API Key Creation

This page outlines how to create your own set of API keys for use with the YouTube add-on.

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The two cases concern Arizona laws that make it harder to vote

The specific issue in the Democratic National Committee cases concerns two Arizona laws that require certain ballots to be discarded. One law requires voting officials to discard in their entirety ballots cast by voters who vote in the wrong precinct (rather than simply not counting votes for local candidates who the voter should not have been able to vote for). //

The other law prohibits “ballot collection” (or “ballot harvesting”) where a voter gives their absentee ballot to a third party, who delivers that ballot to the election office. (Arizona is one of many states that impose at least some restrictions on ballot collection.)

Both of these laws disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color. As a federal appeals court explained in an opinion striking down the two laws, “uncontested evidence in the district court established that minority voters in Arizona cast [out of precinct] ballots at twice the rate of white voters.” And Hispanic and Native American voters are especially likely to rely on a third party to ensure that their ballot is cast. //

Simply put, the right of voters of color to cast a ballot is now in greater peril than at almost any point since the Jim Crow era. Cases like Shelby County and Perez already stripped the Voting Rights Act of much of its force; the Democratic National Committee cases could finish that job.

These cases, moreover, are not just a historic threat to the right to vote. They are potentially a historic threat to the Democratic Party’s ability to compete in US elections. //

Because voters of color in general, and Black voters in particular, are especially likely to vote for Democrats, Republican lawmakers can use race as a proxy to identify communities with large numbers of Democratic voters. They can then enact election laws targeting those communities, confident that the law will mainly disenfranchise Democrats.

The Court’s decision to take these cases, in other words, puts the debate over whether Democrats should add additional seats to the Supreme Court in order to dilute its Republican majority into stark relief. If the Democratic National Committee cases end badly for the Voting Rights Act — and if Democrats control Congress and the White House when these cases are handed down — Democrats may have to choose between radical steps like packing the Court or being permanently exiled to the political wilderness.

Alex Berenson
@AlexBerenson
It's coming: @nejm suggests a framework for MANDATORY vaccinations for #SARSCoV2.

"Substantive penalties could be justified, including employment suspension or stay-at-home orders for persons in designated high-priority groups who refuse vaccination."
Ensuring Uptake of Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 | NEJM
nejm.org

https://t.co/exkLv6KsA3?amp=1

Fertilizer runoff is likely fueling an explosion of seaweed in the Atlantic.

There’s a mass of seaweed in the Atlantic Ocean that last year, at its peak, was so large it stretched all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to West Africa. It’s the biggest bloom of seaweed ever recorded, according to a new paper published in Science. And it’s likely another example of how human activity is radically changing the surface of the planet.

After the 1968 season ended, Major League Baseball lowered the pitcher’s mound from 15 inches to only 10 inches above home plate and made the strike zone slightly smaller.

Bob Gibson wasn’t the only major league pitcher to have a great season in 1968 — but he was the best major league pitcher in 1968, and the changes were called “The Gibson Rule.”

Melania Trump, America’s beautiful mystery, is privately a trenchant political analyst with a keener power of observation than just about every sweaty, bespectacled nerd on CNN.

But it’s clear that the beneficial policies that Donald Trump has put in place are turning a lot of voters away from the Democrats, including black Americans.

We saw how that has flipped prominent, black support, like Georgia state representative Vernon Jones. We’ve also seen how civil rights activist Leo Terrell was influenced by the Democrats’ failure to adequately address the riots to walk away to support Donald Trump.

Now another prominent Democrat is professing support for Trump: Ohio state representative Bernadine Kennedy Kent, from the 25th District in Columbus, Ohio, a critical state for Trump to hold. She cited his law and order stance, economic prosperity, and support for HBCU among her reasons.

The Boeing E-6 Mercury is used by the Government of the United States to pass on instructions to its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines patrolling around the world. //

As a part of Operation Looking Glass, which is today called “Airborne Command Post” (ABNCP) – the aircraft are used to provide instructions to America’s nuclear forces should ground-based operations or command centers be destroyed or inoperable.

The United States Navy has a fleet of 16 E-6s and has typically at least one of them in the air at all times. It is also not uncommon to see two or three in the air at the same time. However, what was strange this time was that they had their transponders turned on to let people know they were out there rather than wanting to remain dark.

IF YOU’VE BEEN a reader of mine for any length of time, you’re acquainted with my frustrations over airport noise. Things are comparatively quiet at the moment, with most airports conspicuously bereft of passengers, but in normal times it’s noise levels that serve up one of the biggest stress factors in the entire air travel experience: endless public address announcements, wailing babies, chattering TVs, and airport architecture seemingly designed to amplify, rather than quash, the collective racket of hundreds of people.

It’s those public address announcements that are the most aggravating culprit. Ninety percent of them are useless in the first place, and they’re typically delivered at a volume severe enough to shatter windows. And with all the various microphones and speakers targeting different sections of a terminal, it’s not uncommon to hear two or three announcements blaring at the same time.

Those few of any value are presented in such a tautological tangle as to be almost incomprehensible. Why say in ten words what you can say in a hundred? At JFK Airport there’s an announcement that loops around every five minutes or so. It declares: “All areas of the terminal have been designated as smoke-free.” I’ll begin by asking if there’s anyone alive who’d be daft enough to assume they’re permitted to smoke in a crowded terminal, an accommodation you’ll no longer find even at an airport in rural Pakistan. But listen, also, to the language. The entire announcement is unnecessary in the first place, but if you’re going to force it upon us, can you please do it using words your audience will understand? JFK is the ultimate melting pot, and I have a healthy suspicion that, to someone with limited (or no) English skills, a phrase like “designated as smoke-free” has about as much meaning as a bird call.

Then we have the security announcements. Did you know that my hometown airport, Boston-Logan, is home to a program called “SAFE,” or “Security Awareness For Everyone”? I know this because I’m told about it every five minutes while sitting at the gate. “If you see something, say something.” Important advice there. Meanwhile, “TSA has limited the items that may be carried through the security checkpoint,” we are told at Los Angeles International. “Passengers are advised to contact their air carrier.” The pointlessness of this counsel needs no explanation, but to further fray our nerves and damage our hearing, it plays after you’ve gone through security. //

Intensifying this bombardment are those infernal gate-side television monitors blaring CNN Airport Network. These yammering hellboxes are everywhere, and they cannot be turned off. There is no volume control, no power cord, no escape. Every gate has one, and they run twenty-four hours a day. //

Ironically, the actual loudest things at an airport — airplanes themselves — are almost never heard, buffered behind walls of glass and concrete. And it’s not until stepping aboard your plane that you can finally savor some silence. Or that’s the idea, anyway. Alas, the airplane cabin has contracted this same scourge. Nowadays, the first twenty minutes of every flight consist of nothing but talking: safety videos that never end, ignored directives on how to stow your luggage, and those manifesto-length promotional speeches that last from the time the landing gear retracts until thirty-thousand feet, often in multiple languages.