Opinion The dressing-room encounter that made me get real about aging - "We know by a certain age the great palace lies of the culture — if you buy or do or achieve this or that, you will be happy and rich.
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"We are so physically vulnerable in older age. We have caught each other a lot, have come through some periods of darkness and unsurvivable losses, but friendship makes it all a rowing machine for the soul. We can take it, as long as we feel and give love, and laugh gently at ourselves as we fall apart."
A baroness’s lies bring Britain’s covid spending scandal to a boil
GOP voter-fraud crackdown overwhelmingly targets minorities, Democrats: Black and Hispanic people made up more than 75 percent of defendants and Democrats nearly 60 percent in a controversial push by Republicans to prosecute election cheating, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by The Washington Post - "But the election integrity units established or expanded in six states after Trump’s loss obtained only 47 convictions during a period in which tens of millions of votes were cast, and the units overwhelmingly targeted minorities and Democrats for prosecution, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by The Washington Post of nearly every prosecution.
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"Of the 115 cases that have been resolved as of mid-December, 42 ended in dismissal, acquittal or dropped charges — nearly the same as the number of guilty verdicts.
"All of the convictions occurred in Florida, Texas and Ohio, while units in Virginia, Georgia and Arkansas failed to obtain a single guilty verdict, despite allocating dozens of staffers and millions of dollars to ferret out voter fraud.
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"One was Nathan Hart. Hart, a White man and convicted sex offender from Tampa, said he was at the DMV in March 2020, when a worker hired by the local county asked him if he wanted to register to vote. He explained he had a felony conviction, Hart said, but the worker encouraged him to apply, saying that the state would let him know if he didn’t qualify."
WRITTEN IN THE WOOD
ANCIENT WARNING OF A RISING SEA - "A recent report from the International Monetary Fund found that coping with global warming will cost the Seychelles about 30 percent of its gross domestic product. The country is wealthier per capita than any other African nation, thanks largely to an economy fueled by carbon-intensive international travel. But its small size still leaves it short on the resources and expertise needed to protect against rising sea levels, surging ocean temperatures, intensifying rainfall and escalating heat.
"'We are suffering, but we are not the ones damaging,” Ernesta says." [ed. note: then ban tourism]
Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth's Climate
Why Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles Can't Explain Earth's Current Warming
Watch ‘Failure at the Fence’: The Washington Post and ‘Frontline’ examine how Hamas breached Israel’s security barrier on Oct. 7