TWIT: Hang Mike Pence

credit:  deAdder, Washington Post
Wackydoodle sez:  Call out the militia too!

Trump lost his federal case to stop the civil investigation of his business by the New York Attorney General today.The judge in Albany, New York said there was no evidence the investigation was undertaken in bad faith. A lower New York appeals court also ruled that Trump and his eldest children must testify in that case under oath. Last week Trump paid a $100,000 fine for contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena issued by the AG, Letitia James. James said earlier that significant evidence has been uncovered in the three year investigation.  A lawyer in her office said that an enforcement action is likely. Trump will appeal the ruling allowing the investigation to go forward.

Adding to the mounting evidence showing Trumpillini knowingly sought to overthrow the 2020 election, was his expressed willingness to see Mike Pence hanged by the insurrectionists. Trump has a history of bombast that people tended to ignore, but when the President of the United States tell his chief of staff that his Vice President deserved to be hanged, that is more than just bombast, it's evidence.

Diablo Canyon Reprive?

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station, California's last operating nuclear generation station, is on the cusp of closing. A good thing too, because it sit on top of an active geological fault next to the Pacific Ocean.  It is the USA's version of Fukushima.  As we all know, a tsunami wiped that plant out, causing a never ending headache of radioactive waste and debris.  So US Person find it somewhat incredible that a Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom floated the idea that he would allow the station to keep running after its scheduled closure by 2025 to "insure we have a reliable grid".   Conservation groups immediately respond negatively to the idea. In their letter to the Governor they wrote,“Your suggestion to extend the operational life of the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility is an outrage,” they wrote. “Diablo Canyon is dangerous, dirty and expensive. It must retire as planned.”  At stake is, what else, money.  The plant's owner Pacific Gas & Electric, which plays an outsized role in the state's politics, stands to gain $6 billion in federal aid provided by the Biden administration to keep nuclear in danger of closing running.  [photo credit: AP]

Nuclear facilities are closing for two very good economic reasons: they cost a lot to build, maintain and decommission once they reach the end of their serviceable life, and many of the plants build in 70s are expiring. PG&E decided to close the plant in 2016.  The state is already planning to replace Diablo's electricity with clean alternatives.  Environmentalist say that keeping the plant running will generate hundreds of tons of radioactive waste that has no permanent storage solution.  The obvious safety risk of operating a nuclear facility in an earthquake and tsunami zone is apparently ignored by Gov, Newsom. An active fault runs.a mere 650 yards from the reactors.  Not to mention the environmental damage done by the power station's essential cooling system that sucks up ocean water killing fish and other marine organisms.  To make the station more quake resistant and redesign the cooling system would cost PGE and eventually rate-payers billions of dollars.

The Governor is expressing some anxiety over a clean energy future, while he says he support the plant's eventual closure.  He should turn his attention to saving power by make his state more energy efficient by overhauling its grid an implementing efficiency programs across all sectors of energy use.   Right now nuclear makes up 20% of the nation's  total electricity generation.  That figure needs to come down by getting serious about alternative energy sources 

Texas Assault Rife Massacre

Here is an easy prediction to make: as long as 'Mericans have a fetish for owning military grade weapons, there will be more mass murders like the one in Uvalde, TX.  Only someone equipped with a semi-automatic weapon and seven high capacity magazines could exchange fire with responding law officers, then murder 19 children and two adults before being shot dead himself after being inside the school for an hour.  These high velocity rifles just do not make holes, but create cavities in soft tissue and shatter bones . These are weapons of war specifically designed to deliver a fusillade of bullets; do not insult US Person's intelligence by claiming someone needs thirty round magazines to go deer hunting. Lunacy and crime have been with us since the dawn of civilization, mass manufacture of war weapons for the public has not.

Weekend Music: Cultural Divide

US spent some time in Texas; he discovered a few things while there. Texans think of their state as a world apart. Perhaps because their state was a republic, briefly, but so was California. Another was Jerry Jeff Walker whose album, Viva Terlingua, made it into his record collection.  Here is clip from a TV show, Texas Connection where Jerry has a good time with his guest Gary P. Nunn who wrote the song, "London Homesick Blues". Their preference for Texas culture is obvious from the lyrics, butUS can relate to the lack of central heating in England at the time.Not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road, but they do not begin counting floors until the second, Some of Texas, where the side dish to your caramelized beef brisket is saltine crackers, rubbed off on US Person, who still loves a good pair of "manly footwear"--a reference to Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muscogee". Jerry Jeff has departed, but his brand of Texas music lives on:

This brief dip into Texas Music would not be complete without hearing from Ray Wylie Hubbard goin' to North Texas (aka Oklahoma):

TWIT: Re-Truth Anything But Truth

credit: A. Zyglis, Buffalo News

The infamous scofflaw, Donald Trumpillini has returned to twit 're-truths' on Twitter, thanks to  billionaire boy, Elon Musk, buying the platform.  He said banning the sociopathic liar from the Internet was "stupid" Herr Trumpillini's re-post of screed from his own platform, is anything but the truth; it is poisonous broadcasting of propaganda. Joseph Goebbels would be impressed. A shocking 38% of gullible 'Mericans who want to believe still persist in thinking the election of 2020 was stolen from their leader. As the Washington Post correctly pointed out in its editorial, perpetuation of the Big Lie is detrimental to democracy because the extremist demagogue inspires his enthralled followers for another assault on the needlessly fragile infrastructure of representative government. And the morally bankrupt GOP is his blunt instrument.

TWIT saw the Crime Boss escape being called as a witness before the January 6th Select Committee.  The Chairman, Benny Thompson, said the panel has no expectation of calling the scofflaw.  This is a mistake in US Person's and other legal pundits' opinion.  If the Committee wants to make a complete record to turnover to DOJ in order to save our democracy, Trump should be given the opportunity to explain his anti-social behavior--specifically why he was sending handwritten notes to his flying monkeys on how to conduct the coup.  This egregious example of his deep involvement in the plotting came to the surface as John Eastman, the coup legal architect, attempted to defend his claims of evidentiary privilege before a judge clearly skeptical of his assertions. Federal judge David O. Carter of Santa Ana, CA has already concluded that Eastman and Trump were probably planning a coup.  As readers have learned there is no privilege when the client is planning the most consequential crime in modern American history.

credit: A. Zyglis, Buffalo News

“How many look up to him [Hitler] with touching faith as their helper, their savior,
their deliverer from unbearable distress.”
—Louis Solmitz, Hamburg schoolteacher, 1932

Return of the Native

A fish native to the northeast but absent from a central Maine lake reached China Lake for the first time since the Revolutionary War. Alewives Alosa pseudoharengus), species of herring, have been prevented from reaching interior waters in the migration from the sea. The species is famous for invading the Great Lakes by bypassing Niagra Falls through the Welland Canal becoming abundant in Lakes Huron and Michigan to the detriment of indigenous fish like the lake trout. [photo:AP]

Maine Rivers, a conservation group, was successful working for the removal of three dams and installation of a fish ladders on three other dams that helped the fish's return. Alewives are important to the marine food chain as prey for larger fish and humans who prefer them smoked. Alewives are also popular bait fish in the lobster industry. Considered a "species of concern" by the US Marine Fisheries Service, several northeastern states have imposed moratoriums on catching the small but agile fish.

Europe Removes a Record Number of Dams

The EU made a significant contribution to biodiversity and climate resilience by removing a record 239 barriers last year.  Spain was the top remover of dams and wiers.  Removing these barriers that are obsolete or not needed will allow migrating fish to return to their historic spawning grounds as well as improve water quality by increasing natural flows.  Free flowing rivers transport sediment and nutrients that often become bogged behind structures leading to toxic algae blooms and low oxygen levels. There has been a 93% decline in migratory fish populations in Europe in the last 50 years. [before and after removal in Haut Jura France, credit UK Guardian]

Hydro power is often thought of as clean energy, but it does have adverse environmental impacts that make removal of obsolete river barriers common sense. Portugal, Montenegro, and Slovakia removed their first structures in 2021.  Finland removed a working hydropower dam on the Hiitolanjoki River, which will allow landlocked salmon to return to their spawning grounds. Dam removal is often considered a radical idea. For example conservationists in the US have been calling for the removal of dams on the Snake River to help a dwindling population of Columbia River salmon rebound. Removal of an abandoned paper mill at historic Willamette Falls has taken decades of bureaucratic wrangling and ownership disputes before work can begin on removing the eyesore and allow public access to the second largest falls by volume in the Pacific Northwest. [photo right]

The cost of removal often is a stumbling block. Spain has a law that requres a dam owner to pay for removal if it is abandoned. NGOs are stepping in to pay for projects. A new group formed two years ago in Europe, Open Rivers, provides grants for barrier removal. The program officially supports 19 small dam removals across 11 countries that will open approximately 386 kilometres of Europe’s rivers.

COTW: Margin Debt Tells the Story

 This chart from WolfStreet.com tells US what is going on in the stock markets right now:

Margin debt, which traders use to purchase stocks on credit, is in steep decline, and is a reliable indicator of market leverage.  No one knows the true extent of debt used to play the Big Casino since only margin debt is reported to FINRA, which gets the data from registered brokers.  Over the past six months it has dropped by 17%. Not even the banks and brokerages that provide the speculative capital know who much leverage is being used.  The collapse of the hedge fund Archegos Capital Management in 2021, which burnt billions in capital, proved that.  Credit Suisse, among the big Wall Street names, alone lost $5.5 billion

What the steep increases and decreases presage is market movements.  Steep increases in margin debt precede significant market sell-offs.  Traders buy more stocks on margin to get in on the rise in prices.  Margin debt declines during the sell-offs as speculators under pressure sell their holdings to satisfy margin calls.  The selling only feeds the market's decline in prices.  The second chart shows this relationship over time:

Recently as margin debt declined 17%, the NASDAQ, home to many speculative stock in tech and e-commerce, has dropped 27%.  It is just the tip of the iceberg--more unwinding to come.

Weekend Music: Up Close

US Person can count the number of times he has seen rock stars in person on one hand.  Santana at Notre Dame's ACC comes to mind even though he played to a picture of his guru on stage.   Anothere is the time he and his wife sat close to the stage in Houston, Texas to hear 'little' Stevie Wonder.  The energy of live music played by a virtuoso cannot easily be experienced elsewhere.  So, in memory of that concert here is a side from that artist:

Einstein Was Correct

 

There is war on Earth still, but despite his obvious self-destructive tendencies, Homo sapiens sapiens has managed to image Sagittarius A* through an international cooperative effort.  The Event Horizon Telescope is an interconnection of eight radio telescopes that collected data for many hours to put together a cosmic collage of the supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky Way.  The  scientific team that capture this distant image is the same one that pictured the black hole in Messier 87 in 2019, so this picture is not the first of a black hole, but it is closer to home.

Physical proof of what was once only a theoretical object is a milestone in our species' immense journey. The achievement confirms Einstein's calculations of the black hole's size in his General Theory of Relativity--about the diameter of Mercury's orbit around our Sun. Roger Penrose, at the University of Oxford, received half of the 2020 Nobel prize for proving mathematically in 1964 that Einstein’s theory predicted the formation of black holes, even though Einstein himself didn’t think they existed. The other half of the prize went to Reinhard Genzel and Andre Ghez for the discovery of the Milky Way's black hole. Fortunately for us, the Milky's way central void  does not consume interstellar gas at a high rate and is relatively stable, unlike M87's. 

Our "gentle giant" as one scientist termed it, whirls endlessly irrespective of man's remote probing with his tools. Nothing--not even light--escapes a black hole's super-dense gravitational field. If a space explorer were to become captured like Odysseus threatened by the whirlpool of Charybdis, his vessel would spiral in to be crushed into elemental motes. Are black holes, thought to exist in the center of every galaxy, portals in space-time to other dimensions? No one knows. Emerson mused in his journal, "It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not see directly." We have learned to ask the "terrible questions", said Emerson.  Wisdom is the end of knowledge, not its beginning.

TWIT: When You Need Cover

credit:  deAdder, Washington Post

When do you need cover?  When you do something illegal, natch.  John Eastman knew that much when he told Pennsylvania  state legislators they could get "cover" for sending a fake slate of Electors to DC if they illegally manipulated the popular votes for president to make it look like the Crime Boss won their state. US Person wants to know if Eastman charges more for crooked math. “Having done that math, you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote,” Eastman wrote in a Dec. 4, 2020 email to Pennsylvania Rep. Russ Diamond.  The email was obtained from the University of Colorado, where he was a visiting professor while he worked on Trumpillini's campaign.  The records were obtained by the Colorado Ethics Institute, which forwarded them to the January 6th Select Committee of the House.  A more clear indication of criminal intent to defraud the United States US Person cannot cognize.

Trumpillini got a break of sorts this week from Judge Engoron in New York, who lifted the civil contempt citation for failing to comply with a subpoena in the civil fraud investigation by the New York Attorney General.  The withdrawal came with the condition that he pay the two weeks of fines at $10,000 a day, and a proviso that he would reinstate the citation retroactively if Trump and his company did not meet the subpoena demands by May 20th. What the government giveth, it taketh away.  The DOJ is actively investigating the removal of classified documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, another potential criminal offense.

The Select Committee is apparently getting very serious before public hearings start in early June.  The Committee issued subpoenas to five Repugnant members of Congress who refused to testify volutarily. According to inside sources, the Committee could no longer ignore their deep involvement in Trump's autogolpe.

COTW: It's Official,1 million COVID Deaths

US Person predicted this level of mortality months ago, given the obvious undercounting in official tallies. But now even the official counts confirm the USA has reached a million deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Officially,  the SARS CoV-2 virus has killed more Americans than the H1N1 virus did in 1918-20.  It was the third leading cause of death in 2020 and likely in 2021 behind cancer and heart disease And it is not over.  This chart shows the death toll occurred in 5 waves beginning with the outbreak in early 2020:

By the third wave the disparity in death rates between political partisans became clear. Counties that voted for Donald Trump were suffering substantially more deaths from the coronavirus pandemic than those that voted for Biden. By the fourth wave, caused by the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variants, the variance in death rate was four times higher in "red" counties. Vaccination rates are highly correlated with partisanship.  The USA is #1in pandemic deaths.

The Last Dolphin

Earlier this year the last Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) died entangled in fishing nets.  Known only by his ID code #35, the male was the last occupant of a deep water pool between Laos and Cambodia. His body washed up on the Mekong river bank in mid-February, a victim of man's lack of concern for a doomed population. He struggled to swim and feed himself with deep lacerations to his tail caused by the netting. Specialist have documented the decline of Chheu Teal pool population from 17 individuals in 1993. In 2009 there were only seven; in 2018 only 3 remained. The last one, #35, confirmed the extinction of the species in Laos. An estiated 90 dophins now live in Cambodia's Mekong downstream from the pool.  [credit: WWF Cambodia]

Gill nets are just one of the hazards faced by river dolphins. According to WWF Asia-Pacific director, hydro-power dams, overfishing, illegal fishing, and pollution also impact them adversely. In 2012 Cambodia established a ban on gill nets in a core habitat area that spans 110 miles, but enforcement is a problem, especially on the Loatian side of the river. Lack of cooperation from Laotian fishers and government officals contributed to the extinction of the dolphin. Fishers were also displaced by a dam constructed just 2km north of the river, that blocks a deep water channel of the Mekong. They began to encroach on the dolphin's remaining habitat. 

The loss of the last dolphin has an economic impact. Twenty years ago tourist could kayak to the pool to watch dophins play around them. Five years ago the tourism stopped and jobs disappeared. But the loss has stengthen the committment of conservation authorities to do more to protect the endangered mammal. And there is hope. WWF and Canbodia announced in 2018 that the species had increased in number from 80 in 2015 to 92 in 2017, marking the first population increase after two decades of steady decline. Undoubtly the river guards are making a positive impact. Tour boat operators assist by reporting illegal fishing activities such as the use of explosives or electro-shock to kill fish in great numbers.  This intelligent and attractive species deserves a chance to survive in the series of deep water pools in now inhabits in the Mekong River. latest population estimate in 2020 puts the population inn Cambodian waters at 89 in the 180 km stretch of the river between the Laotian boarder and Kratie Provice. Only man's concerted efforts can save them now.

Carter Files Amicus Brief

Former President Jimmy Carter took the unusual step of filing an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court.  The case involves an longstanding dispute between local residents and conservationists about building a gravel road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to allow access to an all-weather airport in Cold Bay.  The road would allow medical emergencies to be evacuated to hospital facilities. A recent land exchange worries Carter that the construction would open the entire refuge to adverse development.[Shishshaldin Volcano, Izembek NWR]

Carter was responsible for passing in 1980 the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, that preserved 162,500 square miles of Alaska as parks and refuges. It is one of the landmark pieces of US legislation protecting wilderness. Congress created Izembek under the Act last year. Its lagoon contains a rich bed of eelgrass that feeds migrating Brant goose, Stellar's eider ducks, and other species. The land exchange in question was rejected by a federal Disrict Court judge in 2020, but that decision was overruled by a three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Conservationists asked for an en banc hearing on that reversal.

Carter's brief is in support of the request. He argues that the divided panel does not strike the "careful balance between preservation and development embodied in the Act. Once national interest lands are developed, they cannot be returned to Nature. The split decision, say conservationists allow pro-development judges to back door land exchanges in support of projects. The current Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, visited Imebeck and the villge of King Cove last month, but did not take a position on the lawsuit. A former Interior official under Clinton, said the panel's decision did not reflect the intent of the Act, which has two purposes: protection of subsistence living and conservation of wilderness,

TWIT: No More Twits from the Twit

credit: W. Sutton, Boston Globe
Wackydoodle axes: What are you doing there?

Internet-obsessed Dear Leader lost his legal bid to re-haunt Twitter. On January 8th, two days after he sent a mob to storm the Capitol in order to stop the Electoral College vote count, Twitter suspended his account indefinitely due to "further incitement of violence". Federal District Court Judge James Donato dismissed his suit to be reinstated. He did so primarily on procedural grounds, but also noted that as a private company, Twitter is free to regulate access to its platform as it sees fit, since the First Admendment only applies to government abridgements of free speech. He rejected the legal theory that Twitter performs a governmental function and therefore should be subject to First Amendment restrictions on denials of free speech.  See the full ruling here.

The January 6th Committee asked three Repugnants to testify about the Insurrection on Monday. By the next day those requests were rejected. However, the Committee has balked at issuing subpoenas for Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) In their letter of invitation, the Committee said it was interested in the reported attempts to obtain pardons from the idiot in the oval*.  Biggs was named as a "potential participant" in that effort. It also said that Biggs was a potential contact for the extremist militia group, Oath Keepers.  Biggs struck back by saying,“I will not participate in the illegitimate Committee’s ruthless crusade against President Trump and his allies,” The hostility of his response gives some idea of the resistance encountered by congressional investigators during their investigation of events surrounding the coup. Brooks told interviewers that if the Committee wants his testimony he will have to be subpoenaed, vowing to fight such a writ.

*Who, according to the former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper wanted to order missile strikes on Mexico to take out drug labs. "No one would know it was us", said the Crime Boss.

What's wrong with bombing Mexico?

COTW: WHO Estimates Global Excess Deaths at 15 Million

COVID-19 has exacted a shocking death toll on the world's human population.  Public health officials use excess deaths due to a pandemic as a more exact measurement of the disease impact.  Excess deaths are those report above the expected death rate for a period of time.  The World Health Organization (WHO) reports nearly 15 million excess deaths attributable to COVID-19 occurred between January 2020 and December 2021.  Most of this mortality is concentrated in Southeast Asia, Europe and the USA.  These charts tell more of the story:

This chart shows excess mortality per capita, which allows for more accurate comparison between countries.  Several wealthy countries in Europe and the US have an excess death rate higher than the global average (96).  Australia is notable for its above average performance that came at the economic coast of prolonged quarantines 

The chart shows those countries with the most undereporting of COVID-19 fatalities.  India has strenuously objected to WHO's estimate of its underreporting, but most health officials think India has serious accuracy problems with its mortality statistics.  Speaking to the BBC about the scale of the figures, Dr Samira Asma, from the WHO's data department, said "It's a tragedy. "It's a staggering number and it's important for us to honor the lives that are lost, and we have to hold policymakers accountable," she said.  "If we don't count the dead, we will miss the opportunity to be better prepared for the next time."

Too Expensive to Build

The owners of the V.C. Summer nuclear power facility near Columbia, South Carolina abandoned construction of the two reactor installation before it produced a watt of electric power and after spending more than $9 billion on its construction.  The owners include state-owned Santee-Cooper.  As expected years of litigation over the boondoggle has ensued since the project was stopped in July, 2017.  Since Santee is state owned, ratepayers were on the hook for huge losses.  The company's debt was so huge-$8 billion, the size of the state's annual budget-the governor convened a panel to study selling the utility.

Ratepayers fought back and filed a class-action lawsuit against the utility companies.  Recently a state judge orders a second round of refunds based on the sale of assets by Dominion Energy SC.  Sixty-one million is being set aside from those sale proceeds to be distributed to 1.1 million customers who never got a watt of electricity "too cheap to meter". The first refund in 2019 totaled $60 million.  Dominion bought the unfinished project after South Carolina Electric & Gas ran out of money to finish the reactors.  Four executives of the companies building the power station have pled guilty to criminal charges. 

Former SCANA chief executive Kevin Marsh reported to federal prison last year where he will serve a two year sentence for fraud.  He mislead investors and the public about the project's progress, milking ratepayers of over $1 billion.  Marsh and executive VP Stephen Byrne were sued by the SEC for their failure to disclose material information concerning construction progress.  They repeated told interested parties that the project would be completed by 2020, a deadline to obtain $1.4 billion in federal tax credits, which their company needed to avoid being overwhelmed by escalating construction costs.  In reality the project was a debacle.  Westinghouse, building the reactors when bankrupt three months before the project collapsed.  An independent report stated the reactors would not be finished in twenty-two years.  In other words, Marsh and his executives out-trumped Trump.

The last time a money refund was issued based on power consumption, checks as small as four cents were issued.  Ten percent of the money went unclaimed.  The judge said she would consider using bill credits for amounts under $50 this time. [photo credit: AP]

States Sue for Electrified USPS

Sixteen states including California are suing the US Postal Service for not electrifying their large fleet of vehicles. {14.03.22} Three separate suits are asking federal judges to order more through environmental reviews of the vehicle replacement program. The agency decided to purchase fossil fueled replacement vehicles under Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who has been severely criticized for his leadership of the USPS. He is a Trump ally and former logistics CEO. 

The agency plans to purchase up to 165,000 new vehicles in the next decade. California's attorney general said it is important to stop the procurement process before it's too late. Otherwise, the country will be stuck with more than 100,000 pollution-emitting vehicles. "There won’t be a reset button", Rob Bonta said. Of course the agency is defending its review process. All the legal requirements of the National Environnmental Policy Act (NEPA) were complied with according to an agency spokesperson. An Earthjustice attorney said the review was "so rickety" that it failed to meet the basic requirements of the Act. California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are the states initiating litigation. 

Right now the USPS vehicle fleet includes 190,000 local delivery vehicles, a task well suited to electric vehicles that would emit zero carbon into the atmosphere. In contract, a gas fleet would get only 14.7 mpg, an improvement over the current 8.4mpg, but would still dump hundres of tons of carbon into the air every year,contributing to more global warming. In response to the public outcry over the lack of commitment to EVs, the agency doubled to 20% the number of electric vehicles in its initial $2.98 billion purchase order.