Some of the most common rules are riddled with exceptions, such as this one.
Eddie Izzard also has a bit on this topic.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
Some of the most common rules are riddled with exceptions, such as this one.
Eddie Izzard also has a bit on this topic.
In the February 15/22, 2021 issue of The New Yorker there is a photo essay by Brendan George Ko of the annual migration of monarch butterflies, with accompanying text by Carolyn Kormann.
The butterflies have never seen the forest before, but they know—perhaps through an inner compass—that this is where they belong. an inner compass—that this is where they belong. They leave Canada and the northeastern United States in late summer and fly for two months, as far as three thousand miles south and west across the continent. The migration is accomplished in a single generation that lives eight months, whereas the return journey north will occur over some four generations, each living four to five weeks. This is the most evolutionarily advanced migration of any known butterfly, perhaps of any known insect.
The ridiculous figure known as QAnon shaman whose real name is Jacob Chansley and is now in jail for his role in the January 6th insurrection, has lost his latest attempt to be released from jail, this time on (wait for it) religious grounds.
According to court documents, a lawyer representing the 33-year-old Chansley — who also led others in prayer as they occupied the U.S. Senate chamber during the insurrection — asked in February that his client be released from prison while he awaits trial in part because of complications derived from his refusal accept a vaccine for COVID-19.
The request involved Chansley’s religious beliefs, which borrow from conspiracy theories and several religious traditions: The attorney claimed his client’s “longstanding status as a practicing Shaman precludes him from feeding into his body any vaccination.” The request noted that Chansley was removed from the U.S. Navy in 2007 for refusing to take a vaccine for anthrax.
Chansley’s refusal to be vaccinated, combined with various COVID-19 protocols in place at prisons where he is being held, have made “meaningful un-monitored communication” with his attorney impossible, the lawyer claimed.
But U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth flatly rejected Chansley’s request on Monday (March 8), dismissing several of his lawyer’s arguments — including religious ones.
“To put it plainly, defendant’s religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine is not a relevant reason, let alone a ‘compelling reason,’ to grant his temporary release,” Lamberth wrote in the 32-page opinion.
After I got my vaccine, like everyone else I had to wait for 15 minutes to make sure I did not have an allergic reaction. I just sat in the CVS drugstore. Too bad I did not get it at the Berkshire Community college in Massachusetts. After cellist Yo Yo Ma got his second shot, he spent his 15 minutes giving an impromptu concert to the other people in the venue.
The 15-minute turn included renditions of pieces by Bach and Schubert, and at its close prompted an enthusiastic round of applause and cheers from the lucky crowd of socially distanced patients.
Ma, 65, had “wanted to give something back”, Richard Hall of the Berkshire Covid-19 Vaccine Collaborative told local paper the Berkshire Eagle. “What a way to end the clinic,” he added.
When Ma had first visited the clinic for his first shot, he did so quietly, taking in the surroundings, staff said. But brought his cello when he returned for the second shot.
Staff described how a hush fell across the clinic as Ma began to play. “It was so weird how peaceful the whole building became, just having a little bit of music in the background,” said Leslie Drager, the lead clinical manager for the vaccination site, according to the Washington Post.
Ma is someone who clearly loves what he does, likes to use his incredible talents for the general good, and also wears his celebrity status lightly.
A 65-year old woman was arrested because she refused to wear a mask inside a bank in Texas.
Police issued a warrant for the arrest of Terry Wright, 65, of Grants Pass, Oregon. The incident on Thursday at a Bank of America in Galveston was captured by the officer’s body camera, the Galveston County Daily News reported.
Police said they had obtained an arrest warrant on resisting arrest and criminal trespassing charges.
Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, has ended statewide orders requiring people to wear face masks in public places, declaring businesses should decide for themselves what Covid-19 precautions to take on their properties. Many businesses have kept their own mask rules in place.
…Wright told the officer the law said she didn’t have to wear a mask. As the officer took out handcuffs, she pulled away and began to walk toward the door. The officer stopped her and forced her to the ground. After she was handcuffed, she complained her foot was injured.
…Police said Wright suffered minor injuries during the struggle and was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Wright told the Washington Post she has never covered her face inside stores, even when the statewide mandate was in place.
He points out some of the best things in the $1.9 trillion relief bill that was just passed.
I have to disagree with him on his criticisms of the ad because it had a Christmas theme. It looked like a pretty good ad to me and after all, it is only a matter of time before Christmas becomes a holiday that features year-round marketing.
I was reading this news item and came across this sentence.
Melanie Zanona at Politico this morning is running the rule over some of the eager young Trumpist Republicans in the House who might be eyeing up the Senate seats that are about to become vacant in the next election cycle.
I was struck by the phrase ‘running the rule’ because I had never heard that idiom before. The context in which it appears does not make clear what it means. The plain language seems to suggest applying some rule but since the rule itself was not specified and is not obvious, that does not help in deciphering the meaning.
Merriam-Webster does not recognize it. The Cambridge dictionary says it is “to examine something to see if it is good enough or right for a particular purpose”. Wiktionary says that to run the rule is to “examine carefully and thoroughly” but Lexico says that it means to “examine cursorily for correctness or adequacy”.
So we have three different meanings. One is just to examine, the other is to examine carefully, and the third is to examine cursorily.
I think I will avoid using the phrase.
When a candidate loses an election for president, they usually brace themselves for blame. When they take down their party with them, they would normally slink off into the sunset while the party regroups and rethinks its strategies. In the case of Donald Trump, he not only lost the presidency, during his time the Republicans lost their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And yet, when Trump made his first public outing to the annual CPAC conference, he was treated like a conquering hero and party leaders are making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ring and going on TV to swear allegiance to him.
In a long article in The New Yorker Jelani Cobb takes a shot at answering the widely discussed question of what this means for the Republican party and he thinks its prognosis is not good.
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Birds are really graceful creatures. I have never seen a bird botch a landing and yet this one by an albatross was a spectacular failure.
But the albatross did what anyone would do after suffering such an embarrassment. It got up, dusted itself off, and walked away as if it had planned to do that all along, hoping no one noticed, other than the chick that was there.
It appears that the appalling conditions under which migrant children were held during the Trump administration are still continuing under the Biden administration.
Hundreds of immigrant children and teenagers have been detained at a Border Patrol tent facility in packed conditions, with some sleeping on the floor because there aren’t enough mats, according to nonprofit lawyers who conduct oversight of immigrant detention centers.
The lawyers interviewed more than a dozen children Thursday in Donna, Texas, where the Border Patrol is holding more than 1,000 people. Some of the youths told the lawyers they had been at the facility for a week or longer, despite the agency’s three-day limit for detaining children. Many said they haven’t been allowed to phone their parents or other relatives who may be wondering where they are.
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