Category: Knowledge and News

Bezos rockets into space and back.

Bezos, Branson, Musk …

Rockets are the new yachts.

… which could be:

A new horror film

A new rock band

A real thing in Big Bend National Park

It’s not as bad as it sounds. (I just love sensationalized headlines.) The acid they squirt is basically common vinegar, harmless to humans, so they sort of make their own hot and sour lobster soup. They are not lobsters, of course. “The whip scorpion, more commonly called a vinegaroon in Texas, is a member of the arachnid family but poses little danger to humans, unlike its cousins, the scorpion and the spider.”

“The combined effects of rising sea levels and nodal cycle modulations of tidal amplitude lead to acute inflections in projections of future high tide flooding”

In human language, that means the moon is heading into a recurring cycle that makes high tides higher and low tides lower, while rising sea levels make those high tides very, very high.

In actionable terms, this is a good time to unload your oceanfront property, and move away from low-lying coastal areas. It may be cold in Minnesota, but you shouldn’t plan a retirement move to the Outer Banks, Charleston, Savannah or Miami.

NASA explains: “The higher seas, amplified by the lunar cycle, will cause a leap in flood numbers on almost all U.S. mainland coastlines, Hawaii, and Guam.”

This indictment is much narrower than you might think, and the charges against the corporation are probably less significant than you might assume.

First of all, a good chunk of this consists of actions taken by Allen Weisselberg to benefit Allen Weisselberg and his family. He was using the Trump Organization to pay for things like his vacation homes and private schools for his grandchildren, and was not accounting for those as income. Based on what we know now, there is no reason to believe that Trump himself approved these shenanigans, and Trump may even be shocked to have found out about it now (as far as we know – but the point is that we don’t know). I’m not sure how the incorporation defines the ownership of Trump’s company, so I don’t know exactly how the company’s profits pass through to Trump himself, but it is possible that Weisselberg was paying for those things out of Trump’s personal pocket, which means he may have been cheating his boss as well as the tax man. Anyway, the most serious accusation against Weisselberg is that he cheated his way out of nearly a million dollars in taxes. He pleaded not guilty, but it’s difficult to imagine what defense he might present. The whole thing seems cut-and-dried.

(The indictment mentions that the scheme also benefited other company executives besides Weisselberg. Nobody is letting on who they are or what legal liability they may have, if any.)

As for the charges against the Trump Organization, well, they are trifling in the grand scheme of things. Since the executive perks should be defined as income, the Trump Organization should have been paying payroll taxes on those amounts. How big a deal is that? I quote the Post: “If Trump’s companies were convicted, they could face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.” Hundreds of thousands? Really? Big fuckin’ deal. They can probably pay that out of petty cash. They probably have that much hidden in the floorboards for emergency bail money.

There may be some more significant charges to appear subsequently, but so far, it’s a tale of one embezzler. People like Rachel Maddow may try to persuade you otherwise, but up to this point Godfather Trump remains Teflon Don – nothing we have seen so far sticks to him.

Former member Jessica Joan gave an impassioned victim statement during the proceedings, in which she described Mack as “a demon of a woman” who had groomed her to be a “sex slave.” “Allison Mack is the most evil monster I’ve ever met,” she said. “She sought me out like a predator stalking their prey.”

So, stop pulling your punches there, Jessica, and say what’s on your mind.

It is the largest moon in the solar system, larger even than the planet Mercury and the ex-planet Pluto. (Ah, Pluto, we hardly knew thee.)

Some scientists speculate that Ganymede may have an ocean layer that contains more water than the entire planet Earth.

“They not only came back to the land of the living but were also able to reproduce asexually.” Previously this had only happened to Tony Randall.

“A multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life – a dream of many fiction writers.”

Because he used press conferences and public appearances as part of his strategy, because he took on infamous and high profile clients in newsworthy trials, and because he developed some ethical issues of his own, Bailey was perhaps the most famous defense attorney since Clarence Darrow.

He was known as a master of cross-examination, and many think that his skillful cross-ex of Mark Fuhrman was the trigger for the jury to declare “not guilty” in the OJ trial. Bailey lured the officer into committing perjury very blatantly, thus placing the entire prosecution under a cloud.

I learned about their amazing communication skills in a linguistics class, but apparently that’s not their only talent.

Starting June 15, 2021, items showing sexual content or sexually suggestive poses will no longer be allowed on eBay.com. The “Everything Else > Adult Only” will no longer be available as a category. No new listings will be allowed in the Adult Only category and good-til-cancelled listings will be ended upon their renewal date.