Litigation Dismissed

Legal filings reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, allegedly responsible for the cancer risk rates in the surrounding Black neighborhoods.

The litigation was filed under the Biden administration in February 2023 to curb the plant’s chloroprene emissions, a likely human carcinogen. It had targeted both the current operator, the Japanese firm Denka, and its previous owner, the American chemical giant DuPont, and formed a central piece of the former administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to address environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. (From The Guardian)

It reminds me of the Floyd lead in the water "national emergency", caused by incompetent operators in that Black town. That was in Barack Obama's times. 

Confidence in the principal study (NTP, 1998) is judged to be high as it was a well-designed study using two test species (rats and mice) with 50 animals per dose group.  (I am not proposing that there was absolutely no risk, but that it was extremely small. No epidemiological studies of human cancer were mentioned in the studies. The EPA only considers the risk for the more extreme cases, say for sickly newborns. The cost of protection against the probably inexistent risk was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It would have been cheaper to resettle the community.)

Fat, Healthy and Happy

Scientific American: 

Growing evidence shows that many people can be considered overweight and healthy The new medications, technically known as glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, are used to promote substantial weight loss, cause a host of cardiometabolic improvements, and treat type 2 diabetes. (Drugs for the latter include a form of semaglutide sold as Ozempic.) But when a person who had been taking one of these medications stops, the hunger cues it had suppressed come raging back, which causes the weight to return. Other health benefits of the drugs, such as reduced blood pressure, also tend to bounce back after stopping treatment.

Bad day

My Gan Yavne project finds resistance in the Bodek Techen engineer. He has an inferiority complex, tries to impress me, is an imbecile, disputes the Certified surveyor's plan, and semi-insults me.                                                                                                                                            Lavenganzaseraterrible.                                                                                                                                                                                                   The next morning, I mailed a detailed description of his cretinous demands to my client and his boss. It was a mistake! No one loves trouble; they want to believe that things are working out smoothly and human relations are harmonious. I may be stamped as a troublemaker to avoid.  

Yet Another Day

Had a phone meeting with Nissim of the Taagid and Avi of AMPM at 07.00 AM because of Nissim's daily schedule. I have to adjust my hours to the business hours of my environment. This change reduces my productivity. 

President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports and suspended foreign aid, and the NASDAQ fell. The Trump administration said the tariffs were necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States. Weapon industries are thriving. I bought מנועי בית שמש that works for the Army. 

Another day

Started my day at 07.00 AM and had a long video meeting about the endless Bitzron project. 

This picture attracted my attention. According to the magazine, it is artificial and meets 100% of the beauty criteria. The next was an ugly actress with 98%.

Israel Sees Wartime 'Baby Boom' With 10 Percent Rise in Births in Final Months of 2024. Peace kills. 

Failed Regime Change

 I got used to working late into the morning and starting the next day at 9.30 AM. But most people start working at 8 AM and phone me five minutes later. So I decided to change my regime and go to sleep at 9-10 PM as before and wake up at 7 AM. But I did not fall asleep until midnight, so I took a tranquilizer pill. I did fall asleep but woke up at 10 AM stiff and with aching muscles. Tonight, I shall try again.

Great Television

 
The Atlantic's take on the event: 

Zelensky objected when the vice president castigated the Ukrainian president for not showing enough personal gratitude to Trump. And then in a moment of immense hypocrisy, Vance told Zelensky that it was “disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.” But baiting Zelensky into fighting in front of the media was likely the plan all along, and Trump and Vance were soon both yelling at Zelensky. (“This is going to be great television,” Trump said during the meeting.) The president at times sounded like a Mafia boss—“You don’t have the cards”; “you’re buried there”—but in the end, he sounded like no one so much as Putin himself as he hollered about “gambling with World War III,” as if starting the biggest war in Europe in nearly a century was Zelensky’s idea.