Germany's federal police have said that "of the 284 officers attacked during repatriations, 71 were injured" in 2018, according to a report Sunday in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

The figures only pertain to incidents related to deportation flights, for which the federal police are responsible. Germany's state-level police handle transportation to the airport for people slated to be deported.

There were 274 recorded instances of officers being attacked in 2017.

Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said the U.S. was still on time to request a new legal procedure for seizing the Grace 1, but that provisions under the European Union's sanctions regulations were ending Thursday after the Iranian government assured him in writing that the ship will not send its 2.1 million barrels of crude to a sanctioned entity in Syria. ... Picardo's office released copies of communications with the Syrian Embassy in the U.K. shortly after the British overseas territory's Supreme Court decision to release the tanker.

The court had delayed its decision after the [US] Justice Department made a last-minute application to extend the detention of the oil tanker, the Gibraltar government had said earlier Thursday. But there was no U.S. application to the court when the hearing resumed in the afternoon, the Gibraltar Chronicle newspaper reported, quoting the court's chief justice, Anthony Dudley. Picardo said that any U.S. request to detain the Grace 1 would now to be examined under bilateral agreements and outside of the EU sanction mechanism. ... On Thursday, Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement that the "investigations conducted around the Grace 1 are a matter for the government of Gibraltar," and that it couldn't comment further.
[...]
Signaling preparations for the expected release of the ship, the captain, an Indian national, and three officers of the Grace 1 were released from detention, the Gibraltar government said. The whereabouts of the crew, none of whom are Iranian, were not immediately known. The crew of the Grace 1 includes sailors from India, Pakistan and Ukraine, according to Iranian state television.

< wipes tears >

archived
And it's... GEORGIEVA!
Europe splits over IMF leadership. Not really.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

"More than 100 people are injured," Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said after arriving in the nearby mountain resort town of Zakopane.
[...]
A bolt hit a 15-meter-high (49-foot-high) metal cross at the mountain's 1,894-meter peak and is believed to have been the principal cause of the fatalities. The cross was installed in 1901.
[...]
"There were a lot of incidents involving lightning strikes today in the Tatras," [TOPR chied Jan] Krzysztof added. "We heard that after lightning struck, people fell... the current then continued along the chains securing the ascent, striking everyone along the way. It looked bad," Krzysztof said.

"I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself," Trump said in a series of tweets.

....I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself. No one is authorized in any way, shape, or form, to represent us!

    -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2019

It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to and the White House declined to comment, but a report earlier this week said Macron had invited Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to this month's G7 summit to meet Trump.

"We don't do diplomacy on Twitter, we are discussing a serious crisis ... we don't do Twitter polemics, it is not how we will achieve our goals," said a high-level French diplomat in an apparent diss [!] of Trump's style of diplomacy.

archived
US extends Iran nuke sanctions waivers but hits FM
Instex
G7 summit, Biarritz, France, 24-26/08/2019
an opportunity for the EU to defend the rules-based order and its organisations


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Members of Ryanair's British pilots union voted this week to follow Portuguese cabin crew to the picket line, with two strikes planned from Aug. 22. The action in Ireland was backed by 94% of those who cast a ballot among the 180 eligible pilots.
[...]
The company's main pilots union in Spain will vote in the coming days on possible industrial action, including strikes, in direct response to planned job cuts, the local SEPLA trade union said.

archived "Amazon of airlines"
gee. that's strange.
the question of the status of workers posted abroad
Ryanair strike fear eases with Portugal pilot deal
EU orders Ryanair to meet European rules on local contracts

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

10-Q provided to the US financial services authority SEC show the company's structure was amended in March, before the company's May IPO. The tax break will only kick in if the loss-making company turns a profit.
[...]
The Dutch company which controls Uber's intellectual property is owned by another subsidiary in Singapore. The company's headquarters for all its non-American activities have been based in Amsterdam since 2013.

archived
Ireland to appeal Apple Ruling

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

"We continue working on reintroducing some of the flights that we lost over the last months. More news is expected in the next weeks".

This, according to Perdios, would help to improve the situation next year. He said that Cyprus should target other sources of tourism than traditional markets such as the UK and Russia where the serious competition facing Cyprus was evident. The Deputy Ministry, he noted, has taken every possible action to attract new airlines or new flights.

archived
One in 4 Europeans cannot afford holidays away

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Denmark is now selling negative yielding 10 year mortgage bonds. Let that sink in. https://t.co/RXBTJOd5ga

— Steve Saretsky (@SteveSaretsky) August 6, 2019

archived alternative fuel
If you aren't buying petroleum, natural gas, and coal ...
AP | France to slap new 'ecotax' on plane tickets from 2020
Palm oil no longer considered `biofuel' in France
France: Farmers Block Refineries to Protest Palm Oil Import

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The tricks you pick up from a classical education. Just tell the cyclops your name is No Deal: that way, when things go pear-shaped everyone will be yelling "No Deal has wrecked the economy, No Deal is trashing the health service, No Deal has destroyed manufacturing"

— Edmund Griffiths (@EdmundGriffiths) 29. Juli 2019

Instead, Brexit means plonking the corpse of post-imperial Britain in a vulture restaurant for US asset strippers, and pretending not to notice that China perches nearby, ready to pluck at whatever it fancies too.

The Great British Asset Striptease isn't new, of course. For decades, the country has mostly stayed afloat in the world by auctioning off the plunder we accumulated through centuries of empire. As Joe Guinan and Thomas Hanna point out, the Treasury has calculated that Britain sold off 40 per cent of all assets privatised across the OECD between 1980 and 1996.

In reality, the brand of Brexit promoted by Tory hardliners has long been about pulling Britain under the shadow of American capital. Not as a 51st state, with votes and constitutional rights, but as an outhouse for US business, a sort of colder, paler version of Puerto Rico.

We will be forced to accept US-style deregulation, with its poor standards for workers and consumers. We will have our assets stripped clean off the bone. Even before Brexit, we are fast becoming a pawn in the Pentagon's global games.

We won't become Americans, though. We'll have no say in the standards that will govern our new Atlantic common market. Nor will we be permitted to help decide who stands in the planet's biggest pulpit. Nor will we have much significant say in our own foreign policy. The UK has chosen to shift from participating in one power block to sitting on the outer edges of another.

"Negotiating and signing an exciting new free trade agreement with the US is one of my top priorities," said [US International Trade Secretary Liz] Truss, who was a cheerleader for the leave camp in the 2016 referendum on Britain's membership of the EU."
[...]
Larry Summers [!], who was US treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, said that Britain could not mask the weakness of its hand. ...
"Britain has no leverage. Britain is desperate. Britain has nothing else. It needs an agreement very soon. When you have a desperate partner, that's when you strike the hardest bargain," he said.

falling: apple, tree; tree, apple

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The lush hills and fields of Brecon and Radnorshire, where sheep outnumber people by 10 to one, are fertile ground for a Liberal Democrat revival. Yet in this deeply split constituency, which voted 52% leave, there is no "bollocks to Brexit" on any Lib Dem leaflet, nor any mention of leaving the EU at all.

In the 19th century, some of Cincinnati's riots were racially charged [AP STYLEBOOK ALERT], but not all. Residents also erupted in the streets over a bank closing, injustice, corruption, tensions with immigrants and religious issues.

An angry Catholic mob marched on the home of Bishop John Purcell on Christmas 1853 to protest a visit by Cardinal Gaetano Bedini, an Italian emissary of Pope Pius IX. One protester was killed and many "respectable German citizens" were arrested, according to the Enquirer.

Violent civil unrest has been part of this area since the city was founded along the Ohio River in 1788. The first known insurrection was in 1792, four years later, after a merchant named John Bartle was beaten by a soldier, according to Cincinnati -- The Queen City, a 1912 history by the Rev. Charles Frederic Goss. ...

Gersen's research was met with much resistance. She was denounced at major conferences, accused, she says, of being "dangerous and irresponsible." At one conference, she was called "pro-perpetrator." At another, simply "Hitler."

archived
Yes, but feminism had to start with the middle classes.
And so naturally the inital statements of intent will reflect the concerns and issues that affect white middle class women. ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The Brew waited for the dust to settle before heading to a community far removed from the tweeters and talking heads of Washington to get the residents' take about trash in the city.

"Sorry, but I think President Trump spoke the truth," said Diane Ingram, president of Concerned Citizens for a Better Brooklyn. "The truth hurts, I realize that, but if it gets the city [MD-2]'s attention, that is a good thing," noting that she doesn't listen to the president otherwise.

Janet Eveland, an attorney and chairperson of the grassroots group Action Baybrook, disagreed with Ingram's assessment of Trump ("I ignore him. He never says anything intelligent, never"), but not necessarily with his message: "We know we have trash and rats."

Visa and green card applicants already have to demonstrate they will not become public charges, and use of cash assistance is considered during adjudication. But the new rule, set to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday and due to take effect 60 days later, would significantly expand the types of benefits that could potentially disqualify an applicant to include prior use of Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or food stamps, and housing assistance like Section 8 housing vouchers, for example.

Most noncitizens do not [?!] qualify for public benefits.

Green card holders and some categories of vulnerable immigrants such as asylum grantees [!], refugees [!] and victims of crime or trafficking [!], can qualify for public benefits under [those] conditions. And some states have allowed some immigrants to receive ["]state-funded["] assistance.

Language in the new rule explicitly states it "does not create any penalty or disincentive for past, current, or future receipt of public benefits by U.S. citizens or aliens whom Congress has exempted from the public charge ground of inadmissibility."

And yet, that is exactly what critics fear it will do. Because of misinformation and fear [!], the rule could cause mass withdrawal from public benefits by immigrants eligible for them, and even by some U.S. citizens -- causing widespread hardship among immigrant communities as a whole.

The National Immigration Law Center, an immigrants' rights group, is already preparing legal challenges to the rule. "This news is a cruel new step toward weaponizing [sic] programs that are intended to help people by making them, instead, a means of separating families [w.t.f] and sending immigrants and communities of color one message: you are not welcome here," Marielena Hincapié, executive director of NILC, said in a statement.

archived
Winner: publisher's deadline
Commerce et al vs New York et al.
Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States
"Noncitizens" are eligible for health and income (eg. SSI, disability) benefits in every state.
Supreme Court looks likely to back Commerce Dept. on adding citizenship question
advocates will spend the next 12 months cleaning up the mess of "misinformation" about social services and deportation ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Last week, Trump called Powell "clueless" and urged the Fed to reduce borrowing costs [for WHOM?] by a full percentage point to boost the economy, which is feeling the drag from the U.S.-China trade war.

"If the Fed cuts rates as Trump demands, that will EASE pressure [?] on the stock [sic] market, which Trump may take as giving him a stronger hand in his trade spat with China," said Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University and one of the authors of the policy uncertainty index.
[...]
The feedback loop between the Fed and BOND markets "might not be broken until the economic data signal very decisively that further EASING is inappropriate," Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius wrote this week.

Judge orders paper ballot contingency plan for Georgia

the oxford comma is so needed for these situations https://t.co/eNUBwgTUh9

— Christine Rousselle 💁🏻‍♀️ (@crousselle) August 19, 2019

U.S. District Judge James Donato ordered it to alert users about an upcoming trial on claims that it harvested facial data in violation of an Illinois privacy law.
[...]
Facebook argued users lacked standing to sue because the mapping of their facial data did not cause them to lose money or suffer any economic injury.

Writing for the three-judge panel, U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that "a concrete injury need not be tangible."

archived
Huawei sues the US commerce department over seized equipment
Huawei Pushes Ahead With Trademarks for Own OS in Europe Amid US Crackdown

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

"'They're not well thought out, they're impulsive and they do not appear to be coordinated with our allies,' Diehl said."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The Foxconn deal, which was signed by Walker and touted by President Trump, was supposed to be transformational for Wisconsin. As the first large-panel LCD factory in the Western Hemisphere, it was supposed to span 20 million square feet and create 13,000 jobs. Proponents of the deal said the benefits more than justified the considerable costs: at least $4.5 billion in subsidies and other incentives that the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated wouldn't be recouped until 2043.

Many of Clinton's proposals, including the Make It In America Partnerships, are a lot like ideas put forward by the Obama administration. But while President Obama's ambitions were hobbled by the Great Recession, Clinton believes she has the opportunity to take the agenda much further. Still, Clinton faces the same reality as Trump. Manufacturers today are so much more productive. They don't need as many workers as they used to.

AP | 74% of economists in survey see US recession by end of 2021, 19 Aug
"The economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics, in a report released Monday..."
The Hill | About one-third of economists expect recession in 2020: survey, 19 Aug
"Thirty-eight percent of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics forecasted ..."

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

CREATE A MENTAL HEALTH WHAT NOW https://t.co/4h9j5L3nUQ

— Guy Hamilton-Smith (@G_Padraic) August 8, 2019

archived
Amazon Echo
Re: Trump unraveling in Predictions for 2018
Never forget the lead

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

NYCHA has until October 2024 to reduce heating outages to just 15 percent of apartments during the winter under the agreement City Hall signed with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development in January.

The agency is under a partial federal takeover because of city mismanagement, including a lead-paint debacle.

Twitter, show me something to make me hate Amazon even more. https://t.co/vz81XaHTbU

— Nate's Liver 🍩 (@SilERabbit) August 16, 2019

This is a fascinating "conversation." The prompt by Hannah solicits pathos. The responses from readers are decidedly unsympathetic to the particular and generally antisocial connotations of her message. Note that "FC" abbreviates fulfillment center (pack, ship, stow, inventory facility). Note that AMZN strictly prohibits operation of personal devices inside its premises. These are surrendered on entry, retrieve on exit, and if detected immediately confiscated by security personnel.

An "ambassador" is a volunteer, non-supervisory employee position within Tier I employee compensation group (entry-level, floor assembly). It is not a legitimate job title or warranted career pathway. Temps ("indirect hires") are not qualified to apply. Applicants for the position, if accepted by HR and Area Manager(s) consensus, satisfy minimal criteria of functional competence for consideration in a specific work group (pack, ship, stow, inventory) such as PPE safety, performance rate, attendance, seniority > 6 mo., no disciplinary record. AFAIK, the company replicates FC organizational structure x-N.A. if not world. AFAIK,no "ambassador" premium added to wage rate. "Ambassador": regular is 1:100 (e) per facility. Non-cash perqs, however, certainly include but are not limited to relief from regular duty, a branded vest, and special projects such as assigned "process improvement" interventions (on personnel or equipment updates). "Ambassadors" normally have no representative duties outside the company.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Many Native Americans live in "hard-to-count" rural areas and are not reflected in the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, so the census cannot accurately measure their voter registration as it would for black, white, Asian and Hispanic citizens. Census estimates say Native Americans make up around 1.7% -- or 5.3 million -- of the U.S. population, and suggest that more than 3.7 million Native Americans are of voting age.

As more Native Americans gain access to the polls, they may be a powerful asset for candidates. Richard Witmer, a political scientist from Creighton University who specializes in American Indian politics and policy, said the Native American vote can swing a close national election.

reference
BLS | Labor market trends for American Indians and Alaska Natives, 2000-17
BLOOMBERG | Where U.S. Unemployment Is Still Sky-High: Indian Reservations, 2018
NCAI.org

archived f* crackers
Digitizing the 2020 Census
"undercounted" [sic], "overcounted" [sic], and "hard-to-count" [wtf]: Wealthy populations may be overcounted because some families own a second home

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

archived
empowerment(bullshit)
[Immunized felon] Oliver North will step down as president of the National Rifle Association ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

State Legislature
General Assembly: 54 (D), 26 (R); Fun Fact: $49,000/year
Senate: 26 (D), 14 (R)

37 chamber slaves of the patriarchy
30 (D), 7 (R)
wut: "Unlike most PACs, this is not just for Democratic women or Republican women"

archived
NC
"Every mind matters"
PA, RI, FR
The Groundbreaking Public Health Study That Should Change U.S. Society--But Won't

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

IOWA HURTS

(orig idea w/ guy fieri by @mayorwertz ) pic.twitter.com/pIdLbn4uix

— Ryan Middleton (@ryanmiddleton) 12. August 2019

Unrest in Minnesota farm country

reference
List of Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements (As at 21.11.2018)
Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance - International Cooperation, .ppt
extraditable offenses, No. of surrenders, habeas corpus
FUGITIVE OFFENDERS AND MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS LEGISLATION (AMENDMENT) BILL 2019, full text
"follow the money"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Kawenja needs constant internet access, but in the past year that has become difficult. In July 2018, Uganda's government introduced the "over-the-top" (OTT) tax, commonly known as the social media tax, for online services such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.

The 26-year-old boycotted the tax. "I just didn't find it fair," he said. After all, internet costs in Uganda are already quite high. Uganda's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita per day is currently at $1.90 (€1.69 or 7,000 Ugandan shillings), and many live off less. "If you pay 1,000 shillings per day for your internet data of 50 megabytes and you then have to pay an extra 200 shillings tax, that's a big challenge," Kawenja says. For 200 shillings ($0.05, €0.04), you can by a kilogram of maize in Uganda.

Authorities say the scheme, which also levies a $20 fee, is designed to clamp down on immoral or prejudiced content. Critics view it as part of an escalating campaign by President Yoweri Museveni to suppress online content disapproving of him and his government.
[...]
The registration scheme is "not a positive move, it infringes on the rights to freedom of expression. People are able express themselves well when they know that somebody is not watching over them," said the [digital communications rights watchdog Unwanted Witness] chief executive, Dorothy Mukasa.

Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) spokesman Ibrahim Bbosa said the "data communicators" to be registered included individuals with heavily followed social media and other online accounts that carried ads alongside other content on platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

"I am directing the Department of Justice to work in partnership with local, state, and federal agencies, as well as social media companies, to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike," Trump said, adding later on, "We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms, and that, if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process. That is why I have called for red flag laws."

archived
&tc.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

A Taliban spokesman had said last week that this eighth round of talks would conclude with a deal to end the nearly 18-year war, America's longest. The two sides have been discussing an agreement under which U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan and the Taliban would guarantee the country would not revert to being a launch pad for global terrorist attacks.
[...]
The U.S. has pressed for a cease-fire and a framework for inter-Afghan talks, but so far the insurgents have refused to recognize the Afghan government, dismissing it as a U.S. puppet.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, frustrated at being sidelined, on Sunday rejected foreign interference in Afghan affairs. He insists that elections planned for Sept. 28 will give the next government a powerful mandate to decide the country's future. But [U.S. envoy Zalmay] Khalilzad is seeking a peace deal by Sept. 1, weeks before the vote. The Taliban, who effectively control half the country, have dismissed the election as a sham and warned fellow Afghans to avoid both campaign rallies and the polls.

archived
Trump Foreign Policy: Evolutionary Stance Jan 2019
Trump has asked Pakistan to play its role in the peace talks
World 'SACRED COWS'
recycling news about détente in "liberating" Afghanistan
Transcript: President Trump on "Face the Nation"
MARGARET BRENNAN: That's where 9/11 was launched from.
Lessons from Winston Churchill: Withdrawal from Afghanistan, July 2018
Turkey extends its NATO mission in Afghanistan, June 2017
And Bismark wept.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

free uighurs

archived
Modi surges to victory in India on Hindu-first platform

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

"Ebola kills quickly and Ebola heals quickly. That's the message," said [director of Congo's National Institute for Biomedical Research Dr. Jean-Jacques ] Muyembe, at a press conference in Goma.
[...]
Muyembe said two new drugs "are now be used to treat Ebola patients because, according to the studies and the results we obtained in the lab, these are the two drugs that are effective."

[08.12.19] The early results mark "some very good news," said Dr. Anthony Fauci [!!] of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the study.
[...]
During the West Africa Ebola epidemic several years ago, studies showed a hint that another antibody mixture named ZMapp worked, but not clear proof. So with the current outbreak in Congo, researchers compared ZMapp to three other drugs -- Regeneron's compound, the NIH's mAb114 and an antiviral drug named remdesivir.
[...]
Fauci [!!] said Regeneron and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics [2018], which has licensed the NIH compound, told authorities enough doses are readily available.

Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director general of INRB and one of the scientists involved in the original detection of the Ebola virus in 1976 [See D. Rumsfeld, Zaire], played a key role in discovering mAb114.

One issue researchers will have to analyze: Occasionally people who receive the Ebola vaccine still become sick, including some in the treatment study, which raises the question of whether their earlier protection inflated the drugs' survival numbers.

"People who come from Beni and Butembo (nearby cities where there are many Ebola cases) must be carefully examined," said Muyembe. "All of the 200 contacts we are following are doing well. We are waiting until the end of the 21-day surveillance period. We are at day 13, so there are still 8 days to go before we can say that Goma has won against Ebola."

Health officials have also vaccinated tens of thousands of people in Congo [with WHAT?] and surrounding countries in an attempt to stop the outbreak, but the virus has now continued to spread for more than a year. [?!]

archived
WHO | 13 May 2017
Zaire strain
Congo's Ebola Outbreak Now 2ND LARGEST in History, WHO Says
shiny: rVSV-ZEBOV + mAb114 + PRv1 + 1 NEW!
living lab, May 2018
Trump envoy Nikki Haley on first Africa trip 24 Oct 2017

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Naked Capitalism
Even Larry Summers Denounces World Bank's "PEF" Ebola Bonds That Enriched Investors at Expense of the Sick in the Congo
"And worse, they may actually deter making far more critical investments..."
## Misplaced precision

archived
has "Lagarde made waves"
The odious World Bank is a subsidiary of the IMF. ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Most of the waste produced in the Netherlands is incinerated at the plant but 20% of the total comes from outside the Netherlands. Imports will stop when current contracts run their course, the infrastructure ministry said. The AEB, which was touted as the most innovative waste incinerator complex in the country in 2006, and which also provides city heating for 35,000 households, has been plagued by problems. Despite a capital injection of €16m, four of the six incinerators had to be closed this July, greatly reducing capacity at the plant.
[...]
'If there is no solution within the next 10 days, waste collection will stop the week after,' a VA spokesperson told NOS. The affected areas will be mostly in the Amsterdam region.

Reversing a judgment in favor of Coral Gables, an appeals court agreed with the Florida Retail Federation that state law pre-empts the city from banning Styrofoam containers.

This appeal concerns the validity and preemptory effect of the following three state statutes, which the trial court concluded were unconstitutional:

• Section 403.708(9) (enacted  in 19743) provides that "[t]he packaging of products manufactured or sold in the state  may not be controlled by governmental rule, regulation, or ordinance ..."
  
• Section 403.7033 (enacted in 2008) prohibits local governments from enacting "any rule regulation, or ordinance regarding use, disposition, sale, prohibition, restriction, or tax of ... auxiliary containers, wrappings, or disposable plastic bags."
  
• Section 500.90 (effective July 1, 2016) preempts the "regulation of the use or sale of polystyrene products" by local ordinances enacted after January 1, 2016.
  

[...]
On April 26, 2016, the City passed Ordinance 2016-28, "exercise[ing] its Home Rule [!] powers under article VIII, section 6 of the Florida Constitution of 1968 [!] to conflict with, modify, and nullify the polystyrene pre-emption and grandfathering provisions of Chapter 2016-61, Laws of Florida (F.S. § 500.90) ..."

State Legislature
House: 47 (D), 73 (R); Fun Fact: $29,697/year
Senate: 17 (D),23  (R)

48 chamber slaves of the patriarchy
29 (D), 19 (R)

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Fatimazehra El Ghazaoui, 27, a woman affected by the disorder called xeroderma pigmentosum, puts on a protective mask she wears outside on sunny days. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy), "Because the disorder is inheritedXP is more common in populations where marriage between relatives is high, Kraemer said. Affected children inherit two copies of a mutated gene, one from each parent. A 2016 Moroccan government study estimates about 15% of marriages are between family members."

... "My family has been coming here for 70 years, and this is the first time we're barred from our cabin!" Morin laments. "I'm used to having my sister, nephews and cousins stay over, but this summer it won't be possible. We'll have to wait for the big winter tides, for the storms and wind, to get rid of all this."

Contacted by France 24, Saint-Brieuc town hall said the piles of sludge on the beach had rendered the soil unstable, making it impossible for municipal workers to clear up the seaweed. It blamed this year's "exceptional" weather for the scourge.

"The influx of green algae began very early, there were few storms and June was a relatively wet month, which caused more water to flow from agricultural areas and thus more green algae," said the town hall's press officer.
[...]
'How do you expect to end this when pig numbers keep rising?'

The World Health Organization says the levels of microplastics in drinking water don't appear to be risky, but that research has been spotty and more is needed into their effects on the environment and health. PHOTO CREDIT: Bailey Wright/Record-Journal via AP

archived wut
WHO: I told you Tedros Adhanom is an empty suit!
&tc

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Is it fair to trash The Economist? You bet it is.

Current Affairs is well-known for its signature "Death to The Economist" bumper stickers, which have greatly improved the expressive capacities of the American motorist when it comes to demonstrating a discerning taste in periodicals.

Koch money fueled much of the RW propaganda over the past 30 or so years.  AFAIK nobody knows if the brats will continue.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

The national party committee voted 222-137 at its summer meeting in San Francisco against a resolution that effectively would have rolled back debate rules set by Chairman Tom Perez and freed presidential candidates to participate in a climate-only debate.
[...]
Perez has said throughout the primary campaign that he opposes making any of the party's official debates revolve around a single issue. Perez said this week in San Francisco that he wants the widest possible audiences for primetime debates, with voters getting to see candidates address a full range of issues. ...[he] has encouraged candidates to participate in issue-specific forums that don't involve multiple candidates being on the same stage together.

While the Department of State and President Trump went to bat for Rocky, we must not lose sight of reforming pretrial detention at home. There are nearly half a million Americans in pretrial detention on any given day. Some 62% of those in U.S. jails are pretrial detainees, and the pretrial population grew 433% from 1970 to 2015.

Many of the 12 million Americans admitted to jail every year are released within 24 hours, whether through a simple promise to appear, posting money bail, or pretrial supervision. However, others stay far longer, often because they cannot afford bail, not because they are determined to be too dangerous.

In Mississippi, where more than one third of pretrial detainees are kept 90 days or more, Jerry Sanders sat in jail for more than a year in 2018 while drug possession charges were pending. This was longer than the maximum sentence would be for such a charge.

The courts said Rocky and his two bodyguards "were not in a situation" where they were entitled to self-defense and that they "assaulted the victim by hitting and kicking him."

As a result, the three defendants were "convicted of assault and sentenced to conditional sentences [BWAH!]." That means the three face no prison sentence in Sweden unless they commit a similar offense in the country again.

archived rose by any other name
jail break
habeas corpus
duty to retreat
self-defense

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

I'd may even be a useful thing to have for governments trying to clear up the current mess, so don't expect a change for the next generation or so.


-----
sapere aude