Dark $$ yet again

 A woman carrying a sign protesting the teaching of critical race theory arrives at a Board of Education meeting at Central Middle School in Greenwich, Conn., on Thursday June 17, 2021. Members of the group Greenwich Patriots came out to the meeting to urge people to attend and speak at public comment to protest masking, vaccinations for students and critical race theory. Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media

Dark money yet again, this time, schools.

Schools are the latest battleground in the culture wars. Protests over issues such as critical race theory, masks and vaccines have cropped up all over the state, including in the towns of Guilford, New Canaan, Glastonbury, Haddam, Cheshire, Bristol and Fairfield. The protesters often characterize themselves as concerned parents. This may be partially true, but it is not the whole story. If you dig deep enough, you will find a web of dark money fueling political operatives in so-called “astroturf” groups — those that purport to be grassroots but are in fact formed and funded by hidden corporate and political sponsors. Their agenda has little to do with improving public education.

Again, t's all about the money.

LEO ...

Creepy says it all but you and I already know that, right?

By using a hybrid movement that is somewhere between walking and flying, the researchers get the best of both worlds in terms of locomotion. LEO's lightweight legs take stress off of its thrusters by supporting the bulk of the weight, but because the thrusters are controlled synchronously with leg joints, LEO has uncanny balance.

"Based on the types of obstacles it needs to traverse, LEO can choose to use either walking or flying, or blend the two as needed. In addition, LEO is capable of performing unusual locomotion maneuvers that even in humans require a mastery of balance, like walking on a slackline and skateboarding," says Patrick Spieler, co-lead author of the Science Robotics paper and a former member of Chung's group who is currently with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech for NASA.

In other words ...

LEO is still a prototype—a kind of proof-of-concept to see if a bipedal flying robot can perform tasks that would otherwise be difficult or impossible for ground robots or aerial drones to accomplish on their own. In the future, a full-fledged version could be tasked with difficult or dangerous jobs, such as inspecting and repairing damaged infrastructure, installing new equipment in hard-to-reach places, or attending to natural disasters and industrial accidents. Eventually, a LEO-like robot could even transport delicate equipment to the surface of a celestial body, such as Mars or Saturn’s moon Titan. More ominously, the agile bipedal flier could be used in defense or warfare.

LEO, equipped with AI and weapons ... what could possibly go wrong?

Random Shots/rev XX

G&B - Asymmetry Study 42

Stratocumulus 101

Early Fall

G&B Pano

Mirror Mirror

A Perfect Early Fall Day

Problem solving 101

The National Lampoon ... RIP

It's all about death, drugs, sex, politics and bad taste with the sadly defunct National Lampoon, a sorely missed commentator on the insanity of America as the kind of humor circa 2021 lacks the intelligent and biting satire of this unique institution. I write about this because of viewing the hilarious documentary Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead last night. 

Mona Gorilla

Bad taste but accurate rules as no one was immune to the National Lampoon. 

Molière, IMHO, would have approved its take on America without question.

 

 National Lampoon's fake Volkswagen Beetle print advertisement, 

created by Phil Socci, mocking Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick incident.
 

Animal House rules

Lest we forget ...

Portrait of Molière by Nicolas Mignard

Grifters one & all

Activists spell out #TaxTheRich at Times Square in New York City on March 4, 2021. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Anger comes to mind when listening to pols resisting the eminently logical concept of demanding the rich to pay their fair share of taxes while government protects their asses and allows them to continue to make money as needs warrant. Defies all logic but then again, the system is gamed for the rich as it's all about the money, always has been, always will be.

US Denounced as 'Biggest Peddler of Financial Secrecy' After Pandora Papers Leak

"U.S. President Biden must match his own rhetoric on shutting down global illicit finance, and start with the biggest offender—his own country."

The leak of an enormous trove of tax haven files over the weekend offered a further glimpse into the secretive world of offshore finance—a system facilitated by the U.S. and other rich nations—and prompted calls for immediate changes to global rules that let the powerful hide their wealth, skirt their obligations, and starve governments of crucial revenue.

"This is where our missing hospitals are," Susana Ruiz, the tax policy lead at Oxfam International, said in a statement. "This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need. Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is 'no money' to pay for climate damage and innovation, for more and better jobs, for a fair post-Covid recovery, for more overseas aid, they know where to look."

"The biggest blockers to transparency are the U.S. ... and the U.K., the leader of the world's biggest tax haven network."

"Tax havens cost governments around the world $427 billion each year," Ruiz added. "That is the equivalent of a nurse's yearly salary every second of every hour, every day. Ordinary taxpayers have to pick up the pieces. Developing countries are being hardest hit, proportionately. Corporations and the wealthiest individuals that use tax havens are out-competing those who don't. Tax havens also help crime and corruption to flourish."

How much?

Front page coverage for The Price of Offshore, Revisited

In 2012, we published an update with a substantially more rigorous methodology: The Price of Offshore, Revisited. Here, James Henry – one of our senior advisers and the widely published former chief economist for McKinsey’s – utilises four different approaches to make the most of the available data, and provide a more robust estimate than any previous: some $21 trillion to $32 trillion.

Grifters one & all

The real owners ...

The real owners ...

House Dems Opposed to Cutting Pentagon Budget Got 3.7x More in Defense Industry Cash

Fewer Democrats voted yesterday to cut the Defense budget by 10% than voted for an identical proposal last year.

The House of Representatives on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to reject two amendments that would have reduced the military’s budget for 2022—one to cut it by 10 percent and another that would have lopped off just 3 percent. Republicans voted unanimously against both measures, while the Democratic caucus split on both. 

The amendment to cut the budget by 10 percent, which was offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was rejected by a vote of 86-332. It would have applied a 10% reduction to all the accounts and funds authorized by the NDAA besides those for the Defense Health program, military personnel, and civilian employee pay.

The Democrats who voted against the 10 percent reduction in the Pentagon budget have received, on average, 3.7 times more money in the form of campaign contributions from the defense sector since January 2019, according to an analysis of OpenSecrets data by the Security Policy Reform Institute and Sludge. The average amount of defense cash received by Democrats who opposed the amendment was $60,680, while the Democrats who supported it received an average of $16,497 from the industry. Funding from the defense sector as defined by OpenSecrets includes contributions from the PACs of Defense Department contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, as well as donations larger than $250 from those companies’ employees. 

60K for opposers, 16+ for supporters, chump change for the MIC, the real owners of the country.

Autumnal Light

Panorama

Inside looking out

Autumnal light

Off in the distance ...

Suicide is painless ...

Bethlehem Steel RIP

China needs energy, now, as without it, growth becomes impossible. Now let's think about this, growth, aka capitalism, means nature as profit center does it not? Only a great catastrophe will change how man does business on this planet vis a vis global warming as it's about the money no matter what the cost may be.

China Orders Top Energy Firms to Secure Supplies at All Costs

China’s central government officials ordered the country’s top state-owned energy companies -- from coal to electricity and oil -- to secure supplies for this winter at all costs, according to people familiar with the matter.

The order came directly from Vice Premier Han Zheng, who supervises the nation’s energy sector and industrial production, and was delivered during an emergency meeting earlier this week with officials from Beijing’s state-owned assets regulator and economic planning agency, the people said, asking not to be named discussing a private matter. Blackouts won’t be tolerated, the people said.

“We will go all-out to fight the tough battle of energy supply,” the nation’s top coal miner CEIC said in its statement.

Volatility in the energy markets is poised to intensify on the order from the central government, said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB.

China’s statement “to me implies that we are in no way on a verge of a cool-off. Rather it looks like it is going get even more crazy,” he said. “They will bid whatever it takes to win a bidding war for a cargo of coal” or liquefied natural gas.

Power Play

China's demand for thermal power has never grown as much as this year

In a sign of how worried Chinese officials are, Premier Li Keqiang has vowed that every effort will be taken to maintain economic growth. China will ensure the needs of basic livelihoods are met and will keep industrial and supply chains stable, Li was cited as saying by China National radio during a meeting with foreign diplomats Thursday.

Addendum: China's building new coal plants to ameliorate the energy crunch as coal is one resource China has to the max. 

China plans to build more coal-fired power plants and has hinted that it will rethink its timetable to slash emissions, in a significant blow to the UK’s ambitions for securing a global agreement on phasing out coal at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

In a statement after a meeting of Beijing’s National Energy Commission, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, stressed the importance of regular energy supply, after swathes of the country were plunged into darkness by rolling blackouts that hit factories and homes.

Engineers operating at the coal dock in Tianjin port, China. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstoc

Suicide is painless indeed.

"Moon, Turn The Tides... Gently, Gently Away" - Jimi Hendrix

 Luns's slowly leaving us but we won't notice her departure for a very long time.

The moon is drifting away from us.

Each year, our moon moves distinctly, inexorably farther from Earth—just a tiny bit, about an inch and a half, a nearly imperceptible change. There is no stopping this slow ebbing, no way to turn back the clock. The forces of gravity are invisible and unshakable, and no matter what we do or how we feel about them, they will keep nudging the moon along. Over many millions of years, we’ll continue to grow apart.

The moon used to be closer. When it first formed, about 4.5 billion years ago, molded out of rocky debris that had been floating around Earth, the moon orbited 10 times nearer to the planet than it does today. The debris, scientists believe, had come from a collision between Earth and a mysterious Mars-sized object. Fresh out of the cosmic oven, the moon was hot and molten, glowing red in the night sky. Back then, scientists say, the moon was moving away at a rate of about eight inches per year.

Our planet and its moon were always going to grow apart like this. The gravity of moons, small as they are in comparison, can still tug at their planets, causing the larger worlds to bulge outward a little bit. On an ocean-covered planet like ours, the effect shows up in the shifting tides. The moon pulls at our oceans, but those oceans pull back, making the moon speed up in its orbit. And “if you speed up while orbiting Earth, you are escaping Earth more successfully, so you orbit from a farther distance,” James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist at JAXA, Japan’s space agency, explained to me. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as “lunar retreat”—a delightful term, as I’d prefer to imagine the moon enjoying itself at a relaxing getaway, bending its rocky body into various yoga poses, rather than slowly ghosting Earth.

"Moon, Turn The Tides... Gently, Gently Away" - Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland