Post by mhbruin on Apr 29, 2022 10:18:13 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 575 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 27)
We had some rain up north this week.
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Never Iron a Four-Leaf Clover. You Don't Want to Press Your Luck.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Texas: Where Books Are Burned and Hair Styles Are Banned.
Nothing makes Dyree Williams feel more like himself than his hair, which he has proudly worn in twists, braids and locks all his life -- it's part of his identity and a direct connection to his ancestors.
But Williams' locks became an issue after the 17-year-old moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to East Bernard, 50 miles outside of Houston, Texas, in February. His new school's dress code policy stated that "braided hair or corn rows will not be allowed," a policy that went against his very sense of self.
"Once you cut that hair off, you cut off your line to your ancestors, you cut off your lineage, you cut off everything," Williams' mother, Desiree Bullock, said. "And just it's not an option ... We don't consider them dreadlocks because we don't dread them we love them."
The school's student handbook, where the district's policy on hair is spelled out, states that "Boy's hair may not extend below the eyebrows, below the tops of the ears or below a conventional standup shirt collar, and must not be more than one-inch difference in the length of the hair on the side to the length of the hair on top."
Bullock told CNN that having Williams change hairstyles to comply with the policy is not an option for either of them.
Dyree Williams is pictured with his hair locks grown past his eyebrows and ears, a length and style his new school district in Texas does not allow.
Dyree Williams is pictured with his hair locks grown past his eyebrows and ears, a length and style his new school district in Texas does not allow.
CNN obtained a copy of the handbook, which has been removed from the district's website. (Why did they remove it?) The handbook goes on to state that, "This includes but not limited to tall hair styles, side swept bang styles, and long hair dangling over shaved sides or shaved back of the head. This also includes mullets and mullets in the making. Braided hair or corn rows will not be allowed. No extremes in hair styles."
What's More Christian Than Punishing the Victim?
When Mara Louk told an administrator at Visible Music College, where she was a senior, that a male classmate had choked and raped her last November, she expected that school officials would help her file a police report and arrange a safety plan.
Instead, she said in a federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday, administrators at Visible, a Christian college in Memphis, Tennessee, accused her of breaking school rules against premarital sex with a different student, an ex-boyfriend. She denied having sex with him but said the school threatened to expel her unless she signed a confession and finished the school year remotely.
Visible Music College administrators also told her they would not remove the accused student from her classes because police didn’t arrest him (Didn't he break school rules?), nor would they conduct a Title IX investigation, because the alleged assault happened off campus. And administrators attempted to bar Louk from telling anyone else at the school that she had been raped, she said.
Louk’s complaint asks the Department of Education to conduct two investigations of Visible Music College. One would evaluate whether the school violated the Clery Act, a federal campus safety law that requires colleges to advise students who report a sexual offense of their rights and assistance options. The other would examine whether the school discriminated against Louk under the gender equity law Title IX.
318 Million Americans Can Thank Joe Manchin for Screwing 15 Millions Americans
As Medicaid Awareness Month draws to a close, health advocates are warning about a very big cliff as many as 15 million people could fall off in a few months. Those millions, including as many as 6 million children, got coverage on Medicaid during the COVID-19 public health emergency. In the early days of the pandemic, Congress passed a “continuous coverage” provision under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, one of the first pandemic response bills. It prohibits states from kicking people off the program during the public health emergency.
The emergency was extended earlier this month and is now set to expire in mid-July. When it ends, Medicaid coverage won’t be the only thing that goes. Expanded SNAP (or food stamp) eligibility will end, too. There are plenty of other health-related programs that will go with it.
There are nearly 77 million non-elderly people who have health coverage through Medicaid, the federal/state partnership program to provide coverage to disabled Americans, and low-income Americans and their children. Something like 17 million people have enrolled during the COVID-19 pandemic, the result of job loss or long-term disability from the disease.
Let's Go Madison!
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has called for an investigation of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) for possible insider trading in cryptocurrency.
Tillis demanded a probe by congressional ethics investigators following a report by the Washington Examiner that said Cawthorn had raised suspicions among “multiple watchdog groups” for promoting the cryptocurrency “Let’s Go Brandon,” named for a vulgar anti-Joe Biden phrase popular with Donald Trump fans.
The Examiner published an Instagram photo posted in December showing Cawthorn posing with hedge fund manager James Koutoulas, the man behind the “Let’s Go Brandon” meme coin. In the post, Cawthorn hyped the coin, boasted that he owned it and said it would “go to the moon” the following day.
Sure enough, the following day NASCAR driver Brandon Brown announced that the cryptocurrency would be his primary sponsor in the 2022 racing season, which sent the coin’s value soaring by 75%, the Examiner reported.
NASCAR hit the brakes on the sponsorship a short time later.
According to the newspaper, the total value of the coin reached $570 million before bottoming out just a month later. The swing led to accusations of a “pump and dump” scheme, in which promoters hype an investment to drive up the price, then dump their holdings. Sucker investors are left holding deflated assets.
“This looks really, really bad,” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the government affairs manager for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told the Examiner. “This does look like a classic case of you got some insider information and acting on that information. And that’s illegal.”
Previous Guy May Be Right. Spending a Lot of Time Listening to Kellyanne Would Probably Destroy Your Mind. Unless You Had Already Lost It.
Former President Donald Trump issued a bizarre statement Thursday attacking conservative attorney George Conway while also taking a dig at his wife, Kellyanne Conway, in the process.
George Conway, a founding member of the anti-Trump PAC The Lincoln Project, is one of Trump’s most prominent conservative critics. Kellyanne Conway was a high-ranking White House adviser to Trump until she resigned in August 2020, citing a need to focus on her family.
In the statement tweeted by his spokesperson on Thursday, Trump shared a screenshot of a tweet from a conservative commentator that asked, “Is George Conway ok...?” with a picture of the lawyer looking flustered on CNN.
“No, he’s mentally ill, a very sick man,” Trump wrote before blaming his former adviser.
“I don’t know what Kellyanne did to him, but it must have been really bad. She has totally destroyed this guy―his mind is completely shot,” Trump’s statement read.
You You Still Need Me? Will You Still Feed Me, When You're 73?
NATO Opposes a Vile Dictator. Of Course the Worst of the QOP Don't Support NATO
In early 2019, several months after President Donald Trump threatened to upend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during a trip to Brussels for the alliance’s annual summit, House lawmakers passed the NATO Support Act amid overwhelming bipartisan support, with only 22 Republicans voting against the measure.
But this month, when a similar bill in support of NATO during the Russian invasion of Ukraine again faced a vote in the House, the support was far more polarized, with 63 Republicans — more than 30 percent of the party’s conference — voting against it.
The vote underscores the Republican Party’s remarkable drift away from NATO in recent years, as positions once considered part of a libertarian fringe have become doctrine for a growing portion of the party.
The isolationist posture of some Republicans is in line with the “America First” ethos of Trump, the GOP’s de facto leader, who has long railed against NATO. Last week, speaking at a Heritage Foundation event in Florida, Trump implied that as president he had threatened not to defend NATO allies from Russian attacks as a negotiating tactic to pressure them to contribute more money toward the organization’s shared defense.
The vote also comes against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has catapulted NATO to its most prominent role in decades. And it comes as some hawkish Republicans seek to cast themselves as stronger opponents of Russia than Democrats.
Maybe She Has a Granddaughter Who Would Like This "Opportunity". If Russia Invaded Ohio, Many More Ohio Women Would Have This "Opportunity".
Pregnancy after rape 'an opportunity'? Ohio GOP lawmaker sparks outrage in abortion debate
Ohio Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt sparked outrage during a hearing on an abortion bill when she said a hypothetical teenager traumatized by rape would have the "opportunity" to help that child become a "productive human being."
The comments came during a hearing over Schmidt's House Bill 598. The proposal would ban abortions in Ohio if the landmark Roe v. Wade decision were overturned – an increasingly likely scenario as the U.S. Supreme Court reviews a Mississippi ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The bill has no exception for rape or incest. That's a problem for Rep. Rich Brown, D-Canal Winchester, who posed a hypothetical situation about what would happen if a 13-year-old girl became pregnant after being raped.
"This bill would require this 13-year-old to carry this felon's fetus to term regardless of any emotional or psychological damage or trauma that may be inflicted upon this 13-year-old girl to deliver this felon's fetus. Is that right?" Brown asked Schmidt during a Wednesday hearing.
Previous Guy's Previous Lender Is Investigated Again
Prosecutors, federal police and other officials searched Deutsche Bank's headquarters in Frankfurt on Friday in a move Germany's largest lender said was linked to suspicions of money laundering it had reported to the authorities.
Under Chief Executive Christian Sewing, Deutsche Bank has been trying to repair its reputation after a series of embarrassing and costly regulatory failings, including another raid over money laundering in 2018.
In a statement, Deutsche Bank said the search was related to suspicious transactions it had itself passed on to authorities and that it was cooperating fully.
Note to West Ham Fans: WWII Ended 77 Years Ago.
West Ham United are investigating an incident in which two German commentators were allegedly attacked inside the London Stadium during the team's Europa League semifinal first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday.
Tim Brockmeier and Philipp Hofmeister, working for German broadcaster Hessischer Runfunk, said their headsets were ripped off and that they were physically assaulted by West Ham fans after Michail Antonio had equalized for the hosts in the first half.
The pair said the West Ham fans were sitting directly behind them and had been angered by them cheering loudly when Frankfurt took the lead in the first minute of the match.
The incident was captured on the live broadcast.
"We are being attacked from behind by the English fans, that's why we were unfortunately gone for a short time," Hofmeister said on the broadcast.
"So we are being attacked from behind. And our colleague Tim just had his headset thrown to the ground, so we really have to be a bit careful what we do here."
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Jim Acosta is Braver Than I Am. He Asked Greene to Search Her Memory. Who Knows What Lurks There? (Maybe the Shadow Does.)
On Thursday Jim Acosta of CNN sought to get Greene to search her memory and clarify her remarks. He approached her and directly, though politely, asked her about the gaps in her recollection. That lead to the following exchange (full video below):
Acosta: I guess you also said that you don't recall calling Nancy Pelosi a traitor? Is that right? You don't seem to recall a lot. What's going on there?
Greene: You know Jim, you have a show, and in all fairness, you try to present this image of me to your viewers and it's just really not correct.
Acosta: Well, we're just trying to get some answers. Did you send a text asking for the president to declare martial law? Did you do that?
Greene: I, you know, I don't recall those being my text messages. But have you read the text message that is, that you're referring to?
Acosta: I did. It was misspelled, but it seemed to say that you were calling for martial law.
Greene: Cause it actually says, well actually it says if you read it correctly, Jim, your problem is you're lying again right now, it says, 'I do not know' on those things. That's what that text message says. You know, why don't you be honest?
Acosta: Why even bring it up? Why bring up martial law?
Greene: You know, your problem is you're just one of those liars on television and people hate it. They can't stand the liars on television.
Acosta: You're the one saying, 'I don't recall, I don't recall, I don't recall, I don't recall.'
I'd Rather Have An Enzyme Eating Plastic than Eat It Myself.
Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days.
This discovery, published today in Nature, could help solve one of the world's most pressing environmental problems: what to do with the billions of tons of plastic waste piling up in landfills and polluting our natural lands and water. The enzyme has the potential to supercharge recycling on a large scale that would allow major industries to reduce their environmental impact by recovering and reusing plastics at the molecular level.
The project focuses on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a significant polymer found in most consumer packaging, including cookie containers, soda bottles, fruit and salad packaging, and certain fibers and textiles. It makes up 12% of all global waste.
The enzyme was able to complete a "circular process" of breaking down the plastic into smaller parts (depolymerization) and then chemically putting it back together (repolymerization). In some cases, these plastics can be fully broken down to monomers in as little as 24 hours.
Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences used a machine learning model to generate novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET plastics. The model predicts which mutations in these enzymes would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerizing post-consumer waste plastic at low temperatures.
Through this process, which included studying 51 different post-consumer plastic containers, five different polyester fibers and fabrics and water bottles all made from PET, the researchers proved the effectiveness of the enzyme, which they are calling FAST-PETase (functional, active, stable and tolerant PETase).
"This work really demonstrates the power of bringing together different disciplines, from synthetic biology to chemical engineering to artificial intelligence," said Andrew Ellington, professor in the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology whose team led the development of the machine learning model.
Recycling is the most obvious way to cut down on plastic waste. But globally, less than 10% of all plastic has been recycled. The most common method for disposing of plastic, besides throwing it in a landfill, is to burn it, which is costly, energy intensive and spews noxious gas into the air. Other alternative industrial processes include very energy-intensive processes of glycolysis, pyrolysis, and/or methanolysis.
Biological solutions take much less energy. Research on enzymes for plastic recycling has advanced during the past 15 years. However, until now, no one had been able to figure out how to make enzymes that could operate efficiently at low temperatures to make them both portable and affordable at large industrial scale. FAST-PETase can perform the process at less than 50 degrees Celsius.
Up next, the team plans to work on scaling up enzyme production to prepare for industrial and environmental application. The researchers have filed a patent application for the technology and are eying several different uses. Cleaning up landfills and greening high waste-producing industries are the most obvious. But another key potential use is environmental remediation. The team is looking at a number of ways to get the enzymes out into the field to clean up polluted sites.
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Invasions Have Consequences
The News in Brief
If you are looking for a recap, here's a round-up of the latest events in Ukraine:
UN chief's visit: President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his daily video message, said "Russian missiles flew into the city" immediately after the end of talks with Guterres in Kyiv. He called for a "powerful response." Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's minister of foreign affairs, called the missile strikes a "heinous act of barbarism." It came after the UN chief met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. The UN is urging for evacuation corridors in the besieged city of Mariupol.
Russia making "slow and uneven" progress: Russian forces have made some progress in Moscow's renewed assault on eastern Ukraine, according to US and NATO officials, as their military tries to fix the myriad problems that plagued the early weeks of the invasion. The US has seen "some evidence" of improvement in Russia's ability to combine air and ground operations, as well as its capacity for resupplying forces in the field, officials say.
Soldiers behind Bucha killings "identified": Zelensky said 10 Russian service members have been identified as suspects in the “crimes committed against our people in Bucha." The investigation into crimes committed by the Russian military is underway, Zelensky said, adding the 10 soldiers are from the "64th motorized rifle brigade of the Russian Ground Forces."
American killed fighting in Ukraine: An American citizen, Willy Joseph Cancel, was killed Monday fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, his family told CNN. The 22-year-old was working with a private military contracting company. "He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn't come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn't have to be involved in it," his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.
Orphaned girl reunited with grandfather: 12-year-old Kira Obedinsky, who was orphaned by war and taken from her hometown of Mariupol to a hospital in a Russian-controlled area of eastern Ukraine in early in March has been reunited with her grandfather. He was initially told she would eventually be sent to an orphanage in Russia. Their reunion, more than a month after they had last seen each other, was orchestrated by negotiators from Ukraine and Russia.
Russia trying to eradicate Ukrainian identity: Occupying Russian forces in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson are trying to extend their grip over the area. In recent days the Russians have appointed their own officials to run Kherson, replacing elected Ukrainian officials. On Thursday one of those newly installed officials said Kherson would begin to use the ruble from next week, replacing the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia. Additionally, Russian television channels have taken the place of Ukrainian networks.
US seeks more money for Ukraine: The Biden administration is sending a $33 billion supplemental funding request to Congress aimed at supporting Ukraine through a new phase over the next several months. It includes funding for security, economic, and humanitarian aid. "We need this bill to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom," Biden said.
There's New Sheriff In Town. Will He Be Enforcing Marshall Law?
Marshall Law is an Australian television series, which aired on the Seven Network in 2002, starring Lisa McCune and Alison Whyte as lawyers and sisters.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat
The old adage that “if it’s too good to be true, it likely is,” definitely applies in this war, as I spent much of the day trying to verify fantastical claims from both sides. I even had to enlist Mark Sumner at one point to help me sort through one rumor of a major Ukrainian breakthrough toward Mariupol. Turns out, no one is making big sweeping gains. It’s all “lay down artillery until defenders get the f’ out, walk in. Leave when their artillery returns fire.” Rinse, lather, repeat.
Kutuzivka is a perfect example, as Ukraine claimed to have captured it back in April 8. Then, it was supposedly “partially” liberated on April 17. And here we are, today, confirmed fully captured. Given the heavy shelling in the area, it very well may have gone back and forth for a while.
Waiting For the Big Guns
There is one change we’ve seen to Russian tactics: “The concentrated use of artillery by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in April is one of the few major changes Russia has made to its operations compared to the early weeks of the war.” Before, Russia would send a bunch of kids to die against entrenched Ukrainian defenders. Now, those defensive positions are first shelled before Russia sends those kids to die. Most of the time, Ukrainian defenders remain, but every once in a while Russia gets lucky, the artillery does its job and clears out an area, and Russia can creep up a kilometer or two.
Given that around 5,000 square miles of Donbas territory remain in Ukraine’s hands, does anyone truly believes this is a winning strategy? Ukraine’s job is to hold their strongholds at Slovyansk (pop. 111,000) and Kramatorsk (pop. 157,000), while Russia burns through their troops, equipment, and ammunition in time for those sweet Western artillery guns to make their way to the front.
It Won't Be a Long Wait
As of today, the Pentagon assesses that 60 percent of the 90, 155mm howitzers it has committed to Ukraine so far have arrived in country (roughly 54).
That’s up from about half of the 90 yesterday.
Training of Ukrainian forces on several systems continues outside Ukraine, senior defense official says. That includes not only the howitzer, but Q-64 short-range air defense radar and the M113 armored personnel carrier.
Crawling Toward Popasna
When I described the two miles between Popasna and Pervomaisk as “the center of the world” two weeks ago, what I missed was that those two miles are also apparently much larger than any other miles on the planet. How else to account for Russia reporting “steady progress” in Popasna for 12 days in a row, without actually taking Popasna?
As of Thursday, more of the town appears to have come under Russian control, and there are Chechen forces in the eastern part of the town performing what seems to be the specialty of Kadyrov’s forces: making propaganda videos. Those videos are supposed to show Ukrainian forces running away from Popasna as the Chechen fighters laugh. Shockingly, they seem to be fakes.
So far as can be discerned at this point, the center of Popasna remains under Ukrainian control, but the fighting there has devolved to a horrendous street-by-street nightmare. Russian artillery is continuing to fire into the heavily damaged town, and 10 more houses were reportedly taken out. But if Russia took more ground in the past 24 hours, it could be measured with a yardstick. And that’s in spite of hitting the small town with everything, including reportedly using cluster bombs, phosphorus, and something similar to napalm.
The tactic being used at Popasna is the tactic Russia is using everywhere, as well as the tactic Russia deployed in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria: Fire artillery until everything ahead is dust. Then advance across the dust.
This is why getting the artillery sent to Ukraine by the U.S. and other Western nations to the front lines is so vital. The 110 U.S. M777 howitzers (over half of which are now in Ukraine, with trained crews) have a range up to 24 miles, and they are closely coupled to anti-artillery radar systems that are specifically designed to trace back the source of incoming fire so that it can be destroyed. Artillery that is outranged by modern opposing artillery fires once. Then it’s gone.
Loitering munitions like the Switchblade and still-mysterious Phoenix Ghost can also help take out Russian artillery, but it’s not clear that these systems have been effective at this task to this point.
In any case, Russia’s grind with an artillery-and-then-advance system isn’t just slow; it’s costly for Russia. As kos noted earlier, Russia’s “tactical successes” gained by days of shelling have come at a cost of high levels of casualties and significant losses of equipment. Quoting former DNR separatist leader Igor Girkin:
“...after a certain time, in this area, the same situation will repeat as in Rubezhnoe-Severodonetsk, Popasnaya, Avdeevka and Maryanka, where united forces are advancing extremely slowly and with huge losses (especially among the infantry), or not moving at all (Avdeevka).”
When Russia advances over that dust, troops are not just crossing the rubble of Ukrainian cities. They’re walking on the bodies of their own troops and the wreckage of their own gear.
There is an axiom that moving forward against an enemy in defensive position requires a 3 to 1 force advantage, all other things being equal. Considering the training and unit cohesiveness of Russian forces, they have historically moved forward by employing a 7 to 1 advantage. They don’t have 7:1. They don’t have 3:1. That doesn’t mean they can’t advance. It means they can advance, but only at a very high rate of attrition.
Some of the numbers that are coming out of the Ukrainian ministry of defense, like those that suggest Russia has lost 100 tanks in the past four days, are certainly exaggerated. But considering the proven losses Russia has already seen, they may not be that exaggerated.
Russia is crawling toward Popasna, and a dozen other towns and cities, behind a screen of artillery, losing men and machines all the way, because they’ve been told to advance despite having insufficient forces to overwhelm defenders. Ukraine can’t allow that advance to continue forever. On the other hand, Russian forces can’t survive this rate of attrition forever.
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Stuck at Home for 5 Weeks, and Now Their Neighbors Are Banging Pans
Shanghai lockdown: Residents protest after five weeks of strict zero-Covid measures
Residents have been banging pans and shouting from the windows of their homes, to protest against the government enforced lockdown in Shanghai.
The Chinese government has been pursuing a zero-Covid strategy since the beginning of the pandemic, with the aim of keeping the country entirely Covid free.
Criticism of the government is rare in China, but residents said they have struggled to access food supplies, while others have been temporarily evacuated from their homes so they can be disinfected.
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Attack of the Killer Foam. This is No Joke.
A town just outside the Colombian capital Bogotá is battling great blobs of foul-smelling white foam.
It is thought that detergents dumped in a local river are generating the froth which drifts through the air, clumping and clinging to buildings in Mosquera.
"The smell is terrible, we have had to put up with the smell for a long time, and now with this big foam we are afraid that we will be in danger, God forbid someone falls in there, we won't be able to find them." resident Luz Mariela Diaz told AFP news agency.
Another local woman, Claudia Esperanza Garzon, told Reuters news agency she had to use an inhaler because of the effect of the foam on her lungs.
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Amazon Didn't Have an Amazin' Quarter
Amazon's stock plummeted after the company reported slowing growth in its latest quarter and offered a disappointing revenue outlook.
The tech giant said revenue grew 7% from the same period last year to $116.4 billion, slightly beating analyst forecasts but slower than the 9% growth in the final months of last year. The company forecast that revenue growth would slow further next quarter, anticipating a growth rate of between 3% and 7%.
Amazon reported a net loss of $3.8 billion for the quarter ended March 31, a sharp drop from the same period last year, when it made an $8.1 billion profit. It was also a big miss from the $4.4 billion profit that analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had forecast.
The company attributed the loss largely to a $7.6 billion loss from its investment in electric automaker Rivian Automotive. Rivian, into which Amazon led a $700 million investment in 2019, has seen its stock plummet more than 75% since its blockbuster November 2021 IPO.
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Will the Marriage Made in Hell Happen?
The agreement has been made, but Musk is already violating the terms of that agreement. At a certain point whichever side disrupts the terms will end up paying a billion dollars for breaking the contract.
He has had a nauseating way of breaking sensible laws for corporate officers in handling information, and wanting to claim the SEC is violating his free speech. He used Twitter to put his foot in his mouth so deep that he gained notice by the SEC in 2018 and they charged him with securities fraud. Musk settled, but lately has tried to back out of that settlement. The court decided against him — for obvious reasons.
Here are many problems that could block Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Please read it; I don’t want to violate fair use. Among the difficulties for Musk:
* He appears to have already violated agreement terms — not an auspicious first day.
* Tesla share price is overvalued and Musk is using some of his shares to secure a loan for the deal. This puts his shares and ergo the Tesla stock price at risk. How many investors are going to see Musk-Tesla as a good investment should that risk evolve into loss?
* All major automakers are in the EV market now competing with Tesla.
* There’s are serious conflicting interests. Tesla has a promising future in the China market, but China’s government doesn’t like Twitter. How is that resolved without a Musk loss somewhere?
* He has no clue about what “free speech” is but thinks he should be able to say whatever he pleases. Is his personal PR charm going to start failing and shake investor confidence in him?
Can He Just Issue Himself More Shares?
As he looks to finance his massive acquisition of social media company Twitter, Elon Musk sold another 5.2 million shares of Tesla for roughly $4.5 billion, bringing his total share sales this week to nearly 10 million, according to new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission released on Friday.
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We are So Beyond Fu**ed
Here is what we know so far. An early heatwave has enveloped South Asia since March. Temperatures have only risen higher in April, and today temperatures are 113 to 122 F in many areas of the Indian sub-continent. The body can’t cool off at night so it weakens and is vulnerable to organ shutdown. The worst part is that temperatures will only increase in the next ten days, perhaps longer if the Monsoon rains continue to be unseasonably late.
India's wheat crop is scorched in yet another blow to fight world hunger. India was expecting a bountiful harvest this year, but the heat will mean very little export will be available to fill in some of the gaps from the Ukraine and Russia wars.
In the Himalayas of Pakistan, plans for likely glacial flooding events have been activated by local governments as fears of meltwater lakes bursting and destroying everything in their path roaring down to the valley's floor.
Authorities have warned that the heatwave is likely to enhance snow and ice melt over the glaciated areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and Gilgit-Baltistan Administrative Territory; glacial lake outburst floods and flash floods are possible in vulnerable areas, especially at Shishper Lake.
From the NY Times:
NEW DELHI — Across a wide swath of the Indian subcontinent, scorching temperatures have damaged harvests. People are suffering from heat stroke. And the lights are flickering in some cities amid surging demand for air-conditioning.
Now, the heat wave that has been pummeling India and Pakistan for weeks is expected to intensify over the weekend. In some hard-hit areas, it may be weeks before the region's annual monsoon sweeps in to provide relief.
Heat-related watches were in effect on Thursday afternoon for all but a few of India’s 28 states, encompassing hundreds of millions of people and most of the country’s major cities. An alert — one notch up in severity — was in effect for the northwestern state of Rajasthan on Thursday, and would come into effect for other central and western states starting Saturday.
The subcontinent’s scorching weather is a reminder of what lies in store for other countries in an era of climate change. Climate scientists say that heat waves around the world are growing more frequent, more dangerous and lasting longer. They are certain that global warming has made heat waves worse because the baseline temperatures from which they begin are higher than they were decades ago.
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Will More People Starve?
An unusually early, record-shattering heat wave in India has reduced wheat yields, raising questions about how the country will balance its domestic needs with ambitions to increase exports and make up for shortfalls due to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Gigantic landfills in India’s capital New Delhi have caught fire in recent weeks. Schools in eastern Indian state Odisha have been shut for a week and in neighboring West Bengal, schools are stocking up on oral rehydration salts for kids. On Tuesday, Rajgarh, a city of over 1.5 million people in central India, was the country’s hottest, with daytime temperatures peaking at 46.5 degrees Celsius (114.08 Fahrenheit). Temperatures breached the 45 C (113 F) mark in nine other cities.
But it was the heat in March — the hottest in India since records first started being kept in 1901 — that stunted crops. Wheat is very sensitive to heat, especially during the final stage when its kernels mature and ripen. Indian farmers time their planting so that this stage coincides with India’s usually cooler spring.
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Can It Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound?
Robot Can Leap Nine Stories in Single Jump, Will Go Even Higher on Moon
A simple robot, developed by a team led by UC Santa Barbara engineering professor Elliot Hawkes, can reach a height of roughly 100 feet (30 meters). The researchers say this is the highest achieved by any known natural or manufactured jumper.
"To our knowledge far higher than previous engineered jumpers and over an order of magnitude higher than the best biological jumpers," reads a study on the work published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
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Big Oil Has Big Profits
Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the largest U.S. oil companies, on Friday reported a second consecutive quarter of robust earnings as oil and natural gas prices continued to rise after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The two companies said they were increasing their production in the Permian Basin, the giant shale oil field straddling Texas and New Mexico, but were not seeking to ramp up oil and natural gas production overall despite pressure from the Biden administration, which is seeking to tamp down high energy prices.
In the past, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and other energy companies invested heavily when prices were high, only to see losses when prices fell as the industry flooded the market with supply. Now, they are enjoying higher profits without significantly increasing their output.
You Pay Them at the Pump and You Pay Them Again Though Your Taxes
Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually.
Unless You Drive an EV, In Which Case You Only Pay Once to Subsidize Something Your Don't Use.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 28 | 54,696 | 311 | |
| Apr 27 | 53,133 | 334 | 1,941 |
| Apr 26 | 48,692 | 299 | 1,889 |
| Apr 25 | 47,407 | 330 | 1,840 |
| Apr 24 | 44,416 | 314 | 1,779 |
| Apr 23 | 45,413 | 315 | 1,629 |
| Apr 22 | 44,308 | 311 | 1,642 |
| Apr 21 | 40,744 | 346 | 1,647 |
| Apr 20 | 42,604 | 375 | 1,609 |
| Apr 19 | 40,985 | 385 | 1,582 |
| Apr 18 | 37,132 | 380 | 1,564 |
| Apr 17 | 35,212 | 373 | 1,542 |
| Apr 16 | 34,972 | 379 | 1,532 |
| Apr 15 | 34,778 | 399 | 1,510 |
| Apr 14 | 35,475 | 446 | 1,490 |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 | 1,477 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 | 1,463 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 | 1.447 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 | 1,443 |
| Apr 9 | 28,339 | 509 | |
| Apr 8 | 28,169 | 516 | |
| Apr 7 | 26,286 | 471 | |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 | |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 | |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 | |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 | |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 | |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 | |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 | |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 | |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 | |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 | |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 | |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 | |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 | |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.5% | 66.0% | 45.6% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.3% | 70.2% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 87.1% | 74.5% | 47.4% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.9% | 76.0% | 49.1% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 90.0% | 68.3% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 27)
We had some rain up north this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 81% (74%) | 79% (70%) | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 67% (61%) | 65% (58%) | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 62% (57%) | 60% (54%) | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 29% | 15% | |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 33% | 27% | |
| Snow Water Content - South | 23% | 24% |
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Never Iron a Four-Leaf Clover. You Don't Want to Press Your Luck.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
Texas: Where Books Are Burned and Hair Styles Are Banned.
Nothing makes Dyree Williams feel more like himself than his hair, which he has proudly worn in twists, braids and locks all his life -- it's part of his identity and a direct connection to his ancestors.
But Williams' locks became an issue after the 17-year-old moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to East Bernard, 50 miles outside of Houston, Texas, in February. His new school's dress code policy stated that "braided hair or corn rows will not be allowed," a policy that went against his very sense of self.
"Once you cut that hair off, you cut off your line to your ancestors, you cut off your lineage, you cut off everything," Williams' mother, Desiree Bullock, said. "And just it's not an option ... We don't consider them dreadlocks because we don't dread them we love them."
The school's student handbook, where the district's policy on hair is spelled out, states that "Boy's hair may not extend below the eyebrows, below the tops of the ears or below a conventional standup shirt collar, and must not be more than one-inch difference in the length of the hair on the side to the length of the hair on top."
Bullock told CNN that having Williams change hairstyles to comply with the policy is not an option for either of them.
Dyree Williams is pictured with his hair locks grown past his eyebrows and ears, a length and style his new school district in Texas does not allow.
Dyree Williams is pictured with his hair locks grown past his eyebrows and ears, a length and style his new school district in Texas does not allow.
CNN obtained a copy of the handbook, which has been removed from the district's website. (Why did they remove it?) The handbook goes on to state that, "This includes but not limited to tall hair styles, side swept bang styles, and long hair dangling over shaved sides or shaved back of the head. This also includes mullets and mullets in the making. Braided hair or corn rows will not be allowed. No extremes in hair styles."
What's More Christian Than Punishing the Victim?
When Mara Louk told an administrator at Visible Music College, where she was a senior, that a male classmate had choked and raped her last November, she expected that school officials would help her file a police report and arrange a safety plan.
Instead, she said in a federal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday, administrators at Visible, a Christian college in Memphis, Tennessee, accused her of breaking school rules against premarital sex with a different student, an ex-boyfriend. She denied having sex with him but said the school threatened to expel her unless she signed a confession and finished the school year remotely.
Visible Music College administrators also told her they would not remove the accused student from her classes because police didn’t arrest him (Didn't he break school rules?), nor would they conduct a Title IX investigation, because the alleged assault happened off campus. And administrators attempted to bar Louk from telling anyone else at the school that she had been raped, she said.
Louk’s complaint asks the Department of Education to conduct two investigations of Visible Music College. One would evaluate whether the school violated the Clery Act, a federal campus safety law that requires colleges to advise students who report a sexual offense of their rights and assistance options. The other would examine whether the school discriminated against Louk under the gender equity law Title IX.
318 Million Americans Can Thank Joe Manchin for Screwing 15 Millions Americans
As Medicaid Awareness Month draws to a close, health advocates are warning about a very big cliff as many as 15 million people could fall off in a few months. Those millions, including as many as 6 million children, got coverage on Medicaid during the COVID-19 public health emergency. In the early days of the pandemic, Congress passed a “continuous coverage” provision under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, one of the first pandemic response bills. It prohibits states from kicking people off the program during the public health emergency.
The emergency was extended earlier this month and is now set to expire in mid-July. When it ends, Medicaid coverage won’t be the only thing that goes. Expanded SNAP (or food stamp) eligibility will end, too. There are plenty of other health-related programs that will go with it.
There are nearly 77 million non-elderly people who have health coverage through Medicaid, the federal/state partnership program to provide coverage to disabled Americans, and low-income Americans and their children. Something like 17 million people have enrolled during the COVID-19 pandemic, the result of job loss or long-term disability from the disease.
Let's Go Madison!
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has called for an investigation of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) for possible insider trading in cryptocurrency.
Tillis demanded a probe by congressional ethics investigators following a report by the Washington Examiner that said Cawthorn had raised suspicions among “multiple watchdog groups” for promoting the cryptocurrency “Let’s Go Brandon,” named for a vulgar anti-Joe Biden phrase popular with Donald Trump fans.
The Examiner published an Instagram photo posted in December showing Cawthorn posing with hedge fund manager James Koutoulas, the man behind the “Let’s Go Brandon” meme coin. In the post, Cawthorn hyped the coin, boasted that he owned it and said it would “go to the moon” the following day.
Sure enough, the following day NASCAR driver Brandon Brown announced that the cryptocurrency would be his primary sponsor in the 2022 racing season, which sent the coin’s value soaring by 75%, the Examiner reported.
NASCAR hit the brakes on the sponsorship a short time later.
According to the newspaper, the total value of the coin reached $570 million before bottoming out just a month later. The swing led to accusations of a “pump and dump” scheme, in which promoters hype an investment to drive up the price, then dump their holdings. Sucker investors are left holding deflated assets.
“This looks really, really bad,” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the government affairs manager for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told the Examiner. “This does look like a classic case of you got some insider information and acting on that information. And that’s illegal.”
Previous Guy May Be Right. Spending a Lot of Time Listening to Kellyanne Would Probably Destroy Your Mind. Unless You Had Already Lost It.
Former President Donald Trump issued a bizarre statement Thursday attacking conservative attorney George Conway while also taking a dig at his wife, Kellyanne Conway, in the process.
George Conway, a founding member of the anti-Trump PAC The Lincoln Project, is one of Trump’s most prominent conservative critics. Kellyanne Conway was a high-ranking White House adviser to Trump until she resigned in August 2020, citing a need to focus on her family.
In the statement tweeted by his spokesperson on Thursday, Trump shared a screenshot of a tweet from a conservative commentator that asked, “Is George Conway ok...?” with a picture of the lawyer looking flustered on CNN.
“No, he’s mentally ill, a very sick man,” Trump wrote before blaming his former adviser.
“I don’t know what Kellyanne did to him, but it must have been really bad. She has totally destroyed this guy―his mind is completely shot,” Trump’s statement read.
You You Still Need Me? Will You Still Feed Me, When You're 73?
NATO Opposes a Vile Dictator. Of Course the Worst of the QOP Don't Support NATO
In early 2019, several months after President Donald Trump threatened to upend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during a trip to Brussels for the alliance’s annual summit, House lawmakers passed the NATO Support Act amid overwhelming bipartisan support, with only 22 Republicans voting against the measure.
But this month, when a similar bill in support of NATO during the Russian invasion of Ukraine again faced a vote in the House, the support was far more polarized, with 63 Republicans — more than 30 percent of the party’s conference — voting against it.
The vote underscores the Republican Party’s remarkable drift away from NATO in recent years, as positions once considered part of a libertarian fringe have become doctrine for a growing portion of the party.
The isolationist posture of some Republicans is in line with the “America First” ethos of Trump, the GOP’s de facto leader, who has long railed against NATO. Last week, speaking at a Heritage Foundation event in Florida, Trump implied that as president he had threatened not to defend NATO allies from Russian attacks as a negotiating tactic to pressure them to contribute more money toward the organization’s shared defense.
The vote also comes against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has catapulted NATO to its most prominent role in decades. And it comes as some hawkish Republicans seek to cast themselves as stronger opponents of Russia than Democrats.
Maybe She Has a Granddaughter Who Would Like This "Opportunity". If Russia Invaded Ohio, Many More Ohio Women Would Have This "Opportunity".
Pregnancy after rape 'an opportunity'? Ohio GOP lawmaker sparks outrage in abortion debate
Ohio Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt sparked outrage during a hearing on an abortion bill when she said a hypothetical teenager traumatized by rape would have the "opportunity" to help that child become a "productive human being."
The comments came during a hearing over Schmidt's House Bill 598. The proposal would ban abortions in Ohio if the landmark Roe v. Wade decision were overturned – an increasingly likely scenario as the U.S. Supreme Court reviews a Mississippi ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The bill has no exception for rape or incest. That's a problem for Rep. Rich Brown, D-Canal Winchester, who posed a hypothetical situation about what would happen if a 13-year-old girl became pregnant after being raped.
"This bill would require this 13-year-old to carry this felon's fetus to term regardless of any emotional or psychological damage or trauma that may be inflicted upon this 13-year-old girl to deliver this felon's fetus. Is that right?" Brown asked Schmidt during a Wednesday hearing.
Previous Guy's Previous Lender Is Investigated Again
Prosecutors, federal police and other officials searched Deutsche Bank's headquarters in Frankfurt on Friday in a move Germany's largest lender said was linked to suspicions of money laundering it had reported to the authorities.
Under Chief Executive Christian Sewing, Deutsche Bank has been trying to repair its reputation after a series of embarrassing and costly regulatory failings, including another raid over money laundering in 2018.
In a statement, Deutsche Bank said the search was related to suspicious transactions it had itself passed on to authorities and that it was cooperating fully.
Note to West Ham Fans: WWII Ended 77 Years Ago.
West Ham United are investigating an incident in which two German commentators were allegedly attacked inside the London Stadium during the team's Europa League semifinal first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday.
Tim Brockmeier and Philipp Hofmeister, working for German broadcaster Hessischer Runfunk, said their headsets were ripped off and that they were physically assaulted by West Ham fans after Michail Antonio had equalized for the hosts in the first half.
The pair said the West Ham fans were sitting directly behind them and had been angered by them cheering loudly when Frankfurt took the lead in the first minute of the match.
The incident was captured on the live broadcast.
"We are being attacked from behind by the English fans, that's why we were unfortunately gone for a short time," Hofmeister said on the broadcast.
"So we are being attacked from behind. And our colleague Tim just had his headset thrown to the ground, so we really have to be a bit careful what we do here."
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Jim Acosta is Braver Than I Am. He Asked Greene to Search Her Memory. Who Knows What Lurks There? (Maybe the Shadow Does.)
On Thursday Jim Acosta of CNN sought to get Greene to search her memory and clarify her remarks. He approached her and directly, though politely, asked her about the gaps in her recollection. That lead to the following exchange (full video below):
Acosta: I guess you also said that you don't recall calling Nancy Pelosi a traitor? Is that right? You don't seem to recall a lot. What's going on there?
Greene: You know Jim, you have a show, and in all fairness, you try to present this image of me to your viewers and it's just really not correct.
Acosta: Well, we're just trying to get some answers. Did you send a text asking for the president to declare martial law? Did you do that?
Greene: I, you know, I don't recall those being my text messages. But have you read the text message that is, that you're referring to?
Acosta: I did. It was misspelled, but it seemed to say that you were calling for martial law.
Greene: Cause it actually says, well actually it says if you read it correctly, Jim, your problem is you're lying again right now, it says, 'I do not know' on those things. That's what that text message says. You know, why don't you be honest?
Acosta: Why even bring it up? Why bring up martial law?
Greene: You know, your problem is you're just one of those liars on television and people hate it. They can't stand the liars on television.
Acosta: You're the one saying, 'I don't recall, I don't recall, I don't recall, I don't recall.'
I'd Rather Have An Enzyme Eating Plastic than Eat It Myself.
Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days.
This discovery, published today in Nature, could help solve one of the world's most pressing environmental problems: what to do with the billions of tons of plastic waste piling up in landfills and polluting our natural lands and water. The enzyme has the potential to supercharge recycling on a large scale that would allow major industries to reduce their environmental impact by recovering and reusing plastics at the molecular level.
The project focuses on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a significant polymer found in most consumer packaging, including cookie containers, soda bottles, fruit and salad packaging, and certain fibers and textiles. It makes up 12% of all global waste.
The enzyme was able to complete a "circular process" of breaking down the plastic into smaller parts (depolymerization) and then chemically putting it back together (repolymerization). In some cases, these plastics can be fully broken down to monomers in as little as 24 hours.
Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering and College of Natural Sciences used a machine learning model to generate novel mutations to a natural enzyme called PETase that allows bacteria to degrade PET plastics. The model predicts which mutations in these enzymes would accomplish the goal of quickly depolymerizing post-consumer waste plastic at low temperatures.
Through this process, which included studying 51 different post-consumer plastic containers, five different polyester fibers and fabrics and water bottles all made from PET, the researchers proved the effectiveness of the enzyme, which they are calling FAST-PETase (functional, active, stable and tolerant PETase).
"This work really demonstrates the power of bringing together different disciplines, from synthetic biology to chemical engineering to artificial intelligence," said Andrew Ellington, professor in the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology whose team led the development of the machine learning model.
Recycling is the most obvious way to cut down on plastic waste. But globally, less than 10% of all plastic has been recycled. The most common method for disposing of plastic, besides throwing it in a landfill, is to burn it, which is costly, energy intensive and spews noxious gas into the air. Other alternative industrial processes include very energy-intensive processes of glycolysis, pyrolysis, and/or methanolysis.
Biological solutions take much less energy. Research on enzymes for plastic recycling has advanced during the past 15 years. However, until now, no one had been able to figure out how to make enzymes that could operate efficiently at low temperatures to make them both portable and affordable at large industrial scale. FAST-PETase can perform the process at less than 50 degrees Celsius.
Up next, the team plans to work on scaling up enzyme production to prepare for industrial and environmental application. The researchers have filed a patent application for the technology and are eying several different uses. Cleaning up landfills and greening high waste-producing industries are the most obvious. But another key potential use is environmental remediation. The team is looking at a number of ways to get the enzymes out into the field to clean up polluted sites.
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Invasions Have Consequences
The News in Brief
If you are looking for a recap, here's a round-up of the latest events in Ukraine:
UN chief's visit: President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his daily video message, said "Russian missiles flew into the city" immediately after the end of talks with Guterres in Kyiv. He called for a "powerful response." Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's minister of foreign affairs, called the missile strikes a "heinous act of barbarism." It came after the UN chief met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. The UN is urging for evacuation corridors in the besieged city of Mariupol.
Russia making "slow and uneven" progress: Russian forces have made some progress in Moscow's renewed assault on eastern Ukraine, according to US and NATO officials, as their military tries to fix the myriad problems that plagued the early weeks of the invasion. The US has seen "some evidence" of improvement in Russia's ability to combine air and ground operations, as well as its capacity for resupplying forces in the field, officials say.
Soldiers behind Bucha killings "identified": Zelensky said 10 Russian service members have been identified as suspects in the “crimes committed against our people in Bucha." The investigation into crimes committed by the Russian military is underway, Zelensky said, adding the 10 soldiers are from the "64th motorized rifle brigade of the Russian Ground Forces."
American killed fighting in Ukraine: An American citizen, Willy Joseph Cancel, was killed Monday fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, his family told CNN. The 22-year-old was working with a private military contracting company. "He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn't come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn't have to be involved in it," his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.
Orphaned girl reunited with grandfather: 12-year-old Kira Obedinsky, who was orphaned by war and taken from her hometown of Mariupol to a hospital in a Russian-controlled area of eastern Ukraine in early in March has been reunited with her grandfather. He was initially told she would eventually be sent to an orphanage in Russia. Their reunion, more than a month after they had last seen each other, was orchestrated by negotiators from Ukraine and Russia.
Russia trying to eradicate Ukrainian identity: Occupying Russian forces in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson are trying to extend their grip over the area. In recent days the Russians have appointed their own officials to run Kherson, replacing elected Ukrainian officials. On Thursday one of those newly installed officials said Kherson would begin to use the ruble from next week, replacing the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia. Additionally, Russian television channels have taken the place of Ukrainian networks.
US seeks more money for Ukraine: The Biden administration is sending a $33 billion supplemental funding request to Congress aimed at supporting Ukraine through a new phase over the next several months. It includes funding for security, economic, and humanitarian aid. "We need this bill to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom," Biden said.
There's New Sheriff In Town. Will He Be Enforcing Marshall Law?
Marshall Law is an Australian television series, which aired on the Seven Network in 2002, starring Lisa McCune and Alison Whyte as lawyers and sisters.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat
The old adage that “if it’s too good to be true, it likely is,” definitely applies in this war, as I spent much of the day trying to verify fantastical claims from both sides. I even had to enlist Mark Sumner at one point to help me sort through one rumor of a major Ukrainian breakthrough toward Mariupol. Turns out, no one is making big sweeping gains. It’s all “lay down artillery until defenders get the f’ out, walk in. Leave when their artillery returns fire.” Rinse, lather, repeat.
Kutuzivka is a perfect example, as Ukraine claimed to have captured it back in April 8. Then, it was supposedly “partially” liberated on April 17. And here we are, today, confirmed fully captured. Given the heavy shelling in the area, it very well may have gone back and forth for a while.
Waiting For the Big Guns
There is one change we’ve seen to Russian tactics: “The concentrated use of artillery by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine in April is one of the few major changes Russia has made to its operations compared to the early weeks of the war.” Before, Russia would send a bunch of kids to die against entrenched Ukrainian defenders. Now, those defensive positions are first shelled before Russia sends those kids to die. Most of the time, Ukrainian defenders remain, but every once in a while Russia gets lucky, the artillery does its job and clears out an area, and Russia can creep up a kilometer or two.
Given that around 5,000 square miles of Donbas territory remain in Ukraine’s hands, does anyone truly believes this is a winning strategy? Ukraine’s job is to hold their strongholds at Slovyansk (pop. 111,000) and Kramatorsk (pop. 157,000), while Russia burns through their troops, equipment, and ammunition in time for those sweet Western artillery guns to make their way to the front.
It Won't Be a Long Wait
As of today, the Pentagon assesses that 60 percent of the 90, 155mm howitzers it has committed to Ukraine so far have arrived in country (roughly 54).
That’s up from about half of the 90 yesterday.
Training of Ukrainian forces on several systems continues outside Ukraine, senior defense official says. That includes not only the howitzer, but Q-64 short-range air defense radar and the M113 armored personnel carrier.
Crawling Toward Popasna
When I described the two miles between Popasna and Pervomaisk as “the center of the world” two weeks ago, what I missed was that those two miles are also apparently much larger than any other miles on the planet. How else to account for Russia reporting “steady progress” in Popasna for 12 days in a row, without actually taking Popasna?
As of Thursday, more of the town appears to have come under Russian control, and there are Chechen forces in the eastern part of the town performing what seems to be the specialty of Kadyrov’s forces: making propaganda videos. Those videos are supposed to show Ukrainian forces running away from Popasna as the Chechen fighters laugh. Shockingly, they seem to be fakes.
So far as can be discerned at this point, the center of Popasna remains under Ukrainian control, but the fighting there has devolved to a horrendous street-by-street nightmare. Russian artillery is continuing to fire into the heavily damaged town, and 10 more houses were reportedly taken out. But if Russia took more ground in the past 24 hours, it could be measured with a yardstick. And that’s in spite of hitting the small town with everything, including reportedly using cluster bombs, phosphorus, and something similar to napalm.
The tactic being used at Popasna is the tactic Russia is using everywhere, as well as the tactic Russia deployed in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria: Fire artillery until everything ahead is dust. Then advance across the dust.
This is why getting the artillery sent to Ukraine by the U.S. and other Western nations to the front lines is so vital. The 110 U.S. M777 howitzers (over half of which are now in Ukraine, with trained crews) have a range up to 24 miles, and they are closely coupled to anti-artillery radar systems that are specifically designed to trace back the source of incoming fire so that it can be destroyed. Artillery that is outranged by modern opposing artillery fires once. Then it’s gone.
Loitering munitions like the Switchblade and still-mysterious Phoenix Ghost can also help take out Russian artillery, but it’s not clear that these systems have been effective at this task to this point.
In any case, Russia’s grind with an artillery-and-then-advance system isn’t just slow; it’s costly for Russia. As kos noted earlier, Russia’s “tactical successes” gained by days of shelling have come at a cost of high levels of casualties and significant losses of equipment. Quoting former DNR separatist leader Igor Girkin:
“...after a certain time, in this area, the same situation will repeat as in Rubezhnoe-Severodonetsk, Popasnaya, Avdeevka and Maryanka, where united forces are advancing extremely slowly and with huge losses (especially among the infantry), or not moving at all (Avdeevka).”
When Russia advances over that dust, troops are not just crossing the rubble of Ukrainian cities. They’re walking on the bodies of their own troops and the wreckage of their own gear.
There is an axiom that moving forward against an enemy in defensive position requires a 3 to 1 force advantage, all other things being equal. Considering the training and unit cohesiveness of Russian forces, they have historically moved forward by employing a 7 to 1 advantage. They don’t have 7:1. They don’t have 3:1. That doesn’t mean they can’t advance. It means they can advance, but only at a very high rate of attrition.
Some of the numbers that are coming out of the Ukrainian ministry of defense, like those that suggest Russia has lost 100 tanks in the past four days, are certainly exaggerated. But considering the proven losses Russia has already seen, they may not be that exaggerated.
Russia is crawling toward Popasna, and a dozen other towns and cities, behind a screen of artillery, losing men and machines all the way, because they’ve been told to advance despite having insufficient forces to overwhelm defenders. Ukraine can’t allow that advance to continue forever. On the other hand, Russian forces can’t survive this rate of attrition forever.
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Stuck at Home for 5 Weeks, and Now Their Neighbors Are Banging Pans
Shanghai lockdown: Residents protest after five weeks of strict zero-Covid measures
Residents have been banging pans and shouting from the windows of their homes, to protest against the government enforced lockdown in Shanghai.
The Chinese government has been pursuing a zero-Covid strategy since the beginning of the pandemic, with the aim of keeping the country entirely Covid free.
Criticism of the government is rare in China, but residents said they have struggled to access food supplies, while others have been temporarily evacuated from their homes so they can be disinfected.
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Attack of the Killer Foam. This is No Joke.
A town just outside the Colombian capital Bogotá is battling great blobs of foul-smelling white foam.
It is thought that detergents dumped in a local river are generating the froth which drifts through the air, clumping and clinging to buildings in Mosquera.
"The smell is terrible, we have had to put up with the smell for a long time, and now with this big foam we are afraid that we will be in danger, God forbid someone falls in there, we won't be able to find them." resident Luz Mariela Diaz told AFP news agency.
Another local woman, Claudia Esperanza Garzon, told Reuters news agency she had to use an inhaler because of the effect of the foam on her lungs.
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Amazon Didn't Have an Amazin' Quarter
Amazon's stock plummeted after the company reported slowing growth in its latest quarter and offered a disappointing revenue outlook.
The tech giant said revenue grew 7% from the same period last year to $116.4 billion, slightly beating analyst forecasts but slower than the 9% growth in the final months of last year. The company forecast that revenue growth would slow further next quarter, anticipating a growth rate of between 3% and 7%.
Amazon reported a net loss of $3.8 billion for the quarter ended March 31, a sharp drop from the same period last year, when it made an $8.1 billion profit. It was also a big miss from the $4.4 billion profit that analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had forecast.
The company attributed the loss largely to a $7.6 billion loss from its investment in electric automaker Rivian Automotive. Rivian, into which Amazon led a $700 million investment in 2019, has seen its stock plummet more than 75% since its blockbuster November 2021 IPO.
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Will the Marriage Made in Hell Happen?
The agreement has been made, but Musk is already violating the terms of that agreement. At a certain point whichever side disrupts the terms will end up paying a billion dollars for breaking the contract.
He has had a nauseating way of breaking sensible laws for corporate officers in handling information, and wanting to claim the SEC is violating his free speech. He used Twitter to put his foot in his mouth so deep that he gained notice by the SEC in 2018 and they charged him with securities fraud. Musk settled, but lately has tried to back out of that settlement. The court decided against him — for obvious reasons.
Here are many problems that could block Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Please read it; I don’t want to violate fair use. Among the difficulties for Musk:
* He appears to have already violated agreement terms — not an auspicious first day.
* Tesla share price is overvalued and Musk is using some of his shares to secure a loan for the deal. This puts his shares and ergo the Tesla stock price at risk. How many investors are going to see Musk-Tesla as a good investment should that risk evolve into loss?
* All major automakers are in the EV market now competing with Tesla.
* There’s are serious conflicting interests. Tesla has a promising future in the China market, but China’s government doesn’t like Twitter. How is that resolved without a Musk loss somewhere?
* He has no clue about what “free speech” is but thinks he should be able to say whatever he pleases. Is his personal PR charm going to start failing and shake investor confidence in him?
Can He Just Issue Himself More Shares?
As he looks to finance his massive acquisition of social media company Twitter, Elon Musk sold another 5.2 million shares of Tesla for roughly $4.5 billion, bringing his total share sales this week to nearly 10 million, according to new filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission released on Friday.
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We are So Beyond Fu**ed
Here is what we know so far. An early heatwave has enveloped South Asia since March. Temperatures have only risen higher in April, and today temperatures are 113 to 122 F in many areas of the Indian sub-continent. The body can’t cool off at night so it weakens and is vulnerable to organ shutdown. The worst part is that temperatures will only increase in the next ten days, perhaps longer if the Monsoon rains continue to be unseasonably late.
India's wheat crop is scorched in yet another blow to fight world hunger. India was expecting a bountiful harvest this year, but the heat will mean very little export will be available to fill in some of the gaps from the Ukraine and Russia wars.
In the Himalayas of Pakistan, plans for likely glacial flooding events have been activated by local governments as fears of meltwater lakes bursting and destroying everything in their path roaring down to the valley's floor.
Authorities have warned that the heatwave is likely to enhance snow and ice melt over the glaciated areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and Gilgit-Baltistan Administrative Territory; glacial lake outburst floods and flash floods are possible in vulnerable areas, especially at Shishper Lake.
From the NY Times:
NEW DELHI — Across a wide swath of the Indian subcontinent, scorching temperatures have damaged harvests. People are suffering from heat stroke. And the lights are flickering in some cities amid surging demand for air-conditioning.
Now, the heat wave that has been pummeling India and Pakistan for weeks is expected to intensify over the weekend. In some hard-hit areas, it may be weeks before the region's annual monsoon sweeps in to provide relief.
Heat-related watches were in effect on Thursday afternoon for all but a few of India’s 28 states, encompassing hundreds of millions of people and most of the country’s major cities. An alert — one notch up in severity — was in effect for the northwestern state of Rajasthan on Thursday, and would come into effect for other central and western states starting Saturday.
The subcontinent’s scorching weather is a reminder of what lies in store for other countries in an era of climate change. Climate scientists say that heat waves around the world are growing more frequent, more dangerous and lasting longer. They are certain that global warming has made heat waves worse because the baseline temperatures from which they begin are higher than they were decades ago.
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Will More People Starve?
An unusually early, record-shattering heat wave in India has reduced wheat yields, raising questions about how the country will balance its domestic needs with ambitions to increase exports and make up for shortfalls due to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Gigantic landfills in India’s capital New Delhi have caught fire in recent weeks. Schools in eastern Indian state Odisha have been shut for a week and in neighboring West Bengal, schools are stocking up on oral rehydration salts for kids. On Tuesday, Rajgarh, a city of over 1.5 million people in central India, was the country’s hottest, with daytime temperatures peaking at 46.5 degrees Celsius (114.08 Fahrenheit). Temperatures breached the 45 C (113 F) mark in nine other cities.
But it was the heat in March — the hottest in India since records first started being kept in 1901 — that stunted crops. Wheat is very sensitive to heat, especially during the final stage when its kernels mature and ripen. Indian farmers time their planting so that this stage coincides with India’s usually cooler spring.
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Can It Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound?
Robot Can Leap Nine Stories in Single Jump, Will Go Even Higher on Moon
A simple robot, developed by a team led by UC Santa Barbara engineering professor Elliot Hawkes, can reach a height of roughly 100 feet (30 meters). The researchers say this is the highest achieved by any known natural or manufactured jumper.
"To our knowledge far higher than previous engineered jumpers and over an order of magnitude higher than the best biological jumpers," reads a study on the work published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
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Big Oil Has Big Profits
Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the largest U.S. oil companies, on Friday reported a second consecutive quarter of robust earnings as oil and natural gas prices continued to rise after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The two companies said they were increasing their production in the Permian Basin, the giant shale oil field straddling Texas and New Mexico, but were not seeking to ramp up oil and natural gas production overall despite pressure from the Biden administration, which is seeking to tamp down high energy prices.
In the past, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and other energy companies invested heavily when prices were high, only to see losses when prices fell as the industry flooded the market with supply. Now, they are enjoying higher profits without significantly increasing their output.
You Pay Them at the Pump and You Pay Them Again Though Your Taxes
Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually.
Unless You Drive an EV, In Which Case You Only Pay Once to Subsidize Something Your Don't Use.
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