If you are reading on email, click HERE, and it’ll send you to Substack for a much better format, easier on the eyes. As always, donations at Venmo @Jason-Miciak are very much appreciated. You will, of course, note that I learned of the Special Counsel appointment during the edit and nearly threw my laptop off the table. More on Sunday.
Expecting 4-6 feet, the beach below provides some balance.
The NFL moved its game scheduled for Sunday in Buffalow to Detroit.
The forecast for Buffalo on Sunday is supposed to be sunny skies and cold, not unusual, and nothing to move a game over. The game was moved because of the storm that started last night and will last until Saturday, one that will dump four to six feet of “lake effect” snow in the Buffalo area, making it impossible for people to move around (including the teams, supply trucks, etc.) to be in place for the game. It was a logistics call, a safe one, and the proper one.
Events like these inevitably lead climate deniers to laugh away “global warming,” which is one reason that we call it “climate change.” And yet the underlying premise is very simple. The Earth’s atmosphere, for all intents and purposes, is a closed system. If you add energy to a closed - but dynamic - system, you will get more extremes as it mixes while the average energy (temperature) increases by a degree, two, three…
Yes! On occasion, we will hear about new record cold, “more extremes.” Ask Texas. The record cold temps in North America of late have had more to do with the arctic oscillation diving south, activity one would expect with more overall “energy” - which in this case is sun captured by greenhouse gasses.
Speaking of more overall energy and extremes. About three years ago, we had a day in the deep south where the high was 34 or so, 20 degrees below normal. On that same day, the high at a weather station in Greenland was 39, or 30 degrees above normal.
Greater extremes.
KEITH RICHARDS MAY OUTLIVE TWITTER
DIE?
How about keeping some of the people that keep the lights on and the servers humming? Because as it stands right now, Twitter is one wrench in the system away from going down.
To borrow a quote from ZDnet.com:
As Terra Field, a Honeycomb Staff Platform Engineer, pointed out, "An infrastructure the size of Twitter will not fail overnight, but it is going to relatively quickly go into a degraded state. The few platform people that remain will have their necks exactly at the waterline. It will not take much to sink."
Maybe. It is making one hell of an effort at failing overnight. How does this happen under a “genius businessman”?
It happens, of course, when the genius businessman comes in with an agenda that doesn’t necessarily align with growing the company or making it a “better business.” From the very beginning, Elon’s biggest “thing” regarding Twitter is that it didn’t seem “fair” to Elon that conservatives were kicked off but not liberals. This is not true and was never true. Don Jr., Mike Huckabee, Kash Patel… all still have their accounts.
To the extent, it had any truth… Is it liberals’ fault that fewer liberals used outright racism, threats of violence, and dangerous disinformation? (COVID disinformation, information that would directly result in more deaths, led to a lot of canceled conservative accounts) than conservatives? Because those were the policies that got people suspended. Ask Marjorie Taylor-Greene.
Twitter was an impulse buy at a vastly overpriced offer, demonstrating that Musk did almost NO due diligence. Again, the impulse buy, the lack of real knowledge about the company, the lay-offs… the predictions of Twitter’s impending doom.
Keith is in great shape.
JUST ANNOUNCED AS I EDIT: MERRICK GARLAND APPOINTS SPECIAL COUNSEL TO TAKE OVER TRUMP CASES
Oh, for god’s sake. Here we go.
First, add far more time between now and any indictments that might be filed, time that DOJ doesn’t have. The amount of time it takes to bring about a criminal trial, especially a complicated one prior to the next presidential election, is fading. It almost needed to be filed this calendar year to get a trial in before November 2024. If there is no trial and conviction, the prosecution will stop if a Republican wins, Trump or not.
This was Merrick Garland’s job, and he punted. Does he really believe the GOP will not bury the special counsel as just as politically motivated as DOJ?
It is the wrong move on any number of levels. Trump has never been politically weaker, which is only relevant with respect to possible violence. The time to file indictments was between now and the first week of December. At this point, it will likely take far more time for the Special Counsel to get up to speed.
And why now? Why announce it now? Why not announce it prior to the search? It makes no sense and looks weak. More on Sunday.
BURIED TRUMP UNDER POLITICAL DIRT
The number of people lined up saying that they will not financially support Trump’s political future is growing. First and foremost, Rupert Murdoch has said that he can’t support Trump (implying his platforms won’t, either). The Mercers, Schwarzman, Peterffy… the list goes on.
It could easily explain why Paul Ryan doesn’t see any circumstances under which Trump will be the nominee in 2024:
“We all know that he’s much more likely to lose the White House than anybody else running for president on our side of the aisle, so why would we want to go with that?” the former lawmaker from Wisconsin said.
“Whether he runs or not, I don’t really know if it matters,” Ryan added. “He’s not going to be the nominee, I don’t think.”
Trump can try to run on $50 donations from people that cannot afford it, but he needed real money and that money is running away from him, sending a message while doing so.
FRIDAY GRAB BAG OF FUN:
BEST FOOTBALL GAME: USC v. UCLA, 8:00 p.m. EST/ FOX
MUCH ADO LISTEN TO: Jane Says, Jane’s Addiction, Even if black box appears, click twice, and it goes to YouTube
Yes, still upset with Merrick Garland. That was your fcking job, Ace.
Best Dog Tweet (Have to get as many of these as fast as possible before Twitter is gone:
GREAT SCIENCE ARTICLE:
The pristine Winchcombe meteorite suggests that Earth’s water came from asteroids
I will see you Sunday with a deeper dive, most certainly on the special counsel matter. I hope you appreciate the Friday quick-hitters. Any donations at all to Venmo, @Jason-Miciak, are very much appreciated.
Your beach:
I explain the "more extremes" as, it's like pumping a swing. You put energy in, you go higher and higher, and there's a point where any slight angle in the direction of motion gets magnified and you twist and turn and lose control.