IHeartBadCode

Preheat and homogenization were not testing in these processes. Both are steps used in most US milk that would likely inactivate the virus. Moral of the story is still you are an idiot if you are drinking raw milk.

Fragments of the virus that are being found in about 20% of all milk sampled. These fragments have not been shown to be enough to make anyone sick. The fact that we’re finding fragments and not intact viruses in store bought milk is a good indication that the various processes used for milk in most locations is doing the job it was intended to do.

And most important of all: This is the current state of evidence gathered on this topic, that state could change with various factors at play and/or the addition of new evidence. Because apparently for some people they have forgotten that “things change as time progresses”.

For instance, this includes minerals for battery and other components to produce EVs and wind turbines – such as iron, lithium, and zinc

I found nothing within the IEA’s announcement that indicates a shortage of those three elements. Iron is like the fourth most abundant thing on the planet.

In fact, this story literally reports this whole thing all wrong. It’s not that there’s a shortage, it’s that the demand for renewables is vastly larger than what we’re mining for. Which “duh” we knew this already. The thing this report does is quantify it.

That said, the “human rights abuses” isn’t the IEA report. That comes from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC).

Specifically, the BHRRC has tracked these for seven key minerals: bauxite, cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc. Companies and countries need these for renewable energy technology, and electrification of transport.

These aren’t just limited to the renewable industry. Copper specifically, you’ve got a lot of it in your walls and in the device that you are reading this comment on. We have always had issues with copper and it’s whack-a-mole for solutions to this. I’m not dismissing BHRRC’s claim here, it’s completely valid, but it’s valid if we do or do not do renewables. Either way, we still have to tackle this problem. EVs or not.

Of course, some companies were particularly complicit. Notably, BHRRC found that ten companies were associated with more than 50% of all allegations tracked since 2010

And these are the usual suspects who routinely look the other way in human right’s abuses. China, Mexico, Canada, and Switzerland this is the list of folks who drive a lot of the human rights abuses, it’s how it has been for quite some time now. That’s not to be dismissive to the other folks out there (because I know everyone is just biting to blame the United States somehow) but these four are usually getting their hand smacked. Now to be fair, it’s really only China and Switzerland that usually does not care one way or the other. Canada and Mexico are just the folks the US convinced to take the fall for their particular appetite.

For example, Tanzania is extracting manganese and graphite. However, he pointed out that it is producing none of the higher-value green tech items like electric cars or batteries that need these minerals

Third Congo war incoming. But yeah, seriously, imperialism might have officially ended after World War II, but western nations routinely do this kind of economic fuckening, because “hey at least they get to self-govern”. It’s what first world nations tell themselves to sleep better for what they do.

Avan also highlighted the IEA’s advice that companies and countries should shift emphasis to mineral recycling to meet the growing demand.

This really should have happened yesterday. But if they would do something today, that would actually be proactive about the situation. Of course, many first world nations when they see a problem respond with “come back when it’s a catastrophe.”

OVERALL This article is attempting to highlight that recycling is a very doable thing if governments actually invested in the infrastructure to do so and that if we actually recycled things, we could literally save ⅓ the overall cost for renewables. It’s just long term economic sense to recycle. But of course, that’s not short term economic sense. And so with shortages to meet demand on the horizon, new production is going to be demanded and that will in turn cause human rights violations.

They really worded the whole thing oddly and used the word shortage, like we’re running out, when they meant shortage as in “we can’t keep up without new production”. They got the right idea here, I just maybe would have worded all of it a bit differently.

US Military (NATO) moving closer to Russia was a provacation that started decades ago

Because Russia during the Soviet era gave Europe every reason to believe the Russian desire to return to 1850s borders. Which that was distinctly something that wasn’t going to happen because it would prompt the exact same situation that begat World War I.

So yeah. Duh! After World War II one would think that “oh let’s finish this as oppose to leaving it hang like we did in WWI” would be something of paramount importance. Much to the chagrin of Russia who thought that they’d get a nice fat cut of the spoils with Germany’s defeat. Surprise the other two members of the Alliance wanted to kind of go the other direction and dismantle colonial Europe and Africa. That’s why Africa post WWII became, well, what it is mostly today.

NATO and the response thereafter has been to ensure independent nations within Europe. Russia has wanted to revive the “glory days” of the Muscovy. So you tell me, who’s being provocative of who? Russia is still angry they didn’t get a lion’s share of Europe post-WWII seeing how they sent the most lives to die in the war, and the US was tired of having to deal with Europe every so often and isolationism just wasn’t fucking working.

Have you seen that we have 800+ military bases outside of the US

Yeah have you also seen the UK’s or France’s? Note anything about those countries and who’s who in WWII? Russia still wants that good old colonialism. I’m mean you need no further evidence of such than Crimea, or Russia’s attitude towards Georgia, or we we can keep going on and on.

Now. The other guys UK/France/US, see they have moved on to, let’s call it economic colonialism. Now the Nation doesn’t technically have foreign governments dictating policy per se, but they use the allure of the dollar to ensure there’s a bias towards being friendly. Is it a better system? It’s pros and cons. It’s sort of how Russia attempts to play that same game with Baltic nations and energy, to which they’re abjectly losing on that front. US kind of top tiered the banking industry early in the game, which pros and cons to that too (see Housing Crisis and how US banks can bring down the world’s economy).

But the point being is the military bases that being an argument for… What? There’s an economic investment that a lot of nations have put in, Russia included, why do you think they have bases in Libya and Sudan? Why do you think Turkey has the relationship it does with Russia even though it’s an EU member?

Our US politicians/military would need to be for negotations, which they are not for, at least majority are not.

Putin doesn’t want to negotiate. Just full stop. There is a projection of strength that Putin has to maintain to keep the level of support he has. The second he says “Oopsie! I guess I got a lot of our fellow citizens killed for no reason.” Is the second his key supporters turn on his ass.

endless wars that are pushed for profits

Who do you think is pushing Putin? You keep going on and on about the rich in the US, you keep forgetting rich assholes are the world around. Until the entire planet gathers around for Kumbaya and unites to destroy greed, guess what we’re going to have to deal with? It’s not a unique US issue, everyone likes to think that the US has some sort of monopoly on rich asshats, they do not. Putin has territorial aspirations and the rich are looking to profit from that desire. So don’t give me this crap that only rich US fuckers want war in perpetuity. There are rich shitheads in every country looking to provoke their nation du jour into some conflict that potentially enriches them. It’s just fun to punch on the US versions of them because the US has a lot of them, with the whole banking system being as it is. But they’re everywhere, Russia included.

You seem to be going on and on about wars and rich people and I’ve got no complaint there, but how the fuck does that even fit into your “Oh NATO be provocating!!” Russia be doing it too. “Oh rich people just want to profit!!” Russia has that same fucking problem. I’m not seeing your argument for why the US and Russia aren’t exactly what I just said.

if person A is acting shitty and person B is acting shitty, why are you expecting non-shitty behavior to come from either?

Your commentary on rich vs poor, yeah cool. What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China? Russia wants it’s land, taking all that land would set us up exactly like what led to World War I. That, to me, does not seem like a good idea to let happen. Russia needs to fucking chill. NATO gets to stay because Europe needs integration not separation. The latter just keeps leading to global conflict, which seems less than ideal to most people.

Putin is much more than a boogeyman because, as is currently on demonstration, he follows through on his desire to conquer.

It’s fun to say boogeyman because it attempts to put our current events as infantile. But Putin is indeed marching in Ukraine, so he’s distinctly NOT a boogeyman when he’s actually doing that whole war thing.

pushing for endless wars

The wars can end on that front the second Putin decides to go home.

As for the US military industrial complex, cool, we can have that conversation when fucksticks in Russia are no longer acting like fucksticks. But they’ve sorta been doing that whole being a giant douche since WWII ended.

That’s not to justify America’s shitty logic, but to point out if person A is acting shitty and person B is acting shitty, why are you expecting non-shitty behavior to come from either?

So it’s endless wars until BOTH countries stop collectively being shitty. Which that’s kind of hard when Putin gets a continual erection from being shitty to Europe.

So you tell Vlad when he’s ready to stop buttering his nipples on making sure Europe live their lives in continued fear and inflated energy prices, we can talk about that whole endless war thing.

“Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power!”

— something, something Arch BTW

Where’s the demand for Hamas to end the conflict and to release the hostages?

Israel hasn’t shown any good faith. I think given the situation, if Hamas completely capitulated it would just hasten their complete extermination.

I honestly cannot say that Israeli would show restraint in a surrender, they’ve displayed none and their rhetoric hasn’t indicated any.

If Hamas was to surrender, I don’t think it would lead to peace because Israel does not look like peace is what they want. I think it would lead to millions being murdered because it seems that is what Israel wants.

I don’t disagree with a need for deescalating the situation and some olive branches being brought out, but Israeli leadership themselves are saying things like the goal is to completely destroy Hamas and Palestinian. That’s genocide talk and Israel hasn’t given us any reason to doubt their ambitions.

I get what you’re saying, but Israel is taking and acting like the bully in a school fight that doesn’t know when the fight’s over. In three months, one percent of the entire population of Gaza has been killed. When a battle starts hitting significant measurable percentage of the civilian population, a wise nation would pause the hostilities and reassess. Israel has done quite the opposite and tripled down on their incursion.

There’s no indication that Hamas doing anything to reduce the situation would actually lead to an outcome that would actually reduce the situation. And there’s every indication that doing so would actually speed up their and their civilian population’s demise.

We believe constitutionally we are right.

Did… Did anyone tell them the SCOTUS ruling? /s

A lot of churches will not see this as a sign for self reflection and will instead blame “woke” whatever.

Strange how raping little children, embezzlement, hate speech, subjugation of women and other abuses by various churches might convince people to not associate with a group that perpetuates that.

They literally are doing this to themselves and regularly fail to understand it like a Principal Skinner meme IRL.

And just so everyone remembers this, Lake Gatún is the primary water source for fresh water in the area.

That little facet plays a non-zero role in any discussion about travel along the canal.

And for those wondering how a canal “uses” water. At some point a lake that was never connected to the ocean, has some small amount of it discharge into the ocean every time a boat moves through the canal.

You can use all kinds of partitions and fancy pumps to reduce the amount of salt water that gets in and fresh water that leaves, but you can never get it to zero. There will always be some salt water getting into the lake and some fresh water making it to the ocean. And that value begins to add up when you have thousands of boats.

Yeah, heading into the 2018 midterm Trump tried to create a border crisis. It didn’t work. This is their election trick, create a lot of smoke, rile up the base, think that it will rile everyone else up.

I mean let’s look at the core aspect of Abbott’s argument from his statement.

That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Right out the gate, Abbott is based his ideology on a dissenting opinion. That is, the NON-MAJORITY finding of the court in Arizona v. United States. In fact, Arizona v. United States indicated explicitly that enforcement of the border was the sole privilege of the Federal Government. So right out the gate Abbott is literally using a case that ruled the opposite of the determination he indicated in his statement.

Additionally, Art. I, § 10, C. 3 of the Constitution.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Historically this was used for Native American invasions of property and so the key factor in cases around this is “will not admit of delay”. Texas is not burning. No historical read of this section of the Constitution supports immigrants coming into the Nation. By definition as we have it thus far, Texas is not being invaded. Additionally, Scalia’s conceptualization of this section, no other Justice has joined in on that understanding. So outside of the opinion of a single justice, a Governor just saying “I’m being invaded! I get to invalidate federal law!” nobody else has ever indicated this is the way it should be read.

With Art. I, § 10, C. 3, you can say “I’m being invaded!” But you still have to follow the law. You can fight invaders and maintain the law of this land, they are not mutually exclusive things, no matter how hard Abbott or Scalia wishes it to be otherwise.

And finally, the Art. IV, § 4 argument.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Again, no court would uphold that Texas is being invaded. But Abbott is adamant about Biden “isn’t enforcing…” And the thing is, Governors do not get to legally make that determination. What laws are and are not being enforced by a President is the sole prerogative of the Executive branch. (Wayte v. United States)

The Governor of Texas cannot just unilaterally make a determination that the President isn’t XYZing. That’s what the court system is for and distinctly the thing that Abbott has lost. If the Governor felt that the President was not holding up their end, they have every right under Article III of the Constitution to take it up there. Which that’s what Abbott did and lost. Also, why when he was questioned if his defiance would be upheld by SCOTUS, he merely indicated that he felt the 5th Circuit would uphold it. Meaning, he knows that SCOTUS will overturn any determination the Governor is making on this front.

And with all of that, his core argument has nothing. It’s easy to pick apart. Now here’s the thing, Gov. Abbott is not stupid in the legal sense. He’s quite aware that his determination is unfounded. He’s banking on stirring the pot enough to make either Biden do something so that can be plastered all over the place or getting the issue fresh into his base’s minds.

And like I said, this is exactly what they did 2018 and lost. Abbott is just trying to get under everyone’s skin and he seems determined to spend as much of Texan taxpayers’ money in litigation to do that one thing.

I submit Nintendo’s online service as evidence that, that is not true in the least bit. MK8, Smash, Splatoon 3, all of them have atrocious online. Pokemon Unite using Tencent’s online services runs circles around anything Nintendo has offered with online being a major factor and that’s on same hardware.

Nintendo has their IP and they take extremely good care of it. No argument there. But holy shit is Nintendo’s online service absolute trash. I will always have something Nintendo because I must always have my Animal Crossing, but holy fuck, let’s not kid ourselves about Nintendo’s online stuff. Anything that’s using Nintendo’s servers for match making or their network stack for connectivity is just garbage.

I will always love a good Mario, Pikmin, or Animal Crossing but Nintendo clearly isn’t investing a single cent into online anything. And that is just my 2¢.

Texas has a relatively huge economy that we kind of depend on

They’re physically located in Texas yes, but Texas doesn’t own them, they’re privately owned or owned by a foreign nation. Like the largest oil refinery in Texas isn’t even US, it’s owned by the Government of Saudi Arabia. Texas isn’t claiming ownership of that.

In fact a lot of Texas’ economy relies on access to the US dollar, of which they would absolutely lose access to if there was even the hint of leaving. One of the things that really boiled over in the US Civil War was that the United States indicated to its trading partners of the time, that they could not do deals with the rebel states. The South was quickly going broke. It would literally be the exact same thing in present day, Texas wouldn’t have an economy because the one thing that keeps that economy running is something they would absolutely lose. Access to every trading partner on the planet.

At best they might be able to do bilateral trade with not friendly to the US, but they wouldn’t be able to ship it out. The Gulf of Mexico is firmly the United States and Texas distinctly has no navy even closely matching the United States. They can’t go south because “of obvious reasons”, and they wouldn’t be allowed in any airspace and likely the FAA would ban every single flight in and out of the State.

But remove the fact that they would have to take State ownership of private business and somehow sneak large quantities of it out of their State. The other country they’re trading with knows Texas is trading at a disadvantage. There’s no way they’re asking fair market value for shit. There’s no way those dollars sustain their economy. Losing access to the US dollar would absolutely wreck Texas’ economy and that’s the exact point, because when enough Texans are hungry and their economy has turned to dust, the citizens will likely have a heart-to-heart with their Governor about this whole “leaving” businesses.

Also this would absolutely fuck over all the not-assholes that live down there

Ah yeah, it will. I live in Tennessee and know full well that should our State decide to “leave” that basically I’m dead. Between the likely intolerance to people sticking to the middle ground and an almost certain conscription, the not-assholes would likely be the first among the dead. I mean, that’s just how civil conflict works anywhere. It sucks and is also a pretty good reason that taking the middle ground is not always ideal.

I just want Biden to do something other than give stern words of warning

Well the thing to remember is that we’re supposed to be a country of law and order. We’re supposed to settle things inside a court room. And ideally, that’s where Biden should go. Abbott’s reasoning is completely unsound legally and relies on a reading of Art. I, § 10, C. 3 that’s only enjoyed by Scalia.

I get the temptation to hand out smack down, but we should stick to order at all times. Even with the Civil War before, the US waited until the Confederates struck first. All the cards are in the US government’s favor. All the economic factors are in the US favor. There’s not a whole lot that Texas has over the United States on this matter. There’s no reason for the US to even remotely push on the matter while Abbott is clearly content with digging his own grave here.

Yeah, he’s using a reading of Art. I, § 10, C. 3 that only Scalia has ascribed to. There’s literally nothing in this statement that he released that has any kind of sound legal footing.

Even more interesting, Arizona v. United States literally said that the Federal Government and more specifically, Congress has an undeniable and broad right to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization. Literally the case Abbott is stating and using as justification says the exact opposite of what he is saying in his determination. I mean literally it establishes that the US CANNOT have 50 different immigration standards.

So I guess Abbott is looking for more litigation to blow his state’s money on?

And just to pour it on. Remember that Intuit had a PowerPoint presentation that leaked that indicated the number of challenges they have faced with Congress and the IRS repeatedly trying to create a return-free system. One of the slides from that PowerPoint.

It’s amazing to think how much energy and money Intuit has spent to prevent simple taxes for the American public. Like it’s been a thing they’ve been doing since the early 90s. They have gone to great lengths to deny people the ability to just click a button on the IRS website and call it done. The fact that we are actually getting Direct File is in itself an amazing accomplishment considering the massive amount of energy the tax preparation industry has tossed at ensuring this one thing, DID NOT HAPPEN.

Like if anyone actually sits and reads the history of Intuit and the US tax system, it’s just some amazing, I cannot believe this happened IRL. Just the sheer knowing how evil they are and how they didn’t care because it could affect their bottom line. They knew that they were falsely steering people into their paid product out of the Free File program and they didn’t need to that to them. There were internal memos that were published where they admitted, “this is not in the spirit of the program” but failed to change course because “doing so would have significant impact of delivery of product to paying customers.”

And the sheer level of money, people, energy, lobbying, etc they were throwing stopping all of this from happening. It’s incredible. And yet, we’re finally getting a pilot program to do some basic things directly with the Government. How Congress managed the squeak it out is a testament to how so many people wanted to indicate that Democrats did nothing with the two years they were given, and just this one thing was monumental and it’s barely anything.

Because the people pushing back to prevent it, the term deep pockets, doesn’t even begin to explain it. Like I never thought we would ever get a program like this. Yes, it’s massively crippled BUT IT’S SOMETHING. It’s just wild that this exists this year, I cannot even think of good words to describe how impossible this felt not but five years ago.

Just FYI, for people living in the following states:

• Arizona
• California
• Florida
• Massachusetts
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New York
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Washington
• Wyoming

You will be able to participate in the pilot program called Direct File.

Unlike Free File, Direct File is open to any income level and is NOT through a third party provider. You are directly filing with the IRS. That said, it is indeed a pilot program and it does not offer many of the usual IRS forms, so check the website to see if you can use this or not.

And for those wondering. Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing Intuit et al lobbied hard to Congress back in 2022 to not pass.

Obviously this isn’t the return free system we’ve been promised since the 80s. But it is a good first step. The IRS has been tasked to report back to Congress when the pilot is over this year. For all we know the new system may work correct right out of the box, may eat some children, or cause the Hoover dam to explode. This is the first time the IRS has been allowed to build such a thing for the public.

Hopefully this all goes off without a hitch, because every success with Direct File is a kick to Goodarzi’s nuts. Here’s hoping this is the first step towards simplified taxes/return free taxes.

Very light details from the court on this.

The application to vacate injunction presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is granted. The December 19, 2023 order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, case No. 23-50869, is vacated.

I would be cautious to read any deeper than that. The issue for the injunction wasn’t “does Texas have a right to protect their border?” The lower court had sided with Texas that the US had waived its sovereign immunity from state tort claims seeking injunctive relief, via the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

Quick primer for those not knowing. A bill is a purposed thing in Congress, if both chambers approve it and the President signs it, it becomes law. These laws can be something like “The Department of Transportation shall build a highway that connects Wapakoneta, OH to Indianapolis, IN” The Department of Transportation is then allowed to build a road and they have to publish all kinds of rules about how they’re going about building it (because remember the law only says build a road, not where to build it, out what material, etc…). We call this regulation. Regulation is NOT law (as Congress+President can only do that) but can carry the weight of it.

The APA is a law that sets up a procedure for regulation. Texas had argued that the Biden Administration did not check off all of the boxes required by the APA to remove the razor wire fence that Texas had erected. The Administration had indicated that, Texas was the one violating all kinds of Federal stuff, there isn’t a need to check the specific boxes that Texas indicated in Court because Texas is the one who started this whole mess. The Fifth Circuit agreed with Texas that “Hey look, I get it, Texas is being a weak ass bitch. BUT, APA says so on those check boxes”. It was a really technical win for Texas.

So it basically boiled down to a question of where those specific line items in the APA are applicable when Texas is the one being the bitch about everything? I’m doubtful SCOTUS viewed this as a larger question about State vs Federal because even the Fifth Circuit (who is very conservative) indicated that the Federal Government was mostly right, BUT, if they didn’t like them forcing that part of the APA on them (the US Government), Congress ought to go back and clarify things.

EDIT: Oh I guess I should indicate what the whole spat started over. Last October Border Patrol snipped some razor wire fence that Texas had put up. Texas sued for destruction of State Property. That’s what this whole thing is all about. Now that the fence can be fully removed with this order from SCOTUS, it’s likely that Texas will seek recompense for their property (AKA, Texas will attempt to make the US taxpayer pay for the clean up of the fence and the US government will likely want to send the clean up bill to Texas).

We go live to the superintendent in a special event already underway.

that it isn’t simply the idealism of an age gone by

It is always this. I mentioned Angela Davis’ book and in it she makes the point that we celebrate these monumental moments because they tell us a story. A story of democracy triumphant. But those events they weren’t in reality 100% monumental, they were big yes, but always the details paint a complex story.

It isn’t an age gone by because it is an age that hasn’t come. And it’s not an age to ever come. It’s an idea, a dream, a thing for us to work towards always. If you ever look at the Great Seal of the United States you’ll notice an incomplete pyramid. It’s to symbolize that our work is never done. Because the people who created this nation knew, democracy was never going to be a government that could ever be a one and done situation.

The generation which commences a revolution rarely completes it.

— Thomas Jefferson

American history is not something dead and over. It is always alive, always growing, always unfinished.

— John F. Kennedy

The unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us.

— Barack Obama

If bad faith in kind breeds more bad faith and our own good faith is weaponized against the public good, then what?

The young. For all the ills and failures of society that old people seem to mete out, it is routinely the young that cure it.

It is short sighted, but just what else am I supposed to see beyond the cliff we’re hurtling towards?

That is perhaps the most beautiful thing about all of this. You cannot see beyond the cliff, it’s not short sighted, it’s being pragmatic. Big ideas like equality and democracy these are things that ask us to look past what’s in front of us.

And for that reasons is why it is faith in each other that we’re going to make this world better for the younger generations, that we will somehow provide the children of this world the tools that they need to continue onward with this unfinished work. There’s a saying, I’m likely to butcher it, but it goes “nothing of value was obtained with ease.” I know that faith is routinely shaken in this world, but though you cannot see it we must hold faith that we will keep going.

And I am no person of religion so faith in something isn’t something that I just peg as ordained or providence will see us though. The faith I speak of is found in people. I have seen people come together in common cause to set off change. Heck, we’ve mentioned a few in our previous comments. People are strong and that strength is what strikes fear in all those who bring the ills we’re talking about in this world.

That’s how you know it’s true, if there was no strength, they would not spend so much energy trying to divide us. They, the ruling class and rich, know this already and sometimes it’s difficult for us to believe.

I see younger kids these days and goddamn are they clever as hell. Young and unbridled at times yes, but they seems to be keenly aware of the shoddy situation they’ve been placed into and seem more than ever willing to address it. Sometimes a bit misguided, but that’s just inexperience not malice.

You know sometimes I listen to that song by Louis Armstrong, What A Wonderful World. The man lived through two world wars and segregation, what wonderful world could he have been talking about? And I am starting to see it now. He’s talking about potential in this world. He lived in the “the worse” for him and the children he sees are born ahead of that with all the unseen possibilities ahead of them.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow, They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know. And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I know that there’s going to be a world I cannot even imagine, that’s going to make the world I live in feel shameful. And I know that, because I have faith that it will come to pass. Maybe it is false hope, maybe we will not turn the wheel before we get to the cliff. But buying into the notion that it is a false hope seems to sell short the limitless possibilities this world can be made into and the great strength of the people who inhabit this world.

For melanoma at the moment.

However, it is a TLPO vaccine which teaches your immune system one of the tricks cancer uses to evade being taken care of by your white blood cells. So it’s application could be huge.

That said, as you might have noticed, it has to be personalized for the patient as it targets the specific way your cancer is hiding itself. Personalized medicine is still very expensive, but quickly being able to ID the specific sequence of DNA that gave your cancer it’s hiding ability could be something that computers help us with one day.

So if this does get approved, it will likely be incredibly expensive per patient.

If they still can recognize such a simple reality, that recognition comes with a price that is often decided as not worth paying for those people, for whatever reasons they tell themselves

Let me quote you something:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

— Judge Learned Hand (1944)

The fight of a right is indeed one thing, but it does not win the hearts of people. An injustice revealed at a cost of another injustice does not win the hearts of people. The US Civil War won us the 13th amendment but it did not win the hearts of the people. Law is a piece of paper and means only that which people extend to it and no more. Law protects the people to the extent that law is enforced by the people and no less.

Out of the Civil War came share cropping, Jim Crow laws, and disenfranchisement of those who were formerly enslaved. The evil didn’t abate, it evolved. It was not the blood shed there that gave salvation, it was the blood there that began the march.

Wouldn’t it be better to still remain chattel while trying to think of how to solve this all amicably

Absolutely not, but at the same time it’s foolish to think it was settled. And that’s the point I am making, no win is absolute, but every loss is an erosion. This “win” that the other person believes it to be is not such. It is a win if you are of the mindset that the crimes or Trump require a person who took an oath to uphold the law in bad faith was justified.

In your life you’ve likely wanted this world to be different, to be equal. But that can only be found not by law onto others but by mindset by others. And if law requires equality and the minds of people have not change, no sheet of paper can protect us unless we have faith in that sheet of paper. No document can prevent evil unless we maintain faith in the people who have sworn an oath to do such.

Is that not the problem we see? People who wear uniforms who swear to serve and protect in constant violation of that? People who have taken oath to hold those in violation of that promise who fail to uphold their end of the bargain?

I would say, people taken it upon themselves to believe that ends justify the means is the root of the problem, not the solution. That is why I ask do we believe we got the win in the Civil War? With the 19th Amendment? And the answer is what I’ve said to the other person.

There is no top of the hill. There is no “out”. Democracy is not a spectator sport, it requires all of us to continually and forever until the last of us is gone, fight the indoctrination with education, fight the power grabs with justice, and fight greed with humility.

The events I speak about are not a conclusion of things, but the start of things. They are not wins, they events that direct us. Change us and show our resolve to continue. Evil sinks back because they believe we are resolute and when we show that we are not, then our struggle becomes more difficult.

And to quote:

What I fear about many of these observances is that they tend to enact historical closures. They are represented as historical high points on a road to an ultimately triumphant democracy

— Angela Davis (Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities)

In short, the idea that “freedom” continues with the shedding of blood is incorrect or in the best of light, short sighted. Freedom is maintained in the minds and hearts of the people and when ephemeral wins come at the cost of holding no faith to an oath to protect and uphold the law. Then it is no real win, it is an erosion. There are too many examples of how bad faith poisoned the US in the Reconstruction Era that followed the US Civil War. Of how bad faith fueled hate groups to win the hearts and minds of the people at that time.

Perhaps that won’t be the case with this revelation. I honestly hope you all are correct and I am incorrect, to me that would be best for me to be incorrect on this event. I would want nothing more. But any weakness in our resolve to be a nation of laws is a strength to authoritarianism. Any action of bad faith courts more of the like and makes repulsion that more difficult.