National, Regional and Local News

[ti-amie]

Beyond being obviously tragic, this is absolutely maddening...
This is an absolutely regular part of American life - it's insane. It's like every day, no matter where you go or what you do, there is a risk of being murdered in the USA. Because of the 'gun culture', which far too many people equate with 'freedom'.
Because so many people have guns, all it takes is for one of these many, many gun carrying people to blow a gasket - it only needs to be a split second thing. And that's it - because you've got a gun... and because American culture teaches you that using that gun against someone is a viable way to deal with conflict, it takes only one instant decision - which the person may instantly regret - and someone's life is ended.
Incredible.

It is absolutely insane.
This type of thing - a regular occurrence in the U.S. - is unthinkable here in Canada. Because here, in a civilized country, we don't need to carry guns to feel 'macho', or to feel 'important', or to fell... 'free'.
The only people who carry guns on their person here in Canada are criminals, police, and, sadly, hunters. Mr. or Mrs. or Miss average person does not carry a gun here. But in the U.S., average people - MANY average people - feel the need to carry a gun. And it's cyclical, of course - people carry guns to protect themselves because everyone else is carrying a gun. And around and around it goes...
It's sick.

And when someone carrying a gun gets into a conflict with another person, the wires can touch and cause a spark, and that's all it takes - just an instant ignition which is regretted seconds later.
And just like that, a person is dead. Forever.
What kind of society is this???

Mother Shot Dead in Front of Her Children After Parking Lot Conflict

.

Mumble, mumble, mumble Freedom, etc, etc, etc

[skatingfan]

The last line of that story is a real kick in the stomach.

[Deuce]

The last line of that story is a real kick in the stomach.

Indeed - thank you for mentioning that. I meant to include in my diatribe above to pay particular attention to the last sentence of the article.
It's insane.
Absolutely insane.
How dare that country call itself civilized!

[ponchi101]

True story.
I was about to start my hitting session with a friend, who was a lawyer, when his phone rang. He looked at it and told me "sorry, I have to take this", and moved aside. He came back a couple of minutes later, visibly shaken, so I asked him what had happened.
He told me that a friend of his (not mine) was mugged by a couple of young kids and that his friend, who was armed, had pulled out his gun and shot them both. Broad daylight, an afternoon at a shopping mall's parking lot. With plenty of witnesses, the police arrived and his friend surrendered and was arrested, and taken in custody. His friend called him, and he went to the police station, where he had to explain to his friend that IT WAS HIM THAT HAD SHOT AND KILLED TWO TEENAGERS. Self defense or not, he was in deep, deep trouble.

I am not saying that there should be any sympathy for the woman that shot the other in that particle; throw the book at her. But it is one thing that people that go around carrying guns do not understand: if you shoot somebody, YOUR LIFE HAS CHANGED, basically for the worse. You are in deep, deep legal troubles. You will most likely lose your job, a lot of money, and will now have a criminal record of great relevance (try to find a new job after that).
Nothing good comes from carrying a gun. Nothing.

[ti-amie]

A nuclear reactor was melting down. Jimmy Carter came to the rescue.
As a 28-year-old Navy lieutenant, Carter was one of the few people on the planet authorized to go inside a damaged nuclear reactor

By Gillian Brockell
February 20, 2023 at 6:15 a.m. EST


Lt. Jimmy Carter, center top, in the main control room of submarine USS K-1 in 1952. (U.S. Navy)

The world was in the grip of the Cold War in 1952 when a nuclear reactor began melting down.

That reactor, located at Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, had suffered an explosion on Dec. 12. Radioactive material had escaped into the atmosphere, and millions of gallons of radioactive water flooded into the reactor’s basement. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the Canadians needed help to disassemble the reactor’s damaged core.

The United States sent 28-year-old Jimmy Carter.

Carter, who entered home hospice care this weekend at 98, is best known for being the nation’s 39th commander in chief and oldest living president. But his service to the country began when he was a teenage plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy and continued for four decades after his presidency.

In the years after graduating from Annapolis in 1946, Carter was promoted to lieutenant and took a dangerous assignment aboard a submarine. He was away from his young bride, Rosalynn, and their growing family quite a bit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/ ... .png&w=916
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter on their wedding day in 1946. (The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum)

It was in these years that President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military. Robert A. Strong, a politics professor at Washington and Lee University, recounts an incident from this period. While his submarine was docked in Bermuda, British military officers invited White members of the American crew to a party. At Carter’s urging, the entire crew refused to attend because it was segregated.

In 1952, Carter was selected to join an elite team to help develop the Navy’s first nuclear submarines. Once he had trained his crew and the submarine was constructed, Carter was to be the commanding officer of the USS Seawolf, according to Carter in his 1976 book “Why Not the Best?: The First 50 Years.”

Then the partial meltdown happened, and Lt. Carter was one of the few people on the planet authorized to go inside a nuclear reactor.


Part of the Chalk River nuclear facility in Ontario, circa 1945. (National Research Council Canada)

Carter and his two dozen men were sent to Canada to help, along with other Canadian and American service members. Because of the intensity of radiation, a human could spend only 90 seconds in the damaged core, even while wearing protective gear.

First, they constructed an exact duplicate of the reactor nearby. Then they practiced and practiced, dashing into the duplicate “to be sure we had the correct tools and knew exactly how to use them,” Carter wrote.

Each time one of his men managed to unscrew a bolt, the same bolt would be removed from the duplicate, and the next man would prep for the next step.

Eventually, it was Carter’s turn. He was in a team of three.

“Outfitted with white protective clothes, we descended into the reactor and worked frantically for our allotted time,” he wrote.

In one minute and 29 seconds, Carter had absorbed the maximum amount of radiation a human can withstand in a year.

The mission was successful. The damaged core was removed. Within two years, it had been rebuilt and was back up and running.

For several months afterward, Carter and his crew submitted fecal and urine samples to test for radioactivity, but “there were no apparent aftereffects from this exposure,” Carter wrote, “just a lot of doubtful jokes among ourselves about death versus sterility.”

But in an interview with historian Arthur Milnes in 2008, Carter wasn’t as cavalier. He said for six months his urine tested positive for radioactivity.

“They let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would now,” he said. “It was in the early stages, and they didn’t know.”

Carter returned to preparing to command a nuclear submarine, but soon, fate intervened. In July 1953, Carter’s father Earl died of pancreatic cancer at 58. (In fact, pancreatic cancer would eventually kill his mother and all three of his siblings.)

As the eldest child, Carter sought an immediate release from the Navy to take over the family business. After seven years of service, he was honorably discharged on Oct. 9, 1953.

The incident had a lifelong impact on Carter’s views on nuclear power, Carter biographer Peter Bourne told Milnes. As a young naval officer, he had approached it in a “very scientific and dispassionate way,” Bourne said, but Chalk River showed him its power to destroy.

“I believe this emotional recognition of the true nature of the power mankind had unleashed informed his decisions as president,” Bourne said, “not just in terms of having his finger on the nuclear button, but in his decision not to pursue the development of the neutron bomb as a weapon.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/ ... ctor-navy/

[ti-amie]

The best comment I've seen on why so many don't know the true story of President Carter. It's by someone responding to the above article.

The same people (Fox, the RNC) who spent 30 years brainwashing the American public about Hillary Clinton spent 40+ years doing the same about Jimmy Carter and are actively doing the same about Joe Biden as we speak.

The smears about Carter and Biden are similar and done for the same reason, to distract from the Republican criminals who preceded them in office: Nixon and Trump.

Carter took office after Watergate had destroyed our faith in government; after a long, polarizing war; after nearly a decade of racial conflict and deaths/beatings that Republicans chose to blame on the victims; in the midst of economic turmoil and the loss of prestige abroad. He entered office in the middle of a global economic crisis, including stagflation and wage/price freezes implemented by Nixon/Ford; and faced a global fuel crisis.

The little-known governor from Georgia was voted into office by a traumatized nation desperate for a president they could trust, one who swore he would never lie to them. Four years later, hypocritical voters decided the truth was overrated. They couldn't possibly turn the heat down, drive less, or trust diplomacy. That's how we got Reagan and the era of greed is good.

Biden's election checks the same boxes: Traumatized nation reeling from Trump and Covid. Racial unrest. Long, undeclared war jerryrigged by the outgoing president. Global financial struggle. Division and violence, and an electorate begging for a competent, calm, mature problem-solver in the White House.

A mere two years later, amnesia once again strikes the right wing. And the propaganda circus cranks up the Republican clown show. Anyone who lived through the long effort to rehabilitate Nixon and demonize Carter will see the same feral hands at work today with Trump and Biden.

by @Darrel_G

[Deuce]

A nuclear reactor was melting down. Jimmy Carter came to the rescue.
As a 28-year-old Navy lieutenant, Carter was one of the few people on the planet authorized to go inside a damaged nuclear reactor

By Gillian Brockell
February 20, 2023 at 6:15 a.m. EST


Lt. Jimmy Carter, center top, in the main control room of submarine USS K-1 in 1952. (U.S. Navy)

The world was in the grip of the Cold War in 1952 when a nuclear reactor began melting down.

That reactor, located at Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, had suffered an explosion on Dec. 12. Radioactive material had escaped into the atmosphere, and millions of gallons of radioactive water flooded into the reactor’s basement. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the Canadians needed help to disassemble the reactor’s damaged core.

The United States sent 28-year-old Jimmy Carter.

Carter, who entered home hospice care this weekend at 98, is best known for being the nation’s 39th commander in chief and oldest living president. But his service to the country began when he was a teenage plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy and continued for four decades after his presidency.

In the years after graduating from Annapolis in 1946, Carter was promoted to lieutenant and took a dangerous assignment aboard a submarine. He was away from his young bride, Rosalynn, and their growing family quite a bit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/ ... .png&w=916
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter on their wedding day in 1946. (The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum)

It was in these years that President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military. Robert A. Strong, a politics professor at Washington and Lee University, recounts an incident from this period. While his submarine was docked in Bermuda, British military officers invited White members of the American crew to a party. At Carter’s urging, the entire crew refused to attend because it was segregated.

In 1952, Carter was selected to join an elite team to help develop the Navy’s first nuclear submarines. Once he had trained his crew and the submarine was constructed, Carter was to be the commanding officer of the USS Seawolf, according to Carter in his 1976 book “Why Not the Best?: The First 50 Years.”

Then the partial meltdown happened, and Lt. Carter was one of the few people on the planet authorized to go inside a nuclear reactor.


Part of the Chalk River nuclear facility in Ontario, circa 1945. (National Research Council Canada)

Carter and his two dozen men were sent to Canada to help, along with other Canadian and American service members. Because of the intensity of radiation, a human could spend only 90 seconds in the damaged core, even while wearing protective gear.

First, they constructed an exact duplicate of the reactor nearby. Then they practiced and practiced, dashing into the duplicate “to be sure we had the correct tools and knew exactly how to use them,” Carter wrote.

Each time one of his men managed to unscrew a bolt, the same bolt would be removed from the duplicate, and the next man would prep for the next step.

Eventually, it was Carter’s turn. He was in a team of three.

“Outfitted with white protective clothes, we descended into the reactor and worked frantically for our allotted time,” he wrote.

In one minute and 29 seconds, Carter had absorbed the maximum amount of radiation a human can withstand in a year.

The mission was successful. The damaged core was removed. Within two years, it had been rebuilt and was back up and running.

For several months afterward, Carter and his crew submitted fecal and urine samples to test for radioactivity, but “there were no apparent aftereffects from this exposure,” Carter wrote, “just a lot of doubtful jokes among ourselves about death versus sterility.”

But in an interview with historian Arthur Milnes in 2008, Carter wasn’t as cavalier. He said for six months his urine tested positive for radioactivity.

“They let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would now,” he said. “It was in the early stages, and they didn’t know.”

Carter returned to preparing to command a nuclear submarine, but soon, fate intervened. In July 1953, Carter’s father Earl died of pancreatic cancer at 58. (In fact, pancreatic cancer would eventually kill his mother and all three of his siblings.)

As the eldest child, Carter sought an immediate release from the Navy to take over the family business. After seven years of service, he was honorably discharged on Oct. 9, 1953.

The incident had a lifelong impact on Carter’s views on nuclear power, Carter biographer Peter Bourne told Milnes. As a young naval officer, he had approached it in a “very scientific and dispassionate way,” Bourne said, but Chalk River showed him its power to destroy.

“I believe this emotional recognition of the true nature of the power mankind had unleashed informed his decisions as president,” Bourne said, “not just in terms of having his finger on the nuclear button, but in his decision not to pursue the development of the neutron bomb as a weapon.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/ ... ctor-navy/

... And the moral of the story is...
Absorbing a huge amount of radiation ensures a long and healthy life!

He always seemed like a genuinely nice and sincere person, but I had no idea about his nuclear knowledge.

[ponchi101]

He is a nuclear engineer. It seems the article forgot to mention that. Perhaps one of the most educated presidents ever.
I will always hate him because he sold Venezuela out to Chavez, when he certified that the 2004 referendum was legit. But, for America, he was good.

[Deuce]

Dear United States of America: Your country is completely out of control. Everyone knows this except you.
Rather than pretend that things are fine, you should be willing to move Heaven and Earth to fix your problems.

Journalist Shot And Killed While Reporting On Another Fatal Shooting...

.

[ti-amie]

[dryrunguy]

Um, that's my alma mater.

[ti-amie]

Measles is one of the most deadly "childhood" diseases known. The vaccine against it has been in use among the medically sane for many years.

[ponchi101]

When people say "what's the harm... (put here some of the many looney theories around)" this is one premium example.
What's the harm? People dying, that's the harm.

[Deuce]

But it's ok, because they'll all go to Paradise/Heaven.
One really has to wonder what percentage of religious believers in the Paradise/Heaven thing live more irresponsible and reckless lives because they're convinced that they'll actually be going to a 'better place', and so value life - and fear death - less than non-believers.

[ti-amie]

U.S. Politics in Real Time
@uspolitics@mastodon.sdf.org
Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor to register with the state

https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/flor ... the-state/

#florida

https://mastodon.sdf.org/@uspolitics/109956901459710219