The first three chapters of my latest book are on the Amazon webpage. (Click on the ‘Look inside’ link.) The publisher’s webpage is here and you can also buy it from any major retailer. (Note: This will be the new top post for a while. Later posts are below.)
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, I will be taking a break from blogging for the next few days.
The state of Texas has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, resulting in the needless deaths of women whom doctors were fearful of treating for pregnancy-related problems because the state could prosecute them under the law. ProPublica has been exposing these cases and reports on yet another one.
Wrapping his wife in a blanket as she mourned the loss of her pregnancy at 11 weeks, Hope Ngumezi wondered why no obstetrician was coming to see her.
Over the course of six hours on June 11, 2023, Porsha Ngumezi had bled so much in the emergency department at Houston Methodist Sugar Land that she’d needed two transfusions. She was anxious to get home to her young sons, but, according to a nurse’s notes, she was still “passing large clots the size of grapefruit.”
[Read more…]
I like the card game bridge and play in local duplicate club tournaments about twice a week. Depending on the game or the preference of the director, the hands that are played are either shuffled and dealt by the players at the beginning of the session or are hands that have been previously generated by a computer and arranged by a dedicated card sorter.
In bridge, each of the four players starts with 13 cards and if the deck of cards has been completely randomized before being dealt, the distribution of the four suits (in any order) can vary from somewhat even distributions such as 4-4-3-2 (21.6% probability) to the next most likely 5-3-3-2 (15.5%), 5-4-3-1- (12.9%). 5-4-2-2- (10.6%), 4-3-3-3 (10.5%) and then starts dropping sharply until it gets to 9-3-1-0 (0.01%). More skewed distributions are even rarer. (The Official Encyclopaedia of Bridge (1984))
A common refrain that I hear from players at the table is that they feel that the hands that are generated by the computer tend to have more skewed distributions than the ones shuffled and dealt at the table. They think that whoever is in charge of the computer that generates the hands tend to program it that way in order to provide greater challenge. I heard this so often that I became curious if this was the case and looked it up to see if there was anything to this bit of bridge folklore.
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The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. You can read the ruling here.
Jeremy Scahill amd Murtaza Hussain report that this is the first time that a leader favored by the US and western powers has been held to account.
In its ruling, the court explicitly rejected arguments made by Israel and the U.S. that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Israel. “The acceptance by Israel of the Court’s jurisdiction is not required, as the Court can exercise its jurisdiction on the basis of the territorial jurisdiction of Palestine,” the court said.
“This is a watershed event in the history of international justice. The ICC has never, in over 21 years, indicted a pro-Western official. Indeed, no international court since World War II has done so,” said human rights attorney and war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody. “Up until now, the instruments of international justice have been used almost exclusively to address crimes by defeated adversaries as in the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, powerless outcasts, or opponents of the West such as Vladimir Putin or Slobodan Milošević.”
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Trump’s controversial nominee for attorney general has withdrawn his name for the position. This took me by surprise since just this morning the House ethics committee was deadlocked on whether to release their report on the various allegations of sexual misconduct, some involving minors, that have plagued him for years. I thought that move would clear the way for his nomination to go through.
In his statement, Gaetz gave the usual ‘for the good of the country’ pablum.
After meeting with senators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Gaetz determined that his nomination was “becoming a distraction to the critical work” of the new Trump administration, he explained on X.
“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s [justice department] must be in place and ready on Day 1,” Gaetz said.
…The announcement comes one day after the House ethics committee deadlocked over releasing its report on allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl. The justice department launched its own inquiry of the allegations but declined to bring charges, and Gaetz has consistently denied the claims.
Infowars was the site where Alex Jones promoted all his conspiracy theories. Probably the most hateful one was where he claimed that the massacre of 20 first grade children and six teachers at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 never happened but that all the family members and friends and colleagues seen grieving were ‘crisis actors’, advancing the cause of gun control. Not only did this cause those families great pain, but Jones’s lunatic followers took it upon themselves to seek out and harass them, with some of them having to move repeatedly to escape them.
They sued Jones and won $1.5 billion in damages that required Jones to sell off his assets. He tried to declare bankruptcy to evade it but the courts ruled that this maneuver was not allowed.
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The prolific author Georges Simenon, in the years between 1931 and 1972, published 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Jules Maigret, a police officer working in Paris in the mid-twentieth century.
In some ways the stories resemble Columbo in that the focus is not on providing a surprise ending. In many stories, like Columbo, Maigret strongly suspects who the criminal is early on and sets about finding ways to get evidence against him. Like Columbo, he prefers not to use his first name and is referred to as just Maigret, even by his wife. Like Columbo, he is said to be happily married with no children. But unlike with Columbo, his wife does appear in the stories in a supportive and empathetic role. Also unlike Columbo who works alone and seems to be given a free hand by his superiors, Maigret has a team of assistants to aid him but is often interfered with by his superiors for political reasons.
Maigret is a middle-aged man who smokes a pipe and is soft-spoken, contemplative, and measured in his utterances. He is extremely low key and in solving cases, he uses psychology to to get in the mind of the victim and the criminal, trying to figure out the reasons behind their actions. He is kind, empathetic, and a good listener and is known to be highly ethical and thus respected even by the criminal classes.
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I wrote earlier that when Sarah McBride was elected as a member of the House of Representatives, that her taking office on January 3rd would upset the bigots in Congress because she is a trans woman. I forgot that new members actually arrive on Capitol Hill much earlier than that so that they can go through orientation, set up their offices and staff, etc.
Already, the anti-transgender publicity hogs in the GOP like Nancy Mace and Margery Taylor Greene have decided to take action to prevent McBride from using the women’s bathrooms.
After Delaware elected the first ever openly transgender member of Congress earlier this month, a Republican introduced a bill to ban her from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity.
The South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace introduced the bill, which comes a little less than two months before Sarah McBride is due to be sworn in as the first openly transgender member of Congress. The measure would charge the House sergeant at arms with enforcing the bill, though it is unclear exactly how, according to the Hill.
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace told reporters on Monday, according to CNN. She added that Mace “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop”.
McBride has responded to this tantrum like a adult.
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Joe Biden has been cravenly subservient to whatever the Israeli government does. Nowhere has this been more apparent that his non-response to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and their additional brutal assault on Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and their attacks on Lebanon. Kamala Harris’s failure to distance herself from those policies and refusing to even allow a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic convention hurt her with many Arab-American voters and also those who are outraged at what is going there, though whether it was decisive in her defeat is unclear.
The one tiny step that Biden took was to say in October that he would cut off military aid to Israel if they did not increase the supply of food, water, medicine, and other essential items to Gaza where they have been deliberately starving the population, a war crime of staggering proportions. The target that Israel had to meet to prevent this cut off was very modest, just an increase from the almost zero that was going in at the time of the ultimatum. Biden also conveniently put the deadline to be after the election.
Well, that deadline finally arrived with Israel not doing anything close to meeting the targets and, to no one’s surprise, Biden decided not to carry out his threat.
Jonah Valdez writes about what happened.
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I have written before about how the neighborhood app Nextdoor seems to be an outlet for people who like to complain and go off on tangents responding to other people’s posts.
Jay Martel writes about how people might react on the app if the Rapture signaling the End Times was to occur and the chosen were suddenly whisked up into heaven.
Does anyone know what’s going on in the Smithfield area? People flying around, hellfire, terrible traffic.
Inconsiderate driver partially blocked my driveway with his car, then flew up into the sky before I could get him to move it. Super annoying! What is wrong with people???
Anyone else experiencing a power outage? And hundred-pound hailstones?
These three suspicious men dropped out of sky in front of my house, on the 400 block of North Jones, hung out there for a bit, then ran toward my driveway blowing horns and flew off, heading toward Oakwood. They were wearing white hoodies, feathery wings, halos. Doorbell camera fortunately caught the whole thing. Be on the lookout—they may be the porch pirates who’ve been stealing our Amazon packages.
Anyone know of a reliable house cleaner? Can’t deal with flakes.
Have this ongoing dispute with my neighbor about his tree growing out of control over my fence, dropping staining seedpods all over my newly tiled patio (see photo), and he finally agreed to meet about it. But then he doesn’t show up! I go over, and his wife says he “ascended to Heaven.” Seriously? Some people will do anything to get out of their obligations! #neednewneighbors
Very suspicious man with wings seen on North Elm yelling about end of the world. Hate that mental patients are just free to harass whomever and the police can’t do anything about it.
Anyone notice the lake of fire blocking access to the park? You’d think the crazy property taxes we pay would be enough to keep a damn lake from burning!
…Irresponsible motorists floating away have left their cars in the middle of my street, causing endless traffic jams. Tried calling city to get them towed but spent twenty minutes on hold. Typical.