TO COMMENT CLICK HERE
welcome to reality trivia
reality is the state of things as they actually exist
jan 30, 2023
Real News Today
(for previous day's articles see "what's inside" below)
comment/tweet of the day
stupid attracts stupid
lex: every gop president since eisenhower has been a traitor to america:
"Ghostbuster" Bill Barr was the “Who Ya Gonna Call?” Guy for Three Treasonous GOP PresidentsNow we learn Barr apparently went so far as to cover up Trump’s involvement with Putin, providing opportunities for Trump to extort Ukraine and pass classified documents along to Russian Intelligence
by thom hartmann
---
NanceGreggs@du
As promised, Republican voters
the people you elected to the House will do everything they can to curb inflation, lower gas prices, improve your lives, et cetera.
They just have a lot of book-banning, fighting the evils of 'woke' candy, and investigating Hunter Biden's penis to do before they can get to your trivial concerns.
It's not like they've abandoned you. I'm sure they've already contacted you in order to ask for money - because to hear them tell it, doing absolutely nothing for you doesn't come cheap.
ANOTHER OF AMERICA'S FOOLS!!!
opinion
House Republicans Are Pushing to Make the US Tax Code Further Serve the Rich
Several dozen hard-right lawmakers want to replace the country’s progressive tax code with a sales tax of 30 percent.
By Sasha Abramsky , TRUTHOUT
Published January 30, 2023
Since Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign and the GOP’s subsequent slide into utter inanity, real life has continued to so far outpace satire that The Onion is starting to seem strangely mundane.
Take, for example, the House GOP’s latest lurch into bizzaro-land: Several dozen hard-right lawmakers want to replace the country’s entire progressive tax code with a sales tax of 30 percent, and to toss the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into the trash can of history.
For decades, a small, fringe group of Republicans have pushed these sorts of measures. And for decades, these tax “reforms” have gone absolutely nowhere. It’s the sort of ill thought out policy that once garnered support among extremist followers of Howard Phillips’s U.S. Taxpayers Party (later renamed the Constitution Party) and virtually no one else. Now, however, it’s a measure that more and more GOP congressmembers are enthusiastically embracing as the party lurches ever further rightward.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is, himself, opposed to the bill; but the very fact that he felt compelled to promise to facilitate a floor vote on the proposal shows both how weak he is as speaker and how extreme, and politically irrational, a large part of his caucus has become.
The Orwellian-named Fair Tax Act, authored by Georgia congressmember Earl L. “Buddy” Carter and co-sponsored by roughly two dozen other congressmembers, doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually becoming the law of the land, but even it being voted on by Congress is entirely extraordinary.
It’s hard to imagine a more regressive policy suggestion, one that would funnel more money to the super wealthy directly off of the backs of the working poor. Currently, tens of millions of Americans don’t pay any income tax, for the simple reason that they are earning too little to trigger a federal tax bill. The wealthy do generally pay at least some proportion of their income to the feds, though far too many corporations and individuals like Donald Trump have expensive tax attorneys and accountants that help them avoid paying their fair share.
Replace the income tax with a sales tax, and suddenly the tax burden is inverted. A system that the rich already game would overnight become even more ludicrously stacked in their favor. Wealthy people would receive windfalls that in many instances would total millions of dollars per year; the working poor, by contrast, who currently don’t pay much income tax and who spend all, or almost all, of their limited income on buying necessities, would suddenly be hit with huge consumption tax bills. In 2004, when Republicans last marshaled significant numbers of congressmembers to support such a retrograde proposal, the Tax Policy Center estimated that such a vast change in the tax code would force 8 out of 10 Americans to pay more in annual taxes. Today’s proposal, while slightly different from that of 17 years ago, would almost certainly also result in most Americans being worse off.
For a party that’s staked so much of its support on its anti-tax credentials, floating a proposal that would end a practice — the raising of revenues through a federal income tax — dating back to the Civil War, and that, in so doing, would render 80 percent of the voting public worse off hardly seems politically savvy. What it lays bare is the utterly irresponsible and immoral, even fantasist, core at the heart of modern GOP thinking on the economy.
The authors of this wildly inept legislation have attempted to sugarcoat its regressive nature by including a “rebate” proposal so that all Americans would receive a check each month equal to 23 percent of the cost of living at the federal poverty line — an effort to ensure that the poorest of Americans wouldn’t be decimated by the consumption tax. But that’s simply putting lipstick on a pig; at the end of the day, it’s still a policy guaranteed to benefit the wealthy and harm pretty much everyone else.
The proposal is so manifestly unfair that even Grover Norquist — the original gangster of extreme anti-tax rhetoric in the modern-day U.S. — has denounced it as a terrible idea and a “gift” to Democrats. Norquist pointed out that, among other things, it would double-tax retirees: people who have paid taxes their whole life in part so that they could receive Social Security checks, would then have to pay a huge tax on everything they buy with those Social Security checks.
These are words I never thought I would say, but Norquist is right. This isn’t just a minor present to Democrats, a storm in a teacup that will be over in a few days; it’s a gift that has the potential to keep on giving throughout this Congress and into the 2024 elections.
The authors of the bill argue that they can replace the entire bureaucracy of the IRS and that they can leave it up to the states to collect the sales tax, with the states allowed to keep a 0.25 percent finder’s fee for all the dollars they bring in. That’s sort of how the ill-starred Farmers’ General worked in pre-revolutionary France, in the 18th century: a deeply inequitable, corrupt system of tax collection that fed into the rivers of discontent that, ultimately, flooded their banks and swept away the Bourbon monarchy.
Kevin McCarthy must be tearing out his hair. He must on some level realize that the constituent parts of this entirely regressive tax plan are deeply unpopular; yet, in ceding so much power to his individual caucus members, he has shown himself to be entirely at the mercy of his most extreme representatives. And those extremists have wasted no time in attempting to secure a floor vote for this pet project of theirs, despite the fact that it is, for the GOP, a politically poisonous undertaking.
Take, for example, the House GOP’s latest lurch into bizzaro-land: Several dozen hard-right lawmakers want to replace the country’s entire progressive tax code with a sales tax of 30 percent, and to toss the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into the trash can of history.
For decades, a small, fringe group of Republicans have pushed these sorts of measures. And for decades, these tax “reforms” have gone absolutely nowhere. It’s the sort of ill thought out policy that once garnered support among extremist followers of Howard Phillips’s U.S. Taxpayers Party (later renamed the Constitution Party) and virtually no one else. Now, however, it’s a measure that more and more GOP congressmembers are enthusiastically embracing as the party lurches ever further rightward.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is, himself, opposed to the bill; but the very fact that he felt compelled to promise to facilitate a floor vote on the proposal shows both how weak he is as speaker and how extreme, and politically irrational, a large part of his caucus has become.
The Orwellian-named Fair Tax Act, authored by Georgia congressmember Earl L. “Buddy” Carter and co-sponsored by roughly two dozen other congressmembers, doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually becoming the law of the land, but even it being voted on by Congress is entirely extraordinary.
It’s hard to imagine a more regressive policy suggestion, one that would funnel more money to the super wealthy directly off of the backs of the working poor. Currently, tens of millions of Americans don’t pay any income tax, for the simple reason that they are earning too little to trigger a federal tax bill. The wealthy do generally pay at least some proportion of their income to the feds, though far too many corporations and individuals like Donald Trump have expensive tax attorneys and accountants that help them avoid paying their fair share.
Replace the income tax with a sales tax, and suddenly the tax burden is inverted. A system that the rich already game would overnight become even more ludicrously stacked in their favor. Wealthy people would receive windfalls that in many instances would total millions of dollars per year; the working poor, by contrast, who currently don’t pay much income tax and who spend all, or almost all, of their limited income on buying necessities, would suddenly be hit with huge consumption tax bills. In 2004, when Republicans last marshaled significant numbers of congressmembers to support such a retrograde proposal, the Tax Policy Center estimated that such a vast change in the tax code would force 8 out of 10 Americans to pay more in annual taxes. Today’s proposal, while slightly different from that of 17 years ago, would almost certainly also result in most Americans being worse off.
For a party that’s staked so much of its support on its anti-tax credentials, floating a proposal that would end a practice — the raising of revenues through a federal income tax — dating back to the Civil War, and that, in so doing, would render 80 percent of the voting public worse off hardly seems politically savvy. What it lays bare is the utterly irresponsible and immoral, even fantasist, core at the heart of modern GOP thinking on the economy.
The authors of this wildly inept legislation have attempted to sugarcoat its regressive nature by including a “rebate” proposal so that all Americans would receive a check each month equal to 23 percent of the cost of living at the federal poverty line — an effort to ensure that the poorest of Americans wouldn’t be decimated by the consumption tax. But that’s simply putting lipstick on a pig; at the end of the day, it’s still a policy guaranteed to benefit the wealthy and harm pretty much everyone else.
The proposal is so manifestly unfair that even Grover Norquist — the original gangster of extreme anti-tax rhetoric in the modern-day U.S. — has denounced it as a terrible idea and a “gift” to Democrats. Norquist pointed out that, among other things, it would double-tax retirees: people who have paid taxes their whole life in part so that they could receive Social Security checks, would then have to pay a huge tax on everything they buy with those Social Security checks.
These are words I never thought I would say, but Norquist is right. This isn’t just a minor present to Democrats, a storm in a teacup that will be over in a few days; it’s a gift that has the potential to keep on giving throughout this Congress and into the 2024 elections.
The authors of the bill argue that they can replace the entire bureaucracy of the IRS and that they can leave it up to the states to collect the sales tax, with the states allowed to keep a 0.25 percent finder’s fee for all the dollars they bring in. That’s sort of how the ill-starred Farmers’ General worked in pre-revolutionary France, in the 18th century: a deeply inequitable, corrupt system of tax collection that fed into the rivers of discontent that, ultimately, flooded their banks and swept away the Bourbon monarchy.
Kevin McCarthy must be tearing out his hair. He must on some level realize that the constituent parts of this entirely regressive tax plan are deeply unpopular; yet, in ceding so much power to his individual caucus members, he has shown himself to be entirely at the mercy of his most extreme representatives. And those extremists have wasted no time in attempting to secure a floor vote for this pet project of theirs, despite the fact that it is, for the GOP, a politically poisonous undertaking.
behind the bogus jesus ads!!
$1 billion campaign from group ‘linked to staunchly conservative causes’ will try to ‘redeem Jesus’ brand’ in Super Bowl ads
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement - raw story
January 30, 2023
From electric vehicles to cosmetics, and even the word "mummy," there is a lot of rebranding going on.
Bowing to anger from right-wingers and conservative commentators, M&M's decided to rebrand the decades-old multi-colored candies after outrage over its latest addition, purple, and its new "spokescandy," also named "Purple."
"Roughly a year ago, Mars Wrigley updated the look of its M&M’s characters, announcing an initiative to make the mascots fit a 'more dynamic, progressive world.' As part of these changes, the company introduced new designs of some of M&M’s characters and wrote weirdly elaborate backstories for others. Most notably, the company made the green M&M less 'sexy' by shortening her legs and replacing her high-heeled boots with sneakers," Vox Media's Polygon reported last week.
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson infamously has waged war on the "woke" spokescandies, declaring at one point, “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous.”
Fast forward to now: Actress and comedian Maya Rudolph is their new spokesperson, although the "spokescandies," perhaps after some additional rebranding, will be returning in a new ad on Super Bowl Sunday.
Which brings us to the rebranding of another icon: Jesus Christ.
He too will be part of the Super Bowl Sunday ads.
Over the next three years a $1 billion mostly-dark-money campaign – which reportedly will include funds from billionaire right wing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ funder David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby – will promote Jesus in ads, including during the Super Bowl on February 12. Those two Super Bowl ads to "to redeem Jesus’ brand" will cost $20 million, Religion News Service reports.
The campaign to promote Jesus includes $100 million in ads declaring "He Gets Us," from "the Servant Foundation, an Overland Park, Kansas, nonprofit that does business as The Signatry," RNS adds.
The "donors backing the campaign have until recently remained anonymous — in early 2022, organizers only told Religion News Service that funding came from 'like-minded families who desire to see the Jesus of the Bible represented in today’s culture with the same relevance and impact He had 2000 years ago.'"
But the full list of donors remains unknown.
"Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a branding firm based in Grand Haven, Michigan, that is working on the 'He Gets Us' campaign, confirmed that the Greens are one of the major funders, among a variety of donors and families who have gotten behind it."
In a Washington Post interview last year, Vanderground "said Christians see their faith as the greatest love story, but those outside the faith see Christians as a hate group."
But rather than try to convince self-identified followers of Christ to act as Jesus would want, right-wing interests are spending $1 billion to convince others of what Christianity is supposed to be about.
“Our research shows that many people’s only exposure to Jesus is through Christians who reflect him imperfectly, and too often in ways that create a distorted or incomplete picture of his radical compassion and love for others,” Vanderground told The Washington Post. “We believe it’s more important now than ever for the real, authentic Jesus to be represented in the public marketplace as he is in the Bible.”
Some are not impressed, and are more-or-less asking, "What would Jesus do?"
“They are latching on to this touchy-feely, conveniently vague, designer Jesus,” podcaster, author, and secular activist Seth Andrews told RNS. Andrews "poses the question of what Jesus would think of the amount of money spent on the ads. Would he prefer that the money be spent on ministering to people’s physical needs or making the world a better place?"
“Or would he say, no, go ahead and spend $100 million to tell everybody how great I am?”
On-air, CNN said, "at first blush, it can all read like a stand against radical right-wing politics and related divisiveness," but adds that "some are calling this a 'right-wing stunt for politics.'"
"'He Gets Us' is funded by anonymous donors acting through a Kansas non-profit linked to staunchly conservative causes," CNN's report (video below) notes, saying it "raises alarms for some skeptics."
Bowing to anger from right-wingers and conservative commentators, M&M's decided to rebrand the decades-old multi-colored candies after outrage over its latest addition, purple, and its new "spokescandy," also named "Purple."
"Roughly a year ago, Mars Wrigley updated the look of its M&M’s characters, announcing an initiative to make the mascots fit a 'more dynamic, progressive world.' As part of these changes, the company introduced new designs of some of M&M’s characters and wrote weirdly elaborate backstories for others. Most notably, the company made the green M&M less 'sexy' by shortening her legs and replacing her high-heeled boots with sneakers," Vox Media's Polygon reported last week.
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson infamously has waged war on the "woke" spokescandies, declaring at one point, “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous.”
Fast forward to now: Actress and comedian Maya Rudolph is their new spokesperson, although the "spokescandies," perhaps after some additional rebranding, will be returning in a new ad on Super Bowl Sunday.
Which brings us to the rebranding of another icon: Jesus Christ.
He too will be part of the Super Bowl Sunday ads.
Over the next three years a $1 billion mostly-dark-money campaign – which reportedly will include funds from billionaire right wing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ funder David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby – will promote Jesus in ads, including during the Super Bowl on February 12. Those two Super Bowl ads to "to redeem Jesus’ brand" will cost $20 million, Religion News Service reports.
The campaign to promote Jesus includes $100 million in ads declaring "He Gets Us," from "the Servant Foundation, an Overland Park, Kansas, nonprofit that does business as The Signatry," RNS adds.
The "donors backing the campaign have until recently remained anonymous — in early 2022, organizers only told Religion News Service that funding came from 'like-minded families who desire to see the Jesus of the Bible represented in today’s culture with the same relevance and impact He had 2000 years ago.'"
But the full list of donors remains unknown.
"Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a branding firm based in Grand Haven, Michigan, that is working on the 'He Gets Us' campaign, confirmed that the Greens are one of the major funders, among a variety of donors and families who have gotten behind it."
In a Washington Post interview last year, Vanderground "said Christians see their faith as the greatest love story, but those outside the faith see Christians as a hate group."
But rather than try to convince self-identified followers of Christ to act as Jesus would want, right-wing interests are spending $1 billion to convince others of what Christianity is supposed to be about.
“Our research shows that many people’s only exposure to Jesus is through Christians who reflect him imperfectly, and too often in ways that create a distorted or incomplete picture of his radical compassion and love for others,” Vanderground told The Washington Post. “We believe it’s more important now than ever for the real, authentic Jesus to be represented in the public marketplace as he is in the Bible.”
Some are not impressed, and are more-or-less asking, "What would Jesus do?"
“They are latching on to this touchy-feely, conveniently vague, designer Jesus,” podcaster, author, and secular activist Seth Andrews told RNS. Andrews "poses the question of what Jesus would think of the amount of money spent on the ads. Would he prefer that the money be spent on ministering to people’s physical needs or making the world a better place?"
“Or would he say, no, go ahead and spend $100 million to tell everybody how great I am?”
On-air, CNN said, "at first blush, it can all read like a stand against radical right-wing politics and related divisiveness," but adds that "some are calling this a 'right-wing stunt for politics.'"
"'He Gets Us' is funded by anonymous donors acting through a Kansas non-profit linked to staunchly conservative causes," CNN's report (video below) notes, saying it "raises alarms for some skeptics."
THE TRUTH!!!
Biden Restores Roadless Protection to the Tongass, North America’s Largest Rainforest
By DR. BEVERLY LAW, OREGON STATE UNIV., THE CONVERSATION - dc report
January 29, 2023
The Biden administration finalized a rule on Jan. 25, 2023, that restores roadless protection to more than 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest, keeping this land free from road-building and logging. The Tongass is the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world and the biggest U.S. national forest. It spreads over more than 26,000 square miles (67,340 square kilometers) – roughly the size of West Virginia – and covers most of southeast Alaska. It has thousands of watersheds and fjords, and more than a thousand forested islands.
For over 20 years, the Tongass has been at the center of political battles over two key conservation issues: old-growth logging and designating large forest zones as roadless areas to prevent development. As a scientist specializing in forest ecosystems, I see protecting the Tongass as the kind of bold action that’s needed to address climate change and biodiversity loss.
An ecological gem
The Tongass as we know it today began forming at the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-1700s, which left much of what is now southern Alaska as barren land. Gradually, the area repopulated with plants and animals to become a swath of diverse, rich old-growth forests. President Theodore Roosevelt designated the Tongass as a forest reserve in 1902, and then as a national forest in 1907.
The Tongass is the traditional homeland of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people. It is named for the Tongass group of the Tlingit people, who have continuously occupied the area for over 10,000 years.
Alaska Natives relied on the forest’s rich diversity of plants and animals for their survival and traditions. Today the Tongass has abundant populations of animals that have become uncommon in other parts of the U.S., such as brown bears and wolves.
Most of the 900 watersheds within the Tongass are in near-natural condition. This ensures that they can provide habitat for many wild species and recover from or adapt to stresses, such as warmer temperatures due to climate change. They support salmon that spawn in the forest’s creeks and rivers, providing food for bears, eagles and other predators. Such ecosystems are incredibly rare around the world today.
How roads threaten forests
Intact old-growth forests, with trees hundreds of years old, are essential for carbon storage, biodiversity and climate resilience. They have fully developed root systems that can reach water in deep soils, and are more resistant than young forests to drought, fire, insects and strong winds – effects that are all likely to increase with climate change.
Because old-growth forests have accumulated massive amounts of carbon in their trees and soils over centuries, protecting them is an important strategy for curbing climate change. Today, however, scientists estimate that logging, agriculture and urban development have left only 6% to 14% of the forest area in the U.S. intact. And only 7% of total U.S. forest area is more than a century old.
Old-growth logging is controversial because intact forests are so rare. And forest losses often start when roads are cut through them to access timber. The roads are effectively long clear-cuts across the landscape.
Building roads through moist temperate forests can make it easier for warm air, wind and sunlight to penetrate from the edges to the interior, drying soil, mosses and ferns. It also provides entry points for invasive plants carried in by vehicles.
And roads’ negative effects extend beyond the actual driving surface. A road 30 feet (9 meters) wide may influence an additional 80 to 100 feet (25 to 30 meters) of adjacent land because of land disturbance during construction and wide buffer zones created for vehicle safety.
Road building can harm animals like brown bears through collisions with vehicles and increased poaching and trapping. In the Tongass, a strip a quarter-mile (0.4 kilometer) wide on each side of the highway system is closed to big game hunting, but this mitigates only some of roads’ pervasive effects.
Decades of controversy
The controversy over roadless areas began in January 2001, when the Clinton administration adopted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This measure barred logging, timber sales, mining and road construction within inventoried roadless areas in most national forests across the U.S. About 9.2 million acres (37,231 square kilometers) of the Tongass – more than half of its area – were designated and managed as inventoried roadless areas.
This step launched 20 years of debate and litigation. The Bush and Trump administrations, supported by conservative Western state officials, sought to limit the roadless rule and exempt the Tongass from it. The Obama administration generally supported the rule and defended it in court.
In 2020, the Trump administration opened the Tongass to extensive new logging, mining and road construction activities. Critics, including environmental advocates and tribal governments, argued that Alaska’s economy was better served by outdoor recreation and commercial fishing than by clear-cutting its remaining old-growth forests.
Now, the Biden administration has restored protection for roadless areas of the Tongass. President Joe Biden has also issued an executive order that calls for conserving mature and old-growth forests on federal land – although he has not yet banned logging in old-growth forests – and pledged to combat deforestation worldwide.
A strategic climate reserve
New protection for the Tongass comes amid growing alarm over two converging environmental crises: climate change and accelerated extinctions of plant and animal species. In my view, protecting ecological treasures like the Tongass is a critical way to address both issues at once, as scientists have recommended.
The southeastern and south-central regions of Alaska, which contain the Tongass and Chugach national forests, store about 1 billion metric tons of carbon in live and dead tree biomass. This amount could increase by 27% by 2100 if the forest is allowed to continue to grow and accumulate carbon.
I believe the Tongass’ vast intactness, rich biodiversity and significant carbon storage make it an excellent choice as the first of a series of strategic climate reserves – areas that scientists have proposed setting aside to protect large carbon sinks and biodiversity of plant and animal species. U.S. old-growth forests are disappearing rapidly, but with smart management they can deliver ecological benefits for decades to come.
For over 20 years, the Tongass has been at the center of political battles over two key conservation issues: old-growth logging and designating large forest zones as roadless areas to prevent development. As a scientist specializing in forest ecosystems, I see protecting the Tongass as the kind of bold action that’s needed to address climate change and biodiversity loss.
An ecological gem
The Tongass as we know it today began forming at the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-1700s, which left much of what is now southern Alaska as barren land. Gradually, the area repopulated with plants and animals to become a swath of diverse, rich old-growth forests. President Theodore Roosevelt designated the Tongass as a forest reserve in 1902, and then as a national forest in 1907.
The Tongass is the traditional homeland of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people. It is named for the Tongass group of the Tlingit people, who have continuously occupied the area for over 10,000 years.
Alaska Natives relied on the forest’s rich diversity of plants and animals for their survival and traditions. Today the Tongass has abundant populations of animals that have become uncommon in other parts of the U.S., such as brown bears and wolves.
Most of the 900 watersheds within the Tongass are in near-natural condition. This ensures that they can provide habitat for many wild species and recover from or adapt to stresses, such as warmer temperatures due to climate change. They support salmon that spawn in the forest’s creeks and rivers, providing food for bears, eagles and other predators. Such ecosystems are incredibly rare around the world today.
How roads threaten forests
Intact old-growth forests, with trees hundreds of years old, are essential for carbon storage, biodiversity and climate resilience. They have fully developed root systems that can reach water in deep soils, and are more resistant than young forests to drought, fire, insects and strong winds – effects that are all likely to increase with climate change.
Because old-growth forests have accumulated massive amounts of carbon in their trees and soils over centuries, protecting them is an important strategy for curbing climate change. Today, however, scientists estimate that logging, agriculture and urban development have left only 6% to 14% of the forest area in the U.S. intact. And only 7% of total U.S. forest area is more than a century old.
Old-growth logging is controversial because intact forests are so rare. And forest losses often start when roads are cut through them to access timber. The roads are effectively long clear-cuts across the landscape.
Building roads through moist temperate forests can make it easier for warm air, wind and sunlight to penetrate from the edges to the interior, drying soil, mosses and ferns. It also provides entry points for invasive plants carried in by vehicles.
And roads’ negative effects extend beyond the actual driving surface. A road 30 feet (9 meters) wide may influence an additional 80 to 100 feet (25 to 30 meters) of adjacent land because of land disturbance during construction and wide buffer zones created for vehicle safety.
Road building can harm animals like brown bears through collisions with vehicles and increased poaching and trapping. In the Tongass, a strip a quarter-mile (0.4 kilometer) wide on each side of the highway system is closed to big game hunting, but this mitigates only some of roads’ pervasive effects.
Decades of controversy
The controversy over roadless areas began in January 2001, when the Clinton administration adopted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This measure barred logging, timber sales, mining and road construction within inventoried roadless areas in most national forests across the U.S. About 9.2 million acres (37,231 square kilometers) of the Tongass – more than half of its area – were designated and managed as inventoried roadless areas.
This step launched 20 years of debate and litigation. The Bush and Trump administrations, supported by conservative Western state officials, sought to limit the roadless rule and exempt the Tongass from it. The Obama administration generally supported the rule and defended it in court.
In 2020, the Trump administration opened the Tongass to extensive new logging, mining and road construction activities. Critics, including environmental advocates and tribal governments, argued that Alaska’s economy was better served by outdoor recreation and commercial fishing than by clear-cutting its remaining old-growth forests.
Now, the Biden administration has restored protection for roadless areas of the Tongass. President Joe Biden has also issued an executive order that calls for conserving mature and old-growth forests on federal land – although he has not yet banned logging in old-growth forests – and pledged to combat deforestation worldwide.
A strategic climate reserve
New protection for the Tongass comes amid growing alarm over two converging environmental crises: climate change and accelerated extinctions of plant and animal species. In my view, protecting ecological treasures like the Tongass is a critical way to address both issues at once, as scientists have recommended.
The southeastern and south-central regions of Alaska, which contain the Tongass and Chugach national forests, store about 1 billion metric tons of carbon in live and dead tree biomass. This amount could increase by 27% by 2100 if the forest is allowed to continue to grow and accumulate carbon.
I believe the Tongass’ vast intactness, rich biodiversity and significant carbon storage make it an excellent choice as the first of a series of strategic climate reserves – areas that scientists have proposed setting aside to protect large carbon sinks and biodiversity of plant and animal species. U.S. old-growth forests are disappearing rapidly, but with smart management they can deliver ecological benefits for decades to come.
IN THE LAND OF STUPID!!!
from under a rock
conservatives' bullshit!!!
THE DAILY TRASH REPORT featuring today's despicables
thomas jefferson called them "waste people" and benjamin franklin called them "rubbish" we call them "maga people"
you cannot measure stupidity!!
Trump says he's proud to have trusted Putin over 'slime' US intelligence agencies
Fox News host demands 'fortified boundary' on Canadian border
Bannon's Rebel Yell: Kari Lake Is The 'Frickin' Governor Of Arizona'!
Up is down, red is blue. Steve Bannon earns his living saying what Mike Lindell wants to hear.
Stefanik Can't Name One Program She'd Cut Except 'Woke Agenda'
"Woke agenda" is code word for "I have no specific policies whatsoever, please like me, Maga Republicans."
Trump Admits He's A Russian Asset
Once again Trump chose Putin over US intelligence agencies.
John Amato — crooks & liars
January 30, 2023
Earlier today, Trump sent out derogatory jargon on his fledgling social media outlet supporting the Russian President Vladimir Putin over all US intelligence agencies.
What's odd is that Charles McGonigal most likely aided Trump in his election campaign.
Rudy Giuliani constantly claimed his friends in the FBI were giving him information to pass on to Fox News during the 2016 election.
What cannot be denied is this has been a constant for Trump.
Vladimir Putin = good. US intelligence agencies = bad.
So much has passed since 2018, that I thought I'd remind our readers. Trump embarrassed this nation, and the US presidency during his 2018 summit in Helsinki when he supported Vladimir Putin overall US interests.
Greg Sargent at The Washington Post tweeted out,"What we saw *today* was collusion. Trump's refusal to treat Russian sabotage of our democracy as the crime that it is encourages Putin to keep it up."
Trump was so awful that MAGA suck-up David Brody from the CBN at the time was angry at the treasonous former guy.
Brody said, "Boy, 20%, you look at it and go, 'my goodness, does that smell over there in the corner.'"
Brody continued, "And this was a smelly moment. Rather than Helsinki, maybe it's Helstinky for President Trump because that's what it felt like, for sure."
Trump will always side with Russia.
No matter what.
What's odd is that Charles McGonigal most likely aided Trump in his election campaign.
Rudy Giuliani constantly claimed his friends in the FBI were giving him information to pass on to Fox News during the 2016 election.
What cannot be denied is this has been a constant for Trump.
Vladimir Putin = good. US intelligence agencies = bad.
So much has passed since 2018, that I thought I'd remind our readers. Trump embarrassed this nation, and the US presidency during his 2018 summit in Helsinki when he supported Vladimir Putin overall US interests.
Greg Sargent at The Washington Post tweeted out,"What we saw *today* was collusion. Trump's refusal to treat Russian sabotage of our democracy as the crime that it is encourages Putin to keep it up."
Trump was so awful that MAGA suck-up David Brody from the CBN at the time was angry at the treasonous former guy.
Brody said, "Boy, 20%, you look at it and go, 'my goodness, does that smell over there in the corner.'"
Brody continued, "And this was a smelly moment. Rather than Helsinki, maybe it's Helstinky for President Trump because that's what it felt like, for sure."
Trump will always side with Russia.
No matter what.
How much money you have to make to be in the top 1% of earners in 10 US states
Aditi Bharade - business insider
Jan 26, 2023, 2:19 AM
If you want to be a part of the 1% top earners in the US, you'll need an annual income of more than half a million dollars.
American households need an annual gross income of $597,815 to be considered the highest-earning 1% in the country, a January 13 analysis by personal finance website SmartAsset found. However, this number varies widely from state to state.
Using data from the IRS and the Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2018 and updating it with the 2022 Consumer Price Index, the study has deduced which states have the highest and lowest thresholds for being considered ultra rich. The study found that eight of the 10 states with the highest 1% thresholds are located along the eastern and western coasts.
Here's a roundup of the states with the highest and lowest income thresholds, respectively, needed to be the cream of the crop.
The top five states with the highest thresholds to be in the top 1% of earners, according to SmartAsset:
Even so, the rich are getting richer.
America's 1% added $6.5 trillion to their collective fortunes in 2021, CNBC reported, citing the Federal Reserve. They owned 31.1% of the country's total wealth in the second quarter of 2022. In comparison, the lowest-earning 50% of the US population only possessed 3.2% of the country's wealth, according to Statistica Research Department.
Income inequality is on the rise in the country. A report by the US Census Bureau published in 2022 says that the Gini index, which measures income distribution in a country, increased by 1.2% between 2020 and 2021, indicating a greater level of income inequality.
American households need an annual gross income of $597,815 to be considered the highest-earning 1% in the country, a January 13 analysis by personal finance website SmartAsset found. However, this number varies widely from state to state.
Using data from the IRS and the Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2018 and updating it with the 2022 Consumer Price Index, the study has deduced which states have the highest and lowest thresholds for being considered ultra rich. The study found that eight of the 10 states with the highest 1% thresholds are located along the eastern and western coasts.
Here's a roundup of the states with the highest and lowest income thresholds, respectively, needed to be the cream of the crop.
The top five states with the highest thresholds to be in the top 1% of earners, according to SmartAsset:
- Connecticut: $896,490
- Massachusetts: $810,256
- New York: $777,126
- New Jersey: $760,462
- California: $760,462
- West Virginia: $350,212
- Mississippi: $361,462
- New Mexico: $384,427
- Arkansas: $411,633
- Kentucky: $412,836
Even so, the rich are getting richer.
America's 1% added $6.5 trillion to their collective fortunes in 2021, CNBC reported, citing the Federal Reserve. They owned 31.1% of the country's total wealth in the second quarter of 2022. In comparison, the lowest-earning 50% of the US population only possessed 3.2% of the country's wealth, according to Statistica Research Department.
Income inequality is on the rise in the country. A report by the US Census Bureau published in 2022 says that the Gini index, which measures income distribution in a country, increased by 1.2% between 2020 and 2021, indicating a greater level of income inequality.
edhopper
@du
Useless, bloated bag of noxious gas
It's amazing that I can type that description in the title without context, and almost everyone here knows exactly who I am talking about.
|
|
another fool just elected to congress!!!
GOPer: Saving lands will "kill" people
“Would make Alex Jones blush”: GOPer says land conservation is a plot to “control” and “kill” people
Trump-allied Rep. Harriet Hageman says plan to preserve land and water will kill Americans through "starvation"
By SAMAA KHULLAR - salon
PUBLISHED JANUARY 26, 2023 12:46PM (EST)
Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., spewed conspiracy theories about an environmental plan to conserve 30% of US land and waters by 2030 ahead of her election last year.
Speaking at R-CALF, a convention for independent cattle producers, Hageman in August 2021 and 2022 baselessly claimed that conservation plans like the global initiative 30x30 are a government plot led by President Joe Biden to control Americans through starvation.
The congresswoman likened the environmental plans to African dictators starving their people to stay in power.
"Anytime their dictator needed to control the masses and needed to make sure that there would be no uprising, he just starves his people," Hageman said in the previously unreported video. "You can look at Somalia, you can look at the Congo, you can look at country after country after country after country, and what they've done is they control their people with food. That's what 30 x 30 is about. That's what the Green New Deal is about."
The-then candidate's statements are similar to a number of anti-government conspiracy theories shared by anti-public land extremists. Many of these conspiracy theorists have also equated 30x30 with the Holocaust and Stalin's genocide of Ukrainians in the 1930s.
"History repeats, and I think it's being done again," said one 30x30 conspiracy theorist on Facebook. "They did the very same thing in Ukraine, and they intend to do it to us."
In another video, Hageman claimed that 30x30 is the first step towards government-led "starvation" in order to "control" citizens.
"Whenever those leaders want to control the masses, they starve them. They kill them. And that's how they keep control. And that's where the 30 x 30 program is headed," she claimed.
"We need to stop looking at this as preserving the environment," she added. "We need to stop talking about protecting water and natural resources. That isn't what it's about, it's about control. It's about control of you."
This is not the first, or second, time that Hageman has boosted conspiracy theories: she has a long history of espousing misinformation and fighting against conservation and public lands. Hageman proudly bears the nickname "Wicked Witch of the West," which she earned after opposing the Clinton administration's roadless forest rule.
"Harriet Hageman's unhinged conspiracy theories show that her motivations for 'oversight' are completely unrooted in reality," Jordan Schreiber, director of the Energy and Environment program at the left-leaning watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "The next time she alleges wrongdoing remember that she subscribes to a set of falsehoods that would make Alex Jones blush. She cannot be taken seriously as a legislator or an investigator."
During her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2018, Hageman suggested transferring one million acres of federal land to the state of Wyoming, which would have sold off significant hunting, fishing, and hiking areas, according to a report from The New York Times.
Two months before the midterm election in 2022, Hageman also claimed that the federal government controls too much land in the United States.
"Joe Biden has absolutely no authority whatsoever to try to take more private land out of production and use in this country," she said during a September R-CALF conference. "The federal government already has 612 million acres, and frankly, that's too many."
She further accused the World Wildlife Federation of trying to "destroy the livestock industry," calling them "evil people."
"They will put you out of business if you do not comply with their mandates that are going to be coming down the road," she said of the environmental organization. "They want to either destroy the livestock industry or make sure that it is only the elite that are able to eat beef in the future."
In addition to conspiracy theories, Hageman has also previously shared that she believes regulatory agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management are "destroying our republic."
Speaking at R-CALF, a convention for independent cattle producers, Hageman in August 2021 and 2022 baselessly claimed that conservation plans like the global initiative 30x30 are a government plot led by President Joe Biden to control Americans through starvation.
The congresswoman likened the environmental plans to African dictators starving their people to stay in power.
"Anytime their dictator needed to control the masses and needed to make sure that there would be no uprising, he just starves his people," Hageman said in the previously unreported video. "You can look at Somalia, you can look at the Congo, you can look at country after country after country after country, and what they've done is they control their people with food. That's what 30 x 30 is about. That's what the Green New Deal is about."
The-then candidate's statements are similar to a number of anti-government conspiracy theories shared by anti-public land extremists. Many of these conspiracy theorists have also equated 30x30 with the Holocaust and Stalin's genocide of Ukrainians in the 1930s.
"History repeats, and I think it's being done again," said one 30x30 conspiracy theorist on Facebook. "They did the very same thing in Ukraine, and they intend to do it to us."
In another video, Hageman claimed that 30x30 is the first step towards government-led "starvation" in order to "control" citizens.
"Whenever those leaders want to control the masses, they starve them. They kill them. And that's how they keep control. And that's where the 30 x 30 program is headed," she claimed.
"We need to stop looking at this as preserving the environment," she added. "We need to stop talking about protecting water and natural resources. That isn't what it's about, it's about control. It's about control of you."
This is not the first, or second, time that Hageman has boosted conspiracy theories: she has a long history of espousing misinformation and fighting against conservation and public lands. Hageman proudly bears the nickname "Wicked Witch of the West," which she earned after opposing the Clinton administration's roadless forest rule.
"Harriet Hageman's unhinged conspiracy theories show that her motivations for 'oversight' are completely unrooted in reality," Jordan Schreiber, director of the Energy and Environment program at the left-leaning watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement to Salon. "The next time she alleges wrongdoing remember that she subscribes to a set of falsehoods that would make Alex Jones blush. She cannot be taken seriously as a legislator or an investigator."
During her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2018, Hageman suggested transferring one million acres of federal land to the state of Wyoming, which would have sold off significant hunting, fishing, and hiking areas, according to a report from The New York Times.
Two months before the midterm election in 2022, Hageman also claimed that the federal government controls too much land in the United States.
"Joe Biden has absolutely no authority whatsoever to try to take more private land out of production and use in this country," she said during a September R-CALF conference. "The federal government already has 612 million acres, and frankly, that's too many."
She further accused the World Wildlife Federation of trying to "destroy the livestock industry," calling them "evil people."
"They will put you out of business if you do not comply with their mandates that are going to be coming down the road," she said of the environmental organization. "They want to either destroy the livestock industry or make sure that it is only the elite that are able to eat beef in the future."
In addition to conspiracy theories, Hageman has also previously shared that she believes regulatory agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management are "destroying our republic."
Bites from Real News
*1/30/2023*
*The NYT should tell readers whether it helped crooked FBI agents get Trump elected in 2016 The arrest of a high-level FBI agent on Russia-tied corruption charges raises stunning new questions about how Trump really won in 2016.
*Bitcoin ATM Companies Are Preying on the Poor
Bitcoin Depot has admitted to its investors that it relies on demographic data to strategically place its machines.Sam Knight , TRUTHOUT
*A fresh warning for Black conservatives Donald Trump's behavior at Diamond's funeral should be a warning for Black conservatives
The limited usefulness of Black conservatives
Donald Trump's behavior at Diamond's funeral should be a warning for Black conservatives
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
*Nearly Half of All Sheriffs in Louisiana Are Violating Public Records Laws
The finding builds on earlier reporting, which found records were destroyed in the case of a 16-year-old boy who died while in custody of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
*What to Know About TurboTax Before You File Your Taxes This Year
Don’t get tricked into paying for tax prep if you don’t have to. Learn how the biggest tax preparation companies have suppressed free filling options for years.
*APPLE BRINGS MAINLAND CHINESE WEB CENSORSHIP TO HONG KONG
Apple quietly expanded the use of Chinese company Tencent’s website blacklist to users in Hong Kong — and no one will answer questions about it.
*Lula’s New Government Is Taking Steps to Combat Racism in Brazil
One of Lula da Silva's first acts as president was to create new ministries of Indigenous Peoples and Racial Equality.
*American idiocracy: Can we deprogram?
The power of a conspiracy theory — and a 3-step plan to deprogram American idiocracy
What can be done to lessen the power and appeal of conspiracy theories in American politics and society?
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Mining Company ‘Sorry’ for Losing Radioactive Capsule
OOPS...
Dan Ladden-Hall
News Correspondent
Published Jan. 30, 2023 5:52AM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
Mining giant Rio Tinto has apologized on Monday for the loss of a tiny radioactive capsule that led to an emergency health warning in Australia. The radioactive gauge component is believed to have fallen out of a truck while in transit somewhere along an 870-mile journey in the state of Western Australia possibly as long as two weeks ago. Health officials in the state held a news conference last week to warn members of the public of the dangers of going near the radioactive capsule, which is smaller than a penny. “We are taking this incident very seriously,” Simon Trott, Rio Tinto’s iron ore division chief, said in a statement. “We recognize this is clearly very concerning and are sorry for the alarm it has caused in the Western Australian community.”
Boy Playing Hide-and-Seek in Shipping Container Found Days Later Overseas
HOW?
Dan Ladden-Hall
News Correspondent
Published Jan. 30, 2023 10:07AM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
A boy from Bangladesh playing hide-and-seek was missing for six days before being found in a shipping container in Malaysia. The teen, identified only as Fahim, is thought to have entered the container and fallen asleep while playing with friends in the port city of Chittagong on Jan. 11. He was then found about 1,500 miles away inside the container in Port Klang, Malaysia, on Jan 17. “He was the only one found in the container,” Malaysian Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said, adding that the boy was given medical attention after apparently going without food or water for six days. “The relevant authorities have investigated the case and their investigations found no elements of human trafficking,” Ismail said.
*What's Inside*
*THE “GOVERNED” IN AMERICA AREN’T GETTING THE “HAPPINESS” THEY DESERVE
WHY DO OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE EXTENSIVE AND FUNCTIONING SOCIAL SAFETY NETS AND WEALTHY PEOPLE WHO PAY THEIR TAXES, AND WE HAVE NEITHER?- THOM HARTMANN
(AMERICA)
*NO LONGER CONTENT WITH RIGHT TO OPT OUT, CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS ASKING COURTS TO ELIMINATE RIGHTS FOR OTHERS — AND THEY’RE WINNING
(CHRISTIANITY)
*WHEN WILL REPUBLICAN VOTERS WAKE UP TO THEIR OWN OPPRESSION?
COMMENTARY
*BIG OIL IS BEHIND CONSPIRACY TO DECEIVE PUBLIC, FIRST CLIMATE RACKETEERING LAWSUIT SAYS(COLONIES)
*INTERNAL DOCUMENTS REVEAL BIG OIL’S PLAN FOR PROFITING AMID CLIMATE PRESSURES
OIL
*late news of interest*
A Meditation On Practical Applications Of Stupidity
The Mystery of Anti-Vax & Anti-Mask
Kat Ignatz - DAILY KOS
Sunday August 01, 2021 · 5:00 AM PDT
...“The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” seems as good a way as any to explain the insane situation we’re in. It’s speculative, but in my opinion, guessing is all we’ve really got right now.
In his essay, Cipolla divides human beings into four categories and builds his theory on these characteristics.
His categories are:
And he presents his theory as five laws:
Taking Cipolla’s laws and looking for correlations with anti-vax/mask behavior, you can map out anti-vax/mask actions like this:
And you could do the same matching of Cipolla’s laws with anti-vax/mask actions, and together, we could come up with a big, five-part list of parallels between Cipolla’s theory and the anti-vax/mask movement.
And it would prove nothing.
But looking at it might make you wonder, like me, if there’s anything but dangerous, illogical, and incomprehensible behavior there.
Cipolla doesn’t explain stupid people. He simply says that they exist, and they’re irrational, unpredictable, and hazardous. He states that irrational people can’t be understood by rational minds and cautions against getting involved with irrational people because it always comes with a cost that’s often a big cost.
He says the only hope is for rational people to create more gains than the losses that irrational people cause. He was an economist so his theory is all gains and losses, and another way to think about his four human traits is total gain, loss/gain, gain/loss, and total loss.
And maybe that’s the real answer here. Maybe, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with why anti-vax/maskers act like they do. Perhaps, we should simply accept them as an incredible danger to our country, states, cities, friends, families, and selves, and we should just do everything we can to do more good than they do harm.
I like Cipolla’s theory, and I find it to be a compelling model for many of the problems we’re experiencing—like, for instance, Republicans.
In this writings, Cipolla makes a point of dividing bandits into Intelligent Bandits and Stupid Bandits. Intelligent bandits cause an equal amount of loss and gain, and they get everything they take from others. Stupid bandits cause more loss than gain, and they only get part of what they cause others to lose.
When I read that, I think about how Republicans are actively working to crash the US so they can keep their wealth and power. And then I think that they’re going so far with it that they may have moved from being stupid bandits to fully stupid because it’s irrational to think they’ll keep much of anything if the country collapses.
I also start thinking about how prevalent stupid banditry is in the world—as if it’s the only way to do business. The “bigs” are especially dangerous: big agriculture, apparel, chemical, electronics, oil, pharmaceuticals, retail, etc.
We’re all losing our lives in one way or another to these dubious ventures.
But that’s my mind drifting on to a topic for another diary, and I’ll stop this one here.
In his essay, Cipolla divides human beings into four categories and builds his theory on these characteristics.
His categories are:
- Intelligent People whose actions benefit others and themselves
- Helpless People whose actions harm them but benefit others
- Bandits whose actions harm others but benefit them
- Stupid People whose actions harm others but don’t benefit them and may, in fact, harm them, too
And he presents his theory as five laws:
- Everyone always underestimates how many stupid people there are.
- Stupidity is unrelated to any other human trait.
- Stupid people cause losses to others without gain and, possibly, with losses to themselves.
- Non-stupid people always underestimate how harmful stupid people are.
- Stupid people are the most dangerous type of person.
Taking Cipolla’s laws and looking for correlations with anti-vax/mask behavior, you can map out anti-vax/mask actions like this:
- How many: 30% of the US population is hesitating, resisting, or outright refusing to get a coronavirus vaccine.
- Unrelated to other traits: Health care workers are protesting against getting vaccinated.
- No gain and possible losses: Not even the threat of death is changing anti-vax/mask behavior.
- How harmful: Who would have predicted that Missouri would end up in such terrible condition?
- Most dangerous: Anti-vax/maskers are bringing the systems we rely on for our safety and health to the brink of crashing.
And you could do the same matching of Cipolla’s laws with anti-vax/mask actions, and together, we could come up with a big, five-part list of parallels between Cipolla’s theory and the anti-vax/mask movement.
And it would prove nothing.
But looking at it might make you wonder, like me, if there’s anything but dangerous, illogical, and incomprehensible behavior there.
Cipolla doesn’t explain stupid people. He simply says that they exist, and they’re irrational, unpredictable, and hazardous. He states that irrational people can’t be understood by rational minds and cautions against getting involved with irrational people because it always comes with a cost that’s often a big cost.
He says the only hope is for rational people to create more gains than the losses that irrational people cause. He was an economist so his theory is all gains and losses, and another way to think about his four human traits is total gain, loss/gain, gain/loss, and total loss.
And maybe that’s the real answer here. Maybe, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with why anti-vax/maskers act like they do. Perhaps, we should simply accept them as an incredible danger to our country, states, cities, friends, families, and selves, and we should just do everything we can to do more good than they do harm.
I like Cipolla’s theory, and I find it to be a compelling model for many of the problems we’re experiencing—like, for instance, Republicans.
In this writings, Cipolla makes a point of dividing bandits into Intelligent Bandits and Stupid Bandits. Intelligent bandits cause an equal amount of loss and gain, and they get everything they take from others. Stupid bandits cause more loss than gain, and they only get part of what they cause others to lose.
When I read that, I think about how Republicans are actively working to crash the US so they can keep their wealth and power. And then I think that they’re going so far with it that they may have moved from being stupid bandits to fully stupid because it’s irrational to think they’ll keep much of anything if the country collapses.
I also start thinking about how prevalent stupid banditry is in the world—as if it’s the only way to do business. The “bigs” are especially dangerous: big agriculture, apparel, chemical, electronics, oil, pharmaceuticals, retail, etc.
We’re all losing our lives in one way or another to these dubious ventures.
But that’s my mind drifting on to a topic for another diary, and I’ll stop this one here.
