Let it BE...

 

In April, Biden ordered a full withdrawal from Afghanistan, setting the stage for the end of America's longest war by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that originally sparked the U.S. invasion.

But as the U.S. withdrawal has neared its end, Taliban gains have accelerated, raising fears the insurgents will overrun Kabul after the U.S. departs. Critics have also compared the situation to the fall of Saigon in 1975.

President Biden rejected the idea that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is "inevitable," outlining next steps and defending his decision to withdraw from the 20-year war amid reports of a deteriorating security situation in the country.

Note:

Let the Afghani people rule themselves. War didn't change their minds any way. Some want to live in the fourteenth century.  Just a thought.

Pleasure...

 

Unraveling the brain mechanisms involved in the experience of pleasure, happiness and various meaningful states could point to what flourishing truly means, and help people experience more of it. 

Pleasure is a way of experiencing the sensory world. When you see, hear, smell or taste something that you deem as pleasurable, the information goes through the sensory cortices of your brain. But that’s not where pleasure is encoded. 

Thanks to the engagement of various brain regions, it’s something that’s added later on as a hedonic gloss.

Thus, pleasure is not merely a sensation or a thought. Importantly, pleasure consists of cycles of wanting, liking and learning. A good life relies on a brain system that can go through this cycle of changes in an orderly fashion. 

This quest has been the guiding motivation of Morten Kringelbach’s research. 

No Joke...

 

Security detail...

 

Adams...

 

Former two-time NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton lauded fellow retired cop Eric Adams’ Democratic mayoral primary victory as “good news for New York City.”
“Congrats to Eric Adams on his victory. Good news for New York City,” Bratton said in a social media statement.

“I have known him since 1990 when I was Chief of the New York City Transit Police and he was a Transit Police Lieutenant. I wish him every success in dealing with the many crises facing NYC.”

Adams served as a transit police officer for 22 years before entering politics.
Adams, the current Brooklyn borough president, made public safety and police reform front and center in his campaign.

Bratton’s public statement speaks for many New Yorkers who were concerned that one of the left-wing candidate who campaigned for defunding the police would win the nomination.

Anesthesia...

 

Chris Rock famously said, when Barack Obama was president, “The president and the first lady are kind of like the mom and the dad of the country. And when your dad says something, you listen.”

Joe Biden, though, is the granddad of the country, and when you listen to Granddad, sometimes you wonder whether it’s safe for him to be near a pair of scissors.

No big deal, though; it’s just that there’s this guy who looks like he’d have trouble using Google Maps and he happens to be in charge of all the nukes. On the rare occasions when Biden’s staff let him out of the dayroom to be seen on camera, pre-selected members of the press ask him the gentlest conceivable questions and then wind up cringing anyway as Biden gives one unnerving display after another.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin must watch these press conferences giggling uncontrollably at their good fortune: 

Suddenly the world’s greatest power is in the hands of a slightly dazed-looking fellow who seems like he is always just waking up from heavy anesthesia.

Cousin...

 

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNBC on Wednesday there is reason to be hopeful that people who received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine may be protected against the virus' Delta variant.

Murthy pointed to data that showed the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot is highly effective against hospitalization from the more contagious variant. 

He also said people should think of the AstraZeneca vaccine "as a cousin" to J&J's shot since it was "built on a similar platform

Compare...

 

 The Tragedy that occurred in Florida and the devastation with, so far, unknown cause.

The Tragedy that occurred in Syria over many years and the devastation associated with it, with so far, known causes. 

Cause...

 

The remaining structure left behind after the Miami building collapse has been brought down by demolition crews using explosives, after warnings that a tropical storm could render the site unsafe.

Rescue teams are expected to resume the search for survivors once the demolition is complete at the Champlain Towers South condo building. They have so far recovered the remains of 24 people, with 121 still missing.

 Search and rescue mission was suspended to allow engineers to prepare the site for demolition. The precarious remaining portion of the 12-storey building was rigged with strategically placed explosives that successfully brought down the structure on Sunday after 10.30pm.

Ruling...

 

 US supreme court has upheld two Arizona voting restrictions in a ruling that dealt a major addition to the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 civil rights law.

In a 6-3 ruling, the justices upheld Arizona statutes that prohibit anyone other than a close family member or caregiver from collecting mail-in ballots, which are widely used in the state.

The court also upheld a statute that requires officials to wholly reject votes from people who show up to cast a ballot in the wrong precinct, even if the person is otherwise entitled to vote in the state

Neither Arizona’s out-of-precinct rule nor its ballot-collection law violates §2 of the VRA. Arizona’s out-of-precinct rule enforces the requirement that voters who choose to vote in person on election day must do so in their assigned precincts,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for a majority that included the court’s five other conservative justices, referring to section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

He added: “Having to identify one’s own polling place and then travel there to vote does not exceed the ‘usual burdens of voting’.”

The decision means that the Arizona statutes will remain in effect and make it harder to challenge discriminatory voting laws across the US at a time when a swath of Republican-run state legislatures are pushing a wave of new voting restrictions.

Let us do it right, unlike the Mayoral Primary election in New York City last week.

  Just a thought.