“Europe’s Euclid space telescope has detected a rare halo of bright light around a nearby galaxy, astronomers reported Monday. The halo, known as an Einstein ring, encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away, considered close by cosmic standards. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Astronomers have known about this galaxy for more than a century and so were surprised when Euclid revealed the bright glowing ring, reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. An Einstein ring is light from a much more distant galaxy that bends in such a way as to perfectly encircle a closer object, in this case a well-known galaxy in the constellation Draco. The faraway galaxy creating the ring is more than 4 billion light-years away. Gravity distorted the light from this more distant galaxy, thus the name honoring Albert Einstein. The process is known as gravitational lensing.” (02/10/25)
“‘They [Congress] seemed, some little while ago, to be at a loss for objects whereon to throw away the supposed fathomless funds of the treasury.’ — Thomas Jefferson … Your tax dollars at work: * $43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan that had no customers; * $1.5 million to promote LGBT Jamaicans. That’s more money than some Americans earn in their entire working careers; * $4 million for trans Serbians; * $5.5 million for gay rights in Uganda; * $17 million for Vietnam ‘inclusion;’ * $25 million to promote ‘green transportation’ in Georgia; * $1 million for Arab and Jewish photographers; * $8 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid ‘binary-gendered language.’ That’s just a small sampling of some of where USAID, or better, where U.S. taxpayers’ money went through USAID. And that’s just USAID.” (02/10/25)
“A Dolly Parton-themed musical had to be suspended mid-show when homophobic abuse was hurled at the stage, an actor in the production has claimed. Stevie Webb said an incident at the Opera House in Manchester during Here You Come Again saw the whole cast ‘leave the stage, because a woman [in the audience] was so disgusted there was a gay character on the stage.’ Mr Webb, posting on social media platform TikTok, said the incident last Wednesday was followed by similar trouble on Saturday, when a man had to be removed from the audience. ATG Entertainment, which runs the venue, said it took a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to such incidents. Mr Webb, who plays a superfan of the country music superstar in the show, said there had also been problems during the London run of the production.” (02/10/25)
“Hims & Hers, which has its headquarters in the Marina District, ran a 60-second advertisement during the third quarter on Sunday, calling out the American healthcare system for the country’s obesity epidemic to set up an ad for its weight-loss products. But the commercial playing at all was noteworthy after both a pharmaceutical trade group and government officials raised major concerns to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the ad, trying to get it removed from airwaves. On Thursday, Partnership for Safe Medicines executive director Shabbir Imber Safdar sent the FDA a letter asking the government to ‘take action’ to stop the commercial from running. Then on Friday, a bipartisan duo of U.S. senators, Dick Durbin (a Democrat from Illinois) and Roger Marshall (a Republican from Kansas), also sent a letter to the FDA, expressing concerns that the Hims & Hers ad could be ‘misleading’.” [editor’s note: The only thing I did not see in the ad was at least a brief picture of RFKJ – SAT] (02/10/25)
“When the ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ proposed by shadow president Elon Musk, was reimagined from an outside advisory group making recommendations on federal spending to a temporary organization inside the U.S. Digital Service, a division of the Executive Office of the President, I thought it was partially a way to avoid transparency and disclosure rules for advisory commissions. The U.S. Digital Service’s mission is to modernize and improve government technology and software, and a lot of people scoffed at the idea that a plan to cut trillions of dollars in spending would suddenly devolve into an IT upgrade. But if you read the executive order that made this transformation, it outlines DOGE’s task clearly. There’s a little clause in there ordering agencies to grant DOGE ‘full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems.'” (02/10/25)
“Ecuador’s young president, Daniel Noboa, who is known for aggressive law-and-order policies and a mastery of social media, failed to win a majority of votes in his bid for re-election on Sunday, forcing a runoff election against Luisa Gonzalez, the leftist he defeated in the last presidential race. With about 96 percent of the ballots counted early on Monday morning, Mr. Noboa had received 44.37 percent of the votes cast. Ms. Gonzalez, the closest of his 15 opponents, had 43.86 percent.” (02/10/25)
“Preliminary results showed that Prime Minister Albin Kurti ’s party won Kosovo’s parliamentary election Sunday but without the majority needed to govern alone, as talks on normalizing ties with rival Serbia remain stalled and foreign funding for one of Europe’s poorest countries is in question. With 73% of the votes counted, Kurti’s leftist Self-Determination Movement Party, or Vetevendosje!, won 41.99% which doesn’t give it the majority needed to govern alone, leaving open the possibility the other three contenders could join ranks if he fails to form a Cabinet.” (02/09/25)
“In the coming days, Iraq will do something extraordinary in a Middle East where identities are often anchored by tribe, religion, or ethnicity. It will release detailed results of its first national census in decades – without any of those pigeonholing categories. In other words, data collated from a two-day, door-to-door survey conducted last November will not break down people by labels such as Shiite or Sunni, Kurd or Arab. Aimed at simply helping officials divvy up elected seats and spread resource wealth equally to everyone, the census will not reduce individuals to demographic stereotypes. ‘Iraqis should be citizens first and foremost and be treated as such by government strategy,’ Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the Crisis Group think tank, told Deutsche Welle. Iraq has learned this lesson the hard way …” (02/07/25)
“The Musk-Trump administration has made its agenda perfectly clear: dismantle the government, then loot and privatize it. It is executing a carefully planned oligarchic coup, illegally firing workers, freezing funds and exerting power. Yet for several weeks, most congressional Democrats are operating as if it’s business as usual. It’s become clear that it’s up to us to push our leaders to defend our food, water, climate and democracy. What the Musk-Trump administration is doing is totally unprecedented. Trump has empowered the richest man on earth to — without congressional approval or oversight — take over and shut down entire agencies.” [editor’s note: If you think Trump/DOGE are here to “dismantle” the government, that thing you’re doing that you think is thinking isn’t – TLK] (02/08/25)
“Democrats have finally found someone they hate more than Donald Trump. Elon Musk, who is currently running roughshod over the federal bureaucracy with a sleep-deprived team of brilliant young tech geeks, is the public enemy of the hour. After a devastating election loss and three weeks into a whirlwind Trump administration, what most animates a leaderless Democratic Party is the collective shock and horror occasioned by Elon Musk and his handiwork. If Trump Derangement Syndrome has abated somewhat, Musk Derangement Syndrome has arisen to fill the vacuum.” [editor’s note: It is getting harder to take the Blue team seriously as they continue this deranged bullshit – SAT] [additional editor’s note: I agree that there’s certainly some derangement on display here; exact location debatable – TLK] (02/07/25)
