens protections under the Voting Rights Act for minority voters during the redistricting process.

The legislation would also address two issues that emerged in the unprecedented slew of litigation during the 2020 election. First, courts could not simply decline to strike down a law because an election is close – something that several courts did in 2020. Second, courts would have to offer an explanation for their reasoning in voting rights cases, a provision designed to take aim at the supreme court’s practice of not issuing explanations in emergency cases on its “shadow docket”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/24/us-house-passes-voting-rights-bill-preclearance

…meanwhile they dug out one extra voter for this one

By a narrow vote of 220-212, the House approved a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that would allow Democrats to start drafting legislation encompassing many of the party’s top priorities, including a vast expansion of the social safety net and funding to fight climate change.
[…]
But it came only after leaders stamped out a revolt among conservative-leaning Democrats, who withheld their votes until they extracted a promise to vote on the infrastructure bill by Sept. 27. The breakthrough came after a pressure campaign by the White House, outside progressive groups and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, who haggled and cajoled her way to unanimous Democratic support for a measure that had been stalled mere hours before.
[…]
While the budget plan, which passed the Senate this month, does not have the force of law, it allows Democrats to move forward with a fast-track process known as reconciliation. That would enshrine the details of the blueprint in legislation that is shielded from a filibuster, allowing it to pass over the objections of Republicans.

House Passes $3.5 Trillion Budget Plan for Vast Expansion of Safety Net [NYT]

…unless of course one of those awkward bastards that’s supposedly on their side in the senate decides to swing the other way…because…well…those folks are a fucking liability

If, in 2020, Democrats had won the kind of overwhelming majority they enjoyed at the outset of the Obama administration, one side or the other might be able to win an outright struggle over the party’s agenda. But razor-thin margins in the House and Senate give each side the power to kill most of the other side’s top priorities. The solution is to do both bills at the same time — to link the passage of one to the other. There will be no bipartisan bill if the partisan one isn’t passed and no partisan bill if the bipartisan one does not come to a vote. If the two sides don’t hang together, then they will both go down to defeat.

For a while, it looked as if Democrats on both sides were on board with this approach. But then the Senate actually passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill. At which point, a group of more conservative Democrats in the House reneged on the deal.
[…]
The facts of the situation aside, it simply boggles the mind to watch another set of conservative and moderate Democrats persuade themselves that they are not subject to the laws of politics and will come out ahead if they, as Democrats, undermine the Democratic president.

We are well past the age of split-ticket voting. If and when voters turn against Biden, they’ll turn against congressional Democrats too. Try as they might, these Democratic skeptics will struggle to distance themselves from their party and its leadership. If past elections are any evidence, they’ll fail.

The only thing that could buoy their prospects is the president’s popularity, which depends, in part, on his success. For conservative Democrats, handing Biden a major legislative defeat — which is what might happen if the House scraps its two-track process — is the very definition of an own goal, assuming they hope to stay in office. We saw this exact dynamic in 2009 and 2010, when moderate and conservative Democratic demands to scale back the Affordable Care Act did little to stem voter anger but did produce a less generous bill that took more years than necessary to disburse its benefits (and consequently diminished its political benefit).

But this just brings us back to the beginning. Democrats will probably lose the House. They may well lose the Senate. This might be the last Democratic “trifecta” for 10 years or more, given partisan gerrymandering in one chamber and the Republican Party’s structural advantage in the other. The best play, then, is to go all out: to stop the games and pass as much of Biden’s agenda as possible, to do what they can to level the electoral playing field and combat voter suppression in the states and to make the structural reforms (D.C. statehood, for example) that might bring American democracy a little closer to “one person, one vote.”

The point of winning power is not to stay in power; it is to use it. And if you use it well — if you do what you said you would do — you might actually get to keep it.

The 9 Democrats Making Nancy Pelosi’s Life Harder Are Making a Big Mistake [NYT]

…& speaking of liabilities…there’s always a sinking feeling when you have to prove a negative

“The current situation is that all of the hypotheses regarding to the origins of the virus are still on the table,” Michael Ryan, the head of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, in response to a question about the laboratory leak theory. “Some are more likely than others based on the current analysis, but all of those hypotheses require further elucidation and further inquiry and we will go and look where all of those leads take the WHO.”

The US intelligence assessment, which was ordered by Joe Biden 90 days ago, was unable to definitively conclude whether the virus that first emerged in central China had jumped to humans via animals or escaped a highly secure research facility in Wuhan, two US officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post. They said parts of the report could be declassified in the coming days.

US intelligence gives Biden inconclusive report on Covid origins [Guardian]

This week, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman repeatedly used an official podium to elevate unproven ideas that the coronavirus may have first leaked from a research facility in Fort Detrick, Md. A Communist Party publication, the Global Times, started an online petition in July calling for that lab to be investigated and said it gathered more than 25 million signatures.
[…]
Beijing is peddling groundless theories that the United States may be the true source of the coronavirus, as it pushes back against efforts to investigate the pandemic’s origins in China. The disinformation campaign started last year, but Beijing has raised the volume in recent weeks, reflecting its anxiety about being blamed for the pandemic that has killed millions globally.
[…]
“The point is to really saturate the airwaves with all of this, which most average Chinese will not be able to see behind,” said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “A lot of it is anticipating and trying fend off, pre-emptively, this potential American study by the intelligence community.”

Rejecting Covid Inquiry, China Peddles Conspiracy Theories Blaming the U.S. [NYT]

…but some inquiries at least get to hunt for proof positive

On Wednesday, the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection issued a massive demand for documents from multiple government agencies. It shows that the committee is casting a very wide investigative net — and a big target is the months of efforts to steal the election that came well in advance of President Donald Trump’s incitement of mob violence.

That’s critical, because it suggests the committee sees the effort to overturn the election via legal manipulation and illicit plotting as central to explaining the outbreak of violence itself.
[…]
But it gets bigger. The committee also demanded that the Justice Department turn over all documents and communications referring or relating to meetings and discussions between Trump, White House officials and top department officials for weeks leading up to Jan. 6.

That looks like an effort to flesh out what we’ve learned only skeletally: Amid direct pressure from Trump, at least one department official worked to use the department’s stature to cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 results, potentially to create a pretext for various efforts to overturn them.

We need to know a lot more about that. And the committee appears to want to find it out.

Strikingly, the committee also demanded that the Justice Department turn over all communications and documents relating to discussion of the use of law enforcement or military personnel during voting, and to all internal discussion of martial law or invocations of the Insurrection Act.
[…]
Tellingly, the select committee also demanded that the National Archives turn over all documents and communications related to discussions of intentions to delay, halt or impede the electoral count in Congress — from Nov. 30 through Jan. 6.

This could very well shed light on a Dec. 21 meeting Trump held at the White House with loyalists such as Republican Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Mo Brooks (Ala.), where they discussed getting Pence to invalidate Joe Biden’s electors in Congress. That means the investigation could very well implicate some congressional Republicans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/25/were-getting-glimpse-into-what-jan-6-committee-wants-know/

Other agencies being asked to provide information are the Defense, Homeland Security, Interior and Justice departments, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
[…]
In a statement Wednesday night, Trump said the committee requests were part of a “partisan exercise” and suggested he would try to block them by asserting executive privilege.
[…]
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday blasted the committee’s action, saying it underscored how its work is “more political” than a legitimate search for truth. McCarthy, who last month withdrew his appointees to the committee in protest, suggested it was chilling to look at records from lawmakers.
[…]
Some of the requests by the select committee duplicate those of other House committees that have probed aspects of the insurrection. Other requests are new and seek more-granular information, and they heavily target former White House staffers and Trump loyalists.

The committee, for example, is asking the National Archives to turn over all White House documents provided to Trump and his then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, that refer to “a stolen election, stealing the election, or a ‘rigged’ election.”

The committee is seeking records related to Trump’s comment on Sept. 29 that the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, “stand back and stand by” ahead of an election he had repeatedly claimed could be rife with fraud.

And the committee is seeking all “documents and communications related to any plan for the President to march or walk to the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” following a rally near the White House.

House panel investigating Jan. 6 attack seeks records from agencies on insurrection, Trump in first request for information [WaPo]

…so maybe one day we get to demonstrate that because one party did a bunch of reprehensible shit…pointing out that the reprehensible part was confined to the one side of the aisle does not itself constitute a “partisan exercise”…the partisan part was the reprehensible shit that needs investigating in the first place…but then you all know that shit, already…it’s been…if you’ll excuse the thin link…staring you in the face

The federal government plans to expand its use of facial recognition to pursue criminals and scan for threats, an internal survey has found, even as concerns grow about the technology’s potential for contributing to improper surveillance and false arrests.

Ten federal agencies — the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs — told the Government Accountability Office they intend to grow their facial recognition capabilities by 2023, the GAO said in a report posted to its website Tuesday.
[…]
Proponents say the software’s accuracy is improving and that it has played a critical role in helping track and identify major criminals. But the technology’s accuracy has been shown in research to vary wildly depending on the skin color of the person being surveilled. Facial recognition searches have been cited in at least three wrongful arrests, all of which were of Black men, and in the identification of protesters accused of violence during demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd.

“Even with all the privacy issues and accuracy problems, the government is pretty much saying, ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,’” said Jake Laperruque, a senior counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog group in Washington.
[…]
The GAO said in June that 20 federal agencies have used either internally developed or privately run facial recognition software, even though 13 of those agencies said they did not “have awareness” of which private systems they used and had therefore “not fully assessed the potential risks … to privacy and accuracy.”

In the current report, the GAO said several agencies, including the Justice Department, the Air Force and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reported that they had used facial recognition software from Clearview AI, a firm that has faced lawsuits from privacy groups and legal demands from Google and Facebook after it copied billions of facial images from social media without their approval.
[…]
The GAO report did not address questions of how effective the systems are. But privacy advocates have argued that the trade-offs and risks surrounding the technology’s expansion are often not worth the result.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/25/federal-facial-recognition-expansion/

…whereas others are just plain as the nose on your face

Two weeks after the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, reported Covid infections in the state have risen nearly sixfold.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-dakota-covid-cases-quintuple-after-sturgis-motorcycle-rally

…I mean…haven’t we seen this movie before?

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said Wednesday it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean less than a mile away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said it hopes to start releasing the water in spring 2023. TEPCO says hundreds of storage tanks at the plant need to be removed to make room for facilities necessary for the plant’s decommissioning.
[…]
The controlled release, with an annual cap on radioactive materials, will continue for about 30 years, or until the plant’s decommissioning ends

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fukushima-nuclear-plant-water-be-released-undersea-tunnel

…& it’s easy to say that seems like a bad idea…not least if you ever tried to understand how godzilla comes to be…but…well…throwing stones…glass houses…yadda yadda

More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA.

But for all the good vibes and stellar sunsets, beneath the surface hides a potential threat: 3.6m lb of nuclear waste from a group of nuclear reactors shut down nearly a decade ago. Decades of political gridlock have left it indefinitely stranded, susceptible to threats including corrosion, earthquakes and sea level rise.
[…]
“It’s a combination of failures, really,” said Gregory Jaczko, who chaired the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the top federal enforcer, between 2009 and 2012, of the situation at San Onofre.
[…]
The waste is buried about 100ft from the shoreline, along the I-5 highway, one of the nation’s busiest thoroughfares, and not far from a pair of faults that experts say could generate a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/24/san-onofre-nuclear-power-plant-radioactive-waste-unsafe

…but don’t get me wrong…science is cool

A new photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a stunning “Einstein Ring” billions of light-years from Earth — a phenomenon named after Albert Einstein, who predicted that gravity could bend light.
[…]
The rare phenomenon is named after Einstein, the physicist who predicted in 1911 that gravity would affect light just as it affects physical matter. Einstein proposed the idea as a test of his theory of general relativity in 1915, and in 1919 the British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed the effect during a solar eclipse on the island of Principe off the west coast of Africa, noting that stars near the eclipsed disk appeared fractionally out of place because their light was being bent by the sun’s gravity.
[…]
Einstein Rings and Einstein Crosses are more than just pretty phenomena — gravitational lensing allows astronomers to look much farther into the depths of the universe, and it reveals otherwise hidden details of the galaxies that cause the lensing.

“The Einstein Rings and Einstein Crosses are presumably evidence of more material in the closer galaxies than meets the eye, and that most likely means dark matter,” said the astronomer Ed Krupp, the director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Their distribution can “help illuminate the identity and distribution of dark matter and the relativistic geometry of the whole universe.”

Such gravitational lenses have also spotted some of the most distant dwarf galaxies in the universe, which, being among the oldest, can tell astronomers more about galaxy formation, while gravitational “microlensing” — variations in the light from individual stars — has revealed the unseen presence of distant exoplanets, Krupp said in an email.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/hubble-captures-einstein-ring

…although to grossly oversimplify it…it’s the study of cause

Federal officials have sought for months to persuade holdouts […] who are among the roughly 85 million still-unvaccinated eligible Americans — a largely entrenched population despite a range of incentives, political appeals and now mandates to get the shots. But hopes that many of those skeptics would be swayed by vaccine approval appear to have been unrealistic, according to interviews with 16 unvaccinated Americans — including six who said earlier this year that they would be more likely to get vaccinated if the FDA approved the shots.
[…]
The sheer number of still-skeptical Americans — and their willingness to shift the goal posts on what might convince them — underscores that vaccination mandates are essential, said Robert Murphy, an infectious-disease physician and executive director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
[…]
Only a single unvaccinated person interviewed by The Post said the FDA approval had changed his mind — but he’s not eligible to get vaccinated until November because he received Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment for a recent coronavirus infection.
[…]
Public health experts had eagerly awaited the FDA’s action for months, with anticipation mounting in June after the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 31 percent of unvaccinated adults said they would be more likely to get vaccinated if the FDA granted full approval to one of the vaccines.
[…]
Meanwhile, vaccine opponents are attacking the FDA’s credibility, with some exhuming previously debunked claims about the agency’s track record and promoting them on social media.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/25/fda-approval-vaccine-holdouts/

…& effect

Dr. Jason Valentine, a family medicine physician at the Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, Alabama, informed his patients this month that, effective Oct. 1, he would no longer treat those who hadn’t been vaccinated against Covid-19. Around the same time, a leaked memo indicated that the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force was considering whether to take Covid vaccination status into account in deciding who gets ICU beds when more of them are needed than are available.
[…]
No laws prevent physicians like Valentine from excluding unvaccinated patients from their practices. In fact, medical professionals have long dismissed patients, and they have established policies and procedures. These set out expectations about how to dismiss patients so they aren’t abandoned and left in precarious situations. For example, the American Academy of Family Physicians procedures and communication templates to facilitate justifiable and safe dismissals. A 2016 survey of 794 primary care practices found that nearly half of them had dismissed patients for not following treatment plans.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/if-covid-vaccine-refusers-are-turned-away-hospitals-doctor-offices-is-that-ethical

…so that’s something to think about, I guess…if thinking is your thing…which I guess for some of the folks involved…it really isn’t

…meanwhile I’m gonna go think of some tunes to put here