Today's SMFH

Somewhere in Texas, there's a well-connected brother-in-law who's recently discovered he has a burning passion for DNA Testing, and that he'll be needing another vacation home.

BTW, there's nothing here to change my thinking that Republicans are doing everything they can think of to make public schools disappear.

Texas schools send parents DNA kits to identify their kids’ bodies in emergencies

After the mass shooting in Uvalde, the kits are making many parents feel even more anxious about sending their children to school.

The state of Texas is sending public school students home with DNA kits designed to help their parents identify their children “in case of an emergency.”

In 2021, the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill No. 2158, a law requiring the Texas Education Agency to “provide identification kits to school districts and open-enrollment charter schools for distribution to the parent or legal custodian of certain students.”

The law passed after eight students and two teachers were shot and killed inside Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, and almost a year before 19 fourth-graders and two teachers were gunned down inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

The Texas public school system will provide ink-free fingerprint and DNA identification cards to all K-6 students who are eligible. Parents are not mandated to use the kits.

The three-fold pamphlets allow caregivers to store their children’s DNA and fingerprints at home, which could then be turned over to law enforcement agencies in the event of an “emergency.” According to the legislation mandating the kits be provided to qualifying Texas families, the fingerprint and DNA verification kits were intended to “help locate and return a missing or trafficked child.”

In the wake of the second deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history and the botched police response that left 19 students and two teachers dead, Texas parents are apprehensive about the kits and the message some are saying it sends to Texas families.

Many of the children gunned down inside Robb Elementary were not easily identifiable as a result of their catastrophic injuries. Some close family members provided DNA swabs in order to positively identify the children’s remains.

Tracy Walder, a former CIA and FBI agent and current college professor who taught high school history for 16 years, said she was “devastated” when she heard her second-grade daughter would be sent home with a kit.

“You have to understand, I’m a former law enforcement officer,” Walder, who has lived in Texas for 14 years, said. "I worry every single day when I send my kid to school. Now we’re giving parents DNA kits so that when their child is killed with the same weapon of war I had when I was in Afghanistan, parents can use them to identify them?”

Walder said she has tried to “find the right words” for how she feels, but she doesn’t think she can “because sometimes it’s beyond comprehension.”

“This sends two messages: The first is that the government is not going to do anything to solve the problem. This is their way of telling us that,” Walder said. “The second is that us parents are now forced to have conversations with our kids that they may not be emotionally ready for. My daughter is 7. What do I tell her?”

Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia was killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting, shared his frustration over the kits on social media.

“Yeah! Awesome! Let’s identify kids after they’ve been murdered instead of fixing issues that could ultimately prevent them from being murdered,” Cross posted on Twitter.

Texas State Sen. Donna Campbell, who sponsored SB-2158, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the Texas Education Agency said in a written statement provided to TODAY that “Senate Bill 2158 established the Child Identification Program, a grant to supply child I.D. fingerprint and DNA identification kits to school systems to provide to families in their respective school communities,” adding that “parents can voluntarily request these kits.”

“To fulfill this statutory obligation, TEA is collaborating with the Safety Blitz Foundation, National Child Identification (I.D.) Program, Education Service Centers, and school systems to provide families who had children in kindergarten through sixth grade during the 2021-2022 school year and kindergarten during the 2022-2023 school year with child I.D. fingerprint kits,” the statement added.

Some parents say they feel uncomfortable sending their children’s DNA to anyone for privacy reasons. And after the tragedy in Uvalde, the kits are making many moms and dads feel even more anxious about sending their children to school.

“It makes me physically sick,” Wendi Aarons, a mom of two who has lived in Texas since 1999, told TODAY Parents. “I have a hard time even grappling with this as a real thing that is happening. Parents of school kids should be worrying about (parent-teacher organization) sign-up sheets and grades and if their kid likes whatever they’re serving in the cafeteria that day, not their child’s murder and if they’re shot so many times their body cannot be identified.”

Aarons has two children, ages 18 and 20, who attended Texas public schools from the time they were in kindergarten until they graduated high school. She said she’s grateful her children will not be sent home with DNA and fingerprint kits, and said she “can’t imagine the panic and anxiety parents face sending their kids to school every day not knowing if they’ll return.”

“It’s astounding, to realize that not only has the state of Texas done absolutely nothing to protect our kids and teachers, they’ve taken the callous, heartless, cruel measure to send DNA test kits so we can identify their bodies if or when they’re victims of a massacre,” Aarons added. “It sends the message that guns are more important than us.”

In June, Emily Westbrooks and her family moved to Texas from Ireland, where she said “gun violence is negligible and sending children to school wasn’t a daily terror.”

“It infuriates me that these kits are being sent to families in lieu of any concrete action to prevent such terrorizing tragedies from occurring,” said Westbrooks, who has a 5-year-old in kindergarten and a 7-year-old in first grade. “I think the only way you can reasonably send your children to school is simply to tell yourself this won’t happen to your kids, which is of course just lying to yourself.”

Westbrooks adds that the kits shatter that lie and are an “incredibly triggering, in-your-face reminder that our kids are at risk of being obliterated by automatic weapons to the point they won’t be recognizable.”

“Elected officials, both national and Texan, have given up,” she added. “They’ve decided our kids aren’t worth restricting guns, but they’re offering us this as some kind of consolation. It’s disgusting that they can’t do any better than to admit that they won’t protect our children.”

A Minor Win

A quiet little thing that makes peace in the Middle East a tiny bit more probable.

(pay wall)

Opinion
Biden just pulled off a big diplomatic victory — and almost no one noticed

International diplomacy is inherently difficult, usually unglamorous and often unsuccessful — but nevertheless essential. The Biden administration has seen for itself how hard it can be to achieve results: It has failed to entice Iran back into the nuclear deal or to convince Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. But last week the administration’s diplomacy hit pay dirt — and almost no one noticed.

On Oct. 11, Israel and Lebanon announced an agreement that would demarcate their maritime boundary. This sounds narrow and technical but is a major achievement given that the two countries have been formally at war since 1948. (And that has sometimes led to actual military conflict — most recently in 2006.) The two countries don’t have an internationally recognized land border, and they have not had a maritime border, either. That has been an invitation to conflict and an impediment to the exploitation of the large natural gas fields off their coasts.

Israel has been producing offshore natural gas for years, but its latest field — known as Karish — lies perilously close to the disputed maritime boundary with Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to attack Israel’s oil rig in the area. Lebanon, for its part, has not been able to extract any natural gas at all because oil companies don’t want to drill in disputed areas. That natural gas is desperately needed by a country in economic meltdown whose citizens receive only an hour or two of power every day from the electrical grid.

U.S. administrations have been trying for a decade to broker an agreement — with no luck. It was hard to make progress, given that officials of these warring states refuse to be in the same room with each other. Lebanon does not even recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Enter Amos J. Hochstein, a former Senate staffer, energy industry executive and veteran of the Obama State Department who is the presidential coordinator for energy security. He launched a fresh round of shuttle diplomacy at the beginning of the year, commuting from Tel Aviv to Beirut — a trip that usually required stopovers in a third country because there are no direct air or road links between Israel and Lebanon. “I’ve worked a lot of hard problems,” he told me. “This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

He noted that “suspicion is really extreme on both sides” and the timing hardly appeared propitious: Israel is led by a weak caretaker government as one election after another fails to produce a durable majority. Lebanon is perpetually divided among different religious groups and in recent years has been on the brink of economic and political collapse.

Hochstein told me, in a telephone interview, that he changed the dynamics by going from asking who would win and who would lose under any agreement to asking how both countries could safeguard their vital interests. Israel’s government, led by centrist Prime Minister Yair Lapid, made concessions on the boundary line. Lebanon’s government, led by President Michel Aoun, recognized Israel’s control of a three-mile stretch of water close to shore and agreed to pay Israel its share of the proceeds from gas taken from the Israeli side the Qana Field, which lies in both countries’ exclusive economic zones. (The payments will go through an intermediary, the French energy company Total.)

The resulting deal was hailed as “historic” by both sides. Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is trying to return to power in the Nov. 1 election, predictably denounced it as a “disgraceful surrender.” It was also attacked by the former U.S. negotiator who tried and failed to get a deal in the Trump administration.

But this looks very much like a case of “sour grapes,” as my Council on Foreign Relations colleague Martin Indyk noted. Trump and Netanyahu couldn’t get a deal done; Biden and Lapid did. Israel’s security establishment is firmly in favor of the deal not only because it will help safeguard Israel’s natural gas fields but also because it will help bolster the Lebanese government and economy. Israel does not want a failed state next door.

This agreement is not as dramatic as the Abraham Accords struck under the Trump administration in which three Arab states (the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco) recognized Israel. But it is, in some ways, even more surprising.

The UAE, Morocco and Bahrain weren’t at war with Israel. Hezbollah, the Iran-allied Lebanese militant group, by contrast, has long been, and remains, one of Israel’s main security threats. It is also the most powerful political entity in Lebanon with a de facto veto over government decisions. So, it’s pretty extraordinary that Hezbollah is allowing the Lebanese government to sign a deal that could turn Israel and Lebanon into business partners. “Lebanon has, for the first time, entered a kind of de facto recognition of Israel and its borders,” writes Daniel B. Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

That’s something for which the Biden administration deserves a lot of credit — just as the Trump administration deserved credit for the Abraham Accords. It just goes to show that diplomacy does pay off sometimes — even if we don’t always give it the attention it deserves.

Political Dodge Ball

Matt Schlapp goes on Ari Melber's show to try out the new GOP bullshit talking points.

1. Biden was sworn in as president because Democrats committed fraud, but no - I'm not saying the election was stolen.
2. The GOP's What-About bullshit du jour: Vandalism during the BLM protests of 2020 was just as bad as MAGA sedition on Jan6. 

DIY Cult

There's one question that gets us out of the trap that religions and other cults set for us:

ie: What does god want?

• If the answer is "nothing", then both of us - that god and I - can just go about our business, each requiring nothing from the other.
• If the answer is anything but "nothing", then that god wants for something, which means that god is not complete, which means that god is not god.

And we have to keep in mind that every cult will set itself up so that something or someone is the "god" - the object of all the devotion and sacrifice and effort. It can be a person, or an ideology, or a business plan, or whatever. But it's always going to end up being sold to the devotees as "The Perfect [INSERT ENTITY/CONCEPT HERE]".

And no matter what else, when the inevitable collapse of the fantasy comes, the cult leaders will always always always try to fall back and regroup with:

• Communism didn't fail, we failed communism
• The plan didn't fail, we failed at executing the plan
• The policy didn't fail, we failed to fully implement the policy
• Conservatism didn't fail we failed to be sufficiently conservative

BTW, all that stuff about "it didn't fail, we did" is co-opted and adulterated and perverted, but it rings true because there's actually a small kernel of truth in it, having been derived from a universal truth:

Democracy fails

when we fail democracy

So we have to crank up the critical thinking, and make some decisions.

• What do we want to devote ourselves to?
• How do we differentiate between something decent and equitable vs something perverse and uncivilized?

From 23 years ago, Carey Burtt Films:

Ukraine

The Russians are in the process of some kind of evacuation in and around Kherson trying not to get slaughtered because Putin refuses to allow strategic retreat.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are pushing towards highway P66, which is the main supply route for the Russian operations in the northern area.

Prof Michael Clarke

Artur Rehi - Estonian Soldier

• Russian Orthodox priests are spying for Putin
• The convicts recruited from Russian prisons are (as suspected) being used as expendable decoys
• Russian moms are brainwashed

Fractured History

Cunk On Britain - With Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan)

Musica

An old favorite

Yundi - Beethoven, Adagio Cantabile (from Sonata Pathétique No. 8, op. 13)

Overheard

It's appalling to think millions of Americans are OK with the prospect of living under Daddy State rule as long as they can save 50 cents-a-gallon on gasoline.

Today's Geopolitics

It's a poker game where everybody's cheating,

and everybody knows everybody's cheating,

so everybody has to cheat to stay in the game.

Cynical Mike says - Iran is doing this in an attempt to get leverage as they negotiate a deal with their 'western enemies' to ease the sanctions. 

"We're gonna do this deal with Russia - what's it worth to ya to get us not to do it?" 

It's so fucking infuriating to hear these assholes say they don't care about the outcome - and they're not taking sides - outa one side of their mouths, and then "we want an end to the crisis through diplomatic means" outa the other side.

Its also not unreasonable to think Iran is doing this really shitty thing as a way to distract from the borderline revolution they have on the their hands, while demonstrating to "the west", and to their own people, that they're just as murderously capable as anyone else to rain fire and death on their enemies.

The world is a really fucked up place.

Exclusive: Iran agrees to ship missiles, more drones to Russia, defying the West

Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters, a move that is likely to infuriate the United States and other Western powers.

A deal was agreed on Oct. 6 when Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, two senior officials from Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards and an official from the Supreme National Security Council visited Moscow for talks with Russia about the delivery of the weapons.

"The Russians had asked for more drones and those Iranian ballistic missiles with improved accuracy, particularly the Fateh and Zolfaghar missiles family," said one of the Iranian diplomats, who was briefed about the trip.

A Western official briefed on the matter confirmed it, saying there was an agreement in place between Iran and Russia to provide surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles, including the Zolfaghar.

The Iranian diplomat rejected assertions by Western officials that such transfers breach a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution.

"Where they are being used is not the seller's issue. We do not take sides in the Ukraine crisis like the West. We want an end to the crisis through diplomatic means," the diplomat said.

Ukraine has reported a spate of Russian attacks using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones in recent weeks. Iran has denied supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin on Tuesday denied its forces had used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine.

Asked if Russia had used Iranian drones in its campaign in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin did not have any information about their use.

"Russian equipment with Russian nomenclature is used," he said. "All further questions should be directed to the Defence Ministry."

The ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The appearance of Iranian missiles in addition to drones in Moscow's arsenal in the war with Ukraine would raise tensions between Iran and the United States and other Western powers.

SHIPMENT 'SOON, VERY SOON'

The U.S. State Department assessed that Iranian drones were used on Monday in a morning rush hour attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a U.S. official said. White House spokesperson Karinne Jean-Pierre also accused Tehran of lying when it said Iranian drones are not being used by Russia in Ukraine.

A European diplomat said it was his country's assessment that Russia was finding it more difficult to produce weaponry for itself given the sanctions on its industrial sector and so was turning to imports from partners like Iran and North Korea.

"Drones and missiles are a logical next step," said the European diplomat.

Asked about sales of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia, a senior U.S. military official said: "I don't have anything to provide at this time in terms of whether or not that is accurate at this point."

Chafing under Western economic sanctions, Iran's rulers are keen to strengthen strategic ties to Russia against an emerging, U.S.-backed Gulf Arab-Israeli bloc that could shift the Middle East balance of power further away from the Islamic Republic.

 ➘

see: Biden's win on Israel-Lebanon agreement 

Iran's rulers are also under pressure from nationwide demonstrations which were ignited by the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman detained for "inappropriate attire".

Several European Union states on Monday called for sanctions on Iran over its supply of drones to Russia, as the bloc agreed a separate set of sanctions over Tehran's crackdown on unrest.

"They (Russians) wanted to buy hundreds of our missiles, even mid-range ones, but we told them that we can ship soon a few hundred of their demanded Zolfaghar and Fateh 110 short-range, surface to surface missiles," said one of the security officials.

"I cannot give you the exact time, but soon, very soon those will be shipped in 2 to three shipments."

An Eastern European official tracking Russia's weapons activity said it was their understanding that this arms deal was happening, although he had no specific evidence to back it up. The official said that a decision had been taken by the Iranian and Russian leaders to proceed with the transfer.

Moscow had specifically asked for surface to surface short-range Fateh 110 and Zolfaghar missiles, and the shipment will happen in a maximum of 10 days, said another Iranian diplomat.

ATTACK DRONES

The stakes are high for Iran, which has been negotiating with Western states to revive a 2015 deal that would ease sanctions on Tehran in return for limits on its nuclear work.

The talks have deadlocked, and any disputes between Tehran and Western powers over arms sales to Russia or Iran's crackdown on the unrest could weaken efforts to seal an accord.

The United States agrees with British and French assessments that Iran supplying drones to Russia would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 deal, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Monday.

The Western official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the matter, said that like the drones, missile transfers would also violate U.N. resolution 2231.

Several senior Iranian officials are outraged about "unjust" planned sanctions on Iran over its arms shipments to Russia, said the second diplomat.

In September, Tehran had refused a request by President Vladimir Putin for the supply of Iran's sophisticated Arash 2 long-range attack drones, three Iranian officials told Reuters.

When asked the reason for the refusal, one of the officials cited several issues including "some technical problems".

"Also the (Revolutionary) Guards' commanders were worried that if Russia uses this Arash 2 drone in Ukraine, Americans may have access to our technology."

Because We Don't Pay Attention

In our defense, pay attention to what exactly?

And if we do, how do we know what we're seeing?

How do we know Adam Conover (eg) isn't pulling our leg too?

See where all that Radical Skepticism gets us?

And that's pretty much the point. The Daddy State needs us to be so uncertain that we'll glom onto anything that sounds like it carries real authority.

(get it - authority - authoritarian? Yeah OK never mind)

Adam Conover - 501(c)(3) vs 501(c)(4) and how the behavior of "good billionaires" is just as shitty as all the other power-hungry assholes - they're just a lot better at PR.

BTW - in the last 50 years, animal populations have decreased by almost 70%, while biodiversity in the Caribbean & Latin American Region is down 94%.

⚠️

-94%

🫣

Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals

Huge scale of human-driven loss of species demands urgent action, say world’s leading scientists

Earth’s wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 69% in just under 50 years, according to a leading scientific assessment, as humans continue to clear forests, consume beyond the limits of the planet and pollute on an industrial scale.

From the open ocean to tropical rainforests, the abundance of birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles is in freefall, declining on average by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 2018, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet Report. Two years ago, the figure stood at 68%, four years ago, it was at 60%.

Many scientists believe we are living through the sixth mass extinction – the largest loss of life on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs – and that it is being driven by humans. The report’s 89 authors are urging world leaders to reach an ambitious agreement at the Cop15 biodiversity summit in Canada this December and to slash carbon emissions to limit global heating to below 1.5C this decade to halt the rampant destruction of nature.

The Living Planet Index combines global analysis of 32,000 populations of 5,230 animal species to measure changes in the abundance of wildlife across continents and taxa, producing a graph akin to a stock index of life on Earth.

Latin America and the Caribbean region – including the Amazon – has seen the steepest decline in average wildlife population size, with a 94% drop in 48 years. Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF-UK, said: “This report tells us that the worst declines are in the Latin America region, home to the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon. Deforestation rates there are accelerating, stripping this unique ecosystem not just of trees but of the wildlife that depends on them and of the Amazon’s ability to act as one of our greatest allies in the fight against climate change.”

Africa had the second largest fall at 66%, followed by Asia and the Pacific with 55% and North America at 20%. Europe and Central Asia experienced an 18% fall. The total loss is akin to the human population of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and China disappearing, according to the report.

“Despite the science, the catastrophic projections, the impassioned speeches and promises, the burning forests, submerged countries, record temperatures and displaced millions, world leaders continue to sit back and watch our world burn in front of our eyes,” said Steele. “The climate and nature crises, their fates entwined, are not some faraway threat our grandchildren will solve with still-to-be-discovered technology.”

She added: “We need our new prime minister to show the UK is serious about helping people, nature and the economy to thrive, by ensuring every promise for our world is kept. Falling short will be neither forgotten nor forgiven.”

Leading nature charities have accused Liz Truss of putting the economy before nature protection and the environment, and are concerned rare animals and plants could lose their protections when her promise of a “bonfire” of EU red tape happens later this year.

The report points out that not all countries have the same starting points with nature decline and that the UK has only 50% of its biodiversity richness compared with historical levels, according to the biodiversity intactness index, making it one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

Land use change is still the most important driver of biodiversity loss across the planet, according to the report. Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF-UK, said: “At a global level, primarily the declines we are seeing are driven by the loss and fragmentation of habitat driven by the global agricultural system and its expansion into intact habitat converting it to produce food.”

The researchers underscore the increased difficulty animals are having moving through terrestrial landscapes as they are blocked by infrastructure and farmland. Only 37% of rivers longer than 1,000km (600 miles) remain free-flowing along their entire length, while just 10% of the world’s protected areas on land are connected.

Future declines are not inevitable, say the authors, who pinpoint the Himalayas, south-east Asia, the east coast of Australia, the Albertine Rift and Eastern Arc mountains in eastern Africa, and the Amazon basin among priority areas.

The IUCN is also developing a standard to measure the conservation potential of an animal, known as its green status, which will allow researchers to plot a path to recovery for some of the one million species threatened with extinction on Earth. The pink pigeon, burrowing bettong and Sumatran rhino were highlighted as species with good conservation potential in a study last year.

Robin Freeman, head of the indicators and assessments unit at ZSL, said it was clear that humanity is eroding the very foundations of life, and urgent action is needed. “In order to see any bending of the curve of biodiversity loss … it’s not just about conservation it’s about changing production and consumption – and the only way that we are going to be able to legislate or call for that is to have these clear measurable targets that ask for recovery of abundance, reduction of extinction risk and the ceasing of extinctions at Cop15 in December.”