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It has now been officially established that the man who recently shot three Washington, D.C. police officers who attempted to serve him an arrest warrant over an animal cruelty case, resulting in an hours-long standoff, is in the United States illegally. I first broke the news of Stephen Claude Rattigan’s illegal status on Monday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed my reporting in a statement released on Wednesday:
“Stephen Claude Rattigan is an unlawfully present 48-year-old citizen of Jamaica, who has a criminal history that dates back to 1995.
Man who attacked judge named
2024-12-02
A man who was sentenced to nearly three years’ imprisonment for injuring a judge at Milton Keynes County Court with a series of “relentless” punches to the head has been named as Greg Hazletine.
Earlier coverage of the sentencing hearing this month did not identify the defendant, presumably because Hazletine, 41, had been taking part in family proceedings at the court. But his name appeared in an uncorrected transcript of sentencing remarks published yesterday by the judiciary:
Mannequin (90 minutes) - by Amanda Kusek
2024-12-02
I officially saw Barbie last weekend. I had my nails painted pink for the first time in what felt like years, I wore a bright and colorful outfit, I laughed with my friends, we had cute pink drinks after. It was everything feminine and lovely that I am usually not (for one reason or another) and I have to say, I loved it. Oppenheimer is next and I am bracing myself.
Marc Andreessen on Availability Cascades
2024-12-02
Marc Andreessen writes,
An availability cascade is what happens when a social cascade rips through a population based on a more or less arbitrary topic — whatever topic happens to be in front of people when the cascade starts.
…Does this new liquid peer-to-peer online availability cascade environment explain “the Great Weirding” that so many people feel, including me? I would say yes.
Is this all going to intensify further in the years ahead?
Everyone deserves a second chance. The former Harvard professor of psychology Marc D Hauser has had a controversial academic career, having been investigated in a high profile case in 2010 by Harvard for supposedly falsifying research data. But Hauser, who quit Harvard in 2011, remains prolific and has a new book out this week, Vulnerable Minds, focused - perhaps not uncoincidentally, given Hauser’s own history - on giving children second chances to overcome trauma and thus lead happy lives.
Where does the phrase “March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb” come from? Well, good for me that I now have my Microsoft Copilot riding shotgun, so I never have to wonder about these things again. I simply ask the question. This is what my Copilot tells me:
Here are a few theories about its origin:
Astronomical Explanation:
Ancestral Beliefs:
Rhyming Tradition:
What happens when you have 70-degree weather in Chicago in February?
There’s another story about flawed training that didn’t make it into my article last week about the myths of “Lone Survivor,” former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s account of a 2005 ambush in the mountains of northeast Afghanistan. This one involves his identical twin brother, Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas.
Long before he emerged from a crowded GOP primary field and won athree-way race in the 2022 general election to represent the Houston suburbs, Rep.
Margolia Schneerson Remembers - by
2024-12-02
The photos, via archival work of Boruch Gorin (can’t link to him because he blocked me). Translation from Russian via mentalblog foundation and in memory of artist Anton Rozenberg.
Text in Russian- Live Journal.
On the night of March 8, 1939, at 12:35 am there was a knock on the door of our room. We opened it. With the words: "Weapons on the Table!" - several people came in. We had no weapons.