DL Open Thread: Sunday, January 23, 2022

Eff You, Aaron Rodgers!  Cue Peaches And Herb:

Schadenfreude

And it feels so good.

Vocal anti-vaxxer (and Green Bay QB) took time out from his prep for the playoff game with SF to blister Biden for his vaccine mandates. Played one of the worst games of his career.  Social media was–not kind:

‘Aaron Rodgers thwarted by snowflakes. Cancel culture strikes again.’

‘Another liberal city just silencing Aaron Rodgers.’

‘We all thought Aaron Rodgers had a shot. Which has happened before.’

‘Aaron Rodgers beat Covid, but lost to Jimmy Garoppolo. We need to be vaccinated against Garoppolo immediately.’

‘This is Aaron Rodgers’ most disappointing loss of the Moderna era.’

‘Aaron Rodgers likes his football the way he likes his medical advisors, with zero degrees.’

OK, I’ll stop. For now.

Litter Boxes For Kids Who ‘Identify As Furries’?  Hey, the Michigan Rethug Co-Chair thinks so. Good enough for me:

A newspaper, The Morning Sun, reported a parent, Lisa Hansen, was irate that a local school provided litter boxes for the use of some of the kids. This concerned citizen was further worried that the problem was not limited to just one school. She believed it was part of a ‘nefarious’ national ‘agenda’. Her angst was such she raised the issue at a meeting of the Midland Public School District. She told the board she was still “trying to wrap her brain around this” — and that she was “a little bit upset”. In fact, she was “furious”.

Heck, I would be “really disturbed” if I had evidence that a school allowed children to go to the bathroom in litter boxes. But when I say “evidence”, I mean more than one story, told by one child, who probably has quite a vivid imagination. (If she even exists.)

It is safe to say that Lisa is blind to irony. You have to ask, who is living in a fantasy world? And who is expecting other people to go along with it? Perhaps a mirror would be helpful.

It turns out that one person did go along with it. Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock promoted the conspiracy theory on Thursday.

“Kids who identify as ‘furries’ get a litter box in the school bathroom,” she wrote on her official Facebook page above a video from the school board meeting. “Parent heroes will TAKE BACK our schools.”

This piece of nonsense was so egregious that Midland Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent, Michael E. Sharrow, had to take to Facebook to rebut it. It is obvious from his language he couldn’t believe he had to do it. “Let me be clear in this communication. There is no truth whatsoever to this false statement/accusation! There have never been litter boxes within MPS schools. It is a source of disappointment that I felt the necessity to communicate this message to you.”

Not a source of disappointment to me, though.

Delaware’s Drinking Water Befouled By This Chemical?  Sure Looks Like It.  Due to a ‘gap in state and federal regulations’.  The states?  Pa. and New Jersey.  But Delawareans are significantly impacted:

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey’s largest drinking water supplier discovered a toxic chemical in the river where it gets water for hundreds of thousands of customers, setting off a major search for polluters that led back to a Pennsylvania wastewater treatment plant and a South Jersey company.

The chemical New Jersey American Water Co. found, 1,4-Dioxane, is a byproduct of plastic manufacturing that is considered a likely carcinogen by the federal government. While the chemical has been found in water supplies before, this discovery in early 2020 set off alarms because of the high levels in a section of the Delaware River close to American Water’s treatment plant in South Jersey that sends drinking water to customers in Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem counties.

It wasn’t just a New Jersey problem. The Delaware and all of its tributaries provide drinking water to more than 13 million people along the East Coast — including New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware — and officials had no idea how the chemical was getting into the river.

There are no federal limits for how much 1,4-Dioxane can be in drinking water, though New Jersey is proposing new rules that would limit the chemical to .33 parts per billion. Some samples from 2020 found nearly 10 times that amountin the Delaware. New Jersey officials have said they believe those levels ultimately did not “pose any immediate health risk,” by the time drinking water reached customers.

The rare must-read from Politico. It’s a detective story. You like detective stories.

DeSantis Throws Florida Redistricting Into Disarray.  Because not even the slightest bit of bipartisanship should be permitted.

What do you want to talk about?