Vladimir Putin Is Rewriting World War II History

On By peanutgallerynhIn Central Northern Asia and The Caucasus,, Europe,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

[Putin] appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the war while downplaying if not altogether denying Soviet responsibility.

“It was them,” he said, “who, while pursuing their mercenary and exorbitantly overgrown ambitions, laid their people, the Polish people, open to attack from Germany’s military machine, and, moreover, generally contributed to the beginning of the Second World War.”

…“Insane,” former Belgian Prime Minister and prominent European Parliament member Guy Verhofstadt tweeted. “Denying that Stalin colluded with Hitler and destroyed Poland. A monster still glorified in the Russia of Putin.”

…Putin’s long-winded foray into historical revisionism was a reaction to the European Parliament’s Sept. 19, 2019, resolution, “On the Importance of European Remembrance of the Future of Europe.”

That resolution, among other things, condemned Russia for “whitewash[ing] crimes committed by the Soviet totalitarian regime,” blamed the Soviets (alongside the Nazis) for starting World War II, and called for the removal of Soviet war memorials across Europe.

…The verdict is that Putin the amateur historian would not get a passing grade at any reputable university. Nor would he be able to get his views published in any peer-reviewed journal. Although the factual side of his presentation checks out, he has twisted his evidence to support preconceived notions. He is also guilty of gross omissions.

…First, he argues that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, an agreement that mainstream historians would agree, contributed handsomely to the outbreak of World War II by partitioning Poland, was not particularly unusual in the context of the times.

…Putin goes on to argue that had the French stuck by their commitments to defend Czechoslovakia against a German invasion (Paris and Prague signed a treaty of alliance in 1924), the Soviet Union—which also had a treaty with Prague—was prepared to come to the latter’s aid. The problem was that the Soviets had no common border with Czechoslovakia and so depended either on Romania’s or Poland’s willingness to allow the transit of Soviet troops.

…It is naive to argue that Stalin, for his part, would have jumped at the chance to join France in a war against Germany in 1938. Indeed, none of the evidence he cites shows that the Soviet Union was genuinely committed to Czechoslovakia’s defense. Even as he accuses the British and the French of “cynicism,” he seems unwilling to see Stalin as a cynical operator who would have been overjoyed to see Germany and the West at each other’s throats.

…The second part of Putin’s revisionist narrative concerns Poland’s policies in the run-up to World War II. In a nutshell, he argues that Poland was an architect of many of its misfortunes as it not just prevented the Soviets from helping Czechoslovakia but actively colluded with Germany to partition it.

…The problem with Putin’s interpretation is that he fails to distinguish between Poland opportunistically seizing a part of a long-disputed territory deemed essential for national defense, not least against Germany, and active collusion with Nazi Germany to bring about this result.

Indeed, as the prominent Polish-American historian Anna Cienciala has long argued, the Polish cabinet kept its options open and was not averse to taking military action against Germany in defense of Czechoslovakia if France and Britain joined in the fight. 

…It is hardly a revelation that anti-Semitism was pervasive in Eastern Europe both in the interwar period and after the war; Poland was no exception. Soviet leaders, too, shared anti-Semitic views, and Stalin himself waged an anti-Semitic campaign in the final years of his life. Seen in that broader context, Putin’s attack on Lipski is nothing short of bizarre.

Vladimir Putin Is Rewriting World War II History

hmmm

When an Influx of French-Canadian Immigrants Struck Fear Into Americans

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Race,, Religion,, The Americas,Leave a comment

French Canadians had been pouring into states like Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, finding work in the region’s burgeoning industries. “Manufacturing New England, Puritan and homogeneous no longer, speaks a French patois,” she wrote.

Furthermore, Graffenreid continued, French Canadian workers huddled in “Little Canadas” of “hastily-constructed tenements,” in houses holding from three to 50 families, subsisting in conditions that were “a reproach to civilization,” while “inspiring fear and aversion in neighbors.”

…These Little Canadas, often wedged between a mill and a Catholic church, formed a cultural archipelago, outposts of Québec scattered throughout the Northeast in densely populated pockets. By 1900, one-tenth of New Englanders spoke French. And in the region’s many cotton mills, French Canadians made up 44 percent of the workforce—24 percent nationally—at a time when cotton remained a dominant industry.

French-Canadian workers often lived in overcrowded, company-owned tenements, while children as young as eight years old worked full shifts in the mills. Contemporary observers denounced the mill town squalor. When 44 French Canadian children died in Brunswick, Maine, during a six-month period in 1886, most from typhoid fever and diphtheria, local newspaper editor Albert G. Tenney investigated. He found tenements housing 500 people per acre, with outhouses that overflowed into the wells and basements.

…Some Fall River tenements, continued Hale, “do not compare favorably with old-time slave-quarters,” a not-so-distant memory in the 1890s.

Other immigrants also faced pitiable conditions, but the French Canadians were unique because they thought of themselves as Americans before they came to the U.S. …In their view, “American” was not a nationality, but a collection of “all the nationalities” living under the Stars and Stripes. In keeping with this understanding, they coined a new term for their people living in the U.S.: Franco-Americans.

….If naturalized citizens obeyed the laws, defended the flag, and worked for the general prosperity, he felt their duties were discharged—language, religion, and customs could remain in the private sphere. Gagnon’s concept of citizenship was based on Québec’s history, where French Canadians had maintained a distinct cultural identity despite British rule since 1763. The Franco-American elite expected their people to maintain their identity in the U.S. just as they had done in Canada.

…By the 1880s, elite American newspapers, including The New York Times, saw a sinister plot afoot. The Catholic Church, they said, had dispatched French Canadian workers southward in a bid to seize control of New England. Eventually, the theory went, Québec would sever its British ties and annex New England to a new nation-state called New France. Alarmists presented as evidence for the demographic threat the seemingly endless influx of immigrants across the northeastern border, coupled with the large family size of the Franco-Americans, where 10 or 12 children was common, and many more not unknown.

…”This is the avowed purpose of the secret society to which every adult French Canadian belongs.”

… In the mid-19th century, supporters of the Know Nothing movement led attacks on Catholic neighborhoods from New York City to Philadelphia. In New England, among other incidents, a Know Nothing-inspired mob burned a church where Irish and French Canadian Catholics met at Bath, Maine, in July 1854. In October of that year, Catholic priest John Bapst was assaulted, robbed, tarred and feathered, and driven out of Ellsworth, Maine. While the Know Nothings faded away, in the late 19th century the nativists regrouped as the American Protective Association, a nationwide anti-Catholic movement.

…The New York Times reported in 1881 that French-Canadian immigrants were “ignorant and unenterprising, subservient to the most bigoted class of Catholic priests in the world. … They care nothing for our free institutions, have no desire for civil or religious liberty or the benefits of education.”

…Amaron and Morehouse identified Protestantism with Americanism. For them, it was unthinkable that the U.S. could accommodate a variety of religious traditions and yet retain its political culture.

In retrospect, the fevered discourse about New England’s class of destitute factory workers reveals how little chattering classes in the U.S. knew their neighbors—a people whose presence in North America preceded Plymouth Rock.

…Talk of a French Canadian threat waned in the first years of the 20th century, as migration across the northeastern border slowed temporarily. This Victorian episode faded from memory only when U.S. fears were transferred to new subjects: the even more foreign-seeming Jewish and non-Protestant immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, who, in the early 20th century, began to arrive in growing numbers on U.S. shores.

When an Influx of French-Canadian Immigrants Struck Fear Into Americans | History | Smithsonian Magazine

hmmm

Odell Beckham Jr. butt-slap case: Superdome officer won’t press charges, sources say

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Odell Beckham Jr. butt-slap case: Superdome officer won’t press charges, sources say | Crime/Police | nola.com

What the Faaaaa is up with this story?

First off that police officer is a snowflake.

Secondly, the fact that his first response was a dsire to punch someone should disqualify him from wearing his badge in the first place. At the very least he should have mandatory treatment for his anger issues if he is to coninue as an officer of the law.

Nancy Pelosi Ripping Up Trump’s Speech Wasn’t Subtle. That Was The Point

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Trump’s State of the Union speech wasn’t designed to linger. It was meant to be experienced in real-time, to wash over a crowd of viewers at home and then dissipate into the ether. He hinted that his predecessor had harmed the economy, instead of pulled it out of a recession. He bragged about people lifting themselves off food stamps, when, in fact, his administration has cut back eligibility. He claimed he would “always protect patients with pre-existing conditions” when he has repeatedly pushed to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. It didn’t matter what the fact-checkers were going to say. The audience he cared about — loyal Republican partisans and apolitical casual viewers — wouldn’t be searching for confirmation.

…In the hours after the speech, that debate raged on — with some predicting that Pelosi’s big gesture would create a backlash, or worse.

…Among the Democratic leaders, Pelosi may not be the smoothest talker, but she is the best, hands-down, at nonverbal communication. From her sarcastic-looking, arms-extended clap at last year’s State of the Union to her standing-up-to-power moment at a White House meeting in October, she has managed to craft small moments into lingering symbolism.

Nancy Pelosi Ripping Up Trump’s Speech Wasn’t Subtle. That Was The Point | Cognoscenti

hmmm

People Keep Asking Elizabeth Warren Whether She Can Win

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

How do you acknowledge the reality of the challenges that women face without going too far and contributing to the forces that keep them from winning?

… Nearly four years later, political scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how much of an impact sexism had in the 2016 election. The consensus among most of the experts I’ve spoken with is that sexism does seem to have moderately helped Trump and hurt Clinton — but seeing the attacks on Clinton may also have galvanized some of her supporters. And all of this might not tell us much about how a different woman, with different policies, in a different year, would fare.

Why People Keep Asking Elizabeth Warren Whether She Can Win | FiveThirtyEight

hmmm

Trump Thinks Only Black People Are on Welfare, But Really, White Americans Receive Most Benefits

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

In the spring of 2017, the newly elected president met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. During that meeting, one of the members mentioned to Trump that welfare reform would be detrimental to her constituents— adding, “Not all of whom are black,” according to NBC News.

The president was incredulous. “Really? Then what are they?”

Statistically speaking, they were probably white.

In fact, whites are the biggest beneficiaries when it comes to government safety-net programs like the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, commonly referred to as welfare.

…When it comes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP—the initiative formerly known as food stamps—the numbers look similar.

…Just over 40 percent of SNAP recipients are white. Another 25.7 percent are black, 10.3 percent are Hispanic, 2.1 percent are Asian and 1.2 percent are Native American.

Trump Thinks Only Black People Are on Welfare, But Really, White Americans Receive Most Benefits

mmhmm

I Went to Mexico to Meet Asylum-Seekers Trapped at the Border. This Is What I Saw.

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

The Trump Administration has been waging an all-out war on the U.S.’s asylum system, which for more than 50 years has provided shelter for people who need protection. To accomplish this reversal of tradition, they’ve put into place a series of policies that have made it nearly impossible for people to quickly and safely claim asylum at the southern border. Chief among them is the forced return to Mexico program, which has trapped tens of thousands of people in dangerous cartel-controlled cities in northern Mexico while they wait for distant court dates inside the U.S.

The circumstances these vulnerable people are facing in the meantime are dire.

…Previously, they would have been processed through the asylum system and then either detained or released inside the U.S. while their claims were evaluated by an immigration judge. But now, they’re given a sheet of paper that tells them to come back to the border months later for their first hearing. In the meantime, they’re stuck, with nowhere to go and most often nobody to help them.

…The river is rife with pollution, and people living in the camp have developed rashes and other skin problems from bathing in it. Next to a small, muddy clearing, a series of white crosses stood in remembrance of the children who’ve died by drowning in the river in recent months.

…The “Migrant Protection Protocols” were designed to make it so uncomfortable and dangerous for people who are seeking asylum that they will simply give up, exhausted and defeated, and return back to the dangerous situations they fled.

…In just a brief visit, we’d heard one detailed story of a kidnapping-for-ransom and witnessed another family living through that trauma in real time. The experience underscored the insecurity and fear that tens of thousands of asylum-seekers are being subjected to across the U.S. border right now.

Supporters of the new, punitive asylum processes say that most of the people seeking shelter at our southern border are liars who are after better work opportunities in the U.S. That simply did not gel with much of what we heard. One man said he’d been a municipal employee back home. He liked Honduras, and he hadn’t wanted to leave. But a street gang had threatened to murder him and his son if the young boy didn’t start selling drugs for them, so he felt they had no choice but to flee.

I Went to Mexico to Meet Asylum-Seekers Trapped at the Border. This Is What I Saw.

Sigh….

Florida Baker Act: 6-year-old girl sent to mental health facility by school

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Modern Parenting,, Schools,Leave a comment

According to a sheriff’s report, a social worker who responded to Nadia’s tantrum at Love Grove Elementary School stated the girl was a “threat to herself and others,” “destroying school property” and “attacking staff.”

She was removed from school and committed to a behavioral health center for a psychiatric evaluation under the Baker Act, which allows authorities to force such an evaluation on anyone considered to be a danger to themselves or others.

Nadia’s mother, Martina Falk, said her daughter has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a mood disorder.

…”She’s traumatized. She is not herself anymore. I don’t know what the long-term effects are,” she told CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez.

Florida Baker Act: 6-year-old girl sent to mental health facility by school – CBS News

Jeezus…

Coffeyville, Kansas, medical debt: County in rural Kansas is jailing people over unpaid medical debt

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Tres Biggs went to jail for failing to appear in court for unpaid medical bills. He described it as “scary.”  

…Bail was $500. He said they had “maybe $50 to $100” at the time.

…That law was put in place at Hassenplug’s own recommendation to the local judge. The attorney uses that law by asking the court to direct people with unpaid medical bills to appear in court every three months and state they are too poor to pay in what is called a “debtors exam.”

If two hearings are missed, the judge issues an arrest warrant for contempt of court.

Coffeyville, Kansas, medical debt: County in rural Kansas is jailing people over unpaid medical debt – CBS News

Jeezus…

How Firms Like McKinsey Contributed to the Decline of the Middle Class

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

In the middle of the last century, management saturated American corporations. Every worker, from the CEO down to production personnel, served partly as a manager, participating in planning and coordination along an unbroken continuum in which each job closely resembled its nearest neighbor. Elaborately layered middle managers—or “organization men”—coordinated production among long-term employees. In turn, companies taught workers the skills they needed to rise up the ranks. At IBM, for example, a 40-year worker might spend more than four years, or 10 percent, of his work life in fully paid, IBM-provided training.

…The mid-century corporation’s workplace training and many-layered hierarchy built a pipeline through which the top jobs might be filled.

…Middle managers, able to plan and coordinate production independently of elite-executive control, shared not just the responsibilities but also the income and status gained from running their companies. Top executives enjoyed commensurately less control and captured lower incomes. This democratic approach to management compressed the distribution of income and status. In fact, a mid-century study of General Motors published in the Harvard Business Review—completed, in a portent of what was to come, by McKinsey’s Arch Patton—found that from 1939 to 1950, hourly workers’ wages rose roughly three times faster than elite executives’ pay. The management function’s wide diffusion throughout the workforce substantially built the mid-century middle class.

…In 1965 and 1966, [McKinsey] placed help-wanted ads in The New York Times and Time magazine, with the goal of generating applications that it could then reject, to establish its own eliteness. McKinsey’s competitors followed suit, as when the Boston Consulting Group’s Bruce Henderson took out ads in the Harvard Business School student newspaper seeking to hire “not just the run-of-that-mill but, instead, scholars—Rhodes Scholars, Marshall Scholars, Baker Scholars (the top 5 percent of the class).”

A new ideal of shareholder primacy, powerfully championed by Milton Friedman in a 1970 New York Times Magazine article entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits,” gave the newly ambitious management consultants a guiding purpose. According to this ideal, in language eventually adopted by the Business Roundtable, “the paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation’s stockholders.” During the 1970s, and accelerating into the ’80s and ’90s, the upgraded management consultants pursued this duty by expressly and relentlessly taking aim at the middle managers who had dominated mid-century firms, and whose wages weighed down the bottom line.

As the business journalist Walter Kiechel put it in his book Lords of Strategy, consultants openly sought to “foment a stratification within companies and society” by concentrating the management function in elite executives, aided (of course) by advisers from consultants’ own ranks.

…In effect, management consulting is a tool that allows corporations to replace lifetime employees with short-term, part-time, and even subcontracted workers, hired under ever more tightly controlled arrangements, who sell particular skills and even specified outputs, and who manage nothing at all.

…Today, top executives boast immense powers of command—and, as a result, capture virtually all of management’s economic returns. Whereas at mid-century a typical large-company CEO made 20 times a production worker’s income, today’s CEOs make nearly 300 times as much.

…When restructurings eradicated workplace training and purged the middle rungs of the corporate ladder, they also forced companies to look beyond their walls for managerial talent—to elite colleges, business schools, and (of course) to management-consulting firms. That is to say: The administrative techniques that management consultants invented created a huge demand for precisely the services that the consultants supply.

…When management consulting untethered executives from particular industries or firms and tied them instead to management in general, it also led them to embrace the one thing common to all corporations: making money for shareholders. Executives raised on the new, untethered model of management aim exclusively and directly at profit: their education, their career arc, and their professional role conspire to isolate them from other workers and train them single-mindedly on the bottom line.

How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class – The Atlantic

hmmm

DOJ reviewing allegation Erik Prince misled Congress in Russia probe

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Schiff sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr on April 30 asking if criminal charges should be brought against Prince, the brother of President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

In the letter, Schiff cited six instances from Prince’s testimony that he said were contradicted by former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference.

“The report reveals that Mr. Prince’s testimony before the committee was replete with manifest and substantial falsehoods that materially impaired the committee’s investigation,” Schiff wrote at the time. 

DOJ reviewing allegation Erik Prince misled Congress in Russia probe – CNNPolitics

hmmmm

The lost continent of Zealandia hides clues to the Ring of Fire’s birth | Live Science

On By peanutgallerynhIn Hawaii,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

But despite its undersea status, Zealandia is not made of magnesium- and iron-rich oceanic crust. Instead, it is composed of less-dense continental crust.

…Sutherland and his colleagues now suspect that the changes in Zealandia at this time were part of a larger disturbance that quickly led to the formation of Ring of Fire subduction zones around the western Pacific.

“We don’t know where or why,” Sutherland said in the statement, “but something happened that locally induced movement, and when the fault started to slip, like in an earthquake, the motion rapidly spread sideways onto adjacent parts of the fault system and then around the western Pacific.” 

This process would have taken over a million years, but would have represented a dramatic rearrangement of the geology of the western Pacific.

The lost continent of Zealandia hides clues to the Ring of Fire’s birth | Live Science

hmmm

Warren Says Her Campaign Is Just Getting Started

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

A wild card could be Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who generated late-stage enthusiasm in New Hampshire. Still, Warren’s campaign is betting that staff infrastructure she’s already built in around 30 states means she can play a longer political game than Klobuchar, giving her a path to the nomination — albeit one that is narrowing the longer she goes without winning a state.

Warren Says Her Campaign Is Just Getting Started

hmmm

Attorney General Barr Hijacks Sentencing in Roger Stone Case Forcing Prosecutors to Resign

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,Leave a comment

It is unclear what specifically Trump was referring to as “tainted,” but the president has previously made unsubstantiated allegations about independent counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

At issue in this case is the prison term prosecutors recommended for Stone, who sought to serve as an intermediary between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and WikiLeaks. He was found guilty last November on several charges, including lying to Congress, and is awaiting sentencing.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington had recommended Monday that Stone serve seven to nine years in prison, but Justice Department …ordered the submission of a second sentencing memo in the case, displacing the first. The second memo, which appeared with court records on Tuesday afternoon, said that a sentence “far less” than the prospective seven to nine years in prison “would be reasonable under the circumstances.” It did not make a specific recommendation.

Following that highly unusual move, all four prosecutors in the case — Aaron Zelinsky, Jonathan Kravis, Adam Jed and Michael Marando — withdrew.

Trump Praises Attorney General Barr For ‘Taking Charge’ Of Roger Stone Case : NPR

sighhhh

Earth Is About To Enter A 30-Year ‘Mini Ice Age’ As A ‘Solar Minimum’ Grips The Planet

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

According to NASA, the Sun will reach its lowest activity in over 200 years in 2020. As it further goes into its natural hibernation phase, Earth will experience extremely cold spells which will trigger food shortages across the planet. The average temperatures could drop as much as one degree Celsius in a period lasting about 12 months. 

Earth Is About To Enter A 30-Year ‘Mini Ice Age’ As A ‘Solar Minimum’ Grips The Planet – Science

hmmm

Man arrested for smoking marijuana while in court for marijuana charge

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Drugs & Drink,Leave a comment

Boston, 20, was in court Monday in Wilson County, Tennessee, facing a simple marijuana possession charge, according to Wilson County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Scott Moore. But as he stood to face Judge Haywood Barry, he began expressing his views on why weed should be legalized.

And to amplify his point, he reached into his jacket and slipped out a single marijuana cigarette. He then pulled out a box of matches and, you guessed it, lit it up.

Man arrested for smoking marijuana while in court for marijuana charge – CNN

impressive.

The toxic reach of Deepwater Horizon’s oil spill was much larger — and deadlier — than previously published estimates

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Gulf Coast Region,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Current estimates show the 210 million gallons of oil released by the damaged BP Deepwater Horizon Macondo well spread out over the equivalent of 92,500 miles.

…Spreading with squid-like tentacles, the oil reached Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

In a massive spill response, federal workers, contractors and volunteers sought to detect it, contain it and use chemicals to disperse it. Yet large amounts of oil reached beyond the containment effort and were never fully accounted for until now, the study says.

…The the oil’s reach was 30 percent larger than that estimate, the new study says.

…A significant amount of oil and its toxic footprint moved beyond fishery closures where it was thought to be contained and escaped detection by satellites as it flowed near the Texas shore, west Florida shore and within a loop current that carries Gulf water around Florida’s southern tip up toward Miami.

…“Oil in these concentrations for surface water extended beyond the satellite footprint and fishery closures, potentially exterminating a vast amount of planktonic marine organisms across the domain,” the researchers wrote. The findings show that the government’s understanding of how oil flowed from Deepwater Horizon was limited and that it underestimated the extent to which marine life was killed or poisoned by toxic crude.

…“If you want to respond to this kind of spill, you have to know where the entire mass is, the amount of oil that came out of the well, and know that the footprint is not only on the surface, but in three dimensions,” she said.

The toxic reach of Deepwater Horizon’s oil spill was much larger — and deadlier — than previous estimates, a new study says – The Washington Post

hmmm

‘Invisible and Toxic’ Oil From Deepwater Horizon Spill Probably Made Disaster Much Worse Than Previously Thought

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Gulf Coast Region,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The Deepwater spill was caused by an explosion on the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig—located around 41 miles off the Louisiana coast—on April 20, 2010, which resulted in the deaths of 11 workers.

The rig subsequently sank and more than four million barrels of oil gushed out of the damaged Macondo well over the course of 87 days until the leak was finally capped, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

…The spill was the largest in marine history, releasing around 795 million liters (210 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico with slicks covering an estimated area of 57,500 square miles. The disaster caused extensive environmental damage and forced the closure of vast stretches of the Gulf to fishing operations.

…The “toxic extent” of the spill could [be] up to 30 percent greater than what previous satellite data has suggested, leaving a footprint which stretched from Florida’s Gulf Coast, to the shores of Texas and the Florida Keys.

…”We found that the oil spill extended beyond the satellite footprint, reaching areas which were considered non-contaminated such as the West Florida shelf and Texas shores. A part of the invisible portion that extended beyond the satellite footprint was toxic to marine life,” the authors said.

According to the study, toxic chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons may still be present in water for days or even weeks after satellites can no longer detect an oil slick.

‘Invisible and Toxic’ Oil From Deepwater Horizon Spill May Have Made Disaster Much Worse Than Previously Thought

sighhh….

Can charcoal make beef better for the environment?

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,Leave a comment

Biochar

This crumbly black substance is often made as a by-product of forestry and other industries. It is created when biomass is left in high-temperature, low-oxygen conditions, where it undergoes a process called pyrolysis. Long before its recent uptake in modern farming, biochar was created and added to soil by indigenous farmers in Amazonia from around the 5th Century BC, to form the rich black earth of the Amazon Basin known as “terra preta.”

…In 2012, a research group in Vietnam found that adding 0.5-1% biochar to cattle’s feed could reduce methane emissions by more than 10%, while other studies have found reductions of up to 17%. Studies on beef cows in the Great Plains of the US found that adding biochar to feed reduces cows’ methane emissions by between 9.5% and 18.4%. Given that methane makes up 90% of greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming, this could considerably cut cattle’s environmental footprint.

…He was originally drawn to it not for its potential to reduce his herd’s methane emissions, but as a way to sequester more carbon into the soil. This had the dual prospect of sinking carbon and improving soil health.

“Due to the highly porous nature and high surface area of biochar, it improves soil’s ability to hold more water,” says Bhawana Bhatta, a soil science lecturer of the University of Melbourne. “The fine network of pores within biochar gives room for soil microorganisms to live. This increases the microbial diversity in the soil.”

…Enticed by the addition of molasses along with the biochar, Pow’s cattle dutifully chowed down their enriched feed, produced their cowpats, and then the beetles got to work. The bovine beetles then got started on the cows’ dung, working in pairs. The male brings the dung to the female beetles who dig a tunnel into the soil. Every time a beetle burrows into the soil, it also brings to the surface new soil with high levels of phosphorus, which acts as a natural [fertilizer.]

Studies over a three-year period on Doug’s farm showed an increase in total organic carbon, and enhancing soil fertility from when he first started. The research showed that he was also improving soil water retention and increasing the amount of carbon that was being retained in the soil.

Can charcoal make beef better for the environment? – BBC Future

hmm

CIA Secretly Owned Global Encryption Provider, Built Backdoors, Spied On 100+ Foreign Governments: Report

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, International Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Privacy,Leave a comment

More than 100 countries across the globe relied for decades upon encryption equipment from a Swiss provider, Crypto AG, to keep their top-secret communications, well, top-secret. 

….The Swiss company that global governments trusted with their most sensitive of conversations for more than fifty years was actually owned by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in partnership with the West German BND intelligence service.

…Operation Rubicon, as it became known, was both brazen in nature and breathtaking in scope. Foreign governments paid top dollar for the equipment that was being used to spy upon them.

…The CIA and BND partnership added backdoors into the Crypto AG encryption products and used these for intelligence gathering purposes across the years.

CIA Secretly Owned Global Encryption Provider, Built Backdoors, Spied On 100+ Foreign Governments: Report

hmmmm