The Frankish Reich

Reports this morning say that rookie Hannigan told the grand jury "there is more evidence to come." Holy crap, that's a rookie mistake. It turns the grand jury process into "go ahead, indict, by the time of the trial we'll have plenty of evidence to prove the charges." What a farce. The charges will be dismissed. I believe the government would appeal, but if that's the record here, they've got a huge problem.

The only thing I know is it will take over a decade to actually build anything.

Thanks to Trump, I watched Seth Meyers this morning. Not bad! A little repetitive with the Trump jokes, but a couple good ones. Trump will make me a fan.

I'm not belittling your concerns, but I do wonder how your friend knew his lymphoma was caused by glyphosate. How would it wind up in wine? As I understand it, it isn't the vine/grape uptaking it from the soil. It is from a grower spraying glyphosate somewhere nearby and from "drift" - particles that are sprayed do wind up in places they weren't meant to go. And that is a real problem. As far as remaining chemically active in the soil? There are very good studies showing that it doesn't, which is why the standard warning is a fairly short waiting period between clearing growth with glyphosate and planting. Again, I don't know a whole lot about commercial usage, and obviously there are big problems there. I'm talking about my own residential usage. I limit that (30% vinegar is awesome and cheap!) and follow the guidelines of my agricultural extension. For me, that's Colorado State University, and they are great people and researchers. Extremely helpful and nonpolitical; what we want our public servants to be.

The point about not killing bees is important too.

The other point I'm trying to make is that even assuming that glyphosate is toxic, that toxicity is limited to those applying it, those inhaling it downwind, etc. There is no study showing that plants grown in soil previously treated with glyphosate show such toxicity. Did the American farmer jump into glyphosate overuse without sufficient study or oversight? Absolutely. And the marketing by Monsanto was aggressive and treated it as basically risk-free - I think they invented the term "conservation tillage" which means "kill the weeds with Roundup instead of deep tilling the soil before planting." I lived in the upper Midwest back in the day and those commercials aimed at farmers were a daily thing.

Well, you're right about that - the idea that the farm/agribusiness lobby protects glyphosate. But again, the alternatives aren't great, and some (particularly for noncommercial users) may actually be worse. I am convinced that the "reformulated" Roundup you can get in Home Depot today is quite a bit worse. https://foe.org/news/new-roundup-weedkiller-45-times-more-toxic/

Looks to me like the judge will dismiss charges against Comey and James as improperly initiated. For Comey, I think that takes the alleged perjury outside the statute of limitations and he is out of the woods.

Roundup (glyphosate) works. Really well. And it doesn't remain active in the soil, so if you use it correctly (to kill off an invasive weed) it is far less harmful than many competing herbicides. The ordinary homeowner who uses glyphosate probably bears almost zero risk, again, if used properly. Commercial farms may be a different story because they are using huge amounts on an annual basis. But again: tradeoffs. Glyphosate allows farmers to use conservation tillage and to greatly reduced soil erosion, which over the long term threatens American farmers more than any Argentina ever will. So Bayer changed the formulation of consumer (not farmer) Roundup to a different chemical. I noticed that after I bought it this year and it didn't work very well. Thankfully I noticed before I used it around my vegetable garden; the replacement chemical DOES remain active in the soil for weeks. And it works less well so people will likely use more of it. I don't think that's progress. Me? I use 30% vinegar whenever I can. Cheap and Immediate weed killer and makes my yard smell like cheap vinaigrette dressing, which I kind of like. Roundup for the invasive stuff caused by my idiot neighbor not killing her goat head thorn weed, which punctures my bike tires. In other words, be a smart consumer, but don't ban something that causes people to switch to something worse. (by the way, Agent Orange was not glyphosate)

I don't think I've watched Seth Meyers for years. Past my bedtime. Thank you for the reminder, Mr. President. I will put him on "record all episodes" right now.

Agreed. There's room for some plays on offense for a guy that fast (I'm assuming he hasn't lost significant speed)

Shavers, Palmer, Gabe - not a moment too soon. What an improvement. Maybe Samuel too or is that asking too much?

How did it take this team until mid-November to work in new receivers?

I'd throw Bosa in that dumpster too.

Weirdly enjoyable game.