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Good News Roundup, Friday, December 1, 2023: Solving Real Problems (and poll on Thursday's debate) [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-01
Welcome 🌻 to Friday’s Roundup of Good News!
Although the poll shows up in the draft, it isn’t showing up in the published version. Here’s an approximation:
There was a debate last night on fox: Newsom v DeSantis. What's your opinion?
I watched it and Newsom won.
I didn’t watch it and Newsom won.
I didn’t watch it so I don’t know who won.
I must be at the wrong website, because I think DeSantis won.
I admire Newsom because he took the Democratic message to the fox audience.
Losers! They’re all losers.
Pie!!!!
Back to the regular GNR:
Isn’t it nice when we solve actual problems? I love how our side works on real issues, as opposed to the other side, which is busy trying to weaken us.
There are so many things that Biden and Harris have actually done. Biden has managed to ((update on the war)). He’s visited two places with serious conflict. He’s done infrastructure, gotten inflation down, wages up, worked on junk fees, and made a serious start on tackling climate change, and got vaccines out to those who take them. That’s just a wee bit. Oh, and he’s improved the respect of the US and the US president around the world.
The leader of the other party is out photoshopping himself into the arms of Jesus, is bragging about passing a cognitive test, and is preparing for his many trials because he has been indicted on 91 counts. The rest of the party is wasting resources on problems that don’t exist (Hunter Biden) or actively trying to make them worse (no money for the border so they can complain about the border).
What a lot we can do when we have a good team!
Come on in, gnusies, and see what the good guys are doing!
Regular Scheduled Programming
No one here is naïve; we are aware of the many who are fighting to destroy our country. Some of us expected it: the cheating, the lying, the chaos, and yes, even the attempts to cling to power despite the clear will of the people. But we are here to read the efforts and the positive results of those (including us and our fellow gnus) who are working so hard to save our country from those very bad people. We are furious with them for what they are doing and we are letting them know. Remember:
💙 There are more of us than there are of them.
💛 They are terrified when we organize. THERE IS LOTS OF EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE TERRIFIED!
💔 They want us to be demoralized. The best way to keep up your spirits is to fight. So, take the time to recharge your batteries, but find ways to contribute to the well-being of our country and our world.
🗽 Biden as President ! 🗽
Biden, Harris and their administration have been hard at work. Here are the last week’s posts at the White House briefing room.
👎 Out with the Bad, In with the Good 👍
More resources to fight violent crime Department of Justice press release
Memphis, Tennessee, Will See Significant Rise in Prosecutorial Resources The Justice Department, together with numerous law enforcement partners, met today at the Memphis Police Department’s (MPD) Real Time Crime Center to announce a new initiative to surge law enforcement tools and resources to target gangs and other violent groups who are threatening and upending the safety and security of communities in Memphis. “Violent crime deprives communities of a fundamental sense of security in their own homes and neighborhoods,” said Acting Assistant Attorney Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “This violent crime initiative will bring additional tools and resources used to investigate and prosecute violent crime and apply those tools to gangs and groups who are harming and disrupting communities here in Memphis.”
Big Basin redwoods recovering after the big fire Paul Rogers Santa Cruz Sentinel
random redwoods More than three years after a wildfire devastated Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the massive redwood trees in California’s oldest state park continue to recover with surprising speed. But some wildlife species, particularly salmon and steelhead trout in the park’s streams, and some types of birds, are still struggling and could take many years to bounce back. That was the conclusion of researchers who spoke at a recent scientific symposium exploring how Big Basin is faring in the wake of the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire. The best news: The park’s famed old-growth redwoods, some of which tower more than 250 feet and date back more than 1,500 years, are nearly all green again, showing significant amounts of new growth after the wildfire’s flames charred their bark black and for a while gave them a doomed appearance.
💣 Republicans: Party of Crimes and Chaos 💣
Florida GOP power couple hit with allegations rape and 3-ways Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo
Christian Ziegler is the chairman of the Florida Republican party. His wife Bridget is a member of the Sarasota County School Board and cofounder of Moms for Liberty. Today Trident News revealed that Christian Ziegler is currently under criminal investigation after a woman accused him of raping her. The woman filed a complaint with the Sarasota Police Department on October 4th; the alleged rape took place on October 2nd. The story gets significantly more complicated. According to the woman’s complaint she was involved in a three year consensual three-way sexual relationship with Christian and Bridget Ziegler. Christian Ziegler recorded videos of the threesome having sex together. Sources told Trident that police have done a forensic examination of Christian Ziegler’s phone, possibly looking for evidence of those videos.
Gaetz not popular with Republicans Juan Williams (a fox contributor)The Hill
Two numbers define the last year in politics. The first is 15, for the 15 votes it took in January to confirm a Republican Speaker of the House. The second is three, for when the House shut down in October for three weeks, thanks to the ouster of that same Speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). The driving force behind each of these events is my “Politician of the Year” for 2023: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). Gaetz deserves a place in history. He is a living monument to an era of elected Republican officials with no interest in governing.
Yep, they want to create problems, not solve them.
House Republicans don’t want Hunter Biden to testify in public Nikki McCann Ramirez Rolling Stone
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, agreed to testify in a public hearing before the House Oversight Committee. Republicans immediately shot him down. According to a Tuesday letter addressed to committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), Biden agreed to testify before the committee on Dec. 13 — as long as the hearing was public. In the letter, Biden’s attorneys quoted Comer’s own demand, issued in November, that given Biden’s “willingness to address this investigation publicly up to this point, we would expect him to be willing to testify before Congress.” The letter added that open-door proceedings “would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, or one-sided press statements.” Republicans would not have it. “Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else,” Comer wrote in a statement. “That won’t stand with House Republicans.”
Here are some quotes from Jamie Raskin on the matter Steve Benen, MSNBC News
“Let me get this straight,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, said in a statement. “After wailing and moaning for 10 months about Hunter Biden and alluding to some vast unproven family conspiracy, after sending Hunter Biden a subpoena to appear and testify, Chairman Comer and the Oversight Republicans now reject his offer to appear before the full Committee and the eyes of the world and to answer any questions that they pose? “What an epic humiliation for our colleagues and what a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it. After the miserable failure of their impeachment hearing in September, Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in.” The Maryland Democrat concluded, “What the Republicans fear most is sunlight and the truth.”
⚡️ House Rs, perhaps recognizing they can’t govern, may release the shut-down hostage Daily Kos
Shutting down the government is really unpopular, except with Matt Gaetz, and he’s really unpopular. Too complicated to explain here, but they’re considering not going through the agonies of shutdowns again.
And maybe this is why they are willing to consider expelling Santos. They don’t want to govern, they intend to pass no laws, so they don’t need his vote? Anyway, the vote to expel Santos is later today, unless it gets postponed again.
🚚 💙 Democrats Deliver 💙 🚚
⚡️ Durbin outmaneuvers Rs in Senate Judiciary committee Daily Kos
The point of this is to issue subpoenas to guys like Harlan Crow and Leo Leonard, who have been corrupting SCOTUS and other courts. You know, real crimes, unlike Hunter Biden, who has paid his taxes.
President Biden blasts Boebert on her home turf Marisa Iati Washington Post
The event at CS Wind was previously scheduled for last month, but citing Biden’s need to participate in national security meetings, the White House postponed the trip after Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel. CS Wind last spring launched an expansion of its Pueblo factory, which it says is the largest of its kind in the world, attributing the growth to tax incentives in the inflation reduction law. The company said the project will double the plant’s production and add 850 employees by 2026. Biden has been promoting the law’s impact on that factory since August, when he noted that it is in the district represented by Boebert — “you know, that very quiet Republican lady?” He added, “She railed against its passage. But that’s okay, she’s welcoming it now.” In a memo Tuesday, the White House denounced Boebert for calling for a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and opposing the bipartisan infrastructure law. The administration also touted a new analysis suggesting that energy investments spurred by the inflation law are mostly going to underserved communities.
President Biden working to get lead out of the water White House Briefing Room
The Biden-Harris Administration is working to ensure a future where every child and family can live safely in their communities without the fear and harmful effects of lead exposure. Today, as part of President Biden and Vice President Harris’s vision for a lead-free future, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposal to strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule that would require water systems to replace lead service lines within 10 years, helping secure safe drinking water for communities across the country. The President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests over $50 billion for the largest upgrade to the nation’s water infrastructure in history, and today’s action builds on these historic levels of funding from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, a key pillar of Bidenomics, to replace lead service lines across the nation.
That’s a real investment in the future! Making sure young Americans aren’t brain-damaged!
President Biden helps straighten out welfare Doktor Zoom Wonkette
About 813K to get email saying student debt has been forgiven Annie Nova CBS News
Around 813,000 student loan borrowers will soon receive an email from President Joe Biden notifying them that their debt has been forgiven because of his actions, the White House said Tuesday. Many borrowers who will get the email likely already knew about the loan cancellation and may have already received that relief. The message directly from the president, less than a year ahead of the 2024 presidential election, makes it clear who was responsible for the relief.
I think it’s important that Biden gets credit.
Hopium chronicles — Biden gains in poll Simon Rosenberg
New Morning Consult Weekly Track Has Biden Gaining 4 Points, Up 43%-42% - In the first major poll taken since the cease fire/pause began, President Biden has picked up 4 points over the past week and now has a slight lead, 43%-42%. Trump led in this poll last week 44%-41%. We have a long way to go in this conflict, and in the election itself, but this is welcome news.
Note I don’t have much confidence in polls these days, because there are too many people who are too hard to reach, and Dems keep winning despite dire predictions. But, what I do think may have some validity is the direction of movement.
Frail but faithful President Jimmy Carter attends the funeral of his dear wife Tracy Connor, The Daily Beast
Jimmy Carter, 99 years old and in hospice care, would not miss the final chapter of his love story with wife Rosalynn. Slightly reclined in a wheelchair, with a blanket on his lap embroidered with the couple’s faces, the ex-president took a front-row seat at his beloved’s service in Atlanta on Tuesday. ✂️ He appeared more frail than he ever has in his first public appearance since September but seemed peaceful as son Chip and daughter Amy held his hands.
reminder: tRump would not visit graves in France because his hair might get wet!
There was a blue state v red state debate last night. Newsom v DeSantis. Here’s what a pundit (our side) had to say: Jake Lahut The Daily Beast
Billed as the “Red State vs. Blue State Debate” by Fox News moderator Sean Hannity, DeSantis was thoroughly trounced at various points by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who, unlike DeSantis, is not running for president. “By the way, how’s that going for you, Ron?” Newsom deadpanned at one point, reminding DeSantis he’s running more than 40 points behind former President Donald Trump in his home state of Florida. Newsom often seemed bewildered at just how clumsy the DeSantis performance turned out, and took every opportunity to hammer home his top gripes with the governor. He also went out of his way to defend President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris throughout the nearly two-hour affair.
As Slideman reminds us, DeSantis will never be president. Thanks, ceiling cat.
x Gavin Newsom is doing this #debate because he's on his way up and wants to run for president in 2028.
Ron DeSantis is doing this debate because he's on his way down and is trying to salvage what's left of his failed run in 2024.
It's a study in complete opposites in every way. — Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) December 1, 2023
💜 Unity? 💜
The UN is doing its climate conference in the UAE. I know, I know, there’s plenty of reason for cynicism, but we should get what we can out of it, and they are establishing a fund to help with loss and damage. Cristen Hemingway Jaynes EcoWatch
On the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, commonly known as COP28, delegates have agreed to formally establish a loss and damage fund to support especially vulnerable countries dealing with the effects of climate change. Developing nations that have contributed the least to the climate crisis have been facing the brunt of its devastating floods, drought and sea-level rise. “Today’s news on loss and damage gives this UN climate conference a running start. All governments and negotiators must use this momentum to deliver ambitious outcomes here in Dubai,” Simon Stiell, the executive secretary for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said at a press conference, according to UN News. The support of developed nations for the fund was established during last year’s climate summit in Egypt after several years of negotiations. The United Arab Emirates, whose Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber is the president of COP28, has reportedly pledged $100 million to the fund.
More women suing Texas about abortions Selena Simmons-Duffin NPR News
On Tuesday, the Texas Supreme Court considered this question: Are the state's abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications? The case, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, has grown to include 22 plaintiffs, including 20 patients and two physicians. They are suing Texas, arguing that the medical exceptions in the state's abortion bans are too narrow to protect patients with complicated pregnancies. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fiercely defending the state's current abortion laws and arguing that the case should be dismissed. At a lively hearing in Austin on Tuesday, the full panel of Texas Supreme Court justices considered whether to apply a temporary injunction that a lower court judge ruled should be in place. That injunction would give doctors greater discretion to perform abortions when a doctor determines that a woman's health is threatened or that a fetus has a condition that could be fatal. It would make more people eligible for exceptions to Texas's abortion bans, but it would not overturn those laws.
The outlook in the TX supreme court may not be good yet, but what is great is that more women are speaking up.
🎩 crystalline What?!?!? Maybe Louis DeJoy (US Postmaster) isn’t completely evil. Eric Cortelessa Time
Late in February 2022. The Postmaster General was locked in a grueling, monthslong battle with Congress over a bill to shake up the Postal Service. But as he settled in, his cell phone rang and, pulling it out, he saw who was calling and could already guess why. It was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The second most powerful Democrat in America wanted to know how the whip count was coming. As it happened, the count was coming along very nicely. DeJoy may be best known as the Trump-era GOP megadonor the left accused of meddling with mail-in voting to subvert the 2020 election. But by the time Schumer called him on that frigid winter night, DeJoy was on his way to convincing congressional Republicans—120 in the House and 29 in the Senate—to buy into a lengthy Democratic wish list of postal reforms. When President Joe Biden signed the landmark legislation into law two months later, it guaranteed a union-friendly version of six-day mail service and stabilized health coverage for the 650,000 USPS employees. “There’s no way we could have gotten [the] votes without Louis DeJoy,” says Jim Sauber, the chief of staff for the National Association of Letter Carriers at the time. “That’s for sure.” The notion that DeJoy, 65, would help advance a key Democratic agenda item would have seemed unfathomable a few years ago. But to the astonishment of many in Washington, the man Democrats once denounced as a threat to American democracy has become one of their most important allies in government. Defying the far right, he delivered more than 500 million COVID-19 test kits to Americans in the winter of 2022. Crossing conservatives last December, he agreed to transition the Postal Service’s entire fleet to electric vehicles by 2026. DeJoy’s capstone collaboration with Democrats was the Postal Service Reform Act, which is arguably the most bipartisan piece of major legislation in the Biden era, drawing 10 more GOP Senate votes than the $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
Maybe he just wants to keep his job? Maybe he’s just someone who does what the establishment wants? Anyone out there know why he’s being less obstructionist? Anyway, while he’s in the position — and I don’t want him there — we can appreciate the better actions.
📥 Actions You Can Take 📤
Tax-exempt organization complaint referrals. 13909. You can fill this out for the NRA and lots of other organizations. How about if some of us white folk go into some of the MAGA churches and video record what they’re saying?
Voting rights. This may be the biggest issue threatening our democracy right now. Besides contacting your representatives at the state and federal level to do the right thing (depending on who they are), you can support and contact these organizations:
ACLU — American Civil Liberties Union
Democracy Docket — founded by Marc Elias, so important in fighting the challenges after the last election.
Fair Fight — founded by Stacey Abrams
🌱Grass roots. Biden and Harris can do the top-down stuff, but we have to support from the bottom. I don’t know how to deprogram 75 million people, but some things have been written about, such as deep canvassing, and lots of people are talking about this. If you know someone (who did not storm the Capitol), then see if you can be pleasant. Instead of trying to reason with them (logic is obviously not their strong point) distract them with something else. We need to remove the sources of lies and to take down the temperature. If we get more of the Rs to wear masks and to get vaccinated and to vote for Ds, the country will be a better place. We need to coax some of them out of the rabbit holes and diffuse the anger and the crazy.
🏃 Run for something. If you want to run for something, but have no idea what to do, these people will help you. They also like money and volunteers to help those people who are running, so even if you’re not in a position to stand for office, you can help. Note: they are especially planning to target the 57 Rs in local governments who participated in the insurrection.
👎 Defund the seditionists. Defund the seditionists. This is a list with companies that sometimes have donated to the seditionists. The list is long. You will recognize many of the corporations, and you probably have a relationship with some — either you are a customer, a shareholder, or maybe even an employee. Contact them and compliment or complain, but let them know you are watching. Forward it to others.
🔎 Want to check out what’s going on with campaign contributions? Check out this diary. 👀
🐍 Schadenfreude 😈
Gag order reinstated on tRump. A good step, but I want the guy in jail. Enough, already!
x BREAKING: The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division has REINSTATED Judge Engoron’s dual gag orders on Trump. pic.twitter.com/h8dsqOFr0h — Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) November 30, 2023
Pro-tRump attorney cooperating in Nevada fake elector probe Zachary Cohen, Kyung Lah CNN
CNN — A Nevada state-level criminal investigation into the fake electors plot intended to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win is ramping up with prosecutors securing the cooperation of a key witness, even as some of those who served as pro-Trump electors remain politically active ahead of the 2024 election. — A Nevada state-level criminal investigation into theintended to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win is ramping up with prosecutors securing the cooperation of a key witness, even as some of those who served as pro-Trump electors remain politically active ahead of the 2024 election. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who helped orchestrate the fake electors plot across multiple states, has agreed to sit down with Nevada investigators in hopes of avoiding prosecution there, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Chesebro’s cooperation with Nevada prosecutors covers his involvement in that state leading up to January 6, 2021 – when pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s legitimate electoral victory.
Chesebro already pleaded guilty in Georgia, and I understand he’s also cooperating in Arizona.
🌵 Two Republicans indicted for election subversion for refusing to certify 2022 election Madeleine Greenberg Democracy Docket
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) announced today that an Arizona grand jury returned an indictment charging two of the three Cochise County supervisors with felony offenses for their refusal to certify the 2022 general election. Two Republican supervisors, Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby, are charged with two felonies including interference with an election officer and conspiracy. The lone Democratic supervisor, Ann English, who voted to certify the 2022 election results, was not indicted. The indictment alleges that the pair “knowingly interfered with the efforts of Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to complete the canvas of the 2022 Statewide General Election, by preventing the Cochise County Board of Supervisors from canvassing the election within the time period required by law, and preventing the timely transmission of the county’s returns to the Secretary of State’s Office for inclusion in the statewide canvass.”
🍑 Georgia prosecutors see tRump, Giuliani and Meadows as ineligible for plea deals Hugo Lowell The Guardian
Fulton county prosecutors do not intend to offer plea deals to Donald Trump and at least two high-level co-defendants charged in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, according to two people familiar with the matter, preferring instead to force them to trial. The individuals seen as ineligible include Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Aside from those three, the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis has opened plea talks or has left open the possibility of talks with the remaining co-defendants in the hope that they ultimately decide to become cooperating witnesses against the former president, the people said.
📣 Let’s Honor Truth ☀️️
Robert De Niro’s speech blasting tRump was censored. But he gave it anway. Jennifer Hassan, Washington Post
Robert De Niro has accused the organizers of a film awards ceremony of editing his speech without permission, removing critical remarks of former president Donald Trump and other political comments. De Niro was presenting the Historical Icon and Creator Tribute award at the Gotham Awards on Monday when, mid-speech, he paused and looked confused as he read off the teleprompter. De Niro continued with his speech, then said: “I just want to say one thing. The beginning of my speech was edited, cut out, I didn’t know about it. And I want to read it.” The 80-year-old star, who was presenting an honor for the film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in which he stars, then reached for his phone and began reading from what appeared to be the original, unedited script. “History isn’t history anymore,” De Niro said. “Truth is not truth. Even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness.” The actor cited changes to Florida’s Black history curriculum, which requires students to be taught that enslaved people “developed skills” that “could be applied for their personal benefit,” and added that “the entertainment industry isn’t immune to this festering disease.”
Actually, because this was done to De Niro’s speech, and he did it anyway, his words got much more attention. Karma!
🌹 Let’s Celebrate Love ❤️
A judge helping kids improve their lives instead of sending them to prison Elizabeth Weise USA Today
(John) Phillips, now 81, had seen it all in 13 years as a district attorney and then 21 as a judge. Shootings, thefts, assault. He handed out difficult sentences, but he was troubled by the stories of many children who went through his courtroom. "It's very easy to pull a trigger if you don't have any future, you don't have any goals and you don't have anything to look forward to," he said. ✂️ Phillips remembered a broken down, overgrown site up in the hills at the far eastern end of Salinas, a California farm town. The Natividad Boys’ Ranch was a moldering wreck, a juvenile incarceration facility that had been left to slowly rot after it closed in 1982. Why, he thought, couldn’t it be turned into something to aid the children of Monterey County before they arrived at a police station or stood before a judge? ✂️ Each year, some 220 students in Monterey County between the ages of 16 and 24 choose to come here. No one is placed against their will and not all make it. But those who attend find themselves enveloped in a supportive, therapeutic but rigorous program that pushes them to places they never imagined possible. ✂️ The audacious effort succeeded. The Ranch opened in 2003. While 40% of youth who go through the county’s juvenile justice system have another encounter with the law, 84.8% graduating from Rancho Cielo do not re-offend. (That's among students who had already encountered the criminal justice system.)
📎 Odds & Ends 📎
Architect comes up with way to build flood proof temporary homes Nick Aspinwall, Washington Post
Yasmeen Lari spent a four-decade career designing award-winning structures out of concrete, glass and steel before stumbling into her ideal material. It was at a camp for refugees from military conflict in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley. Residents there were struggling to secure bricks and wood to build communal kitchens — until she spotted a nearby bamboo grove. “Let’s use it,” recalls Lari, who by that time had shuttered her architecture practice to focus on humanitarian work. “I’d never thought of using bamboo in my life.” x A star architect is building swaths of flood-resistant homes out of bamboo in Pakistan. What makes the material so “marvelous”?
These are not disaster relief shelters, but disaster-resistant homes.
https://t.co/BPjx1xmrbR — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 28, 2023
It’s impossible to keep up with all the disasters around the world, but Pakistan and other places had terrible floods. So this is great news.
And, nearby in India:
🐀 Rat miners rescue 41 trapped miners By Saurabh Sharma and Shivam Patel Reuters
SILKYARA, India, Nov 28 (Reuters) - When heavy machinery broke down trying to break through the debris trapping 41 workers in a tunnel in the Indian Himalayas, authorities called in a group of people whose profession is effectively banned in the country - "rat-hole mining". While augur machines managed to horizontally drill through nearly three-quarters of the debris, it fell on half a dozen miners adept at burrowing in tight spaces to reach the trapped workers on Tuesday. Rescuers successfully pulled out the workers in wheeled stretchers through a wide pipe that was pushed through the debris after a 17-day ordeal. "It was a difficult task, but for us nothing is difficult," said a beaming Firoz Qureshi, one of the miners, standing with his fellow workers outside the tunnel, their faces patched with white dust after overnight drilling.
An IV bag that doesn’t need gravity wins James Dyson award Andy Corbley Good News Network
A team of South Korean student inventors has been awarded the 2023 James Dyson Award for an air pressure-controlled IV bag that will allow rescuers in disaster situations much more flexibility when administering live-saving fluids and drugs. Their inspiration was the Turkish-Syrian earthquakes in February 2023, which resulted in over 55,000 casualties, with a further 100,000 injured. Throughout the evacuation process, medics had to move through harsh environments while holding up several IV packs in their hands for their patients. The team from Hongik University in Seoul designed The Golden Capsule, a non-powered and hands-free IV device that uses elastic forces and air pressure differences rather than gravity. This means that medics in disaster zones do not have to hold up IV packs while transporting patients, and electricity is not required to control the infusion rate.
EU to use satellites to track fires and illegal logging in forests Cristen Hemingway Jaynes EcoWatch
The European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) have partnered to use satellites to address climate crisis threats and illegal logging in European Union (EU) forests. The commission has proposed a new law where the EU would use Copernicus Sentinel satellites to collect forest data in order to stay on top of threats like logging and wildfires exacerbated by climate change, reported Reuters. “As world leaders grapple with the urgency of climate action, the role of space-based technology and data has become increasingly critical,” a press release from the ESA said. “Access to actionable information is fundamental to fight climate change, to support knowledge-based policies and initiatives and their implementation, and to ensure that this is balanced with sustainable economic development and societal benefits.”
🐦 I do a lot of other writing. A recent offering: the Crow Nickels (chronicles), a trilogy about crows who want to save birdkind from extinction: Hunters of the Feather, Scavengers of Mind and Familiars of the Flock (They’re really good! They’re really cheap! Buy and review or rate positively! And Hunters is also available on Audible!) Other stories, based on Jane Austen novels — such as The Meryton Murders — and others based on history and Greek mythology, such as Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus, can be found here. All titles are available through Kindle Unlimited, but I only get paid if you turn the pages.
💙 What You Can Do to Rescue Democracy 💙
It turns out that participation in democracy is not just an every-four-years event but requires active participation, like, whenever you can find time.
Current projects:
Look in the comments for Progressive Muse’s report on Postcards to Voters
And some other ideas:
You can relax and recharge.
You can join protests and freeway blog.
You can help register new voters.
You can smile.
You can say something nice to friend or a stranger.
You can get out the vote for special elections.
You can reach out to upset Republicans. We need to win some back.
You can share your ideas below.
🌻
💙 “Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we all are created equal and the harsh ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial, and victory is never assured.” 💙
President Joseph R. Biden
🌹 🌹 🌹
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