27 December - Netvibes 3 - 2

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DipNote: Latest Stories

Nine Ways MCC is Transforming Lives and Creating a Better World - This holiday season, we’re taking a look back at nine ways the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has created a better world at home and abroad this past year. Through MCC’s data-driven investments, we are: 1. Creating jobs and expanding markets By supporting policy and institutional reforms and funding large-scale infrastructure projects in partner countries, MCC opens new markets for U.S. companies so they can create jobs here at home. Today, we live in a global economy where 95 percent of the world’s consumers are abroad. Already, half of U.S. exports go to developing countries, and six of the 13 fastest growing economies in the world are located in Africa. MCC is working with other donors to rehabilitate and upgrade the Mt. Coffee hydropower dam to provide 88 MW of power to the Liberia grid. [MCC photo] Every year, through our partner countries, we issue approximately 550 competitive solicitations worth, on average, more than $600 million. Read more about how we are unlocking private finance in frontier markets and learn about our open procurement opportunities. 2. Building a more stable world Economic development is a key tool for increasing stability in some of the world’s most challenging regions, which in turn lays the groundwork for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. MCC’s work helps create new sources of prosperity and opportunity around the world. Workers rehabilitate the Bango Reservoir in the Senegal River Delta as part of MCC's Senegal Compact. [Jake Lyell for MCC] “When people don’t have access to clean water, roads to take goods to market, and an agricultural sector that produces enough food for everyone, they not only struggle to get ahead, they struggle to have hope and opportunity,” — MCC CEO Dana J. Hyde and ONE Campaign co-founder Jamie Drummond in a Devex op-ed about our support for Niger. 3. Promoting growth through infrastructure A lack of infrastructure like roads, bridges, power and ports remains a major hurdle to economic growth for developing countries. MCC is investing in and strengthening critical infrastructure that is necessary for stable and resilient societies and connects people to jobs, markets and opportunities. Two out of every three people in sub-Saharan Africa don’t have access to electricity, which means students can’t study at night, hospitals can’t provide quality healthcare, and businesses struggle to succeed. In Liberia, we are investing in the rehabilitation of the Mt. Coffee Hydropower Plant to increase the supply of reliable and affordable electricity for homes and businesses. Learn more about our power investments in Africa from our recent MCC Powering Africa Trip. 4. Investing in the next generation MCC’s investments in youth and education are bringing young people hope and opportunity. In total, MCC’s education projects have built or rehabilitated roughly 700 schools and supported education activities to benefit nearly half a million students. Sorya, second from right, attends a vocational training course in Morocco supported by MCC's Morocco Compact. [Jake Lyell for MCC] Through our first compact with Morocco, students like Sorya (2nd from right) received literacy and vocational training to boost their employability in high-growth industries like agriculture, fishing, and artisan crafts. Today, our second compact with Morocco, the Morocco Employability and Land Compact, is building on that investment to give the country’s young people the skills they need to thrive in the modern workforce. 5. Incentivizing policy and institutional reform MCC’s rigorous eligibility criteria, competitive selection process, and global credibility have created a powerful incentive for policy and institutional reform, dubbed “the MCC Effect.” Countries around the world are reforming their policy environments to improve their performance on MCC’s annual scorecards. As part of its effort to improve performance on our scorecard, Sierra Leone launched the Pay No Bribe program, which gives citizens a means to anonymously report bribery and corruption. Read more about Sierra Leone’s Pay No Bribe program in the Economist. 6. Empowering women and girls MCC empowers women and girls to drive change in their communities. Research shows that addressing gender inequality can unlock economic growth, and MCC is committed to advancing girls’ education and integrating gender considerations across all of its projects. Ra’eda works as a plumber in Jordan after receiving training through MCC’s Jordan Compact. [MCC photo] In Jordan, Ra’eda received training as a plumber as part of our investment to improve and sustain the nation’s water infrastructure. Today, she is serving her community and bringing in an income to support her family. The Associated Press profiled another female plumber who participated in the training under our compact with Jordan. 7. Increasing capacity in partner governments Country ownership is a pillar of the MCC model. When a country is awarded a compact, it sets up its own “Millennium Challenge Account,” a local entity to manage and oversee all aspects of implementation. By partnering with MCC, countries learn effective project implementation and accountability and transparency best practices. MCC’s approach supports self‐sufficiency and builds local expertise and know‐how that endure long after MCC’s investment comes to a close. A team of roughly 50 professionals at MCA-Malawi, drawn from the country’s public and private sectors, is implementing our $351 million compact to fight poverty in Malawi. With support from their MCC counterparts based in Washington, MCA-Malawi is working with the government and local partners to revitalize the country’s power sector and connect people to reliable electricity. 8. Giving entrepreneurs the tools to succeed MCC’s projects not only support entrepreneurs and business owners, they give people the tools and resources they need to become entrepreneurs and sustain their businesses. Access to markets means businesses can efficiently reach consumers, and reliable electricity means businesses aren’t subject to losses when the power goes out. Like many businesses in Accra, Ghana, Billy Saviour Wornyo’s printing firm relies on an expensive generator when the electricity goes out. Through MCC’s Ghana Power Compact, he’s looking forward to a brighter and more stable future. [MCC Photo] Billy, the owner of a printing firm in Accra, has considered closing his business because of repeated power cuts that force him to rely on an expensive generator. Thanks to our Ghana Power Compact, Billy hopes to use the cost-savings to keep his business afloat and even hire more employees. 9. Laying the groundwork for healthy communities A healthy population is strongly linked to economic growth and poverty reduction. MCC’s investments help governments provide critical, cost-effective health services that improve lives and build a more productive workforce. Women in Indonesia learn how to properly measure a baby's size as part of MCC’s Indonesia Compact. The project is designed to improve nutrition by empowering communities through knowledge and local capacity building. [MCC Photo] In Indonesia, stunting affects one in three children, significantly reducing their lifetime earnings potential. Through our compact, we are providing mothers with micronutrient supplements and offering communities training and grant support for village-level activities focused on health and health education. Thank you to our partners who have made our work possible this past year. Together, we’re building a better future. About the Author: Noah Rayman serves as a Speechwriter at the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Editor's Note: This entry was originally published on Medium.com. For more information:  Read other DipNote blogs by MCC staff. Follow the Millennium Challenge Corporation on Twitter at @MCCgov.   06:00

Celebrating Kwanzaa: Remaking Our Traditions and Our World - Mine is a family of tradition, especially around the holidays. Our Christmas tree always went up after Thanksgiving as soon as my father bought the latest White House ornament. Every year we open stockings on Christmas Eve followed by the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Our Christmas Eve's always involved baking sugar cookies, until I began learning German in middle school and from that point on we made enough snickerdoodles to last for weeks. My mom being from Jamaica, we celebrated Boxing Day on December 26th, which was treated like a second Christmas -- a day to relax and if possible take short trips as a family. On New Year’s Day, in honor of the American Southern tradition, my mom and dad made black eyed peas to bring good fortune for the new year. Given our myriad of eclectic yet well-rehearsed holiday traditions, we were confused the first year my dad pulled out red, green, and black candles and placed them in candle holder next to our black nativity scene on the family room mantel piece. It was probably around 1995 when my family celebrated Kwanzaa for the first time. Kwanzaa is a secular festival observed by many African Americans from December 26 to January 1 as a celebration of cultural heritage and traditional values. For my family celebrating Kwanzaa was an opportunity to rediscover values that were important to us but that often felt overlooked in the emphasis on parties, shopping, and gift giving during the holiday season. Growing up in a slowly suburbanizing area, I knew hardly anyone who celebrated or knew anything about Kwanzaa. During those years I spent a lot of time explaining to classmates and co-workers why I needed to be home with my family the day after Christmas and through New Year’s. In the end, however, it came down to this -- although it was a relatively new tradition, just like many other holidays of the season Kwanzaa provided an opportunity for our family to reflect on the year that past and the year ahead. Only we did this through the lens of Kwanzaa’s seven core principles.  The principles of Kwanzaa were developed by Dr. Maulana Karenga, who is now a professor and chair of Africana Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Back in the 1960s, Karenga was an activist-scholar whose intellectual work played a key role in shaping the Black Arts Movement and Black Studies Movement in the United States. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Kwanzaa and the annual theme is "Kwanzaa, the Nguzo Saba and Our Constant Striving: Repairing, Renewing and Remaking Our World." ‘Nguzo Saba’ are the seven principles that serve as the anchor for this holiday, which are explained briefly below. Each of the seven principles, or Nguzo Saba, are celebrated over the seven days of Kwanzaa in the following order: Day 1: Umoja -- Unity. Unity stresses the importance of togetherness for the family and the community, which is reflected in the African saying, "I am We," or "I am because We are." Day 2: Kujichagulia -- Self-determination. Self-determination requires that we define our common interests and make decisions that are in the best interest of our family and community. Day 3: Ujima -- Working together. Collective work and responsibility reminds us of our obligation to the past, present and future, and that we have a role to play in the community, society, and world. Day 4: Ujamaa -- Supporting each other. Cooperative economics emphasizes our collective economic strength and encourages us to meet common needs through mutual support. Day 5: Nia -- Purpose. Purpose encourages us to look within ourselves and to set personal goals that are beneficial to the community. Day 6: Kuumba -- Creativity. Creativity makes use of our creative energies to build and maintain a strong and vibrant community. Day 7: Imani -- Faith. Faith focuses on honoring the best of our traditions, draws upon the best in ourselves, and helps us strive for a higher level of life for humankind, by affirming our self-worth and confidence in our ability to succeed. As I look back over the guiding principles of Kwanzaa, I am reminded how much these are now values -- service, creativity, purpose -- I carry around with me not only during the holiday season but all year long, and particulary in my career as a Foreign Service Officer. In the spirit of Kwanzaa, it is my hope that we all take the closing days of the year to reflect, rest, and reassert our commitment to making the world a better place for all in 2017. About the Author: Jaclyn A. Cole serves as Managing Editor of DipNote in the Department’s Office of Digital Engagement.  For more information: See an official statement by the President and First Lady Obama on Kwanzaa. Read additional DipNote blogs by the Managing Editors of DipNote, Jaclyn Cole and Ashli Savoy.  Check out DipNote's other holiday blogs on Hanukkah and Christmas. 26 Dec

Happy Hanukkah! Chag Sameach - The eight-day festival of lights, Hanukkah, is celebrated nightly with the lighting of the menorah, special prayers, dreidel games, and best of all, foods fried in oil. Just thinking of my mom’s delicious brisket and latkes (potato pancakes) makes my mouth water! So what exactly are we celebrating? I recently spoke with my hometown rabbi about this special holiday. Hanukkah means “dedication,” and is thus named because it commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem in the second century BC when the people of Israel, led by Judah the Maccabee and his men, defeated occupying forces in the face of overwhelming odds. As they attempted to restore their temple, which had been destroyed in the war, they discovered that there was only enough oil to light the lamp that held the eternal flame for one day. The story is that a miracle occurred, and the small amount of oil lasted for eight days. To commemorate and publicize this historical event, the rabbis instituted the festival of Hanukkah, a joyous eight-day celebration of freedom, hope, and the power of faith.‎ President Barack Obama said, "Proudly practicing our religion, whatever it might be -- and defending the rights of others to do the same -- that's our common creed.  That’s what families from coast to coast confirm when they place their menorah in the window -- not to share the candles’ glow with just our family, but also with your community and with your neighbors." As you gather with your family and friends to celebrate Hanukkah, may the lights of the menorah brighten your home and your heart! About the Author: Sarah Thomas serves as a Public Affairs Specialist in the State Department’s Office of Digital Engagement. For more information: Read the President's 2016 Hanukkah statement. Find out how the President Obama and the White House celebrated Hanukkah this year. Watch President Obama's remarks at the 2016 Afternoon White House Hanukkah reception. Watch President Obama's remarks at the 2016 Evening White House Hanukkah reception. View a photo galllery of Hanukkah celebrations at the White House. 23 Dec

Away From Home for the Holidays - Each year more than 300,000 people from around the world come to the United States on cultural exchange program to study, work, and experience life in America. One of the highlights for exchange participants is often celebrating holidays with U.S. host families, from cookouts on the Fourth of July to turkey feasts on Thanksgiving in November. For Americans, this time of year is known as the holiday season, so we asked exchange participants to share their favorite holiday exchange moment with us. Here are some of their responses. It's beginning to look a lot like the holidays on social media! Share your favorite exchange moments with us - > #ExchangeOurWorld. pic.twitter.com/uCxkQ1xjVo — Evan Ryan (@ECA_AS) December 13, 2016 Some got into the holiday spirit by volunteering and attending holiday parties. @ECA_AS Our #women4peace leaders are in the holiday spirit! Some volunteered w @ToysForTots_USA & others experienced a holiday party! #IVLP pic.twitter.com/ljaaT43vuq — IVLP at IIE DC (@IVLPIIEDC) December 14, 2016 Afghan midwives & doctors learned about @StudyHome 's fine work & had a great time wrapping holiday gifts @USEmbassyKabul @MeridianIntl pic.twitter.com/H5oP6gHgqV — WAC of Western Mass (@WACWestMA) December 16, 2016 While others see the holidays as a thoughtful opportunity to share their culture with Americans. [Instagram photo by Angelica] In the holiday spirit? Watch a #KLYES student from #Lebanon sing "Laylat Eid," the #Arabic version of Jingle Bells! https://t.co/w95S3Cxeq8 pic.twitter.com/4NQcVvf1b1 — AMIDEAST (@AMIDEASThq) December 15, 2016 Still others, find it fascinating to partake in American traditions, like meeting Santa Claus, trimming trees, drinking hot chocolate, or for those in DC, visiting the National Christmas Tree. [Instagram photo by Mihail] #YESAbroad students in #Macedonia are bringing some holiday cheer to the @AmCouncils_MK office in Skopje! pic.twitter.com/5ukgvnYuJg — YES Abroad (@KLYESAbroad) December 15, 2016 .@yesprogramnews & @FLEXProgram students w/ their friends & family visited DC winter holiday sites Full album: https://t.co/myTWMCUfJZ pic.twitter.com/ntbYG7LUgo — CapitalClub (@DC_Capitalclub) December 13, 2016 [Instagram photo by Andi] .@yesprogramnews & @FLEXProgram students w/ their friends & family visited DC winter holiday sites Full album: https://t.co/myTWMCUfJZ pic.twitter.com/ntbYG7LUgo — CapitalClub (@DC_Capitalclub) December 13, 2016 Check out Go-J1 Internships USA and J-1 Visa's Facebook Album.  Of course, the holidays are mostly for spending time with “family." Martina & her host family are getting into the seasonal spirit! Follow the #FLEXProgram on Instagram to see more holiday updates! pic.twitter.com/nuvVpi6sm1 — FLEX Program (@FLEXProgram) December 12, 2016 #YES student Katarina getting in the Christams spirit with her host brothers in Kennewick, Washington, where she's placed. [Facebook photo by American Councils for International Education in Boznia and Herzegovina] "I do not know how to say all my thanks to my host parents for opening to me their hearts and becoming my first and best host-family. It makes me cry when I think of leaving them in June, but it makes me cry from happiness because I have these wonderful people in my life. And y'all who read this post and think about being an exchange-student or hosting an exchange-student, it is worthy! I swear it will be the best time in your life! I am happy to be the part of Provis family and even more happy that I will stay its part for all my life!" [Flex Program Photo/@marina__barysheva_] Happy Holidays! Are you celebrating the holidays away from home this year? Share your photos with us using #ExchangeOurWorld. About the Author: Lauren Aitken is a Social Media Producer with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. 23 Dec

The Holiday Season: A Time for Celebration, Gratitude, and Reflection - For me, Christmas is a time of celebration, gratitude, and reflection. As a man of faith, I celebrate the birth of Christ. I celebrate the values by which he lived. And I celebrate the abundant spirit of compassion for the less fortunate that is ever-present during this season. As I connect with family, I can’t help but give thanks for the blessings bestowed upon us, including good health and daily provision. I am also grateful for the opportunity to exchange gifts with family and friends as tangible expressions of love and appreciation for one another. And I’m very thankful for the generous helpings of collard greens, ham, dressing, and macaroni and cheese that I’ll find on my parents’ dinner table. Finally, as I mark the end of the year, this season provides me with a chance to reflect. I reflect on the accomplishments and challenges of the previous year. I also reflect on how I can offer hope, and encouragement to any who may need it in this season. At this year's White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony President Obama shared his thoughts, "The holidays offer us a time for reflection and perspective...as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, as we retell the story of weary travelers, a star, shepherds, Magi, I hope that we also focus ourselves on the message that this child brought to this Earth some 2,000 years ago -- a message that says we have to be our brother’s keepers, our sister’s keepers; that we have to reach out to each other, to forgive each other. To let the light of our good deeds shine for all. To care for the sick, and the hungry, and the downtrodden. And of course, to love one another, even our enemies, and treat one another the way we would want to be treated ourselves.” The President continued, “It’s a message that grounds not just my family’s Christian faith but that of Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, non-believers -- Americans of all backgrounds. It’s a message of unity and a message of decency and a message of hope that never goes out of style.” I echo this sentiment. This time of year truly represents an opportunity for all of us to find ways to reach out to one another. From my family to yours, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. I hope that as we enter a new year, we all continue to let the holiday spirit shine and influence all we do. About the Author: Aaron Bruce serves as a Public Affairs Specialist in the State Department’s Office of Digital Engagement. For more information: Read the President's remarks at this year's White House tree lighting ceremony. Read Secretary Kerry's remarks “Home for the Holidays” reception. 23 Dec

Tips for Holiday Travel Safety: Are you #ReadyToTravel? - Traveling overseas this holiday season? Here are a few things to think about before you head out. Follow @TravelGov on Twitter and send us your holiday travel selfie using the hashtag #ReadyToTravel! Check our Country Specific Information pages to learn about your destination before you go.  Travel.state.gov has information for each country, including entry/exit requirements, safety and security information, travel warnings or alerts, health and vaccination requirements, and special circumstances you may run into while abroad. For example, in Nepal, if you want to go on a hiking expedition (maybe you’re trying to summit Everest on Christmas Eve to see Santa fly by?), you are required to register with the Nepal Tourism Board. The country pages on travel.state.gov provide this type of specialized information! Make sure your passport/visas are valid! Many countries require that your U.S. passport have at least six months validity remaining in order to enter that country and some countries require U.S. citizens to have a valid visa prior to entry. You can find all entry/exit requirements on travel.state.gov. If you need to renew your passport in a hurry (e.g. you are traveling within the next two weeks), make an appointment at the nearest Passport Agency and pay for expedited processing. Enroll your trip in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), and follow @TravelGov on Twitter/Facebook. STEP enrollment will provide you with destination-specific security information via text or email. TravelGov posts security and emergency messages to social media in real time. Make sure you’re insured. If your U.S. health care plan does not cover you overseas, consider buying supplemental insurance to cover medical costs and emergency evacuation—especially if you are taking a more adventurous holiday trip (e.g. heli-skiing in the Alps!). Know that foreign hospitals and doctors often require payment in cash, and emergency medical evacuation can cost up to $100,000. Stay in regular contact with family and friends back home. Give them your itinerary and check in periodically via phone, email, social media, etc. Should a disaster strike while you are traveling, your family and friends will worry about your safety. The easiest way to calm everyone’s fears is to keep in touch. In the event that you need someone to help you, your family/friends can call 1-888-407-4747 (or 202-501-4444 from outside the United States) to get in contact with the Department of State. Know where the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate is located.  Travel.state.gov country-specific information pages have the contact information for all U.S. embassies and consulates. Keep this information handy in case you run into trouble and need assistance. For example, if you lose your passport while traveling abroad, you must head to the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate to get a new one before you can board an airplane to travel internationally. In an emergency, embassy or consulate duty officers are available 24/7 to assist U.S. citizens. Safe travels, and happy holidays!  About the Author: Alyssa Zalenski serves as Digital Media Advisor in the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. For More Information: Visit passport.state.gov for more information on U.S. passports and travel.state.gov international travel. Follow @TravelGov and visit TravelGov Facebook page for specific updates from the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Read other DipNote blogs related to Consular Affairs. 23 Dec

U.S. Foreign Assistance in Southeast Asia Highlights Shared Priorities and Strong Partnerships - I recently returned from a trip to the Philippines and Burma.  Despite the tremendous differences and unique challenges faced by these two countries, I came away reminded of the significant benefits derived from our investments in our foreign assistance partners.  Foreign assistance is not charity; it is an investment in our global community, in a strong America, and in a free world.  Our foreign assistance empowers our international partners and reinforces their willingness and abilities to work with us in pursuit of common goals. My visit to the Philippines reminded me that the U.S.-Philippines alliance is built on a 70-year history; rich people-to-people ties, including a vibrant Filipino-American diaspora; and a long list of shared objectives. Foreign Assistance Director Hari Sastry visited both State Department and USAID supported foreign assistance programs in both the Philippines and Burma. [State Department photo] I traveled to Tagbilaran City in Bohol Province, where I met with Governor Edgar Chatto, Mayor John Yap, and members from the local business community. Tagbilaran is the business capital and center of governance for Bohol province and has been recognized as one of the 25 most competitive cities in the Philippines.  The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been implementing development activities in Bohol since the 1990s, and local officials in Tagbilaran were quick to highlight how the U.S.-Philippines Partnership for Growth (PFG) has supported their development plans and policies. Under the PFG, USAID partners with the Philippine government to enhance the competitiveness of key industries (tourism, agribusiness, and manufacturing) by facilitating and removing barriers to investments through policy reform and infrastructure development.  These initiatives bolster coordination among the stakeholders involved in Bohol’s development and unify investment promotion programs to attract more investments throughout the province. I also travelled to Subic Bay, the site of the former U.S. Naval base, to tour the Philippine Navy’s BRP Gregorio Del Pilar (BRP is a ship designation, like “USS” in the U.S.).  Formerly a U.S. Coast Guard High-Endurance Cutter, the BRP Gregorio Del Pilar was decommissioned by the United States Coast Guard in March 2011 and transferred to the Philippine Navy two months later.  It is the first of three such cutters that have been transferred to the Philippine Navy under the Excess Defense Articles program, which provides equipment declared “excess” to allies in support of U.S. national security objectives.  Foreign Assistance Director Hari Sastry meets members of the Philippine navy during his recent trip to the EAP region. [State Department photo] The  enhanced capabilities of the Del Pilar and her sister ships provide expanded opportunities for the Philippine Navy to participate in joint exercises and train with other navies in the region, to patrol and monitor the Philippines’ vast maritime spaces, and to contribute to humanitarian assistance and disaster response.  The Filipino officers I met with clearly took pride in their ship and expressed their gratitude for continued U.S. assistance.  Throughout my visit, my interactions with Philippine officials reinforced the fact that the United States and the Philippines have a deep and broad relationship, where the numerous, strong partnerships continue to move forward.  In Burma, I saw firsthand the critical role U.S. foreign assistance plays in supporting the U.S.-Burma partnership while continuing to strengthen and deepen reforms.  There is a palpable sense of optimism and energy as the country opens up.  Close coordination between the United States and Burma remains a critical aspect to success as Burma’s government begins to take a new look at the important role of foreign assistance. Foreign assistance will play an increasingly critical role as Burma addresses its legacy challenges, which include years of repressive military rule, economic instability, communal violence, and decades-long conflict with ethnic armed groups.  Forerign Assistance Director Hari Sastry aboard BRP Gregorio del Pilar during his recent visit to the Philippines. [State Department photo] In Lashio City I visited more than 100 religious, civil society, and youth leaders at an interfaith harmony workshop supported through USAID’s Kann Let (Offering Hand”) project. This forum addressed issues related to inter-communal conflict while also promoting tolerance in local communities. Notably among the participants was Mansu Sayardaw, the Chairman of Lashio District Sangha Council and the influential Buddhist spiritual leader of the region, known for sheltering Muslims who were being persecuted by Buddhists in Lashio and surrounding areas.  Despite Rakhine State, these individuals and organizations in Northern Shan State remained committed to the important work of reconciliation. USAID will continue to provide opportunities for coordination and cooperation among civil society and local leaders, and enhance their ability to promote tolerance and build peace in their communities.      During a visit in the Ayerwaddy Region, I spoke with people from rural communities about the impact of U.S. assistance on their lives.  Small-scale bridges and walkways built after Cyclone Nargis in 2008 are impressively well-maintained and still providing valuable services to communities. The use of credit and technology introduced by USAID’s current activities increased yields for farmers in such magnitudes that they were able to invest in new non-farm businesses, send children to secondary school and university, build community infrastructure, and farm more of their land.  Farmers in this region are progressive and eagerly adopt new technologies, maximizing the benefits of USAID assistance aimed to increase smallholder farmers’ productivity and address their challenges. Foreign Assistance Director Hari Sastry meets an infant at a baby-weighing program in Burma. [State Department photo] In Sin Pin Thar Village in central Burma, just outside Meiktila--one of more than 2,800 villages in Burma targeted through USAID's Shae Thot ("Way Forward") project--U.S. assistance facilitates community participation and strengthens community governance to achieve sustainable solutions in the areas of maternal and child health, livelihoods and food security, and water, sanitation, and hygiene.  The Village Development Committee established through Shae Thot showed me the village's child nutrition and health activities, as well as their revolving goat and seed banks.  The community "banks" allow members to receive livestock or improved seed varieties with a commitment to "pay back" their loan once the animals breed or harvests are complete, freeing up new resources for other community members.  This type of assistance is preparing communities to more fully participate in the democratic transition, while saving lives of children and improving economic conditions for rural communities.   Burma and the Philippines are truly places where we are seeing a strong return on investment for our foreign assistance. Our investment in both Burma and the Philippines today is critical for our shared tomorrow, and I look forward to following their progress. About the Author: Hari Sastry serves as Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources at the U.S. Department of State. For more information: Learn more about U.S. Foreign Assistance over the last decade. Follow the State Department's Office of Foreign Assistance @USForeignAssist on Twitter. 22 Dec

#RefugeesWelcome: U.S. Companies Setting the Standard for Inclusive Hiring - When the winners of the Secretary of State’s Awards for Corporate Excellence (ACE) were announced earlier this month, I was delighted to see that McDonald’s Deutschland was one of the winners of the first ever ACE award for inclusive hiring practices for hiring refugees in Germany.  This is the type of corporate leadership that makes many of our companies our best ambassadors overseas. Today, we are witnessing the largest displacement of people since World War II.  Twenty million refugees are scattered across the globe; the Syrian conflict alone has uprooted 4.5 million people.  A crisis of this scale simply cannot be solved by one or many governments alone.  An “all hands on deck” approach is needed. The private sector has a crucial role to play -- driven not just by beneficence but by dividends. That is because many refugees I have met over the course of my work have hard skills and can have a significant positive impact once they are economically integrated in their host economies. Syrian refugee family reads the day's edition of the local news  with special pages in Arabic for refugees, while on a train ride from their temporary accommodation facility to the central registration center for refugees and asylum seekers in Berlin. [AP Photo] In a visit to Germany earlier this year, I had the opportunity to speak with several refugees at a refugee center in Berlin. One family shared their harrowing journey fleeing Syria over land and sea -- across 25 countries in seven days with a 16-month-old child.  The father was a mechanic in Syria; all he wanted was the dignity of a job and a paycheck to provide for his family.  That is precisely the opportunity that McDonald’s Deutschland is providing.  Since 2015, McDonalds has hired over 900 refugees to fill positions in their 1,500 franchises in Germany, and partnered with the government of Germany to provide 20,000 language courses for refugees.  As the Department of State’s Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs, I have spent the past nine months encouraging U.S. firms to follow in the footsteps of companies like McDonald’s and respond to the White House Call to Action for Private Sector Engagement on the Global Refugee Crisis. Launched in June, the Call to Action has attracted over 61 new commitments from the private sector in the areas of employment, education, and enablement of refugees. During my trip to Jordan, our delegation visited ReBootKamp, an organization training Jordanians and refugees to be software engineers. [State Department Photo] Building on the Call to Action, last month, I led a private-sector delegation of leading U.S. firms to Jordan to explore trade and investment opportunities that entail skilling, training, and hiring refugees.  Many of them came away with a clear appreciation of the opportunity to both do well and do good.  Yet McDonald’s Deutschland CEO Holger Beeck captured the essence of the Call to Action even before the Call to Action was launched.  Back in February 2016, when Beeck announced that McDonald’s was signing onto the, “Wir Zusammen” or, “We Together” effort, he made it clear that hiring and integrating refugees into Germany presents a tremendous opportunity yet one that required “active measures." McDonald’s Germany, the country’s largest restaurant chain, has workers from 125 countries on its staff. [Photo Courtesy McDonald's Germany] “If we want this challenge to become a great opportunity for Germany, we have to accompany the new diversity with active measures. From our experience, speaking a common language is a foundation for a peaceful coexistence of different cultures. In our restaurants as well as in our country! With the online language courses, we want to make our contribution.”   Congratulations to McDonald’s for its contribution and leadership and for winning this year’s ACE Award for inclusive hiring!  About the Author: Ziad Haider serves as a Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.  For more information:  Learn more about the Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence.  Learn more about the White House Call to Action for Private Sector Engagement on the Global Refugee Crisis. Follow the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs Facebook page and @EconEngage on Twitter to learn more. 22 Dec

Strengthening Democracy in West Africa: Cabo Verde Hosts a Regional Conference on Executive Transitions - Cabo Verde has long been hailed a role model for African democracy. Achieving independence in 1975, Cabo Verde was a one-party state until 1990. That year the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde was challenged by the Movement for Democracy.  Since then, each of these political parties has enjoyed sustained periods of rule with successful democratic transitions in between.  Most recently, in March 2016, Movement for Democracy won a majority in parliament for the first time in 15 years. Incoming Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva requested assistance to ensure the new executive team was well-prepared to enter office and to put a new legal framework into place to ensure smooth transfers of power in the future. With support from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, the National Democratic Institute has been working with the incoming Cabo Verdean government to strengthen their capacity.  A view of Cabo Verde. [State Department photo] As part of this effort, the government of Cabo Verde and the National Democratic Institute agreed to co-host a regional conference to share their experiences during the transition. This conference, pegged the West Africa Regional Conference on Democratic Transfers of Executive Power, convened last month bringing together a delegation of political leaders, senior staff members, and legal experts from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal. The conference, which was timely given the number of elections occurring across the region, provided a platform for countries to share good practices and lessons learned from political transitions in the region. The first day of conference panels focused on regional and international policies regarding legal and regulatory frameworks governing democratic transfers of executive power. The second day focused on developing standards for managing the transition process and the first 100 days in office. The final conclusions from these discussions will be compiled into a conference declaration, and representatives will determine how to present their findings to their home governments. Regional leaders meet at the West Africa Regional Conference on Democratic Transfers of Executive Power. [State Department photo] During the conference electoral disputes and the lack of reliable information were both cited as cause for tension amongst political parties and civil society supporters, contributing to the inability for transitions to occur smoothly and peacefully.  All participating countries noted the need to either include or strengthen legislation regarding transitional frameworks and processes in their constitutions, as roles and responsibilities for both incoming and outgoing administrations are not defined.  Additionally, the inability of outgoing administrations to leave office with dignity and resume some element of normalcy in their lives was cited as another reason many leaders hold on to power despite engaging democratic electoral processes.  Providing roles and stability for leaders who are stepping down was another element participants raised when discussing constitutional amendments regarding transitions. Keynote speeches by former interim Heads of State Amos Sawyer of Liberia and Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic offered pointed insights about the importance of strengthening democracy across sub-Saharan Africa and how good governance can build credibility and legitimacy in fragile environments. Regional leaders pose for a photo at the West Africa Regional Conference on Democratic Transfers of Executive Power, hosted by the National Democratic Institute and the Government of Cabo Verde. [National Democratic Institute photo] The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was pleased to support National Democratic Institute’s efforts to provide a regional platform for national leaders to talk about their experiences with executive transitions and effective governance in Africa. We believe this model of engagement could be continued in sub-Saharan Africa and replicated in other regions around the world.  With stable, democratic countries such as Cabo Verde facilitating the conversation, this model could be a foundation for other countries in the region to strengthen their own democratic institutions. About the Author: Allison Beaufort is a Program Specialist in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the U.S. Department of State.  For more information:  Read other DipNote blogs about transitions and democracy and U.S. relations with African nations.  Read a statement about Cabo Verde's March 2016 elections. Learn more about the West Africa Regional Conference on Democratic Transfers of Executive Power. Follow the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on Twitter at @State_DRL.  Learn more about the work of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.  22 Dec

U.S. Corporate Leadership Amidst the Refugee Crisis: A View from Jordan - Earlier this month, I had the privilege of leading a ten-member U.S. business delegation to Jordan representing a broad array of sectors, including infrastructure, consumer goods, financial services, and informational technology. The objective of the trip was to expand trade and investment ties with a key strategic partner in the Middle East while finding ways to help employ and integrate Jordan’s refugee population in the face of a global humanitarian crisis. The delegation was an extension of my office’s mandate at the State Department to promote U.S. commercial interests, while executing on the White House Call to Action for Private Sector Engagement on the Refugee Crisis to which over 60 leading U.S. firms have already responded. We began our meetings in Amman with the Prime Minister followed by the Minister of Trade, Chair of the Jordanian Investment Commission, the Royal Court Director of Investment, as well as industry leaders and key business associations. The message we consistently received was that U.S. companies not only have unique commercial opportunities in Jordan building on the success of the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and Jordan’s potential as a regional hub but also that U.S. private sector engagement is key to helping Jordan cope with the strain caused by 16 percent unemployment and the inflow of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Jordanian Prime Minister Hani Al-Mulki (center) welcomes the U.S. delegation. [State Department Photo] One specific avenue we explored for our firms to “do well and good” in Jordan was a new Jordan-European Union (EU) agreement under which firms operating in Jordan’s 18 Special Economic Zones and employing 15 percent Syrian refugee labor will enjoy preferential access to the EU market. To explore how our firms might leverage this deal, the delegation met with the CEO of the King Hussein Industrial Zone in Mafraq -- one of the zones encompassed by the EU deal and near the Za’atari refugee camp. The delegation toured the Zone and a factory of Petra Engineering that makes air conditioning units with imported U.S. steel; whose clients span NASA to Facebook; and is a potential beneficiary from the EU deal and partner for U.S. firms. The success of the EU deal and, more broadly, U.S. companies operating across sectors in Jordan turns, in part, on the ability to access skilled labor. Given that the Information and Communications Technology sector accounts for nearly 10 percent of Jordan’s GDP, the delegation visited ReBootKamp that trains Jordanians and refugees to be software engineers and subsequently places them at top IT firms. One inspiring individual we met was well on his way to successfully completing the program  despite being a Syrian refugee with a sixth-grade education and wheelchair-bound from a sniper’s bullet. Delegation tours Petra Engineering factory in Mafraq Industrial Zone. [State Department Photo] Even still, plenty of talent remains untapped in Jordan. In a visit to a refugee community center in Amman, we met with several Syrian refugee volunteers who shared their stories of fleeing Aleppo, Dara’a, Homs, and Damascus at great cost. Teachers, electricians, and accountants, they were keen to work yet a number of their professions fell into closed work categories for refugees. Informed by a deeper understanding of the opportunities and the challenges of doing business in Jordan, the delegation yielded a range of outcomes. One delegation member plans to launch a fund to support tech start-ups and will now also focus on start-ups led by or hiring refugees. Another member plans to leverage the connections made on the trip to obtain university scholarships and employment commitments for refugees. A third member was able to parlay the delegation into a meeting with senior officials to discuss digitizing government services and financial inclusion products for refugees. Yet another member was able to initiate discussions with a Jordanian company on a major power project -- the type of deal that has the ability to “lift all boats” in Jordan by providing a boost to the economy. In short, the visit succeeded in highlighting concrete business opportunities for U.S. firms in Jordan, as well as the opportunity for them to help respond to the refugee crisis. For a crisis of this scale, with the largest group of displaced people since World War II, requires an “all hands on deck” approach. Special Representative Haider meets with refugees at Danish Refugee Council community center. [State Department Photo] As I have previously described, our private sector has not just a philanthropic but a compelling commercial interest in engaging amidst the refugee crisis; many of them have already admirably risen to the occasion in response to the White House Call to Action. Next month, Secretary Kerry will be recognizing one such company as part of his annual Award for Corporate Excellence: McDonald’s for hiring 900 refugees in Germany since 2015 and providing over 20,000 online German language learning course licenses to refugees. As I approach the end of my tenure as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs, I take great pride in the corporate leadership that our firms have shown to date. With the Tent Foundation having assumed a lead role in coordinating private sector engagement in response to the refugee crisis , I am optimistic about the momentum created by the Call to Action and the potential for such corporate leadership to become self-sustaining and for other firms to step forward. About the Author: Ziad Haider serves as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Editor's Note: This entry originally appeared on Medium.com. For More Information: Visit www.whitehouse.gov/aidrefugees for more on how you can get involved to help refugees in the United States and globally. Check out the latest White House factsheet with a call to action for private sector engagement on the global refugee crisis. Read additional DipNote blogs by Special Representative Ziad Haider. Like the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs Facebook page, and follow @EconEngage on twitter to learn more. 21 Dec

Emerging Education Technologies

How Technology Helped Reluctant Students Learn to Embrace Reading - Learn how this Teacher Used the EPIC! Reader App to Get Challenged Students on Board with Reading For years, educators have heard how technology was going to change teaching. But for most teachers,... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 06:55

EdTech Tweet Wrap for the Week Ending 12/24/16 (Happy Holidays Everyone!) - Inspiring, informative, useful, or just plain fun tweets posted on Twitter over this past week … collected here to share with our blog readers. Well, I’m exhausted from days of prep to host my... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 26 Dec

3 Key Technology Macro Trends Impacting Education Over the Coming 5 Years - Is Your School, Your District (and Your Country) Ahead of the Curve, or Falling Behind? We all know that schools are integrating more and more technology into the learning experience and that this... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 21 Dec

Tips for Shooting High Quality Educational Videos at Home - If you Want to Kick up Your Educational Videos a Notch, Here are Some Tips That can Help A good part of my job has to do with helping college professors incorporate flipped learning into their daily... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 20 Dec

10 Fresh Administrative Tools to Help Principals Lead the Way - Tools to Help Empower Top-Down Leadership Principals are not only managers but leaders who change their schools and guide them to better teaching and learning. Our responsibilities as leaders have... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 19 Dec

Teaching and Tech’ing Tweet Wrap for the Week Ending 12-17-16 - Inspiring, informative, useful, or just plain fun tweets posted on Twitter over this past week … collected here to share with our blog readers. This week … has your school reached an ed tech... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 18 Dec

Introducing the “Flipped Educator Spotlight” from FlippedLearning.org - The Original, Non-Profit Hub for the Flipped Learning Community Introduces a new Video Series Spotlighting the work of Flipped Educators. As I announced here, over this last summer I assumed the role... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 13 Dec

Why Proofreading is the Most Important Thing for Your Scholarship - Proofreading can Help To Improve any Writing Effort I clearly see the impact of NOT proofreading in the courses I teach. Why are so many students so reluctant to grasp the importance and need for... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 12 Dec

Teaching and Educational Technology Tweet Wrap, w/e 12-10-16 - Inspiring, informative, useful, or just plain fun tweets posted on Twitter over this past week … collected here to share with our blog readers. This week in the Wrap … colleges (along with many... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 11 Dec

Headset Virtual Reality — OK at Home, Impractical for Learning? - (Image Source) Today’s post comes from Elizabeth Lytle, who works with zSpace (I’ve written about zSpace here before – a powerful VR based platform for education). While there is... [Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post. Thanks (and thanks for subscribing)!] 8 Dec

Exopermaculture » Feed

Will Trump Transform American Foreign Policy? - Let’s hope so. It is the main reason, that, though I did not vote for either him or “her,” I was very glad that he won. Re: Tillerson for Secretary of State, see Steve Pieczinek: Rex Tillerson Is A Good Choice Here’s long-time investigative reporter Robert Parry’s assessment of what Trump might do, if we are very very fortunate. Clearly, he’s the first president in decades who doesn’t owe anything to anybody. The positive that Trump could do December 23, 2016 by Robert Parry Consortium News © missvaginismus.blogspot.comA well-placed poke in the eye? Despite fears about the many negatives from a Donald Trump presidency, one positive could be his shattering of the monopoly that neocons and liberal hawks now hold over U.S. foreign policy. Americans and the world have valid reasons to worry about Donald Trump’s presidency, given his lack of experience and his refusal to recognize that his loss of the popular vote should moderate his emerging domestic policies. But Trump also could do some good things. Particularly, Trump could break the death grip that neoconservatives and their “liberal interventionist” tag-team partners now have locked around the throat of U.S. foreign policy. Trump owes little to these “regime change” advocates since nearly all of them supported either other Republicans or his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. And the few who backed Trump, such as John Bolton and James Woolsey, have been largely passed over as Trump assembles his foreign policy and national security teams by relying mostly on a combination of outsiders and outcasts. Obviously, there remains much uncertainty about what foreign policy direction a President Trump will take and the neocons/liberal-hawks in Congress are sure to mount a fierce battle to defeat or intimidate some of his nominees, particularly Exxon-Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State because of his past working relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, assuming that the neocon/liberal-hawk establishment fails to stop Trump from escaping Official Washington’s foreign policy “group thinks,” the new president could radically reorder the way the U.S. government approaches the world. Lost Opportunity Eight years ago, President Barack Obama had a similar opportunity but chose to accommodate the Establishment and empower the neocons and liberal hawks by appointing his infamous “team of rivals”: Republican Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, liberal-hawk Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and leaving in place President George W. Bush’s military high command, including neocon-favorite Gen. David Petraeus. For doing so, Obama won applause from the editorial and op-ed writers but he doomed his presidency to a foreign policy of continuity, rather than his promised change. Only on the edges did Obama resist the neocon/liberal-hawk pressures for war and more war, such as his decision not to bomb Syria in 2013 and his negotiations with Iran to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon in 2014. But Obama bowed down more than he stood up. He let Secretary Clinton push a neoliberal economic agenda by supporting oligarchic interests in Latin America, such as the 2009 Honduran coup, and extend the neocon “regime change” strategy in the Middle East, with the brutal overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and covert support for rebels in Syria. Even after the original “team of rivals” was gone at the start of his second term, Obama continued his pathetic efforts to appease the powerful, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by undertaking a submissive three-day tour of Israel in early 2013 and cozying up to the Saudi royals with trips to the kingdom despite intelligence that they and their Gulf state allies were financing Al Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists. Though Obama would eventually boast about the rare moments when he defied what he called the Washington “playbook” of relying on military options rather than diplomatic ones, it was a case of the exception proving the rule. The rule was that Obama so wanted to be accepted by Washington’s well-dressed and well-heeled establishment that he never ventured too far from what the editorialists at The Washington Post and The New York Times deemed permissible. Still, the neocon/liberal-hawk establishment continued to scold America’s first African-American president for not doing everything that the “smart people” demanded, such as escalating the U.S. role in the “regime change” war in Syria or fully arming Ukraine’s military so it could more efficiently slaughter ethnic Russian rebels on Russia’s border. Power Consolidated In the end, however, Obama did nothing to alter Official Washington’s balance of power on foreign policy. Indeed, over his eight years, the neocons and liberal hawks consolidated their power, essentially banishing the once-relevant “realists” from establishment circles and smearing the few anti-war and independent voicesas fill-in-the-blank “apologists,” maybe even “traitors” deserving FBI investigation. It now is clear that if Hillary Clinton had won, the drive to silence any dissent against the neocon/liberal-hawk orthodoxy would have escalated. The recently revealed strategies for isolating and punishing dissident Web sites took shape before the Nov. 8 election, not afterwards. The U.S. government also continues programs to throw tens of millions of dollars to contractors whose job it is “to counter Russian propaganda,” code words for going after and harassing Web sites and other news outlets that question U.S. State Department propaganda. For historians, there may be a reasonable debate about whether Obama was an enthusiastic supporter of these anti-democratic policies or was simply too eager to please the Establishment to resist them. Nevertheless, despite his early promises of transparency and openness, he oversaw an administration that ruthlessly suppressed government whistleblowers and bought into the neocon/liberal-hawk manipulation of the American people via “perception management” or what NATO likes to call “strategic communications.” Obama then sat back passively as his Democratic Party sought to replace him with Hillary Clinton who had done as much as anyone to turn his beloved motto of “change” into the sad reality of “more of the same.” I’m told that Obama privately had grave doubts about Clinton but he did nothing to encourage alternative Democratic candidates, like Senators Elizabeth Warren or Sherrod Brown, to take on the money-churning Clinton machine. Because of Obama’s miscalculations and timidity, he now will have to take part in the painful and humiliating process of handing over the keys to the White House to a man who launched his national political career by pushing the racist canard that Obama was born in Kenya. Trump’s Challenge But the question after Jan. 20 will be whether Trump has the guts and tenacity to enact some of the “change” that Obama promised. Particularly, will Trump stay the course in challenging the neocon/liberal-hawk establishment that rules the roost of Washington’s foreign policy? Can Trump withstand the barrage of slings and arrows that will zero in on him if he rejects the neocons’ “regime change” ambitions and if he presses for a détente with Russia to resolve the Ukraine crisis and to present a united front against Islamic terrorism? If Trump moves in those directions – pulling back on the New Cold War with Russia and ending the coddling of Saudi Arabia over its covert backing of jihadists across the region – he could finally put the U.S. government on a more rational track for achieving its national interests. One of Official Washington’s favorite “group thinks” has been that Iran is the “chief sponsor of terrorism,” a formulation favored by Israel and Saudi Arabia – as part of their anti-Shiite alliance – but it is clearly a lie. Yet, to take on the Saudis over their real leading role as state sponsors of terrorism, Trump would have to take on the Israelis, a daunting prospect. In that regard, Trump’s choice of lawyer David Friedman, a staunch supporter of right-wing Israeli settlers, to be U.S. ambassador to Israel has been viewed as a major concession to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, but it could be a decidedly mixed blessing. If Israel gets its way and further expands Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, it will be jettisoning the longstanding false hope for a “two-state solution.” That means Israel will have to either become a blatantly “apartheid state,” holding Palestinians as stateless or second-class citizens, or accept a “one-state solution,” granting both Jews and Arabs equal rights, arguably the most logical and humane answer to the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma. In other words, if Trump takes on Saudi Arabia – finally recognizing its role as the principal state sponsor of terrorism – and sweeps away the “two-state solution” which has been a liberal excuse for doing nothing to resolve the Israel-Palestine mess for years, he could be clearing a path to a saner U.S. policy toward the region, not one dictated by the likes of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Saudi King Salman. Obviously, the powerful neocons and their “liberal interventionist” sidekicks would not sit idly by and accept such a radical challenge to their preferred options in the region, i.e. more “regime changes” for countries that get onto the Israeli-Saudi “enemies list.” And, it is certainly possible that President Trump would retreat when he confronts the Establishment’s fury that would surely come. However, if he follows through on this course of action, he might finally shatter the neocon/liberal-hawk monopoly over Official Washington’s bloody foreign policy. And the world and the American people might find that a very positive thing indeed. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. His latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative. The post Will Trump Transform American Foreign Policy? appeared first on Exopermaculture.13:18

Heads Up! “Operation Cankles”!!! - Another hilarious satire about “those damn Russkies” and how they mess with U.S. elections. This one stimulated extended giggles. “Operation Cankles” — Russian Intervention Exposed Did the Russians really rig the 2016 US election? The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair exposes ‘the truth’ – You bet they did! Secret documents recently discovered in a bin behind a Kremlin-district 24-hour cabbage and tobacco store reveal for the first time the devious extent of Russian interference. These plans were decades in the making. Read on, as never-before-seen communiques between Russian agents Sergei Potrov and Dimitri Bienko outline the wicked plot – beginning in 1947, on the day of Hillary Clinton’s birth: Dearest Dimitri I am pleased to report that phase one of Operation Cankles is total success! Soviet implantation of stupid American woman resulted in birth today of hefty girl-child destined to be unelectable candidate 70 years from now. Child is basically just ankles and head, similar to sturdy and hard-working female stock from adored Ilmensky Mountains. In decadent America, nobody will ever vote for such a noble being. Yours in Soviet solidarity, Sergei Back in Moscow, Bienko receives the news from his undercover US-based operative with communist glee: Dearest Sergei, You have done very well, comrade! Especially with the implantation. I trust the child has your eyebrow. We have already begun looking at similar strategies in other western nations. When you are next on leave, ask me to show you plans for Operation Julia. Australia is next to face unforgiving Soviet wrath! Yours, Dimitri As the years go by, our pair of dedicated spies continue to monitor Hillary’s progress and other events: MORE   The post Heads Up! “Operation Cankles”!!! appeared first on Exopermaculture.10:34

Might recent tragic events ignite the common space of compassion? - I can’t help but wonder about the timing of first, the assasination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey on December 19th; second, the suspicious “suicide” of the NATO chief auditor in charge of counter-terrorism on December 23rd; and third, the downing of the Russian plane carrying a beloved band and singers flying to Syria for a Christmas concert, on December 25th. Is the world being subjected to a series of — tit-for-tat?— false flag events? And what will be the outcome? Given that I am seeing, in many places, this wonderful Red Army Band play songs that are treasured in America, could the horrific sacrifice of these 92 souls move even Russkie-hating, mind-controlled Americans into, not just compassion, but unification with the people whom the fading American Empire still insists on seeing as The Enemy?   The post Might recent tragic events ignite the common space of compassion? appeared first on Exopermaculture.09:06

Obama and Putin: Up close, and personal — and poisoned - I pointed out in a post on the astrology of Vladimir Putin that as a martial artist, he knows exactly what he is doing, and can boomerang the energy of an opponent with skillful moves that involve the least effort. Both that post and the following cartoon were published in 2014. Two years later, the results are in. This is one very human relationship that apparently will not heal, no matter how much we invoke Christmas cheer. A Loser’s Malice: What’s Behind Obama’s Withering Attacks on Putin and Vladimir Putin’s Withering Scorn for Barack Obama Laid Bare   The post Obama and Putin: Up close, and personal — and poisoned appeared first on Exopermaculture.26 Dec

Assange: How “heads of institutions or policy” maintain the appearance of power - One metaphor in the final paragraph of  an Italian publications’s poorly translated, recent interview with Julian Assange riveted me. Indeed, pondering its implications filled me with energy! I put the metaphor in bold. The rest of the interview is also well worth reading, especially Assange’s remarks on the difference between Hillary and Trump. Interviewer: One of the first times we met, there was a book on his desk: “The Prince” by Machiavelli. What did he learn of the power in ten years of WikiLeaks? “I came to the conclusion that most of the power structures are deeply incompetent, filled with people who do not really believe the institutions to which they belong, and that much of the power is, in fact, the perception of power. And the more they work in secret plus they are incompetent, because the secrecy generates incompetence, while the transparency of gender competence, because it makes it possible to compare the different actions and determine which is the most effective. In order to maintain the appearance of power, the heads of the institutions or policy, such as Presidents, spend most of their time trying to walk in front of the train, while pretending that it is to follow them, but the direction is fixed from the tracks and the train engine. Understanding this means understanding that smaller organizations and motivated people can defeat these institutional dinosaurs as the State Department, the CIA or the NSA “. The post Assange: How “heads of institutions or policy” maintain the appearance of power appeared first on Exopermaculture.26 Dec

A Christmas walk and meal with son Colin - Son Colin Cudmore and I spent the afternoon together, starting at 11:30 AM. We drove 18 miles to McCormick Creek State Park, and walked for two hours before dinner at the Canyon Inn there. Here’s the beautiful little falls, on a day with icicles. The creek full, and muddy, due to last night’s rain. After a while we stopped to take a selfie of the two of us. Actually, three pics, cuz in one of them only he “looked good,” and in a second one only I “looked good.” By the time we took that third shot, where we both “look” sort of okay, we were laughing like crazy. At the end of one of the trails we were on (we had two full hours prior to our 2 p.m. dinner slot), we happened upon the fire tower which, on my 70th birthday four years ago, I had decided to climb as a way of symbolically seeing my life “from above.” I had thought about this climb for a few weeks before my December 19th birthday, knowing that 70 would be an important milestone, and that climbing the tower was a great way to celebrate it — both the arduousness of the climb that got me to 70, and the glorious view once on top. Well, that day, and that moment when I began that climb . . . I will simply never forget it. Because when I started up, I discovered that all the steps were iced over, and that therefore to climb the tower would be exceedingly hazardous. But I determined to do it anyway. . . for about three more steps . .   when I suddenly stopped, and realized that I was being extremely foolish. I date my new caution when assessing risks to that moment when I gave up my grand plan, and carefully stepped backwards to the ground. The experience left me shaking. Not because it was scary, but because what if I hadn’t listened to my own advice? There have been many times in the past when I did not — often with consequences that I regretted. So it’s about time I did listen to what my gut was telling me, especially in life-threatening circumstances So, today, on our walk, I told Colin the story of that memorable day, and decided to climb the tower now, this time to the top, since there was no ice. Colin elected to sit on a bench nearby, and watch. And take a pic of me when about 3/4 of the way up. Afterwards, I said to him: “This would be a great place to call in UFOs.” “Yes it would. I have a new laser, so all we have to do is learn the protocol.” He and I track mentally very much the same way, on many matters. After our scrumptuous traditional dinner at the Canyon Inn, we called his brother Sean in Massachusetts, who was driving with the kids, Drew and Kiera, to a dog park with their pup Lily.  Then Colin drove me home, dropped me off, and went back to his new, single digs. In honor of his changed status, I lent him Robert Bly’s potent book, “A Little Book on the Human Shadow,” which I had unearthed yesterday while continuing this year’s birthday project of thoroughly cleaning, not just my altar, but my entire room. Tonight, I’m going to let myself be captured once again, by the new original Netflix series, “The OA.” I’ve watched the first two (of six) the last two evenings, and they are so beautifully and intensely rendered that I can’t watch more than one at a time. Highly recommended, even though I have no idea where this series is heading. Unlike, say, “House of Cards,” where you figure out pretty soon that the entire series is created from a bleakly cynical point of view. Or say, “24,” which rendered up such cruelty time after time that I realized the audience was being desensitized to torture. Once I figure something out, I’m no longer interested. So I’m glad this one still has me guessing. Merry Christmas to all!     The post A Christmas walk and meal with son Colin appeared first on Exopermaculture.25 Dec

Three geopolitical posts to ponder on Christmas Day - Christmas Day morning, as usual, finds me abed with ipad, taking notes from internet news. Here are a few choice morsels for today from zerohedge. I promise not to bother your Christmas fun further! First, a part of me very much admires the grand strategic thinking of the following post. And hopes that the Trump group sees it. (BTW: Lada Ray says somewhere that the Trump group sees her posts. YES!) Former CIA Spy Has Christmas Message for Trump Then there’s — The United States and the Race for Global Hegemony — which obviously isn’t going all that well. . . Which brings me to Dmitri Orlov, tongue-in-cheek? Is Obama A Russian Agent?     The post Three geopolitical posts to ponder on Christmas Day appeared first on Exopermaculture.25 Dec

On Christmas Day, Blessed Be the Healers of the Earth - This morning, with puppy Shadow on our walk, I marveled at how not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, inside or outside (admittedly, our walk was early). Even the merchants did not open today, perhaps the one day in the entire year when nobody, except gas stations, displayed lights with movement inside. I marvel at how cultural/religious/commercial programming can completely take over the collective unconscious, and outpicture in this manner on the one day of the year when at least Christians bend over backwards to be grateful for gifts and generous to one another. Not that they have to try. It’s built in to the season, this magical, expansive frequency field. Might we extend the field to forever?   And might we also remember how many people have died, since Christ, due to Christianity? Victims of the Christian Faith Above all, we need to remember our home planet with intense gratitude and generosity. Mother Earth, and her beautiful, cyclical relationship to Father Sun, the one planet in this solar system that sits in the “goldilocks zone” (not too much, not too little sun to support liquid water). Here’s Starhawk, thanking all those who work in service to Earth. http://untitledfineartgallery.com/featured-artists/featured-artists/kimberly-webber_/ We give thanks for all those who are moved, in their lives, to heal and protect the earth, in small ways and in large. Blessings on the composters, the gardeners, the breeders of worms and mushrooms, the soil-builders, those who cleanse the waters and purify the air, all those who clean up the messes others have made. Blessings on those who defend trees and who plant trees, who guard the forests and who renew the forests. Blessings on those who learn to heal the grasslands and renew the streams, on those who prevent erosion, who restore the salmon and the fisheries, who guard the healing herbs and who know the lore of the wild plants. Blessings on those who heal the cities and bring them alive again with excitement and creativity and love. Gratitude and blessings to all who stand against greed, who risk themselves, to those who have bled and been wounded, and to those who have given their lives in service of the earth. May all the healers of the earth find their own healing. May they be fueled by passionate love for the earth. May they know their fear but not be stopped by fear. May they feel their anger and yet not be ruled by rage. May they honor their grief but not be paralyzed by sorrow. May they transform fear, rage, and grief into compassion and the inspiration to act in service of what they love. May they find the help, the resources, the courage, the luck, the strength, the love, the health, the joy that they need to do the work. May they be in the right place, at the right time, in the right way. May they bring alive a great awakening, open a listening ear to hear the earth’s voice, transform imbalance to balance, hate and greed to love. Blessed be the healers of the earth. -Starhawk LikeShow more reactions Comme   The post On Christmas Day, Blessed Be the Healers of the Earth appeared first on Exopermaculture.25 Dec

Possible Good News: Putin and Trump - I find it interesting and significant that I discovered something wonderful about both Putin and Trump during these past few days of this most sacred Solstice time of the year. And want to share my findings with you. Admittedly, they are anecdotal, and esoteric; they prove nothing. But they both indicate, I feel, a very strong possibility that neither Putin nor Trump are the demons mind-controlled Americans make them out to be. Putin’s birth chart shows a hidden 12th house stellium of planets in Libra, near where Jupiter currently sits, exactly opposing transit Uranus in Aries, squaring transit Pluto and Mercury, and sextile/trine transit Saturn. Putin comes forth as a master Libran diplomat who knows how to forge an alliance with a number of players simultaneously, as well as a make a decision to move forward in an enlightened manner, with the means, motive, and capacity to enact it. Here is what he just told journalists in his annual four plus hours of Q &A. For example, Aleppo. Now a few words about Aleppo. Indeed, the President of Turkey and the President and all leaders of Iran in general played a very large role in resolving the situation around Aleppo. This involved exchanges and unblocking several areas with a Shiite majority. Perhaps this will sound immodest but this would have been simply impossible without our participation, without Russia’s participation. So, all this cooperation in the trilateral format definitely played a very important role in resolving problems around Aleppo. Indicatively, and this is extremely important, especially at the last stage, this was achieved without military action, as the Defence Minister just reported to me about this work at the final stage. We simply organised and carried out the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, and not only radical armed groups and their representatives but also women and children. I am referring to the over 100,000 people who were evacuated from Aleppo. Thousands were moved out of other residential areas in exchange for this withdrawal from Aleppo. This is the biggest – and I want to emphasize this for all to hear – the biggest international humanitarian action in the modern world. It could not have been carried out without the active efforts of the Turkish leadership, the Turkish President, the President of Iran and all other Iranian leaders, and without our active participation. Needless to say, this would not have been achieved without the goodwill and efforts of Mr Assad, the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, and his staff. So, experience shows that there is a need for this format and we will, of course, develop it. I would not disregard the interests and the involvement of other countries in the region, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and, of course, Egypt. Undoubtedly, it would also be wrong to approach issues of this kind without a global player such as the United States, so we are willing to work with everyone. The next step, while we are at it, should be an agreement on a ceasefire throughout Syria, immediately followed by practical talks on political reconciliation. We suggested Astana, Kazakhstan, as a neutral territory, and the President of Turkey agreed. The President of Iran also agreed as did President Assad. President Nazarbayev has kindly agreed to provide this venue. I very much hope that we will manage to put it on a practical footing. Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to stun observers and critics with his audacious behavior, wiping anything and everything off the table that doesn’t concern or interest him, and addressing exactly what he wants to all the time. His comment, when discussing the “Very nice” Christmas letter he received from Putin, struck me with its poignancy. Clearly, this man knows the nuclear stakes. Time Magazine: “A very nice letter from Vladimir Putin; his thoughts are so correct,” Trump said in a statement, along with the letter, which is dated Dec. 15. “I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path.” Even more exciting for me, is to read that, according to his Vedic astrology chart, Trump has just moved out of a 7-year egocentric, competitive Rahu/Mars/10th house dasa into an 18 year benevolent Jupiter dasa. The Rahu/Mars/10th house emphasis during these past  seven years, prompted him to show his stuff as a warrior who could do anything he wanted and win, or if not win, then roar back from any temporary setback. I do not know of another political leaders (for yes, that is what he is now) who even comes close to him for sustained fiery energy; and we should be grateful that he has the balls to do whatever; of course what concerns everyone is what whatever is, and I, among others, argue that we need to give him at least 100 days to show his stuff as president. And then, after that, if necessary, hold his feet to the fire (or, I would say, even impeach him). For the stakes could not be higher; they concern the life and death of this planet and all life upon her. I think he knows this. And even if he doesn’t, his benevolent, generous, far-seeing Jupiter dasa will begin to lift him to a higher frequency, so that he no longer needs to enact Mars — me, my ego, the greatest player, the one who can trump whoever. By the way, Unlike Trump, Putin doesn’t exaggerate, nor does he pump up his own ego. So that he described what happened in Aleppo as as “the biggest humanitarian action in the modern world,” is significant. World, take note. He is asking us to continue. The meeting of these two leaders will be titanic. I have a feeling that Trump knows that he needs to learn from Putin. That he sees Putin as his mentor, more evolved; and I have a feeling and Putin knows Trump wants to evolve. That he wants to be the greatest president ever. And that in order to get there, he must change, to become truly the leader of all Americans in a cooperative, multi-centered world. Putin’s letter, in this context, was meant as an encouragement. Yes, come on. Come on in. The water’s fine. And our planet will benefit.     …. The post Possible Good News: Putin and Trump appeared first on Exopermaculture.24 Dec

Meditation on Christmas, then and now - December 24, 2016. Christmas Eve. Alone in the house. Both housemates off visiting family. Me and puppy Shadow and kitty Persephone holding space for the new year to come. What I notice: how happy I am, either alone or together with others. How this Christmas season is not filled with angst, the way it used to be. “Angst.” Is that the word I need here? Not really. It doesn’t penetrate to the core of what used to happen every year, like clockwork, during this traditional season of celebration. Rather, something like this: a deep feeling of ickiness, sludge, yuckiness, a sense of being dragged down into a toxic cesspool of unresolved “issues” (read: feelings) from the past. Each Christmas, I would think of how this year reminds me of last year, and the year before that. How that one year, back in my late 40s, I fell and twisted my foot just prior to my now deceased husband Jeff and I were to drive from Jackson Wyoming to Seattle to be with my family during the Christmas season. We still drove there, though I sensed that my “accident” had changed everything. I felt crippled. My physical condition had plunged me underneath any kind of surface seasonal frivolity into grief. Deep grief. Core grief. A grief carried through lifetimes. When we arrived, I couldn’t even go to the family reunion. In fact, I never even let anyone in my family know that we were in town! Instead, we holed up at an old friend’s house, and she was very accommodating of me, who basically, just remained immobilized, in bed, for the entire week we were there. Not sick. But as if dead. Dead to the world. Dead to all but the frozen feelings that had suddenly, if sludgingly, had surfaced when I twisted my foot. That Christmas season was probably the worst. Over 30 years ago, now. Even then, I was thinking back on the excitement of Christmas when I was a kid. How I would always mark the progress of each year by how soon Christmas would arrive. In March, nine months to go; in July, six months; in September, three months, etc. Christmas was the high point; not so much the “presents,” which in a family of eight children, meant one small pile for each, but the intoxicating piney scent of the tree inside the house, set with twinkling lights and ornaments from years past. And the beautiful Christmas carols; the cards arriving in the mail; the special Christmas meal. And the feeling in the air, so unlike the remainder of the year. Everybody caught up in something magical and alive. The atmosphere of Christmas truly did engender its own frequency. Then I grew up, and as I did, I didn’t notice at the time, but the materialism that has since devoured America grew more and more pronounced. Christmas, the season, became, for merchants, the time they looked forward to, because it hopefully, would save their business for the year. Christmas, for middle-class parents, became the time when they would flood their children with ghastly plastic, primary colored “toys” that squeeked, talked like robots, belled and whistled. Walking through the living room of my son Sean’s house mid-morning on Christmas day, I would wade through this stuff, all this new stuff, which would be somehow added to all the old stuff from years past, very little of which was actually “played with.” Even then, I noticed that my grandkids would rather play with pots and pans in the kitchen. What was all this godawful garishly colored stuff for? So gaudy, so over-stimulating! Leaving no room for the imagination! When I was in my twenties, and sons Sean and Colin were small, I would try like hell to conjure up the spirit of Christmas for our little family; we’d have the tree, the presents, the special Christmas meal. But all the while I knew I was doing it for the kids; and it was accomplished with great effort, since I felt like such a fake the entire time. And now, of course, when Colin and I visited Sean’s house in Massachusetts this Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but notice, as usual, that the house is filled with screens: iphones, ipads, computers, an even larger T.V. for Netflix and Amazon. Not that I don’t indulge myself! I too own an iphone, ipad and computer, and large TV. So, here we are, at Christmastime, once again, and mirable dictu, this year I have absolutely no sense of the ickiness that used to pull me under. Partly this is because I have managed in the past 20 years or so, to “switch” from Christmas to Solstice, from the Christian scrim over the original pagan recognition of the Sun’s Winter Solstice pause in the southern sky, its turn, it’s procession north over the next six months. Since the Solstice comes only two days past my December 19th birthday, over these 20 years I have folded these special occasions into one another, dubbing that fusion, “the holiest time of the year.” A time when, usually, I descend into silence, solitude, letting the world go for that liminal period when all possibilities abound, and none of them yet realized. That is, until this year. This year, I happen to be purchasing a third contiguous house for our Green Acres Village, to close on December 28th. And so you can imagine how my own sense of ceremony and celebration, except for our beautiful community celebration on Solstice itself, has been curtailed by all the details attendant to a house purchase that, for various tax reasons, must be completed by the end of the year. Son Colin and I will walk nearby McCormick Creek’s State Park paths tomorrow morning, and then indulge our special Christmas dinner at the Canyon Inn there, 2 p.m. Looking forward.   The post Meditation on Christmas, then and now appeared first on Exopermaculture.24 Dec

The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation

US Has Participated in Other UN Resolutions Chiding Israel - The Israeli government, and Republicans in Congress, have expressed outrage over the Obama administration’s decision to allow adoption of a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemns Israel’s settlement construction. These critics are portraying the U.S. move to abstain from the vote on Israel’s settlement activity—rather than using its veto power—as a last symbolic blow from outgoing President Barack Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They also depict it as a break from the American precedent of shielding its longtime ally from action at the United Nations. But other American administrations regularly have abstained or supported U.N. resolutions critical of Israeli policy. Indeed, until this latest resolution adopted Friday, Obama had been the only president not to let a resolution critical of Israeli policy be adopted by in the Security Council. “Virtually every U.S. administration in the last 30 to 40 years has allowed a resolution critical of Israel, particularly of settlements, to pass through abstention,” Jeremy Pressman, a University of Connecticut professor who studies the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the U.N. has a “disproportionate” volume of resolutions against Israel, which he believes has “foiled the ability of the U.N. to fulfill its role effectively.” According to research compiled by Seth J. Frantzman, the op-ed editor for The Jerusalem Post, 226 U.N. Security Council resolutions relating to Israel have surfaced since 1948. Americans for Peace Now, which advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, found that during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency, the Security Council adopted at least seven resolutions critical of Israel—with the U.S. allowing the measures to be adopted either by abstaining or voting for them. During Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, there were at least 15 such resolutions, Americans for Peace Now reported. The number peaked at 21 under President Ronald Reagan, when the United States voted in 1981 to condemn Israel’s air attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor. In 1987, meanwhile, the Reagan administration abstained and allowed adoption of a resolution that condemned Israel for killing Palestinian students and included Jerusalem as part of the “Palestinian and Arab Territories, occupied by Israel since 1967.” Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. in 2003 voted for a resolution endorsing the Roadmap for Peace—an attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—that called for a freeze of Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and for Palestinian leaders to curb terrorism. Pressman says the strong reaction to the Obama administration’s abstaining vote in the Security Council likely had to do with its timing—just before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed a different approach to Israel. “On the one hand, we have seen this kind of resolution before—but not in the context of eight years of bad relations by a U.S. president and Israeli prime minister, as we’ve seen with Obama and Netanyahu,” Pressman said. “So there’s a confluence of factors that takes something that has happened before and turns it to a high-level confrontation.” In addition, the resolution is not limited to settlements in the West Bank. The Security Council also considers East Jerusalem as occupied territory, and that Israeli settlements there have “no legal validity.” The resolution explicitly targets Israeli settlement construction as a barrier to peace, and includes only a vague condemnation of “all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement, and destruction.” “I don’t think there will ever be a perfect U.N. resolution,” said Richard LeBaron, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Israel. “The Palestinians benefit from being the minority party in the situation and having more sympathy among U.N. nations,” LeBaron told The Daily Signal in an interview, adding: On the other hand, the substance of the resolution should not be that surprising to the Israelis. They know the U.S. considers these settlements to be illegal and everyone in the international community sees them as illegal. Trump, in a Twitter post Friday, hinted at broader frustrations with the United Nations. “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” Trump wrote. Netanyahu was also quick to criticize United Nations scrutiny of Israel, especially as other, more pressing challenges in the Middle East such as the war in Syria continue to defy solutions. “Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. and will not abide by its terms,” Netanyahu said in a formal statement. “At a time when the Security Council does nothing to stop the slaughter of half a million people in Syria, it disgracefully gangs up on the one true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and calls the Western Wall ‘occupied territory.’” Undeterred by the stance of the Security Council, Israel’s government later said it would move ahead with building thousands of new homes in East Jerusalem. Netanyahu also has curbed diplomatic contacts with Security Council countries, recalled envoys, and cut off aid to the United Nations. And Israeli officials have alleged that the U.S. orchestrated the U.N. vote. The Obama administration denied that claim. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has threatened to cut American funding to the United Nations over the resolution. Despite the United Nations’ longstanding focus on Israel, and its most recent statement on settlements, LeBaron does not expect the international body to become the primary facilitator in peace negotiations. “I don’t think this particular resolution indicates a policy decision by the Obama administration that the U.N. is a good instrument through which to pursue negotiations,” LeBaron said, adding: I don’t think there is a useful role for the U.N. There is a built-in bias, and if anything, this weakens their hand. More generally, this resolution won’t have any impact on the future of negotiations. There is a new U.S. administration coming in. It’s a new game now. Pressman agreed that because the resolution on Israeli settlements is nonbinding, it will have no immediate tangible effect on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the peace process—just like previous statements by the United Nations haven’t. “It’s hard for me to think of a moment in the past 25 years when a U.S. resolution criticizing Israeli settlements has been decisive in U.S.-Palestinian negotiations,” Pressman said. “I have a hard time seeing this as some kind of decisive marker.” The post US Has Participated in Other UN Resolutions Chiding Israel appeared first on The Daily Signal. 16:34

Trump’s Pick for Attorney General Prosecuted These Civil Rights Cases - Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., spent a considerable amount of his time as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama pressing civil rights lawsuits. He also assisted local prosecutors in a case that helped wipe out the Ku Klux Klan in the state. “All I’ve seen from Jeff Sessions is that he has followed law,” Horace Cooper of @Project21News says. Yet accusations about the Alabama senator’s past on racial issues have become a focal point for those opposing his confirmation to be the next attorney general after President-elect Donald Trump takes office. NAACP President Cornell Brooks, in a written statement, accused Sessions of having “disdain for our nation’s civil rights laws.” Brooks said: Senator Sessions’ record suggests that he will carry on an old, ugly legacy in this country’s history when civil rights for African-Americans, women, and minorities were not regarded as core American values. While Lady Justice may be said to be blind, we need an attorney general with 20/20 vision in seeing racial injustice. Whether Senator Sessions, with decades of failing grades on the NAACP’s report card, possesses a racial vision and commitment to justice is in serious question. A letter to Senate leaders from member organizations of the Leadership Conference, a coalition of civil rights groups, asserted: “Sessions has a 30-year record of racial insensitivity, bias against immigrants, disregard for the rule of law, and hostility to the protection of civil rights that makes him unfit to serve as the attorney general of the United States.” But the same letter goes on to say: Senator Sessions’ record does include some positive actions. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center … acknowledged that he was helpful in the center’s successful effort to sue and bankrupt the Ku Klux Klan following its role in the 1981 lynching death of Michael Donald. The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold a confirmation hearing for Sessions in the new year even before Trump, who picked him to run the Justice Department,  is sworn in as president Jan. 20. The old accusations against Sessions played a key role in stopping his 1986 nomination to serve as U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Alabama. Sessions is no racist and such attacks are a means of personalizing policy differences, said Horace Cooper, co-chairman of Project 21, a black conservative group, and adjunct fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research. “All I’ve seen from Jeff Sessions is that he has followed the law as the Supreme Court has defined it and has not attempted to make law,” Cooper told The Daily Signal. “It’s proper for a U.S. attorney general or a state attorney general to make decisions based on the law, whether the law is popular or not.” Responding to a question from the Judiciary Committee asking him to describe the 10 most significant cases he litigated, Sessions wrote that five regarded racial matters, such as voting rights, desegregation, and prosecution of a Klan-motivated murder. He also explained his role in a fraud case against a civil rights activist, who was acquitted. Paul A. Hancock, a former Civil Rights Division lawyer now in private practice in Miami, said in an interview with The Daily Signal that Sessions worked with the division and never against it. Still, Hancock delivered negative testimony to the Judiciary Committee about Sessions in 1986. Leading Critic of Trump’s Attorney General Pick Withdrew Accusation in 1986 “Civil rights cases are mostly handled out of D.C. but the U.S. attorney’s views are sought,” Hancock told The Daily Signal. “It’s not unheard of for the U.S. attorney to take credit for a lawsuit, just as it’s not unheard of for an attorney general to take credit. But we never had any difficulty with him as a U.S. attorney.” In decades past, federal prosecutors in Southern states resisted Justice’s Civil Rights Division, a Trump transition source said, adding that Sessions never claimed to have prepared the cases or taken the lead. Instead, he was the public face of the cases when DOJ lawyers returned to Washington. ‘First Voter Suppression Lawsuit’: US v. Conecuh County Sessions said in response to the Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire that he understood a case out of Conecuh County “was the first voter suppression lawsuit ever instituted by the United States Department of Justice.” He added: “I am honored to have been part of it.” Sessions worked with Justice’s Civil Rights Division in a suit first brought in October 1983 against Conecuh County, after allegations the county hired only white poll workers. Some of those poll workers made racist comments to turn away black voters, allowed white voters to cast ballots when their names were not on the rolls at a polling place, and put limits on how many blacks could vote, according to the suit. In March 1984, Sessions and the voting section of the Civil Rights Division filed a pleading. Sessions was also part of discovery motions. In June 1984, the case was resolved with a consent decree that ensured election workers would stop harassing and intimidating black voters. The decree encouraged political parties to recruit black poll workers. Voting Rights: US v. Dallas County Commission In July 1982, Sessions co-filed an 80-page brief with the voting section of the Civil Rights Division that was a “finding of fact” stating that at-large districts used to elect county commissioners and school board members denied blacks full participation in the voting process. The case dragged on until 1988, when a court ordered the county to have five districts for electing board members, with three containing majority black populations. “Along with the [American Civil Liberties Union], my office continued to support extensive litigation,” Sessions wrote in reply to the questionnaire. Prosecuting an Activist: US v. Turner This is the case Sessions’ critics eagerly point to, largely because it involved bringing charges against Albert Turner, a former adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and mostly because Turner was acquitted. The matter began in 1982, when Perry County District Attorney Roy Johnson urged a federal investigation after concluding the matter was too large for his office. An Alabama grand jury, which was majority black and led by a black foreman, issued a report saying they were convinced “a fair election is being denied the citizens of Perry County, both black and white.” The grand jury report asked the Justice Department for “vigorous prosecutions” and a federal monitor for elections. However, the Civil Rights Division declined to investigate, and so did Sessions. “We expected the local investigation would have caused all campaigners to re-evaluate their activities and conform to the law,” Sessions wrote in the Judiciary Committee questionnaire. In 1984, when nearly every candidate for Perry County public office was black, several black candidates told Johnson, the district attorney, that they thought the election was being stolen. Johnson, Sessions wrote, told him “extremely large numbers of absentee ballots were being taken to a central headquarters where the ballots were being altered to ensure that they were being marked by candidates endorsed by Turner.” Sessions said he didn’t want to be involved, but reluctantly asked an FBI special agent to observe the post office where the activity allegedly was occurring. Sessions said the FBI saw Turner and his wife Evelyn drop off more than 300 ballots for mailing at the post office, and also saw Turner associate Spencer Hogue Jr. deposit another 170 ballots on the same night. These ballots made up the majority of the 729 absentee ballots cast in the county. The FBI’s investigation determined that at least 75 of the 729 ballots had erasures or alterations, and 25 individuals said they hadn’t authorized changes that the Turners and Hogue allegedly made. Sessions’ office charged the Turners and Hogue with 29 counts, including mail and election fraud. The defense argued that the practice was legal and voters gave permission to make changes. A jury acquitted all three on all charges. Taking Down the Klan: Hays v. Alabama Henry F. Hays was the son of Ku Klux Klan leader Bennie Jack Hays. In 1981, the younger Hays and an accomplice slit the throat of Michael Donald, a 19-year-old black man, and hanged his body from a tree. Sessions said his office worked with state prosecutors to bring the case and to ensure a death sentence. “Because the federal government did not have an effective death penalty, I insisted Hays be prosecuted by the local district attorney, Chris Galanos,” Sessions wrote. After Hays’ conviction, in an unusual move, the state judge overrode the jury’s life sentence and sentenced Hays to death. Later, while Sessions served as Alabama’s state attorney general, his office defended the verdict when it was appealed to the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Donald’s family won a $7 million civil judgment against the Klan, which essentially bankrupted the organization in the state. Sessions worked on the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Figures. In 1986, Figures, who is black, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sessions had said the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found out they smoked pot.” This allegation was part of what sunk the Sessions’ nomination for the judgeship. Sessions, before asking that his 1986 nomination be withdrawn, said the comment was meant as a joke to ridicule the Klan. He added, “I detest the Klan.” Desegregation in Mobile County In a case that began in 1963, parents filed a class action lawsuit against the Mobile County Commission, asserting that it continued to unconstitutionally segregate public schools. After numerous court rulings, the parties entered a consent decree. “More than a decade after the district court approved the consent decree on behalf of the United States, and with the support of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, papers were filed with the court contesting the legally binding effect of the consent decree and alleging the school district had yet to fully integrate,” Sessions wrote. The objections came after the county continued to allow several single-race schools. As U.S. attorney, Sessions co-filed briefs in 1981, 1983, and 1985 with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division contending the school system was not fully integrated and challenging the validity of some of the consent decree. The federal district court rejected part of the argument by Sessions and the agency, but still found the schools were not properly integrated. Other Voting Rights Enforcement In addition to cases Sessions highlighted in the Judiciary Committee questionnaire, Trump’s presidential transition team notes other cases. In the case of the United States v. Marengo County Commission, a group of citizens in 1977 brought a class action lawsuit regarding the county’s at-large system of electing members to the county commission and board of education. After Sessions became U.S. attorney in 1981, his office worked on setting up a redistricting plan. After the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1987 that the system diluted the impact of blacks’ votes, the county adopted a district plan. In 1974, Alabama’s Hale County changed its district system to at-large races, which prompted federal litigation in 1976 that dragged over into Sessions’ time as U.S. attorney. Playing only a limited role, in October 1981, Sessions and the Civil Rights Division co-filed a response to the county’s district selection plan, and the court adopted the final alternative that December. Another case, United States v. City of Demopolis, was similar in that Sessions worked with the Civil Rights Division to press a lawsuit against the city’s at-large system for electing members of the city council. In March 1986, the case was settled after less than two months when the city agreed to enact racially fair, single-member districts. The post Trump’s Pick for Attorney General Prosecuted These Civil Rights Cases appeared first on The Daily Signal. 15:33

What It’s Like to Be The Daily Signal’s White House Correspondent - For nearly a decade, I’ve had a front-row seat for some of the biggest battles in Washington. As a reporter covering the White House, it’s my job to chronicle the president—and there’s certainly been no shortage of news on that front. Since joining The Daily Signal in June, I’ve embraced the opportunity to stray from the pack and report stories most of the White House press corps either don’t care about or just plain ignore. Such was the case this July. Many religious freedom and free-speech advocates—as well as Donald Trump—were advocating repeal of the Johnson Amendment, a law that restricts speech by churches. The GOP even supported its repeal in the party platform. Nevertheless, it wasn’t getting much attention from the mainstream media. So I decided to ask White House press secretary Josh Earnest about it. And although Earnest stated that President Barack Obama would oppose such a repeal, The Daily Signal was there to report on it. A week later, I was back in the briefing room to ask about the Democratic Party platform, which included a plank to scrap the Hyde Amendment, essentially meaning taxpayers would fund abortions. This was a complicated matter for the pro-choice Obama administration because in 2010, the president applied the principle of the Hyde Amendment in an executive order to persuade uneasy Democrats to vote for Obamacare. White House spokesman Eric Schultz told me Obama’s position hadn’t changed—he supported it, even though his party wanted to abandon it. You probably didn’t read about that conflict in other media outlets. That’s because The Daily Signal is always striving for a unique angle or news of interest to people like you. There are other examples of why a White House press pass is important. Such was the case when I asked Earnest if he would defend Obama’s claim that it’s easier to obtain a gun than a book—an assessment even left-leaning fact-checkers called false. (Earnest did defend it, by the way.) The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas (right) and Michael Goodin at the White House. (Photo: Rob Bluey/The Daily Signal) A big part of The Daily Signal’s role in the media landscape is reporting stories others don’t and asking substantive policy questions (not gotcha questions) that others won’t. Over the past six months, I’ve had an opportunity to report how Obama is seeking to lock the United States into international agreements. I revealed how he’s moving political appointees into civil service jobs to carry on his agenda after Trump takes office. And I wrote about the government audit showing the Obama administration’s prioritizing political appointees over veterans for federal jobs. Having previously covered the White House for CNSNews.com and TheBlaze, I can say it isn’t entirely easy and requires building rapport. Along the way, I’ve explained if I wasn’t interested in both sides of a story, there would be little point in showing up at the White House. There’s no doubt that things will be different on Jan. 20, but The Daily Signal will continue to be in the White House briefing room to ask the same tough questions of Trump. We can’t do it without your support. Please consider making a year-end donation to The Daily Signal today. >>> Donate Today to Ensure We Can Continue to Provide The Daily Signal for Free The post What It’s Like to Be The Daily Signal’s White House Correspondent appeared first on The Daily Signal. 13:30

Impeachment Controversy Stokes Uncertainty Ahead of South Korean Election - The next South Korean presidential election is scheduled to be held on or before Dec. 20, 2017. However, there is a possibility that South Korea will have its election in advance because of President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, which led to her immediate suspension. Park’s impeachment must be ratified by the Constitutional Court within six months in order to become permanent. If the Constitutional Court votes to ratify, South Korea must then hold new presidential elections within 60 days. Potential candidates are already starting to declare their intention to run for president, including a major South Korean opposition leader, Moon Jae-in. However, there are concerns among experts in South Korea and the U.S that progressive opposition parties are attempting to reverse current South Korean foreign policies that have been pragmatic on North Korea and have seen an improvement in U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral relations. Moon, the leading progressive candidate, has persistently expressed a desire to strengthen ties with China and reopen its banner of “inter-Korean dialogue.” He also suggested he would renegotiate and review the comfort women agreement and the General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan. During his interview earlier this month, Moon said, “The Kaesong Industrial Complex has to be resumed immediately, and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense has to be left as a task for the next government.” Moon also said he will “visit North Korea first” before the U.S. if he wins the election. This statement caused a public controversy and stoked the flames of a scandal that had been dogging Moon for several months. In a recent memoir, former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon claimed that Moon was responsible for South Korea’s decision to abstain from a 2007 U.N. resolution vote on North Korea’s human rights situation after listening to Pyongyang’s opposition. At the time, Moon was chief of staff to President Roh Moo-hyun. The question of Moon’s “suspicious security standards” has limited his increasing popularity, even as he has benefited from the recent impeachment. But according to a poll from Realmeter, Moon was still leading with a 23.7 percent support rate in early December. There is speculation, however, that Moon will face a challenge from another progressive candidate, Lee Jae-myung, the mayor of a satellite city of Seoul. Lee ranks third in the polls and has a 14.9 percent support rate. In response to Moon’s earlier statement, Lee said he would “visit the U.S. first.” But his foreign policy proposals do not seem to vary much from Moon’s. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is currently polling ahead of Lee and behind Moon with 20.5 percent of popular support. He has not spoken much about his decisions at the U.N. or his policy views because his tenure as U.N. chief has not yet expired. But Ban is considered to be the only moderate conservative candidate who has a chance over Moon. If the conservative party manages to recover from the recent scandal, it will probably reassemble under Ban, who is considered favorable to the U.S. The South Korean presidential race is a multicandidate field. The two most likely scenarios are: Ban vs. Moon or Ban vs. Lee. Whether Moon or Lee compete as progressive candidates, Ban will have a hard fight considering the current political atmosphere in South Korea. The next South Korean election is important because it may affect the future of U.S.-Korean relations. If the progressive candidate wins, South Korea might pivot to China, reverse pragmatic policies against North Korea that enforce U.N. resolutions, and raise tensions against Japan—all policy moves that contravene U.S. national interests. In this period of relative political uncertainty, the U.S. should reassure its extended guarantee of deterrence to its allies, encourage an improving relationship between South Korea and Japan, and affirm its dedication to enhancing sanctions and targeted financial measures to increase pressure on the North Korean regime. The post Impeachment Controversy Stokes Uncertainty Ahead of South Korean Election appeared first on The Daily Signal. 12:49

Here’s to the Men and Women in Blue - This holiday season, I found myself thinking about our men and women in blue, who had a very tough year. An article appeared in last week’s Wall Street Journal titled “The Hidden Hurt of Life on the Beat” that poignantly described the lasting trauma that some officers face after being involved in what can politely be described as a hair-raising incident, and which often results in their injury. The article stated that in 2015, over 50,000 officers were assaulted—an increase of 2.5 percent from 2014. As I read this, I was reminded of a harrowing story that I heard from a federal agent I used to work with. He told me that he left the police force to join the federal service after he entered a home and encountered somebody who was high on drugs and doing something unspeakable to a baby who subsequently died. Even though this traumatic incident had occurred years beforehand, his pain was still palpable, and I have certainly not forgotten it. As Graham Campbell, a former officer with the New York Police Department, put it: “That’s what a cop’s job is: to swallow the sorrows of humanity—from the banal to the truly tragic—and to return to work the next day and do it all over again.” Many officers, of course, do not return to work the next day, but end up paying the ultimate sacrifice. In 2015, 38 officers were shot and killed in the line of duty. With a few days to go, 64 officers have suffered the same fate this year (and one lies in critical condition as I am writing this). Although police officers are deserving of our respect, they often face scorn. This past year, protesters affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement marched through the streets of St. Paul shouting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.” Protestors in New York City chanted, “What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? Now!” A group called the African American Defense League urged its followers to “hold a barbeque” and “sprinkle Pigs Blood!” After five police officers were slain in Dallas, a man in Detroit posted on his Facebook page that “All lives can’t matter until black lives matter. Kill all white cops.” As Heather Mac Donald, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute and author of “The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe,” has reported, when police officers go to make arrests in inner city neighborhoods, they are often surrounded by angry mobs who curse and throw things at them. Are all police officers perfect? Of course not—but then again, who is? Are there some bad apples among police forces? Yes, just as there are in every other walk of life, although there are far fewer that the critics of law enforcement would have you believe. Nonetheless, what makes police officers, like fire fighters and soldiers, unique is that they run toward danger while others run away, so that the rest of us might be safe from harm. There is a monument in Washington, D.C., that every visitor to our nation’s capital should see. It is the National Police Officers Memorial. It consists of two curving marble walls containing the names of more than 20,000 officers who have been killed in the line of duty throughout our nation’s history. At the beginning of each pathway is a statue of a lion protecting its cubs—a symbol beseeching the divine to keep those who wear the badge safe from harm and a symbol of how the police protect us from harm. Below the statues are carved quotations, including one from Vivian Eney Cross, whose 37-year-old husband, Sgt. Christopher Eney, was killed in the line of duty in 1984, leaving her alone to raise their children, Shannen and Heather. The engraving reads: “It is not how these officers died that made them heroes, it is how they lived.” Here’s hoping that no new names are added to that wall in 2017. So as the holiday season winds to a close, say a prayer for the men and women in blue. I will be hoping and praying that next year will be a better one for them than this year was. As the carol goes: I heard the bells on Christmas day Their old familiar carols play And mild and sweet their songs repeat Of peace on earth good will to men *** And in despair I bowed my head There is no peace on earth I said For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men *** Then rang the bells more loud and deep God is not dead, nor does he sleep (peace on earth, peace on earth) The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, good will to men The post Here’s to the Men and Women in Blue appeared first on The Daily Signal. 10:47

How the FAA’s War on Drones Is Killing a Popular Pastime - One year ago, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration rang in the holidays as only bureaucrats can: writing new regulations forcing drone owners to register themselves with the federal government before their first flight. And because nothing says “Christmas” quite like criminal fines and jail time, the agency promised $277,500 in civil and criminal penalties and three years’ imprisonment to any overeager youngster who rushed out to play without first thinking about the wishes of a distant bureaucracy. The FAA’s recreational registry was, and remains, one of the most egregious acts of regulatory overcriminalization in recent memory. Even the agency’s own registration task force reported that the criminal penalties drone owners would face were disproportionate in the hobby drone context. Nevertheless, the FAA charged ahead, releasing its interim final rule to the public just three weeks after the task force report, and a scant seven days before going into effect. Before it could regulate, though, the agency first had to get around the Congress. In 2012, legislators passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, plainly stating that the FAA “may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding model aircraft” flown for recreational purposes. The agency responded that the registry is not really a regulation, and that drones are not really model aircraft; they are “aircraft” for the purposes of federal law, so the agency always had the authority to require registration. Never mind that this claim contradicted all prior agency guidance on drone regulation. Once it twisted itself in a knot to get around Congress’ prohibitions, the FAA then had to figure a means to bypass the public notice and comment process mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act, as well. That standard rulemaking process can take months or years. It is designed to give the public a chance to review proposed rules and to ensure that administrative agencies are responsive to public concerns. Notice and comment brings at least a modicum of accountability and transparency to the regulatory process. It also serves to ensure that citizens are not caught unaware by new rules that are promulgated suddenly and without warning—an especially grave concern when, as with the drone owners’ registry, they contain criminal penalties. But the FAA got around these restrictions by using the narrow “good cause” exemption. If agencies can show that the normal process is “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest,” it can skip public participation and issue a final rule. In this case, the FAA claimed America’s skies were about to be overrun by hoards of drones that, like a modern take on a Hitchcock classic, would wreak havoc and endanger the national airspace. Because of this exigent threat, officials claimed, public safety demanded swift regulatory action. There were some flaws to this line of reasoning. First, the FAA could not, and still cannot, point to a single collision between a drone and a civilian airliner. Officials frequently cite figures that they claim demonstrate a rising incidence of near-collisions, but analysis has concluded that in only a tiny fraction of these purported instances did the pilot feel the need to take evasive action. In fact, in many cases, the object originally identified as a drone turned out to be something else altogether. The FAA’s exigency argument fails because the skyrocketing popularity of drones was hardly surprising. Congress legislated on the subject three years before the FAA announced its registry. It seems reasonable enough that an agency specializing in aviation safety should have been able to anticipate the issue. Somehow, the “failure justifies fiat” argument worked—subject to a lawsuit pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, over whether the drone registration is illegal. Finally, despite claiming that exigent threats to the national airspace required prompt action, the registry does nothing to deter or prevent bad actors from using drones to commit crimes or acts of terror, similar to how gun rights restrictions generally haven’t stopped bad actors from committing gun violence. Drone owners are not registered automatically at the point of sale, but instead are supposed to register at home before sending their drones on their first flight. Someone buying a drone to use it for illicit purposes can also easily evade the registry requirement with little risk of penalty after the fact, because if the drone is crashed into an aircraft, explodes, burns, or otherwise evades capture, tracing the unmarked drone back to its owner will be virtually impossible. Even for those who do comply, FAA-assigned unique personal ID numbers can be placed inside the drone, making remote identification impossible. Ultimately, the drone would have to crash, largely intact and in an area where it could not be retrieved by its owner, for the registry to be useful in tracking down responsible parties. Certainly, for those who already want to fly responsibly, a registry may be a means of discouraging reckless conduct and reinforcing safety. But for those who want to use drones for ill purposes, the deterrent value is nil. Fortunately, the FAA’s lawless actions have not escaped notice and scrutiny. Aside from the legal challenge to the registry requirement, the House Freedom Caucus recently identified the recreational rule as one of over 200 Obama-era regulations that should be repealed when the incoming Trump administration takes office in January. Concerns about safety, whether to aircraft in the national airspace or to people and property on the ground, are not invalid, and should not to be taken lightly. Fortunately, a wide array of technology-agnostic criminal, tort, and property laws exist that address many of the harms and risks of drones. For example, it is already a federal crime to damage, destroy, or interfere with an aircraft. The FAA should reconsider how it might work with partners in critical military and civil infrastructure, long-standing and self-regulating hobbyist communities, and technology groups to fashion sensible rules to address drone-specific harms or drone-related conduct that existing laws and regulations do not reach. And of course, any restrictions on recreational drone activities must be authorized by Congress. A year ago, the FAA began the process of overcriminalizing and over-regulating drones—a process that continues beyond just the recreational registry. Its redefinition of the term “aircraft” has exposed children to 20-year prison sentences for crashing toys. Its burdensome and restrictive commercial drone regulations have driven innovation and development abroad. Clearly, the FAA won’t be stopping itself anytime soon. It’s time to rein them in. The post How the FAA’s War on Drones Is Killing a Popular Pastime appeared first on The Daily Signal. 09:50

Israel Green-Lights Settlements After UN Snub - Israeli authorities gave the go-ahead for the construction of hundreds of new settlement sites in East Jerusalem Monday after a United Nations resolution condemned Israel over the issue. The defiant move comes after the U.S. government did not veto the U.N. condemnation of Israeli settlements, a marked change in U.S. policy. The Obama administration affirmed the decision to abstain in the vote on the resolution, despite being able to defeat it with its veto power, saying that Israeli settlements “puts at risk the two-state solution, as does any continued incitement to violence.” “Israel is a country with national pride, and we do not turn the other cheek,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in the wake of the resolution. “This is a responsible, measured, and vigorous response, the natural response of a healthy people that is making it clear to the nations of the world that what was done at the U.N. is unacceptable to us.” President-elect Donald Trump more closely aligns with Netanyahu’s position, and lashed out at the U.N. in the wake of the vote. The big loss yesterday for Israel in the United Nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace.Too bad, but we will get it done anyway! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2016 Beyond approving more settlements, the Israeli government has cut diplomatic contact at the U.N. with countries that voted in favor of the resolution, and summoned the U.S. ambassador to Israel to admonish him. Palestinian leaders immediately hailed the vote as a victory. “Now we can talk about the boycott of all settlements, the companies that work with them, et cetera, and actually take legal action against them if they continue to work with them,” the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority told Palestinian media. Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., even charged the Obama administration with orchestrating the vote. “The United States was actually behind that gang-up,” Dermer told CNN Sunday. He continued that the evidence of the Obama administration’s role would be presented to the Trump administration in due time. This article was originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Israel Green-Lights Settlements After UN Snub appeared first on The Daily Signal. 09:48

3 Steps to Become a Better Communicator in 2017 - “To communicate well is to run the world … ” … is what I would’ve said if someone had asked my opinion of the most important skill you can possess. Maybe it’s an overstatement, but there is a nugget of truth buried in it that’s worth exploring as you prepare your resolutions for 2017. Good communicators are deeply valued by their employers, and for good reason. Being a good communicator means you can pitch a new project, mediate disagreements, lead a team, and advocate for yourself and your abilities in the interest of a larger paycheck. And who doesn’t want to be able to do all these things? Regardless of your career and job title, communicating well will serve you … well. So in the name of New Year’s resolutions, commit to upping your communications game in 2017. Here are three steps to get you started. Step 1: Join Toastmasters. Public speaking is listed as the No. 1 fear. Greater than the fear of sharks, spiders, heights, and, yes, even death. And yet public speaking is required by most job titles—i.e. the boss asks you to present at an all-staff meeting, make a donor pitch, be a panelist, moderate a panel, speak from the stage at an annual conference, attend a networking event, etc. The best way to get over a fear? Do it. Practice really does make perfect ( … or close enough). If you’re unfamiliar, Toastmasters is a membership organization that teaches you how to speak in front of crowds. Over and over again, you’re asked to present to a group of your peers (other members of Toastmasters) and then receive feedback on your performance. There’s no better way to improve than by practicing, or trying and failing and trying again. Toastmasters lets you do this in a safe space (in this case, “safe space” is a good phrase). Also, you can definitely add this club membership to your résumé and LinkedIn profile. So again I say, join Toastmasters. Step 2: Use social media … effectively. We’ve known for a long time that traditional broadcast media is out and social media is in. Citizen journalism is legit and breaking news happens instantaneously in 140 characters or less. A recent stat claims that 62 percent of adults get their news from social media. It’s a big change, but it’s happening. And in order to engage, you must understand how it works. Numerous articles have outlined why social media has made us worse communicators, but hear me out. Like many things in life, social media has its pros and cons—I’m asking you to capitalize on the pros. Social media allows you to reach out and communicate to a broad audience with very little effort. It also gives you immediate access to breaking news and other people’s opinions—it’s hard to claim ignorance after scrolling through your Twitter/Facebook/Instagram feed. Knowledge of what the other side is saying about a certain policy issue enables you to better communicate your angle on the same policy issue and influence undecided. But also, social media is where millennials live. And if they’re the next generation, you probably want to engage with them. Communicate your ideas to them. Persuade them. Step 3: Always be learning. By “always be learning,” I mean listen to and read how others communicate. Podcasts of all kinds are numerous and not only give you a chance to hear how others speak and form thoughts and arguments, but an entire genre exists to teach you how to communicate. Think TED Talks, talk radio shows (that you can stream online), digital media podcasts, etc. Please expand outside your Twitter feed and the self-help section at the book store to find pieces to read. Be a student of the world around you, including pop culture. Read opinion pieces via news sites, journal articles, great books, etc. Though it’s tempting to glance at a headline and assume you understand its contents, you likely don’t. Open the link and read it. Also, the more you learn, the better you are at small talk, which is a useful form of communication at networking events and parties. Anything you can do to connect with the person on the other side of the conversation is worth the effort. Not only do you gain knowledge, but you form a connection too. And sometimes that connection can lead to a job offer or a new hire for your team. With only a few days to go in 2016, consider the current state of your communications game and how you can improve it by this same time next year. The steps are few and pretty easy to follow—join Toastmasters, use social media, and listen to and read how others communicate. Not only will you reap the benefits professionally, but personally too. And if “become a better communicator” is too boring to add to your list for 2017, feel free to hide it under “run the world.” Same thing. The post 3 Steps to Become a Better Communicator in 2017 appeared first on The Daily Signal. 07:42

They Grew Up in a Poor Neighborhood. How School Choice Changed These Brothers’ Lives. - Carlos and Calvin Battle grew up in the poorest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where nearly two-thirds of children are living in poverty. In 2016, only 42 percent of students attending the local public high school graduated. In an attempt to get her sons a better education, their mother, Pam Battle, enrolled Calvin and Carlos in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program provides low-income families vouchers to send their children to private schools, and has shown a promising ability to increase graduation rates. However, many, including teachers’ unions, the Obama administration, and the education establishment, have worked to shut down the program. Watch the video to see how the program influenced the Battle family, and to hear why Calvin and Carlos think programs like it could help others succeed not just in school, but in life.   The post They Grew Up in a Poor Neighborhood. How School Choice Changed These Brothers’ Lives. appeared first on The Daily Signal. 26 Dec

The Daily Signal Is Having an Impact. Here Are 4 Examples. - It’s easy to talk about wanting to “make a difference.” But at The Daily Signal, we don’t just talk about it. We actually do make a difference. That’s how we measure our success. One of our goals is to report on issues the media too often ignores. By combining strong news stories with conservative commentary and analysis, we’ve helped shine the spotlight on people and policies that need attention. For us, journalism isn’t just about clicks and pageviews. As the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation, outcomes are more important than outputs. Here are four examples of the kind of impact The Daily Signal had in 2016: 1) Investigating Operation Choke Point The media largely ignored the harmful effects of Operation Choke Point, a secretive Justice Department program designed to fight mass-market fraud. But since joining our team in 2014, senior news producer Kelsey Harkness has doggedly pursued the story with investigative reporting about its victims. Whether intentional or not, the Obama administration initiative has hurt hundreds, perhaps thousands, of legitimate business owners who abruptly lost access to basic financial services. The harm occurred after government officials—mainly banking regulators—grouped these Americans’ businesses in with what they considered unseemly, if not illegal, enterprises and pressured banks to terminate their accounts. Harkness brought Operation Choke Point to light and life by explaining what the program was for the first time to many Americans, by reporting on actual victims around the country, and by holding government officials accountable for their roles. The Daily Signal’s watchdog reporting drove debate in Congress. And in February, the U.S. House voted to end the shadowy government program. 2) Exposing Government Theft Daily Signal senior news reporter Melissa Quinn first wrote about the story of Charles Clarke in July 2015. The 24-year-old man had $11,000 seized by the federal and state law enforcement at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport a year earlier—what’s known as civil asset forfeiture. Clarke’s $11,000 in cash was “the culmination of five years worth of savings from various jobs, financial aid, gifts from family members and benefits from his mother, a disabled veteran,” Quinn reported in her widely read story. The money was seized after an airport worker notified agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and airport police department that Clarke’s bag smelled like marijuana. Clarke allowed police to search him and his bags. No drugs were found, and Clarke was never charged with a crime—yet law enforcement did not return his money. It’s one of many forfeiture cases Quinn has covered since joining The Daily Signal in 2014. Often involving people who have little help fighting the powerful government, she’s brought attention and exposure to these stories. And in the case of Clarke, the federal government finally agreed to give his $11,000 back—with interest—as Quinn reported earlier this month. 3) Defending the Electoral College Timing is everything, right? On Nov. 7, The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman published an op-ed defending the Electoral College, explaining why we use it and why it’s better than the popular vote. A day later, on Nov. 8, Donald Trump won the 270 votes he needed in the Electoral College—but lost the popular vote. Stepman’s op-ed making the case for the Electoral College went viral. He followed it up with two more commentaries as liberals made a push to end the practice that dates to the founding of the United States. It’s certainly not the first time liberals took issue with the Constitution, but The Daily Signal was prepared to vigorously defend it. Daily Signal senior contributor Genevieve Wood went to interview some of those angry protesters at nearby George Washington University when she came across a college student who defended the Electoral College. The video also went viral, drawing nearly 1.5 million views. We followed it up with more videos about why liberals were wrong about the Electoral College and explaining the value of the Electoral College. All this attention seems to have shifted public opinion. A new Gallup poll shows a dramatic change in how Americans view the Electoral College. In 2000, about 35 percent of Americans thought we should keep the Electoral College. In 2011, it was the same percentage. But now? Gallup’s poll from early December showed 47 percent of Americans want to keep it—a 12-point increase. 4) Giving a Voice to Americans We believe it’s important to give a voice to people like you, especially when Americans face threats to their constitutional liberties. Since 2014, The Daily Signal’s Harkness has closely tracked the story of Aaron and Melissa Klein, an Oregon couple who faced a $135,000 fine after refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. The Daily Signal’s 2015 video about the couple was viewed 4 million times on Facebook—our most popular ever. That same year, Harkness also investigated Brad Avakian, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. (A judge from the bureau recommended the Kleins’ $135,000 fine.) Her investigative reporting revealed that Avakian was corresponding with an LGBT advocacy group, which actively spoke out against the Kleins. The relationship raised questions about whether Avakian and other agency employees were using the Kleins’ case to pursue a political agenda. Fast forward to this year when Avakian ran for Oregon secretary of state. Running as a Democrat in liberal Oregon, he lost his election. What’s even more remarkable: no Republican had held statewide office for two decades. “The people of Oregon have spoken,” Aaron Klein told The Daily Signal. “Hopefully with the guy that won, we’ll see religious freedom start to grow in this state.” Talk about change. We Need Your Help The Daily Signal couldn’t report on these issues and deliver hard-hitting analysis without your support. It’s an incredible blessing to work at a news outlet dedicated to impact, not profit. And so, I hope you will consider donating to help support The Daily Signal’s work in 2017 and beyond.  Because there’s a still a lot left to report on, investigate, and expose—and we need your help to do that. >>> Donate Today to Ensure The Daily Signal Can Continue to Have an Impact The post The Daily Signal Is Having an Impact. Here Are 4 Examples. appeared first on The Daily Signal. 26 Dec

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Trump And Blue Collar Workers - I am amazed at what gritty realism the Wall Street Journal will publish from Peggy Noonan. Life has been famously cruel to some good people the past few decades. The past few years it seemed the progressive left and the Democratic Party, confident in what they called the coalition of the ascendant, were looking at the old American working class, especially the white working class, and saying: “Here’s your disability check, now go take your opioids and get lost while we transform our country. By the way, we have friends on Wall Street.” From the right and Republicans it was: “Take your piece of the dole, we are importing an entire new people from other countries to take your place,...14 Dec

Job Automation And Universal Basic Income - Elon Musk thinks a universal basic income is inevitable. Musk doesn't see plausible alternatives. I hope not. So here's the optimistic scenario: On the one hand, manual and low skilled work will mostly get automated out of existence. So one could imagine why demand for people at lower skill levels and lower levels of cognitive ability could just evaporate. On the other hand, automation will cut costs and boost the wealth of those still employed. Even if the pay of manual laborers is low the goods a manual laborer will need to survive should become very cheap. So any upper class people who can find a use for them might pay them enough to survive. But I see a stronger... 3 Dec

Genetic Engineering To Lower Risks And Assure Child Outcomes - In a nutshell: editing offspring DNA at the embryo stage will eventually offer so many advantages that lots of people will cave in on some advantage. Don't want to make your kid smarter? Make him or her better looking? Don't want that? How about a throwing arm competitive in major league baseball? Opposed to that? How about avoiding passing along your terrible allergies, need for braces, terrible eyesight, tendency to get depressed or perhaps anxiety attacks or eating disorders? Lots of ways to be persuaded to step over the line once the tech becomes safe. If asked whether one would genetically engineer one's offspring today many people would answer "No" to the hypothetical question. But today choosing genes for your... 7 Oct

Elon Musk, Trips To Mars, And A Mars Colony - I've previously argued that going to Mars and trying to live there is a dumb idea for the foreseeable future. Notwithstanding assorted recent comments by Elon Musk this is still true. The best treatment of Musk's proposal for a big trip to Mars comes from The Martian science fiction author Andy Weir in his comments to Ars Technica. I think Weir went too easy the obviously ridiculous low cost estimates made by Musk and didn't address many of the problems with a Mars colony. But he makes excellent points. Read the article if you are interested. I like Weir's point that solar panels weigh too much to cart all the way to Mars. Better to take a nuclear reactor. I've... 2 Oct

gHacks Technology News

Your IoT devices may be turned against you - Internet of Things (IoT) devices are trending right now, and chance is good that more and more devices will come to market that may make things easier on the one hand, but may cause privacy issues on the other. You don't have to look further than at smart home devices that listen to your commands to provide you with information or assistance in controlling various other gadgets or parameters such as the heating. Like your browsing or call history, these conversations that you have with digital assistants or smart devices, spark the interest of law enforcement and companies. Engadget reports about a case in Arkansas where police wanted Amazon to hand over any audio recordings that the company stored on its servers of a suspect's Echo device. Amazon appears to have declined the request, but police said it managed to pull data off the speaker. No information was provided on the data though. While listening devices are designed to only respond to user commands, the past has shown that these things are not overly accurate when it comes to that. It can very well happen that an Internet of Things device listens to conversations by accident. What is particularly interesting about this case is that the police managed to retrieve evidence from other smart home devices the suspect had installed in the home. The police was particularly interested in a smart water meter that showed that a large quantity of water was used in the night of the murder. The deceased was found dead in the suspect's bathtub,and investigators allege that the water was used to wash away evidence on the patio. Privacy implications People need to be aware that their devices can, and probably will, be used against them. This is not limited to smart home devices, not in the least. Windows 10 comes with Cortana, a digital assistant, and both Google Android and iOS ship with personal assistants as well that you can talk to. Then there is Amazon Echo and other smart home devices, TVs that may be listening in, services that may listen in for marketing purposes and track you across devices, and even apps may do it. It is clear that we will see an increase in requests by law enforcement and others in the future to access data that smart devices have collected. As Billy Steele over on Engadget points out, it will be interesting to see how law enforcement and the companies that create these devices will find the right balance of respecting user privacy. Now You: Do you own smart devices? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Your IoT devices may be turned against you appeared first on gHacks Technology News.12:13

Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10 - Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10 is a free lightweight program for Windows 10 that brings GNOME's hot corner functionality to Windows. The author of the program Tavis Ormandy, whom you may know from his security research on various Windows programs, missed the hot corner functionality of GNOME whenever he worked on a device running Windows 10. He did some research on the topic, but noticed rather quickly that none of the existing solutions offered what he was looking for. All used lots of resources or were overblown according to him. That's when he made the decision to create a tiny tool to bring the hot corners functionality to Windows 10. Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10 The program is a portable application. You can download it from the project's GitHub page, or make it yourself instead if you prefer that. The latter provides you with the opportunity to modify build parameters such as the coordinates of the hot zone, modifier keywords you want to add to the process. or the delay before the function is activated. The program itself works identical to Windows-Tab on Windows 10. Windows-Tab displays all open program windows -- and polls for changes regularly to display them -- and a list of all desktops as well on the screen. So, ideally, it takes a click to switch to any window that is displayed there. You can create new virtual desktops from the interface as well. Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10 runs silently in the background. It uses about 4 Megabytes of RAM when it is running, and virtually no computer resources other than that. It is ideal obviously for users who work on devices with GNOME and on Windows 10. Some users may like the functionality that it provides even if they don't use GNOME at all. You may want to consider adding the hot corners program to the startup folder of the operating system. Simply select the hotcorner.exe file and press Ctrl-C to Copy it. Then use File Explorer to switch to %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, right-click in the folder and select Paste from the context menu. If you don't do that, you need to run it each time Windows starts. Closing Words Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10 is a lightweight program for the operating system. The program's source code is available, and its binary is portable. Its use depends largely on whether you find the functionality that it adds useful, or not.  I for one prefer good old Alt-Tab instead to cycle quickly through all open program windows, or click on programs in the taskbar instead. Note that I have not tested the program on older versions of Windows. If you do, let me know how that went. An alternative is Better Desktop Tool which should work on all versions of Windows. Now You: Would you use a program like Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10 appeared first on gHacks Technology News.08:58

Blackbird: Windows privacy, performance, security tool - Blackbird is another Windows privacy, performance and security tool in the seemingly unlimited arsenal of these tools that is been designed to improve user privacy on Windows machines. Privacy tools come in all flavors; from one-click scripts to sophisticated programs that list dozens or even hundreds of settings for you to tweak and adjust. Blackbird falls in the former category on first glance. It seems to be one of those programs that makes all changes automatically when you run it on a Windows machine. The application is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows. To be precise, it supports Windows Vista and up. The program displays several items when you run it that it will modify, e.g. telemetry, privacy, services, or scheduled tasks, but that is about it. While that is comfortable, it is rather problematic from a "control" point of view. You have to look at the website of the software to find out what it does. Blackbird The documentation on the Blackbird website highlights what it does: > Disables OneDrive > Disables Cortana > Disables Bing-integration > Disables all AutoLoggers > Disables Wi-Fi Sense > Disables system-wide telemetry (on all editions of Windows 10 and older) > Disables Start menu ads > Disables all Xbox Live services > Disables web content evaluation ("SmartScreen") and prevents URL check-in > Disables Windows Media online DRM > Disables Windows P2P Update sharing > Disables hidden Windows metric startup tasks > Disables all diagnostic tracking services > Disables all application metric-data collection agents > Prevents system read access to already collected diagnostic data > Prevents any location/contacts/messages/handwritting/password sharing > Prevents cross-device synchronization (ie; Windows Phone auto-syncing with PC account data) > Removes GWX and Windows 10 upgrade pop-ups > Removes Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) > Removes your unique ad-tracking ID token > Removes a bunch of Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 telemetry updates > Removes all pre-install Windows 10 Upgrade files/folders on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 > Blocks 150+ different tracking/telemetry/ad servers > Supports custom host lists, IPv4/IPv6, Wifi/Eth > Patches various data leaks (IE/Edge, Explorer, Defender, MRT) > Applies various network tweaks (enables RSS,ctcp,tcp-offload,ECN) So, if you run it directly, a lot will happen in the background including the removal of certain Windows Updates, the blocking of servers, and the removal of apps or programs. More control If you read on, you will notice that Blackbird ships with a truckload of command line switches that give you the control that you may require. Instead of running the program and having it apply all modifications to the Windows machine, you can run commands such as blackbird -dukcf to disable Windows Defender, automatic installation of updates, kill Cortana completely, and disable the most used apps listing of the start menu. The command line options provide other useful options. You can run a full system scan for privacy issues using blackbird -scan, use the verbose mode blackbird -v to display additional information on all changes, or use blackbird -r to restore all values changed to the default Microsoft values. It is recommended to back up important data -- or create a full system backup -- before you run the program. I suggest you make good use of the verbose flag to better understand what the program changes on the system. The developers note that it may take up to an hour to run depending on the machine and what you select to remove. Blackbird is a program that does not run in the background all the time. You run it once, it makes the changes to the system, and is done afterwards. Closing Words Blackbird may not be as easy to configure as other Windows privacy tools, but it is without doubt a program that is very powerful. It may also be useful to run if your primary privacy tool does not support some features. You could run Blackbird with parameters then to adjust the missing privacy settings or tweaks. Now You: Which of the many privacy programs do you prefer, and why? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Blackbird: Windows privacy, performance, security tool appeared first on gHacks Technology News.00:24

WordPress: block anonymous Rest API access - The most recent version of WordPress ships with new REST API capabilities which plugins, apps, services, or the WordPress core can utilize. The WordPress development team pushes new features to WordPress all the time. Many of those features improve the functionality of WordPress significantly. Every now and then though, features get added that are problematic from an admin or user point of view.  The main issue with the bulk of these changes is that they cannot be disabled easily. I have disabled Emojis and XML-RPC here on this site for instance. The new REST API functionality for instance may be used by anyone to list all user accounts of the WordPress installation. This in itself is not enough to gain access, but once you know more about a site, you could run brute force attacks against the site, try to guess passwords, or use social engineering to get access to the site. To be fair, the new API does not expose anything to the public that is not available already somewhere else on the site. List all user accounts To list all user accounts on a site that runs WordPress 4.7 (or newer presumably), all you have to do is append /wp-json/wp/v2/users to its domain name. You could set a filter previously in WordPress to block access to the information. This filter appears to have been removed in version 4.7. The only option you have to block the information from being revealed to anyone, is to install a plugin that protects the site from that. WordPress: Block anonymous REST API access A rather simple, but effective plugin is Disable REST API. All it does is return a "not unauthorized" message to anonymous requests to display REST API data. The plugin returns an error message for any request that is not made by a logged in user of the particular site. There is also Wordfence, a plugin that adds security options and protection to WordPress sites. Closing Words The data that the REST API makes available to anonymous requests is available elsewhere on the public part of WordPress already. The main gain that attackers get from it is that it lists the data in a nice format that saves them time, as they don't have to crawl various parts of the site anymore to retrieve the information. (via Born City) Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post WordPress: block anonymous Rest API access appeared first on gHacks Technology News.26 Dec

Video Converter HandBrake 1.0.0 released - HandBrake 1.0.0, a new version of the popular open source cross-platform video converter, was released on December 24, 2016. I reviewed HandBrake for the first time in the year 2007 here on Ghacks as a program to convert video DVDs. The program is capable of more than that however. Basically, what it allows you to do is convert any input video file or DVD / Blu-Ray video source that is not copy protected, to the file container formats mp4 or mkv. The video conversion program is easy to use on the one hand, but offers advanced options for users who want more control over the conversion process. In the best case, all you need to do is load one or multiple video files in the program, select one of the available output presets -- e.g. Android 720p30, Playstation 1080p30 Surround, or Super HQ 1080p30 -- and start the conversion process with a click on the "start encode" button. HandBrake 1.0.0 So what is new in HandBrake 1.0.0? A lot. The presets that the program ships with have been updated big time. You get new device presets for devices released in recent time, new general use presets for best compatibility, new presets for web publication or sending, and new Matroska presets that include support for VP9 video with Opus audio. That's not the only change however. The developers of the program have improved the audio and video sync engine; it handles problematic video sources better in the HandBrake 1.0.0 release. What else is new? Below is a short selection of important changes in the new version of HandBrake: The new Intel QuickSync video H.265/HEVC encoder is available on devices with an Intel Skylake or newer cpu. The documentation for the program was updated as well. The installer and the installation size on Windows is smaller. Windows users can pause and resume encoding jobs. The command line interface is no longer included with the Windows installer. DirectX Video Acceleration (DVXA) hardware accelerated video decoding removed because it was causing many issues. Updated third-party libraries HandBrake uses. Support for Ultra HD / 4K color pass through. New Auto anamorphic mode maximizes storage resolution, replaces Strict anamorphic mode. Assembly optimizations improve filter performance by up to 10%, and x264 encoder performance by up to 10% for faster presets. You find the full list of changes on the news page on the official website. Closing Words HandBrake 1.0.0 is an excellent video converter that is powerful and easy to use at the same time. The new version improves the program significantly for all supported operating systems. While it is still not the one-video-converter to rule them all, as it lacks options to merge or split video files for instance, it is excellent when it comes to converting different video sources to mp4 or mkv. Now You: Which video converter do you use, if any? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Video Converter HandBrake 1.0.0 released appeared first on gHacks Technology News.26 Dec

How to upgrade to a new Linux Mint version - The following guide provides you with instructions on how to upgrade a device running Linux Mint to the latest version of the Linux distribution. The main present that I handed out during Christmas was a shiny new laptop for my girlfriend. The device came without operating system, and I made the decision to install Linux Mint on the device and not Windows. I installed Linux Mint 17.3 on the device, wrapped it up nicely, only to read a day later that Linux Mint 18 has been released. So, the first thing I did after she unwrapped her present was to take it away from here to install the latest version of the Linux distribution on the device. How to upgrade to a new Linux Mint version There are two main methods to upgrade Linux Mint to a new version. The recommended way, or playing it safe, is to use a new liveDVD to install the new version on the device. This involves backing up all data and software on the device prior to the upgrade, and restoring the backed up data afterwards. You can read about this method on the official Linux Mint Community site. What I did was upgrade directly from the running system instead. It is still recommended that you back up your data before you proceed. I had no need for a back up as there was no data on the device other than a couple of changes I made to it after installation of Linux Mint. Backup Linux Mint To back up, select Menu > Administration > Backup Tool. Note that you can also type Backup Tool and select it this way. This works even if the language of the Linux Mint installation is not English. Select Backup files in the next step, and configure the process. Select your home directory as the source. You may need to click on "other" to select it. Select a destination directory for the backup. It is recommended to use an external storage device, or a second hard drive for it. Click on advanced options afterwards. You may want to add a description for the backup, and modify the settings there as you see fit. It is usually not required though as everything is set up just fine. You may save a bit of storage space if you select an archive format under output. Select Forward to proceed. You may exclude files from being backed up on the next screen. This depends largely on how you are using your computer. You may want to exclude the download folder for instance, or any other folder that you don't require that is under the home directory. Select forward again. The backup tool displays all parameters of the back up job on the final screen. Click apply. To back up the installed software, open the backup tool again. This time however you need to select "backup software selection" on the first page that opens. Select a destination for the backup job in the next step. The program displays the list of software installed by you or an admin. You can select some or all of the programs. The Linux Mint upgrade The first thing you may want to do is check the current version of Linux Mint. To do so, select menu and type "version", and select System Information. If you prefer Terminal, open a prompt and type cat /etc/linuxmint/info. Step 1: Using the Update Manager The Linux Mint Upgrade Tool works only if Linux Mint 17.3 is installed on the device. If you are still on Linux Mint 17.0, 17.1 or 17.2, or even an older version, you need to run the Update Manager first. Also, please note that the KDE edition of Linux Mint cannot be upgraded this way. If you run KDE, you need to download the live version and run the installer using it. Select menu, type update manager, and then the result from the listing. Select refresh first (the program may ask you about your updating preference, simply click ok to get to the main interface). Apply all updates. Check Edit at the top to see if you get an option to upgrade to the latest "same" version of Linux Mint. So, if you are on Linux Mint 17.1 for instance, see if you get the option to upgrade to Linux Mint 17.3 there. If you see the option there, select it (e.g. Edit > Upgrade to Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa). follow the instructions. Step 2: Upgrade Linux Mint to a new version The following commands are all run from a Terminal window: Select Menu, type terminal, and select the result. First, you need to install the Linux Mint Upgrade Tool. Run the command apt install mintupgrade. Then, you may want to run an upgrade check, or a simulation of the upgrade, to make sure it will run without issues. The command for that is mintupgrade check. Once you are satisfied with the result, type mintupgrade download to download the packages require to upgrade to the latest version of Mint. Then, once they have been downloaded, run mintupgrade upgrade to perform the upgrade. Please note that this will take a while to complete. And that is all it takes. Closing Words This method of upgrading to the latest version of Linux Mint is not as fast as installing the new version using a live copy of Linux Mint. I do prefer it though, as I don't have to prepare a USB device first (or burn the new copy of the distribution to DVD), before I can get started. Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post How to upgrade to a new Linux Mint version appeared first on gHacks Technology News.26 Dec

Microsoft’s explanation for pushing Windows 10 upgrades raises questions - If you follow tech news sites you may have read pieces already on how Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer, Chris Capossela explained on the Windows Weekly 497 videocast that the company is aware of that it went too far with pushing Windows 10 upgrades to customer systems. The press, for the most part at least, saw Capossela's comments on the issue in positive light. You can check out the Softpedia article for instance to get a feel for the vibe Capossela's commenting on pushing Windows 10 upgrades caused. Lets take a look first at what Capossela said (this begins at around 17:40): And then the last one for me, purely from a marketing or branding perspective [..] was getting to aggressive in pushing out the free Windows 10 upgrade. We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective, but finding the right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where, you know, the red-X in the dialog box which typically means you cancel didn’t mean cancel. And within a couple of hours of that hitting the world, with the listening systems we have we knew that we had gone too far and then, of course, it takes some time to roll out the update that changes that behavior. And those two weeks were pretty painful and clearly a low-light for us. We learned a lot from it obviously. This explanation raises more questions than it gives answers. Yes, it is sort-of an apology if you look at it. The question that Paul, Mary Jo or Leo Laporte should have asked right after Capossela finishing the last sentence is how on earth anyone at Microsoft could think it would be a good idea to change the functionality of the red-X function in the upgrade window. Extreme Tech's Joel Hruska puts it quite well in stating that Microsoft at the time either thought that changing core Windows functionality would not go too far in pushing the Windows 10 upgrade, or that the company has a serious issue when it comes to -- internal -- criticism of issues (read complains were ignored by executives). Anyone, with some experience on Windows, and I think Microsoft employees and executives working on Windows have that, should have realized immediately that changing the close functionality of the Get Windows 10 upgrade window to "ok" would be disingenuous and borderline malicious. Microsoft only had to look at the company's own Windows Dev Center guide on dialog boxes to know that this is wrong: The Close button on the title bar should have the same effect as the Cancel or Close button within the dialog box. Never give it the same effect as OK. And that is not even taking into account the previous iterations of the Get Windows 10 Upgrade experience which Microsoft made harder and harder to refuse and ignore. The second question that should have been asked is why it took Microsoft weeks to undo this particular update. Why did not Microsoft roll back the previous version of the Get Windows 10 upgrade tool instead? This could probably have been done in less than a day after noticing that user complaints skyrocketed. It would also have been interesting to get Microsoft's reaction on the fallout on "pushing windows 10 too aggressive". Yes, the company got users to upgrade to Windows 10 in large numbers. Some did so willingly, others because they could not stop the upgrade from taking place. But there is also a part of the company's customer base that Microsoft scared of with its tactics. Long-time Microsoft customers who don't want anything to do with Windows 10 because of how aggressive Microsoft was in pushing Windows 10 to customer devices. The whole privacy and update situation on Windows 10 adds to that. Some of these customers will probably never upgrade to Windows 10 which means that Microsoft's campaign did lose the company customers as well. Woody over on Ask Woody thinks this is a major factor that is affecting Windows 10 adaption: The “Get Windows 10” campaign has done more to destroy Microsoft’s reputation than anything I’ve encountered – and I’ve been writing books about Microsoft products for almost 25 years. The current slump in Win10 adoption, in my opinion, can be traced directly to Microsoft’s heavy-handed jackboot GWX approach. Closing Words It is clear to everyone that Microsoft went too far with the Get Windows 10 upgrade campaign. I called Microsoft out for using malware-like tactics to spread Windows 10, and I was not the only one who did that. Why did Microsoft do it this way? The question is, would not have the free offer been enough to get users to upgrade to Windows 10? Usage numbers would not be as high after the one-year free upgrade period of course, but playing it nice would have avoided burning bridges to existing customers who felt that Microsoft was getting too aggressive in its attempt to get them to upgrade to the new operating system. Reception would probably have also been better from a marketing perspective, considering that tech sites would not have written piece after piece complaining about Microsoft's upgrade strategy. Anyway, what is done is done. I'm not sure if Microsoft learned a thing from the whole debacle. Probably not. Now You: What's your take on this? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Microsoft’s explanation for pushing Windows 10 upgrades raises questions appeared first on gHacks Technology News.25 Dec

Disable keyboard shortcuts in Firefox - Keybinder is an add-on for the Firefox web browser that enables you to change, reset, or disable any keyboard shortcut in the browser. Certain keyboard shortcuts may get in your way when you use the browser. This is in my case for instance the case for Ctrl-B which opens the Bookmarks window. Ghacks is powered by WordPress, and one keyboard shortcut of the WordPress editor is Ctrl-B; it bolds the selected text automatically which is usually faster than moving the mouse to the B-icon and clicking on it. It happens at times that the editor is not the active part of the browser window. When that happens, and when I press Ctrl-B in that case, I open the Bookmarks window. Since I don't want that, I have to move the mouse, close it, re-select the text that I want to bold, and repeat the process. You may have different shortcuts that you have no use for but may invoke the mapped functionality nevertheless accidentally. There is also the chance that you have mapped a certain keyboard shortcut to a global system event, but it won't work in Firefox if the browser mapped it as well. Disable keyboard shortcuts in Firefox Install Keybinder like any other add-on for the web browser. You can bring up the main configuration menu with a tap on the Alt-key, and the selection of Tools > Keybinder afterwards. The interface lists all mapped keyboard shortcuts. You can use the built-in search to find a shortcut quickly. Note that you need to write Control instead of Ctrl for instance to find a keyboard shortcut that uses the Ctrl-key. Options are provided to reset the selected shortcut, to edit it, or to toggle its state. Since all keys are enabled by default, that is disable for the keys. Once you have disabled a key, you can re-enable them with a click on enable after selecting them. All disabled shortcuts are listed in red with a strike through which makes identification easy. There is no option however to only list non-default shortcuts or disabled ones. Disabled shortcuts stop working immediately once you make the change. Keybinder ships with a number of additional features that you may find useful. The extension informs plugin content to release the focus on mouse and keyboard so that shortcuts continue to work even on pages with plugin content. Keybinder is not the first extension to do that; there is Flashblock Ultimate Alt Zero for Firefox for instance which does something similar. Read, how to prevent websites from hijacking keyboard shortcuts for additional information on the topic. You can bypass this by loading content with Shift-Click instead. Additionally, you may add a list of addresses that you don't want plugins to keep focus on instead. Closing Words Keybinder is an excellent add-on for Firefox to change or disable keyboard shortcuts of the web browser. It is ideal for situations where shortcuts get in your way, and in situations where you may want to map actions to different shortcuts. Now You: Do you use shortcuts in the browser you are using? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Disable keyboard shortcuts in Firefox appeared first on gHacks Technology News.24 Dec

Mozilla: support for Windows XP and Vista until September 2017 at least - Mozilla announced on December 23, 2016 that it will support the Windows operating systems XP and Vista at least until September 2017. The organization announced back in September 2016 that it plans to make Firefox 52 the latest major version of the browser that supports Windows XP and Windows Vista. Firefox 52 will be released on March 7, 2017 according to the browser's release schedule. Mozilla plans to move all XP and Vista users of the web browser to the Firefox Extended Release Channel (ESR) in March. The move ensures continued support for the operating systems at least until September 2017 according to Mozilla. The organization will reassess  the number of XP and Vista users in mid-2017 and use it to decide on a final end of release date for Firefox on those two operating systems. While that end of support date is still undecided, it will be between September 2017 and mid-2018 as Firefox 52 ESR will be moved to Firefox 59 ESR by that time, and that new version won't support XP or Vista. Firefox ESR is a special release of Firefox for organizations who require long term support and don't want to or can't test new Firefox releases every six weeks or so. Mozilla plans to implement changers to the Firefox (non ESR) installer to block the installation of the browser on Windows XP and Vista machines. It has yet to be seen how portable versions of Firefox will handle execution on unsupported machines, and how Mozilla will handle non-production versions of Firefox on XP or Vista. According to the Firefox Hardware Report, Windows XP accounts for 10.36% and Windows Vista for 2.56% of all systems reporting metrics back to Mozilla. That's still almost 13% of the browser's user base in total. While Mozilla continued to support Firefox for XP and Vista, Google did drop support already in its Chrome web browser in mid-2016. Of all major browser makers, only Opera and Mozilla are still supporting XP and Vista. Microsoft did end support for the then-and-still popular operating system Windows XP back in April 2014, and will drop support for Windows Vista in April 2017. The decision to end support for XP and Vista leaves users on these operating systems in a predicament. The operating system itself is no longer support -- or won't be come April 2017 -- and now the browser will also stop receiving security updates eventually. Users may stick with an unsupported version of Firefox, e.g. the last Firefox 52 ESR release that supports XP or Vista. Other options are to use virtualization to run other browsers, or to switch to another operating system entirely. There is always Linux, and it is free to install and use. Now You: are you affected by the end of support announcement? Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Mozilla: support for Windows XP and Vista until September 2017 at least appeared first on gHacks Technology News.23 Dec

Debloat Windows 10 script collection - Debloat Windows 10 is a collection of Powershell scripts that block, disable, modify, or optimize various Windows 10 features that users may find annoying, or at least not super useful to begin with. Word of warning: these scripts have no undo function. The author suggests you run them on a fresh installation of Windows 10. I suggest you create a full system backup before you run them, so that you can restore the system should things go wrong. You can open any of the Powershell scripts in a plain text editor or directly on GitHub to find out what they do in detail. Debloat Windows 1 You are probably wondering what those scripts do. You find nine scripts in total on the Debloat windows 10 GitHub repository right now. They are: Block Telemetry -- Adds a list of telemetry domains to the hosts file to block them. Additionally, sets Allow Telemetry to 0, and blocks several telemetry IPs using the firewall. Disable Services -- Disables more than a dozen services including the Diagnostics Tracking Service, the Geolocation Service, Remote Registry and Xbox Live related services. Disable Windows Defender -- Disables Windows Defender tasks, and sets several Registry values. Experimental Unfuckery -- Removes system apps such as Feedback, Contact Support or BioEnrollment among other things. Fix Privacy Settings -- Sets quite a few privacy related values in the Registry that are related to privacy. Optimize User Interface -- Again, Registry values for the most part that change visual, interface, and accessibility elements including a mouse acceleration fix, easy access keyboard features, changing folder view options and so on. Optimize Windows Update -- Disables automatic download and installation of windows updates, disables the "updates are available" message and automatic driver updates. Remove Default Apps -- Removes the majority of apps that Windows 10 ships with. Remove OneDrive -- Disables OneDrive, and removes OneDrive traces from the system. You need to open an elevated Powershell prompt to run those script: Tap on the Windows-key, type powershell, hold down Shift-key and Ctrl-key, and hit the Enter-key. Run the command Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted first to enable the execution of Powershell scripts. Select Y when the prompt spawns on the screen if you want to go ahead. Run any of the scripts afterwards using ./scriptname.ps1 from the directory you saved them to. Once you are done, run Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted, the default policy setting. That's all there is to it. You can run as many of the Powershell scriptlets as you like. I can't stress the importance of creating a backup of your system before you run any of the scripts. (via Inside Windows) Ghacks needs you. You can find out how to support us here or support the site directly by becoming a Patreon. Thank you for being a Ghacks reader. The post Debloat Windows 10 script collection appeared first on gHacks Technology News.23 Dec

GlobalWarming.org

SJW-day at COP22 - Guest post by Rupert Darwall Last Tuesday, an event of such magnitude struck the latest round of the climate conference – talks which have been going on in various forms since the early 1990s – that the response of many participants and NGOs is to pretend nothing’s happened and carry on as before. Today is gender and education day at the COP22 in Marrakech. Gender equality and the empowerment of women is written into the preamble of last December’s Paris Agreement, the climate treaty that President Obama ratified without sending to the Senate for its advice and consent. ‘Gender justice is climate justice,’ as one feminist NGO puts it. There are Feminists for a Fossil Fuel Free Future. You can download a Gender Climate Tracker app for iPhone and Android. ‘Our existing economies are based on gender exploitative relationships,’ one speaker told a side meeting. ‘The first ecology is my body,’ another declared. Sexual and reproductive rights require climate justice. ‘Sixty percent of my body is water. What I’m drinking takes me to my city and to the health of the planet.’ The climate change negotiations are a never-ending process symbolized by the initial adorning every poster and lectern at the conference.  Marrakech is the 22nd conference of the parties under the 1992 UN framework convention on climate change  – COP 22; the twelfth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol  – CMP 12; and the first session of the conference of the parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement  – CMA1. Far from creating institutional overload, climate change is much more than it might appear to the naïve observer. It is about remoulding society and changing the global economy. It has set in motion a process that accretes constituencies and sucks in government agencies as it extends its scope and strengthens its hold by creating the justification for huge slush funds of climate finance. Marrakech sees parties being urged to raise their ambition from $100bn a year of annual climate funding to $500bn. It creates a momentum that seems unstoppable.  As President Obama’s climate envoy, Jonathan Pershing, pointed out today, it was a Republican Congress that extended subsidies for wind and solar. ‘It’s not going to stop in a context of a change of administration,’ Pershing pointedly added. Well, it might do just that. When in 1982, Al Haig asked Ronald Reagan why he was rejecting the Law of the Sea, Reagan replied: ‘Al, that’s what the last election was all about … It was about not doing things just because that’s the way they’ve been done before.’ The Paris Agreement and the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan which is its domestic counterpart would, if implemented, damage the United States far more than the Law of the Sea ever could have done. But the answer is the same as Reagan’s. Quit the whole damn shebang.18 Nov

Clean Power Plan: EPA’s Updated Base Case Now Tallies with EIA Data - In as recent letter to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Troutman Sanders attorney Peter Glaser argues that “EPA far understated the effects of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) by exaggerating the amount of coal generation that will retire even without the rule.” The smoking gun evidence is in the agency’s updated modeling, which now tallies with U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. Here’s how the numbers break down. In EPA’s “base case” for the CPP, the agency assumed that in 2016, “20 percent of coal capacity would disappear even if the rule were not adopted, reducing coal generation to 214 gigawatts (GW).” However, EPA’s Cross State Air Pollution Rule Update, published October 26, estimates there will be 268 GW of coal generation in service through the end of 2016. EPA’s new estimate for 2016 tallies with Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. EIA’s Electric Power Monthly shows 272 GW of coal capacity in service as of August 2016. EPA estimates coal generation capacity under the Power Plan will decline to 174-183 GW by 2030 (Regulatory Impact Assessment, Table 3-12). Bottom line: To comply with the CPP, U.S. coal generation will have to decline by about one-third.   3 Nov

Clean Power Plan Oral Argument Transcript Available Here! - On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals released a 320-page transcript of the marathon oral argument on EPA’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards for existing fossil-fuel power plants, the agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP).  To my knowledge, the transcript is not available on the Court’s Web site. To make the document more easily accessible to the public, I am pleased to post it on GlobalWarming.Org. To read/download the oral argument, click on the highlighted text in the first paragraph above.  14 Oct

Green Prophet

How can you find your (green) spiritual path - In the past, your 1st identity used to be your affiliation to a tribe. Your personal identity or your name was only secondary. Your beliefs are only expressions of your tribal beliefs. The idea of... 21 Dec

CNN: The Sixth Mass Global Extinction has arrived - Whether it’s disappearing elephant herds in Botswana, dying coral reefs in Australia, or near silence of small tropical tree frogs in a Central American rain forest, the vanishing of animal and... 20 Dec

8 alternative Christmas trees green up your holiday! - Celebrate Christmas without a tree?  Absolutely! Skip the chopped-down conifer, pass on the plastic fakes, and leave the live sapling planted out in the wild. Start a new tradition. You’ll save... 19 Dec

Reuse – a buzz word for the telecom industry for years - Reduce, reuse and recycle. This is a very well-known axiom in our day that summarizes the waste management hierarchy in three easy to remember alliterated words. It is little known, however, that the... 16 Dec

Ready-washed bags of salad? Best used as compost! - Those convenient bags of prepared salads are breeding grounds for bacteria, so say scientists from Britain’s University of Leicester. The best defense against inadvertent food poisoning is a... 13 Dec

What will you eat on Mars? - Israel agtech company flux aims to feed hungry astronauts with novel “plant language translation” technology Internet entrepreneur and Silicon Valley icon Elon Musk has declared he is sending humans... 13 Dec

How to go green with eco-friendly clothing - If you thought the trend in clothing was showing your nips, you couldn’t be more wrong. So, what is the trend you ask? Well, first and foremost–it’s going green! Living a... 12 Dec

6 ways to make your apartment greener - Going green has gone decidedly mainstream now. Governments are encouraging green buildings with tax incentives while buyers are willing to pay a premium for your property if you’ve invested in green... 12 Dec

Join the urban farming movement - Urban farming, whether found in large urban cities like Chicago, or in a Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem, is rapidly becoming a worldwide movement. All it really takes is a small, available... 8 Dec

Car accidents and how to avoid crazy Middle East drivers - Car accidents are a number one cause of death in the Middle East. Forget conflicts, more people are dying from dangerous driving. Car accidents, as any police officer, medical personal, or car... 7 Dec

David Gumpert » Blog

For Organic Valley, Raw Milk Is in the Rear-View Mirror This Holiday Season - A few days ago, Organic Valley, the huge Wisconsin-based dairy cooperative, ran a “holiday season” ad on Facebook offering discount coupons of $1.50 or $2 on butter, cheese, and eggs (not $5, as the ad suggests). I ... READ MORE The post For Organic Valley, Raw Milk Is in the Rear-View Mirror This Holiday Season appeared first on David Gumpert.23 Dec

Beyond Food Rights, to a Fight for Survival - The work of a Putin predecessor: Josef Stalin encouraged a famine that killed millions, to force collectivized farming in the Ukraine in 1932-33. ... READ MORE The post Beyond Food Rights, to a Fight for Survival appeared first on David Gumpert.19 Dec

Could Maine Food Sovereignty Be Basis of National Political Sovereignty Model? - I started this blog ten years ago to report on events and issues I thought the mainstream news media were either ignoring or misrepresenting when it came ... READ MORE The post Could Maine Food Sovereignty Be Basis of National Political Sovereignty Model? appeared first on David Gumpert.28 Nov

Raw Milk Fantasies and America’s New Cult of Personality - Raw milk is part of a fantasy liberal nirvana, in a skit from Saturday Night Live. (Link in last paragraph of my post.) On November 9, the day after ... READ MORE The post Raw Milk Fantasies and America’s New Cult of Personality appeared first on David Gumpert.21 Nov

Who Is That Guy Teaming with Sally Fallon Morrell to Debate Raw Milk? - Sally Fallon Morrell and I at the raw milk debate at Harvard Law School in February 2012. The current issue of Wise Traditions magazine, the official publication of the ... READ MORE The post Who Is That Guy Teaming with Sally Fallon Morrell to Debate Raw Milk? appeared first on David Gumpert.11 Nov

Miller Caves on Handing Over Member Purchase Records to USDA - Easton is a pretty little town in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, on the border with New Jersey, with trendy restaurants and coffee houses. But ... READ MORE The post Miller Caves on Handing Over Member Purchase Records to USDA appeared first on David Gumpert. 2 Nov

Amos Miller Case Takes Ominous Turn - Jacob Williams, coordinator of the North Carolina food club associated with Miller’s farm. A USDA investigation of Pennsylvania farmer Amos Miller’s meat production practices has ... READ MORE The post Amos Miller Case Takes Ominous Turn appeared first on David Gumpert.23 Oct

In Defense of Politicians - In1967, a group of Greek army colonels, fed up with the country’s established politicians, staged a coup d’etat. The military officers ruled the way ... READ MORE The post In Defense of Politicians appeared first on David Gumpert.18 Oct

Hog Farmer Mark Baker’s Political Journey - Mark Baker For entertainment these days, Michigan hog farmer Mark Baker likes to watch episodes from the 1960s sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show. It’s the ... READ MORE The post Hog Farmer Mark Baker’s Political Journey appeared first on David Gumpert. 7 Oct

The Hacker News - Breaking News, Cyber Security, Hacking News - Atom

Did You Install Super Mario Run APK for Android? That's Malware - After the success of Pokémon Go, Nintendo's "Super Mario Run" has become the hottest game to hit the market with enormous popularity and massive social impact. The game has taken the world by storm since its launch for iOS devices over a week ago. But if you have downloaded a Super Mario Run APK for your Android device, Beware! That's malware. Since Super Mario Run has currently been released 08:44

PHPMailer Flaw leaves Millions of Websites Vulnerable to Remote Exploit - A critical vulnerability has been discovered in PHPMailer, which is one of the most popular open source PHP libraries to send emails used by more than 9 Million users worldwide. Millions of PHP websites and popular open source web applications, including WordPress, Drupal, 1CRM, SugarCRM, Yii, and Joomla comes with PHPMailer library for sending emails using a variety of methods, including 26 Dec

Cyanogen Shutting Down All Services; No More Android ROM Updates - A bittersweet Christmas and New Year for users and fans of the most popular custom Android ROM, Cyanogen OS. Cyanogen that tried and failed to kill Google's Android operating system is now shutting down the custom services that it provides to phones that run its Cyanogen OS as we know it and the "nightly builds" of said OS on December 31st. Cyanogen came with an ambition to build better 26 Dec

Hackers threaten to take down Xbox Live and PSN on Christmas Day - Bad news for gamers! It's once again the time when most of you will get new PlayStations and XBoxes that continue to be among the most popular gifts for Christmas, but possibilities are you'll not be able to log into the online gaming console, just like what happens on every Christmas holidays. On 2014 Christmas holidays, the notorious hacker group Lizard Squad knocked the PlayStation 24 Dec

Russia Wants Apple to Unlock iPhone belonging to Killer of Russian Ambassador - You might have also seen a viral video of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey that quickly spread through the Internet worldwide. Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot dead by an off-duty police officer in Ankara on December 19 when the ambassador was giving a speech at an art gallery. The shooter managed to pretend himself as his official bodyguard and later shot to 22 Dec

Raspberry Pi launches PIXEL OS for Mac and Windows PCs - Here's the Raspberry Pi's Christmas treat for tech community! The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released an experimental version of its lightweight Linux-based Debian operating system called PIXEL OS that can run on most standard desktop computers ships with Windows and Mac OS X without the need of a Raspberry Pi. Initially launched in September this year, the PIXEL operating 22 Dec

NIST Calls Development of Quantum-Proof Encryption Algorithms - Quantum Computers – Boon or Bane? Quantum computers can perform operations much more quickly and efficiently even with the use of less energy than conventional computers, but that's bad news for encryption — a process which scrambles data according to a massively complex mathematical code. In theory, quantum computers can break almost all the existing encryption algorithms used on the 22 Dec

Google 'Android Things' — An Operating System for the Internet of Things - Google announced a Developers Preview of "Android Things" — an Android-based operating system platform for smart devices and Internet of Things (IoT) products. The Android-based Internet of Things OS is designed to make it easier for developers to build a smart appliance since they will be able to work with Android APIs and Google Services they're already familiar with. As the Developers 21 Dec

Hackers Suspected of Causing Second Power Outage in Ukraine - The same group of hackers that caused the power outage across several regions in Ukraine last Christmas holidays might have once again shut down power supply in northern Ukraine during the weekend. According to Ukrainian energy provider Ukrenergo, a cyber attack on Kyiv's power grid may have caused the power outages in the country on Saturday, December 17, near midnight. The blackout 21 Dec

'MethBot' Ad Fraud Operators Making $5 Million Revenue Every Day - The biggest advertising fraud ever! A group of hackers is making between $3 Million to $5 Million per day from United States brands and media companies in the biggest digital ad fraud ever discovered. Online fraud-prevention firm White Ops uncovered this new Ad fraud campaign, dubbed "Methbot," that automatically generates more than 300 Million fraudulent video ad impressions every day. The 20 Dec

I Told You I Was Sick

How to Break the Cycle of Autoimmune Pain - Living with an autoimmune disease? You CAN be healthy again! Register for the Autoimmune Revolution - A FREE online health summit from 30+ expert guides!26 Dec

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How to Make Your Gut Cure Your Autoimmune Disease - Living with an autoimmune disease? You're not alone. Learn how you can make your gut heal your autoimmune disease with this incredible fatty acid!19 Dec

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How to Treat Chronic Nausea Naturally - Are you living with chronic nausea as a result of chronic illness? If you often feel like vomiting, these natural remedies can help "ease the quease".12 Dec

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Islamic Invitation Turkey

Not doctrines but denying a universal leadership our problem - “THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE DIFFERENCES IN OUR DOCTRINES OR DIFFERENCES IN OUR BELONGINGS, THE PROBLEM IS WE DENY A UNIVERSAL LEADERSHIP, THIS IS OUR PROBLEM.” 16:03

WATCH| The argument of Wahdat Week by Imam of Oppressed People and Islamic World - http://www.islamicinvitationturkey.com/video/the%20argumentwahdatweek.mp415:27

Iran safe haven, secured land for Muslims: Iran’s Velayati -   Leader’s senior adviser Velayati lamented that Islamic countries suffer from lack of efficient politicians and security calling Iran the safe haven for Islam. Speaking on Monday night, at the conference of “Solutions to Interaction of Razavi Holy Shrine and International Cultural Activists,” Velayati who is also the head of Strategic Research Center, said the existence of deviants and extremists such as ISIL, Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda in Islamic world indicates Muslims today have no safe haven other than Iran. Deviant groups seek to distort the image of Islam by demonstrating atrocities and barbaric acts, Velayati noted. Velayati underlined Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State during the first term of Obama presidency, confessed in her diaries that they have created ISIL terrorists to cause insecurity in the world of Islam. He pointed out that today Americans and Westerners have emerged like beasts from every side to destroy Islam and Muslims. “Only Muslims have fought with disbelief and hypocrisy, otherwise, Western religious organizations such as the Vatican has not played any role in confronting disbelief.” Calling Western media the ‘devil’s horn’, Velayati said they show images of the beheading of innocent people by ISIL, introducing them as an Islamic state. “Islam is the religion of mercy and ISIL is portraying global savages in the name of Islam,” he noted. 08:07

Ban on nukes based on Islam, rationality: Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed Imam Ali Khamenei -   Leader of the Islamic Ummah and Oppressed has told his seminary session 30 Dec. 2009 event proved intellectual underpinnings of the event were dominant in the minds and hearts of the masses. Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s brief address was important in that it was delivered just ahead of the anniversary of December 30, 2009 when massive public rallies were held in response to the post-election unrests, organized to some extent by the foreign intelligence and their domestic accomplices earlier in December. “The enemy had been working to deprive the system of its elements of power, since we have been a source of concern for the imperialist powers through resisting their temptations to receive them at home and surrender the country to them,” he told the session. “December 30 event was a response to such efforts, which displayed belief of people in the Establishment and proved the mindset as an element of power for the Islamic Republic; during the event, no single individual was to be credited with the success, but the collective mentality moved masses toward a certain outcome.” Ayatollah Khamenei also believed that the reason why the imperialism would not tolerate a country was since a historic event mobilized the rage of a nation against imperialist interests; “a country of ample natural, economic and human resources and which has something to say to world people would garner many enemies by the same virtue; our army and military support our theories of conduct and ideology; this is a sufficient cause they would confront us in all fields,” he emphasized. Leader specifically turned to December 30, 2009 as the crystallization of the Establishment’s power; “the extraordinary event brought to streets the masses, since the intellectual underpinnings of the event were dominant in the minds and hearts; the enemy would resort to any device including blandishment and threats as well to tantalize us with its attractions; they prevented us from being  a nuclear power; ban on nuclear weapons has significant religious and rational pillars; however, other corridors to turn a power are still open and the nation and the system will definitely exhaust such paths to the national glory,” he concluded, reiterating the Islamic fundamentals of the ban on nuclear and mass destruction weapons. 08:06

VIDEO: Syrian Army seizes large supply of jihadist weapons in east Aleppo -   The Syrian Army’s Republican Guard units discovered a large supply of weapons on Sunday that belonged to the jihadist rebels in eastern Aleppo prior to their departure last weekend. Based on the video footage captured by Hezbollah’s official media wing, the Syrian Arab Army confiscated several  missiles, mortar shells, assault rifles, and ammunition in eastern Aleppo on Sunday. In addition to the aforementioned weapons, the Syrian Arab Army also discovered tanks hidden around the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo City. The Syrian Arab Army is still combing through these east Aleppo neighborhoods, looking for enemy weapons and explosives that may have been hidden prior to the departure of jihadist rebels from the area.   08:04

Iraqi Forces Liberate Strategic ISIS-Held Regions in Nineveh Province - The Iraqi Federal Police and volunteer forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) continued their advances in Nineveh and took control of two strategic regions in the province. Iraq’s Federal Police seized back the strategic al-Qods district in the Eastern part of the city of Mosul on Tuesday. Meantime, the Iraqi volunteer forces recaptured al-Qameshliyeh village in the Western part of Nineveh province. “The liberation of al-Qameshliyeh village can block ISIS attacks on Hashd al-Shaabi’s military positions in the Southern part of Tal Afar region and al-Qameshliyeh is an important region to connect Tal Afar to Sinjar that is predominantly occupied by Peshmerga forces. In a relevant development on Monday, Iraq’s joint military forces continued their advances in Nineveh province, Inflicting heavy losses and casualties on ISIL terrorists. Commander of Iraqi Federal Police Raed Shaker Judat said that the Iraqi armed forces managed to destroy three bomb-laden vehicles of the ISIL and killed 10 terrorists in the Western part of the city of Mosul in Nineveh province. Judat said that the armed forces carried out three separate military operations in Koukajli and al-Quds districts in Western Mosul. The Iraqi commander also said that the country’s Federal Police units also repelled the ISIS terrorists’ offensive in the Southern part of Nineveh province. The Iraqi military troops also destroyed four command centers and 14 artillery units of the ISIL terrorist group. Iraq’s joint military forces started the Nineveh liberation operation on October 17 and they have seized back from the ISIL hundreds of square kilometers of Nineveh province’s lands and tens of districts 07:58

‘Gift from Qatar’ Labeled Arm Depot Discovered in Eastern Aleppo! -     The Syrian army conducted a sweeping operation in the Al-Madares district in Eastern Aleppo and found two huge warehouses of weapons and military equipment labeled as ‘Gift from Qatar’. The Syrian army has killed dozens of terrorists in military operations against the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group to the east of the recently-liberated city of Aleppo. 07:56

Syria: Turkish, American Arms, Chemicals Found in Terrorists’ Positions in Aleppo City -   A large volume of chemicals and weapons, manufactured in Turkey and the US, were discovered in the newly-liberated districts of Aleppo city, a Russian General disclosed. “Engineering units of the Syrian and Russian forces that were jointly defusing bombs and mines planted by Jeish al-Fatah terrorists in the Eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo seized a large volume of US-made and Turkey-made weapons in the positions of militants,” the Russian General said. The engineering units also found hand-made arms in terrorists’ bases, he added. “A large number of bags filled with chemicals were also found in the positions of the terrorists” the source said, adding, “The terrorists had used chemicals to make bombs.” The General went on to say that the engineering units have also found a workshop in which the terrorist groups were making bombs by gas cylinders. The Russian and Syrian units have also found a large quantity of suicide-explosive belts, the General said, adding, “The terrorist groups have planted bombs in hidden locations in residential areas, neighborhoods and streets.” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Monday that mass graves of torture victims were uncovered in liberated city of Aleppo in Northern Syria. “Mass burial sites of many dozens of Syrians, who had been subjected to brutal torture and then murdered, have been found,” said Konashenkov, Sputnik reported. “In many cases, body parts are missing, most victims had been shot in the head. And this, it seems, is only the beginning,” he added. Konashenkov said that the instances are being recorded as serious war crimes and will be given maximum publicity so that European backers of the militants in London and Paris are well aware of who their wards actually are.” He added that seven large ammunition depots, enough to arm several infantry battalions, were discovered in Aleppo. On December 22, the Syrian government forces assumed full control of Aleppo as the last convoy with militants left the embattled city. Syrian government forces have been fighting against multiple militant and terrorist groups, including ISIL and Fatah al Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front. 07:53

Syria in Last 24 Hours: Army Repels Major Attack on Gov’t Positions Near Aleppo’s Kuweires Airbase -   The Syrian army troops repelled the terrorists’ attack on their positions South of the Kuweires airbase in the Eastern part of Aleppo province after hours of clashes, inflicting major losses on them. The ISIL’s offensive to capture the government forces’ positions in the village of Showaylikh near Kuweires airbase was fended off by the strong defense of the Syrian military men. Meantime, the Syrian army and popular forces continued their military advances in other parts of Syria, including Homs and Damascus, over the past 24 hours. Tens of terrorists were killed and dozens more were injured during the Syrian army’s operations in Syria’s key provinces. Aleppo Syrian army men repelled ISIL’s offensive on their positions South of the Kuweires airbase East of Aleppo province, killing or wounding tens of the militants. The army soldiers engaged in fierce clashes with ISIL terrorists that had attacked several positions of the government forces in the village of Showaylikh to access air force academy, killing and wounding tens of them and destroying their vehicles. The ISIL militants that suffered a heavy death toll in the battle pulled the remaining pockets of their forces back from the Southern side of Kuweires airbase. In the meantime, Syrian fighter jets bombed ISIL’s positions in areas near Showaylikh and the road to Deir Hafer. Earlier reports said on Monday that the army troops continued to hit ISIL’s movements in Eastern Aleppo, inflicting a number of casualties on the terrorists. The army’s artillery units shelled ISIL’s gatherings and movements in Showaylikh region near the air force academy in Eastern Aleppo, killing a number of militants and destroying their vehicles. In the meantime, the army’s engineering units that are carrying out mop-up operation in the Eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo city seized a bomb-laden vehicle of the terrorists with over two tons of explosives. Homs Reports from Eastern Homs said on Monday that 25 ISIL militants were killed during the Syrian army’s anti-terrorism operations in the region. The clashes erupted West of Tadmur (Palmyra) between the army and the ISIL terrorists, in which 25 militants were killed, a military source said on Monday. According to the source, a large amount of ISIL weapons and ammunition was also destroyed during the operations. Earlier on Monday, the Syrian army troops fended off two attacks carried out by Fatah al-Sham Front (previously known as the al-Nusra Front) and Ahrar al-Sham in Northwestern Homs, inflicting a large number of casualties on the militants. Fatah al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham managed to attack army positions in the village of Mreimin and Qarmas from the villages of Taldou, Kafr Laha and al-Tayibeh al-Qarbi, but failed to prevail over the government positions. The terrorist groups suffered heavy casualties in the failed attacks and pulled the remaining pockets of forces back from the battlefields. The army’s artillery also targeted terrorist positions in the neighborhood of al-Mashjar al-Janoubi in Talbiseh town and in the villages of al-Ameriyeh in Northern Homs, destroying a rocket launcher and killing a number of militants, including their field commander Saleh Suleiman. Damascus Syrian Army troops intensified their anti-terrorism operation in Western Ghouta after Fatah al-Sham Front did not continue to attend the peace talks with the Damascus government. The army had dispatched a large number of its forces with a large volume of equipment to launch a fresh phase of operation in case the militants refuse to join reconciliation plan. The army men started a fresh round of operation to liberate the militant-held region of Wadi al-Bardi and stormed Fatah al-Sham’s positions in the farms near Wadi al-Bardi, advancing vastly against militants near the town of Wadi al-Bardi. A military source said that the army will continue its non-stop battle to force terrorists to hand over Wadi al-Bardi to government forces. Reports said earlier on Monday that the Fatah al-Sham Front deployed in Wadi al-Bardi in Western Ghouta once again left its demand for government amnesty, and threatened to destroy the water reservoirs of Damascus city. Fatah al-Sham had previously called for reconciliation with Damascus concurrent with the army’s’ advances and as the army was about to carry out the second phase of its operation in Wadi al-Bardi, but based on the latest reports the militants have once again rejected to join the peace agreement. The terrorists meantime threatened to destroy the water reservoir in Ein al-Fijeh region that supplies Damascus and its suburbs with drinking water. People in Damascus are suffering a shortage of drinking water. The terrorists had contaminated the water reservoirs with Mazut in reaction to the army’s advances in Wadi al-Bardi region. The Syrian state news agency had also reported that terrorists’ attack on two main water sources in the regions of Ein al-Fijeh and Wadi al-Bardi have been the cause of the cut of drinking water in Northwestern part of Damascus. Mohammad al-Shayah, the General Manager of the Water Company said that Damascus has been divided into six regions to make it easier to supply people with enough drinking water. Deir Ezzur Syrian Army troops in a preemptive move targeted the gatherings and movements of the ISIL terrorists near the Eastern city of Deir Ezzur, preventing their move towards the city’s industrial zone. The army men targeted ISIL’s movements and gathering of forces near Deir Ezzur’s industrial zone, killing 15 militants and wounding several more. The ISIL had gathered tens of forces to prevail over the army positions in the industrial zone to come in control of Maysalon neighborhood and eventually cut off a strategic road near the city, but failed. The army aircraft also pounded ISIL’s strongholds in Huweiqa al-Sakar East of the city, leaving a large number of militants dead or wounded and two of their vehicles destroyed. The army’s artillery units, meantime, shelled ISIL’s positions in al-Huweiqa district, the industrial zone, the villages of al-Hosseiniyeh, Marat and al-Baqaliyeh and nearby areas of the army base 371. The army soldiers fended off heavy attacks of ISIL on government positions in the Eastern city of Deir Ezzur and its countryside, killing a number of militants, including a notorious field commander. The Army men repelled ISIL’s attacks on government forces’ positions in the neighborhoods of al-Huweiqa, al-Roshdiyeh, al-Mowazafin, al-Maqaber, near Deir Ezzur airbase, Tal (hill) al-Rawad, Panorama region and Tal Um Aboud, killing a number of militants and destroying their equipment. Ahmad al-Dayeri also known as Abu Ayesha was killed in the failed attack of ISIL in the al-Mowazafin and al-Maqaber. The army forces also targeted the positions and gatherings of ISIL in the neighborhoods of al-Jabileh, airbase and al-Jazeera university in the villages of al-Baqaliyeh, killing or wounding a number of them. Idlib The Syrian army troops targeted several bases of Fatah al-Sham Front in Southeastern Idlib, killing at least 20 militants and wounding many more. The army men hit Fatah al-Sham’s bases in the town of Ma’arat Mesrin and near the town of Saraqib in Southeastern Idlib, killing 11 terrorists in Ma’arat al-Mesrin and nine others in Saraqib. Fatah al-Sham’s military equipment also sustained major damage in the attacks. The army soldiers also targeted bases of al-Shamiyeh Front and Ahrar al-Sham in the city of Idlib and in the town of Banish in the Northern part of the city. Meantime, two senior commanders of the Idlib Free Army were gunned down by unknown attackers in the Southern countryside of Idlib on Sunday, intensifying insecurity in the mostly militant-held province. Ahmad Ali Khatib and Yunis Zariq were killed in an attack by unknown assailants on their base in the town of Ma’arat Harma. In the meantime, one of the notorious commanders of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and his four comrades were injured in a shooting of unknown attackers on Balad Qaah road in the Northern countryside of Idlib. Local sources said that after the flow of a large number of militants of other cities of Syria into Idlib, the city has been involved in increasing tension, differences and clashes among terrorists in such ways that the city and its suburb are now witnessing a number of terror operations against commanders of militant groups. 07:52

ISIL Centers in Eastern Aleppo Receive Severe Blow in Syrian Army Attack -   The ISIL terrorist group suffered major casualties and its military hardware sustained heavy damage after its movements came under a heavy attack by the Syrian Army troops East of Aleppo province. The army’s artillery units shelled a gathering of ISIL in the village of Um al-Mari South of the city of Deir Hafer in Eastern Aleppo, killing a number of terrorists and destroying six military vehicles. The army men have been monitoring and targeting ISIL’s gatherings in the Eastern and Northeastern parts of Aleppo, inflicting major losses on them in recent weeks. In the meantime, a large number of the army’s fresh forces have been dispatched to Eastern Aleppo to launch a large-scale operation against ISIL’s positions in the towns of al-Bab and Deir Hafer to expand the chain of safety around the Kuweires airbase. After liberation of the town of Manbij, Deir Hafer and al-Bab have been turned into the largest bases of ISIL in Aleppo province. Also the army soldiers engaged in fierce clashes with ISIL terrorists that had attacked several positions of the government forces in the village of Showaylikh to access air force academy on Monday, killing and wounding tens of them and destroying their vehicles. The ISIL militants that suffered a heavy death toll in the battle pulled the remaining pockets of their forces back from the Southern side of Kuweires airbase. In the meantime, Syrian fighter jets bombed ISIL’s positions in areas near Showaylikh and the road to Deir Hafer. 07:49

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Dig and Delve Part 1: Running Trends - This is the first in a series of posts in which I look at monthly Temperature of the Lower troposphere (TLT) anomaly data from the University of Alabama- Huntsville (UAH) in different ways, which readers may find interesting and perhaps useful. In this post, I bring together ideas from former posts- Trending Trends: An Alternative View and Poles Apart – to compare trends in TLT using running trends.   Running Trends Fig. 1: Global UAH with linear trend This is the standard presentation.  It shows the linear trend as at November 2016.  With every new month of data, the linear trend changes. By calculating a running trend, that is, the linear trend from the start of the series to every subsequent data point, the trend at each point is preserved, and the trend at the final point is instantly calculated. Fig. 2:  Global UAH running trend Figure 2 shows the historical values of the linear trend at each point, and that global temperatures are demonstrably non-linear.  As I pointed out in Trending Trends: An Alternative View, each new data point will either increase, decrease, or maintain the trend.  The longer the data series, the harder it will be to change the trend: the effect diminishes with time. (An interesting result of the diminishing effect of temperature on the running trend is that it becomes possible to identify what temperatures are doing from the shape of the running trend plot- in fact, to identify a pause or plateau.  To maintain the trend at say 1.2 degrees Celsius per 100 years, temperatures must continue to rise.  A flat-lining running trend is evidence of increasing temperatures; a rising running trend indicates a rapid increase in temperature; but a decreasing running trend is evidence of a pause or decline in temperatures.  This is not a different definition of the pause, just another indicator.) For 10 to 15 years, the running trend swings wildly, but after this it settles.  Now it becomes useful for analysis and comparison. In Figure 2 above, note the large effect of the 1997-98 El Nino on the trend, but the 2009-10 and 2015-16 El Ninos have much less effect on the trend.  They are still identifiable by the increase in trend. Fig. 3:  Regional UAH running trends As we have seen previously, the North Polar and South Polar regions are distinctly different from the rest of the world and from each other.  The North Polar region has had an increasing trend (rapidly increasing temperature) from 1994 to about 2007, then a slow down with another rapid rise in the last 12 months.  All other regions have had decreasing trends since 2002-3, with an uptick in the last 12-18 months, indicating the duration of The Pause.  The trend in the South Polar region has been much lower than the others, hovering about zero for the last seven or so years, and is currently negative. For completeness, here are the running trends for continental USA and Australia. Fig. 4:  UAH running trends:  USA 48 States Fig. 5:  UAH running trends:  USA 49 States Fig. 6:  UAH running trends:  Australia The next plots compare Land, Ocean, and Mean running trends for the UAH regions. Fig. 7:  Global UAH running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean Note that the mean trend is close to that of the Ocean, but since 1995 and especially 1998, the trend of global land areas is much higher.  Because of the ocean’s large thermal inertia, land areas warm and cool more quickly.  However, since the 1997-98 El Nino, land trends did not decrease but remained high until 2007.  This graph, as any Global Warming Enthusiast (GWE) will tell you, is evidence of warming.  What they won’t tell you is that it is evidence of any type of warming whether natural or anthropogenic- it is not by itself evidence of greenhouse warming. Fig. 8:  Northern Hemisphere UAH running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean Fig. 9:  Southern Hemisphere UAH running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean Land trends in the Southern Hemisphere, unlike the Northern, did decrease after the 1997-98 El Nino. Fig. 10:  Tropical UAH (20N – 20S) running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean Fig. 11:  Northern Extra-Tropics UAH (20N – 90N) running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean Fig. 12:  Southern Extra-Tropics UAH (20S – 90S) running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean This region warmed rapidly to 2002-3, then trends decreased. Fig. 13:  North Polar UAH (60N – 90N) running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean Fig. 14:  South Polar UAH (60S – 90S) running trends: Mean Land, and Ocean In all tropical and northern regions, Land trends have been higher than Ocean trends since 1997-98 (2002 for South Polar and Southern Extra-Tropics).  However, North Polar Ocean trends have been higher than Land since 1998.  There is a greater area of ocean than land, and ocean areas have been warming more than land.  This is the opposite of what greenhouse theory predicts.  At the poles, where warming is expected to be greatest, only the North Pole is warming, and here the warming is not greatest over land, but over the ocean. Summing up: Running trends are an effective way of showing the linear trend at any given month of a data series. They are useful for comparison and analysis after the first 10 to 15 years (the early 1990s). A declining running trend indicates flat or declining temperatures, thus The Pause is visible from 2002-3 to 2014-5 in all regions apart from North Polar. The North and South Polar regions are distinctly different from other regions and each other. Apart from North Polar region, all regions show land areas warming more than ocean areas, indicating warming from whatever cause. In the North Polar region, TLT running trends of ocean areas have been higher than land. These trends, especially at the poles, are not consistent with greenhouse theory.   The next post in this series will use running trends to derive running detrended data. 21 Dec

Putting Temperature in Context: Pt 2 - To show how handy my Excel worksheet is, here’s one I did in the last 15 minutes. Apparently Sydney has had its warmest December minimum on record at 27.1 C.  The record before that was Christmas Day, 1868 at 26.3C. The following seven plots show this in context. Fig. 1:  The annual range in Sydney’s minima: Extremes in minima can occur any time between October and March. Fig. 2:  The first 2 weeks of December Plainly, a new record was set this morning, but apart from Day 340 the other days are within the normal range. Fig. 3:  7 day mean of Tmin in this period Extreme, but a number of previous years had warmer averages. Fig. 4:  Consecutive days above 20C Tmin. But there have been longer periods of warm minima in the past. Now let’s look at the same metric, but for all of December. Fig. 5:  All Decembers (including leap years). A record for December, with 1868 in second place. Fig. 6:  7 day mean of Tmin for Decembers Seven day periods of warm nights are not new.  The horizontal black line shows the average to this morning (20.6C) is matched or exceeded by a dozen other Decembers.  (Of course this December isn’t half way through yet.)  Also note what appears to be a step change about 1970. Fig. 7:  Consecutive days above 20C Tmin in December. I doubt if 15 December will be as warm as today, but could still be over 20C. This is weather, not global warming.   13 Dec

Putting Daily Temperature in Context - In this post I demonstrate a simple way of comparing current temperatures for a particular location with those previously recorded.  In this way it is possible to show the climatic context. Using data from Climate Data Online, I plot maximum temperature for each day of the year, and then for a particular short period: in this case the last week of November and the first week of December, which coincides with the recent very warm spell here in Queensland.  To account for leap and ordinary years this period is 15 days.  In ordinary years 24th November is Day 328 and 7th December is Day 341, while in leap years this same calendar period is Day 329 to 342.  I also calculate the running 7 day mean TMax for this period, and the number of consecutive days above 35C. To put the recent heatwave in context, I have chosen six locations from Central and Southern Queensland which regularly feature on ABC-TV weather: Birdsville, Charleville, Roma, Longreach, Ipswich (Amberley RAAF), and Rockhampton. Birdsville: Fig. 1 The Police Station data are from 1954 to 2005, and the Airport from 2000.  This shows the range of temperatures throughout the year.  The red arrow indicates the current period.   The next plot shows data only for the period in question. Fig. 2:  24 November- 7 December: Airport data Note there were three days where the temperature this year was the highest for those days since 2000, but didn’t exceed the highest in this time period, which was in November.  The other days were well within the historic range. For interest, let’s now see how this year compares with the Police Station record.  (The average difference in TMax during the overlap period was 0.0 to 0.3C.) Fig. 3:  24 November- 7 December: Police Station data In a similar range. Fig. 4 This heatwave was the third hottest since 2000 and fifth overall. Fig. 5 Five previous periods had more consecutive days above 35C.  2006 had 22. Charleville: Fig. 6: Charleville Aero since 1942 Temperatures in this period reached the extremes of the range on three days. (Although the Post Office record begins in 1889, there are too many errors in the overlap period so the two records can’t be compared.) Fig. 7: A new record for early December was set, but note this was the same temperature as 29th November 2006. Fig. 8: Definitely the hottest for this period since 1942. Fig. 9: Note this was not the longest warm spell by a mile: there were many previous periods with up to 26 consecutive days above 35C. Roma Fig. 10: Although there is not one day of overlap so the two records can’t be compared, you can see that Airport (from 1992) and Post Office records are similar. Fig. 11: A new record for this time of year was set: 44.4C, and six days in a row above 40C.  Pretty hot…. Fig. 12: …but there were longer hot periods in the past (since 1992). Longreach Fig. 13:  Longreach Aero since 1966. Fig. 14: Hot, but no record. Although there is good overlap with the Post Office, temperatures for this period differ too much: from -1 to +0.7C. Fig. 15: Fifth hottest period since 1966. Fig. 16: And in the past there have been up to 47 consecutive days above 35C at this time of year. Ipswich (Amberley RAAF): Fig. 17: Fig. 18: Not unusually hot for this time of year. Fig. 19: Ninth hottest since 1941. Fig. 20: Hotter for longer in the past. Rockhampton: Fig. 21: Fig. 22: Very hot, but no records.  (The heat lasted another two days, with 36.6 and 37.3 on 8th and 9th.)13 Dec

The Pause Update: November 2016 - The complete UAH v6.0 data for November were released yesterday evening- the quickest ever. I present all the graphs for various regions, and as well summaries for easier comparison. The Pause has ended globally and for the Northern Hemisphere, and the Tropics, and may soon disappear from the USA, but still refuses to go away in the Southern Hemisphere. These graphs show the furthest back one can go to show a zero or negative trend (less than 0.1 +/-0.1C per 100 years) in lower tropospheric temperatures. I calculate 12 month running means to remove the small possibility of seasonal autocorrelation in the monthly anomalies. Note: The satellite record commences in December 1978- now 38 years long- 456 months. 12 month running means commence in November 1979. The y-axes in the graphs below are at December 1978, so the vertical gridlines denote Decembers. The final plotted points are October 2016. [CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE] Globe: The Pause has ended. A trend of +0.28 C/100 years (+/- 0.1C) since March 1998 is creeping up. And, for the special benefit of those who think that I am deliberately fudging data by using 12 month running means, here is the plot of monthly anomalies: Northern Hemisphere: The Northern Hemisphere Pause has well and truly ended. Southern Hemisphere: For well over half the record, the Southern Hemisphere still has zero trend.  The Pause has shortened by two months and may end shortly. Tropics: The Pause in the Tropics (20N to 20S) has ended and the minimal trend is now +.27C/ 100 years. Tropical Oceans: The Pause has ended for ocean areas. Northern Extra Tropics: The minimal trend is up to +0.56C/ 100 years. Southern Extra Tropics: The Pause persists. Northern Polar: The trend has increased a lot to +2.32C and since February 2003 +0.7C/100 years. Southern Polar: The South Polar region has been cooling for the entire record. USA 49 States: The Pause has shortened by one month and is about to disappear altogether. Australia: One month longer- 21 years 5 months. The next graphs summarise the above plots. First, a graph of the relative length of The Pause in the various regions: Note that the Pause has ended by my criteria in all regions of Northern Hemisphere, and consequently the Globe, and the Tropics, but all southern regions have a Pause for over half the record, including the South Polar region which has been cooling for the whole record. The variation in the linear trend for the whole record, 1978 to the present: Note the decrease in trends from North Polar to South Polar. And the variation in the linear trend since June 1998, which is about halfway between the global low point of December 1997 and the peak in December 1998: The imbalance between the two hemispheres is obvious. The lower troposphere over Australia has been strongly cooling for more than 18 years- just shy of half the record. Global TLT anomalies have remained stubbornly high.  The next few months will be interesting. The Pause may disappear from the USA and Southern Hemisphere soon, but not the Southern Extra-Tropics or Australia. El Nino tropical heat is strongly affecting the North Polar region now, and will begin to affect the Southern Hemisphere early next year. 2 Dec

Land and Sea Temperature: South West Australia Part II: TMin - This is a quick follow up to my last post, as an update:  I’ve been reminded to show Tmin as well.   My apologies. In this post I examine minimum temperature for Winter in South-Western Australia, and Sea Surface Temperature data for the South West Region, all straight from the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate Change time series page . All temperature data are in degrees Celsius anomalies from the 1961-90 average. Fig. 1:   Southwestern Australia Winter TMin Anomalies & SST Note that TMin roughly matches SSTs, but there are differences from TMax.  CuSums will show this: Fig. 2:  CuSums of Winter TMin and SST compared: Note that TMin has completely different change points, marked in red.  The major different ones are at 1949, 1956, 1964, 1990, 2000, and 2010.  There is a barely discernible point at 1976 (not 1975), so the next plots will use 1976 to show trends since then. Fig. 3:  Trends in TMin: Cooling since 1976 at -0.36C/100 years. Detrending the data allows us to see where any of the winters “bucks the trend”.  In the following plots, the line at zero represents the trend as shown above. Fig. 4:  TMin Detrended: 2016 winter TMin is 0.5C below trend, and 0.38C below average, however winter this year in southwest WA was not as cold as 1986, 1990, 2001, 2006, 2008, or 2010- according to Acorn of course. The action is with TMax. 28 Nov

Land and Sea Temperature: South West Australia - This year, the south-west of Western Australia has recorded some unexpectedly low temperatures.  Has this been due to rainfall, cloud, winds, or the cooler than normal Leeuwin Current and Sea Surface Temperatures in the South West Region? In this post I examine maximum temperature and rainfall data for Winter in South-Western Australia, and Sea Surface Temperature data for the South West Region, all straight from the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate Change time series page . All temperature data are in degrees Celsius anomalies from the 1961-90 average. Figure 1 is a map showing the various Sea Surface Temperature monitoring regions around Australia. Fig. 1 The Southwest Region is just to the west and southwest of the Southwest climate region, and winter south westerlies impact this part of the continent first.  2016’s winter has seen maxima drop sharply.  In fact, it was the coldest winter since 1993: Fig. 2:  Southwestern Australia Winter TMax Anomalies There is a relationship between rainfall and Tmax- as rain goes up, Tmax goes down, so here south west rainfall is inverted and scaled down by 100: Fig. 3:  TMax and Rain: The next plot shows TMax and the South West Region’s Sea Surface Temperature anomalies (SST): Fig. 4:  TMax & SST: Again, related: both have strong warming from the 1970s.  Next I check for whether there was a real change in direction in the 1970s, and if so, when.  To do this I use CuSums. Fig. 5:  CuSums of Winter TMax and SST compared: Both have a distinct change point: 1975, with SST warming since, but TMax appears to have a step up, with another change point at 1993 with strong warming since.  Rainfall however shows a different picture: Fig. 6:  CuSums of Winter Rainfall Note the major change at 1968 (a step down: see Figure 3), another at 1975 with increasing rain to the next change point at 2000, after which rain rapidly decreases. I now plot TMax against rainfall and SST to see which has the greater influence.  First, Rain: Fig. 7:  TMax vs Rain: 100mm more rain is associated with about 0.5C lower TMax, but R-squared is only 0.22. Fig. 8:  TMax vs SST: A one degree increase in SST is associated with more than 1.1C increase in TMax, and R-squared is above 0.51- a much closer fit, but still little better than fifty-fifty. TMax is affected by rain, but more by SSTs. I now look at data since the major change points in the 1975 winter.  The next three figures show trends in SST, Rain, and TMax. Fig. 9:  Trends in SST: Warming since 1975 of +1.48C/ 100 years. Fig. 10:  Trends in Rainfall: Decreasing since 1975 at 89mm per 100 years (and much more from 2000). Fig. 11:  Trends in TMax: Warming since 1975 at +2.14C per 100 years. Detrending the data allows us to see where any of the winters “bucks the trend”.  In the following plots, the line at zero represents the trend as shown above. Fig. 12:  SST Detrended: Fig. 13:  Rainfall Detrended: Fig. 14:  TMax Detrended: Note that SST in 2016 is just below trend, but still above the 1961-90 average.  Rainfall is only slightly above trend, and still below average.  However TMax is well below trend, and well below average, showing the greatest 12 month drop in temperatures of any winter since 1975. My conclusions (and you are welcome to comment, dispute, and suggest your own): Maximum temperatures in winter in Southwestern Australia are affected by rainfall, but to a much larger extent by Sea Surface Temperature of the South West Region. The large decrease in winter temperature this year cannot be explained by rainfall or sea surface temperature.  Cloudiness may be a factor, but no 2016 data are publicly available.  Stronger winds blowing from further south may be responsible. 28 Nov

Water World - Readers may be aware of the “Cold Blob” which is moving across the northern Pacific Ocean.  In this post I shall show sea surface temperature anomalies, and currents, in all of the world’s oceans, as shown by nullschool. This is the colour scale for all figures, from -6C to +6C.  Zero anomaly is black. The Arctic Ocean The Southern Ocean Note the large area of sea ice around Antarctica (black) surrounded by a ring of below average SSTs, with another ring of swirling eddies of warmer SSTs.  Note also the cold blob just below south-western Australia which is working its way east. The Atlantic Ocean The North Atlantic is predominantly unusually warm- especially the Gulf Stream.  However the South Atlantic is largely covered by a very large pool of cold water. The Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean Dipole between the west and the east is plain to see.  Note the colder than normal SSTs near south-western Australia which have led to some unusually cold land temperatures this winter and spring. The Pacific Ocean The El Nino has ended and La Nina appears to be building as the surge of cold water moves west along the Equator.  Note the cold blobs in the North Pacific, and less well defined in the South Pacific.  Note also the high SSTs near South America and around the International Date Line at 30 degrees North. Note there are large areas of above and below normal SSTs in all ocean basins except the Arctic, where sea ice cover tends to hide water temperature below.  The Arctic ocean atmospheric temperature anomalies have recently shot up to record highs. I now turn to the seas close to Australia. Waters around the northern, north-western, and eastern coasts of Australia are generally 1.0 to 1.8C above normal.  This includes the area of the Great Barrier Reef.  The East Australian Current runs down the east coast and can be seen as a warm tongue spilling into the Tasman Sea.  (This is what led to the ABC’s reports about high temperatures in the Tasman Sea.)  But the Tasman Sea has several eddies of cold and warm water.  Note also the cold area to the south of Western Australia, and the cool area just to the east of Tasmania. Warm waters around northern Australia are likely to generate extra rainfall and probably cyclones, and a strong gradient between north and south will likely lead to strong weather changes and storms. Conclusion:  Once again, the difference between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres shows itself in sea temperatures.  Apart from the cold blob in the northern Pacific, Northern Hemisphere oceans are predominantly warmer than usual, while those of the Southern Hemisphere have large regions of both warmer and cooler water.  There is a very large cold blob in the South Atlantic, and another surrounding Antarctica.  Ocean currents constantly move thermal energy around, releasing it by radiation and evaporation mainly, and governing land temperatures hundreds of kilometres away. The next six months should be interesting. 14 Nov

The Pause Update: October 2016 - The complete UAH v6.0 data for October have just been released. I present all the graphs for various regions, and as well summaries for easier comparison. The Pause has ended globally and for the Northern Hemisphere, and the Tropics, but still refuses to go away in the Southern Hemisphere. These graphs show the furthest back one can go to show a zero or negative trend (less than 0.1 +/-0.1C per 100 years) in lower tropospheric temperatures. I calculate 12 month running means to remove the small possibility of seasonal autocorrelation in the monthly anomalies. Note: The satellite record commences in December 1978- now 37 years and 11 months long- 455 months. 12 month running means commence in November 1979. The y-axes in the graphs below are at December 1978, so the vertical gridlines denote Decembers. The final plotted points are October 2016. [CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE] Globe: The Pause has ended. A trend of +0.23 C/100 years (+/- 0.1C) since March 1998 is about one fifth of the trend for the whole record. And, for the special benefit of those who think that I am deliberately fudging data by using 12 month running means, here is the plot of monthly anomalies: Northern Hemisphere: The Northern Hemisphere Pause has well and truly ended. Southern Hemisphere: For well over half the record, the Southern Hemisphere still has zero trend.  The Pause may end shortly. Tropics: The Pause in the Tropics (20N to 20S) has ended. Tropical Oceans: The Pause has ended for ocean areas. Northern Extra Tropics: The minimal trend is creeping up- how high will it go before decreasing again? Southern Extra Tropics: The Pause persists. Northern Polar: The trend has increased a lot. Southern Polar: The South Polar region has been cooling for the entire record- 37 years. USA 49 States: No change. Australia: No change. The next graphs summarise the above plots. First, a graph of the relative length of The Pause in the various regions: Note that the Pause has ended by my criteria in all regions of Northern Hemisphere, and consequently the Globe, and the Tropics, but all southern regions have a Pause for over half the record, including the South Polar region which has been cooling for the whole record. The variation in the linear trend for the whole record, 1978 to the present: Note the decrease in trends from North Polar to South Polar. And the variation in the linear trend since June 1998, which is about halfway between the global low point of December 1997 and the peak in December 1998: The imbalance between the two hemispheres is obvious. The lower troposphere over Australia has been strongly cooling for more than 18 years- just shy of half the record. The next few months will be interesting. The Pause may disappear from the Southern Hemisphere soon. The behaviour of the Tropics and the South Polar regions will be crucial.  (I would like to see separate data for the Extra-tropical regions from 20 to 60 degrees north and south.) 11 Nov

Pacific Sea Level One Year On - I was reminded by Jennifer Marohasy of my post a year ago (Pacific Sea Levels- Warming, ENSO, or Wind?) in which I showed that “Sea level rise in Kiribati and the Marshalls has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with the ENSO cycle, and winds in particular.” I wonder how things are going after 12 months? Back then I had a brief exchange with one of the commenters, MorinMoss, a Global Warming Enthusiast, part of which included the following: Me: So Morin, getting back to sea levels in the Pacific, what do you think sea level at Kiribati will be a year from now- higher, lower, or the same as now, and why? I reckon it will be lower- because of the ENSO cycle. The Pacific will be in neutral or La Nina phase by then, trades will be dominant, with less westerly wind bursts on the Equator.  MorinMoss: Hard to say – there’s so much warm water in the Pacific that I think it’s too early to say how the cycle will progress. We could be looking at a double-dip El Nino or a strong neutral (or would that be weak neutral?) phase, not proceeding immediately to a La Nina. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/science/global-warming-pacific-ocean-el-nino-blob.html  Me: Good-oh, we shall see! So 12 months ago I predicted sea level at Kiribati would be lower because of the ENSO cycle. Time for a reality check. This was the position in my post last year: And this is the position now. Kiribati sea level change still precedes NINO4 change, and sea level has fallen from the highest it had been in this record to about average. Q.E.D. 9 Nov

Poles Apart - Satellite data from UAH (University of Alabama- Huntsville) are estimates of temperature in the Lower Troposphere, and thus a good indicator of whether greenhouse warming is occurring.  My next post about the length of The Pause in various regions will be ready in a few days’ time.  Meanwhile, I’ve been looking at the data in a different way. In this post I will be examining how and when temperatures have changed in discrete regions of the globe, including over land and over oceans.  There are no startling revelations, but a different approach reinforces the need to understand climate variability in different regions.  The important regions of course are the Tropics and the Poles, and fortunately UAH data is available separately for just these three regions. Firstly, Figure 1 shows the regions for which UAH has atmospheric data. Fig. 1:  UAH Data Regions The Northern and Southern Extra-Tropics include the Polar regions, so there are three discrete regions which do not overlap: Tropics, North Polar, and South Polar.  It would be very helpful if Dr Spencer provided data for the Extra Tropical regions excluding the Polar Regions. For this analysis I use CuSum, which is a simple test of data useful for detecting linearity or otherwise, and identifying sudden changes in trend, or step changes.  It can be used for any data at all- bank balance, car accidents, rainfall, GDP, or temperature.  It is simple to use:  find the mean of the entire data, calculate differences for every data point from this mean, then calculate the running sum (Cumulative Sum) of the differences.  If done correctly, the final figure will be zero.  Plot the CuSum usually by time and identify points of any sudden change in direction.  A generally straight or smoothly curving line indicates linearity, but points of sudden change mean a change in trend or a step change.  (Further, data series with identical start and end points, exactly the same number of data points, and anomalies from the same period- such as UAH- should produce directly comparable CuSums.)  These points, and ranges between them, are then checked in the original data. The usefulness of CuSums will become obvious as we go, especially as they are compared. The next figures show CuSum plots for various regions. Fig. 2:  UAH CuSums for all regions Points to note: The brown line at the top is the South Polar region.  The line wobbles about zero, indicating little relative change in temperature from the mean.  Contrast this with the North Polar region (the blue line at the bottom.)  The Polar regions are conspicuously different from the other regions and from each other. The spaghetti lines clustered in the middle are CuSums for (in order from top to bottom): Southern Extra-Tropics; Southern Hemisphere; Tropics; Globe; Northern Hemisphere; Northern Extra-Tropics. The red arrows point to wobbles coinciding with major ENSO events.  These changes in direction indicate trend changes or step changes in the original data.  There are other changepoints, notably 2002-2003. The vertical red line joins changepoints in all the CuSums in mid-1991 following the eruption of Mt Pinatubo. Fig. 3: UAH CuSums for the Tropics, South Polar, and North Polar regions Note there is little similarity between CuSums for the only regions with discrete data, and you have to look carefully to see North Polar CuSums changing some months after Tropics, but not always. The next plots show the differing responses of Land and Ocean areas. Fig. 4:   UAH CuSums for the Globe, Land and Ocean Note that Land areas have greater relative temperature changes than the Oceans, and that the Global mean closely mirrors the Ocean CuSums (as the Globe is mostly Ocean).  The major turning point is in 1997-98. Fig. 5:  UAH CuSums for the Tropics, Land and Ocean Note once again the mean CuSums closely follow that of the Ocean as 20 degrees North to 20 degrees South is mostly water.  The changepoints are very distinct. Fig. 6:  UAH CuSums for the North Polar region, Land and Ocean Note that all CuSums are close, but after 1982 Ocean CuSum changes relatively more than Land- the blue line has switched to below the mean.  The main changepoints are 1991, 1993-94, 2002, 2009, and 2015. Fig. 7:  UAH CuSums for the South Polar region, Land and Ocean Now that is interesting.  Note all three CuSums have similar changepoints, but Land varies more than Ocean and after 1992 Land is largely negative, Ocean is largely positive.  The Land CuSum range is about half of the North Polar equivalent. Remember CuSums in Figure 4 showed Land temperatures must vary more than Ocean (though not in the North Polar region).  The next figures show plots of UAH original data (not CuSums). Fig. 8:  UAH original data for the Globe, Land and Ocean I find a visual representation demonstrates greater relative variation in Land temperatures well. Fig. 9:  UAH original data for the Tropics, Land and Ocean Note much greater fluctuation with ENSO, and Land varying a little more that Ocean. Fig. 10:  UAH original data for the North Polar region, Land and Ocean Note the much greater variation, but Land is more often than not masked by Ocean. Fig. 11:  UAH original data for the South Polar region, Land and Ocean Note the much greater range in Land data, with large non-linear multi-year swings- calculate a linear trend for Land at your peril. Having found changepoints, we can now analyse periods between them.  One way is to calculate means, and step changes between periods. Fig. 12:  UAH original data for the Tropics based on CuSum changepoints I deliberately ignored the 2001 changepoint- it made very little difference to means and appears to be a continuation of the series starting in 1997.  Note the step changes are very small, and the final step change is reliant on current data and will change.  While I have shown means and steps, the data are decidedly non-linear with sharp spikes and multi-year rises and falls. Fig. 13:  UAH original data for the North Polar region based on CuSum changepoints Note the large step change in the mid-1990s occurs before the 1997-98 El Nino.  The range is much greater than the Tropics. As the Land data for the South Polar region looks more interesting, I decided to use Land instead of the mean. Fig. 14:  UAH original data for the South Polar region (Land data) based on CuSum changepoints Up and down like a toilet seat! Conclusions: The data series are characterised by step changes and multi-year rises and falls. The Polar regions are “poles apart” in their climate behaviours.  Explanations might include: different geography (an ocean almost surrounded by land but subject to warming and cooling currents vs a continent isolated from the rest of the world by a vast ocean); different snow and ice albedo responses; different cloud influences. The Global mean combines data from regions with very different climatic behaviour.  Averaging hides what is really going on.  The Tropics are governed by ENSO events, and the Poles are completely different. Please Dr Spencer can you provide separate data for 20-60 degrees North and South? Comments and interpretations are most welcome. 4 Nov

The Mex Files

Trump’s Mexicans? Business interests meet with Trump advisers. - Carlos Mota, who I guess you would call the “business gossip columnist” for El Financiero caught wind of a rather interesting meeting that seems to have been purposely kept out of the media spotlight, but leaves some intriguing (and troubling) clues as to the future of U.S.-Mexican relations. My translation: Last Wednesday (7 December), three of United States President-elect Donald Trump’s closest advisers arrived in Mexico City. Their mission was a private meeting with this country’s most prominent business executives, to establish cose relations with the business community, and lay the foundation for close relationships between the two parties. I can not reveal the names of the Mexican businessmen gathered here, nor of Trump’s advisers; but I can say that the meeting involved those at the highest level, those from the U.S. people who have Trump’s ear. As far as I know, no member of the Mexican government was so careless as to shake hands with the Trumpista party. There was no official meeting. But with the Mexican entrepreneurs who attended the meeting, there was surprising level of complete identification between the parties. A meeting that was supposed to last an hour and a half stretched out to six hours of informal discussions that veered close to fellowship and even friendship between the parties. At the meeting, Trump’s team would have revealed that the president-elect’s intention is to increase the flow of trade with Mexico, something that apparently calmed the Mexicans and and even hopeful about future business relations with the United States to a degree that the conclusion was that they are better off with the Republican than they would have been with the Democrat candidate. Also, the most prominent of the Mexican entrepreneurs calculated that if Trump’s promise to create 25 million jobs in the United States over the next decade held true, millions of these jobs would have to be done by Mexicans. I understand that there was applause for this. Trump’s team revealed interesting facts about their new boss: he is extremely impestuous, and has no self-control when he uses Twitter. This is not a serious flaw, according to the U.S. team, saying such reactions were likely to be curbed soon. They added that there are three Donald Trumps: the candidate, the president-elect, and the constitutional president. And they had a request: they asked the Mexican businessman to provide in the following days a list of some well-to-do US businessmen who have shown closeness to the Mexican business leadership. The purpose? Select an ambassador. Things were not there. Amid the fellowship and geniality expressed over Mexican and Lebanese cuisine was any invitation to the Mexican side to visit Florida in January, for a stay at the impressive Trump-owned tourist resort in that state. One could speculate on who was at the meeting (though mentioning Lebanese cuisine suggests the Harp-Slim clan was represented) but it matters less than the observation that the business elites don’t feel in the least threatened by Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric, or by Trump himself.  One assumes that the Mexican moguls were those with significant investments in U.S. business, and who understand that Trump’s populism and nationalism is as thin as his skin when it comes to Twitter… if money is to be made, a Trump presidency is not about to rock the boat.  That is, money for the elites. The “calculation” by one Mexican attendee, that jobs in the United States (of what kind… Obama created millions of new jobs, but at lower wages, too) looks like an attempt to create a talking point for selling Trump to Mexicans.  We’ll get the “sloppy seconds” of the jobs. And, most intriguing is the suggestion that the Mexican business elites are proposing the next U.S. ambassador.  I had some strong reservations about Obama’s appointees … Carlos Pascaul and Anthony Wayne both coming from war-zone diplomacy which more than sent the signal that Mexico’s relationship with the United States was dominated by the “drug war”… but even more reservations about a return to the “dollar diplomacy” era.  For the Trumpistas, Mexico is just an investment source, not a country.  And, while it should be flattering that for once the United States is asking what kind of ambassador Mexicans will accept, the sense that the decisions are being made for us not by our elected representatives or our government, but by those whose financial interests lie in the United States does not bode well.Filed under: Donald Trump, Economy & Business, Gringo(landia) Tagged: Clandestine meetings 14 Dec

Do not call! - PRI deputy Fernando Moctezuma Pereda has proposed a change to the Federal penal code under which using a cellular phone while driving could be punished by up to five years in jail.  Moctezuma’s justification is that distracted drivers, specifically drivers using their cell phones, are one of the major culprits in the 12,000 traffic deaths nationwide this year. Admitting the threat of imprisonment is meant to scare drivers out of using their cell phones while on the road, Moctezuma is also proposing a secondary bill that would penalize drivers who commit traffic infractions while drugged, drunk,  or using a cell phone. Now, if they can just apply it to fools like this (a bigger hazard when I bike around town than the cars… at least cars whose drivers aren’t on their ·$%& cell phones), too:  Filed under: Crime and Punishment, Real Mexico Tagged: Urban survival 8 Dec

Zapata v Trump - Meeting on the 105th anniversary of the signing of Emiliano Zapata’s radical Plan of Ayala (““That to the pueblos (villages) there be given what in justice they deserve as to lands, timber, and water, which [claim] has been the origin of the present Counterrevolution” in John Womack’s translation), campesino and indigenous leaders sat down to hammer out what they see as the most immediate response to the threats of a Donald Trump presidency. I’ve slightly abridged the original post from the 28 November SinEmbargo (more on that below)  in my translation: Over fifteen peasant and indigenous organizations, united in the “ El campo es de todos” movement met today to evaluate achievements over the past year and discuss an action plan for 2017, with the objective of remaking public police in favor of food sovereignty, financing small producers, defending the rural economy from the ravages of multinational corporations, and combatting combating poverty in rural areas. Regarding the challenges raised by the new president-elect of the United States, they stressed the impact of tarrif barriers on Mexican exports on both large farm operators and day laborers.Javier Ortega, director of the Unión Campesina Nacional (National Peasants’ Union) said we needed to be more concerned about food security than “Trump’s wall”. “Only 40 percent of what is consumed in Mexico is produced in Mexico; We must fight for the right to food, “he said. Ernesto Guevara, leader of UNORCA, documented that “one in four Mexicans can not eat all three meals a day and spends ten time more on imported food than on native produce, like rice, soy, or corn. As a result of Mexico’s dependence on mainly imported and transgenic products, he said, “we have serious problem with diabetes.” David Contreras, representing the Red Nacional de Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil (National Non-governmental Organizations Council) said that for farmers “it is time to modernize”. He said that while the business sector has been transformed and enjoys great profits, “we have received only crumbs and government handouts.” He suggested that small farmers not think of themselves as poor, but as “entrepreneurs because we produce the food of this country”. José Juárez, of the Consejo Nacional Ciudadano (National Citizens’ Council), reminded the group of the importance of working together, “so that this country has something to eat.” Sergio Gil of the Unión Campesina Popular (Popular Peasants Union) added that the thousands of peasants demand “decent living conditions”, not just a stipend. Peasant and indigenous leaders agreed to fight for national food self-sufficiency while criticising the government for favoring multinationals. Engel López, a leader of the Central Independiente de Obreros y Campesinos (Independent Workers ‘and Farmers’ Collective) stressed that the results of the “El campo somos todos” movement have not been satisfactory to date, and the movement needs to be more energetic. “We demand that the government give the money to the peasants, not the transnational corporations,” he said. In the voice of the Central Peasant Cardenista (Cardenist Peasant Collective), Max Correa agreed, arguing that “the government promotes disunity in the peasant movement to continue profiting to the detriment of the peasants.” On the question of indigenous communities losing land to large corporate operations, Felipe Rodríguez stressed the need to push for an Indigenous Law that respects land rights and would prevail against a lack of prior consultation and democratic openness with land use permits. What I left out of my translation was a paragraph mentioning homage to the late Fidel Castro.  Not only because it wasn’t as important as what the farm leaders are saying about food security, but because of something that might seem obvious to Mexican campesinos isn’t always clear to us in the English-speaking world, and certainly not to the bulk of Mexfiles readers in the United States.  That is, that while the Cuban Revolution may have also been a Communist one, what Mexican peasant leaders then and now saw, was Castro’s agrarian reforms, modeled in large part (or at least paying homage to) on the radical proposals of the Plan of Ayala.  While if I had to put a label from our vocabulary of western political thought on Zapata, I would call the Plan of Ayala “anarcho-libertarian” rather than Marxist.  Zapata seemed to envision private ownership, or rather small corporate ownership, where Castro favored state ownership, but the goal was the same… to provide security for farmers. Castro’s Cuba was never able to obtain food security, but continued to depend on crop exports (sugar and tobacco) for food imports.  During the “special period” (after the Soviets simply abandoned Cuba) there were genuine shortages and, while Cuba was able to expand its agriculture to meet some basic needs, it never has been in a position to achieve full security.  Mexico, however, shouldn’t need to import food.  We have a broad-based agricultural system (and, about any food crop you can think of… with the possible exception of cranberries… grows in Mexico) and, at the same time, we are a major exporter of agricultural commodites either not particularly used here (marijuana and coffee for example), or are dedicating massive amounts of land to single crops (like tomatoes) entirely for export. At the same time, economic policy favors the multinationals that exploit both single-crop farming, and other land uses (like mining) that limit our own food-growing capacity.  And, as the farmers noted in their conference, policies here have neglected rural areas, forcing small producers to depend more on welfare payments than on sale of their own produce. While I’m not sure that Mexico could be 100% sufficient in food production, nor am I convinced that we can do without agricultural exports (not completely), but there is no reason not to become more self-sufficient, especially if these radical farmers are right, and trade with the United States is disrupted.Filed under: Agriculture, Donald Trump, Economy & Business, Emiliano Zapata, Food and Drink, Labor, Real Mexico 8 Dec

And forget about building a wall, too! - MEXICO CITY, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) – Eight out of every 10 Mexicans surveyed are willing to stop buying US goods if the next president, Donald Trump, takes policies that affect Mexico’s interests, according to a study released today. […] In case the business mogul carries through on his promises once he takes office as president most Mexicans would respond with actions against the US economy, according to the study. Eighty-six percent of respondents said they would be willing to stop buying products from the United States, 67 percent would not watch movies filmed in the United States and 58 percent would not travel as tourists to their cities and attractions. … 31 percent responded that they would take violent actions against U.S. companies and 49 percent would be willing to protest at the US embassy or consulates in Mexico.   (SinEmbargo)   Filed under: Donald Trump, Economy & Business Tagged: Stupid gringos 6 Dec

Fidel in Mexico - The history of the Cuban Revolution is also part of Mexican history.  I had planned to post this yesterday, but there were some glitches in the connection I had.  Thanks to Franc Contreras for getting this up on Youtube: Filed under: Ciudad de México, Cuba, Fidel Castro 29 Nov

Writers welcome! - English-language travel writing about Mexico goes back to the notorious Thomas Gage — the renegade monk turned Cromwellian propagandist, and has always been full of cliches and “ango-centric” views of the country.  Although travel writing didn’t really take off with Gage, and had to wait until the late Victorian Age to find it’s genre, one of the pioneers of the art, Ethel Brilliana Tweedie (“Mrs. Alec Tweedie”) discovered something that still seems to surprise the English language writer:  Mexicans are delighted to have their country written about, but want to remind the author to keep us in perspective. From Mexico As I Saw It (1901): After luncheon, a short swarthy man stepped forward, bowing low, and addressing the Goveror in Aztec, he asked if he might say something to the English lady; his name was Florentino Ramirez, and he came from the village of Tetlama. Of course, permission was at once granted. He stood opposite to us, surrounded by all those Indians, and though only a young man — perhaps, twenty-two or three years of age — he spoke as to the manner born. He was neighter shy nor awkward: his voice was loud and clear, and the determined expression of his dark face denoted his descent from some great race. His words were more or less as follows: Xochicalco, ca 1900 “I am spokesman of the neighbouring villages. When we heard our beloved Governor was coming, accompanied by a lady from such a far-away land, we felt proud. We are honoured that anyone should come to see our ruins, and we thank you, Señora, from the bottom of our hearts, for you must have undertaken a long and tedious journey to come so ar to see our Xochicalco. That you are going to write a book about Mexico delights our hearts, and we have come from far and near, and done our best to bid you welcome and manifest our gratitude. We are only ‘the people,’ but we have hearts and sympathies, and both have been aroused today by the visit of Colonel Alarcón and the English authoress. You have come from a land of great civlisation to visit our wild country; but. Señora, you must remember that five thousand years ago, when England was unknown, our ancestors raised those ruins,” and he waved his hand with a theatrical air as he spoke, and pointed proudly to the fortress.Filed under: Non-Mexican writers/artists on Mexico, Tourism 27 Nov

A rising wage lifts all boats? - Joseph Stiglitz  was asked about the noises from the United States (mostly emanating from the soon to be whiner-in-chief) about renegotiating what the Nobel Economics Laureate has long considered a flawed agreement.  Stiglitz noted that a “free trade agreement” presupposes the free exchange not just of goods and capital, but of labor as well.  For NAFTA to actually have free trade when it comes to labor, one of two things would need to happen.  Either US and Canadian wages would need to fall to those in Mexico, or Mexican wages would need to rise dramatically. I’m probably misquoting Stiglitz (I read today’s Jornada across the street from a fashion store which was blaring out loud hip-hop and old disco to attract customers, and annoy  unfashionable types like the people who read newspapers at cafes).  I expect US wages will be dropping, and I don’t see much support from the one percent for immediately raising them.  And, of course,  Mexican wages are hardly going to reach US levels any time in the foreseeable future.  If ever. Which doesn’t mean raising the “salario minimo” isn’t recognized by the elites as a economic priority.  While the salario minimo (a daily, rather than hourly, rate) was once based on a “basket”… the market price for the bare essentials needed by a person working six days a week (and paid for seven) to support a family of four (which besides tortillas and beans, was calculated by the price of mangoes, cooking gas, bus fare, fish for Friday dinner, and other things)… the labor “reforms” of the present administration changed the formula, allowing for hourly pay.  This did raise the salario minimo, especially in rural areas (the old system had different rates reflecting the basket price in different areas of the country) but not enough to reflect the rising cost of living. Business people at least understand that if people aren’t earning enough to meet the basics, they’re not buying.  So, the Confederación Patronal de la República Mexicana (COPARMEX), basically, the Business Leader’s Union, has come out favoring a return to the old “basket” system, with an immediate raise in the wage to reflect inflation, and a stepped rise over the next year of between 13.02 and 13.20 pesos to reflect from state benefits that the “labor reforms” stripped away, but were essential to survival at the ridiculously low salario minimo. $ 89.35 isn’t much (about 4.30 US$ today), and I’m not sure how anyone would survive on that (I allow myself more than that in daily pocket money, and am about as moderate a spender… some would say downright cheap… as you’d find), but one thing that has to be noted is that the salario minimo is a bottom rate, and the minimum rates for any sort task that can be defined as a work “type” (everything from field hand, to general assistant, to delivery person, to teacher, or doctor) has a higher rate, usually a multiple of the “salario minimo”. In addition to calling on Congress to raise basic wages, COPARMEX is looking to lower the costs for some public programs.  When the salario minimo was de-indexed from the basket, a unit called the UMA (Unidad de Medida y Actualización) was invented, initially at the amount as the salario minimo, but indexed to inflation.  Where some payments to the government (like traffic fines) were in units of the salario minimo (say five salarios for an illegal left turn), as well as some “ability to pay” government programs (like INFONIVIT, which provides home mortgages, or FONICAT, which underwrites some costs for home appliances and furniture), the UMA replaced the salario minimo. That gets confusing, but the UMA is set yearly by the inflation rate, and would be substantially less than the salario.  Clarifying that government benefits were based on UMA would qualify more people for various programs. Still woefully low, but at least the one percenters recognize it.Filed under: Economy & Business, Labor 24 Nov

Our security, and yours… - I honestly didn’t have the time (or energy) for more than a rough translation of “Trump, ave de tempestades para México en materia de seguridad” in the latest issue of Proceso (Issue: 2090, 20 November 2016, pp 14-19) … on the newsstands today… but it was important to bring Jorge Carraso Araizaga’s reportage on the possible effects of the incoming Trump Administration’s effect on Mexico, in economic issue and our “war on  (some popular US consumer favored) narcotics” as seen by US experts out in English as soon as I could. I skipped several paragraphs that were just detailed examples of various points, or paraphrased them (usually indicated in brackets:  [ ] ). The Trump administration will be a hurricane for Mexico. It threatens to demolish our security. Its simplistic ideas – building a wall or deporting migrants – will translate into major problems for this country. Add to that the uncertainty and contractions of Trump’s discourse, and the Mexican goverment will need to reshuffle its own priorities and prepare for scenarios that might arise. U.S. experts agreee. MEXICO CITY (Proceso) .- The Enrique Peña Nieto administration must prepare for the worst. Security experts agree that Donald Trump’s hard line towards Mexico has to be taken for granted. At best, even if some of its measures are merely cosmetic, the profile of the new US administration may lead to greater militarization in the fight against drug trafficking – a strategy that at present has left about 200,000 people dead in Mexico. In fact, the Mexican president and his security cabinet will have to consider retaliatory measures even if Trump and his collaborators – given their tilt to the radical right – are determined to foster a hostile relationship, diverging on questins of migration and drug trafficking. We are likely to see a return to the situation of the 1980s, defined as that of “distant neighbors” by the American journalist Allan Riding in his book of the same name, documented mistrust and confrontation between governments of Miguel de la Madrid and Ronald Reagan. Now it may be even worse, warns Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Insititute, one of Washington’s most influential think tanks. […] Felbab-Brown has no doubt that the previous and present Mexican administrations been improvising and done very little to consolidate a long-term drug policy. She says the two presidents [Calderón and Peña Nieto] have put repression of “cartel” leaders over institutional reforms, With the Trump victory, things will get worse. Or at least, more uncertain, she said in a telephone interview. The ties built during the decade of “Plan Merida” in cooperation in the areas of security, including military assistance and intelligence, could be undone by the arrival of white supremacists in the White House, according to Maureen Meyer, director of the Mexico Program at the non-governmental Washington Office of Latin America (WOLA). […] “I dont know hw cooperation can continue,” says Meyer. Trump has in his view NAFTA as well as migration and border security. During the campaign, he said almost nothing about foreign policy, and even les about Latin America. He refered to narotics trafficking, specificially about Mexican heroin, but from the perspective that it wasn’t good for Mexico. Felbab-Brown agrees: “It is very difficult to say what will happen. The president-elect has said so many contradictory things during the campaign, and gave few specifics… [other than] reiterating his wish to deport undocumented persons and stop drug trafficking, without mentioning the internal issues in Mexico, where various gangs struggle for control of the [business]” But, “The only sure thing is that he will take a hard line with Mexico”. This could be cosmetic, or it could have real impact. The first might be something like constructing an extremely costly wall, which would then require more National Guard units, helped by better technology. Taking a hard line, but of little impact. But, he would also be capable of … destroying NAFTA, imposing tariffs on the Mexican market, which would signficantly damage the country’s economy, raisie the levels of unemployment and underemployment, stimulate crime, and force more people to emigrate to the United States. That would be a contradictory policy, destroying NAFTA while making the border less secure. [Two or three years of that and Trump’s contradictory policies would force] business and institutional interests to seek cooperation with Mexico. “I hope he applies the most cosmetic of measures, before he implements a policy that would be a disaster for both nations”. [… Speaking about boreder security, an issue where Felbab-Brown thinks that Trump is particularly ill-informed, believing that a wall or fence, and not cooperative intelligence and legal work will resolve issues, she uses the phrase “distant neighbors”, the title of Alan Riding’s 1985 book about Mexican-US relations, during the de la Madrid (in Mexico) and Reagan (in the United States) era, one in which relations were] “hostile, or at least distant. It was a difficult time, but I imagine much of what went on then is applicable to this scenario.” Should Trump adopt an agressive policy [towards Mexico] Peña Neito’s government — facing an election in 2018 — might respond: “If you’re not going to work on a joint security policy, nor focus on institutional development, nor intelligence agencies here, then thanks… but no thanks”. That is, Mexico could lose interest in cooperation, especially if there is a border wall. Drugs would continue to flow north, by sea or air, although without collaboration between the two governments, it would also be more difficult to inspect trucks entering the United States as well. If the Trump administration turned to an even more hostile policy, acting unilaterally in economic matters, such as abrogating NAFTA, the Mexican government could take reprisals in several ways. For a start, it could terminate “Plan Merida” and cancel any security cooperation, or cooperation in controlling migration from Central America … […] WOLA’s Maureen Meyer […] says that the United States could return to trying to erradicate and detect drugs, in place of the evolution [within Plan Merida towards institution and justice reforms, the focus would return to military activity. Whether the Department of Defense or the State Department has the upper hand in Latin American-US relations would be an open question. The Proceso article notes that spending by the Pentagon for training in America tripled between 2007 and 2014. Mexican forces have received training from the Green Berets, among others, recently]. Mexico needs to define what it wants from the United States, and negotiate on that basis. Meyer expects that Mexican anti-narcotics assistance would be cut to levels similar to that of other countries [which under Plan Merida was a focus of US spending: 2.5 Billion dollars between 2008 and 2015]. [… Next February, when the State Department prepares its foreign assistance budget, there will be some idea of how cooperation the Trump Administration is willing to provide for these types of programs. Asked about the possiblity of returning to the old “certification” programs … under which Mexico and other country’s were “certified” based on their own cooperation with US demands for narcotics control… Meyer answered that the anti-immigrant thrust of the Trump campaign could have an effect in Congress, which could make assistance funding conditional on other matters. But, in the short term] Mexico’s priority is NAFTA, whether renegotiated or abrogated. […] But, also important is what the Peña Nieto adminstration will want to propose, when it comes to cooperation…. “We ope that it [the Mexican administration] decides to work on insitutional weaknesses, like in the police and judicial system, which require much more than mere equipment” Regarding human rights, … the President elect was supprted by torture supporters, making it difficult to see him taking up the cause as one of his priorities.    Filed under: 2018 Presidential Elections, Donald Trump, Economy & Business, Enrique Peña Nieto, NAFTA, Plan Merida, Politica (Mexicana), U.S. Immigration 22 Nov

Not a bad idea, really - One assumes that with Morena and PRD in control of the district assembly, this will probably be shot down, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. (My translation from NOTIMEX): The PAN faction in the Federal District Assembly (ALDF, for its initials in Spanish) has proposed retiring the “tenencia” (property tax) on  private vehicles, including those that cost more than 250 thousand pesos, that is, the so-called luxury cars. In place of the tenencia, Local deputy Andrés Atayde Rubiolo suggests taxing private autos on the bases of two factors:  the amount of contaminants per unit, and yearly mileage. This would be a proportional tax, with a rising rate:  those who use their cars more, and who pollute more, would pay a higher tax.  y. Atayde added that the tax would be “corrective”, in that it compensates for the damage in the city caused by excessive use of private vehicles, said to be the largest contributor to pollution, as well as an incentive to reduce the use of private autos. The chairman of the ALDF Finance Committee clarified that the tax would not be on cumulative mileage on the auto, but on mileage during the corresponding year.  That is, a car that has been in use for several years would not be taxed at a different rate than a new car with very low initial mileage. The National Action Party (PAN) believes that putting a tax on the savings or investment of the city’s families distorts consumption, savings, and investment in the medium and long terms, Ayayde Rubiolo added, calling the tenencia a “distortion” in that ownership of an automobile was a investment. Atayde Rubiolo also reported that according to his data, 50 percent of the tenencia in the capital comes from middle class and lower middle class taxpayers. He stated that the intention of the proposal is that families who, with effort and savings buy a car for mobility, will no longer pay this tax.  However, luxury and larger autos, which tend to pollute more, would pay a higher tax rate. The proposal, as presented, would earmark revenue from the new tax primarily to the Fondo de Movilidad (“Mobility Fund), given that currently seven out of every 10 trips in the Federal District are made by public transport. The Fondo de Movilidad presently spends seventy percent of its budget on roads for cars, and only thirty percent on pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. While I think any proposal that encourages people to drive less (and stop hogging the road with large luxury vehicles) is worth considering, a few possible suggestions might be to give a lower annual mileage rate for electric or flex fuel autos; ignore the expected demands from luxury car services (like Über and the like); use some of the “Mobility Fund” for low-cost loans for buying more energy efficient taxis and alternative fuel autos; and earmarking a higher percentage of the fund to pedestrian and bicycle transportation needs. Thoughts?Filed under: Ciudad de México, Environment, Transportation 20 Nov

Revolutionary Changes - ¡Feliz Día de la Revolución! It isn’t unusual to find that veterans of the the ten-years of revolution ended their service in an army completely different than where they had started out. Besides those professional soldiers who defected from the old Federal Army (like the artillery expert, Felipe Angeles — ) and those whose ideological commitment led them to transfer their allegiance from one to another revolutionary faction (like the Constitutionalist turned Villista, Rafael Buelna), there were those whose motives might have been opportunistic, but who fought all the same, within what would later be dubbed the “Revolutionary family”. But very few made the radical change Amelio Robles did. Born in rural Guerrero state in 1889, Robles joined the Zapatistas in 1912 as an irregular messenger and forager, taking on more and more duties, promoted to Captain, and … upon joining the regular (Constitutionalist) Ejército Mexicano, was promoted to Colonel. A decorated war veteran, Colonel Robles would outlive several wives before dying in 1984 at the age of 95. Did I mention that Amelio Robles was born Amelia?Filed under: Mexican History 1910-20 (Revolution), Women 20 Nov

Mike the Mad Biologist

Links 12/27/16 - Links for you. Science: Donald Trump is not a “slow vaxer.” He is an antivaxer. Whales have a history that is among the strangest and least-understood of any animal—and barnacles might be the key to unlocking their secrets.A Beautiful Fly Ignites a Bitter Feud Among Scientists4 in 10 babies born after Zika infection may have brain defects, researchers sayWhat we lose when we lose the world’s frogsDear Plagiarist: A Letter to a Peer Reviewer Who Stole and Published Our Manuscript as His Own Free Other: We Haven’t Even Seen the Worst of Trump’s Manic Behavior: The consequences will be vastDonald Trump is holding a government casting call. He’s seeking ‘the look.’ (we’re all going to die)According to Thomas Edsall, Democrats Rely on Protectionist VotersObama campaigns showed that a strong economic message can overcome white identity politicsDid a California Charter School Group Fund an Effort to Overthrow the Turkish Government?Hey Democrats! Do you ever want to win again?How the Twinkie Made the Superrich Even RicherTom Engelhardt: The Future According to TrumpBernie Sanders: TPP and Standing Rock victories show path to beating TrumpHillary Clinton blew the most winnable election in modern American history. And it’s her own fault.Privatize, Monetize, Weaponize: How the DeVos family devoured Michigan’s schoolsRadical PuppetryMr. Trump: Government and War are too Serious to be entrusted to the GeneralsHow Liberals Can Use the Tea Party Playbook to Stop TrumpMapping the White Working ClassObama Failed to Mitigate America’s Foreclosure CrisisWhy More Mass Deportations Would Be Bad News for the Housing MarketConflicts on top of conflicts: Another “emoluments clause” that should bar Donald Trump from officeThe Defense of Liberty Can’t Do Without Identity PoliticsJesus was not born in a stableNeveragain.techHow Donald Trump’s Web of LLCs Obscures His Business InterestsAngels of the Resistance (and a Serial Killer) in Nazi-Occupied ParisEverything we thought we knew about free trade is wrong (“we”, of course, doesn’t include the people who suffered through it) 14:44

If Only There Were An Entity That Could Create Money And Use It To Fix The Broken Things - Add this to ‘The Ongoing Suburban Fiscal Crisis’ files. The New York Times has an article about the ongoing attempts to privatize U.S. infrastructure using private equity firms (boldface mine): The Times analyzed three deals in which private equity firms have recently run a community’s water or sewer services through a long-term contract. In all three places — Bayonne, and two cities in California, Rialto and Santa Paula — rates rose more quickly than in comparable towns, which included both publicly and privately run water systems. In Santa Paula, where Alinda Capital Partners controlled the sewer plant, the city more than doubled the rates. A fourth municipality, Middletown, Pa., raised its rates before striking a deal. Now, some of these cities are trying to take back their water. Missoula, Mont., wrested away its water system, which had been owned by the Carlyle Group. Apple Valley, Calif., whose waterworks were also owned by Carlyle, has filed a similar lawsuit. Santa Paula bought its sewer plant from Alinda last year. Of course, there’s a reason many communities look for private partners to begin with: Their water systems are in poor shape. Budget shortfalls and political mismanagement can represent a real threat to both infrastructure and citizens... One of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that the nation faces an infrastructure crisis. In water infrastructure alone, the nation needs about $600 billion over the next 20 years, according to federal estimates. And yet federal spending on water utilities has declined, prompting state and federal officials to try to play matchmaker, courting private investors to fix what needs fixing. For years, the Obama administration has been cheerleading public-private partnerships. In a statement, the White House said it backed them “when they are well structured, include strong labor standards, and when there is confidence that taxpayers are getting a good deal.” During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump’s team outlined a new plan to incentivize private investors to take on large infrastructure projects. Wall Street has responded to the call to action. There are now 84 active financial infrastructure funds, according to Pitchbook, a private financial data platform, up 25 percent in just three years. Some belong to big banks like Goldman Sachs, but many are run by private equity firms. “Across our country, we need solutions for infrastructure deficiencies,” said James Maloney, a spokesman for the American Investment Council, the private equity trade group. “Private equity serves as one of these solutions.” Some critics are wary of expanding private investment in public infrastructure. Although cities may get cash up front in these deals, “there is no ‘free’ money” in public-private partnerships, says a 2008 Government Accountability Office report. Using roads as an example, the report observed “it is likely” that tolls will increase more on a privately operated highway than one run by the government. But private equity has done wonders for early childhood development, so I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong, amirite? This is a result–a really bad one–of the ongoing fiscal crisis facing suburbs (and exurbs too!). They simply don’t have the tax base to pay for the services they provide and repair their now-old infrastructure: Something that’s lurking in the background of the U.S. economy, and which will erupt with a fury in ten years or so is the need to replace suburban infrastructure: underground wires, pipes, and so on. This is something new that most suburbs, unlike cities, haven’t had to confront. A suburb that was built in 1970 is long in the tooth today, and time only makes things worse. No suburbs that I’m aware of ever decided to amortize the future cost of repairs over a forty year period–that would require an increase in property taxes. In fact, many suburbs never even covered the expenses of building new subdivisions, never mind worried about expenses decades down the road. Worse, there’s a tax base problem. That is, the value of property per unit of infrastructure (e.g., the property tax base per square foot of water main) is much lower in the suburbs than it is in cities. Relatives who live in a wealthy suburb close to D.C. (homes go for $900,000 give or take) are in a subdivision with about 40 homes on 25 acres, with a rough property value of $45 million. In D.C., I live in a building assessed at a little over $50 million that covers a quarter of an acre (the population of these two groups is about the same). Once suburbs start having to repair their infrastructure, it’s going to get very expensive to live there (and that doesn’t even include the transportation ‘tax’ of suburban living). Keep in mind, the suburban development I’ve described is definitely on the high end of things–many places will be worse off. This is an entirely predictable political problem–one which, as the NYT notes, Obama didn’t do very much to alleviate. There is a solution, however: There is another option, but it’s one our current political dogma simply won’t countenance: deficit spending at the federal level. One doesn’t even have to go Full Metal Chartalist/MMT/MMR (though it helps!). The employment rate still is lousy and we have infrastructure needs. We could spend some money and fix this stuff. That does lead to the question of whether we should be subsidizing suburban sprawl even more than we do now. Can’t wait for that argument. A wonkish joke-like-thing (not sure it rises to the level of an actual joke) is that the government is a pension and medical plan that also buys a lot of guns. It might be that we start to add ‘sewer builder’ to the list. Trump might be the worst of all worlds: we’ll get deficit spending that largely enriches the wealthy, doesn’t fix much of our problems, and results in a further wealth transfer from households to corporations. And don’t count on Democrats to embrace deficit spending, even though they should. When it all goes to shit, deficit spending as part of the economic tool box will be discredited (again). We’re really fucked. 08:00

Links 12/26/16 - Links for you. Science: The Case For Natural History MuseumsMost of Greenland Melted In the Recent Past, Study FindsWe finally have an effective Ebola vaccine. The war on the disease is about to change.You don’t get to revise evolutionary theory, until you understand evolutionary theory Other: No President: There is every reason to expect the worstThe Roots Of The Democratic Debacle: The defeat of Hillary Clinton was a consequence of a political crisis with roots extending back to 1964. The warning signs should have been obvious.Stand With Keith Ellison: We can debate what Ellison can accomplish as the chair of a party dedicated to selling out workers — but there is no doubt about who would cheer his defeatWhat the U.S. map should really look likeYarglebargle Socialism!Under Trump, red states are finally going to be able to turn themselves into poor, unhealthy paradisesFive myths about the decline and fall of RomeDonald Trump’s Mafia Approach to Governing Has Officially StartedTrump’s Pick for Health Secretary Has Spent Years Trying to Limit Access to ContraceptionTrump and the GOP Have Massively Unpopular Tax Policies: Even wealthy Republican voters support higher taxes for themselvesWho Lost The White House?Paul Krugman Pompously Suggests Democrats Turn Their Backs On Working ClassNORMALIZED DEVIANCE CEASES TO BE DEVIANTIt’s Time To Stop Allowing Ourselves To Be Seduced By Shitty White WomenTrevor Noah’s Interview With Tomi Lahren Is A Perfect Example Of Why The White Liberal ‘Discourse’ Fetish Is So Damn Absurd.Darkest Before The DawnWhy the Nazis studied American race laws for inspirationTrump’s Coming Confrontation with Yellen and the Federal Reserve 26 Dec

“Don’t Worry About Wearing White After Labor Day. Nobody Cares,” She Said - From here: 26 Dec

Nate Cohn’s Post-Mortem Only Tells Half Of The Story - The Upper Midwest isn’t like the South–and we know that. Nate Cohn doesn’t. So a widely read piece by Nate Cohn suggests that turnout among whites wasn’t decisive in the shift from Obama to Trump. He argues this is largely a vote switch. But the problem is that Cohn ignores the states that Clinton needed to win–the Upper Midwest. As we’ve discussed previously, turnout in those states was the decisive factor in Clinton’s loss: But this emerging consensus around a Rust Belt revolt is wrong. People like Edsall have missed the real story: Relative to the 2012 election, Democratic support in the Rust Belt collapsed as a huge number of Democrats stayed home or (to a lesser extent) voted for a third party. Trump did not really flip white working-class voters in the Rust Belt. Mostly, Democrats lost them… Relative to 2012, Democrats lost 950,000 white voters in the Rust Belt (-13 percent). This figure includes a loss of 770,000 votes cast by white men (-24.2 percent). Compare that number to the modest gains Republicans made in terms of white voters: They picked up only 450,000 whites (+4.9 percent). Democrats also lost the black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) vote in the Rust Belt 5, with 400,000 fewer voters in this category (-11.5 percent). While disaggregated exit-poll data on BIPOC voters was inconsistently available across the five states we examined, in those places where numbers were available, Democrats saw losses among both black American and Latino voters. Importantly, some of the greatest losses in BIPOC votes were in states such as Ohio and Wisconsin, both of which adopted voter suppression laws beginning in 2012. But even in states with no such laws, such as Pennsylvania, BIPOC turnout was significantly lower this election cycle. In short, more people of color stayed home in the Rust Belt in 2016 than in 2012…. Compared with 2012, three times as many voters in the Rust Belt who made under $100,000 voted for third parties. Twice as many voted for alternative or write-in candidates. Similarly, compared with 2012, some 500,000 more voters chose to sit out this presidential election. If there was a Rust Belt revolt this year, it was the voters’ flight from both parties. And since a picture is worth a thousand words: Democrats are never going to come close to a majority of Southern whites, college educated or not. But Democrats can do well outside of the South. In other words, nothing has changed. If we don’t get the post-mortem right, then we wind up with bad solutions (e.g., changing policy to chase Southern whites). Cohn is doing a disservice telling only half of the story. Related post: Bill Scher has some good analysis on this topic. 26 Dec

Links 12/25/16 - Gut Yontif to the Pontiff! And anyone else celebrating the holiday too! Links for you. Science: High levels of antibiotic tolerance and persistence are induced by the commercial anti-microbial triclosanSurvival of the Fittest: How Bacterial Pathogens Utilize Bile To Enhance Infection.California bill would require reporting of ‘superbug’ infections, deathsEbola vaccine shown to be ‘highly protective’ against deadly virus in major trialWhy gravitational waves truly are the “scientific breakthrough of the year” Other: Was Barack Obama Bad for Democrats?How Barack Obama Failed Black AmericansMapping Who Will Be Hurt by D.C. Metro’s Late-Night CutsThe Vampire Squid Occupies Trump’s White HouseNo, you can’t blame millennials for Clinton’s loss.Fired D.C. Government Employee Files Lawsuit Against CityWhy America’s roads are so much more dangerous than Europe’sThe FBI Is Investigating Me Because I Tweeted A Joke About Fake NewsReid: DNC was ‘worthless’ under Wasserman SchultzAnthony Bourdain: The Post-Election InterviewDrug industry hired dozens of officials from the DEA as the agency tried to curb opioid abuseThe Party of TrumpWhy Did Planned Parenthood Supporters Vote Trump?Lessons for Fighting a Demagogue, From the People Who Survived a PlagueDirector of Polish Culture Institute in Berlin Fired for ‘Too Much Jewish Content’Would Bernie Sanders have lost the presidential election?Looking to Trump’s KatrinaDespair and Hope in Trump’s America 25 Dec

USBG Christmas, Part II - As promised, more photos from the U.S. Botanic Garden holiday display. Without further delay, here are some Knife River Park lodge dwellings: Mesa Verde pueblos: And a warm welcome to Las Vegas: The Teapot Dome Service Station: Tharp’s Log: Sitka National Park: Kennecott Mines: Not sure what these are about: Mount Rushmore: Grand Canyon Railroad Station: Cape Hatteras light house: Old Stone House, Rock Creek Park: Yellowstone Park Lodge: 25 Dec

Links 12/24/16 - Links for you. Science: Livestock Antibiotics Surging Up, Up, UpNotes on a pageImmune System, Unleashed by Cancer Therapies, Can Attack OrgansMulticopy plasmids potentiate the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteriaEarth, the Final Frontier Other: NARAL won’t back Democrats who don’t fight for Obamacare. Good. (about fucking time)The Swedish Approach to Road Safety: ‘The Accident Is Not the Major Problem’What El Paso children are asking about TrumpPopulism, Real and Phony“Why Are You Still Talking About Hillary Clinton?” (because it’s a proxy for the direction of the Democratic Party)Jewish family harassed after being falsely blamed for canceling a school’s Christmas playHey remember when DoJ blustered that Deutsche Bank was going to pay 14 BILLION DOLLARS for mortgage bond abuses & everyone freaked out?James Comey and the Democrats’ outrage gapThe Lies at the Heart of Our Dying OrderInvestment in Early Childhood Education Yields Substantial Gains for the EconomyIvanka Trump’s boots are getting some hilariously brutal reviews on Amazon these daysYahoo Reveals It Was the Victim of the Largest Data Breach in History — Again (Mayer is awful)If I still wrote about Jewish issues &/or Israel/Palestine (which I don’t) this is what I would be writing abt the @keithellison nonsenseNo, the Keith Ellison Tape Isn’t Anti-Israel — and Shouldn’t Torpedo His Democratic RunTrump’s pick for defense secretary went to the mat for the troubled blood-testing company TheranosStriking Portraits of Lonely Cars in 1970s New York 24 Dec

USBG Christmas, Part I - Every year, the U.S. Botanic Gardens in D.C. puts together a themed model railroad display with the scenery made from plant materials. This year’s theme is U.S. national parks (and since Il Trumpe might sell them off, well…). It will run through January 2. Without further delay, let’s start with Monticello: Mount Vernon: A long distance view bringing us to…. President Harry S. Truman’s home: Moving down the tracks some more: Mattes Street Signal Tower: Maggie Lena Walker House: Martin Luther King’s birth home: A fanciful tunnel: Pulling back: Lady Liberty: ‘Iolani Palace: John Muir House and Freedom Tower: Theodore Roosevelt home: Cape Florida lighthouse and the Alamo: Sacajawea: Casa Grande Ruins: Taos Pueblo: A close-up: More tomorrow! 24 Dec

Links 12/23/16 - Links for you. Science: Critics assail paper claiming harm from cancer vaccineKeeping Our Eyes on the Antimicrobial Stewardship Ball: Dr. Tom Price as the next secretary of HHS (Price could be really, really bad for antimicrobial resistance efforts)Kate Rubins just scienced the @$!# out of the International Space StationResearchers may have found first polluted river from before Bronze AgeEyes in the sky: Cutting NASA Earth observations would be a costly mistake Other: How Desperate Would You Have To Be To Stay At A Trump Hotel?And Then You Have This IdiotHow James Comey and Loretta Lynch made Donald Trump the president of the United StatesJames Comey’s year of unintended — and ruinous — consequencesDistinguished Economist Says Economics Has Gone down a Blind AlleyThe On-Going Press FailureI make $2.35 an hour in coal country. I don’t want handouts. I want a living wage.The non-existence of Paul Krugman’s ‘Keynes/Hicks macroeconomic theory’Rosslyn, VA and the Key Bridge HDRDonald Trump’s Plan to Make Infrastructure Profitable Is a MistakeTrump’s Infrastructure Financing Seems Like a JokeJewish family flees after being falsely blamed for school’s cancelation of ‘A Christmas Carol’The WWII Massacres at Drobitsky Yar Were the Result of Years of Scapegoating Jews2009: The year the Democratic Party died Kos, shitting on working people is no way to be a DemocratWhy Democrats should just treat the middle class like the extremely poorThe Trump China Showdown Aligns with Reality 23 Dec

Musings from the Chiefio » Feed

A Remarkably Tiny Global Circulation Model You Can Run - A first look at starting the port of a Global Circulation Model to the Raspberry Pi. Continue reading →26 Dec

A Question of Questioning Ethics Without Gods - Can there be real enforceable ethics without God? Can there be an ethics of God without proof of God? Continue reading →26 Dec

Merry Christmas!! - A Christmas Greeting for one and all. Continue reading →25 Dec

More SystemD Bites On the A…? - Two more SystemD related Aw-Shits? I think so... Continue reading →23 Dec

TT – Minus 5 weeks - The Trump Transition, less than 5 weeks left to the long nightmare... Continue reading →20 Dec

Garth & Baytown Tx. - Here I sit at Garth & I-10 in Baytown Texas. A bit over 1/3 of the way from Florida to Silicon Valley. In a Starbucks. There has been light drizzle from middle of Louisianna to here. Sunday a Cold Norther … Continue reading →16 Dec

Morimoto Asia – A Review - A short review of Morimoto Asia restaurant in Disney Springs. Synopsis: Expensive but good. Be careful telling the waiter you will be slow to order... Continue reading →15 Dec

Italian Burritos - Italian Burritos? Welcome to America! Yummy, IMHO ;-) Continue reading →14 Dec

TT – minus 6 Weeks - The TT Minus 6 week, and what joy a DOE pillory might bring ;-) Continue reading →14 Dec

O.T.R.A.- Again… - I'm On The Road Again for about 2 weeks. All by my lonesome (family staying at home while I run around getting 'er done...) Play nice and enjoy your holiday prep! Continue reading → 6 Dec

NoTricksZone

Meteorologists Warn Of Possible Arctic Blast For Europe. Also: Threat Of Green Energy Refugees! - At his Weatherbell Daily Update (12/26) veteran meteorologist Joe Bastardi issued an Arctic weather heads up for Europe after the New Year: Look at this in the 11 to 16. This is indicating that the models think there’s going to be a lot of snow on the ground in the UK and all through western Europe.” The spring-like weather of the past week or so is about to end, as the following chart shows: As the chart shows, cold is projected to grip Central Europe 11 to 16 days out. Cropped from Weatherbell Others have also issued a heads up. For example German meteorologist Dominik Jung warns of the “Siberian whip” being poised to seriously lash Europe. The forecast is still some 10 days out, and so there’s still a possibility it’ll change. But the overall pattern appears to be in the works, the meteorologists say. Chart shows the cold poised to storm across Europe beginning January 3, 2017. Chart source: wetterexperte.blogspot.de Jung writes: As the chart above shows, very cold air flows in to us here in Germany from high up. That would put us somewhat below freezing also in the daytime in many regions. This scenario has been popping up in the weather model calculations for a few days, and so we should take it very seriously.” Green energy refugees? And with Europe’s power supply system as rickety and unstable as it is, thanks to crappy, wildly fluctuating wind and sun, it may be a wise idea for Europeans to have emergency sources of heat or electricity ready just in case the long anticipated blackout does occur – and is more likely during a period of protracted cold. I’ve been contemplating buying a small generator in order to power our natural gas furnace so that the house will at least have heat and warm water. The gas furnace needs electricity to operate. Snowfall, long-term cold, and the resulting high power demands could challenge the power grid. Though the chances of a widespread blackout are small, it can no longer be ignored. Even the German government recently warned of the possibility. The DEUTSCHE WIRTSCHAFTS NACHRICHTEN here wrote earlier this year: Also the President of the Federal Office of Citizens Protection, Christoph Unger, said: ‘The long-lasting, widespread power outage is for us the central challenge that we face.'” Green energy refugees? But there’s no need for Germans or Europeans to panic. There will always be warm places to take refuge. Yet it is unusual that we now need to prepare for the first green energy refugees – right here in “modern” Europe! Not only Europe needs to brace for the coming cold, Bastardi also warns that Arctic air will push across North America and that there’s a real possibility of the weather turning “wickedly cold” over far east Asia. Winter has only just begun.  08:30

The Rapid Deceleration Of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss In Recent Years Not Reported In ‘Arctic Report Card’ - About two weeks ago, NOAA released the annual version of their latest Arctic Report Card.  Of course, the usual media outlets peddled the requisite doomsday headlines when describing the report’s contents, deploying words like grim  and dire  and pedantically issuing a failing grade so as to paint a picture of an Arctic climate teetering on the brink of catastrophe. It was on page 33 that the authors divulged the Greenland Ice Sheet’s mass balance statistics for 2015-’16. 2016 Arctic Report Card     “Between April 2015 and April 2016 (the most recent period of available data) there was a net ice melt loss of 191 Gt.  This is about the same as the April 2014-April 2015 mass loss (190 Gt).” So the ice sheet reportedly lost 191 gigatonnes (Gt) of water between April 2015 and April 2016.  Interestingly, last year’s report card (2015) had the April 2014 to April 2015 loss pegged at -186 Gt, not -190 Gt.  Somehow another 4 Gt were added to the total loss for 2014-’15 between then and now. 2015 Arctic Report Card     “Ice mass loss of 186 Gt over the entire ice sheet between April 2014 and April 2015 was 22% below the average mass loss of 238 Gt for the 2002- 2015 period.” For 2013-’14, the mass loss for the Greenland Ice Sheet was even lower: just -6 Gt.  In other words, the ice sheet was essentially in balance. 2014 Arctic Report Card     “A negligible ice mass loss of 6 Gt between June 2013 and June 2014″ To review, that’s -6 Gt, -186 Gt, and -191 Gt for the 2013 to 2016 mass balance records.  Averaged together, the loss was –128 Gt per year for 2013-’16, which is a substantially slower rate of loss relative to previous years. A Rapid Deceleration In Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss Since 2012 Now here’s where it gets interesting.  For their 2013 report card, NOAA authors wanted to accentuate just how profound the loss of ice mass had been for the 2008-2012 period compared with the 2002-2006 period.  This way, they could point to a rapid acceleration of ice sheet mass loss. 2013 Arctic Report Card    “The rate of mass loss has accelerated during the period of observation, the mass loss of 367 Gt/y between September 2008 and September 2012 being almost twice that for the period June 2002-July 2006 (193 Gt/y)“ As some may have noticed, NOAA curiously uses different starting and ending months for each demarcated period, making direct data comparisons difficult (due to different gain/melt rates depending on the month).  Instead of comparing September to September every year (as they did in 2008-’12), they’ve compared April to April in some years, June to June in another year, and June to July in still another 4-year-long selection.  And they’ve ignored the melt record for 2007 altogether in the above analysis when comparing 2002-2006 to 2008-2012.   NOAA wouldn’t dare “move the goal posts” by cherry-picking different start and end points depending on the melt rates for specific months so as to bolster their claims of “acceleration” would they?   That would imply operating with a tendentious agenda rather than objectively reporting the data.   Would they do that? But instead of digressing to discuss their odd “selectivity” with regard to choosing some months or years to start and end with instead of others, we will just accept NOAA’s methodology and analyze the yearly averages as originally reported. So according to present and historical NOAA Arctic Report Cards we have  the following rates of annual Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss for 2002-2016:                                         –193 Gt/yr for 2002-2006                                         -367 Gt/yr for 2008-2012                                         -128 Gt/yr for 2013-2016 We can even go a step further and add the 1990s to the record.  Despite of a highly increasing rate of human CO2 emissions for the 1992-2002 period, NASA’s Zwally et al. (2005) reported an average net gain of +11 Gt/yr for the Greenland Ice Sheet during those 10 years. Zwally et al., 2005     “Changes in ice mass are estimated from elevation changes derived from 10.5 years (Greenland) [1992-2002] … of satellite radar altimetry data from the European Remote-sensingSatellites ERS-1 and -2. The Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (–42 ± 2 Gt/yr–1 below the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA)) and growing inland (+53 ± 2 Gt/yr–1 above the ELA) with a small overall mass gain (+11  ± 3 Gt/yr–1; –0.03 mm a–1SLE (sea-levelequivalent)).” So, adding the 1992-2002 NASA values to the 2002-2016 NOAA values, here is what the overall trend in Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Balance looks like during 1992-2016 using these as-reported mass balance values: Notice the dramatic rate of deceleration (by two-thirds) in Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss averages for recent years on the graph above, contradicting the reports of a perpetually increasing ice loss acceleration. And the slowing mass loss rate has continued in 2016-’17.  According to DMI monitoring, the Greenland Ice Sheet is gaining ice substantially above the long-term average in the last 3-4 months.  It is highly likely that by the end of the record, the 2016-’17 mass loss will be significantly less than 200 Gt/yr, and perhaps less than 100 Gt/yr again.   The Context Of The Insignificant 1992-2016 Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Change Some may counter the above analysis by claiming that even losing 100 to 200 Gt of ice per year is still quite substantial and concerning, and thus the alarmist headlines are merited.   But this perspective ignores history. First, estimates of surface mass balance for the Greenland Ice Sheet almost invariably use the 1961-1990 period as a baseline, as it is assumed that the ice sheet was essentially in balance (no net losses or gains) for those 30 years.  As records have shown, though, the 1961-1990 baseline period was the coldest decadal-scale stretch since the 1800s for Greenland, which means that the 1995-to-present Arctic warming trend is being directly compared to a very cold period for the Greenland ice sheet rather than a more representative period.  In fact, as indicated by several recent papers, the Greenland ice sheet’s surface mass balance was similar to or even lower during the as-warm-as-now 1920s to 1940s than it has been during the last few decades.  If the baseline period were to include Greenland’s early 20th century warm years (1920s to 1940s), the recent losses would likely be substantially smaller. Also, let’s consider what losing, say, 150 Gt per year actually means in terms of its environmental impact.   According to Shepherd et al. (2012), the Greenland Ice Sheet lost an average of -142 Gt/yr (with substantial uncertainty of ±49 Gt/yr) during the years 1992-2011.  This translates into an average of 0.4 mm/yr of sea level rise contribution from the Greenland Ice Sheet during this high-melt period.  In other words, over the entire 20-year record (1992-2011), the Greenland Ice Sheet contributed to sea level rise at a rate of 4 centimeters (1½ inches) per century.  That’s it.  That’s what a loss of -142 Gt per year multiplied by 20 years translates into. Even if this alleged modern rate of loss were doubled to -300 Gt/yr, we are still only talking about 3 or 4 inches of sea level rise contribution from the Greenland Ice Sheet every century if that rate of loss could be sustained for 100 years.   As indicated above, that rate of loss couldn’t even be sustained for more than a few years in the last few decades. Finally, as mentioned above, scientists presume the Greenland Ice Sheet was in balance during the 1961-1990 period, which is why it is used as the baseline reference period for surface mass balance estimates.  If that’s the case, there is no reason why estimates of the human impact on the Greenland Ice Sheet’s mass balance should not extend back to 1961 too.  Or even 1951.  After all, the IPCC has indicated in their latest (2014) synthesis report that the overwhelming (“more than half”) anthropogenic influence on climate commenced that particular year:  “It is extremely likely more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.” So if we were to include the ~40 years of majority anthropogenic influence between 1951 and 1991 that apparently saw no net change in Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance with a (rounded up) combined mass loss rate of -150 Gt/yr between 1992 and 2016, the total human impact on the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet might amount to an annual loss average of -55 to -60 Gt for the entire 65-year period.  That’s a rate of contribution to sea level rise of about 1 ½ centimeters per century since 1951, or since humans allegedly began causing the majority of global warming. Since a headline that reads “Humans Have Caused Greenland’s Ice To Melt At Rate That Adds 1 ½ Centimeters Per Century To Sea Levels!” probably wouldn’t be effective in grabbing readers’ attention, it’s understandable why journalists and advocates for the cause would prefer to use doomsday language instead.  It’s also understandable why they’d prefer to gloss over the recent deceleration in Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss found in the latest Arctic Report Card.  It sounds so much scarier to write about the hundreds of billions of tons of ice lost instead.26 Dec

Former Clinton Strategist Views Renewables As Non-Competitive…”Let’s Not Destroy American Economy” - What follows is a political view from a person with lots of policy experience. He tells it the way he sees it. Image cropped from DickMorris.com Dick Morris is a former political strategist for President Bill Clinton, and a vocal critic of Hillary Clinton — no doubt with good reasons. Morris not only has a good knowledge of history, but of policy practicality as well. In the video, he takes a pragmatic view at what is feasible when it come to energy in the United States. Not worth throwing sovereignty overboard First Morris comes out saying he thinks the jury is sill out on climate science, acknowledging that humans and natural factors play roles in driving climate change – view that is held by many of the so-called skeptics. He emphasizes that climate change is a serious problem, but not one that warrants throwing freedom and sovereignty overboard. In the transportation sector, Morris believes that the internal combustion engine will eventually yield to other technologies, such as hydrogen fuelled engines. Great progress through fracking For manufacturing, Morris offers interesting statistics showing the great strides the US has made in reducing coal consumption for firing power plants, from over 55% some years ago to less than 40% today. He expects natural gas to surpass coal in the years ahead. This progress is in large part due to the much greater supply and use of natural gas extracted from fracking. The technology has made a major contribution in cleaning up US energy production, no doubt. America has indeed made great strides in transforming its energy sector over the past two decades. Renewable energy has only limited practicality On renewable energy, Morris thinks that its use in the United States will be limited due to its impractical production and transmission. He scoffs at the idea of taking over the Danish model and imposing it on the United States. He summarizes: Renewable resources will be appropriate only for certain areas, very few areas, and with heavy subsidies so that it can compete with market prices — the subsidies too expensive, the areas too limited. And so the environmentalists are saying, ‘Well, if you can’t have perfection, then let’s not improve the current system, let’s not replace coal with natural gas. Let’s replace it with renewable resources that are not practical, are not available, not economical.’ So keep our eye on the ball: reducing carbon emissions where possible. But don’t destroy the whole American economy and make us non-competitive with global economies simply because of it. It is a major problem, but it is not only or even the only major problem we face.” Dick Morris has put up a series of videos on energy policy, see here. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!  25 Dec

2016 Highlights: Tsunami Of Skeptic Papers And Desperate Attempts To Silence Dissenters - 2016 is coming to a close, and I’d like to wish all readers here a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the coming new year. What follows are some of the main highlights at NTZ in 2016. Overall visitor traffic increased a good 30% since the start of the year. Much of this is due to the hard work of Kenneth Richard who joined as a guest author some months ago. Kenneth writes every Monday and Thursday. His reviews of the latest scientific literature have gotten great attention. Thanks Kenneth! 2016 Highlights January: stable Antarctic, GISS’s shady role Back in January I reported how Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt wrote about how NASA GISS director Gavin Schmidt had “squandered much credibility” and played “a shady role with the temperature data.” The two German experts went on to say that Schmidt’s “dubious data alterations with the GISS datasets will likely become interesting material for science historians.” Also we reported how Lüning wrote of 5 very recent papers showing that Antarctic ice is much more stable than originally believed. February: 250 papers disputing climate alarmism In February Kenneth Richard made his debut at NTZ, providing a list of over 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers from 2015 casting doubt on climate science! The entire list is here. Also it was underscored what a folly Germany offshore wind energy truly is. A study we reported on shows that the maintenance costs are 100 times more than the cost of the turbine itself. Little wonder Germans are now forced to pay among the highest electricity rates in the world. Technical problems have plagued the German offshore wind industry, read more here. March: Glacier retreat, sea level rise slow down In March we presented new papers showing that glacier retreat and sea level rise are slowing down rapidly. Also read here and here. Claims of rapid sea level rise lost credibility as recent studies indicate only 0.8 – 1.6 mm/year sea level rise. Moreover, Kenneth Richard published a story here on 500 peer-reviewed papers disputing alarmist claims surrounding climate from the year 2014 and 2015. Looks like the IPCC has got a lot of updating to do. April: Embryonic, untrustworthy models We’ve known a long time that climate models are woefully inadequate for making reliable long-term projections, and this was confirmed in a story we wrote on a paper appearing in Nature, where a world-class modeler admitted that models are only at the embryonic stage and are hardly trustworthy. In April a hurricane and winter 2016/17 forecast was issued by David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations. So far it looks to be impressively right on the money! Dilley also projects a harsh cold period from 2025 to 2060. May: MWP global; CERN confirms Svensmark We saw that the Medieval Warm Period was also prominent in the southern hemisphere and not just a local north Atlantic phenomenon that alarmist scientists insist it was. Also results from CERN confirm the Svensmark theory. More here as well. The sheer hypocrisy of Hollywood stars was exposed once again as Leonardo DiCaprio jet-set across the Atlantic, burning some 30,000 liters of kerosene – all to pick up an environmental award! Also read here and here. We reported here how retired German climate scientist Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke announced there is no detectable human fingerprint to be found in today’s climate change — and he called the science “a dangerous ideology“. Dutch geologist Gerrit van der Lingen even called it “a mass hysteria” and that historians will one day “shake their heads in disbelief“. June: PIK warns of mini ice age! Faulty models The ultra-alarmist PIK Potsdam Institute released a shocker, warning of a mini ice age — due to solar activity! Kenneth Richard then published a list of 50 papers showing that CO2 climate sensitivity is seriously overstated. He also published a list of 21 papers showing that the models aren’t working very well. July: NASA “data fraud”; ruthless wind industry In July Tony Heller presented NASA’s climate data fraud and how the trends are “manipulated and fake”. So far the video has been viewed at YouTube close to 24,000 times. In July we presented just how ruthless the wind industry can be, where it is suspected they destroyed a stork’s nest to clear the way for wind turbines. This shocked environmentalists. Central Europe’s summer was hardly balmy this year, as a rare snow fell down to 1500 meters elevation in the middle of the summer. The flood of skeptic papers grew in volume, Kenneth Richard wrote. Already just in the first half of 2016 some 240 papers casting doubt over climate alarmism were published. August: No sea level rise signal; oceans drive climate Again many new papers surfaced, obliterating the notion that the climate system is rushing to disaster. With this in mind it is truly unbelievable that a number of attorneys general attempted to silence skeptics using the brute force of the racketeering influenced corrupt organizations (RICO) act. NTZ presented 4 new papers showing there’s been no detectable sea level rise signal. For example the paper by Hansen et al wrote: “Thus, we found that there is (yet) no observable sea-level effect of anthropogenic global warming in the world’s best recorded region.” Later Kenneth Richard wrote there is no relationship between CO2 and temperature over 150 of the last 165 years. He also found 35 new papers showing that the sun and the oceans are the main climate drivers. Even one of the globe’s leading warmist climatologists, Prof. Mojib Latif, conceded that natural oceanic cycles are directly related to tropospheric temperature. Kenneth also posted a list of dozens of papers showing that “global warming is a made-up concept” and that sea level rise is in fact inversely proportional to CO2. September: Hockey stick smashed; no cyclone energy trend! Kenneth presented some 50 scientific publications refuting modern global warming claims. It is becoming increasingly obvious that rapid global warming is merely an artefact of statistical manipulations — all designed to mislead policymakers. And when it comes to cyclones, atmospheric research scientist Dr. Philip Klotzbach confirmed he sees no link between accumulated cyclone energy and global warming over the past 30 years. Moreover a new paper was published and shows that co2-influence on the greenhouse effect since 1992 has been imperceptible. October: Broken models; CO2 is good; no consensus More bad news for modelers appeared when Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Professor Fritz Vahrenholt declared climate models flawed here, claiming that there is no agreement between the models and paleoclimate data. Kenneth also uncovered 20 scientific papers that tell us something we knew all along: higher CO2 and warmer temperatures boost crop yields. Now what could be so bad about that? Also Kenneth showed that the scientific community is in fact a long way from consensus“. Finally NTZ reported how leading leading climate sensitivity scientist Dr. Robert Cess admitted that the IPCC assumptions are erroneous. November: Stable Arctic, hyped science; sun linked to climate Despite the slow start in this winter’s Arctic sea ice recovery (weather-related), Kenneth Richard presented a list of scientific publications showing that there has been no significant net change in Arctic sea extent over the past 80 years. Indeed it’s good to keep your eyes on the big picture. In a presentation, a retired German climate professor declared that climate science is hyped by a sloppy, politically corrupted media. The sun-climate connection keeps getting stronger, as Kenneth Richard uncovered some 300 scientific publications over the past 3 years confirming the link. Little wonder that a French scientist found the powerful solar link as well, claiming that most of the global warming can be attributed to solar activity. AND OF COURSE; HOW COULD ANYONE HAVE MISSED THE GREATEST WRENCH BEING THROWN INTO THE GLOBAL WARMING MACHINERY WITH THE SHOCK ELECTION OF DONALD J TRUMP. December: Stable, frigid Greenland; slow sea level rise Kenneth Richard reaffirmed the collapse of the now infamous hockey stick. He also showed that Greenland is as stable as ever, much colder today than it was several thousand years ago and that glaciers there are now even more advanced than they were back then. Kenneth found more very new literature showing that sea level rise is in fact much slower than claimed, and that claims of a one-meter sea level rise by 2100 are “sheer nonsense”. And with all the inconvenient scientific literature being published lately, and the public’s rejection of the mainstream media and dishonest political parties, the establishment has been forced to contemplate authoritarian counter-measures. Recently in Germany leading (highly misguided) politicians even called for a crackdown on freedom of speech and the formation of a Ministry of Truth. Summary With the huge tsunami of NEW papers disputing the claims of rapid, man-made global warming and the shock election of Donald Trump as President, things are looking awfully desperate for the junk-science fuelled climate alarmism industry. We could all but bury it in 2017. Merry Christmas and a happy and cool new year everybody! -PG  24 Dec

National Weather Service’s Multi-Billion Dollar Models Fail …Totally Botched Forecasts! - If President-elect Donald Trump is looking for places to cut costs, he might want to take a look at the National Weather Service’s seasonal forecasting unit. Yesterday at the Daily Update over at Weatherbell Analytics, veteran meteorologist Joe Bastardi looked at the season forecasts, generated by billion dollar super-computers,  recently put out by NCEP. Turns out they were totally wrong. You have to pity the poor persons who placed their bets on them. The first example is the forecast for North America made by NCEP in November for December: Here we see a warm December was forecast for North America. And you’d think with those billion-dollar super computers and all the years of experience the NWS has accumulated over the past 100+ years, they’d be able to land a general forecast (going out only a few weeks) somewhere in the ballpark, right? Amazingly, they missed the ball park by light years. In fact the very opposite has taken place, at least where people live: You have many industries and institutions who rely on these forecasts in order to get a rough idea of what to expect and thus plan accordingly. Today they have got to be wondering about what has happened. Joe wonders if the NWS models are capable of predicting any cold weather at all. There seems to be an obsession with warmth. Maybe cold no longer exists in the warming fantasy world of government weather forecasting –who knows. Joe points out that he same busted result happened for the November 2014 forecast made in October 2014. Coldest in 50 years The NWS end-of-year forecast for Asia was even worse. Here’s what the NWS projected for the final 3 months of 2016: Clearly they forecast a rather mild late year for the entire Asian continent. Now here is what has happened so far: It was completely wrong! According to Joe, instead of being on the mild side, huge parts of Asia have seen to coldest Oct-Dec period in 50 years! He comments: I’ve never seen anything like this, as bad as this in computer modeling.” We would expect that the Russians are not too impressed with the NWS, and are for sure using their own methods, by now. So what’s wrong? Joe seems to think that the NWS is relying too much on “computer model mathematics” and nowhere near enough on using analogues. Joe’s theory is that if you had very similar weather patterns in the past, then you can use them to help predict today’s weather patterns. I’ve been following Joe for a number of years, and it seems to work quite well for Weatherbell. Of course he’s gotten some wrong, but more often he’s been almost dead on. Slipshod models? Bastardi concludes that his method of using analogue years “has beaten the pants off the big high-powered mathematical models. And we didn’t need billions of dollars to develop this, either“. Forget models predicting 40 years out Joe comments on the model’s failing to see the cold: Here’s what I want to ask you: If you can’t see this, how the heck is it supposed to know down the road 20, 30, 40 years if cooling is going to take place? It goes with what is going on now.” Enjoy the weather. It’s the only (correctly forecast) weather we got!”  23 Dec

The Hockey Stick Collapses: 50 New (2016) Scientific Papers Affirm Today’s Warming Isn’t Global, Unprecedented, Or Remarkable - Two fundamental tenets of the anthropogenic global warming narrative are (1) the globe is warming (i.e., it’s not just regional warming), and (2) the warming that has occurred since 1950 can be characterized as remarkable, unnatural, and largely unprecedented.  In other words, today’s climate is substantially and alarmingly different than what it has been in the past….because the human impact has been profound. Well, maybe.  Scientists are increasingly finding that the two fundamental points cited above may not be supported by the evidence. In 2016, an examination of the peer-reviewed scientific literature has uncovered dozens of paleoclimate reconstructions that reveal modern “global” warming has not actually been global in scale after all, as there are a large number of regions on the globe where it has been cooling for decades.   Even if it was warming on a global scale, the paleoclimate evidence strongly suggests that the modern warm climate is neither unusual or profoundly different than it has been in the past.  In fact, today’s regional warmth isn’t even close to approaching the Earth’s maximum temperatures achieved earlier in the Holocene, or as recently as 1,000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period), when anthropogenic CO2 emissions could not have exerted a climate impact. In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that the warming in recent decades is not even unprecedented within the context of the last 80 years.   That’s because the amplitude of the 1930s and 1940s warm period matched or exceeded that of the warmth in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in many regions of the world.  Furhthermore, between the warmth of the 1930s and ’40s and the warmth of the 1990s to present, there was a very widely publicized cooling period (late 1950s to early 1970s) that was heavily discussed in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Today’s instrumental datasets curiously do not reflect this 20th century warming-cooling-warming oscillatory shape, however, as doing so would not lend support to the modeled understanding that climate is shaped by anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which have increased linearly, not cyclically.  In fact, not only has the high amplitude of the 1930s and 1940s warmth been “adjusted” down or depressed in global-scale representations of instrumental temperatures by NASA or the MetOffice, the substantial cooling (-0.5°C in the Northern Hemisphere, including -1.5°C cooling in the Arctic region) that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s has all but disappeared from today’s temperature graphs. Scientists, meanwhile, keep on publishing their results.  And their results don’t lend support to the narrative that the globe has been synchronously warming, or warming in linear fashion and in concert with the rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.  Indeed, in many regions of the world, decadal-scale cooling has occurred since the mid-20th century. Listed below are a collection of 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers published within the last year (2016) undermining the “consensus” position that modern warming patterns are global in extent and synchronization, and that today’s warmth is both unusual and unprecedented.  The first section (1) identifies the regions of the world where there has been no net warming in recent decades.  The second section (2) puts modern climate into its much larger Holocene context, revealing just how insignificant and unremarkable this current (regional) warming trend has been relative to history. ‘Global’ Warming? No Net Warming In These Regions Since Mid Or Late 20th Century De Jong et al., 2016  (Andes, South America) [T]he reconstruction…shows that recent warming (until AD 2009) is not exceptional in the context of the past century. For example, the periods around AD 1940 and from AD 1950–1955 were warmer. This is also shown in the reanalysis data for this region and was also observed by Neukom et al. (2010b) and Neukom and Gergis (2011) for Patagonia and central Chile. Similarly, based on tree ring analyses from the upper tree limit in northern Patagonia, Villalba et al. (2003) found that the period just before AD 1950 was substantially warmer than more recent decades. Zhu et al., 2016 (China) [W]e should point out that the rapid warming during the 20th century was not especially obvious in our reconstructed RLST. Zhang et al., 2016  (Scandinavia) [P]resent-day global mean air temperatures may have been equally high around 1000 years ago during the so-called Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; Lamb, 1969; Grove and Switsur, 1994). However, since regional temperature reconstructions display large variability in the timing and magnitude of the MCA (PAGES 2k Consortium, 2013), this issue has not yet been adequately settled. Hence, there is still a great need to produce and improve empirical proxy data to further our understanding of near and distant climate changes. Zhao et al., 2016 (Greenland Ice Sheet) Sunkara and Tiwari, 2016  (India, Western Himalayas) Turner et al., 2016  (Antarctic Peninsula) Absence of 21st century warming on Antarctic Peninsula consistent with natural variability Tejedor et al., 2016    (Iberian Range, Spain) Chandler et al., 2016 (South Iceland) Analysis of climate data for SE Iceland also indicates that the three periods of ice-frontal retreat [1936-’41, 1951-’56, and 2006-’11] identified are associated with similar summer air temperature values, which has previously been shown to be a key control in terminus variations in Iceland. We, therefore, demonstrated that the coincidence of the most recent phase of ice-frontal retreat at Skálafellsjökull (2006–2011) and warming summer temperatures is not unusual in the context of the last ~80 years. This highlights the need to place observations of contemporary glacier change in a broader, longer-term (centennial) context. Jones et al., 2016    (Southern Ocean)  [C]limate model simulations that include anthropogenic forcing are not compatible with the observed trends. Zhu et al., 2016 (Northeast China) We identified four major cold periods (1839–1846, 1884–1901, 1906–1908 and 1941–1958) and three major warm periods (1855–1880, 1918–1932 and 1998–2013) in the past 211 years. The multi-taper method spectral analysis revealed significant cycles at 48.8, 11.5, 8.9, 3.9, 3.5 and 2–3 years, which might be associated with global climate oscillations and land-sea thermal contrasts, such as the sea surface temperatures, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and solar activity. Rydval et al., 2016  (Scotland) Hasholt et al., 2016 (Southeast Greenland) We determined that temperatures for the ablation measurement periods in late July to early September were similar in both 1933 and the recent period [1990s – present], indicating that the temperature forcing of ablation within the early warm period and the present are similar. Incarbona et al., 2016  (Sicily, Aegean Sea) Solar activity modulates patterns in surface temperature and pressure that resemble NAO phases, through dynamical coupling processes between the stratosphere and the troposphere that transmit the solar signal to the Earth’s surface. Tipton et al., 2016 (Hudson Valley, New York) Ogi et al, 2016  (Greenland, West and South) Zinke et al., 2016  (Indian Ocean) We calibrate individual robust Sr / Ca records with in situ SST and various gridded SST products. The results show that the SST record from Cabri provides the first Indian Ocean coral proxy time series that records the SST signature of the PDO in the south-central Indian Ocean since 1945. … Marked negative Sr /Ca anomalies (warmer) are observed during the first half of the 20th century centred at 1918/19, 1936–1941 and in the period 1948–1951 that exceed anomalies in the 1961 to 1990 reference period. O’Donnell et al., 2016 (Australia SE) Christy and McNider, 2016  (Alabama, U.S.) The time frame is 1883-2014. … Varying the parameters of the construction methodology creates 333 time series with a central trend-value based on the largest group of stations of -0.07 °C decade-1 with a best-guess estimate of measurement uncertainty being -0.12 to -0.02 °C decade-1. This best-guess result is insignificantly different (0.01 C decade-1) from a similar regional calculation using NOAA nClimDiv data beginning in 1895. … Finally, 77 CMIP-5 climate model runs are examined for Alabama and indicate no skill at replicating long-term temperature and precipitation changes since 1895. van As et al., 2016 (Greenland Ice Sheet) We conclude that at our study sites annual net ablation is likely to be larger in recent years than during any previous period in the instrumental era, covering up to 150 years. … [I]n southern Greenland ablation peaked significantly around 1930. While most of Greenland underwent relatively warm (summer) conditions in the 1930s (Cappelen 2015), this was most notable at the more southern locations, resulting in amplified ablation values according to our estimates. JJA [summer] temperatures were higher in 1928 and 1929 than in any other year of the Qaqortoq record, both attaining values of 9.2°C. This suggests that ablation in those years may have exceeded the largest net ablation measured on the Greenland ice sheet ( 2010). Ellenburg et al., 2016  (Southeastern U.S.) Munz et al., 2015  (Arabian Sea) Today’s Climate Still Colder Than Most Of The Last 10,000 Years                                                                Present > Fudge et al., 2016  (West Antarctica)     Harning et al., 2016 (Iceland) Distal lakes document rapid early Holocene deglaciation from the coast and across the highlands south of the glacier. Sediment from Skorarvatn, a lake to the north of Drangajokull, shows that the northern margin of the ice cap reached a size comparable to its contemporary limit by ~10.3 ka. Two southeastern lakes with catchments extending well beneath modern Drangajokull confirm that by ~9.2 ka, the ice cap was reduced to ~20% of its current area. Jalali et al., 2016  (Mediterranean Sea) Several proxy records have documented surface water variability of the Mediterranean Sea during the Holocene (Kallel et al., 1997a, b, 2004; Cacho et al., 2001; Guinta et al., 2001; Rohling et al., 2002; Emeis et al., 2003; Essalami et al., 2007; Frigola et al., 2007; Castañeda et al., 2010; Boussetta et al., 2012; Martrat et al., 2014). Most of them reveal that Mediterranean Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have undergone a long-term cooling punctuated by several cold relapses (CRs; Cacho et al., 2001; Frigola et al., 2007). While orbital forcing likely explains this long-term tendency, solar activity and volcanism contribute to forced variability (Mayewski et al., 2004; Wanner et al., 2011) together with internal variability (i.e. Atlantic multi-decadal variability (AMV), North Atlantic Oscillation; NAO) all together embedded in the multi-decadal scale variability seen in paleorecords. Finsinger et al., 2016   (Romania, Carpathians) 22 Dec

False Alarm: Spate Of New Studies Reject Claim Corals Are In Imminent Danger! - Coral reefs stay cool By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt (German text translated by P Gosselin) Coral horror stories have long been among the favorites of the media. Lately, however, a number of journalists have been taking a closer look at the state of the coral reefs. A good example is an article appearing in the German Spektrum der Wissenschaft (Spectrum of Science) on October 24, 2016, where Kerstin Viering did not allow research results to be swept away under the carpet: Why some coral reefs are defying all the problems Climate change, pollution, over-fishing: Coral reefs do not have it easy today. Some reefs, however, have been holding up amazingly well. A reason for optimism?” Continue reading at Spektrum der Wissenschaft. Currently research is making good progress. Slowly scientists are beginning to understand how corals are able to adapt to changed conditions. A press release from the University of Texas at Austin from November 7, 2016: New Coral Research Exposes Genomic Underpinnings of Adaptation Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have observed for the first time that separate populations of the same species — in this case, coral — can diverge in their capacity to regulate genes when adapting to their local environment. The research, published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals a new way for populations to adapt that may help predict how they will fare under climate change. The new research was based on populations of mustard hill coral, Porites astreoides, living around the Lower Florida Keys. Corals from close to shore are adapted to a more variable environment because there is greater fluctuation in temperature and water quality: imagine them as the more cosmopolitan coral, adapted to handling occasional stressful events that the offshore coral are spared. When researchers swapped corals from a close-to-shore area with a population of the same species from offshore waters, they found that the inshore-reef corals made bigger changes in their gene activity than the corals collected from an offshore reef. This enabled the inshore corals to adapt better to their new environment. “It is exciting that populations so close together — these reefs are less than 5 miles apart — can be so different,” says corresponding author Carly Kenkel, currently affiliated with the Australian Institute of Marine Science. “We’ve discovered another way that corals can enhance their temperature tolerance, which may be important in determining their response to climate change.” Differences in gene regulation — the body’s ability to make specific genes more or less active — can be inherited and are pivotal for adapting to environmental change. It was already known that separate populations often develop differences in average levels of gene activity, but now scientists have found that populations can also diverge in their ability to switch genes on and off. “We show that one population has adapted to its more variable environment by developing an enhanced ability to regulate gene activity,” says Mikhail Matz, co-author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology. Researchers swapped 15 genetically distinct coral colonies from inshore with 15 colonies found offshore to see whether the corals would regulate their genes to match the pattern observed in the local population. After a year, the transplanted populations did show differences: Formerly inshore corals transplanted offshore changed their gene activity dramatically to closely resemble the locals, whereas offshore corals transplanted inshore were able to go only halfway toward the local gene activity levels. In short, corals that originated from the more variable, close to shore environment were more flexible in their gene regulation. The lack of flexibility took its toll on the offshore corals, which did not fare well at the inshore reef and experienced stress-induced bleaching. Their higher bleaching levels were linked to the diminished ability to dynamically regulate activity of stress-related genes, confirming that flexibility of gene regulation was an important component of adaptation to the inshore environment. “We saw different capacity for gene expression plasticity between coral populations because we looked at the behavior of all genes taken together instead of focusing on individual genes,” says Kenkel. “If we hadn’t, we would have missed the reef for the coral, so to speak.” The research was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology. Ten days later the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute issued a hopeful press release showing that some coral reefs are tougher than long believed: Corals Survived Caribbean Climate Change Half of all coral species in the Caribbean went extinct between 1 and 2 million years ago, probably due to drastic environmental changes. Which ones survived? Scientists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) think one group of survivors, corals in the genus Orbicella, will continue to adapt to future climate changes because of their high genetic diversity. “Having a lot of genetic variants is like buying a lot of lottery tickets,” said Carlos Prada, lead author of the study and Earl S. Tupper Post-doctoral Fellow at STRI. “We discovered that even small numbers of individuals in three different species of the reef-building coral genus Orbicella have quite a bit of genetic variation, and therefore, are likely to adapt to big changes in their environment.” “The implications of these findings go beyond basic science,” said Monica Medina, research associate at STRI and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and associate professor at Pennsylvania State University. “We can look forward to using similar approaches to predict demographic models to better manage the climate change-threatened Orbicella reefs of today.” To look back in time, the team of researchers working at the Smithsonian’s Bocas del Toro Research Station and Naos Molecular and Marine Laboratories collected fossils from ancient coral reefs and used high-resolution geologic dating methods to determine their ages. They compared the numbers of fossilized coral species at different time points. One of the best-represented groups in the fossil collections were species in the genus Orbicella. In addition to the fossil collections, they also used whole genome sequencing to estimate current and past numbers of several Orbicella species. Within a single individual there are two copies of their genetic material, and in some instances, one copy is different than the other and is called a genetic variant. The authors first assembled the full genomic sequence of an individual from Florida and then, using it as an anchor, reconstructed the genetic variation contained within single individuals. Depending on the amount of the genetic variation at certain intervals across the genome, the authors were able to recover the population sizes of each species at different times in the past. Between 3.5 to 2.5 million years ago, numbers of all coral species increased in the Caribbean. But from 2 to 1.5 million years ago, a time when glaciers moved down to cover much of the northern hemisphere and sea surface temperatures plunged, the number of coral species in the Caribbean also took a nosedive. Sea levels fell, eliminating much of the original shallow, near-shore habitat. “Apart from the species that exist today, all species of Orbicella that survived until 2 million years ago suddenly went extinct,” write the authors. When huge numbers of species die out, it makes room for other species to move in and for new species to develop to occupy the space the others held. Two species that grow best in shallow water doubled in number at about the same time that their sister species and competitor, the organ pipe Orbicella (O. nancyi) disappeared. When a species declines during an extinction event, it loses more and more genetic variation and sometimes does not have much to work with during the recovery period. Scientists call this a genetic bottleneck. Orbicella was able to recover after the bottleneck. “It’s incredible how predictions from genetic data correlated so well with observations from the fossil and environmental record,” said Michael DeGiorgio, assistant professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University. “We see hope in our results that Orbicella species survived a dramatic environmental variation event,” said Prada. “It is likely that surviving such difficult times made these coral populations more robust and able to persist under future climatic change.” “The in-depth analysis of population size in a now ESA-threatened coral, as well as the release of its genome and that of its close relatives (which are also threatened) would be of great interest to coral reef researchers addressing conservation issues,” said Nancy Knowlton, senior scientist emeritus at STRI, currently at the National Museum of Natural History. Authors are from STRI, the National Museum of Natural History, Pennsylvania State University, University of Iowa, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Hudson Alpha Institute of Biotechnology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences, Florida State University, Natural History Museum and the Systems Biology Institute. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Panama, is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution. The Institute furthers the understanding of tropical nature and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. Website: http://www.stri.si.edu. Prada, C., Hanna, B., Budd, A.F., et al. 2016. Empty niches after extinctions increase population sizes of modern corals. Current Biology.” Already in June 2015 Sascha Karberg wrote an impressively balanced article in German weekly Die Zeit: Corals remain cool Water that is too warm lead to the bleaching of corals. However special genes could help protect the reef forming animals. They also appear to do fine with acidification. Corals do not need to wait for the chance gene mutation that would make them fit for the climate warming – the needed gene variants are already at hand. Biologists have discovered this when the crossed corals from warm and old climate zones. In order to prevent the corals from dying off, it would simply be enough to switch corals from different latitudes so that the existing gene variants could spread,”, says Mikhail Matz of the University of Texas in Austin. Read more in Die Zeit. Similar articles appeared at the Austrian ORF and the German Tagesspiegel. What follows is the press release from the University of Texas at Austin dated June 25, 2015: Corals Are Already Adapting to Global Warming, Scientists Say Some coral populations already have genetic variants necessary to tolerate warm ocean waters, and humans can help to spread these genes, a team of scientists from The University of Texas at Austin, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Oregon State University has found. The discovery has implications for many reefs now threatened by global warming and shows for the first time that mixing and matching corals from different latitudes may boost reef survival. The findings are published this week in the journal Science. The researchers crossed corals from naturally warmer areas of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia with corals from a cooler latitude nearly 300 miles to the south. The scientists found that coral larvae with parents from the north, where waters were about 2 degrees Celsius warmer, were up to 10 times as likely to survive heat stress, compared with those with parents from the south. Using genomic tools, the researchers identified the biological processes responsible for heat tolerance and demonstrated that heat tolerance could evolve rapidly based on existing genetic variation. “Our research found that corals do not have to wait for new mutations to appear. Averting coral extinction may start with something as simple as an exchange of coral immigrants to spread already existing genetic variants,” said Mikhail Matz, an associate professor of integrative biology at The University of Texas at Austin. “Coral larvae can move across oceans naturally, but humans could also contribute, relocating adult corals to jump-start the process.” Worldwide, coral reefs have been badly damaged by rising sea surface temperatures. Bleaching — a process that can cause widespread coral death due to loss of the symbiotic algae that corals depend on for food — has been linked to warming waters. Some corals, however, have higher tolerance for elevated temperatures, though until now no one understood why some adapted differently than others. “This discovery adds to our understanding of the potential for coral to cope with hotter oceans,” said Line Bay, an evolutionary ecologist with the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville. Reef-building corals from species in the northern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea are similar to those used in the study. There, too, reefs may benefit from conservation and restoration efforts that protect the most heat-tolerant corals and prioritize them for any restoration initiatives involving artificial propagation. “This is occasion for hope and optimism about coral reefs and the marine life that thrive there,” Matz said. In addition to Matz and Bay, the study’s authors were Groves Dixon, Sarah Davies and Galina Aglyamova at UT Austin and Eli Meyer of Oregon State University. This study was supported by funds from the National Science Foundation and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. View a slideshow of images from the Great Barrier Reef.”  21 Dec

Horrible Irony …Merkel Recently Said Germany Needed Immigrants: “Everywhere Truck Drivers Are Being Sought” - Germany is in shock after yesterday’s terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market, which is a stark symbol of German culture. The latest figures show 12 dead and 48 injured – some seriously. Also the Polish driver of the hijacked truck was killed. Already accusations are flying back and forth, with some on the right claiming Merkel bears some responsibility for the attacks by allowing a tsunami of immigrants to flood across Germany uncontrolled in 2015. Meanwhile Merkel proponents and the media are accusing the right of exploiting the tragedy for political gains. The Drudge Report featured Tuesday Angela Merkel as having “blood on her hands”. Amid the tragedy there’s the horrible irony that just some three months ago German national daily Die Welt here published a piece with the title: ‘Truck drivers wanted’ – Merkel gives refugees tips” Die Welt reported that Merkel was working hard to “rapidly integrate the refugees” and called on industry to get involved. Merkel said that refugees would be able to trade in their driver’s licenses for a German one for 500 euros, but that of course loans need to be offered to help them finance it. Paying back the loan should be no problem, Merkel said: When one earns, he can then pay this 500 euros back. Everywhere truck drivers are being sought.” The latest attacks is just the most recent in a series that have plagued the country. Just two days ago, on Sunday, a Munich woman was raped and nearly beaten to death while jogging in the famous English Garden. The police were shocked by the sheer brutality of the attack. Currently there is no evidence linking the attack to a migrant. In November, a 24-year old was attacked and raped in Munich as well. Just weeks earlier the highly publicized case of the rape and murder of a 19-year-old medical student at the hands of a teenage Afghan refugee sparked outrage against the “open door” asylum policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The student was the daughter of EU parliamentarian and had done volunteer work for refugees. Other terrorists attacks have occurred, with 4 being stabbed on a train earlier this year. In one of Germany’s worst attacks, hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, attacked or robbed at New Year’s eve festivities in Cologne. The UK tabloid “The Sun” here presents a summary of this year’s bloody attacks in the country. Price for earlier policy negligence The media, who are cozily in bed with Germany’s ruling grand coalition government, have been falling all over themselves praising the “calmness and professionality” of the authorities in dealing with the aftermath of the attack. Indeed they have done an excellent job. But one gets the sense that the praise is being used to distract the public’s attention from the government’s initial immigration policy failure and fiasco that led to the uncontrolled tsunami of “refugees” in the first place back in 2015. Germany’s heightened security threat and overall anxiety would not exist today had it not been for the German government’s and EU’s border negligence. Germany’s sense of security now violated Germany’s sense of freedom and security have been violated. Citizen’s have had to change their habits and attitudes with respect to public safety. Citizens, especially women, no longer feel safe outside after dark and are opting to stay home. And those that wish to continue on as before now must summon up the courage to do so, knowing full well that public places and events are now targets. The carefree days are over, squandered by Merkel’s misguided do-gooding. Increasingly Merkel is coming under massive fire for a string of policy failures over the past years that include the refugee crisis, renewable energy flop, Greece bailout, frayed relations with Russia and Turkey, and plummeting public support.  20 Dec

Scientists: 1930s Ice Melt Rates In Greenland, Iceland Were The Same As Today…No Net Ice Loss In 80 Years - “[T]he coincidence of the most recent phase of ice-frontal retreat…and warming summer temperatures is not unusual in the context of the last ~80 years.” — Chandler et al., 2016 All too often, scientific analysis of modern glacier and ice sheet melt rates is conveniently confined to the last 30 to 60 years.  Indeed, the common reference period for determining current glacier and ice sheet surface mass balance estimates marks the three decades between 1961-1990, which “coincidentally” happens to contain some of the coldest decadal-scale temperatures of the last few hundred years — when glaciers were observed to be advancing relative to the period centered around the 1930s.   Contemporary scientists routinely reported on these observations (a rapidly cooling climate, advancing glaciers) in scientific journals.  For example: Gordon, 1981   “Since about 1968/69 the glacier fronts have advanced by up to 158 m following a marked climatic recession [cooling] during the 1960s and early 1970s. In general, fluctuations of the glaciers have been in sympathy with prevailing climatic trends and show a relatively rapid response following temperature changes.” Andrews et al., 1972    “Mean summer temperatures have declined throughout the 1960s to a level cooler than for approximately 40 yr.  … The net effect has been for heavier falls of snow in winter and with lower summer temperatures and therefore less melting (Jacobs et al, 1972), resulting in notably increased glacierization. … at least two corries snowfree in 1960 are presently occupied by incipient glaciers. …  The present  Neoglacial ice is nearly as extensive as the late glacial stade.” Schneider, 1974    “In the last century it is possible to document an increase of about 0.6°C in the mean global temperature between 1880 and 1940 and a subsequent fall of temperature by about 0.3°C since 1940.  In the polar regions north of 70° latitude the decrease in temperature in the past decade alone has been about 1°C, several times larger than the global average decrease.” Chi-chun and Pen-hsing, 1978     “Research on glacier fluctuations shows that the Little Ice Age was also experienced here with maxima occurring during the 19th century.  This was followed by a strong retreat from the 1930s with recent signs of the initiation of a new period of glacier advance.  … Our on-the-spot investigations, documental records and information local residents all tell us that, beginning in the thirties, the glaciers in Tibet underwent a period of strong retreating. The air temperature began to fall after the fifties. From meteorological records, we know that the temperature in the sixties was universally 0.7°C or so lower than in the fifties“ Hollin, 1965     “‘Surges’ and ‘catastrophic advances’ in glaciers have received increasing attention recently.  More than forty such events have been reported from Alaska and northwest Canada alone.” Recently published illustrative reconstructions of the 1961 to 1990 period for the high Northern latitudes also indicate a significant drop in temperature (relative to the 1920s to 1940s) during this reference or baseline period.  For example: Hasholt et al., 2016   “We determined that temperatures for the ablation measurement periods in late July to early September were similar in both 1933 and the recent period [1990s – present], indicating that the temperature forcing of ablation within the early warm period and the present are similar.” Box et al., 2009   “The annual whole ice sheet 1919–32 warming trend is 33% greater in magnitude than the 1994–2007 warming. … The 1955–82 cooling phase was most significant during autumn in east and southern Greenland.” So by directly comparing the modern warm phase (1990s-present) in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere to a cool phase (1961-1990), and by failing to include the 1920s to 1940s warm period in their baseline determinations, scientists can conveniently report “accelerated” ice melt rates for recent decades — and thus provide headline material for media outlets (and policy makers) actively promoting the “dangerous” global warming agenda. ‘Present-Day Changes Are Not Exceptional’ On the occasion when scientists extend their glacier or ice sheet studies back to periods earlier than the 1950s, a significantly non-alarming conclusion emerges that does not support the modern zeitgeist that says “catastrophic” and “unprecedented” ice melt is occurring today.  For example, in “Surface mass-balance changes of the Greenland ice sheet since 1866,” Wake et al., 2009  write: “All SMB [surface mass balance] estimates are made relative to the 1961–90 average SMB and we compare annual SMB estimates from the period 1995–2005 to a similar period in the past (1923–33) where SMB was comparable, and conclude that the present-day changes are not exceptional within the last 140 years.” Investigation Of Long-Term Glacier Melt Rates For Iceland Reveal No Net Change In 80 Years Two new (2016) papers lend further support to the conclusion that there currently is nothing unusual happening in the cryosphere.  In their paper “Recent retreat at a temperate Icelandic glacier in the context of the last ~80 years of climate change in the North Atlantic region”, Chandler et al., (2016) compare 3 periods with high glacier-melt rates: 1936-’41, 1951-’56, and 2006-2011.  They find that not only were the temperature changes comparable for all three periods, but so was the rate and magnitude of ice recession.  In fact, the retreat rates were determined to be higher during the earlier periods (1930s, 1950s) than during the 21st century. Chandler et al., 2016 (Iceland Glaciers) “[W]e calculated ice-frontal retreat rates [Skálafellsjökull glacier, SE Iceland]  since the 1930s. From the calculated record of ice-front retreat, we recognised two pronounced periods of glacier recession [1936-’41 and 1951-’56] for comparison with the most recent phase of retreat (2006–2011). We undertook quantitative analysis to examine variability between these three periods of retreat, and showed that they are comparable both in style and magnitude. Analysis of climate data for SE Iceland also indicates that the three periods of ice-frontal retreat [1936-’41, 1951-’56, and 2006-’11] identified are associated with similar summer air temperature values, which has previously been shown to be a key control in terminus variations in Iceland. We, therefore, demonstrated that the coincidence of the most recent phase of ice-frontal retreat at Skálafellsjökull (2006–2011) and warming summer temperatures is not unusual in the context of the last ~80 years. This highlights the need to place observations of contemporary glacier change in a broader, longer-term (centennial) context.” Investigation Of Long-Term Ice Sheet Melt Rates For Greenland Reveal No Net Change In 80 Years A total of 13 scientists (van As et al., 2016) contributed to another new paper entitled “Placing Greenland ice sheet ablation measurements in a multi-decadal context“, a comprehensive analysis of changes to the Greenland Ice Sheet since the 1880s.  Once again, the results do not advance the cause for alarm about modern ice sheet melt trends.  The longer-term temperature changes for the ice sheet indicate a sharp warming during the 1920s and 1930s, a pronounced cooling trend during the 1960s to early 1990s (which is once again used as the reference period for this study), and then a subsequent warming after about 1995.  Both temperature peak (1930s and 2006-’11) periods were similar in magnitude. van As et al., 2016 [I]n southern Greenland ablation peaked significantly around 1930. While most of Greenland underwent relatively warm (summer) conditions in the 1930s (Cappelen 2015), this was most notable at the more southern locations, resulting in amplified ablation values according to our estimates. JJA [summer] temperatures were higher in 1928 and 1929 than in any other year of the Qaqortoq record, both attaining values of 9.2°C. This suggests that ablation in those years may have exceeded the largest net ablation measured on the Greenland ice sheet (2010). Although van As et al. (2016) indicate that it is “likely” that the amplitude of the ablation (melting) volume in recent decades has been more pronounced than during the 1930s, the depicted trend lines for the (4) Greenland Ice Sheet regions that extend back to at least 1900 indicate that 3 out of the 4 ablation amplitudes for the 1930s were comparable to, or exceeded, what has occurred in recent decades. In fact, a composite of the four trend lines shown above suggests no significant differences in ablation rates between the 1920s-1930s and the 21st century. Other scientists (Fettweis et al., 2008, below) have previously reached the conclusion that modern ice sheet and glacier recession is not only not unusual in the context of the last century, the surface mass balance loss in recent decades may have yet to exceed the losses from the 1930s period.   When also considering that the ice sheet cooled considerably and gained mass between the 1960s and 1990s, it would be fair to say that there has been no net mass loss for the Greenland Ice Sheet in the last 80 years, or since anthropogenic forcing is believed to have exerted an “unprecedented” and potentially “catastrophic” influence on the climate. Fettweis et al., 2008    “These estimates show that the high surface mass loss rates of recent years are not unprecedented in the GrIS [Greenland Ice Sheet] history of the last hundred years. The minimum SMB rate seems to have occurred earlier in the 1930s and corresponds to a zero SMB rate. … The results show that the GrIS surface mass loss in the 1930s is likely to have been more significant than currently due to a combination of very warm and dry years.” 19 Dec

1977 Spiegel Warned Of Little Ice Age Soon: “Widespread Glaciation” …”Temperature Has Fallen 0.3°C”! - Back in the 1970s, many media outlets warned of global cooling and even a possible coming ice age. For example here I wrote about how Spiegel in 1974 grimly reported of threatening global cooling and that the odds of global warming were “at best” only 1 in 10,000! Current warm period “coming to an end” It turns out that the flagship German weekly news magazine here also warned of global cooling on January 10, 1977, citing leading global climate scientists: The current warm period, they forecast, is coming to an end.” In the article Spiegel describes summertime conditions in Europe at the peak of the last ice age, some 18,000 years ago, which “American and European scientists have precisely reconstructed” and ascertained how it had been “very much warmer 120,000 years ago then it is today.” Spiegel described the works of “Climap”, which had involved scientists from 17 universities charged with the goal of researching the “long term fluctuations of the earth’s climate and developing models for the long-term forecasts“. Also “Climap studied the interrelationships on a decadal scale between the world’s oceans, the atmosphere and the continents as well as the cosmic effects“. Spiegel wrote how it had been discovered that ice ages had been the normal over the past million years and that the current Holocene had been just a break in the cold. All of this had been driven by solar-earth orbital variations, among other theories that had been proposed: solar irradiance, cosmic dust, changing earth’s magnetic fields, volcanic aerosols, CO2 distribution over the oceans, polar ice cap extent, ocean currents, etc., the article wrote. “Widespread glaciation” Spiegel described that Climap expert James D. Hays, John Imbrie and Nicholas J. Shackleton had examined the Milankovitch cycles and this had led them to conclude that changes in the earth’s orbit had been the “fundamental cause” of the cycles between ice age and warm periods. Spiegel quoted the scientists: The trend for the next 20,000 years is headed for a widespread glaciation of the northern hemisphere. and a colder climate.” Spiegel added: The earth’s orbit, namely after having been extremely elliptical, is again approaching a circular form, which is characteristic for the ice ages.” Temperature drop of 0.3°C since 1940s Spiegel warned of dire consequences: Since the mid 1940s, for example, the mean annual temperature has fallen 0.3° Celsius: and indeed snow and ice area during this time has expanded by more than a tenth. Also the droughts in the African Sahel zone and the past summers in Europe are being ascribed to the minimally seeming heat loss.” CIA warning! Spiegel also wrote that even the CIA had taken the findings very seriously: America’s intelligence service in any case already summarized the Climap findings in a warning to the US government. The CIA prophesized that the climate would soon simulate soon once again the 1600 to 1850 so-called Little Ice Age — ‘a time of drought, hunger and political unrest’.”  18 Dec

National Security and Defense - The Heritage Foundation

The U.S. Continues to Face Cyber Threats in 201618 Dec

Cyber Attacks on U.S. Companies in 2016 - Twenty-five successful and notable cyber incidents against U.S. companies have occurred so far in 2016. 1 Dec

A U.S. Army Role in Countering China’s A2/AD Efforts: The Expeditionary Coastal Artillery Brigade29 Nov

The Trump Administration’s Nuclear Weapons Policy: First Steps - The Trump Administration will have the chance and responsibility to reassess the U.S. nuclear weapons posture.29 Nov

What Does Donald Trump's Victory Mean for Asia?20 Nov

Trump Should Make NATO Great Again - It is essential that the U.S. under President Trump continue to be an active participant in NATO’s future and chart a course back to basics. 9 Nov

President Obama Should Push for Greater Transatlantic Security During Berlin Visit - In his sixth visit to Germany, the President should carry the message that the U.S. will remain committed to transatlantic security. 8 Nov

The Colombian–FARC Peace Deal: Why It Failed, and How the U.S. Can Support a Responsible Renegotiation - It is in the U.S. security interest to play a role in negotiating a new peace deal between the Colombian government and FARC.23 Oct

theneedleblog

Happy Christmas from The Needle! - The Friday Night Song I just want to take this opportunity to wish all of our readers a very Merry Christmas on behalf of The Needle Team. Our gift to you is this new video of Philip Glass’ ‘Einstein on the Beach, Knee 5’ Have a great holiday weekend! 23 Dec

Getting Away With It - The Friday Night Song 16 Dec

Former Police Chief And Convicted Child Abuser, Gordon Anglesea Dies - A former North Wales Police superintendent who was jailed for sexually abusing young boys has died. Gordon Anglesea, 79, of Old Colwyn, Conwy county, was jailed for 12 years for historical offences in November. He abused two boys between 1982 and 1987 when they were 14 or 15, his trial at Mold Crown Court heard. Anglesea died in hospital on Thursday, his solicitor Jonathan Wall, of Manchester-based Burton Copeland, said. In November, the retired police officer lodged an appeal against his convictions for three indecent assaults on one boy and one indecent assault on another. BBC News 15 Dec

Kendall House Addendum Report - Kendall House Addendum to Main Report Main Report can be accessed HERE Click images below to expand, or click HERE to view PDF report. What can I say? The report  begins well and gives due credit to Teresa Cooper for the 30 years of her tireless struggle to achieve recognition for the maltreatment meted out to her and other residents. And there it ends. One might ask, given the unprecedented access that Dr Sue Proctor had to Kendall House and Church of England records, why there is no reference to any official documents that might corroborate the testimony of the former residents that participated. One might further ask why the only reference to any official documentation in this report is to note its absence when particularly damning allegations are made by former residents – including the legally sensitive (for the Church of England) subject of organised drug experimentation on children at Kendall House. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? No documented corroboration of witness testimony – but the noting of the absence of corroborative documentation when it suits? If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d have a field day with this report – as I’m not, I’ll just say that this report falls far below what I’d expect from an independent report undertaken by professionals. 12 Dec

Speak To Me Someone - The Friday Night Song 9 Dec

Happy 100th Kirk… - But when you’re gone the truth will out because everyone in Hollywood is just waiting to tell. 100 year old Kirk Douglas [This story] concerns one of the biggest male stars ever, and one of the most beloved female stars to ever live… One day she was invited to meet with this movie star about an upcoming major role. This man was a legend already, and was very powerful. … Thinking [s]he herself was powerful and savvy, she accepted the invite. In his hotel room. She never saw it coming. Without even discussing the film, this actor — drunk already — began making a pass at her. She politely declined, and excused herself. He wouldn’t have it. He literally threw her down, slapped the hell out of her, and ripped her clothes off. He shouted obscenities at her, continually punched and held her arms so tight he left scars and bruises. He raped her repeatedly, spitting on her, and did permanent damage to her body. She was bleeding everywhere, with a battered face. She passed out. When she came to, the actor was still in the room gloating, and told her to come see him tomorrow night and he might give her the role. He laughed at her as she fell down, her legs so wobbly and weak. She gathered her torn clothes, and tried to walk out of the hotel and to her car – blood and semen running down her legs and bruises already forming on her face. She could barely make it back home in her car. She wanted to kill herself, so ashamed of what happened. The damage to her psyche was permanent, and haunted her forever. …Her mom said she must have made the actor mad and offended him. They called a doctor, who took her to the hospital secretly to have her treated… The studio knew, and did nothing. After all, the star actor was a money machine. … She grew into an amazing woman with a legendary career. But she never forgot, or forgave, and never got over what happened. She never named the star actor publicly, but her friends and family knew the truth. Even after marriage and kids, if she saw this actor anywhere – she would almost convulse and cry. And worst of all, Hollywood and the world continued to honor him, pay him, and treat him like a king. Today, he’s still alive and barely holding on. But those who know the truth are still hoping and praying he will rot in hell for eternity. That all his good deeds and donations will never mask the truth… So when the time comes, and the now 95-year old Kirk Douglas, the superstar actor, finally dies, there will be tributes and honors about him. Just remember that he is a monster who never repented, apologized, nor showed any sorrow for destroying the lives of others. Especially the life of that young beloved actress named Natalie Wood. Attributed to Robert Downey Jr  16 year old Natalie Wood in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ 9 Dec

Investigatory Powers Act - ‘The Investigatory Powers Act is world-leading legislation’ Amber Rudd (Home Secretary) One might ask, what part of the world are we leading exactly: North Korea, Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia? Passed into UK law on 29th November 2016 with barely a whimper. (Replaces the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act – DRIPA) ‘…it establishes a dangerous new norm, where surveillance of all citizens’ online activity is seen as the baseline for a peaceful society. Collect evidence first, the government is saying, and find the criminals later.’ Jim Killock (Open Rights Group) At a Glance: Telecoms providers obligated to retain data on British Citizens web activity (ICR) for 12 months. Legalises the surveillance and ‘Targeted Equipment Interference’ (hacking) activities undertaken over many years by GCHQ and other agencies, including the collection of metadata and hacking of individuals computers and phones. (As exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013) Legalises the wider power of ‘Bulk Equipment Interference’ (Mass Hacking) into large groups of computers and mobile phones of citizens overseas. Provides for access by 48 named groups to the stored data, and establishes a ‘Request Filter’ (Common Database) enabling access through a single source. (Still being defined by the Home Office) Allows access to masses of stored personal data, even if the person under scrutiny is not suspected of any wrongdoing. Police can request viewing journalists’ call and web records. (Seen as a potential death sentence for whistleblowing and investigative journalism). Technology companies and service providers can be asked to remove encryption on a given user’s device or service, where ‘Practicable’. However, unlike the Apple case in the US, it’s expected that any cases in the UK will take place in private. ‘Any warrants issued to a company to decrypt users’ data will come with a gagging order, forbidding the firm from discussing it. There wouldn’t be any public debate about it.’ Harmit Kambo (Privacy International) Who can access our data? Amongst the more obvious police, military, and security services are a few less obvious, including: Food Standards Agency Department for Work and Pensions Department for Transport Department of Health Revenue and Customs English Ambulance Trust Scottish Ambulance Service Welsh Ambulance Service Health and Safety Executive Fire and Rescue Authority Competition and Markets Authority Comments: ‘The UK now has a surveillance law that is more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy.’ Jim Killock (Open Rights Group) ‘We have created the tools for repression.’ Lord Strasburger ‘None of us online are now guaranteed the right to communicate privately and, most importantly, securely.’ Renate Samson (Big Brother Watch) ‘The UK … joining the likes of China and Russia in collecting everyone’s browsing habits.’ Anne Jellema, ( World Wide Web Foundation) This snoopers charter ‘has no place in modern democracy. The bulk collection of everyone’s internet browsing data is disproportionate, creates a security nightmare for the ISPs who must store the data, and rides roughshod over our right to privacy.’ Sir Tim Berners-Lee Inventor of World Wide Web. ‘It’s sad that the Snowden revelations backfired so spectacularly here. Rather than rolling back powers, they’ve been used to legitimize these practices.’ Harmit Kambo (Privacy International) ‘The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies.’ Edward Snowden (NSA whistle blower) Investigatory Powers Act 2016 Links to all 305 pages;http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/pdfs/ukpga_20160025_en.pdfhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/contents/enacted I wonder how many of our MPs have read, and understood, this piece of art? Other Sources:http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13718768/uk-surveillance-laws-explained-investigatory-powers-billhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance-becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimperhttp://www.ibtimes.co.uk/governments-snoopers-charter-has-no-place-modern-democracy-says-inventor-world-wide-web-1594092http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/investigatory-powers-act-becomes-law-royal-assent_uk_583d91d8e4b072ec0d60680dhttp://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13718768/uk-surveillance-laws-explained-investigatory-powers-billhttp://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/11/investigatory-powers-act-imminent-peers-clear-path-for-uk-super-snoop-law/http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/how-the-uk-got-a-world-leading-surveillance-law/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data 7 Dec

Millionaires - The Friday night song. 2 Dec

Kiss from a Rose - The Friday Night Song (with the words!)             25 Nov

Private Life - The Friday Night Song 18 Nov

Not Exactly Rocket Science

These Birds Fly Almost a Year Without Landing27 Oct

The Return of the Whales—but Which Whales?18 Oct

Why Crested Penguins Always Lay Doomed Eggs 4 Oct

nuclear-news

Evacuees Trapped by the Return Policy - The policy to return the population to the still contaminated areas is in progress in spite of the evacuees’ protests. In three months, at the end of March 2017, the evacuation order will be lifted except for the “difficult-to-return” zones. In parallel, the housing aid for the so-called “auto-evacuees” from the areas situated outside of the evacuation zones will come to an end. The “psychological damage compensation” for the forced-evacuees will finish at the end of March 2018. In this context, the local governments’ employees are going around the temporary housing, offered freely to “auto-evacuees” (1), in door-to-door visits to apply pressure to expel the inhabitants. It is difficult to see in this act anything other than harassment and persecution. In November, Taro YAMAMOTO, Member of Parliament in Japan, posed a series of questions at the Special Commission for Reconstruction. We shall cite some extracts. (See Fukushima 311 Watchdogs for the full translation). *** Taro YAMAMOTOHere are some testimonies. “I am afraid of the investigators of the Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture visiting door to door. I hide under the cover for fear of hearing the ringing at the door. When I opened the door, the investigator stuck his foot into the door so that I could not close it. With a loud voice so that all the neighbors could hear, he shouted at me “you know very well that you can only live here until March”. I know, but I cannot move. “ The next person. “The Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture demands that we move out in a fierce and haughty manner. We had to leave our home because of the accident at the nuclear power plant. I do not understand why they are expelling us again.” “Constant phone calls, visits without notice, and they shout at me asking what my intention is. They send documents to file, and leave passing notices in the mailbox. I am completely exhausted, physically and psychologically. “ END OF QUOTE ***The same kind of persecution is deployed inside Fukushima prefecture.     You can see the photo of the notice taped on the apartment door of Mr. Yôichi OZAWA in the social housing for job seekers in mobility, used as temporary housing offered free of charge to nuclear accident victims, situated in Hara-machi district of Minamisoma town. Mr. OWAZA left his home at 22km from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant where the radioactivity was too high. In spite of the contamination, his home was not included in the evacuation zone, which stopped 20km from the NPP. Thus, he is considered as “auto-evacuee”, jishu-hinansha, and as such subject to the same harassment as the “auto-evacuees” in the Metropolitan regions of Tokyo or in West Japan. Because of this zoning based on the geographic distance from the crippled NPP that divides Minamisoma town, the evacuees of Hara-machi district are subject to expulsion persecution, whereas those of Odaka district are exempt from such acts. The door picture was posted in the Facebook of Mr. Tatsushi OKAMOTO on December 24th 2016 with the text below. On the notice we can read: Please contact us, for we have things to communicate to you. December 13th 2016 Kuroki Housing Management Office Cellphone #: XXXX Manager: XXXX Here is the paper taped on the door of a house for evacuees.It is shocking, this way of taping the notice.They treat us like a non-paying renter or as if we are not paying our taxes!No consideration of the dignity of the person.It is like the Yakuza’s way of collecting money!Currently in Fukushima, the victims are facing a double or triple suffering.Who is to be blamed? What have we done to deserve this, we, the victims? _______ (1) Minashi kasetsu jyûtaku. Rental housing managed by private or public agencies offered to evacuees of which the rent is taken in charge by the central or local government. _____ Reference links山本太郎公式ホームページの質問書き起こし Texte of questions of Taro Yamamoto in his official HP (in Japanese) 山本太郎の質問の英訳とフランス語訳の記事English translation of Taro Yamamoto’s questions 山本太郎議員が使った、ふくいち周辺環境放射線モニタリングプロジェクトの汚染地図（日本語）Contamination map used by Taro Yamamoto (in English) Read also:Harassment of Evacuees by Prefectural Housing Authorities to evict them for March 2017 Source : https://fukushima311voices.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/%e8%bf%bd%e3%81%84%e8%a9%b0%e3%82%81%e3%82%89%e3%82%8c%e3%82%8b%e9%81%bf%e9%9b%a3%e8%80%85%e3%81%9f%e3%81%a1-evacuees-trapped-by-the-return-policy/ 17:14

Welcome to Naraha, a ghost town in Fukushima’s shadow where dolls have replaced the people - Dolls are positioned at the entrance to a cafe in Naraha At first glance, the Japanese town of Naraha appears normal, if a little quiet.  There are a handful of residents dotted about the place – a few in the post office, and some others in the bank – though several are oddly still.  A doll is positioned by the ATM inside the post office in Naraha Town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan There are some youngsters loitering around too, but the older residents say they don’t mind as they never cause any trouble. In fact, they say, it is nice to have some new faces around a town still struggling to come to terms with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which brought the community to its knees.  Even if they are only dummies. The life-sized mannequins are the work of a group of elderly women who have taken it upon themselves to “repopulate” their town, after most of its inhabitants fled during the March 2011 disaster, which took place just 12 miles away.  These days most of Naraha former residents are scattered across the country. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/26/welcome-naraha-ghost-town-fukushimas-shadowwhere-dolls-have/ 17:02

December 27 Energy News - geoharvey Opinion: ¶ “Changing landscape for renewable energy” • Energy experts say that, although a Trump administration could slow progress, states have actually been at the forefront in pushing for cleaner, renewable power generation, with private sector funding far outstripping federal investments over the past five years. [Nantucket Island Inquirer] ¶ “It’s time for states to lead on climate change – and on justice, too” • With the new administration in Washington, climate activists will have a lot to defend in the next four years, but defense is not enough. We don’t have time to waste in fighting climate change. We must make up the ground we are likely to lose at the federal level. [Grist] Science and Technology: ¶ Canadian archeologists are in a race against time. They have been collecting, studying and preserving ancient artifacts – darts, bows and arrows – lost or misplaced by… View original post 613 more words 12:22

December 26 Energy News - geoharvey Opinion and Reviews: ¶ “Mothers unleash their organizing power on climate” • Taking their place in a tradition as political and social activists, groups of activist mothers attract constituencies that are politically and racially diverse. They are hellbent on doing everything they can to un-screw-up the world, and the recent US election has only strengthened that resolve. [Grist] Moms clean air force ¶ Review: “A chilling tale of lies, tragedy” • Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich is a powerful read. The author speaks with those impacted directly by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in the Soviet Union. She gets testimony first hand from many people impacted by the event and presents it in startling detail. [Glens Falls Post-Star] ¶ “Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas” • Here are 5 messages for all those who… View original post 518 more words 12:15

Climate costs bolt upward. #auspol #science - jpratt27 President-elect Donald Trump stops taking climate change into account when making federal energy policy, he’ll do so just as a leading projection of climate-related costs bolts upward. William Nordhaus of Yale University is a central figure in the study of climate change and economics. In the early 1990s he developed what became the leading computer model for studying the effects of warming on the global economy. The Dynamic Integrated model of Climate & the Economy (DICE) has long given resource economists, students, and policymakers an opportunity to test how different scenarios might lead to quite different future climates. Nordhaus recently updated DICE. He published results of an early test-drive of it this week in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, titled “Projections and Uncertainties About Climate Change in an Era of Minimal Climate Policies.” Readers of recent headlines might be forgiven for assuming the “era of minimal climate… View original post 459 more words 12:12

A Marine Food Web Bioaccumulation model for Cesium 137 in the Pacific Northwest -   From November 2014 Abstract The Fukushima nuclear accident on 11 March 2011 emerged as a global threat to the conservation of the Pacific Ocean, human health, and marine biodiversity. On April 11 (2011), the Fukushima nuclear plant reached the severity level 7, equivalent to that of the 1986-Chernobyl nuclear disaster. This accident was defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as “a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures”. Despite the looming threat of radiation, there has been scant attention and inadequate radiation monitoring. This is unfortunate, as the potential radioactive contamination of seafoods through bioaccumulation of radioisotopes (i.e. 137Cs) in marine and coastal food webs are issues of major concern for the public health of coastal communities. While releases of 137Cs into the Pacific after the Fukushima nuclear accident are subject to high degree of dilution in the ocean, 137Cs activities are also prone to concentrate in marine food-webs. With the aim to track the long term fate and bioaccumulation of 137Cs in marine organisms of the Northwest Pacific, we assessed the bioaccumulation potential of 137Cs in a North West Pacific foodweb by developing, applying and testing a simulation time dependent bioaccumulation model in a marine mammalian food web that includes fish-eating resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) as the apex predator. The model outcomes showed that 137Cs can be expected to bioaccumulate gradually over time in the food web as demonstrated through the use of the slope of the trophic magnification factor (TMF) for 137Cs, which was significantly higher than one (TMF > 1.0; p < 0.0001), ranging from 5.0 at 365 days of simulation to 30 at 10,950 days. From 1 year to 30 years of simulation, the 137Cs activities predicted in the male killer whale were 6.0 to 182 times 137Cs activities in its major prey (Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). Bioaccumulation of 137Cs was characterized by slow uptake and elimination rates in upper trophic level organisms and dominance of dietary consumption in the uptake of 137CS. This modeling work showed that in addition to the ocean dilution of 137Cs, a magnification of this radionuclide takes place in the marine food web over time.   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233869698_A_Marine_Food_Web_Bioaccumulation_model_for_Cesium_137_in_the_Pacific_Northwest 12:08

Help Save the World - GarryRogers Nature Conservation Block Trump. Declare World War on Global Warming and Other Human Impacts on Nature Our Problem Earth could join Mars as a dry, lifeless derelict. Scientists report that growth and spread of humanity together with rising global temperature are causing declining biodiversity, rising seas, growing storms, intensifying drought, spreading disease, and much more. The reports, made by observers all over the world, are like the thunder ahead of a storm that threatens the safety of our families, our friends, our civilization, and all life on our planet. We know it’s coming. Without a massive effort by the people of the world, the storm will grow until terrible destruction ruins our planet. We and all other life may be lost. Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration statements and cabinet choices make it clear that he will add to global warming and every other negative human impact on Earth. The Earth continues turning, but if… View original post 611 more words 12:08

On the Unique DNA Damage Done by Ionizing Radiation-Nuclear Materials (and on Metting, Hultgren, et.al. Misleading the US Congress in this Matter) - Mining Awareness + Clustered DNA damage is considered a signature of ionizing radiation: “clustered DNA damage sites, which may be considered as a signature of ionising radiation, underlie the deleterious biological consequences of ionising radiation…ionising radiation creates significant levels of clustered DNA damage, including complex double-strand breaks (DSB)” See: “Biological Consequences of Radiation-induced DNA Damage: Relevance to Radiotherapy“, by M.E. Lomax et. al. Clinical Oncology 25 (2013) 578-585 “The formation of clustered damage distinguishes ionising radiation-induced damage from normal endogenous damage“. https://cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp5-euratom/docs/non_dsb_lesions_projrep_en.pdf (See more details further below, after political commentary.) When watching US Congressman from Illinois, Hultgren: http://youtu.be/UkN4Ss5LcrI witchhunting renewable energy researcher Dr. Sharlene Weatherwax over removal of Noelle Metting and closure of the US DOE’s so-called low dose program, which at 100 mSv (10,000 mrem) isn’t even low dose, one needs to bear in mind facts. With the information found further below, we will leave… View original post 4,667 more words 12:05

99 Ways to Fight Trump - GarryRogers Nature Conservation GR:  Trump is the mouth of the oligarchy. Corrupted by corporate money, Congress has turned against us and now they’ve found someone to tell them it’s okay. We must stop Trump’s attempts, but more than just Trump, we must act to stop wildlife extinctions and global warming.  Michael Moore says that we need to form small action groups composed of family, friends, or neighbors that share news and action ideas, and he says he believes things will be worse than we expect. Figures. In the list below, number one definitely belongs at the top of the list. Here’s a taste of the list: Don’t just complain to your friends, let Congress know how you feel. Often. When you disagree with them AND when you agree. Write Reps here & Senators here. Tell state legislatures it’s time to get rid of the Electoral College. We can make it happen, and we… View original post 174 more words 12:04

NRA: Ice wall effects ‘limited’ at Fukushima nuclear plant - Citing “limited, if any effects,” the Nuclear Regulation Authority said a highly touted “frozen soil wall” should be relegated to a secondary role in reducing contaminated groundwater at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The government spent 34.5 billion yen ($292 million) to build the underground ice wall to prevent groundwater from mixing with radioactive water in four reactor buildings at the crippled plant. But the NRA, Japan’s nuclear watchdog, concluded on Dec. 26 that the wall has been ineffective in diverting the water away from the buildings. It said that despite the low rainfall over the past several months, the amount of groundwater pumped up through wells outside the frozen wall on the seaside is still well above the reduction target. It urged the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to tackle the groundwater problem primarily with pumps, not the ice wall. In response, TEPCO at the meeting said that by next autumn, it will double its capacity to pump up groundwater from the current 800 tons a day. About 400 tons of groundwater enters the damaged reactor buildings each day and mixes with highly radioactive water used to cool melted nuclear fuel. The ice wall project, compiled by the industry ministry in May 2013, was seen as a fundamental solution to this problem that has hampered TEPCO’s cleanup efforts since the triple meltdown in March 2011. Some 1,568 frozen ducts were inserted 30 meters deep into the ground to circulate a liquid at 30 degrees below zero. The freezing process was supposed to have created a solid wall of ice that could block the groundwater. TEPCO began freezing the wall on the seaside in March. It announced in the middle of October that the temperature at all measuring points in that area was below zero. Before the frozen wall project, TEPCO had to pump up about 300 tons of contaminated water a day. The daily volume dropped to about 130 tons in recent weeks, but it was still well beyond the target of 70 tons. Still, TEPCO boasted about the effectiveness of the ice wall at the meeting with the NRA on Dec. 26, saying, “We are seeing certain results.” The NRA, however, said the results are limited at best. Toyoshi Fuketa, an NRA commissioner, already warned TEPCO in October that it cannot expect the ice wall to be highly effective in containing the groundwater. “Pumping up groundwater through wells should be the main player because it can reliably control the groundwater level,” Fuketa said at that time. “The ice wall will play a supporting role.” That sentiment was echoed at the Dec. 26 meeting. However, the NRA approved the utility’s plan to begin freezing dirt for a wall on the mountain side of the nuclear plant. The NRA was previously concerned about risks posed by the new ice wall. If it totally blocked groundwater from the mountain side, the water level within the frozen soil near the reactors could become too low, allowing highly contaminated water inside the reactor buildings to flow out more rapidly. The NRA urged TEPCO to delay work on the mountain side until the ice wall on the seaside portion proved effective. But it reversed its stance, saying a sharp drop in the groundwater level is unlikely based on the ineffectiveness of the existing ice wall. “The frozen wall on the mountain side will not be able to block groundwater because the wall on the seaside was also unable to do so,” Fuketa said. “It will not be very dangerous to freeze the wall on the mountain side as long as the work is carried out carefully.” TEPCO will start the work to freeze the ducts at five sections as early as next year. Masashi Kamon, professor emeritus of geotechniques at Kyoto University, expressed skepticism about continuing the ice wall project without a full scrutiny of the underground conditions. “Soil around the tunnels for underground pipes must be hard to freeze,” he said. “TEPCO should find out the conditions of the very bottom of the ice wall by drilling at least one section. It is questionable to continue with the project without a review.” http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201612270056.html 03:39

PLoS Blogs Network

Imaging Active Cells for Insights, Education and Reward - Source: Imaging Active Cells for Insights, Education and Reward 0000-0001-7318-5892 Effective science communication engages readers through use of multiple formats, from written text to visual images. In recognition of the long-standing importance of microscopy and25 Dec

Fossil Friday Roundup: December 23, 2016 - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: Fossil Friday Roundup: December 23, 2016 Featured Image: Triceratops ornament adorns a Christmas Tree. Ornament was purchased at The Field Museum, Image by Sarah Gibson. Happy Holidays from the PLOS Paleo Community Editors! Papers (All Open Access):25 Dec

10 Years of PLOS Synbio Publications - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: 10 Years of PLOS Synbio Publications 0000-0003-0319-5416 The PLOS Synbio Collection organizes the synthetic biology papers from across the PLOS family of journals into nine categories. The collection includes publications going back to December 2006 so this month25 Dec

2017 Global Infectious Diseases Threats to the United States - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: 2017 Global Infectious Diseases Threats to the United States AddThis Sharing Buttons above PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases co-Editor-in Chief Peter Hotez predicts the major infections that will threaten the US in the coming year.23 Dec

Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change The attribution of extreme events to human-induced climate change—what is termed anthropogenic climate change—has been a burgeoning scientific frontier as scientists grapple to understand how our activities are23 Dec

With rampant narcissism and social cheating – the importance of teaching social evolutionary mechanisms. - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: In an age of rampant narcissism and social cheating – the importance of teaching social evolutionary mechanisms. orcid.org/0000-0001-5816-9771 As socioeconomic inequality grows,  the publicly acknowledged importance of traits such as honesty, loyalty, self-sacrifice, and23 Dec

Celldance Videos at ASCB 2016 - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: Celldance Videos at ASCB 2016 AddThis Sharing Buttons above The ASCB meeting was vibrant and interesting, and I had the chance to talk to many of you. This year PLOS sponsored the Celldance videos23 Dec

Silence: Everyday Betrayals of Research Participants - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: Silence: Everyday Betrayals of Research Participants   Headline, The Times, London, September 1990.   Many of them were watching the evening TV news on the BBC, with no idea of the blow that was22 Dec

Genetics in 2016: Breakthrough, Breakdown, and Bridge - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: Genetics in 2016: Breakthrough, Breakdown, and Bridge I dislike end-of-year “best of” lists, especially the “breakthroughs” that imply scientific discoveries and medical advances emerge from out of nowhere. Often they’re the product of PR22 Dec

Dinosaur bonebeds and biogeography: what the tiniest fossils tell us about the largest patterns - 0000-0002-8715-2896Source: Dinosaur bonebeds and biogeography: what the tiniest fossils tell us about the largest patterns Discovering new dinosaurs is very romantic, isn’t it? A team of plucky explorers stumbles across a small bone sticking out22 Dec

The Shape of Everything

The First Tuesday After the First Monday - Tomorrow, Dec 6th, Flying Meat will be donating 100% of our sales to the Southern Poverty Law Center: "The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality." If you don't already own Acorn, tomorrow would be a good time to pick it up. And if you buy it directly from us instead of the App Store, 30% more of your purchase will be given to the SPLC. 5 Dec

Worms or Bust - Ars Technica: Worms or bust: The story of Britain’s most tenacious indie games company. I remember playing Worms 20 years ago in college, and the hours wasted away playing it with roommates. I loved that game, and I guess I still do? There is version of it out on iOS, I should pop it on my iPad and take it for a spin with my daughter.29 Nov

It's OK to Copy Sometimes - Khoi Vinh: The Underestimated Merits of Copying Someone Else’s Work "This got me thinking about the value of copying. In this day and age, copying in any artistic pursuit is taboo. Culturally, economically and legally we emphasize the new and the novel, if not the original, and we look down on copying as lazy and ethically bereft. And rightly so; there’s nothing to redeem the act of copying another work and presenting it as your own. "On the other hand, there’s a compelling case to be made for copying as a learning technique. It’s a time honored form of learning and apprenticeship in painting, for example; if you’ve ever visited an art museum you’ve probably seen art students with easels and palettes literally reproducing canvases from the great masters." See also: Good Artists Copy28 Nov

Candy - Michael Lopp: The Likeability Feedback Loop "This likeability feedback loop tastes great. Who doesn’t want a steady flow of relevant, interesting, and targeted information? Who doesn’t want the world synthesized and simplified into a palatable set of information that one can easily consume in just a few moments? And who doesn’t like the simple satisfaction of sharing or retweeting that likable and relatable piece of information that just speaks to me." 24 Nov

Acorn 4.5.8 Released - Just because we're still pushing ahead with Acorn 5, doesn't mean we have forgotten about Acorn 4. We've just pushed Acorn 4.5.8, which contains compatibly fixes for MacOS 10.12 Sierra. Acorn 4.5.8 is now compatible with 10.8 through 10.12. This release is currently for direct customers only. For some reason the App Store has Acorn 4.5.7 in some sort of wedged state that we haven't quire figured out. We'll see if we can get that resolved sometime soon and get v4.5.8 out there as well.21 Nov

Acorn 5.6 Preview With Touch Bar Support - Acorn 5.6 is moving closer to shipping, and it now includes support for the Touch Bar in the new MacBook Pros. So if you have one of these neat new machines, you can grab a test build of Acorn 5.6 and try it out. Acorn will update Touch Bar with recent images to open, a histogram, color changing widgets, transformation options, boolean operations for shapes, and more. And of course this will be a free update for anyone who has already purchased Acorn 5. I think most developers are still trying to figure out what to do with the Touch Bar, so I imagine things are going to change wildly and drastically as time goes on (Acorn included). But, you've got to start somewhere and here is our take on it.16 Nov

Color Science from Pixar in a Box - Pixar in a Box: Introduction to Color. I had completely forgotten about Pixar in a Box until now, which is a shame because it's pretty awesome and you'll learn a lot by watching it. The Introduction to animation lessons are also great (and include one of my favorites: Bezier curves). 9 Nov

TouchBarDemoApp - TouchBarDemoApp is cool: "Touch Bar Demo App allows you to use your macOS Touch Bar from an iPad (through USB connection) or on-screen by pressing the Fn-key. It shows the original Apple Touch Bar, which changes dynamically based on the app you're currently using. With this demo app, you can try out the Touch Bar on any Mac that does not have a physical Touch Bar." I've put it on my iPad, and it works really well. Not only does it make developing Touch Bar stuff way easier, but you can also see what Apple is doing in their apps in a better light. The simulator that comes with Xcode is OK, but not nearly as good as using something with a real touch interface (and actually closer to your keyboard!). 8 Nov

A Couple of Fun Weekend Reads - Two easy and short reads for the coders out there: Casual Introduction to Low-Level Graphics Programming, by Stephanie Hurlburt. H.264 is Magic, by Sid Bala. 4 Nov

Notes on Working With the NSTouchBar APIs - I've been working with NSTouchBar for the past couple of days, seeing what I can put together in Acorn in some sort of reasonable timeframe. I was initially worried that classes would be pretty sparse and I'd have to write a bunch of custom subviews to get anything reasonable to show up on Touch Bar, but to my surprise the API seems pretty well fleshed out. A quick look at the headers shows the number of new classes and APIs available to us with this .x update: $ cd AppKit.framework/Headers/$ grep 10_12_1 *.h | wc -l176 Another worry I had was that the API would be hacked together by some intern or that it would have an iOS bent to it. But again I was happy to see NSTouchBar and friends use the responder chain in a very reasonable fashion, and it really embraces how Cocoa APIs work on MacOS. I get the feeling this was worked on for a number of years and heavily refined, and was used internally by a number of applications. Which of course makes sense, but not something I had expected. What are the drawbacks though? There's a lot you can do with this API and based on the examples Apple shows on the MacBook Pro page, there are a lot of different ways to interact with Touch Bar. But this also means a lot of code, and quite a bit of duplicate code unless I want to do some heavy refactoring. And this is for a tiny subset of the market. Do I really want to invest heavily into something that'll only be on pro laptops for the foreseeable future? I've already implemented a number of Touch Bar things in Acorn, so I'm obviously invested in some part. But time spent on this is time not spent on features that'll help every one of my customers, not just the ones with pro laptops. Maybe I'll think differently once I get my hands on actual hardware. Still, the API is pretty sweet. 2 Nov