Noteworthy News

[The Valkyrie]

Keep your eyes on the skies for the next few days. The sun has produced several very energetic flares, and the ejecta is en route to Earth. Two or more of these may combine en route and produce even more potent "cannibal" CMEs. Details at SpaceWeather.

The upshot of all that is that we have good odds of seeing low-latitude northern lights over the next few days.

'The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
I cremated Sam McGee.'

Boru

Did Sam know you were going to cremate him when he went with you to the lake?

[Angrboda]

The 17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life — from 66% in 2015 to 49% today — ranks among the largest Gallup has recorded in any country over any 10-year period since 2007.

About half of Americans now say religion is not an important part of their daily life. They remain as divided on the question today as they were last year.

Such large declines in religiosity are rare. Since 2007, only 14 out of more than 160 countries in the World Poll have experienced drops of over 15 percentage points in religious importance over any 10-year period.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/697676/drop...world.aspx

[Fake Messiah]

Climate change is causing increasing blooms of toxin-producing algae, and it’s causing dementia in dolphins. There’s evidence that human exposure to these algae blooms - you can even breathe in the toxins from nearby land - is causing similar brain damage in addition to other harmful health effects.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/scientis...-dolphins/

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
I cremated Sam McGee.'

Boru

Did Sam know you were going to cremate him when he went with you to the lake?

He ASKED for it!

‘Yet ‘taint being dead, it’s my awful dread of an icy grave that pains.
So, I want you swear that foul or fair, you’ll cremate these last remains.’

Boru

[Angrboda]

In blow to Trump, federal judges block new Texas congressional map

A panel of federal judges has blocked Texas’ newly redrawn congressional map — which made five districts in the state more favorable to Republicans — saying the plan appeared to be an illegal race-based gerrymander.

In a 2-1 ruling, the court ordered Texas to rely instead on the boundaries legislators drew in 2021. The new map, the majority concluded, appears likely to be unconstitutional and was drawn at the urging of the Trump administration.

“The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor — the 2025 Map — achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Galveston-based Trump appointee, wrote for the panel majority.

The decision is a massive blow in the White House’s push to redistrict across the country. Texas’ five-seat map represented the biggest gains for the GOP through redrawing. Republicans are expected to immediately appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Brown was joined by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, an El Paso-based Obama appointee. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith, a Houston-based Reagan appointee, dissented but did not immediately release an opinion explaining his reasoning.

The majority repeatedly derided the Justice Department’s effort to goad Texas into targeting the four districts with non-white majorities — known as “coalition districts.” That effort, Brown said, began on July 7, with a letter from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division that was “challenging to unpack … because it contains so many factual, legal, and typographical errors.”

According to the court, the letter selected the four districts “based entirely on their racial makeup” and was the key factor that spurred Texas Republicans to take up the extraordinary redistricting effort. The bulk of Brown’s 160-page opinion delves into the mindset of the state lawmakers and advisers who drew the new maps, suggesting that their motives clearly aligned with DOJ’s race-based push and that their characterization of the new maps as based only on race-blind partisanship were not believable.