Man

Steve Cutts is a treasure.

RussiaGate

As my loyal readers know, yours truly detests Trump and wants him gone in 2020 in ways that truly boggle the mind. With that being said, the real 2016 RussiaGate follies are about to begin and what a show it will be starting with fact No. 1, It was a leak and not a hack.

To whit:

Facts 2 & 3: Mueller never talked to Assange about the emails nor did he talk to William Binney about the leak. 

So ...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating alleged connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials since May 2017. However, recently even a source as unfriendly to Trump as National Public Radio had to admit that Mueller’s case “looks weaker than ever.” And journalist Michael Isikoff, author of the fanciful book Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, admitted that many of the allegations in the so-called “Steele dossier,” which claimed that Russia possessed incriminating material about Trump, “will never be proven and are likely false.”

And this ...

Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.

As has long been rumored, the former FBI chief’s independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no “presidency-wrecking” conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman’s definition of “collusion” with Russia.

With the caveat that even this news might somehow turn out to be botched, the key detail in the many stories about the end of the Mueller investigation was best expressed by the New York Times:

A senior Justice Department official said that Mr. Mueller would not recommend new indictments.

And this ...

Notice that Mr. Mueller declined to testify before the House Judiciary Committee last week. Chairman Jerrold  Nadler (D-NY) was a fool to invite him. Did he not know that minority members of his committee get to ask questions too?

In an interesting turn of the screw last week, polling showed that a majority of those asked were in favor of investigations into the origin of the RussiaGate story.

With a touch of blowback and 1st Amendment issues as well ...

The indictment of Julian Assange adds a big wrinkle to these upcoming proceedings. Apart for what it means to First Amendment protection for a free press (no small matter), Mr. Assange is the one person who actually knows who handed over the “hacked” DNC emails to Wikileaks. Perhaps getting the answer to that question is the real reason that the DOJ is throwing the book at him. The trial of Mr. Assange is sure to be a humdinger.

But the real cost of RussiaGate is this ...

For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of “The Resistance.” With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop—and therefore further abetted—the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. As for Mueller’s finding,the party’s virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred. Rachel Maddow continues to hype “the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us.” By any reasonable definition of “attack,” no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller’s full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)

Lastly ...

Even so, the bad faith of his antagonists exceeds even Mr. Trump’s defects and vices. The plot they concocted to get rid of him failed. And, yes, it was a plot, even a coup. And they fucked it up magnificently, leaving a paper trail as wide as Interstate-95. Now all that paper is about to fall over the District of Columbia like radioactive ash, turning many current and former denizens of rogue agencies into the walking dead as they embark on the dismal journey between the grand juries and the federal prisons.

Frogmarch anyone?

Toadies

toad·y 
/ˈtōdē/
noun
plural noun: toadies
1.
a person who behaves obsequiously to someone important.
synonyms: sycophant, obsequious person, creep, crawler, fawner, flatterer, flunkey, lackey, truckler, groveller, doormat, lickspittle, kowtower, minion, hanger-on, leech, puppet, stooge, spaniel, Uriah Heep; More

Trump has got the crew needed to gut the 1st Amendment. With these minions in place regarding the press (Wikileaks) and Israel achieving success with the senate via the Orwellian phrased BDS bill, S.1 - Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019 making it illegal to criticize Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the gutting of our civil rights, starting with W (Homeland Security) and Obama (12333/Patriot Act), is in full swing as seen by the charging of Assange by the 1917 Espionage Act.

In June 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. ... Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918, which made it a federal offense to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the Constitution, the government, the American uniform, or the flag. The government prosecuted over 2,100 people under these acts.

The question to ask here is ... what does this mean for the press and the 1st Amendment?

He still hits many roadblocks, but Trump now largely has officials in key spots who will carry out his policies, rather than thwart them. The Justice Department’s announcement Thursday that Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had been indicted under the Espionage Act provided the latest example.

CROSSING A FIRST AMENDMENT LINE

For nearly a decade, prosecutors had looked at ways to bring charges against Assange, who in 2010 had disclosed a vast trove of classified government documents.

The major constraint they faced involved the 1st Amendment’s protection of freedom of the press.

The Espionage Act, passed during World War I, outlaws the disclosure of national security secrets that damage U.S. interests to people not authorized to see them.

Starting in the George W. Bush administration, prosecutors increasingly began using that law to go after officials who leaked classified documents. But the law had never been used to prosecute someone for publishing them.

For What's It's Worth is yet again, prescient to a fault.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, 
hey what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop, 
hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It's s time we stop, 
hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, 
hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Remember, dictatorships happen when people are passive, uneducated and deceived. Something to think about don't you think?

3 times longer :)

EKCD yet again. :)

Going Digital

Going digital in terms of managing data has been around for years, going digital in terms of managing power was not considered possible, until now, a technology destined to change how man handles power ... forever.

This week the world’s first and only digital circuit breaker was certified for commercial use. The technology, invented by Atom Power, has been listed by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the global standard for consumer safety. This new breaker makes power easier to manage and 3000 times faster than the fastest mechanical breaker, marking the most radical advancement in power distribution since Thomas Edison.

What this means ...

“Instead of using mechanics to switch the power, we apply digital inputs," Kennedy told Popular Mechanics. “Now I have no moving parts. Now I have the ability to connect things like iPhones and iPads for remote power management, which increases safety and improves efficiency. I can set the distribution panel to a schedule so the flow of power is seamless, unlimited, and shifts between sources automatically. You literally wouldn’t notice. The lights wouldn’t even flicker.”

I want this without question, especially when manipulating power like one manipulates data over the net. Stellar to the nth degree without a doubt.

The Forever War

The Forever War, you know, the one we are currently in, began around Vietnam in the late 60s, a long running body of work consisting of firefights, skirmishes and protracted campaigns yielding not one victory, save for Grenada, as all the rest either consists of stalemates or defeats depending on the specific action in question as we move ever further into 2019. In connecting this set of fubars to Nam, another "skirmish" based on a lie and ending in defeat, one readily learns the tragic fact these brave men and women died not for freedom but for a misbegotten foreign policy driven by profit for the companies supplying the weapons for a war that never ends.

Today, Marseilles retains one modest claim to fame. It’s the site of the Middle East Conflicts Wall Memorial, dedicated in June 2004 and situated on an open plot of ground between the river and the old Nabisco plant. The memorial, created and supported by a conglomeration of civic-minded Illinois bikers, many of them Vietnam veterans, is the only one in the nation that commemorates those who have died during the course of the various campaigns, skirmishes, protracted wars, and nasty mishaps that have involved U.S. forces in various quarters of the Greater Middle East over the past several decades.

Those panels now contain more than 8,000 names. Each June, in conjunction with the annual “Illinois Motorcycle Freedom Run,” which ends at the memorial, more are added. Along with flags and plaques, there is also text affirming that all those commemorated there are heroes who died for freedom and will never be forgotten.

On that point, allow me to register my own quibble. Although my son’s name is halfway down near the left margin of Panel 5B, I find myself uneasy with any reference to American soldiers having died for freedom in the Greater Middle East. Our pronounced penchant for using that term in connection with virtually any American military action strikes me as a dodge. It serves as an excuse for not thinking too deeply about the commitments, policies, and decisions that led to all those names being etched in stone, with more to come next month and probably for many years thereafter.

The "other" great Earthrise ...

An Earthrise taken by Apollo 10.CreditJSC/NASA

This is the "other" great Earthrise picture proving that there is no up or down in space, only space itself.  :)

But we also need to celebrate the many pathfinders who made this historic mission possible. Among the most critical were the crew of Apollo 10, who were asked to perform a full dress-rehearsal of the Apollo 11 mission just two months beforehand. Commander Thomas P. Stafford; John W. Young, the command module pilot; and Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot, did almost everything that Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins did, but they stopped just before landing on the moon.

The iconic image was taken by astronaut William A. Anders on Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve in 1968. He was tasked with photographing the lunar landscape for a suitable spot for an eventual Apollo mission to land.CreditCreditNASA

This is where we live. In space. On a marble fortified against bottomless blackness by a shell of air and color, fragile and miraculous as a soap bubble.

In 1968, we Earthlings knew that already, sort of. But that abstract notion became visceral on Christmas Eve of that year. While scouting landing spots on the moon, the astronauts of Apollo 8 — Frank Borman, William A. Anders and James A. Lovell, Jr. — spied the shiny blue Earth rising over the ash-colored lunar mountains like a cosmic smiley face. That image, transmitted from space, went on to capture the imagination of the world: Earthrise.

Something to think about, right?

The Idea of "Goose" :)

DC strikes yet again. :)

It's all about the money/Rev LX

It's all about the money/Rev LX.

The world subsidized its own demise to the tune of $5.2 trillion in 2017.

That’s how much 191 nations collectively spent directly and indirectly subsidizing fossil fuels, according to the hippies at the International Monetary Fund. The staggering number shows why failure to account for climate change, air pollution, and other societal ills when it comes to fossil fuel extraction is often described as the biggest market failure ever, and also that maybe the market isn’t going to save us.

Thinking about $5.2 trillion is hard. It’s equivalent to 6.5 percent of the entire world’s annual GDP. It’s more than France and Germany’s GDP combined. It’s $164,890.91 of money wasted per second in a year. But one thing is obvious: it is an absolutely stupid amount of money to be throwing away on something that is actively harmful to life on Earth.

Boggles the mind doesn't it.

415 & counting

As my loyal readers know, climate change is a pretty big deal with BRT as it's a rather serious issue regarding the survivability of us as we mover further into the 21st century. With this in mind, consider the "achievement" of us rubes on reaching 415 parts per million of C02 in the atmosphere thanks to fossil fuel production and what it portends for an overcrowded planet complete with environmental degradation and resource depletion. Comforting is it not?

The human race has broken another record on its race to ecological collapse. Congratulations humanity!

For the first time in human history — not recorded history, but since humans have existed on Earth — carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has topped 415 parts per million, reaching 415.26 parts per million, according to sensors at the Mauna Loa Observatory, a research outpost of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

The Keellng Curve

Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Hits Record High Monthly Average

In Daily Measurements, Measurement Notes by Rob MonroeMay 2, 2018

April monthly average exceeds 410 parts per million for the first time in recorded history

The Keeling Curve draws its name from its creator and the shape of its dataset, a seasonally seesawing trend of steadily rising CO2 readings that exceeded 400 ppm in air for the first time in human history in 2013. Prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution, CO2  levels had fluctuated over the millennia but had never exceeded 300 ppm at any point in the last 800,000 years.

Carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas for its ability to trap solar radiation and keep it confined to the atmosphere. It is the most prevalent among all greenhouse gases produced by human activities, attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.

The Scripps CO2 Program is directed by geochemist Ralph Keeling,the son of the late Keeling Curve creator Charles David Keeling

“We keep burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide keeps building up in the air,” said Ralph Keeling. “It’s essentially as simple as that.”

Just think, we haven't even discussed the accelerating release of methane in Russia and Canada, a CO2 variant  84 times more efficient in trapping heat than CO2 or the conversion of the Arctic from heat reflector to heat sink thanks to the loss of Albedo,  a key component of ice that has kept this planet cool for millennia prior to the arrival of us humans.