Louisiana judge rules in favor of Bayou Bridge Pipeline’s seizure of private land | nola.com
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Category: Science and Stuff,
Archaeologists discover 4,400 year-old tomb in Egypt
Walls of the tomb are decorated with colored scenes of the priest with his wife, mother and other family. Mostafa Waziri, the head of the excavation mission, said other drawings show funeral furniture manufacturing, music performances, pottery making, hunting, sailing and wine making.
Archaeologists discover 4,400 year-old tomb in Egypt
Wild!
Ryan Zinke Is Out As Interior Department Secretary
Zinke had a tumultuous tenure as chief steward of America’s natural resources, facing nearly 20 federal investigations ― one of which his agency’s internal watchdog recently referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal violations ― and besieged by a steady drumbeat of unfavorable headlines.
…Zinke pegged himself as a champion of public lands and a conservationist in the mold of President Theodore Roosevelt. [But then] he cozied up to fossil fuel interests, embraced sweeping budget cuts that his boss proposed, and prioritized Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda over habitat and resource conservation.
Theodore Roosevelt IV told HuffPost last year that his great-grandfather would have condemned the job Zinke had done and that many in the Roosevelt family were angry that Zinke repeatedly invoked their ancestor to misrepresent his own actions.
…[Zinke] came under fire after proposing to open nearly all U.S. waters to offshore drilling, only to turn around and almost immediately remove waters off the coast of Florida from the plan.
…Zinke supported drilling in Alaska’s pristine and fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge …and proposed drastically hiking entrance fees at 17 of America’s most popular national parks.
…Like several other members of Trump’s Cabinet, Zinke was the target of numerous ethics probes. He billed taxpayers for his use of private charter planes and government helicopters (instead of taking commercial flights) on at least three occasions ― a controversy Zinke characterized as “a little BS.”
…the Interior Department’s inspector general determined that Zinke had violated government travel policies by bringing his wife along on taxpayer-funded trips. That probe found that Zinke had asked staff to explore making her a department volunteer, a move that would have legitimized her travel.
…Deputy Secretary Bernhardt is not without his own apparent conflicts of interests. As HuffPost reported, he’s met on several occasions with lobbyists for MGM Resorts International, the casino-resort giant that his longtime former employer also represents.
In fact, Bernhardt has so many potential conflicts of interest that he carries a list around with him.
Ryan Zinke Is Out As Interior Department Secretary | HuffPost
hmmm
Tennessee Republican sparks pushback after vaccine comment
Republican U.S. Rep.-elect Mark Green has since walked back the comments he made Tuesday at a town hall, [now] saying he encourages families to vaccinate their children. On Monday, he …claimed the Centers for Disease Control hid information from the public.
On Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Health issued a brief but direct statement saying vaccines “do not cause autism” but do “save lives.”
Tennessee Republican sparks pushback after vaccine comment
hmmm
Trump’s environmental rollback rolls on
The Department of the Interior unveiled plans to allow oil drilling on millions of acres that have been off-limits to protect the greater sage grouse.
And the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it would end rules limiting carbon emissions on new coal plants.
The rollback continues despite the US’ own dire warnings about climate change.
Trump’s environmental rollback rolls on – BBC News
agggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh
Guns kill more U.S. kids than cancer. This emergency physician aims to change that
In March, in the wake of the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school, Congress wrote that CDC is free to probe the causes of gun violence, despite the Dickey amendment. (The agency has not done so, citing a lack of money.) And annual firearm-related funding from NIH, according to a search of its RePORTER database, roughly tripled after a 2013 presidential directive that was issued in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Just as importantly, the agency began to flag firearm violence in some of its calls for research.
…Their animating principle is that gun violence, like any other public health bane, can be tackled scientifically, divorced from any political agenda. “There is a science to injury prevention,” Cunningham says. She and others note that decades of studies on motor vehicle safety led to evidence-based policies such as car seat and seat belt laws, which have dramatically reduced childhood motor vehicle fatalities even though many more cars are on the road.
…Cunningham is confident that the problem of gun violence can be solved with science—and with participation from all sides. So, she keeps searching for common ground. “We are not having any conversations here that are an ‘us and them’ narrative,” she told scientists at the meeting. “We are about reducing kids dying.”
Guns kill more U.S. kids than cancer. This emergency physician aims to change that | Science | AAAS
hmmmm
Humans and dogs – Best friends for over 26,000 years
Around 26,000 years ago a child around 10 years old walked through the cave and what is more important that child wasn’t alone – next to the small tracks left by that child there are unmistakable paw prints of a large, ancient dog.
Humans and dogs – Best friends for over 26,000 years
hmmmm
How DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers In Their Own Land | HuffPost
In reality, such testing does not tell us much about our ancestors. That’s partly because of the way DNA is passed down through the generations and partly because there exists no database of ancestral DNA. Instead, the companies compare your DNA to that of other contemporary humans who have paid them to take the test. Then they compare your particular variations to patterns of geographical and ethnic distribution of such variations in today’s world ― and use secret algorithms to assign purportedly precise ancestral percentages to them.
…These three political developments downplay Native American identity, sovereignty, and rights, while denying, implicitly or explicitly, that history created today’s realities of racial inequality. The use of DNA tests to claim “Native American” genes or blood trivializes this same history.
How DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers In Their Own Land | HuffPost
hmmm
2018 Elections: 9 New Lawmakers With STEM Backgrounds Set To Join Congress
“Anything from cybersecurity, biosecurity, information technology and privacy issues are all things the government now has the responsibility to be worried about,” she says. “Those are all things that scientific and technical backgrounds can be used for.”
…She is one of the nine STEM-related professionals – one senator and eight members of the House of Representatives — voted into office during the 2018 midterms. All are Democrats except for one Republican and the cohort includes an ocean scientist, an aerospace engineer, a software engineer and a biochemist.
2018 Elections: 9 New Lawmakers With STEM Backgrounds Set To Join Congress : NPR
Not that I have much confidence that it will making a fucking bit of difference in terms of our domestic approach to climate change and keeping petroleum products and chemicals out of the ocean and other waterways and keeping our seafood and water supplies from becoming contaminated with toxicity and poisons but it’s a start. And a start is a good thing.
Attaining Meaningful Outcomes from Conversations on Climate
We often have false assumptions about those with opposing stances. Instead of treating the other person like a one-dimensional stereotype, find shared values and build out from there.
hmmmm
Alzheimer’s vaccine aims to cut dementia in half, may see human trials
Testing in mice has shown that the vaccine safely prevents the buildup of substances in the brain associated with the fatal disease.
…If the vaccine proves safe and effective in humans it could slice the number of dementia diagnoses in half, the study’s senior author told USA TODAY.
Dementia is a term used to broadly describe symptoms of cognitive decline; Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia.
…The vaccine works by prompting the body to produce antibodies inhibiting the buildup of amyloid and tau, two proteins that are hallmarks of the degenerative brain disease.
The vaccine is one of several promising treatments aimed at reducing the buildup of those substances before they become deadly plaques and tangles in the brain.
Alzheimer’s vaccine aims to cut dementia in half, may see human trials
hmmmm
Coast Guard orders massive 14-year oil spill to be cleaned up
The Coast Guard has ordered the company responsible for an oil spill that has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for 14 years to clean up the environmental catastrophe or face a $40,000 per day fine.
…Taylor allowed a broken oil platform off the coast of southeast Louisiana to leak an estimated 10,500 gallons to 29,000 gallons of oil per day, five to 13 times larger than the government’s initial estimates.
…Taylor’s oil spill has been a source of concern for some time. The site — Mississippi Canyon-20, which lies south of the Mississippi River delta — took a hit from Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The storm wrecked Taylor’s platform and triggered the massive spill, resulting in years of legal back-and-forth between the company and the Interior Department, which has contended that Taylor has an obligation to fix the oil wells at the site.
…Taylor no longer produces oil and a trust account was established in 2008, which the government required in order to allow the company to decommission its wells. Nine of the 28 wells at the Mississippi delta site have been plugged and Taylor says it can’t reach the others without risking more spillage. The company now wants the rest of the $666 million trust to be returned to it, arguing it has done everything it can, but the Interior Department says Taylor needs to finish plugging the remaining wells.
Coast Guard orders massive 14-year oil spill to be cleaned up – ThinkProgress
Disgusting this was allowed to go on for 14 years. George Bush may not have liked black people but (sadly) BHO didn’t give a flying fuck about the Gulf Coast either.
$40,000 a day is chump change com paired to the long-term costs of cleaning it up. There should be criminal charges filed by this point.
Pluggin nine of twenty-eight well is not even close to “everything it can” do and it sure as shit doesn’t even get close to resolving the problems the company created by themselves. Make a mess? Clean it up. All up. Completely. Or face much more dire consequences than a fine to a trust fund should be the rule of law.
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