https://youtu.be/iEwClQMQuck
Chipping away the ice for hot news
Wow, it’s a good thing this is a Saturday and most people can stay home this morning. As we’re writing this, roads around Indianapolis are still a complete mess with a number of people on the Interstate having been stuck in traffic most the night. The good news is that temperatures are finally above freezing and the rain that’s currently falling should help melt most the ice. The bad news is that temps drop back down below freezing after about 7:00 this evening and at that point the rain could turn to snow. Your best best is to stay inside if you can. If you must go out, please be careful.
The news takes a couple of interesting turns this morning. The President reaffirmed his earlier statements on Russian hacking during the election and Republicans in North Carolina are being complete assholes toward their incoming Governor. There’s also plenty still developing so we’ll leave those stories alone and go with these five things you really should know.
China stole our drone ship!
China apparently didn’t think they were getting enough of our attention since the US has been focused on Russia pretty much all week. So, they went out into the South China Sea and took an underwater drone being tested by the US Navy1. The drone was about 50 nautical miles off the coast of the Philippines and the USS Bowditch was on its way to retrieve the unmanned vessel when China decided to pluck the thing out of the water.
It’s no secret that China has been feeling very territorial about the South China Sea and this event happened the same day satellite photos seemed to confirm that the communist country has militarized a number of artificial islands it has built in disputed waters2. Still, this is the most aggressive action that China has committed in the past 50 years and is part of a continuing aggression that is more than a little disturbing.
Fortunately, this morning, China says that the matter is being handled amicably between the two militaries3 and that the US will get their drone back. The Navy says the unmanned vessel was built using commercially available technologies and that no top-secret information was compromised.
Uber Is Making Waves
Uber has been getting in trouble this week with the city of San Francisco after one of its driverless cars was caught running a red light in the city4. The problem stems from the fact that San Francisco requires a permit for testing driverless cars, something that limits the days, times, and locations of such testing. Apparently Uber doesn’t like those limitations, so they set about running their cars through the city anyway, Â hoping that their technology was good enough that they wouldn’t get caught. It wasn’t.
On Thursday, California transportation officials demanded that Uber stop its testing until it had obtained the required permits. Seems like a reasonable request, doesn’t it? Not if you ask Uber. On Friday, the head of Uber’s self-driving car program, Anthony Levandowski, said the company would keep right on testing despite objections from the state. He argues that because there is a back-up driver in the car at all times that, technically, they are not driverless under state law.
Yeah, that excuse isn’t going to fly. Late Friday evening the state’s Department of Justice sent a letter to Uber threatening legal action if they didn’t stop testing5. Uber promptly sent another fleet of SUVs into the streets6.
Bypassing The Press
Here’s an interesting question for you: how many politicians do you follow on social media? If you’re like me, you see enough of them in the news to not want their ugly mugs popping up between videos of kittens playing and puppies frolicking. Most of us like our social media feeds to be happy places.
You may want to change up your approach, however, if you want to keep up with what’s going on. The Associated Press is reporting that politicians at both the state and federal level are increasingly bypassing the press and using social media as a means of getting their message directly to the voters7. Most famously, we’ve all see how the president-elect makes effective use of his Twitter account. By contrast, Mr. Trump hasn’t had an actual press conference in over 140 days according to NPR8.
Using social media is attractive for a couple of reasons. First, it’s cheap. All one needs is a cell phone and they can broadcast live on a number of platforms. Secondly, it removes any chance for a sharp reporter to directly challenge the politician’s statements. Without a challenge, however, the politician, as we’ve frequently seen, can lie through their teeth. People then believe those lies and vote accordingly. There’s no question this is a dangerous trend, but those who want to stay informed have no choice but to follow along.
And baby makes … 4?
You know that talk you had with your adolescent child about how babies are made? Well, you might need to adjust your story just a little bit. Britain’s fertility regulator has approved a controversial method through which doctors can use the DNA of three people rather than two when creating new babies9. The method is intended to avoid incidents of children inheriting mitochondrial disease from their parents.
This is an extremely significant development in the field of medicine and trying to explain it quickly is almost impossible. Damaged mitochondria can result in life-threatening diseases such as muscular dystrophy, organ failure, and muscle weakness. The new process removes the nucleus DNA from the egg of the would-be mother and inserts it into an egg from someone else which has had the donor DNA removed. This occurs before the egg is fertilized.
The procedure is not legal in the United States at this time. The FDA has been very slow in approving measures such as this given the legal and social implications surrounding parenthood. Critics also claim that this procedure opens the door to genetically modified “designer babies.” The ethics are quite blurry for some, but from here it seems that saving the life of a child is more important than the threat of future misuse of the technology.
And finally …
Five UK modeling agencies are in trouble after Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority fined them a total of £1.5 million ($1.8 million) for fixing prices charged to fashion retailers between April of 2013 and March of 201510. The CMA claims the agencies, “colluded with each other over their approach to pricing and, in some instances, the agencies agreed to fix minimum prices.” The agencies involved include some major names in the UK market: FM Models, Models 1, Premier, Storm, Viva, as well as their trade group, the Association of Model Agents.
Of course, the agencies say they’ve done nothing wrong and are only trying to protect the best interest of their models. Yeah, right. What they’re protecting are their profit margins. Models are seen as a commodity and incidents of mistreatment and even abuse run rampant. While the agencies all say they’ll fight the fines in court, the reality is that unless clients are made aware of set minimums ahead of time they’re illegal.
Could the same thing be happening in the United States? Quite possibly so, but since model agencies here are all independent proving such a claim would be almost impossible.
That’s all we have time for this morning. Looking out the window, I’m not sure road conditions have improved from when we started. Please be careful out there. Better yet, stay inside and catch up on some of the stories you’ve missed this week. We have plenty that you likely haven’t seen yet. Take care and make the most of your day.
Morning Update: 06/13/24
Feeling okay and doing well are two separate things. I felt fine yesterday when the day started. Tipper and I took a walk to the store, though, and I found myself running short of breath before we got there. I only needed olive oil and freezer bags, but when we got to the register, I forgot the sequence of the numbers in my PIN. I remember which numbers are involved, just not the order. Tipper was able to handle the olive oil for me, but not the freezer bags. I still need freezer bags.
I wasn’t sure I was going to make it home without having to stop and rest. The round trip is only three miles, a trip that we’ve taken often without any problem. It easily fulfills the 6000-step recommendation for the day’s activities. Yesterday, for reasons I can’t explain, my body wasn’t having it. I came home, went to bed, and pretty much stayed there. There was lunch in there somewhere, G made stew for dinner, which was really good. Still, it wasn’t all that late when I made all the cats scoot over and make room so I could go to bed for the night.
Today may be more of the same. I don’t feel rested. I need a shower and should do a load of laundry or two, but sitting here this morning I’m not convinced that any of it is actually going to happen. I wish it were easier to know which disease is causing which problem. If I did, I could contact the appropriate doctor and perhaps we could make some adjustments in medication. As it is, I just have to put up with what I hope are mere side effects to the overall situation.
I don’t know if you saw last night’s rant about the stupid things people are doing, but looking through the headlines this morning, and that’s all I’ve had time to do, I’m beginning to wonder if stupidity is part of our DNA. I’m not sure how science would prove such a concept. There would have to be a specific stupidity marker at the very least, or possibly even a stupidity gene that is handed down from generation to generation. I think the matter is worth the investigation. Let me tell you why.
2000-year-old DNA from skeletal remains found at Chichen Itza show a pattern of child sacrifice as part of religious ceremonies long before there was any European influence. They were all boys, often siblings, sometimes twins. We already know that ancient Phoenicians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and some branches of post-Abrahamic Israelites (Yahwists) all committed child sacrifice. For me, this makes an argument that void of any scientific understanding of the world or the universe, people make incredibly stupid decisions in the hope that those decisions might somehow change whatever is being experienced. Who/where they are doesn’t seem to make any difference. Stupid was there in the beginning.
Today, we sacrifice our children in different ways. Sometimes we call it war. Sometimes we call it religious rights. Sometimes we can call it safety and security. No matter what we call it or how it is achieved, the results are exactly the same: dead children offered up to appease some unknown and unknowable force in hopes that the world will get better. We blindly think that if we can just dominate this group, if we can overpower that country, if we can force this opinion over the whole populace, that things are going to get better, and if our children have to die in the process, then so be it.
Think about that for a minute. How does what we’re doing today make us any different than the ancient Assyrians, Yahwists, Phoenicians, or Mayans? Are we supposed to be comforted by the fact that we dress them up in smart uniforms and arm them with weapons that allow them to kill and be killed by enemies they never see?
This morning, there are Russian warships in Havanna Harbor. Remember what happened 60 years ago when that was just a threat? I was still little, but the memory of the fear my parents felt is still present. This morning, G7 leaders decided to use the interest from seized Russian assets to pay for Ukraine’s defense against the invading bully. Despite the UN’s demand for a cease-fire, Israel pushes deeper into Rafah and Hamas leaders say proposed amendments to the cease-fire are “insignificant.”
It’s been 1,000 Days since the Taliban barred girls from secondary education. Pro-Trump influencers fire up fears of migrant ‘invasion’ and the people they’re using don’t even know they’re being involved. Denmark recalls some Buldak spicy noodles as social media dares spread because that stupid gene apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree. Democrats are forcing a vote on women’s right to IVF in an election-year push on reproductive care. Oklahoma Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit of last Tulsa Race Massacre survivors seeking reparations because even our justices don’t really believe in Justice.
So please, dear geneticists around the world, would you mind looking for a DNA-level sign that we humans are inherently stupid? It would explain a lot of our behavior, both historic and current, and if we can identify what’s causing the problem, perhaps we can do something to curb it, if not eliminate it entirely.
Please. I’m starting to wonder how much longer we can survive ourselves.
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