DL Open Thread Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on July 30, 2024

I’ve kept up my vaccinations, so I’m immune to Olympic fever, but as a part-time resident of Paris I’ve been following organizers’ quixotic quest to have athletes swim in the Seine, always a sketchy plan because the water is often polluted. Sure enough, the triathlon, scheduled for this morning, was postponed because fecal coliform levels are too high, so they’ll try again tomorrow. What would change over the course of 24 hours? The weather. Like Wilmington, Paris has a combined sewer system. When it rains, which is fairly often there, the stormwater exceeds the capacity of the treatment plants and the overflow goes straight into the river untreated. Imagine holding a mile-long swim in the Christina, where even rowers scrub down after contact with the water.

The rushed-into-existence law instituting a budget review board for the state’s hospitals drew the inevitable lawsuit from Christiana Care in Chancery Court. Maybe the court can turn this kneejerk reaction to the government’s budget woes into something effective and workable, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Republican propaganda makes the broad public believe lots of untrue things, but there’s one the Democrats would rather not brag about: Biden has removed more migrants than Trump did. They’re just not called “deportations” because people are turned away before they get past the entry points at the border. And while Trump wants to deport more people who’ve gotten through, he hasn’t said (and never will say) how he’ll pay to expand a deportation system that’s been operating at maximum capacity through three administrations.

Big Oil PR has been pushing carbon capture as a climate change solution for years, but internally they’ve known all along it’s bullshit, which hasn’t stopped them from taking billions in government handouts for it. Shocking, I know, from people who are usually such altruistic actors.

The floor’s yours.

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  1. Jason says:

    They could make the triathlon a quadathlon with the 4th leg surviving fecal bacteria.

    • Alby says:

      I think the backup plan is to make it a biathlon.

      From what I read they could make the third leg crossing the city on the Metro system. Apparently to relieve crowding, Google maps sends people on indirect routes that take much longer.

  2. Man, just saw Kamela’s speech in Atlanta. She’s da bomb! Speech was only about 20 minutes long, but she hit every point hard. Including, on Trump’s refusal to debate:

    “Donald, if you’ve got something to say about me, say it to my face.”

  3. FWIW says:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2024/07/29/delaware-governor-race-hall-long-campaign-investigation/5ae8fd32-4df8-11ef-9728-3037305a6b0f_story.html?ref=upstract.com

    In case you missed it…

    “In October, she issued a ‘campaign audit update’ declaring that an accounting firm hired ‘to audit records and receipts’ found ‘no wrongdoings or violations.’ She has refused to release a copy of the purported audit.

    In fact, according to documents included in the report commissioned by the state elections commission, the firm hired by Hall-Long relied exclusively on information that she provided, conducted no audit, and made no determination about wrongdoing.

    ‘We will not audit or otherwise verify the data you submit to us,’ Karen Remick, owner of Summit CPA Group, wrote in a Sept. 21 letter to Hall-Long’s campaign committee.

    ‘Our engagement does not include any procedures designed to detect errors, fraud, theft, or other wrongdoing,’ Remick added.”