We live in very difficult times.

Earth is warming rapidly because oil profits and the availability of liquidity for financial markets was convenient. The electric car technology has been around since Henry Ford yet when approached it is treated as if it is a failed method of transportation. That's nonsense. 

Earth is at a tipping point. A dangerous tipping point and we need to set our sights firmly on the future without looking back. Transportation and electricity production has to be benign to the balance of the planet. 

There are nearly 7.6 billion people alive on Earth. They are all consumers. Consumption means the use of energy and plenty of refuse and waste. Now, is the time to make Earth a priority. There is no looking back. 

The loss of ice fields and ice caps is extremely dangerous as they are climate mitigators. That mitigation is gone when the ice is gone. What is going to take it's place? Now, is the time we take this all very seriously and realize Earth's ice is precious and important and not simply a spectator sport when huge chunks break off to melt and raise sea levels.

Besides the climate, there are a lot of challenges to the USA Constitution as we know it. I have to continue this dialogue next week. This is simply a concept of understanding at this point. I want Americans thinking about their country and the importance of it's sovereign laws and the concept of their personal freedoms. It is time to vote and put the future first on all fronts.

One of those fronts must also be ending the plutocracy in the USA that endangers our freedoms. 

I appreciate your interest in this blog. Until later...

29 September 2020
By Tulane University

...“Barrett is an ‘originalist’ judge. (click here) The judicial philosophy of originalism has gradually become a very narrow approach to constitutional interpretation, which stresses looking for the ‘original meaning’ of the document. That meaning has to be constructed on the basis of a highly selective approach to history. The constructed nature of originalism, in effect, gives judges like Barrett permission to imagine that their preferred policy positions are ratified by the framers of the Constitution. That makes it a dangerous philosophy, one that could do real damage to the structure of American constitutional law.”

“Over the past few decades, Republicans have cared more about judicial appointments, including appointments to the Supreme Court, than Democrats. The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett is the culmination of that effort. But going ahead with the nomination so close to a closely contested presidential election poses real risks. There are no clear parallels in American history to the current situation. The Supreme Court itself as an institution could easily become the victim of a Democratic backlash if Barrett is confirmed.”

Protected lands portrays a false understanding. Protected Areas is what USGS uses and it is correct.

September 10, 2020
By Nathan Rott

Protected Lands (click here)

That map came from USGS (click here), but, the website above is easier to use.

Human activities (click here) have caused the world's wildlife populations to plummet by more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund.

The decline is happening at an unprecedented rate, the report warns, and it threatens human life as well.

"The findings are clear," the report states. "Our relationship with nature is broken."

The Living Planet Report 2020 report drew on wildlife monitoring of more than 4,300 different vertebrate species - mammals, fish, birds and amphibians - from around the world. It found that population sizes for those monitored species declined by an average of 68 percent from 1970 to 2016.

In the American tropics, including the Caribbean and Latin America, population sizes decreased by a staggering 94 percent.

Forest clearing for agricultural space was the predominant cause of the decline, the report says, noting that one-third of the planet's land is currently being used for food production. Human-caused climate change is another growing driver....

USGS uses the idea of Protected Areas, because, there are many different departments of the federal government that uses those lands, including the military. I might add, most of that land is unusable. It isn't as though there is some great private enterprise that can spring from them. The land while precious in its use, isn't conducive to real estate development.

The wildlife that live in the USA, are occupying land that is suited for that purpose and not much else.

Paradox. Know the word?

Straight out of Merriam-Webster:

A statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.

The USA Consitution has a paradox. It states:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The preamble (click here) sets the stage for the Constitution (Archives.gov). It clearly communicates the intentions of the framers and the purpose of the document. The preamble is an introduction to the highest law of the land; it is not the law. It does not define government powers or individual rights.

We the people in order to form a more perfect union. Those words are a marriage of ideas. It marries the idea of individual people coming together and forming governance. That is the rule of the majority. But, the US Constitution goes on from there.

The people want to establish justice, domestic tranquility, a common defense, general welfare for all the people, and SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY.

Hm. How does all this happen? How do individuals live under governance designed to control the social fabric of their lives? 

Liberty. What an odd idea in the massive writing of the USA Constitution. Isn't liberty about individual rights?

Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.

The paradox. The USA Consitution provides for governance to protect a sovereign country while people live their lives without an oppressive regime or single dictator or king. The USA Constitution created within a paradox creates the concept of "majority" and "minority." Minority is not about race, it is a way to state that individuals have rights that may be different from the majority rule. 

Got it?

The USA Constitution is a paradox. Complicated, but, true.

The USA military has been preparing for the climate crisis for some time now. Not sure what is transpiring under this administration though.

September 14, 2020
By Nafeez Ahmed

When we don’t plan (click here) and prepare from a whole-systems perspective, our societies tend to respond to escalating crises by becoming more militarized to maintain order and control in an environment of escalating chaos. The irony is that this only tends to make our institutions even more brittle, weak and rigid—unable to meaningfully address the root causes of rapidly changing conditions.

That’s why we should be concerned to discover that the British government is planning for the inevitability of a catastrophic rise in global temperatures of nearly 4 degrees Celsius due to business-as-usual carbon emissions. The revelation comes from new research commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in November 2019 to inform the MOD’S climate change strategy....

I am a little surprised that NATO hasn't been leaning into this.

October 4, 2020

London - Prince William (click here) has expressed his concerns about rising sea levels and other impacts of climate change in a television documentary to be aired in Britain on Monday, the ITV channel reported.

William, grandson of Queen Elizabeth and second-in-line to the British throne, was interviewed on the royal Sandringham Estate, which is located in East Anglia, a low-lying part of eastern England.

ITV said part of William's message in the film was that climate change posed threats to everyone, including in Britain.

"You'll lose the wildlife habitats here, you'd lose the farming, you'd lose the communities," William said, according to a report on the ITV website.

"It's in everyone's interest that we protect these sorts of areas. We have to get on top of the climate change issue."

William said the rising incidence of extreme weather events was a threat, including on his own doorstep at Sandringham.

"You suddenly realise those extreme events are going to happen more and more in the future. And also how low-lying, particularly this part of East Anglia all is."...

I have to introduce a concept. Let's start with the idea of a majority.

All Americans understand what a majority it because there is how government representatives are elected, by a majority of the voters. That majority is not about limiting voters by race or gender, UNLESS, all the amendments to the USA Constitution are erased.

Unconscionable.

Anti-American.

Unconstitutional.

All, those words describe the USA's people and how they relate to their government. The USA Constitution protects Americans from destroying freedom and democracy and liberty. That is the "state of play." But, what if other Americans think that "originalists" are better at governance than those that see every person in the USA as having rights and responsibilities.

That thinking exists. See, some Americans might secretly think that the Amendments are nothing more than politics and the original document is the correct way of thinking about the US Constitution.

The Founding Fathers as they are called were mostly wealthy men that voted because they were landowners. Thirteen colonies and an economy based in farming primarily would include a lot of people as landowners and farmers. No one was renting out a skyscraper apartment building in a big city, now were they? The Found Fathers as they are called would not even conceive of a skyscraper, let alone understand how the population of this country was growing.

So, what if a political party decided they wanted to reach back in time and allow only wealthy landowners a vote and everyone else were simply vassals.

A vassal is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support by knights in exchange for certain privileges, usually including land held as a tenant or fief.

Straight out of the Middle Ages. The USA would be a series of fiefdoms.

There would be a real problem with that, called sovereignty. Who are the landowners exactly? Russians? There is an oligarch in Kentucky. China bought out Smithfields Farms (click here). Nothing like a Farm Bill that gives aid to foreign governments.

March 27, 2019
By Renee Wild

American soil.

Those are two words (click here) that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can't be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities.

When the stock market tanked during the past recession, foreign investors began buying up big swaths of U.S. farmland. And because there are no federal restrictions on the amount of land that can be foreign owned, it's been left up to individual states to decide on any limitations.

It's likely that even more American land will end up in foreign hands, especially in states with no restrictions on ownership. With the median age of U.S. farmers at 55, many face retirement with no prospect of family members willing to take over. The National Young Farmers Coalition anticipates that two-thirds of the nation's farmland will change hands in the next few decades.

"Texas is kind of a free-for-all, so they don't have a limit on how much land can be owned," say's Ohio Farm Bureau's Ty Higgins. "You look at Iowa and they restrict it — no land in Iowa is owned by a foreign entity."...

I strongly believe in mitigation of the climate. I can be done and must be done. There is no turning away from it.

2 October 2020

The map (click here)

As wildfires sweep across (click here) the western United States, taking lives, destroying homes and blanketing the country in smoke, Niklas Hagelberg has a sobering message: this could be America’s new normal.

The climate change expert with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says a fast-warming planet will likely lead to more record-breaking blazes, like those that have ravaged the states of California, Oregon and Washington in recent months.

We recently sat down with Hagelberg to discuss the relationship between climate change and wildfires, and whether one-day infernos could make California unlivable.

UNEP: Some people think climate change is a problem for future generations. But are we already seeing the early effects of it?

Niklas Hagelberg: Yes. It’s here, right now. The planet is already 1.1°C warmer than it was in pre-industrial times and that is changing the world around us. I’ll give you a personal example. I’m 46 and when I was a teenager in southern Finland, you could go rally driving on ice. Now, you have to worry about walking on ice. You can ask pretty much anyone these days and I bet they’ll have a similar story to tell. Our climate is changing into something we don’t recognize. And it doesn’t match the societies we have built.

UNEP: Is climate change responsible for the blazes that have consumed parts of the western United States of America?

NH: Forest fires are natural. But in recent years, we’ve seen a rise in the average temperature, which has led to an increase in evaporation. We’re also seeing extended droughts. The landscape is so dry from multiple years of gradual change, that suddenly there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of fires. In fact, one report from the University of California, Berkley found the fire season in the western United States is now 75 days longer than it was in the 1970s....

The USA is considered a "representative democray."

Remember those words, "We the People." I think that is the most instructive statement in the USA Consitution. 

October 4, 2020
By Robert Longley

...Republics and democracies (click here) both provide a political system in which citizens are represented by elected officials who are sworn to protect their interests.

In a pure democracy, laws are made directly by the voting majority leaving the rights of the minority largely unprotected.

In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority.

The United States, while basically a republic, is best described as a “representative democracy.”...

It speaks for itself.

October 3, 2020
By Andrew Theen

Fire crews (click here) continue to make progress fighting Oregon’s largest wildfires nearly a month after strong winds over Labor Day helped fuel blazes, many of which were already burning, across the state.

More than one million acres of forestland have burned so far this year in what has been one of the most destructive fire seasons in recent history....

October 4, 2020

A Cal Fire truck moves along St. Helena Highway, past vineyards, toward the Glass Fire near St. Helena on Saturday.

Deadly wildfires in California (click here) have burned more than 4 million acres this year — more than double the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in the state. California fire officials said the state hit the astonishing milestone Sunday with about two months remaining in the fire season. The previous record was set two years ago when wildfires destroyed 1.67 million acres (2,609 square miles).

"The 4 million mark is unfathomable. It boggles the mind, and it takes your breath away," said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire....

October 4, 2020

By Elliot Almond

Fire crews (click here) worked through another hot, dry day in northern Napa County as they continued to try to stop the stubborn Glass Fire, which forced new evacuation orders in California’s Wine Country and helped set a staggering record, with more than 4 million acres burned so far.

“I thought 2018 was horrendous,” CalFire deputy chief Scott McLean said Sunday. “There are really no words to describe it.”

Two years ago, the state saw a then-record 1.67 million acres burn. This year, California passed the 4-million acre milestone — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island — with almost two months left in its fire season.

So far, 63,885 acres have burned in Napa and Sonoma counties due to the Glass Fire, destroying homes and vineyards north of Calistoga and east of St. Helena. As of Sunday morning, the fire was 17 percent contained, CalFire reported....

The Map (click here)

There is a difference in the timeline of what is defined as the beginning of Rome and the Roman Empire.

Artifacts date the beginning of Rome in the same timeline as the Greeks, however, they matured into governance later than the Greeks. The Empire was established as a function of the military in 27 BCE.

Rome would conquer the Hellenistic states in 27 BCE. They also conquer Germania, which is basically Western Europe. After a time they received some real push back.

...In 450 B.C., (click here) the first Roman law code was inscribed on 12 bronze tablets–known as the Twelve Tables–and publicly displayed in the Roman Forum. These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights and property rights and provided the basis for all future Roman civil law. By around 300 B.C., real political power in Rome was centered in the Senate, which at the time included only members of patrician and wealthy plebeian families....

But, here in a parallel universe, Rome was developing very similar governance as the Greeks. They were also extremely racist. The only governing was conducted by Roman men. Not only did the Roman men only govern, but, they only married Roman women. The exception was the outrage of Rome when Ceasar brought Cleopatra back to the city and provided her residence within it. Julius Ceasar was eventually murdered.

The thing to remember is that while unrelated in the beginning of their governance, both, the Romans and the Greeks found a democracy of one kind of another.

The Roman governance is considered a Republic and different because there was a ruling class that governed by votes, but, the masses did not have a vote. Also different than the Greeks, Rome maintained control over the empire until Eastern Rome or the city of Constantinople became more powerful than Rome, Italy. 

There was far less equality than in Greece and conquest was necessary to bring wealth and comfort to Roman citizens. There were Roman city/states, however, their local authority was limited and had to answer to Rome. They collected taxes from the local people to pay to Rome, too.

Gamma is 130 miles north-northeast of Progreso, Mexico at 60 mph is stationary with a central pressure of 997 mb (millibars).

Gamma is the third letter in the Greek alphabet which makes Gamma the 29th storm.

October 4, 2020

By Shel Winkley

Bryan, Texas - October just got interesting. (click here) Tropical Storm Gamma has stalled in the Southern Gulf of Mexico Sunday evening. At the same time, confidence is high enough Tropical Storm Delta forms by Monday that the National Hurricane Center has started issuing forecasts for it. A strong Category 2 hurricane is forecast to reach the Gulf Coast by end of the week.

Although Gamma has re-strengthened Sunday, increasing southerly wind shear is expected to impact the tropical storm overnight. As it drifts into a more unfavorable environment, it is likely to gradually weaken late Sunday and Monday. Those upper-level winds are forecast to remain through the week, holding the anticipated strength of Gamma steady as it slowly crawls the Southern Gulf of Mexico. By late week, the latest forecast calls for Gamma to turn north toward the Western Gulf....

The Greek Democracy existed from the 8th century BCE (Same meaning of BC but void of religious definition - Before Common/Current Era.

It continued through a time considered the "Hellenistic Age in 27 BCE" The image to the left is the expanse over time of the Greek Empire.

...Athenian democracy (click here) was a direct democracy made up of three important institutions. The first was the ekklesia, or Assembly, the sovereign governing body of Athens. Any member of the demos--any one of those 40,000 adult male citizens--was welcome to attend the meetings of the ekklesia, which were held 40 times per year in a hillside auditorium west of the Acropolis called the Pnyx. (Only about 5,000 men attended each session of the Assembly; the rest were serving in the army or navy or working to support their families.) At the meetings, the ekklesia made decisions about war and foreign policy, wrote and revised laws and approved or condemned the conduct of public officials. (Ostracism, in which a citizen could be expelled from the Athenian city-state for 10 years, was among the powers of the ekklesia.) The group made decisions by simple majority vote....

Greek democracy was the purest form of practice, but, it was definitely racist. The only voting members of the ekklesia were men citizens. They each had a vote in government and it was counted. 

The government decisions were by majority vote. 

It was during the Hellenistic Age that democracy became more intense and practiced in city-states by the demos (the citizen body). As the Greek Empire grew it was better to allow the local authority to carry out governance. That meant that while it was all a democratic process, it varied from the governance of Athens.

But, remember the context of this "idea" of democracy. It was a group of individuals that found the need to define governance. Right? This was 800 years before the change in the timeline of history from BCE to CE. That is a long time for an idea to take a concept and provide governance. In a civilized society, it almost seems like a natural order, in retrospect. 

It's Sunday Night 

Is the USA completely defined by it's history or by it's people?

Beyonce (click here for official website) 

The National Anthem

"The Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key (click here for official website)

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Trump should have passed the presidential power and practice to Pence while he is hospitalized receiving serious medications. The steroid, dexamethasone, can have serious side effects including insomnia and mood swings. No one can predict the side effects.

Evidently, Trump believes his need for power and attention is more important than the national security of the country.

The country is not going to get the truth from Trump about his health.

(chart - click here)

It seems to me someone needs to resolve the mystery surrounding Donald John Trump and since the doctors are even pandering to Trump's political demand, then let me clear this up.

Donald John Trump, regardless of his daughter's propaganda video, is seriously ill.

He is beginning anti-inflammatory therapy known as dexamethasone (click here). I assume he is still receiving remdesivir (click here). It is unclear that REGN-COV2 (click here) is an ongoing treatment because it is not usually given in the hospital. It is mostly an outpatient initiative. 

When I first saw a lung imaging at the beginning of this viral onslaught I was concerned that the inflammation is about as dangerous if not more so as the virus itself. Mr. Trump is receiving an anti-inflammatory because his body is in a full assault against a significant viral load.

SARS-CoV-2 is a unique virus. It is called a novel because it is in a class by itself. Why?

...Altogether, (click here) these reports strongly suggest that SARS-CoV-2 differs from other coronaviruses in its capacity to replicate within the pulmonary tissue, elude from the antiviral effects of IFN-I and IFN-III, activate innate responses, and induce the production of the cytokines required for the recruitment of adaptive immunity cells....

The inflammatory response is a serious manifestation of the virus. It is the body's last-ditch effort to response to the virus. It is standard in every person with a significant viral load because SARS-CoV-2 drives the body to this extent.

...The most common symptoms (click here) were fever, shortness of breath, expectoration, fatigue, dry cough, and myalgia. Severe cases tend to have lower lymphocyte counts, higher leukocyte counts and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), as well as lower percentages of monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils. Most severe cases demonstrated elevated levels of infection-related biomarkers and inflammatory cytokines....

Donald John Trump has significant disease with advanced signs based on the medications he is administered. I remind this virus does not necessarily manifest severe lung distress while at the same time the blood level of oxygen is dropping. The president is being foolish from a health perspective in riding in a caravan in a parade to benefit his political campaign. It proves he believes his own misinformation that this is a flu and nothing more.

Let me make one last observation about the joint treatment of remdesivir and dexamethasone. The anti-inflammatory is reducing the damage to body tissue but it also reduces the immune response. HOWEVER, remdesivir is taking on the fight to eliminate the virus in the body. 

Therefore, this duo is perfect. One protects the body's tissues while the night in shining armor is vanquishing the virus. It is a genius treatment.