Reading archive 2022-12-28

How wildlife experts battled the Chesapeake Bay’s ‘menace in the marsh’: A two-decade effort succeeded in ridding the Delmarva Peninsula of the nutria, a pesky rodent that ruins marshlands. But experts worry that it could return.

The scale of George Santos’s deceit — and the remaining questions

The benefits of ‘Dry January’ last longer than a month, studies show: People who abstained from alcohol for a month started drinking less the rest of the year and showed striking improvements in their health.

Putin declares ‘war’ – aloud – forsaking his special euphemistic operation

Here’s who helped Elon Musk buy Twitter: Who pulls the financial strings at Twitter? These are Musk’s backers

Inside the monumental, stop-start effort to arm Ukraine: The U.S. supply of weapons has never been enough for Kyiv. But for Washington and the Pentagon, there are broader concerns. - "An upcoming CSIS report on American readiness, Jones said, concludes that 'the U.S. defense industrial base is in pretty poor shape right now. If you identify China as the ‘pacing’ threat, and an ‘acute’ threat from Russia, we don’t make it past four or five days in a war game before we run out of precision missiles.'"

Opinion  The D.C. region needs more housing. The time to act is now.

For John Eastman and Clarence Thomas, an intellectual kinship stretching back decades: The Supreme Court justice and the lawyer referred by the House Jan. 6 panel for criminal investigation became acquainted years before Eastman served as Thomas’s clerk

Reading archive 2022-12-27

How to Weatherize Your Home

ENERGY STAR Rebate Finder

Rep.-elect George Santos acknowledges ‘résumé embellishment’ but answers little on finances: The Long Island Republican was pressed to address questions about whether he fabricated his biography and why he reported skyrocketing wealth

Opinion  For Cassidy Hutchinson, ‘I don’t remember’ wasn’t good enough

Opinion  The grand strategy behind Japan’s defense buildup - "Japan’s steps toward rearmament, for Green, show that the post-World War II period of Pax Americana is 'completely different from anything ever seen in history.' Unlike the British Empire or the Roman Empire, it has been 'based on building up former adversaries as power centers that had their own agency.' Now, 'Japan is choosing, not being forced by America, but is choosing to reinforce the international order that America helped to create after the war.' 

"But at the same time, he said, the fact that Japan is making this 'rather desperate' decision should be cause for American humility. Washington is losing the capacity, on its own, to back up the security commitments it has made around the world. That is the paradox of Japan’s strategic transformation: Its defense of the American system is itself a sign of that system’s heightened vulnerability."

Southwest draws regulatory scrutiny as thousands more flights canceled: The carrier’s disruptions upended holiday travel plans for tens of thousands of air travelers

‘Moorish American national’ charged with trying to take mansion [ed. note: from 2013]

Moorish Americans take over a rural gun range, sparking a strange showdown: Members of the group, part of the extremist “sovereign citizen” movement, believe they are immune from dealings with U.S. legal systems

With forests in peril, she’s on a mission to save ‘mother trees’

Taiwan extends mandatory military service to combat Chinese threat

Growing vaccine hesitancy fuels measles, chickenpox resurgence in U.S.: Anti-vaccine sentiment has increased since the pandemic, driven by politicization around the coronavirus vaccine

Police dismissed Black leaders’ claims of a serial killer. Then a woman escaped.

Kentucky hits grim milestone: 6 pediatric flu deaths in 2022 and no end to season in sight

As Russia bombs Ukraine’s infrastructure, its own services crumble

Reading archive 2022-12-21

This bird is extinct, the government says. Not everyone is so sure.: A bevy of amateur birders and professional ornithologists is racing to prove the ivory-billed woodpecker still exists, before federal officials remove it from the endangered species list

Reading archive 2022-12-20

Residents return home to long-awaited Northwest One redevelopment

Duke Ellington teens resist DCPS, fear losing school ‘to bureaucracy’

D.C. Council approves housing authority overhaul in final meeting of 2022

Reading archive 2022-12-18

Opinion  The L.A. journalist making Americans smarter about politics

Opinion  Holiday gloom at The Washington Post

Facing blackouts and Iranian-made drones, Ukrainian Jews urge Israel to help - "Israeli officials have complained that they do not receive enough credit for taking in roughly 50,000 refugees from Ukraine and Russia, and providing more than $30 million in humanitarian assistance, a figure they have calculated by combining the costs of generators, medical equipment, and a field hospital, as well as other 'in-kind assistance.' 

"That support, however, is paltry even compared to some other countries. Estonia, for example, which has a bit more than 1/10th of Israel’s population, has sent $300 million in military aid to Ukraine.

...

"'No government in Israel is going to jeopardize this interest for anybody else, including the Ukrainians,' Brodsky said in an interview. Unlike the United States and Europe, Brodsky pointed out, Israel is not part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 'Our situation is much more fragile.'" [ed. note: then why should we jeopardize anything for them? Israel's position is not "fragile," they have nukes, are cowards]

Report: Israel Passes U.S. Military Technology to China [ed. note: from 2013]

Musk blamed a Twitter account for an alleged stalker. Police see no link.: Twitter owner Elon Musk threatened legal action, changed the platform’s rules and suspended journalists’ accounts after a confrontation involving his security team at a gas station. But the incident’s timing and location cast doubt on a link to the @ElonJet account. - "A confrontation between a member of Elon Musk’s security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on a Twitter account that tracked his jet took place at a gas station 26 miles from Los Angeles International Airport and 23 hours after the @ElonJet account had last located the jet’s whereabouts."

Reading archive 2022-12-17

Disaster scenarios raise the stakes for Colorado River negotiations: At Colorado River conference in Las Vegas, water managers debate how to make historic cuts

Musk unsuspends some reporters on Twitter. But their companies never left.: Despite outrage over a move viewed as hostile to free speech -- even by Musk’s conservative allies -- media companies continued to tweet, in keeping with their conflicted relationship with Twitter.

Scientists say they know why the Southern Hemisphere is so stormy

Attacker yells ‘Kanye 2024’ during antisemitic assault, police say

Iconic L.A. mountain lion euthanized after ‘extraordinary life’ - "P-22 had “significant trauma” to his head and internal organs after apparently being hit by a car last week, officials said. An examination by a team of veterinarians from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park also revealed several other chronic health problems." [ed. note: CARS ARE SATAN]

Reading archive 2022-12-16

The collapse of insects The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble, with recent research suggesting insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate. - "'Insects are the food that make all the birds and make all the fish,' said Wagner, who works at the University of Connecticut. 'They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet.'

...

"There are about the same number of ladybug species as mammal species."

What to Do After a Bicycle Crash in Washington DC

Scientists genetically modify a tobacco plant to produce COCAINE in its leaves

Something funny is going on here. Mum’s the Word.

Trump's Trading Card Grift is Worse than You Think: Shell companies, rubbing elbows with international criminals, and worse in his scam of scams

The World’s Largest Tree Is Ready for Its Close-Up: Friends of Pando, a nonprofit, is in the process of creating the largest image ever recorded of this single aspen clone in Utah

Wary of China, Japan unveils sweeping new national security strategy

‘Wiped out’: War in Ukraine has decimated a once feared Russian brigade: The bloody fate of the 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade is emblematic of Vladimir Putin’s derailed invasion plans

Tesla knew its Model S battery had a design flaw that could lead to leaks and, ultimately, fires starting in 2012. It sold the car anyway.