More Than 4,000 Moth Species Flit Across Texas. One Scientist Photographed 550 in His Yard. Texas Monthly
Girl discovers dinosaur footprints on beach walk BBC
Demystifying Sovereign Wealth Funds JSTOR Daily
Climate
From growth fetish to post-growth Democracy Collaborative
Public EV Charging Sees Consistent Progress for Two Consecutive Quarters, J.D. Power Finds (press release) J.D. Power
Massive analysis of EV charging stations finds reliability issues galore Tech Brew. Commentary:
Everything old is new again. What a noisy, polluting, wasteful century we just had, all to make oil barons rich. pic.twitter.com/tzLNfju6Sg
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) August 17, 2024
Catalogue for the Aftertime Via Negativa
Syndemics
What’s in your Covid Emergency Kit? Violet Blue
* * * Why You Don’t Need to Panic About Mpox Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer
Mpox And Mask Bans – A Recipe For Disaster Judy Stone, Forbes. See NC on mask bans here and here. Meanwhile:
See anything wrong with the CDC's recommendations?
(Sources following.) pic.twitter.com/eXVcRTRMyJ
— Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) August 17, 2024
Schools have made slow progress on record absenteeism, with millions of kids still skipping class AP
China?
China’s anti-corruption net has risk-averse officials afraid to innovate South China Morning Post
China’s countryside calls to city-dwellers: settle in, relax and revitalise rural regions South China Morning Post
The Koreas
Made in Korea: When a British boy band got the K-pop treatment BBC
Syraqistan
Israeli settlers rampage through Palestinian village (video) Al Jazeera
* * * Biden says Gaza ceasefire in sight, warns against efforts to undermine deal Al Jazeera
US-led mediators present ‘bridging proposal’ to end Israel-Hamas war FT
Israeli negotiating team to travel to Cairo on Sunday to continue Gaza cease-fire talk Anadolu Agency
* * * How Pro-Israel Groups Shape Global Media Coverage of Palestine Declassified UK
‘The Golan won’t accept any killing or regional war in our victims’ names’ 972 Magazine
* * * Zero States for Two Peoples? Jewish Thinkers Are Pondering a Mass Return to Exile Haaretz
The Great Game
‘An island of freedom’: Inside the secret beauty salons of Afghanistan Al JazeeraT
Dear Old Blighty
‘Strike pain’ and ‘has Labour lost control of the unions?’ BBC
Never forget Labour’s ugly biases Funding the Future
New Not-So-Cold War
As Ukraine Invades Russia, Kyiv’s Troops Are in Trouble on the Eastern Front WSJ
Ukraine orders evacuation in east amid steady Russian gains FT
Ukraine war: as Russian troops close in, Kyiv urges civilians to evacuate Pokrovsk South China Morning Post
* * * Ukraine on the Offensive Nataliya Gumenyuk, Foreign Affairs
The Kursk Offensive and the Risk of a Wider War The American Conservative
What Military History Tells Us About Ukraine’s Kursk Invasion RAND
* * * Dmitry Trenin: This European region could be the next Ukraine RT
Biden Hints at Major Missile Upgrade For Ukraine’s New F-16 Fleet Military Watch
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry denies Russian allegations of planned “dirty bomb” strikes Ukrainska Pravda
* * * US oil services group SLB expands in Russia as competitors withdraw FT
South of the Border
Ecuador slams vice president’s gender complaint against President Noboa as coup attempt BNE Intellinews
2024
Gov. Tim Walz shares his ‘white guy’ taco recipe with VP Kamala Harris FOX
Why Dem lawmakers are giving Harris a pass on policy proposals Politico
Election officials keep Green Party presidential candidate on Wisconsin ballot AP
Healthcare
Digital Watch
Has your paper been used to train an AI model? Almost certainly Nature
Nvidia Sued for Scraping YouTube After 404 Media Investigation 404 Media
Hidden data could reveal if an AI model was trained on copyrighted material Imperial College. Copyright traps.
Mosaic Memory: Fuzzy Duplication in Copyright Traps for Large Language Models Igor Shilov, Matthieu Meeus, Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, Imperial College arXiv. From the Abstract: “Copyright traps have been proposed to be injected into the original content, improving content detectability in newly released LLMs.”
Defending AI Systems From Malicious Data Poisoning Attacks CMB Insurance Brokers
* * * Will we run out of data? Limits of LLM scaling based on human-generated data arXiv. From the Abstract: “Our findings indicate that if current LLM development trends continue, models will be trained on datasets roughly equal in size to the available stock of public human text data between 2026 and 2032, or slightly earlier if models are overtrained.”
How to Tell If What You’re Reading Was Written By AI LifeHacker
* * * California trims AI safety bill amid fears of tech exodus The Register
* * * AI Gone Wrong: An Updated List of AI Errors, Mistakes and Failures Tech.co
These cool but creepy features of AI phones will erode trust in everything Business Standard
Zeitgeist Watch
Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being Philosophical Reviews
Buddhist Anarchism: Theory and Practice The Anarchist Library
* * * Abstract representations emerge in human hippocampal neurons during inference Nature. From the Abstract: “Learning to perform inference by trial and error or through verbal instructions led to the formation of hippocampal representations with similar geometric properties. The observed relation between representational format and inference behaviour suggests that abstract and disentangled representational geometries are important for complex cognition.”
Photon entanglement could explain the rapid brain signals behind consciousness Phys.org. “A research group in China has shown that many entangled photons can be generated inside the myelin sheath that covers nerve fibers. It could explain the rapid communication between neurons, which so far has been thought to be below the speed of sound, too slow to explain how the neural synchronization occurs.”
Class Warfare
Minnesota Workers Strike Down Shady Provision That Restricts Their Freedom of Employment Workday Magazine
Mastercard planning to lower global workforce by 3% Anadolu Agency
‘Pig Butchering’ Online Scams Are Proliferating. Here’s Why They Work So Well. WSJ
Antidote du jour (Barry Aumiller):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Gov. Tim Walz shares his ‘white guy’ taco recipe with VP Kamala Harris’
He forgot the part of the recipe where he turns to Hillary and borrows some of her hot sauce from her handbag.
Who knew the (D) next to Walz’s name stood for Dad Jokes?
Also, Harris’ line of “what is that, like mayonnaise and tuna?” was pretty funny too.
“White guy taco” makes me think of this meal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI9L0jvF_vQ
Oh my dark lass …
I now wonder what would have fueled the dark memes for our time if Benioff and Weiss had not adapted Martin’s dark dystopian fantasy for HBO.
My dad for some reason detested Mexican food, I think because he was from the old country where they fed corn to pigs, it turned him off.
It was kind of a family joke, because the rest of us adored it, although mom being from the other end of the border practically ensured that all we ever got from her were hard shell tacos with ground beef and I dare say sections of itty bitty tomatoes and more iceberg lettuce than could ever be needed, it was Can-Mex at its finest.
O/T breaking the nets – DT and Elon – https://youtube.com/shorts/05oD__G1o_8?si=9ollgMSD06W4oGwx
As my oldest son said “AI getting out of hand haha”.
What will be left of humanity after the AI meme/trope wars ….
The ants will out-think them all.
My news review started with a smiling picture of Bernie telling us that the D presidential candidate has ‘strong progressive agenda’. Ok. Whatever…
an “agenda” is just a list, in this case a “list of things to ‘fight for.’ ” No actual victories in sight, one suspects. It’s the journey that matters, not the destination. /s
Nothing will fundamentally change?
Misread that as “strong progressive gender” at first. The more I think about it, the more I think “agenda” was a typo.
As I recall, someone drove off with Obama’s agenda, and later the same happened to Biden! But not this time!
Cancer research article…yeah that is astounding. Particularly when it’s happening to younger fit, active adults only into the middle 20s and early 30s. I ate a lot of “crap food” at that stage, but also suspect an active thyroid kept my metabolism unusually high…even then I was active several days per week and not terribly sedentary outside of work hours.
Lots of rationale and reasoning… livestock cafo practices I am certain aren’t a boost. I eat a lot of chicken but it’s mostly take out, yeah I know that’s nothing ideal. I’m at that point where a colonoscopy is in my future. Added, an angry or an inflamed gut is very uncomfortable. I really should eat yogurt or similar cultured or fermented foods more frequently.
My neighbor’s son died at age 29 from colo rectal cancer. He was a good person and extremely athletic with a fiancée and he had a good future. Sam was diagnosed at Stage IV. He passed three years ago last month. RIP Sam.
“This European region could be the next Ukraine”. Must admit, I’ve never really seen the point of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania other than as means to absorb the EU’s cash, and to provide excuses for waging future proxy wars with Russia, not to mention their role as obstacles to Russia’s ease of access to the Kaliningrad Oblast.
Also each of the three have laws discriminating heavily against “non-national groups”, like Poles, Russians and their descendants who’ve lived there through the Soviet years, plus they have arguably even more dangerous, war-crazed politicians than the rest of the EU put together, and their rhetoric and continuous demands for NATO action against Russia positively invite a quick, successful and bloody war to secure Russia’s Baltic border.
And it would be one very effective way to make it clear to other European leaders that it’s best to play nicely with Russia or, better yet, to ignore the bloody place whilst it gets on with helping create a prosperous future for the Rest through, inter alia, BRICS, while it watches the West rot in it’s own exceptionalist self-righteous and self-defeating cupidity.
I’m not really a Russian imperialist, but I agree with your comment wholeheartedly. Russia might have to take out the Baltics as a matter of principle more than practicality. Small nations living next to large, powerful ones have an onus to behave responsibly and the Baltics are failing at this task rather sorely. But I think Moldova will be addressed before the Baltics, assuming a comprehensive defeat of Ukraine.
The Baltics prove the insanity of NATO expansion. Finland joining NATO confirms that insanity. Small nations sucked into the US/NATOstan fixation on the strategic defeat of Russia.
Who could have guessed that tech bros aren’t really into interoperability and reliability, but stuff like vendor lock-in and planned obsolescence.
In a previous life as a break/fix technician, I serviced some of the early rollout of this equipment. There were always communications and network problems, including having to get a hold of the correct vendor and remote tech responsible for a specific issue, software freezes, hardware failures and the occasional vehicle damage as these charging stations are usually in busy shopping and parking areas. In addition, the power transfer equipment was often in an unsecured area where anybody could enter and just shut equipment down. It’s been years so I don’t know if anything has changed.
Love that Tim Walz recipe. Reminds me of when I would visit my grandma in Nebraska when I was little. I mostly grew up eating Filipino and Japanese food so it was such a fun treat to eat a bunch of stuff out of cans thrown into a baked casserole.
Considering the FoxNews viewership demographic, the piece is rather sympathetic to Walz.
My very conservative (libertarian, ugh) sib said that Walz is “utter scum, the worst kind”. Hard for me to understand the aggressive view but whatever.
Of course, my sib’s partner is Asian-American, and loves spicy and “exotic” cuisine, as long as it’s “clean”. Weird.
Re: What Military History Tells Us About Ukraine’s Kursk Invasion RAND
This is just a snippet. You can read the full article (not paywalled) here: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/08/what-military-history-tells-us-about-ukraines-kursk-invasion/398845/
Alternatively you can placidly miss this utterly forgettable read that comes as the next idiotic effort to justify the next idiotic military move planned by the CW. In this case it is justified because audacity (supposedly) brings an advantage. That’s it all about.
You got me to skim the first couple paragraphs, where Ukrainian ‘boldness’ is heavily lauded.
I would just remind readers that Pliny the Elder, the Roman credited with uttering the phrase “Fortune favors the bold”, said this just before sailing a ship toward an erupting Vesuvius and wound up dead shortly thereafter.
You should check out the last couple paragraphs, about Russians learning from ze Germans.
The cope in that article really is something. The final two paragraphs are a real object lesson in cognitive dissonance.
So, do the RANDians understand that Ukraine is a civil war, mainly being fought on the territory of Russian speaking peoples who see the Russians as defending their homeland? And do they not get that the incursion into Russian makes the Ukrainians the invaders in someone else’s homeland? And have they not cottoned to the fact that Putin does see this war as existential for Russian? And finally, do they actually believe this nonsense about maintaining the initiative? Did they think the Ukrainians were maintaining the initiative during the vaunted summer offensive that went exactly nowhere? I sure hope RAND has some smarter folks than this hanging around its offices.
I too got lost at the point where Ukraine going into Kursk is presented as lesson for Putin about not invading other people homelands. Must be some sort of triplethink I didn’t master yet.
On your last point, lack of loyalty to “the narrative” is a purgeable offense, so no, no one smarter.
Watching the Equip and People being vaporized again and again and calling it victory is some really strong head shrinking mate.
“What Military History Tells Us About Ukraine’s Kursk Invasion”
The better parallel is, as many have pointed out already, the Battle of the Bulge. The Ukraine has thrown in some of the last best units, some British Challenger tanks, Patriot anti-air defenses, at least one German IRIS-T system, German armour, HIMARS systems and everything else they could put together. We know this because all of the mention weapons systems are being destroyed and the Russians have the receipts to prove it. They stripped other parts of the line so that in parts, platoons are holding sectors that a battalion should be holding and the Russians are making solid advances there. The aim seems to have been to take the Kursk nuclear power plant according to prisoners but that failed so they went with pushing into territory that they could never hold, simply to make the optics look good. There is still the threat that the Ukrainians may try to hit the Kursk nuclear power plant the same way that they hit the Zaporozhye – not that the IAEA would ever say who dd it – so the Russians have warned the Ukrainians of severe consequences if that try and I mean severe. That could include lights out for Zelensky too. Nobody needs another Chernobyl.
Gettysburg (which, ppl outside States forget, was prompted by a Confederate Invasion of the North in attempt to force negotiations) except Zelenski is no Jeff Davis.
Even if that was what Zelensky and the Ukrainian military were attempting, they were never going to succeed. Mostly because the Russians know that over 90% of what they would they require in negotiations would be vetoed by Zelensky’s ownership.
Crimea left alone.
No NATO, No EU membership for Ukraine. Most if not all of the country being a demilitarized zone.
All anti Russian language laws and refusal to teach the entire history of the region ended.
The Ukrainians themselves may be desperate for a negotiated end of this, but unfortunately they sold their soul to the company store and that company and the war mongering idiots who run it don’t care what happens to Ukraine or its people.
I do seem to recall someone putting up a Confederate flag in Kiev City Hall shortly after Maidan..
~a Confederate Invasion of the North in attempt to force negotiations
and an effort to find shoes, as I recall it…
One time when Humordor tried to kill me with high heat and humidity, we went to the museums in DC and then hightailed it for CW battlefield sites.
Antietam in no way, shape or how resembles a battlefield, but Gettysburg was tailor made for a skirmish, and there’s enough scrap metal in the myriad of memorials festooned around, to allow for one hell of a payday.
I think the invasion was all for PR. . There is no hope they can keep the land. There are not enough troops to do anything. It does divert attention from the massive advances Russia is making all along the lines further south.
2. There may have been a tiny hope to take the power plant. But won’t happen now.
3. The US media is going insane with this latest episode. My centrist dem friends are in a fever over how great this attach is.
4. And the DNC convention is next week. More money for Ukraine
5. And in the WP there was an article about negotiations for a settlement had been in progress. That’s now off the table. I guess Ukraine and the west again was negotiating in bad faith.
It was never about an actual military operation, only PR.
In the recordings of Forrest Pogue interviewing General Of The Army George Marshall, Marshall commented on the Battle Of The Bulge,
For example, you can take the [German] operation into the Bulge later on. If it was successful, it was a grand thing. But it wasn’t successful. It took a chance that could have been very fatal. You can sometimes win a great victory by a very dashing action. But often, or most frequently, the very dashing action exposes you to a very fatal result if it is not successful. And you hazard everything in that way.
To the extent that there is still an actual Left left in US, I wonder what would happen if there were a concerted effort to build a Left political movement within the “swing” states. Even if such a movement had difficulty gaining ballot access for its candidate nationwide, its policy preferences might exert oversized influence on the stances of the duopoly parties on policies related to “universal concrete material benefits” because of those parties’ competition for votes at the margin in the swing states.
100+
The recent success against gerrymandering in Wisconsin may help this.
Consider the impact of the Uncommitted movement in Michigan as relevant to your proposal. They had a big impact on the primary vote, and caused a management problem for Democrats still. Events in Israel-Palestine may cause them to deny Harris Michigan.
There are plenty enough Medicare-For-All supporters in Wisconsin to swing the election.
regarding Henry Madison “Everything old is new again” – i remember seeing old DSR (Detroit Streets & Railways) buses in Mexico in the late 60’s – also remember riding electric buses when i was a kid – neighbor a few houses down was a DSR driver back in the day when a person of modest income could afford to won a house – have a picture of my great grandfather’s electric car – in 1915 we had rail trolleys in Detroit and up to the 60’s there were electric buses that had overhead connection to a DC power line, they all went bye bye –
https://detroitography.com/2014/12/12/map-of-detroit-interurban-lines-1915/
http://www.detroittransithistory.info/PhotoGalley/Photos1940sE.html
http://www.detroittransithistory.info/DSR/RouteMap-1950.html
Those electric buses w/overhead catenary look exactly what I remember in metro Boston/Cambridge in the 60’s. Don’t know if they’re still running.
When my late grandmother was quite young she used to be a cook in a wealthy household in Detroit. She used to drive an electric car when she went grocery shopping for the family. My dad said she often wondered why electric cars didn’t replace gas-engined ones. She loved how all you needed to do was plug it in overnight and it was ready to go. My dad also remarked that the electric cars at that time were super slow, and were known as being “ladies’ cars”. We all know that would have been the kiss of death for any kind of marketing campaign.
On YouTube there’s a clip of Jay Leno driving one of those cars from the first electric era. Strange vehicle but it looks fun as heck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRwEXaHTwsY&t=18
The antique car starts at 2:10 in the clip
great grandad’s car looked like this – https://vintageelectriccars.com/car-1919-1931-detroit.aspx
> the electric cars at that time were super slow, and were known as being “ladies’ cars”
Perfect for Grandma Duck, clan matriarch in the Donald Duck cartoon universe created by Carl Barks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Electric#In_popular_culture
https://cbarks.dk/thecars.htm
This is hilarious.
“‘An island of freedom’: Inside the secret beauty salons of Afghanistan”
‘In Kabul, an army of clandestine beauticians is keeping morale alive among women living in fear of the Taliban-led government.’
It’s funny what news will come out of Afghanistan these days. Just this week the Afghans held their “Afghan Jihad” Victory Day to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of the last American leaving that country. They held a big military parade at Bagram base featuring dozens of US-made armored vehicles-
https://www.rt.com/news/602628-afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-parade/
Of course not everybody was happy to see this-
https://x.com/GrahamAllen_1/status/1823752965854801929
Don’t know why but sometimes the Taliban remind me of the Fremen from “Dune.”
Slow motion train wreck…
Canadian ERs keep closing this summer — but there’s no easy fix
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canadian-ers-closing-second-opinion-1.7295567
No mention of doctors and nurses out because of the ongoing Covid pandemic of course, but also that’s just the latest blow to an already strained system. Sadly, I don’t think anything will be done to really address the problem when closures start happening in cities. Instead, it’ll just be an excuse to accelerate privatization.
In BC ER closures are happening weekly due to staff shortages even though Dr Bonnie Henry recently rescinded the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers-sort of. They will still be required to show their Covid-19 vaccination status among others to health authorities.
“A new immune status reporting requirement will make sure health care workers in B.C. continue to help keep people safe”
Full government outline here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/managing-your-health/immunizations/health-care-worker
https://www.wltribune.com/local-news/williams-lake-without-emergency-services-at-hospital-again-overnight-7430476
Tucker Carlson on twtr-X.
Casey Means was a Stanford-educated surgeon. Her brother Calley was a lobbyist for pharma and the food industry. Both quit their jobs in horror when they realized how many people were being killed by the systems they participated in. This is an amazing story.
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1824502384254693487
Sensualist for profit said what lmmao flora …
Thank you, this was somehow a bright spot in a sea of depressing dystopian news.
Fossil Fuels Don’t Come From Fossils? Tucker Carlson Fact Check
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsGzDmSjD0
Thanks for this skippy. LOL Tucker again betrays his status as an entertainer — only. He occasionally does have interesting stuff. But despite (or rather I guess, because of) his large income, resources, access, etc., he seems unable to shed his FauxNews suit (and those blinking, screwed up, incredulous expressions) and attempt true journalism.
I do think this interview falls under the category of his occasionally interesting stuff. In any case, I appreciate the ability to hear different interviewee perspectives regardless of what I think about the interviewer.
Actually the video “fact check” states that the abiogenic theory is plausible and cites an example.
From the video, Sabine Hossenfelder:
The doctor that said: “It’s a disrespect of life.”
Bingo. It about sums up where we are. It’s especially a disrespect of life in the present.
My young adult children are ahead of the curve on understanding the pharma and food poisons.
They buy organic food when possible and healthy/ier soaps and shampoos.
They are researching vax info to see if there are safe alternatives without mercury adjuvants for their children, for example.
Happy to report that there are more people learning and practicing based on conversations with them. :)
Most of the way through this. Props to this pair. Interesting how much could be done by executive order.
Thank you for the link flora. Historical information on the food industry which even most food scientists and nutritionists probably aren’t aware of. Casey and Calley should run the FDA.
That was packed with a lot of good info. Surprised they didn’t mention that RFK has this as part of his platform and the primary reason I support his campaign hoping at the vary least he can force Trump and Harris to debate these issues. I feel this needs to addressed before we can address all the other problems we are facing (Maslow’s hierarchy). Getting the incentives correct at the base layer will make getting them correct at the higher levels possible.
Also note this study shows how difficult it is to wash pesticides off, which I can only imagine gets much worse when they’re coated with apeel.
Xmas in August!
Here comes Kamala!
Here comes Kamala!
Right down the Donkey Show Lane!
Michelle & Barack and all his rain men
Pulling on the reins
Bells are ringing, main stream media singing
All is merry and bright
So hang your diaphragm and stash your Trojans
‘Cause Kamala cash comes tonight
Here comes Kamala!
Here comes Kamala!
Right down the Donkey Show Lane!
She’s got a bag that’s filled with $6,000 ploys
For those contemplating having boys and girls again
Hear those coins jingle jangle
Oh, what a beautiful sight
Jump in bed, procreate instead
‘Cause Kamala’s cash comes tonight
Here comes Kamala!
Here comes Kamala!
Right down the Donkey Show Lane!
She doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor
She loves you just the same
Kamala knows we’re all capable of having children
That makes everything right
So fill your wallets once the EPT test comes in
‘Cause Kamala cash comes tonight!
Here comes Kamala!
Here comes Kamala!
Right down the Donkey Show Lane!
She’ll come around when your pride & joy comes out
That it’s a cash call morn again
Peace on earth will come to all
If we don’t follow the hard right
So let’s give thanks to the Obama above
‘Cause Kamala cash comes tonight!
Sad to see people still hawking Paxlovid as part of a ‘COVID Survival Kit’
Not only does it not work (well, sometimes is works the 1st time), it’s $1500 per course
https://www.health.harvard.edu/digital_first_content/paxlovid-rebound-what-you-need-to-know
Anecdata – it worked very well for my wife and I. Test negative day 4 after symptoms, no rebounds. I had an awful copper taste in my mouth though. Ate gummy bears to deal with it. Four months later I was diagnosed with Long Covid and had to take a month off. Better finally now after an ayurvedic treatment in India. Paxlovid is still 100% covered in France even without supplemental but if you have to pay because you are a foreigner, it’s €999.20 a box!
From the article you linked, emphasis added:
Yes it does work the first time, most of the time. After that it tends to make matters worse esp if you get a different variant the next time around:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06609-0
The pharma method is not the most effective here.
Counter-anecdota, both my aunt and uncle have had covid 3x, and each time they took paxlovid. Each infection lasted about a week longer than previous, with the last one taking about a full month to resolve.
“More Than 4,000 Moth Species Flit Across Texas. One Scientist Photographed 550 in His Yard.”
An interesting article in itslef and right near the end he referred to something called iNaturalist. Curiosity aroused, I took a quick look and found this-
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47158-Insecta
But even better was a page of images of insects-
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47158-Insecta/browse_photos
Amazing macro shots! —Thanks for these links :-)
…white boy tacos? a hot dog?
Cripes, this crap has gotten old already and it’s only been a week…
And just as with hills, my pmc brethren have already declared victory!
Policy proposals? We don’t need no stinkin’ policy proposals…!
In the past it was Nancy Pelosi stating that we must first pass this legislation before we actually read or comprehend what’s in the legislation…
Fast forward a mere decade and the goalposts are shifting again… Harris must win, America can only win if Trump is defeated at last…”Our Democracy!”…\sarc
Hour Democracy, as in one hour per day.
Don’t dare sleep through it!
RE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/17/biden-says-gaza-ceasefire-in-sight-warns-against-efforts-to-undermine-deal?traffic_source=rss
Aljazeera is really giving journalism a bad name, isn’t it?
+ Doesn’t even mention that Hamas wasn’t at the table until the last few paragraphs
+ Uncritical of Biden and fails to show even an ounce of skepticism
+ Contradicts other media reports (The Guardian) that portray the talks as having no breakthrough:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/16/gaza-ceasefire-talks-to-resume-next-week-no-breakthrough-qatar-israel
“US-led mediators present ‘bridging proposal’ to end Israel-Hamas war”
Is Biden actually trying to sell them a bridge as far as peace is concerned? Biden and Blinken have been “negotiating” with the Israelis for nearly a year now. So maybe they should get off the pot and give another country room to negotiate a peace. How about China? I’m sure that they have a lot of muscle that they could exercise to get things finally moving and the best thing? None of the members of China’s National People’s Congress has an Israeli minder in tow.
Biden is trying to sell the us public that he’s trying to bring about peace when he is one with the zionists regarding river to sea and beyond concept. Imo Neither Israel leaders or most of their public want peace until Palestinians have been cleared from Palestine.
All it will take is a lot of money to both sides. Just keep it coming, baby.\
Next, do Ukraine.
Checkbook diplomacy overdraws again.
The noisy century just wasn’t to make oil barons rich. Each barrel has about 5.8 million btus or 1700 kWH of energy. Years of physical labor assuming a human can produce about 100 W of power consistently in one barrel of oil. Americans average about 10,000 W of total energy usage of which about 80% is derived from fossil fuels. 10000 Watts is 100 ‘energy slaves.’ That 80% hasn’t changed even in recent years with increased renewable energy because growth. The new energy doesn’t replace buts adds to fossil sources which are also growing.
It is more than making oil oligarchs rich. It is why we live the way we do and not like we did 3 centuries ago. This level of energy use will end.
One needs to always integrate watts over time to determine energy as in kw-hours.
For example a human developing 100 watts for one hour is 0.1kw-h.
However, this human needs food/fuel and I have seen estimates that 7 to 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy is used to provide 1 calorie of food to a USA citizen.
I only see a hard landing as various resource boundaries are hit.
Yes, I should have said Americans average about 10,000 W of total POWER, not energy. So if humans can generate 100 W that is 100 ‘slaves.’ At 10,000 W Americans use about 240kWh of total primary energy per day, about 80% of which is fossil.
It turns out that GDP is not directly proportional to total energy but proportional to the rate of energy production change.
Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic
emissions of carbon dioxide?
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.1855
Past world economic production constrains current energy demands: Persistent scaling with implications for economic growth and climate change mitigation (Garrett and Steve Keen)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237672
So total energy is proportional to something like total wealth or capital.
the future is going to be a lot poorer, at least by our current metrics.
I’ve often marveled at this as well; all this energy to sustain a system which is quite literally on borrowed time, borrowed from the past, or the future, take your pick. But work being done in vast excess of what would be possible. The bill comes due.
Its pretty obvious the powers that be don’t want to call it monkeypox, so why not primatepox, most of the population will assume it means prime rate pox, so there isn’t any association with us being tied to monkeys.
Considering how well the CDC handled Covid, I am sure that how they deal with monkeypox will end up making a monkey out of all of us. Here, have a banana.
I find it weird how many humans see themselves as separate from our monkey cousins, and animals as a whole (as in “humans aren’t animals)”. Our technology may be advanced, but I’m pretty sure we’re still just apes blundering around. Human rationality seems massively overstated.
Human see-human doom.
Naked apes.
As with so many diseases, maybe some education would help reduce the spread.
Wikipedia’s dry, non-verbal comment along these lines: using a thumbnail of Nixon and Brezhnev among its examples of mammals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal
“Ukraine orders evacuation in east amid steady Russian gains”
‘“Once the enemy is within 10km of Pokrovsk, children will be forcibly evacuated,” she said, referring to a decree Ukraine introduced last year that allows local police to evacuate children from active conflict zones even if their families refuse to leave.’
That is one way to stop people staying in a town for the Russians to come. Seize their children which will force those parents to go west so that they are not separated. And if those stories are to believed, to stop their children being sold on the spare parts market too.
And I thought evacuating children from war zone was a war crime, too…. (/s)
It’s one of the rules of the International Rules-Based Order-
‘It’s OK when we do it!’
And not OK if the Russians do it.
Zero States for Two Peoples? Jewish Thinkers Are Pondering a Mass Return to Exile Haaretz
I don’t think this idea of exile is healthy. You can’t be organically part of any society that is not an ethnically and religiously pure Jewish state? Are white Christian nationalists in exile because they are not living in a white Christian nationalist state? Maybe they feel that way, I am not sure. Human history is complicated. There were all sorts of forced and unforced migrations. Some of my ancestors were forced to leave Ireland. Am I an Irish exile? I feel American for bettor or worse. Are there really any ethnically and religiously homogeneous nations anywhere in the world? Trying to make one makes atrocity inevitable. Ditch the exile concept.
Remember the concept of the “Ugly American”? I can imagine a Jewish person as a tourist placing a Canadian patch on their rucksack. Is “reap what you sow” in the Jewish bible?
“But a fourth option hovers above the others: the return of the Jews to a situation of exile, meaning zero states.”
Big chunks of NY boroughs are (doctrinally fractured) Jewish enclaves. Same a lot of other places. Maybe home is where the synagogue is.
Having f—ked up the occupation and displacement in Palestine, zealous Zionists cast eyes on nice safe landing spots where they expect to be welcome, much as SS Ukrainians deserting their Mother Country do all over Europe and Canada and elsewhere.
Looking to escape war at home, Israelis seek refugee status in Portugal
“PORTO, Portugal — Since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, Nufar Bar, an Israeli immigration lawyer living in Porto, has seen a nonstop flow of requests from Israelis seeking refugee status.
“We get them almost every day,” said Bar, who works with the Portuguese law firm Cotarelli e Rodrigues helping Israelis move abroad.
Portugal offers many options for those seeking to immigrate, but Bar has found that many Israelis choose to apply as refugees through the asylum application process in Portugal as detailed by the UNHCR.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/looking-to-escape-war-at-home-israelis-seek-refugee-status-in-portugal/
Hard to get a visa, citizenship too much hassle, so take advantage of the UNHCR which the Zionists have killed in Gaza to become privileged “refugees,” claiming “asylum,” with benefits. Portugal seems like such a nice place.
The hypocrisy, it burns…
Not sure how that’s going to work out. The Zionist impulse will be part of their baggage, looking for a new place to take root.
Going round twix all day, but yet to see in MSM:
“Senior British diplomat Mark Smith resigns over UK’s arms sales to Israel”
Strongly recommend reading his resignation letter in full. Given his job, it’s very damning.
That it hasn’t appeared in the news is also damning.
Thanks for sharing that, Ben. And props to Mark Smith for what he’s done.
Clarification: there’s some confusion as to the guy’s identity as there are apparently two Mark Smiths in the FCDO.
Via https://x.com/HindHassanNews (guy who originally published the resignation letter):
“He is NOT a senior diplomat as some people are reporting, he is a second secretary based in Dublin.”
“For those casting doubt on the resignation letter from British diplomat Mark Smith:
I saw the original resignation email.
He is based at the British Embassy in Dublin.
He signs off as Second Secretary Counter Terrorism.
The photo being used in some articles is wrong.”
Doesn’t this prove that Mpox is not primarily transmitted through sexual contact?:
Reviewing the underlying report used in the Ok doomer article, https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2024-DON522 ,
We can see that 73% of the reported cases were among people under the age of 15. Based on the same data cases in people under the age of five years old were 39% of total reported cases and 62% of deaths due to total reported cases of Mpox.
In another graphic of confirmed cases we find that 43% of confirmed cases were in people under the age of 11, unlikely to be from sexual contact!!!!
Does this not prove that the sexual contact focus is in fact misinformation? Do your own research indeed!
There is a new, more contagious variant that is both more contagious and has a higher fatality rate.
Actually, even the prior variant was not spread through sexual contact, but close contact. Certain media outlets and pressure groups just picked up on the fact that many early spreaders had sexual contact, in part to demean gay men. (Many early spreaders were gay men.
Grindr is sending out updated mpox warnings:
“GET THE FACTS: MPOX
The World Health Organization has declared mpox outbreaks a public health emergency of international concern. Cases are surging globally. Here’s what you need to know.
Don’t Panic.
Understanding the facts helps protect you and
those around you.
How It Spreads
Mpox spreads through close contact, including respiratory droplets, skin-to-skin contact, or sharing items like bedding or towels.
Watch for Symptoms
If you or a recent partner (within 21 days) have unusual sores r a rash, see a healthcare provider and mention mpox.
Get Vaccinated
If you are able to get vaccinated, it’s strongly recommended to do so. Two doses offer better protection than one.”
There are so many things wrong with the CDC*s recommendations, it was difficult to know which wrong thing the poster was refering to at first. For example, “Wear a respirator if you are at home and within 6 feet of the infected, and an adult”.
So, are we back to sacrificing our children then? Are they hinting that children will develop “natural immunity” to monkey pox if exposed to it? I guess that could be true as long as you’re willing to allow 10% to die. Since Covid, I wouldn’t be surprised at all that this is the CDC’s thinking. Finally, why does this “6 feet” rule continue to have legs after Fauci admitted he totally made it up? Who do they think will buy this garbage their trying to sell? Perhaps businesses will because it will allow them to continue operating as usual, but no one else will believe the CDC despite having Covid addled brains.
If you sit over there, 7 feet away, you can take your respirator off. Really?
My techno-vignettes from yesterday:
I was taking a couple of new colleagues on a local field trip to view sites that I’ve used for teaching purposes over the years, and they supplied the transport – a new Subaru SUV. Before we set off, I watched them fiddle for a couple of minutes to get one of their phones properly synched with the vehicle’s black box in order to get a map to appear on the screen in the middle of the dash. Me – I just opened up the map book that I had on my lap and pointed out our route.
Later in the morning, we’d finished up at one of our sites, and needed to back out of a partly overgrown bush road to get to a spot where we could turn around. Suddenly there was an abrupt lurch as the brakes locked without warning. Apparently the automatic collision avoidance system was being triggered when it detected some knee-high clumps of grass growing on the trail. Fortunately, we were on a slight slope, and my hosts realized that they could bypass the system just by shifting the transmission into Neutral, and letting the vehicle roll back to where we could turn around.
Self-driving cars? Nope, I’ll pass. I’m going to be gentle with my 2010 Toyota with manual stick shift and everything controlled by buttons and dials! Plus, the stick shift gives it some theft-proofing too!
On this site I have been accused of “virtue signalling” regarding not having a smart phone. Is it virtue signalling that the less one is plugged in the better off one is? You can bet that an engineer is taking notes that the automatic collision avoidance system needs to be in effect even when in neutral. Reminds me of the days when the water pump on an old car had failed, far away from any repair shop. Had to drive up hill watching the temp needle scream into the red but then regain the blue on the downhill side (in neutral).
Old emergency kit would include pantyhose, knotted just so for an impromptu fan belt, and the old standby duct tape, just because, right next to a gallon of water.
You can bet that an engineer is taking notes that the automatic collision avoidance system needs to be in effect even when in neutral.
Drat! Silly me.
Ben Panga included this winner of from Kamala Harris in his comment yesterday on the Grauniad’s article of Harris supposed proposals:
Harris: “I think if you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.”
That has been rattling around in my brain infuriating me most of the early morning to now. I so wish I had a spare million or ten. I would be running ads with her saying that and then point out the things the Democrats have supposedly been fighting for and how often they controlled the levers of power. And finish “with she is partly right, but you have to look at the results to realize who they fight for isn’t who they say it is for in campaign speeches. Final screen: ‘Look at the fights they do win. If they aren’t winning the fights for your policies, they probably aren’t fighting for you.’
Somebody else opined that the only good thing from Trump winning would be a possible anti-trust agenda continuing. I think the immediate round filing of Kamala Harris would also be a good thing. (She doesn’t have the network base of the Clinton’s and despite the gushing her actual appeal is pretty limited.)
As total eclipse of the two party system and the two parties that have run it into the ground along with the end of unlimited money in campaigns is impossible I’m not sure there is a best option out there. (Both Stein and Kennedy being stripped from the ballot here in NY has left me more cynical about this election than ever before.)
Liberals are saying Black people opposing Kamala Harris are dumb: “She’s done a lot for us, Google it.” This response is perfect: “This whole lifetime, I’ve been black. If she did so much for us, I wouldn’t have to Google it. I would be living the benefits.”
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1824161476346777682
(via Reddit “Way of the Bern”)
Harris: “I think if you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.”
A – They fight for (care about) themselves, their donors, and their friends.
but then
B – The party exists to gain control of as much of government as possible.
A and B conflict in some important ways. B requires getting votes, which requires governing to voter’s approval but what voters want isn’t always what donors want so, for example, the Democratic party would rather D. Trump be president than B. Sanders. That’s because the cost to party insiders (A) of failing to get enough votes (B) might be smaller than the cost of lost donations (A) from giving voters what they want (B).
Wellie, IIRC JFK wanted AIPAC to register under FARA (it seems to me it certainly should). This article doesn’t mention them but it does have what might be some useful information from a recent hack (or leak?, I’ve read the piece but have not internalized it yet, some readers may want to have at it?)
Guardian:
Israel feared legal trouble over US advocacy efforts, leaked files suggest
I predict that Kamala will soon announce that any mothers that deliver on Labor Day in 2025 will get triple the $6,000 bonus if they stick the landing within that 24 hour period.
I thought a chicken in every pot may have been as effective. The ravages of inflation?
With Costco rotisserie league chickens @ $4.99, not much cooking going on these days.
That’s encouraging. With retail inflation being what it is, I was getting ready for future meal deals featuring Round Robin Cuisine.
Lunch ‘on the wing’ I suppose. “Round and round it goes. When it’s cooked, nobody knows!”
Round Robin Cuisine also lends itself to Brunch Virtue Signaling tweets.
As long as they aren’t pitching ‘Insect Helper’ i’m cool with nutrition.
The Oddly Specific Kamala Harris Policy Generator is ready to oblige.
Sincere apologies to both Yves, Lambert, and the commentariat. I understand; it won’t happen again.
Re: younger colon cancer patients
I would be interested to see if they are looking into whether these patients were born via C-section vs vaginally which has a huge effect on the microbiome. And also whether they were breastfed as infants– breastfed infants are at the very top of the food chain and get the most concentrated dose of toxins via the mother, especially if they are the first born. There are lots of immune/microbiome benefits of being breastfed but perhaps they are negated by how progressively contaminated our environment has become with persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, etc…
A curse is Kursk of course of course
And no one can talk of truth of course in Kursk
That is, unless it comes from the mouth of the Feds
Go right to the source and ask the course
They’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse
This war is always on a steady course
Talk to the Feds
People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But the Feds will never speak unless they have something to say
Our curse is in Kursk of course, of course
And the mainstream media will talk ’til their voice is hoars
You never heard of a stalking horse?
Well listen to this…
…they are the compulsory led
Were Tim Walz and Father Noel Furlong (played by Graham Norton) of the Father Ted series separated at birth?
Father Noel Furlong Best Bits – Father Ted Compilation
Walz strikes me as over-the-top and I recently remembered the Graham Norton character. Maybe Norton can find some steady work for the next four years depending on the US election results.
“China’s anti-corruption net has risk-averse officials afraid to innovate”
This is simply a copy of an essay that has been copied several times since the original was published almost 8 years ago:
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/with-its-corruption-crackdown-china-is-also-stamping-out-innovation/
November 7, 2016
With its corruption crackdown, China is also stamping out innovation
By Yuen Yuen Ang
The point is that as international high-quality science publishing and high-value patenting show China is remarkably innovative with all the efforts being made for high ethical social behavior standards.
Germany to halt new Ukraine military aid (Politico.eu)
“The ban, which is already in place, will affect all new requests for assistance to Kyiv, Germany’s FAZ newspaper reported…..
….future funding would no longer come from Germany’s federal budget but from proceeds from frozen Russian assets”