What would you like to do better next year? I suggest that we here highly resolve that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. It isn’t a new resolution, but it’s one that is easier to keep up than many others that are perennially popular at New Year’s. That’s partly because we have so many opportunities to put it into practice next year, along with so many of our friends. And after a century and a half, enough fewer of those others. We also have a very specific timeline for this round of the struggle, through the elections in November 2024, and the new Congress and Administration in 2025.
First, then, what are we working on? We hear endlessly about the threats, but much less about what has been done, and what is essential to do next and forever. We do hear a good deal more than nothing from our friends in government, issue organizations, the law, and research. For example,
Thank You Daily Kos Community from MRFF Founder and President Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein (VIDEO)
I will pass over the obvious bad news about Trump, the Ultra-MAGA, Project 2025, stupid wars, climate denial, and the like. Let us rather speak again to our own needs for actionable information, including how to counter disinformation, which I wrote about last week.
We are working on everything good we can do for each other. So, health, education, jobs, immigration, the environment… And we are making more progress than most of us know, a message laid out in the book Factfulness, by the Rosling family. You can bring yourself somewhat up to date at various Web sites, including Gapminder and Our World in Data.
In 1980, roughly 40% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty, with less than $2 per day. What is the share today?
Around 10%
The news about dread diseases is always particularly astonishing. Not everyone knows that smallpox has been eradicated, much less that polio and Guinea worm are very nearly there, and that malaria has gone into steep decline in countries that have deployed the new vaccines. I write in the Kos Diabetes group once a week on major advances on both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes, neuropathy, and non-healing sores. I remember when it was a big deal that half of all cancer patients were surviving at least several years. Now the St. Jude Research Hospital is explaining in their TV ads that only 20% of their child cancer patients die from the multitude of different kinds of cancer.
Not enough know that agricultural subsidies have been slashed from billions a year to only about $100 million. That gives hope for cutting fossil carbon subsidies.
It’s Always As Hard as Possible, But No Harder
Repellent Republicans Rushing to Ruin
As ever.
They shall have their reward.
Jewish Rabbi and Prophet Yeshua bar Yosef [YMMV]
Karma
Shakyamuni Buddha
Whatever they scream about loudest, do more of.
Good News
It turns out, as always, that
- Wrong-Wing overreach is our best weapon in the next election cycle.
- They are still driving out millions of their own children every year, and now they are going after their own women and elders.
- As hpg and others constantly remind us, our prospects in 2024 are excellent. (Remember, repetition is good. I repeat, repetition is good.)
- We are beating back voter suppression and gerrymanders in the courts and through GOTV.
- The DOJ has plans to arrest another thousand election terrorists.
We get one or more of these tweets every day.
- Marc Elias, the ACLU, the NAACP LDF, and others are on top of the states asserting a right to overturn Presidential elections and name their own electors.
- Dems are getting our messages out, and will do much more as the campaign ramps up.
- Some in the MSM are at last taking notice, most notably Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow.
- Rs are no longer in disarray—It’s total chaos and fog of internal civil war now.
And there’s plenty more where that came from.
🗽 Biden as President! 🗽
A new series, Boosting Biden, starts in four days on January 1st:
- Daily diaries.
- Monday through Friday.
- Every diary:
- A Biden accomplishment.
- An invitation to donate.
- Action steps.
- From January 1st to the election.
- We welcome ideas and suggestions!
- Your favorite JB accomplishments?
- Vote to select posting time here.
- Original announcement here.
We need your support and ideas!:
Good News Links
Solomon Deneke Kukulu Ethiopia Enkutatash new year songs
We had multiple lists of such links, which I have combined and sorted in my Emergency Backup GNR in the group queue. This gives all of our authors regular access to it. I sometimes run through all of them and add a story from each one to a GNR, as today.
In addition to exploring the many ways in which the changing climate is impacting our food system, we continued to make a concerted effort this year to focus on climate change solutions in our coverage.
Science! Animals! Weirdness!
PWB Peeps Open Thread: Boxing Day
Daily Bucket - December Ducks, divers and dippers
Northern Shovelers feeding
Wednesday Woozles: A Few Midweek Giggles
There are only 8766 hours in an average year.
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) : Music of the Spheres for orchestra with chorus BVN. 128 (1916-18)
Science Daily: Reindeer sleep while chewing their cud
EEG recordings revealed that reindeer's brainwaves during rumination resemble the brain waves present during non-REM sleep, and these brainwave patterns suggest that the reindeer are more 'rested' after ruminating. The researchers speculate that this multitasking might help reindeer get enough sleep during the summer months, when food is abundant and reindeer feed almost 24/7 in preparation for the long and food-sparse arctic winter.
Science Is Strategic @scienceisstrat1
If we keep going at that rate, we will be at 24% in 2028, 48% in 2033, 96% in 2038, and we can cover any growth in demand for electricity around the world in the 2040s, including electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, green hydrogen, electric cooking… That includes car chargers, HVDC power lines to connect renewables to where the need is, and, again,…
Watch this spacetime.
Funny or Fuggedaboudit
Support your local cartoonists.
Look for “cartoon” in the DK image library. Check out DK’s Stories from Comics, too. And various DK authors and commenters provide excellent material all over the place.
Search for “political cartoon” on Twitter and elsewhere. Learn how to embed tweets and other posts.
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Accuse conspiracy nuts of their own conspiracies!
Rimu Pocket Drone Flute - Dm
Our Authors
- The Monday GNR Newsroom (Jessiestaf, Killer300, and Bhu).
- Alternating Tuesdays: Niftywriter and arhpdx.
- Wednesdays: 2nd MCUBernieFan, 3rd WineRev, 4th karij. 1st and 5th: lemay50, Andrew F Cockburn, DoctorStrange.
- Thursdays: Mokurai.
- Fridays: chloris creator. Regular links to the White House Briefing Room.
- Saturdays: GoodNewsRoundup, the one and only!
- Sundays: 2thanks. A brief roundup of Roundups, a retrospective, a smorgasbord, a bulletin board, an oasis, a watering hole, a thunder of hooves, a wellness, a place for beginners to learn the rules of the veldt. For instance, we do not welcome Doomer, Gloomer, or grammar-police comments in Roundups.