“My opponents feared it would destabilize marriage more generally. It didn’t. Marriage rates were 6.9 per 1,000 in 2015 and 6.1 today — a decline in line with the previous half-century. Not great, but there’s no sign that gay marriage had any serious impact. Divorce rates? They have actually improved since 2015: from 3.1 to 2.4 per 1,000 in 2023. … Married couples have higher household incomes, lower poverty rates, higher levels of employment, better health than unmarried ones, higher home-ownership rates — and report greater social acceptance. … queer activists, of course, loudly insisted that same-sex couples rejected the institution of marriage and would never join it. But the number of married gay men and lesbians more than doubled from 390,000 in 2015 to 823,000 now; and nearly 60 percent of same-sex cohabiting couples are now married, compared with 40 percent in domestic partnerships.” (12/12/25)
In the “good news” category, RRND is going to have a “real” office for the first time since 2002.
By “real office” I mean a little $700 camper I bought this weekend and parked behind our house.
It needs some work (that’s an understatement), but I hope to be publishing RRND/FND out of it by next week. I’ve always worked from whatever home we’re living in, but at the new (to us) house there’s not a good segregated “office space” in the “open floor plan” layout. I’m up at 4:30am each day to bring you your daily dose of news, commentary, and podcasting; now I’ll have to walk (10 feet or so) to work, too. The rent’s not too high, but I hope you’ll help with it:
“Shares of cannabis companies jumped on Friday after the Washington Post reported U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to push the government to dramatically loosen federal restrictions on marijuana. U.S.-listed shares of Tilray Brands gained 35%, while SNDL, Canopy Growth and ETF AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis were up between 20% and 31% in morning trading. According to the report from Thursday, Trump plans to direct agencies to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, reducing oversight of the plant and its derivatives to the same level as some common prescription painkillers and other drugs. … Trump’s administration has been looking to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a shift that could ease criminal penalties and reshape the industry through potentially lower taxes and by making it easier to secure funding.” (12/12/25)
“It is hard to know whether Donald Trump or the MAGA movement he created is falling apart faster. The 79-year-old president is deteriorating rapidly before our eyes—cankles puffier, bruises and bandages on his hand more ever present. He’s nodding off at event after event, slurring his words, his behavior increasingly erratic. And he has become painfully sensitive to the fact that his decay is so apparent, going as far as suggesting that media outlets reporting about his health are guilty of treason. Of course, every effort he makes to prove he’s not one step away from melting into a bubbling orange puddle seems to make it clearer that he’s losing it. As bad as all that is, however, MAGA may be collapsing even more quickly than its creator.” (12/12/25)
“Astronomers have seen the orbit of a star wobbling around a black hole — a spectacular dance in the cosmos that serves as one of the very few direct confirmations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity made over 100 years ago. The result, derived from periodic changes in X-ray and radio emissions in a tidal disruption event, is essentially a new window onto the workings of a spinning black hole that warps space and time around it. According to the study, researchers analysing the tidal disruption event AT2020afhd noticed that both the swirling disk of stellar debris and the black hole’s powerful jets were wobbling in unison, repeating roughly every 20 days. This motion matches a phenomenon called frame-dragging, where a rotating black hole literally drags spacetime around with it — an effect first described by Einstein and later quantified by Josef Lense and Hans Thirring.” (12/12/25)
“Chalk wars in Keene, NH in 2011 :: Typical tragedy of the commons story :: AI threats :: Man jailed for decorating sewer covers, creating whimsy :: Sarah’s mayor candidate won :: Iowa is a police state :: Freedom in the fifty states :: Arkansas dumps PBS, Alabama keeps it despite hemorrhaging money :: US gov UFO study may have studied how to mentally harm people with delusions about UFOs and Skinwalkers :: Minnesota Somalian scam on welfare :: People claiming autism for fraud of the welfare system :: 2025-12-13 Hosts: Bonnie, Riley O’Bill, Angelo.” (12/12/25)
“In rejecting yesterday a redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump, Indiana’s Republican-controlled senate did not merely deny Republicans two new U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm elections. They also engaged in a mass revolt against the president. … The significance of Indiana’s noncompliance lies not in the specifics of what was refused — attempts to gerrymander electoral maps are hardly unprecedented, even though a mid-decade battle violates norms — but in the act of refusal itself. Trump’s authoritarian project relies on the cultlike hold he has over his party. Republicans have come to understand that the cost of defying Trump is the death of their political career. … What politician is willing to sacrifice their career or their family’s safety for a single act of defiance Yet the spines of Indiana Republicans stiffened where so many others snapped.” (12/12/25)
