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Cheetah cubs born yesterday! Carnivore keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia, are celebrating a litter of five cheetah cubs born to 8-year-old adult female Echo Tuesday, Sept. 12. Viewers can enjoy watching the cubs grow via the Cheetah Cub Cam. Note that Echo may move her cubs out of the den and around her habitat so they may be out of view at times. Animal care staff will leave Echo to bond with and care for her cubs without interference, but as opportunities arise, staff will perform quick health checks. During a recent weight check, staff confirmed there are three males and two females. The cubs appear to be strong, active, vocal and eating well. About Echo and Her Cubs: Five surviving cubs were born Sept. 12 (a sixth cub did not survive). She is a second-time mom; Echo had a litter of four cubs in 2020. Echo was born at White Oak Conservation in Florida in 2015. There are two potential sires, either Asante or Flash; scientists will perform genetic testing to determine the sire when the cubs are old enough to have blood collected.
I thought this from Politico playbook was actually pretty interesting: “The House has really abandoned the McCarthy CR strategy today and has embraced the MATT GAETZ strategy of single subject spending bills.” That was Gaetz last night on a podcast, explaining what transpired in the House on Thursday. And he was not wrong. The Florida Republican, who has been pilloried by Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY and his allies for the last two weeks, wakes up this morning as the architect of the House GOP’s newest legislative strategy. Here’s how it happened. Yesterday, five House Republicans voted down the rule to advance the GOP’s Pentagon spending bill — the third rule defeat McCarthy has suffered this year. Voting down a rule used to be a rare event (the last speaker to lose a rules vote was DENNIS HASTERT). But McCarthy believed he had the votes yesterday because Reps. RALPH NORMAN (R-S.C.) and KEN BUCK (R-Colo.), who both opposed the same rule on Tuesday, agreed to support the rule on Thursday.
Sen. Robert Menendez was indicted Friday for taking bribes to approve arms sales to Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The post Menendez “Appreciated” Meeting With Egypt Dictator Amid Alleged Bribes for Arms Sales appeared first on The Intercept.
The change, snuck into the state budget at the last minute, will shield lawmakers from scrutiny in a state with a history of partisan gerrymandering.
The post North Carolina GOP Hides Redistricting Process From State Public Records Law appeared first on The Intercept.
A strange discovery from flying close to the sun.
The post The Sneaky Force Behind Our Sun’s Violent Outbursts appeared first on Nautilus.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer fascist: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is losing his clout in Florida. College boards, stacked with DeSantis appointees, are rejecting job candidates with ties to the governor. The chair of the Republican Party of Florida urged executive committee members to attend all GOP candidate events — giving cover to party faithful who want to attend a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with former President Donald Trump. And the board that oversees many of Florida’s affordable housing programs this month placed on leave its executive director, who was helped into the job by a top DeSantis adviser. Interviews with nearly two dozen lobbyists, political consultants and lawmakers revealed that DeSantis’ struggles as a presidential candidate have already eroded his influence in Florida. There is a widespread expectation that his candidacy will end in failure. His standing at home may depend on how long he slogs forward in the presidential campaign — and how he will manage his exit from the race if he eventually drops out.
Kevin McCarthy’s constituents watch Fox News LA Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak went to Kevin McCarthy’s district and did some man-on-the-street interviews asking The People what they thought about impeaching Joe Biden. Julian Perea doesn’t hate Joe Biden. If anything, he feels bad for him, given his age and what Perea regards as the president’s severe mental and physical impairment. “The guy is out of it,” Perea said. Even so, the retired Fresno police officer is glad the House of Representatives — led by his congressman, Speaker Kevin McCarthy — has taken the first step toward impeaching the president. “We as conservatives need to fight back,” said Perea, who served more than three decades in the Army and sprinkled his views with several references to war and warfare. “You have to keep the enemy off balance at all times.” . . . “I think it’s a great idea,” said Claudia Warkentin of Biden’s impeachment. The 43-year-old political independent lives in Clovis, a Fresno suburb, and works in the waste-management industry.
The ‘disinformation’ (read: lies and bullshit) being propagated about the indigenous Voice to Parliament by the Murdoch media, among others, harms our society. It promotes division, celebrates and cultivates ignorance and bigotry, oppresses a minority and diminishes us all. Why do we tolerate such behaviour? Such News Corp behaviour has become normal. Any person or Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: Canada, India tensions have sorry history. Plus: BRI shows most countries shun ‘decoupling’; Myanmar rebels ‘will never give up’; China to dominate green car market; Putin and Kim lead ‘axis of outcasts’; China decline the fashionable chatter in Washington. By the time of this month’s G20 summit in New Delhi, Continue reading »
A new US investigative report has excoriated the controversial Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program which included the USS Canberra – commissioned in very unusual circumstances with great fanfare by the US Navy recently in Sydney. Should its revelations about the manifest failures in the USN’s procurement performance – with former officers describing the LCS class Continue reading »
Voice proponents flood the streets of major cities as Australian media battles its ‘cult of forgetfulness.’ Senator Jacinta Price’s National Press Club speech last week generated a lot of publicity – mainly about whether what she said was accurate or not – which it transparently wasn’t. Senator Nampijinpa Price, when asked if she felt there Continue reading »
Where’s Cardinal George Pell when you need him? Gone to God, I know, but as one of the founders and a former Chancellor of Australian Catholic University (ACU), he would be horrified at what is currently happening there. Why? Because, as media outlets reported, ACU has decided “to axe dozens of humanities jobs … entirely Continue reading »
The Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ) has been in the Federal Court this week arguing that the Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek has acted irrationally and unlawfully in her risk assessment of the expansion of 2 very large coal mines in NSW. The proponents of these mines, the Mount Pleasant Optimisation coal mine expansion and Continue reading »
NATO’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, which overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, resulted in a chaotic and murderous failed state. Libyans pay a horrific price for this catastrophe. “We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton famously quipped when Muammar Gaddafi, after seven months of U.S. and NATO bombing, was overthrown in 2011 and Continue reading »
He hates Trump but he just couldn’t quit him Michelle Goldberg read the new Michael Wolfe book about the malevolent Rupert Murdoch which was perfectly timed to coincide with Rupert’s retirement: In his tortured enabling of Trump, Murdoch seems the ultimate symbol of a feckless and craven conservative establishment, overmatched by the jingoist forces it encouraged and either capitulating to the ex-president or shuffling pitifully off the public stage. “Murdoch was as passionate in his Trump revulsion as any helpless liberal,” writes Wolff. The difference is that Murdoch’s helplessness was a choice. Few people bear more responsibility for Trump than Murdoch. Fox News gave Trump a regular platform for his racist lies about Barack Obama’s birthplace. It immersed its audience in a febrile fantasy world in which all mainstream sources of information are suspect, a precondition for Trump’s rise.
Mathematical proofs based on a technique called diagonalization can be relentlessly contrarian, but they help reveal the limits of algorithms.
The post Alan Turing and the Power of Negative Thinking appeared first on Nautilus.
Or can it? What’s the most important issue in all of Washington right now? You just won’t believe it: While the House struggles to fund the government, the Senate has spent the week bitterly debating John Fetterman’s cargo shorts. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to loosen the dress code, which allowed the Pennsylvania senator to preside over the chamber in a short-sleeved work shirt, has prompted a wave of criticism from Republicans, nonstop coverage at Fox News, and now internal caucus divisions as well. “I can’t understand exactly what he was thinking at that point,” Schumer’s top deputy Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said on SiriusXM. “I want to give him the benefit of the doubt until I speak to him, but I think the Senate needs to act on this.” They could get their chance soon: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. is filing a bipartisan resolution next week to “ensure the Senate dress code remains consistent with previous expectations,” a spokesman told NBC News.
The Ukrainian President warned that an escalation in the fighting in Washington could spread to neighboring regions such as Maryland and Virginia.