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Wednesday, January 04, 2023

There is hope: as people are getting older they are no longer moving to the right

 “The grass grows over the graves, time overgrows the pain. The wind blew away the traces of those who had departed; time blows away the bloody pain and the memory of those who did not live to see their dear ones again—and will not live, for brief is human life, and not for long is any of us granted to tread the grass.”

― Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov



Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused


Imrich totally and my cat is not worth as much …Taylor Swift’s Cat Is Worth $97 Million (and No, We’re Not Kidding) Yahoo News. Good kitty!

There is hope: as people are getting older they are no longer moving to the right

This chart is from the FT this morning: The argument is a simple one. It is that as people get older they are no longer
Read the full article…





The History of the House – McCarthy loses speaker bid in third vote


Via Ben Amata, Ben Amata, Librarian, California State University Sacramento: “The House has a webpage devoted to its history titled History, Art & Archives. “This site is a collaborative project between the Office of the Historian and the Clerk of the House’s Office of Art and Archives. Together, the offices serve as the House’s institutional memory, a resource for Members, staff, and the general public…There is a page devoted to those speakers who had multiple ballots.”

Note – “Thirteen of 14 multiple-ballot elections occurred before the Civil War, when party divisions were more nebulous. The last time a Speaker election required two or more votes on the floor happened in 1923.” Kevin McCarthy has made the worst kind of history.

See also Axios – “The big picture: Even if McCarthy gets through this somehow, he will be at the mercy of these rebels when it comes to getting anything done — including must-pass legislation like raising the debt ceiling. With the full faith and credit of the United States on the line, House Republicans’ game of chicken suddenly gets a lot more serious than one man’s political career.”


PHSY.org: “Scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and partners across the globe present their pick of the top 10 plant and fungal species named new to science at Kew in 2022. From a record-breaking giant waterlily in the wetlands of Bolivia to a waterfall-dwelling plant deemed extinct before it was named and a Ukrainian-discovered Turkish ‘winter daffodil’ with non-opening flowers; RBG Kew’s annual list sheds light on the wonders, complexities and rarities of the natural world.
 This year’s showstoppers are particularly poignant as they pay tribute to those who laid their lives down for the sake of protecting the planet’s biodiversity…”

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There’s never been a better time to stop tweeting


engadget – Twitter, how do I leave thee? Let me count the ways: “There’s never really been a shortage of reasons to spend less time on Twitter. Even before Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover, the platform was long plagued by misinformationhate speechharassment and other ills that made it less than welcoming. There’s never been a better time to quit Twitter. The Elon Musk-induced chaos at the company has breathed new life into a crop of alternative platforms, and has inspired a new wave of competing efforts to win over disillusioned Twitter users…”

“I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them. ”
― Boris Leonidovich Pasternak