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Nov 5, 2019
Nov 4, 2019
Today I Learned
First of all, candidates for Queen Bee are selected and worker bees feed them a special jelly concoction, and the virgin Queen Bee which survives to adulthood without being killed by her rivals will take a mating flight with a dozen or so male drones, selected from the tens of thousands of eligible bachelor bees in the colony.
The drones which do mate with the queen bee are not the lucky ones because during sex when the male bee reaches climax its testicles explode and it dies.
And his genitals remain inside the Queen.
Nov 3, 2019
Today's Beau
For every problem that's complicated and difficult and confusing, there's a solution that's simple and elegant and wrong.
For 30 or 40 years, it seems Republicans have been propagating ignorance in order to exploit it in service of their political ambitions, while Democrats have been making an effort to educate in order to help us overcome the problems caused by ignorance.
Justin King, Beau Of The Fifth Column:
There are differences - big ones.
For 30 or 40 years, it seems Republicans have been propagating ignorance in order to exploit it in service of their political ambitions, while Democrats have been making an effort to educate in order to help us overcome the problems caused by ignorance.
Justin King, Beau Of The Fifth Column:
There are differences - big ones.
Today's Tweet
The whole thing is weird and complicated and it has a lot of moving parts, but the basic principle is actually fairly simple, and it's almost perfectly illustrated by "The Phone Call".
This isn't hard, @GOP:— Greg Olear (@gregolear) November 2, 2019
The "quid" was a FAVOR to do something ILLEGAL that would benefit Trump PERSONALLY.
The "quo" was AMERICAN TAXPAYER DOLLARS, authorized by Congress, and NOT Trump's to withhold.
Trump used OUR MONEY to extort Ukraine for HIS OWN benefit (and Putin's).
Nov 2, 2019
Nov 1, 2019
It's Not Prophesy
...it's called S-C-I-E-N-C-E.
Bitch.
The Guardian:
The Silent Spring prophecy that pesticides could “still the leaping of fish” has been confirmed, according to scientists investigating the collapse of fisheries in Japan. They say similar impacts are likely to have occurred around the world.
The long-term study showed an immediate plunge in insect and plankton numbers in a large lake after the introduction of neonicotinoid pesticides to rice paddies. This was rapidly followed by the collapse of smelt and eel populations, which had been stable for decades but rely on the tiny creatures for food.
The analysis shows a strong correlation but cannot prove a causal link between the insecticides and the collapse. However, independent scientists said other possibilities had been ruled out and that the work provided “compelling evidence”.
The research is the first to reveal the knock-on effects of insecticides on fish. Harm to bees is well known, but previous studies in Europe have linked neonicotinoids to die-offs in other freshwater species including mayflies, dragonflies and snails and also to falling populations of farmland bird that feed on insects, including starlings and swallows. The insecticide has also been shown to make migrating songbirds lose their way.
Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, her seminal book on the dangers of pesticides in 1962. In their report, the Japanese researchers said: “She wrote: ‘These sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests and homes – nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams.’ The ecological and economic impact of neonicotinoids on the inland waters of Japan confirms Carson’s prophecy.”
We're fouling the nest.
And that doesn't just mean we're increasing the dangers to our own health and lowering our odds of survival. We're also raising the probability that every child will be born with a physical or mental anomaly that's easily preventable if we could just learn not to shit where we eat.
Bitch.
The Guardian:
The Silent Spring prophecy that pesticides could “still the leaping of fish” has been confirmed, according to scientists investigating the collapse of fisheries in Japan. They say similar impacts are likely to have occurred around the world.
The long-term study showed an immediate plunge in insect and plankton numbers in a large lake after the introduction of neonicotinoid pesticides to rice paddies. This was rapidly followed by the collapse of smelt and eel populations, which had been stable for decades but rely on the tiny creatures for food.
The analysis shows a strong correlation but cannot prove a causal link between the insecticides and the collapse. However, independent scientists said other possibilities had been ruled out and that the work provided “compelling evidence”.
The research is the first to reveal the knock-on effects of insecticides on fish. Harm to bees is well known, but previous studies in Europe have linked neonicotinoids to die-offs in other freshwater species including mayflies, dragonflies and snails and also to falling populations of farmland bird that feed on insects, including starlings and swallows. The insecticide has also been shown to make migrating songbirds lose their way.
Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, her seminal book on the dangers of pesticides in 1962. In their report, the Japanese researchers said: “She wrote: ‘These sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests and homes – nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams.’ The ecological and economic impact of neonicotinoids on the inland waters of Japan confirms Carson’s prophecy.”
We're fouling the nest.
And that doesn't just mean we're increasing the dangers to our own health and lowering our odds of survival. We're also raising the probability that every child will be born with a physical or mental anomaly that's easily preventable if we could just learn not to shit where we eat.
Oct 31, 2019
Trump-onomics
It ain't workin' for us.
via Seattle Times:
U.S. farm bankruptcies in September surged 24% to the highest since 2011 amid strains from President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and a year of wild weather.
Growers are also becoming increasingly dependent on trade aid and other federal programs for income, figures showed in a report by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s largest general farm organization.
The squeeze on farmers underscores the toll China’s retaliatory tariffs have taken on a critical Trump constituency as the president enters a re-election campaign and a fight to stave off impeachment. The figures also highlight the importance of a “phase one” deal the administration is currently negotiating with Beijing to increase agriculture imports in return for a pause in escalating U.S. levies.
Almost 40% of projected farm profit this year will come from trade aid, disaster assistance, federal subsidies and insurance payments, according to the report, based on Department of Agriculture forecasts. That’s $33 billion of a projected $88 billion in income.
The trade war and two straight years of adverse weather rattled farmers already facing commodity price slumps.
Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings in the 12 months ended September rose to 580 from a year earlier. That marked the highest since 676 cases in 2011 under the chapter of the bankruptcy code tailored for farms. The total “remains well below” historical highs in the 1980s, the federation said.
Recent bankruptcies were concentrated in the 13-state Midwestern region, a key battleground in the presidential election where grain, soybean, hog and dairy farms have been hit by trade disputes. More than 40%, or 255 filings, were in the region.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman took issue with President Donald Trump's repeated claims that the economy is doing better than ever under his administration.
The economic expert wrote on Twitter Wednesday that the president's promises regarding manufacturing jobs and GDP growth have failed to materialize.
"The meh GDP numbers won't help Trump next year. But what should really scare him is his utter failure to boost manufacturing in swing states," Krugman, who is a columnist for The New York Times and won the Nobel prize in economics in 2008, wrote on Twitter. He shared a graph of manufacturing job levels over time in Wisconsin to emphasize his point.
- snip -
Krugman also explained that Trump has fallen fall short of his promises regarding GDP growth. The economist tweeted an article by The Hill from last year, which highlighted how Trump was promising that GDP growth "could be in the fives," referring to 5 percent growth or higher.
Coded Language
We're finally starting to zero in on the main point of all this Cult45 shit.
Ukraine seems to be the absolute key, and the way the Trump administration is talking about it has been very revealing - even though they're working hard to smoke-screen everything.
Rachel Frazen, The Hill:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that President Trump's infamous July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "consistent" with the administration's policies.
The phone call in which Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is at the center of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry into the president.
"The call was consistent with what I had a long set of conversations with President Trump on our policy for an awfully long time," Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News. "Our policy has been very clear all along with respect to Ukraine."
Asked whether any parts of the call were not included in the rough transcript released by the White House, Pompeo doubled down on the fact that it was "consistent" with the administration's Ukraine policy.
"I heard the President very clearly on that call talking about making sure that corruption – whether that corruption took place in the 2016 election, whether that corruption was continuing to take place, that the monies that were being provided would be used appropriately," Pompeo said.
"It was very consistent with what I’d understood President Trump and our administration to be doing all along," he added.
We've been hearing some real whoppers from these guys.
One that 45* popped off with (paraphrasing): "Rudy looks for corruption everywhere he goes."
IMHO, this is not an untrue statement. He's just careful to leave out the operative phrase.
"Rudy looks for...(opportunities to cash in on)...corruption everywhere he goes."
Then along comes Pompeo telling us the Zelensky call was "consistent" with the president's policy regarding Ukraine.
Again, it's not an untrue statement, but what he doesn't tell us is that "the policy" is all about setting up Ukraine:
- to be the patsy for Russian fuckery
- as a conduit for money laundering
- to be a vending machine for phony political dirt
We're starting to see a lot of what the real deal is - Ukraine is a key to whatever is included in Putin's plans, and Trump is key to neutralizing American resistance to his plans.
What's even more certain is that we won't ever be allowed to see some of the really shitty things that're happening.
Today's Tweet
I've been pretty indifferent about Sportsball stuff in general. The big-time games have gotten to be more spectacle than sport. But when your team's got some real-people fans like this guy - go Nats.
“You’ve been such a gracious fan tonight tell me what your thoughts are about this win tonight.”— This American Adam (@adamconner) October 31, 2019
“I think this is huge for DC. DC needed this. We’ve got some asshole in the fucking White House...(camera cuts away)”
WHAT AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING LEGEND. #WONTHEFIGHT pic.twitter.com/9t8watN5FE
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