Delaware's low elevation mixed with crowded beaches and limited exit routes make the state particularly vulnerable to massive flooding, but officials hope an influx of federal infrastructure money will trigger future evacuation plans automatically via artificial intelligence. From a report: The Biden administration was set to announce a total of $53 million in grants Thursday to Delaware and seven other states aimed at high-tech solutions to traffic congestion problems. Although the money comes from the infrastructure law the president signed in 2021, many of the programs -- including the $5 million for flood response efforts in Biden's home state -- have evolved since then.
"What's new is the predictive analysis; the machine learning," U.S. Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt, Delaware's former transportation secretary, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Because now we have access to all this data, it's hard for us as humans to figure out what is data and what is actionable information." Delaware officials pull off evacuation-type procedures every week during the tourism season, with long lines of cars headed to the beaches on weekend mornings and back at night. But flooding presents a unique problem -- including standing water on roads that can make the most direct routes out of town even more treacherous than simply sheltering in place.
A new invite-only Twitter alternative just lured in Twitter celebs Dril and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and people are scrambling to follow them. The Jack Dorsey [photo] backed platform, Bluesky, is a Twitter clone with a very similar format to its established rival.
Bluesky has been available on Apple’s app store since February but recently added an Android and beta web version. The app has been downloaded for iOS more than 240,000 times, with about half of these installs in April, according to Data.ai research cited by Bloomberg.
According to Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, 1.2 million people were on the platform’s waitlist following Musk’s Twitter takeover. The app is still in the beta stage and is only available to users with an invite or on the waiting list.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is seriously considering a 2024 presidential campaign, told Axios that he will never support Donald Trump for president again — even if he wins the Republican nomination. No potential GOP candidate has made such an explicit pledge, underscoring the degree to which Christie is betting on the viability of an anti-Trump lane in the primary.
Christie was one of the first top Republicans to back Trump in 2016 and even helped the former president prepare to debate Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign. Asked whether he’d support Trump as the GOP nominee in 2024, Christie said: “I can’t help him. No way. When you have the Jan. 6 choir at a rally and you show video of it — I just don’t think that person is appropriate for the presidency.”
Reinhold Merkelbach and Josef Stauber, Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten, Bd. 2: Die Nordküste Kleinasiens (Marmarasee und Pontos) (Munich: K.G. Saur, 2001), pp. 235-236 (09/09/01, from Claudiopolis in Cilicia, 2nd century AD; click once or twice to enlarge):
Simplified transcription of the Greek, followed by my translation:
The one who formerly played and told jokes to everyone, see how I lie down here alone, alone, for (there is) nothing else; I, Philokynegos, a Macedonian, undefeated net fighter, obtained by chance the same fate as the bronze ring.
Anatole (set up this monument for her) husband Philokynegos from his own (funds), in honor of his memory.
Net fighter = Latin retiarius.
Merkelbach and Stauber explain the bronze ring as follows:
Es ist anscheinend die Rede von dem Bronzereif, an welchem das Netz des Retiarius befestigt war; entweder fing der Netzkämpfer den Gegner mit seinem Netz, oder der Gegner demolierte den Ring. So wie der Ring zerstört wurde, so jetzt die ganze Person des Retiarius.
I.e.:
The reference is apparently to the bronze ring attached to the net of the net fighter; either the net fighter caught his opponent with his net, or the opponent demolished the ring. As the ring was destroyed, so now the whole person of the net fighter is destroyed.
For a joke told by a net fighter, see Roger Dunkle, Gladiators: Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome (2008; rpt. London: Routledge, 2013), p. 105 (footnote omitted):
Festus ... quotes a humorous song sung (or recited) by a retiariusto a Gaul (the gladiator type): 'I do not attack you, I attack a fish. Why do you flee me, Gaul?' Festus explains that the murmillo was an offshoot of the Gaul, whose helmet was decorated with the image of a fish.
Pauli Festus p. 359 Lindsay:
Retiario pugnanti adversus murmillonem cantatur: "Non te peto, piscem peto, quid me fugis, Galle?" quia murmilionicum genus armaturae Gallicum est, ipsique murmillones ante Galli appellabantur; in quorum galeis piscis effigies inerat.
For a year and a half now, conservatives have been absolutely outraged by all of the January 6 arrests, some even finally figuring out that our prison system is horrific and solitary confinement is torture now that it's happened to people they like. They've cried for Ashli Babbitt, declared her a martyr. They've desperately tried to compare the events of that day to normal protests that don't call for literally hanging anybody, and they've claimed these other protests were the real "insurrections." The background information on those who have been arrested is widely available and many of those who participated were already well-known right-wing trolls and extremists.
And yet.
According to a recent Yahoo/YouGov poll, many of them are still quite sure that the blame for the events of January 6 lies with "left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad." As if any of us have to get out of bed to do that.
When asked who was to blame for January 6, the largest total share of Republicans — 43 percent — said it was these definitely not imaginary left-wing protesters. Comparatively, only 9 percent blamed Trump, 4 percent blamed Republican elected officials who said the election was stolen, 8 percent blamed Trump supporters who had gathered at the US capitol, 13 percent blamed right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and 19 percent said they just weren't sure.
When restricted to just those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, that number went up to 55 percent (with 82 percent saying they were at least somewhat responsible), and it went up to 68 percent when restricted to Fox News voters. Granted, given the influence of Trump and troll culture on the Republican party, we can't exactly count on these people to be sincere. Part of right-wing culture now is insisting that obviously untrue things are true for the purposes of "owning the libs."
Weirdly, 5 percent of Democrats also said that these "left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad" were most to blame for the events of that day — the same percentage that said right-wing groups like the Proud Boys were most responsible. Hard to know what that's about, but my guess it that this group would be the elusive target audience for the endless New York Times editorials about how the Democratic Party can win if only they just start being Republicans but less tacky about it and stop eating fancy deli meats like gabagool. I've often wondered about them.
Strangely, despite an incredible amount of footage from that day and over 840 arrests, there has been only one self-identified leftist who was even there — a guy who has been kicked out of several activist groups across the US because everyone thought he was shady, whose brother was one of the people organizing the "Stop the Steal" event.
Is it that they think these people are so good at what they do that between Fox News, InfoWars and every other right-wing outlet and the incredible "researchers" of the QAnon movement, they haven't been able to find and identify any of them? That is impressive. Hell, they've barely even bothered to just make something up, as they so often do in these situations. And mind you, they've still been very upset about the arrests and about the conditions of the DC jail where many of the insurrectionists have been held.
This is nothing if not one of the most impressive feats of cognitive dissonance our nation has ever witnessed.
OPEN THREAD!
PROGRAMMING NOTE: There will be no live chat today, for reasons. We'll see you next week though!
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has reportedly said that she’ll agree to an interview with the House select committee investigating the Jan 6 riot. Ms Thomas reportedly told the Daily Caller that she was “looking forward” to sitting before the panel.
“I can’t wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them,” the Supreme Court Justice’s wife told Shelby Talcott, who tweeted about the comment shortly after the committee’s third public hearing had gotten underway on Thursday afternoon.
After far too long a week, a bit of reality world is in order.
In his apparently humiliating near defeat, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s margin appears to be 50.9% to 48.3% over Jack Ciattarelli. In Virginia the margin of Glenn Youngkin’s triumph appears to be 50.8% to 48.5% over Terry McAuliffe.
We can add to this that Murphy is the first Democratic Governor of New Jersey to be reelected in 44 years. Meanwhile, going back 48 years the party which does not hold the presidency has won the Virginia’s race all but one time. That was when Terry McAuliffe won in 2013.
Reader jkoebler writes: This is an in-depth, narrative investigation into Phantom Secure, a privacy-focused phone company that started selling locally to models and other VIPs, before eventually becoming a preferred network for serious, organized crime. One of Phantom's clients was the Sinaloa Cartel, according to a text message Phantom's owner Vincent Ramos sent to an associate included in court records. The story follows how Phantom got set up, how it took over the world, and eventually how it got taken down by the FBI. It is the result of more than two years of reporting involving sources from the law enforcement, organized crime, and cybersecurity worlds. It features daring escapes from Las Vegas hotels, undercover agents, and a silver-plated AK-47 emblazoned with the Louis Vuitton logo.
Less than two weeks before the U.S. election, some political campaigns are dealing with an unexpected obstacle on YouTube, the internet's largest video site: There isn't enough space to run their ads. From a report: Campaigns have flooded YouTube with commercials in search of voters they may not be reaching on television. Yet despite its nearly endless supply of video clips, YouTube has been struggling to place these ads in front of the desired audience. The site has a particular shortage of ad slots in critical swing states, causing prices to double in some instances. This makes political ads more lucrative for Google, which owns YouTube. The company saw advertising revenue dip earlier this year and is set to announce its quarterly earnings next week. The situation has sent smaller campaigns scrambling to find advertising opportunities elsewhere. "There's a crunch," said Cat Stern, media director for Lockwood Strategy Lab, a digital campaign agency focused on Democratic candidates and progressive advocacy organizations. "All political advertisers are buying in the same states, to similar audiences." She equated the commercial spree to the online spending binge during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Viewership has shot up on YouTube during the pandemic. While commercial advertising remains anemic, there has been a glut of political ads. Many political ad buyers are interested in YouTube's limited amount of commercials that viewers can't skip through. They're also vying for ads that YouTube sells based on reservations, which can be purchased in advance, like television slots, and run against YouTube's most popular videos. "The reserves tend to be gobbled up by well-funded campaigns," said Reid Vineis, vice president of digital at Majority Strategies, a Republican political ad firm. He has seen prices for some of these ads double in recent weeks. That has forced some campaigns, particularly small ones, to look at alternative digital video outlets such as Hulu and Roku.
“The spirit must be warned that it loves things which will one day leave—no, they are already leaving. Whatever is granted to you by fortune, take it as if it has no guaranty. Seize up the pleasures of your children and allow your children to enjoy you in turn. And drink down every bit of joy without stopping.
Nothing is promised to you for this evening—I have granted too much a pledge—nothing is promised for this hour. You must hurry, we are being chased from behind. Soon this friend will be elsewhere, soon these friendships will be lost lost when the battle’s cry is raised. In truth, everything is stolen away. Poor are you fools who do not know how to live in flight.”
Saepe admonendus est animus, amet ut recessura, immo tamquam recedentia. Quicquid a fortuna datum est, tamquam exempto auctore possideas. Rapite ex liberis voluptates, fruendos vos in vicem liberis date et sine dilatione omne gaudium haurite; nihil de hodierna nocte promittitur—nimis magnam advocationem dedi—, nihil de hac hora. Festinandum est, instatur a tergo. Iam disicietur iste comitatus, iam contubernia ista sublato clamore solventur. Rapina verum omnium est; miseri nescitis in fuga vivere!
Kelly and I have done a lot of crazy how-to projects, mostly just for the sake of doing crazy how-to projects but, occasionally, in the service of this blog or our books. Lately, I’ve been thinking of paring down our disparate activities to only the most useful. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the skill I need most would be carpentry/woodworking.
We live in a small, nearly 100 year old house that needs constant work and I’m the incompetent building supervisor. Any tradesperson who knows what they are doing will not take small jobs at our house so I often have to do things myself. Why it didn’t occur to me sooner is a mystery, but I’ve realized my carpentry powerlessness and the need to seek out a higher power that can only be found in the form of a shop class.
So I build a mallet in the course of an entertaining three week class at Community Woodshop. Even their safety orientation was full of useful information and hands-on learning. The mallet class was a great way to pick up skills involving measurement, sharpening, the use of hand tools and elementary joinery (mortise and tenon). Because it was just a mallet I didn’t feel attached to the outcome. In fact, the more mistakes I made in the presence of the instructor, the more I think I learned. I’m kind of glad I broke tenon just so I could learn how it could be fixed and the mistake hidden. I also learned that much of woodwork is paradoxically about metal work: the use and maintenance of metal tools.
I’ve done a lot of carpentry over the years such as building sheds, chicken coops, laying floors, repairing joists and hanging molding. I’ve done this all with hand held power tools. But I have very limited experience with chisels and planes as well as shop machines such as table saws and bandsaws. And I’ve never paid enough attention to the details.
Kelly is thrilled with my attempt to, ever so slightly, raise the quality of work around the casa. What I learned about sharpening and hand plane use already paid off in an unexpected application: fixing a broken window.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area there are three places to take woodworking classes that I know of: Allied Woodshop, Community Woodshop and Ceritos Community College. I hear that the folks at Allied Woodshop are soon to open a business selling wood from locally felled urban trees. There are a lot of exotic trees in LA, so it will be interesting to see what people do with results of LA’s poor tree maintenance.
This is a comparison that Bob really does not like. That’s probably why it’s in the brief.
If you live in coal country and you’re not a wealthy person actually invested in coal extraction, you probably spit on the ground when you hear names like “Massey” or “Murray.” Those are the names of people who have systematically fucked your whole region, and probably your family and friends. They’ve killed people with absolutely no regard for morality, they’ve lied and lobbied and screwed over whole states. They are hellbeasts who make me hope with fervent desire that there actually is a God with that whole Judgement thing just so I can watch the motherfuckers burn for eternity.
If you watch Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, you might have seen this segment:
So anyway, Oliver took on this guy called Bob Murray, who runs a coal company called Murray Energy Corporation. He was, in typical cable-satire fashion, fucking vicious. At one point, there was a giant squirrel with an oversized check offering Bob his nuts. Murray, who doesn’t like being mocked, promptly sued. That was amusing enough for us locals, but the ACLU of West Virginia has just floated into the fray with such an amazing and utter lack of respect for Murray that two of my Trump-voting neighbors actually told me they were sending ten bucks to the ACLU.
Here’s the brief that’s changing hearts and minds all along the foothills at least:
And that’s just the table of contents. The actual body of the brief reads like a giant dare to see if Bob might actually be enough of a dumbass to sue the ACLU.
We at Wonkette are still trying to determine who wrote this brief and whether we can hire them.
Have we mentioned that many people in coal country really fucking hate Bob? As in, I have neighbors who use his name as a profanity. It’s among the things that are apparently hard for the plaintiff to grasp.
This brief is a glorious dawn, heavy with clouds and fire breaking over a recently removed mountaintop, making all that exposed mud and dirt glow with the kind of beauty that only the breaking of a new day can infuse into the air.
I kind of hope that Bob sues Techdirt for writing a piece that was quoted in an ACLU amicus brief so that the ACLU can then quote this brief in their amicus for that case in some kind of troll horizon.
I would like to take this opportunity, because if I didn’t I don’t think my neighbors would ever forgive me, to say mean things about Bob Murray. I can’t prove that he can only have sex to Matewan but he’s never publicly denied it. You can tell he’s never actually worked in a mine, because actual miners don’t let themselves get that corpulent. This is a man who prays for the miners his company’s just killed at the same time he denies the company needs to invest in safety equipment, which is the kind of logic one expects from a syphilitic toddler hopped up on bad meth. To be clear, Bob Murray could afford the good meth given how much blood money he’s sucked out of the tri-state region.
Reasons not to fuck with Appalachians #3495812738784, really. People around here are pretty chill up until they’re not, at which point you should recall that this is where the Hatfields and the McCoys were from. Don’t fuck with West Virginians.
If you have not given money to yr Wonkette yet you should do that now. If you have, and you still have money left, you should respectfully submit some of it to the ACLU of West Virginia.
UPDATE: Two Republican senators have added their names to the list of GOP lawmakers opposing the latest version of the bill to repeal and replace much of the Affordable Care Act. That means the bill will fall short of the 50 votes needed to pass.
Late on July 17, Sen. Mike Lee (UT) and Sen. Jerry Moran (KS) issued separate statements explaining why they could not support the Better Care Reconciliation Act. While a number of Republican senators have been on the fence or raised questions about the bill, only Rand Paul (KY) and Maine’s Susan Collins had openly opposed it.
Lee, a hardline conservative who had pushed for repeal of all taxes associated with the 2010 healthcare overhaul said the decision to retain some of those taxes was key to his decision. He also said the BCRA “doesn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.”
Moran criticized the “closed-door process” that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had used to create the BCRA outside the usual committee process.
“We should not put our stamp of approval on bad policy,” explained Moran. “Furthermore, if we leave the federal government in control of everyday healthcare decisions, it is more likely that our healthcare system will devolve into a single-payer system, which would require a massive federal spending increase. We must now start fresh with an open legislative process to develop innovative solutions that provide greater personal choice, protections for pre-existing conditions, increased access and lower overall costs for Kansans.”
The BCRA is not a traditional piece of legislation; rather, it is a budget resolution, which limits lawmakers’ ability to make longstanding policy changes, but also would allow the GOP to pass the bill with only 50 votes, as opposed to the 60 votes regularly needed to break an opposition filibuster.
However, with a majority of only 52 in the 100-member chamber, the GOP could not afford for any more than two party members to come out against the BCRA. With four Republican senators now opposing the bill, the BCRA would not pass.
Despite the unclear picture on the votes, McConnell had been pushing for a floor vote on the BCRA. That effort hit a huge speed bump after the recent emergency surgery that waylaid Sen. John McCain of Arizona, leading McConnell to delay a vote until after McCain recovered and returned to work in D.C.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded on Twitter to news of the apparent collapse — at least for the time-being — of the BCRA.
“This second failure of Trumpcare is proof positive that the core of this bill is unworkable,” said Schumer.
In a separate statement, he suggested that “Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC), who has introduced separate repeal/replace legislation that he believes stands a better chance of passing, needed multiple Tweets to make the case for his bill:
This post has been updated as of July 17 to reflect recent events.
We’ve been hearing for months that Republican elected officials wanted to “repeal and replace Obamacare” — officially known as the Affordable Care Act — as soon as they got into office. But efforts to do so have met with resistance both inside and outside of Congress. The saga has seen many twists and turns — but where does it stand now?
That’s the million-dollar question on every Congress-watcher’s mind in D.C. these days.
How did we get here?
Getting the House to pass its version of the bill was rocky enough. At first, its very existence was a mystery that even members of Congress couldn’t solve. Then, a few weeks later, a vote on the measure was abruptly cancelled minutes before it was scheduled to happen when it became clear that the votes weren’t there.
The Senate’s version has had less high comedy and fewer cartoon-style chase scenes, but has been every inch as thorny a process for its supporters.
Its process, too, was largely conducted in secret, leaving everyone else to piece it together from leaks and educated guesses. Eventually, a version became public. Here’s a timeline of what’s happened since then:
June 22: Senate finally released draft bill of its plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
June 26: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) comes up with a preliminary score, finding that the bill would likely cause 22 million more Americans to become uninsured than currently are.
July 13: The Senate introduces a new draft of the bill, including language that will functionally restore pre-existing condition exclusions to millions of Americans as well as cut Medicaid.
July 14: The health insurance industry writes a letter to the Senate saying that they cannot support the Cruz amendment. “This provision will lead to far fewer, if any, coverage options for consumers who purchase their plan in the individual market,” the groups wrote. “As a result, millions of more individuals will become uninsured.”
July 15: Sen. John McCain (AZ) announces that he will be absent from the Senate for at least one week due to a health issue; in response McConnell delays a procedural vote planned for July 18.
Where the Senate stands
The Senate was supposed to come back after the July 4 recess and sit down and agree to something they could vote on. D.C. insiders and Congressional reporters say that process, so far, is a mixed bag.
McConnell announced July 11 that the Senate will stay in session through the first two weeks of August. Usually, Congress leaves town for the entire month, and that time has been scheduled off this year as well.
Shifting the break strongly implied that McConnell feels he needs more time to wrangle his party’s members into shape and make a bill happen. McConnell then released an updated draft on July 13.
The CBO was expected to issue a score for that bill — not including the implications of the Cruz amendment, which was added too late to be scored — on July 17.
However, McConnell announced late on July 15 that vote has now been “deferred” indefinitely due to McCain’s absence — because without McCain, as it currently stands, the bill cannot pass.
In order to pass it, McConnell needs to line up 50 Republican Senators who will vote for it. (A tie-breaking 51st vote can be cast by Vice President Mike Pence.)
There are currently 52 Republicans in the Senate, so for it to pass, no more than two can oppose it.
Senator Susan Collins (ME) has repeatedly voiced disapproval with the bill, particularly over its Medicaid cuts, and is is a no.
Senators Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Dean Heller (NV), John Hoeven (ND), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Rob Portman (OH) have also all expressed concern with the Medicaid cuts in the bill. However, none have said explicitly yet whether they intend to vote for or against it, and the most recent draft includes some carve-outs that could sway some of them toward favoring it.
On the other end of things, none of the conservative bloc that opposed the first draft — Sens. Ted Cruz (TX), Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Lee (UT), and Rand Paul (KY) — has outright endorsed the new version yet either.
While Cruz called it “a very positive development,” Paul has reiterated his opposition.
With Collins and Paul both standing against bill, that means McConnell can only afford to lose one additional vote if he wants it to pass — so he can’t proceed without McCain.
So now what?
At this point it is honestly anyone’s guess what happens with American health care in the coming weeks.
The math in the Senate is simple: no bill can succeed without at least 51 votes. So McConnell cannot call for a vote on the bill until McCain is back, unless he wants to lose. But in the meantime, Republican support for the bill — already tepid and tenuous at best — may continue to wilt even further as the delay stretches out through July and into August.
“We’re going to support Mitch’s effort with his new plan, but we want an alternative and we’re going to see which one can get 50 votes,” Graham said to CNN at the time. “We’re not undercutting Mitch, he’s not undercutting us.”
However, Graham also does not appear actively or loudly to be courting support for his bill as yet.
In short: Everyone in D.C. is guessing, but nobody quite knows what the future of this bill — or the ACA — is going to look like.
Recently bankrupt auto parts maker Takata is once against adding to its roster of potentially dangerous airbags, this time recalling 2.7 million airbag inflators that could explode violently despite containing a chemical meant to lessen the risk of the shrapnel-shooting ruptures.
The recall, which comes in addition to the 42 million inflators Takata previously recalled, covers airbag inflators made from 2005 to 2012 and used in certain Nissan, Mazda, and Ford vehicles.
The company did not specify which vehicles were affected by the recall.
According to a notice [PDF] posted with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the recall was necessitated after Takata determined that certain driver frontal air bag inflators that use calcium sulfate as a desiccant may rupture due to propellant degradation as a result to exposure to humidity.
The inflators, which were either originally used in the vehicles or used as replacements after a crash, differ from Takata’s previous recalls because they contain calcium sulfate, a chemical meant to be a drying agent.
Takata notes [PDF] that while it is unaware of any ruptured inflators that use a desiccant in vehicles on the road or in lab testing, analysis of the inflators show a pattern of propellant density reduction over time.
In other words, the chemical can break down over time, becoming less effective in preventing violent airbag inflator ruptures that have been linked to at least 12 deaths in the U.S.
In the event of an inflator rupture, metal fragments could pass through the airbag cushion material, which may result in injury or death to vehicle occupants.
“Based upon Takata’s investigation to date, the potential for such ruptures may occur in some of the subject inflators after several years of exposure to persistent conditions of high absolute humidity,” according to the NHTSA filings.
Takata says it will work with vehicle manufactures to determine which models are affected by the new recall. The company notes that various vehicle recalls will likely be announced by the impacted carmakers.
Ostia Antica is a site near Rome that is not on the A-list for most travelers. But it should be. As a well preserved town of ancient times it is sort of like Pompeii...but without the lingering sadness of sudden, mass death. From the above view you might get the notion that Ostia is entirely free of obnoxious tourist mobs. That would not be entirely true, some parts are quite hectic, mostly with Italian school groups milling about. Having been there twice now I feel qualified to offer advice on how to best enjoy the site - how to appreciate the resonance with the past that is just a bit more difficult when navigating among roaming teenagers. But first a little history of Ostia.
Antiquity had relatively few cities that we would consider large by modern standards. The biggest issue was actually feeding significant numbers of people who were not growing their own rations. For Rome the solution was shipping in grain from elsewhere. Ostia literally means "mouth", and was situated at the point where the Tiber meets the sea. Here ships were off loaded and merchandise - mostly food - sent upstream on smaller craft. Ostia probably got its start under the last kings of Rome, really hit its prime in Republican times and continued to be prominent until a new port, called Portus, was built on the other side of the Tiber. After that Ostia became a more genteel residential district that gradually faded in late Imperial times. Without a great city to feed it declined further in the medieval era, eventually being land locked by a change in the course of the Tiber. Silt filled in the ruins and it was abandoned. It was of course pillaged for marble and artifacts before being excavated on a purposeful basis beginning in the 19th century. Mussolini really amped up the excavation and restoration project in the 1930s, hoping that Ostia would be one of the centerpieces of his great Universal Exhibition. World War Two happened instead. Ostia is a large and very complex site. We looked into getting a dedicated guide but our inquiries did not pan out. Everything we found was expensive and "generic". I suggest a visit to Ostia be accompanied by the English translation of Sonia Gallico's book Ostia Antica.
I found a copy very cheap on Amazon. I'll get to more travel details another day but my first bit of advice is the most important. Get your tickets. Don't bother to buy their map, its not very good. Gallico contains a better one. From the entry point march straight past all the famous things that average tourists are milling about and go to the far end of the site. You will have it all to yourself. And you will see much that is Interesting and Odd. A small bit of a marble monument. Presumably with a nautical connection as this is a life sized reproduction of the metal rams that Roman warships had on the front.
How about a visit to a dodgy early Third Century Sports Bar? The Caupona di Alexander e Helix is identified as a tavern by its remaining fixtures. The names in its designation come from a pair of mosaics that appear to depict Aurelius Helix and Gaius Perelius Aurelius Alexander, both famous athletes of the era. There are some other mosaics too....this one is politely described as showing "grotesque dancing figures". I think most of us have occasion wandered into a bar, looked around the place and quickly figured out that it was not our kind of place....
If you felt like taking a nice clean shower after that you need only stroll a bit farther out the main street to reach one of the public baths. My map of the site shows an even dozen that have been excavated. This one is the Baths of the Porta Marina out at the far reaches of the site. We had it all to ourselves. It has some enigmatic mosaics. This one reminds me so much of the Statue of Liberty.
I was surprised to see this athlete using what to all appearances is a modern soccer (foot) ball! I guess there are only so many ways to make such an object.
When you basically have a site to yourself it is possible to both form your own theories and to explore them. I saw this little hut on top of the ruins and figured it had to be entirely made of leftover ancient stone and brick. Of course it was. I had to go up and check it out. It seems to have been a watchman's shed. It naturally had a panoramic view of the site. You saw it at the top of this posting.
Being mooned by Hercules.
As I said earlier, Ostia is like Pompeii, but also unlike it. You don't get the sense of life being wiped out, just that things got old and tired. From a peak population of 50,000 it contracted in on its boundaries and became a genteel suburb, then shrunk further and was a lightly inhabited ghost town until the shifting of political fortunes, sea coasts and the Tiber itself made it obsolete. But life never really stopped here and walking among the houses, shops and public places of Ostia you can still feel the presence of the previous inhabitants to a much greater extent that in other sites we visited.
Fox and Friends co-host Steve Doocy admitted Tuesday that the report they did on former FBI Director James Comey revealing classified information in his memos was “mistaken.”
After the story aired on the Monday morning show, President Donald Trump then tweeted, “James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal!” However, as of Tuesday at 8:00 a.m., Trump’s tweet still existed on his page and he has not corrected the tweet.
“Yesterday on this program we aired and tweeted this story saying former FBI director James Comey leaked memos containing top secret information,” he said. “We were mistaken in that.
According to the report, half of the memos contain information classified at the secret or confidential, not top-secret. Markings of the documents in which Mr. Comey leaked are, at this point, unclear. Just wanted to straighten that out.”
JUST IN: Fox News Forced To Issue Humiliating Morning Retraction, Credibility Destroyed https://t.co/fD6HtW7A0F
An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard report: Basic decade-old encryption technology is finally coming to Pentagon email servers next year. For years, major online email providers such as Google and Microsoft have used encryption to protect your emails as they travel across the internet. That technology, technically known as STARTTLS, isn't a cutting edge development -- it's been around since 2002. But since that time the Pentagon never implemented it. As a Motherboard investigation revealed in 2015, the lack of encryption potentially left some soldiers' emails open to being intercepted by enemies as they travel across the internet. The US military uses its own internal service, mail.mil, which is hosted on the cloud for 4.5 million users. But now the Defense Information Systems Agency or DISA, the Pentagon's branch that oversees email, says it will finally start using STARTTLS within the year, according to a letter from DISA. DISA's promise comes months after Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said he was concerned that the agency wasn't taking advantage of "a basic, widely used, easily-enabled cybersecurity technology."
With this in mind, you may want to avoid the following areas...
Kidding!
But there are parking restrictions around the various residence halls along Third Avenue between Ninth Street and 14th Street...and on 14th Street ... and the one on the Bowery at Second Street...
And maybe today isn't the day you decide to pick up a few non-dorm-related items at Basics Plus on Third Avenue between 12th Street and 13th Street. Could be crowded...
A family of bears descends upon a human family's pool in New Jersey. Ok, long time listener...first time poster. Please be kind.
This is an eleven minute video of a bear family swimming in an above-ground pool. While the video is great...it is really the audio of the human family, filming from a second floor bedroom,that really makes this special.
Some things are not related, except they are totally related. Witness today's news that GOP Chair Reince Priebus felt compelled to reach out to peak GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and beg him to tone down the Stormfront.org-like attacks on Mexican immigrants - and just as notably to leak to the press that the call had happened. Trump is now out denying the reports, claiming that Priebus had told him he was doing great and had struck "a nerve" with his rants. For my part, I think both reports may well be true. If you're someone of Priebus' relative stature, approaching someone of Trump's arrogance and buffoonery, who is insulated from all of the pressures usually used to bring politicians to heel, you're not going to say, "Dude, STFU or else." I think you're probably to say something like "Dude, you're killing it. You've really struck a nerve. But a party can only handle so much of your awesomeness at once. Let's try to tone this down a bit."
Si Robertson, one of the stars of reality television show "Duck Dynasty," said last week that he doesn't believe there are any atheists.
"I don’t believe — there's no such thing as an atheist," he told the Christian Post in an interview published on Friday. "Because there's too much documentation. Our calendars are based on Jesus Christ."
Simplified transcription of the Greek, followed by my translation: 
https://t.co/SXmbmXL5zi
