John Hanno – Page 25 – The Tarbabys Blog

Why brain rot and bed rotting aren’t all bad — and the reasons why Gen Z and millennials are so drawn to this form of escape

Yahoo! Life

Why brain rot and bed rotting aren’t all bad — and the reasons why Gen Z and millennials are so drawn to this form of escape

Elena Sheppard – December 30, 2024

Cheerful Woman connects to the online world on her smartphone in bed at night — Why people – particularly Gen Z-ers and millennials — are so drawn to “rotting.” (Getty Creative)

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Oxford University Press’s word of 2024 was “brain rot.” The year also gave us a flurry of TikToks documenting “bed rotting.” What’s with all this rotting — and is it a trend we should be taking into 2025?

But first: What do these terms, generally used by Gen Z-ers and millennials, even mean?

“‘Brain rotting’ typically refers to the idea of engaging in mindless content consumption, like scrolling social media or binge-watching TV shows, which over time, feels like numbing or dulling your brain,” explains mental health therapist Brittany Cilento Kopycienski, who owns Glow Counseling Solutions. “‘Bed rotting’ involves spending excessive time lying in bed, contributing to physical and mental stagnation.”

Both activities, it seems, are about checking out of whatever your reality is at the moment — and checking into the often good feeling of doing nothing. Is that good for our mental health? Here’s what experts say.

Why are we so drawn to ‘rotting’?

“Let’s face it—bed rotting or brain rotting is not a style of lazy living. It’s about escape,” psychologist Caitlin Slavens tells Yahoo Life. “The world is noisy, chaotic and often overwhelming. ‘Rotting’ is like pressing a giant snooze button on life. When you’re inundated with expectations (of work, family or even yourself), shutting down might seem your only option.”

She adds, “These trends are a response to a world that’s made us feel like we must be performing in every moment of our lives — for work, for social media, for each other’s expectations. The rise of rotting says we’re burnt out, together.”

That may be especially true for younger adults. “Our brains are experiencing unprecedented levels of stimulation through constant notifications, social media and digital engagement,” Sophia Spencer, a social psychology and mental health therapist, tells Yahoo Life. “For Gen Z and millennials in particular, they are the first generations to live like this from a young age and for this to be their norm. Essentially, their brains are subject to a level of information that was once unthinkable, and not what our brains are designed for.”

But others argue that this urge to disassociate from life isn’t new, but rather something past generations have also felt as they settle into adulthood.

“Do you remember the ‘adulting’ movement?” Slavens points out. “People began to celebrate even the most basic life tasks, like doing laundry or paying bills, as if they were a win in a world so large it felt overwhelming. Or hygge — the Scandinavian midcentury concept of warm living — where we all collectively agreed that it was candles and blankets we needed to feel better when burned out. “All of these trends speak to the same need: to ease up, to take a breath, to feel fine about not doing it all.”

Is rotting a bad thing?

It really depends on the intention behind it — and how much time is being spent staring at screens in lieu of actually resting. Many people see bed rotting as a particular form of self-care: a day spent in bed, with a sole focus on recharging. “Our brains are not meant to be on overdrive all the time. Intentional breaks, time away from screens and the permission to veg out can be restorative,” says Slavens. “The issue is when rotting turns into avoidance, when we’re evading responsibilities or feelings we’re afraid to confront. So yes, a little rotting? Great. Full-blown decay? Probably not ideal.”

As for “brain rot,” who among us hasn’t mindlessly scrolled on our phone? “‘Rotting’ in moderation can be seen as a chance to mentally reset,” says Kopycienski. “It can allow for a break from constant stimulation where emotional recovery can occur.”

How do we move forward?

Thinking all this rotting through, the long and short of it seems to be that it’s about burnout. And burnout isn’t best handled by festering, or rotting; it’s best handled via intentional rest, experts say.

“The best thing we can do is redefine what rest looks like in a digital age,” says Spencer. “Rather than reactively rotting, [we should be] having a system of proactive healthy habits.” That might involve proactively setting better work-life boundaries, scaling back our commitments or being less online to minimize burnout in the first place. Spencer doesn’t rule out more radical change.

“When our ancestors went through significant social change, such as during the Industrial Revolution, people moved from agricultural rhythms that followed daylight to the factory 9–5 schedule,” she notes. “I think we need to take the digital age as a significant change to our life … and adapt our lives ourselves as appropriate.”

How extreme car dependency is driving Americans to unhappiness

The Guardian

How extreme car dependency is driving Americans to unhappiness

Oliver Milman in New York – December 29, 2024

<span>A new study has found there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness.</span><span>Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Alamy</span> — A new study has found there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness.Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Alamy

The United States, with its enormous highways, sprawling suburbs and neglected public transport systems, is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. But this arrangement of obligatory driving is making many Americans actively unhappy, new research has found.

The car is firmly entrenched as the default, and often only, mode of transport for the vast majority of Americans, with more than nine in 10 households having at least one vehicle and 87% of people using their cars daily. Last year, a record 290m vehicles were operated on US streets and highways.

However, this extreme car dependence is affecting Americans’ quality of life, with a new study finding there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness. It found that while having a car is better than not for overall life satisfaction, having to drive for more than 50% of the time for out-of-home activities is linked to a decrease in life satisfaction.

“Car dependency has a threshold effect – using a car just sometimes increases life satisfaction but if you have to drive much more than this people start reporting lower levels of happiness,” said Rababe Saadaoui, an urban planning expert at Arizona State University and lead author of the study. “Extreme car dependence comes at a cost, to the point that the downsides outweigh the benefits.”

The new research, conducted via a survey of a representative group of people across the US, analyzed people’s responses to questions about driving habits and life satisfaction and sought to find the link between the two via a statistical model that factored in other variables of general contentment, such as income, family situation, race and disability.

The results were “surprising”, Saadaoui said, and could be the result of a number of negative impacts of driving, such as the stress of continually navigating roads and traffic, the loss of physical activity from not walking anywhere, a reduced engagement with other people and the growing financial burden of owning and maintaining a vehicle.

“Some people drive a lot and feel fine with it but others feel a real burden,” she said. “The study doesn’t call for people to completely stop using cars but the solution could be in finding a balance. For many people driving isn’t a choice, so diversifying choices is important.”

Decades of national and state interventions have provided the US with an extensive system of highways, many of which cut deep into the heart of its cities, fracturing communities and bringing congestion and air pollution to nearby residents, particularly those of color.

Planning policies and mandatory car parking construction have encouraged suburban sprawl, strip malls with more space for cars than people and the erosion of shared “third places” where Americans can congregate. As a result, even very short journeys outside the house require a car, with half of all car trips being under three miles.

Most of the decisions driving this are made at a state level, although Joe Biden’s administration vowed to help rebuild public transit networks beleaguered by the Covid pandemic and to tear down certain divisive highways. However, the federal government has continued pouring far more money into building and expanding roads than in any alternatives to driving. Next year, more than $60bn in federal funding is planned for roads and bridges.

A small sliver of the American public actively chooses to live without a car because they are able to live in the few remaining walkable communities in the US, but for most of those without a car it is a forced deprivation due to poverty or disability.

Being without a car can itself be expensive and isolating, according to Anna Zivarts, who was born with a neurological condition that prevents her from driving. Zivarts, based in Seattle, is the author of the book When Driving Is Not an Option and advocates on behalf of those unable to drive.

“Seattle has a solid bus system but everyone who can afford a car has a car. I’m often the only parent going to any sort of event without a car. Everything is built around cars,” she said.

“We are just locked into a system of driving that is meant to be more enjoyable but isn’t. I walk five minutes with my kid to the school bus stop and yet other parents make that journey to the stop by car. Is this really how you want to spend your life?”

A long-term effort is required to make communities more walkable and bolster public transport and biking options, Zivarts said, but an immediate step would be simply to consider the existence of people without cars.

“Concerning” bird flu mutations in Louisiana patient underscores pandemic potential of H5N1

Salon

“Concerning” bird flu mutations in Louisiana patient underscores pandemic potential of H5N1

Nicole Karlis – December 31, 2024

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

In 2024, at least 66 human cases of bird flu have been reported in the United States, each one raising the risk of another pandemic like COVID-19. So far, most cases have been described as “mild,” which means they weren’t hospitalized. No patients have died, though infections years ago had a very high mortality rate. Symptoms have typically included pink eye, but not serious respiratory distress.

However, a patient recently made headlines in Louisiana for being a more severe case. The patient, who is reportedly over the age of 65, was hospitalized and in critical condition due to severe respiratory symptoms.

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said a genetic analysis suggests the virus mutated inside the patient to possibly make it a more severe illness in humans. The agency called the mutation “concerning,” as it may allow the virus to better bind to receptors in humans’ upper airways. This would make it easier to jump from person to person, sparking major outbreaks or even a pandemic. However, the public health agency said that the risk to the general public from the outbreak “has not changed and remains low.”

The CDC also stated that these mutations have not been detected in the bird flock that infected the patient, which would make the situation “more concerning.”

“These changes would be more concerning if found in animal hosts or in early stages of infection (e.g., within a few days of symptom onset) when these changes might be more likely to facilitate spread to close contacts,” the CDC said in its report. “Notably, in this case, no transmission from the patient in Louisiana to other persons has been identified.”

Still, every additional human case gives H5N1 more opportunities to adapt. As a study found earlier in December, it will only take one single mutation to make bird flu much worse. Out of the 66 human cases of bird flu that have been reported in 10 states, including some without reported outbreaks, all but two stem from exposure to either cows or poultry. Human-to-human transmission could be occurring undetected, but so far there is no hard evidence of such transmission.

In an interview with Intelligencer, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan noted that these exact viral mutations have been seen in bird flu before, nearly two decades ago. The more concerning aspect of the emerging crisis, she said, was how the number of human cases keeps rising.

“Even though this particular virus from this particular case isn’t a huge concern in terms of onward transmission, if we’re having human cases tick up and up and up, we’re going to give the virus more chances to develop mutations,” Rasmussen explained. “And if that’s not detected and starts spreading in the human population, that’s a very good way to have a pandemic start out of this.”

Rasmussen also underlined the risk of reassortment — the potential for H5N1 to swap genes with human influenza virus, which could supercharge the spread of the pathogen. “That’s essentially like shuffling two decks of cards together, ending up making new viruses that have a combination of segments from both of the viruses that were infecting the person. That can lead to really, really rapid evolutionary jumps and rapid adaptation to a new host,” she said.

Over the weekend, Dr. Leana Wen, the former Baltimore health commissioner, told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” that the United States should have learned its lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We should be having rapid tests, home tests, available to all farm workers, to their families, for the clinicians taking care of them, so that we aren’t waiting for public labs and CDC labs to tell us what’s bird flu or not,” she said. “We have 66 cases of bird flu in humans, and this is almost certainly a significant undercount, because we have not been doing nearly enough testing.”

She also urged the Biden administration to approve the H5N1 vaccine.

“There’s research done on it,” she said. “They could get this authorized now, and also get the vaccine out to farm workers and to vulnerable people.”

As Salon previously reported, public health experts aren’t optimistic the incoming Trump administration will handle the bird flu situation any better.

“If the Biden administration is not doing a good job, you can only imagine when you have certain individuals who are much more hostile towards these types of government action, it will get worse,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Salon.

‘Worrisome’ mutations found in H5N1 bird flu virus isolated from Canadian teenager

Los Angeles Times

‘Worrisome’ mutations found in H5N1 bird flu virus isolated from Canadian teenager

Susanne Rust – December 31, 2024

**ADVANCE APRIL 22-23 ** A California Department of Food and Agriculture technician perform tests on chickens for the Avian Influenza viruses in poultry Friday, April 21, 2006, at the Best Live Poultry & Fish store in Sylmar, Calif. The stakes are especially high in California, where a $2.5 billion poultry industry ranks among the top 10 producers nationwide for dinner chicken, turkey and table egg output. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) — A California Department of Food and Agriculture technician perform tests on chickens for bird flu in 2006 at the Best Live Poultry & Fish store in Sylmar. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

The fate of a Canadian teenager who was infected with H5N1 bird flu in early November, and subsequently admitted to an intensive care unit, has finally been revealed: She has fully recovered.

But genetic analysis of the virus that infected her body showed ominous mutations that researchers suggest potentially allowed it to target human cells more easily and cause severe disease — a development the study authors called “worrisome.”

The case was published Tuesday in a special edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that explored H5N1 cases from 2024 in North America. In one study, doctors and researchers who worked with the Canadian teenager published their findings. In the other, public health officials from across the U.S. — from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local health departments — chronicled the 46 human cases that occurred between March and October.

There have been a total of 66 reported human cases of H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. in 2024.

In the case of the 13-year-old Canadian child, the girl was admitted to a local emergency room on Nov. 4 having suffered from two days of conjunctivitis (pink eye) in both eyes and one day of fever. The child, who had a history of asthma, an elevated body-mass index and Class 2 obesity, was discharged that day with no treatment.

Over the next three days, she developed a cough and diarrhea and began vomiting. She was taken back to the ER on Nov. 7 in respiratory distress and with a condition called hemodynamic instability, in which her body was unable to maintain consistent blood flow and pressure. She was admitted to the hospital.

On Nov. 8, she was transferred to a pediatric intensive care unit at another hospital with respiratory failure, pneumonia in her left lower lung, acute kidney injury, thrombocytopenia (low platelet numbers) and leukopenia (low white blood cell count).

She tested negative for the predominant human seasonal influenza viruses — but had a high viral loads of influenza A, which includes the major human seasonal flu viruses, as well as H5N1 bird flu. This finding prompted her caregivers to test for bird flu; she tested positive.

As the disease progressed over the next few days, she was intubated and put on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) — a life support technique that temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs for patients with severe heart or lung conditions.

She was also treated with three antiviral medications, including oseltamivir (brand name Tamiflu), amantadine (Gocovri) and baloxavir (Xofluza).

Because of concerns about the potential for a cytokine storm — a potentially lethal condition in which the body releases too many inflammatory molecules — she was put on a daily regimen of plasma exchange therapy, in which the patient’s plasma is removed in exchange for donated, health plasma.

As the days went by, her viral load began to decrease; on Nov. 16, eight days after she’d been admitted, she tested negative for the virus.

The authors of the report noted, however, that the viral load remained consistently higher in her lower lungs than in her upper respiratory tract — suggesting that the disease may manifest in places not currently tested for it (like the lower lungs) even as it disappears from those that are tested (like the mouth and nose).

She fully recovered and was discharged sometime after Nov. 28, when her intubation tube was removed.

Genetic sequencing of the virus circulating in the teenager showed it was similar to the one circulating in wild birds, the D1.1 version. It’s a type of H5N1 bird flu that is related, but distinct, from the type circulating in dairy cows and is responsible for the vast majority of human cases reported in the U.S. — most of which were acquired via dairy cows or commercial poultry. This is also the same version of the virus found in a Louisiana patient who experienced severe disease, and it showed a few mutations that researchers say increases the virus’ ability to replicate in human cells.

In the Louisiana case, researchers from the CDC suggested the mutations arose as it replicated in the patient and were were not likely present in the wild.

Irrespective of where and when they occurred, said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, R.I., “it is worrisome because it indicates that the virus can change in a person and possibly cause a greater severity of symptoms than initial infection.”

In addition, said Nuzzo — who was not involved in the research — while there’s evidence these mutations occurred after the patients were infected, and therefore not circulating in the environment “it increases worries that some people may experience more severe infection than other people. Bottom line is that this is not a good virus to get.”

My Mom’s Support For Trump Divided Our Family. Then I Found The Crack In Her MAGA Armor.

BuzzFeed

My Mom’s Support For Trump Divided Our Family. Then I Found The Crack In Her MAGA Armor.

Tim Durnin – December 30, 2024

Red cap with — Busà Photography via Getty Images

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

The Trump presidency divided my family. The “Trump Effect,” as I called it, infected us shortly after he descended into the lobby of Trump Tower to announce his presidential candidacy. It ended seven years later, around my kitchen table, with three generations of my mother’s progeny mowing their way through Italian takeout. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My mother was a Reagan Republican and had voted along party lines since 1980. While none of her four children were fully aligned with her politically, the Trump Effect created the greatest distance between my mother and me.

We fought every time we talked. Before Trump secured the nomination, I argued that his morals were in direct conflict with those she and my father had been driving into my head for decades. Furthermore, I argued, he did not even embody conservative values. He twisted them into grotesque manipulations of what had been reasonably sound policy.

I pleaded with her not to vote for him. She wouldn’t budge. In the wake of his election, her choice took on the weight of a betrayal. Her blindness to Trump’s white nationalist tendencies was an affront to my wife, who is a proud Latina, and angered my biracial, high-school-aged children.

Donald Trump in a suit and red tie, looking slightly upwards, in a public setting — Spencer Platt / Getty Images

The more egregious Trump’s violation of social norms, the harder she dug her heels in. In Northern Idaho, her political views went largely unchallenged. It was her excursions into Eastern Washington that afforded her the opportunity to proselytize and be heard. Any poker table became her pulpit as she would expound on the virtues of the new savior of the GOP. Having earned respect with her poker skills, she changed peoples’ minds.

At some point, after the Mueller investigation, she was so self-assured that she stopped fielding challenges or questions from folks on the left. We stopped talking about everything except cursory questions about my life and detailed reports about her current ailments. I longed for a return to our political discourse. It never came.

She voted for Trump again in 2020 but did not embrace the “big lie” that he’d won the election with anything close to enthusiasm. She did defend the honor of her chosen candidate afterward, but her Ultra MAGA armor started to crack when Trump’s attacks were directed at Republican icons like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney and the Bush dynasty. Then Jan. 6, 2021, shook the foundation of her political fortress. The damage was considerable and lasting.

I wasn’t with my mother for the insurrection’s explosive violence that day. But our family has always been patriotic. My father served in Gen. MacArthur’s honor guard during the Korean War. We flew the flag, sang the anthem and respected servicemen and women. My mother and I shed patriotic tears on Jan. 6, 2021, and while admittedly from very different places, the tears ran into the same river. We both knew the America we loved was significantly diminished by the relentless attacks of a small percentage of Americans hell-bent on defining the world by their petty grievances and perceived injustices.

I didn’t reengage in political discourse with my mother, in spite of an obvious opening for a kill shot. The sadness that surrounded her settled in like a dense fog. Surprisingly, her depressed mood was less about Trump’s defeat and more about her own foolishness in the certainty that Trump was a hero and savior. As for me, I couldn’t even muster an “I told you so.”

Banner hanging on a white picket fence reads — Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

Sixteen months later, I was having dinner with my mother and some Trump news flashed on the screen. She shook her head in mild disgust. I hadn’t planned what happened next, although I had fantasized about this “intervention” countless times.

Taking a deep breath, I gathered my courage and started talking. “Mom, I am going to ask you a huge favor, something that may be jolting at first, but please, sit with it.” She started to speak, but I raised a finger, pleading with her to hear me out.

My voice was shaky and weak as I began, but grew confident as the memory of each Trump atrocity was replayed in my mind ― his near-constant appeal to our worst instincts, his undisguised racism and Islamophobia, and his blaming of anyone and anything besides himself. I was hot when I reached the point of my diatribe, asking what I believe to be the single most important question I will ever ask my mom: “Will you please apologize to my children for voting for Trump?”

I continued: “My fear is that, when Trump is seen through a clear and objective lens, the support you gave him will define you.”

A few days later, my mother, aka G-Ma and Grams, sat at the head of a round table. At 92, she was still larger than life and a commanding presence. She did not need to call for the attention of those gathered. At her first syllable, heads turned and phones were silenced. She would hold the room until she decided not to.

Before saying our traditional grace, she stood up, and the room came to attention. She took a moment to compose herself, and with her signature confidence, said, “I want to apologize.” Looking around the table, she did not falter. “I made a horrible mistake voting for Trump. Had I known then what I know now, I never would have voted for him. I hope you will forgive me.” And it was done.

There was a collective sigh of relief as she released our attention and laughed as she said, “That wasn’t so hard.” We hugged and I whispered my thank you as we embraced. “Let’s eat,” she said. And we began, “Bless us our Lord and these Thy gifts …

In the months that have followed, I have elected to continue the moratorium on political discourse and opted instead to explore our common ground — which, I have discovered, is fertile and vast and refreshingly friendly. Trump’s recent conviction on 34 felony counts affirmed that her divorce from MAGA and Trump was the right choice.

My children’s wounds have started to heal. They have forgiven her, and through them, my grandchildren will as well. In the end, the “intervention” we staged was a gift, a blueprint of sorts for a divided time. She showed us how to admit you were wrong in a world where it seems everyone has to be right. That’s the real takeaway, the kernel of truth I hope will grow and thrive.

CORRECTION: A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that the author’s father served in Gen. Patton’s honor guard.

Musk has been staying at $2,000-a-night Mar-a-Lago cottage – just hundreds of feet from Trump’s main house

Independent

Musk has been staying at $2,000-a-night Mar-a-Lago cottage – just hundreds of feet from Trump’s main house

Mike Bedigan – December 31, 2024

Elon Musk is getting closer and closer to Donald Trump, quite literally, with a new report that the tech billionire is currently renting a cottage on the grounds of the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

According to The New York Times, Musk is staying at Banyan – a cottage located just several hundred feet from the main house of the estate– which costs at least $2,000 to stay in per night, per sources with knowledge of the costs.

The news comes as concerns continue to grow in Washington about the extent of the SpaceX boss’s influence over Trump, having sat in on personnel meetings, conducted talks with foreign leaders and helped to tank a bipartisan spending bill in congress.

Musk is reportedly staying at Banyan – a cottage located just several hundred feet from Trump’s main house – which costs at least $2,000 to stay in per night (AFP/Getty)

The president-elect has boasted that the world’s richest man is “renting” one of the residential spaces at Mar-a-Lago.

The property contains multiple cottages that have reportedly been used by others in Trump’s inner circle, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, during the transition period.

The Times reports that Musk moved into the cottage around Election Day and watched the results at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and other MAGA cheerleaders including Marjorie Taylor Greene.

He left the property around Christmas and has been expected to return some time in the New Year.

It is unclear how much the tech boss is paying for the cottage, though guests at the Mar-a-Lago club are typically not billed until the end of the stay.

A US Coast Guard boat manned by armed officers patrols the Lake Worth Lagoon off Mar-a-Lago (AFP/Getty)

The ultimate cost of Musk’s stay may come down to the president-elect.

The “best buddy” relationship between the pair appears to be going strong.

Last week Trump posted what appeared to be a personal message to Musk on Truth Social, claiming that fellow billionaire Bill Gates asked to come to Mar-a-Lago.

“Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!!” Trump wrote.

He signed it “DJT.”

The story comes as concerns continue to grow in Washington about the extent of the SpaceX boss’s influence over Trump (AFP/Getty)

“X” appears to have been a reference to Musk’s son, X Æ A-Xii, who he calls X for short,

While staying at Mar-a-Lago, Musk has been accompanied by at least two of his children — though he is reported to have at least 11 — and their nannies.

The Times also reported that the Tesla boss is known to make inconvenient requests like meals outside the normal kitchen hours.

Germany calls for new sanctions on Russia’s dark fleet that is ‘damaging major undersea cables’ nearly every month

Business Insider

Germany calls for new sanctions on Russia’s dark fleet that is ‘damaging major undersea cables’ nearly every month

Huileng Tan – December 30, 2024

Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister. — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said ships are damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea nearly every month.Florian Gaertner/Photothek/Getty Images

Germany’s foreign minister urged new European Union sanctions on Russia’s dark fleet.
As part of a probe into a cut cable, Finland said last week it detained a ship that may be from the dark fleet.
The case is being investigated as “aggravated criminal mischief,” Finnish police said.

Germany’s foreign minister has called for further sanctions against Russia’s dark fleet of oil tankers following damage to an underwater cable linking Finland and Estonia last week.

“Ships are damaging major undersea cables in the Baltic Sea almost every month,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Funke media group.

“Crews are leaving anchors in the water, dragging them for kilometers along the seafloor for no apparent reason, and then losing them when pulling them up,” Baerbock said, per an AFP translation.

“It’s more than difficult to still believe in coincidences. This is an urgent wake-up call for all of us,” she added.

Baerbock urged new European Union sanctions against Russia’s dark — or shadow — fleet of oil tankers that transport sanctioned Russian oil and energy products.

The EU has also sanctioned 79 vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet. These ships are banned from accessing EU ports and services.

Many of these vessels are aging, operating under opaque ownership, and sailing without adequate insurance coverage. They pose environmental and financial risks to coastal countries. A heavy storm earlier this month caused two tankers to spill thousands of tons of low-grade fuel oil into the Kerch Strait, between the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula and Russia.

Baerbock’s comments came after Finnish authorities detained the Eagle S oil tanker on Thursday as part of an investigation into the cutting of an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea. The cable transmits electricity from Finland to Estonia.

The case is being investigated as “aggravated criminal mischief,” Finnish police said in a press release.

Finnish customs authorities and the European Union’s executive commission said the tanker might be part of Russia’s dark fleet of tankers.

The Kremlin declined to comment on Finland’s seizure of the oil tanker on Friday.

“I cannot say anything for sure, for this is a highly specialized issue that the presidential administration is hardly in a position to comment on,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question on the Finnish move.

The billionaires really do hate Americans: Trump picks Musk’s money over ‘forgotten’ Americans of MAGA. Sorry, xenophobes!

USA Today

Trump picks Musk’s money over ‘forgotten’ Americans of MAGA. Sorry, xenophobes!

Rex Huppke – December 30, 2024

My new hobby is watching loyal Donald Trump supporters get thrown under the bus by President-elect Donald Trump. It’s exhilarating.

The most recent example came when the anti-immigrant MAGA base got in an online derp-brawl with big-tech Trump supporters like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over the issue of H-1B visas. Those visas allow highly skilled foreign workers to stay in the United States for up to six years under H-1B nonimmigrant status.

Big Tech companies rely on those visas, while Big Racism people on the internet claim the visas are another example of foreign workers taking jobs from the “forgotten” men and women of America who Trump promised to protect.

(Spoiler alert: Trump sided with Musk and the tech bros this weekend because they gave him lots of money and money is all he actually cares about. Sorry, xenophobes!)

Trump sells out supporters to back Elon Musk on H-1B visas

Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy face MAGA backlash over possible visa program expansion

Here’s how the whole unbelievably stupid thing unfolded.

About a week ago, Trump named venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an advisor on artificial intelligence. Because Krishnan had previously voiced support for expanding the H-1B visa program, hardcore anti-immigration loudmouths like Laura Loomer – one of the most loyal Trump loyalists – and Steve Bannon got mad and outraged. That’s kind of their thing.

Bannon said the H-1B program is a threat to Western civilization, which makes sense if your soul is so filled with hate it has choked off oxygen to your brain.

Opinion: 2024 was a bad year for basic decency in America. You can thank Trump for that.

The madness and outrage swiftly descended into racist attacks against Krishnan’s Indian heritage, prompting Musk and Ramaswamy to get big-mad and offer forceful defenses of the foreign-worker program.

Vivek Ramaswamy tells MAGA that Americans are kinda dumb and lazy

Ramaswamy posted on social media: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer)…Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.”

Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-lead with Elon Musk of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency, arriving for meetings at the US Capitol on Dec. 5, 2024 in Washington.

Many MAGA folks read that as Ramaswamy calling them dumb and lazy, probably because that was Ramaswamy calling them dumb and lazy. The MAGA base swiftly turned its ire on Ramaswamy, prompting Musk to call them “contemptible fools.” He later clarified that “contemptible fools” was only referring to “those in the Republican Party who are hateful, unrepentant racists” and will “absolutely be the downfall of the Republican Party if they are not removed.”

I’m not quite sure how that narrows things down, but whatever.

MAGA fans find themselves discovering where they stand in Trump’s world

The bottom line is this: Members of a political movement fueled almost entirely by a hatred of immigrants were getting told by Musk, an immigrant, and Ramaswamy, an American via birthright citizenship, that they are racist and dumb and lazy and should support a program that allows foreign workers to get U.S. jobs.

Opinion: Trump lied about food prices. Now he says it’s too ‘hard’ to bring down costs.

It prompted prominent MAGA figures like former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who like all these other people is a disreputable dipstick, to post this about Musk and Co.: “We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd-grade teacher picking their kid’s gender – and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline. We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”

Somebody pass me the popcorn – this is getting GREAT!

Musk tells MAGA to … well, it’s profane and not too nice

On Friday, Musk took to the social media platform he has ruined and wrote of the anti-worker-visa crowd: “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” (I’m not sure how one of the most influential people in president-elect Trump’s orbit saying “F—K YOURSELF in the face” squares with the evangelical part of the MAGA base, but I can only deal with one group of suckers getting burned at a time.)

President-elect Donald Trump attends Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., on Dec. 22, 2024 — President-elect Donald Trump attends Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., on Dec. 22, 2024

On Saturday, in an interview with New York Post, Trump finally weighed in on the visa issue, saying: “It’s a great program.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

That’s magnificent.

Trump hated H-1B visas – until Musk told him to like them

First off, Trump said in 2016 that the H-1B visa program should be ended and is “very bad for workers.” And now, miraculously, it’s great.

Second, Trump constantly peddles xenophobic nonsense about how he’s fighting for the little guy, how he loves his “real American” supporters and how he alone can save them from the scourge of scary immigrants and elitists.

But when a couple of elite billionaires go off on his base and effectively call them a bunch of non-skilled, racist dopes while rallying around a specific immigration program they like because it helps them … well, guess whose side Trump is on?

Musk spent about a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump get back to the White House. So Trump is going to do whatever Musk and his fellow tech billionaires want him to do.

And the Laura Loomers and Steve Bannons and the MAGA loudmouths online and the voters who let themselves get conned into believing Trump was in it for them? Well, I hope they enjoy looking at the underbelly of the bus. That’s going to be their primary view from now on.

“Just the beginning of my worries”: Retired general warns Elon Musk is a national security threat

Salon

“Just the beginning of my worries”: Retired general warns Elon Musk is a national security threat

Marin Scotten – December 30, 2024

A retired army general argued that billionaire Elon Musk poses a threat to national security due to his ties to China in a blistering op-ed published in The New York Times on Sunday.

“Mr. Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, face federal reviews from the Air Force, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security for failing to provide details of Mr. Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders and other potential violations of national-security rules,” wrote former Lt. General Russel Honoré.

“These alleged infractions are just the beginning of my worries,” he added.

Honoré pointed to the $1.4 billion Tesla borrowed from the Chinese government to build a factory in Shanghai, which was responsible for more than half of Tesla’s 2024 deliveries. He added that financial lending is rare for the communist government that can legally “demand intelligence” from any company doing business in the country.

“This means Mr. Musk’s business dealings in China could require him to hand over sensitive classified information, learned either through his business interests or his proximity to President-elect Donald Trump,” Honoré wrote.

In the last year, Musk’s influence over the federal government has expanded past business endeavors. He’s become one of the president-elect’s closest allies and last month was tapped to co-chair Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with Vivek Ramaswamy. Despite now being colleagues, Ramaswamy once thought Musk was in “China’s pocket,” Honoré points out.

“I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” Ramaswamy said in 2023.

Though Ramaswamy has since taken back this statement, Honoré writes that this fear isn’t far-fetched. He points to numerous instances where Musk praised or defended the Chinese government, including his argument that Taiwan should be a “special administrative region.” Musk was also the first foreigner to write for the magazine China Cyberspace, which is run by the state’s internet censorship agency.

“The last thing the United States needs is for China to potentially have an easier way of obtaining classified intelligence and national security information,” Honoré writes.

But with Musk’s proximity to the White House only growing closer in the coming months, Honoré questioned whether Trump will even consider Musk’s threat.

“The question now is whether the incoming Trump administration will take this risk seriously,” he wrote.

Ex-GOP Lawmaker Predicts What Trump’s Going To Start Doing On Day 1

HuffPost

Ex-GOP Lawmaker Predicts What Trump’s Going To Start Doing On Day 1

Former Rep. David Jolly said it may start happening as early on as during the president-elect’s inauguration speech.

By Josephine Harvey – Dec 30, 2024

Donald Trump is going to start revising history to suit himself as soon as he takes office, former Rep. David Jolly (Fla.) predicted over the weekend.

“I think one of the things Donald Trump wants to do this term, starting on day one, is rewrite history,” Jolly, who served as a Republican in Congress but later renounced his affiliation with the GOP, told MSNBC’s Alex Witt. “We’re going to see it on COVID, having RFK Jr. there. We’re going to see it on Russia, having Tulsi Gabbard there. We’re going to see it with a lot of the prosecutions by having Kash Patel there, should these people get confirmed.”

Jolly was referring to Trump’s picks for health secretary, national intelligence director and FBI director respectively. Critics have sounded the alarm over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine skepticism, Gabbard’s sympathetic views toward Russia, and Patel’s fondness for dangerous conspiracy theories and his fixation on Trump’s supposed enemies.

“I think we’re also going to see a retelling of January 6,” Jolly went on. “And the question is, does that start with his inauguration speech? Or is it something that happens by way of pardons? Or is it a prosecution — an attempted prosecution — of Liz Cheney?”

“I do think Donald Trump wants to rewrite history,” he concluded. “And to do that, he’s going to force upon the American people a narrative that largely is untrue, but that he hopes, with conservative media’s influence, he can win out with.”

Trump has vowed to pardon people convicted for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Trump’s favor.

Even though the majority of those serving substantial prison time committed violent crimes, including assaulting law enforcement officers, the president-elect has referred to them as “peaceful January 6 protesters” and “hostages” who were unfairly prosecuted.

He’s also made threatening comments about former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), warning that she “could be in a lot of trouble” for serving on the House panel that investigated the attack. He’s said that he believes members of the panel “should go to jail.”

Trump has a penchant for revisionist history, with a pattern of walking back promises, deflecting blame for his failures and dubiously taking credit for successes. He pledged during his 2024 campaign to reduce the prices of “everything,” but has already admitted since his victory that it’s “hard to bring things down once they’re up.”