"The winners for the 2019 World Fantasy Awards have been announced, including Lifetime Achievement recipients Hayao Miyazaki and Jack Zipes. Congrats to the finalists and winners…" It's still kinda weird that I know people IRL and several more from social media who are on this list of finalists and some of the winners.
"They were also perplexed by another issue: Voyager 2 revealed that Neptune is warmer than Uranus, despite being farther from the sun. As physicist Brian Cox discussed in his BBC documentary, The Planets: "The source of this extra heat remains a mystery." But does that mean we have a double-puzzle on our hands, and can one mystery help to explain the other in some way?"
"According to the new analysis, roughly three times as many people are at risk from being inundated by rising seas than previously reported — 150 million people are now living on land that will be below high tide by 2050. And this is a hopeful scenario, where warming is held to 2 degrees C and the ice sheets don’t collapse in the near future. In a more pessimistic scenario, the numbers double to 300 million people flooded out by 2050. That is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United States going underwater in the next three decades." We're boned. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"Simulating a catastrophic failure, Boeing is gearing up to fire an unpiloted Starliner crew capsule's abort engines Monday morning, triggering a high-speed boost from ground level to a height of more than 4,000 feet to prove the spacecraft can safely propel a crew to safety in the event of a low-altitude emergency."
"Around 13,000 years ago, giant animals such as mastodons, mammoths, saber-toothed cats and ground sloths disappeared from the Earth. Scientists have found evidence in sediment cores to support a controversial theory that an asteroid or a comet slammed into Earth and helped lead to this extinction of ice age animals and cooling of the globe." Not all asteroids strikes are like the Chicxulub event.
"The days are getting shorter with fall in full swing and winter right around the corner. With the changing seasons, people are at a higher risk for SAD, which is a type of depression that comes and goes with the seasons. SAD typically starts in the late fall or early winter and goes away in the spring or summer, according to the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH)."
"The Trump administration is trying to take away health care from millions of Americans. Yet nobody is campaigning on, fundraising off, or publicizing this imminent threat. That’s astounding. But any day now, aided and abetted by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Trump administration is poised to stick a knife in the heart of what remains of the Affordable Care Act. At minimum, this president will be throwing 20 million people who obtained insurance under the ACA off of their plans. That should be something we are reminded of daily." (Grokked from Eric VanNewkirk)
Who needs regulations? "Air pollution in the north of India has 'reached unbearable levels,' the capital Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal says… In many areas of Delhi air quality deteriorated into the 'hazardous' category, with the potential to cause respiratory illnesses."
How go the Trade Wars? "Many were hoping that at least some 'substantial conclusion' to the years-long negotiations over the 16-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership would be reached in Bangkok. Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are in Thailand for the 35th ASEAN Summit as well as meetings with major trading partners like China and India."
An undercover investigation by BBC News Arabic has found that domestic workers are being illegally bought and sold online in a booming black market… Some of the trade has been carried out on Facebook-owned Instagram, where posts have been promoted via algorithm-boosted hashtags, and sales negotiated via private messages." They were using hashtags. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
So, back in July "U.S. President Donald Trump offered his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin help in putting out vast wildfires that are raging in Siberia, the Kremlin said late on Wednesday, a move it said Putin took as a sign that battered ties can be restored." (Grokked from Brent Bowen)
And yet he's once again threatening to cut aid to help with California's wildfires. If you don't get it by now, I'm not sure you're paying attention.
"McDonald’s (MCD) board voted to remove CEO Steve Easterbrook, the fast-food giant announced on Sunday, citing 'poor judgment involving a recent consensual relationship with an employee.'" Okay, so let's say this clearly and loudly, when there is a power differential, "consent" is not fully possible. And as a leader, manager, corporate officer, or anyone with power over another employee or service person, you should never mess around with someone who is (or possibly could be) in the chain of command below you. Or as we used to say when I was younger, "don't dip your pen in the corporate ink."
So, how's that pulling out of the Iran deal going? "Iran has launched a new generation of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium, the nation's nuclear chief announced Monday, the latest in a series of violations of the nuclear deal signed between Tehran and world powers in 2015."
"ICE has asked for permission to begin routinely destroying 11 kinds of records, including those related to sexual assaults, solitary confinement and even deaths of people in its custody. Other records subject to destruction include alternatives to detention programs, regular detention monitoring reports, logs about the people detained in ICE facilities, and communications from the public reporting detention abuses." It may sound like they're holding records for a long time, but not when there are possible crimes involved. (Grokked fro Levin Armwood)
"The nature of the news misinformation problem may be changing. As consumers become more skeptical about the national news they encounter online, impostor local sites that promote ideological agendas are becoming more common. These sites exploit the relatively high trust Americans express in local news outlets — a potential vulnerability in Americans’ defenses against untrustworthy information." You'll notice I hardly ever use "local" news sites, and it's for this very reason. When I do link to a local news site, I also take the time to look at a lot of stories they cover, just to make sure it's not a spoof, and if I'm not over 75% sure it's legit, I don't use it (local news to me is an exception, because I know which news outlets to trust locally). Also note which political party appears to be creating the majority of fake news sites.
"Spencer’s old friend, Milo Yiannopoulos, published an audio clip to YouTube late Sunday where Spencer can be heard using antisemitic slurs like 'kike' and boasting that his ancestors 'fucking enslaved those pieces of shit.' Spencer also says 'I rule the fucking world' and suggests that anyone who isn’t white needs to be controlled through force." In a stunning turn of events it appears the alt-right/Neo-Nazis are just the same old Nazi shits in a new bag. That the tape is now being released (was recorded in 2017) by Milo Yiannopoulos is an interesting twist. Is Milo making a stab at becoming respectable (since he star among the alt-right had kinda plummeted)? I'm not sure he deserves a second chance. (Grokked from Xeni Jardin)
"Giuliani, the Trump personal lawyer at the center of the firestorm as Trump faces likely impeachment, met with former Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Telizhenko, who alleges that Ukraine's government conspired with the Democratic National Committee to hurt Trump in 2016." And not only are they trying to start an investigation into the Bidens, they're also trying to rehabilitate the reputation of Paul Manafort. Also note that Telizhenko is also trying to reform his reputation from being a Russian spy. I'm not sure I brought enough bread crumbs for this. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"Democrats are primed to pivot to a critical new phase of impeachment -- building a public case that President Donald Trump abused his power -- to ensure no shows by administration witnesses don't blunt their momentum."
"When it has come to scandals, Donald Trump has always been able to tweet his way around them. His supporters are all that matter, it is they who will bring him a second term in the White House the president believes." When you're used to bluffing your way out of trouble for so long, you forget there are limits to that strategy.
"In a series of increasingly angry tweets Mr Trump said congressional testimony from inquiry witnesses should not be released publicly."
"President Trump suggested Sunday that Republicans should release their own versions of transcripts of interviews in the House's ongoing impeachment inquiry." Um, Mr. President, that's not what transcripts are. But sure, conservatives, why haven't you been leaking the information that exonerates the president? I mean except for the one witness saying he didn't see anything as a crime, that's about it. Why is that?
"The whistleblower whose complaint sparked House Democrats' impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump is now offering to answer written questions from House Republicans under oath."
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