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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

CDA, City, Conflicts of Interest, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Law, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Regulatory Capture

Texas (But Not Only Texas): Regulatory Capture

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Regulatory capture is a simple concept: it applies when regulatory agencies become dominated by the industries or interests they are by law required to regulate. These agencies begin to act to benefit particular incumbent firms or people in the industry they are supposed to be overseeing. The concept is also sometimes called agency capture or state capture. (There are distinctions between these terms, but they all describe the same corruption of a public institution’s defined role under law.)

There have been many tragedies from the failures of Texas’s energy market, and more than one reason for those failures (e.g., deregulation, a grid confined only to Texas, inferior leaders at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas). These failures caused illness, loss of life, and property damage across Texas.

There was, however, another cause, as Colby Galliher, Kelsey Landau, and Julia Bourkland explain in Why Texas Has Catastrophic Blackouts:

Texas policymakers with longstanding financial and lobbying relationships to the industry scapegoated renewable energy during and after last month’s storm. In the first days of the crisis, Abbott went on Fox News and blamed the blackouts on wind energy while making broad attacks on the Green New Deal. Cruz was quick to blame wind energy as well (after he returned from his aborted Cancún vacation). In reality, wind power makes up just 23% of Texas’ annual electricity generation. At the time of last month’s storm, wind generated just 7% of the state’s total electricity, with the power outages almost entirely the result of natural gas-related failures. And the Green New Deal is an unrealized legislative proposal with little relevance to last month’s storm or Texas’ existing power sector.

Keeping in mind the longstanding influence of the oil and gas industry over these officials and their rhetoric, their deflections are easy to understand. Even after ERCOT publicly stated that the brunt of the state’s electricity woes were due to the failure of unwinterized natural gas plants, Texas figures (except for Abbott) who had erroneously blamed the state’s burgeoning renewables industry declined to correct their remarks. Beyond encapsulating their oil and gas industry benefactors’ affinity for deregulation, this refusal to place blame where it is due—and legislate accordingly—parallels the climate denialism propagated by its beneficiaries in the Republican Party.

The extent to which the oil and gas industry shapes Texas’ electricity market borders on regulatory and state capture. This dynamic was clear enough in the wake of the 2011 “once-in-a-lifetime” storm that caused major power outages; ten years later, another once-in-a-lifetime storm hit the state. In both instances, state lawmakers have seemingly refused to meaningfully address the fossil fuel industry’s grip on policy and regulation, choosing to proceed with deregulation despite the higher electricity prices and vulnerability to extreme weather. As the climate crisis worsens, such weather phenomena will likely become increasingly more common. If Texas policymakers fail to disentangle their interests and those of the Texas electrical grid from the fossil fuel industry—and if citizens are not fully empowered to hold them accountable for doing so—2021 will not be the last time that Texans are left in the cold and the dark.

So, why would a blogger in Whitewater, Wisconsin write about regulatory capture in Texas?

Because regulatory capture exits in many places, and far closer than Texas.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.10.21

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 60.  Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 5:56 PM, for 11h 43m 15s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 8.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 10 AM.

 On this day in 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Laura Schulte reports ‘We just want to be OK’: Residents of a small island near La Crosse battle massive ‘forever chemical’ contamination:

TOWN OF CAMPBELL – Getting the kids ready for bed is now a production for Amanda Hartley.

It involves close supervision, as each child fills up a cup from the 5-gallon jug of water in the corner of the kitchen and walks it to the bathroom, using it to wet their toothbrush, brush their teeth and rinse their brush at the end. Her family can no longer use the water from the tap to brush their teeth or drink.

It’s contaminated with “forever chemicals” and could pose a risk to their health.

It’s a constant concern for Hartley, who has to ensure that everyone is drinking, cooking and brushing their teeth only with water from the 5-gallon jug in the corner of the kitchen, even the cats. They don’t want to risk exposure to the chemicals, fearful of the lasting health effects chemicals known as PFAS have been linked to. It’s been a lot of work to make sure the kids — ages 7, 9, 12 and 14 — learn all new habits.

 Kari Paul reports A few rightwing ‘super-spreaders’ fueled bulk of election falsehoods, study says:

A report from the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a group that includes Stanford and the University of Washington, analyzed social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok during several months before and after the 2020 elections.

It found that “super-spreaders” – responsible for the most frequent and most impactful misinformation campaigns – included Trump and his two elder sons, as well as other members of the Trump administration and the rightwing media.

The study’s authors and other researchers say the findings underscore the need to disable such accounts to stop the spread of misinformation.

“If there is a limit to how much content moderators can tackle, have them focus on reducing harm by eliminating the most effective spreaders of misinformation,” said Lisa Fazio, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who studies the psychology of fake news but was not involved EIP report. “Rather than trying to enforce the rules equally across all users, focus enforcement on the most powerful accounts.”

Bob Smietana reports Bible teacher Beth Moore, Trump critic and advocate for sexual abuse victims, splits with Southern Baptist Convention:

“I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists,” Moore said in the phone interview. “I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.”

Moore told RNS that she recently ended her longtime publishing partnership with Nashville-based LifeWay Christian. While LifeWay will still distribute her books, it will no longer publish them or administer her live events. (Full disclosure: The author of this article is a former LifeWay employee.)

Kate Bowler, a historian at Duke Divinity School who has studied evangelical women celebrities, said Moore’s departure is a significant loss for the Southern Baptist Convention.

Moore, she said, is one of the denomination’s few stand-alone women leaders, whose platform was based on her own “charisma, leadership and incredible work ethic” and not her marriage to a famed pastor. (Moore’s husband is a plumber by trade.) She also appealed to a wide audience outside her denomination.

Why Central Banks Want To Get Into Digital Currencies:

Coronavirus, Culture, Public Health

Social Distancing: Who Maintains, Who Doesn’t?

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Over at ProMarket, Tim Besley and Sacha Dray assess One Year Into the Pandemic: Who Maintains Social Distancing and Who Doesn’t.  Their full analysis is well worth reading. They write that

social capital is an important factor behind reducing risks of infection. Social capital is an index that encompasses the presence of strong social networks, vibrant civil society, and trust in institutions. We rely on a social capital index that summarizes 10 economic, social, and demographic indicators measuring the strength of social networks such as the share of single households, number of nonprofit organizations, the share of mail-back response rate for the Census, or the number of violent crimes. Remarkably, counties with higher levels of social capital were on average significantly more prone to respect measures that stopped the spread of the virus. This suggests that having stronger norms of doing things together leads people to adopt more altruistic behaviors or elicits stronger reciprocity if it encourages the belief that other residents will be more likely to comply.

This finding doesn’t seem remarkable at all, but rather almost expected. Those with developed social networks may intuit, correctly, that those networks are vulnerable to infection between people, and can best be preserved against permanent ruin through temporary reductions in social activity (or with reliable protective measures against transmission of disease).

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.9.21

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 66.  Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 5:55 PM, for 11h 40m 19s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 15.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

 On this day in 1954, CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy.“

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Patrick Marley reports If approved, Republican voting legislation would face a wave of lawsuits in Wisconsin:

The state could face a raft of legal challenges if Republican lawmakers succeed in enacting restrictions on how voting is conducted in Wisconsin.

“There are numerous constitutional and federal law violations (in the legislation), some of which are just low-hanging fruit. They’d be easy cases to win,” said Jon Sherman, litigation director for the Fair Elections Center in Washington, D.C.

Republican Sen. Duey Stroebel of Saukville disputed that, saying the bills he recently unveiled could withstand legal challenges.

“I’d be hard-pressed to find a more litigious area of the statutes than election law,” Stroebel said in a statement.

….

Republicans who control the Legislature have made changes to voting laws a top priority after Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s presidential election.

It’s unclear what measures will get approved, and those that do are sure to be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. But if Republicans win the governor’s race in 2022, they may gain a free hand to make the changes they want.

 Kelly Meyerhofer reports UW-Madison chancellor apologizes for keeping COVID-19 discussions private:

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank apologized on Monday for emails she sent last summer suggesting COVID-19 communications between Big Ten leaders be moved to the network’s private portal, an approach one expert on Wisconsin’s public records law called “clearly illegal.”

“I regret the language I used in my email exchange with other Big Ten chancellors, which appears as though I intended to use the Big Ten board portal to skirt my public records responsibilities,” Blank said in a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal. “This was surely not my intention and I apologize for that appearance.”

The University of Wisconsin System is reviewing the matter after learning about it late last week, a spokesperson said Monday.

….

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, criticized Blank on Monday for encouraging secret discussions on a topic he said is clearly in the public’s interest.

“It’s clearly illegal for her to use this backdoor channel to conduct the public’s business,” he said. “The calculation with which Chancellor Blank has tried to evade the requirements of our open records law is deeply troubling. I think she’s embarrassed the university and state of Wisconsin.”

 Jennifer Rubin writes The MAGA phenomenon has never been about economics:

An Iowa study found, “Economic distress is not a significant factor in explaining the shift in Iowa voters from Democrat to Republican between 2008 and 2016. The election outcomes do not signify [a revolt] among working-class voters left behind by globalization.”

The Post after the 2016 election reported, “Among people who said they voted for Trump in the general election, 35 percent had household incomes under $50,000 per year. … Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy.” The same was true in 2020. President Biden crushed the incumbent 55 to 44 percent among voters making less than $50,000 and 57 to 42 percent among those making between $50,000 and $100,000.

Albatross faceplants to fame on New Zealand live stream:

Libertarians, Liberty, Never Trump

Ron Elving’s Laughable Description of Libertarianism

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Perhaps readers will excuse me for taking a year to respond to Ron Elving’s description of libertarianism in $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Bill Presents A Reckoning For Libertarians (3.28.20). It wasn’t worthy of a prompt reply, but it’s also unworthy of taking space yet longer in my task queue.

Elving writes:

Let us all have a moment of sympathy – and perhaps even understanding — for Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky.

Massie was the guy who caught hell from all sides Friday when he tried to force a roll call vote on the coronavirus relief bill in the House of Representatives. He said he wanted every individual member to record his or her vote on the gargantuan $2 trillion package, which he called the biggest relief bill in the history of mankind.

That Elving picks Republican Thomas Massie as a fair representative of libertarianism is as much a straw man as contending that Joe Manchin is a fair representative of the Democratic Party. Massie is one, Manchin is another, but neither is typical within his respective political party. (In Massie’s case, he’s a Republican who claims libertarian leanings in a party whose autocratic and nativist positions are detestable to traditional libertarianism.)

A political position that favors the free movement of people, capital, and goods does not restrict immigration, cage migrant children, begin trade wars, or ceaselessly demonize people for their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. It does not use federal force on the streets against protesters, and it does not incite a fanatical horde’s insurrection.

Libertarianism is broad, but bounded by core principles. We are men and women who believe in voluntary cooperation and through unfettered markets. (In my own case, libertarianism is bleeding-heart libertarianism, a fusion of free markets and social justice.)

There is nothing of libertarianism in Trumpism. Nothing. Differences between these political views are large & irreconcilable. That some Trumpists cloak themselves in ill-fitting libertarian garments doesn’t make them libertarians. They have stolen what they wear.

(It’s either through ignorance or deception that Elving holds out Reason magazine in 2020 as remaining libertarian, when anyone knowledgeable knew by then that the magazine was under the sway of pro-Trump conservative donors. By the end of the year these accounts were being published in general interest websites. See Anti-‘Cancel Culture’ Reason Magazine Accused of Canceling Columnist for Being Too Anti-Trump.)

Smaller, less expensive government is a worthy goal, as a powerful government (in what it has and what it takes from others) is a powerful threat. Trump, who for four years was the most powerful man on this continent, should have forever settled the question of how deadly – literally – federal policy can be.

Trillions are of great concern, but libertarianism is a political view that addresses more than purse strings (yet not so much of life as intrusive and invasive political alternatives).

Finally, it’s worth noting that libertarianism is to crisis action as holistic medicine is to emergency surgery: the former is suited to maintaining the one’s healthy life day by day,  the latter is occasionally and regrettably necessary.

Those of us who have stayed true to our political tradition (having come from older, ‘movement’ families) owe that movement a defense from challenges of all sorts, whether  autocratic, deceptive, or simply ignorant.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.8.21

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 57.  Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 5:53 PM, for 11h 37m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 24.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1775, an anonymous writer, thought by many to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America,” the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Jim Tankersley reports To Juice the Economy, Biden Bets on the Poor (‘Mr. Biden’s bottom-up $1.9 trillion aid package is a sharp reversal from the tax cut bill that was President Donald J. Trump’s first big legislative victory’):

To jump-start the ailing economy, President Biden is turning to the lowest-paid workers in America, and to the people who are currently unable to work at all.

Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief package, which cleared the Senate on Saturday and could be headed for the president’s signature in a matter of days, would overwhelmingly help low earners and the middle class, with little direct aid for the high earners who have largely kept their jobs and padded their savings over the past year.

For the president, the plan is more than just a stimulus proposal. It is a declaration of his economic policy — one that captures the principle Democrats and liberal economists have espoused over the past decade: that the best way to stoke faster economic growth is from the bottom up.

Mr. Biden’s approach in his first major economic legislation is in stark contrast to President Donald J. Trump’s, whose initial effort in Congress was a tax-cut package in 2017 that largely benefited corporations and wealthier Americans.

(Quick observations: (1) the case against spending is obviously stronger in good conditions, (2) we are admittedly not yet in good conditions, (3) by contrast Trump’s tax-cut package came needlessly in relatively good national conditions, (4) Trump inherited a long expansion that brought those relatively good national conditions, (5) the Trump plan was a redistribution scheme on behalf of Trump’s well-placed, special-interest constituencies, (6) Trump’s deservedly bad reputation on economics – trade wars, favoritism for the fortunate, etc. – has wrecked the case against spending for those of us who are neither ignorant nor corrupt, (7) Biden might and should have spent less, but the child-centric portions of the package are rightly focused and welcome, and (8) Whitewater notably and distressingly has struggled for years as a low-wage community with high child poverty.)

Kimberly Wehle writes MyPillow CEO Turned the Big Lie into Big Bucks, Lawsuit Alleges (‘Dominion suit claims Mike Lindell paid pro-Trump outlets to air lies and reel in gullible customers for his company’):

Among a litany of public statements against Dominion, the complaint alleges that Lindell knowingly lied on air about having “raw data analytics” that would demonstrate “a cyber footprint from inside [Dominion’s] machines” that was “going to show that Donald Trump won.” Worse, Lindell complained that he was being attacked by the left for speaking the truth, a lie-upon-a-lie that duped Trump supporters into buying pillows as an act of compassion, retaliation, and/or patriotism.

We all know why this is bad stuff. Even Mitch McConnell has acknowledged that the Big Lie harmed American democracy. But Dominion’s lawsuit makes clear that the Big Lie is also a cash cow for scam artists—after all, in the eight short weeks following the November 3 election, it moved $255.4 million from the bank accounts of Trump supporters into the coffers of the Trump campaign and the Republican party. For this lurid reason, the Big Lie is not going away anytime soon.

Inside polar bear dens:

City, Crime, Misconduct, Negligence, Public Relations, University

WGTD.com: UW-Whitewater Student Faces Allegations of Assault After Viral TikTok Post Overnight

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 WGTD.com reports that UW-Whitewater Student Faces Allegations of Assault After Viral TikTok Post Overnight:

Nearly 3,000 signatures have been gathered in less than 24 hours on Change.org, a digital petition website, after an alleged overnight assault by a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater men’s basketball player left at least one woman bloodied. The petition calls for the removal of Will Schultz, a freshman at UW-Whitewater, from the team or a suspension from school. According to video shared online and TikTok, Schultz entered an area tavern and made advances toward a female bartender. When those advances were rebuffed, Schultz allegedly followed the woman and punched her in the face. Schultz allegedly returned to the bar and confronted and punched at least one other woman before being chased away. Schultz allegedly bragged on social media about the encounters where he wrote he will “always love my fans.”

The Change.org petition was started by Zoe Messing who alleged that her friend was attacked so badly that night by Schultz her eyes were “swollen shut.”

In the aftermath of the encounters several students shared their past experiences with Schultz.

UW-Whitewater’s Director of University Communications, Jeff Angileri, gave WGTD a statement:

“This incident has been reported to the university. Please be assured that UW-Whitewater responded immediately to the situation in alignment with our university and UW System policies. Because of the nature of these situations, we cannot disclose any additional information and it is important for all involved that we follow our procedures.

The appropriate authorities, departments and offices have been contacted. The UW-Whitewater Police Department, City of Whitewater Police Department and Dean of Students Office are investigating and will determine appropriate action.”

When one reviews the scores of comments on the Change.org petition, it’s quickly apparent – almost immediately, one might say – that petitioners contend their repeated complaints about Schultz’s actions over many months before these recent allegations were ignored.

Perhaps UW-Whitewater’s administration has a different definition of immediacy.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.7.21

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 46.  Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 5:52 PM, for 11h 34m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 33.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Emily Giambalvo and Rick Maese report Big Ten presidents kept return-to-school, football communications out of public eye:

When the presidents and chancellors of the 14 Big Ten universities began discussing the prospects of students returning to their campuses last fall amid the coronavirus pandemic and with football season looming, they weighed many considerations, from public health to financial impact.

But emails obtained by The Washington Post through public records requests reveal another priority: keeping their discussions from ever entering public view.

“I would be delighted to share information,” Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank responded in an email chain begun in August by Michigan President Mark Schlissel, “but perhaps we can do this through the Big 10 portal, which will assure confidentiality?”

The next day, Schlissel told his colleagues: “Just FYI — I am working with Big Ten staff to move the conversation to secure Boardvantage web site we use for league materials. Will advise.”

….

The apparent attempt to avoid public scrutiny alarmed public records experts, who voiced concern over the possibility that the leaders of 13 of the nation’s richest public institutions (Northwestern is the only private school in the conference) are taking steps to avoid scrutiny from the taxpayers who fund their universities.

“The idea that government officials would intentionally use a technological platform, seemingly with the intent of evading public records laws, is both troubling and wrong on the law,” said Adam Marshall, a senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

(Blank should be required to testify under oath before the Wisconsin Legislature.)

Karen Attiah writes Living in Texas right now feels like an exercise in survival: 

The Texas GOP’s necropolitics have been on full display during this pandemic year. Last March, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that grandparents in Texas should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the state’s economy. When Abbott reopened the state in May, the move quickly resulted in a spike of cases, and he was forced to backtrack….

It’s hard not to roll one’s eyes at Abbott’s lecturing — he reportedly wasn’t even responsible enough to directly consult with expert members of his own coronavirus task force before deciding to reopen. Then, once criticism rolled in, he tried to scapegoat immigrants crossing the border as the reason for the spread of covid-19 in Texas. It’s all of a piece with Sen. Ted Cruz’s reprehensible decision to book a vacation to Cancún, Mexico, last month while Texans were literally freezing to death as the energy grid collapsed. The Texas GOP’s song and dance is familiar: Elected Texas officials fail to act to advance the well-being of their constituents, while ordinary Texans are reminded of our “personal responsibility.”

(It is a childish lack of personal responsibility that animates Trumpism — a hypocritical separation of words and actions. It’s the language of maturity but actions of destructive immaturity. They imagine themselves strong the way a screeching child imagines himself strong: only in his own mind.)

How Used Chopsticks Are Turned Into Tables, Tiles, and Other Furniture:

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, March 9th, 1 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Let Him Go

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This Tuesday, March 9th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of Let Him Go @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

(Crime/Drama/Thriller)

Rated R (Violence)

1 hour, 53 minutes (2020)

A retired sheriff (Kevin Costner) and his wife (Diane Lane) learn, after the death of their son, that their grandson has been adopted by a family living in a compound in the Dakotas, away from law enforcement and modern amenities.

With no other recourse, they embark on a mission to get the boy back, no matter what the cost.

Masks are required and you must register for a seat either by calling, emailing, or going online at https://schedulesplus.com/wwtr/kiosk. There will be a limit of 10 people for the time slot. No walk-ins.

One can find more information about Let Him Go at the Internet Movie Database.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 3.6.21

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 41.  Sunrise is 6:19 AM and sunset 5:51 PM, for 11h 31m 35s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 44.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1899, Bayer registers “Aspirin” as a trademark.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Natalie Yahr reports Kattia Jimenez of Mount Horeb Hemp is out to grow opportunities:

In 2017, as Wisconsin considered legalizing hemp farming for the first time in nearly 50 years, Kattia Jimenez waited for her chance.

After spending years traversing the country to lead health studies for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jimenez was ready to give up the traveling life and return full time to her Mount Horeb home. She’d gotten interested in hemp while growing up in Seattle — home to hemp stores and the largest hemp festival in the country — and she was eager to turn her own fields to the crop.

Wisconsin once led the nation in industrial hemp production, with the plant’s fibers in high demand to make rope in World War II. But the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which classified both hemp and its intoxicating cousin marijuana as Schedule I drugs, had effectively banned the industry for half a century.

Ana Swanson reports U.S. and Europe Will Suspend Tariffs on Alcohol, Food, and Airplanes:

The United States and European Union agreed to temporarily suspend tariffs levied on billions of dollars of each others’ aircraft, wine, food and other products as both sides try to find a negotiated settlement to a long-running dispute over the two leading airplane manufacturers.

President Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, agreed in a phone call on Friday to suspend all tariffs imposed in the dispute over subsidies given to Boeing and Airbus for “an initial period of four months,” Ms. von der Leyen said in a statement.

“This is excellent news for businesses and industries on both sides of the Atlantic and a very positive signal for our economic cooperation in the years to come,” she said.

….

“Finally, we are emerging from the trade war between the United States and Europe, which created only losers,” Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said on Twitter. He added that a burden would be lifted for French winegrowers, whose sales have been pummeled by steep retaliatory tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on imports to the United States.

Harriet Serwood reports Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Sistani call for unity at Iraq meeting:

NASA Shows Perseverance Rover’s First Successful Drive on Mars:

Cats, Trains

Friday Catblogging: Cat on a Hot Train Roof

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The BBC reports that a cat narrowly avoided disaster after being spotted on the roof of a train as it prepared to depart:

The tabby was seen on an Avanti West Coast train at London Euston, about half an hour before it was due to leave for Manchester at 21:00 GMT on Tuesday.

Passengers were transferred to a replacement train as station staff coaxed the cat from the Pendolino, which travels at speeds up to 125mph.

The stand-off came to an end after a bin was pulled up beside the carriage, giving the moggy its own special disembarkation platform.