@gritsforbreakfast.bsky.social
Nom de plume of Scott Henson, Austin, TX. Cancer survivor, househusband, recovering policy wonk (justice systems, civil liberties; innocence). Retirement focus: TX negro-league baseball, female lion tamers. Zines: https://www.gfbpubs.com
I hadn't dug into this until this one showed recently up to press the issue. But corn syrup should NOT be the FIRST ingredient in any baby formula and Texas state government only agreeing to pay for the cheapest, least healthy formula for WIC babies is straight up evil and gross.
The contract runs through Sept 2027, so babies in Texas will get the corn-syrup induced formula at least through then. Longer, presumably, if Greg Abbott and the Republican GOP still control the state when the #txlege comes back. More details on the state's switch: www.texmed.org/TexasMedicin...
So it turns out, many states are switching from the brand that priorities corn syrup as its first ingredient, but Texas went the other way in 2022, shifting from the Similac (Abbott) to the Enfamil (Mead Johnson) brand. Most states did the opposite. www.groceryservicesnorth.com/2022/10/texa....
I first read Brune's report to the Texas Water Development Board well over 30 years ago, and it's rather astonishing to think it's now more than 50 years old and still one of the very best things written on the topic. Just a first rate piece of intellectual work all around.
A story I'm working on now centers on the intertwined history of 2 prominent Texas springs and, true to form, Brune's report nailed down some obscure history and gave me a coupla new leads. There's so much there, it's almost endlessly useful on so many research vectors.
Gunnar Brune's “Major and Historical Springs of Texas” remains an incredibly useful piece of work that's too little known; I've used it many times for many different things. Here's a great blog post from an Austin Historical Commission member linking to it and writing up Travis County highlights.
If they really wanted "regime change" they'd have installed the woman who won the last election. But instead, they installed Maduro's #2 and plan to wait years before staging elections again, for reasons that elude understanding. It's still nation building, but of the worst, least beneficial sort.
✋ Former USG war crimes lawyer here.
Apropos of SecDef's remarks this morning:
Denial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime.
And recognized as such by the US Government.
From DoD's Manual for Military Commissions.
Rubio blathers about rebuilding civil society and holding elections in a few years, but it's all generic State-Department-speak for nation building. There's nothing substantively different from "nation building" efforts in the past, except their fevered insistence that it's not the same at all.
Hegseth says all the time that the United States is no longer in the business of "nation building" but every time Marco Rubio opens his mouth about Venezuela, every syllable is about nation building. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iTM...
And ofc, as the OP said, it's a war crime.
This is just him saying it out loud, they were already doing this in the Caribbean, where they not only fired on boats in international waters but came back for kill shots on survivors after they're done. People are saying he doesn't know what "no quarter" means, but he does and it's DOD policy.
USDA actually recommends no extra sugar in baby formula before age 2, but more than half of formula sold in the US, including most options available through WIC, contains corn syrup. Why WIC chooses to ignore USDA regs, Idk. The EU bans corn syrup in baby formula, full stop. That seems much wiser.
In general, American regulation in this sector seems lackadaisical and disinterested in basic public health questions.
www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-fo...
In addition to obesity, corn syrup can affect a baby's gut biome and make them fussier eaters. www.chla.org/blog/experts...
Two quick things about infant formula: 1) Damn, is it expensive! 2) It's infuriating that WIC steers poor mothers toward products with corn syrup that lead to early childhood obesity and many other problems. (short 🧵) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35998087/
There aren’t enough mental health providers anywhere- we have a national shortage
And they aren’t subsidizing more folks going through school and training so there aren’t going to be more
And this means communities are going to have to start/relearn to provide normative support wherever they can
MYTH: Crime victims support long prison sentences.
REALITY: Most victims of violence want violence prevention. Harm is real, but mass support for mass incarceration is not.
But voted for every dime of the border spending. Yes.
The source of shortages is industrial users, not the people of Corpus. But Abbott wants to disenfranchise the people of Corpus for not being willing to pay for industrial infrastructure, even though the the state keeps allowing big industrial water users to expand in the area.
This is where the billions upon billions wasted at the border should have gone. Now that money has been spent on patrols, etc., with literally nothing to show for it. For a TINY fraction of that amt, the state could have easily built a desalinization plant in Corpus by now. But Abbott did not GAF.
This is Abbott scapegoating others for his own failures. Texas has refused to address water problems for decades, and the bond money approved last session is way too little, too late. Few in office have demonstrated less care about Texas water shortages than Abbott in his tenure.
i sort of think way more social problems could be solved by tripling every city's parks and rec department budget than we might expect
damn bro maybe you should've just let the fucking trans people play sports
Actuarial Warfare: a paradigm in which private reinsurance desks, operating under regulatory capital constraints, exercise de facto sovereignty over the planet’s most critical maritime chokepoint more durably than navies, missiles, or executive orders
shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/actuarial-...
Seems like Trump's promise to protect ships going through the Straight of Hormuz isn't going so well.
The Iran war is the most unpopular military engagement in living memory and if Dems don't do this, it's only bc the AIPAC caucus wants this war and they're engaging in sycophancy out of muscle memory. But public opinion on Gaza has flipped. If Dems do this, they'd be leaning into public opinion.
Democrats should demand a clawback of ICE's remaining OBBB money before agreeing to supplemental Pentagon funding.
I've never noticed Texas prosecutors getting too hung up at the state bar for misconduct, even in rather extreme cases, except for 1 or 2 many years after they've retired in basically symbolic gestures. Possibly in some state; definitely not here.
The more I think on it, these lines remind me of the current conflict in Iran. No matter how hard that nation is knocked down right now, if the US is "unforgiven," 9/11 demonstrated that no nation can evade the "patient search and vigil long of him who treasures up a wrong."