Category: Knowledge and News

“As seas rise and flooding gets worse, not everyone can be saved.”

UncleScoopy

“And in some places, it doesn’t even make sense to try.”

The evidence of this has been significant for decades now, but Americans have kinda sorta ignored it since it always seemed to affect faraway places like the Solomons and Maldives, or little-known island countries with exotic names, like Nauru and Tuvalu.

Now, however, some of America’s natural treasures, the low-lying Florida Keys, are in immediate danger, and their county is evaluating engineering projects that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit very few people – in one case affecting only 20-30 homes. Their decision will likely be to give up.

“How do you tell somebody, ‘We’re not going to build (up) the road to get to your home’? And what do we do?” Mr. Gastesi asked. “Do we buy them out? And how do we buy them out — is it voluntary? Is it eminent domain? How do we do that?” Administrators and elected officials are going to have to start to rely on a “word nobody likes to use,” Mr. Gastesi said, “and that’s ‘retreat.’”

The Impeachment Inquiry Report of the House Intelligence Committee

UncleScoopy

“The impeachment inquiry has found that President Trump, personally and acting through agents within and outside of the U.S. government, solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection.”

The House Intelligence Committee voted 13-9 to adopt the impeachment report. which will now go to the Judiciary Committee.

If you have been following the story closely, you won’t find much new about Trump in the report, although it does a nice job of outlining the timeline.

However …

Here are some things you may not know:

The committee hit the jackpot by subpoenaing phone records from AT&T and Verizon. The evidence showed that Devin Nunes spoke several times to Rudy Giuliani earlier this year, around the same time that Giuliani was publicly attacking Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. The records also show that in April, Nunes spoke to Giuliani’s recently-indicted henchman, Lev Parnas, whose lawyer has claimed he was explicitly tasked by Trump to investigate the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine. Nunes never disclosed his calls with Giuliani or Parnas, although he obviously realized that both of them figure prominently in the impeachment proceedings and therefore that any dealings with them could be perceived as a conflict of interest.

(Here is the WaPo’s take on the call records.)

Elizabeth I was quite a scholar

UncleScoopy

“Elizabeth I revealed as the translator of Tacitus into English”

Translating scholarly Latin into sophisticated English was an amazing level of scholarship for someone who was perhaps the most powerful person in the world. Inspired by this revelation, Trump plans to translate some of his own speeches into sophisticated English.

INCOMING! Deadly ‘God of Chaos’ space rock capable of killing millions could hit Earth on 10 different dates

UncleScoopy

“A POTENTIALLY deadly asteroid has ten chances to collide with Earth over the next 84 years, according to Nasa. The space rock Apophis could wipe out millions if it careens into our planet.”

Sounds imminent, right? Nah! The earliest of those dates is 41 years in the future, so you have plenty of time to set your affairs in order.

In fact, if you and your other are thinking of parenthood, you have time to have kids who have kids of their own, who then have their own kids in turn, at which time you can set your great-grandchildren’s affairs in order!

(You have to love the random capitalization in the British tabloids. The word “potentially” is in caps, while the acronym NASA is not.)

Camile Cabello c-thru

UncleScoopy

Bright lights, flimsy black fabric, no bra. One of our favorite formulas.

Or if you prefer, “formulae.”

“Formulae” was actually the more common variant at the beginning of the 19th century. They ran neck-and-neck for several decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries until the late 1920s, when “formulas” took off and never looked back. (Usage history)

Sarah Sanders: ‘I don’t like being called a liar’

UncleScoopy

Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. You’ll have to because it will follow you for your entire life. Because you did lie. You deliberately stated a falsehood, and you did so maliciously, for the purpose of hurting an individual. People will forgive white lies, pretty lies and fish stories, but they are not likely to forget or forgive a false statement deliberately intended to ruin a man’s reputation.

On May 10, 2017, Sanders told reporters that “countless” FBI agents had told the White House that they had lost confidence in James Comey, who had been fired as FBI director the day before by President Donald Trump. She later had to admit under oath that her assertion had no basis of any kind and was a total fabrication.

(A lie.)

She chose to characterize it as a “slip of the tongue,” a statement which, ironically enough, was actually …

(another lie!)

A slip of the tongue is something that you say by accident when you intended to say something else. Obviously, she had said exactly what she intended to.