WTF is wrong with the country? Getting really close to the burn it all down and start over point if our "leaders" continue to act like children...

Ummm ok.


Two-year-old boy shoots both parents in home
Activists want parents who allow children to easily access and use guns to face criminal charges as America’s “absolute crisis” continues.




A two-year-old boy in the US shot his parents with a gun he picked up from a nightstand.

The toddler’s 25-year-old father was hit in the head, and the mother, 22, was struck in the leg in the shooting at their home in West Bath, Maine.

The boy was hit in the face by the recoil of the gun, authorities said. All three family members were hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries.

A three-week-old baby was also in the room when the gun went off but wasn’t hurt.

“The question of how the boy was able to pick up and fire the weapon is of great concern and is being investigated,”...

It’s led to renewed calls for parents to face criminal charges when they leave loaded guns around children.

“Children’s access to loaded and unsecured guns in this state is an absolute crisis,”...

“Recent events, such this past January when a two-year-old was shot by an older sibling in their home in Waterville, or Maine’s tragically high rate of teenagers who end their lives with firearms accessed in their homes, prove this very point.

“Let us be clear, this was not an accidental shooting. It is never an accident when an adult chooses to leave a loaded firearm unsecured, and in a place where they know, or should know, a child can access it.”

Local politician Vicki Doudera, who has sponsored a bill called “An Act to Amend the Child Endangerment Laws to Include Certain Unauthorized Access to a Loaded Firearm”,...

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/...er-vagina-goop

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/...er-vagina-goop

And of course what this news be without the end lesson that we all must disavow the “dangerous notion of human supremacy”.... over mice.

Mouse plague wreaks havoc as farmers spend thousands in desperate battle

...But at night time, the mice move in.

They pour in and out of the shed, funneling into one of his large traps, which quickly captures hundreds of the rodents. ...

"We were killing lots of mice, but you know it seemed that for every one that died, 10 more were coming in for the funeral," he says.




--------------


Mice biting hospital patients, ravaging farms as plague escalates across NSW

...Three hospital patients in regional New South Wales have been bitten by mice as the horror rodent plague escalates.


...Western Local Health District has received one report of a mouse-related illness known as lymphocytic choriomeningitis [LCM] in the region.

"The disease is linked to mice but it's very rare," said public health director Priscilla Stanley.

"People described sore. Red eyes are a symptom.

She said she was "surprised ... that we haven't seen any increased numbers of leptospirosis".

The hospital incidents underscore how bad the mice plague has become in regional New South Wales.


----------

Mouse plague crisis: PETA cops backlash for telling farmers not to kill the rodents

A global animal rights organisation has bizarrely pleaded with farmers “not to kill” the mice plaguing regional Australia, arguing the rodents should not be denied their “right” to food because of the “dangerous notion of human supremacy”....

Activists have been blasted for urging farmers not to kill mice in the name of “human supremacy”, as the plague devastates rural areas...

If the humans don't take care of it, eventually the snakes are going to show up and Australia already has enough snakes.

Perhaps you are on to something and there is a cyclical nature to this and thus why Australia is the P4P snake capital amongst major nations.

The mass snake populations might be a direct response to this type of recurring rodent population.

Didn’t see a thread dedicated to the wave of attacks on Jews......

Wonder how long it will take for those who justified street violence last year to come to realize it was a bad idea, because the incredible rise in violent crime doesn’t seem to have registered with the media.

Waiting for the ‘mostly peaceful attacks on Jews’ meme...

21 people die during a chinese mountain marathon after encountering extreme weather

https://news.sky.com/story/china-at-...-race-12314304

That's insane.

On this day in 1992, Italy, the world and humanity lost a true hero, murdered by the mafia along with his wife and three police officers.
RIP Giovanni Falcone per non dimenticare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Falcone

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-...nsion-n1268604

Disgusting that such an obvious relief and benefit to the marginalized and poor could be dismissed without debate and ultimately without consequence to the Politicians.

This is a direct result of the very purposeful (by both parties) disenfranchisement of voters, forced for too long to simply pick the lesser of two evils candidate divorced from a broad belief that either party would ever fulfill their major promises regardless.

It is only once the population gives up all hope of actual delivery that votes like this to deny them basic goods end up not mattering.

'If we were never going to get anything anyway why does it matter which way my Politician votes?'

Was going to put this in the "Science" thread but that thread has remained relatively apolitical and i think this discussion could/should include political talk.


SENATE PREPARING $10 BILLION BAILOUT FUND FOR JEFF BEZOS SPACE FIRM
Bezos’s Blue Origin lost its bid for a major NASA contract to Elon Musk, but the Senate is ordering the agency to give a second one now.


NOW THAT Jeff Bezos’s space flight company Blue Origin has lost a multibillion contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Congress is prepping the ground for Bezos to win a contract anyway, ordering NASA to make not one but two awards.

The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that’s being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA — money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that’s headquartered in Cantwell’s home state.

Cantwell’s amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. “It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America,” Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday.

The Bezos space company had been competing against SpaceX for a contract to put astronauts on the moon, the first such trips since 1972, but lost the bidding process with a price tag twice that of SpaceX. NASA announced the award to the Elon Musk-owned company last month.

Cantwell’s measure wouldn’t rescind the grant to SpaceX but would create an additional contract that Bezos’s company would be in line to win. A third company, Dynetics, had also bid for the moonshot, but the author of the new amendment offers a strong suggestion of which company it’s likely to benefit.

...
“I think there needs to be redundancy,” or multiple contractors in case one fails, she told Nelson at his confirmation hearing. “And it has to be clear this process can’t be redundancy later. It has to be redundancy now.”

...

The bill is currently on the Senate floor and has broad bipartisan support. A procedural vote last week passed by a 71-27 margin, and Senate Democratic leaders are eyeing a Thursday vote for final passage, after which it would need to move through the House of Representatives....

Blue Origin spent $625,000 lobbying the Senate in the first three months of 2021, according to lobbying disclosure records. Among that spending was $50,000 to a team of lobbyists at a firm called Clark Hill that would specifically focus on the moon landing program...

Re the above I think it is at mockery status to not call Lobbying what it is which are bribes.

A clear quid pro quo of "I will give you a handful of Politicians all or part of this money ($625,000) if you give me or my company $10B of taxpayer money.


------------------------

"Blue Origin spent $625,000 lobbying the Senate in the first three months of 2021, according to lobbying disclosure records. Among that spending was $50,000 to a team of lobbyists at a firm called Clark Hill that would specifically focus on the moon landing program..."

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/u-s-br...-even-n1268586

The above is why I always pointed out Trump's Tax Cuts were so incredibly naïve and would put the US on track for Bankruptcy. The one thing Trump truly is expert at doing.

Cutting taxes (revenues), while causing massive explosions in the deficit can work if they result in big growths waves that are bigger than the debt obligations gained.

Conversely cutting revenues (taxes), exploding the debt while trying to end immigration while natural birth rates are in decline is a recipe for bankruptcy.

If you want to end immigration than, more than ever deficit spending must be stopped or very limited and a country must focus on reducing debt each and every year as populations decline.

And since we know that no stripe of gov't wants to live within balanced or surplus budgets than immigration is a must.

People who have bought the lie that bringing in low wage, asylum type immigrants harm the country are simply naïve as they are the bedrock of future growth.

I usually hate this stuff but in this case I don't know if it's such a bad decision to hedge your bet a bit when dealing with Elon.

DEFUND NASA!

While I agree Nasa does need a hedge regardless, now they have privatised space exploration and it would not be a good thing for them if all other 'carriers' dropped out and only one company was left as they then could set almost any price... our past has taught us that simply selecting a 'loser' and loading them up with cash (bailout or subsidy or purpose awarded contract) is not a good method.

It makes it harder for newer, better more innovative companies to emerge as the 'loser' uses that money to out spend the emerging competition.

And this story does not look like this is necessarily a gift to Bezos but rather that his company is probably the most likely to get it, if NASA goes thru with it. Something I am sure he was betting on when spending the money to lobby for it.


Poker players will all understand this.

This is a great risk/reward profile for a bet. Spend $600K to get back $10B. You only need to win 1 out of every ~16,000 bets to make this profitable.


But ya, if the gov't wants to ensure a vibrant market with competition then prevent one company winning 2 major contracts within X period of time, even if NASA ends up spending more on any given contract for it.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/biden-...id=msd_topgrid

https://www.newsweek.com/michael-fly...merica-1596248

At least 34 political candidates have been murdered in mexico since april

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...assassinations

Reporter, honest Politician or honest cops have short life spans in Mexico

I still think Trump was right you need to declare every cartel a terrorist organization