Raithe

For another things that is obviously going to surprise so many people... Trump raised $75m to challenge election result and didn’t spend any of it on challenging the election result (msn.com)

Possibly too dark?

NYTimes - Details on FBI Inquiry into Kavanaugh

Thought for the Day: "The oil industry is large-scale necromancy. We dig into million year old tombs, pump out the sludge of concentrated dead stuff, animate with fire and air, and harness the energy of countless corpses, forcing them to drive our engines, all while the visceral filth permeates the air and water."

Driver's Ed over here has never been something related to school. Of course, we have to wait till 17 to get a provisional license, but all lessons, and the tests themselves are paid for privately. Funny note, I have a friend who went out to the US back around.. oh 1999/2000 and got married to a girl in California. He went out with his UK provisional driving license, never having taken his test and gotten a full license. Showed his provisional to the DMV and did the "I'm a UK citizen moving over here", and they gave him a USA driving licence to use, since apparently whoever he was dealing with at the DMV didn't actually understand the UK's split of provisional / full license. Then on a return visit to his family over here, he showed his DMV issued license to the relevant government body as a full driving license, so they then gave him the UK driving license. He's not taken the driving exams in either country. Although I'm assuming by now, with the power of the internet, that sort of bureaucratic overlook has been tidied up.

Dungeons & Dragons Novels, Video Games, and Other Spin-Offs Are Not Canonical to D&D Roleplaying Game (comicbook.com)

Murder Books 101: Profiling the Profilers | Tor.com

For the non-serious and just aesthetically pleasing...

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/mississippi-roe-v-wade-abortion/index.html Mississippi asks the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade On a second thing, I was engaged in conversation on work benefits with someone, and as occasionally happens when people on this side of the Atlantic discuss things, you got a few horrified "how do the American's accept what they do with work?". A point was made that for all the "Land of the Free" attitude, and general bellicose nature a large number of Americans seem to have against the Federal government... There's a very feudal attitude between Employer and Employee. The casual acceptance of "fire at will", the lack of vacation time, the way pregnancy leave is so short (and quite often unpaid) across huge swathes of the workplace, the nature of health insurance and such like. There was a half-joking comment that historically, medieval peasants in Europe got more time off work each year than current day Americans due to the various feast and saints days...

Well my only experience in driving are those 10 lessons about 20 years ago. So I pretty much need the practical run through of it all. Before you take the practical test, they expect you to have around 40 hours of lessons so it's not all theory. Private practice is sort of outside that, and is limited in where you can do it, and you have to have an experienced driver in the car with you during it all.

This might not make sense to the Americans here, but I was digging through things and found my provisional drivers license. Now, I applied for it back in, '96 when I first became legal to drive, took about 10 lessons, then life disrupted them. For other reasons I've never actually needed to drive places myself, everywhere I've needed to go has been in walking distance, easy and good public transport, or I had friends going there who were driving past my house on the way there who were happy to pick me up. You need to get your provisional license before you can take lessons, then if you pass your theory test, then you can take your driving exam, and then you get your full driving license. Some years back they changed it so provisional licenses needed your photo, and would only be good for a few years before you'd need to re-apply. My provisional license is the oooold provisional license. It's folded paper, no picture.. and it's valid until 2049. Now I'm actually looking into doing one of those intensive driving courses to get my license, but yeesh. For 40 hours of driving lessons, the cost of theory and practical, you're looking at about £1,400 - £1,900 cost.