Throwing eco fascism into the mix

Huffington Post, of all places, notes that the El Paso shooter's manifesto includes references to eco terrorism - the need to reduce humans for the sake of the planet.   It goes on to point out that this is not the first time it has appeared in white supremacist material. (And also, I did not know, in some of the European nationalist parties.)

This will, no doubt, be used by the Wingnut Right, which has convinced itself that Nazis were purely a Left wing phenomena and nothing to do with their side of the political spectrum (which is pure of heart, not like the evil, human-hating, Socialists which everything to the Left of them is now labelled), to deny that it has anything to do with why young men keep shooting up blacks, Hispanics and Jews.

It's not going to wash.  

 

Like that would come across as sincere

I see that Claire Lehmann, whose Quillette site has made a speciality of encouraging Right wing panic over antifa (current death count:  0), has re-tweeted the Washington Examiner's call for Trump to clearly and unequivocally denounce white nationalist terrorism.

Even in doing so, the Examiner can't help but attack part of the Left:

Plenty in the media and in politics blame Trump for the rise of white nationalism. Many of them are the same folks who have always argued that conservatism — whether tax cuts, defense of the unborn, or belief in free enterprise — is just thinly veiled racism, and on these grounds alone they don't deserve to be taken seriously. Even so, a president has to be above the blame game played by his critics. The single best way to prove them wrong would be for Trump to crusade actively against white nationalism.  

Well, that's big of them.

It's also a bit of a joke.   As someone writes in comments following Lehmann's tweet:

Yes:  how on earth could Trump possibly come across as sincere when he built his election campaign on fear of Hispanic and other immigration, and has continually re-stoked the fear at unnecessary rallies (done only to boost his ego) since holding office.

As for Lehmann:  I haven't spent a lot of time at Quillette, but my impression is that some of the essays there are OK - the ones which aren't so overtly political mainly - but I still get a strong impression that she is at heart a professional concern troll.   Her pre-Quillette video about the connection between feminism and obesity gave off a strong vibe of insincere "but I'm just being reasonable here".    Given that her site now is one of the prime ones giving diversionary cover to Republicans on the issue of white nationalism (but look - antifa!),  and her antifa star Andy Ngo apparently tweeted a 2016 video of car damage around the time of the El Paso shooting, I find her internet activity on this topic, at the very least, unhelpful.

I should also mention her attitude to publishing the "look, some journalists follow antifa on Twitter" article, which some of the journalists believe led to death threats from white nationalists, was pretty much inexcusable.  

Of course, none of this is to say that antifa should be ignored, and that questions around the policing of rallies should not be raised.  But until Lehmann lets her site show some more perspective on where the more serious problem in the USA lies, I don't give her credit for claiming to be Ms Reasonable.



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Bad drought, bad flood

*Cough* climate change *cough*:

THE ongoing drought through the Murray Darling Basin is now the worst on record according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Speaking during a Bureau of Meteorology seminar on climate, BOM climatologist David Jones said the drought had now exceeded the Federation Drought, the WWII drought and the Millennium drought in terms of its severity through the Murray Darling Basin.

"Our records only go back 120 years but in terms of the rainfall records it is the most severe," Dr Jones said.

Hydrologist and water sector engagement lead with BOM Matthew Coulton said this had also translated into markedly lower run-off into the system.

Dr Jones added temperatures were as high as they have been during the human era, saying the nearest equivalent according to paleo-climatic data (analysing historical weather trends) was a hot period encountered 2-3 million years ago.

"We are still below that threshold of a couple of million years ago but we are starting to approach it," Dr Jones said.

And the BOM panel had tough news for those hoping for a swift resolution to the big dry.

"Our climate forecasts for the next three months show well below average chances of exceeding median rainfall through most of the MDB, especially in the north," Dr Jones said.

 On the other side of the world:

Hundreds of homes were evacuated in a Derbyshire town on Thursday when a dam threatened to burst after being damaged during extreme rainfall.

Around 1,400 people in 400 houses in Whaley Bridge were told to leave their properties with just minutes’ notice due to “an unprecedented, fast-moving, emergency situation” caused by heavy downpours.

Actually, the rainfall that has been around that dam is not being claimed as "record", as far as I can see - but climate change makes for more extreme rainfall events so it's an example of what climate change is bringing anyway.

Boris as usual

Noted in this Washington Post report on Boris Johnson tour of bits of the kingdom that aren't very united behind him:

Nichola Mallon, a leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, said she had a “very blunt meeting” with Johnson and observed that he did not have a full grasp of the “complexities” of Northern Ireland. 

She said she told Johnson that he “must avoid a hard Brexit at all costs.” 

Mallon said she reminded the prime minister that he had responsibilities under the Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of sectarian violence, and that he “must live up to them.”

Mallon said, “We pressed him time and time again and just got stock responses.”

Quantum Darwinism discussed

Peter Woit (of the Not Even Wrong blog) says this: 

Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First Tests 

is a good article, so it probably is.

Haven't the time to read it all right now, though. 

So she's an influencer?

A "reality star" has been criticised for promoting use of a diet product while pregnant.  What a surprise that such a heavily and garishly tattooed women might not be the most sensible person to pay attention to:

The slug gambit

A catering war in Victoria possibly involves slug sabotage:

A former health inspector at the City of Greater Dandenong says council managers seemed intent on shutting down a family catering business that was competing with another catering company part-owned by the council.

The owner of the shuttered business, I Cook Foods, even claims a council inspector planted a slug on its premises, which was then used as evidence the company had breached food safety regulations.....

The council has since charged I Cook Food's owner, Ian Cook, with 48 breaches of the Food Act, including one charge relating to the slug allegedly found in the kitchen the day before it was closed.

But Mr Cook claims the inspector — who did not use the normal body-worn camera during the inspection — planted the slug as evidence against the company.

The company's CCTV cameras were operating during the inspection, but did not capture the discovery of the slug, which was outside the camera's field of vision.

Heat death noted

It's summer and hot and humid in Japan.   This is a very unfortunate way to die, and I have to say, I did not realise that the Japanese did not really know how to avoid heatstroke in such high numbers:

A 28-year old man in a mascot costume who was training for a dance performance died of heatstroke Monday at Hirakata Park, a theme park in Osaka Prefecture. As of 5 p.m. the same day, the Tokyo Fire Department said 63 people had been hospitalized for heatstroke in the capital, with two people in their 70s and 80s in serious condition.

Last Saturday, a 91-year-old woman died of heatstroke in Saitama Prefecture after she was found lying in her garden at around noon. According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, about 95,000 people were taken to hospitals for heatstroke during the May-September period last year, exceeding the previous high of 58,000 logged in 2013.

Not a fascist: just a proto-fascist. Great.

I refer to this article, at The Guardian:   Is this fascism? No. Could it become fascism? Yes

Get it while it lasts

The new Chrome will apparently get around the way lots of paywalls currently work.  Yay, for a while, even though I don't like to overdo the freeloading.

(I don't like Chrome much as a Windows browser, though.  Long time Firefox user here, although some versions have developed memory hogging issues.   Chrome is fine on Android, although I recently just started trying Brave as an alternative, and it seems very fast and quite good.  Not entirely sure what it is wanting me to do sometimes, but I ignore that.)

Making your own fake meat

I ate the left over vegetarian chilli con carne last night - yeah, the flavour was good (most spiced dishes taste better as leftovers, don't they?), but thinking about the texture of the vege mince, it did remind me again that it had a bit of a stickiness to it, unfortunately reminding me of what you get if you chew paper. 

This whole texture of fake meat issue is very important to me, and watching Youtubes where they try to make vegan analogues of real meat, it's obviously a prime concern of others too.

Last night, I watched this one and was interested to see it used pea protein isolate, which I think is the main ingredient in the Beyond Burger.   Given that I don't hang out in health food stores, I didn't realise that this product was a powder readily available.  

So here's this guy, trying to make imitation chicken using it and one main other ingredient as a binder:



I think I have worked out why this topic appeals to me - it's a bit like watching a science experiment, and now that my kids are well past doing science experiments at home, I need a substitute.

Fake meat experimentation in my kitchen might be it.

The old invisible ink trick

Spotted this at Gulf News:

Dubai: A customer service employee was sentenced to 10 years in jail for stealing Dh1 million from a customer’s account, a Dubai Court of First Instance heard.

The Egyptian defendant, 42, who is still at large, conned the customer by using magic ink when the latter wrote his name on the cheque to deposit the money in his account. When the name disappeared because of the ink, the defendant put his name on the cheque, cashed the money and escaped.

That lasted a long time

MIT Technology review notes that Facebucks might never happen: 

The company has warned investors that the currency, which it wants to launch next year, may not ever get off the ground.

The news: In its quarterly report, Facebook reminded investors that the proposed currency, called Libra, is “based on new and unproven technology," adding that the legal environment surrounding digital currencies is “uncertain and evolving.” That could cause Libra to be delayed or even blocked, it said.

The backstory: Facebook revealed its ambitions for Libra a month and a half ago. Since then, it has faced skepticism and backlash from government bankers and politicians, who have criticized Facebook’s track record on privacy and warned that its plan to launch a private currency to billions of people could be risky.

Onward: During Facebook’s quarterly earnings call CEO Mark Zuckerberg struck an optimistic tone, affirming that the company will spend “however long it takes” to earn regulators’ approval before launching.

Living under the Moon

From Space.com: 

Living Underground on the Moon: How Lava Tubes Could Aid Lunar Colonization

Finding a lava tube that has lots of ice inside would be fantastic site for a base, I would think. 

And the doctor is always in

Psychoanalyse yourself:

A new study shows that conversation with oneself embodied as Dr. Sigmund Freud works better to improve people's mood, compared to just talking about your problems in a virtual conversation with pre-scripted comments. Researchers claimed that the method could be used by clinicians to help people dealing with minor personal problems.

The explanation as to why this should be is given at the link as follows:

People are often much better at giving useful advice to a friend in trouble than they are in dealing with their own problems. Although we typically have continuous internal dialogue, we are trapped inside our own way of thinking with our own history and point of view, and find it difficult to take an external perspective regarding our own problems. However, with friends, especially someone we know well, it is much easier to understand the bigger picture, and help them find a way through their problems.

A research team of the University of Barcelona (UB), IDIBAPS and Virtual BodyWorks, a spin-off of both institutions and ICREA, has used immersive virtual reality to observe the effects of talking to themselves as if they were another person, using virtual reality.

The technique is complicated, though:

For this technique to work out,researchers scanned the person to obtain an 'avatar' which is a 3D-likeness of the person. In virtual reality, when they look at themselves, at their body parts, or in a mirror, they will see a representation of themselves. When they move their real body, their virtual body will move in the same way and at the same time. Seated across the table is another virtual human, in the case of this experiment, a representation of Dr Sigmund Freud.

The participant can explain their personal problem to Dr Freud, and then switch to being embodied as Freud. Now, embodied as Freud, when they look down towards themselves, or in a mirror, they will see Freud's body rather than their own, and also this body will move in synchrony with their own movements. "They will see and hear their own likeness explaining the problem, and they see their virtual self as if this were another person. Now they themselves have become the 'friend' who is listening and trying to help," said Mel Slater.

 Working in psychology research sounds fun, no?