What would it take to get us to notice this once much-talked-about topic that had fallen entirely out of the news?

The topic is NFTs.

I'm reading "More Than 20 Report Burning Eyes After NFT Festival in Hong Kong/Bored Ape Yacht Club, the collective that hosted the three-day event, said it was investigating possible causes, including UV lights used at a party on Saturday night" (NYT)

"The Supreme Court seemed ready on Tuesday to rule that the government may disarm people under domestic violence orders...."

"Justice Neil M. Gorsuch... asked a series of questions sketching out a minimalist ruling upholding the law, suggesting that the case before the court was an easy one. 'We actually have a finding of a credible threat,' he said... ... Justices Barrett and Brett M. Kavanaugh — made similar comments.... "

Writes Adam Liptak, in "Supreme Court Seems Likely to Uphold Law Disarming Domestic Abusers/The potential sweep of a decision could extend far beyond domestic abuse by clarifying the scope of the court’s ruling last year that vastly expanded gun rights" (NYT).

"Twenty-two Democrats voted with 212 Republicans to censure Tlaib, and four Republicans voted with 184 Democrats against the resolution..."

"Tlaib was not required to stand in the well of the House and be rebuked by the speaker, as is traditionally the case.... [T]he resolution mentions Tlaib’s Nov. 3 video post on X, which included the first portion of the phrase 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' a call for the eradication of Israel.... Tlaib responded by saying the phrase is 'an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.'"

From "House censures Rep. Rashida Tlaib over defense of Hamas, calls to destroy Israel" (NY Post).

ADDED: "White House denounces Tlaib's use of controversial pro-Palestinian slogan" (The Guardian)("We strongly disagree with using that phrase – it’s been said by many people at the White House").

"Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that ensures access to abortion...."

AP reports.

I'm glad to see this response to the Supreme Court's rejection of its long-held notion that the federal Constitution implies a right to abortion. That left the matter to the state, and the strongest move a state can make in response is to add the right to the state constitution in express, explicit terms. And that leaves the matter to the individual, where it belongs.

ADDED: The vote was not close — 56.6% to 43.4%.

Sunrise — 6:42, 6:46, 6:47, 6:48.

"When Trump was president I started every morning by reading the New York Times, followed by the Washington Post, and would track both papers’ websites..."

"... regularly throughout the day. To be less than vigilant was to fall behind.... My friend Mike likened this constant monitoring to having a second job. It was exhausting, and the moment that Biden was sworn in to office I let it all go. When the new president speaks, I feel the way I do on a plane when the pilot announces that after reaching our cruising altitude he will head due north, or take a left at Lake Erie. You don’t need to tell me about your job, I always think. Just, you know, do it. It’s so freeing, no longer listening to political podcasts—no longer being enraged...."

Wrote David Sedaris, in "Happy-Go-Lucky," which came out in 2022 (I earn a commission through that link).

I recalled that passage as I was listening to Monday's NYT "Daily" podcast, "Swing State Voters Are Souring on Biden/A new Times/Siena poll finds Donald Trump leading President Biden in five of six key battlegrounds."

"Women, it’s all your fault there aren’t enough children any more. They’ve disappeared, according to the Tory MP Miriam Cates...."

"Cates is convinced that young women are desperate to have large families but have been put off by the prohibitive cost of childcare and housing.... Where once the Tories spent their time chastising feckless young single mums for being irresponsible enough to get themselves up the duff, now they are telling them off for being too cautious and wrecking the economy.... If the Tories want more babies they need adequate maternity facilities, as well as more comprehensive childcare provision for mothers and fathers, while encouraging partners to pull their weight. What they don’t need to do is demand a culture change to relegate women to the role of sows...."

Writes Alice Thomson, in "No thanks, we women won’t breed for Britain/The MP Miriam Cates wants us to have more babies. It’s not so easy...." (London Times).

That made me remember I wanted to link to this, in the Washington Post, "Millennials aren’t having kids. Here are the reasons why. We found some answers when looking into a different mystery: what’s going on with only children?"

"Problems arise if the drug slows down the stomach too much or blocks the intestines...."

"While the medications helped Webster slim down quickly.... Webster’s husband allegedly found her unconscious with a brown liquid seeping out of her mouth.... 'It was just pouring out.... If I knew that could happen, she wouldn’t have been taking it.... I never thought you could die from it.'... [T]he manufacturer of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, said ileus [intestinal blockage] was only reported after its 'post-marketing setting,' suggesting the drugmaker only became aware of the problem after the drug was released...."

From "Woman dies after taking Ozempic to slim down for daughter’s wedding: 'She shouldn’t be gone'" (NY Post).

"But who knew (other than paleontologists) that there was a time in Earth’s history when it rained for a million years?"

"Or about the forty million years when moss dominated the planet? Or about how plankton, by inventing photosynthesis and thereby giving off oxygen in the course of some two billion years, transformed Earth’s yellow methane-filled atmosphere into blue skies, and the lifeless landscape into forests of green? In William Steig’s book 'Rotten Island,' illustrations show erupting volcanoes and creepy sea creatures and thorny plants and vicious land animals. One day, a jealous battle starts over a new life-form: a flower. Violence, destruction, giant insects, and ice and fire ensue, and lead to a mass extinction. I used to think that 'Rotten Island' was about the disastrous pettiness of human wants and behaviors, and about how much better life might be without us. Now I see it as a reasonably accurate visual history of our planet, with extra polka dots and stripes, in watercolor...."

From "Reinventing the Dinosaur 'Life on Our Planet,' a new Netflix nature documentary, renews our fascination with our most feared and loved precursors" (The New Yorker).

We watched the first episode of this series last night. I wasn't going to continue, but now that I know that moss and plankton will get their due — that it won't be all lumbering CGI dinosaurs and Morgan Freeman speaking ponderously about who's fighting and winning dominion over Earth — I might give another episode a chance.

Where are all the articles saying Trump's trial testimony was a disaster?

I feel rather sure that headlines like that would be everywhere if it was at all possible to spin it that way, so I'm going to assume he did — at least — reasonably well.

The testimony isn't even the top story at the NYT. Israel is the top story....

Thanksgiving food is getting more promotion — not to mention home elevators and a "male-killing virus" in insects.

If I go to the next screenful of NYT homepage, there is some Trump, but it's not about his trial testimony. It's about the election:

"How much is abortion still motivating votes?/How much of a drag is President JOE BIDEN?/Do Democrats have a Black and suburban turnout problem?/Does any of it matter for 2024?"

It's Election Day, and those are — according to Politico — "Four big Election Day questions."

Branding.

pic.twitter.com/JRebl653BP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2023

ADDED: I was going to create a new tag for Musk's new AI project, but typing in the letters, I saw that I already had a tag "grok" — lower case "g" — so I just used that, even though I knew the existing posts with that tag had to be just about the word "grok." I wasn't going to create a second "grok" tag, with an upper case "G." I don't like tag proliferation, but — more important — I wanted to publish this post with the old tag so I could click on it and see what I'd done in the past.

I see that last January I used "grok" in a post about an article about thinking about thinking:

Now that we can read (some of) the Nashville shooter's writing, can we understand why the parents of surviving students wanted to suppress them permanently?

I'm reading From "Excerpts From Nashville School Shooter’s Writings Are Published Online/The publication of the apparent excerpts by a conservative commentator enraged the parents of surviving students, who have been fighting to keep the writings from ever becoming public" (NYT).

“The damage done today is already significant....” said Brent Leatherwood, a parent of three Covenant students.... He called whoever had leaked the photos “a viper” who had allowed someone “who terrorized our family with bullets to be able to now terrorize us with words from the grave.”... 

So, the NYT forefronts the parents and the idea that to get information about the criminal's thought process would be to "terrorize" the children. On this theory, we ought to be protected from all hate speech. There should be no news reports of terror attacks. I would have thought the main reason not to publish a criminal's writings would be that the promise of publication might spur on other killers. 

The woods at 2 p.m.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Compliments are loved, even in New York City... especially when they are so beautifully articulated... by a man who might look like Errol Flynn.

After the jump, because it's TikTok:

David Bowie through the ages.

A brilliant impersonation, after the jump, because it's TikTok: