The State With the Biggest Coke Fiends Will Surprise You

2021-2022 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), reveals a surprise about which state has the highest percentage of people (18 and older) who have admitted using cocaine in the past year.  It's not New York or Florida-- but rather Colorado.

More than three percent of Colorado residents aged 18 and older - about 96,000 people - reported using some form of cocaine within the past year, followed by Vermont (with 3 percent of adults using cocaine), 2.7 percent in Rhode Island and 2.6 percent in Massachusetts. California rounded out the top five with 2.5 percent.   Also making the top ten are Illinois, Ohio, Louisiana, and New York.

Wyoming has the fewest cocaine users, with 1.3 percent reporting drug use in the previous 12 months. The Cowboy state is followed by New Hampshire (1.37 percent),Arkansas (1.38 percent), South Dakota (1.4 percent) with Texas and Alaska rounding out the bottom 5.

Lady Gaga - The Joker

Guinea Residents Mob Research Center After Chimp Kills Baby

People living near a chimpanzee research center in Guinea attacked the facility after a woman said one of the animals had killed her infant, the center’s managers said. An angry crowd ransacked the building, destroying and setting fire to equipment including drones, computers and over 200 documents.

Eyewitnesses said the crowd was reacting to the news that the mutilated body of an infant had been found two miles from the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The child’s mother, Seny Zogba, said she was working in a cassava field when a chimpanzee came up from behind, bit her and pulled her baby into the forest.

Local ecologist Alidjiou Sylla said the dwindling supply of food in the reserve was pushing the animals to leave the protected area more frequently, increasingly the likelihood of attacks. The research center said it had recorded six chimpanzee attacks on humans within the reserve since the start of the year.

The forests of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa are home to the largest population of the critically endangered western chimpanzee, estimated to have declined by 80% between 1990 and 2014, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are just seven left in Guinea’s Bossou forest, which forms part of the Nimba Mountains Nature Reserve, and is close to subsistence farming communities of the Nzerekore Region.  Chimpanzees are respected in Guinea and traditionally given gifts in the form of food, prompting  some to venture out of the protected area and into human settlements, where they can sometimes attack.

What is With These Undecided Voters?

We are less than two months away from the elections, and still there are undecided voters out there.  In this age of seeming information overload (TV, social media, newspapers, billboards, internet, podcasts, radio, YouTube, ads in theaters, posters on bus stops, advertising on public transports, I could on) I don't see how anybody could still not know who they prefer more (Harris or Trump).

I mean, this is the third time that Trump has run for President-- and people should be well aware of his impeachments, convictions, lies, January 6, stolen documents, greed etc.  First of all, there are people who are definitely not voting for Trump, but they still can't bring themselves to vote for Harris-- people like Bret Stephens of the New York Times.  In an op-ed titled, "What Harris Must Do to Win Over Skeptics (Like Me)." -- Stephens complained that Harris must do more for him to get over his "unease."  On an appearance on Bill Maher's show, he whined further, saying that he couldn't vote for her unless she sat down for a "real" interview (heard of CNN, Bret?). Fellow panelist Stephanie Ruhl took him to task, telling him, "When you move to Nirvana, give me your real estate broker's number, and I'll be your next door neighbor.  We don't live there!"

She ribbed him further, saying "For the last two weeks, I've been going on and on--  trying to figure out who informed  undecided voters are.  Who's the person who has a list on their refrigerator and goes 'she said this' and 'he said this'-- who is this person?  And then I opened the New York Times three days ago, and (referring to Stephens) I realized it's you!"

And then there's another kind of fence-sitter:  queer Gen-Z pop singer Chappell Roan.  In an interview with the Guardian, she said, "I have so many issues with our government in every way . . . There are so many things that I would want to change.  So I don't feel pressured to endorse someone.  There's problems on both sides.  I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote-- vote small, vote for what's going on in your city."   Well that "problems on both sides" approach from an ardent supporter of queer culture and drag performers isn't sitting well with a lot of her fans.   One of her followers said on social media, "Pretty sure there's only one side painting drag queens out to be pedophiles and trying to outlaw gay marriage and trans people existing.  Such a flop ass answer.  The worst kind of political opinion-- indifference."

 

Argument Over Reclining Seat Gets Couple Banned From Airline

Cathay Pacific Airlines has banned a Hong Kong couple from its flights after their row with a mainland Chinese traveler over her reclining seat.  The Chinese woman had complained on social media that she was harassed by the couple seated behind her on a Cathay flight after reclining her seat.

The Asian carrier added the couple to its no-fly list, saying it has "a strict zero-tolerance policy" towards behaviors that disrespect fellow passengers.  The Chinese woman's post on social media platform Xiaohongshu, which captured part of the confrontation, had garnered 194,000 likes within 24 hours and drew mixed reactions online.

The incident took place on a flight from Hong Kong to London. In her post, the Chinese woman recalled how the middle-aged couple (a husband and wife) had accused her of obstructing their view of the in-flight television and asked her to straighten her seat. When she refused, the wife stretched her legs and put them on the armrests of her seat, then started scolding her in Cantonese and slapping her arm, the woman said. "When she realized I couldn't speak Cantonese, she started calling me 'mainland girl' in a derogatory tone," she said.

The husband, who was seated directly behind her, "frantically pushed" the back of her seat, the woman said. Her video showed the seat vibrating. Another scene showed the wife raising her middle finger at the woman. The woman then sought help from a flight attendant, who suggested that she straighten her seat. "I was shocked because it was not meal time, yet the flight attendant wanted me to compromise," the woman said. "I rejected the suggestion."

Several passengers who witnessed the incident criticized the Hong Kong couple's behavior. "Don't call yourself a Hong Konger, you bully," one passenger said. Another said, "This is too much. How old are you? Why are you bullying a young girl?"  The woman's post on Xiaohongshu sparked similar outrage. "If they want more space, they should have paid for first-class seats," one person wrote.  Several commenters were quick to defend Hong Kong's reputation, with one saying "Most people in Hong Kong are kind, this couple is an exception."   It has also triggered a debate on whether reclining one's airplane seat is an acceptable practice. Most users said that it should be acceptable, given that the ability to recline is a built-in function of the seats.

Questions on the Hezbollah Device Explosions

After thousands of pagers and radio devices exploded in two separate incidents in Lebanon - injuring thousands of people and killing at least 37.  Finally, details are coming in on how such an operation was carried out.

1. How were the pagers compromised?

Experts quickly dismissed the theory that the pagers targeted by a complex hack that caused them to explode.  To cause damage on the scale that they did, they had to be rigged with explosives before they entered Hezbollah’s possession. Images of the broken remains of the pagers show the logo of a small Taiwanese electronics manufacturer: Gold Apollo. The company's founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, has denied the business had anything to do with the operation.  The pictures of the destroyed devices do not show markings that they were actually made in Taiwan.  But three years ago, Gold Apollo licensed their trademark to a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting, who put the Gold Apollo name on their Hungarian-made pagers. It has been revealed that Gold Apollo had trouble processing the money transfers paying for that license fee, and that the transfer originated from the Middle East.

2. What did a Hungarian company have to do with it?

The registered office of BAC Consulting, is in a residential area of the Hungarian capital, Budapest.  BAC's address is also shared by 12 other companies. Hungarian officials say the firm, which was first incorporated in 2022, was merely a “trading intermediary with no manufacturing or operational site” in the country.  BAC's website listed one person as its chief executive and founder - Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono.  Bársony-Arcidiacono spoke to NBC News, saying: "I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate.” So who is really behind BAC Consulting?  You guessed it-- the New York Times has reported that the company was in fact a front for Israeli intelligence.  Bulgarian broadcaster bTV has also reported that $1.8M  connected to the device attacks in Lebanon passed through Bulgaria and was later sent to Hungary.

 

3. How were the devices detonated?

Videos show victims reaching into their pockets in the seconds before the pageers detonated, causing chaos in streets, shops and homes across the country.  Lebanese authorities have concluded that the devices were detonated by "electronic messages" sent to them, according to a letter by the Lebanese mission to the UN, seen by Reuters news agency.  Citing U.S . officials, the New York Times said that the pagers received messages that appeared to be coming from Hezbollah's leadership before detonating. The messages instead appeared to trigger the devices, the outlet reported.  It is not yet known what kind of messages were sent to the radio devices.

4. So how exactly were the radio devices compromised?

The origins of the radio devices, which exploded in the second wave of attacks, are less clear. Some of those that exploded were the IC-V82 model produced by the Japanese company, Icom.  Those devices were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago. A sales executive at the U.S. subsidiary of Icom told the Associated Press that the exploded radio devices in Lebanon appeared to be knockoff products that were not made by the company – adding that it was easy to find counterfeit versions online (a claim that was quickly confirmed by numerous news agencies).  Icom said it had stopped manufacturing and selling the model almost a decade ago, and that it also discontinued production of the batteries needed to operate it. The company said it does not outsource manufacturing overseas - and all its radios are produced at a factory in Western Japan.  According to Kyodo news agency, Icom director Yoshiki Enomoyo suggested that photos of the damage around the battery compartment of the exploded walkie-talkies look like they have been retrofitted with explosives.

5. Have other devices been sabotaged?

This is the question many in Lebanon are now asking - paranoid that other devices, cameras, phones or laptops could have also been rigged with explosives.   The Lebanese Army has been on the streets of Beirut using a remote-controlled bomb disposal robot to carry out controlled explosions. Journalists and news crews in Lebanon have been stopped and told not to use their phones or cameras.  "Everyone is just panicking… We don’t know if we can stay next to our laptops, our phones. Everything seems like a danger at this point, and no-one knows what to do,” one woman, Ghida, told a BBC correspondent.

6. Why did the attack happen now?

There is growing suspicion that Israel did not intend to put its plan in motion at this moment, but was forced to after fearing the plot was about to be exposed.  According to Axios, the original plan was for the pager attack to be the opening salvo of an all-out war as a way to try to cripple Hezbollah’s fighters. But, it says, after Israel learned that Hezbollah had become suspicious, it chose to carry out the attack early.

 

Charles - Hearts on the Run

Trumper Judge Found to Have Violated Ethics Rules

 Well, well well.  It looks as if Trumper judge Aileen Cannon is a serial offender of ethics rules. ProPublica is reporting that Aileen Mercedes Cannon repeatedly failed to disclose her attendance at right-wing junkets.

Cannon went to an event in Arlington, Va. honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to documents obtained from the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University. At a lecture and private dinner, she sat among members of Scalia’s family, fellow Federalist Society members and more than 30 conservative federal judges. Organizers billed the event as “an excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues.”

A 2006 rule, intended to shine a light on judges’ attendance at paid seminars that could pose conflicts or influence decisions, requires them to file disclosure forms for such trips within 30 days and make them public on the court’s website.

It’s not the first time she has failed to fully comply with the rule.  In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo helped organize.

Cannon’s failure to disclose invitations to expensive educational events hosted by prominent conservative groups is particularly concerning given her short tenure as her judge and her role in one of the most prominent criminal cases in the country. 

In July, Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump, ruling that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional. The decision, which was appealed by the Justice Department, put a spotlight on past rulings by Cannon seen as overly favorable to the former president. 

In 2022, Cannon was sharply rebuked by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after granting the former president a request for a “special master” to review troves of classified documents seized during the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. The court of appeals wrote that the unprecedented nature of Trump’s case did not give “the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation.” 

 

Trump's Rhetoric Has Stoked Violence For Decades

For nearly 10 years, Donald Trump has built his cult-like following using dog whistles and incendiary language. He’s called for the death of five Black teenagers in the 1980's as a private citizen, used unusually provocative language at his MAGA rallies, and spread repeated lies about immigrants. While there is no place for political violence in this country, Trump cannot cry wolf, or blame the Democrats for the mess he has made. Here are seven times the Republican nominee’s rhetoric has supported or led to political violence and unrest. 

1. He has repeatedly lied about Haitian immigrants.

This month, Trump has repeatedly claimed the racist lie that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in an Ohio city. “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets,” he shouted during the Sept. 10 presidential debate. Officials in Springfield, Ohio, had to evacuate its schools and go on lockdown after multiple bomb threats were made. These lies continue to disrupt and impact the community.

2. He mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi.

In 2022, Paul Pelosi, husband of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was attacked with a hammer in their San Francisco home by far-right conspiracy theorist David DePape, who was documented as embracing QAnon, racism, antisemitism, and Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election. Trump mocked the attack and stoked far-right conspiracy theories.

3. He encouraged the attack on Jan. 6 and did little to stop it.

On Jan. 6, 2020, Trump held a rally and erroneously stated that President Joe Biden had lost the election. “We’re going to the Capitol,” he said. “We’re going to try and give [Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”  Directly after that, a mob of pro-Trump protesters marched to the Capitol, broke into the chamber floor chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” and members of Congress had to be escorted out in fear for their safety. After intense scrutiny by officials and members of Congress, Trump took an hour and a half to tweet “stay peaceful,” but did not ask them to leave the Capitol. 

4. He has repeatedly villainized Mexicans.

In 2019, minutes before the El Paso, Texas, shooting at a Walmart that killed 23 people and injured 22 others, shooter Patrick Crusius posted a racist, xenophobic 2,300-word manifesto that warned of a “hispanic invasion of Texas.” Trump repeatedly villainized Mexicans and the immigrant population during his first campaign and while president. In 2015, while announcing his candidacy in New York, he said, "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting." 

5. He felt there were “very fine people, on both sides” of the “Unite the Right” rally 

In 2017, A “Unite the Right” rally was held in Charlottesville, Virginia. In a span of 48 hours, white supremacists, KKK members, and neo-Nazis yielding tiki torches chanted “Jews will not replace us” as the event descended into violence. A car drove into a crowd of counterprotesters, injuring dozens and killing a woman named Heather Heyer. 

At a press conference, when a reporter asked his response to if there were neo-Nazis in the crowd, he—now infamously—said, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” 

6. He has repeatedly called for violence against counter protesters at his ralllies.

After a Black Lives Matter protester at one of Trump’s 2015 rallies was kicked and punched by MAGA supporters, Trump responded to the attack several days later on Fox News. “The man that was—I don’t know, you say ‘roughed up’—he was so obnoxious and so loud, he was screaming,” he said. “He should have been, maybe he should have been roughed up.”  Just a few months later, in February 2016, encouraged his crowd to “knock the crap out of” another protester, even offering to pay any associated legal costs.  At another MAGA rally just a month later, Trump supporter John McCraw beat up a protester. He was later arrested and charged with assault and disorderly conduct. In response to that incident, Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, told NBC News "we are not involved."   But at rally shortly after in Las Vegas, another altercation transpired and a man was led out on a stretcher. Trump responded to the counterprotester saying, “I’d like to punch him in the face.”

7. He took an ad out calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five.

In 1989, Trump famously took out a full-page ad in several national newspapers demanding the death penalty for the Central Park Five, five Black teenage boys that were wrongfully charged and imprisoned for the brutal assault of a female jogger in Central Park. After serving between five and 13 years in prison, each was exonerated in 2002 by DNA evidence proving their innocence. Trump did not apologize for the ad, and continued to repeat claims that they were at fault for the attack.

There is no place for political violence in America-- yet for the last decade—it’s been on the rise, thanks in large part to Trumps rhetoric. Trump is a master manipulator, but he cannot lie his way out of what has really transpired. 

 

More Book Covers For Melania's Memoirs

Over the weekend there came news that Melania Trump was planning to release her memoirs.  If you'll recall--the same rumors were floating around the internet four years ago, when I posted some early suggestions for her book cover. 

In light of the new rumors, there have been a few additional leaked covers . . .

Rinse and Repeat

Supreme Court's Ruling Against Affirmative Action Gets the Intended Result

University of North Carolina recently released a profile of incoming freshman and transfer students that shows in the year since the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in college admissions, the number of Black students admitted to the university dropped from 10.5% to 7.8% – an incredible drop of around 25%.

Harvard University also experienced a similar drop in Black enrollment, according to data released this week which shows a 22% decrease in Black freshmen when compared to the year before. Both schools were named as plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case in which activist conservative judges ruled against the long-held practice of considering race and ethnicity in college admissions.

“I chose this school because I saw the robust amount of diversity that was here and the results of it as well,” said Samantha Greene, president of the Black Student Movement at UNC. “So, to see that kind of go a little bit down the gutter definitely has me thinking about my choice to be here.”

As admissions offices across the country release their latest racial demographics, a murky portrait is beginning to emerge of the Class of 2028 – one that’s left some experts warning about the long-term effects of a lack of diversity on campus. 

At Yale University, the percentage of Black students admitted this year held steady at 14% when compared to those who started last fall, but the number of Asian students fell by 20% compared to last year.  

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the number of Black students admitted to the Class of 2028 utterly collapsed-- falling from 15% last fall to just 5% this year (a whopping 67% decrease), while Latino students saw a 31% decrease.  In an interview with the university’s news outlet last month, Stu Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions, said the change in demographics reflects the negative impact of the Supreme Court’s widely discredited ruling.

Last year's freshman class had the “highest proportion of students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds in MIT history,” Schmill said, and the university used race as a factor in identifying “well-prepared students who emerged from the unequal K-12 educational environment.”  But after the shameful Supreme Court ruling, Schmill said he has “no doubt that we left out many well-qualified, well-matched applicants from historically under-represented backgrounds who in the past we would have admitted — and who would have excelled.” 

History shows ending affirmative action can have long-term economic repercussions for students of color. Backlash to affirmative action policies reached a fever pitch in the 1990s, leading several states, including Texas, Washington, Florida and California, to enact bans on race-conscious admissions policies.

Zachary Bleemer, an economics professor at Princeton University who studies the impact of affirmative action bans, said the bans passed in the 1990s – similar to today – had an immediate negative effect on the diversity of the student body.  When California ended affirmative action in 1998, what “you saw was this immediate decline between 40 and 50% of Black and Hispanic enrollment at Berkeley and UCLA, the two most selective schools in the state,” Bleemer said.  For Black and Hispanic students, losing access to California’s most selective colleges and universities also had long-term economic consequences.  “If you follow [Black and Hispanic students] forward to the labor market, you see meaningful decline from the order of 5 or 6% of wages that disappear because they end up going to a less selective school instead.” 

 

Leon Bridges - Peaceful Place

The Latest Vile Racism From Vance and Trump

GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance repeated an ugly conspiracy theory this week with a claim that immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets. Vance then encouraged his supporters to repeat these disgusting lies and to join him in dehumanizing legal immigrants.

Both Vance and idiot billionaire Elon Musk amplified false claims first made on Facebook about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets and animals from local parks. In addition, Vance accused the immigrants of “generally causing chaos” all over the small midwestern city and blamed Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vance posted a claim on Musk’s social media platform that “In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who've said their neighbors' pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. “   It’s safe to say that anyone who has lost a pet does not respond by calling their senator. And it’s a bit strange that the claim is never that their pets had gone missing, but that their neighbor’s pets were lost. 

Local police and city officials made it clear that the claims made by Vance and Musk were absolutely false. The police department expressed regret that “people are using this as an opportunity to spread hate or spread fear.”

But rather than apologizing for his gross mistake, Vance is continuing to make things worse.   Vance elaborated on his claims of pet consumption by insisting that Haitian immigrants were responsible for spreading diseases, that local schools were being ruined because immigrants didn’t speak English, and that immigrants had overwhelmed local health care systems. He also claimed that a Haitian immigrant was responsible for the unspecified murder of a child.

What Vance is saying about legal immigrants in Ohio is pure racism. And it’s the worst kind of racism. It’s meant to not just draw a line between a group of people and others who share their community, it’s meant to present immigrants as “other,” as lesser, as violent uncivilized outsiders with unacceptable customs. It’s meant to make them seem dangerous. And it’s meant to make people angry.

it’s no coincidence that this came on the same day that Trump was bragging that his mass deportation of immigrants would become a “bloody story.” In that speech, Trump falsely claimed that most immigrants were violent criminals and spread lies that they had “taken over” parts of Colorado. Trump also continued to claim that immigrants were causing a crime wave in the country, which is explicitly false.  These claims, aimed at generating outrage among an overwhelmingly white base, are the heart of the Trump-Vance campaign.

 

" I Have Concepts of a Plan" - Harris Destroys Trump - Debate Recap

VP Kamala Harris began the debate Tuesday night with a power move—walking right up to a befuddled Donald Trump and shaking his hand. It signaled who was the boss, and she took command of the debate from the start. For 90 minutes, Trump was forced to respond to Harris’ attacks while she ignored his. Trump never made eye contact with Harris. Meanwhile, Harris would look right at Trump when ripping him apart. That, in itself, was as much a power move as her initial handshake. 

In question after question, Harris took hard, focused, and effective swipes at an increasingly agitated Trump. Increasingly rattled, Trump’s voice sped up, louder and louder until he was yelling into his microphone, sounding hysterical, repeating lies like “after birth abortions”—provoking a rare fact-check from the moderators. In fact, more than one.

“I’m not in favor of an abortion ban,” Trump barked, which will set off the right wing after he flopped all over the place on whether he’d vote for the Florida ballot initiative legalizing abortion in the state. (Trump ultimately said he will vote against abortion rights in his state.)  He said he didn’t talk to his vice presidential nominee, and claimed he has been a “leader” on IVF, which will further enrage his evangelical foot soldiers.

Harris hit Trump for sabotaging the bipartisan immigration deal in Congress, and then mocked him for his boring rallies, inviting viewers to actually attend a Trump rally to see for themselves for his nonsense. Trump took the bait, saying crazy things like “Harris pays people for her rallies.”  Moderators couldn’t help but offer a forceful and repeated fact check when he insisted the racist lie that “Haitians are eating dogs and cats”—pushed by his own running mate—is real. Harris burst out laughing.

Trump also attacked the FBI; claimed he was shot because of Democrats, even though his assailant was a registered Republican; insisted Democrats are a threat to democracy; cried that he wasn’t given enough credit for his disastrous COVID response; sputtered Harris is “against the defund the police”; claimed solar farms are a problem because they take desert soil; demanded all sorts of people be prosecuted; claimed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was supposed to bring in the National Guard during his Jan. 6 insurrection; claimed that it was a good thing that Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban is called a “strongman”; yelled “our country has gone to hell” and that he could’ve “let [the country] rot”; and flubbed the name of the top Taliban leader.

He claimed in nearly every answer that the Biden-Harris administration was the worst in the history of the world. His sophomoric hyperbole doesn’t play in his own rallies anymore, and it certainly wasn’t playing Tuesday night. It was repetitive, rote, tedious, and boring.  And for all the media hysteria about Harris’ policy plans, when asked by moderators about Trump’s Obamacare replacement plan, it was clear he had none. Pressed for a plan, he stuttered, "I have concepts of a plan." 

Harris seemed to be having fun, getting Trump on the ropes and keeping him there.  "Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people," she quipped, sticking the shiv in. "Clearly, he is having a very difficult time processing that.”

She ignored his attacks (beyond laughing or looking on bemused). And by ignoring his attacks and launching her own, Trump couldn’t help but take the bait every single time. She landed hits on his crowd obsession, his anti-choice record, and his love for dictators.  “It is well known that he admires dictators, wants to be a dictator on Day One,” she said. She slammed his desire to give up Ukraine to Russia.  “If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv,” she said. “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”

She was human, with personal anecdotes and heartfelt appeals to her work for the American people—a stark contrast to shouting, angry Trump.  And she landed perhaps the best blow of the night when she asked people to pay attention to Trump’s rallies, and how he never talks about what he will do for voters, focused instead on conspiracy theories and personal grievances.

 

 

Nigerian Officials Warn Against Church's "Miracle" Water

Nigeria’s drug approval agency (NAFDAC) has warned people not to buy “miracle” products produced by a church with popular Nigerian Christian televangelist Jeremiah Fufeyin at the helm.  The products in question go by names such as "miracle water" and "River Jordan water."

NAFDAC says that the products claims to have healing properties (such as the ability to cure women of infertility) are "bogus."  The agency also says Fufeyin's Christ Mercyland Deliverance Ministry was selling these wares even though they did not have NAFDAC approval.

The church hit back at NAFDAC, saying the church is "law-abiding" and has been using "spiritual items in expression of [their] spiritual beliefs".  In a statement, Christ Mercyland Deliverance Ministry added that it operates under Nigeria's laws, which guarantee freedom of religion without interference.

NAFDAC began investigating the products after receiving complaints from members of the public, the agency's statement said.   It also said the products violate regulatory approval and that Fufeyin's church had "refused to co-operate with the investigation".  The church, which has hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers and enjoys huge success across social media, denied this claim. It said it had communicated with Nafdac by letter.

Fufeyin has long attracted followers from across the country, claiming to perform miracles and heal ailments. The preacher has said he is a billionaire, but has faced criticism for his lavish lifestyle.  In Nigeria, it is not uncommon for preachers like Fufeyin to sell products claiming to treat ailments. For instance, the late televangelist TB Joshua sold "anointed water", which was marketed as having healing powers.

A BBC investigation revealed that TB Joshua also encouraged sick members of his congregation to stop taking their prescribed medication.  Meanwhile, he secretly instructed pharmacists to procure those same prescription drugs and mix them into the "healing" fruit drinks he gave to his followers.

 

The Latest Dispatch From the Dating Wars

From a recent Reddit thread on what men consider the hardest part about dating:

“It’s often impossible to navigate the frequently contradictory requirements.

“You need to be strong and stable but only when appropriate, and not too much or you’re a soulless rock, but you also need to be vulnerable and emotional — but similarly, only when appropriate and not too much, otherwise you’re not worthy of respect. You need to be sensitive, but only when they want you to be, and not when it makes them uncomfortable.

“You need to be independent and put together, able to handle all of your own shit without outside help, but you also need to open up and be open to being dependent on them in exactly the idealized way they imagine you should be, but not at all beyond that capacity.

“You need to be in good shape and fit, but also not in the gym all the time.

“You need a decent social life and friends to display you’re functional and not a serial killer, but you also need to not spend that much time with them or place so much importance on them that they might ever take precedence over your relationship.

“You need to be funny and charming and entertaining and appealing and make every effort to go the extra mile, but you also need to temper how interested you appear to be — otherwise you’re coming on too strong. But also, if you don’t appear sufficiently interested, they’ll think you don’t like them at all, even if you keep making all the effort to interact with them regularly.

“You need to make the move, but only when they’re comfortable and not a second beforehand, because that will make them uncomfortable, and they won’t tell you when you’re on the right side of that line — and if you ask, there’s a decent chance that can and will ruin the moment. But also, you need to respect their autonomy and boundaries and not do anything that could be perceived as pushy, so you better thread the needle, but also, if you don’t make a move when you were supposed to, then the responsibility is entirely on you. And if things fizzle, that’s your fault and not theirs, and they will immediately assume you aren’t that interested in them if you didn’t make a move when you were supposed to, so you had better get good at reading minds.”

Think About It!

 

Pope Francis Visits the Pacific Islands, a Key Locale in the Vatican's Coverup of Sexual Abuse

Pope Francis traveled to Papua New Guinea this week, his first visit in three  decades to the Pacific islands, a locale that has played a little-known role in the clergy abuse scandal that has stained the Roman Catholic Church.  Over several decades, at least 10 priests and missionaries moved to Papua New Guinea after they sexually abused children in the West, according to court records, government inquiries, survivor testimonies, news media reports and comments by church officials.

These men were part of a larger pattern of at least two dozen other priests and missionaries having left New Zealand, Australia, Britain and the United States for Pacific island countries such as Fiji, Kiribati and Samoa under similar circumstances.  In at least 13 cases, their superiors knew that those men had been accused or convicted of abuse before they transferred to the Pacific, shielding them from scrutiny back home.

It has been widely documented that the church has a long-standing practice of protecting scores of priests from authorities by shuffling them to other places, sometimes in other countries. But what sets these cases apart is the remoteness of the islands the men ended up in, making it harder for authorities to pursue them. The relocations also gave the men access to vulnerable communities where priests were considered beyond reproach.

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Buildings in Lagos Keep Crashing Down

Lagos, dubbed "the building-collapse capital of Nigeria", has seen at least 90 buildings falling down in the last 12 years, leaving more than 350 people dead, according to the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria.

One of the most notorious incidents was in 2021, when a 21-storey block of luxury flats under construction in the suburb of Ikoyi collapsed, killing 42 people.  The official investigation into the collapse has been sitting with the state governor since he received it in 2022.  A list of recommendations has reportedly been drawn up by a panel of experts following the investigation but that also has not been made public.

The BBC has repeatedly asked the Lagos state authorities to see the recommendations, and the report into the Ikoyi building collapse, but neither has been made available.  The coroner, however, has had her say and in 2022, she did not hold back.  In a damning judgment on the deaths, Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe, attributed the building collapse to the irresponsibility and negligence of the government agencies that were supposed to approve and supervise the plans and construction.

Lagos’s population is booming and is now estimated to stand at more than 20 million.  As the city grows so does the demand for housing and commercial property, resulting in giant building sites everywhere across the city.  There is widespread belief that the government officials take bribes to issue fake building certificates and ignore proper building procedures.  With all the construction going on, one would think that the offices of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LSBCA) would be very busy.

But inside the  LSBCA's offices everything appears calm - there is no sense of the urgency of the problems or challenges it faces.  Spokesperson Olusegun Olaoye acknowledges criticism of his agency, but dismisses allegations that officials have been bribed to issue fake certificates and rather blames a lack of resources.  “At the moment we have about 300 building inspectors and supervisors but we are looking to add to that,” he says.

Experts agree that more supervisors are needed.  Muhammad Danmarya, architect and construction expert, says they should number in their thousands. “Three hundred is just not right for a state like Lagos. Each local government area should have at least 100 inspectors and supervisors and Lagos has 57 of those areas,” he argues.  “There’s always construction going on everywhere you look, so it’s important that inspection and supervision is going on all the time.”

In the absence of necessary building inspections across the state, some less scrupulous companies are getting away with violating building codes, using sub-standard materials and employing poorly trained workers – three of the reasons cited for the high frequency of collapses.  “They just come here to pick us up any time they have a job for us and pay us after we are done,” says laborer Habu Isah, who has worked on construction sites for years.  “I have never undergone any training, I just learned everything on the job.”

But even if violations are identified in the wake of a collapse, the state’s building agency does not take any legal action.  “To my knowledge there haven’t been any prosecutions in the past as far as building collapses in Lagos are concerned,” LASBCA’s Olaoye admits.  “I know the statistics are worrying but there are ongoing efforts to halt the trend.”

Political influence is a barrier to pursuing prosecutions, as well.  “If you are connected to people in power, even if you are the culprit in a building collapse case nothing will happen to you,” says a Lagos state politician, who talked to the BBC on the condition of anonymity.  “We’ve seen it so many times, some of the high-profile cases have to do with structures of highly placed people and they are still roaming around freely. In Nigeria when you are rich and connected you can avoid problems easily.”

With 19 building collapses already recorded so far this year by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, the final total is likely to be the highest in the past decade. The head of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria recently said that the country lacked the capacity to properly investigate what is going on.  “We don’t have the expertise, the equipment, and the resources to do so,” said Prof Sadiq Abubakar.   In the meantime, construction workers and others will carry on paying with their lives.