Population drops by 90% in 30 years

The population is king penguins.

It is the largest colony in the world. It is located on a French island roughly half way between the tip of Africa and Antarctica.  The last time scientists visited the island (in the 1980s), there were two million of the flightless birds, which stand about three feet tall. Now, there are 200,000. Why? They don't know.

10 Steps Toward Liquidating the Empire

This was written nine years ago by Chalmers Johnson:

Dismantling the American empire would, of course, involve many steps. Here are ten key places to begin:

1. We need to put a halt to the serious environmental damage done by our bases planet-wide. We also need to stop writing SOFAs that exempt us from any responsibility for cleaning up after ourselves.

2. Liquidating the empire will end the burden of carrying our empire of bases and so of the "opportunity costs" that go with them -- the things we might otherwise do with our talents and resources but can't or won't.

3. As we already know (but often forget), imperialism breeds the use of torture. In the 1960s and 1970s we helped overthrow the elected governments in Brazil and Chile and underwrote regimes of torture that prefigured our own treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. (See, for instance, A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors [Pantheon, 1979], on how the U.S. spread torture methods to Brazil and Uruguay.) Dismantling the empire would potentially mean a real end to the modern American record of using torture abroad.

4. We need to cut the ever-lengthening train of camp followers, dependents, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and hucksters -- along with their expensive medical facilities, housing requirements, swimming pools, clubs, golf courses, and so forth -- that follow our military enclaves around the world.

5. We need to discredit the myth promoted by the military-industrial complex that our military establishment is valuable to us in terms of jobs, scientific research, and defense. These alleged advantages have long been discreditedby serious economic research. Ending empire would make this happen.

6. As a self-respecting democratic nation, we need to stop being the world's largest exporter of arms and munitions and quit educating Third World militaries in the techniques of torture, military coups, and service as proxies for our imperialism. A prime candidate for immediate closure is the so-called School of the Americas, the U.S. Army's infamous military academy at Fort Benning, Georgia, for Latin American military officers. (See Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire [Metropolitan Books, 2004], pp. 136-40.)

7. Given the growing constraints on the federal budget, we should abolish the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and other long-standing programs that promote militarism in our schools.

8. We need to restore discipline and accountability in our armed forces by radically scaling back our reliance on civilian contractors, private military companies, and agents working for the military outside the chain of command and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (See Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Nation Books, 2007]). Ending empire would make this possible.

9. We need to reduce, not increase, the size of our standing army and deal much more effectively with the wounds our soldiers receive and combat stress they undergo.

10. To repeat the main message of this essay, we must give up our inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives.

Unfortunately, few empires of the past voluntarily gave up their dominions in order to remain independent, self-governing polities. The two most important recent examples are the British and Soviet empires. If we do not learn from their examples, our decline and fall is foreordained.

Waking up after 42,000 years

Russian scientists have successfully revived two species of tiny worms that they discovered suspended in an icy chunk of Siberian permafrost. The worms, known as nematodes or more commonly as roundworms, had been frozen for up to 42,000 years.

The researchers brought the worms back to a lab, where they slowly thawed them over several weeks. The researchers put them in petri dishes with food, stored at 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). As they warmed, the worms started showing signs of life, moving and eating. That marks the first documented time multi-cellular organisms have returned to functioning after being frozen in permafrost.

What's your opinion?

Blood Moon 2018

Pick your nursing home carefully

Kaiser Health News has released an analysis of Medicare's star ratings for staffing levels at the 15,000 plus nursing homes in the U.S. Almost 10% of these homes received the lowest evaluation. Why?They were either inadequately staffed with registered nurses or failed to provide payroll data that proved they had the required nursing coverage.

The biggest gap was in the number of registered nurses at a facility. They are required to have a registered nurse working at least eight hours every day. For-profit homes did worse than non-profit, they averaged 16 percent fewer staff than did nonprofits.

Mass Shootings, The Media and Race

Three PhD students from Ohio State have looked at the reporting of mass shootings in the United states from 2013 to 2015. They studied 433 online and print news articles covering 219 mass shootings. Race played a large part in the reporting; they concluded that the shooter’s race could strongly predict whether the media framed him as mentally ill. A third of the articles describing the crimes of a white shooter made a mention of mental illness, while 2% describing a black shooter mentioned mental illness. White shooters were nearly 95 percent more likely to have their crimes attributed to mental illness than black shooters. 

Articles that did describe a white shooter as mentally ill would often suggest that the shooter had been a generally good person who was a victim of society. The shooting, in other words, was out of character. Nearly 80 percent of articles that described white shooters as mentally ill also described them as a victim of society and circumstance – a tough childhood, a failed relationship or financial struggles. However only one article that described a black shooter as mentally ill did the same. 

Furthermore, no article offered testimony to black shooters’ good character, suggested that the shooter was from a good environment or that the shooting was out of character. 

It seems as if media outlets tend to cast the violent acts of white criminals as unfortunate anomalies of circumstance and illness. For black shooters media outlets render their crimes with a brush of inherent criminality.

It's a study. Who knows how accurate it really is! But it is interesting.

Do you believe it?

He is supposed to be 109 and she 102. He says that they have been married for 88 years, yet the 'title' says 90. So, if you believe him, he was 21 and she 14 when they married.

Changing Hong Kong

Mom of the year

One duck, 72 ducklings on  Lake Bemidji, about 150 miles northwest of Duluth, Minn.

The cost of being shot

Maybe something good from Trump

Here's a headline from today's NY Times:

North Korea Starts Dismantling Key Missile Facilities, Report Says

The basis of this is satellite photos of the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. They were analyzed by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an expert on North Korea’s weapons programs. He says that the North Koreans have started taking apart the engine test stand. Also, it looks like they have started dismantling a rail-mounted building at the Sohae station where workers used to assemble space launch vehicles before moving them to the launchpad.

Importers

From Visual Capitalist

The 13-year-old CEO

Mikaila Ulmer is 13-years-old, a student in the Austin, Texas school system and the chief executive of Me & The Bees Lemonade, which is sold in more than 500 stores - including Whole Foods - across the US. She has been doing this since she was four. 

She is a busy girl. She says, "Sometimes I have to miss classes to do an interview, or travel for a TV show. Or I'll miss a big show or presentation because I have a large project or test at school." 

In 2015 she raised $60,000 from Shark Tank. Two years later a consortium of former and current American football players invested $800,000. 

She donates 10% of profits to bee conservation groups.

Listening to children

When will he stop talking about Hillary?

His latest Tweet:

Looking more and more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Ask her how that worked out – she did better with Crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam! 
 — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2018

Let's go for a swim

Getting set to wipe out Gaza

As I've said several times, Gaza is hell on earth. For years, Gazans have been protesting the conditions under which they exist. One man killed an Israeli soldier last week. This week Israel carried out "wide-scale" airstrikes across Gaza.

The Israeli military is one cog in Israel's attempt to destroy Gaza. Israel has announced stringent new import rules for the territory's main cargo crossing. Under these rules only food, medicine, and "humanitarian equipment" can come through the entry point. Not only will these rules affect imports, it will also affect Gaza's exports, further straining an already crippled economy brought to its knees by the 12-year blockade. And in another blow against the Palestinians the Israeli legislature approved a bill this week that enshrines "apartheid into law" and makes the 1.8 million Arabs living in Israel second-class citizens.

Hunting rats

Do the other candidates make as much sense?

National Parks are not pristine

One major problem is ozone pollution, which is not good for people or the environment. It has been linked to increased respiratory symptoms, hospitalization rates and mortality. It also is correlated with poor visibility in parks, and can damage sensitive plant species. But, ozone pollution in our national parks is just about as bad as in our cities. The major sources of park air pollution include power plants, automobiles and industrial facilities.

The 96-year-old Rapper

Still at it

The above video was made last year when she was 91. She's still at it at 92.

A new day. A new version

What a conservative thinks about Trump in Helsinki

Bret Stephens was a deputy editor with the Wall Street Journal. Here is an excerpt from a conversation with Gail Collins of The NY Times:

Also, I’m thinking about just what Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and the rest of right-wing punditry would be saying if it had been President Barack Obama at that podium, saying the sort of things Trump was saying, not to mention the way he said it.

They’d call him the Manchurian Candidate. They’d accuse him of treason. They’d call for an armed insurrection or something close to it. They’d say he hates America. And they wouldn’t be wrong. Here is a president of the United States who repeatedly blames America first; who takes the word of a former K.G.B. agent over his own intelligence agencies; who promises to work constructively with a despot whose regime kills journalists, shoots down civilian airliners and uses nerve agents to assassinate its enemies abroad; and who aims his rhetorical fire on an opposing party instead of an enemy government. And the Make America Great Again crowd, with an exception or two, says pretty much nothing, or averts its gaze, or switches the subject.

I’m not speechless, exactly. But as a disaffected conservative, I just feel like someone who’s trying to scream while underwater.

The obituary of a 5-year-old written by himself (and his parents?)

Garrett Michael Matthias
AKA “The Great Garrett Underpants”
3/26/13 – 7/6/18

My name is: Garrett Michael Boofias
My birthday is: I am 5 years old
My address is: I am a Bulldog!
My favorite color is: Blue….and Red and Black and Green
My favorite superhero is: Batman…and Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk and Cyborg
When I grow up: I’m going to be a professional boxer

My favorite people are:
• Mommy, Daddy, my sister ‘Delcina’ (Delphina),
• The grandparents with the new house (Fredric and Cheryl Krueger),
• The grandparents with the camper (Daniel and Nita Matthias), 
• My cousins: Grady, ‘that guy I took down that one time’ (Luke), and London Marie, 
• My Auntie Janette and Stinky Uncle Andy (Andrew and Janette Krueger),
• Those two guys, you know, my uncles (Kristopfer Krueger and James Taylor)
• Batman!!

The things I love the most:
Playing with my sister, my blue bunny, thrash metal, Legos, my daycare friends, Batman and when they put me to sleep before they access my port Things I hate: Pants!, dirty stupid cancer, when they access my port, needles, and the monkey nose that smells like cherry farts…I do like the mint monkey nose like at Mayo Radiation and that one guy that helped me build Legos (Randy)

When I die: I am going to be a gorilla and throw poo at Daddy!

Burned or Buried: I want to be burned (like when Thor’s Mommy died) and made into a tree so I can live in it when I’m a gorilla
Big or Small Funeral: Funerals are sad: I want 5 bouncy houses (because I’m 5), Batman, and snow cones

World Trade in 2015

What the Russians think of us

A Russian research institute did a study of Russians' attitudes to the U.S. 

They first asked how Russians viewed Trump. The results:

Self-centered 77%
Dangerous     58%
Charismatic   49%
Strong            34%
Trustworthy   16%

The second question was how they viewed Americans. The results:

Interferes with affairs of other countries 86%
Aggressive                                               76%
Advanced science and technology           73%
Influential                                                 66%
High crime                                                57%
High standard of living                             57%
High inequality                                         50%
Immoral                                                    45%
Democratic                                               37%
Open to the world                                     26%
Trustworthy                                              13%

Finally, do they want to be closer to us. The results:

                    Strengthen Ties         No change           Reduce
Cultural ties           54%                      28%                    7%
Security ties           52%                      26%                    8%
Political ties           51%                      27%                    9%
Economic ties        46%                      29%                   13% 

Sex differences in dementia

Studies are still being done, but it looks like two-thirds of dementia-related deaths happen to women. This could be because of age. The older you are, the more likely you are to develop late-onset Alzheimer’s. Women typically live longer than men, so more have dementia. 

Some other observations:
Dementia  is the leading cause of death in women in Australia, England, Wales and America.
Some risk factors - depression, surgical menopause, pregnancy complications, caregiving - affect primarily women. 

Dementia is a growing problem. Globally, experts estimate that 75 million people will live with dementia by 2030 and 131.5 million by 2050. Most are women.

Clean oil spills with hair?

Making a friend

Nuclear Tests

This guy is an Arizona State Representative

Would you like to live in this Greenland village?

This iceberg measures roughly 650 feet wide, is about 300 feet high and weighs up to 11 million tons. Will it break and, then, tumble into the ocean and unleash an enormous wave on the settlement?

Analyzing a Trump speech

This is a follow-up to my earlier post today.

The Washington Post has been fact-checking Trump's speeches since the beginning. The latest one they looked at was his Montana rally on July 5. 

In this talk Trump made 98 statements of fact. The Post found that 45 statements were false or mostly false, 25 were misleading, 24 were accurate or mostly accurate, and four were unsupported.  That's about three of every four statements.  Two of his more egregious claims were - he draws bigger crowds than Elton John and he was the first Republican to win Wisconsin since 1952.

Then, he has the other problem of changing his 'mind' almost every day. Witness his statements re NATO and Prime Minster May.

What is wrong with this guy?

“You know, a poll just came out that I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party — 92 per cent," Trump told the British newspaper The Sun. "Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe."

But, George W Bush had 98% approval among Republicans in April 2002. And a poll out this week found that Ronald Reagan is the most popular Republican president in respondents' lifetimes.

Comments on a trade war

The Huge Four

In March there were 1,812 commercial banks in the United States holding consolidated assets of $300 million or more. Of those 1,812 banks, just four banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup’s Citibank) held 45 percent of the consolidated assets of those 1,812 banks. A recent FDIC report shows there are 5,606 insured banks in total holding $17.531 trillion in assets. Four banks - JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup’s Citibank - hold 40.42 percent of the assets of all the insured banks in the country.

Where have the pilots gone?

In 1987 there were 827,000 pilots in the U.S. Today, there are less than 600,000. Where did they go? How could they go when air travel has increased quite a bit? 

Part of the reason is that the Air Force in the 20th century trained about two-thirds of the pilots. This was before today's use of drones by the military. Now, most pilots have to pay for their training, which exceeds $100,000. The 1978 Airline Deregulation Act and 9/11 wreaked financial damage to major legacy airlines, five of whom declared bankruptcy.

66 years of work destroyed

Fairness in America in the 21st century

Walmart Rules

Business or Health?

It seems that the United States government has decided to help business rather than people's health. At the recent meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO), a resolution to encourage breast-feeding was proposed. The basis for the proposal was years of research that has demonstrated that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. 

Our delegation didn't like the resolution and proposed changes to it. We did not want it to say that the main purpose of the resolution was to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” nor restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children. If the resolution was passed we would issue punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. 

But, when Russia agreed to sponsor the resolution we backed off. One reason why we wanted to kill the resolution is the increase in breast-feeding by women in wealthy countries, which, of course, impacts the sales of substitutes.

Living the airport life

These animals are created from paper

Calvin Nicholls has been creating these paper sculptures since 1984.

Courtesy of our Glastonbury correspondent

Supporting your pet

Some people do a lot for their pets - and spend $69.5 billion on their pets, according to the American Pet Products Association. Petplan, an insurance company, estimates that pet parents dropped $62 million in 2011 on plastic surgery for their little angels.

Some things that are done for pets in America: 

Provide prosthetic testicles for neutered pets. Altogether over 500,000 animals have been surgically implanted with the silicone testes, according to Gregg A. Miller, who invented them in 1995.
Replace a diabetes-ravaged eyeball with a fake eye that cost roughly 15 times the price for the do in the first place.
Tummy tucks
Nose jobs
Eyebrow and chin lifts.
Hip replacements
Heart surgery
Gender reassignment
Tresses colored, straightened, curled and waved
Chill session at the spa
Mud baths and detox wraps, hot oil treatments and blueberry facials. 

There are even pet hotels where four-legged guests can sprawl on wrought iron beds and watch DOGTV on flat screens. Stay Dog Hotel, in Chicago, has riverfront suites and a lap pool; Oh My Dog!, in Scottsdale, Ariz., offers dog yoga (“doga”) and a retail boutique with handmade, locally sourced apparel.)

A man on a mission

Companies with a U.S. Market Presence

The following was developed by HowMuch.net based on their evaluation of Forbes values

Hate Crimes in the U.S.

Hate crime victims in 2016

African-Americans were the most-targeted group in 2016, comprising more than a quarter of all hate crime victims.

African-Americans

28.4%

Lesbian, gay or bisexual

17.5%

Whites

11.8%

Jews

11.2%

Latinos

6.1%

Muslims

5%

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND  Source: FBI  G

Most frequent hate crime bias types

The motivations for hate crimes varied significantly across major US cities in 2017.

City	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5
New York City, NY	Anti-Jewish	Sexual Orientation	Anti-Muslim	Anti-Black	Other
Los Angeles, CA	Anti-Gay (M)	Anti-Black	Anti-Jewish	Anti-Hispanic	Anti-Transgender
Chicago, IL	Anti-Black	Anti-Jewish	Anti-Islamic	Anti-Gay (M)	Anti-White
Houston, TX	Anti-Religion	Sexual Orientation	Race/Ethnicity	Gender Identity
Philadelphia, PA	Anti-Race	Anti-Religion	Anti-Sexual Orientation	Gender Identity
Phoenix, AZ	Anti-Black	Anti-Gay (M)	Anti-White	Anti-Jewish	Anti-Hispanic
San Antonio, TX	Anti-Black	Anti-Muslim	Other
San Diego, CA	Anti-Black	Anti-Jewish	Anti-Sexual Orientation	Anti-Islamic	Anti-Gay (M)
Dallas, TX	Anti-Gay (M)	Anti-Black	Anti-Race/Ethnicity
San Jose, CA	Anti-Black	Anti-Jewish	Anti-Gay (M)	Anti-Hispanic/Latino	Anti-Islamic/Muslim
San Francisco, CA	Anti-Race/Ethnicity	Anti-Sexual Orientation	Anti-Religion	Anti-Gender
Seattle, WA	Anti-LGBTQ	Anti-Black	Anti-Transgender	Anti-Hispanic	Anti-White
Denver, CO	Anti-Black	Anti-Jewish	Anti-Gay/Lesbian	Anti-Transgender	Anti-Homosexual
District of Columbia	Anti-Sexual Orientation	Anti-Race	Anti-Ethnicity	Anti-Gender Identity	Anti-Religion
Boston, MA	Anti-Black	Anti-Sexual Orientation	Anti-Indian (Asian)	Anti-Islamic	Anti-Hispanic
Detroit, MI	Anti-Homosexual	Anti-Black	Anti-White	Anti-Multi Racial	Anti-Other Ethnicity

He has trouble with business

One of the most important attributes of a business leader is the ability to hire and manage the right people for the jobs needed for your company to succeed. It's not easy. But, as I've said before, Trump is not very good at it. He has had more staff turnover than any other president. In his first year in office the turnover of Trump's appointees was 34% 

Trash Pile

An excerpt from an Independence Day letter...

... by Wall Street on Parade:

Now consider where we Americans stand today. Within six months of assuming the most powerful position in the world, President Donald Trump, who had never before held public office, had removed the United States from the Paris Climate Accord – a “wholesome and necessary” law for the public good. In May of this year, Trump broke with our European allies and withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement.

The President has insulted the longstanding allies of America while embracing despots and dictators like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This has resulted in the mistrust and disgrace of our country around the world.

The President of our country has refused to provide his tax returns to the American people; he has refused to divorce himself from his far-flung businesses around the world; he continues to profit from these businesses as he tells us that he, alone, is above conflicts of interest.

The President has demanded the personal loyalty of those he places in positions of power in his administration rather than loyalty to their sworn duty to protect the country and the American people.

The President has, without Congressional review or oversight, unilaterally instituted a “zero tolerance” policy that has resulted in effectively abducting babies and children from their parents who were lawfully seeking asylum in our country. The Trump administration has confirmed to a Federal Court that it failed to put procedures in place to allow for the reunification of these children with their parents. This action is against the due process laws of the United States and against international human rights laws – making America appear to be a barbarous nation to the rest of the civilized world while inflicting lifelong psychological damage to innocent children according to leading medical associations in the U.S.

The President has defied longstanding nepotism and ethics rules in the Federal government and placed his own daughter and son-in-law in positions of power in his administration. He has allowed them to personally profit from conflicted business deals while they serve in these roles.

The President has allowed his appointees to Federal agencies to make a mockery of the laws of the United States. Just yesterday the former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations to EPA head Scott Pruitt came forward on television to reveal that Pruitt routinely ordered his staff to “scrub” names from his official calendar of meetings with people who would “look bad” to the public. Pruitt is already the subject of 14 investigations over ethics issues as Trump publicly compliments him on the job he is doing.

Trump is further damaging the trust in the United States by our trading partners by unilaterally announcing – without the advice and consent of Congress – the imposition of tariffs on a broad range of products.

As for “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury,” Trump has announced that immigrants seeking asylum should be stripped of their court rights and immediately deported back to their country of origin. On June 24 Trump wrote on his Twitter page: “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

Under a corporatized Supreme Court, most American citizens have already lost their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial before their peers — a right that was so cherished by our founding fathers. 

Corporations and Wall Street lobbyists have spent decades putting corporate-friendly Federal judges on the appellate courts and Supreme Court to make mandatory arbitration the law of the land, covering everything from disputes over credit cards to nursing homes to telephone bills and every single transaction involving the consumer and Wall Street. Like the immigrant children being held hostage under the Trump decree, the average American’s ability to build a financial nest egg for their future is being held hostage by a tyrannical private justice system.

Today, as Americans from sea to shining sea fly their flags and garnish their hot dogs and attempt to make sense out of these unprecedented times, we offer these comforting words from our nation’s founding document that has served us so well for almost two and a half centuries:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”