Daily Dose of Doom Thread

[MU82]

The University of Florida is purging and replacing "woke" classes.

Courses covering issues related to class, inequality, race and gender no longer count toward graduation requirements, while new classes offer a more "conservative vision."

[TallTitan34]

[Hards Alumni]

Building the carnival for a clown show

[Uncle Rico]

Happy Jefferson Davis Birthday Day to any of the scoopers who celebrate!  Big day this Wednesday!

[TallTitan34]

Cool Cool.  Gutting USAID is hampering the Ebola response in Congo.

Bump

[Shaka Shart]

Bump

How will I be able to tell the difference between Ebola victims and dental victims when I encounter people on the street bleeding from all their orifices 

[cheebs09]

Happy Jefferson Davis Birthday Day to any of the scoopers who celebrate!  Big day this Wednesday!

Are dental offices closed?

[Uncle Rico]

Are dental offices closed?

They are in Alabama today

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Oh hey, there's another $100M in taxpayer dollars stolen right out in the open.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-trumps-birthday-bash
"Like the White House ballroom project, Trump's "Freedom 250" is also a pay-to-play scheme. People and companies with financial interests likely affected by Trump are encouraged to make tax-deductible donations to gain access to, and seek favors from, him.

Corporations pay between $500,000 and $10 million to become Freedom 250 "sponsors." A corporation giving $1 million or more will be invited to a "private Freedom 250 thank you reception" hosted by Trump. For $2.5 million or more, sponsors will even get a speaking role at the Fourth of July celebration in Washington. (Major donors so far include Lockheed Martin, ExxonMobil, Oracle, Palantir, Mastercard, and United Airlines.)

Tucked away inside last year's sprawling 870-page "One Big Beautiful Act" was an allocation of $150 million for "events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States."

Most of those funds are going to Trump's "Freedom 250" rather than to the nonpartisan "America250." Why? When Congress appropriated the $150 million, only America250 was planning celebrations for the 250th. But now that Trump's Freedom 250 is up and running, Trump's Interior Department has doled out $100 million to it ($25 million has gone to the nonpartisan America250)."


Remember when Republicans spent the better part of a decade screaming about the impropriety of the President and his wife netting $100,000 on an Arkansas land deal? ha ha, good one.

[Shaka Shart]

Bad news for meat summits

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c936r25grrlo

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Bad news for meat summits

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c936r25grrlo

The Atlantic ran this story 6 years ago and it stuck in my head.  We had it beat back to Panama where the sliver of the isthmus helped make it easy to keep in check then budget cuts .....


https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-eating-worms-disease-containment-america-panama/611026/

[Hards Alumni]

NWS is no joke, and if it has been spotted in Texas, then it is everywhere down there.  If you thought beef was expensive before... boy, let me tell you.

[Hards Alumni]

[Uncle Rico]

NWS is no joke, and if it has been spotted in Texas, then it is everywhere down there.  If you thought beef was expensive before... boy, let me tell you.

It's only a few pennies

[Shaka Shart]

Thank u doge

[MU82]

Newly minted trillionaire Elon Musk is so rich that the typical American household's wealth is closer to that of Jeff Bezos than Bezos is to Musk.

[TallTitan34]

Cool Cool.  Gutting USAID is hampering the Ebola response in Congo.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/absence-usaid-likely-slowed-ebola-detection-response-former-officials-rcna345779

https://abcnews.com/International/france-confirms-1st-ebola-case-linked-outbreak-drc/story?id=134160026

[tower912]

Only pennies.

[Shaka Shart]

When the going gets tough, the tough get going

[MU82]

Glad my grandkids don't live in Texas ...

Texas approved a sweeping, new state book list on Friday, establishing for the first time a common set of books that millions of students across the state must read, including excerpts from the Bible.

It is highly unusual — perhaps unprecedented — for a state, rather than a school or a teacher, to mandate a reading list for every grade level for all public school students.

The list will shape what a generation of Texas students grows up reading. The state is home to more than five million public school students, 11 percent of the total U.S. public school population.

The list reflects the priorities of the state board, which has a 10-to-5 Republican majority. It puts a focus on classic literature and includes excerpts from the Bible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/us/texas-schools-book-list.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

[Uncle Rico]

Glad my grandkids don't live in Texas ...

Texas approved a sweeping, new state book list on Friday, establishing for the first time a common set of books that millions of students across the state must read, including excerpts from the Bible.

It is highly unusual — perhaps unprecedented — for a state, rather than a school or a teacher, to mandate a reading list for every grade level for all public school students.

The list will shape what a generation of Texas students grows up reading. The state is home to more than five million public school students, 11 percent of the total U.S. public school population.

The list reflects the priorities of the state board, which has a 10-to-5 Republican majority. It puts a focus on classic literature and includes excerpts from the Bible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/us/texas-schools-book-list.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Bible is incredible fiction.

[MU82]

Bible is incredible fiction.

Fiction, yes. Incredible ... depends on how one defines it.

[MU82]

"Doooonnnk, doooonnnk, doooonnnk."

That's a trimmed and slowed-down audio clip of a commentator at an e-sports event in Bucharest, Romania, posted by someone seeking to show that he had said "Donk," the nickname of a star player.

More than $5.7 million had been wagered on Polymarket on whether the word would be used during the event.

(From the NYT)

[TSmith34, Inc.]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/climate-change/ocean-temperatures-hit-record-high-in-june-rcna352514

Too bad we don't have roqqet here to tell us how this is just a hoax

[MU82]

From Axios: Americans are spending less time socializing than they did 20 years ago — and the trend cuts across every generation, according to the new American Time Use Survey.





Why it matters: Our growing isolation is a fundamental shift in the way we live with implications for everything from what we believe to how long we live.

By the numbers: Average time spent socializing per day has fallen from 45 to 35 minutes over the last 20 years.

The decline is steepest among young people: 15- to 24-year-olds went from spending an hour a day hanging out with others to 35 minutes.

Between the lines: Sociologists and psychologists point to several trends driving this phenomenon in what Substack writer Derek Thompson dubbed "The Anti-Social Century."

We're all on our smartphones, often interacting through screens instead of face-to-face. Teens spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to Gallup.

The shift to remote work — and life — during the pandemic has persisted.
Longer-term trends are reshaping daily life in ways that make retreat easier. Homes are bigger and more comfortable, with larger TVs. Most restaurants are on food delivery apps, making it easier than ever to stay in.