2024-10-10
🔗 Hurricane Milton, Helene: Is the home insurance industry doomed? | Vox
Insured losses from natural disasters around the world in the first half of the year have already topped $60 billion, 54 percent higher than the 10-year average. Three-quarters of insured losses were due to severe thunderstorms, flooding, and forest fires. More recent calamities like Hurricane Helene will push the toll this year much higher. Damage estimates for Helene ranged as high as $47.5 billion as of October 4.
And, while rates have sky rocketed and people are finding their policies canceled or that they can no longer even get insurance in certain areas there is also this:
Despite all of this, insurers themselves are actually doing quite well. The US property and casualty insurers netted $823 billion in premiums last year, posting record profits in the hottest year on record with dozens of extreme weather disasters with tolls in the billions of dollars. Insurers have already reported even higher profits this year, and the sector is poised to do better in 2025.
Reading the article and I can only shake my head in disgust and bewilderment. It's layer upon layer of grift, profit seeking (and profit making) and political process via lobby. As with most things in the US in 2024 it is what we have wrought in allowing capital to replace us in the governing process.
2024-10-09
🔗 Video From 2040 Begs This Question of Gaza Genocide in 2024: 'What Did You Do to Stop It?' | Common Dreams
To mark this week's anniversary of Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza—which has killed, maimed, displaced, starved, and sickened millions of Palestinians with no end in sight—Palestine defenders shared a video set in the year 2040 in which children around the world ask their elders, "What were you doing during this genocide?"
The US will be notable in its complicity and support of the genocide. A shame that should haunt any decent human being.
🔗 Assal Rad on X: Heated moment in State briefing: People are sick of the bullshit here, it is a genocide
@cosgrove_iv:
This admin has financed a genocide in Gaza for the last year and every day you’re up there denying it.
Miller: There’s plenty of places in Washington you can give a speech.
Liam: People are sick of the bullshit here, it is a genocide.
For a year Miller has provided cover for Biden and Netanyahu as war crimes and genocide have continued unabated.
2024-10-08
🔗 Veteran Florida meteorologist John Morales experiences a minor breakdown trying to describe Hurricane Milton
The interview with climate analyst Eliot Jacobson is excellent and on point. He makes the point that there is no safe place going forward. A fairly standard interview until the concluding moments when he's asked about conspiracies being touted by science illiterate Congresswoman and idiot Marjorie Taylor Greene. He simply states:
I can just put out facts, I cannot fight delusions, I can't fight insanity... it's so much beyond nonsense, I don't know how to describe the lack of just basic fundamental understanding of the planet, that sort of demonstration of illogic. I don't have a remedy for idiocy, I just don't."
🔗 Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate experts | The Guardian
More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says.
The assessment concludes: “Only through decisive action can we safeguard the natural world, avert profound human suffering, and ensure that future generations inherit the livable world they deserve. The future of humanity hangs in the balance.
Look. There will be no averting profound human suffering. Let's have some fucking straight talk. We have waited too long. Should we act? YES. But look around you. Look at yourself. What are you willing to give? If you're a typical middle class American the answer thus far is not a fucking thing. The middle class of the US is a significant driving force behind the climate emergency. And from my observation these folks could not care less than they do.
Should we act. YES. I will only ever argue for action. We need mass, civil unrest, widespread voluntary reductions and pressure on government. But look yourself in the mirror and ask what you're willing to give up? Willing to do? Americans want a fix given to them that allows for them to continue living as they have. That is not fucking possible. Not this late in the process.
Should we act. YES.
🔗 Stop Calling It ‘Race Science’ - Bix Dot Blog
So, I wasn’t going to get into this despite getting irritated about it on social, but now there’s a story by Ali Breland writing for The Atlantic with the title, “Donald Trump Flirts With Race Science”, and you know I can’t shut up because there are two things wrong here.
It’s not flirting.
It’s not science.
From the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 🔗 Hurricane Helene isn’t an outlier. It’s a harbinger of the future.
The storm surge from Helene was widespread and up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) deep. The windstorm sliced through the Southeast with gusts up to 100 miles per hour (160 km/hr). And the rains were, as I predicted, “biblical.”
Record storms, one after the other. Beryl in June, Helene September and now Milton. My neice, who moved to the Tampa area in the early summer of 2023 has just evacuated from her apartment which is four miles inland. My parents moved to the Panama City Beach area last August have not yet had to evacuate before a hurricane. I warned them about the deep troubles of insurance industry there. The didn't really need my warning really but they got it anyway. I've been warning my family about the climate emergency for 20 years. Like most in the US, they've chosen to pretend it wasn't happening so that they might continue on with the "good" life.
We went into this knowing what we were doing. No one can claim they were not warned. We chose to bring this upon ourselves. We chose to inflict it upon others in the world.
2024-10-07
🔗 Dave at Scripting News is celebrating 30 years of his blog today.
Today's the big day. Thanks to John Naughton's wonderful piece in the Guardian, I'm hearing from people all over the world about what blogging means to them. I appreciate all of the messages, but would appreciate them even more if they were on your blog.
The guy has been building and advocating for blogging for the duration. Well done.
2024-10-04
🔗 Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris...
October 2, 2024
Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris,
We are 99 American physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. Combined, we spent 254 weeks volunteering in Gaza’s hospitals and clinics. We worked with various nongovernmental organizations and the World Health Organization in hospitals and clinics throughout the Strip. In addition to our medical and surgical expertise, many of us have a public health background, as well as experience working in humanitarian and conflict zones, including Ukraine during the brutal Russian invasion. Some of us are veterans and reservists. We are a multifaith and multiethnic group. None of us support the horrors committed on October 7 by Palestinian armed groups and individuals in Israel.
The Constitution of the World Health Organization states: “The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and States.” It is in this spirit that we write to you in this open letter...
If you only read one thing today.
Rebuilding my archive, a post from October 5, 2008, 🔗 Autumn Olive Update
Autumn Olive Update
Back in early September I discovered that we had Autumn Olives on the land and wrote about it. Since then they have ripened up a good bit so I’ve been eating several handfuls a day for the past couple weeks. I harvested about 1.5 pints of Autumn Olive berries in about 5 minutes from one bush, the largest I’ve found, which still has at least another 50 pints of berries on it. I’ll be experimenting with different uses. They taste great and are highly nutritious.
I'd just harvested berries from the Autumn Olive bushes and was very excited. I'm about to do the same later this morning. Pretty image on the original post linked above. 🥰
2024-10-02
A video by Mark Huneycutt: 🔗 The road to Chimney Rock is gone - Hurricane Helene aftermath
I hiked about 6 miles into Bat Cave today heading towards Chimney Rock. I'm not sure what they need because it's gone but like everywhere, they need food, water, gas. I'm hopeful that this whole community evacuated as there is just zero access to Chimney Rock/Lake Lure from the NW anymore. Downstream to Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, it's just a mess. I haven't physically seen it because I couldn't get there but I've seen videos. The clean up is going to be enormous.
Long stretches of road are just gone. It's hard to really comprehend the scope of damage even in this one video. What does recovery for this look like? How many years? And what will never be recovered but just abandoned?
A gentle, delightful 🔗 post by Simone at Minutes to Midnight: Rain.
While all my favourite writers on the internet are pouring their thoughts on the current debate about what a social web is, I deleted my Echofeed account, de facto quitting my sterile 'social media' broadcast routine. Instead, I'm enjoying the sound of heavy rain battering the roof.
He goes on to describe a quiet moment having lunch at the office. The light and sound via the sky light and the feeling of being at his new job. Just a simple shared moment.
🔗 An informative interview on The Majority Report with Manisha Sinha about her book The Rise & Fall Of The Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, interview begins at 21:30.
Diving right into the major expansion of the typical Reconstruction time frame in her work, with the 1865-77 period failing to incorporate the initial challenge for interracial democracy in the South or the decades of challenges to the progressive project of Reconstruction that were required to overthrow this effort fully, and exploring the mythologizing of this era as an abject “failure” and the “Lost Cause” revisionist history that plays into.
Interviews and books like this help explain why the US is still mired in unresolved white supremacy. The America of 2024 needs to better understand this period of history so that it may be reckoned with. Time does not heal all wounds.
2024-10-01
🔗 US: Hurricane Helene devastates coastal community with homes vanished
Keaton Beach, nestled in Florida's Big Bend region, has suffered the wrath of the hurricane, which left at least 40 people killed and dozens of homes disappeared.
Glenda Padgett, another resident, rebuilt her family home after Hurricane Hermine struck in 2016, only to face loss again. "This one just took it. There's nothing left of it."
"I have no insurance. I couldn't afford it. I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't rebuild. I don't have the money. Maybe I can clean this up and put in a camper, but I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. I never thought this would happen," said Padgett.
People are ignoring the reality around them. This woman rebuilt after a hurricane in 2016 and 8 years later says "I never thought this would happen." This is not rational. Nothing about our response to the climate emergency makes sense.
🔗 ‘Nowhere is safe’: shattered Asheville shows stunning reach of climate crisis | The Guardian
Nestled in the bucolic Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina and far from any coast, Asheville was touted as a climate “haven” from extreme weather. Now the historic city has been devastated and cut off by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic floodwaters, in a stunning display of the climate crisis’s unlimited reach in the United States.
While I agree with the framing here I would also make the point: No place is safe from the climate crisis because humans need to eat food no matter where they are. The climate crisis is just beginning to destabilize our ability to grow food reliably. Large scale agriculture to feed 8 billion humans requires predictable, historical weather patterns. That is changing.
No place is safe from what is happening. Stop pretending. There will be no pretending, wishing, hoping our way out of this crisis. Got it?
🔗 Extended interview: R.E.M. on songwriting, breaking up and their lifelong friendship - YouTube
The original members of R.E.M. sit down with Anthony Mason for their first group interview in nearly 30 years. They talk about crafting iconic hits, how breaking up saved their friendship, and why they don't feel the need to tour one last time.
One of my favorite bands. A great interview.
🔗 FEMA on Helene | Dave Rogers
We were all kind of hoping that the "quiet" hurricane season would continue, but I guess that was foolish.
What I fail to understand is that we seem to be unable to realize that we are living with a civilization, a physical infrastructure and a "sense" of what weather should be like, from a climate that no longer exists.
Yes. We are just at the beginning of the long climate emergency. This will not end in our lifetimes but will only grow worse, become more intense. It is tragic, no, criminal, that the wealthiest of the planet, the top 10% of the Global North, refuse to take responsibility for their lives.
What I see happening is that most in the US just pretend it's not happening, pretend they are not to blame or pretend that there is nothing they can do about it. People prefer to point fingers at the uber rich or corporations. But they themselves refuse to take any responsibility.
I made a choice 30 years ago that I would not have children for this reason. The signs were there then. We were on a path then that would not likely be altered and here we are. We've had warning. We refused to act 30 years ago. 20 years ago. 10 years ago. Today. With all the warning signs flashing red around us, with the leader of the UN saying it for years, with climate scientists saying it for years, we just push forward into oblivion. It is madness
2024-09-29
🔗 Let God Speak, Dammit | starbreaker.org
If anybody presumes to tell you what God wants, especially if it involves you paying a tithe or letting mere humans police your sex life, you can summarily dismiss that person's claims by telling them you don't believe in their God. Every scripture, religious dogma, and demand from authoritarian weirdos who are congenitally incapable of minding their own business treats the existence of God as axiomatic. Reject that fundamental premise, and any logic built atop it collapses.
A fun post by Matthew.
🔗 The War of Legitimacy: How the International Criminal Court and the UN Gen. Assembly Challenged Israeli, US Impunity
Two historic events regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine took place on 19 July and 18 September. The first was a most comprehensive “advisory opinion” by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which reiterated that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal and must come to an immediate end. The second arrived two months later, when the UN General Assembly set, for the first time in history, an exact time frame for when the Israeli occupation of Palestine must end.
It is damning that the US and Israel are ignoring two of the most important global bodies. In short the US is and Israel are acting with impunity and disregard for the standards of international law.
2024-09-28
Happy Labor Day. I wrote a Wikipedia article about the gay, anarchist, anti-profit publishing collective Come!Unity Press after stumbling across a poster they printed in 1971.
A little Saturday morning treasure. Some great photos and a fascinating peak into a community's history. ❤️
🔗 Roman Krznaric: “History for Tomorrow: Uncovering Future Possibilities from Humanity’s Past” | The Great Simplification
What lessons have we forgotten when it comes to being in community with and listening to each other? How have our ideas and expectations of the future been informed by seeing history as a story of individuals shaping the rise and fall of civilizations, rather than a collective effort? How could learning from the past to create better democracies, wiser natural resource stewardship, and more circular economies help us prioritize human and planetary well-being?
We often feel alone and powerless in this see-saw world. Perhaps a part of the solution is as simple as making an effort to talk more with our neighbors and to make more space in our communities for such conversations to happen. Love some of the suggestions brought up in this interview.
2024-09-27
🔗 Coming home | A Working Library
To step into the stream of any social network, to become immersed in the news, reactions, rage and hopes, the marketing and psyops, the funny jokes and clever memes, the earnest requests for mutual aid, for sign ups, for jobs, the clap backs and the call outs, the warnings and invitations—it can feel like a kind of madness. It’s unsettling, in the way that sediment is unsettled by water, lifted up and tossed around, scattered about. A pebble goes wherever the river sends it, worn down and smoothed day after day until all that’s left is sand.
A beautifully written essay addressing the need to find a balance in use, and space from, social networks. Our time and attention might be better spent playing in our own thoughts and cultivating our own ideas via more careful reading and writing. As she points out, even the Fediverse, as a non-corporate, decentralized space is still structured in a similar way to the feeds and timelines we've all gotten used to. It's something I've been thinking and writing about recently.
🔗 Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers after fellow protesters jailed | The Guardian
“Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history,” Phil Green, one of those taking part in Friday’s action, told visitors to the gallery.
Ludi Simpson, 71, who also took part, said: “We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law. When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they’ve bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?”
A lot of people continue to be confused by this as a protest tactic because it doesn't seem to relate to fossil fuels. It's about protecting humanity's heritage. But, also, it's about prompting the public to consider and debate: what is the common heritage of humanity?
The judge from today's sentencing of activists (emphasis mine):
“You two simply had no right to do what you did to Sunflowers, and your arrogance in thinking otherwise deserves the strongest condemnation.
The pair of you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass.”
The condemnation in regards to destruction of a priceless treasure should be directed not at these activists but the wealthy 10% who value paintings more than the subject of those paintings. I suspect if Van Gogh were alive today he would side with the activists. The real crime is the high emission lifestyles being led by the public.
🔗 How the fossil fuel industry helps spread anti-protest laws across the US | The Guardian
Fossil fuel lobbyists coordinated with lawmakers behind the scenes and across state lines to push and shape laws that are escalating a crackdown on peaceful protests against oil and gas expansion...
The US has the best democracy money can buy.
🔗 Dave Winer at the Scripting News writing about the social web:
Why do I care about what social web means? Because I plan to add functionality to this space. I'm tired of all the stupid limits these products have. Titles or no titles. 300 character limits. No links, etc etc and on and on. Where did they get the idea that taking features out of writing was something they could do. What a wrong turn we took there.
I'm seeing a lot of response to the launch of the Social Web Foundation by the ActivityPub folk who are attempting to rebrand the Fediverse as the Social Web. Old school bloggers are not having it.
🔗 Dispatch From Missouri: Mourners Decry Execution of Marcellus Williams | Truthout
The State of Missouri put its lethal hands on another of its longtime death penalty captives on Tuesday evening in Bonne Terre, prematurely ending his life with a poison injection of pentobarbital.
My friend Frances has been covering the recent string of Missouri state murders for Truthout. Her three posts are a part of a larger series, The Road to Abolition.
Note: Beginning September 27 I'm trying a different format as I experiment a bit. Rather than create separate html files for each linked item I'm going to just offer commentary right here with a link to the post or article. The intent is to streamline the posting process, file complexity and reduce clicking for readers.
2024-09-26
Holy Hell, The Social Web Did Not Begin In 2008 - Bix Dot Blog
2024-09-25
The Tipping Point Podcast: Problematique (Part 1)
2024-09-25
2024-09-24
Netanyahu's lethal bombs will turn Lebanon into another Gaza. He must be brought down now.
2024-09-22
Building the World Wide Web with hypertext – Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden
Water use literacy | Thought Shrapnel
Israeli Minister of Education Suggests Lebanon Will Be “Annihilated”
2024-09-21
The case for a better web – La màquina de Turing
2024-09-11
HathiTrust Digital Library – Millions of books online
2024-09-09
2024-08-28
The technology of the Global North is not always better
2024-08-23
Ben Werdmuller on Harris speech and American Imperialism
2024-08-22
Major Union Backing Harris-Walz Joins Call for Palestinian American to Speak at DNC
DNC Tells Uncommitted Delegates There Won’t Be Any Pro-Palestinian Speaker
2024-08-20
DNC Forcibly removes Pro-Palestinian delegates, takes their banner
2024-08-19
Antifa recounting of Charlottesville
2024-08-16
When Will the Biden Dead-Enders Admit They Were Wrong?
Israeli Settlers Rampage in West Bank Town, Killing 1 and Setting Houses Aflame
2024-08-13
Carbon offset setback risks corporate backtrack on climate goals
2024-08-12
142 Palestinians killed in Gaza in past 48 hours #block-66b9d5da8f083e5b7b483bae).
Greek officials advise staying in with windows shut due to fires near Athens
More than 47,000 heat caused deaths in Europe in 2023
2024-08-10
Birthrates are plummeting world wide. Can governments turn the tide? | The Guardian
2024-08-09
Harris Adviser Says She Opposes Israel Arms Embargo as She Shuts Down Protesters
“Welcome to Hell”: U.S. Silence on Israel’s Network of Torture Camps
🔗 Anti-War Protesters Interrupting Kamala Harris Is Great, Actually - YouTube
Yep.
🔗 Cori Bush warns pro-Israel lobby ‘to be afraid’ after primary loss | The Guardian
“They’re about to see this other Cori, this other side. Aipac, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”
Bush, who will continue to serve in Congress until January, added: “All they did was radicalise me, so now they need to be afraid.”
Why is Aipac not required to register as an agent of a foreign government?
2024-08-08
🔗 No, the news is not information junk food
Every so often, a post goes around in tech circles about how news is bad and we shouldn’t pay attention to it. I think that’s ludicrous.
Today’s was a post from 2022 called The News is Information Junk Food. I think it’s a bad argument that could have poor consequences.
Excellent post by Ben Werd on the importance of news and quality journalism to a functioning democracy. It should be obvious that an informed citizenry is the foundation of democracy. But we live in a time when the responsibilities of citizenship are barely an afterthought in a culture largely dominated by the trivial.
Vegans are radical. That’s why we need them
2024-08-07
Cori Bush warns pro-Israel lobby ‘to be afraid’ after primary loss
🔗 Zionism on the Brink: The Gaza War Beyond Netanyahu - ZNetwork
A good number of analysts have tried to explain how Israel became a decidedly right-wing society and how young people, in particular, have emerged as the gatekeepers of Israel’s version of suicidal nationalism. The explanation, however, should be straightforward. Israel’s far-right extremism is simply the natural evolution of Zionist ideology which, even in its most “liberal” forms, was always predicated on ethnic hatred, a sense of racial supremacy and predictable violence.
2024-08-05
The unsung heroes putting climate solutions into practice
🔗 The Overton Window: An Explainer | by Joan Westenberg
You know how you’ll hear a politician say something and think, “Holy shit, did they really just say that out loud?”
And then a few years later, that batshit crazy idea is suddenly mainstream policy?
It’s called the Overton Window, and once you understand it, you’ll see it everywhere.
2024-08-02
2024-08-01
Antarctic temperatures rise 10C above average in near record heatwave
Concerning Israel's right to defense
Another journalist killed in Israeli attack
2024-07-31
Make Small Men Feel Small Again
2024-07-27
🔗 Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’ | The Guardian
“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more,” the Republican former president said on Friday night at a rally hosted in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the far-right Christian advocacy group Turning Point Action.
“You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians,” he said with a slight shake of his head and his right hand pressed against the left side of his chest.
He added: “I love you. Get out – you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
Trump is totally unhinged.
🔗 "Vance VP" - Marsh Family parody adaptation of "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, on JD Vance - YouTube
So since he dished it out, and since - for obvious (but different) reasons - now is not an appropriate moment for a song about either Trump or Biden, here’s our less-than-impressed profile of yet another populist politician with highly flexible morality, worrying contempt for democratic process and discourse, but big funding and a big mouth who’s happy to tap into ordinary people’s fears while claiming to be an example of their dreams.
Fantastic
🔗 Wave of Israeli airstrikes kills at least 50 people in Gaza | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
A wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting central and southern Gaza have killed at least 50 people and injured an estimated 200, with one strike hitting a school where thousands were seeking shelter.
Wounded people poured into the nearby Aqsa hospital, while images from Deir al-Balah showed families carrying injured children for treatment.
Another day, another school in Gaza bombed. 30 killed. The war crimes and genocide continue.
2024-07-26
🔗 Britain drops its challenge to ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders | International criminal court | The Guardian
Labour has announced its biggest step yet in overhauling the UK’s approach to the Middle East, dropping its opposition to an international arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu despite pressure from Washington not to do so.
Downing Street announced on Friday that the government would not submit a challenge to the jurisdiction of the international criminal court, whose chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is seeking a warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
The US is increasingly on its own with Israel.
🔗 Kamala’s Stance On Gaza Is Crucial - YouTube
In comments that were closely watched for signs of a shift from Joe Biden’s policy approach, the US vice-president said after the meeting: “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.”
They also dig into Netanyahu’s various lies, his denial of the humanity of Palestinians and the fucked up warm welcome by many in Congress including many Democrats.
The Congress people there to cheer him on are complicit in his war crimes as is Biden. I’m guessing her policies in this area will be better than Biden but only a little. Time will tell.
Of course, much of Gaza is now rubble and uninhabitable. While the official death toll is now around 40,000, recent reporting on a Lancet study suggests the number is much higher, likely above 186,000 and still going higher this very moment.
The Guardian reports on her meeting with Netanyahu stating that she “pressed him on the ‘dire’ humanitarian situation in Gaza in talks that she described as frank, adding ‘I will not be silent’.”
2024-07-25
🔗 Netanyahu Vows to “Finish the Job Faster” in Gaza If US Gives Him More Weapons | Truthout
Netanyahu drew one of the clearest lines yet between the supply of U.S. weapons and Israel’s genocidal assault of Gaza, essentially straight out saying that the slaughter has been made possible by U.S. assistance — and that the speed of Israel’s genocide is scaled to how many U.S. weapons they receive.
War criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, met with a standing ovation by the US Congress, appealed for more weapons which would enable Israel to “finish the job faster” in Gaza. I’m sure it’s on record who in Congress continues to support Israel’s war crimes and genocide.
2024-07-03
2022-10-31
🔗 The Story Behind One of the Creepiest Scenes in TV History | Vanity Fair
A young boy with an unnaturally pallid face hovers in the mist outside his big brother's window. The lurid smile is chilling. But then the scratching—oh God, the scratching—on the glass makes it unbearable.
2022-10-30
🔗 Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View - The New York Times
“The bad news is that we have been ‘systematically underestimating the rate and magnitude of extremes.” - Katharine Hayhoe
🔗 ‘It’s got nasty’: the battle to build the US’s biggest solar power farm | The Guardian
A significant portion of the US appears to have lost the capacity for rational thought and seem to want the world to burn.
2022-10-29
🔗 How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms | by Cory Doctorow | Oct, 2022 | Medium
2022-10-28
🔗 Climate change paintings protests: The long history of art destruction for social justice.
Destroying art in service of justice is a time-honored tradition. Does it ever work?
Just to note in the recent actions by climate activists, the art has not been destroyed.
2022-10-27
🔗 iPadOS 16 new features tips for iPad note taking, digital planning, journaling & more - YouTube
But wait, according to all the Twitter/YouTube/podcast Tech Bros, the iPad is broken and barely usable. Someone please tell her that what she's doing isn't possible 😉
🔗 Mississippi River water levels plummet to historic lows due to drought - The Washington Post
“You wouldn’t believe this is the Mississippi River.”
🔗 Climate crisis: UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’ | The Guardian
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “Emissions remain at dangerous and record highs and are still rising. We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all.”
Prof David King, the former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “The report is a dire warning to all countries – none of whom are doing anywhere near enough to manage the climate emergency.”
The report found that existing carbon-cutting policies will cause 2.8C of warming, while pledged policies cut this to 2.6C. Further pledges, dependent on funding flowing from richer to poorer nations, cut this again to 2.4C.
2022-10-26
🔗 Climate Pledges Are Falling Short, and a Chaotic Future Looks More Like Reality - The New York Times
Without drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the report said, the planet is on track to warm by an average of 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels, by 2100.
2022-10-25
🔗 The numbers are in: the heat is taking a heavy toll on health and incomes - The Verge
Heat spells are increasingly costing people their lives and livelihoods, a new report finds
🔗 Global health at mercy of fossil fuel addiction, warn scientists | The Guardian
Reliance on oil and gas worsening climate impacts and compounding food, energy and cost of living crises
2022-10-23
William Shatner experienced profound grief in space. It was the overview effect