“Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg could agree to run together in 2024 if Biden does not run again, giving the Democratic Party a very strong ticket that would seem like a natural continuation of Biden’s first term, writes @LincolnMitchell. @CNNOpinion \ ow.ly/ elwQ50GW4tp
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“Opposition leftist claims Honduras election win, on track to be first woman president”
“Progressive Activist group
After 12 years the people of Honduras can celebrate because they have voted to reverse the right-wing U.S. backed coup. Xiomara Castro has claimed victory amidst a large lead in the vote count. Castro would become the first woman to be President of Honduras. She is married to former President Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown by right-wingers, capitalists, land owners, and drug gangs, with the backing of the U.S. government in 2009.
The coup in 2009 was justified by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. recognized the coup government as legitimate.
The coup plunged Honduras into a dozen years of misery with unbridled corruption and criminality. It came at a crucial time, as progressives and leftists were winning important elections throughout Latin America. The coup was a statement that there were still countries in which the U.S. would back forces more to its liking, even if the came to power in a coup that overturned democratic elections.
2021-06-07 _F2A4870aaa
Ten years later, the U.S. backed another coup in Latin America, that time in Bolivia. Fortunately, it didn’t take Bolivians nearly as long to overturn that coup in a democratic election.
Castro probably won the previous election for President of Honduras too, but that election was close enough for government fraud to deny Castro the victory. This election does not appear to be close enough for fraud to change the outcome.
Neither Zelaya nor Castro are radical leftists, nor socialists, but rather progressives. Zelaya’s crime, for which a coup was organized to overthrow him, was to begin to develop relations with Venezuela that was at the time providing assistance in relieving poverty. Massive poverty and extreme poverty continue to plague Honduras.
Will Honduras’ rich and their establishment backers accept this election, or seek to organize another coup? Would the U.S. back another coup? Sadly, these are questions which need to be asked because the Honduran people have voted to elect a progressive President.”
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“Ag Weather Forum
Officially Official, La Nina has Developed”
“Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean are forecast by the American CFS model to be below normal in the December-through-February time frame, indicating La Nina conditions. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) updated its outlook, joining the Climate Predication Center (CPC) in the U.S., declaring a La Nina State.”
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“Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals in life today, has drafted a list of 10 strategies for manipulation through mass media.
Dedicate 5 minutes and you won’t regret it.
I was not another to expand my knowledge.
1- The strategy of distraction
The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which consists of diverting the public attention from important problems and decisive changes by political and economic elites through the flood technique or floods of continuous distractions and insignificant information.
Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the audience from getting interested in essential knowledge, in the area of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics. Maintaining the attention of the public deviated from real social problems, imprisoned by issues of no real importance.
Keeping the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think, back to the farm like other animals (quoted in the text “Silent weapons for peaceful wars”).
2- Create problems and then offer solutions.
This method is also called “problem-reaction-solution”. A problem is created, a “situation” planned to cause a certain reaction from the public, with the purpose that this is the one who is the one who sends the measures they want to accept. For example: let urban violence spread or intensify, or organize bloody attacks, so that the public is the one who demands security laws and policies in the absence of freedom. Or also: creating an economic crisis to make the decline of social rights and the dissolution of public services be accepted as a necessary evil.
3- The strategy of grading.
In order to make an unacceptable measure accepted, it is enough to apply it gradually, to contaminants, for consecutive years. It’s in this way that radically new socio-economic conditions (neoliberism) were imposed during the decades of the ‘80s and ‘90s: Minimum state, privatization, precariousness, flexibility, mass unemployment, wages that no longer guarantee decent income, so many changes that would have caused a revolution if applied at once.
4- The Strategy of Difference.
Another way to get an unpopular decision accepted is to present it as “painful and necessary”, obtaining public acceptance, at the moment, for a future application. It is easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate sacrifice. First, because effort isn't the one put in immediately. Second, because the public, the masses, always have a tendency to ingenious hope that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the requested sacrifice could be avoided. This gives the audience more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it designed when the time comes.
5- Addressing the audience like children.
Most direct advertising to the general public, uses speeches, arguments, characters and a particularly childish intonation, often close to weakness, as if the viewer was a creature of few years or a deficient men yours. The more you try to deceive the spectator, the more you tend to use a childish tone. Why ? “If someone addresses a person as if he is 12 years old or less, then, based on the suggestionability, he will tend, with a certain probability, to an answer or reaction also without critical sense as that of a person 12 years old or men.” o” (see “Silent weapons for peaceful wars”).
6- Using the emotional aspect much more than reflection.
Utilize emotion is a classic technique to provoke a short circuit on a rational analysis and, ultimately, the critical sense of the individual. In addition, the use of the emotional register allows you to open the door of access to the unconscious to plant or inject ideas, desires, fears and fears, compulsions, or induce behaviors.
7- Keeping the audience in ignorance and mediocrity.
Making sure the public is unable to understand the technologies and methods used for their control and slavery.
“The quality of education given to the lower social classes has to be the poorest and mediocre possible, so that the distance of ignorance planned between the lower classes and the upper classes is and remains impossible to fill from the lower classes".
8- Stimulate the audience to be complacent with mediocrity.
Forcing the audience to think that it's fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and ignorant...
9- Strengthening self-guilt.
Make the individual believe that he is the only one to blame for his misfortune, because of his insufficient intelligence, his abilities or his efforts. So, instead of revolting against the economic system, the individual devalues himself and blames himself, which in turn creates a depressive state, one of which is the inhibition of his action. And without action there is no revolution!
10- Knowing individuals better than they know themselves.
Over the past 50 years, the rapid advances of science have created a growing gap between the knowledge of the public and those possessed and used by the dominant elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology, and applied psychology, the "system" has enjoyed an advanced knowledge of the human being, both in its physical and psychological form. The system has managed to get to know the common individual better than they know themselves. This means that, in most cases, the system exercises greater control and greater power over individuals, greater than what the same individual exercises on himself.”
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More oil and more oil:
“Gazprom intends to open world's northernmost oil province
Russian oil company Gazprom Neft is exploring the resources of the far northern Gydan Peninsula. The goal is to open the world's northernmost mainland oil province.”
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“Plans to mine Ecuador forest violate rights of nature, court rules”
“Ecuador’s highest court has ruled that plans to mine for copper and gold in a protected cloud forest are unconstitutional and violate the rights of nature.
In a landmark ruling, the constitutional court of Ecuador decided that mining permits issued in Los Cedros, a protected area in the north-west of the country, would harm the biodiversity of the forest, which is home to spectacled bears, endangered frogs, dozens of rare orchid species and the brown-headed spider monkey, one of the world’s rarest primates.”
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“Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They are not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them,
Disagree with them,
Glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think that they can change the world,
are the ones who do.”
Rob Siltanen
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“Stop Telling Me Trust-Fund Kids Are Financial Wizards”
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“Coronavirus: Industrial animal farming has caused most new infectious diseases and risks more pandemics, experts warn
Exclusive: ‘Zoonoses often take that route... and the more you have of a thing, the more that thing is going to be the likely conveyor,’ says UN environment chief”
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“Establishment Dems (i.e. The Clinton Types) Sold-Out Working Class America...(see my Op-Ed Below).”
“Local Economic and Political Effects of Trade Deals: Evidence from NAFTA”
“Before the China Shock, There Was the NAFTA Shock
Interesting NBER paper. Paywalled but you can read the earlier working paper for free (link below).
"Why have white, less educated voters left the Democratic Party over the past few decades? Scholars have proposed ethnocentrism, social issues and deindustrialization as potential answers. We highlight the role played by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In event-study analysis, we demonstrate that counties whose 1990 employment depended on industries vulnerable to NAFTA suffered large and persistent employment losses relative to other counties. These losses begin in the mid-1990s and are only modestly offset by transfer programs. While exposed counties historically voted Democratic, in the mid-1990s they turn away from the party of the president (Bill Clinton) who ushered in the agreement and by 2000 vote majority Republican in House elections. Employing a variety of micro-data sources, including 1992-1994 respondent-level panel data, we show that protectionist views predict movement toward the GOP in the years that NAFTA is debated and implemented. This shift among protectionist respondents is larger for whites (especially men and those without a college degree) and those with conservative social views, suggesting an interactive effect whereby racial identity and social-issue positions mediate reactions to economic policies."”
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Interesting Map of Trump land:
"Sold-Out Not Left-Behind in Trumpland" ...
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“Kelp Forest Loss An Ecological Disaster Requiring Creative Solutions In Age of Climate Change”
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“Climate change has left Utah's Great Salt Lake 'a puddle of its former self,' report shows”
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“Australia's consecutive governments let Aussies down.”
“Australia’s spy agency predicted the climate crisis 40 years ago – and fretted about coal exports”
“In a taste of things to come, a secret Office of National Assessment report worried the ‘carbon dioxide problem’ would hurt the nation’s coal industry”
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+3 C of warming means mankind’s extinction:
“Climate Pledges Still Not Enough to Keep Warming Below 2-Degree Limit
Current national targets to cut emissions could result in nearly 3 degrees C of warming”
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“Study links increasing air pollution to the rise of a type of lung cancer”
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Robert Brown:
“You, in less corrupt democracies, everyone over the age of 18 is automatically registered to vote for life. The concept of having to jump through hoop to or that you could be prevented from voting are uniquely American concepts.”
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“Why Putting Solar Canopies on Parking Lots Is a Smart Green Move
Solar farms are proliferating on undeveloped land, often harming ecosystems. But placing solar canopies on large parking lots offers a host of advantages — making use of land that is already cleared, producing electricity close to those who need it, and even shading cars.”
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“Megafauna extinctions led to more grassland fires worldwide
Continents that lost the most large grazing herbivores over the past 50,000 years have seen the biggest increases in grassland and savannah fires”
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“Tropical trees grow less in warmer years so they take in less CO2
A 21-year study of a patch of tropical forest shows that the trees produce less wood in years when temperatures are higher, suggesting these forests will mop up less carbon dioxide in future”
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We are heading into a world where life – any life – will be extremely precious:
“It’s time to stop demonizing “invasive” species
Climate change is forcing some animals to move. Don’t call them “invasives.”
“Ecologists expect climate change to create mass alterations in the habitats of these “range-shifting” or “climate-tracking” species, as they’re sometimes called, which will reshuffle ecosystems in ways that are hard to predict. The migrations are critical to species’ ability to survive hotter temperatures.
The scientific community largely views this kind of habitat shift as a good thing, Wallingford and other ecologists told Vox. But the primary lens available to the general public and to policymakers is less forgiving. “Invasive species” is a concept so ingrained in American consciousness that it’s taken on a life of its own, coloring the way we judge the health of ecosystems and neatly dividing life on Earth into native and invasive.
...
In a controversial recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, Wallingford and a team of co-authors argued that the tools of invasion biology — for example, looking at a species’ impact on local food or water sources, or figuring out if it’s encountering prey that aren’t used to predators — could be adjusted to understand the impacts of range-shifters.
The proposal got “a lot of pushback,” says Wallingford, who doesn’t necessarily oppose the “invasion” lens. Detractors said that merely linking climate-tracking species with invaders taints them by association. Range-shifters ought to be seen “not as invasive species to keep out, but rather as the refugees of climate change that need our assistance,” University of Connecticut ecologist Mark Urban argued in a comment published in the same journal issue.
Climate change and the range shifts it’s causing are extraordinary circumstances. If a species flees a habitat that is burning or melting, is it ever fair to call it invasive? Even outside of a climate context, this tension reflects a more fundamental problem within the invasive species paradigm. If the label is so stigmatizing that the only appropriate response feels like extermination, perhaps something else needs to take its place.
The origins of “invasive” species...”
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" Each person is a biological organism with an internal web of life that is similar to, and resonates with, the external web of life. It is for this reason that people are healthier when living in a healthy environment. If we wish to talk about the biological systems that make us human, we should also be prepared to breach the mental barriers that make us think that we are different and separate from other life forms."
“The Human Microbiome & the Wilderness Within”
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“Adaptive evolution of flight in Morpho butterflies”
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