Reading archive 2021-07-08

Video shows Glenn Youngkin saying he can’t fully discuss abortion or risk losing independent Virginia voters

New study on delta variant reveals importance of receiving both vaccine shots, highlights challenges posed by mutations

You Literally Can't Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox's Lawyers - "Now comes the claim that you can't expect to literally believe the words that come out of Carlson's mouth. And that assertion is not coming from Carlson's critics. It's being made by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and by Fox News's own lawyers in defending Carlson against accusations of slander. It worked, by the way. 

"Just read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil's opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox's lawyers: The ''general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.''

...

"In sum, the Fox News lawyers mocked the legal case made by McDougal's legal team. She alleged 'a reasonable viewer of ordinary intelligence listening or watching the show ... would conclude that [she] is a criminal who extorted Trump for money' and that "the statements about [her] were fact.' 

"'Context makes plain,' Fox's lawyers wrote, 'that the reasonable viewer would do no such thing.'

"The judge fully agreed."

The climate crisis haunts Chicago’s future.: A Battle Between a Great City and a Great Lake - "In 2013, Lake Michigan plunged to a low not seen since record-keeping began in the mid-1800s, wreaking havoc across the Midwest. Marina docks became useless catwalks. Freighter captains couldn’t fully load their ships. And fears grew that the lake would drop so low it would no longer be able to feed the Chicago River, the defining waterway that snakes through the heart of the city. 

"That fear was short-lived. Just a year later, in 2014, the lake started climbing at a stunning rate, ultimately setting a record summertime high in 2020 before drought took hold and water levels started plunging again. 

"In just seven years, Lake Michigan had swung more than six feet. It was an ominous sign that the inland sea, yoked for centuries to its historic shoreline, is starting to buck."