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cbabe

cbabe's Journal
cbabe's Journal
April 4, 2024

Chem trail bill and Sasquatch amendment

Missed this previously:



Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Democrat, poked fun at the bill, attaching an amendment that mimicked its original language but suggested that geoengineering “may threaten the Sasquatch and its natural habitat.” His amendment failed.



https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/tennessee-lawmakers-ban-geoengineering-allusions-chemtrails-rcna145015

April 4, 2024

As heard on Thom Hartmann, caller listed

the organizations being targeted and cleared from Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders
World food kitchen
UN
Al Jazeera
Others?

Caller suggested Israel does not want witnesses.

Your thoughts?

Repost from previous forum. Link required.

https://www.thomhartmann.com
Thom Hartmann - News & info from the #1 progressive radio show | News ...
Thom Hartmann is a popular radio host, author, and commentator on politics, culture, and society. Learn more about his show, books

April 3, 2024

Overcoming book bans: Bookseller of Kabul' rebuilds destroyed business

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/i-wanted-to-end-my-life-bookseller-of-kabul-rebuilds-destroyed-business

‘I wanted to end my life’: ‘Bookseller of Kabul’ rebuilds destroyed business

Shah Muhammad Rais was devastated when Taliban destroyed his shop, but now he is sending books to Afghanistan via the internet

Diane Taylor
Wed 3 Apr 2024 06.35 EDT

Shah Muhammad Rais first opened his bookshop in the Afghan capital in 1974. By 2003, when his story was made famous by the bestselling book The Bookseller of Kabul, the business had collected about 100,000 books, in different languages, about literature, history and politics. The collection included works of fiction and nonfiction, with everything from richly illustrated children’s tales to dense academic tomes.

After the Taliban stormed Kabul in 2021, Rais fled to the UK, telling the Guardian last year that he feared the group would destroy his cherished business. His fears came true. Last December, the Taliban turned up at the bookshop, locked the doors and ordered the employees to hand over all the passwords for Rais’s website and catalogue, before destroying the archive he had been building since he first opened the shop.

“When I heard what had happened I couldn’t talk, I was frozen. My mind was not working,” said Rais, who is now almost blind. He was so grief-stricken that he considered taking his own life. “For two weeks after this happened I wanted to end my life. But suddenly I got my energy back,” he said. He resolved to rebuild his unique collection from scratch. Because his online business was global, he already had many contacts in countries such as Iran and Pakistan and across central Asia. Rais, who speaks six languages, signed a deal with an Indian IT company to create a new website – Indo Aryana Book Co.

Now new books are being printed in India from pdfs and mailed into Afghanistan. Recently an online order was placed by someone in Mexico to deliver a copy of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to an address in Kabul. The book is banned in Afghanistan, but the order was placed in the morning and had been delivered to the Kabul address by the afternoon. Rais is especially keen to help give girls and women in Afghanistan access to books despite the Taliban ban on their education. He is using his contacts to get free or subsidised books to them in their homes or hidden schools. Even bus drivers help: secreting in their vehicles packages of books needing to be delivered discreetly, while driving across Afghanistan.

…more…
April 3, 2024

Moon Standard Time? Nasa to create lunar-centric time reference system

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/02/moon-nasa-coordinated-lunar-time

Moon Standard Time? Nasa to create lunar-centric time reference system

Space agency tasked with establishing Coordinated Lunar Time, partly to aid missions requiring extreme precision

Diana Ramirez-Simon and agencies
Tue 2 Apr 2024 20.57 EDT

The White House wants Nasa to figure out how to tell time on the moon.

A memo sent on Tuesday from the head of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has asked the space agency to work with other US agencies and international agencies to establish a moon-centric time reference system. Nasa has until the end of 2026 to set up what is being called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC).

It’s not quite a time zone like those on Earth, but an entire frame of time reference for the moon. Because there’s less gravity on the moon, time there moves a tad more quickly – 58.7 microseconds every day – compared with on Earth. Among other things, LTC would provide a time-keeping benchmark for lunar spacecraft and satellites that require extreme precision for their missions.

“An atomic clock on the moon will tick at a different rate than a clock on Earth,” said Kevin Coggins, Nasa’s top communications and navigation official. “It makes sense that when you go to another body, like the moon or Mars, that each one gets its own heartbeat.”

…more…
April 3, 2024

As heard on Thom Hartmann: caller listed all

the organizations being targeted and cleared from Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders
World food kitchen
UN
Al Jazeera
Others?

Caller suggested Israel does not want witnesses.

Your thoughts?

March 31, 2024

A HISTORY OF PEEPS

https://www.oldtimecandy.com/blogs/candy-blog/peeps

A HISTORY OF PEEPS: EASTER’S PERFECTLY-PUFFED CANDY

POSTED APRIL 15, 2022
IN CANDY BLOG

What is a Peep and why do people love them so much?
That’s the question that’s floating around our candy headquarters every Easter season as we stuff packages full of neon-colored birds and bunnies.

While we know that people absolutely adore the tiny delights, we were curious about where they came from in the first place. When you think about candy, the first idea usually isn’t a sugar-coated marshmallow that looks like a bird.

So we did some research and found out that Peeps have a delightful story that dates back almost 100 years. And over the course of that time, they’ve created what has become one of the most iconic seasonal candies we’ve ever tasted.

Before we tell you everything about Peeps, let’s go back to the beginning…

…more…
March 31, 2024

Tennessee bill endorses chemtrails conspiracy theory

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/31/chemtrails-tennessee-bill-conspiracy-theory

An attack of the vapours: Tennessee bill endorses chemtrails conspiracy theory

Legislation targeting baseless concept to keep state’s skies clear essentially futile given politicians cannot control sky and wind

Adam Gabbatt
Sun 31 Mar 2024 08.00 EDT

The “chemtrails” conspiracy theory is enjoying its moment in the clearly visible, not blocked by government-released toxic chemicals, sun, after the Tennessee state senate passed a bill this month targeting the baseless concept.

Legislation banning the “intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances” swept through the Republican-dominated senate, and will now be considered by the Republican-dominated house, before then being weighed by Tennessee’s Republican governor. There is also a movement to pass a similar law in Pennsylvania.



“There’s no evidence that anybody is pumping chemicals into airplanes. If this was a huge [government] conspiracy to do those things, do you think nobody would sort of, tell on them?” he said.

Another point is that the legislation to keep Tennessee’s skies clear is essentially futile, given politicians cannot control the sky and the wind. “It’s not going to make any difference one way or the other – how could they even enforce it? What if somebody did a chemtrail in Kentucky and it drifted over Tennessee? What would they do?” Robock said.

…more…

(Politics as performance art.)
March 31, 2024

Happy Easter! Garland and Astaire

Judy Garland & Fred Astaire - "Easter Parade"

https://m.

March 30, 2024

Missouri AG sues Media Matters as Republicans take on critics of Musk's X

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/30/media-matters-lawsuit-missouri-elon-musk

Missouri AG sues Media Matters as Republicans take on critics of Musk’s X

Move follows similar lawsuit by Texas attorney general, raising fear that news outlets could be next targets

Ava Sasani
Sat 30 Mar 2024 11.00 EDT

The attorney general of Missouri is suing Media Matters, a progressive watchdog group, alleging that it failed to turn over internal documents following its 2023 coverage of hate speech on the social media platform X. The head of the group says news outlets could be the next targets.



The lawsuit, filed by Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, on Monday, marks the second time that GOP officials have taken legal action against Media Matters to support Elon Musk, X’s billionaire owner. In November, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, launched an investigation into Media Matters, describing the group as a “radical anti-free speech organization”.

“These state attorney generals, first Paxton and now Bailey, are directly responding to Musk’s pleas. They are helping him punish critics,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters.

The rush to defend Musk against the organization, a newly anointed enemy of the right, underscores Musk’s rising profile among Republicans as a free-speech crusader. Carusone worries that the GOP’s embrace of Musk will help the billionaire stifle important criticism of X and the rightwing extremism and hate speech that proliferate there. “Newsrooms are next. There’s no reason to think that state AGs would stop at Media Matters,” Carusone told the Guardian.

…more… Stephen Miller … Texas Paxton…
March 28, 2024

WA passes bill to protect libraries

https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/mar/27/wa-passes-bill-to-protect-libraries-as-other-states-target-them/

WA passes bill to protect libraries, as other states target them

Battles over libraries generally involve books dealing with race, gender or sexuality

By David Gutman, The Seattle Times
Published: March 27, 2024, 8:17am

SEATTLE — Washington has passed legislation intended to safeguard its public libraries, after a small city in the southeastern corner of the state nearly became the first community in the nation to shutter its library over the book battles that have engulfed schools, libraries, cities and states across the country.

The legislation, which passed both the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee Tuesday, comes in response to a push last year to close the only library in rural Columbia County. The new law will make such attempts much more difficult, requiring more signatures to get potential shutdowns on the ballot and then allowing a broader population of voters to decide a library’s fate.


In Utah, the governor recently signed a law to allow a small minority of school districts to get books banned in all public schools statewide. Wisconsin and West Virginia both looked at legislation to make it easier to prosecute schools and libraries for display of “obscene” material.



Washington’s move in the other direction stems from a yearlong dispute in Dayton, a small farming town where a group of residents, upset with the placement of books dealing with gender, sexuality and race, nearly got the county’s only library shut down.

…more…


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