Given everything you know right now.

You're starting out as a broke 20 year old. You're "new" everywhere, no existing family or social network. Have to build a life. And you didn't arrive with anything but the shirt on your back and what's in your head right now. You weren't told to prepare for the mission, so no master plan.

How do you become fabulously wealthy?

What parcels of future knowledge would you be able to exploit?

I'm thinking this isn't quite as easy as people might imagine. One consideration being that your arrival (and actions) might cause ripples that would disrupt the future you know.

Since this is my all-time favorite film, I figure I might as well throw this out there.

"Gladiator 2," directed by Ridley Scott, continues the story from the 2000 film. The sequel centers on Lucius Verus, the son of Lucilla and nephew of Commodus, who was saved by Maximus in the original film. Lucius, played by Paul Mescal, has spent the past 15 years presumed dead and living in the wilderness. The story follows his return to Rome and the ensuing conflicts.

The cast includes Denzel Washington as Lucius’ mentor, Pedro Pascal as a military general who rebels against the emperors, Joseph Quinn as Emperor Geta, and Fred Hechinger as Emperor Caracalla. Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi reprise their roles as Lucilla and Senator Gracchus, respectively. The film is set for release on November 22, 2024




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Started watching it last week. Season 2, Episode 6, Fishes. Holy sh!t. I don’t think I’ve ever been as exhausted watching an episode of a show as I was after watching that. The pace of the entire episode was brilliant. Had my anxiety levels through the roof. Had a lot of Shameless qualities to it.

Anyway, great show. CSB

On the Disney+ mobile app, the tile advertising Andor has been updated to reflect the upcoming season's release date, with the bottom of the poster for the show reading "Season 2 coming April 22." In addition to marking two years and five months after the season 1 finale, which aired in November 23, 2022, this release date will come hot on the heels of the fan convention Star Wars Celebration. The next convention takes place between April 18 and April 20, 2025, leaving just a two-day hiatus between the end of the event and the premiere of the new season.

The major broadcast networks have spent 114 minutes of airtime on Danelo Cavalcante, the illegal alien who escaped a Chester County, Pennsylvania prison on August 31 after being convicted of violently murdering his ex-girlfriend in front of her children. Yet throughout this veritable ocean of coverage, not a single person on any of these three networks has even once bothered to mention that Cavalcante entered this country illegally.

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Our main sewer line in the basement backed up last week, so we had a plumber come out and clean out the main drain line to the street.

He found plenty of roots that had crept into the drain line, and once those were clear, the water drained in the basement and he said all was good. Two days later, we are backed up again in the basement.

What should we do from here? Does our home insurance cover a main drain line break in the pipe to the street?

Humanity is doomed, and well deservedly so:

Planet-warming pollution in Earth’s atmosphere last year hit the highest levels in human history, scientists announced Monday — a worrying indicator of the world’s failure to curb climate change as global temperatures are on track to hit yet another record high.

Ask your climate questions. With the help of generative Al, we'll try to deliver answers based on our published reporting.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide — the most important driver of global warming — are now growing faster than at any time since our species evolved, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The increase can be traced back to stubbornly high rates of fossil fuel consumption, the report said, as well as ecosystems that are becoming more likely to produce emissions and potentially less capable of absorbing excess carbon.

Levels of the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide also hit all-time highs in 2023, the WMO said. The total heat-trapping potential of the atmosphere is now 51.5 percent higher than in 1990, when United Nations scientists first warned the world was on track for catastrophic climate change.



“This should set alarm bells ringing among decision makers,” WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet.”
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For the past 14 months, global temperatures have been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than preindustrial levels, according to Europe’s top climate agency. In a report last week, U.N. researchers said nations must cut greenhouse house emissions to 42 percent below 2019 levels to avoid permanently exceeding that threshold and triggering the most dangerous consequences of global warming.
But Monday’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows the world is nowhere near achieving that target.

Drawing on data from hundreds of measurement stations spread across more than 80 countries and all the world’s ocean basins, the report found that atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases have grown at an accelerating rate in the past decade.


The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere last year exceeded 420 parts per million — a level not seen since the Pliocene Epoch more than 3 million years ago. At that time, global temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer, sea levels were 30 to 60 feet higher, and Homo sapiens did not yet exist.
Most of the recent growth comes from people burning coal, oil and gas, the report said. But the WMO researchers also found worrying evidence that human-driven warming has caused natural systems to release more greenhouse gases and may be hurting the Earth’s ability to absorb what people emit.

The hike in carbon dioxide concentrations last year coincided with the largest-observed spike in carbon monoxide — a related gas that is produced when trees burn, the scientists said. Global carbon emissions from forest fires were 16 percent above average during the 2023-2024 fire season, as Australia endured a historic drought and Canada saw a record 37 million acres of forest go up in flames.


Surging levels of methane may also be traced to degraded ecosystems, data suggests. Chemical analysis of the gas, which traps 28 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time frame, suggests that it is increasingly coming from microbial activity, rather than fossil fuel burning. Though some of that increase can be attributed to bacteria living in landfills and the guts of cows, researchers worry it is also being produced by warming tropical wetlands and thawing Arctic permafrost.
Meanwhile, the net amount of carbon taken up by ecosystems last year was about 28 percent lower than in 2021 and 2022, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory. This decline may be in part because of 2023’s record-high temperatures, which are known to stress plants and cut into ecosystems’ ability to serve as a carbon sink.
The more the world continues to warm, the researchers said, the more natural carbon sinks will weaken, and the harder it will be to achieve the world’s climate goals.
“We face a potential vicious cycle,” WMO Deputy Secretary General Ko Barrett said in a statement. “These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society.”

Spoke with Gene Riordan, picked up an offer from Iowa last week after a strong showing at camp. Riordan's got a strong connection to Iowa City via his father, has a growing affinity for George Barnett and has already been to campus three times (and may be coming again for the Hawkeye Tailgater this weekend).

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Looks like they thawed him out for another season. Struggling as bad as ever to formulate his words. So sad. Love that dude.

House Democrats on Wednesday elected Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as their leader, making him the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress.
The New Yorker succeeds House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who has led the Democrats for two decades.
Jeffries will carry the title of minority leader when Congress returns in January with Republicans in control of the House as a result of the midterm elections.
Approved by acclamation, Jeffries, 52, and two other lawmakers in leadership — Reps. Katherine M. Clark (Mass.), 59, and Pete Aguilar (Calif.), 43 — will represent a generational change for Democrats who will be in the minority in the new Congress.