Yemen at risk of big famine: UN humanitarian chief

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/yemen-risk-big-famine-humanitarian-chief-181024055303837.html

Oct. 24, 2018



The United Nations humanitarian chief warns that Yemen is on the verge of widespread famine, with about half of the population completely relying on humanitarian aid for survival.

Addressing the Security Council on Tuesday, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock said, "there is a clear and present danger of an imminent and great big famine engulfing Yemen."

Lowcock told the UN's most powerful body that this famine would be "much bigger than anything any professional in this field has seen during their working lives".

He said that "the situation is now much graver" than when the world governing body last warned of a risk of famine at the beginning of 2017 and again last November, because "of the sheer number of people at risk".

According to Lowcock, last month's estimate that 11 million people could soon face "pre-famine conditions" actually stood closer to 14 million - about half of Yemen's population.

•••••

stochastic terrorism

If Trump didn't know his exhortations would lead to attempts at violence against the people he railed against and lied about, he is incompetent for the post of president. Listening to his comments on the attempted bombings, sounds like someone who is saying the right words, but doesn't really mean them.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stochastic-terrorism

stochastic terrorism
[stuh-kas-tik ter-uh-riz-uh m]
noun

the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted: The lone-wolf attack was apparently influenced by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorism.

Links

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-organic-food-cancer/organic-foods-tied-to-slightly-lower-cancer-risk-idUSKCN1MW23D
Oct. 22, 2018
People who eat more organic foods may be slightly less likely to develop certain cancers, a French study suggests.
Compared to people who consumed the least amount of organic foods, people who consumed the most were 25 percent less likely to develop cancer during the study. In absolute terms, this translated into about a 0.6 percent lower risk of cancer.
“It has to be born in mind that an overall healthy nutritionally diet (rich in fruit and vegetables etc.), whatever the farming system (organic or conventional), as well as high physical activity are important documented protective factors against certain cancers and other diseases,” said lead study author Julia Baudry of the French Institute of Health and Medical Research INSERM in Paris.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/midterms-2018-more-candidates-using-225114020.html
Oct. 22, 2018
Midterms 2018: More candidates using anti-muslim rhetoric than ever - but it's not working


https://www.yahoo.com/news/flooding-prompts-boil-water-notice-132007972.html
Oct. 22, 2018
Residents of the Texas state capital are being ordered to boil their tap water before drinking after flooding in recent weeks filled the lakes that supply Austin with silt, mud and debris.


https://www.npr.org/2018/10/01/649701669/the-american-dream-is-harder-to-find-in-some-neighborhoods
Oct. 1, 2018
People born in the 1940s or '50s were virtually guaranteed to achieve the American dream of earning more than their parents did, Chetty says. But that's not the case anymore.
"You see that for kids turning 30 today, who were born in the mid-1980s, only 50 percent of them go on to earn more than their parents did," Chetty says. "It's a coin flip as to whether you are now going to achieve the American dream."
Chetty found that if a person moves out of a neighborhood with worse prospects into to a neighborhood with better outlooks, that move increases lifetime earnings for low-income children by an average $200,000. Of course, moving a lot of people is impractical, so researchers are instead trying to help low-performing areas improve.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2018/oct/22/severe-thunderstorm-covers-rome-in-hail-and-floods-video
Oct. 22, 2018
A severe hailstorm hit Rome on Sunday evening, bringing a dramatic end to a long spell of hot weather and covering the streets of the Italian capital in hail and floodwaters.
Drivers found themselves stranded in high waters, while the runoff poured into underground stations. The temperature around the city dropped by 10C during the storm.
An area of low pressure moving south from northern Europe to Italy over the weekend brought disruption to most of the country, with other Italian cities – such as Milan and Palermo – experiencing floods as well.


No surprise, except that it hasn't appeared previously.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/22/microplastics-found-in-human-stools-for-the-first-time
Oct. 22, 2018
Microplastics have been found in human stools for the first time, according to a study suggesting the tiny particles may be widespread in the human food chain.
The small study examined eight participants from Europe, Japan and Russia. All of their stool samples were found to contain microplastic particles.
Up to nine different plastics were found out of 10 varieties tested for, in particles of sizes ranging from 50 to 500 micrometres. Polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate were the plastics most commonly found.

Links

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/10/22/mccain-foods-recall-2018-harris-teeter-7-eleven-tacquitos-trader-joes/1727802002/
Oct. 22, 2018
Millions of pounds of ready-to-eat salads and premade food items including entrees, burritos, wraps and pizzas at several big name retailers such as Harris Teeter, Kroger, Whole Foods, 7-Eleven, Trader Joe's and Walmart have been recalled due to the potential risk of listeria and salmonella contamination.


https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Hurricane-Warnings-Mexico-Hurricane-Willa-Intensifies-Category-5
Oct. 22, 2018
Hurricane Warnings for Mexico as Hurricane Willa Intensifies to Category 5
[It has since weakened to Category 4, still very dangerous.]


http://floodlist.com/europe/floods-valencia-andalusia-spain-october-2018
Oct. 22, 2018
Several days of torrential rain have caused flooding in eastern and southern Spain. At least one person has died and dozens rescued or evacuated.
The heavy rain began on 18 October, 2018, particularly in the Valencia region where Vinaròs in Castellón Province recorded 374.6 mm [14.7 in] in 24 hours to 19 October. AEMET said that 159.2 mm [6.3 in] of rain in Vinaròs fell in just 1 hour.


http://floodlist.com
This week, floods in Americas [Trinidad and Tobago, Columbia, Texas], Africa [Tunisia], Asia [Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Indonesia], Europe [Spain, France, UK]


Global warming is causing increased flooding around the world, and some seniors, including my own father, have flat out told me that they don't care because they don't expect it to affect them. It is already affecting people around the world, including a lot of seniors from severe weather. But they expect their children and grandchildren to pay for their social security, medicare, and medicaid.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-whos-paying-the-true-cost-of-medicare
Nov. 16, 2016
It turns out that Medicare payroll taxes fully fund Part A hospital expenses (together with your share of uncovered Part A expenses), but that is literally where the buck stops. Expenses for Parts B, C (Medicare Advantage) and D (prescription drugs) are paid mostly by Uncle Sam, to the tune of nearly $250 billion. And this is, by the way, not a fixed line item in the federal budget but more of a blank check every year.
So while I not only support and respect seniors, and in fact have become a member of the seniors’ club myself, please do not attempt to blow smoke on me or anyone else by saying that you’ve paid for your Medicare. You haven’t, and I haven’t either. I happen to think my tax dollars are relatively well spent by Medicare and that supporting the health needs of older Americans is one of the best things this country and government do. But it doesn’t come close to paying for itself, and the gap will get larger and larger as baby boomers inevitably succumb to the realities of aging bodies and rising health care expenses. This doesn’t mean I support cutting Medicare benefits. Far from it. Today’s seniors deserve quality health care.


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bible-museum-says-five-dead-sea-scroll-fragments-may-be-n923071
Oct. 22, 2018
The Museum of the Bible is withdrawing five fragments it had thought were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls after lab tests indicated that they could be fakes.
The museum in Washington, D.C., said in a statement Monday that it sent the fragments for testing to a lab Germany in April 2017 and had learned that the five fragments "show characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin."

Links

https://hbr.org/2018/10/9-words-and-phrases-youre-probably-using-wrong
Oct. 16, 2018
9 Words and Phrases You’re Probably Using Wrong


https://www.arklatexhomepage.com/news/local-news/severe-flooding-continues-in-texas/1538134664
Oct. 20, 2018
Severe flooding is expected to continue through the coming week in Texas.  
https://www.yahoo.com/news/torrential-rain-continues-central-texas-161413359.html
Oct. 19, 2018
Torrential rain continues in Central Texas after days of flooding


https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-compelling-evidence-apos-points-030625072.html
Oct. 19,2018
The former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 believes “very compelling” evidence indicates that the Saudi crown prince was behind the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.


https://www.vox.com/2018/10/18/17990626/trump-promises-made-promises-broken
Oct. 18, 2018
The biggest lie Trump tells is that he’s kept his promises
A raft of populist pledges have been left on the cutting room floor.


https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/20/shorten-says-australia-should-boycott-saudi-summit-over-khashoggi-death
Oct. 20, 2018
The Australian government has decided it is “no longer appropriate” to attend a summit in Saudi Arabia in light of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/19/politicians-say-nothing-but-us-farmers-are-increasingly-terrified-by-it-climate-change
Oct. 19, 2018
Politicians say nothing, but US farmers are increasingly terrified by it – climate change


https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/19/health/study-not-exercising-worse-than-smoking/index.html
Oct. 20, 2018
Not exercising worse for your health than smoking, diabetes and heart disease, study reveals


https://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-cohen-apos-poll-apos-190515431.html
Oct. 19, 2018
Michael Cohen, the former lawyer for President Donald Trump, is imploring people to get out and vote against the Republican Party if they don’t want “another two or another six years of this craziness.”
“Listen, here’s my recommendation. Grab your family, grab your friends, grab your neighbors, and get to the poll, because if not, you are going to have another two or another six years of this craziness,” Cohen told CNN outside his New York City home on Friday.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/philly-crime-boss-skinny-joey-112818165.html
Oct. 18, 2018
US mobster Skinny Joey gets two years in prison – and agrees with Trump on 'flippers'

Links

The value of workers such as those that clear debris, and those who build and maintain things like water, electrical, and phone systems, and those who plant, harvest, and transport food, should be obvious in the aftermath of recent natural disasters.


https://www.vox.com/2018/10/17/17990268/pat-robertson-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-trump-crisis
Oct. 17, 2018
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared on its flagship television show The 700 Club on Monday to caution Americans against allowing the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia to deteriorate over Khashoggi’s death.
“For those who are screaming blood for the Saudis — look, these people are key allies,” Robertson said. While he called the faith of the Wahabists — the hardline Islamist sect to which the Saudi Royal Family belongs — “obnoxious,” he urged viewers to remember that “we’ve got an arms deal that everybody wanted a piece of…it’ll be a lot of jobs, a lot of money come to our coffers. It’s not something you want to blow up willy-nilly.”


https://thehill.com/homenews/media/412089-fox-business-network-pulls-out-of-saudi-conference-over-khashoggi
Oct. 18, 2018
Fox Business Network is withdrawing from an upcoming investment summit in Saudi Arabia, becoming the latest media organization to do so in the wake of the disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“FOX Business Network has canceled its sponsorship and participation in the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia. We continue to seek an interview with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman," the network said in a statement to The Hill.
Several other media organizations, including The New York Times, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and The Financial Times, have also pulled out of the conference in recent days. A range of other organizations and corporate executives have done the same.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Thursday that he also won't attend the conference after days of speculation. 

Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

By Shannon Hall on October 26, 2015

Exxon was aware of climate change, as early as 1977, 11 years before it became a public issue, according to a recent investigation from InsideClimate News. This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation—an approach many have likened to the lies spread by the tobacco industry regarding the health risks of smoking. Both industries were conscious that their products wouldn’t stay profitable once the world understood the risks, so much so that they used the same consultants to develop strategies on how to communicate with the public.

•••••

In their eight-month-long investigation, reporters at InsideClimate News interviewed former Exxon employees, scientists and federal officials and analyzed hundreds of pages of internal documents. They found that the company’s knowledge of climate change dates back to July 1977, when its senior scientist James Black delivered a sobering message on the topic. “In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels," Black told Exxon’s management committee. A year later he warned Exxon that doubling CO2 gases in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by two or three degrees—a number that is consistent with the scientific consensus today. He continued to warn that “present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical." In other words, Exxon needed to act.

•••••

One thing is certain: in June 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen told a congressional hearing that the planet was already warming, Exxon remained publicly convinced that the science was still controversial. Furthermore, experts agree that Exxon became a leader in campaigns of confusion.

•••••

Since then, Exxon has spent more than $30 million on think tanks that promote climate denial, according to Greenpeace. Although experts will never be able to quantify the damage Exxon’s misinformation has caused, “one thing for certain is we’ve lost a lot of ground,” Kimmell says. Half of the greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere were released after 1988.

•••••

Exxon is lobbying for a carbon tax. There is, obviously, a catch.

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/18/17983866/climate-change-exxon-carbon-tax-lawsuit

By Umair Irfan Oct 18, 2018

ExxonMobil, the largest investor-owned oil company in the world, announced last week that it will spend $1 million over two years to lobby for a US carbon tax.

•••••

But what’s gone largely unnoticed is that Exxon’s proposal comes with a massive catch: In exchange for a tax, the company wants immunity from all climate lawsuits in the future.

Cities across the United States are currently suing oil companies to make them pay for damages wrought by climate change, which could put companies like Exxon on the hook for billions of dollars in payouts.

The proposal Exxon wants to enact is one that would shield the company from lawsuits while also preventing further climate change regulations. All in all, it would grant oil companies the kind of immunity from litigation the gun industry currently enjoys.

•••••

A carbon tax could also work in favor of Exxon because the heaviest burdens of a tax would fall on the dirtiest fuels, namely coal. A price on carbon would force coal-fired generation off the market and leave a vacuum for alternatives, even higher-priced oil and gas.

Exxon itself has observed that cleaner fuels like natural gas and renewables are the largest growth sectors in energy.

So it makes sense that a powerful oil company wants to get ahead of any energy transitions.

•••••

The $40 per ton price on carbon might not move the needle much on fighting climate change or dealing with its consequences. “You really need a much stronger response to meet global goals,” said Paul Griffin, a distinguished professor of management at the University of California Davis, who studies greenhouse gas accounting.

•••••

There’s nothing inherent in a carbon tax that requires legal immunity for polluters. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the other group lobbying for a carbon price, has a fee and dividend model that doesn’t absolve oil companies of liability.

•••••

Links

[humor, satire. The web site has some really funny satire.]
https://outabouter.com/2018/10/16/experts-say-vast-deserts-absence-of-life-may-indicate-mars-was-once-run-by-conservatives/?fbclid=IwAR0fJ2kFrG2in8ICcD1gDsfUR0pRj5IybGHljVV4PriVhUfJ-gzz6C8KHvQ
Experts Say Vast Deserts, Absence Of Life, May Indicate Mars Was Once Run By Conservatives
In a recent revelation, published in the respectably obscure scientific journal Knock Knock Who’s There Science Science Who Too Late, a team of experts from the University of Atlantis released their analysis of what ultimately caused Mars to become a barren dustbowl of shattered galactic dreams: entirely avoidable environmental disaster coupled with unresponsive conservative governance.
“We even discovered an ancient script, quoting what seems to have been one of the last Martian leaders. A spectacularly short-sighted individual whose name time has erased, this character memorably claimed that the warnings of his leading scientists – that their planet was destined to become a dust factory – were a hoax. Because they had an agenda. Which appears to have been wanting to avoid extinction.”

[Another jewel.]
https://outabouter.com/2018/10/11/needing-governments-to-act-scientists-rename-climate-change-illegal-temperature-migration/
Needing Governments To Act, Scientists Rename Climate Change “Illegal Temperature Migration”


If, at appears, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured, the people responsibility are uncivilized barbarians. But considering their torture of other people, we already know that.


[Another state which elects politicians who block action on global warming gets hit by severe flooding, whose incidence and severity are being increased by global warming.]
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/18/historic-texas-flooding-officials-open-floodgates-mansfield-dam/
Oct. 18, 2018
Across Central Texas and the Hill Country, heavy rain has led to catastrophic flooding in the past week. A bridge over the Llano River collapsed outside Kingsland on Tuesday and waters continue to rise, with homes flooding in Kingsland, Marble Falls and Granite Shoals. With more rainfall in the forecast, state and local officials are working to manage floodwaters before they move downstream.
Eight floodgates are likely to open on the Mansfield Dam above Lake Austin as more rainfall is expected over the next few days. The Lower Colorado River Authority, which operates the Highland Lakes dams, calls the potential move “an unprecedented action.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/jimmy-carter-says-brett-kavanaugh-194911637.html
Oct. 18, 2018
Former President Jimmy Carter didn’t mince words while discussing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during a visit to Emory University on Thursday.
The 39th president called Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the highest court in the land “a very serious mistake” while speaking to a civil rights class, The Emory Wheel first reported.
“Whether or not [Kavanaugh] attempted to rape a woman ... I thought he was temperamentally unfit to serve on the Supreme Court because of his outburst during the hearing,” Carter can be heard telling the students in a video posted to Facebook.
“I think most of the American people were not in favor of his being on the Supreme Court,” he added. “Judging by his previous legal career, he was very qualified. But ... I think he did attack her sexually and I know that I saw him lose his cool.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-mom-urges-families-kids-203045287.html
Oct. 17, 2018
An Ohio mom is urging other families to have their children vaccinated against the flu after her 4-year-old son died from the disease.
Anywhere from dozens to hundreds of children die from flu-related complications every year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports.
“That number doesn’t seem like a lot until it’s your child,” Laura Sidari told InsideEdition.com.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/trump-greg-gianforte-assault-guardian-ben-jacobs
Oct. 18, 2018
Donald Trump has praised Greg Gianforte, the Congress member from Montana, for violently attacking a Guardian reporter, saying that someone who performs a body slam is “my guy”.
Trump described in glowing terms the physical assault that occurred on 24 May 2017 when Ben Jacobs, the Guardian’s political correspondent, was asking Gianforte a question about health care policy in the course of a special congressional election in Bozeman, Montana. The US president incited cheers and chants from a crowd of about 8,000 supporters on Thursday night when he said: “Greg is smart. And by the way, never wrestle him. You understand. Never.”
A crew of Fox News reporters witnessed the attack on the Guardian’s correspondent in Bozeman. According to their first-hand account, the then congressional candidate grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands as the reporter was posing questions to him.
“He then slammed [Jacobs] into the ground behind him. [We] watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter.”


Several months ago, I had a brief conversation with a financial planner who said his income has "two commas". So between $1,000,000 and $999,999,999. He complained about people who didn't have to pay any taxes, that they voted w/o having "skin in the game". A storm was moving in, so we only had a short conversation, but I was able to point out that these people have very low incomes, and do pay state income and property taxes. I mentioned my own history, that I had worked hard and saved my whole life, but had lost everything due to recessions and age discrimination. He told me "That's because you play by the rules". And he said it in a way that he showed that it was a criticism of me. I wish we had had more time to talk. I don't think I had time to point out that the people he was talking about do pay social security and medicare taxes, and that they pay a much higher proportion of their income in state and local taxes than he does. I had no time to point out how his standard of living depends on their labor, that they are doing work that is necessary for society, much more so than he is. A disturbing thing is that this was right after poll worker training for the primary, so this person who denigrates playing by the rules is planning on working at the polls.


https://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-worker-cant-afford-one-bedroom-rent-us-2018-6
June 14, 2018
NLIHC found that a worker needs to earn $17.90 an hour at a full-time job — 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year — to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment. That's over $10 more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Let's look at the math: If a worker holds two full-time minimum wage jobs, they'd be earning $14.50 an hour total — still under the $17.90 needed to afford rent and have 70% of your income left over for non-housing related expenses. The worker would have to take on another, part-time, minimum-wage job to make up the difference. All things considered, that's a 99-hour work week, 52 weeks a year.
[And it is even worse, because they have social security and medicare taxes deducted from their pay.]


https://www.newsweek.com/ivanka-trump-lied-about-trump-organization-projects-secure-deals-worldwide-1175669
Oct. 17, 2018
Before becoming first daughter, Ivanka Trump, among other family members within the Trump Organization, deceived real estate investors and buyers and often profited from the deals that materialized, according to a new investigative report.
Ivanka Trump in press conferences and interviews overstated sales numbers for Trump Organization properties in Panama, New York City’s SoHo neighborhood and Toronto, and suggested she was a developer of a project in Baja, Mexico, according to ProPublica and WNYC in an investigative report published Wednesday.
“These statements weren’t just the legendary Trump hype; they misled potential buyers about the viability of the developments,” the report states.

Links

https://www.thisisinsider.com/rod-rosenstein-interview-mueller-russia-probe-2018-10
Oct. 17, 2018
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said on Wednesday that the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation has already revealed an elaborate and widespread effort by the Russians to meddle in the 2016 US election.
Trump has made numerous public and private attempts to exert more influence over the investigation, at one point reportedly wondering why "my guys" at the "Trump Justice Department" weren't protecting him from scrutiny.


https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-murphy-trump-jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-2018-10?_ga=2.34130977.1201433306.1539821281-863987175.1539821281
Oct. 17, 2018
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy on Wednesday told Business Insider that President Donald Trump's overall response to the alleged killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and subservient behavior toward Saudi Arabia has made the US look "weaker" than ever.


https://www.livescience.com/63852-failing-aspen-clone-utah.html
Oct. 17, 2018
One of the largest organisms in the world, a Utah forest of genetically identical trees, is slowly being devoured by deer.  
The Pando quaking aspen colony, also known as the "Trembling Giant," has likely survived for thousands of years. But about 80 percent of it is in a perilous state, according to a new paper published today (Oct. 17) in the journal PLOS One.
Part of the problem is that game such as mule deer do not have natural predators in the area anymore. In the early 1900s, humans killed off most natural predators, such as wolves and grizzly bears, Rogers said. Now, most of the grounds in Pando are set aside for recreational uses like camping, where the browsers are protected from hunting. "The deer know that very early on, and they find it a safe harbor."
But really, "Pando is failing because of human decisions," Rogers said. "Humans control wild animals, particularly wild-game species like deer and elk."


https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/health/life-expectancy-forecasts-study-intl/index.html
Oct. 17, 2018
Spain will overtake Japan's long-held position at the top of the world's life expectancy table by 2040, while the United States is set to take a big fall in rankings, new research finds.
People in Spain will live for 85.8 years on average, marginally edging out expected lifespans in Japan (85.7), Singapore (85.4) and Switzerland (85.2).
The United States will take the biggest drop in ranking of all high-income countries, falling from 43rd in 2016 to 64th by 2040, with an average life expectancy of 79.8.
The US will be overtaken by China, which rises 29 places to 39th in the table.
"Whether we see significant progress or stagnation depends on how well or poorly health systems address key health drivers," said Kyle Foreman, director of data science at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and lead author of the study.
"The future of the world's health is not pre-ordained, and there is a wide range of plausible trajectories," said Forman.
Spain is one of several European countries to offer tax-funded healthcare, with their healthcare system ranked as the seventh best in the world by the World Health Organization.


I find it silly that how much DNA Elizabeth Warren might have inherited from a possible American Indian ancestor is getting so much attention is utterly silly.
You really think she is horrible for believing her family beliefs about their ancestry? Have you done a DNA test to make sure what your family has passed on about it's ancestry is true? And going back a few generation, the percentage of DNA you get from anybody in that generation will vary widely as a matter of chance. Just in your grandparents generation, ON AVERAGE, you will inherit 25% from each, but you might inherit anywhere from 0 - 50% from any of them. It's pretty sure that you will inherit more than 25% from some, less than 25% from others.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/death-toll-french-flooding-hits-14-131240809.html
Oct. 17, 2018
At least 14 people died and one remained missing after the storms and floods that battered southwest France earlier this week, local authorities said Wednesday, updating the toll.
The equivalent of three months rainfall was dumped overnight Sunday to Monday in the region of the fortress city of Carcassonne, bursting the banks of rivers, including the Aude, which reached levels not seen in 100 years.
tags: extreme weather, severe weather


https://www.yahoo.com/news/catastrophic-flooding-texas-causes-evacuations-042035964.html
Oct. 17, 2018
About 1 foot of rain fell in parts of central and south Texas over the last two days, overwhelming rivers and lakes, and causing intense flash flooding.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/central-texas-hit-deadly-flooding-224740658.html
Oct. 16, 2018
Flooding in central Texas turned deadly Tuesday following days of pouring rain. Some rivers are 13 feet above flood stage, prompting evacuations. CBS News' Courtney Zubowski reports.
tags: extreme weather, severe weather


[Noticeable that the headline does not note that the kids were black. If the copy had shot one of the kids, the headline would have noted that the kids were black.]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ohio-cop-uses-words-not-225331412.html
[Actual headline:] Ohio Cop Uses Words, Not Bullets On 11-Year-Old Carrying Realistic BB Gun
Oct. 17, 2018
Video of an Ohio police officer responding to a 911 call about two young black men with a gun has gone viral. But unlike circumstances that typically warrant the release of such videos, this one gained momentum not because it ended in violence, but because it could have, and didn’t.


https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-trump-tax-law-budget-deficit-debt-2018-10
Oct. 16, 2018
Republicans said their tax law was supposed to pay for itself. But according to new data from the Treasury Department, their overhaul of the tax code isn't producing the desired result.
The Treasury said the budget deficit hit $779 billion for fiscal 2018 — which was October 2017 through September 2018 — the highest level since 2012.
Particularly significant is the corporate tax side of the ledger, where the effects of the law have already taken hold. While most Americans have not yet filed their taxes under the new system, corporations pay taxes quarterly and have already been operating under the new lower rate.
According to Treasury data, tax revenue from corporate returns dropped 31% in fiscal 2018 compared with fiscal 2017. Meanwhile, individual tax revenue was up 6.1%, and total revenue increased by just 0.4% from fiscal 2017.


[Anybody who has followed this issue for years knows that the reason the republicans gave huge tax cuts to the very rich was not just to help them, but also to cause a big enough budget deficit so as to force cutbacks in programs that help ordinary people, such as Social Security and Medicare.]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-calls-to-cut-social-security-medicare/ar-BBOtGyE
Oct. 16, 2018
After instituting a $1.5 trillion tax cut and signing off on a $675 billion budget for the Department of Defense, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the only way to lower the record-high federal deficit would be to cut entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
New Treasury Department analysis on Monday revealed that corporate tax cuts had a significant impact on the deficit this year. Federal revenue rose by 0.04 percent in 2018, a nearly 100 percent decrease last year’s 1.5 percent. In fiscal year 2018, tax receipts on corporate income fell to $205 billion from $297 billion in 2017.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-this-is-what-happens-when-you-take-ayn-rand-seriously
Feb. 16, 2016
This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand seriously
what if people behaved according to Rand’s philosophy of “objectivism”? What if we indeed allowed ourselves to be blinded to all but our own self-interest?
In 2008, Sears CEO Eddie Lampert decided to restructure the company according to Rand’s principles.
Lampert broke the company into more than 30 individual units, each with its own management and each measured separately for profit and loss. The idea was to promote competition among the units, which Lampert assumed would lead to higher profits. Instead, this is what happened, as described by Mina Kimes, a reporter for Bloomberg Business:
the divisions turned against each other — and Sears and Kmart, the overarching brands, suffered. Interviews with more than 40 former executives, many of whom sat at the highest levels of the company, paint a picture of a business that’s ravaged by infighting as its divisions battle over fewer resources.
It got crazy. Executives started undermining other units because they knew their bonuses were tied to individual unit performance. They began to focus solely on the economic performance of their unit at the expense of the overall Sears brand.
Sears became a miserable place to work, rife with infighting and screaming matches. Employees, focused solely on making money in their own unit, ceased to have any loyalty to the company or stake in its survival.
We all know the end of the story: Sears share prices fell, and the company appears to be headed toward bankruptcy. The moral of the story, in Parramore’s words:
What Lampert failed to see is that humans actually have a natural inclination to work for the mutual benefit of an organization. They like to cooperate and collaborate, and they often work more productively when they have shared goals. Take all of that away and you create a company that will destroy itself.


[That is what I have noticed about some republicans I know personally. They enjoy hurting people.]
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/?fbclid=IwAR1XrkiqsaiF_mhQGadC0tEhN3i7b9NoHq215dIqSu_NRGy05pd0qtme8Hc
Oct. 3, 2018
The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected. As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty toward women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt.
Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.
The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.


https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/September-2018-Earths-4th-Warmest-September-Record?cm_ven=hp-slot-2
Oct. 17, 2018
September 2018 was tied with 2017 as the planet's fourth-warmest September since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Wednesday. The only warmer September months came in 2015, 2016, and 2014, according to NOAA. NASA rated September 2018 as tied for the sixth-warmest September on record. Minor differences in rankings between NASA and NOAA arise mostly due to how they handle data-sparse regions such as the Arctic, where few surface weather stations exist.
Global ocean temperatures during September 2018 were the fourth warmest on record, and land temperatures were the sixth warmest on record, according to NOAA.
Four billion-dollar weather-related disasters hit the Earth last month, according to the September 2018 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield: Hurricane Florence in the U.S. ($10+ billion), drought in India ($1.1 billion), Typhoon Jebi in Asia ($2+ billion), and Typhoon Manghut in Asia ($2+ billion). In addition, damage claims from Typhoon Rumbia in China topped the $1 billion mark by the end of September, giving the planet 27 billion-dollar weather disasters so far in 2018. This already ranks as the sixth highest yearly total since 1990, according to Aon Benfield, with three months to go in the year.
After starting the year with record lows in January and February, Arctic sea ice extent ended tied with 2008 for the sixth lowest average September extent in the satellite record,

Links

https://www.mvp.sos.ga.gov
If you live in Georgia, Use the MVP Log In to check your:
Voter registration status
Mail-In application and ballot status
Poll location
Early voting locations
Elected Officials
Registration information on file with the county office
Sample ballot for the upcoming election
Provisional Ballot status


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-12/study-that-fails-to-back-trump-coal-rescue-plan-kept-under-wraps
Oct. 12, 2018
A report commissioned by the Energy Department failed to reach conclusions favoring the Trump administration’s efforts to prop up coal and nuclear power -- and remains under wraps six months after submission.


https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/10/the-lower-9th-ward-is-still-recovering-from-katrina/
Oct. 15, 2018
It’s been thirteen years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and the effects are still felt every day.
Bell: “We still don’t have no grocery stores. We still don’t have no department stores or food chain stores. We don’t have nothing that we had before Katrina. Everything was destroyed.”
Reverend Richard Bell lives in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. During Katrina, floodwaters breached the city’s levees, inundating Bell’s neighborhood. Some areas sat in twelve feet of water for six weeks.
Bell was able to rebuild his house, but he says there are areas of the Lower Ninth Ward that still look like a wasteland.
Bell: “You got a lot of empty lots with tall grass growing where you can’t even look beyond the stop sign. We still haven’t got past Katrina. We have a long way to go.”

53,000 Applications Are On Hold in Georgia, But The Applicants Can Still Vote

https://www.wabe.org/53000-applications-are-on-hold-but-can-the-applicants-still-vote/

Emma Hurt • Oct 11, 2018

The 53,000 voter registration applications pending with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office don’t mean the applicants can’t vote, according to Brian Kemp’s campaign.

“They’re in a pending status,” Ryan Mahoney, communications coordinator for Georgia Secretary of State Kemp’s gubernatorial run, said. “They have 26 months to present additional information, or they can just show up and vote and present their photo ID as required by Georgia law. That information will be taken on the spot, and they’ll be able to vote. Not a provisional ballot.”

Mahoney also said these voters are informed of their status by mail when they receive information about their polling location.

The applications are pending due to Georgia’s “exact match” policy. That’s a law passed by the General Assembly last year, which requires registrations match exactly with data from the Department of Driver Services or from the Social Security Administration. When registrations don’t match, they land on the “pending list,” and voters have 26 months to provide additional information.

•••••

New climate report actually understates threat, some researchers argue

By Scott Waldman, E&E NewsOct. 12, 2018

•••••

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states in plain language that averting a climate crisis will require a wholesale reinvention of the global economy. By 2040, the report predicts, there could be global food shortages, the inundation of coastal cities and a refugee crisis unlike the world has ever seen.

A number of scientists contend that the report wasn't strong enough and that it downplayed the full extent of the real threat. They say it doesn't account for all of the warming that has already occurred and that it downplays the economic costs of severe storms and displacement of people through drought and deadly heat waves.

The world has a smaller carbon budget—the amount of fossil fuels that can be consumed before a critical tipping point is reached—than the report states, said Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University in Philadelphia. He published two papers with other researchers in recent years to show that the "preindustrial" baseline used for the report should not be based on late 19th-century data. The Industrial Revolution was already underway by then, he said, and humans had warmed the world by several tenths of a degree.

•••••

In other places, the report fails to highlight some major risks from climate change, said Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom. In the summary for policymakers, the section that receives the most attention, it does not mention population displacements or conflict, he said. It also does not describe any risks except for destabilization of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, he said.

"The danger of omitting these big risks is that policymakers underestimate the scale and urgency of the situation," Ward wrote in an email. "The authors may have left them out because they are uncertain. However, policymakers may misinterpret their omission as a sign that the authors examined the risks and decided either that the impacts would be unimportant or that the probabilities are zero. It is the difference between an academic literature review and a professional risk assessment."

•••••

The report also ignores "wild cards" in the climate system, or self-reinforcing feedbacks, said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate sciences at the University of California, San Diego. That includes thinning Arctic sea ice, which allows the ocean to absorb more heat, causing even more ice loss and diminished reflectivity in the region, he said. Such feedback loops have a real possibility of pushing the planet into a period of chaos that humans cannot control, he said.

Ramanathan said the report also takes solid research, such as his finding that 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming could be reached by 2030 to 2035, and downplays it in favor of being overly cautious.

•••••

Links

Electionland‏Verified account @electionland
Voters in Georgia: if you are one of the people who has been removed from the rolls (your status says “pending” on the SOS site), you can still vote if you bring your ID and the name matches. Media! Please include this in your stories and ensure your headlines are not misleading
6:02 AM - 12 Oct 2018


If you live in Georgia, you can check your voter status, your voting location, sample ballot at
https://www.mvp.sos.ga.gov


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/15/democratic-attack-ad-falsely-knocks-republican-preexisting-conditions/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e2eaa10d1d63
Oct. 25, 2018
Democratic attack ad falsely knocks Republican Brian Fitzpatrick on preexisting conditions
A key issue in the debate over the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the failed House Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, was Obamacare’s popular provisions barring insurance companies from refusing people with preexisting health conditions — or charging them more. As we have documented, the GOP bill would have weakened those protections, with states having the option to make changes that could have left people with preexisting conditions vulnerable to large increases in premiums, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Democratic ad-makers appear to be looking for the cleanest hit possible — an actual vote against protecting preexisting conditions during the debate over the AHCA. But they get there in Rube Goldberg fashion — and it’s an especially unfair attack against Fitzpatrick.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/flash-floods-tear-southwestern-france-slideshow-wp-150242085.html
Oct. 15, 2018
Flash floods tore through towns in southwest France, turning waterways into raging torrents that killed at least 13 people, nine of them in just one town, authorities said Monday. People had to be helicoptered to safety from the roofs of their homes as overnight storms dumped the equivalent of several months of rain in just a few hours.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/without-captions-warnings-hurricane-michael-failed-reach-disabled-200120770.html
Oct. 15, 2018
Without captions, warnings about Hurricane Michael failed to reach disabled


https://www.yahoo.com/news/factbox-240-000-u-customers-without-power-hurricane-110534867--finance.html
Some 240,029 homes and businesses on the U.S. East Coast were without power on Monday in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, according to local power companies.
Some customers in the hardest hit parts of Florida may have to wait weeks for power to be restored, the utilities said.
In total, Michael caused over 2.6 million outages after hitting the Florida Panhandle as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (250 km per hour).


[If we had been giving effective foreign aid, and been fighting climate disruption, we would not have so many immigrants. People aren't coming here because they WANT to leave their homes and families.]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-desert-tent-city-immigrant-children-balloons-size-000701101.html
Oct. 12, 2018
A tent city in the west Texas desert set up to hold immigrant children has expanded its capacity by nearly 10 times to 3,800 beds since it opened in June, officials said on Friday.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-wild-cat-sanctuary-caught-hurricanes-path-120128195.html
Oct. 13, 2018
Florida wild cat sanctuary caught in hurricane's path
the couple's main concern was how to care for the animals, whose daily food and medical costs are about $600.
The center is a TripAdvisor Panama City top attraction and tours help cover its costs, but the hurricane has driven away visitors and access to the butcher shop that supplies meat for the animals has been impeded.
On Wednesday night, as Hurricane Michael raged through the area, Bertie said that she and her husband repeatedly checked on the cats outside.
"If I could have I would have evacuated, but I couldn’t leave the animals," she said. "We had to hunker down and make sure they were OK for the safety of the community."


https://www.yahoo.com/news/left-hurricane-michael-terrified-those-stayed-115617443.html
Oct. 11, 2018
Joey Morrison, a 30-year-old glass worker, said Michael beat so hard on his apartment door in Panama City Beach with its 155 mile-per-hour (250 km-per-hour) winds that he had to reinforce it by drilling in screws - and still had to sit against the door to keep it shut.
“I got scared enough that I was thinking, ‘I should have left.’ Because this isn’t like anything that ever happened here,” Morrison recounted.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/the-social-security-benefits-bump-might-not-translate-into-a-raise-for-seniors-heres-why?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=newshour&linkId=100000003742549&fbclid=IwAR3Jy5La8_BKLEwqf67urcfd4r36A6faz-WVQAT8MLXezJQsk_S7vo7Wnis
Oct. 12, 2018
The nation’s 67.6 million Social Security beneficiaries will receive a 2.8 percent cost of living increase next year, the Social Security Administration announced Thursday. That translates to an monthly boost of $39 to a total of $1,461 for the average beneficiary.
But as economics correspondent Paul Solman has reported, that increase could largely be offset by an increase in health care costs.

Links

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/12/arizona-republicans-communists-democrats-donation-attempt
Oct. 12, 2018
Two young Arizona Republicans tried to make a donation to a congressman while posing as members of a university communist party, in an apparent attempt to tie the Democrat to the far left.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown
Oct. 10, 2018
Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system’s impact on the environment. In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses.
The research also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades.


https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/10/11/656503264/fact-check-whos-right-about-protections-for-pre-existing-conditions
Oct. 11, 2018
FACT CHECK: Who's Right About Protections For Pre-Existing Conditions?
The Trump administration, technically the defendant in that case, said in June that it disagreed that the entire law should fall. But it is arguing that the parts of the law addressing pre-existing conditions are so tightly connected to the tax penalty that they should be struck down.
Clearly, if the lawsuit prevails in either its original form or the form preferred by the Trump administration, pre-existing protections are not "safe," as the president claimed.
Even more complicated, the protections written into HIPAA were rewritten and incorporated into the ACA, so if the ACA in whole or part were to be struck down, HIPAA's pre-existing condition protections might go away, too.
Republicans in Congress have introduced a series of proposals they say would replicate the existing protections. But critics contend none of them cover as many situations as the ACA does. For example, a bill unveiled by several Republican senators in August would require insurers to offer coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions, but not require coverage of the conditions themselves.


https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2018-10-09/bill-gates-backs-carbon-fee-measure-in-washington-state
Oct. 9, 2018
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has endorsed a November ballot measure in Washington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
Gates wrote in a LinkedIn post Tuesday that he will contribute to the Yes on 1631 campaign and vote for it, saying "climate change may be the toughest problem humanity has ever faced."


https://earther.gizmodo.com/death-toll-from-hurricane-michael-is-now-at-least-18-a-1829732389
Oct. 13, 2018
The death toll from Hurricane Michael, an unprecedented storm which slammed into the Florida Panhandle near Mexico Beach at Category 4 strength last week, is expected to rise from the latest count of 18 across the states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia as search-and-rescue teams scour devastated coastal communities that were still “cutoff and in the dark,” Reuters reported on Saturday morning.
Hundreds are still unaccounted for, Reuters wrote. Searches through Panhandle towns and cities that are littered with rubble are ongoing, and federal officials acknowledged on Friday that some of the worst damage was in places rescuers haven’t been able to search yet:


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/proud-boys-new-york-assault-gavin-mcinnes_us_5bc20d60e4b0bd9ed55a96ee
Oct. 13, 2018
Minutes after an event at a Manhattan Republican club meant to celebrate violence against leftists, attendees belonging to a proto-fascist, pro-Trump street gang reportedly pummeled three people on the sidewalk in Manhattan’s Upper East Side while shouting homophobic slurs.
Footage posted online by video journalist Sandi Bachom shows a group of men who appear to be Proud Boys — a misogynistic and anti-Muslim fraternity known for committing acts of political violence across the country — kicking and punching three apparent anti-fascist protesters as they lay prone on the sidewalk.
“Do you feel brave now, faggot?” one of the attackers yelled, according to Bachom and another journalist, photographer Shay Horse. Another video shows multiple attackers yelling “faggot.”
Both Bachom and Horse told HuffPost they believed the altercation began when three anti-fascist protesters knocked a red “Make America Great Again” hat off a Proud Boy member’s head.
But then, the two journalists recounted, the confrontation turned into a mob assault, with Proud Boys vastly outnumbering the anti-fascists.
“They turned it into a pummeling,” Horse said. “This was three people on the ground and people just kicking the shit out of them.”


On the topic of raising teenagers, Mark Twain advised, “When a boy turns 13, put him in a barrel and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug up the hole.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/business/jared-kushner-taxes.html?ad-keywords=SMARTNEWS12
Oct. 13, 2018
Over the past decade, Jared Kushner’s family company has spent billions of dollars buying real estate. His personal stock investments have soared. His net worth has quintupled to almost $324 million.
And yet, for several years running, Mr. Kushner — President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser — appears to have paid almost no federal income taxes, according to confidential financial documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The White House last year championed a sweeping revision of the nation’s tax laws that expanded many of the benefits enjoyed by real estate investors, allowing them to reap even larger deductions.
“The Trump administration was in a position to clean up the tax code and promised to get rid of some of the complexity that certain taxpayers use to their advantage,” said Victor Fleischer, a tax law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “Instead, they doubled down on those provisions, particularly the ones they have familiarity with to benefit themselves.”

Links

[Note that supreme court justice Roberts and former justice Stevens are conservatives appointed by a republican presidents.]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2018/10/11/chief-justice-roberts-requests-tenth-circuit-to-investigate-kavanaugh-ethics-questions/#14d2a21d1877
Oct. 11, 2018
While the Republican leadership celebrates the seating of Brett Kavanaugh as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts yesterday requested the Tenth Circuit to review more than twelve ethics complaints that have been made against Kavanaugh. The complaints concern Kavanaugh’s behavior at the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27.
The complaints were not made without legal basis. More than 2,400 law professors have determined that Kavanaugh has “displayed a lack of judicial temperament that would be disqualifying for any court.”
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens also stated that Judge Kavanaugh has demonstrated bias and is “not fit for the Supreme Court.” Former Justice Stevens, in remarks to retirees in Boca Raton, Fla, declared that Kavanaugh’s statements on September 27 revealed prejudices that would make it impossible for him to do the court’s work. “They suggest that he has demonstrated a potential bias involving enough potential litigants before the court that he would not be able to perform his full responsibilities.”
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Judge Kavanaugh’s behavior was startingly non-judicial in nature. From the outset in his prepared statement, he was angry and confrontational in manner. He was aggrieved and complaining about the situation in which he found himself. He was impolite and challenged the integrity of the Senate questioners and portrayed the hearing in the starkest partisan terms.


https://www.bbb.org/en/us/article/news-releases/17149-like-farming-a-facebook-scam-still-going-strong
Like-Farming: A Facebook Scam Still Going Strong
By Better Business Bureau. February 27, 2018.
Like-farming on Facebook is a technique in which scammers create an eye-catching post designed to get many likes and shares. Posts often give people emotional reasons to click, like, and share, such as adorable animals, sick children, or political messages. For example, some posts claim that Facebook will donate money for every comment or share. As more people like and share the post, it appears in more news feeds, giving the post a much wider audience.
As with many scams, like-farming has several different aims. When scammers ask you to “register” in order to win a free iPad or a free flight, this is a way to steal your personal information. Other versions can be more complex. Often, the post itself is initially harmless – albeit completely fictional. But when the scammer collects enough likes and shares, they will edit the post and add something malicious. That’s often a link to a website that downloads malware to your machine. Other times, once scammers reach their target number of likes, they strip the page’s original content and use it to promote spammy products. They may also resell the page on the black market. These buyers can use it to spam followers or harvest the information Facebook provides.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/high-court-leaves-north-dakota-voter-id-rules-020644771.html?guccounter=1
Oct. 9, 2018
A new U.S. Supreme Court decision means North Dakota can continue to require residents to provide a street address in order to vote on Election Day.
Some American Indian tribes argued that street addresses aren't always assigned on reservations and the requirements discriminate against Native Americans.


Pictures of hurricane Michael's damage
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/10/weather/gallery/hurricane-michael/index.html


[Nature is trying to solve the problem of our destructive species, since we are too dumb to do it ourselves.]
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/10/hot-weather-may-be-harming-our-fertility/
Oct. 12, 2018
“In the context of climate change, more hot weather is going to hinder people’s ability to have the family size that’s right for them.”
That’s Alan Barreca of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He found for every day with an average temperature over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, more than one thousand fewer babies are born in the U.S.
Once it cools off, birth rates rebound, but not enough to make up for the reduction in birth rates associated with heat waves.
Barreca says the problem is caused by hot weather before the time of conception. Animal studies show that sperm production falls in the weeks after a hot spell, so he speculates that high temperatures are affecting male fertility.
Barreca: “What is happening is the hot weather is derailing people physiologically, and two weeks later, when they go and actually try and conceive, they’re unsuccessful.”


https://earther.gizmodo.com/we-have-a-decade-to-prevent-a-total-climate-disaster-1829585748
Oct. 7, 2018
“There’s a perspective that somehow there’s one solution to climate change. There’s not,” Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington scientist and lead author the summary for policymakers of the new report, told Earther. “There’s a million solutions. When you look at each one of these, they can be relatively small. It’s when you put them together that become large and powerful.”

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN

Please read the whole article at the following link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

Jonathan Watts Global environment editor
Mon 8 Oct 2018 02.23 EDT

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

The authors of the landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released on Monday say urgent and unprecedented changes are needed to reach the target, which they say is affordable and feasible although it lies at the most ambitious end of the Paris agreement pledge to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C.

The half-degree difference could also prevent corals from being completely eradicated and ease pressure on the Arctic, according to the 1.5C study, which was launched after approval at a final plenary of all 195 countries in Incheon in South Korea that saw delegates hugging one another, with some in tears.

•••••

The world is currently 1C warmer than preindustrial levels. Following devastating hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town and forest fires in the Arctic, the IPCC makes clear that climate change is already happening, upgraded its risk warning from previous reports, and warned that every fraction of additional warming would worsen the impact.

Scientists who reviewed the 6,000 works referenced in the report, said the change caused by just half a degree came as a revelation. “We can see there is a difference and it’s substantial,” Roberts said.

At 1.5C the proportion of the global population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower than at 2C, it notes. Food scarcity would be less of a problem and hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in poor countries, would be at risk of climate-related poverty.

•••••

Sea-level rise would affect 10 million more people by 2100 if the half-degree extra warming brought a forecast 10cm additional pressure on coastlines. The number affected would increase substantially in the following centuries due to locked-in ice melt.

Oceans are already suffering from elevated acidity and lower levels of oxygen as a result of climate change. One model shows marine fisheries would lose 3m tonnes at 2C, twice the decline at 1.5C.

•••••

At the current level of commitments, the world is on course for a disastrous 3C of warming. The report authors are refuseing to accept defeat, believing the increasingly visible damage caused by climate change will shift opinion their way.

•••••

“Climate change is occurring earlier and more rapidly than expected. Even at the current level of 1C warming, it is painful,” he told the Guardian. “This report is really important. It has a scientific robustness that shows 1.5C is not just a political concession. There is a growing recognition that 2C is dangerous.”

Victims of Hurricane Michael are represented by climate deniers

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/oct/11/victims-of-hurricane-michael-voted-for-climate-deniers

John Abraham
Thu 11 Oct 2018 06.00 EDT
Last modified on Thu 11 Oct 2018 20.28 EDT

Floridians are staring down a very powerful Category 4 typhoon (2 mph less than a Category 5) that is causing extensive damage. The high winds, heavy rains, and storm surge will cost billions of dollars.

We know that climate change is making these storms stronger. The storms feed off of warm ocean waters, and those waters are much warmer now because of climate change. I have written about the science in more detail here and here. But basically, Michael strengthened because it passed over really warm waters. Waters that were hotter because of human-caused warming.

•••••

It is a wonder that a state like Florida, which will get pummeled by Michael, could vote for someone that denies climate change. Think of how backwards the situation is – the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has reportedly been banned from using the terms “climate change” and “global warming”. This policy reportedly went into effect when Florida elected a science denier, Rick Scott, to governor.

Rick Scott has been condemned by people in Florida for his backward stance. It is climate denial like his that has contributed to the suffering of residents in the state.

It’s not that my colleagues haven’t tried to help Governor Scott understand how his policies hurt his state. A few years ago, scientists met with him and urged him to take climate change seriously. He remained silent.

It isn’t that the local media hasn’t tried. Major newspapers have called upon Rick Scott to take action on climate change. But to little avail. Maybe it’s because Rick Scott invests in companies that oppose climate change regulations?

It isn’t that his political opponents haven’t tried. Recently, Florida Democrats petitioned Rick Scott to acknowledge climate change.

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Rick Scott isn’t the only politician from the state of Florida to reject science and diminish climate change. Senator Marco Rubio has as well.

Florida voters could put an end to this nonsense. In the current race for state Governor to succeed Scott, Republican candidate Ron DeSantis is ignoring science. He recently claimed that climate change is not an issue for states to mitigate. Say what?

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But it’s not just Florida; there are other states getting hit by Hurricane Michael that are also led by climate deniers. For instance, Georgia will be hit by Hurricane Michael. One of the senators there, David Perdue, congratulated President Trump when he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. Georgia’s other Senator, Johnny Isakson also denies the science. He too supported President Trump’s reckless actions.

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Climate deniers will try to say this article is gleeful about a hurricane. It is not. First of all, this hurricane and all hurricanes that hit land can cause death and destruction. I pray that people heed warnings and get out of the way. I hope people stay safe, regardless of their understanding of climate change and its effect on storms.
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Second, elections have consequences and if we as a society want to create a better world and reduce climate change, we have to vote for people who understand science, who believe in facts. Climate deniers are making these storms worse by stopping action on climate change. What the hell do we expect to happen when the deniers are writing the laws?

Third, for those who say “taking action on climate is too expensive”, how about you add up the worldwide costs of climate inaction over the past decade. My response to you is, it’s too costly to do nothing.

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Finally, climate change is only starting. It will continue to get worse and worse. And that means storms will get worse, droughts will get deeper, flooding more severe, and the costs will go up. What we are seeing now and what we’ve seen over the past decade is just a small taste to come of what the future will bring if we don’t take this problem seriously.

Good luck Florida and Georgia. My thoughts are with you. See you on the other side.


tags: extreme weather, severe weather

Links

We are told it would would hurt the economy to avoid global warming. I guess we can see their point in the results of hurricanes Florence and Michael, which happened less than a month apart. Just think of the extra business hospitals and rescue workers got. Think of all the business there will be for people to clean up the mess, and repair and rebuild. Do we really want to give up this aid to the economy. Do we really want to deprive undertakers of extra work?



https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/10/yes-downpours-are-getting-more-intense/
Oct. 10, 2018
If you’ve noticed that torrential rain storms are getting more common, you’re right.
Andreas Prein of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says the amount of rain that falls during the most intense storms is increasing all over the country. The change is most extreme in northeastern states …
Prein: “… where we have up to seventy percent higher intensities of rainfall than we had fifty years ago.”
One of the reasons is that warmer air can hold more evaporated water. So as temperatures increase, clouds can hold more moisture, which means more water can fall in a single storm.
And with more intense storms comes an increased risk of flash floods, which can threaten lives and damage property.
[Also warm water evaporates faster.]
tags: extreme weather, severe weather


https://www.vox.com/2018/2/16/17021420/russia-indictments-mueller-elections-race-voter-fraud-police-violence
Feb. 16, 2018
An indictment filed Friday by the special counsel to investigate Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election shows the lengths a Russian troll farm went to inflame racial tensions, operating several social accounts that intended to discourage African-Americans from voting in an election shaped largely by racial issues.
In all, 13 Russian nationals and three companies were formally accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. According to a 37-page document released Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller, Russian operatives working for the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency used several social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — including ones called “Woke Blacks” and “Blacktivists” — to urge Americans to vote for third-party candidates or sit out the election entirely.

Not Just CO2: These Climate Pollutants Also Must Be Cut to Keep Global Warming to 1.5 Degrees

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07102018/ipcc-global-warming-science-report-short-lived-climate-pollutants-methane-hfcs-carbon

By Phil McKenna
Oct. 7, 2018

Countries won't be able to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, considered by some scientists and policymakers to be the "safe" limit of climate change, without immediate and rapid reductions in a wide range of greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide, according to a new United Nations report.

The report, released Oct. 8 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sums up the research into how 1.5°C of warming will affect the world and how global warming can most effectively be stopped.

The planet has already warmed about 1°C since the start of the industrial era, and that's likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if emissions continue at their current rate, the IPCC says. It describes how recent warming has been accompanied by a trend toward more intense and frequent climate, temperature and weather extremes, and how those risks will rise with the temperature.

The warming can be stopped, the IPCC writes in its summary for policymakers. Doing so will require countries to reduce global net emissions of carbon dioxide to zero by around 2050 and to also significantly reduce short-lived climate pollutants, including methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs.

That emphasis on reducing short-lived climate pollutants, which are many times more potent than CO2 but don't last as long in the atmosphere, is stronger than what has been written into past international agreements.

That's partly because, with the clock running out before the world busts through its carbon budget, curtailing short-lived pollutants can buy valuable time.

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Groups that are encouraging reducing short-lived climate pollutants emphasize that doing so reduces health hazards at the same time. For example, black carbon, also known as soot, can damage the lungs and cause heart problems, particularly for people who live or work around sources of it, such as diesel engines or wood- or coal-burning cookstoves.

"If you reduce things like black carbon emissions from the tailpipes of vehicles, for example, you are providing these important air quality improvement benefits which is going to help local populations as well," said Katherine Ross, an associate with the World Resources Institute's Climate Program.

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https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/410590-scotus-wont-hear-appeal-of-greenhouse-gas-case-ruled-on-by

By Miranda Green - 10/09/18 02:14 PM EDT

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a lawsuit challenging a lower court ruling written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decision to pass on the case, announced during Kavanaugh’s first day as an associate justice, means the Supreme Court will not consider the lower court's August 2017 ruling that struck down an Obama-era regulation pertaining to a greenhouse gas. Kavanaugh did not participate in the Supreme Court's decision on whether to take up the case.

Kavanaugh authored the ruling that overturned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule on hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), commonly found in air conditioners and refrigerators. He argued that the federal government did not have the jurisdiction to regulate the gas under the Clean Air Act.

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