Saturday, January 22, 2022

The moon named Mimas

New discovery in space?  Michelle Starr (SCIENCE ALERT) explains


The Solar System may be an even soggier place than we suspected.

New analysis of one of Saturn's moons suggests that it may harbor a liquid ocean. No, not the usual suspects – the new culprit is Mimas, the little moon with a big crater, which gives it more than a passing resemblance to the 'Death Star' from Star Wars.


So Saturn, known for its rings and moons, could have a liquid ocean in its orbit.  MASHABLE notes:


Mimas, Saturn's cryptic-looking moon, is awfully deceptive.

The small moon is dominated by an 80-mile-wide crater, giving it the appearance of the grim Star Wars Death Star — a space station equipped with a planet-destroying weapon. But otherwise, Mimas appears as a frozen chunk of ice.

Other moons, like Saturn's Enceladus and Jupiter's Europa, have cracked surfaces or telltale plumes shooting from the ground, which are compelling evidence for sub-surface oceans. Mimas doesn't outwardly offer hints of an ocean.

"When you look at Enceladus and Europa, there's clearly an engine in these moons that is running," Alyssa Rhoden, a planetary scientist who researches ocean worlds, told Mashable. "When you look at Mimas it's the opposite — it can't possibly be an ocean world."

Or so Rhoden thought. Looks are deceiving.

In new research published in the planetary science journal Icarus, Rhoden and her coauthor describe how they unexpectedly found evidence for an ocean beneath Mimas' icy shell. The moon may not be a frozen chunk of ice, after all. 


Minas is one of Saturn's 82 moons.  William Herschel discovered Mimas back in 1789 and named it after the son of the Greek mythological god Gais.  



Here's a video report from BUSINESS INSIDER.


 





"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 

 Friday, January 21, 2022.  Joe Biden's report card is an embarrassment and a major attack is carried out by ISIS in Iraq.



Oh, look, Nate Silver thinks he's people.  The statistician Tweeted:

The best way to understand Biden is not as a moderate or a liberal but as someone who, with a good deal of success, has always tried to position himself at the center of the Democratic Party. So as the Democratic Party has moved left, so has Biden.



Stick to numbers, robot, it's really all you can deal with -- not understand, mind you.  You can't understand numbers and your whole career has proven that -- though others did prop you and pretend when you were with THE NEW YORK TIMES.  But after you predictions -- passsed off as facts -- for 2016 were so wrong, you really should stick to just adding and subtracting, maybe a little multiplication.


Peter Daou replies to Human Calculator Nate:


Like Pelosi, Biden is the ultimate protector of the status quo. He's no more "left" than you are a rabbit.


Basic reality like that leaves Nate highly confused.



In fact, we do have footage of Nate reacting to Peter's Tweet.



Reed Zeta Tweets to correct Nate:


When it came to the Iraq war, he was not in the center. He was in the Lieberman camp.


And that's an accurate descritpion.  Although it could be argued that there were issues that even Joe Lieberman wa more progressive on than Joe Biden was.  


Yesterday, we noted Margaret Kimberley's latest column at BLACK AGENDA REPORT where she evaluated year one of Joe Biden's presidency.  In the video below, she's addressing the same topic on FAULT LINES RADIO.




Margaret also addresses Biden and his presidency on BAM NECESSARY in the video below.




Also calling out Joe's first year as president is Howie Hawkins who, at COUNTERPUNCH, offers:


It is time for progressives to stop being passive spectators of the inside game that progressive members of Congress are playing, which has only led to negotiating concessions with conservative Democrats who hold the balance of power in a closely divided Congress. It is time for independent political action that focuses on organizing and mobilizing the majority support that already exists for many progressive reforms like the Green New Deal (63%), Medicare for All (72%), Medicare drug price negotiations (83%), tuition-free public college (63%), student debt forgiveness (66%), $15 minimum wage (64%), paid family leave (75%), and tax the rich (71%).

Independent political action means raising progressive demands in the streets and every public forum available without compromise or equivocation. It also means running Green Party candidates on these demands outside the two-party system of corporate rule. Without Green Party challengers from their left, progressive demands will continue to be dismissed by the Democratic leadership because progressive voters pose no threat of taking their votes elsewhere.

Progressives trapped inside the Democratic Party are powerless because the corporate Democrats who dominate the party take their votes for granted since the Republican Party is not an option for progressives. It is time for progressives to build the Green Party and give the voters a real alternative and leverage in the political system.

There is no time to waste. Climate breakdown is accelerating. Inequality is killing us – U.S. life expectancy has been declining since 2015, well before the covid pandemic. Military bloat and the new nuclear arms race are growing without challenge from within the two parties of corporate militarism. We need the Green Party now more than ever.


In the 2020 election, Freen Party member Howie ran against Joe.  On Joe's watch, things are getting a lot worse.  We'll again note that Veterans for Peace has issued its "Nuclear Posture Review" which concludes:



The world is a much more dangerous place with nuclear weapons, particularly given the current confrontations among nuclear-armed nations. The United States military seeks “Full Spectrum Dominance” and the government appears determined to be the preeminent global power, even in the face of diminishing economic power relative to a rising China. It is hard to imagine the US taking serious steps toward nuclear disarmament without a sea change in the thinking among its political elites and real change in its posture toward the rest of the world.
Activist efforts to restrain US militarism and intervention around the globe, to cut the military budget, and to encourage mutual respect and diplomacy among nations must therefore go hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which went into effect January 22, 2021, is an historic and extremely important event. It expresses the clear desire of the peoples of the world to be free from nuclear weapons and the threat of a nuclear war that could end human civilization.
The Nuclear Ban Treaty is a valuable tool for education and organizing. Even though the US and other nuclear-armed states have yet to sign on to the TPNW, many cities in the USxxx have passed resolutions in support of signing. New York City is the latest to sign on to the ICAN Cities Appeal. The US states of California, Oregon, New Jersey and Maine have also passed resolutions in support of the TPNW. Veterans For Peace encourages all of our chapters, members, friends and allies to pursue similar support for the TPNW in their cities.
It is important to build an intersectional movement for peace at home and peace abroad. We are engaged in struggles for racial justice, for non-intervention in the affairs of other nations, and for redirecting funds from the military – and nuclear weapons – to healthcare, education and other human rights. We are making common cause with the burgeoning Climate Justice Movement, proclaiming that climate catastrophe and nuclear war are the twin threats to all life on earth.
Our VFP Nuclear Posture Review provides a stark contrast to the Nuclear Posture Review being prepared for President Biden by the Pentagon, which will continue to justify the discredited idea of nuclear deterrence, while feeding billions more dollars to nuclear weapons manufacturers. We are providing a well-researched and credible alternative that reflects the global desire for nuclear disarmament and peace. We hope that the VFP Nuclear Posture Review will be a guide, a useful tool and an inspiration for all who wish a peaceful future for our children, our grandchildren and generations to come.


At DISSIDENT VOICE, John Rachel speaks with former US House Rep and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney:


John Rachel:  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has recently put the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight. Midnight means all out war, probably nuclear holocaust. This is the closest it has ever been. Do you agree with this dire assessment?

Cynthia McKinney:  While I don’t always agree with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, I have to acknowledge that for many people on the planet, it is already Doomsday; the U.S. is bombing or sanctioning dozens of countries around the world. U.S. bombs and U.S. sanctions have real consequences.  As usual, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a very Eurocentric view of Doomsday: Iraq was pummeled with depleted uranium munitions.  On a trip to that country three years ago, every member of my delegation arrived home sick after having been in Iraq just over one week.  Depleted uranium used there has resulted in incalculable premature deaths, cancers, deformed babies, and untold general illnesses.  Depleted uranium has been used in Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq.  I introduced legislation to prohibit the use of these munitions and was visited by the Pentagon; my Congressional office was event infiltrated by a young, hip-looking intern who was later found rifling through my office files and fired on the spot.  I did not, however, hear a peep from Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

JR:  The U.S. always portrays itself as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations actually regard the U.S. as the greatest threat to stability. What in your view is the truth here?

CM:  The so-called Spanish Flu actually originated on a military base in Kansas; so, too, the situation with SARS-CoV-2, the so-called China virus, whose bioweapon spike protein originated in the U.S., created with U.S. tax dollars. No one who has lived inside the U.S. would ever seriously declare the U.S. “as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc.”  Instead, those who know the U.S., know that the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still ring true today:  that the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet.  Only Israel and apartheid South Africa could rival the U.S. in modern times.  U.S. allies, the colonizing countries, are also responsible for unspeakable horrors in pre-modern times.  Now, certain elements of the U.S. Deep State have declared war against the people of Russia, China, and the bloodstreams of the current global population.  After all, it was the Project for a New American Century that wrote in Rebuilding America’s Defenses on page 60 the following:  “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”  Every one of the signatories to this document put him- or herself  in a position to make this statement become official U.S. policy.  Hence, official circumvention of the moratorium on gain-of-function research in order to create the bioweapon spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and the mRNA concoctions that are being portrayed as “vaccines.”  In fact, the Spanish Flu became a global phenomenon helped along by a mass inoculation project of the Rockefeller Foundation.  Parallels to today are staggering.

JR:  Here’s a chicken-or-egg question: The U.S. accuses both Russia and China of rapidly expanding their military capabilities, claiming its own posturing and increase in weaponry is a response to its hostile adversaries, Russia and China. Both Russia and China claim they are merely responding to intimidation and military threats posed by the U.S. What’s your view? Do Russia and China have imperial ambitions or are they just trying to defend themselves against what they see as an increasingly aggressive U.S. military?

CM:  Interesting. I have visited Malaysia many times; it has a vibrant population of people from India and China.  Yet, I was in the audience when Tun Dr. Mahathir stated that Malaysians had less to fear from the Chinese than they did from the British.  In fact, the U.S. and their cousin English colonizers are responsible for the trafficking of individual Indians and Chinese all over the world.  Add to that, the annihilations by French conquerors and Spanish Conquistadores—and you’re talking about the murders and subjugation of untold millions of individuals.  The U.S. allies were not the victims of the colonial atrocities of Spain, Britain, France, Belgium, Holland. U.S. allies are the perpetrators of incalculable physical and psychological pain in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  Interestingly, the friends to the colonized peoples were the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, which was divided as a result of U.S. hegemony over Taiwan and Britain’s sovereignty over Hong Kong.  Neither Russia nor China, at their worst, can count the globally pervasive international crimes against humanity that are owned by the so-called West.  Even worse, the U.S. has turned those reprehensible international behaviors onto the people of the U.S.  Even going so far as testing potential bioweapons on the U.S. domestic population.


Joe's failures, of course, include his being unable/unwilling to address climate change in any real manner.  The Green Party issued the following:


WASHINGTON, DC — The EcoAction Committee of the Green Party of the United States (Green Party US) condemns President Biden’s year of climate negligence and renews the call to pressure the president to declare a climate emergency and issue a comprehensive series of related Executive Orders, as described on ClimatePresident.org.


EcoAction Committee of Green Party of the United States
January 18, 2022


Biden and Congressional Democrats must also replace the ever-shrinking “Build Back Better” (BBB) social and climate spending bill with a public vote on robust Green New Deal legislation, without delay. The Green New Deal needs to be implemented immediately to address:

  • social and economic suffering
  • healthcare apartheid
  • existential threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, erosion of democracy, the nuclear threat and gross inequality

In the 2020 election, Green presidential nominee Howie Hawkins called for an annual $2.7 trillion investment in climate initiatives to reduce emissions to zero within a decade. Greens also sought an annual $1.4 trillion investment in an Economic Bill of Rights and COVID relief, focused on guaranteed living wage jobs, guaranteed income above poverty, expanded and improved Medicare-For-All, housing, and education.

The Green Party advocates for a Just Transition, ensuring good jobs and compensation for workers and others dependent on the present fossil fuel industry. Greens support directing a majority of this funding to low-income and communities of color, which face the worst consequences of climate change.

Quote From Green Party US EcoAction Committee Co-Chair Mark Dunlea:

“Biden and the Democrats have squandered the first year of what is likely to be only a two-year window where they have the majority votes in both Houses of Congress. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a ‘Code Red for the planet,’ saying the pledges made by elected officials since the Paris accords were far too little to avoid a climate collapse. It is long past time for Senator Schumer to make Senators take a public vote on whether they will sacrifice the well-being of their constituents and future generations in order to maintain the campaign donations and profits of fossil fuel companies.”

The Democrats’ failure to strip Senator Manchin, with his infamous coal investments, from his position as chair of the Senate Energy Committee is unconscionable. Legislators must find a way to halt the existing, excessive use and misuse of fossil fuels, including natural gas. And yet, while Biden promised to halt new fossil fuel permits on federal land if elected, he has done the opposite.

While the Democrats argue over the size of the ever-smaller (BBB) plan, they recently enacted the world’s largest military budget; the Green Party supports redirecting at least half of Pentagon spending to invest in a Green New Deal. A carbon fee-and-dividend program could make polluters pay for the massive damage they cause while raising revenues for climate action.

Quote From Green Party US EcoAction Committee Co-chair DawnMarie Cronen:

“During WWII, President Roosevelt took control of the American economy to respond to the emergency. He redirected the productive power of the country to build what was needed to protect the American people. I believe Biden needs to take a similar approach, redirecting our productive capacity today from building weapons for oil wars to defeating the urgent existential threat of climate change. We need public ownership and democratic control of our energy and economic systems  to ensure that we build renewable energy not only quickly but in the locations that best meet the public needs to find ways to continue to provide heat, electricity and basic needs to our nation and for the sake of our planet.” 

The Democrats’ plan to increase energy subsidies for private enterprises is both more expensive and far less effective at cutting greenhouse emissions than employing public works projects and democratic planning. The Green Party opposes Congressional support for false solutions such as nuclear, biomass, garbage incineration, and “carbon capture” technology designed to allow the continued burning of fossil fuels.

We urge Biden and Congress to invest instead in nature-based, climate solutions such as protecting forests, restoring wetlands, and promoting regenerative agriculture. We also support requiring homes to be more energy-efficient and carbon-free, reduce overconsumption and overproduction, and to promote mass transit and other greener transit approaches, such as bicycles and walkable communities.

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party EcoAction Committee Calls for Biden Executive Action on Climate
October 26, 2021

Green Party of the United States

www.gp.org
202-804-2758
Newsroom | Twitter: @GreenPartyUS

Green Party Platform
Green New Deal
Green candidate database and campaign information
Facebook page
YouTube
Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Green Papers


Turning to Iraq where the vioence and the war never end,  AP reports:


Gunmen from the Islamic State extremist group attacked an army barracks in a mountainous area north of Baghdad early Friday, killing 11 soldiers as they slept, the Iraqi military and security officials said.

The officials said the attack occurred in the Al-Azim district, an open area north of Baqouba in Diyala province. The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear, but two officials who spoke to The Associated Press said Islamic State group militants broke into the barracks at 3 a.m. local time and shot dead the soldiers.


No doubt, DW is prepping another one of tehir articles where they misrepresent actual events and try to pass this off as a "political" divide involving the "losers" of the October 10th elections.  But, in the real world, Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:


The attack was one of the deadliest carried out by the extremist group against Iraqi security forces in recent months.

The army's Diyala Operations Command sent reinforcements to the headquarters in Hawi Al Azim district and opened an investigation.

“The attack was carried out against members of the First Division in the Al Azim area that lies on the borders between Diyala and Salaheddin governorate,” Diyala Governor Muthanna Al Tamimi said in a statement.

Mr Al Tamimi said the army were unprepared for the attack.


So ISIS raided Iraqi military headquarters in the dead of night and killed 11 Iraqi service members.  Besides "deadliest," I think the adjective "brazen" can also be used.


And this doesn't speak well of the Iraqi miliary.  Equally true, this sort of result tends to really embolden ISIS. 


And the attack in Iraq took place while ISIS was also carrying out a large-scale prsion break in Syria.


The following sites updated:






Thursday, January 20, 2022

What babies pick up on

On NPR -- link is text and audio -- Nell GreenfeldBoyce had a really interesting science report:


Even before they can talk, young babies know that two people must have a close relationship if they're willing to do to anything that involves swapping saliva.

Kissing on the mouth, sharing a spoon, taking licks off of someone's ice-cream cone — all of these activities generally only happen when people have an especially intimate relationship, and this fact appears to be obvious to infants who are only 8 to 10 months old, according to a new study in the journal Science.

"From a really young age, without much experience at all with these things, infants are able to understand not only who is connected but how they are connected," says Ashley Thomas of MIT, who studies what babies and young children understand about the complexities of their social world. "They are able to distinguish between different kinds of cooperative relationships."

 

 And from the abstract in SCIENCE:


Across human societies, people form “thick” relationships characterized by strong attachments, obligations, and mutual responsiveness. People in thick relationships share food utensils, kiss, or engage in other distinctive interactions that involve sharing saliva. We found that children, toddlers, and infants infer that dyads who share saliva (as opposed to other positive social interactions) have a distinct relationship. Children expect saliva sharing to happen in nuclear families. Toddlers and infants expect that people who share saliva will respond to one another in distress. Parents confirm that saliva sharing is a valid cue of relationship thickness in their children’s social environments. The ability to use distinctive interactions to infer categories of relationships thus emerges early in life, without explicit teaching; this enables young humans to rapidly identify close relationships, both within and beyond families.

 

That's really interesting and it rings true.  I remember all of my kids, when they were babies, studying everything that went on around them.  

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, January 20, 2022.  Violence in many forms (including whoring for poltiicians) plagues us all.


Starting in the United States where the organization Veterans for Peace has issued its "Nuclear Posture Review" which concludes:



The world is a much more dangerous place with nuclear weapons, particularly given the current confrontations among nuclear-armed nations. The United States military seeks “Full Spectrum Dominance” and the government appears determined to be the preeminent global power, even in the face of diminishing economic power relative to a rising China. It is hard to imagine the US taking serious steps toward nuclear disarmament without a sea change in the thinking among its political elites and real change in its posture toward the rest of the world.
Activist efforts to restrain US militarism and intervention around the globe, to cut the military budget, and to encourage mutual respect and diplomacy among nations must therefore go hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which went into effect January 22, 2021, is an historic and extremely important event. It expresses the clear desire of the peoples of the world to be free from nuclear weapons and the threat of a nuclear war that could end human civilization.
The Nuclear Ban Treaty is a valuable tool for education and organizing. Even though the US and other nuclear-armed states have yet to sign on to the TPNW, many cities in the USxxx have passed resolutions in support of signing. New York City is the latest to sign on to the ICAN Cities Appeal. The US states of California, Oregon, New Jersey and Maine have also passed resolutions in support of the TPNW. Veterans For Peace encourages all of our chapters, members, friends and allies to pursue similar support for the TPNW in their cities.
It is important to build an intersectional movement for peace at home and peace abroad. We are engaged in struggles for racial justice, for non-intervention in the affairs of other nations, and for redirecting funds from the military – and nuclear weapons – to healthcare, education and other human rights. We are making common cause with the burgeoning Climate Justice Movement, proclaiming that climate catastrophe and nuclear war are the twin threats to all life on earth.
Our VFP Nuclear Posture Review provides a stark contrast to the Nuclear Posture Review being prepared for President Biden by the Pentagon, which will continue to justify the discredited idea of nuclear deterrence, while feeding billions more dollars to nuclear weapons manufacturers. We are providing a well-researched and credible alternative that reflects the global desire for nuclear disarmament and peace. We hope that the VFP Nuclear Posture Review will be a guide, a useful tool and an inspiration for all who wish a peaceful future for our children, our grandchildren and generations to come.


Nuclear weapons threaten the planet's very life.  They aren't the only threats.  There's pollution -- pysical pollution.  There's the less noted mental pollution where we all enter into some form of a daying will wherein we agree to lie to ourselves that some worthless politician is going to save us.  They're not even going to address our most basic needs so you have to lie pretty big to pretend they're actually going to save us.


At BLACK AGENDA REPORT, Margaret Kimberley notes the push to distort Joe Biden in order to carry his tired, corporate and corrupt ass into the White House:


“Biden came across as a plantation owner telling the field hands that they have a good life and ought to be grateful.” 

This columnist wrote those words in December 2020 before Joe Biden was inaugurated. His meeting with a group designated as Black leaders was as bad as one could expect, complete with dismissal, rudeness, and outright disrespect. It was vintage Biden, a man who was never the brightest and is now elderly and not fully in command of his faculties.

But the real Biden was always an unreconstructed racist, bragging about the 1992 Crime Bill which he said would, “Do everything but hang people for jaywalking.” Barack Obama chose him as a running mate precisely because of his credentials among conservative, race baiting democrats. Having run as a fake progressive Obama needed someone decidedly in the conservative camp to balance the ticket.

In 2020 Obama and the rest of the party establishment decided to make Biden the nominee, ordering others out of the race and clearing the field for the candidate who had no constituency outside of the wealthy individuals and corporations that keep the democrats afloat. A combination of fundraising prowess and antipathy towards Donald Trump created a large voter turnout and Biden won the popular and electoral vote.

The democrats’ propaganda machine played no small role in dragging Biden over the finish line. They settled on the term “harm reduction” to convince the skeptical that they should put aside their concerns and vote for the man they didn’t want. Biden won with a record breaking number of votes, and in cities across the country democrats quite literally partied in the street when he won.

Biden was propelled by the same propaganda effort when his term began one year ago. We were told that he was “the most progressive president since FDR.” The democrats are still living off their reputation from Franklin Roosevelt’s Social Security Act and the creation of Medicaid and Medicare during the Lyndon Johnson administration. No democrat has created anything of the sort in the last 50 years but the memories lingers and scoundrels evoke the past in order to fool the people in the 21st century.

We were told that Biden’s stimulus plan and child tax credits would “cut child poverty in half.” Absent an increase in the federal minimum wage and lacking permanent legislation, it did no such thing. The child tax credit ended in 2021. Unemployment compensation ended three months ago, and republican led states refused to provide the additional payments that congress had authorized. They did so without push back from Biden or from democrats in congress. 

Now Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted and it isn’t hard to understand why. Put simply, he lied in order to get votes. He said he would forgive student loan debt for those who attended public colleges and whose families met income guidelines. He could have done this without congressional approval but he hasn’t acted. It is clear that he never had any intention of raising the minimum wage, using the Senate Parliamentarian as an excuse to avoid doing what he promised voters he would do. 


That politicians lie is not a new or novel observation but grasp this went beyond the candidate.  A lot of whoring was involved in carrying Joe to the White House -- a lot of whores lied and knew they were lying.  They're as deadly to the planet as any run off into our streams and rivers.  They don't just lie for the candidate, they bully people trying to silence critics and trying to drum up votes.


They're dirty whores.  They say things like -- you know who I mean here -- that right now, in 2021, there actually has been an increase in wages because if you look at the stimulus from 2020 . . .


You know the whore I'm talking about.  You know him very well.


They can't stop whoring.  


And, honestly, shame on the people who promote them.


When do we get the reckoning?


How about when do we get the truth about Tara Reade?


I believe her.  Her accusations against Joe Biden are credible.


I don't know her and I'm actually glad I don't because Tara's lied to herself since she came forward.  Shes pretended that certain people were going to help her and defnd her.  That was Tie's Up, that was Ryan Grim and THE INTERCEPT, that awas so many people.

If we knew each other, we would not have had nice conversations.


I don't play.  About the nicest thing I would've said was, "Can you drop the TAR-rah and just pronounce it Tara since this is the US and not the UK and we really don't need to combat charges of pretentious natures as well as everything else."


People were laughing at her, for example, at THE NEW YORK TIMES, over the pronuciation of her first name.


When I spoke to one NYT-er over the phone about how the paper was treating her, they made me first agree that she was asking for mockery with "TAR-ah."  


That would've been our easisest converation.  And she probably would've stuck with TAR-ah since that's how it's been her whole life.


But I wouldn't have played and pretended the way some did -- a lot of people around her just didn't know better but there were some who damn well should have known what was going on.


We noted that Time's Up didn't just refuse her case but they were actually working against her.


Actively.  Not in the past but while the story was briefly being cov ered.


We noted that Alyssa Milano attacking Tara based on what Times Up told Alyssa was outrageous and unethical -- Times Up was not q clearinghouse devoted to attacking women -- that's not why it got money.


But Ryan Grim was not at all interested in that story.  It was put to him.  He didn't see the merit.


Of course, thanks to what happened with Cuomo, the whole world knows what a fake Times Up was.  How it betrayed women and worked with powerful Democratic men to destroy women.


Ryan could have had that story but that would've required some actual work.  A friend tried spoon feeding it to him but he was either too scared or too stupid to grasp what he was being handed.


At any rate, we called out the betrayers here.


And Tara trusted the wrong people.  


SUch as "Mama's boy" who was never going to ride to her rescue because his Mommy was never going to let him -- please, it's only in the last five or so years that she's let him -- yes, let him -- be openly gay.  Mommy was not going to let him go after Joe.    No matter what Rose might have told Tara, Mama's boy was not riding to her rescue.  (And he never did.)


But what has prevented the press in all the time since from re-examing what went down.  Times Up, as we noted here in real time, was feeding NYT and other outlets smears against Tara.  They were treated as trusted sources and got to be off the record.


I don't think that should have happened in real time which is why I called it out..


But now that the world knows that Times Up lied about women who were assaulted, that Times Up lied to protect Andrew CUomo, isn't it past time that those outlets that shaped their coverage of Tara based on smears from Times Up had to go back and actually report?


Mama's Boy is Ronan for anyone who didn't grasp it.  I'm not in the mood in this morning.  I was there when Mia had her freakfest over Ronan wanting to be a girl.  I was there when Mia had her freakfest over Ronan might be gay.  I was there . . . I know what Ronan's allowed to do and what he isn't.  I'm just glad Mommy's not hopping in the bed with him.


pekaing of which, Dylan whatever her name is now --Blaine, Liar, I don't know.  What I do know is that her hugely inventive story doesnt hold up.  And I never would have said that if she and Mia hadnt launched their attacks on others.  Up until the Iraq War, I was Mia's friend of many years.  I knew Woody before Mia but knew him largely through Mia.  I did not like Woddy.  I still don't.  But when Mia conspired to create draama and attack others, she begged the world -- even her friends -- to question the lie she'd put forth for years.


Grasp that HBO has done no multi-part story on Tara Reade.  She's accusing the President of the United States, the sitting president.  And her story is credible.


Dylan's is not at all credible.  You have family members who say "no."


You also have logic.


For the story to be true, Woody molested one child and only one child.  That's not the profile of a pedophile.  


More to the point, as that Bbad HBO mini-series made clear without realizing it, the story is that Woody molested her once.  Once.  That's a pedophile?


All the times they were together.  Many times without Mia.  And he only molests Dylan once?  And he waits until after the media is abuz with the custody battle between Mia and Woody?  


But that nosnense and that garbage is treated as reality by HBO while Tara accusing a sitting president of having assaulted her is ignored?


Dylan gets coverage because of favors and I'm damn sick of it.  I've not just dropped a friend and stopped promoting her hear because of her rallying to Dylan late last year, I'm also preventing her from getting film roles.  She was up for a comedy.  I'm friends with the actor that's already cast in the role.  I spent an evening with him and his wife reviewing how former-freind doesn't just bust up her own marriages but bust ups the marriages of her male co-stars.  Did they really think her so-so talent -- and promise to reduce for a month at a fat farm if she got the role -- justified them risking their own marriage by letting her be his co-star?  Nope.  They didn't.


HBO allowed lies to be told about Woody -- and broke the law by using clips from his films without his autorization, he should have sued -- but Tara is not to be believed?  Tara's story is not to be explored?

Joe and company lied about where the complaint would be and refussed to allow access to his papers.  The phone call of Tara's mother to Larry King was turned up -- the clip of Tara's mother calling in to Larry King's CNN show.  She has friends wh has told about this over the years.  


And this gets ignored.  But the adopted daughter of an acclaimed filmmaker and a celebrity claiming she grew up with a pedophile who molested her once and only once is treated newsworthy despite the fact that two investigations found nothing to support the claims Mia made and coaced Dylan on?  Coached.  We can use that term because that is what the findings suggested in the only actual investigations that took place.


A lot of whores worked the streets to discredit and attack Tara Reade.  One of those?  Times Up and we now know what they really were.  So why isn't the public record being corrected?


There is not even the pretense of a funcitioning press in the US these days.  In fact, refer to Jonathan Turley and the topic of the post is important but especially note things like:


Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor issued a rare joint public statement Wednesday to disclaim the bombshell NPR report by Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg on the unpopularity of Gorsuch among his colleagues and his alleged refusal to wear a mask despite a threat to the health of Sotomayor. The justices stated that Totenberg’s account on the mask controversy was false.


[. . .]


In one incident, NPR itself expressed regret that Totenberg did not reveal a close personal relationship with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg despite years of coverage.

[. . . ]


Chief Justice John Roberts also issued a statement that it was false, as claimed, that he asked any of colleagues to wear masks on the bench.


[. . .]

The controversy at NPR occurs after the publicly funded company changed its policy to allow its reporters to take active parts in protests for social justice — erasing a long-standing bright-line rule in journalism. The impact of such advocacy journalism is evident in every poll where the faith in the media has plummeted. Indeed, the “Let’s Go Brandon” movement is as much a criticism of the media as it is President Biden. The United States ranked dead last in media trust among 49 countries with just 29% saying that they trusted the media.

We will not be able to restore the trust in the media until these companies abandon reporting “in some form” and return to simple journalism.


Again, where is the functioning press?


VOLTAIRE RECORD maintains:


On 18 November 2021, US Representatives, Peter A. DeFazio (R-Oregon), Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) and Jamaal Bowman (D-New York), wrote to President Joe Biden asking him to specify on which constitutional basis he was bobming Syria and Iraq.

At the end of the two-month regulatory deadline, the White House has still not responded to them. The military actions perpetrated by the United States against these two countries are, therefore, not only violating their sovereignty, but also the US Constitution.


I hadn't heard of that letter and I'm not familiar with the outlet so I'm using "maintains."  (The item was sent to the public e-mail account.)


Violence continues this morning in Iraq. AHLULBAYT NEWS AGENCY reports:


Iraqi media sources reported on Thursday morning that two horrific explosions took place in the southern province of Basra.

The blasts were caused by two improvised explosive devices, Shafaq News quoted security officials.

The first explosive device exploded near the Taiz company belonging to the security defense in the Manawi Basha district.

The second blast occurred near an Islamic bank on Esteghlal Street. 


And we'll wind down with this from THE NEW ARAB:


An Iraqi man shot dead his daughter, his ex-wife and her mother and then committed suicide at the scene in Hillah city in the central province of Babil, the police said on Tuesday, in the latest deadly case of domestic violence in the country.

Security forces blocked the area off and moved the bodies for forensic examination, The New Arab's Arabic-language sister service, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

"The 19-year-old son of the killer was wounded in the attack, and the incident occurred in the killer's ex-wife's house in the Nader neighbourhood in downtown Hillah," Babil Bar Association member Ahmed Abdel Ghani Al-Fatlawi said.

"Initial investigations show the crime was planned by the man, who committed suicide immediately after killing the victims."

Iraq's High Commission for Human Rights previously said it had seen a clear increase in domestic violence crimes, saying that this type of crime disproportionately impacts women and children.



The following sites updated:


Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Earth's core

 

Cristen Hemmingway Jaynes (ECO WATCH) reports:

 

The Earth of 4.5 billion years ago was covered in hot magma that had to gradually cool for the planet to become habitable. This happened over millions of years, as the surface formed the hard rocks of the crust that is our home. The interior of our planet still emanates geothermal energy that causes plate tectonics to move, resulting in earthquakes and volcanoes. But how fast did Earth cool and how long will it continue to cool before the effects of its hot interior stop?

Professor Motohiko Murakami of ETH Zürich and colleagues from the Carnegie Institution of Science have developed a system to measure how well a mineral — bridgmanite — conducts heat. Bridgmanite makes up the boundary layer between the iron-nickel core of Earth and its mantle layer, and its thermal conductivity influences how fast heat flows through the core into the mantle. 

From their experiments, Murakami and the other scientists suspect that Earth may be cooling faster than previously thought. Their study, “Radiative thermal conductivity of single-crystal bridgmanite at the core-mantle boundary with implications for thermal evolution of the Earth,” was recently published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

 

“This measurement system let us show that the thermal conductivity of bridgmanite is about 1.5 times higher than assumed,” Murakami said, as ETH Zürich reported. This finding suggests that core to mantle heat is also higher than was once believed, which accelerates the cooling of Earth.

Earth’s interior will eventually cool and solidify, and its plate tectonics will cease as well, possibly turning Earth into a sterile rock similar to Mercury or Mars, ScienceAlert reported.

 

Here's a video on the topic from 24 HOUR UPDATE.

 

 

 SCI TECH DAILY notes:

Murakami and his colleagues have also shown that rapid cooling of the mantle will change the stable mineral phases at the core-mantle boundary. When it cools, bridgmanite turns into the mineral post-perovskite. But as soon as post-perovskite appears at the core-mantle boundary and begins to dominate, the cooling of the mantle might indeed accelerate even further, the researchers estimate, since this mineral conducts heat even more efficiently than bridgmanite.

“Our results could give us a new perspective on the evolution of the Earth’s dynamics. They suggest that Earth, like the other rocky planets Mercury and Mars, is cooling and becoming inactive much faster than expected,” Murakami explains.

However, he cannot say how long it will take, for example, for convection currents in the mantle to stop. “We still don’t know enough about these kinds of events to pin down their timing.” To do that calls first for a better understanding of how mantle convection works in spatial and temporal terms. Moreover, scientists need to clarify how the decay of radioactive elements in the Earth’s interior – one of the main sources of heat – affects the dynamics of the mantle.

Reference: “Radiative thermal conductivity of single-crystal bridgmanite at the core-mantle boundary with implications for thermal evolution of the Earth” by Motohiko Murakami, Alexander F. Goncharov, Nobuyoshi Miyajima, Daisuke Yamazaki and Nicholas Holtgrewe, 8 December 2021, Earth and Planetary Science Letters.


We're trashing our planet.  I wonder if that has anything to do with the cooling?  Probably not but it would be karma if that happened.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, January 18, 2022.  A world thqt makes no sense allows the continued persecution of Julian Assange and tries to pass the continued tragedy that is Iraq off as a 'success.'



Something's don't make sense and never will.


That would include Adel's "Can I Get It."



The songwriting credit on this track from Adele's 30 album gives credit to Adele Adkins, Max Martin and Shellback.


Is that accurate?  Will it take the courts to make it accurate?


Not since George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" cribbed from "He's So Fine" have I heard such a bold 'borrowing' or theft.



That's Oasis' "Wonder Wall" which, for the record, does not credit Adele or any of her co-writers.   But the hook of ADele's song is a direct steal from "Wonder Wall" -- especially notable when the hook is whistled in the song.


It happens and sometimes it happens purely by accidwent.  but Oasis is not a minor band and "Wonder Wall" is not an obscure song -- especially for a British artist like Adele.  No one in the studio thoughts, "This sounds a lot like a song that was a huge hit for Oasis"?  Right before the Rolling Stones' BRIDGES TO BABYLON was  released, the similiary of "Anybody Seen My Baby" to k.d. lange's "Constant Craving" were noted and lange and Ben Mink were added as co-writers to the song.


Adele's 30 is the most discussed album of 2021.  Sorry, I didn't listen to it until last night.  First thing I noted was the cribbing from "Wonder Wall."  


I;ll also never understand how or why Frances Moore Lappe signed off on the recipes that her daughter Anna picked out for the latest edition of DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET (the fiftieth anniversary edition).  As we noted at THIRD, the book was supposed to give working parents the tools they needed to make quick and nutrious food for their family but Anna's bread rccipe in the new edition is for . . . white bread -- garbage bread because it has no real nutritional value -- and this garbage bread takes approximately 22 hours to make.  Grasp that.  A recipe that requires you invest 22 hours into making the bread and there's nothing in the bread of value, it's home made Wonder Bread.  How far from the point of the book and the planet, Anna and Frances have wandered.


It doesn't make sense that US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange.   The Dissident AU Tweets:


The minute you believe you should know what your government is doing behind your back is the minute supporting Julian #Assange is no longer an honour. It is a duty. Every effort counts in this once-in-a-generation battle. #FreeAssangeNOW


CONSORTIUM NEWS' Cathy Vogan has composed a song about Julian entitled "Time To Change The World."



In Iraq?  It doesn't make sense that the western press has all eyes on Moqtada al-Sadr, but never fails to see anything but glowing moments.  The Shi'ite cleric's slate did not get a majority of the votes and it still can't pull together a coalition all these months after the October 10th election but western outlets keep typing the same damn (fact-free) pieces on Moqtada and pretending that somehow they've covered Iraq and, even funnier, that they've done some actual reporting.


Reality, he's accomplishing nothing and while the western media produces hagiography on Moqtada, they ignore other players -- and you ignore Nouri al-Maliki at your own peril.  The former prime minister and forever thug does not give up easy.  News outlet IRAN INTERNATIONA ENGLISH Tweets:


A meeting in Najaf between IRGC Quds Force chief Qaani & Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party holds the majority in Iraq's parliament, has yielded no result, and Sadr still insists on forming gov't without Iran allies Nouri al-Maliki & Qais Khazali, sources told Iraqi newspaper Al Mada.




Fereshteh Sadeghi offers:


A meeting in Najaf between IRGC Quds Force chief Qaani & Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party holds the majority in Iraq's parliament, has yielded no result, and Sadr still insists on forming gov't without Iran allies Nouri al-Maliki & Qais Khazali, sources told Iraqi newspaper Al Mada.


Reports suggest Sadr told General Qaani he rejects participation of former Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki in the new coalition: “if his condition fulfilled, he would form a government with participation of other #Shia political groups”. US withdrawal from Iraq was also discussed. 2/3


Before meeting with Muqtada al-Sadr, #IRGCQF’s General Qaani met with leaders of various Shia political groups. 3/3 #Iran #Iraq


Three months and still no progress on forming a government.  


We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace's latest newsletter:


It is January, and in the U.S. this means it is time for the annual ritual of revisiting the white-washed, de-radicalized, pro- “American” M.L. King fairytale as part of the official celebration of King’s birthday. 

In the official story, Dr. King was not the creation of the movement that was fighting for the democratic and human rights of Black people. No, it was Dr. King who created the movement, according to the colonial white elite and the neocolonial Black misleadership. In this story, the objectives of the movement were not for radical social transformation and Black self-determination but the redemption of the U.S. settler-colonial nation/state and the quiet integration of Black people into the state. In other words, to complete the establishment of a “more perfect nation,” as Obama would put it. 

But King did not just show up to save Black people. Dr. King was a product of the post-war Black movement. And as such, the King that the movement produced reflected the changing, and sometimes contradictory development of that movement. As a product of the movement, Dr. King’s experiences as the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) evolved. He began to raise criticisms of capitalism, eventually opposed imperialist war and embraced a program of class struggle represented by the Poor People's campaign.

Positions that created tensions in the civil rights wing of the black liberation movement and make King a target for assassination.

This is the King that BAP recognizes. The King that in his last few years of activism was finding his way to the Black radical tradition, a tradition that takes an uncompromising position on colonialism, structural white supremacy and war.  

This commitment to the highest articulations of our people for peace, people(s)-centered human rights and the belief that the Pan European white supremacist colonial/capitalist patriarchal project can be defeated, is what animates the worldview and actions of the Black Alliance for Peace.  

And it is why BAP takes an uncompromising position on standing with and defending peoples’ and nations who find themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. and European aggression, no matter the criticism we receive from the social imperialist left and morally bankrupt liberals.

Below, you will see just some of the courageous positions that our members have taken in opposition to imperialism and war. Despite questions, we proudly accepted the invitation to attend the inauguration of Daniel Ortega as the newly elected president of Nicaragua. BAP’s representative Margaret Kimberley was given a place of honor on the stage along with the heads of states from Cuba and Venezuela.

As Margaret Kimberley said in her statement following the inauguration, BAP is clear on its mission and responsibility at this critical moment in history. An unambiguous commitment to human rights and anti-colonialism guides our worldview and politics. And for that - we are unapologetic. 

“As an organization committed to reviving the Black radical tradition, and committed to an anti-imperialist stance, the Black Alliance for Peace is always ready to defend human rights.

This hemisphere in particular has been viciously targeted by the U.S. government and its vassals in the European Union and United Nations. The Organization of American States should be a platform for discussion and consensus building but it is a U.S. invention and operates under its thumb. The U.S. congress overwhelmingly approved the RENACER Act which legitimizes the regime change effort and makes a mockery of claims that the U.S. acts as a democracy. From Haiti to Nicaragua to Venezuela to Cuba, millions of people in this hemisphere live under U.S. dictates masquerading as democracy in action.

 Black Alliance for Peace is committed to giving voice to the peoples of targeted nations and to providing insights and analysis that people in a supposedly free country are deprived of. Our mission demands that we do no less.”



New content at THIRD:




The following sites updated: