Zorro
Zorro's JournalDrought emergency declared for all Southern California
Source: Los Angeles Times
As California faces the prospect of a fourth consecutive dry year, officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have declared a regional drought emergency and called on water agencies to immediately reduce their use of all imported supplies.
The decision from the MWD’s board came about eight months after officials declared a similar emergency for 7 million people who are dependent on supplies from the State Water Project, a vast network of reservoirs, canals and dams that convey water from Northern California. Residents reliant on California’s other major supply — the Colorado River — had not been included in that emergency declaration.
“Conditions on the Colorado River are growing increasingly dire,” MWD chairwoman Gloria Gray said in a statement. “We simply cannot continue turning to that source to make up the difference in our limited state supplies. In addition, three years of California drought are drawing down our local storage.”
Officials said the call for conservation could become mandatory if drought conditions persist in the coming months, which some experts say is likely. By April, the MWD will consider allocating supplies to all of its 26 member agencies, requiring them to either cut their use of imported water or face steep additional fees.
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-12-14/drought-emergency-declared-for-all-southern-california
Inside the Jury Room for the Trump Org Criminal Trial
Jurors thought a Trump Organization lawyer was insulting. They knew the employees were liars. And the defense team’s jingle fell flat.To avoid letting their personal feelings toward Donald Trump cloud their judgment, jurors for the criminal tax fraud case against the Trump Organization had a novel strategy: They referred to the former president as “Joe Smith.”
“I constantly fought my knee-jerk belief that of course anything with the name Trump on it is crooked,” one juror told The Daily Beast this week. “I shocked myself in mid-November when I realized that I wasn’t sure I could find the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation guilty. We talked in the jury room about having to put on blinders and look just at these two companies. One of the guys started calling Trump ‘Joe Smith.’ From there on we referred to ‘Mr. Smith’s company.’”
After a six-week trial, it took the jury just two days last week to come back with guilty verdicts on all nine counts issued against a pair of Trump Organization affiliate companies. Jurors were convinced the companies had blatantly committed fraud, but they still felt compelled to carefully consider each criminal charge to be absolutely sure the facts lined up with legal definitions, according to this juror who exclusively spoke to The Daily Beast.
New Yorkers on the jury that convicted the Trump Organization of tax fraud and other related crimes last week were deeply offended at the way those two Trump firms cheated everyday people, this juror said.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-jury-room-for-the-trump-organization-criminal-trial
Despite Trump's Lobbying, McCarthy's Speaker Bid Remains Imperiled on the Right
Representative Kevin McCarthy is dealing with a group of right-wing detractors who appear impervious to negotiation, and who have yet to be moved even by the entreaties of the former president.WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump has been working the phones, personally pitching right-wing lawmakers on voting to make Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader he has called “My Kevin,” the speaker of the House.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the most outspoken far-right member of his conference, is publicly vouching for Mr. McCarthy. The California Republican has made private entreaties and public promises to win over his critics, including floating the impeachment of a member of President Biden’s cabinet.
And yet, Mr. McCarthy, who is toiling to become speaker next year when the G.O.P. assumes the majority, has so far been unable to put down a mini-revolt on the right that threatens to imperil his bid for the top job.
Mr. McCarthy has embarked on the kind of grueling campaign that lawmakers in both parties jockeying for the post have sometimes been forced to perform. But some of the hard-right lawmakers with whom he is attempting to bargain do not appear to have a price, and most care less about legislating than shrinking the federal government — or upending it completely.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/us/politics/trump-mccarthy-speaker-republicans-freedom-caucus.html?unlocked_article_code=6TIzcqKsdOD8XAP7VIzFKx4LCkMJ_C50zypIEVvhjnckxerL-MFDCE2pSzJAZBF9q2Ebc_RdAP_m2i8JXfnbe7e19qRKg6kLBjjzzSDCROOJCiI6qIEef-lI8C7pdne8aAWY1J0goyIaqHMQkrt_LqY21zZQceTjmWC1if-1Po7MVpGIeYvk7xUg8JPiW_-Khe6-MMWH6g_nwrew8EJFll7XaqnhH-hU7eP2Nnrx0RFXzA2SqrNDD1CmrZmArYW6SedPj7P48yB8SvqctNE0vxTvSyW8ANRr2h1QUhaMXXYfLlcuEBSBYaMZr6V9IY-FKo72cZ8dst5mM7YxvGADCSUBqnm0kK-7MLsDfd26AKFoREAsqZGC8qyzqVCvXe8&smid=share-url
Fight fight fight. Big bag of rats. (Kudos to Stephanie)
Bombing of Putin's Most Feared Fighters Infuriates Russia
Ukrainian authorities say the Russian military is “carefully concealing” its losses in a HIMARS strike that hit the group’s headquarters.The Russian mercenaries hailed by their leader as the most skilled and experienced soldiers in the war against Ukraine have gotten themselves blown up over the weekend.
Pro-Kremlin Russian media channels were the first to reveal the strike Sunday on a hotel in the occupied Luhansk region, furiously noting that “the enemy used HIMARS to hit the hotel in Kadiivka where Wagner fighters were located.”
Photos showed the building, a hotel called “Zhdanov’s Guest House,” blown to smithereens, though no details were immediately given on how many Wagner fighters were killed. Russian state-run media was largely mum on the whole affair (with the exception of a Kremlin-friendly tabloid saying the site had been targeted because the U.S. knew Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin frequented the private army’s headquarters there.)
Ukrainian authorities say the Russian military is “carefully concealing” its losses in the strike. Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, confirmed the strike and quipped on Telegram that “many” Wagner mercenaries would undoubtedly be absent for their next roll call.
On Tuesday, Haidai issued a statement saying “hundreds” of Wagnerites have been killed before reaching the frontline in the last week and a half, either by “‘explosions’ caused by smoking in their headquarters or their barracks.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bombing-of-vladimir-putins-elite-wagner-group-fighters-in-ukraine-infuriates-russia
Tsk tsk tsk...ain't that a shame...
In a first, hear a Mars rover get hit by a 387-foot dust devil
Source: Washington Post
The towering vortex slammed into NASA’s Perseverance rover — and scientists are ecstatic
Scientists have seen plenty of dust devils on Mars, and now, for the first time, they’ve heard one. The vortex made a direct hit on NASA’s Perseverance rover, peppering the spacecraft with dust and whispering into a microphone that the team had smartly included in their package of instruments.
The trove of data coming from the encounter has thrilled scientists, who are keenly aware of the outsize influence Martian dust has on the planet’s climate. The fine-grained particles also can damage scientific instruments on Martian landers and rovers and potentially blanket solar panels to the point of uselessness. Studying the rover’s gritty recordings can provide insights into the way dust might affect ongoing Mars missions, and maybe even future human exploration.
The sound of the dust devil, published Tuesday to accompany a paper in the journal Nature Communications, is subtle. It’s crackly and percussive, like radio static, though one might more generously imagine a breeze ruffling some distant palm fronds.
Then come a few seconds of silence as the eye of the dust devil passes over the rover. Sound returns for another couple of seconds as the trailing wall of the dust devil spins over the rover again. Then it’s all over, and Mars is quiet once more.
Read more: https://wapo.st/3iUOc4h
Scientists Achieve Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough With Blast of 192 Lasers
Source: New York Times
Scientists studying fusion energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced on Tuesday that they had crossed a major milestone in reproducing the power of the sun in a laboratory.
Scientists for decades have said that fusion, the nuclear reaction that makes stars shine, could provide a future source of bountiful energy.
The result announced on Tuesday is the first fusion reaction in a laboratory setting that actually produced more energy than it took to start the reaction.
“This is such a wonderful example of a possibility realized, a scientific milestone achieved, and a road ahead to the possibilities for clean energy,” Arati Prabhakar, the White House science adviser, said during a news conference on Tuesday morning at the Department of Energy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “And even deeper understanding of the scientific principles that are applied here.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/science/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough.html
There have been several earlier posts in the runup to this announcement, but there's more details in this article.
Fox News' 'Liberal Sherpa' arrested for suspected fraud and elder abuse
On Fox News, Catherine Areu Jones would go by the moniker “The Liberal Sherpa,” where she would cover everything from how children were being turned into gender Marxists because of trans rights to how liberals were turning generations of Americans into snowflakes who need “cry closets.” The schtick on Tucker Carlson’s hate-filled fake news hour would consist of giving Abreu a chance to defend the outrageous liberal ideas of sensitivity that Fox News pundits preach are emasculating and destroying white male freedom. She was always a poor excuse for a “liberal,” but it was Fox News—which is how you get that job in the first place.
On Friday morning, Abreu was arrested in Miami, where she was booked on a variety of felonies, including “kidnapping, elderly exploitation, and organized scheme to defraud.” According to reports, Miami-Dade police have been searching for the frequent Fox News guest, with an arrest warrant in hand, since June. It is believed that she ducked out to Mexico for a period of time to evade justice. Turns out the problem isn’t immigrants coming in from Mexico; it’s alleged American criminals slipping away into Mexico that we need to watch out for.
Catherine Areu Jones, 51, is suspected of having exploited and possibly stolen more than $224,000 of her 88-year-old mother’s finances—which includes money from a reverse mortgage on her mom’s home. Abreu is believed to have also created and used credit cards using her mother’s name, as well as freely withdrawn funds from her mother’s bank accounts. Abreu’s mother has reportedly denied knowing of any of this, including the reverse mortgage.
NBC Miami reports that the investigation into Tucker Carlson’s fun-time guest began in 2019 after the Department of Children and Families received reports of elder abuse concerning Abreu and her mother. Where those reports came from are not known.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/12/2141491/-Fox-News-Liberal-Sherpa-arrested-for-suspected-fraud-and-elder-abuse
No jail for 'frothing' Capitol rioter who faced mental health struggle
The tableau of riot police and screaming crowds colliding under flapping American flags makes for a powerful enough news photo, but what really stands out is the red-faced man in the corner.
Drool drips from his mouth. His wincing eyes point up. Even in a giant crowd outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the man seems alone, enraged but also pained. Court documents suggest all that was true.
Hillsborough County resident Matthew Council, the man in that photo, was sentenced Monday in federal court to 180 days of home incarceration and five years of probation. He had pleaded guilty to felony charges for his role in the attack on the Capitol, where he charged a line of officers like a fullback.
Even without his name, Council’s face must have said something about the Jan. 6 riot. His anonymous photo topped articles online from The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Herald, Time and others. And now, court documents reveal even more, offering a grim portrait of a struggling man in the grip of delusions, conspiracies and cognitive decline.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2022/12/12/doom-guy-matthew-council-january-6-capitol-riot-sentence-football-cte/
This is actually a pretty sad story.
Why won't the usually loquacious Gov. DeSantis answer questions under oath?
With apologies to “Monty Python and The Holy Grail,” it would seem we have a new cast member, the quivering Brave, Brave Sir Ronnie from the Kingdom of Tallahassee, a man who can be counted on to “Run away! Run away!” whenever the going gets sticky.
Oh, it is certainly obvious the Huey Long-Lite of the Apalachee Parkway talks a tough game, especially when it comes to berating high school students for wearing masks during the COVID-19 epidemic or inveighing against Disney World when it had the temerity to express the view the governor’s anti-academic freedom proposals were, ahem, full of beans.
And DeSantis delivered a masterful piece of bloviation when he ham-handedly created an “Avengers-like” SWAT team to ferret out non-existent voter fraud in the state — accent on the word “ferret.”
Let us not also forget, DeSantis at his most unctuous when he hijacked a group of Venezuelan undocumented immigrants (including children) from Texas, dumped them on the plane bound for Martha’s Vineyard at Florida taxpayer expense and lied to them about phantom housing and jobs awaiting them. Stay classy, governor.
https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/12/12/why-wont-usually-loquacious-gov-desantis-answer-questions-under-oath-column/
Teehee! ;)
By Kyrsten Sinema
Truth be told, I’ve never really felt like I fit the mold of the Democratic Party. As a proud senator of Arizona, I’ve always voted for what I think is right, whether my high-powered colleagues agree with me or not. That’s why, today, I—Kyrsten Sinema—am proud to announce that I have made the decision to leave the Democratic Party and officially register as an independent.
Teehee!
I know that many, if not all, of my Democratic colleagues are likely surprised, but the truth is that in an effort to best serve my constituents, I have long been thinking about leaving the party. While this was by no means an easy decision, the truth is, I know deep down in my heart that I’m kewl. I’m ~*hawt*~. I’m sexiii. LMAO. This is totally me rn: O
Baahahhaha. ROFL.
Omg, but FR, aren’t legislative decisions like soOoOoOoooo f-ing random? Sometimes, when I’m werking, and a bill that could 4evrr change the lives of millions of Americans for the better is slid across my desk, I’m like dis: (^-^). But sometimes, I’m like dis: ¯_(ツ
_/¯
Like srsly…da fillibuster? da stimulus package? da $15 minimim wage? LMAO!! Talk 2 da hand!!
Alsoooooooooo, many prominent figures on the left have expressed concerns that I will now drastically change my voting record. But I assure you, I am ~*xtremely*~ rad, and as such it obviiii will not change. Like, wut wld I even do differently? Oh, 1 sec. My BFFL Chuck Schumer is calling!
BRB!!!
OK…I’m back. Wahhhhhhh!! I literally h8 Chuck sooooooOOOOooo much. He suxxxx. Sry…like, I know I’m fun ’n kewl but...honestly, sum times it’s rly hard to be me…
. U don’t even know…Srsly, why do ppl h8 me? I try my best but ppl are still major a-holes. FML. (T_T)
*sighs*
Anywhoooooooooo! JK! My life is awesum.
Meow!!!
I guess I’m just different than other Democratic senators, you know? They can be so fake. And that’s why I say:
goin down, down in an {eArLiEr rOuNd}
& sugar, we’re goin down swingin
i’ll be ur #1 one w/ a {bUlLeT}
loaded {g*d} complex, cock it & pull it
Anyways, g2g do my homewerk & read sum billzzz n’ stuff
. C u l8tr! LUV U!!!!
— xXKrysten SinemaXx
https://www.theonion.com/teehee-1849876436
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: America's Finest City
Current location: District 48
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 15,737
