July 3, 2020

Hot Hot Hot!

Temperatures in the mid 90s here in southeast Michigan until we get "relief" in the high 80s more than a week from now. Yes we get our share of 90s highs in the Great Lakes region during the summer but this extended stretch with no relief is crazy.

July 2, 2020

Florida man stuffs lobster in his pants

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. (WFLA) – Police say a 57-year-old man stole steak and lobster at a Florida Walmart – and put the food items down his pants.

The incident occurred on Thursday at the 7305 Broad St. store, according to the Brooksville Police Department.

Mark Alan Belkola is accused of taking six packages of steak and two packages of lobster, valued at $172.98, and putting them down his pants. ...............(more)

https://www.wkrn.com/news/police-florida-man-arrested-after-stuffing-steak-lobster-in-his-pants/

July 2, 2020

UK: raw sewage poured into Olympic Park wildlife haven

(Guardian UK) Raw sewage was discharged for more than 1,000 hours from a Thames Water overflow pipe into an environmental wetland at the Olympic Park last year, the Guardian can reveal.

The combined sewer overflow (CSO) at Mulberry Court pumped untreated waste 91 times into the waterway that feeds into the River Lea. To April this year, the same CSO has so far discharged for 34 hours in 20 incidents.

.....(snip).....

Data obtained by the Guardian and London Waterkeeper, which is campaigning for a “Thames fit to swim in”, reveals the scale of the discharges that have been permitted by the Environment Agency.

The sewage from the Mulberry Court CSO is discharged into a watercourse system in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park wetlands, which feed into the Lea. ............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/raw-sewage-olympic-park-wildlife-haven-wetlands-london-thames-water

July 2, 2020

Dr. Lance Dodes on the dangers of 2020: "Trump is a psychopath who will destroy democracy"

Dr. Lance Dodes on the dangers of 2020: "Trump is a psychopath who will destroy democracy"
Former Harvard psychiatrist on the hair-raising months ahead: "Donald Trump cares nothing about anyone else's life"

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
JULY 2, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)


(Salon) For four years Donald Trump has willfully and repeatedly violated the presidential oath of office and its promise to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States," and "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It now appears that Trump was aware — perhaps for as much as a year — that Russian agents had placed bounties on the heads of American soldiers serving in Afghanistan. That's only the most recent example of the president's betrayal of his oath of office.

Former national security adviser John Bolton's new book "The Room Where It Happened," in conjunction with new investigative reporting from CNN shows Trump to be reckless, out of control, negligent, delusional, corrupt, incompetent and thoroughly unfit to lead the United States both domestically and internationally.

.....(snip).....

What happens to a person like Donald Trump when they suffer a narcissistic injury, such as what happened in Tulsa with his failed rally?

Donald Trump is incapable of tolerating losing without withdrawing into delusional paranoid explanations of what happened. His fundamental need to be always right and an absolute ruler, a God above all criticism, is what has led to his inability to tolerate democracy, and his repeated efforts to destroy it with his attacks on Congress, the judiciary system and a free press.

A few days after the Tulsa rally, Trump traveled to Arizona where he spoke to thousands of hand-picked adoring supporters at a right-wing evangelical church. So on one day he is in the pits of despair and anger, but the next day he is elated and flying high. How does such an emotional rollercoaster impact his mind?

Trump is able to appear more in touch with reality when he is being worshiped. Indeed, when his primitive needs are not being challenged, he can look like a normal person — it's what has made him a successful con man. When he is challenged, however, his cruelty, sadism, paranoia, lack of conscience, incitement to violence and active pursuit of policies that kill people become obvious. These traits are properly described as "evil." In professional terms, they mean he is a psychopath. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/07/02/dr-lance-dodes-on-the-dangers-of-2020-trump-is-a-psychopath-who-will-destroy-democracy/

July 1, 2020

The second most dangerous man in America

The second most dangerous man in America
By Jeffrey C. Billman


(Detroit Metro Times) Maggie Haberman tweeted something the other day that I found remarkable. Promoting a story on President Trump's attacks about voting by mail, The New York Times White House correspondent wrote that Trump was "accelerating his attacks on the integrity of the elections" because he was "unable to stop (Joe) Biden's rise or modulate his own behavior."

Even facing humiliation in November, the president can't control himself or stop tilting at conspiratorial windmills. He's a cokehead on a bender, in other words, or a toddler who needs a nap, only he has the federal government at his disposal and no compunction about using it to his own ends.

So we can agree, then, that Donald Trump is the most dangerous man in America (and if you believe his niece, the world.) But barring a dramatic reversal, he'll leave office in six months with few meaningful victories beyond the ideologues he's appointed to the bench.

In the long run, the second most dangerous man in America might leave a more damaging legacy.

Since his appointment last year, Attorney General William Barr has enabled and encouraged Trump's autocratic fetishes, laying the groundwork for a vast expansion of executive power that answers to neither court nor Congress, aided by a Department of Justice that has forsaken any shred of independence to brazenly function as a White House consigliere. ...............(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/the-second-most-dangerous-man-in-america/Content?oid=24838581

July 1, 2020

The Toxic Legacy of 60 Years of Abundant Oil

The Toxic Legacy of 60 Years of Abundant Oil
It’s one of the most polluted spots on Earth, and prospects of a turnaround only get worse as Covid-19 guts a global industry.

By Dulue Mbachu
Photographs and video by George Osodi

July 1, 2020, 12:00 AM


(Bloomberg) Bank supervisor Johnson Banigo avoids wearing light-colored shirts to his job because they’re ruined by the dark soot that falls from the heavens.

Banigo, 34, lives and works in Port Harcourt, the center of Nigeria’s petroleum industry where the evening sky literally glows with gas flares. Half a century of oil spills has left a 27,000 square-mile region of swamps, creeks and mangrove forests in southeastern Nigeria one of the most polluted places on earth. Life expectancy is just 41 years.

“Sometimes I worry about the cumulative effect living in this city has on one’s health,” he said. “It’s not only the pollution, one has to worry about the heavy traffic, the high cost of living and then serious insecurity. Robberies and gunfights are frequent as various armed groups spill over into the city from the surrounding creeks.”

Oil’s importance is fading fast, but the desperate situation in Port Harcourt is unlikely to improve any time soon for one simple reason: money. In the past decade, crude has gone from providing about 80% of all Nigerian state revenue to about 50% last year. This year, with the global economy hit by the coronavirus adding to existing trends as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, the government projects an 80% decline in oil income.

That creates a bitter reality for residents at the center of Africa’s biggest petroleum industry: they’ll have little help cleaning up pollution that’s deprived entire communities in the Niger River delta of their fishing and farming livelihoods. ............(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-niger-delta-oil-pollution/?srnd=premium

July 1, 2020

Could Dayton's Black voters turn Ohio blue?

Could Dayton’s Black voters turn Ohio blue?
The mobilization of Black Daytonians could prove significant to the upcoming elections, as this battleground state becomes competitive again electorally


(Guardian UK) Cars are a more common sight than people on Dayton’s West 3rd St , a major boulevard known as the heart of the Black community in this Ohio city.

Once a bustling commercial corridor, West 3rd has become synonymous with empty buildings and urban neglect over the years, as local businesses have closed down and the neighborhood’s fortunes have waxed and waned.

Named after three of Dayton’s most famous sons, the Wright Brothers and Black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood has struggled with segregation and decline.

However, the recent opening of Chanta Winston’s store may have sparked a flicker of hope here, at a time when Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19 and protests have roiled the country after the killing of George Floyd in late May.

.....(snip).....

Across Dayton, people have been protesting against systemic racism and injustice, and nowhere are these realities more evident or more stark than in Wright-Dunbar. The Great Miami River bisects the post-industrial city from north to south and marks a cultural divide between Black and white Dayton. Mobilizing Black Daytonians like Winston who are passionate about uplifting their communities could help turn Montgomery county blue, a crucial swing county that narrowly went for Donald Trump in 2016 after decades as a Democratic stronghold. .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/01/could-daytons-black-voters-turn-ohio-blue

July 1, 2020

'Chasing the virus': How India's largest slum beat back a pandemic

‘Chasing the virus’: How India’s largest slum beat back a pandemic


When coronavirus claimed its first victim in India's largest slum in April, many feared the disease would turn its narrow, congested streets into a graveyard, with social distancing or contact tracing all but impossible.

But three months on, Mumbai's Dharavi offers a rare glimmer of hope with new infections shrinking, thanks to an aggressive strategy that focused on "chasing the virus, instead of waiting for disaster", according to city official Kiran Dighavkar.

The sprawling slum has long been a byword for the financial capital's bitter income disparities—with Dharavi's estimated one million people scraping a living as factory workers or maids and chauffeurs to Mumbai's well-heeled residents.

With a dozen people typically sleeping in a single room, and hundreds using the same public toilet, authorities realised early that standard practices would be of little use. .........(more)

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-virus-india-largest-slum-pandemic.html

July 1, 2020

In addition to all the craziness in the U.S. and the world right now, it's really f'in hot.....

..... the Detroit area forecast calls for seven consecutive days above 90°.

July 1, 2020

Classic moments in right-wing idiocy .... the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld

Our current situation makes you almost nostalgic for warmongers.