HAPPY HOLIDAZE FROM PNG!

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'Toontime: Christmas with Donald

credit: Jim Morin

BC Idonwanna sez: Give him snake in bag!

It is too bad that 'Mericans had to find out about the man they installed in the White House to be their king at Christmas. The facts put a real damper on the holidaze. The 1% are doing just fine, however, in their greater America retreats away from the 99% rabble; their dollar votes are the ones that count in 21st century 'Merica.  PNG wishes you a merry little Christmas in the age of Trump!

credit: Jim Morin
Wackydoodle sez: Oowe, he just trickled on you, boy!

Jackals Cross Alps

Another sign of the feverish planet: golden jackals, Canis aureus [photo credit: Getty Images] from Central Asia have crossed the Alps and migrated into western Europe. Biologists believe their migration is due to global warming and the decline of rival species. Hunters in the Haute-Savoie region of France reported seeing the canines, and experts confirmed the sighting after examining photos from camera traps located on the Swiss border.  The animals have been migrating westward since the 1980's from Asia. They flourished in eastern and southern European countries since their competitor, the wolf, has declined in numbers due to persecution. Despite culling of 40 wolves this autumn, about 10,000 sheep were reported killed by predation in France. Wolves re-inhabited France about twenty-five years ago. French wildlife officials said the eventual appearance of jackals was expected. Jackals, about a third of a wolf in size, compete with foxes for small prey and will take lambs, but adult sheep are generally too big for the slim canine.

COTW: Return to Aristocracy

Father Christmas

More: The UK's Guardian reports that six members of Trump's gang in the White House will save millions in federal taxes as a result of his Christmas gift to the wealthy. Trump will personally save $11-15 million a year according to the Center for American Progress' research. His heirs will save $4.5 million due to favorable changes in the estate tax. Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary; Linda McMahon, administrator of the Small Business Administration; Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary; Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary; and Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, will benefit to the tune of $4.5m from changes to the estate tax. The overwhelming majority of businesses use "pass through taxation" in which the business entity is not taxed directly as corporations, but its owners are taxed at ordinary income rates. The rates for pass through businesses such as S corporations, and limited liability partnerships were reduced by ten percentage points. At the last minute a special exception was pushed through Congress to benefit real estate companies with too few employees to qualify for ordinary pass-through treatment. Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and real estate mogul, will rake in $5 to $12 due to the changes. Think of it as icing on the cake. The rest of US will get coal in our stockings for Christmas!

Update: The compromise bill passed in the dead of night further exacerbates the income inequality in the US by reducing the top marginal rate from 39.6% to 37%, lower than both the House and Senate versions. Through lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, it is possible the reform will increase corporate investment, though most economists believe it will do little good because corporate profits are already historically high. That possibility was further belied by Wells Fargo's CEO who told an interviewer that his company's extra cash will be used to bolster the stock market through stock buy backs and higher dividends to stockholders. The US already has a relatively low top rate compared to other developed countries. It boggles the mind to think that in the late 1960s, when 'Merica was presumably still great, the top rate was near 70%!

{20.12.17} French economist Thomas Pickety in his classic work, Capital in the 21st Century, shows how income inequality has increased drastically in America in the last few decades. In the decades between 1950 and 1980, income maldistribution reached its ebb in which the top decile of income earners claimed 30 to 35% of US national income That figure is now 45-50% and increasing. Consequently, inheritance of accumulated wealth will play a greater role in society in the future--a return to aristocracy--not seen since the Gilded Age. This is just one fact Trump's tax gift to the wealthy is intended to protect. By increasing the estate tax exemption to an exorbitant $22 million, most estates except for the very largest will pay any estate tax. Even the very largest will employ a legion of tax avoidance techniques to pay relatively very little tax in comparison to the wealth pasted on to subsequent generations. This chart is reveals the "scam" at the heart of the Repugnant 'tax reform'. The purple line will continue to go down under Trump:

This fact makes the so-called progressive taxation of income even more regressive when the impact of all taxes--income, estate, and gift at all levels of government--are considered. Very wealthy people do no have incomes like the 99%.  Their incomes are primarily made up of returns on investments and business profits. They take a relatively modest share to meet sometimes extravagant living expenses, while the rest of their capital is left untouched--more often offshore and beyond the jurisdiction of taxing authorities--to accumulate at compound rates.  These untouched returns are not taxed as ordinary income, and therein lies the venality.

'Tooontime: Not Yet!

credit: Wolverton

The margin of victory in Alabama was unsurprisingly low*, even against an opponent tarred with being a racist pedophile and having a history of segregationism.  The truth is that the Deep South is unreconstructed, and the narcissistic demagogue in power knows how to manipulate the hatreds of white supremacists for political gain: this poor example of a latter day Gov. George Wallace was actually endorsed by the President! That sad fact shows how desperately he needs votes in the Senate for a win on the tax gift to the plutocracy.  Or could his support for Judge Roy Moore be for less cynical reasons? You decide.

credit: M. Streeter, Savannah Morning News BC Idonawana sez; No little girls sit on his lap! *He got nearly three-fourths, 72 percent, of the white male vote and nearly two-thirds, 63 percent, of the white female vote. This is what former Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges says about the nation's political predicament: "The problem is capitalism. And this is the beast we are called to fight and slay. Until that is done, nothing of substance will change…To reduce the political debate, as [Bernie] Sanders and others are doing, to political personalities is political infantilism. We have undergone a corporate coup. [italics added] Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will not reverse this coup. They, like Barack Obama, know where the centers of power lie. They serve these centers of power."

A Long Row to Hoe

The defeat of racist pedophile Judge Moore by corporatist Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama's special US Senate election is a small step in the correct direction, thinks US Person, but there is a very long road ahead to social equity in 'Merica.  A team from the UN investigating conditions in Alabama last week exposed what is already known to its black inhabitants: poverty conditions there compare with sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.  Particularly, Lowndes County, the home of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suffers from poor sewage disposal, resulting in hookworm infections otherwise unknown in the United States.

UN rapporteur Phillip Alston encountered extreme poverty and civil rights abuses "uncommon" in the first world.  His team toured Lowndes and Butler Counties in Alabama's "Black Belt", the one-time epicenter of cotton plantation in the Antebellum South with local activists guiding the way.  They were shown open sewage ditches that dump untreated human waste into nearby creeks. In September, Baylor University's  National School of Tropical Medicine (NSTM)  published a study that revealed serious sanitation deficits in Lowndes County. Three-quarters of study participants reported that raw sewage had managed to reenter their houses, either because of heavy rainfall or clogs in improvised sewage disposal systems.  Alabama's Department of Health reported in 2011 that the number of homes with inadequate or no sewage systems ranged from 40-90%.

Alabama's hot, humid weather that made cotton grow abundantly, is also the favorable habitat for Necator americanus, a species of hookworm that lays its eggs in the intestines of its host. [photo right] Usually hookworms enter humans through bare feet and ankles walking through moist, contaminated soils.  The parasite is mainly associated with extreme poverty in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, and many infectious disease researchers had assumed that it no longer existed in the US. Hookworm infections are considered a 19th century insanitation disease in the developed world.  NOT in 'Merica!  Reporting of hookworm infections is spotty because poor residents fear they will be prosecuted by Alabama authorities who are unsympathetic to their plight.  Poor families living on $700 a month cannot afford to install their own required septic systems.  An estimated 80% of "Bloody" Lowndes County, as it was known during the Civil Rights Movement, is without municipal sewage disposal.

Voting rights are still an issue in the Black Belt.  Rapporteur Alston was informed of the difficulties black voters have getting to polls and providing the proper required ID.  More importantly, residents complain of political candidates who are not concerned with their abject poverty or do not represent their interests effectively.  Nevertheless, it was black voters in Alabama that saved 'Merica from another white supremacist in the Senate. (a whopping 98% of black women voted for white man Doug Jones).  Democrat Jones did not mount an attack upon either Judge Moore’s viciously antidemocratic positions or the history of failure of the Republican Party within the state of Alabama, which has orchestrated massive cuts to public programs.  Instead he choose to focus his campaign on allegations of sexual misconduct by his opponent, and pro-business positions.  Once again the political duopoly that eviscerates 'Merica deliberately ignores glaring social inequity to protect the plutocracy.

COTW: The Burden of Empire

While the handmaidens of war "debate" a conference bill on a massive tax gift to the wealthy, take a look a how the US spends more than a third of the funds it collects from taxpayers:

It is this incredible cost of empire that is repeatedly justified as a job producer.  Economists dispute this claim of reactionaries, pointing out that other government spending, such as infrastructure replacement and education create jobs more efficiently. Economist John Keynes advocated government deficit spending to create more aggregate demand in times of crisis, but he never advocated military spending as a means.  In a famous letter to FDR in 1933, he wrote:   

In the past orthodox finance has regarded a war as the only legitimate excuse for creating employment by governmental expenditure. You, Mr. President, having cast off such fetters, are free to engage in the interests of peace and prosperity the technique which hitherto has only been allowed to serve the purposes of war and destruction.  

Conservatives assailed FDR's deficit spending for social and economic recovery as "communistic" or "socialistic".  Today's ideological decedents use the same disparaging terminology to denounce efforts to pass progressive social programs such as expanded Medicare to replace a for-profit system that is broken.  Yet they have a curious mental lacuna concerning more deficit spending for an ever-increasing military establishment.  Their derangement is no doubt caused by greed.

What the weaponized version of deficit spending does is further enrich a cadre of profiteering weapons manufacturers that endlessly feed off the Pentagon cash cow at the expense of the rest of the nation.  The F-35 fighter jet is the avatar of Pentagon boondoggles. It will cost $400 billion to complete the acquisition program through 2038, requiring an average annual expenditure of $12.4 billion according to GAO, and the product is beset with technical failures and performance shortcomings. For this price the country could provide its citizen's with Medicare for all.  If peak demand for oil is approaching as experts claim, the end of 'Merica's petrochemical empire is at hand.  How can such flagrant expenditure for weapons of war be morally justified by a supposedly democratic, peace-loving nation?  NOT.

'Toontime: Rolling Downhill

credit: Adam Zygus, Buffalo News

Yes, friends, the Donald is on a roll--in his own mind.  The tax cut is blatantly unfair regardless of what reactionary apologists say.  The Big Ears Monument is a long, long overdue recompense for the white man's destruction of Native American culture and territorial rights.  And the poor may always be with us, but we do not have to seek our own moral justification by starting another war.  Calvin was rejected by "social gospel" Protestantism; the Catholic Church has always been the succor of the poor and disposed even when other Christian churches were not.

It was capitalist tycoons, the same people who now support the Donald, who conflated capitalistic super-patriotism with Christianity in order to combat what they saw as the "virus of collectivism" embodied by Roosevelt's New Deal programs. H.W. Prentis, head of the National Association of Manufacturers said in speech at the time, "The only antidote is a revival of American patriotism and religious faith.”  This corruption of the Christian ethic was spread across the country by fundamentalist preachers like Congregationalist minister Rev. James W. Fifield Jr. who preached capitalism to one of the first mega-churches in the US.  His congregation numbered four thousand, and his "Spiritual Mobilization" program counted 17,000 participating ministers.  This organization to preach the gospel of wealth was of course funded by money from oil tycoons, General Motors, and other patrons from across the corporate world.  According to this perversion, government is the embodiment of evil, and regulation of business violates the Ten Commandments.  When the "Red Scare" created the demagogue McCarthy, it was simple for the preachers of the emerging "Gospel of Prosperity" to insert godless communism and heathen communists in the blank as the devil of the moment.  Fifield chose Norman Vincent Peale to replace him as leader of the movement in 1947.  Trump attended Peale's Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. Trump referred to Peale as one of the most inspirational speakers he has ever heard.

All of this was preface to what is now called the "religious right",  and to which the feckless robber baron occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue panders.  One of Trump's favorite stump lines is, "we worship God, not government."  As usual the line resonates with religious conservatives, but little do they know the real meaning of that line is, "we worship Capitalism, not Jesus Christ."  The itinerant preacher of Galilee would simply shake his head in total disbelief, and perhaps say as he did to Simon Peter, "Get behind me, Satan".

Yeti Is No More

Yeti, the infamous Himalayan biped of legend, has been debunked. So say geneticists who published their research in the Proceedings of Royal Society B. An international team of scientists analyzed 24 samples of hair, bone, feces and skin. The reality is that samples of DNA supposedly taken from the Yeti are from the Asian brown bear, most likely a Himalayan subspecies. The legend of Yeti, or Abominable Snowman as it became known in the west, has persisted for centuries; it was even worshiped as the god of the hunt by pre-Buddist peoples inhabiting the Tibetan Plateau. The lore captured western imagination in the 1950s when European mountaineers began their famous assents of Himalayan peaks. Suspected bits and pieces of the Yeti including alleged footprints [photo] and sightings were collected over the years, but there was never any documented proof of its existence.

The scientists led by Tianying Lan of the University at Buffalo in New York, write in their report, “we unambiguously show that this sample is from a bear that groups with extant Himalayan brown bear.”  One studied 'Yeti' hair sample held by a museum actually belongs to a dog.  The team goes on to say, “This study represents the most rigorous analysis to date of samples suspected to derive from anomalous or mythical ‘hominid’-like creatures, strongly suggesting the biological basis of the yeti legend as local brown and black bears,”  This is he second genetic study of alleged Yeti samples, the first completed in 2014.  That investigation also concluded study samples belonged to a bear.  Chalk another myth lodged in man's archaic collective unconscious exploded by science.  Next stop on the train to rubbish: 'Merica's analogue, Bigfoot.

Following the Money

It was only a matter of time before Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller got around to subpoenaing the personal financial records of THE TRUMP.  Undoubtedly he has been aided by inside information by others in the TRUMP WORLD already charged with crimes, including money laundering.  Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest bank, has turned over documents concerning certain money and credit transactions made by the rouge billionaire, and now El Presidente.  The bank has lent millions to the TRUMP ORGANIZATION, one of the few to extend credit after a string of TRUMP bankruptcies during the 1990s.

Investigators are apparently interested in confirming information that Deutsche Bank sold TRUMP'S loans to VEB or other Russian banks (Gazprom Bank, VTB Group, Sberbank) now under economic sanction by the United States.  Holding TRUMP debt coming due would give the Russian oligopolists leverage over TRUMP, especially if the banks in question are state controlled.  According to an official disclosure document issued in June, the TRUMP ORGANIZATION has debts of $130 million to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, the US operating unit.  The debts in reality are probably much larger.

Rueters reports that Paul Manafort's client profile are among the documents handed over.  Manafort was TRUMP's campaign chairman; he nor his wife have accounts at Deutsche Bank.  In October Manafort pleaded guilty to charges that included conspiracy to launder money.   The inference that one can reasonably draw from these circumstances is that the TRUMP ORGANIZATION, a TRUMP family business represented by Manafort, engaged in transactions with prohibited Russian financial institutions in response to pressure from them on loan repayments.  (All capitals for TRUMP because he is YUGE)  At some point later in the investigation, perhaps after subpoenaing senior advisor Jared Kushner for his testimony, Mueller will have set the stage for requesting testimony under oath from THE DONALD himself. US PERSON's advice:  DUCK!

Trump to Shrink Monument

Playing off his tax gift triumph in the Senate, Trump will announce that he will shrink the newly designated Bears Ear National Monument by as much as 90%.  The Monument is the result of over ten years of efforts by a coalition of environmentalists to protect landscapes held sacred by Native Americans.  The move will certainly trigger lawsuits by tribes, such as the Navajo Nation, who were instrumental in its creation.  The suits will bring before conservative justices the entire concept of natural preservation in America, the Beautiful.  The battle may result in millions of protected land being opened up to development, a prospect that excites commercial exploiters of all sorts.  Trump ordered his sycophant at Interior, Ryan Zinke, to review 27 monuments designated since 1996, since he considered the designations to be "egregious use of government power".  Zinke recommended that the boundaries of some the monuments be changed since it is not clear that the President has the authority to withdraw designations completely. {24.08.27}

Bears Ears connects the Navajo Nation to Canyonlands National Park

The issue of designations under the Antiquities Act of 1906 touches upon a sensitive intersection of intergovernmental relations.  The Act limits designations to the "smallest area possible" to protect desired features the law is meant to protect.  Conservatives still think in terms of limited federal authority enshrined in the 10th Amendment and colloquially termed "states' rights".  They see the monument designations as a unlawful federal land grab, closing commercially valuable land to development.  The federal government, on behalf of all the people, controls two-thirds of the land in Utah.  Utah receives anlarge sum of federal subsidies as a result of this ownership.  Currently new mineral exploration is prohibited within Bears Ears, but cattle grazing is still allowed.

Russell Begaye, president of the Navajo Nation, told reporters that the United States government had already taken “millions of acres of my people’s land.”

“We have suffered enough,” he said.  Protestors stood at the Utah state capitol with signs, saying "Keep your tiny hands off our Monument"  Too bad Trump's ego is not as small as his hands. Trump is expected to make the reduction announcement this week when he visits Utah.  He is also expected to cut the size of Staircase-Escalante NM by 50%.  Trump is not the first president to reduce the size of a monument.  President Wilson cut Olympic National Monument, and President Roosevelt reduced the size of Grand Canyon National Monument.  Both are now national parks.

"Toontime: Trickle On Trump

credit: Wolverton

Bernie Sanders got it right: the Repugnant tax plan is a moral abomination.  US Person says "Repugnant" tax plan because the only thing the Trumpster knows about it is that if passed it will give him and fellow plutocrats a huge tax break. There is no social equity in it, and creates a gaping trilion and half more of federal deficit. His smash and grab government is just about run out of time, December 8th to be exact.  Shutting the federal government has become a routine political ploy of the Grinchs on the hill.  The 'toons today are en point.

COTW: Here Come da Judge

Incredibly, the voters of Alabama do not seem to care that multiple allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against a former state judge who was removed from office for failing to follow the orders of a higher court.  Moore had refused to remove a Ten Commandment monument from an Alabama court house. If the chart is to be believed Moore suffered a significant drop in the polls after the Washington Post broke a story* that Moore had sexual relations with a fourteen year old when he was a thirty-two year old DA.  Moore denies the allegation and claims that it is deliberate character assassination formulated by "soft on crime" liberals in Washington.  That meme is grist for the mill of angry, white, racist, fundamentalists who are going to the voting booth in a special Senate election.  But their tired tropes never seem to get stale.  In fact Moore, according to latest reports, has regained the lost ground and is in a dead heat with his Democratic challenger after the racist pseudo-populist in the White House tweeted his support of the scandalized judge.  Partisanship has trumped common sense in a "house divided".  US Person wants to ask Judge Moore: how does it feel?

*After publishing the allegations of illicit sexual contact with a minor, the Post debunked a fake story being pushed on its undercover reporters by Project Veritas, a right wing agit-prop group. Trump should be very good at spotting "fake news" since his nationalist supporters are so adept at generating it.

Radioactive Plume Detected Over Europe

What might be evidence of a nuclear accident is an unexplained high level of Ruthenium 106, a man-made isotope, detected in the atmosphere by a French nuclear safety institute and a Danish monitoring station in October, emanating from the southern Urals. The existence of high levels of the isotope was only confirmed by Russian meteorological authorities recently.

They deny that the source comes from one of their country's nuclear facilities. However, high on the list of suspects is the former plutonium production facility at Mayak, Chelyabinsk-65 (re-named Ozyorsk). It was responsible for the third largest release of radioactivity in history when a waste water tank exploded on September 29, 1957 releasing radioactivity over 20,000 square kilometers. [see map above] Entire villages had to be bulldozed to contain the contamination. In the village of Korabolka, three hundred of its five thousand inhabitants died of radiation poisoning within a few days of the event.   Ethnic Russians were evacuated and their half of the village razed, but ethnic Tartars were left behind.  Was this a blatant form of racism, or did they became a living experiment in the effects of nuclear fallout?  Remaining villagers believe the latter is true.  At least 270,000 people in the region were exposed to high levels of radiation.  Residents are still living with the explosion's deadly aftermath, suffering high rates of birth defects and radiation-related illnesses such as cancer.  What remains of Korabolka, now called Tatarskaya Korabolka, has a cancer rate five times that of uncontaminated villages. The explosion and fallout was kept secret for 32 years. 

A Russian anti-nuclear activist, now living in France, Nadezhda Kutepova, testified to French officials in 2017 that Mayak is probably the source of the plume since the facility tested new equipment on the 25th and 26th of September. On 22nd September a train transported used fuel from a VVER 1000 light-water reactor for disposal. [photos here] This was an entirely new combustible for Mayak, and radioactive alarms were set off on the same days according to Kutepova, who advocated for victims of the first Mayak disaster. The director of the facility refused to comment on these events to journalists, except to say there is no Ruthenium 106 at his facility. Later, Russian officials backtracked on the statement saying there were small releases of the isotope, but well below acceptable limits. The French institute for nuclear safety calculated the release at 300 Terrabequerels, or about 375,000 times the limit permitted French reactors. French nuclear experts say that Ruthenium 106 can be produced during a vitrification process in the volatile form of RuO₄, which when contacted with air, creates aerosols of RuO₂.

Mayak is owned by Rosatom, a state monopoly, eager to take over the role of world provider of nuclear power reactors from defunct Westinghouse. Mayak  therefore has no independent monitoring of its operations.  The last thing the company wants at this point is another nuclear disaster to explain away.  The province of Cheyalbinsk, the site for nuclear production and waste facilities since the end of WWII, has been declared the most polluted place on the planet.

Costa Rica Proves Its Green

Costa Rica has beaten its previous records by running for 300 days entirely using renewable energy sources. The country uses five sources of renewable energy (hydro, wind, geothermal, solar and biomass) to generate 99.63% of its energy needs. The country ran for 299 days in 2015 and 271 in 2016. Costa Rica has set an ambitious goal of being 100% carbon neutral by 2021, as well as totally eliminating single use plastic. It also has plans to significantly increase its forest cover. Too bad 'Merica that you are stuck in the age of Trump, this small Central American country is setting a big example for the rest of the world. Green Kudos go to Costa Rica!

In related news, the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico is struggling to restore power to the entire island by Christmas. Conventional grids which rely on poles and wires are extremely vulnerable to high winds such as the 185 mph winds the island suffered during hurricane Maria. A innovative solution is being provided, free, by a New England solar power company, ReVision Energy to Puerto Rico's citizens. The company is building mobile solar power trailers that deploy folding solar panels to generate electricity for low load uses such recharging battery-powered electronic devices and basic lighting needs. The company plans to build 100 of the 12 foot trailers in six months.

Another example of reactionary Repugnant policy making: the House tax plan eliminates the federal tax credit for purchase of electric cars.  The $7500 credit has successfully boosted sales of electric cars in the US. Since the credit was enacted in 2008 the number of available models has grown from 2 to 30. House tax bill supporters say the measure is need to save costs. That concern did not stop them from passing a record-breaking Pentagon budget or granting owners of private jets a new credit, however. An energy policy analyst from the Union of Concerned Scientists says ending the tax break will adversely effect the ability of the US to deploy more electric vehicles. Every year the US subsidizes the fossil fuel industry by $4.7 billion compared to the $580 million the electric car credit cost in 2015.

The Screw Tightens

The house of Trump is in danger of crumbling as the 'king' sits precariously atop a construction of lies, collusion and foreign intrigue.  Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security advisor of a few days, has halted talks with Trump's lawyers indicating he may be on the verge of turning state's evidence,  The New York Times reports.  The paper cites four unnamed sources involved in the case. This is the strongest signal so far that his defenders are cutting a deal with Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the allegations of collusion with Russian officials to interfere with the 2016 election.  To continue such communications after negotiating a deal with prosecutors would be a prohibited conflict of interest for defense attorneys.

Flynn and his son are assumed to have significant criminal exposure.  Cooperation would help them achieve more lenient treatment. As the head of Trump's transition team for dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he is in a unique position to provide information on the President's chaotic attempts to put together a government administration.  His connections in Russia predate the campaign; he was seen sitting with Putin at a Moscow event in 2015.   Flynn's possible defection is extremely bad news for Trump's defense team because he was of greater statute than those previously indicted: George Manafort, former campaign chairman and Rick Gates, a campaign aide. Although the White House has denied that the former general has any incriminating evidence against the President.  George Papadopoulos, a former lower level foreign policy advisor, is already cooperating with the special counsel investigation.

Flynn's troubles began when he lied to FBI interviewers about the nature of his discussion with Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak.  His false statements about the meeting to Vice President Pence led to his dismissal as national security advisor after only one month in office.  Flynn's legal problems multiplied when investigators discovered he failed to list Russian entities on his financial disclosure forms.  He also belatedly disclosed a $500,000 payment from the Turkish government after leaving the White House, leading to questions about whether he was an unregistered secret agent for a foreign government during the campaign.  Flynn's high profile dismissal caused President Trump to ask former FBI director James Comey to end the government's investigation of Flynn's activities.  Comey contemporaneously composed a memo about the improper request after meeting alone with the President.

Creature Feature: Polar Bears Swarm Whale Carcass

Just one of the many adverse consequences of extreme global warming is the disruption of natural food cycles.  Because the arctic sea ice is shrinking fast, polar bears are loosing access to their primary prey, ring seals. This fact contributes to the unusual spectacle of two hundred polar bears, normally solitary unless mating, swarming a single whale carcass to feed. Russian tourists off the northeastern coast at Wrangle Island saw two hundred bears rush down a slope to feed on a beached bowhead whale. There is little food on land for polar bears and competition for food will become intense.  This development worries human inhabitants, who fear the white bear will turn to foraging around their settlements in desperation for food.  An estimated third or more bears will starve in the coming decades. US Person apologizes for the computerized voice-over narration.

Grizzly Bear Deaths Rising

credit: NatGeo

After the decision to strip the Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) of federal endangered species protection last year, bear deaths are rising.  Grizzly bears usually die prematurely from human causes. Only three of the recorded 51 bear deaths in the contiguous United States this year were classified as natural.  The rate of deaths is shocking: nearly one bear every two days since hunting season opened in October.  More than half of the deaths investigated (26) involve illegal activity otherwise known as poaching.  After making the customary adjustments for unknown deaths, about 77 bears are gone or about 11% of the Yellowstone bear population, the core of remaining grizzly habitat.  The grizzly population in Yellowstone is no longer rising, and after the record year of 2015 for bear mortality since 1959 when record-keeping began, is probably declining.

All of this bad news draws into question the demand for state wildlife officials to subject grizzly bears to trophy hunting next spring.  The bears are already suffering the effects of human population growth in the Yellowstone region.  People are drawn to the area because of the quality of natural life--clean air, water and abundant wildlife. Yet it is this development that is causing human-bear conflicts and reduction of habitat.  Trophy hunting is the embodiment of an archaic human urge to subjugate nature to its purposes, sanctioned by the Judeo-Christian religious tradition.  It is in direct conflict with a nature ethic practiced by indigenous people worldwide, and now environmentalists, who want to coexist and harmonize with Earth and its creatures.

State wildlife managers see large carnivores as a commodity that can be exchanged for funds by issuing permits to kill. 80-70% of large carnivore deaths in the Rockies can be attributed to sport hunting. Carnivores are simply competitors for edible herbivores such as elk, deer and moose.  Whatever else he may be, man is a carnivorous predator; so unenlightened ones are loath to allow other predators a share at nature's table.  Subjecting grizzlies to this grim harvest again is not management, but commerce in the time honored tradition of a country founded upon it.  It took decades of dedicated effort to bring grizzlies back from the edge of extinction, and it could all be undone in a very short time by a relatively small group of armed, hostile people.  Most citizens want to see the great bear survive in the wild--a potent symbol of what is good about America.  They come in droves each summer to the Park to see the bear up close.  Yet their desires may be thwarted by captured state officials who do the will of a clique of influential businessmen.  US Person thinks: Democracy?  Not so much.

This Month In WWI: Passhendaele

Passhendaele before and after the battle

The French shed copious amounts of blood at Verdun 1916, but in 1917 at the Third Battle of Yprès or Passhendaele, named after the Belgium village where the battle was fought, it was the English and Canadians turn to make enormous sacrifices. The Yprès salient was a tactical problem for the Allies, so the offensive was intended to capture ridges of high ground east of the town. A main rail route passed to the east of the salient that was vital to the German Fourth Army. The Germans had held the salient since the First Battle of Ypres in 1915. Passhendaele was situated at the top of the fourth objective ridge.

British plans to reduce the salient began with an assault on Messines Ridge in June, 1917. The attack featured an overwhelming use of mines against the German trenches which extended three deep from the front. The British had been digging since 1915 and the Germans knew this; however they were unable to stop the subterranean infiltration completely. Twenty-one mines were filled with 450 tons of explosives beneath their front line. On June 7th nineteen of the mines exploded, obliterating sections of the German front trenches through which British infantry poured in attack. By the end of the day, they had reached their objectives and had removed German forces from the high ground along the southern flank of the salient. [map]

The Allied offensive continued with heavy losses on both sides into winter. The tactical concept of combined arms was in its infancy; the royal flying corps was undergoing training for close air support. Tanks were just coming into regular use, having appeared en masse to great effect at Cambrai.  German fortifications had to be taken by frontal infantry assaults. The strategic rationale for the offensive was in part a diversion to allow the French army, still reeling  from mass casualties at Verdun and subsequent mutinies, to recover fighting strength. Another strategic goal of the Yprès operation was to flank the North Sea coast so German submarine bases could be destroyed or captured. The Germans by then had begun unrestricted submarine warfare which was hurting the Allied trans-Atlantic supply lines. But the Flanders campaign was controversial at the time and has remained so since; both David Lloyd George and General Ferdinand Foch opposed it.  In his Memoirs of 1938, Lloyd George wrote, "Passchendaele was indeed one of the greatest disasters of the war...No soldier of any intelligence now defends this senseless campaign..."  By the premature end of the operation in the winter of 1917, German U boats were still sinking Allied shipping in the North Atlantic, even though the French army had restored discipline and brought replacements forward.

muddy terrain near Passhendaele

Exhausted imperial soldiers had to also fight the incredibly muddy terrain churned to a gelatinous mass by repeated heavy shelling in very wet fall weather [photo, right]. Casualty figures have been repeatedly disputed by historians.  No one can argue they were not extremely high.  By the time the Canadian Corps captured the ruin of Passhendale (see photo above) on the fourth ridge, over a quarter million Allied soldiers had died or were wounded.  Germany lost perhaps twice that many, but could ill afford a war of attrition with the Allied army newly reinforced by the American expeditionary force.  British Fifth Army General Gough's plan was to proceed to Westrozebeke, but because the Germans scored a major victory over the Italians at Caporetto, Allied troops were diverted to Italy in support, and the advance was stopped short of the objective. The last major British attack at Yprès was made in November, 1917, the third year of the "war to end all wars."

Keystone Pipeline Leaks in La-la Land

courtesy: Trans Canada

Just days before the Nebraska utility commission is expected to decide right of way requests for an expansion of the Keystone Pipeline through the state, it leaked 210,000 gallons of bitumen onto agricultural land in Marshall County, South Dakota Thursday morning. Trump approved the expansion after his predecessor in office decided against granting necessary federal permits. The spill is relatively small--there have been 17 larger ones since 2010 according to AP-- and the owner, Trans Canada Corp., was quick to point out that no groundwater was contaminated. One of the major objections to the pipeline's expansion across Nebraska is the potential contamination of water aquifers. The expanded pipeline if built would carry up to 830,00 barrels per day of toxic bitumen slurry. The Repugnant dominated state legislature passed a law in 2011 that prevents the commission from factoring pipeline safety or the possibility of leaks into its decisions. Nevertheless, the Commission has received over half a million public comments on the company's application. In September Trump declared the pipeline would be "environmentally better".

Another classic example of greed motivated double-think from the so-called administration in Washington: his gang announced that it would reverse the ban on importation of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe. ; Obama's government banned importation from that chaotic country because elephant's were endangered by lack of conservation efforts. ; Trump functionaries announced that dropping the ban would actually help endangered elephants, “by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation.” Mugabe's pockets are already swelling (he is being forced to resign by his own ruling party, Zanu PF after decades of dictatorial rule).

Corruption does not stop at the White House door.  The US House approved with a bipartisan vote an out-of-control appropriations bill of $700 billion to fund the warmongers at the Pentagon.  It aims to increase their military spending by $80 billion. The rationale: the increased spending is needed to protect the country from an arrogant, unstable President--talk about sick! The bill includes spending for 28 more anti-ballistic missiles stationed in Alaska that presumably could be used to shoot down a North Korean ICBM. The increase is more than enough to pay for Medicare for All and free college education which are routinely dismissed by reactionary politicians as 'too expensive'. Insane? Just ask the people of Flint, MI who still do not have potable drinking water.
Representatives approved with bipartisan support an

Hunter's Story Does Not Hold Up

courtesy: Oregon State Police

Update: An Oregon "meat hunter" shot an killed Oregon Wolf OR-25* last month while hunting near La Grande, Oregon.  He claims he saw what he claims were three coyotes together which fits the observations of a young female associated with a wolf pair in Union County known as OR-30. One wolf charged him, so from a distance of 27 yards, he raised his rifle and shot it in self defense.  The Oregon State Police accepted his story with little investigation of the facts.  No necroposy was performed and the body disposed of before any independent analysis could be performed. Perhaps the state police were anxious to close the case quickly because of an institutional bias for which law enforcement agencies are well known.  The district attorney for Union County also refused to prosecute the case.

Photographs of the dead wolf show that the animal was shot in the side, with the exit wound at the left front shoulder. This fact would directly contradict the claim that the animal was coming directly at the hunter.  An experienced wolf biologist who has worked for the state said the shot was well placed, indicating a stationary target, not a running snap shot. The wolf was a small female about 83 pounds, one that would have almost certainly have fled from an armed human, as would coyotes. Nor was she suffering from any obvious diseases such as rabies.  It is illegal to kill a wolf in Oregon except in self defense or if there is substantial evidence of wolf predation on livestock. The Oregon Wolf Coalition has asked Governor Brown to reopen the investigation to determine what actually happened. The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife is expected to release its new wolf management plan for public comment shortly.

*correction: OR-25 was wolf living in southern Oregon killed on October 29th. He was wearing a radio tracking collar. He was dispersed from the Imnaha Pack in northeastern Oregon as a yearling. OR-25 was four and a half when he was poached. Because he lived in the western third of the state, he was both supposedly protected at the state and federal levels of government. The state police is offering a $5000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the poacher.

OR-23, also wearing a tracking collar was killed by gunshot in Wallowa County near Cold Springs on November 14th. The state police is asking the public for information about this illegal taking. If you have information about this poaching incident call 1-800-452-7888 and leave an anonymous tip.

Creature Feature: Team Lifting

Human managers like to talk a lot about "teamwork". Little do they know that other creatures on Earth practice this virtue regularly without complaint or direction.  Clown fish have a symbiotic relationship with sea anemones in which they make their homes. Here on BBC's Blue Planet, the little clown fish of the subfamily Amphiprioninae demonstrates the concept of team lifting:

Palm Oil Company Clears More Land Despite Ban

credit: Rainforest Action Network

The Indonesian island of Sumatra faces a ecological crisis created by the burgeoning palm oil industry.  There is huge demand for the product as a common food additive.  PepsiCo, for example, is a major user of palm oil.  Producer PT Tualand Raya has cleared a total of 205 hectares of rain forest since the government banned new clearances in 2016.  Its concession is located in the Leuser ecosystem which is considered prime remaining habitat for the Sumatran elephant, Elephas maximus sumatranus, a species on the brink of extinction in the wild. Between 1980 and 2005, 69% of their habitat has been lost to development.  In two provinces Riau and Lampung entire populations have been lost due to habitat destruction. Plantation expansion interferes with migration along routes that have been used for centuries by elephants.  Herds rely on these paths to find water, food and each other.  Destruction of their paths increases the likelihood of human conflict and resulting elephant mortality.

credit: N. Sujana

The Trump government has proposed cutting US support of wildlife conservation programs abroad by 32%.  This money represents vital support of programs such as anti-trafficking efforts and community conservation initiatives in Africa and elsewhere. US Fish & Wildlife Services International Species Program would go from a modest $9.15 million in funding, compared to the Pentagon's billions, to zero.  This program funds conservation efforts to help elephants, great apes, migratory birds, tigers, rhinos and other iconic species under threat of extinction.  Funding to protect new species under the US Endangered Species Act would be cut by 17%.  The photo, left above, shows a sick elephant calf separated from his mother in an East Aceh palm oil plantation.  Perhaps he is asking for man's help to survive in a world not of his making.  He certainly needs it.  For He fashioned all things that they might have being; and the creatures of the world are wholesome... Wisdom 1:14

COTW: Armed and Dangerous

credit: Guns & Ammo

'Merica, epitomized by Trump's callousness, has apparently decided to solve its "mental health problems" with more guns. The corporate mass media has endlessly touted the intervention of a bystander in the Texas church shooting who was also equipped with a rifle. But the fact is he did not stop the massacre from taking placed. The shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot. The chart shows the spike in gun sales by type of weapon. Variants of the A-15, a civilian semi-automatic version of a military weapon is the blue line, exceeded by sales of high capacity magazines and matching ammo. In 2013 when this chart ends, the gun industry had its best sales year in history. The demand for weapons has outstripped supply, sending gun prices up as illustrated below. The FBI reported a record number of back ground checks on Black Friday of 2012 (154,873) exceed the previous year's total in one day in anticipation of a lame duck President doing something about the gun fetish in 'Merica. The problem is profit-making, not mental health (although US Person is not willing to dispute there is a metal health crisis in the country). Any excuse to keep the cash coming in by preventing a ban on non-sporting arms and stiring up another war is good enough for the plutocrats.

Alone Against the World

'Merica proves once again it is the exceptional country.  Not only do we allow 'mad men' to purchase military weapons which are designed to kill in volume (Would you sell a flamethrower to an arsonist?), but it is the only country in the world that has pulled out of the Paris climate accord.  'Merica is now alone after Syria, in the middle of a vicious civil war, announced it would sign the agreement.  Nicaragua, the other hold out, signed last month.  The world is meeting at the Bonn climate conference, which began yesterday, and a peoples' delegation from our country is attending to offset the ridiculously divisive pandering in which Trump specializes.  Is it any wonder our unstable President makes such bombastic and jingoistic statements while supposedly representing US overseas?  The United States does not have the biggest military machine in the world for nothing.  In his own narscisstic state of mind, he is "the only one that matters"  And that is bad news for the rest of US. 

'Toontime: I Don't Remember

Latest: Special Prosecutor Mueller is certainly working his way up the food chain at a steady pace: NBC reports that he now has enough evidence to charge Michael T. Flynn who was Trump's national security advisor for just twenty-four days before being fired. The charges may include lying to the FBI and money laundering. Also, the Special Prosecutor is looking into whether Flynn attempted to engineer the extradition of a chief rival of Turkish President Erdogan, Fethullah Gulen, from the United States to Turkey in return for millions of dollars, an illegal quid pro quo. According to sources familiar with the investigation, Flynn's son Michael, could also be charged at the same time. He worked briefly on the White House transition team. This development brings the Russian Connection investigation into the White House and not just the Trump campaign organization.  In most investigations of corporate bodies the ability of a prosecutor to charge high level officials with crimes depends to a large extent on the availability of insider witnesses willing to testify against their superiors in the organization. Howard Dean, former DNC chair, told reporters he thinks Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law will be indicted for money laundering. Other members of the Trump's family business may be next on Mueller's hit list.

credit: Fitzsimmons, Arizona Star   

{03.11.17} US Person cannot remember being called a lightweight before, either.  The lack of memory at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW will become depressingly familiar  as the investigation into the Russian Connection continues.  That is, of course, if Robert Mueller does not meet the same fate as Archibald Cox. This week contained the first indictments of Trump top aides and a plea agreement from a foreign policy advisor, George Pappadopoulos, an "excellent guy" according to the usually disparaging Trump.  It is the plea agreement that should be noted since it is conditioned on complete cooperation with the Special Counsel. Mr. Pappadopoulos offered to arrange a meeting for candidate Trump with President Putin, and he was in at least one meeting with Trump chaired by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Pappadopoulos swears he was offered "dirt" on Hillary Clinton via "thousands of emails" in the possession of Russians*. It is this meeting that Trump has difficulty recalling; that claim is somewhat incredible from someone who boasted just last week about having "one of the great memories of all time".  The only thing great about Donald Trump is his blatant buffoonery.

credit: John Cole
Wackdoodle sez:  Ah confess, the Democrats and Crooked Hillary made me do it!

*Apparently Facebook, Google and Twitter were flooded with ads coming from Russian sources. Whether this was a propaganda operation by the Russian government, "cyber-warfare"  or "Putin's revenge", remains to be proven.   US Person thinks that if all it takes is a hundred thousand dollars worth of absurd ads on social media to decisively sway a US election, then democracy is in worse condition than he believed previously. To him the capture of the DNC by corporate Clintonites, who bailed out the party financially and then rigged the primaries against socialist Bernie Sanders, was much more influential to the outcome of the 2016 election than any Russian hacks. Perhaps the fundamental explanation for this tempest in a teapot lies within our own national security state.  Any explanation that blames the systematic corruption of our national politics on sinister foreign powers is preferable than the truth.

Major US Plywood Company Implicated in Deforestation

More: A major Dutch timber company, Boogaerdt Hout, was ruled to have marketed illegal teak lumber from Myanmar in violation of EU timber regulations according to the Dutch Food and Safety Authority. The law requires timber companies within the EU to perform due diligence inquiries about the source of lumber sold. Most teak is now plantation grown, but illegal teak still comes from Myanmar where illegal logging is rampant. The country lost 15 million hectares of wooded land between 1990 and 2015. The Dutch government has given the company two months to clear its supply chain of illegal teak or be fined $23,000 per cubic meter of illegal lumber.  A London based NGO, Environmental Investigation Agency provided the evidence against Boogaerdt Hout.  It says 17 other companies have been found guilty of dealing in illegal Burmese teak.  Two EU nations, Italy and Spain, have yet to enforce a ban on importation of Burmese teak which leads to undermining enforcement efforts in Burma.  Myanmar's forests are still home to about 70 critically endangered Indonesian tigers (Panthera tigris corbetti)

{23.10.17}An article posted at Mongabay.com last week tells us that a leading US importer of plywood products from Malaysia accepted shipments of product that was unsustainably harvested in the Shin Yang concession, Sarawak, Borneo.  Liberty Woods International, under the Lacey Act is required to not buy illegally logged lumber; however, due diligence is not required by the law. Shin Yang has been repeatedly accused of unsustainable operations and ignoring the rights of indigenous people.  Some of the logs used in Liberty Woods plywood came from within a proposed conservation area known as the Heart of Borneo according to Global Forestry Services, an industry support group.  The US company claims in its advertisements that it "cares about the environment" and that it "seeks out suppliers that are environmentally responsible."  A company representative confirmed to an investigator that the product in the questionable shipment came from lumber that was not certified to be within Shin Yang's legal concession.

deforested land in Heart of Borneo, credit Global Witness

In 2015 an NGO, Global Witness, reported that Shin Yang was clearing nine square kilometers of rain forest per month, equivalent to forty-two soccer fields per month.  The certification process is no guarantee that Malaysian lumber is sustainably harvested.  An open secret in Sarakwak is that concessions could be gained through bribes of Sarakwak's former chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, now the ceremonial head of state.  He left office after 32 years in power, and not before his family amassed a fortune estimated at $15 billion.

Sarawak officials claim that 84% of Sarawak is still forested, but satellite imagery analyzed by Global Witness indicates only 5% of the rain forest remains untouched and only 65% still has natural forest cover.  Between 2000 and 2012 Malaysia had the highest deforestation rate in the world.  Lumber trade associations counsel their members, like Liberty Woods, to conduct compliance investigations when purchasing "high-risk" lumber commodities such as Meranti plywood from Malaysia.  US Person, aka "turtle man" advises you to know your wood before you buy and buy only sustainable products.

Creature Feature: A New Relative

credit: A. Walmsley

There are only seven great ape species, of which man is one, on Earth. That is, until now. Biologists have determined after twenty years of study that an orangutan living in the Sumatran rain forest is a separate species. Only 800 exist, so they will be immediately listed as endangered. The Tapanuli orangutans (Pongo tapanuliensis) were located in 1997, but their unique genetic identity was undetermined until today. There are two other species of orangutans, Sumatran and Bornean, that were determined to be unique in 2001. Tapanuli orangs live in Batang Toru, south of Lake Toba, and are isolated from their northern relatives, the Sumatrans. A genetic divergence is thought to have occurred 3.4 million years ago based on genomic analysis. Orangutans are the most distant relatives of Homo sapiens. A video from the BBC showing our new forest-dwelling cousin in its native habitat can be viewed here.

All Hallows Eve

Another Halloween is here and kids are anxious to dress up and receive treats as a reward for performing a simple "trick" or just for not being naughty. Some adults also seem to be very excited by the observance. US Person always wants to know the ulterior reasons for human behaviors: Halloween has its deep roots in the pagan past. Pagan is a broad term encompassing many different belief systems which do not accept the eternal salvation offered to God's "creatures" by Jesus Christ. Most relevant to 'Merica, still a predominately Anglo-Saxon nation, are the Celtic religious traditions of northern Europe that survive in attenuated forms into the 21st century despite almost two millennia of religious repression. As we will see, polytheistic Celtic religion was fundamentally connected to Nature and its changes, so it may be superficially characterized as a type of nature worship. Christianity recognizes Nature as the perfect exemplar of God's divine power and eternal nature, but that suffers corruption from man's faulty dominion. Psalm 19, 104; Romans 8. Nature worship errs in that it worships creation, but not the Creator.☩ 

blue sun energy, red temperature

Samhain, samhainn, sauin depending on which Celtic language you use, dates from the time when the Celtic people were primarily pastoral suggests George Frazier, who wrote The Golden Bough*. The first of the four "quarter days" it marks the beginning of winter, and was generally held on November 1st. Tribal gatherings, feasting, drinking and contests were all part of the celebration at a time when the veil between the spirit world and this world was at its weakest. Supernatural beings and departed souls could enter the living's reality. Beltane, in spring, on the opposite side of the wheel of seasons from Samhain , celebrated fertility and life [chart above]. Samhain can be said to be a celebration of the dead. It occurs at the time herds were moved from summer pastures to their winter paddocks. Because meat could be effectively preserved during the cold months, animals were selected for slaughter. Spirits had to be propitiated to ensure the people and their livestock survived harsh winter. Later developments recorded in the 16th century, mumming¹ and guising², became persistent elements of the Samhain holiday, perhaps evolving from the practice of impersonating the souls of the dead and collecting offerings on their behalf. Wiccans, who are modern pagans, celebrate a version of Samhian as one of the four Great Sabbats (Sabbaths) of the Wheel, also dedicated to the dead.

The Christianization of Europe was achieved through the strenuous efforts of monks and converted rulers to eradicate the 'old ways', in part by replacing them with Christian observances (interpretatio christiana).  So it was with the great pagan holiday of Samhain. Hallowe'en, a contraction of All Hallows (Saints) Eve, began to be observed on October 31st as early as the 6th century, the eve of the feast day of All Saints (Hallows) on November 1st in the church's calendar; it was part of the three day observance dedicated to remembering the dead--saints, martyrs, and the faithful departed. Yet pagan traditions died very hard. Some of them became incorporated into the Christian practice such as wearing costumes and carrying hollowed out turnip lanterns while "souling", or collecting cakes for the beloved departed. This practice dates back to at least the 15th century. In France, the danse macabre took place on Hallowe'en when the dead rose to hold a riotous celebration in graveyards. The living, in costume, could join them if they had the nerve to do so. Huesos de Santos, special pastries, are still laid out for the dead in Spanish churchyards. All over Europe fires were lit to guide souls and ward off demons. In the New World, Anglican and Catholic colonists brought their Hallowe'en practices with them, although the Puritans frowned on these "popish" observances. Their strict disapprobations included celebration of Christmas!  They were the original "Debbie Downer".

So, the commercial event now so popular among children, and those who are still children, has deep roots in religion, and thus our evolutionary past. It is a time to remember loved ones who have gone before us at a time--halfway between the fall equinox and winter solstice--when the sun's life-giving energy fades from view.
1. traditional folk plays by men in costume, called "mummers".
2. from Scotland, children going from door to door in disguise.
☩ Paul wrote to the Romans, "In fact, whatever can be known about God is clear to them [the perversely irreligious]; He himself made it so. Since the creation of the world, invisible realities, God's eternal power and divinity, have become visible, recognized through the things he has made...They claim to be wise, but turned into fools instead; they exchanged the glory of God for images representing mortal man, birds, beasts and snakes...they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." Romans 1:19-25
*Frazer wrote in his preface to the third edition of his multi-volume work on the relation of magic and religion that, "we [Hegel] both hold that in the mental evolution of humanity an age of magic preceded an age of religion, and that the characteristic difference between magic and religion is that, whereas magic aims at controlling nature directly, religion aims at controlling it indirectly through the mediation of a powerful supernatural being or beings to whom man appeals for help and protection". Of course now science and its application, technology, attempts to do what magic and religion could not do. Needless to say this is a totally agnostic view of man's development. The Crucifixion of the Lamb was placed in context of a discussion of pagan myth about a sacrificial king-god in Frazer's original work. In his third edition he moved the topic to a "speculative" appendix perhaps reflecting the scandal created by his secular treatment of Christianity's central belief.  Notably, Frazer accepted the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth as a great religious and moral reformer, and considered doubts about his existence unworthy of attention.