What's in the News 3.0

[Lilias]

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, the scientists who laid the groundwork that led to the development of mRNA vaccines, are awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03046-x

The imminent antivaxxer meltdowns are going to be delicious.

[Beorning]

Speaking of antivaxxers, I read yesterday that the Covid vaccine contains HIV!  :o Oh my oh my, we're all doomed...  ;D

[GloomCookie]

Colorado has released a new minimum energy code and it caught NPR's attention which means it caught my attention, as this is my area of expertise.

The provisions they've introduced is basically a 28 page document amending the International Building Codes that adds requirements that for new construction (Note that it doesn't specifically limit this to new construction it just says inspections so looks like I have something to investigate in the morning at work) buildings both commercial and residential shall be Electric Ready, EV Vehicle Ready, and Solar Ready. So what does all this mean?

Electric Ready means that effectively, even if a building uses natural gas/propane in their current plans, they have to be prepared for the day that Colorado turns off the supply of natural gas/propane and go all electric. This is a growing trend that was started in New York and has spread elsewhere, though some places like Florida were already electric ready, mostly because you can't get natural gas piped to your home in Florida.

EV Vehicle Ready. This means you have a certain number of spots (which this document doesn't specify so another thing I get to investigate tomorrow) that must be EV ready. California already mandates that you must have a certain number of EV charging locations and some states like Massachusetts do as well, so nothing spectacular there.

Solar Ready. California is the only state that I know of that requires Solar Ready but currently none of the other codes require solar panels currently. That said, the 2024 edition of the International Energy Conservation Code does have provisions similar to California so it's entirely possible they're jumping the gun a bit and getting ready. I have a copy of the 2024 IECC I need to read through but honestly it doesn't go into effect until January 2025 so I'm not exactly in a big rush to get to it. I do know that California mandates you must have a certain amount of square footage (using a very complex formula) that must be designated as Solar Ready, effectively giving owners the option to install solar panels in the future but aren't strictly required. This happens because California's cutoff is 4kWDC (kiloWatts Direct Current) and anything below that isn't required to put solar panels or batteries.

In short, this document is going to cause headaches and is going to cause problems. Not because it's requiring more solar, but because it's vague and isn't helpful. The IECC is taking a page from ASHRAE which is taking a page from California's Title 24 trying to get ahead of the code. Unfortunately, while Colorado is one state that remains fairly up to date on the newest standards, not every state is. Oklahoma is using the 2006 version of IECC, Arkansas and Missouri are using the 2009, Texas' state code is 2015 IECC (though some places like Houston are more modern), so on and so forth. So while this is kinda neat, it will take a while to trickle down to the other states because energy codes do unfortunately have a cost to them that make implementing these codes expensive, and for economically depressed states, it tends to mean new construction costs are a major consideration that goes into what edition the state uses.

[TheGlyphstone]

https://apnews.com/article/congress-fire-alarm-jamaal-bowman-house-bc9c1cca01fa918999621e0f7eb27165

This baffles me. I have a very hard time believing that a competent adult would mistake a fire alarm for a door handle. But I also can't figure out what he would have wanted to gain from doing it on purpose either.

[GloomCookie]

He could be an idiot. He voted for the spending, and given it was 335 for, 91 against, there wasn't really much of a risk of his one vote being a major swing in the House.

[Missy]

Wait, an idiot in the highest house in the last!? How could such a thing happen!?

[Missy]

land not last *sigh*

if this was on my phone that wqould say 'last not last', no joke.

[GloomCookie]

McCarthy has been ousted from his role as Speaker of the House which is beyond stupid. Because of 8 Republican hardliners, Congress is now crippled and unable to function until a new Speaker is appointed, this leaves the 3rd in line for succession open, and with a looming clock before the next government shutdown nothing can be done until this is handled first.

But I'm not really shocked anymore. This is going to backfire on so many people so hard.

In other news, the judge in Trump's business fraud case has put a gag order on Trump, which means he can no longer talk about the case to the media. Los Angeles is using AI to predict who might become homeless and tackle the problem before it becomes one. FEMA is testing the emergency alert system Wednesday afternoon nationwide. And the Vatican is hosting a convention of top officials to possibly include women and LGBTQ+ members of the clergy.

So lots of stuff going on in our crazy little world.

[Al Terego]

McCarthy has been ousted from his role as Speaker of the House which is beyond stupid. Because of 8 Republican hardliners, Congress is now crippled and unable to function until a new Speaker is appointed, this leaves the 3rd in line for succession open, and with a looming clock before the next government shutdown nothing can be done until this is handled first.

[Missy]

McCarthy has been ousted from his role as Speaker of the House which is beyond stupid. Because of 8 Republican hardliners, Congress is now crippled and unable to function until a new Speaker is appointed, this leaves the 3rd in line for succession open, and with a looming clock before the next government shutdown nothing can be done until this is handled first.

But I'm not really shocked anymore. This is going to backfire on so many people so hard.

I really hope it does, I'm not calling the Democrats Angels or anythign ,they're really not, they're just not as bad as the GOP, I really hope everyone remembers this little maga stunt in a year, Republicanism has been overtaken by the Nazi's and this time there's no intelligent people to run it.

[Missy]

KUH-CHING!

[Keelan]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/05/politics/biden-administration-border-wall/index.html

So Biden's going to build (more of) 'The Wall'... and is bypassing federal laws to do it... namely a bunch of laws around environmentalism and conservation from the examples in the article.

Seems this is in response to "high illegal entry"

[Chulanowa]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/05/politics/biden-administration-border-wall/index.html

So Biden's going to build (more of) 'The Wall'... and is bypassing federal laws to do it... namely a bunch of laws around environmentalism and conservation from the examples in the article.

Seems this is in response to "high illegal entry"

it sure is interesting how, no matter what, the Biden Administration is always completely powerless to do anything about anything, ever. The man's hands are always tied. Wild how eager he is to have four more years of utter and complete powerlessness to do anything for anyone at all, ever.

[Oniya]

When I was a kid, there was a Saturday morning thing called Schoolhouse Rock.  One of the clips was about how the checks and balances system worked.  The metaphor used was that of a three-ring circus... and seems oddly prophetic in its imagery of Congress.

[TheGlyphstone]

When I was a kid, there was a Saturday morning thing called Schoolhouse Rock.  One of the clips was about how the checks and balances system worked.  The metaphor used was that of a three-ring circus... and seems oddly prophetic in its imagery of Congress.

I can still remember most of the lyrics to 'I'm just a Bill', and I can sing the preamble to the Constitution easier than I can recite it.

[Oniya]

I can still remember most of the lyrics to 'I'm just a Bill', and I can sing the preamble to the Constitution easier than I can recite it.

One year, Mr. Oniya's history class had a quiz where they had to write the preamble.  The teacher caught a couple people humming and demanded to know what was going on.  The entire class (starting with the boldest, but eventually all of them joined in) sang the song, including the 'tran-quil-i-tee-ee-ee-ee'.

Teacher collected the papers, and said 'You all pass.'

[Regina Minx]

This is a map of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which would be on the Palestinian side of the proposed "two-state solution" that was proposed way back in the Clinton administration.

Essentially, right-wing activists took it upon themselves to colonize Palestinian territory. And you can see that they're not progressing geographically, moving from west to east in a systematic fashion. No, they're seizing crucial points throughout the territory, to make sure that Palestine cannot be formed without either being some patchwork state that can't function or that these right-wingers get left behind in any settlement and massacred, knowing full well that the state of Israel will protest this.

This is what apartheid looks like. This is Israel attempting to colonize Palestine and seize it for themselves. Well, when you create an apartheid state, one should not be surprised when the colonized strike back.

That makes, of course, the loss of life that will proceed from the outbreak of hostilities today both inevitable and regrettable and I have nothing to say beyond "I hate this."

[GloomCookie]

To expand more on what Regina just talked about.

This is CNN's bullet list of what is going on as of 1633 CDT on 7 October 2023, links are to appropriate articles for more in depth coverage.
* Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is "at war" after Gaza militants launched a surprise attack Saturday morning, firing thousands of rockets and entering Israel by land, sea and air using paragliders.
* At least 200 people have died and hundreds of others are wounded in Israel, officials said. Fighting has carried through the day, and a fresh round of rocket attacks hit areas in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening.
* In Gaza, at least 232 Palestinians have died and more than 1,600 are wounded, the Palestinian health ministry said. Israel launched air strikes on the territory in response to the attack.
* Hamas claims it has captured dozens of Israelis, including soldiers, and videos authenticated by CNN show some of the dramatic seizures. Israel's military has acknowledged hostages were taken.

Because this is likely to get serious coverage similar to the current war in Ukraine, I am going to spin this off into its own thread located here.

[Beorning]

Election day in Poland.

This is the last chance we might have to turn this country around. If we don't kick PiS out of power today, Poland might be finished as a democratic country.

I'm worried, as PiS might be pulling a ton of ugly tricks, even if they don't actually win. The one potential problem is that a lot of votes posted by Poles abroad might be thrown away, as PiS seems to have deliberately made it difficult for these votes to be counted in time. And considering a lot of Poles abroad are against in PiS...

Overall, this elections were anything but fair.

[Missy]

Good luck friend

[Al Terego]

Best of luck!

[Beorning]

Ooooooh. Exit polls are very promising!

If the polls are correct, then PiS won again... but they won't be able to form a majority. The current prediction for the MP split in the new parliament (Sejm, the lower chamber, to be exact), are:

PiS (Law and Justice) = 200
KO (Civic Coalition) = 163
Trzecia Droga (Third Way) = 55
Nowa Lewica (New Left) = 30
Konfederacja (Confederation) = 12

So, 5 parties. KO, TD and NL have been long promising to form a new government together, as they are all the pro-democracy parties. None of them want to have anything to do with PiS. The only other party PiS could recruit for a ruling coalition is the far-right Konfederacja... but, even if these guys were interested, their result is thankfully abysmal. Even with 212 MPs, PiS wouldn't have a chance at a majority...

So, PiS won, but also lost. Let's hope nothing unexpected happens (like some sort of PiS dirty tricks), this awful government is out.

Of course, PiS loves their dirty tricks, so... we'll see. But the hope is back.

[Beorning]

Links for relevant articles:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/europe/poland-election-voting-intl

https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/10/15/exit-poll-shows-polish-ruling-party-winning-election-but-opposition-government-more-likely/

[Annaamarth]

I heard this news elsewhere, Beorning, and thought of you.

Here's hoping we get to see Donald Tusk (the superior Donald T) on the international stage!

[Beorning]

Well, he has been the "president of the EU" for a few years now, so he has already had some international-level career :) Plus, he used to be our Prime Minister in the past, too.

Anyway, thank you for your thoughts. Finally some hope. I'm only concerned for any dirty moves PiS might start pulling now...