DL Open Thread: Sunday, January 15, 2023

Some Fantastic Changes To Medicare.  Cap on insulin prices, free vaccinations, and more.  Yes, Rethugs want to roll back some of the changes.  D’s should be shouting hosannas from the rooftops.

The $13 Mill Freshman QB.  Well, he WAS until his NIL agreement fell apart.  Great article.  This is the new Bizarro World of college football:

SEC recruiting in the NIL era is saltier than ever: First, Nick Saban says Texas A&M “bought every player” in its top-ranked class, and now the Gators are saddled with the damning perception that they defaulted on what was promised to their top-rated signee.

It’s a dilemma. Not from the perspective of the state NIL law or an NCAA guideline, neither of which is being enforced, but a dilemma that impacts optics. Is this a one-off misstep, or have the Gators completely flubbed their first swing at NIL? Why haven’t we heard of Alabama, Georgia or other SEC schools suffering such public embarrassments?

An idle thought: If UD goes big-time in football, will the Prosperity Partnership underwrite its player acquisition?  UD and the Prosperity Partnership: Never shall the acronym ‘FOIA’ pass their lips.

Mass Murderer’s Obituary Doesn’t Mention The Family Members He Killed. Or that he killed them before he killed himself.  Others were not so kind:

Oh yeah, and they also noted that he was wearing a rosary when he shot himself, as if it were an admirable display of spirituality. My mother was deeply religious, and I’d never seen her so angry.

Of COURSE Exxon Knew About Global Warming.  Led the chorus of denialism anyway:

A new study, however, has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were uncannily accurate in their projections from the 1970s onwards, predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years.

Exxon scientists predicted there would be global heating of about 0.2C a decade due to the emissions of planet-heating gases from the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels. The new analysis, published in Science, finds that Exxon’s science was highly adept and the “projections were also consistent with, and at least as skillful as, those of independent academic and government models”.

Geoffrey Supran, whose previous research of historical industry documents helped shed light on what Exxon and other oil firms knew, said it was “breathtaking” to see Exxon’s projections line up so closely with what subsequently happened.

“This really does sum up what Exxon knew, years before many of us were born,” said Supran, who led the analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately predicted warming years before they started attacking the science. These graphs confirm the complicity of what Exxon knew and how they misled.”

Too bad that not one red cent will be forthcoming from Exxon and all the other serial climate destroyers to compensate for their perfidy.

What do you want to talk about?