Vietnam Creates New Nature Reserve

A new nature reserve created by the Vietnamese government in July may contain the elusive and rare forest bovine that looks like an antelope, the saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis).  It has been called the "Asian unicorn".  The Chau-Khe Nuoc Trong Nature Reserve [photo credit: Viet Nature Conservation Center] is home to a number of threatened species including the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and the southern white cheeked gibbon (Nomascus siki)  The reserve is a major step in the protection of Vietnam's wildlife under great pressure from poaching and deforestation. Located in Quang Binh province the reserve is 54,689 acres of lowland forest in the Annamite Mountains next to a national park.  Its name means "clear water in the ravine." 

a female saola in Laos

Theoretically, the reserve will enjoy the highest level of protection; even tourists are prohibited from entering ecological rehabilitation zones. Conservationists say law enforcement will be key to the new reserve's success. It may be that the reserve will be responsible for saving the Edward's pheasant (Lophura edwardsi) from extinction since it is within the historic range of the bird that is functionally extinct in the wild.  There is some evidence that the saola [photo credit: WWF] persists in the dense forest of the region since remains of a saola killed by hunters were found by conservationists, but no researcher has seen a live saola in the wild. There are a few camera trap photos of the animal, the most recent one captured in 2013. Last year camera traps captured an image of the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor), a deer like species not seen in thirty years.

Rara fauna aside, the forest is one of the few remaining intact in a country undergoing rapid development since the Vietnam war.  Threats to its biodiversity come from land clearances, human encroachment, extraction industries and a high density of snare traps, the usual weapon of the illegal poacher.  Since the reserve is near the Laotian border, it presents a challenge to protect forest inhabitants from poachers and wildlife traders.  Nevertheless, the new reserve is a victory for conservationists.  Green Kudos go to Vietnam!

Liquid Water on Mars

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express orbiter has confirmed the existence of four underground lakes in the planet's south polar region. The largest lake, buried 1.5kms beneath deposits of ice and dust, was discovered by radar between 2012 and 2015. More radar data collected by Mars Express has confirmed that finding and also identified 3 smaller lakes nearby. [image] Scientists think the lakes contain a high degree of disolved salts which prevent the liquid water from freezing. Some hypersaline lakes on Earth reach 40% concentrations; how saline the Mars brine is remains unknown for now. Research has shown that water with dissolved salts of magnesium and calcium perchlorate can remain liquid at -123C. 

Whether life could exist in the lakes is another unknown. Only a few types of microbes can exist in Earth's highly saline lakes. Studies show that when temperatures are warm, halophiles can withstand higher salinity levels than when the environment is cold. Mars polar region is cold and the lake water probably close to saturation. The latest findings are published in Nature Astronomy.

'Toontime: Nixon Pen Pal

“A business man who was also a biologist and a sociologist would know, approximately,

 the right thing to do for humanity. But, outside the realm of business, these men are stupid. 

They know only business. They do not know mankind nor society, 

and yet they set themselves up as arbiters of the fates of the hungry millions 

and all the other millions thrown in."

--Jack London, Iron Heel

 

Trumpillini cannot even claim he is an ACE business person after the NY Times finally released two decades of his tax returns on Sunday.  The idiot has lost not one $400 million fortune that his daddy bestowed, but another $427 million he earned from his inane TV show, The Apprentice, where he conveniently honed his executive schtick.  Running for president in 2016 was a grift, intended to bolster his flagging brand with conflicting business deals and free 24/7 media exposure, until he actually won the "rigged" contest.  After that, he was willing to shake down foreign leaders for more money. ($73 million income from  foreign sources) Trump made an absurdly large amount of money ($2.3 million) from handling the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Could it be Putin has some of his golf markers on file? His courses have lost $$315.6 million since 2000. The 'King of Debt' owes about $1.13 billion according to Forbes including a disputed 2010 tax refund of about $72.9 million*, and $421 million in guaranteed loans coming due by the end of a second term, if he gets one.  No wonder he does not want to leave the immunity of the Room Without Corners!

 

Fours years, an impeachment, and one pandemic later, he is now exposed for what he is: an emperor without clothes, an amoral white collar criminal, and a national security risk.  The man has even used his daughter, Ivanka, as a recurring tax dodge, avoiding gift taxes by deducting her six figure allowance as consulting fees.  In fifteen years the billionaire has paid a total of $1,500 in federal taxes, and for ten of those years he paid zero; many middle class taxpayers pay that much in one year.  As he once said, "only chumps pay taxes".  So what does that make the infantile idolizers who put him in power and enable his misbegotten rule?  Has 'daddy' finally arrived to take l'il Donny to the woodshed? US Person, who once got a D in a college business ethics course, can only hope.

 

credit: A. Zygus, Buffalo News

 

“The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost 

two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, 

this every 4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle."--Ronald Regan


End the Nightmare: VOTE!

 

Chumps!....

*The tax refund must be reviewed by the Senate Joint Committee on Taxation where it has stalled since 2016. His accountants made use of a tax credit provision known as abandonment of a business. This claim is probably related to his decision to give up his money-losing casinos in Atlantic City. The credit is enormous, $700 million in losses, but to qualify Trump cannot have any thing of value remaining from the supposedly worthless partnership interests he abandoned. However, records show that when the casino bankruptcy was concluded, he got a 5% interest in the stock of a successor company. If his tax credit claimed is disallowed, the Heel will owe the IRS more than $100 million including interest. Nancy, are you paying attention because tax fraud is an impeachable offense.

Three Hundred Or More Pilot Whales Die in Tasmania

In what is Australia's largest mass stranding on record, three hundred eighty long-finned pilot whales have died on Tasmania's west coast. Whales washed up on sand spits in an area known as Macquarie Heads. Rescuers have managed to save fifty whales. The Tasmanian state government said that rescue attempts will continue as long as their are whales alive on the beach, but the focus of efforts will turn to removing the carcasses scattered along the coast.  Rescuers say about thirty more whales can be saved.  As time ashore goes on, the mammals tire and become overheated.

Science does not understand why whales seem to commit suicide by stranding on shore in large groups. It may have something to do with following the pod regardless of the danger involved.  A pod leader in the hunt for fish could become disoriented, leading a group into dangerously shallow water. Their sonar sense apparently has difficulty defining wide beaches that slope gently to land.  Macquarie Heads is a location of previous mass standings.   Globicephala melas [photo] is prone to stranding.  Strong tides have hampered efforts to return stranding animals to deep water.  Reports from the scene say the multi-ton mamals are quite calm and do not resist human efforts to re-float them.  Pilot whales can grow up to 7m (22 ft) long and weigh up to three tons.

COTW: Why the Filibuster Rule Must Go and More

So Joe has already come out against changing the filibuster rule in the Senate and increasing the number of jurists on the Supreme Court. Pardon me, Joe but both of those items need to be accomplished in a possible Democratically run government. Divided government for over two decades has been a rolling disaster for this country. If the Democrats are lucky enough to pull off a sweep of the White House and Congress, they need to impose their will on a truculent minority that has successfully blocked all progressive legislation since the Affordable Care Act. The key to this blockade has been the Senate filibuster rule. Look at the chart:

Without doubt the Affordable Care Act, already ruled unconstitutional in the conservative 5th Circuit, and the Supreme Court abortion decision in Roe v. Wade will be atop the target list of a Court tilted hard right for a generation or more, when Senate Repugnants ram through a nomination and confirmation before the end of the year. Because no one was able to convince careerist Ruth Ginsberg to retire while a Democratic president could appoint her successor, Democrats must consider how to counteract a very conservative Court that will be stumbling block to progressive legislation, just as a conservative Court was to FDR's New Deal programs in 1937. Repugnant's are not playing nice guys any longer because they see a demographic sea change arriving that could relegate them to the historical trash bin. Biden's weak appeals to civility and comity are therefore falling on deaf ears.

All the stops are out, so even institutionalists like Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said everything is on the table. There is progressive support in the Senate for modifying or even eliminating the filibuster. And with a possible lame-duck Supreme Court appointment staring Democrats down, increasing the number of justices to achieve a more politically balanced Court is worth discussing.  It is obvious that the Supreme Court is the least democratic institution in our civilian federal government.  So Congress should not stop with considering more justices, but also imposing a limit on their tenure.  Life-time judicial appointments are a relic of history, not a constitutionally imposed mandate.  See Article III.

Here is something to think about: Repugnant state senators have boycotted the Oregon legislature twice to prevent consideration of a carbon tax bill supported by the Democratic majority.  Unethical behavior, you say?  What about the previous public pledges by US Senators not to confirm a justice during an election year?  Moscow Mitch held up an Obama nomination for eight months, claiming it was too close to an election! Is that ethical behavior?  US Person does not think so.  It is time for Democrats to stand up for the democratic principles this country is supposedly founded upon.

Another Blow Against the Pebble Mine

It is the resource extraction project that will not die, the zombie Pebble Open Cast mine at the headwaters of Alaska's Bristol Bay. [photo] The EPA once proposed regulatory restriction that would have killed the gold and copper mine, but thanks to the Antichrist In Office, the EPA dropped the rule changes to settle a lawsuit. The conservationists trying to protect the clean water and salmon runs amounting to a $1.5 billion dollar industry shifted focus to defunding the project. NRDC reports that the global investment bank, Morgan Stanley sold off all of its shares in Northern Dynasty Minerals, the Canadian company behind the mine project. International objections to the mine have convinced four multinational mining companies to abandon the project, leaving Northern Dynasty as the sole backer. The company, which is increasingly short on cash, has intensified its search for new partners and applied for a new government permit.

A major reversal of policy by the regime in August gave new hope to environmentalists that the project is, indeed, dead. In August, the regime decided the proposed project "cannot be permitted" in its current form.  The Army Corps of Engineers devised a series of strict restrictions intended to offset anticipated environmental harms to the sockeye fishery, the world's largest.  Significantly, conservative figures inside the regime and in the recreation industry began to speak against the project; these apparently included 'Mini Me' Trump Jr. who has sport-fished in the area. The mitigation required by the Corps may not be possible because the watershed is considered pristine, and that is how the project would be effectively killed. Nevertheless Northern Dynasty continues to insist that the mitigation requirements are not a "show-stopper".  It will submit a final  management plan that the company says will meet all Corps requirements.

 

The End Times

Revelation's "rivers of blood" have not arrived yet, but migratory birds in the

hundreds of thousands are dropping dead out of the sky. [photo credit: K Aigner] Scientists and bird lovers are reporting a mass die-off of birds across the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Although scientists have yet to assess causation, you do not have to be a rocket scientist or even an ornithologist to suggest that the toxic air from massive wildfires across the Pacific coast is partly responsible. A recent cold weather event in the Rockies could have also claimed birds weakened by their strenuous migration south for the winter. An ornithologist from New Mexico State University who is documenting the mass fatalities estimates that up to a million birds of various species have perished. Death reports started coming in August, but nothing amiss was suspected, Mirgration is difficult and stresses birds to their maximum capacities. Reports continued into September along with disoriented behavior, vagrant birds and atypical flight patterns. Scientists were alerted to a possible catastrophe. NMSU mobilized resources and started investigating. So far, the scientists have collected 300 bird carcasses. 

Since the die off started before the cold spell and is continuing after, another causative factor must be involved. Wildfires are known to force early migration, as well as poison the atmosphere and obscure visibility. Jon Hayes of Audubon Southwest says the die-off and wildfires are symptoms of global climate change. “All these things are going to cause long-term declines, long-term losses [of birds], and they’re gonna be punctuated by big scary events like this. It’s part of this bigger problem.” A 2019 study by Cornell University found that North American has lost some 50 billion birds.  The study concluded that 389 bird species, some of which have been killed in the current disaster, are threatened with extinction as weather patterns change and become more extreme due to planetary heating.

Researchers are planning to send some of the bird carcasses they have collected to US Fish & Wildlife's forensic laboratory in Ashland, OR.  The necropsy reports will take a week or more to provide possible answers to the factors causing their deaths. Researchers are asking the public to be on the lookout for dead or disoriented migratory birds and report what they find to state wildlife departments or report on the iNaturalist website.

'Toontime: She Said...He Said....No, He Didn't

An indication of just how fixated on minutia the Swamp political culture is while the world descends into ecological chaos:

 credit: R. McKee

Wackydoodle axes: Yes, but does he wear underwear?

COTW: Is This Neglegent Mass Homicide?

Recent revelations from the chronicler of presidents, Bob Woodward, show that the sociopath Heel in Office was aware of the danger SARS CoV-2 posed to public health, but chose to deliberately downplay the pandemic's seriousness and refuse to provide national leadership for the crisis, leaving it to state governors to respond piecemeal. Further revelations from confidential advice memos issued to states by the White House show that by default, the federal government was adopting a dangerous "herd immunity" approach based on the advice of a non-qualified physician who appeared on Fox News and came to the attention of the compulsive narcissist occupying the Room Without Corners. All of this occurred despite the existence of a ready-made pandemic response plan (updated in 2017) created by the Center for Disease Control, the lead federal agency responsible for protecting the public's health. This chart shows the result of the "near criminal" bumbling from the White House's "herd mentality" approach. US Person hopes Joe Biden asks some pointed questions about the Heel's lack of concern for the health of the nation in their upcoming debate. A Rupert Pupkin by any other name....

US COVID-29 DEATHS (est.): 287,000

 

and his crazy fans....
 

Brazil Burning

Brazil's second major ecosystem after the Amazon rainsforest, the Pantanal wetlands are burning. The Pantanal is the world's largest wetland that dry out annually and is home to a plentiful array of creatures, large and small. This year is different due to global warming: the Pantanal is burning. The remote charred area is larger than New York City, which has burned since July. The number of animals destroy or injured by the fires is heartbreaking. A team of veterinarians, biologists and local guides have been traveling the rutted, dirt Trans-Pantanal Highway searching for creatures to rescue and aid. Jaguars have been seen trekking the blackened plains, thirsty, starving and walking on paws burnt to the bone. Caymans are frozen in their death throes, their jaws open to grasp the last breath of super heated air. A snake carass was discovered in which the reptile had sunk its fangs into itself in a reflexive attempt to escape the pain of being burned alive. Officials say the are the greatest number of fires in six months for the last two decades. Humans are able to help only a small fraction of the injured animals that escaped the flames. According to Brazil's space agency, there were 2,534 fires between January and June, an almost 300% increase over last year's number. About 16% of the Brazilian Pantanal has burned. Climate scientist fear that these extreme conditions will become the so-called 'new normal' in an age of catastrophic climate change wrought by man.

The usual floods of the wet season never arrived this year. Both flora and fauna depend heavily on the annual replenishing rains. The Paraguay River, which crosses the wetlands has shrunk to its lowest level since 1973. Scientist think that warming above the equator has drawn moisture away from the continent, which will be sent north in the form of stronger hurricanes. Hurricane Sally, a force 2 hurricane, is currently flooding the Gulf Coast of the United States. Scientists refer to this climate phenomenon as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or the Atlantic equivalent of the El Niño in the Pacific. However unlike El Niño it has generally cycled every 30-40 years; it has been in a warm phase since the 1990s. Someone should tell the Heel in Office.* Destruction of the Amazon rainforest is also having an effect on the Pantanal. Rainforest trees release a lot moisture into the air during transpiration, which is carried on winds to neighboring regions. Amazon deforestation has surged under Brazil's current pro-development regime by 35%. The government headed by ultra-nationalist Jair Bolsonaro has responded to criticisms of his environmental problems by claiming an international conspiracy to harm Brazil's economy. Apparently, he has read the Heel's political playbook.

The fires threaten one of the world most diverse ecosystems. Sandwiched between the rain forest and grasslands to the north and dry forests to the south, it is a magnate for wildlife with roughly 1200 vertebrate species living there. Thirty-six of those are listed as endangered. The 58,000 square mile Pantanal is home to the world's most dense population of jaguars, the world's largest. [photo] All are suffering now from the devastating effects of wildfire.

*The ignorant Antichrist in Office claimed during a California campaign stop that, "Well, I don't think science knows, actually."[what is causing more wildfires] Nothing could be further from the truth, except perhaps his claim that SARS CoV-2 will "just disappear" because of "herd mentality", by which US Person supposes he meant herd immunity. The scientific ignorance of the most powerful political figure in the world is simply appalling, and caused the journal Scientific American to endorse a political candidate, Biden, for the first time in in its 175 year publishing history. Based on recently released confidential White House advice to states struggling to contain the virus and public statements by the Heel, it is apparent the regime is attempting to combat the virus spread with "herd immunity" developed through widespread community infection. This dangerous approach was abandoned by the UK and Sweden once it became clear that the total death toll would be politically unacceptable. Most experts think that for herd immunity to develop in a population, the needs to be an infection rate between 60-70%. The current death rate in the US from COVID-19 is around 3%. So the Heel's sociopath for making the virus "go away" could result in 7 million more dead Americans.

Talequah Gives Birth Again

The female orca that carried her calf for seventeen days in a remarkable sign of grief has given birth again.  Talequah, aka J-35 gave birth to a calf that researchers observed on Saturday. [photo credit: AFP]  The birth brings the number of Southern Resident whales to 73. These whales live near Washington state and British Columbia, Canada.  There were 88 of them at the time they were listed as endangered in 2005.  The whales are struggling to survive a number of threats including over-fishing, pollution, and noise from human activity.  The population looses about 40% of its calves within the first year.

The extent of Talequah's grieving was extraordinary. Orca mothers often carry their dead calves in an attempt to keep them above water, but so abandon the bodies.  Talequah's newest calf is designated J57 meaning it is the fifty-seventh member of the J pod, and appears robust.  It was spotted in the Strait of Juan de Fuca that separates Olympic Peninsula from Vancouver Island.  The Southern Resident orcas are salmon specialist.  Declining salmon runs in the region have made it difficult for them to find sufficient nutrition.  Recent effort to restore salmon runs offer some hope for the whales survival.  Removal of the damn on the Elwha River, which empties into the strait will help.  Three pods that make up the Southern Resident population were seen to gather in an area where salmon are running accompanied by breaching and much communication.  Two other orcas in the group are known to be pregnant.

Oregon Burning

US Person, as you might have deduced by now lives in Oregon, which is on fire in the greatest conflagration the state has ever witnessed. [photo] Ten percent of the state's population have been told to evacuate or prepare to evacuate as the fires come closer to the Portland metropolitan area. More than 900,000 acres have burned in Oregon in just 72 hours. California has six of the state's largest fires on record burning right now including the largest fire on record, the August Complex. What is not being widely reported, midst the human interest stories of evacuation, property loss, and emotional turmoil is this fact: these fires are intensified by climatic conditions. A climate change drought has primed the forests to burn producing a "compound disaster".

Climate scientists have been warning for a least two decades that climate change would produce compound disasters, in which more than one extreme event takes place simultaneously across varied geography. Except these events were not expected for several more decades under conditions of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Surprise! The future is now, and its not pretty: poisonous orange skies full of combustion particulates are more ominous than scenic. [photo] Portland looks more like Delhi or Beijing on a bad day. [photo below]

These large fires will be come more commonplace as studies show the region warming up and drying out. A recent study shows California's usual fall fire season having more days of extreme fire conditions that have doubled since the 1980s. One fire expert opined, “I think it is fair to say that these fires are unprecedented for the speed at which they moved. We’ve never seen so many fires cover so many acres in such little time.” The fire spread has been aided by unprecedented, strong offshore winds that usually arrive later in the fall. But because the Rockies experienced record cold temperatures, including snow early this year, the air pressure gradient with the still warm West Coast was enhanced. These conditions produced the strong, offshore winds driving the fires. Climate scientists think these unusual conditions are the result of global warming altering accustomed weather patterns.

The scope of the current fires exceed the notable fire event of 1910, referred to as the "Big Blowup". Burning was then extensive in Montana and Idaho, covering 3 million acres, killing 85 people including 78 firefighters. Because of the Big Blowup, the Forest Service began fire suppression activities, which continue to this day. Critics of this policy say it is counterproductive because fuel builds up over time in forests not thinned by occasional fires. Some observers say California is "built to burn" with developments sandwiched into canyon filled with dry timber and grasses, traditionally dry fall weather, and strong onshore winds known in the south as "Santa Ana". California has experienced a five-fold increase in its annual burned acreage. The state has had four straight years of conflagrations in both the southern and northern parts of the state where as before the would be a break of several years between large fire outbreaks. Undoubtedly, the new normal is not good. At a charity event in the noughts, worthless US Person asked a leading, local meteorologist why his nightly weather segment did not mention the effects of global warming he replied, "Referring to global warming might offend some of our viewers." Well, it is damn hard to ignore the apocalypse happening outside our windows now.

 He can still see the ball....

Idaho Slaughters More Wolves

Idaho continues to slaughter wolves and their pups in a relentless effort to eliminate the species from the state. Records from the state so-called wildlife management agency recently made public show hunters and government agencies have killed 256 wolves this year and the season is not over. About sixteen of these were pups, still nursing from their mothers. More wolves were cruelly maimed by traps before dying a slow death. Idaho allows a seventy=two hour period to elapse before killers must check their traps for prey.  Of course this time period allows plenty of time for a suffering animal to expire in pain.   This obscene record of wolf extermination continues a centuries old genocide against the wolf on this continent and demonstrates why wolves need to be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. States like Idaho simply cannot be trusted to manage a wild predator because of an irrational bias that engenders persecution.  Idaho's so-called wolf management is funded by the state's agricultural association. Wildlife management must be based on ecological science, not emotion.

The species was delisted in Idaho by congressional decree in 2011 thanks to intensive lobbying by wolf haters. The US Fish & Wildlife Service is working feverishly toward delisting the wolf nationwide. The Heel has apparently made delisting a priority of his misbegotten term of office. About 400 wolves have been killed each year in Idaho since delisting, which is about forty percent of the states's estimated wolf population. This level of slaughter is not sustainable and results in destabilized populations that ultimately cause more livestock predation.  Wolves in Idaho are also killed because they take elk, a prey also prized by human hunters.   Wolves are killed because they are wolves.

'Toontime: The Long Con

credit: A. Zyglis, Buffalo News

Why the psychological hot mess that is the current 'prezid'nt should receive a nomination for the Nobel Prize is beyond US Person's explanatory powers. Cuban doctors, who have actually contributed to world peace in a large way, should be recognized before a self-serving, corrupt draft dodger and fake dictator gets an international prize for peacemaking. The Palestine crisis is not solved by a non-aggression pack between two client states of Imperial Amerika. Apparently the Nobel committee is also hopelessly corrupted by partisan politics.

credit: R. McKee 
BC Idonwanna sez: Save panic for 4 more years. 



US COVID DEATH TOLL (est.): 280,200

Here's Donny!........Be afraid, very afraid.

America's Economy In One Chart

Thanks to David Sirota for bringing this revealing graph to US Person's attention.  It neatly summarizes what has happened to the American worker in the years since WWII, and in an election year that is worth talking about, repeatedly.  Bernie is talking about it, but where is Joe?  This chart is from the Economic Policy Institute.  It shows how productivity has risen tremendously in the American economy while wages have remained relatively flat since 1970.  Concurrently here has been a steady decline in the number of workers represented by unions, which were successful in negotiating higher wages for their members through collective bargaining.

When unions were stronger than they are now, and worker membership was increasing, economy wide increases in productivity were compensated by increases in hourly wages.  The wage mechanism allowed workers to participate in the overall increase in post-war living standards.  This key wealth mechanism stopped working around 1973 ("downhill after Nixon").  Productivity was still increasing and steeply with automation and computerization. Net productivity increased 72.2% between 1973 and 2014, yet wages adjusted for inflation for the median worker only increased by 8.9%. In 1965, the C.E.O. of an average large public company earned about twenty times as much as a front-line worker. Today, that figure is two hundred and seventy-eight times. A Greenwich, CT consultant told an interviewer, “Every year that goes by, more and more of the added value in our society goes toward capital, and less and less toward labor.  What you end up with is a very unstable society.”  An interesting sidenote: Connecticut, one of the richest states, has some of the worse roads in the nation according to several crumbling infrastructure studies.

Where did all the surplus value created by labor go?  You should know the answer: over the entire period mentioned more than two-thirds of the divergence between hourly compensation and productivity growth created wealth inequality not seen since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. The figure is 80% for the period since 2000.  Authors of the study say, "productivity growth that did not accrue to typical workers’ pay concentrated at the very top of the pay scale in inflated CEO pay, for example, and boosted incomes accruing to owners of capital."

In short, our political economy has become horrendously skewed.  We are not making 'America great'. We are making a few billionaires at the top ever more separated from the economic reality the rest of endure.  The pandemic has only made the situation grave and more undeniable--digital retailers and health insurance companies rake in obscene profits off the misery of the masses.  It is time we took America back from the corporate robber barons, who are back after a long period of increased egalitarianism to plunder labor.

"Law and order", you cry?  Sure, but what kind of order, the plutocratic kind of which the hypocrite Trump is a member?  US Person replies, "People over profits."

I said that?....Fake News media!*

*This blog kills fascists.

Tool Culture Chimps Given Reprive

The western African nation of Cameroon, recently granted a logging permit for the intact Ebo forest.  Fortunately for the endangered animals that live there including the P. ellioti chimpanzees, the government reversed its decision.  However, the future of the forest still remains uncertain.  The government touted that the logging concession covering 169,000 acres of the 500,000 acre forest would bring jobs and prosperity to the region, but did not consult forty human communities bordering the forest in its decision-making process. Local Banen communities that depend on Ebo Forest to gather food and traditional medicines view the forest as their ancestral land. [photo]

credit: San Diego Zoo

Conservationists welcome the policy reversal for providing the opportunity to plan more sustainable use of the forests' resources, as well as protecting the habitat of the tool using Nigeria-Cameroon (Pan troglodytes ellioti) chimpanzees.  The forest is also home to critically endangered red colubus monkeys (Piliocolobus preussi), western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), and endangered forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis), and drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus). Green Kudos to Cameroon for protecting Nature and giving forest creatures a chance.  Every acre of undeveloped forest land helps Earth combat climate change.

The Wall Will Fall

Not because wild-eyed communist anarchists have attacked it, but because it was shoddily built. That is what an engineering report will say about a portion of the 'Wall of Shame' built with private funds.[photo credit: The Texas Tribune] The three mile stretch of wall along the Rio Grande is in danger of falling due to erosion. The report will be filed in a federal lawsuit against a North Dakota firm, Fisher Sand & Gravel, which has political ties to the regime. The non-profit at the heart of the mess is We Build the Wall that raised $25 million to build a wall Mexico was supposed to fund. Former political wizard for the Heel, Steve Bannon, has been indicted for embezzling money from the nonprofit to pay personal expenses, along with Brian Kolfage, founder, and two others.

CEO Tommy Fischer called his portion of the wall the "Lamborghini" of border walls. Professor of engineering at University of Texas, El Paso, Alex Mayer, said, “It seems like they are cutting corners everywhere. It’s not a Lamborghini, it’s a $500 used car” The regime has awarded Fisher Sand & Gravel about $2 billion in federal contracts to build segments of the border wall. Environmental experts have testified that the wall segment near the river will not withstand flooding due to extensive erosion, much of it caused by Hurricane Hanna. The wall segment will face repeated erosion problems due to the sandy soil close to the river's banks. Iin some areas there are gaps up to three feet wide and waist deep, concrete cracking, and construction flaws that one consultant concluded was likely substandard construction material below the fence’s foundation.


The consultant's conclusion: “The geography at the wall’s construction location in comparison to the river bend is not at a favorable location for long-term performance.” In other words, the "beautiful wall" is in danger of falling down. When asked about the negative evaluations, Fischer replied, "It's a hit piece."
Fischer appears frequently on Fox News, where he caught Orange Julius' attention. His political donations to North Dakota's Repugnant senator Kevin Cramer also helped his company obtain a lucrative contract ($400 million) to build portions of the border wall. That contract is being audited for undue political influence. Previous government construction in the area has been atop levees in an attempt to avoid the problems encountered by Fischer's company.  In some places the proposed federal border has left isolated patches of farm land in a kind of no-man's land between the barrier and the actual, geopolitical borderline--an imaginary line in the middle of the river. [map above]  When the government builds border fencing, it must meet a long list of requirements, including public meetings and stewardship plans; in contrast, Fisher's folly went up in weeks, and it shows.

Not only is the engineering and planned maintenance inadequate from an engineering standpoint, Fischer's wall may violate an international treaty with Mexico. The two countries manage the Rio Grande floodplain jointly under the agreement through the IBWC, the International Boundary and Water Commission. Mexican members of the commission have said the private wall along the riverbank could obstruct the river’s flow or be knocked down by the force of water and alter the river's course in violation of the treaty. A former Army Corps of Engineer hydrologist told reporters, “You are putting in an obstruction, a barrier, in the middle of the floodplain of a major river that has a levee back away from it. It’s important they get it right, and they clearly did not get it right.” The graft never stops under Der Heel.

 What's in it for me?

'Toontime: Bullshit!

credit: Barry Blitt
BC Idonwanna sez, "If you're brown, turnaround...."

The "three foot putt" flubber, "mini-stroke" sufferer, haunted by "dark shadows", "Orange Julius" was hard at it again this week in a non-stop propaganda effort to scare white 'Merica into a reactionary backlash at the polls against civil rights demonstrators. Bellowing "LAW AND ORDER" is not going to cut it when the Heel has been exposed as a serial tax cheat, bribe solicitor, and chauvinist pig who enjoys perverted sex acts. The hypocrite-in-chief will have to look beyond his role model, 'Tricky Dick' Nixon because as the song says, "We won't be fooled again". We know Joe and his corporatist record--mark it another election of much lesser evil.

Property rights have heretofore trumped human rights in 'Merica, partly due to the tragic legacy of slavery and the largely successful insurgency of the South after the Civil War. The Vietnam War protestors (Can it be fifty years ago?) who were viciously vilified as communistic America-haters by Nixon and his supporters were on the correct side of history, as are the BLM protestors today. US Person encourages peaceful free speech and assembly, but equally condemns police violence and armed vigilantism.

Wackydoodle sez: This messenger brought to you
by General Electric!

US COVID DEATHS (est.): 270,000

Back From the Edge: Burmese Roofed Turtle

Conservation success stories are becoming fewer as Earth stumbles towards environmental collapse on a global scale.  One small, Southeast Asia river turtle is lucky because man decided to help the species survive extinction.  The Burmese roofed turtle (Batagur trivittata) was considered extinct, but an ambitious conservation program began after it was rediscovered in the wild. A shell was found in a village on the Dokhtawady River in Myanmar.  Shortly thereafter an American turtle collector found a living roofed turtle in a Chinese market, presumably on sale for consumption.  Motivated by these traces of existence, researchers conducted surveys to find wild populations. Guided by locals' descriptions of "duck sized eggs" they found living specimens in two rivers.

A captive population now approaches one thousand individuals in a breeding program begun in 2007. [photo credit: M. Min Win]  Only five or six adult females and two adult males are known to exist in the wild today.  Scientists recently revealed background of the conservation effort in the journal Zootaxa, in which they describe the species and their hatchlings.  The roofed turtle is the second most endangered turtle in the world, despite being abundant at one time.  Hunting and over-exploitation of eggs drove the species to near extinction.  More than half of the world's turtle and tortoise species are threatened with extinction.  They face threats of habitat loss, illegal wildlife trading, pollution, and over consumption.

The conservation goal is to release captive turtles in the Chindwin River, the location of a known wild population, now that they are in little danger of extinction.  Controlled releases began in 2015.  River turtles in the wild can be difficult to monitor, since they can swim several hundred miles from their point of departure.  The captive program has produced about 170 turtles a year for the past two years. Lead researcher Steven Platt told Mongabay.com that with that level of reproduction, these turtles have a renewed future in the wild.