The man that would be king in Ukraine, Arsen Avakov, resigns his power.

From left, (click here) Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, acting Prosecutor General of Ukraine Oleh Makhnitskyi and Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko hold a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine, on Thursday. 

Arsen Avakov is not a Putin Pundit. As a matter of fact, he appears to be a Putin watcher to the extent he is able to understand the Russian dictator's next move. Former Internal Prime Minister Arsen Avakov (click here) openly accused exiled former president Yanukovych for the deaths of peaceful protesters.

Ukraine's special police (click here) were behind the killings of dozens of anti-government protesters in Kiev in February, a government inquiry says.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters that 12 members of the Berkut police had been identified as snipers and arrested.

He presented what he said was new evidence from the shootings on 18-20 February, when 76 people were killed.

Months of mass protests led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.

More than 100 people - including police officers - are now known to have died in Ukraine since the unrest began in November over Mr Yanukovych's last-minute rejection of a landmark deal with the European Union in favour with closer Russian ties....

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov (click here) says the whole world has been convinced that the Putin regime is a dangerous anomaly on the other side of civilizational values, therefore the Russian leader will hit on brakes brake or raise the stakes once more pressure is imposed on Russia....

Speaking (click here) exclusively to the Daily Beast, Ukraine’s interior minister says revolutionaries must accept the internal battle is over and help to face down Russia.

The change of government in Ukraine in 2019 (click here) has boosted the political position of Arsen Avakov, the longest-serving interior minister in the history of independent Ukraine (he has been in five consecutive governments since February 2014). He was the only member of Volodymyr Hroysman’s cabinet to remain in office following Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s presidential victory. Zelenskiy came to power demanding that the political class should be renewed and the ‘old politicians’ removed, among other things. According to some Ukrainian politicians and media outlets, Avakov is an essential and highly influential politician, a guarantor of internal stability and a possible candidate for prime minister. Over the last six years, the interior minister has built up a strong position for himself in the internal security sector (for example, he supervises the National Police and the National Guard) and has successfully neutralised attempts by other politicians to limit his power. Moreover, any talk of his dismissal is frequently viewed as a threat to the country’s stability. Avakov has a big media presence and positions himself as an experienced official, a statesman and a guardian of justice and order above the divisions that run along party lines. While maintaining control of the Interior Ministry agencies, he has become politically independent and has built up an exceptionally strong position for himself. However, it seems that his media image as an omnipotent and increasingly influential politician does not correspond completely to his actual status. His attempts so far to extend his influence beyond the Interior Ministry (in politics in general, as well as in numerous institutions of the judiciary) have had less impressive results than he had expected. Alongside this, Avakov is among Ukraine’s least popular politicians; he has no political party base, no sufficient funds and no media assets that could enable him to have any effective influence on the work of the government and parliament.

A businessman turned minister: what is Avakov’s background?

Avakov is a typical representative of his generation, an individual who started his business career in the perestroika period and then made a smooth transition to politics in a newly created state....

Trump supporters as well as those that organized and particpated in January 6th plot against the USA Constitution...

...have the same if not the very same personality disorders that Trump exhibits including Toxic Narcissism. This reality check to this Trump Die Hard probably won't change his point of view. He would have to admit he acted wrongly against the USA Constitution. He won't.

Let me make this clear. The events of January 6th had a very clear definition besides the "Big Lie." The organizers and participants had one very, very clear goal, to stop the process of seating a freely elected President. There is no doubt in that. That was the goal and they were successful in that they delayed and traumatized the freely elected government officials, including the highest levels of Congressional leadership and their families visiting that day.

That is an act against the USA Constitution. I don't care if there were other ideas floating around as to the reason or outcome, there was a common thread that ran between all that day, STOP THE SEATING OF A FREELY ELECTED USA PRESIDENT.

That is treason. Treason is often confined to military movements. Well, there was plenty of that by Trump during his 4 years including his first day at work and the arrival of Russians to the Oval Office. January 6th action was to end the authority of the USA Constitution. If that doesn't affect the status of our military, then I don't know what does.

July 2, 2021
By Marshall Cohen

A Trump-appointed federal judge (click here) on Friday rejected claims from a US Capitol riot defendant that he had been "selectively charged" because he is a supporter of former President Donald Trump.

Federal Judge Trevor McFadden shot down that accusation and upheld the criminal charges against Couy Griffin, a county commissioner from New Mexico who founded the "Cowboys for Trump" group and was featured in a recent CNN documentary about the January 6 insurrection.

The judge also rejected Griffin's technical arguments about the federal trespassing statutes that the Justice Department used to prosecute him and hundreds of other riot suspects. The ruling could influence other judges who are considering similar challenges regarding the trespassing law....

I agree with the New York Times, we need to perfect this capacity throughout our hospital systems.

July 12, 2021
By Sheri Fink

The latest miracle machine (click here) in modern medicine — whose use has skyrocketed in recent years — is saving people from the brink of death: adults whose lungs have been ravaged by the flu; a trucker who was trapped underwater in a crash; a man whose heart had stopped working for an astonishing seven hours....

During a surge of coronavirus cases (click here) at Houston Methodist Hospital last summer, a patient in his 40s on a ventilator was declining. There was one more option, a last-resort treatment that can mechanically substitute for badly damaged lungs.

But that day, the slots designated for the intensive treatment, called ECMO, were filled. One patient, a man a decade older, had been receiving the therapy for over a month. Doctors had concluded he had almost no chance of recovery, and had recommended several times stopping the treatment, but his relatives were not ready to let him go.

“We have to push some more,” said Dr. Sarah Beshay, a critical care physician, because the younger patient “needs a chance too.”

That afternoon, she called the older man’s daughter, who had not been allowed to visit because of Covid restrictions. Explaining that the therapy was in scarce supply, the physician said, “It’s a matter of using the available resources in the wisest way possible.”...

Remember this? Vaping? It is still a problem. ECMO maintained the lives of young people while they awaited a lung transplant. This technology and it's use is vital to maintaining lives that are attacked by lung disease. This miracle machine is not an excuse for incompetent government or exploitive commercial ventures.

June 29, 2021

By Drs, Norbert Herzog and David Niesel

Vaping Lung (click here)

In 2019, a national poll (click here) revealed that 8 percent of people in the United States had used a vaping product in the previous week.

Some argue that vaping is a safe alternative to tobacco products, but the safety is still being determined. A recent study reported that a third of people who vape experience symptoms of damage to lungs or the respiratory tract.

EVALI, or electronic cigarette- or vaping-associated lung injury, includes symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, diarrhea and sometimes fever or chills. Some have reported symptoms after only a few days, and for others, they appear after weeks of vaping.

E-cigarettes also are called vapes, e-hookahs, vape pens, tank systems, mods and electronic nicotine delivery systems. They’re battery-powered devices that heat a liquid to produce an aerosol that’s inhaled. The vaping liquid can contain nicotine or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of marijuana, flavorings and other additives.

In a recent study, 1,400 people who vaped were asked to list the devices and products they used and report any symptoms they experienced. More than half of them had one or more symptoms, and one-third reported EVALI symptoms, especially cough or nausea. People who used refillable devices or cartridges and people who used flavored liquids had a higher likelihood of showing symptoms....

It is time to change the lens in which we see Cuban leadership.

The USA media is not covering the changes in government-tilt as much as it used to. Whatever happened to the International Herald Tribune? Every day on Page 2 and 3 was a bird's eye view of other countries, other people, and their relationship to The West. I miss that. 

Cuba at one time had a representative constitutional government like the USA. Then came the revolution and Castro came into power and communism was instilled. Cuba has mostly affiliated itself with Russia, previously it was the USSR. 90 miles from the shore of the USA was a communist state closely allied with Russia or at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the USSR.

My understanding is that Cuba has returned a new government order that includes a Prime Minister and President. This is at least a rolling back of communism in the way leadership is established. The people voted for the current president of Cuba, President Miguel Díaz-Canel. The demonstrations in the past few days may be a resurgence of a democracy that was plowed under a long time ago.

President Diaz-Canel was elected and even Raul Castro seemed to like the decision of the Cuban people. I think it is time the USA State Department reassesses Cuba and it's new path. It might be a burgeoning democracy again that will be once again plowed under because the USA didn't take interest.

Part of the problem is that when President Obama attempted to reengage Cuba with embassy staff, the staff was bombarded by Chinese radio waves that caused damage to the human body. That type of hostile action is an act of war. I am quite sure the Geneva Conventions provide for criminal definitions of such aggressive technology that assaults and degrades the health of the human body.

That said, the USA only in March 2021 defined better the understanding the USA Department of Defenses has of the electromagnetic spectrum (click here).

We know for a fact the presidency and administration of Trump disassembled decades of USA policy that worked effectively for the peaceful national defense we as Americans have enjoyed for decades if not centuries. That type of domestic stability is not a toy of democracy, it is the spine of this democracy. The USA was known globally as a peaceful power that propagated democracy as a sound principle for governance. That definition has to return to a global understanding once again.

I think it is time the USA takes a look at the rapid descent of democratic principles lost during the Trump years. Near border wars have never been part of the USA national security, yet here we are with Haiti bordering on communism and Cuba being unrecognized for the people's desire for a return of the old ways.

Neither of these countries need chaos as governance, neither does Venezuela. I trust President Joe Biden. I think he needs to take an honest look at the borders near the USA and make decisions to secure the Western Hemisphere once again.

Does anyone know who Cuba faired in the global pandemic? Or Haiti for that matter? 

10 April 2018
By Geoff Thale and Teresa Garcia Castro

Cuba's new president (click here) Miguel Diaz-Canel, left, and former president Raul Castro, salutes, after Diaz-Canel was elected as the island nation's new president, at the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, April 19, 2018. Castro left the presidency after 12 years in office when the National Assembly approved Diaz-Canel's nomination as the candidate for the top government position. 

On February 24, Cubans (click here) went to the polls to vote on the ratification of a new constitution, one that makes significant changes to the country’s political, social, and economic order. This was the first time in 43 years that the Cuban people had the opportunity to express either support or opposition to a proposal that fundamentally restructures aspects of the Cuban economy and political system.

According to the Cuban electoral commission, voter turnout reached 84 percent (slightly higher than in Cuba’s last election cycle in April 2018), with 87 percent of the votes in favor. The size of the vote suggests that, whatever misgivings or frustrations Cubans had with the new Constitutional proposal, they saw it as a step in the right direction.

The new Cuban Constitution retains language that proclaims the Communist Party’s guiding role in Cuban society and socialism as being irreversible. At the same time, the document includes several major changes to Cuba’s traditional economic and political model. Additionally, the drafting process that yielded the final text that was approved in the February 24 referendum involved a citizen consultation process that was relatively inclusive and even resulted in changes to the final document, an important indication that the Cuban government’s gradual process of reform is continuing....

The failed state that is now Venezuela started with the collapse of oil prices and hunger. The USA can do something about hunger.

July 12, 2021

By Oscar Lopez and Ernesto Londono

Hospitals and pharmacies (click here) have run out of medicines as basic as penicillin and aspirin. Blackouts have become maddeningly frequent and agonizingly long. Cubans lucky enough to have foreign currency wait in line for hours for staples like beans and rice.

A searing economic decline, leading to hardships Cubans have rarely seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union devastated their country in the 1990s, has stirred the island’s largest protest movement in decades, eliciting a chorus of support from American politicians and angry threats from Cuba’s government.

“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom,” President Biden said in a statement on Monday, citing what he called “decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”

His comments followed an astonishing wave of demonstrations on Sunday, when thousands took to the streets around the nation, shouting phrases like “freedom” and “Homeland and life,” a twist on the governing Communist Party’s motto: “Homeland or death.”...

"Good Night, Moon"

Waxing crescent

2.0 day old moon

4.5 percent lit

Visit, but do not, develop the moon. It is in balance with Earth as a satellite. Visit the moon and then take the development ideas to Mars or interstellar space. Leave the moon alone!

July 6, 2021
By David A. Taylor

Scientists (click here) have long tested solar energy in space, but it may soon arrive on the Moon — in the form of rovers equipped with solar panels. On unmanned moon missions, these petite robotic vehicles will test the limits of how humans power their explorations, navigate the moon’s surface, and create potential human habitats far from home.

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander will carry the solar-powered CubeRover onto the moon's surface.

When is NASA going to stop naming their vehicles after my dead dog, Rover?

The team behind them include Mike Provenzano, director of planetary mobility for Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic. Under a NASA contract, the robotics company has scheduled unmanned missions to the Moon with the rover in tow for the next year. The first mission, Peregrine 1, is slated for late 2021.

These journeys will represent a significant space milestone: They will mark the first U.S. visit to the Moon in 50 years....

The death of the Beaufort Gyre will ultimately happen if it hasn't begun already.

The warm tropic water mentioned here is the Gulf Stream. If the Gulf Stream ends it's travels up the east coast of the USA that will cause enormous changes in the water temperature along with all the fisheries that count on it, including the Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is an entire ecosystem that will be lost if the temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean change.

Arctic Ocean Circulation (click here)

...Another concern among scientists (click here) is that melting sea-ice is affecting a major ocean current in the Arctic - the Beaufort Gyre.

Freshwater is less dense than salty seawater. The researchers said a sudden influx of freshwater from the Arctic Ocean into the northern Atlantic Ocean could alter the strength of the current.

This is because the force pushing water down the eastern coast of continental North America will be reduced, resulting in a smaller volume of warmer tropic waters from equatorial regions being displaced towards western Europe.

Models suggest the reduction in warmer waters heading towards western Europe will result in lower temperatures in the region. This, in turn, would also affect weather patterns in the global climate system.

Both sharks and whales are endankgered. The subtlety of climate science. Everything matters.

...How do sharks affect atmospheric carbon? (click here)

Coastal predators such as sharks protect and enhance blue carbon (carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems) by limiting grazing on seagrass meadows and kelp forests. These ecosystems are precious not only to the plethora of species they support but also in the role they play in the absorption of carbon due to photosynthesis. For example, tiger sharks frequent shallow seagrass meadows. They prevent overgrazing in concentrated areas from turtles and other prey species, resulting in increased and more evenly distributed seagrass. The increase in meadow mass directly helps rising carbon levels, as seagrass captures carbon from the atmosphere 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.

Large fish such as shark, tuna, mackerel and swordfish are comprised of ~10 to 15% carbon. When they die naturally, their bodies act as direct carbon sinks through 'carcass deadfall'. The carbon held in their bodies is sequestered into the sediment. Put simply, if a carcass is removed from the sea its corresponding carbon is released into the atmosphere but if left to die at sea that carbon is buried. Luckily, these animals are also useful to the climate crisis when they stay alive!

Whaling and Sharks?

The global biomass of whales is less than 25% of pre-whaling times. A study by Pershing et al. shows the implications of removing large marine species on the oceans ability to store carbon. If efforts were increased to restore populations, whales could remove 8,700,000 tonnes of carbon from the environment. That's the equivalent of 110,000 hectares of forest, an area the same size as the Rocky Mountain National Park. If blue whale populations alone were restored they could sequester 3,600,000 tonnes of carbon. The same amount achieved by 43,000 hectares of forest, an area the same size as Los Angeles. But this isn’t the end of the story...

Trump did everything wrong and ended policies that worked well for the national security of the USA.

Now we are left to pick up the pieces of some of the best-developed policies for the safety of the USA and it's neighbors.

It might give people a bad taste for democracy and turn to other global powers for help and leadership.

November 20, 2017
By Miriam Jordan

The Trump administration (click here) is ending a humanitarian program that has allowed some 59,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States since an earthquake ravaged their country in 2010, Homeland Security officials said on Monday.

Haitians with what is known as Temporary Protected Status will be expected to leave the United States by July 2019 or face deportation....

...Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is still struggling to recover from the earthquake and relies heavily on money its expatriates send to relatives back home. The Haitian government had asked the Trump administration to extend the protected status.

“I received a shock right now,” Gerald Michaud, 45, a Haitian who lives in Brooklyn, said when he heard the news. He has been working at La Guardia Airport as a wheelchair attendant, sending money to family and friends back home. He said he feared for his welfare and safety back in Haiti now that his permission to remain in the United States was ending.

“The situation is not good in my country,” he said. “I don’t know where I am able to go.”

Haitians are the second-largest group of foreigners with temporary status. The protection is extended to people already in the United States who have come from countries crippled by natural disasters or armed conflict that prevents their citizens from returning or prevents their country from adequately receiving them. The government periodically reviews each group’s status and decides whether to continue the protections....

Then there is the anti-narcotic monies.

...The NAS provides assistance to enable the Government of Haiti (click here) to establish a visible and legitimate police and security presence, one that is based on justice and the rule of law, that engenders a culture of lawfulness and respect for human rights, and that provides protection for vulnerable populations, such as abused women and children.  Specific NAS projects target the Haitian National Police (HNP), specialized counter-narcotics and anti-money laundering units, justice sector reforms, and the corrections sector.

Police

NAS funds general training for police officers – including the 22nd class of 903 HNP cadets, which began its seven-month long training program in September 2010, and specialized training – such as the 24-person counter-drug/counter-kidnap class the U.S. government co-sponsored with the Colombian National Police in Bogota.

Through the State Department’s INL Bureau, NAS oversees a year-long program bringing six Haitian-American New York Police Department (NYPD) officers for 90-day rotations with the HNP.  The NYPD offer technical assistance and mentoring to the HNP’s judicial/investigative bureau....

How much do Americans want to correct the wayward policies of Donald John Trump? This is what happens when the USA abandons democratic efforts in countries friendly to the USA. We saw the collapse of the Northern Triad and now we are seeing the pain of what occurs when democracy fails a people that have embraced it for so long. The USA has always been the big sister and brother to Haiti.

Through not fault of their own, Haitians found themselves facing enormous tragedy when a horrible earthquake hit the country. Rightfully, the USA came to assist Haiti to try and save the country from death, disease, and absolute destruction. A country like Haiti cannot handle the world alone. That holds true for the countries of the Northern Triad. Either there is no viable economy and/or there are worldly forces such as drug cartels that devastate the land, the people, and any attempt of governance. These countries are in the Western Hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere is the place where the USA exists. It is our responsibility to assist in the national security of marginal countries, otherwise, Russia plants nuclear capacity jets in places like a failed country such as Venezuela.

July 7, 2021
By Benjamin Hart and Nia Prater

Jovenel Moïse, (click here) the president of Haiti, was assassinated by unknown assailants in a brazen assault on his home early Wednesday morning. Moïse’s wife was shot and has been hospitalized.

According to a tweet from Haiti’s communications secretary Frantz Exantus, police had arrested the “presumed assassins” by Wednesday night. Haiti’s police chief Léon Charles added that four of the suspected assassins had been fatally shot by officers, while two more were arrested in what appeared to be a hostage situation; three police officers that were held hostage were also freed.

The Miami Herald reported that the assassins claimed to be Drug Enforcement Administration agents. In videos recorded by residents of the neighborhood, a man with an American accent can be heard shouting via a megaphone, “DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.” A Haitian government official told the Herald that these assailants weren’t DEA. “These were mercenaries,” they said....

July 11, 2021
By Dalton Bennett, Sarah Cahlan, Elyse Samuels, and Anthony Faiola

Several weeks before they were arrested in the July 7 assassination (click here) of the Haitian president, 13 Colombian nationals — some of them former military — traveled to the Dominican Republic, the country that shares an island with Haiti, according to Colombian police.

The men arrived in two groups. A group of two traveled through Panama in early May, and a group of 11 traveled directly from Bogota on June 4, according to flight records released by the Colombian police.

At least two of the men visited a popular tourist destination in the capital city Santo Domingo, according to images the police released. Those photos, along with images of the same location from one of the suspect’s social media accounts, are the earliest known images showing the alleged mercenaries were in the same location before the attack.

The Washington Post gathered photos and videos of the suspects and of the hours before and after the assassination to assemble a timeline of how the brazen attack unfolded....

...It remains unclear who organized the attack on the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse. The detained suspects include two U.S. citizens of Haitian descent, identified as Florida residents James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, according to Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections and interparty relations. An official who interrogated the pair said Solages claimed he was hired as an interpreter for “foreigners” after applying for the job online. The men and some of their family members claim that they didn’t know the president was going to be assassinated.

Solages told the official they were acting on an order to arrest the president authorized by a judge. He admitted to meeting with the foreigners for about a month, eating at the restaurant inside the Royal Oasis Hotel, 10 minutes from the president’s residence where the assassination took place....

Sure, China builds wind mills, BUT,...

05 July 2021

The graph to the left is from 2020.

China is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. (click here) Methane can continue leaking long after mines have been closed or abandoned.

A massive plume of methane, the potent greenhouse gas that’s a key contributor to global warming, has been identified in China’s biggest coal production region.

The release in northeast Shanxi province is one of the largest that geoanalytics company Kayrros SAS has so far attributed to the global coal sector and likely emanated from multiple mining operations.

Details captured in European Space Agency satellite data show the plume about 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of Shanxi’s capital Taiyuan, in Yangquan City. The area has 34 coals mines, according to the Shanxi Energy Bureau.

Shanxi’s Department of Ecology and Environmental, the province’s Energy Bureau and China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The emissions rate needed to produce the plume observed in the June 18 satellite image would be several hundred metric tons an hour, according to Kayrros. For comparison, a 200-ton per hour release would have roughly an equivalent climate warming in the first two decades as 800,000 cars driving at 60 miles an hour, according to the Environmental Defense Fund....

Coal mine methane is emitted from five sources:(click here)

• Degasification systems at underground coal mines (also commonly referred to as drainage systems). These systems may employ vertical and/or horizontal wells to recover methane in advance of mining (known as "pre-mine drainage") or after mining (called "gob" or "goaf" wells)
• Ventilation air from underground mines, which contains dilute concentrations of methane
• Abandoned or closed mines, from which methane may seep out through vent holes or through fissures or cracks in the ground
• Surface mines, from which methane in the coal seams is directly exposed to the atmosphere
• Fugitive emissions from post-mining operations, in which coal continues to emit methane as it is stored in piles and transported

This is what happens when Russia calls off it's goons. They become terrorists.

July 6, 2021
By Kvitka Perehinets

Maj. Bohdan Brodovsky (click here) of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade was killed by Russian-sponsored militants in Donbas on July 5, 2021.

Russian-sponsored militants killed a ranking Ukrainian military officer on July 5, the Joint Forces Operation reported....

Managing shade and cool air. Plants help with cooler air and better air quality.

July 8, 2021
By Nate Berg

In late June, (click here) when temperatures climbed to 115 degrees in Portland, Oregon, houses and buildings across the Pacific Northwest were caught way off guard. Most were designed for much cooler temperatures, with insulation and ventilation tuned to handle moderate highs and lows. Typically, even on hot days, the evening lows would be cold enough to bring down the overall temperature of buildings, keeping them from turning into roasting ovens. Air conditioning was typically irrelevant, and buildings could usually stay comfortable passively, or without much intervention.

But that was before. The heat wave showed that temperatures can and probably will continue to be higher than in previous decades. The low- or no-effort temperature control that has been designed into the region’s homes likely won’t be able to keep up, according to Mike Fowler, an architect at Seattle-based Mithun. “We’re going to phase out of that by the end of the decade. And this has been eye-opening for a lot of folks,” he says.

A new type of building design will be needed in the Pacific Northwest sooner than most people expected, he says, but design approaches that are regularly used in hotter, more extreme climates offer some clues for how architecture will need to evolve.

Architects around the world are designing solutions to increasing temperatures and more frequent heat waves. New materials, advanced heat modeling techniques, and some longstanding design principles are showing that even when temperatures hit unexpected peaks, our homes and buildings will be able to stay cool without consuming huge amounts of energy....

Those freedom loving Americans hugging Trump's Russian Communism, better realize what they are looking at.

July 11, 2021

Tbilisi, Georgia (AP) — Several thousand people (click here) protested in front of the Georgian parliament on Sunday evening, demanding that the ex-Soviet nation's prime minister resign over the death of a journalist who was attacked and beaten by anti-LGBT protesters.

Cameraman Alexander Lashkarava was found dead in his home by his mother earlier Sunday, according to the TV Pirveli channel he worked for. Lashkarava was one of several dozen journalists attacked last Monday by opponents of an LGBT march that had been scheduled to take place that day in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

Organizers of the Tbilisi March For Dignity cancelled the event, saying authorities had not provided adequate security guarantees. Opponents of the march blocked off the capital’s main avenue, denounced journalists covering the protest as pro-LGBT propagandists and threw sticks and bottles at them....

First it is control of elections and minimizing participation and then it is silencing the voices that advocate for more and more participation. What is it the Republicans claim to value, liberty? Sure they do.

July 9, 2021

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally to mark the 5th anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov's murder and to protest against proposed amendments to the country's constitution, in Moscow, Russia February 29, 2020.

Moscow, July 8 (Reuters) - Thirty-two percent of Russians (click here) support the extremism ban on jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's political network while 27% oppose it, according to an opinion poll by the Moscow-based Levada Centre published on Friday.

Levada, which polled 1,630 people on June 24-30, said 38% had voiced indifference over last month's ruling that designated Navalny's groups as "extremist". It also said that support for Navalny's activities had dipped to 14% from 20% last September.

Ivan Zhdanov, a close ally of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken critic, declined to comment on the figures, but said that anti-Navalny state "propaganda" had intensified and could be having an impact....

It must be a governing nightmare in the northwest of North America.

This is more than just a shellfish die-off. This is the loss of income to the family businesses that work the fisheries. First, these fishery's families had to navigate acidic ocean waters and now the shellfish they are dependent on to make a living are dying of heat exposure. Water doesn't have to be boiling to kill fish. The boiling water used in the preparation of the fish is used to kill the bacteria that might be attached to the fish or living on the shell.

The oceans are not doing well due to the heat. A few months ago an entire population of Bowhead Whales (click here) lost their ability to migrate because the usual change in water temperature didn't tip them off.

This alarming reality seems to be happening on the margins of life, but, Bowhead Whales are hardly marginal species. They are mammals just like human beings. There is plenty to be worried about and the fisheries are just the beginning. 

July 10, 2021
By Catrin Einhorn

Dead mussels near Suicide Bend Park in West Vancouver, British Columbia

Dead mussels and clams (click here) coated rocks in the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping open as if they’d been boiled. Sea stars were baked to death. Sockeye salmon swam sluggishly in an overheated Washington river, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas.

The combination of extraordinary heat and drought that hit the Western United States and Canada over the past two weeks has killed hundreds of millions of marine animals and continues to threaten untold species in freshwater, according to a preliminary estimate and interviews with scientists.

“It just feels like one of those postapocalyptic movies,” said Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia who studies the effects of climate change on coastal marine ecosystems.

To calculate the death toll, Dr. Harley first looked at how many blue mussels live on a particular shoreline, how much of the area is good habitat for mussels and what fraction of the mussels he observed died. He estimated losses for the mussels alone in the hundreds of millions. Factoring in the other creatures that live in the mussel beds and on the shore — barnacles, hermit crabs and other crustaceans, various worms, tiny sea cucumbers — puts the deaths at easily over a billion, he said....

Credit.

How many knew there is a microchip shortage. Well. Anyone think it could be due to the use in human beings?

9 July 2021

...About 50 (click here) employees at Three Square Market have agreed to the optional implant of the chips, which are the approximate size and shape of a grain of rice, said Tony Danna, vice president of international sales at the River Falls-based company....

How bad is the shortage (click here)  “Never seen anything like it,” Tesla’s Elon Musk tweeted last month. Since late 2020, the world has been facing an unexpected dearth of microchips – the tiny integrated circuits that are nowadays found in practically every manufactured device with a battery or a plug – from toasters to TVs to airbags to fighter jets.

The scarcity was first seen in sophisticated consumer electronics: gaming consoles like the PlayStation 5 and the new Xbox have had big order backlogs; prices for computer graphics cards have shot up. But because semiconductor chips are so ubiquitous, a large number of industries have been affected.

The car industry has been hit hardest of all. Modern cars can easily contain 3,000 chips, and the shortage has slowed down vehicle assembly lines across the world: global output will drop by four million cars, nearly 5%, this year.
Why is it happening?

At the best of times, chip supply chains are hard to maintain: it is an industry prone to gluts and shortages. Fabrication plants (“fabs”) for advanced chips are among the world’s most complex manufacturing facilities, costing tens of billions of dollars to build. Lasers print billions of transistors onto tiny areas of silicon wafers; it can take three to four months to turn a large silicon wafer into a useable batch of chips....

 US Drought Monitor (click here)

The climate crisis brings out the worst in Earth's weather.

People often find solace in the idea that all this bad news about weather and climate can be found in history books. There is some solace in that because at least we know how to be somewhat resilient to it. But, the climate crisis is different in that this bad news is repeating itself over and over while the stratosphere shrinks as it mixes ever more violently with the troposphere. There is nothing but bad news. The storms are more violent and the clear skies bring hotter temperatures. Is there any reason to doubt that most fires are in the western USA and Alaska?

July 11, 2021
By Kathryn Prociv

Current Large Incidents (click here)

On Friday, Death Valley, California, hit 130 degrees. (click here)

On Saturday, Las Vegas tied its hottest temperature, hitting 117 degrees, and Utah also tied its statewide record, hitting 117 in St. George.

On Sunday morning, nearly 30 million people remained under heat alerts across several Western states, where temperatures were forecast again soar to 10 to 20 degrees above average.

Las Vegas was forecast again to climb to near 117 degrees. If that happened for the second time in a row, it would be the first time in recorded history.

And all eyes were on Death Valley to see whether it would hit 130 degrees again for the second time in three days, or perhaps higher.

Death Valley is considered the hottest place in the world — it hit 134 degrees back in 1913. No reliable weather station has recorded a hotter temperature on Earth....

The video below was released July 9, 2021.

Someone else from the UK made headlines today. Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic.

Congratulations to Sir Richard Branson and his team at Virgin Galactic. It has been a long road with many interesting twists and turns. He never ceases to amaze. A perfect flight today and it was spectacular to see. The man that road out a Category 5 eye of Hurricane  Irma. (click here) Sir Richard never stopped his dedication to the UK, he mourned his employee losses in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria (click here). Once again, Congratulations Sir Richard Branson on a job well done.

July 11, 2021
By Jonathan Amos

Billionaire Sir Richard Branson (click here) has successfully reached the edge of space on board his Virgin Galactic rocket plane.

The UK entrepreneur flew high above New Mexico in the US in the vehicle that his company has been developing for 17 years.

The trip was, he said, the "experience of a lifetime".

He returned safely to Earth just over an hour after leaving the ground.

"I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid, but honestly nothing can prepare you for the view of Earth from space," he said in a press conference following the flight. "The whole thing was just magical."

The trip also makes him the first of the new space tourism pioneers to try out their own vehicles, beating Amazon's Jeff Bezos and SpaceX's Elon Musk....

In case no one can get enough of Sir Elton John he is making is good-bye tour. Below is a 3 hour concert.

July 9, 2021
By Nicolette Accardi

Elton John is set to conclude performances at major stadiums (click here) during his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour,” starting next spring.

The tour will kick off May 27, 2022 in Frankfurt, Germany and will finish Nov. 20, 2022 in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium.

Tickets to the concerts are currently on sale, with pricing starting around $70 for United States shows. The tour includes a stop at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford on Saturday, July 23, 2022.

Years later, Sir Elton John would sing the same song with revised lyrics. I do believe a statue was unveiled this past week in her honor.

Released in 1997, "Candle in the Wind" is considered the second best selling song with 33 million copies sold.