German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence on Monday, triggering the dissolution of parliament and rare early elections at a moment when Europe’s largest economy is faltering.
The parliamentary elections will take place on Feb. 23, seven months earlier than the standard schedule. The latest opinion polls suggest a rightward shift in the results — and a next chancellor who would cut welfare benefits, take a harder line on migration policy and lift restrictions on weapons use by Ukraine.


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Given the uncertain times, wider Europe is also looking for a leader, but experts question whether any German contender is up to the job.
As chancellor, Scholz is perhaps best known internationally for his declaration, after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, of a “turning point” in Germany’s attitude toward military power. He oversaw a 19 percent increase in defense spending, including a special fund of 100 billion euros, and a new willingness to send lethal aid to a country at war. Germany has been Ukraine’s second-biggest backer, behind the United States.


But on the whole, Scholz has been a cautious leader. He has been unable to establish anything near the stature of his predecessor, longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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“Merkel kept the consensus, but Putin broke it. And Scholz could not forge unity in his party or the public,” said James Bindenagel, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany and visiting distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “He did not successfully manage the country’s three critical dependencies: cheap Russian energy, Chinese markets and American security.”
Ultimately, Scholz’s position was imperiled by a fracturing of his governing coalition and fights over economic and financial policy. On Monday, he said hoped early elections would allow German citizens to “set the political course of our country.” This will be the fourth time in the past 50 years that Germany has held early elections. Scholz and his Cabinet will remain in office until parliament elects a new chancellor.


Scholz has been confirmed to lead his Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the upcoming campaign, giving him a shot at returning as leader of the next government. But polls put conservative candidate Friedrich Merz, who once headed the German arm of U.S. investor BlackRock, in prime position to become the fifth German chancellor since Reunification.
Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), are poised for the strongest finish, with 32 percent of the vote, according to the latest polls. The two parties, collectively known as the Union, dominated German governments throughout Merkel’s era — though Merz has pulled them further to the right.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling second, with 18 percent, and could win a record share of the vote at the federal level. But there is no meaningful chance of the party’s chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, leading a government coalition, as other parties have ruled out working with the far right.


The most likely outcome appears to be a conservative-led Grand Coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD, with some potential for a coalition between the conservatives and Greens. The election could be followed by weeks or months of further uncertainty, as party leaders hammer out a deal.
Germany’s sputtering economy and Russia’s war in Ukraine are expected to dominate the unseasonal election campaign, as well as the next government’s agenda.
For years, the German economy was the powerhouse of the European Union. But competition from China, a weakening of demand for exports, the end of cheap energy from Russia and years of underinvestment have all contributed to stagnation. Big-name German companies have been announcing big cuts — including Volkswagen, which is contemplating its first domestic plant closures in the carmaker’s 87-year history.


The next government will be under pressure to spend, spend, spend — including on defense, infrastructure, schools, social welfare and manufacturing. But without a change to the constitutionally enshrined debt brake, which effectively forces the German government to keep a balanced budget, experts say there’s little room to maneuver.
Meanwhile, Germany is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to make good on tariff threats — potentially touching off a trade war. Officials in Berlin say they have been pleasantly surprised by initial communication with the returning president. But Germany has been a frequent target of Trump. The German Economic Institute calculates that a U.S.-E.U. trade war could dent Germany’s GDP by $134 billion by the end of Trump’s time in office.
The war in Ukraine is also a focal point of the election. Both Scholz and Merz visited Kyiv this month to tout their support. Merz appears to be even more zealous on military contributions. While Scholz has argued that approving long-range Taurus missiles would risk further escalation, Merz told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week that restricting Ukraine’s weapons use was “akin to forcing your country to fight with one hand tied behind your back.”

WILTON, Iowa (AP) — Every year the U.S. egg industry kills about 350 million male chicks because, while the fuzzy little animals are incredibly cute, they will never lay eggs, so have little monetary value.

That longtime practice is changing, thanks to new technology that enables hatcheries to quickly peer into millions of fertilized eggs and spot male embryos, then grind them up for other uses before they mature into chicks. The system began operating this month in Iowa at the nation’s largest chick hatchery, which handles about 387,000 eggs each day.

“We now have ethically produced eggs we can really feel good about,” said Jörg Hurlin, managing director of Agri Advanced Technologies, the German company that spent more than a decade developing the SUV-sized machine that can separate eggs by sex.

Even Americans who are careful to buy cage free or free range eggs typically aren’t aware that hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed each year, usually when they are only a day old. Most of the animals are culled through a process called maceration that uses whirling blades to nearly instantly kill the baby birds — something that seems horrifying but that the industry has long claimed is the most humane alternative.


“Does the animal suffer? No because it’s instantaneous death. But it’s not pretty because it’s a series of rotating blades,” said Suzanne Millman, a professor at Iowa State University who focuses on animal welfare.

Chick culling is an outgrowth of a poultry industry that for decades has raised one kind of chicken for eggs and another for meat. Egg-laying chickens are too scrawny to profitably be sold for meat, so the male chicks are ground up and used as additives for other products.

It wasn’t until European governments began passing laws that outlawed maceration that companies started puzzling out how to determine chicken sex before the chicks can hatch. Several companies can now do that, but unlike most competitors, AAT’s machine doesn’t need to pierce the shell and instead uses a bright light and sensitive cameras to detect an embryo’s sex by noting feather shading. Males are white, and females are dark.

The machine, called Cheggy, can process up to 25,000 eggs an hour, a pace that can accommodate the massive volume seen at hatcheries in the U.S. Besides the Cheggy machine in the small eastern Iowa city of Wilton, an identical system has been installed in Texas, both at hatcheries owned by Hy-Line North America.


The process has one key limitation: It works only on brown eggs because male and female chicks in white eggs have similar-colored feathers.

That’s not a huge hindrance in Europe, where most eggs sold at groceries are brown. But in the U.S., white shell eggs make up about 81% of sales, according to the American Egg Board. Brown shell eggs are especially sought by people who buy cage-free, free-range and organic varieties.

Hurlin said he thinks his company will develop a system to tell the sex of embryos in white eggs within five years, and other companies also are working to meet what’s expected to be a growing demand.

Eggs from hens that were screened through the new system will supply NestFresh Eggs, a Southern California-based business that distributes organic eggs produced by small operations across the country. The eggs will begin showing up on store shelves in mid-July and NestFresh executive vice president Jasen Urena said his company will begin touting the new chick-friendly process on cartons and with a larger marketing effort.


“It’s a huge jump in animal welfare,” Urena said. “We’ve done so much work over the years on the farms. How do we make the lives of these chickens better? Now we’re able to step back and go into the hatching phase.”

Urena said the new system was more expensive but any price increase on store shelves would be minimal.

The animal welfare group Mercy for Animals has tried to draw attention to chick culling for more than a decade in hopes of ending the practice.

Walter Sanchez-Suarez, the group’s animal behavior and welfare scientist, said laws in Europe outlawing chick culling and new efforts to change the practice in the U.S. are wonderful developments. However, Sanchez-Suarez sees them as a small step toward a larger goal of ending large-scale animal agriculture and offering alternatives to meat, eggs and dairy.

“Mercy for Animals thinks this is an important step, but poultry producers shouldn’t stop there and should try to see all the additional problems that are associated to this type of practice in egg production,” he said. “Look for alternatives that are better for animals themselves and human consumers.”

Also, the chase for more devastating "stuff". Workload may be down, but max effort is creating the rise in injuries per the study.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43026688/mlb-study-identifies-factors-rise-pitching-injuries

I’m gonna be on KXNO at 12:10 — don’t miss it.
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Outside LB prospect.

He was previoiusly committed to UNI and also had an offer from South Dakota State.
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Democratic Sen. John Fetterman told The New York Times in an interview released Saturday that 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “one hundred percent” has a special connection with the people of Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania senator said he might not understand why Trump support is so intense in his state, but he nevertheless must acknowledge it exists.

“You can see the intensity. It’s astonishing,” Fetterman told reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

Fetterman said he encountered a large Trump merchandise shop while participating in an event in Indiana County, which he described as “very, very red.” He noted the dozens of T-shirts and bumper stickers featuring images of the Republican nominee.

“It’s the kind of thing that’s taken on its own life. And it’s like something very special exists there. And that doesn’t mean that I admire it. It’s just — it’s real,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman also said billionaire Elon Musk’s joining forces with Trump moved the needle for a lot of Pennsylvania voters.

“I was truly alarmed about that when he started showing up,” Fetterman told the outlet.

“Endorsements, they’re really not meaningful often but this one is, I think. That has me concerned,” he said of Musk.

Musk endorsed Trump shortly after the former president was shot in the ear at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The SpaceX and Tesla founder who also purchased Twitter first appeared on stage with Trump when he returned to Butler for an Oct. 5 rally.

Musk has since become a vocal campaign surrogate for Trump, holding multiple events in Pennsylvania in October. He also launched the America PAC which targets seven battleground states by encouraging residents to register to vote and to follow through by casting their ballots.

Musk is also offering $1 million to one person each day until Election Day who signs a petition pledging support for the First and Second Amendments.

I tried to find the original thread this got discussed in but this is new today.


What a buttfuc.k

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The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative finalized its plan Friday to raise tariffs on a slew of goods made in China, largely adopting hikes it first proposed in May.

The heightened tariffs go after strategic product categories, including electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals, semiconductors and solar cells. The final tariff structure includes 14 product categories that cover thousands of items.

The first tariff hikes are set to go into effect on Sept. 27, with the next increase dates at the start of 2025 and 2026.

The Biden administration’s dramatic hikes for this year include a 100% tariff on electric vehicles, a 25% tariff on lithium-ion EV batteries and a 50% tariff on photovoltaic solar cells. A 50% tariff on semiconductors made in China will go into effect in 2025.

The final plan provides additional relief for ship-to-shore cranes, which are set to get a 25% tariff that begins this year. The final structure will allow exclusions for cranes ordered prior to May 14, 2024 and that enter the country before May 14, 2026.

The updated structure hones in on increased tariff rates for medical supplies.

The administration initially proposed a 25% tariff on face masks — that increase will still go into effect this year, now followed by a 50% tariff in 2026. USTR took similar action on medical gloves, upping its initial 25% tariff proposal to a 50% tariff in 2025 and a 100% tariff in 2026.

Finally, it decreased the number of allowed exclusions for solar manufacturing equipment from 19 to 14. It eliminated five exclusions for solar manufacturing module equipment.

The federal agency had previously pledged to finalize the new tariff structure by the end of last month, delaying the process by two weeks.

For those who haven't gotten around to reading his books, here's a nice intro. The book he mentions, Unstoppable Us, it the book he wrote aimed at kids. Adults will want to plunge in with Sapiens. He's really good.

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Nowadays, the incident is generally ignored, and since Tel Aviv’s unprovoked attack, the US regime has handed over to Israel more than a quarter of a trillion dollars of the US taxpayers’ money. Indeed, by 1974, Israel had become the number one recipient of US military and economic aid, all without any tangible benefit to ordinary Americans who foot the bill. Such is the nature of America’s greatest “ally.”

On the fourth day of the 1967 Arab Israeli War, the intelligence ship ‘USS Liberty’ was steaming slowly in international waters, 14 miles off the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli armored forces were racing deep into Sinai in hot pursuit of the retreating Egyptian army.

‘Liberty,’ a World War II freighter, had been converted into an intelligence vessel by the top-secret US National Security Agency, and packed with the latest signals and electronic interception equipment. The ship bristled with antennas and electronic ‘ears’ including TRSSCOMM, a system that delivered real-time intercepts to Washington by bouncing a stream of microwaves off the moon.

‘Liberty’ had been rushed to Sinai to monitor communications of the belligerents in the Third Arab Israeli War: Israel and her foes, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

At 0800 hrs, 8 June, 1967, eight Israeli recon flights flew over ‘Liberty,’ which was flying a large American flag. At 1400 hrs, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the American vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks lasted 20 minutes, concentrating on the ship’s electronic antennas and dishes. The ‘Liberty’ was left afire, listing sharply. Eight of her crew lay dead, a hundred seriously wounded, including the captain, Commander William McGonagle.

At 1424 hrs, three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking the burning ‘Liberty’ with 20mm and 40mm shells. At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the ‘Liberty’ midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.

Israeli gunboats circled the wounded ‘Liberty,’ firing at crewmen trying to fight the fires. At 1515, the crew were ordered to abandon ship. The Israeli warships closed and poured machine gun fire into the crowded life rafts, sinking two. As American sailors were being massacred in cold blood, a rescue mission by US Sixth Fleet carrier aircraft was mysteriously aborted on orders from the White House.

President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East adviser, Massad Boulos, has enjoyed a reputation as a billionaire mogul at the helm of a business that bears his family name.
Mr. Boulos has been profiled as a tycoon by the world’s media, telling a reporter in October that his company is worth billions. Mr. Trump called him a “highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the international scene.”
The president-elect even lavished what may be his highest praise: a “dealmaker.”
In fact, records show that Mr. Boulos has spent the past two decades selling trucks and heavy machinery in Nigeria for a company his father-in-law controls. The company, SCOA Nigeria PLC, made a profit of less than $66,000 last year, corporate filings show.
There is no indication in corporate documents that Mr. Boulos, a Lebanese-American whose son is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Tiffany, is a man of significant wealth as a result of his businesses. The truck dealership is valued at about $865,000 at its current share price. Mr. Boulos’s stake, according to securities filings, is worth $1.53.
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As for Boulos Enterprises, the company that has been called his family business in The Financial Times and elsewhere, a company officer there said it is owned by an unrelated Boulos family.
Mr. Boulos will advise on one of the world’s most complicated and conflict-wracked regions — a region that Mr. Boulos said this week that he has not visited in years. The advisory position does not require Senate approval.

The confusion over Mr. Boulos’s background — and his failure for years to clear up misunderstandings until questioned this week by The Times — raises questions about how thoroughly Mr. Trump’s team vetted his nominees. The team was caught by surprise by allegations of sexual misconduct against Pete Hegseth, the pick for defense secretary.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition team declined to comment.
Mr. Boulos, a Christian from northern Lebanon who emigrated to Texas as a teenager, has risen in prominence since 2018, when his son Michael began dating Tiffany Trump.
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This year, Massad Boulos helped Mr. Trump woo Arab-American voters, and in the fall served as a go-between for Mr. Trump and the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
In October, The Times asked him about his wealth and business dealings.
“Your company is described as a multibillion-dollar enterprise,” a reporter said. “Are you yourself a billionaire?”
Mr. Boulos said he did not like to describe himself that way, but that journalists had picked up on the label.
“It’s accurate to describe the company as a multibillion-dollar—?” the reporter followed up.
“Yeah,” Mr. Boulos replied. “It’s a big company. Long history.”
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Versions of this history have been recounted in The New York Times, The Economist, CNN and The Wall Street Journal.
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But in a subsequent interview on Tuesday, Mr. Boulos said that he had only meant to confirm that other news outlets had written — incorrectly — that he runs such a company.
In another call, on Wednesday, he said he was referring to his father-in-law’s companies, which he said were collectively worth more than $1 billion, though the company he runs is not.
“I’ve never really gone into any details like that about the value,” he said.
He confirmed that he has no relationship with Boulos Enterprises. Asked why he had never corrected the record, he said that he made a practice of not commenting on his business.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston dodged a response to President-elect Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan saying he would jail the mayor if he does not comply with federal deportation orders of illegal immigrants.

Johnston, a Democrat, has been one of a few officials who have picked a fight with Homan over the incoming Trump administration's plans for mass deportations. The Denver mayor was asked directly about if he would go to jail to block some deportations on CNN's Erin Burnett Outfront Tuesday, to which he instead said that he would work with the administration on deporting violent criminals.

"You know, I think there are thoughtful ways to solve this problem if they want to focus on violent criminals, we would be happy to help support pursuing, arresting, and deporting them. We've helped past administrations. We do that again," Johnston said. "If they want to focus on adding more judicial capacity, so folks with asylum claims can have those cases heard more quickly, we would support that."

Johnston also said he would not use his law enforcement to resist deportation orders, but instead predicted that citizens of the city would intervene to block federal officials.

"Yeah, we won't use our law enforcement and we don't think we need to. That's not what we're after. I think America is not after another conflict on this issue. They're after a way to find pragmatic solutions to this problem," Johnston said.

"If they are going to send the U.S. Army or the Navy Seals into Denver to pursue folks to pull them off the job at hotels or restaurants where they're working or pull kids off the soccer field, I think we will see Denverites and folks around the country who will nonviolently resist that, because I think that doesn't represent our values and doesn't represent the Constitution," he added.

Homan, who is expected to be Trump's chief hawk on border issues and immigration as the designated border czar, said on Fox News's Hannity on Monday that Johnston defying proposed deportations would be a violation of federal law and that "the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”

The incoming border czar has also received pushback from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, with Homan saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not need cooperation from local law enforcement to carry out deportations of illegal immigrants.

Teachers should be assigned goals, and their pay should be tied in to achieving those goals.

It is about performance of the teacher. Performance is shown when each individual student's progress is connected directly to his or her particular teacher or set of teachers. Based on how much the student learned, as demonstrated by the pre- and post- tests, a teacher will be assigned a value-added score. Teachers won't be able to blame the prior school-year teacher, nor the parents, nor society as some have done. If the score is low, it is either the kids are stupid, or the teacher is ineffective. We know that kids are not stupid, so...

How can a union protect a teacher from remediation, sanctions, or dismissal if the data shows clearly that the teacher is ineffective with the current students? It can't. And the traditional role of the union will have to change if it is to exist, just as the traditional role of the teacher must change.

Thoughts
Beautifully shot
Shit ton of politics I forgot about
Can definitely see how the story of Lawerence influenced Frank Herbert
Peter O’ Toole was one good looking guy.
That ridiculous nose on Anthony Quinn
The French Ambassador stole a lot of scenes with little dialogue