U.N. report says the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is healing slowly and will likely close completely in 43 years. And if this comes to pass, and I expect it will, right-wingers will immediately demand that we start making chlorofluorocarbons again because “the Earth heals itself,” though the ozone layer would have “healed itself” in large part because we stopped making the chemicals that made holes in it! And think tanks will commission studies with titles like Was Hairspray Really So Bad?
Over 7,000 New York nurses go on strike for better working conditions. I don’t know if they’re saying so, but they’re also probably mad that their bosses make millions of dollars while they handle 20 E.R. patients at once. Remember: every time health care workers have ever organized or struck, plenty of right-wingers said these workers are too important to let organize or strike. The obvious retort: if a worker’s that important, we’d better treat them right! Right-wingers think being just one of 20 E.R. patients per nurse will never happen to them, but it will, when their heroes come for their money, as evil people always do.
Rep. Scott Perry (E-PA) says he won’t recuse himself from any House probes of various January 6 investigations, even though he himself is the subject of several of them. Dig his rhetorical bait-and-switch – pressed about the fact that he’s literally the subject of some investigations, he responds “should everybody in Congress that disagrees with somebody be barred from doing the oversight and investigative powers that Congress has?” "Investigation" and "disagreement" aren't synonyms, Roget. I’m old enough to remember when politicians tried to avoid even the appearance of corruption. Scott Perry won with only 54% of the vote in his district in 2022, so perhaps he shouldn't act so untouchable.
Today, in “Short Story Ideas That Would Have Earned Me a Rap on the Knuckles From My Creating Writing Teacher”: Florida school board bans production of a play about a hundred-year old play in Yiddish that was itself banned from production because it dealt with homosexuality. The Florida government pretends to care about “exposing children to indecency,” but we know what this is about: small people with small minds and small hearts who can’t have all the say about everything anymore and want to inflict endless pain on the rest of us because of it.
Health care experts warn that the recent Ohio outbreak of measles – declared “eliminated” in America as of the year 2000 – won’t be the last. The roots of the Ohio outbreak appears to pre-date COVID anti-vaxxers, however, at least in the Midwest, where anti-vaxxers a) believe lies about the “effects” of the measles vaccine, b) think measles isn't all that bad, which, like, no, and c) still haven’t shaken the disgusting lie that “vaccines cause autism” even though the man who started that lie has been exposed many times over as a fraud. When so many Americans pride themselves on attending the University of Google, we all suffer.
Finally, at least one legal expert thinks Fulton County (GA) District Attorney Fani Willis is “gearing up to indict” Donald Trump after wrapping up the probe into that phone call he made to Georgia’s Secretary of State where he asked why he couldn’t just find him 11,780 more votes. Maybe she is and maybe she’s not, but recall the two giant hurdles to convicting Mr. Trump of anything: one, he’ll never take a plea deal, and two, chances are good that at least one Trumphole will con his way onto the jury. Not that these probabilities should ever deter us from fighting evil.
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