Category: Uncategorized

Tangerine-Fed Insanity: Over The Weekend, FEMA Workers In Rural North Carolina Received Threats From Armed “Militiamen”. Damn.

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There can be no doubt: this chaos is by design — it is exactly what Tangerine intends, by making completely false threats against hard working federal employees. He (insanely) believes that the more (he pretends) that the world is burning… the greater the chance he can slip in, as a purported. . . strong man.

This is… simply disgusting. We must vote him down, in a landslide — in a little over three weeks now.

Here’s the latest:

…On Saturday, FEMA workers had to halt their work in Rutherford County due to reports National Guard troops saw “armed militia” threatening the workers, CNN affiliate WBTV confirmed after reviewing messages sent to employees of a FEMA contractor. The threats were first reported by the Washington Post….

Some FEMA operations were also paused Sunday in Ashe County, near the borders of Tennessee and Virginia, out of an abundance of caution, Sheriff B. Phil Howell said on Facebook. This included in-person applications for aid in at least two locations “due to threats occurring in some counties,” according to the county’s emergency management office. Those locations reopened Monday, the sheriff and emergency management office announced.

Howell urged residents to “stay calm and steady during our recovery, help folks and please don’t stir the pot….”

Good advice, indeed — will the Tangerine dotard heed it? Don’t hold your breath. [And of course, the Powerline boys will never Rebuke him, for endangering his fellow Americans. Sheesh.]

Out.

नमस्ते

[U] “The IV Supplier To The World” Expects To Fully Recover From Helene By Year End 2024…

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And in the mean time, competitor B.Braun (in central Florida) has reported that Hurricane Milton didn’t do as serious damage as was feared, so it reopened IV manufacturing as of this past Friday.

Even so, it will be months yet that US clinics and hospitals are on “supply / order limits” — to stave off stock-outs. And source plants in the EU, Canada and even China will fly in pallets of bags to shortage-hit areas, under emergency FDA authorizations. Here’s that story from last week, mostly — at NPR:

…Flooding from Hurricane Helene in late September shut down the largest suppliers of IV fluids in the U.S, a factory in Marion, N.C., about 35 miles outside of Asheville. Owned by Baxter International, the plant made products like saline, sterile water for injection and other fluids that are crucial to the health care system.

Now, the company and government officials are trying to make sure existing shortages aren’t worsened by the natural disasters….

[T]he Food and Drug Administration announced it has authorized 19 IV products for temporary importation from Canada, China, Ireland and the U.K.

Baxter is limiting how much of its IV fluids customers like hospitals can buy to prevent hoarding and to try to ensure equitable access to the supply that is available. It’s also trying to increase manufacturing at its other facilities to bridge the gap….

Now you know — and last week, some elective surgeries were being postponed in Dallas for-profit hospitals, due to short supply — of IV sets. And… the Europa Clipper mission has reached a stable orbit.

More prosaically, the Buffs travel to face a tough Arizona team this weekend… onward!

नमस्ते

Update: Mpox Cases Have Now Appeared In Zimbabwe, As Well…

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Add another local African nation to the list of Mpox outbreak geographies here in Fall 2024. Zimbabwe now joins Zambia, DRC, Ghana, Central African Republic, and Nigeria — as nations inside Africa with more than one case.

And so, Zimbabwe faces a public health calamity — with one case in Harare, the capital — and one in the southern corner of the country, in Mberengwa. Here’s that news, via Reuters:

…Zimbabwe has confirmed its first two cases of mpox, the health ministry said on Sunday, without specifying which variant had been recorded.

The first case was detected in an 11-year-old boy who developed symptoms last month after travelling to South Africa, the statement said. The second case was in a 24-year-old man who fell ill after travelling to Tanzania, it said.

Both patients are recovering and contact tracing is underway, the statement said. The cases were in capital Harare and the southern town of Mberengwa….

Now you know… and it seems that a man with several fake passports and a few weapons was picked up this afternoon near a Tangerine rally (he’s a registered Republican and a podcaster about corruption — and his vehicle sports a homemade sovereign citizens movement-type plate). Whatever he was doing there… this is not the answer, folks. Out.

नमस्ते

Tangerine’s 2020 Campaign Settlement Counsel Will have To Appear — On November 20 — To Discuss Damages To Be Paid To Eddy Grant In Manhattan.

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Since summary judgment has already been granted — to the owners of the rights to “Electric Avenue” (which Tangerine stole in his 2020 campaign ads), the discussion will center on how much he must pay for that theft of intellectual property.

Flawless — and a high ranking officer from the 2020 Campaign (or if dissolved, as he has claimed — his current one)… must attend. Here is a bit from the three page order entered at the end of last week:

…No later than five (5) business days before the conference, counsel for each party must send the party’s Ex Parte Settlement Letter, marked “Confidential Material for Use Only at Settlement Conference” to [redacted] @nysd.uscourts.gov. This letter should not be sent to the other parties.

The letter should include, at a minimum, the information described in paragraph 3 of the Procedures. The parties should exchange their initial settlement demands and responses in advance of their Ex Parte Settlement Letter submissions.

The parties — not just the attorneys — must attend the settlement conference. Corporate parties, labor unions, and insurance companies (or any other party that is not a natural person) must send to the conference the person ultimately responsible for giving settlement authority. The parties have represented that party representatives with full settlement authority to participate….

Now you know — and Eddy certainly deserves this payday. He absolutely earned it. Onward.

नमस्ते

In Which Hinderaker… Insults NASA’s Science Teams. Sheesh.

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Hinderaker simps for Musk.

Y A W N.

In the process, he badly mis-states the last 20 years of NASA’s amazing missions. [Spoiler alert: and no surprise — Elon Musk supports Tangerine.]

He makes the preposterous claim that Musk is the only thing “going right” in the US space program.

It goes without saying that John’s opinion is woefully misinformed, and probably even malignantly so.

[Musk has had some success — but his Mars transport rocket is almost just a pipe dream — and a decade late.]

I guess John missed the helicopter missions on Mars, which had exactly zero to do with Elon.

He also forgets the JWST — discovering exoplanets, by the tens of thousands.

In sum, Hinderaker’s NASA knowledge seems to have ended — at about 1998.

What an outdated, irrelevant codger he’s become.

Out.

Kamala Harris Shows A Strong (And Strengthening!) Trend Line — As (Excepting In FL) Tangerine Is… Fading.

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To be sure, the election is very close — especially as to electoral college votes.

But now we are only 22 days away — and prior experience tells us that it will be unlikely that any major shift will occur in these last hours.

And so, on the popular vote, Kamala is likely to win by a margin of over 10 million votes.

Of course, Tangerine will (as a malign would-be despot) litigate all results in swing states. So we may not have a final (court ordered) winner until late December 2024.

But the outcome is pretty clear: Trump will lose. Here’s 538.com’s latest:

…The difference boils down to one thing: trends, not levels.

If you compare Harris’s margin over Trump in polls released Oct. 10 to the results of previous polls by the same pollsters in the same places, Harris’s margin has increased by an average of 0.4 percentage points. And according to our election model, which looks at differences in results among all pollsters to identify whether a firm leans to the left or the right, the polls from Emerson in particular have tended to underestimate Harris compared to polls with the same methodology (a mix of robocalls and online interviews) in the same geographies.

This means our starting point when looking at these new polls is that Harris is doing better than they indicate, by about a point on vote margin, and that she is either holding steady or gaining ground….

That sure sounds right… to me.

So you may safely ignore all of Hinderaker’s belchings.

Out.

Noon Eastern — On Monday — Is Europa Clipper Targeted Launch, Now…

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It may run a bit later, but could also very well go off right on time. [Given that the Powerline boys almost never say anything interesting or note-worthy, now… this will largely be bio-science and space science coverage, through past Election Day.] So it goes:

Weather is not expected to be a factor; and it seems the idea is to get the launch in ahead of the next tropical depression now forming and headed toward the Florida Atlantic coast. In any event, here’s the latest, from Kennedy Launch Center:

…NASA will provide live coverage of prelaunch and launch activities for Europa Clipper, the agency’s mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. NASA now is targeting launch no earlier than 12:06 p.m. EDT, Monday, Oct. 14, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Beyond Earth, Jupiter’s moon Europa is considered one of the solar system’s most promising potentially habitable environments. After an approximately 1.8-billion-mile journey, Europa Clipper will enter orbit around Jupiter in April 2030, where the spacecraft will conduct a detailed survey of Europa to determine whether the icy world could have conditions suitable for life. Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission.

It carries a suite of nine instruments along with a gravity experiment that will investigate an ocean beneath Europa’s surface, which scientists believe contains twice as much liquid water as Earth’s oceans….

Now you know — with a tough night in Boulder now in the books, and Travis Hunter (with what may be a shoulder separation injury) now perhaps not likely to play for a few weeks. There was also an injury to WR/Return Specialist Jimmy Horn, the fastest player on the team. No report on return dates yet for either. Ugh.

नमस्ते

UPDATE: No One In Close Contact (With Any Marburg Patient) May Leave Rwanda, Now — For 21 Days Minimum…

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This is, in my estimation, a sensible and moderate curtailment of personal liberties — to keep both Rwandans — and the wider world… safe. If a putative traveler wishes to board a plane or train, s/he must fill out a questionnaire, to determine if they’ve been in close proximity of a known Marburg case — and to then be tested. They must be symptom free for 21 days, before travel will be authorized by the Rwandan government authorities.

Of course, people will likely still slip across local interior borders unnoticed, on foot, or by car or scooter, but getting out into the wider world generally (and off-continent, certainly) requires a plane ride — or a very long train trek — so health ministers have now imposed a partial travel ban, forbidding anyone who has been exposed to the virus from leaving the country. [At least until they pass a 21 day “no symptoms” waiting period.]

This measured, prudent move seeks to stop the outbreak from spreading beyond its borders. And here is the latest on it all, from the UK’s Sun newspaper:

…An outbreak of Marburg virus, which is a close cousin to Ebola, was first confirmed in Rwanda at the end of last month.

The country has now imposed a partial travel ban, forbidding anyone who has been exposed to the virus from leaving the country.

The move seeks to stop the outbreak spreading beyond its borders.

People wanting to travel abroad from Rwanda will have complete a questionnaire within 24 hours of their departure to report suspicious symptoms, the Rwandan Ministry of Health said….

Do recall that last week, the US CDC began screening arriving Rwandan passengers for Marburg’s. Now you know… and separately, in at least five US states, the drug resistant mpox virus has been recorded, in small clusters.

In any event, onward, on a glorious fall weekend morning — and evening, with Buffs in action at home. Smile.

नमस्ते

Well — Not Surprising. But Now, Martin Shkreli Will Be Required To Appear And Testify Under Oath, In Brooklyn’s Federal Court (Re Wu- Theft) — On November 5, 2024. Oops!

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So — just as we said, Martin is now in very hot water.

He will be live on the stand, with contempt for perjury, clearly on the table. The able USDC Judge Chen will not tolerate any more shenanigans. And jailing is also a common outcome, in a contempt hearing like this one.

Here’s her order, just entered, in full text — on the docket:

…SCHEDULING ORDER:

The Court is in receipt of [38] Defendant’s supplemental affidavit and [39] Plaintiff’s letter in response. In order to resolve the deficiencies in Defendant Shkreli’s affidavits, the Court will hold a hearing on November 5, 2024, at 11:00 AM in Courtroom 4F North at which Defendant Shkreli will be called upon to testify under oath regarding the copying and distribution of the Album’s tracks. Both parties will be permitted to question Defendant Shkreli on these issues.

Ordered by Judge Pamela K. Chen on 10/11/2024….

Hilarious. The cross-examination is going to be devastating (for Martin’s chances of remaining a free man). Maybe he shouldn’t have… lied — in sworn statements, in the Wu- matter. Just a thought.

नमस्ते

Now At Least One Mpox Case, In Zambia — Lukasa. Tough News.

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This sort of country to country spread is to be expected, where as here there has been a delay — in the vaccinations program. Even so, it is discouraging nonetheless — that we now must now face an outbreak in a new geography.

Here is the latest, from Reuters — while we await word on the Clade — II or 1b. . . on this first case. The latter would be the more concerning:

…Zambia’s health ministry on Thursday reported the country’s first case of mpox, without disclosing which variant had been recorded…. [Mpox was] detected in a 32-year-old Tanzanian national who arrived in Zambia in early September, before travelling around the southern African country and developing symptoms including muscle aches, fatigue and a sore throat on Oct. 2.

“Given the patient’s extensive travel history and interactions at multiple points in Zambia, there is heightened risk of local transmission and potential cross-border spread,” the health ministry said in a statement, adding that contact tracing was underway.

The World Health Organization in August declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, as a new variant of the viral infection spread from Democratic Republic of Congo to neighbouring African countries.

The new clade 1b strain has caused global concern as it seems to spread more easily though routine close contact….

Onward, and now you know — he is likely being treated in a rural clinic, and that’s presumably to keep him away from the densely populated capital of Lukasa, and its overcrowded hospitals.

नमस्ते