BLOGS

The Shisper Glacier in April 2018, left, and April 2019, right. The surging ice blocked a river fed by a nearby glacier, forming a new lake. YALE ENVIRONMENT 360 / NASA

Topics: Civilization, Climate Change, Environment, Existentialism, Global Warming

Everything about Earth and the organization of human civilization is about the control of resources.

We’ve come up with arbitrary “rules” about who is worthy of those resources, and how much they can horde, or obtain. Pharaohs, priests, secret societies, and guilds all have “knowledge” they jealously guard, or it may be as simple as caste or color. Every society with billionaires, emperors, kings, oligarchs, potentates, and sheiks all have a designated group to blame for the ills of poor planning and sadistic resource management: indigenous, or imported servants by force, they are the easy go-to designated pariahs. It is a cynical way to get rich, but a poor method of species survival. A resource we all need, from billionaires to pariahs, is potable water to drink. Jackson, Mississippi is a foreshadowing of what we might expect.

This continual differentiation of mankind by caste, color, station, and monetary wealth has brought us to this rolling train wreck catastrophe. Climate refugees occurred in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Climate refugees occurred after the flooding in Pakistan. Climate refugees will occur in the aftermath of future superstorms. Lest we think ourselves immune, we may all be seeking higher ground, leaving homes and businesses for something we could have solved decades ago except for avarice.

The permafrost is melting, and that will release viruses that haven't seen the light of day for several millennia, and we have no vaccines for what will likely be carried on the wind and zoonotically transferred between animals and humans.

Starships are as real as magic carpets, genies, Yetis, and mermaids.

There is no “planet B,” life, or wealth on a nonfunctional planet.

Warmer air is thinning most of the vast mountain range’s glaciers, known as the Third Pole because they contain so much ice. The melting could have far-reaching consequences for flood risk and for water security for a billion people who rely on meltwater for their survival.

Spring came early this year in the high mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, a remote border region of Pakistan. Record temperatures in March and April hastened melting of the Shisper Glacier, creating a lake that swelled and, on May 7, burst through an ice dam. A torrent of water and debris flooded the valley below, damaging fields and houses, wrecking two power plants and washing away parts of the highway and a bridge connecting Pakistan and China.

Pakistan’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, tweeted videos of the destruction and highlighted the vulnerability of a region with the largest number of glaciers outside the Earth’s poles. Why were these glaciers losing mass so quickly? Rehman put it succinctly. “High global temperatures,” she said.

Just over a decade, ago, relatively little was known about glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, the vast ice mountains that run across Central and South Asia, from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. But a step-up in research in the past 10 years — spurred in part by an embarrassing error in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, which predicted that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 — has led to enormous strides in understanding.

Scientists now have data on almost every glacier in high-mountain Asia. They know “how these glaciers have changed not only in area but in mass during the last 20 years,” says Tobias Bolch, a glaciologist with the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He adds, “We also know much more about the processes which govern glacial melt. This information will give policymakers some instruments to really plan for the future.”

As Himalayan Glaciers Melt, a Water Crisis Looms in South Asia, VAISHNAVI CHANDRASHEKHAR, Yale Environment 360

MODUS TROLLERANDI PART 2: WHATABOUTISM

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Climate Change, Environment, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights

Nikolas Cruz was sentenced in the Parkland Shooting to life without the possibility of parole, torpedoing his request to die by the state executioner.

Alex Jones owes a bucketload of money to the Sandy Hook families who have had to endure his lies by grift of his gullible Internet followers, mocking the verdict in a dual screen that "good luck! Ain't no more money," while petitioning the rubes to go to his site.

The January 6th Committee held what was possibly its last hearing yesterday if past precedent favors republicans in the midterms (except for the unforced error of overturning Roe vs Wade, and the promise if given power, they will make it a nationwide ban). If Nancy Pelosi is Speaker after the elections, the committee issued a subpoena to Generalisimo Insurrectionist. He'll wage a pitched legal battle, raise a lot of money, and hope the other crimes he's guilty of in New York and Georgia don't wind him up in a jumpsuit to match his complexion.  Women are registering for the midterms in record numbers; the unrest in Iran over the "morality police" is a microcosm of a constituency fed up with octogenarians making rules for them.

The person at the center of the January 6th Committee's focus has established a cult of personality for his followers and personal convenience for his enablers. Despite the recordings of Kevin McCarthy expressing abject terror, despite his, Mitch McConnell's, and Lindsey Graham's castigation of him on the House and Senate floors, they read the political tea leaves, realizing the conspiratorial dragon they benefitted from through Reich Wing talk radio, television, websites is a Frankenstein beyond their control. They hope to ride the crazy wave to "power," which at this time means a position with little relation to actual governing power, and hope their violent followers don't retaliate on them if they pick up the wrong salad fork, or select the wrong channel with the remote control.

The person at the center of the January 6th Committee's focus still deludes himself into that he actually won the 2020 election, still denies the loss, confesses to crimes he committed in real-time, and foments open rebellion and uncivil war if he's ever held accountable for his brazenly committed, and admitted crimes. He now demands the return of classified documents he magically declassified by telepathy (not a thing), and that the government "planted them." If you can follow that, there will be a padded cell next to his.

I was not a fan of Seinfeld. The comedy took as its theme the play by William Shakespeare: "Much Ado About Nothing." Norman Lear comedies like "All in the Family," "Good Times," "The Jeffersons," and "One Day at a Time" would often veer into sensitive topics about things like gang violence, rape, racism, and misogyny. Jerry Seinfeld and the cast made a comedy about nothing for ten years. When the final curtain went down on the show, there was "weeping and gnashing of teeth" at my Motorola office in Austin, Texas. Even in syndication where I might see an episode or two, I still don't get the attraction.

The dark side of much ado about nothing is Whataboutism: nothing matters. It makes one's sense of history and strategy for the future be temporally bound by business quarters. It explains why we can't do anything about climate change, George W. Bush summed up the attitude in his thoughts about the future asked by Bob Woodward: "we'll all be dead." I used to think he was the worst president in my lifetime until kismet said "hold my beer." The Republican platform in 2020 was reduced to Seinfeld minimalism, and they don't have one in 2022, save recycled Gingrich jibberish. Sexually assaulting women; grabbing them by the genitals doesn't matter. Railing about the sanctity of the unborn never mattered according to Dana Deloach: she just wants power in the Senate, so Herschel Walker can speak word salad about promiscuous bulls all he wants (to the chagrin of Rick Scott and Tom Cotton) as long as they gain the majority. Winning is all that matters, principle never did. There were several hundred mass shootings before Nikolas Cruz. Alex Jones started his grift before the twenty-six victims were in Rigor Mortis. Donald Trump in "Art of the Deal" explained "truthful hyperbole":

“The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.”

“I Call It Truthful Hyperbole”: The Most Popular Quotes From Trump’s “The Art of the Deal”, Emily Price, Fast Company, April 4, 2017

In other words, brazen lying.

He played to people's fantasies that he was a successful businessman, despite six bankruptcies and being in hock up to his eyeballs to Deutsche Bank and the Russian Federation. He saw the reaction to the one and only black president and like a wolf, he pounced. He and his father were charged with violating the Fair Housing Act by the NIXON administration. Orly Taitz is a forgotten name and evidence education does not equate to intelligence. He took over the birther issue, poured kerosene, and lit a match. As Michael Cohen said, he never meant to win the election, it was a publicity stunt, which is why he had nothing he was passionate about to improve people's lives other than the rich like himself (richer than he since he's probably not on paper a billionaire). He could have repitched The Apprentice to NBC, still pulled down a check from the network, and still laundered money for Russian oligarchs, but no. Donny got out over his skis, got a taste of real power, and now like an 80s crack addict, can't get enough of it.

He's Pookie in [orange] face.

That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts.

It does hurt. It can kill a republic.

On the page where McHenry records the events of the last day of the convention, September 18, 1787, he wrote: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” Then McHenry added: “The Lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philada.”

“A republic if you can keep it”: Elizabeth Willing Powel, Benjamin Franklin, and the James McHenry Journal
January 6, 2022, by Josh Levy, Library of Congress

44 "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” John 8:44-47

A view of Saturn from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures details of its ring system and atmospheric details on June 20, 2019. NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team/Handout via REUTERS

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, NASA, Planetary Science

WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Call it the case of the missing moon.

Scientists using data obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft and computer simulations said on Thursday the destruction of a large moon that strayed too close to Saturn would account both for the birth of the gas giant planet's magnificent rings and its unusual orbital tilt of about 27 degrees.

The researchers named this hypothesized moon Chrysalis and said it may have been torn apart by tidal forces from Saturn's gravitational pull perhaps 160 million years ago - relatively recent compared to the date of the planet's formation more than 4.5 billion years ago.

About 99% of the Chrysalis wreckage appears to have plunged into Saturn's atmosphere while the remaining 1% stayed in orbit around the planet and eventually formed the large ring system that is one of the wonders of our solar system, the researchers said. They chose the name Chrysalis for the moon because it refers to a butterfly's pupal stage before it transforms into its glorious adult form.

"As a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis, the rings of Saturn emerged from the primordial satellite Chrysalis," said Jack Wisdom, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lead author of the study published in the journal Science.

Violent death of moon Chrysalis may have spawned Saturn's rings, Will Dunham, Reuters Science

Image source: Pinterest

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights, Politics

DARVO is an acronym for "deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender". It refers to a reaction that alleged perpetrators of wrongdoing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.^[1] Some researchers and advocates have indicated that it can be a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.^[2][3][4] An abuser (or alleged abuser) denies the abuse ever took place, attacks the person that alleged abuse (often the victim) for attempting to hold the abuser (or alleged abuser) accountable for their actions, and claims that they are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing what may be a reality of victim and offender.^[2][4] It often involves not just "playing the victim" but also victim blaming.^[3]

Source: Wikipedia/DARVO

This hasn't been a good week for "Orange Jesus." Prepare for a lot of DARVO.

The Eleventh Circuit Court batted back his hand-picked court stenographer with a blistering decision that if he were to appeal to his stacked no-longer Supreme Court, the faux college fascist Niel Gorsuch, accused rapist frat boy Brett Kavanaugh, and ACTUAL Handmaid (and proud of it) Amy Coney Barrett would have some difficulty trying to find the back-of-the-box Cracker Jack excuse to justify his theft of classified documents, further descending the court's already stained reputation with the Dobb's decision firmly into the marsupial territory. It would probably be the ONLY ruling from which Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas recuse themselves. Chief Justice Roberts, the architect of the court's destruction with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, would join the actual Justices we have REMAINING on the court - Sotomayer, Kagen, and Jackson in descent not because he agrees but to hide his utter ineptitude at shepherding the third branch of our government.

Update: As of July 7, Roberts requested all law clerk's cell phone records, according to the Brennan Center. It's the legal equivalent of trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

As the urban legend goes, the orange toddler attacked his mother, Mary, it frightened her, and she appealed to her husband and the toddler's father, Fred. Fred, being the busy businessman he was - detained at a Klan rally in 1927 (though there's no evidence he was a supporter), and what would become family art - dodging paying his taxes and scurrilous connections with organized crime - sent his middle school toddler to Cornwall Military Academy in upstate New York, because rich, successful businessmen couldn't be bothered with things like setting boundaries for children. When "Todd" came back for, say, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or summer break, Mary and the girls made their way to Europe on holiday, away from the monster they were all culpable in creating by their neglect.

Mary Trump: Donald's upbringing forged his bullying and racism, Mark Gruenberg, People's World

Letitia James, NYS Attorney General, has charged the Trump Organization with fraudulent activities, lying when devaluing their property suited them and increasing the value when applying for loans. That makes wealth fungible, and I now declare by the power of positive thinking that I am worth a gazillion dollars. Two problems: (1) that's an expression, not a numerical measurement, (2) tell that to my bill collectors.

Meanwhile, "back at the ranch": Mango Mussolini's "mini me's" Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are literally kidnapping Venezuelan migrants and stunt-unloading them in Martha's Vineyard and Vice President Kamala Harris' residence. Also, the key to the cruelty is signing them up for immigration hearings while transporting them to states where the hearings are not taking place.

Abbott was on the Texas Supreme Court, the state Attorney General before ascending to the governor. DeSantis "built a wall" with his toddler son, and was a member of the Tea Party in Congress, again before getting the top gig.

18 U.S. Code 1201: “provides the legal definition of the federal crime of kidnapping: Whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise . . . when — the person is willfully transported in interstate or foreign commerce . . . shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or [for] life.”

Mini stable genius from Florida used funds to address migrants in Florida to ship them: from Texas. He through "Perla" even left brochures. The problem is, the program removes unauthorized aliens from Florida. Mini blockhead kidnapped authorized asylum seekers from Texas. Veritas after the scheme backfired, went dark.

Well, they're both lawyers. I hope they hire some good ones for when they inevitably get sued, and the court cases go to discovery.

I actually felt sorry for Sean Hannity for the first time in my life. I do admire the fact that he kept a straight face as Dumbo Gambino gave the "declassification by telepathy" defense. When grasping for straws, always go for the "Hillary Clinton emails" because even though after eleven hours of testimony in front of Congress, she didn't have anything to incriminate her, he knows his dwindling herd still hates her more than him.

The meme above is a perfect metaphor for the current place the United States and the world find themselves in: we're all suffering the throes of WGM: white grievance minstrelsy. Everything has to be seen through the lens of prince charming saving the damsel in distress. Hell, we can't even have a black mermaid without some snowflakes having an existential cow over a fictional character. The meme above is a perfect metaphor for the current place in the United States and everything that is coming to a head stems from a throwaway line from Saint Ronnie Reagan's first inaugural address: "Government isn't the solution, [the] government is the problem." So don't expect solutions from the side that repeats this like a positive mental attitude mantra at a multilevel marketing meeting. They've got an echo chamber that blames everything on immigrants, minorities, LGBT, women, and the only solution to the problems of the universe is tax cuts (not, as in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42). It's the clear, systematic execution of the Lewis Powell memo, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse noted it as well on his Senate page. We have colors because of the angle of incidence of ultraviolet light. We have races because of politics. Politics also defines in society who is valued, and who is chattel. Politics engineers society so that certain things reinforce themselves so they seem as if they've always been that way and always will be that way. So when someone upsets the apple cart, say, the first African American president in the nation's history, you get birtherism (Abbott sued the Obama administration on days ending in "Y"), the Tea Party (Ron's old turf), the Orwellian "Freedom Caucus" (I guess for every one white, heterosexual, and Christofascist).

They will deny it. They will attack. They will reverse the victim and offender. White evangelicals are textbook examples of DARVO and WGM. They feel persecuted because of their faith when in reality, they are turning people off because of the things they focus on. Instead of spreading the love of Christ, they are themselves driving the young from church due to their bigotry. 81% of them voted for an admitted sexual assaulter and an Olympic-level serial liar labels them as hypocrites. Young procreate if that's important, and churches whose median age matches that of a Fox Propaganda viewer or Russian citizen usually become empty buildings or museums.

Young people have other concerns: student loans for one. The volunteer military replaced the compulsory draft, and Saint Ronnie started gutting state funding for universities that used to be a lot cheaper than they are now, some free and didn't require predatory loans. Desperate young people sign up for the six branches of service - they may get a sign-on bonus, and a GI Bill they can use towards education later: if they don't die in conflict-enriching defense contractors, whose children will not shoulder the burden. This creates an artificial barrier to education that previously lifted low-income people out of poverty, not strapped them with crushing debt.

As his faux empire crumbles and he gets his legal comeuppance, the party he has in his grip loses elections (and is held accountable for anything approaching violence after losing), my hope is to hold the House and Senate this fall, and the presidency in 2024. Then on January 20, 2025, that will truly be a "New Pulse of Morning" (Dr. Maya Angelou, RIP). Maybe we will stop promoting toddlers to carry the nuclear football. Maybe we will have two functioning parties again instead of one. Maybe we will stop worshipping billionaires and oligarchs as "self-made" gods and recognize they used a mix of means legal and illegal to gain such wealth in a single lifetime. Maybe we will stop tribalizing and work together to solve now intractable problems as a human species. Maybe we will finally grow up.

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, History, Human Rights

"Obviously, there are issues with the border and with migration, but these are the kinds of stunts you see from people who don't have a solution,” Buttigieg said in an interview with journalist Evan Smith at the 2022 Texas Tribune Festival.

His comments drew applause from the audience.

“Governor DeSantis was in Congress. Where was he when they were debating immigration reform?” Buttigieg asks in the interview. “What have any of these people done to be part of the solution?

"So, you know, I get that if you're after attention...it's one thing to call attention to a problem when you have a course of action … it’s another thing to just call attention to a problem because the problem is actually more useful to you than the solution, and that helps you call attention to yourself. And that’s what’s going on,”

Buttigieg continued, “And the problem is, it’s one thing if it was just people being obnoxious, but human beings are being impacted by that. You flee a communist regime in Venezuela, you come here, and then somebody tricks you — somebody using Florida taxpayer money for some reason — tricks you into going from Texas to Massachusetts.

“It is not just ineffectual, it is hurting people in order to get attention.”

Watch Pete Buttigieg's Devastating Takedown of Fla.'s Ron DeSantis, Alex Cooper, The Advocate/Yahoo News

I watched the pained look on Desantis' face as he had to work for once in his career as Florida's governor and look serious. He couldn't troll the libs in Brandon, Florida to cheers that are both double entendre and vulgar dig at President Biden. It was probably as fun as sending Venezualian asylum seekers to Martha's Vinyard. The migrants and a Florida state senator filed lawsuits. But that doesn't matter to him. After "building the wall" with his toddler son, Mr. "Stunting Like His [fascist] Daddy" is more like him every day: more married to the performance of power than the responsibility of power. When DeSantis was in Congress, he voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy. Now he has to accept help from "Dark Brandon." I was in New York, so his vote affected me and my family, personally. Truly, "karma keeps receipts."

Stupid.

The second Adlai Stevenson was the Pete Buttigieg/Barack Obama of his day.

When Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson was running for president in the 1950s, a supporter purportedly said to him: "Every thinking person in America will be voting for you." Stevenson replied, "I'm afraid that won't do — I need a majority."

When President Donald Trump leaves office, there will still be millions of Americans who think that all Muslims are terrorists, Mexicans are taking over the country, and the government is planning to confiscate their guns. Most of us don't think that way, but we do need to vote.

A call to every thinking person, Tom Siebert, Montgomery, Chicago Tribune

Stevenson stopped Russian interference in the 1960 presidential election by not spreading the propaganda given to him. Back in the day, that's what normal politicians did when a foreign power tried to rig an election, not "I love it," or for that matter, use it.

Aileen Cannon, one presumes, went to college, and law school, passed the state bar, and she is a judge. But, because her client, the orange stain in the underwear of the nation, doesn't want to say his lies under oath, she's accommodating that wish. She's overruling the Special Master Stain Man and she wanted. Judge Dearie was appointed by Reagan.

Stupid.

Ginni Thomas, one presumes, went to college, and law school, passed the state bar, and she is a lawyer. She STILL believes the 2020 election was stolen. She told the January 6th committee this, and according to her text to Mark Meadows, she told her "best friend," presumably her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Stupid.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is the new Prime Minister of Italy and a member of the fascist party after the death of Mussolini. She is racist, a conspiracy theorist, so of course, American republicans love her. She isn't unintelligent:

She's stupid.

From the "awe, shucks" of a B-movie actor, a C-average student who needed the [then, and now] not-Supreme Court to 5-4 appoint him in 2000, usurping the popular vote, to a charlatan con artist pretending to be a business success on a non-reality TV show, we have put mediocrity on a pedestal, we have apotheosized stupidity. Collectively, society attacks academics, poets, artists, and scientists as "nerds," "pansies," "wimps," and lightweights. Yet they react to arts and song, they demand the latest gadget, not at all connecting the persons they torment, the groups they loathe and look down on as the source of things that either make their lives easier or give them beauty and meaning. Our news media practices "both sides-ism," and "what about-ism." It used to be flat earthers were those strange people with pamphlets: they have a website. We've democratized the Internet and put a halt on civics and critical thinking. The climate change effects now in Florida, previously in Jackson, Mississippi, can vanish with magical thinking, positive mental attitude mantras, jingoism, and sloganeering. I see why fascism has been, and for the foreseeable future, always will be a temptation: giving allegiance to so-called strongmen (or in Italy's case, a strongwoman) takes the burden of responsibility off the rest of us. We can binge on streaming videos, selective podcasts, and social media newsfeeds. We don't have to venture outside of our self-constructed siloes, since that's where we're the most comfortable.

Fascism is thus for lazy, gaslit people, and it's stupid.

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by the use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplishes anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Hey Moonies

We are excited to announce Project Moonlight, a brand new manga magazine featuring the dopest stories in the medium. Payback is the story of a superpowered mercenary group who find themselves outnumbered, outgunned, and outlawed as the government and other superpowered people aim for their heads. 

Haruka x akuraH is what happens when shonen and shojo have a supernatural high-powered baby full of love, loss, and discovering of one’s power. 

The magazine also features the return of Black Lotus Dragon a ninjafied tale of revenge in the old west and Outlaws a tale of family ties, personal duty, and mind-blowing superpowers.

Last but certainly not least we have Ken Bugul the story of the eponymous character who inherits an ancient curse sought after by the oppressive Zulu empire in which he lives. After crossing the threshold of the empire's borders he is on the run as he tries to make sense of what his new life means.  

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/conceptmoon/project-moonlight?ref=cxoa64

Cool stuff: the diagram shows how the temperature of the caloric material was measured. The plot in the center shows the temperature change in the sample when exposed to a magnetic field. The plot on the right shows the change in temperature when the sample is strained. (Courtesy: Peng Wu et al/Acta Materialia 237 118154)

Topics: Global Warming, Green Tech, Materials Science, Solid-State Physics, Thermodynamics

Researchers in China have shown that applying strain to a composite material using an electric field induces a large and reversible caloric effect. This novel way of enhancing the caloric effect without a magnetic field could open new avenues of solid-state cooling and lead to more energy-efficient and lighter refrigerators.

The International Institute of Refrigeration estimates that 20% of all electricity used globally is expended on vapor-compression refrigeration – which is the technology used in conventional refrigerators and air conditioners. What is more, the refrigerants used in these systems are powerful greenhouse gases that contribute significantly to global warming. As a result, scientists are trying to develop more environmentally friendly refrigeration systems.

Cooling systems can also be made from completely solid-state systems, but these cannot currently compete with vapor compression for most mainstream applications. Today, most commercial solid-state cooling systems use the Peltier effect, which is a thermoelectric process that suffers from high cost and low efficiency.

Solid-state cooling is achieved via electric field-induced strain, Hardepinder Singh, Physics World

If you are apart of the DISCORD platform, I am sure you have heard of MidJourney.com.

This is a robo app that claims to refernce 12 million images which are used to create a

variety of visual images in just about ANY STYLE or VERSION and looks like REALITY

you decide.  

Above is an example of one of the MidJourney TYPED visual elements. I typed

- Cyberpunk East African City. Neon lights BLADE Runner Style.

Afrofuturist cars and flying cars. Evening scene w-- 2500 h--1500 -

and this is what I got.

BELOW are a few more examples of this awesome app tech.... Enjoy

ABYSSINIA MEDIA GROUP MIDJOURNEY GALLERY

Researchers detected carbon dioxide in WASP-39b’s atmosphere when the exoplanet crossed in front of its star. The data plot shows a telltale blip where infrared wavelengths from the star’s light were absorbed by carbon dioxide on the exoplanet. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Topics: Astrophysics, Chemistry, ESA, Exoplanets, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope — already famous for its mesmerizing images of the cosmos — has done it again. The telescope has captured the first unambiguous evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the Solar System.

The finding not only provides tantalizing hints about how the exoplanet formed but is also a harbinger for what’s to come as Webb studies more and more alien worlds. It was reported in a manuscript posted on the preprint server arXiv¹, ahead of peer review, and is expected to be published in Nature in the coming days. (Nature’s news team is independent of its journals team.)

The discovery is presented in a data plot with none of the luster of Webb’s previous images — which showed galaxies locked in a cosmic dance and radiant clouds in a stellar nursery. But Jessie Christiansen, an astronomer at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, describes the data as “gorgeous”.

The plot, or spectrum, reveals detailed information about the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-39b, called a hot Jupiter by scientists because it has a diameter similar to Jupiter’s but orbits its star much more closely than Mercury orbits the Sun, making it incredibly hot. The planet, which is more than 200 parsecs from Earth, was initially discovered during ground-based observations² and later detected by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which operated between 2003 and 2020. Data from the latter suggested³ that WASP-39b’s atmosphere might contain carbon dioxide, but they were inconclusive.

Webb telescope spots CO2 on exoplanet for first time: what it means for finding alien life, Sharron Hall, Nature

Source: Holocaust Museum

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights

After my commission to the United States Air Force, I was at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, attached to Air Training Command, learning about Communications and Computer Systems. One of the things I would be introduced to is ARPANET, there, and at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas, which eventually became the Internet we know.

Leaving college I had a Secret Clearance. To get a Top Secret Clearance (communications were. and are in SCIFs - special compartmentalized information facilities). I had to fill out a long analog form of SF-86, and sit down with an agent from the Defense Investigative Service (I believe this is performed by another agency now).

For most of my classmates, the interview took 15 - 20 minutes. For me, the only African American in the classroom, it extended to TWO HOURS. Finally, the agent had enough:

Agent: Lieutenant, you're the only African American in your training class, and you're the only officer, from the Major down, who's said you've never used marijuana. WHY should I believe you?

Me: Because they came to my neighborhood to buy it, not thinking of the hell they left behind as they went back to their suburbs!

I never saw a man turn so beet red in my life. He was embarrassed and angry.

Agent: You KNOW we're going to interview at least FIVE of your neighbors!

Me: Do me a favor: interview ten. If any of them say I smoked weed, then you'll kick me out of the Air Force with a dishonorable discharge. Otherwise, you can ask me those canned questions for another two hours. You're going to get the same answers.

WHY was I so confident? One, I never did, not in my household. My father was a WWII veteran of the Navy, a heavy ship gunner, and, a ranked boxer. Smoke weed at your own peril! I didn't out of fear, respect, and love for my dad. He like a lot of black men went to fight Hitler's fascism only to encounter it at home. To the agent, I didn't "fit the stereotype."

I did find out he, or some agent, interviewed ten neighbors. I did receive a TS/SCI clearance.

The agent, though biased, was doing his job. It's from this I can say you just DON'T stumble and happenstance transport boxes of classified information to your living quarters.

Kevin McCarthy, the sad excuse of a "leader" for Republicans in the House, wants President Biden to apologize for calling MAGA Republicans "semi-fascists." I beg to differ: (1) the Red Hat Crew call THEMSELVES MAGA Republicans, (2) the Red Hat Crew wear t-shirts like "I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat," a version available on Amazon, and (3) my main critique is you can be no more semi-fascist anymore than any woman in America, who lost their rights to bodily autonomy, can be semi-pregnant. Joseph Robinette Biden is a creature of the Senate, and has fond memories of working across the aisle with "the gentleman from Kentucky," or "the gentleman from West Virginia." The term "gentle lady" would come much later, after slow, and painstaking change. The Senate was from its inception a club of white males. They were initially picked by their state governors so that they would if called to be jurors for, oh say, an impeachment, be impartial, and not beholden to the concerns of statewide elections. That was changed with the 17th Amendment.

This is pablum:

This is not a tweet: it's an electronic pacifier for a spoiled brat. He never received a belt, as would have been the punishment in my household, he never even received "time out." He is the byproduct of what privilege, wealth, and narcissism produces in a human.

Devin Nunes is the "CEO," the only qualification being a sycophant for a demagogue and having a famously hilarious Twitter spat with a fictional cow. Baby Huey owes $1.6 million for hosting fees, in the repeated mistake anyone with a New York Times online or newspaper subscription would tell you that this man never pays any bills! Male polar bears famously impregnate females in heat, then wander off because evolution hasn't given them parenting skills. Similarly, Donald has problems being a normal human. The real Twitter ended him after January 6, 2021, insurrection being the bridge too far for all the other policies he had violated since then. "Truth Social" is as Orwellian as he is insane. His main complaint is how the evidence was staged for the photo. It does not explain why he's the only ex-president that has classified files in his not-a-SCIF office at his public club/hotel.

He seems to not know, or not care that this is publicly available and can be used against him in a court proceeding, particularly if, as it looks like he's (going to be) indicted.

Jeff Teitrich's tweet: “any good lawyer would tell Trump to stop talking, but Trump doesn't have a good lawyer. Trump has a parking garage lawyer.”

He’s a spoiled brat and seems to have ZERO clue that everything he puts out on his failing social media platform becomes part of the public record, and, is open to legal discovery in court proceedings.

But Dumbo Gambino only has the parking garage lawyer.

What incenses me is, that we have these things called cell phones with cameras. The fake Rothchild sounds like a Russian agent. Inna Yashchyshyn, 33, probably wandered in where the documents were with her cell phone. In the 80s, we worried about documents leaving the SCIF physically. Now their images can be posted on a website for access by Guccifer 3.0.

I think he feigned disinterest in the Presidential Daily Briefings. I think he feigned hostility towards the intelligence community. You don't gather that many files willy-nilly on the last moments of January 20th. This was done over time, four years of meticulous, clandestine gathering. Maybe Devin Nunes had a hand in it? His closed-door meetings with Putin were instructional sessions on WHAT to steal, and where to put it so Inna could fake being a Rothchild and come down to Mar-a-Lardo to photograph it and upload it on Telegram.

This is espionage. It doesn't take James Bond or Maxwell Smart, but part of the usual thoroughness of the SF-86 process (Jared Kuschner, the noted exception), is to find weak spots an enemy can exploit. Trump is as self-centered as a polar bear, he doesn't pay his bills, he owes a lot of money, and he's the only presidential candidate in modern history refusing to show his taxes, steadfastly blocking them from a congressional inquiry. Having Michael Cohen sue his military academy, Fordham and U Penn were about vanity: his taxes, I think, would reveal points of leverage that Putin has cultivated for 40 years.

This is espionage. This is treason.

Credit: Tom Mannion

Topics: Additive Manufacturing, Biology, Biotechnology, Environment, Genetics, Nanotechnology

For Hermes, the Greek god of speed, these bacterial sneakers would have been just the ticket. Modern Synthesis co-founders Jen Keane, CEO, and Ben Reeve, CTO, are now setting out to make them available to mere mortals, raising a $4.1 million investment to scale up production. Keane, a graduate from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London, and synthetic biologist Reeve, then at Imperial College London, set up Modern Synthesis in 2020 to pursue ‘microbial weaving’.

Their goal is to produce a new class of material, a hybrid/composite that will replace animal- and petrochemical-made sneakers with a biodegradable, yet durable, alternative. The shoe's upper is made by bacteria that naturally produce nanocellulose—Komagataeibacter rhaeticus—and can be further genetically engineered to also self-dye by producing melanin for color.

The process begins with a two-dimensional yarn scaffold shaped by robotics, which the scientists submerge in a fermentation medium containing the cellulose-producing bacteria. The K. rhaeticus ‘weave’ the sneaker upper by depositing the biomaterial on the scaffold. Once the sheets emerge from their microbial baths, they are shaped on shoe lasts following traditional footwear techniques. “It’s more than the sum of its parts,” Reeves says of the biocomposite. “Initially the scaffold helps the bacteria grow, then the microbial yarn reinforces the material: it holds the scaffold together.” Once the shoe is made, it is sterilized and the bacteria are washed out.

Cellulose shoes made by bacteria, Lisa Melton, Nature Biotechnology

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Democracy, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights

"Maxwell Smart, a highly intellectual but bumbling spy working for the CONTROL agency, battles the evil forces of rival spy agency KAOS with the help of his competent partner Agent 99." Source: Internet Movie Database (1965 - 1970)

There were several spy genres on television as well as on the big screen. "I Spy" with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby were undercover agents posing as a tennis pro and coach. There was "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."; "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E."; "The Wild, Wild West"; "The Saint"; "Mission: Impossible"; and "The Avengers" to name a few. Sean Connery inhabited James Bond, S.P.E.C.T.R.E., like KAOS, a metaphor for the Soviet Union.

Speaking of Russia:

COINTELPRO The FBI began COINTELPRO—short for Counterintelligence Program—in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, it was expanded to include a number of other domestic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. All COINTELPRO operations ended in 1971. Although limited in scope (about two-tenths of one percent of the FBI’s workload over a 15-year period), COINTELPRO was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons. Source: vault.FBI.gov/COINTELPRO

We were balancing a world post-WWII and launched into a Cold War. We nearly annihilated the human species a year before the March on Washington, a year after I was born. We also had assassinations of significant leaders: Medgar Evers (June 12, 1963), President John F. Kennedy (November 22, 1963), Malcolm X (February 21, 1965), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4, 1968), and Robert F. Kennedy (June 6, 1968). So spy shows tried to give us escapist fantasies from an era with great music, but it was a decade soaked in blood and angst.

It seems I recall - my parents received two newspapers: the Winston-Salem Journal in the mornings (now the only paper) and the Winston-Salem Sentinal in the evening. If you were a business advertising, you had a higher price for the morning than the evening paper. The evening news consisted of local from 6:00 - 6:30 pm, and national from 6:30 - 7:00 pm. After that, you got the spy series, game shows, or comedy series. They seemed to receive a decent amount of information they felt they needed to be informed, citizens. They and society as a whole also seemed: calmer. Instead of 24 hours of programming on a plethora of channels, which we'll probably never view in a single human lifetime, the television went to a test pattern at midnight. There were a lot fewer insomniacs back then, and we had relief from the blood and angst - at least for brief respites.

The more we learn about the insidiousness that underlies social media in the new documentary "The Social Dilemma," the more it seems like the film is bringing a slingshot to a nuclear war. What we learn in this movie is that our brains are being manipulated and even rewired by algorithms that are designed to get our attention and make us buy things, including buying into distorted ideas about the world, ourselves, and each other.

"The Social Dilemma" is from Jeff Orlowski, who gave us the similarly terrifying "what are we doing to ourselves" documentaries "Chasing Coral" and "Chasing Ice." This one might as well be called "Chasing Us" as it asks fundamental and existential questions about whether we are literally writing (with code) ourselves out of the ability to make vital decisions about our own survival. Source: The Social Dilemma, Roger Ebert dot com

Part of what I remember from the documentary is emotion: anger engages us to click on a display, an ad, or fire off (what we think is) a witty missive in a comments section.

Monomers as metaphors

Monomers can bind with like molecules to form polymers in nature. The Internet has allowed us to combine with like-minded individuals at lightspeed over vast distances. Just because an extremist in North Carolina converses with an extremist in Norway, that they have found a "crew" in a chatroom, that they are vibing off each other, it doesn't mean that each of the other is "right." E.g.: Everyone in the fictional Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane thinks the citizens of Gotham are dumb schmucks and that Batman is a violent, vigilante psychopath (that last part might have a tinge of truth to it). That they would make the Penguin Mayor of Gotham and the Joker President also makes my point: a polymer of individual mental patients grouped together might give itself the name Qanon, and believe Secret Jewish Space Lasers cause fires in California.

Unlike Europe and the United States, Russia has a clear stance on Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s hope for the future is his Eurasian Union, to be established next January as a rival to the European Union. Belarusian and Kazakh strongmen are game to join his dictators’ club. But since the idea has little popular support anywhere, Eurasian integration can take place only in conditions of Russian domination and local dictatorship. For Mr. Putin, the Eurasian Union would be meaningless without Ukraine. Eurasian ideology is the brainchild of Alexander Dugin, who has never disguised his admiration of fascism. His website publishes Russian strategists who claim that Ukraine is not a sovereign state.

Don’t Let Putin Grab Ukraine, Timothy Snyder, NYT, February 3, 2014

I've read Alexander Dubin's name in Snyder's book, "The Road to Unfreedom." Referred to as "Putin's brain," he may have influenced the war in Ukraine. Two Medium writers, Nadin Brzezinski and B Kean have both suggested that Dugin planned and approved of the assassination of his daughter by the FSB. I'm almost expecting Dr. Evil.

This ain't really a life, ain't really a life, ain't really nothing but a movie. "B-Movie," Gil Scott-Heron, Genius Lyrics

So-called "strongmen" use KAOS/chaos as their toolbox. They're really not strong: Putin, Orban, Xi Jinping, Trump: the tendency towards authoritarianism shows individuals internally insecure with not having the final word or the solution to any problem. It's why Orban seized control of the media in Hungary: can't let those reporters say mean things about his ineptitude. Xi's response to Covid is probably worse than ours if he let his scientists speak to those in the west and share information (this secrecy births conspiracy theories whether they're true or not). Putin was best at turning individuals against their nations but by rank a Lieutenant Colonel and low-level bureaucrat. He seized power by a staged terrorist attack before the year 2000: he exploited Russians' fear and need for security: KAOS/chaos.

A world run by the weakest of men (it's always men) is a world on fire, a societal, psychotic episode, a saturation of 24/7/365 angst: KAOS/chaos.

I can only conclude now the model is KAOS/chaos without a balance of order/CONTROL.

Featured are reduced versions of the

First A.M.E. Church of Los Angeles Coloring Book Project.

Apart of one of my church's 2022 VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL Cumulation Activities

which was given on JULY 22, 2022.

Promoting the history of the founders of the A.M.E. Church,

but specifically created to also give visual notes about the

History of First A.M.E. Church of Los Angeles. Download quality versions of

this book from my website: abyssiniamedia.net

ENJOY!

Beetling along: Under the influence of moisture, the color of the 3D-printed beetle changes from green to red, and back again to red. (Courtesy: Bart van Overbeeke)

Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Biomimetics

Researchers in the Netherlands have produced models of a beetle that changes color and a scallop shell that opens and closes in response to changing humidity in the surrounding air. Inspired by iridescent structures in nature, Jeroen Sol and colleagues at the Eindhoven University of Technology showed that they could integrate a specialized liquid crystal into standard 3D-printing techniques, creating “4D printed” devices that react to their changing environments.

Over millions of years, many organisms have evolved micro-scale structures in their anatomies that allow them to change their vibrant iridescent colors in response to stimuli. Recently, researchers have developed inks that change color in the same way and have begun to experiment with incorporating them into 3D-printed structures.

This technology has been dubbed 4D printing, where the fourth dimension represents reversible, time-varying changes to the structures after printing. One widely used technique in 4D printing is to deposit ink directly onto 3D printed structures. This approach can accommodate many types of material, as well as a versatile range of printing temperatures, speeds, and path designs.

4D-printed material responds to environmental stimuli, Sam Jarman, Physics World

Credit: sakkmesterke/ Getty Images

Topics: Lasers, Modern Physics, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics

Physicists have devised a mind-bending error-correction technique that could dramatically boost the performance of quantum computers.

When the ancient Incas wanted to archive tax and census records, they used a device made up of a number of strings called a quipu, which encoded the data in knots. Fast-forward several hundred years, and physicists are on their way to developing a far more sophisticated modern equivalent. Their “quipu” is a new phase of matter created within a quantum computer, their strings are atoms, and the knots are generated by patterns of laser pulses that effectively open up [a] second dimension of time.

This isn’t quite as incomprehensible as it first appears. The new phase is one of many within a family of so-called topological phases, which were first identified in the 1980s. These materials display order not on the basis of how their constituents are arranged—like the regular spacing of atoms in a crystal—but on their dynamic motions and interactions. Creating a new topological phase—that is, a new “phase of matter”—is as simple as applying novel combinations of electromagnetic fields and laser pulses to bring order or “symmetry” to the motions and states of a substance’s atoms. Such symmetries can exist in time rather than space, for example in induced repetitive motions. Time symmetries can be difficult to see directly but can be revealed mathematically by imagining the real-world material as a lower-dimensional projection from a hypothetical higher-dimensional space, similar to how a two-dimensional hologram is a lower-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional object. In the case of this newly created phase, which manifests in a strand of ions (electrically charged atoms), its symmetries can be discerned by considering it as a material that exists in higher-dimensional reality with two-time dimensions.

“It is very exciting to see this unusual phase of matter realized in an actual experiment, especially because the mathematical description is based on a theoretical ‘extra’ time dimension,” says team member Philipp Dumitrescu, who was at the Flatiron Institute in New York City when the experiments were carried out. A paper describing the work was published in Nature on July 20.

Opening a portal to an extra time dimension—even just a theoretical one—sounds thrilling, but it was not the physicists’ original plan. “We were very much motivated to see what new types of phases could be created,” says study co-author Andrew Potter, a quantum physicist at the University of British Columbia. Only after envisioning their proposed new phase did the team members realize it could help protect data being processed in quantum computers from errors.

New Phase of Matter Opens Portal to Extra Time Dimension, Zeeya Merali, Scientific American

Image source: Dictionary dot com

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Politics

Originally from the entry: Apathy, Crisis, and Zappa (another blog I posted to before WordPress).

So what exactly is a constitutional crisis? We should be clear about what does — and, more importantly, does not — merit this description. It’s possible to have a major political crisis even if the Constitution is crystal clear on the remedy or to have a constitutional crisis that doesn’t ruffle many feathers.

Political and legal observers generally divide constitutional crises into four categories:

1. The Constitution doesn’t say what to do.

The U.S. Constitution is brief and vague. (Compare it to a state constitution sometime.) This vagueness has one major advantage: It makes an 18th-century document flexible enough to effectively serve a 21st-century society. But sometimes the Constitution leaves us without sorely needed instructions, such as when William Henry Harrison became the first president to die in office in 1841. At the time, it wasn't clear whether the vice president should fully assume the office or just safeguard the role until a new president could somehow be chosen. (It wasn't until 1967 that the 25th amendment officially settled the question.) When Vice President John Tyler took over, no one was sure if he was the real president or merely the acting president, nor was anyone certain what should happen next. Tyler asserted that he was, in fact, the new president, and since then, vice presidents who have had to step into service as chief executive have been treated as fully legitimate, but early confusion took its toll on the perceived legitimacy of Tyler’s presidency.

2. The Constitution’s meaning is in question.

Sometimes the Constitution’s attempt to address an issue is phrased in a way that could allow multiple interpretations, leaving experts disagreeing about what it means and making it difficult or impossible to address a pressing problem. In this way, both the Great Depression and the Civil War created constitutional crises. The problem sparked by the Civil War is obvious: The fight rested on a bunch of unsettled constitutional questions, the biggest of which was about slavery and the federal government’s ability to control it, a subject on which the Constitution was silent. And while the Constitution provided information on how a state could join the union, it didn't say whether one could leave it or how it would go about doing so. It obviously took a war to resolve this crisis.

3. The Constitution tells us what to do, but it’s not politically feasible.

This category of constitutional crisis can crop up when presidential elections produce contested and confusing results. In the 2000 presidential election, when George W. Bush and Al Gore were separated by just a few hundred votes in Florida, the tipping-point state whose electoral votes would determine the winner, the state’s election results remained contested for weeks due to a number of irregularities and a secretary of state who seemed determined to cut a recount short. In theory, the Constitution allowed for various solutions to this problem: Congress could have decided which of Florida’s electors to recognize, or Congress could have determined that neither candidate had achieved a majority in the Electoral College and let the House of Representatives decide on a president (per the process spelled out in the 12th Amendment). Such outcomes, while certainly constitutional, would have been politically infeasible, creating a significant legitimacy crisis for the new president.

4. Institutions themselves fail.

The Constitution’s system of checks and balances sets the various branches against each other for the laudable purpose of constraining tyranny. However, due to partisan polarization, individual corruption, or any number of other reasons, sometimes the political institutions in these arrangements fail, sending the governmental system into a crisis. This was the type of constitutional crisis commentators were seemingly referring to in describing reports that Customs and Border Protection agents (members of the executive branch) weren't following orders from the judicial branch.

Five Thirty-Eight blog: The 4 Main Types of Constitutional Crises, Julia Azari and Seth Masket

Secret Service Jan 6 text erased despite Congress' request

Jan. 6 texts missing for Trump Homeland Security secretary and deputy

Occam's razor: a scientific and philosophical rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities Merriam-Webster

So, what do we call this?

Too many people who know that you're supposed to keep official records (Secret Service, Homeland Security) aren't keeping official records.

The GOP had CPAC in Vicktor Urban's authoritarian country (he's apparently not a big fan of diversity, and by extension, neither is the GOP).

Homeland Security: a lot of angst about the name came up post 9/11 because it sounded so - "Nazi." This is, sadly, when Alex Jones gained a lot of traction. He popularized "9/11 truthers" before he saw where his depraved bread was buttered with Sandy Hook, lying about dead children, and anything else he could glom onto for a fast buck that I hope he's finally being separated from his exchequer. It's like the chips all fell in place for the Joker to take over Arkham, and Batman is TDY across the universe with the Justice League.

Dumbo Gambino lied to 9/11 victims about going after the Saudis (15 of the 19 highjackers) to their faces in the height of their grief and loss. That hasn't stopped the sociopath from hosting the LIV golf tournament at his Bedminster course, because that would take something he has ZERO in his emotional fuel tank: empathy. It's all about money and protecting those who he thinks will give him boatloads more.

Malcolm Nance's new book: "They Want to Kill Americans" couldn't be starker. The Introduction had me up past midnight! He's gone back to Ukraine to help them win the war. I sometimes think it's safer than America right now.

Orange Satan didn't do this by himself. He had a lot of complicit help that doesn't mind turning our high-sounding Constitution into toilet paper (for flushing). He just saw where the wind was blowing after the country elected its first and so far, only black president, and lost its collective mind!

Coup. Insurrection. Insurgency. They're all words. We went from Obama's tan suit and Michelle Obama's bared arms controversies to the Grand Pooh-Bah storming the Capitol to save us from whatever addles their loose minds. For the record: the 1995 Million Man March was a peaceful exercise of the First Amendment that resulted in no Capital Police Officers' deaths, storming of the Capital, the display of an insurrectionist flag, Grand Pooh-Bahs howling at the moon, or the deposit of urine and feces.

The only option Malcolm gives in interviews about his book is to vote. Vote in record numbers every election. Vote for the proverbial dog catcher. Nothing is trivial. Fascism is a fungus on the body politic. You can't give it any room to grow, otherwise, we'll have a January 6 in 50 state Capitols. Dysfunction equals dystopia, not democracy or civilization.

Maybe we're not calling it a constitutional crisis because four decades of dumbing down a previously "informed citizenry" has led to the dichotomy of proletariat drones carrying "smart phones."

Also from the previous blog post:

"One of the things taken out of the curriculum was civics," Zappa went on to explain. "Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the Sixties, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government – nobody knows what's in it...And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what's in the document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?"

"Notes From the Dangerous Kitchen," a review and a quote from Frank Zappa, Critics at Large

A few months before January 6, someone was flushing it.

The design concept of BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor. BWX Technologies

Topics: Applied Physics, Alternate Energy, Climate Change, Nuclear Power

According to the US Energy Information Administration, the US uses a mixture of 60.8% fossil fuel sources to generate 2,504 billion kilowatt hours of energy. Our nuclear expenditure is a paltry 18.9%. The totality of renewable sources (wind, hydropower, solar, biomass, and geothermal) is a little higher: 20.1%. This is the crux of the "Green New Deal."

Though I long for the cleaner, neater version of nuclear power in fusion, it's kind of hard to mimic the pressures and magnetic fields necessary to spark essentially a mini sun on the planet. I think the resistance to nuclear fission is cultural: from the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita at the first successful testing, a classic "what have we done" trope. Popular fiction emphasizes doomsday scenarios and radioactive zombies. Honorable mention: Space 1999, which like zombies I doubt could ever happen, but it kept my attention in my youth. There are also genuine concerns about Chernobyl (still in Ukraine), Three-Mile Island, and Fukushima Daichi that come to the public's mind.

The reason the percentages on fossil fuels are so high is that they release extreme amounts of energy to superheat water for turbines to turn magnets superfast in copper coils. That is how most of the electricity we consume is made.

France currently generates 70% of its energy from nuclear power plants, with plans to reduce this to 50% as they mix in renewables. This is proportional to the percentage the US already has in renewables. My only caveat is an obsolescence plan for solar panels (they have to be implanted with caustic impurities to MAKE them conductive, and after twenty years, could end up in a landfill near humans). Battery-operated vehicles are fine, but Lithium has to be mined, it requires a lot of water, typically the indigenous peoples near the mines don't make a profit, and their land and resources are spoiled.

If we truly are going to transition from fossil fuels to "cleaner energy," I think we should realize that power plant designs have improved greatly since the aforementioned disasters.

As an engineer, I always tried to follow this edict from my father: "Experience isn't the best teacher: other people's experiences are the best teacher." In short, learn from others' mistakes, and try to not repeat them. It works in other nontechnical areas of life as well.

I (fingers crossed) assume nuclear power plant design engineers follow something similar to improve on future designs for safety, and as we've been exposed to with the war in Ukraine, global energy security.

I'm proposing an "everything on the table strategy," not Pollyanna. By the way, our "carbon footprint" appears to be a boondoggle by the industries that caused our current malaise.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program commonly referred to as ARDP, is designed to help our domestic nuclear industry demonstrate its advanced reactor designs on accelerated timelines. This will ultimately help us build a competitive portfolio of new U.S. reactors that offer significant improvements over today’s technology.

The advanced reactors selected for risk-reduction awards are an excellent representation of the diverse designs currently under development in the United States. They range from advanced light-water-cooled small modular reactors to new designs that use molten salts and high-temperature gases to flexibly operate at even higher temperatures and lower pressures.

All of them have the potential to compete globally once deployed. They will offer consumers more access to a reliable, clean power source that can be depended on in the near future to flexibly generate electricity, drive industrial processes, and even provide potable drinking water to communities in water-scarce locations.

5 Advanced Reactor Designs to Watch in 2030, Alice Caponiti, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Reactor Fleet and Advanced Reactor Deployment, Office of Nuclear Energy

Projected temperature change for mid-century (left) and end-of-century (right) in the United States under higher (top) and lower (bottom) emissions scenarios. The brackets on the thermometers represent the likely range of model projections, though lower or higher outcomes are possible. Source: USGCRP (2009)

Topics: Climate Change, Environment, Existentialism

The heat index in Jefferson County reached 105 degrees by noon Monday — and it’s only getting hotter.

More than 50 million Americans face scorching temperatures as a heatwave spreads over most of the country this week. Louisville could see heat indices as high as 115 degrees, putting many residents at risk of heat illnesses.

Every year, more than 600 people die from extreme heat. Dizziness, muscle cramps, and vomiting are telltale signs it’s time to cool down, according to Zach Harris, medical director of emergency services at Norton Hospital.

“If you’re so hot that you start to not feel good, that’s the right time to go inside or find some shade or some way to cool down,” Harris said.

Older adults, young children, and people with chronic illnesses are most at risk, but even healthy adults can experience heat-related illness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cooling centers are open to help Louisville residents beat the heat, Michael J. Collins, 89.3 WFPL

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - The death toll from the devastating flooding in eastern Kentucky continues to rise.

Eastern Kentucky flood relief: Ways you can donate

Governor Andy Beshear confirmed Monday evening that the death toll has risen to at least 37. The governor says refrigerator trucks are serving as mobile morgues to hold bodies as they are flown to the medical examiner’s office in Frankfort.

4 siblings among dead in Kentucky flooding

Beshear says the number of missing is in the hundreds. He says Search and rescue crews are still running into areas where it’s difficult to get to.

Beshear says the flooding death toll has risen to at least 37, WKYT New Staff

Future temperature changes

We have already observed global warming over the last several decades. Future temperatures are expected to change further. Climate models project the following key temperature-related changes.

Key global projections

Increases in average global temperatures are expected to be within the range of 0.5°F to 8.6°F by 2100, with a likely increase of at least 2.7°F for all scenarios except the one representing the most aggressive mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Except under the most aggressive mitigation scenario studied, the global average temperature is expected to warm at least twice as much in the next 100 years as it has during the last 100 years.

Ground-level air temperatures are expected to continue to warm more rapidly over land than in oceans.

Some parts of the world are projected to see larger temperature increases than the global average.

Maybe like, Kentucky?

Future of Climate Change, EPA.gov

Fig. 1. SARS-CoV-2 N is expressed on the surface of live cells early during infection.
(A) Maximum intensity projections of laser confocal microscopy z-stack images of infected Vero cells with wt SARS-CoV-2 (top) or SARS-CoV-2_eGFP, stained live at 24 hpi (MOI = 1). Scale bars, 20 μm. Images are representative of at least three independent experiments with similar results. DAPI, 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole. (B) Flow cytometry analyses of Vero cells inoculated with wt (top) or eGFP-expressing (bottom) SARS-CoV-2 (MOI = 1), stained live at 24 hpi against SARS-CoV-2 S and N proteins. Representative dot plots of flow cytometry analyses showing double staining of surface S, N, and eGFP proteins, indicating the percentage of the gated cell population for each quadrant of the double staining. Data are representative of at least three independent experiments, each performed with triplicate samples. (C and D) Time course of surface S, N, and eGFP protein expression in live infected Vero cells with wt (C) and eGFP reporter (D) SARS-CoV-2 at 8 and 12 hpi (MOI = 1). Representative histogram overlays of surface S, N, and intracellular eGFP proteins of flow cytometry analyses. Data are representative of one experiment of at least two independent experiments performed in triplicate.

Topics: Biology, COVID-19, Research

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (N) induces strong antibody (Ab) and T cell responses. Although considered to be localized in the cytosol, we readily detect N on the surface of live cells. N released by SARS-CoV-2–infected cells or N-expressing transfected cells binds to neighboring cells by electrostatic high-affinity binding to heparan sulfate and heparin, but not other sulfated glycosaminoglycans. N binds with high affinity to 11 human chemokines, including CXCL12β, whose chemotaxis of leukocytes is inhibited by N from SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, and MERS-CoV. Anti-N Abs bound to the surface of N-expressing cells activate Fc receptor-expressing cells. Our findings indicate that cell surface N manipulates innate immunity by sequestering chemokines and can be targeted by Fc-expressing innate immune cells. This, in combination with its conserved antigenicity among human CoVs, advances its candidacy for vaccines that induce cross-reactive B and T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 variants and other human CoVs, including novel zoonotic strains.

Cell surface SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein modulates innate and adaptive immunity, Alberto Domingo Lopez-Munoz, Ivan Kosik, Jaroslav Holly, Jonathan W. Yewdell, Science Advances

Searches for alien civilizations often involve listening for radio transmissions from distant stars, but the possible extraterrestrial origins of UFOs have some scientists looking closer to home. Credit: Luc Novovitch/Alamy Stock Photo

Topics: Astrophysics, NASA, SETI

I was startled, to say the least, that this story appears in Scientific American, and that NASA and theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb is interested in it. The nut job "giggle factor" has given way to curiosity about things humans cannot explain, and that bothers us as a species.

My concern is if the question "are we alone?" has the answer "we are not," the next question is "why Earth?" What if the answer is "because we're someone's territory," and they regard Homo Sapiens (the only race we truly are) as a bipedal herd? That gives for the pilots of UAPs (if any found) humanity the same regard as we give a frog on a dissecting table.

On June 9, with only a few hours' notice, NASA held a press conference to announce a study it was commissioning on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). The acronym is a rebranding of what is more popularly known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, a topic usually associated with purported extraterrestrial visitations and government conspiracy theories. The question on the public’s mind was why one of the U.S.’s premier scientific agencies was getting involved in something often considered to be at the farthest fringes of respectability.

Yet the pronouncement also fit in with the suddenly more open-minded zeitgeist regarding UAPs. Last year saw the publication of a much-anticipated report on the Department of Defense’s own investigations into the subject, following the release of first-person accounts and video from U.S. fighter pilots claiming to show encounters with strange objects in the skies. High-profile coverage in mainstream media and open congressional hearings about UAPs have kept the matter circulating in the public realm. A month after the Pentagon’s report came out, theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb, former chair of Harvard University’s astronomy department, announced a private initiative called the Galileo Project, which is aimed at searching for potential evidence of alien technology here on Earth.

What NASA can bring to this discussion is as yet unclear. The agency has set aside a slim $100,000 for the nine-month study—less than the typical funding it provides for exploratory studies of unconventional technologies such as space telescopes with kilometer-scale mirrors or interstellar probes propelled by giant laser beams. Helmed by the well-respected Princeton University astrophysicist David Spergel, the investigation intends to identify existing and future data sets scientists could use to advance their understanding of UAPs. Even if it uncovers little of interest, the study’s existence suggests that something the agency once avoided talking about at all costs is on the cusp of becoming an appropriate topic of inquiry.

With New Study, NASA Seeks the Science behind UFOs, Adam Mann, Scientific American