Beak shape reveals secrets of nest material selection in birds Interesting Engineering
How ‘Jurassic Park’ Is Becoming a Reality Thirty Years Later Rolling Stone
These cities are ending fares on transit. Here’s why. CNN
The heat is on for multifamily, office real estate investors The Real Deal
Climate/Environment
AMERICA IS WRAPPED IN MILES OF TOXIC LEAD CABLES Wall Street Journal
The Second Age of Smoke George Dillard, Medium
‘Russian roulette’ for Great Barrier Reef as El Nino heats up coral-bleaching risk The Age
Nauru prepares to mine deep seas in big climate controversy Al Jazeera. More accurately, Canadian firm, The Metals Company, prepares to mine offshore of Nauru.
Nauru: Why Australia is funding an empty detention centre BBC
Water
#COVID-19
CDC: We are back to our pre-Covid levels of food-related grossness. Inside Medicine
Migrant workers in Asia approach pre-pandemic levels Nikkei Asia
Old Blighty
The Lucky Country
Robodebt: Illegal Australian welfare hunt drove people to despair BBC
Japan
Beijing to ban certain foods from Japan over wastewater release plans Al Mayadeen
27% of nursing homes in Japan face bankruptcy due to soaring prices: Survey Anadolu Agency
Real Wages fall for 14th straight month amid inflation troubles Asahi Shimbun
Superpowers lock horns ahead of Bangladesh election Press Xpress
China?
China’s most desperate migrant workers jostle for temporary jobs – losing means they sleep outside and stop eating South China Morning Post
China needs its consumers to consume, workers to work Asia Times
Yellen ends China trip with ‘productive’ talks; challenges in bilateral ties persist: experts Global Times. The view from China.
European Disunion
Solar Ambitions Phenomenal World
Germany ‘needs 1.5 million new immigrants per year’ Unherd. “Olaf Scholz claims only new arrivals can save the country’s pension system.”
New Not-So-Cold War
Biden deems idea of Ukraine NATO membership as ‘premature’ Politico
Fearful Germany preparing to block Ukraine’s Nato membership bid The Telegraph
Macron blocks NATO outpost in Japan amid Chinese complaints Politico
The shrinking violets aren’t coping with today’s intervention from former Australian PM Paul Keating. He makes 4 main claims: (1) Europe has been at war with itself on and off for most of the last 300 years. (2) NATO is part of this European heritage of conflict. … 🧵 pic.twitter.com/cHfKOlA6Bc
— Warwick Powell | 鲍韶山 (@baoshaoshan) July 9, 2023
Indecision Haunts the West: Events on the Ukraine Front Sends It Reeling Alistair Crooke, Al Mayadeen
***
Attack on Smolensk NPP may be retaliated by strike on nuke facilities in Europe – Medvedev TASS
Russia says it shot down Ukrainian missile near key bridge to Crimea AP
***
What a Negotiated Settlement to the Ukraine War Could Look Like Antiwar. (KW): “For too many reasons, there is not a chance at all of this being workable.”
Biden’s top 5 broken promises on US engagement in Ukraine Human Events
‼️ In an interview with Turkish media, Azov commander reveals that the surrender of the Azov Regiment at Azovstal last year was arranged between the US and Russia in exchange for the withdrawal of several “high-ranking US officers” from the facility.https://t.co/QHksVSjrOj pic.twitter.com/NC0UpMVC99
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) July 9, 2023
***
Austria’s OMV to continue to import Russian gas, chief says FT
Sweden still not ready for NATO, Erdoğan tells Biden Politico. Erdogan said he wants EU leaders to show support for Turkiye’s full membership to the EU.
Syraqistan
ISIS leader killed in US raid in Syria, CENTCOM says Al Mayadeen
***
IDF Used Kamikaze Drones in Jenin Operation Jewish Press
The narcissism that blinds Israelis to Jenin’s oppression 972 Magazine
How the Mossad finally crossed Turkiye’s red lines The Cradle
2024
Dems’ mission to stop a third-party presidential bid hits the Hill Politico
David Axelrod says Cornel West poses potential electoral threat to Biden re-election Washington Times
“West, Williamson, or RFK”: The return of Warnieism Carl Beijer
DeSantis’s stumbles have GOP mulling other Trump alternatives The Hill
Trump
Trump’s Campaign Is Already Shaping Global Affairs Bloomberg
Democrats en déshabillé
Canceling student debt is the new “I’m gonna codify Roe.” https://t.co/hpWhZBo7Ed
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) July 9, 2023
AI
AI Environmental Equity: “It’s Not Easy Being Green” The Markup
Healthcare
Employers are increasingly suing their health plan for claims data Becker’s Hospital Review
Police State Watch
Fleeing War, Killed in America: Crime Wave Brutalizes Working Class Refugees and Migrants Lee Fang
D.C. VIOLATES ADA BY SENDING POLICE TO MENTAL HEALTH CRISES: ACLU The Appeal
Digital Watch
Origin Stories: Plantations, Computers, and Industrial Control Logic(s)
Let the Platforms Burn Cory Doctorow
Imperial Collapse Watch
$850 Billion Chicken Comes Home to Roost Andrew Cockburn, Spoils of War
U.S. sanctions regime is paradoxically hastening the end of Western economic hegemony Modern Diplomacy
Our Famously Free Press
The appalling media campaign to bow to government censors Jonathan Turley, Fox News
Class Warfare
The Interplay of Mass Incarceration and Poverty Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy
Overworked and unable to quit: Delivery drivers in Brazil found something worse than gig work Rest of World
PLAN HALMAHERA: INDUSTRIAL URBANISM, RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES, REPLACEABLE BODIES Law and Political Economy Project
The Narrative™️ cannot fail. It can only be failed. https://t.co/Pdg0OMJ5yp pic.twitter.com/94BDtVqo8p
— Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov) July 9, 2023
Libertarian Squillionaire Titanic Submersible Darwin Award Winner
Titan sub only reached the depth of the Titanic on 13 out of 90 dives, says the waiver OceanGate passengers had to sign Business Insider
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
93 comments
Comments are closed.
Re: Cornell West’s candidacy
Does anyone think this is more than just a typical academic left protest thing?
Over and over again he’s pulled back from saying that the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans on many issues, and not much better on some others. Which, if you were serious about beating both parties, you would have to acknowledge, right?
I was only 12 for the 1968 presidential election but I still remember George Wallace’s 3rd party campaign slogan: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference….”
I was in Portland OR in the summer of 1968 working a summer job at Nabisco and went with a friend to an anti-Wallace demonstration then went to boo him when he spoke at the Coliseum. They placed all us protesters in the same section and had a Wallace cheerleader out front of us who, when Wallace spoke some racist remark or other anti-left spiel, would jump up and down and scream at us to yell at Wallace for the cameras. It was my first introduction to mass manipulative politics.
Haven’t seen the word “gaslighting” used much lately, but this is the perfect time for it.
Early analysis of political races is almost entirely gaslighting. No one knows but of all the folks who don’t know, the worst of them are the ones who talk about third parties as if November is the only part of the election cycle that matters.
This far out, EVERY candidate running on the left subtracts from Biden. Unless you support Biden, subtraction is good. Subtraction removes Biden from the race.
Saying that there are too many candidates is a bizarre form of sheepdogging while the sheep are still in the barn. I cannot stretch my brain far enough (and it’s plenty flexible) to see any comparison between the 2020 Obama-rigged D primary and the current situation with one [1] Democratic challenger to Biden and two independent candidates, neither of whom even remotely have their act together.
Now I keep seeing Twitter rhapsodizing about a West-Turner ticker. Two multi-degreed academics, one of whom has political experience. Neither has ever held a real, non-academic job. That’s the ticket?
and don’t forget the “Super Delegates” of the dem party primary – democracy at work – can’t have pesky progressives messing things up – pathetic – like S. Carolina going first or, yes, the obuma rigged primary –
Kunstler’s been spinning his wheels of late, so much mud to get through it’s hard to focus but today he lays down a marker: this is the summer of Biden’s undoing.
The walls are closing in and reasonable people are waking up to the frightening reality that they’ve been lied to on a massive scale. I think Kunstler’s right this time (he is a bit of a doomsayer but doom delayed is not doom denied : (
Mark is quite right. In addition, I must say that, after watching a long, challenging, interview with RFKjr I am indeed impressed with him. As a person, he presents as very well informed, honest and articulate and with seeming utter sincerity expresses values of a high order. But above all, he is most forcefully opposing the Ukraine atrocity, the Intelligence, Medical, and Pharmaceutical establishments, and the entirely bipartisan assaults on free speech. His foreign policy attitudes are shaped by his uncle’s “American University” speech on the need for frienship and cooperation with Russia–and specifically advocating the same peaceful orientation toward “China.” Perhaps most important, he is unafraid to speak the truth about the assassination of his uncle and its still-ongoing coverup, in terms never yet used by a national politician.
True, he praises capitalism in general, but how can any socialist hold that against him when the vast majority of self-styled “Socialists” are anti-socialist in their political practice with many of them actually praising the state-capitalist police regimes of “Russia” and “China” as representing “Socialism” and glorifying the “Global South” with its pervasive military regimes and comprador corruption.
Without doubt, RFK would be the winner of any free election. With virtually equal certainty, there will be no such election here in the USA. Already RFK is subject to a near-monolithic Demoncrudic media campaign of lies, slander, and villification. And if that doesn’t work, back to the 1963-1968 playbook!
I’m in general agreement with you. I wish RFKjr had more of Bernie’s compassion and sense of social justice, but I’ll settle for his foreign policy and anti-CIA positions, at least in the primary. And I think he has a good chance of forcing Biden out of the race, much as Eugene McCarthy’s primary bid in 1968 forced LBJ out.
This comment perfectly illustrates the desperate love of error that makes Americans such useless noise sources. When will we stop playing around in people’s emotional sky estates and start talking about putting actual chickens in EVERY pot? When will we start to defenestrate these gaggles of middle-class idjits wasting everyone’s time with their casuistic melodrama, rather than gracing their performances with the dignity of completion?
“putting actual chickens in EVERY pot”
You may have missed the memo. It’s now a Tesla in every garage and worm stew in every pot.
It’s what’s for dinner.
I have been seeing that meatless meat “food” being sold at Trader Joes. What is wrong with real meat? If it is bad for the environment, I am sure that we could go back to the types of herding that we had been using with farming for thousands of year. The encourage people to be much more sparing in their use of it. But no. We are having campaigns for fake frankenfoods.
The changes needed would not be that hard, produce better quality food, and likely be used to improve the environment, but they would be less profitable, which means it ain’t happening.
“Does anyone think this is more than just a typical academic left protest thing?” Hmm. I do. Your query is not synonymous with, say “Does anyone think Cornel West have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming president?”, to which the obvious answer is no. Consider these quotes from a Politico interview from Friday, titled “Cornel West wants to keep on pushing”. From the introduction.
“After supporting former President Barack Obama in 2008, West called him a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface” right after his victory in 2012 and has continued to criticize the 44th president since. For the last two campaign cycles, West was a prominent surrogate of Sanders in the Democratic primary, often introducing him at campaign events. In 2016 he endorsed Stein in the general election, and in 2020 he backed President Joe Biden, arguing he supported a “mediocre, milquetoast neoliberal centrist because he’s better than fascism, and a fascist catastrophe is worse than a neoliberal disaster.”
Today, West is back to arguing that we can no longer afford either one. “By refusing to speak to the needs of the poor and working people, the Democratic Party helps to facilitate and enable the Trumps and the DeSantises and others,” he says.”
More, this directly from West.
“By refusing to speak to the needs of the poor and working people, the Democratic Party helps to facilitate and enable the Trumps and the DeSantises and others. So, you end up with neo-fascism being in some ways dependent on neoliberalism and vice versa. That cycle, going around and around, means that we’re going to end up with fascism sooner or later. Every Democratic administration will just be a caretaker and a postponement for fascism to come. I am profoundly anti-fascist, and therefore I am trying to get at the roots of fascism.”
That should suffice as acknowledgement.
Cornel West wants to keep on pushing
Agree that West is more serious about this. Whether he has a chance of winning seems secondary, as voting for West is voting for the possibility of a third party candidate while voting for the duoparty is clearly a vote for the status quo.
As much as I appreciate his candidacy, I wish he would tone down the constant invocations of “fascism”. I guess the f-word in politics is what really freaks out liberals, but it begins to sound like unhinged TDS. I believe Lambert has walked through Paxton’s analysis of fascism several times, at least, and the US is lacking the necessary conditions. We are not living in the 1930s and Trump is not leading a movement of brown shirts.
Agreed. Trump campaigned as a fascist in 2016 but his administration was mostly the same neoliberal evil + some performative xenophobia + doing more for the poor than any president since at least the 1970s (Medicaid, evictions, cash handouts and much more) through policies that Biden then ended. If you call Trump a fascist, poor and working people are justified in thinking that fascism means helping them.
Ha … reminds me of a tweet I saw yesterday about the election case in Arizona that has been moved from Maricopa county to Puma county. The author of the tweet then made this declarative statement –
“That appellate court covers Pima County which means the most Marxist part of the state will be hearing our case.” – Kari Lake
My paws could not help themselves, even though I don’t respond in Twitter 99.9% of my readings. I asked if Pima County comrades were talking about class issues and ownership of productivity of ones labour, if not, they would not be Marxists.
Response is at the top of the thread and yet to receive any reply ….
On Rumble, “Marxist” = anything regarded by the speaker as evil. A while back, I heard one Rumble right-wing preacher call Peter Thiel a Marxist.
Lmmao …. not long ago they were all boot lickers [tm] and now since that reality did not turn out as they prophetized its a complete 180 degree whip around – ow my neck …
Would pay good money to see this preacher take on Thiel in a debate as the absurdity of it all would be epic.
“Russia says it shot down Ukrainian missile near key bridge to Crimea”
Two Ukrainian S-200 missiles were destroyed by Russian air defenses in their attack on Crimea and two other S-200s targeting Rostov and Kaluga regions were destroyed as well. In some ways, this is starting to resemble the V-1 “buzz bomb” campaign by Germany near the end of the war that too had little military use but was great propaganda as a “vengeance” weapon. What is noteworthy is that after a year of denying any responsibility for the truck-bombing of the Kersh bridge, the Ukrainians are now boasting about about that bombing as an accomplishment of theirs. Normally governments do not want to be associated with terrorist attacks but hey, whatever.
So you have a success rate, if one dare call it such, of 13 / 90. One does not need an AP course to figure how very poor them odds appear to be. In baseball terms, batting ~ .160 means you are hopefully a pitcher where these statistics don’t matter or you’re on the bus back to Durham with Crash Davis.
I ain’t signing no waiver for them odds. Still a pitiable ending for the passengers on the Titan, well except for the CEO who earned his watery grave ( yes this sounds awful and mean, but there it is ).
A note about the pressure of the water where the Titanic lies-
‘The wreck sits in the dark bathypelagic, or midnight, zone, at a spot 12,400 feet below the ocean’s surface. The pressure around the famous sunken ship is about 375 atmospheres. That means every square inch of an object’s surface experiences the equivalent of 5,500 pounds of force.’
Somehow the idea of going down in an experimental craft with lots of shortcuts taken, built of questionable material choices, with no inspection or certification and no backup systems to an environment of 5,000 pounds of force every square inch does not seem wise somehow. The CEO did it his way through the banality of hubris but his passengers? They all of them had the money to do a bit of discreet research on the safety issue but either did not do it or ignored the risks.
The thing went down almost a hundred tmes, so proven track record of “success”. What are the chances of it failing on the next dive is the operating principle.
Astounding that someone went up in Bezos rocket not too long previously and then died in the deep above the Titanic. Pushing limits has it’s price. What is the value?
Adrenaline junkies?
“Not consulting the PMC is hubris.” Is that the new sermon going around the PMC churches now? There is no PMC morality tale to be drawn from the Titan disaster, though that has never stopped them from trying.
Since the development of these deep dive rigs and subs for exploration and military use is pretty well worn by now, it is in my mind, a curious case – the term ***experimental*** it seems is a term of art for ***cheap*** cobbled together bits and pieces without rigorous documented testing [ITP] and the high paying passengers are both funders for the wing it ITP and ballast at the same time.
I sacrificed myself by reading the Schoelhammer article about Germany have a need for 1.5 immigrants a year. Obviously, Scholz doesn’t know what he is talking about, but Schoelhammer, who has a job awaiting him as Josh Hawley’s office manager, I’m sure, doesn’t know what he’s talking about either:
This last is Schoelhammer trying to sum up, after an article in which none of the statistics seem reliable. There are 180,000 emigrés a year? For a rate of 5.1 percent (of a population of 80 million, which would give us 4 million emigrés a year)?
Just how did the Germans get that reputation for being cool and rational?
Gained it mostly in the mid- to late 19th century, which was a while back.
> Just how did the Germans get that reputation for being cool and rational?
Well, it’s more like those positive affirmations, you know.
That quote about “German Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg ” is so stupid it hurts.
All of these kinds stories take the exceptions of the immigrant story and make them the rule.
Everybody should have their kids in other countries and then have them come back later.
The terrifying rise of ‘debanking’ Spiked
I wonder how many of these banks have been involved in money laundering for mafia, drug cartels, etc. or fixed interest rates…or ripped off customers etc.
all of ’em!
And I’ll bet the CIA and or MI6 were the co-signers on many of those “Entrepreneurial Pharmaceutical Import Company” interim business loans.
To paraphrase Balzac; “Behind every Great Empire there lies a Great Crime.”
This is nothing new as one’s class also determines what services that they get. Now it is people with social connections and even some money that are being denied.
May I remind people that millions of Americans are already unbanked with many more considered underbanked. Then there are the many more paying numerous fees and charges when a basic checking and savings account used to be free or so cheap as to not matter.
I can even point that much like food deserts, there are banking deserts with either no banks or banks deliberately staffed with the dregs of the business’ employees offering hellacious services and products to go with that. With the increasing wealth inequality, it is going to get worse.
(Grocery stores and other businesses do crapify the store/office in poor areas and make fabulous those in wealthy areas on a sliding scale. Same name and ostensibly the same products, but completely different otherwise.)
We see this clearly here in the North American Deep South.
We have two WalMarts in the region. They are about five miles apart. The one near us, closer to the old centre of the city is known locally as the “Ghetto WalMart.” It is smaller and stocks less than the other WalMart which is out west nearer to the white flight suburbs and the exurbs. That outlet is simply known as the “WalMart.” It stocks more high end items and has a larger and better quality of produce grocery department. Additionally, the inner ring suburbs have more Dollar Stores and, ta da, Cheque Cashing and Payday Advance storefronts.
As I observed a few months ago, our recently bought out local bank is starting to close branch offices, mainly, really, exclusively, in the poorer parts of town.
Dystopian Wasteland, here we come!
I think as deposits are a liability on a banks balance sheets and low income sorts don’t present much fee extraction or potential for in-house investment vehicles they will increasingly leave that market share to the Cheque Cashing and Payday Advance storefronts or force them onto digital banking via phones.
No assets, low income, downward mobile, et al, really does not interest the forward looking MBAs looking to project future income streams mate.
Those forward looking MBAs are one of the reasons for the low assets, low income, downwardly mobile sheep as using even the now almost universally overpriced banking services is still cheaper than check cashing.
Fricking vultures.
“Beijing to ban certain foods from Japan over wastewater release plans”
I was watching on the news Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) give a green light for the Japanese to go ahead and dump this waste into the Pacific Ocean in spite of the vocal objections from neighbouring countries. And then I reflected that this was the same character that could never quite work out where all those artillery shells were coming from that were striking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. With this in mind, I would give a complete miss to any seafood coming from Japan or being imported from there and being rebranded as local.
https://www.fijitimes.com/iaea-chief-grossi-hints-at-discord-among-fukushima-report-experts-2/
Is it just me, or do we live in an age where every organization is led by essentially compradors?
Completely missing from the public space is the honest man/woman who takes their own integrity and life mission seriously.
This. Sadly.
Because the g-men has gotten too good at ferreting out those early and distract them from getting involved.
Follow the North Pacific ocean currents. They carry the bulk of the discharges from the northern Japanese islands across the ocean to the West Coast of North America.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pacific_Gyre
I’ll predict that soon, with this, all the seafood from the North Pacific ocean will be unfit for consumption. [Hint; Much of the “content” for commercially produced ‘fish based products’ in the stores includes North Pacific items. Big crab legs will definitely be “glow in the dark” soon.]
You won’t hear about it from government sources. When Fukushima blew in 2011 and the plumes of radioactivity went towards north America, the US government started shutting down radioactivity monitoring stations so as not to embarrass the Japanese with high readings. That would be on Obama that.
I remember that. To the discharge into the ocean, where else is that water going to end up? How much has already made its way? How can any permit required risk assessment not end up here?
We put a monitor on the roof and could clearly see the level rise to several times higher than normal background over a week as the plume made its first circuit.
Probably also covering for General Electric.
>>>character that could never quite work out where all those artillery shells were coming from that were striking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Silly me, I thought the geometry to figure out where artillery shells came from, aside from all the radar tracking that is now available, has been in existence since the 17th Century and all modern artillery has preprinted firing tables on everyone on everyone’s artillery. I assume that any experienced veteran, never mind an artillerist, could just eyeball the size and landings of the explosions would be able to reasonable guesstimate from where the shells were being fired.
Yes, yes, I get that this is all BS, and I only know about artillery from book learning, meaning that I almost certainly underestimate how easy it is to find out where the shells are coming from, but the idea that they couldn’t figure out where shells were coming from especially from a prolonged bombardment in a fixed frontline is not only stupid, it is really insulting.
> Origin Stories: Plantations, Computers, and Industrial Control
>> they sought alternatives to enslaved Black labor—particularly the question of how to control white industrial workers who persistently rebelled against industrialization
The transition from black to white in “the energy product of the day” being currently relevant as intellectual products are being turned over to AI.
Lest we forget: The Black Belt.
And the thing everyone is really scared about is slaves, or rather their computers, learning to read. Therefore the coordinated propaganda push for why Computation is Bad, here painted in kente colors.
Meanwhile, if that Ukr ‘thing’ doesn’t work out there’s always Iran… again.
Mike Pence and Liz Truss among VIPs who speak at Iranian dissident rally despite pressure from Tehran
https://news.yahoo.com/mike-pence-liz-truss-among-203603321.html
And a more detailed guest list :
Mike Pence, Other Prominent Hawks Back Regime Change in Iran at MEK Rally
https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/mike-pence-other-prominent-hawks-backs-regime-change-in-iran-at-mek-rally-in-paris/
These second rate people always want to attack some country or another and to have regime change. The suggestion has even been made to invade Mexico over the drug problem. But you bet that the Pentagon are paying attention to other things such as this-
https://www.iranwatch.org/our-publications/weapon-program-background-report/table-irans-missile-arsenal
And here is the sort of people that we would be doing it on behalf of-
https://twitter.com/JayTharappel/status/1573865335383478272
I recall reading that MEK was one of the early contributors to the Spanish far right party Vox. Does anyone know if they still are?
I notice Twitter still locks me out through my bookmarks, but I get limited access through NC links – I can read the top tweet and its attachments: any insights?
I get the same results. I can now see twts that others post here, but I can’t go directly to twtr and read twts. I don’t have a twtr account. That might be the reason.
Same here.
You are using a private browser window, right?
Did you create any lists that you bookmarked? I used my Sports list to get onto the site while I was banned for knowing more about Ukraine than the Biden administration.
No access to my followers or people I’m following other than search but it was better than nothing.
Maybe Musk has been listening too much to Josep Borrell so wants Twitter to be his own personal “garden” and to keep out the “jungle” of comments to be found on the internet.
Heh, heh. Probably Musk wants twitter as his own personal money tree. I believe the obstacles to access are to prevent third party data scraping. How effective this is I have no idea.
In theory, it forces scrapers to buy an access token and submit to metering.
On the other hand, the collateral(?) suppression of NAFO’s reach is a small favor.
Seems Nitter is back up and running.
https://nitter.net/about
Hmmm, how do solar ambitions align with the ‘dimming the sun’ project? Inquiring minds…. / ;)
I think the idea is to block about 2% of solar radiation. So 2% reduction in solar energy?
Perhaps this excerpt from Henry Moon Pie’s link immediately below can go some way to answering your question:
8. Less sun for solar power. Scientists estimate that as little as a 1.8 percent reduction in incoming solar radiation would compensate for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Even this small reduction would significantly affect the radiation available for solar power systems–one of the prime alternate methods of generating clean energy–as the response of different solar power systems to total available sunlight is not linear. This is especially true for some of the most efficiently designed systems that reflect or focus direct solar radiation on one location for direct heating. Following the Mount Pinatubo eruption and the 1982 eruption of El Chichon in Mexico, scientists observed a direct solar radiation decrease of 25–35 percent.
The relevant quote: “…the response of different solar power systems to total available sunlight is not linear.”
Concentrated solar projects use mirrors to heat a single concentration tower. Photovoltaic systems (PV) are diffuse collectors of sunshine.
While reducing insolation affects both, it affects concentrated solar systems more. The more immediate concern is not particulate matter (dust) in the upper atmosphere, but dust collecting on the mirrors and PV panels directly. Maintenance.
There have been experiments that have quantified the effects, but they are behind paywalls.
20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May Be a Bad Idea
You’d think that with Gates and Harvard gung-ho about the wildly risky Hail Mary of shooting sulfur in the sky every two years that at least Big Oil’s useful idiots still denying climate change (“don’t believe your lying eyes as they tear up from the smoke from the boreal forest burning up”) would finally give it up. But no, they’re still carrying water for Exxon and Shell. I’m wasting my morning trying to argue with them over at MoA. Fool’s errand, I know.
My 50th college reunion is coming up. I’ve already submitted a call for volunteers from my class to form a committee to write an open letter opposing Harvard’s geoengineering project. I’ve been promised that it will go out with the monthly class email in September. We’ll see.
Bill has a few billion $ invested in big oil and fossil fuels. Maybe he’s trying to protect his investment with his ‘dim sun’ idea? “Watch what they do, not what they say.” / ;)
an aside: interesting utube, ~1 hr., RFKjr interviews Dane Wigington from the GeoEnginering Watch organization. RFKjr pushes back on a few things. I used to think this was nutso stuff until I saw the same flight patterns and exhaust trails that did not evaporate in the air as they used to years ago, but instead hung in the air and spread out like slowly drooping meringues that join up to form a ‘blanket’. I’ve now seen this pattern several times. Anyway, still not sure what to make of it, but I don’t think claims by GeoEnginering Watch are completely nutso ideas anymore. / my 2 cents
US Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dane Wigington: Is Climate Engineering Real?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqSkbHKSnjI
The commentariat at MoA is notably rife with climate denialism, a feature that I don’t understand.
Moon’s host is ex-military, likewise much of the commentariat. If you think about the environment while serving in the military your head will blow up (cognitive dissonance). Like people who love animals but have no trouble eating meat.
I’m sure that’s part of it. MoA is also what I’d call a contrarian site, as is NC for that matter. Contrarians can get a little lost in overthinking conspiracies to the point they’re caught up in reverse conspiracies. Part of the problem is that we contrarians are highly skeptical of the “fixes” enacted by the elites, and that skepticism spreads to the problem itself. Yes, the vaccines were a BS solution for Covid, but Covid was real. Yes, electric cars are a BS solution for climate change, but climate change is real.
And at MoA, there’s often a competition for who can be the most skeptical. The threads about Prigozhin were pretty wild.
The barflies do get a little excited sometimes, but b’s posts are very good and many of the comments are excellent.
I find that pretty much everybody that I read has at least one demonstrably insane belief.
It doesn’t bother me anymore. I wonder what my demonstrably insane belief must be…..?
Mine used to be that the Chiefs would win a second Super Bowl after fifty years of frustration.
So you never know…
RE: ending fares on transit
It’s a great idea – public transportation should be a public service at no cost like schools, fire dept, etc. Our city hasn’t gone completely free yet, but they did reduce fares from $2 to $1. Buddy of mine who drove for Lyft in Seattle for a while noted that the cheap subsidized by dumb money fares he had to deal with made getting a door to door ride almost as cheap or cheaper than taking the bus. If the Saudis can subsidize private transportation in the US, the US government ought to be able to subsidize public transportation.
The article notes however that “some experts” claim there are better ways to increase ridership, such as “congestion pricing”. Is that you, Travis Kalanick? Someone needs to nuke that idea from orbit, right along with all the illegal operators like Uber and Lyft.
Solidarity, people!
NYC is facing both a fare increase and congestion pricing.
For anyone following along, the Bloomberg administration actively screwed with traffic in midtown and downtown. (While both DeBlasio and Adams have kept it up, Bloomberg set up the strategy.) Between pedestrian plazas that with one exception have hardly any pedestrians to badly designed bike lanes* implemented where other options were available, north/south traffic congestion in Manhattan got massively worse. Crosstown manipulation was less obvious. Although an utterly ridiculous attempt was nipped in the bud when a 34th Street redesign was killed. It was one of the rare times I have seen business and residents work together to take down a city plan, it was that bad.
They have had to move the area for the congestion pricing from below 96th Street to below 60th. And Jersey is still fighting it. Still it looks like an up to $23 dollar charge for daring to drive in the city is finally nigh. (I may have missed it but it appears that all the carve outs for area residents, low income, and small businesses all entail paying the fee and getting credits after the fact. A situation where some to most will never see the credit.)
*they got rid of a lane of traffic. The bike lane was put between the curb and the former traffic lane which was now parking. God forbid they lose a lane of parking to a bike lane and install some concrete barriers between the cars and the bikes.
Indeed. The sprawling Hudson Yards probably deserves a mention here.
“Sweden still not ready for NATO, Erdoğan tells Biden”
Can you imagine if Erdogan said that he will sign Sweden’s entry into NATO – just as soon as he has Turkiye enter the EU? Turkiye has waited for over thirty years to get entry into the EU so can afford to wait a little bit more. But how long can Sweden wait? If Erdogan was smart, he would agree to some sort of free trade agreement with the EU instead as he certainly does not want the albatross of actual EU membership hung around Turkiye’s neck. That organization may be on the way out.
With Germany and Italy de-industrialized, the EU will not be in a position to dispense the largess that makes membership so popular. The agricultural subsidies are particularly important to southern countries. They will go away or be greatly reduced. The other initiatives such as infrastructure, ¨green¨ energy and such will wither away. These funds are the stick that Ursala and her crowd uses to beat the reluctant members into line when they stray from the program. From what I read, the EU has gone through their seven (?) year budget in two years.
Ukraine: another game-changing weapon, but with some added twists (crowd-funded, locally-produced, and more).
Ukraine’s Wild Hornet drones offer fast, furtive, cheap, and effective strike capacities: report
As has repeatedly been the case in its nearly year and a half defense against Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has filled gaps – and created new opportunities for itself – within the array of commercial drones it has deployed by producing inexpensive yet highly effective UAVs, most recently with the remarkably potent Wild Hornets now being flown.
…
“At a distance of five kilometers, it’s very hard for a mortar to hit a narrow trench line to target enemy personnel,” a Ukraine military unit commander identified as Mykhailo told the Kyiv Post in story. “With an FPV drone, we can guide the munition precisely to the target almost until the final second. It’s many times cheaper and more effective than a mortar. The comparison isn’t even close. I won’t even compare it to heavy artillery… If we use the Wild Hornet to drop a munition, we can use it 10 or 15 times. This means the cost of a strike goes down even more by several times, and that’s why it’s a very good weapon.”
https://dronedj.com/2023/07/10/ukraines-wild-hornet-drones-offer-fast-furtive-cheap-and-effective-strike-capacities-report/
Coming soon to an “unapproved” public meeting near you!
“Slaughterbots,” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg&pp=ygUWc2xhdWdodGVyYm90cyB0ZWQgdGFsaw%3D%3D, already in the milproduction pipeline in many places. https://www.wired.com/story/pentagon-inches-toward-letting-ai-control-weapons/
Never been a weapon that hasn’t been used, and the Great Nations are not about to sideline these when any little podunk country or group can deploy these kinds of End Of Everything We (don’t actually) Hold Dear devices.
Based on video evidence, Russia’s well ahead on this and mass producing FPV drones which usually have an RPG round strapped to them. There are now a lot of videos of Russian FPV strikes, including chasing down moving vehicles and entering trench fortifications.
“Robodebt: Illegal Australian welfare hunt drove people to despair’
It should be restated that this was all Scotty from Marketing’s doing as he was the Minister in charge then. He bullied and threatened people that tried to tell him that not only was the scheme totally unnecessary but was illegal as hell. He pushed it through, it caused chaos across the country and now there is talk of criminal charges for everybody involved in this scheme. Probably not Scotty as people like him always get to walk away and right now he is hunkering down and ignoring calls to resign. I guess once a thug, always a thug.
Let’s be fair, Rev Kev – it wasn’t Scotty’s fault:
https://theshovel.com.au/2023/07/07/jenny-to-blame-for-robodebt-morrison-says
the politico thing on Move on and no labels teaming up(lol) to oppose the democratic process.
so much for “Our Democracy”(tm).
and no mention of West, RFK,jr or that Indian guy(who may be an actual repub?…so hard to keep track of all the wannabes).
and still…”No Debates Allowed”(tm)?!
isn’t that rather “Authoritarian”(tm)?
you know, like Russia?
that so many of Team Blue that I eavesdrop upon see nothing at all amiss in all this…let alone in the least bit controversial or contradictory…is staggering.
but i suppose it’s of a piece…I’ve been wandering in Pro-Ukronazi twitter of late(read: Democrats)…and the whole mess is laughable in its idiocy.
and the “Nafo” thing?
Jeez!
(btw, what’s “nafo” stand for?)
It stands for – wait for it – the North Atlantic Fella Organization. Here is an article talking about who they actually are-
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/10/29/nafo-troll-nazi-ukraine/
The Indian guy has signs up around here now, noticed them this morning on way in. They say “Truth.” on top and then “Vivek” underneath that. I’ll try to get a photo if the rain ever stops and send it in. And Nikki Haley was at Alpha Delta(Animal House) this weekend, just a few houses up the street. Surprised any of them have come to Hanover/Leb-it’s hardcore vote blue no matter who.
In The Second Age of Smoke, Dillard seems to suggest that industrial fine-particle pollution is chiefly an urban issue. But remote siting, tall stacks and ambient pollution standards helped create dirty air masses that span vast areas and move with major weather systems. When in the early sixties, pilots and others asked the Weather Bureau (now NWS) to report the obscuration as “smoke,” rather than as “haze,” the Bureau simply changed its definitions in 1967 so that smoke may “transition” to haze when it moves 25 to 100 miles or more. Partly because the NWS reports industrial pollution as “haze,” most of us now perceive it as natural.
“AMERICA IS WRAPPED IN MILES OF TOXIC LEAD CABLES Wall Street Journal”
Translation: Remember all that copper you bought for us when we were AT&T? Well, we’re going to rip it out of the ground, monetize it as scrap, and call it a patriotic favor.
japans wage drop is a warning shot that those that think we just need industrial policy and medicare for all will simply cure the carnage from free trade. better re-evaluate.
even a country like japan prospered under protectionism, they could feed themselves, and feed asia when bill clintons Thailand rice crops failed. bill clinton was constantly after japan to drop its agriculture protections and subsidies and open its agriculture market.
> The terrifying rise of ‘debanking’ Spiked
No surprise there. If the pearl clutchers back in the day had gone for the banks rather than than the courts, Playboy would not exist today.
First they got card companies to pressure Pornhub and like. Then they employed the same tactic to independent journalists and outlets. The latest escalation came with Canada freezing bank accounts of protesters. And now this.
Keep an eye on North Korea. Adversaries are starting to smell US weakness & may well start to test US resolve in more physical forms. Any conflict between China & US will more likely be the result of China coming to the aid of North Korea than over Taiwan. This puts China on the geopolitical ‘moral’ high ground, keeps Japan out of any fight (South Korea won’t allow Japan to enter), and with a severely weakened US presence in Asia making reunification of Taiwan a voluntary & mutually agreed process.
> AI Environmental Equity: “It’s Not Easy Being Green” The Markup
We are at the point where we need moar data centers just to figure out how to solve the problem of too many power and water sucking data centers and how to suck equally from all.
Data center power and water prices should be triple retail instead of peanuts because they are a volume user. That might slow em down.
>The Interplay of Mass Incarceration and Poverty Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy
And along those lines:https://wclawr.org/index.php/wclr/article/view/98
Innocence Mortality Tax: The Impact of Wrongful Conviction on Lifespan