Biden Requests Lifting of Wolf Protections

The Biden Administration has requested for the first time in court to lift endangered species protections from the grey wolf.  On Friday of last week the government filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to revive the previous administration's rule to strip remaining legal protection.  The action is the result of years of acrimony over the status of the gray wolf, as it re-populates portions of its former, nation-wide range.  Attempts to lift protection date back to the administration of George W. Bush.

The government has sided with livestock owners, hunting groups, the NRA and the state of Utah in the case.  Conservationists want wolf recovery to continue without impediment.  Colorado, by a vote of the people, approved re-introduction of gray wolves to the state in 2020.  Re-introduction has proceeded, but not without difficulty,  According to some data reviewed by AP, wolves killed or injured 425 cattle and calves, 313 sheep and lambs in 2022.  Such losses can be disastrous for individual livestock owners, but industry-wide the losses are negligible--less than 1%.  According to a former wildlife official who led the reintroduction in Yellowstone and Idaho,  ninety-five percent of livestock owners in Colorado will not have a predation problem, while 4.5% will have an occassional problem. Wolves have become a political bludgeon used by conservatives to create cultural divisions, Rep. Lauren Boebert being a good example.  Colorado, like most states who have re-introduced wolves have a compensation programs for livestock killed by wolves. in Colorado ranchers are paid the market rate for confirmed kills, currently $300.  State officials plan to introduce 30-50 wolves over the next five years.

Wolves were largely exterminated by the 1930's with some remanent populations surviving into the 1940s. They gained protected status in 1975 when only 1,000 remained in northeastern Montana. Only in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are wolves still legally hunted. An estimated 7500 wolves in 1400 packs now live in the wild. A decision on the appeal is expected in February.

Hurricane Helene Barreling Towards Florida's Gulf Coast

Update: Helene slammed ashore near Perry, FL just before midnight as a Category 4 hurricane.  Flooding has spread across the southeast and at least 204 people in six states are reported dead. Fortunately the storm came ashore in a sparsely populated region of the state where two previous hurricanes struck, leaving the coastal area looking like a war zone. Stay behinds were advised by emergency personal to inscribe their name and phone numbers on their skin with permanent marker. Seventy-five residents of Cedar Key chose not to evacuate. "Cedar Key as we knew it is gone" said a playwright living in the community. "The post office is destroyed. Several restaurants are destroyed. The Jiffy Food Store is destroyed. Vehicles are smashed in and turned upside down. Everything is impassable. It looks like a nuclear bomb went off.” The town of Spruce Pine, NC was drowned with 2 feet of rain as the storm moved northeast causing the worse flooding in a century. An estimated 4 million structures are without power. Damage assessments range from $15 billion to $26 billion.

{26.09.2024}Helene has quickly intensified as it approaches landfall to a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph gusts. Potentially more devastating are expected storm surges reaching twenty fee and categorized as "catastrophic" and "unsurvivable".  Landfall is expected Thursday night east of Appalachicola in the Big Bend region of the coast. Waters in the Gulf have reached record high temperatures that allow storms to intensify.

Helene is about 400 miles across. Hurricane force winds may extend 60 miles outward from the storm center. Winds have already left about 180,000 structures without power.  The National Hurricane Center has described Helene as a "very dangerous and large major hurricane" Flooding may occur well inland in Alabama and Georgia before the system degrades in the Tennessee Valley over the weekend.  This is a National Weather Service rainfall map without Sharpie editorial markings:

TWIT: The Blue Dot

MAGAs know that the election will come down to the narrowest of margins in the swing states. So that is why they are focused on Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, which is comprised of Omaha and its southern exurbs (Sarpy County). The Second is a blue dot in a sea of red [photo] and its single electoral vote could be difference between winning and losing the biggest prize in US politics. MAGAs have been pressuring state legislators to change Nebraska's method of awarding electoral votes to winner take the entire state's five electoral votes instead of the current method in which three votes are awarded according to Congressional District. Maine is the only other state to use this method, which admittedly is more democratic.  Trumpilini won Nebraska by 19 percentage points last time.  Without the Blue Dot in the Democratic win column there could be  a 269 to 269 tie in the Electoral College. In that scenario the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives where Repugnants hold an advantage in state delegations. This scenario was the entire goal of Trump's fake elector scheme. Once again, the archaic absurdities of the Electoral College voting system is on display in this cycle.  Democracy needs election of the President by a popular vote.

The autocrats don't care about democracy as you should know by now. It has been that way since the founding, when Hamilton turned a collection of former colonies into a nation-state through military, fiscal, and monetary means, crushing "The Democracy" in the process. They would have succeeded in stealing the Second's single electoral vote had not former Democrat-turned-Republican state senator Mike McDowell from Omaha done the right thing. He said no to Republican Governor Jim Pillen's demand that the 32 year tradition be changed in time for the upcoming election forty-two days away. He is no doubt catching a lot of flack from MAGAs for his principled stand against partisan pressure. So hats off to Mike McDowell! You are welcomed back anytime.

On the legal front in the battle for democracy, the Special Prosecutor in the DC insurrection case was given leave to file an outsize brief in response tot he Supreme Court's invented immunity decision. Justice Roberts could not plausibly have given the Ochre Menace complete immunity from criminal prosecution, but he did his level best to delay and give the defendant legal arguments to prevent the case from going to trial, if ever, until after the election.

Judge Chutkan's decision does give the prosecution the opportunity to proffer new evidence in its brief since the MAGA justice partisans have required the District Court to sort the factual record to determine which category--immune, rebuttable immunity, or unprotected--his acts before and during the insurrection fall into. Of course the defense does not want any new facts made public since they will undoubtedly be incriminating, especially this close to Election Day. Judge Chutkan has called the defense's legal strategy "incoherent". That does not matter, Judge, as long as the strategy keeps Don the Con out of jail. The briefing will be completed by the end of October--just in time for the election. Suprise!

Only in America department: Haitian legal residents of Springfield, OH have finally had enough of the Trump slander machine. They filed an affidavit in Clark County Municipal Court complaining of Trump & Vance racist lies about 'pet eating' by the Haitian community under a Ohio statute (§2935.09) that permits a person to swear an affidavit of a crime committed against them. The Haitians charge a variety of crimes ranging from telecommunication harassment to raising false alarms and disrupting public services.   The next step is for the affidavit to be reviewed by a municipal court judge for the issuance of arrest warrants and transfer to the county attorney for filing of formal criminal charges.

credit: M Lukovich, Atlanta-Journal Constitution

California Sues Exxon for Plastic Waste

 California's Attorney General has filed suit against oil giant ExxonMobil for what the complaint says is a "decades long campaign of deception" about plastic recycling. In a press conference  Rob Bona said,"For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible" Typically Exxon blamed the state for an inadequate recycling program.

US Person posted about the broken promise of recycling. {28.02.2024} The petrochemical industry knew that recycling would not be able to handle the deluge of plastic waste now polluting our land and sea.  But the claims have prolonged consumer acceptance of plastics, allowing companies like Exxon to generate record-breaking profits.  A spokesperson for Exxon claimed that the company has processed more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste into reusable material.  This suit is the first to attempt to hold a petrochemical company liable for plastic wastes,  Bonta's office investigated plastic waste recycling for two years before filing the suit. Last year the Attorney General sued ExxonMobil and other giants for global climate change damages

[photo credit: UK Guardian]

Exxon-Mobil is the world's largest producer of single-use plastic resins according to an Australian NGO.  Almost all of the processed waste has been converted to fuel rather than re-use material.  According to the AG Exxon's deceptive practices violated nuisance, false advertising and unfair competition laws as well as environmental protection laws.  The world produces over 400 million tons of plastic waste per year.  Only about 9% of that is recycled according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED) 

Microsoft Resurrects 3 Mile Island

Do you need more proof to connect the dots between electricity hungry digital installations and resurrecting defunct nuclear power plants?  Offered here for your consideration is this story: Microsoft made a deal with Constellation Energy to put Unit 3 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant back on line to produce electricity for its new data center.  Yes, that's right the same plant that partially melted down in the 1979. The restart is planned for Unit 1, not Unit 2 that melted. Unit 1 was retired in 2019 due to economic reasons. Constellation plans to spend about $1.5 billion to refurbish the facility, with a planned start date of 2028.  Constellation said it hoped to received the same federal support provided to the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station that got $1.5 billion from the Biden Administration. {1.9.2024}  

Power supply deals for AI data centers are coming under increasing scrutiny. A deal signed earlier this year between Amazon and Talen Energy was attacked by electric utility companies that say the deal could cause a spike in consumer costs or hamper grid reliability.  Nuclear is considered by Bill Gates and other plutocrats an answer to the additional power load caused by huge data centers because it is not interruptible.  

Killing Elephants to Feed People

The on-going drought in southern African has killed scores of wildlife and causing human starvation.  Both Namibia and Zimbabwe announced plans to slaughter hundreds of wild elephants as a means of providing protein to drought-stricken populations On Monday Zimbabwe announced it would allow the killing of 200 elephants, so the meat could be distributed to nearby hungry communities. The wildlife management agency said the elephants would be culled from an overpopulation in the country's arid west including Hwange National Park where an estimated 45,000 elephants live. According to the authorities the park can only support 15,000. Zimbabwe's overall population in about 100,000

Namibia desert elephants

The El Niño drought intensified by climate change has worsened human-elephant conflicts and increased elephant mortality. More than 100 elephants have died from drought. Zimbabwe's environment minister who gave the go-ahead for the cull said she was preparing to do,"what Namibia has done so that we can cull the elephants and mobilize the women to dry the meat, package it and ensure that it gets to some communities that need the protein.”

Namibia authorized the killing of 723 animals including 83 elephants, which will be taken from the country's five national parks. A environment department spokesperson said the culling was in line with a constitutional mandate to use natural resources to benefit citizens. Next door Botswana is richer than its neighbors, and has the world's largest elephant population at 130,000, but has not indicated that it intends to slaughter animal residents to feed its human population. [photo credit: O.Elvins]

TWIT: This MAGA Court

credit: N. Anderson
Wackydoodle sez: sez: Long live the king!

The insulting hot-head known as US Person, wants to direct your attention to two leaked memos from the Supreme Court that show how Chief Justice John Roberts is the chief MAGA Justice.  He committed a trifecta of corruption on behalf of Don the Con behind the Court's curtain of impartial authority; ripped away for good after the public release of these confidential communications. 

In February he sent a memo to his colleagues excoriating the district and appellate court opinions rejecting  Trump's claim of presidential immunity that would protect him from the criminal prosecution for his role in the January 6th Insurrection. Not only did he say that the Court should take up the defendant's appea, but also suggested his preferred outcome. He told his fellow Justices, “I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently” from the appellate court's analysis, which he view as inadequate. As a result of his suggested outcome the Court handed down a wide immunity grant unprecedented in US history, in effect making the President above the law.

John Roberts wrote all three opinions in favor of Don 'Legit': the immunity decision; limiting of the obstruction of official proceedings crime to documentation;  and rejecting Colorado's barring of candidate Trump based on the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause. In the Fischer obstruction case, Roberts removed Samuel Alito from the case just days after it was made public that the Alito household was flying a US flag upside down, which is a recognized distress signal and a symbol of the "Stop the Steal" movement after the January 6th riot. Roberts then sided with the liberal minority to push a decision on immunity before the election. It is noteworthy that Roberts cited Alexander Hamilton in his opinion. It is considered by critics to be a tortured piece of legal scholarship untethered to the Constitution in an attempt to prevent Trump becoming the first US president to be convicted of a treasonous crime while in office.

The fact is that Hamilton was a monarchist, flat out. When the constitutional convention took place in Philadelphia in 1787, Hamilton advocated not just for a strong, independent executive, but a return to monarchy. He knew that proposition would not get past the other delegates, so he settled for the flawed compromise that was hammered out of the secret deliberations. There would be an independent, single executive but not without legal restraints and election every four years.  In his book, The Hamilton Scheme, historian William Hogeland details the philosophic tension--Marx would have called it a dialectic--between egalitarian impulses* and the control by an interstate oligarchy that existed in the colonies even before 1776. That dialectic continues to this very day between those who would restrain "The Democracy" with an authoritarian central government. Men like Roberts are instrumental in the effort to finally bring this about two hundred fifty years later.  Moderate centrist? NOT.

 *Those impulses were in the forefront in of Shays' Rebellion, 1786-1787, in which western Massachusetts' agrarians rose up in violent protest against farm foreclosures, aggressive debt collections, and political cronyism. Residents were paying higher taxes--to pay off war indentures held by elites--than they had paid under the British Crown.  Many of the rebels were former members of the Continental Army; one of their leaders, Daniel Shays, fought at Bunker Hill. In September 1786 Shays and about 600 armed men closed the courts in Springfield, MA. As the situation deteriorated between the rebels and government officials, a private army was raised to confront them since there was no standing army. The Continental Army had been demobilized, Shays' led a march to the Springfield arsenal in Spring of 1787 to gather weapons. They were anticipated by the state's armed force. Shooting  began, killing two rebels and wounding twenty. The rebels retreated from the scene, and some escaped to Vermont where they were given sanctuary by Ethan Allen. By the summer of 1787 many rebels were granted pardons by new Massachusetts Governor John Hancock. The legislature passed debt relief bills and reduced taxes. Shays was pardoned in 1788, returning from Vermont to settle in Sparta, New York where he became a minor celebrity and died in 1825. This armed insurrection motivated more members of the Confederation Congress, including Hamilton, to advocate anew for a strong, central government with power to tax citizens directly and establish permanent military forces.  

Shays' Rebellion--a misnomer since Daniel Shays was only one of several leaders of a popular movement--was not the first or the last of popular insurrection against elite rule, what Hogeland terms the "Money Connection" and what the 19th century Populist Party called the "Money Power".  North Carolina "Regulators" rose up against the Money Power  in a rebellion against corruption and hard money (specie) that culminated in their defeat at the  Battle of Alamance, 1771.   The Whiskey Rebellion (1791-1794) took place in Pennsylvania over Treasury Secretary Hamilton's unfair excise tax on whiskey--a popular beveridge and important artisanal industry in western Pennsylvania-- that had to be put down by 13,000 militia commanded by Washington himself.

Norway Hits Milestone

Norway is an oil producing nation.  Large reserves off the Atlantic coast produced nearly 95 million metric tons of oil last year. Petroleum products account for 52% of the country's exports. But Norway is also leading in a green category: electric vehicles.  For the first time electric cars now outnumber gasoline powered ones.  According to the Norwegian road federation electric powered cars number 754,303 versus 753,905 run on gas.  The government's goal is for all new sales of cars to be zero emission by 2025, ten years ahead of its original target,.  Norway offers buyers generous tax rebates to buy green cars, making them competitive with conventional vehicles.  The rest of Europe is lagging behind Norway with just 12.5% if new cars sold are electric.

A combination of factors has turned Norway away from burning fossil fuels for transportation. Norway is a comparatively small country with a highly educated population. Its politics are multi-party, which produce minority governments and cross-party coalitions.  Emission reduction has not become a partisan talking point has it has in the United States and elsewhere. (Trump: "global warming is a hoax') The zero emission target is supported across the political spectrum.  It does not have a car industry, so employment is not considered relevant to reducing fossil fuel use.  

The other factor influencing the switch to electric is tax policy. Norway has taxed new cars heavily with 25%VAT and excise taxes based emission levels. Under pressure from advocates the government began offering tax rebates on EVs to encourage consumers early adoption of the technology the 90's.  Norway's electricity production is almost all green too, with 10% coming from wind energy. Reliance on efficient heat pumps for residential heating has resulted in a strong, up-to-date national grid that can handle large scale electrification. Stavanger, the third city and center of petroleum production, introduced electric buses in 1994. When the fleet is renewed, all of Stravanger's 200 buses will be electric, It already has an electric passenger ferry. Green Kudos to Norway!

White Rhinos Still Dying

The story of the white rhino,Ceratotherium simumis truly a tragic one.  Its near extinction is totally at the hands of man, whose greed for rhino horn drives a world-wide illegal trade. This rhino species is not white, but it has a wide upper lip suitable for grazing the veld.  The Afrikans word for wide sounds like 'white" to Anglo-Saxon ears. African Parks, the NGO that manages parks in several African countries plans to re-wild 2,000 white rhinos. The organization needs safe places for 300 rhinos a year due to continued poaching of wild specimens. Earlier this year 120 rhinos were translocated to private reserves operating as part of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection foundation.

When the species was identified by Europeans in 1817 by William Burchell. Hunters used increasingly lethal firearms to decimate a once abundant herbavore. A few hunters reported their grizzly experiences. In one instance eighty individuals were destroyed by two hunters in one hunting season; eight were slaughtered at a waterhole in one day. Hardly sportsman-like behavior, By the early 1900's there were fewer than 100 white rhinos remaining in the wild. In 1895 Umfalosi Reserve was established to protect what was left. The rhino population increased to 400 by the 1950's, and in 1960 there were enough white rhinos to begin relocating them to protected areas throughout their southern African range.

credit: Mongabay.com

The situation took a turn for the worse by 2012. Poachers motivated by inflated prices, took a heavy toll on rhinos liiving in national parks. Rhino living on private reserves faired better due to more protection. Rhino horn is both a status symbol in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and a component of Chinese tradition medicine. It is considered a cure for cancer despite containing only keratin, the same substance as fingernails and hair. Rhino deaths began outstripping births, a sure path to extinction. A network of international criminal gangs have escalated poaching to an unsustainable level resulting in the eradication of white rhinos in most of their former range and begining to make inroads on the core population in their stronghold of South Africa. In the first nine months of this year, poachers have killed 190 rhinos in state-run protected areas in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. That’s one rhino killed every 35 hours. Private rhino owners are increasingly important to conservation efforts as the costs of protecting them in the wild increases beyond the means of poorer national governments; they conserve 50% of the extant populations in Africa.

One of those owners is John Hume who estalbished a farm in the highveld for breeding captive rhinos. His idea was to harvest horn wihtout harming the animal to which it is attached and supply a market for sustainable rhino horn. His risky business ultimately failed partly because CITIES would not grant him a license for international sales despite intense lobbying efforts. He eventually sold his Platinum Farm and rhinos to African Parks, but retains a large amount of harvested horn in storage. African Parks has now launched an effort to return Hume's two thousand rhinos to the wild in a decade. As reader can imagine, moving a full grown rhino weighing a ton or more takes a lot of effort from men and equipment. The moves are also expensive. In one day of operations, thirty-two rhinos were collected, tranquilized, boxed in moving crates and lifted by crane onto trucks for their trip to freedom. Potential recepients are evaluated based on suitable habitat, secuirty, regulatory support and financial means. Recepients fund the translocations, while African Parks donates the rhinos.

a vet examines a tranquilized rhino

The question is, will they be safe in their new homes? Private reserves have a good record of protecting their residents. National parks like Kruger have a lower success rate due to their large size and scarcity of resources. African Parks aims to reduce the risk of extinction by estalishing up to 20 subpopulations across Africa with no fewer the fifty animals each. The evaluation process is in depth, but it cannot illiminate all the risks the animals will face in the wild ranging from predators like lions and hyenas to malnutrion, dehydration and insect-born diseases like trypanosomosis or sleeping sickness carried by tsetse flies. Re-wilding the captives, who were beginning to suffer from neglect as money ran out, is worth the effort and risks because they represent vital genetic material and numbers to bolster a rapidly declining wild population. White rhinos in the African wild is good thing. [photo credit: C. Moore/African Parks]

TWIT: He's BAAACK!

Nut job spreading hate

More:  The NY Times reports that two jurist colleagues of Aileen Cannon recommended she recuse herself from the Espionage Act prosecution of Don 'Legit' based on her lack of experience in these types of cases and her overruling by the 11th Circuit for interfering in the government's investigation of events at Mar-a-lago. Cannon, a Colombian immigrant appointed by the "Boss", refused to step away.  Her obvious bias in favor of her benefactor resulted in her eventually dismissing the prosecution's case on dubious constitutional grounds suggested by corrupt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion on the presidential immunity decision.  

Under federal statute a judge must recuse if their impartiality can be reasonably questioned. 28 USC § 455. Now that her dismissal decision is at the 11th Circuit for review, the appellate court should take the opportunity to remove her from presiding.  She has exhibited her bias throughout the case by delaying at every opportunity starting with attempting to quash the FBI's search warrant for illegally retained secret documents at Mar-a-lago. She achieved her goal by preventing a trial before the election in November, but she should at least be removed from the case as a consequence.

State Judge Scott McAlfee dismissed two false filing counts against Don 'Legit' on grounds of federal preemption.  The remainder of the RICO indictment remains intact. Judge McAlfee said the RICO charges are,“facially sound and constitutionally sufficient.”

[10.09.2024} The man-child on stage with Kamala Harris is a relentless, sociopathic liar with total disregard for the truth. He repeats a fixed set of lies and grievances ad nauseam.  To listen to him is to think that America is being overwhelmed by illegal immigrant cat-eaters! He keeps repeating that crime is down all over the world but going up in America because 168 countries are exporting their criminals to the United States*. US Person would like to see the actual statistics on that subject!  Who cares what Hungary's dictator Viktor Orban thinks of him?  His only effective tactic is fear, and his appeal is to the many white supremacists, closet and otherwise, who are unfortunately citizens of the United States. As Kamala said several times out loud, he is a national disgrace.  He is symptomatic of an unhealthy culture that needs to be pushed into the future, not forced back into its racist past.  If this political contest was not so consequential for our nature's future, his deranged ranting would simply be funny.  Remember, he is NOT responsible!

the nightmare that is Trump

*The facts: about 125,000 Cubans arrived in the US from the Port of Mariel by late October 1980, usually referred to as the "Mareil Boat Lift". Among those arriving an estimated 2700 hardened criminals (not political prisoners) Castro labeled the refugees "undesirables". Ronald 'Raygun' praised the Marielitos as part of his anti-Cuban propaganda, The episode was widely seen as a failure of the Carter Administration, which struggled to deal consistently with the new arrivals.

Denali Road Closure Has Profound Effect

Those of you privileged to have visited Denali National Park, Alaska know that the Park has only one road through.  Roads have significant effects on wildlife.  Unlike other more visited parks like Yellowstone and Glacier, Denali has been managed to control the amount of vehicle access, substituting buses for private cars, leaving the road unpaved, and limiting the amount of traffic.  In 2021, a landslide at Pretty Rocks closed the western fifty miles of road completely, and while contractors build a bridge over the landslide, wildlife scientists are studying the effects of the unexpected closure on the park's wildlife,

Humans often convert animal trails into roads, but at Denali the reverse has occurred.  Animals like bears, wolves,  and caribou are using the open space as a trail for their wanderings.  Without roadkill, magpies and foxes are gone; like predators the absence of vehicles has produced a trophic cascade in the ecosystem.  At Wonder Lake, the western terminus of the road, the amount of waterfowl and wading birds along the causeway is astounding. Surely, the absence of road noise has affected these birds.   The last time there was an event similar to the road closure, was during the Pandemic, in the spring of 2020.  The disease kept humans in their homes; scientists humorously refer this period as the "Anthropause".  Roadkill plummeted, animals wandered farther, and it seemed the bird song was more pronounced if not sweeter.  When the humans came back, roadkill accelerated due to behavioral lag.  Animals accustomed to owning the road are were slow to readjust their behavior to human dominance once again

This latest return to wilderness paradise will not last forever.  The 475 ft bridge construction is costing more than $200 million, and is scheduled to open to the public in 2027.  How the animals will react to traffic once again is not clear. Although it is known that sow bears use the road as a human shield to protect their vulnerable offspring from aggressive boars who will kill them if given an opportunity. [photo credits: E. Mesner] The Park Service is gathering behavioral information during this quiet time.  Bears on ether side of the closure are monitored via GPS collars to study and compare their behavior and movements.  The closure, an inconvenience to the public, has proved to be a benefit to science. Hopefully the data will be used to determine the necessity of capacity caps at more visited National Parks in the lower 48.  Because roads kill.

Amazon River Reaches Record Lows

More: Earth set another heat record this summer after shattering records last year with help from an early El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific.  According to Copernicus, the European climate service, the three months of Northern Hemisphere summer--June, July and August--averaged 62.24 ℉ , 0.05 degrees warmer than last summer,  Unless there is a significant cooling trend for the remainder of the year, 2024 will go down in the books as the hottest in recorded history.  According to climatologists these records show the tightening grip of global climate crisis.

The increasingly hot weather is causing health difficulties for some as well as extreme weather phenomenon like prolonged droughts, wildfires, and intensifying storms.  Phoenix, AZ suffered through a 100 day heat wave with temperatures over 100℉.  Maricopa, County, in which Phoenix is located,  counted 150 heat-related deaths with  443 deaths still under investigation, Clark County, Nevada which includes Las Vegas, officially counted 181, but the death toll is likely much higher.  In 2023 the county recorded 294 and over 2000 heat-related emergency room visits.  The story is the same in several locations throughout the West. Wildfires near Los Angeles, CA are forcing thousands to evacuate.

{10.09.2024}Brazil is suffering through the worst drought in more than seventy years of recorded rainfall. The mighty Amazon is running at historic lows, and wildfires are rampaging across the country. Almost 60% of Brazil land area, 1.9 million square miles, is under stress. This is the first time in history that drought conditions stretch from the north to the southeast. Smoke from the fires have caused the residents of São Paulo to breath the second worst polluted air on the planet after Lahore, Pakistan. From the beginning of the year Brazil has experienced 160,000 wildfires. In the Panatal, a renowned wetland ecosystem, it has been the second worst fire season on record.  Significant rain is not expected until October. One tribal leader told AP interviewers,“This used to be the Amazon River,” she said. “Now it’s a desert. If things get worse, our people will disappear. Now we are realizing the severity of climate change.” US Person asks, if a tribal leader in Brazil can know that fact, why can Donal Trump NOT?

Brasilia National Forest, credit AP

Paraquay's Paraguay River has also reached the lowest level in 120 years, disrupting river traffic on the vital commercial route. Landlocked Paraguay is one of the world's leading exporters of agricultural commodities. The river runs 2,110 miles through Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. With no rain in sight experts expect losses in the millions of dollars. The drying of such an important waterway is due to combination of climate change, deforestation and population growth couple with weak governance and inefficient irrigation.

TWIT: Back in Court

credit: Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune
BC Idonwanna sez: They ain't cheap, Kimosabe!

Update: Judge Merchan punted and put-off sentencing soon September 18th until after the election to give the defendant more time to perfect his procedural appeal on grounds of immunity.  He also gave himself more time to write his decision on defendant's immunity claims which will result in more appeals.  So, Team Trump is 3 for 4 with only one case against him having been tried to a verdict. This result demonstrates the power of money in the criminal justice system. Unlike federal Judge Chutkin, Merchan he referred to the proximity of the presidential election as a factor in his decision making. Merchan said he was reluctant to grant more time, but in the interest of appearing impartial he decided to  grant a continuance for the second time before sentencing. Trumpilini's mob has ruthlessly portrayed Merchan a political hack out to get the former president.  It did not help that the DA's office took no stand on the request for more delay.  It is all up to the voters now, and if he wins he may never spend a day in jail.  That result would be a true travesty of justice akin to a less affluent defendant being executed for crime they did not commit.

Trump federal prosecution for election interference was back before DC District Judge Tanya Chutkin this week to determine how to proceed with the case after the MAGA Court granted Don the Con extraordinary immunity. The idea that a president is above the law is repugnant to people who believe in American democracy and is made from whole cloth by partisan Chief Justice Roberts. Nevertheless the decision is the law of the land until Congress passes corrective legislation and Chutkin must follow its contours.

Needless to say the sides differ widely on how to proceed.  The Special Prosecutor wants an early evidentiary hearing, while the defense made it clear it intends to appeal every step of the way.  Chutkin admitted any kind of hearing is months away, but she set an ambitious hearing schedule and told the defense the election is irrelevant to eventually trying the former Boss.  She ordered the defense to respond to the government's brief on the effect of immunity by October 17th.  His lawyers will argue that the MAGA Court's ruling means the entire case must be dismissed because the indicting grand jury was exposed to privileged presidential communications.  That is unlikely to happen at the trial court level. The government's brief will likely contain new information not in the superseding indictment.  The defense team showed that it was sensitive to new information being made public that could affect the election results.  Too bad, Donny.  She also gave defense attorneys until October 24th to object to the appointment of Jack Smith, which they have done in the Mar-a-Lago Papers case .   They were rewarded with an out-of-bounds dismissal by Judge ? Aileen Mercedes Cannon.  The problem is there is binding precedent in DC on the constitutionality of special prosecutors that no amount of obiter dicta in a concurring opinion or ludicrous rulings from another district can overturn.

The hearing was tense according to observers, which is understandable since this is most important criminal prosecution this century with major consequences for the nation's democratic future. At one point Mr. Lauro misspoke and said Justice Clarence Thomas "directed" his team to pursue the argument that Smith was unconstitutionaly appointed. Before he could correct himself by saying Thomas raised the issue in a concurring opinion, Judge Chutkin incredulously asked, "He [Justice Thomas] directed you to do that? Smith nodded his head in agreement before Lauro backed off his statement.  Meanwhile, Don the Con is free to flood the airwaves with incoherent ranting and lies. His lies are remarkably effective because he is restlenttless in repeating them.  He is still telling lies from six years ago, but the CMM gives him carte blanche because his lies are not new, as in 'news'.  While watching a "delusional, deranged old man" campaign for another term Joe Biden must be gritting his teeth. Joe is an American hero unlike the fake man of the people.

The action on other legal fronts is fast and furious.  Actor James Baldwin's New Mexico prosecution for negligent homicide got a brief from the prosecution asking the trial judge to reconsider her dismissal of the case for failure to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. Hack lawyer US Person is skeptical of the correctness of the ruling, and it seems the prosecutors agree. The prosecution's theory is that Baldwin was negligent in handling his loaded pistol by failing to check its contents before pointing it at his cinematographer, killing her with a single bullet.  Consequently, consequently prosecutors did not think the real bullets handed in to the sheriffs office were relevant evidence since it was Baldwin's actions in question. Baldwin was not entitled to rely on the statements of colleagues that the gun was "cold" under commonly accepted standards of care in the film industry, especially since those colleagues may not have been aware of who handled the gun before it was given to Baldwin, or that there were live rounds on the set. There is also evidence that the defense knew about the bullets being turned in before trial, but did not request them in discovery.  The prosecutor called their late objection at trial "a ruse" to get the case thrown out.    Undoubtably this case will go to the appellate level before it is over on a perhaps novel question of criminal procedure in these circumstances.

Unconstitutional special prosecutors in the Hunter Biden criminal case are not a concern to Repugnants. They never let illogic bother their character assasination, and they got their pound of flesh this week.  Biden unexpectedly plead guilty on all counts of tax evasion just before his jury was sworn in.  He wanted to enter an Alford plea--in which there is no admission of guilt-- but the judge rejected that request.  Biden then threw himself on the mercy of the court.  Don't count on it despite him having paid all the back taxes and penalties. Remember, no one is above the law! Unless you are Donald Trump. 

Australia's Iconic Flower Endangered

Australia is known for its endemic flora and fauna.  The nation is also known for the number of threatened or endangered species.  A new list with twenty additions brings the number to almost 2,250. One of these is the Gibraltar Range Waratah. (Telopea aspera) [photo credit: G. Darren]. The listings come as the Senate battles to pass legislation creating a new environmental regulatory body.  Labor is also under pressure to delay a broader package of reforms of the country's environmental law.  Critics say the current scheme is without enforcement teeth.  However, the Prime Minister has said that new nature laws are unlikely to be passed this term.  The government has said it supports improving environmental protections, and has acted to protect additional land and sea areas while investing $550 million to eradicate invasive pests, expand the indigenous ranger program and protect threatened species. Scientists estimate that $2 billion a year is need to recover plants, animals and ecosystems threatened with extinction.

The Gibraltar Range Waratah is similar to another Telopea that is more well-known, the South Wales Waratah (Telopea speciosissima) While strikingly attractive, the plant does not do well in cultivation.  Waratah sprouts from a woody tuber after brushfires.  It stores nutrients and energy for rapid regrowth. The prominent, brightly colored flower suggests it specializes in avian pollination, and has done so for 60 million years.  The plant is endemic to New South Wales.

Nuclear Power Frakenstein

A company in Michigan, with the substantial help of the federal government ($1.5 billion), thinks it has solved he extreme cost of nuclear power facilities. Holtec International Inc. from Florida is $2 billion to restart the decommissioned Palisades nuclear generating station on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Built in the 1970s, heydays of nuclear power, if it begins generating electricity, it will be the first decommissioned plant to come back to life in the US.  Currently there are 22 decommissioned nuclear plants.The reactors still in operation today have a combined capacity of close to 100 gigawatts.Holtec bought the plan in 2018, soon thereafter the company announced plans to restart. It is decommissioning plants in New Jersey (Oyster Bay), Massachusetts (Pilgrim), and New York (Indian Point) 

The interest in old nuclear facilities is driven by the need for more power.  Huge computer server installations are gobbling up power.  Data centers are projected to account for 8% of US demand by 2030 New laws, as in Michigan, require green energy (carbon free). At least to the Wall Street Journal, that includes nuclear power.  But if the entire fuel cycle is considered that is mislabeling. Even at Pallisades, spent fuel rods will be stored above ground outside the reactor containment. If granted operating status, the plant may generate 800MW of power. [photo credit: Detroit PBS]

Some critics think the restart idea is a bad one.  New plants have hardened facilities against terrorist attack and safety standards have evolved enormously.  Those include a "core catcher" device that prevent melted fuel assemblies from penetrating the reactor floor, which is what happened at Fukushima. Local residents are concerned about radiation leaks.  A group of 154 locals signed a petition asking the NRC to develop new rules for restarts before granting Palisades an operating license. A former operating engineer director at Palisades says the plant cannot be brought up to current standards and should not reopen.  

Cheap natural gas made abundant by fracking altered the economic equation for nuclear power.  Palisades opened in 1971,  but by 2016 it was no longer economic. It was one of the dozen of plants closed between  2012 and 2020, primarily for economic reasons.  Despite the skepticism about restarting a dead reactor, Holtec is moving ahead with its plans to generate electricity using a 1960's design with blessings from regulators.  if the company succeeds, it will set a precedent for other closed facilities. NRC testified to Congress that it will reach a decision on its operating license by May 2025. Almost all the current plants are extending their original 60-year design life, and most will extend to 80 years. The nuclear Frankenstein will not die!