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erronis
erronis's Journal
erronis's Journal
September 1, 2024
Published by Dennis Hartley on August 31, 2024
Thought this was appropriate for tomorrow (Labor Day). I have been looking for something to "while my time away" and these titles look like a good way to do so. Lots of great old ones.
Lord, I am so tired: Top 20 Films for Labor Day
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/31/lord-i-am-so-tired-top-20-films-for-labor-day/Published by Dennis Hartley on August 31, 2024
Thought this was appropriate for tomorrow (Labor Day). I have been looking for something to "while my time away" and these titles look like a good way to do so. Lots of great old ones.
Raise your glass to the hard-working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
who need leaders but get gamblers instead
-“Salt of the Earth”, by Mick Jagger & Keith Richard (from the album Beggar’s Banquet)
“It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book.”
― Studs Terkel, from his book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
(Shame mode) Full disclosure. It had been so long since I had contemplated the true meaning of Labor Day, I had to refresh myself with a web search. Like many wage slaves (yes, I am still punching a clock at 68…Google “average 1 bedroom rent in Seattle” for further details), I view it as one of the 7 annual paid holidays offered by my employer (table scraps, really…relative to the other 254 weekdays I spend chained to a desk, slipping ever closer to the Abyss).
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
who need leaders but get gamblers instead
-“Salt of the Earth”, by Mick Jagger & Keith Richard (from the album Beggar’s Banquet)
“It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book.”
― Studs Terkel, from his book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
(Shame mode) Full disclosure. It had been so long since I had contemplated the true meaning of Labor Day, I had to refresh myself with a web search. Like many wage slaves (yes, I am still punching a clock at 68…Google “average 1 bedroom rent in Seattle” for further details), I view it as one of the 7 annual paid holidays offered by my employer (table scraps, really…relative to the other 254 weekdays I spend chained to a desk, slipping ever closer to the Abyss).
I have curated a Top 20 list of films that inspire, enlighten, or just give food for thought in honor of this holiest of days for those who make an honest living (I know-we’re a dying breed). So put your feet up, cue up a movie, and raise a glass to yourself. You’ve earned it.
August 29, 2024
Sure. Give him the nuclear codes again. What could go wrong? .
Cute. Give him the nuclear codes again. What could go wrong? .
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/29/cute/Sure. Give him the nuclear codes again. What could go wrong? .
August 29, 2024
Instead of carping about TikTok, news outlets need to fix themselves
A very well-written article by Mark Jacob (Mark Jacob is the former metro editor of the Chicago Tribune and former Sunday editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. He is the co-author of eight books on history and photography. Twitter: @markjacob16 Threads: markjacobnews)
Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance
https://www.stopthepresses.news/p/mainstream-media-on-a-path-to-irrelevanceInstead of carping about TikTok, news outlets need to fix themselves
A very well-written article by Mark Jacob (Mark Jacob is the former metro editor of the Chicago Tribune and former Sunday editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. He is the co-author of eight books on history and photography. Twitter: @markjacob16 Threads: markjacobnews)
The Democratic Party credentialed more than 200 content creators for last week’s convention in Chicago, giving them “access parallel to legacy media,” as Politico put it.
While these influencers enjoyed a creator lounge and a spot on the convention floor to make videos, mainstream journalists seemed annoyed with their own amenities and access. “These are the worst working conditions of the 20 conventions I have covered,” griped Jonathan D. Salant of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Since Joe Biden passed the torch to Kamala Harris a month ago, her campaign has generally kept major media at arm’s length. No one-on-one interviews with Harris. No full-length news conferences. And yet, it’s been one of the most successful and inspirational months in modern Democratic Party history.
You might think the Democrats’ surge occurred in spite of their posture toward legacy media. Or you might think it happened because of it.
Clearly, political strategists don’t need traditional media as much as they once did. And the media have richly earned this drop in status. Too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources – in service to the political industry, not the public.
They’ve lost touch with their audiences, especially the audiences they’ll need in the future. A recent survey found that 78% of Americans age 65 or older get most political and election news from journalists and news organizations. But that figure drops to 55% for people ages 30-49 and to 45% for those 18-29.
While these influencers enjoyed a creator lounge and a spot on the convention floor to make videos, mainstream journalists seemed annoyed with their own amenities and access. “These are the worst working conditions of the 20 conventions I have covered,” griped Jonathan D. Salant of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Since Joe Biden passed the torch to Kamala Harris a month ago, her campaign has generally kept major media at arm’s length. No one-on-one interviews with Harris. No full-length news conferences. And yet, it’s been one of the most successful and inspirational months in modern Democratic Party history.
You might think the Democrats’ surge occurred in spite of their posture toward legacy media. Or you might think it happened because of it.
Clearly, political strategists don’t need traditional media as much as they once did. And the media have richly earned this drop in status. Too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources – in service to the political industry, not the public.
They’ve lost touch with their audiences, especially the audiences they’ll need in the future. A recent survey found that 78% of Americans age 65 or older get most political and election news from journalists and news organizations. But that figure drops to 55% for people ages 30-49 and to 45% for those 18-29.
August 29, 2024
Under industry pressure, IRS division blocked agents from using new law to stop wealthy tax dodgers
https://www.icij.org/news/2024/08/under-industry-pressure-irs-division-blocked-agents-from-using-new-law-to-stop-wealthy-tax-dodgers/High-powered tax attorneys bemoaned the 2010 legislation meant to crack down on big-dollar tax shelters. They ended up writing parts of an IRS directive that essentially undid it.In early 2010, U.S. lawmakers gave what was supposed to be a gift to IRS agents with the grueling job of ensuring the wealthiest people and largest corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Tucked inside President Barack Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act was a new law that prohibited shifting money around for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes. This struck at the heart of the complex offshore tax maneuvers — the shell companies, sham trusts and dubious intercompany loans — that the affluent use to help keep billions of dollars from government coffers. Suddenly the notion that many of these schemes were technically legal was cast in doubt. Now it was up to the IRS to enforce the new law.
In an era of government cuts and starved social services, this new law — known as the economic substance doctrine — was supposed to help U.S. tax authorities fight the estimated $688 billion a year in unpaid taxes. Then a surprising thing: Nothing happened. The IRS hardly touched its new weapon against high-end tax evasion — leaving billions of dollars on the table and its agents with little experience in using the law. But why?
An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows how, after coming under pressure from the industries that help wealthy people and corporations avoid taxes, the IRS’s Large Business and International Division, or LB&I, issued a directive that blocked agents from using the economic substance doctrine.
“The IRS had this institutional view not to raise it,” Monte Jackel, a tax attorney who has served several stints as a high-ranking IRS lawyer, said of the economic substance doctrine. “For a decade or so, it was a dead letter — invisible.”
August 29, 2024
Good bit of history in this piece. And worries about the possible future.
...
Project 2025 started a half-century ago. A Trump win could solidify it forever - David Sirota
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/29/trump-project-2025-historyGood bit of history in this piece. And worries about the possible future.
You can be forgiven for thinking Vice-President Kamala Harris’s first attack ad against Donald Trump seems a little far-fetched. Launched this week, the television spot has all the hallmarks of a YouTube video promoting an internet conspiracy theory. There’s the obligatory scary music and the baritone narrator warning about a mysterious manifesto with the kind of cartoonish name that a Bond villain would label his blueprint for global conquest: Project 2025.
And yet, this isn’t a Dr Evil send-up: Project 2025 is very real, it is absolutely Trump’s agenda and it wasn’t some slapdash screed that came out of nowhere. It is the culmination of the 50-year plot that our reporters at the Lever have uncovered in our new audio series Master Plan – a scheme first envisioned by the US supreme court justice who created the foundation for Citizens United and the modern era of corporate politics.
And yet, this isn’t a Dr Evil send-up: Project 2025 is very real, it is absolutely Trump’s agenda and it wasn’t some slapdash screed that came out of nowhere. It is the culmination of the 50-year plot that our reporters at the Lever have uncovered in our new audio series Master Plan – a scheme first envisioned by the US supreme court justice who created the foundation for Citizens United and the modern era of corporate politics.
...
Heritage was originally launched in the early 1970s with seed funding from the beer magnate Joseph Coors. He told a historian that his political activism at the time was specifically “stirred” by a 1971 memo authored by the soon-to-be supreme court justice Lewis Powell. That memo written for the US Chamber of Commerce implored corporations and oligarchs to be “far more aggressive” in influencing the political system, which he feared was becoming far too responsive to popular demands for the regulation of business.
“It is essential that spokesmen for the enterprise system – at all levels and at every opportunity – be far more aggressive than in the past,” wrote Powell, who would soon after author a landmark supreme court ruling giving corporations new rights to spend money influencing elections. “There should be not the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it.”
According to documents unearthed in Master Plan, the chamber established a taskforce on the Powell memorandum composed of executives from some of the country’s most powerful corporations including General Electric, Phillips Petroleum, Amway and United States Steel.
At a series of secret meetings in the 1970s, those powerbrokers formulated ways corporate groups could build out their political, legal and communications apparatus. The resulting political infrastructure – conservative thinktanks, law firms and advocacy groups – aimed to weaken campaign finance laws so that corporations could wield more power, and then use that power to tilt the courts and legislative systems in their favor.
“It is essential that spokesmen for the enterprise system – at all levels and at every opportunity – be far more aggressive than in the past,” wrote Powell, who would soon after author a landmark supreme court ruling giving corporations new rights to spend money influencing elections. “There should be not the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it.”
According to documents unearthed in Master Plan, the chamber established a taskforce on the Powell memorandum composed of executives from some of the country’s most powerful corporations including General Electric, Phillips Petroleum, Amway and United States Steel.
At a series of secret meetings in the 1970s, those powerbrokers formulated ways corporate groups could build out their political, legal and communications apparatus. The resulting political infrastructure – conservative thinktanks, law firms and advocacy groups – aimed to weaken campaign finance laws so that corporations could wield more power, and then use that power to tilt the courts and legislative systems in their favor.
August 29, 2024
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/29/the-times-doesnt-it-again/
Many more opinions on the dying grey lady.
The Times Doesn't It Again - Has AG Sulzberger turned it into the Orange Lady?
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/29/the-times-doesnt-it-again/
“WTF Is Happening To The NY Times?” Digby wrote just days ago. A chorus of critics believe the Gray Lady has lost its way, and they’ve brought receipts. The Times giving space this week to National Review‘s editor Rich Lowry, for example, to suggest that on character Donald Trump has a better case to make for his election led one FKA Twitter user to suggest, “The Onion writers are now running the @nytimes.” The New York Time Pitchbot account added, “I think we may be nearing the end of civilization.”
Dan Froomkin caustically distilled a March speech publisher A.G. Sulzberger gave at Oxford University explaining Sulzberger’s editorial stance thusly:
The Times headline writers have been an issue for years, as journalist Jennifer Schulze again noted on Tuesday:
Dan Froomkin caustically distilled a March speech publisher A.G. Sulzberger gave at Oxford University explaining Sulzberger’s editorial stance thusly:
One: You will earn my displeasure if you warn people too forcefully about the possible end to democracy at the hands of a deranged insurrectionist.
And two: You prove your value to me by trolling our liberal readers.
The Times headline writers have been an issue for years, as journalist Jennifer Schulze again noted on Tuesday:
Many more opinions on the dying grey lady.
August 27, 2024
https://scitechdaily.com/earths-temperature-could-increase-by-25-degrees-startling-new-research-reveals-that-co2-has-more-impact-than-previously-thought/
Cited article in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47676-9
Earth's Temperature Could Increase by 25 Degrees
Earth’s Temperature Could Increase by 25 Degrees: Startling New Research Reveals That CO2 Has More Impact Than Previously Thoughthttps://scitechdaily.com/earths-temperature-could-increase-by-25-degrees-startling-new-research-reveals-that-co2-has-more-impact-than-previously-thought/
Analysis of Pacific Ocean sediments shows doubling atmospheric CO2 might raise Earth’s temperature by up to 14 degrees, exceeding IPCC predictions, with historical data indicating significant future climate impacts.
Doubling the atmospheric CO2 levels could raise Earth’s average temperature by 7 to 14 degrees Celsius (13 to 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit), according to sediment analysis from the Pacific Ocean near California conducted by researchers from NIOZ and the Universities of Utrecht and Bristol.
The results were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
“The temperature rise we found is much larger than the 2.3 to 4.5 degrees Celsius (4.1 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) that the UN climate panel, IPCC, has been estimating so far,” said the first author, Caitlyn Witkowski.
45-year-old drill core
The researchers used a 45-year-old drill core extracted from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. “I realized that this core is very attractive for researchers, because the ocean floor at that spot has had oxygen-free conditions for many millions of years,” said Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damsté, senior scientist at NIOZ and professor of organic geochemistry at Utrecht University.
“As a result, organic matter is not broken down as quickly by microbes and more carbon is preserved,” Damsté said. He was also the supervisor of Witkowski, whose doctorate thesis included this research.
Doubling the atmospheric CO2 levels could raise Earth’s average temperature by 7 to 14 degrees Celsius (13 to 25.2 degrees Fahrenheit), according to sediment analysis from the Pacific Ocean near California conducted by researchers from NIOZ and the Universities of Utrecht and Bristol.
The results were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
“The temperature rise we found is much larger than the 2.3 to 4.5 degrees Celsius (4.1 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) that the UN climate panel, IPCC, has been estimating so far,” said the first author, Caitlyn Witkowski.
45-year-old drill core
The researchers used a 45-year-old drill core extracted from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. “I realized that this core is very attractive for researchers, because the ocean floor at that spot has had oxygen-free conditions for many millions of years,” said Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damsté, senior scientist at NIOZ and professor of organic geochemistry at Utrecht University.
“As a result, organic matter is not broken down as quickly by microbes and more carbon is preserved,” Damsté said. He was also the supervisor of Witkowski, whose doctorate thesis included this research.
Cited article in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47676-9
August 25, 2024
Alternative version: The holy spirit was pretty damn busy 6,000 years ago.
Matching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-dinosaur-footprints-sides-atlantic-ocean.htmlAn international team of researchers led by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs has found matching sets of Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints on what are now two different continents.
More than 260 footprints were discovered in Brazil and in Cameroon, showing where land-dwelling dinosaurs were last able to freely cross between South America and Africa millions of years ago before the two continents split apart.
"We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar," Jacobs said. "In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical."
The footprints, impressed into mud and silt along ancient rivers and lakes, were found more than 3,700 miles, or 6,000 kilometers, away from each other. Dinosaurs made the tracks 120 million years ago on a single supercontinent known as Gondwana—which broke off from the larger landmass of Pangea, Jacobs said.
More than 260 footprints were discovered in Brazil and in Cameroon, showing where land-dwelling dinosaurs were last able to freely cross between South America and Africa millions of years ago before the two continents split apart.
"We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar," Jacobs said. "In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical."
The footprints, impressed into mud and silt along ancient rivers and lakes, were found more than 3,700 miles, or 6,000 kilometers, away from each other. Dinosaurs made the tracks 120 million years ago on a single supercontinent known as Gondwana—which broke off from the larger landmass of Pangea, Jacobs said.
Alternative version: The holy spirit was pretty damn busy 6,000 years ago.
August 25, 2024
Joe Moore, who for years investigated the Ku Klux Klan, issues a chilling warning for the 2024 election and beyond
Members of the Proud Boys stand outside the US Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters
FBI informant's book predicts far-right violence: 'we should be afraid'
https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/25/joe-moore-white-robes-broken-bandages-kkkJoe Moore, who for years investigated the Ku Klux Klan, issues a chilling warning for the 2024 election and beyond
Members of the Proud Boys stand outside the US Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters
America’s fraught 2024 election could be hit by far-right violence, warns a high-profile FBI informant who spent years infiltrating the Klu Klux Klan in a new book.
Joe Moore spent a decade tasked with infiltrating KKK chapters in Florida to investigate enduring ties between law enforcement and the white supremacist organization, an assignment that included disrupting a murder plot by a trio of Klansmen who worked as prison guards.
Now the former US army sniper is out with a book, White Robes and Broken Badges, detailing those experiences – and applying the lessons he learned to an approaching election freighted with fears of the impact of far-right and white supremacist groups.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in May reported that two out of three Americans said they were concerned that political violence could follow the 5 November election.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s relevant to any time in our nation’s history, not just this election,” Moore says. Far-right ideology has two origins, he has come to learn. “One is geographical, where you are raised up in an area where that ideology is simply a part of a belief system. The second is a generational origin in which it’s handed down.”
Joe Moore spent a decade tasked with infiltrating KKK chapters in Florida to investigate enduring ties between law enforcement and the white supremacist organization, an assignment that included disrupting a murder plot by a trio of Klansmen who worked as prison guards.
Now the former US army sniper is out with a book, White Robes and Broken Badges, detailing those experiences – and applying the lessons he learned to an approaching election freighted with fears of the impact of far-right and white supremacist groups.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in May reported that two out of three Americans said they were concerned that political violence could follow the 5 November election.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s relevant to any time in our nation’s history, not just this election,” Moore says. Far-right ideology has two origins, he has come to learn. “One is geographical, where you are raised up in an area where that ideology is simply a part of a belief system. The second is a generational origin in which it’s handed down.”
August 25, 2024
Industrial agriculture has reshaped plant evolution to prioritize high yields, often overlooking environmental adaptability and resilience. University of Vermont researchers emphasize the importance of smallholder farmers’ diverse, locally adapted crops (landraces) for future food security in a climate-changing world, advocating for policies that value and integrate these traditional seeds and farming insights for sustainable agriculture.
We Have "Disrupted Evolutionary Processes" - Modern Seeds Aren't Ready for Climate Change
https://scitechdaily.com/we-have-disrupted-evolutionary-processes-modern-seeds-arent-ready-for-climate-change/Industrial agriculture has reshaped plant evolution to prioritize high yields, often overlooking environmental adaptability and resilience. University of Vermont researchers emphasize the importance of smallholder farmers’ diverse, locally adapted crops (landraces) for future food security in a climate-changing world, advocating for policies that value and integrate these traditional seeds and farming insights for sustainable agriculture.
Since World War II, humans have profoundly transformed the evolution of agricultural plants, reshaping our seed systems through industrial farming methods to meet the demands of a growing population. However, according to UVM researchers, in the face of a changing climate in the coming decades, the seeds that will sustain the world are in the care of smallholder farmers.
In a new discussion in Plants, People, Planet, Chen and coauthors examine how the emergence of professional crop breeders has “disrupted evolutionary processes” to “reshape the entire food system.” The mass production of high-yielding seeds in limited varieties has created a chasmic divide between a “formal seed system,” which now sells most seeds worldwide, and the “informal seed system”, which consists of farmers who select their own seeds to develop diverse, locally adapted crop varieties, known as landraces.
In selecting these landraces, smallholder farmers provide evosystem services—the benefits we gain from biodiversity, developed through evolutionary processes, Chen, a Fellow at the Gund Institute for Environment, explains. These services include crops’ adaptation to stresses including drought, salinity, and pests, which, she adds, are expected to increase as the climate warms, noting such services are crucial for the future of sustainability.
“Formal seed system crop breeders have selected varieties with a singular focus on achieving high yields,” Chen says. “The assumption is that breeding is a science of unlocking a crop’s yield potential—that modernity will feed the world.” This has been achieved using fertilizers, irrigation, and pesticides to recreate essentially the same fertile environment regardless of location. Crop breeders have selected modern seed varieties to grow in these ideal conditions, Chen says.
In a new discussion in Plants, People, Planet, Chen and coauthors examine how the emergence of professional crop breeders has “disrupted evolutionary processes” to “reshape the entire food system.” The mass production of high-yielding seeds in limited varieties has created a chasmic divide between a “formal seed system,” which now sells most seeds worldwide, and the “informal seed system”, which consists of farmers who select their own seeds to develop diverse, locally adapted crop varieties, known as landraces.
In selecting these landraces, smallholder farmers provide evosystem services—the benefits we gain from biodiversity, developed through evolutionary processes, Chen, a Fellow at the Gund Institute for Environment, explains. These services include crops’ adaptation to stresses including drought, salinity, and pests, which, she adds, are expected to increase as the climate warms, noting such services are crucial for the future of sustainability.
“Formal seed system crop breeders have selected varieties with a singular focus on achieving high yields,” Chen says. “The assumption is that breeding is a science of unlocking a crop’s yield potential—that modernity will feed the world.” This has been achieved using fertilizers, irrigation, and pesticides to recreate essentially the same fertile environment regardless of location. Crop breeders have selected modern seed varieties to grow in these ideal conditions, Chen says.
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