Punishment at the Peak – Demolition Derby



Utah Football

Mask Mandate Request

Mask Mandate Fails


Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy are being promoted by rich and powerful conservative groups that are determined to win at all costs.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-big-money-behind-the-big-lie
Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and one of the country’s foremost election-law experts, told me, “I’m scared shitless.” Referring to the array of new laws passed by Republican state legislatures since the 2020 election, he said, “It’s not just about voter suppression. What I’m really worried about is election subversion. Election officials are being put in place who will mess with the count.”
When the author died at 28, he was on the cusp of literary fame. Everyone remembers him differently.
via Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/article/anthony-veasna-so-afterparties.html
Infinite Self Anthony Veasna So died unexpectedly last winter, before his debut book was released. Everyone remembers him differently.
Drought is shrinking one of the country’s largest reservoirs, revealing a hidden Eden.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/16/the-lost-canyon-under-lake-powell
In the six decades since the dam was built, the living memory of Glen Canyon has mostly been lost. Relatively few people visited the canyon when it could still be run by raft, and all but a handful of them are now dead. In the meantime, the place has acquired an almost mythical status. It was a kind of Eden, more spectacular than the Grand Canyon and, at the same time, more peaceful. It was a fairy-tale maze of side canyons, and side canyons with their own side canyons, each one offering a different marvel. Edward Abbey, who was one of several writers and artists to float through Glen Canyon shortly before its inundation, called the closing of the dam’s gates a “crime.” To grasp the nature of this crime, he wrote, “imagine the Taj Mahal or Chartres Cathedral buried in mud until only the spires remain visible.”
In Taipei, young people like Nancy Tao Chen Ying watched as the Hong Kong protests were brutally extinguished. Now they wonder what’s in their future.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/magazine/taiwan-china.html
In recent years, Chinese warplanes buzzing the Taiwan Strait’s midline increased substantially, and the country’s warships regularly encircled the island. In March, America’s top military officer in the Indo-Pacific region told a Senate hearing that he believed China could invade Taiwan in the next six years.
The rapid fall of important Afghan cities comes as insurgent fighters have pressed their offensive all around the country, dividing Afghan forces as U.S. troops depart.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-kunduz.html
The Taliban seized two Afghan provincial capitals on Sunday, including the strategically crucial northern city of Kunduz, officials said, escalating a sweeping insurgent offensive that has claimed four regional capitals in just three days