If you are doing your best and trying to do better, and making an effort not to hurt others...you're all right with me and I wish you a happy 2026!

“The company did not address detailed questions from The Times about the contamination found inside the Van Ness home after the insurer-led remediation, or about the carcinogens detected in the family’s hair, saying that “we cannot comment on individual claims or customers.”

“In California, insurers began trying to limit payouts for smoke damage… after a series of devastating wildfires, according to Dave Jones, a former state insurance commissioner who was the top regulator when carriers first started inserting policy language that excluded toxic smoke”

“Evidence showing that the remediation approved by insurers is inadequate is mounting: Data from 45 homes tested after professional cleaning showed that 43 of them still tested positive for unsafe levels of lead, according to Eaton Fire Residents United, a coalition of concerned residents.”

“The most shocking thing is that this is after the home was remediated,” said Joseph G. Allen, the director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a former scientific adviser to the White House, who reviewed the results.”

“All 10 experts who reviewed the testing results from the house expressed concern about the level of contamination &said that the insurance-led remediation effort was not sufficient. Several of them highlighted the risk in the attic, where testing by The Times detected beryllium, chromium & cadmium”

“The concentrations found in the attic were “sky high,” said Joe L. Nieusma, a toxicologist who was one of 10 experts who reviewed the results.

“There are multiple carcinogens in the house and extremely high levels of lead… It’s not safe for humans — or animals — to live in that residence.”

“We call it the tobacco playbook because it was done for so long and so successfully by an industry that was making a deadly product,” said David Michaels… who has written two books detailing this strategy. “This is absolutely the latest iteration of ‘science for hire.’” cc @profgoldberg.bsky.social

“According to more than two dozen scientists, insurance adjusters and consumer advocates interviewed for this article, as well as a review of thousands of pages… this approach is supported by a small roster of industry consultants who cite research papers that have not been peer-reviewed”

“By contrast, the insurance industry is relying on what experts interviewed by The Times describe as outdated or incomplete research, endorsing cleanups based only on what can be seen and smelled. If insurers test at all, it is for a small subset of contaminants.”

“Microscopic particles carried by the smoke slip into a home’s insulation… Industrial hygienists and toxicologists insist that removing the contamination requires tearing out nearly every surface the smoke touched — not just the insulation, but the hardwood floors, tiles, plaster and stucco.”

“Like most insurance policies in California, the Van Nesses’ contract with Farmers — the second largest home insurer in the state — covers smoke damage, but it doesn’t spell out how the damage should be repaired. That’s because there are no state or federal standards”

“For nearly every house reduced to ash by the fires that blackened the Los Angeles sky last January, another was left standing but steeped in smoke, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

These homes sit at an uncomfortable juncture: intact but potentially contaminated.”

“We don’t have the means to pay our mortgage and live somewhere else,” said Mr. Van Ness, 44, a waiter at a five-star hotel. “It’s a feeling of helplessness that is indescribable.”

Insurers Said They Could Return Home. Our Tests Found Neurotoxins in Their Bodies. A Times investigation has found that insurers are driving families into homes contaminated by smoke. Lab results show how one family was exposed to neurotoxins and carcinogens.

“The family reluctantly returned home in August… two months after a consultant they hired found lead — a dangerous neurotoxin — inside the house. After their insurer, Farmers Insurance, dismissed those findings and cut off payments for their hotel, the Van Nesses had little choice but to return”

Disability rights advocate Bob Kafka dead at 79 Bob Kafka was an organizer with ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), a group which advocates for policy change to support people with disabilities.

Awful, awful news. Bob Kafka, a pioneer in disability rights, is gone. May he rest in peace.
www.npr.org/2025/12/27/g...

From President Trump’s first day in office — marked by his pardons of Jan. 6 insurrectionists — he began a multi-pronged effort to undermine U.S. elections. Sean Morales-Doyle and other Brennan Center experts join The Briefing with Michael Waldman to discuss the year in review. bit.ly/48SQYPc

Miiriya’s Mutuals Help someone struggling in the community!

A Black Mom lost her job this year after graduating from college- She went to try and give her children a better life, but the spiraling economy made things worse for her, she’s behind on electric and gas bills. Let’s please give $1 to reach her goal and alleviate some of the bills.

Free Press Urges the Carr FCC to Abandon Plans to Let Big Broadcast Conglomerates Become Even Bigger It’s irresponsible for the Carr FCC to eliminate the remaining limits on runaway consolidation—and communities will suffer the consequences if this plan goes through.

@freepress.bsky.social doing great work on this FYI

This is an important point. And as our information system has evolved over the past 10 years it has more obviously become a partisan press model. Not just websites and podcasts, but ownership of what were once mainstream/non-partisan news outlets. People consume propaganda without realizing it.

And dump every ounce of rubble onto Mar-A-Lago or his grave, whichever way is cheapest. Or most expensive if it’s somehow being paid for by funds confiscated from his and/or his family’s estate. 😒

In first Christmas sermon, Pope Leo decries conditions for Palestinians in Gaza Pope Leo decried conditions for Palestinians in Gaza in his Christmas sermon on Thursday, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across...

Pope Leo decried conditions for Palestinians in Gaza in his Christmas sermon on Thursday, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus. For @reuters.com:

🥹🥰❤️

Our beauty never leaves. We just need to see it

These are the actions of an administration that, unconstrained by law, seeks to assert authoritarian power over the institutions of civil society that it dislikes.

It was unclear whether Ms. McMahon’s interpretation of Harvard’s proposal resulted from a miscommunication or from a deliberate effort to force the university into a year-end deal after months of faltering negotiations. Whatever the case, it was the latest twist in the long-running dispute between Harvard and the Trump administration, which has shaped up to be the marquee battle in the administration’s effort to exert more influence over elite colleges and universities it views as too liberal.

It may seem a minor point but mentioning Harvard first in the ‘dispute’ suggests that the university is equally if not more culpable.
It would have helpful to note that no administration has the legal right to use extortionate means to “exert influence over elite colleges…it views as too liberal.”

An exchange between Linda McMahon, President Trump’s education secretary, and Alan M. Garber, Harvard University’s president, has complicated efforts by the White House and Harvard to end the marquee battle. By Michael S. Schmidt, Alan Blinder and Michael C. Bender The letter landed with a thud on Saturday int he inbox of Harvard University’s president, Alan M. Garber.

The caption below, which refers vaguely to an “exchange,” ascribes equal agency to both sides in this “marquee battle,” even though the evidence in the article very clearly shows the Trump administration is relying not on the law but on the force of federal power to punish Harvard.

In Private Letters, Harvard and Trump Administration Escalate Duel

This is not a “duel,” which suggests both sides are equally culpable, but the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s ideological war on Harvard and higher education.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/u...

Merry Christmas to Shelby especially! 😜🎄🎁