Wed: WTF??11% of Democrats? -- Build a Better Solar Panel

I Can't Say a Locust Pizza Sounds Appetizing, But If You Want One You Be Able to Eat It

Italy's right-wing government has backed a bill that would ban laboratory-produced meat and other synthetic foods, highlighting Italian food heritage and health protection.

If the proposals go through, breaking the ban would attract fines of up to €60,000 (£53,000).

Francesco Lollobrigida, who runs the rebranded ministry for agriculture and food sovereignty, spoke of the importance of Italy's food tradition.

The farmers' lobby praised the move.

But it was a blow for some animal welfare groups, which have highlighted lab-made meat as a solution to issues including protecting the environment from carbon emissions and food safety.

Coldiretti and other agriculture lobbies have collected half a million signatures in recent months calling for protection of "natural food vs synthetic food", and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is among those who have signed.

"We could only celebrate with our farmers a measure that puts our farmers in the vanguard, not just on the issue of defending excellence... but also in defending consumers," she told a "flash mob" organised by Coldiretti outside her office in Rome.

The proposed bill came hard on the heels of a series of government decrees banning the use of flour derived from insects such as crickets and locusts in pizza or pasta.

Ministers have cited Italy's prized Mediterranean diet as their motivation for both measures.

Rules for Thee, But Not for Me

During a five-hour grilling of the chief executive of TikTok last week, United States lawmakers railed against the possibility of China using the wildly popular, partly Chinese-owned app to spy on Americans.

They did not mention how the US government itself uses US tech companies that effectively control the global internet to spy on everyone else.

As the US considers banning the short video app used by more than 150 million Americans, lawmakers are also weighing the renewal of powers that force firms like Google, Meta and Apple to facilitate untrammelled spying on non-US citizens located overseas.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which the US Congress must vote to reauthorise by December to prevent it from lapsing under a sunset clause, allows US intelligence agencies to carry out warrantless spying on foreigners’ email, phone and other online communications.

While US citizens have some protections against warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the US government has maintained that these rights do not extend to foreigners overseas, giving agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) practically free rein to snoop on their communications.

Information may also be turned over to US allies like the United Kingdom and Australia.

Though it is common for governments to spy abroad, Washington enjoys an advantage not shared by other countries: jurisdiction over the handful of companies that effectively run the modern internet, including Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.

For billions of internet users outside the US, the lack of privacy mirrors the alleged threat that US officials say TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, poses to Americans.

“It is a case of ‘rules for thee but not for me,'” Asher Wolf, a tech researcher and privacy advocate based in Melbourne, Australia, told Al Jazeera.

“So the noise the Americans are making about TikTok must be seen less as a sincere desire to protect citizens from surveillance and influence operations, and more as an attempt to ring-fence and consolidate national control over social media,” Wolf added.

These Folks Are Keeping the Russian People in the Dark


One analysis after another has shown, Russia is burning through its supply of missiles. There’s only so many more times it can manage a stunt like the one on March 9, where it deployed multiple costly missiles like the Kalibr. The attacks over the last six months have consumed supplies of these missiles that it took years to build. Russia will be a long time replacing its stores of these weapons, and that’s assuming they can even build them under the current sanction regime.

If You Build a Better Solar Panel, Will the World Beat a Path to Your Door?

The first nonprofit solar modules manufacturer has built a pilot micro-factory in Pomona CA. CHERP Solar Works embeds advanced electronics behind the high efficiency silicon cells, resulting in significantly more power per watt than anything on the market. In cost-benefit analyses they even beat the cheap foreign panels that dominate the industry. That’s a first for US manufacturing since the Carter days, before Reagan threw all the incentives out and the technology got exported, leading to China dominating solar panel manufacturing.

One feature which boosts power production is operating at far lower temperature, resulting in less power loss immediately and half the cell degradation of standard panels over time. In fact it recently became the first solar panel to be certified with fire rating Type 1, Class A. Another feature makes the panels impervious to up to 10% of shade from neighboring trees and buildings. The technological advances are patented. The technology took a decade to develop and test, with verifications by Harvey Mudd College.

CHERP’s mission is the build such micro-factories in low income cities across the US, creating hundreds well-paying local jobs, supplying the solar panels to local projects and recirculating resultant cash flows within the city, lifting it up economically. Each will be in partnership with a capable local non-profit organization that will own and operate the micro-factory, usually in a short-term arrangement with a tax equity investor who brings the initial capital then with full ownership. The factory must remain in control of a nonprofit or it loses its license to manufacture the panels.

UL certification is scheduled by end of June. CHERP is in its final fundraising now, to purchase large quantities of materials to begin full scale production in July. After this each CHERP micro-factory will become a sustainable enterprise by selling its solar panels, not fundraising.

The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has vastly expanded federal support for renewable energy, including US manufacturing. The IRA’s financial incentives to build such factories are significant, as is ongoing production support. Solar projects have gained even more federal support through the IRA. Commercial solar projects that qualify as paying Fair Wages, meet standards for US Content and meet other qualifiers can gain these subsidies often worth three quarters of the project cost. In rural areas a USDA grant program can add to the support.

He Shaken, Not Stirred to Action

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) said two of the teachers killed in the mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville on Monday were longtime family friends.

In a video shared on Twitter, Lee said Cynthia Peak was due to have dinner with his wife, Maria Lee, on Monday night.

Peak was shot to death earlier that day while substitute teaching at the school. Head teacher Katherine Koonce, also shot dead, was a yearslong friend, too, Lee added.

“Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends, Cindy Peak,” the GOP governor said. “Cindy and Maria and Katherine Koonce were all teachers at the same school and have been family friends for decades.”

Lee mourned the victims of the “horrific act of violence” that police say was committed by a 28-year-old former student who was shot dead by officers.

School custodian Michael Hill, and 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, also were slain in what Lee called a “tragedy beyond comprehension.”

Lee acknowledged it was “a very difficult moment,” but said “this is not a time for hate or rage.”

Why Would You Want to Fill the Rose Bowl With Water Even Once?

Acolossal amount of rain and snow has fallen on California over the past few months from a dozen atmospheric rivers: more than 78 trillion gallons of water and counting.

It's not the wettest year the Golden State has ever seen, but it is a massive amount of water in a state that has been beset by drought for several years. The number of gallons is according to data from the National Weather Service that was compiled by meteorologist Ryan Maue.

The 78 trillion gallon number is based upon the statewide average of 27.6 inches of rain water and "snow-water equivalent" that's fallen on the state from Oct. 1 — the beginning of California's water year — to the week of March 20.

How much water is 78 trillion gallons?

The precipitation didn't fall evenly across the state, but if it did, it would have covered the state of California with about 30 inches of water. That's enough to:

Fill the Rose Bowl more than 900,000 times.
Fill more than 110 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Fill Lake Tahoe — twice.

Is this the wettest winter California has ever had?

At 27.6 inches so far, California still has quite a way to go to break the record for the wettest year on record: "The largest water year was 1982-1983, which totaled 42.81 inches," said California state climatologist Michael Anderson.

How does California's winter compare to average?

Maue said the statewide long-term average from Oct. 1 to late March is supposed to be 52 trillion gallons of water (18.6 inches statewide). So more than 25 trillion gallons above average have fallen this year — or about 150% of average.

Guards Left People to Burn

Surveillance footage from inside the immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border where 38 migrants died in a dormitory fire appears to show guards walking away from the blaze and making no apparent attempt to release detainees.

The fire broke out when migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze late Monday at the National Immigration Institute, a facility in Ciudad Juarez south of El Paso, Texas, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said.

Authorities originally reported 40 dead, but later said some may have been counted twice in the confusion. Twenty-eight people were injured and were in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute.

The security footage, which was broadcast and later authenticated by a Mexican official to a local reporter, shows at least two people dressed as guards rush into the frame, then run off as a cloud of smoke quickly filled the area. They did not appear to attempt to open cell doors so migrants could escape the fire.