Up To 300,000 Left Homeless In Beirut After Blast Collapsed Walls Miles Away
August 5th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
After Tuesday’s deadly blast in Beirut which Lebanon’s PM linked to 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate which had unsafely sat in storage on the port going back to 2013, the governor of Beirut has estimated the damage is so pervasive throughout the city as to have left hundreds of thousands homeless.
U.S. Government And Yale Hold Trials On How Best To “Persuade” Americans To Take COVID-19 Vaccine
August 5th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
The study essentially looks at the best possible messaging that can be used on Americans, ranging from expressing vaccine benefits, to using messaging about economic impact, making someone feel guilty or embarrassed for not taking the vaccine, and so on.
The study looked at around 4000 participants aged 18 years and up, all of whom had to be US residents of course.
The various ‘arms’ used in the study when it came to messaging were as follows:
Other: Control message
Other: Baseline message
Other: Personal freedom message
Other: Economic freedom message
Other: Self-interest message
Other: Community interest message
Other: Economic benefit message
Other: Guilt message
Other: Embarrassment message
Other: Anger message
Other: Trust in science message
Other: Not bravery message
Deputies Accused of Being in Secret Societies Cost L.A. County Taxpayers $55 Million
August 5th, 2020Via: Los Angeles Times:
Los Angeles County has paid out roughly $55 million in settlements in cases in which sheriff’s deputies were alleged to belong to a secret society, records obtained by The Times show, illuminating the entrenched nature of a subculture that has plagued the Sheriff’s Department for years.
The figure comes from a list that includes payouts in dozens of lawsuits and claims involving deputies associated with tattooed groups accused of glorifying an aggressive style of policing. The report, prepared by L.A. County attorneys, lists nearly 60 cases, some of them still pending, and names eight specific cliques.
The county has paid out nearly $21 million in cases that began in the last 10 years alone, according to the document.
The high cost underscores how these deputy groups — with monikers such as the Vikings, Regulators, 3000 Boys and the Banditos — have operated out of several Sheriff’s Department stations and jails for decades, exhibiting what critics have long alleged are the violent, intimidating tactics similar in some ways to criminal street gangs. The cases involve incidents that date to 1990.
Over the years, a succession of elected sheriffs has failed to bring the subgroups under control despite multiple internal investigations and, more recently, a probe by the FBI. Many civil liberties advocates and county watchdogs have accused the Sheriff’s Department of turning a blind eye.
Starship SN5 150m Hop
August 5th, 2020One for your: You Don’t See That Everyday file folder.
Via: SpaceX:
Gold Hit $2,000 an Ounce for First Time
August 4th, 2020Via: AFP:
Gold prices on Tuesday hit $2,000 an ounce for the first time, the latest surge in a commodity seen as a refuge during economic uncertainty.
More: Gold prices stage record run above $2,000 mark as U.S. dollar and bond yields recede
Treating Children for Worms Yields Long-Term Benefits, Says New Study
August 4th, 2020Via: Berkeley:
Children who receive sustained treatment against common parasitic infections grow up to achieve a higher standard of living, with long-lasting health and economic benefits extending to their communities, according to new findings from a research team led by a University of California, Berkeley, economist.
The pioneering study, focused on Kenya and covering 20 years, found that children who receive a few extra years of deworming treatment — costing as little as 50 cents a year — eventually have better jobs and higher incomes than those who got less treatment.
How Congress Maintains Endless War
August 3rd, 2020The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.
—Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
Via: The Intercept:
“Political Operatives, Former Government and Military Officials, and Academics,” Game Scenario in Which Trump Refuses to Accept Election Loss
August 3rd, 2020It really does seem like things are going to get weird weirder.
Via: Boston Globe:
On the second Friday in June, a group of political operatives, former government and military officials, and academics quietly convened online for what became a disturbing exercise in the fragility of American democracy.
The group, which included Democrats and Republicans, gathered to game out possible results of the November election, grappling with questions that seem less far-fetched by the day: What if President Trump refuses to concede a loss, as he publicly hinted recently he might do? How far could he go to preserve his power? And what if Democrats refuse to give in?
“All of our scenarios ended in both street-level violence and political impasse,” said Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor and former Defense Department official who co-organized the group known as the Transition Integrity Project. She described what they found in bleak terms: “The law is essentially … it’s almost helpless against a president who’s willing to ignore it.”
Using a role-playing game that is a fixture of military and national security planning, the group envisioned a dark 11 weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day, one in which Trump and his Republican allies used every apparatus of government — the Postal Service, state lawmakers, the Justice Department, federal agents, and the military — to hold onto power, and Democrats took to the courts and the streets to try to stop it.
If it sounds paranoid or outlandish — a war room of seasoned politicos and constitutional experts playing a Washington version of Dungeons and Dragons in which the future of the republic hangs in the balance — they get it. But, as they finalize a report on what they learned and begin briefing elected officials and others, they insist their warning is serious: A close election this fall is likely to be contested, and there are few guardrails to stop a constitutional crisis, particularly if Trump flexes the considerable tools at his disposal to give himself an advantage.
“He doesn’t have to win the election,” said Nils Gilman, a historian who leads research at a think tank called the Berggruen Institute and was an organizer of the exercise. “He just has to create a plausible narrative that he didn’t lose.”
Unidentified Drones Flew in Restricted Airspace Above Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant
August 3rd, 2020Via: The WarZone:
Less than a year ago… a bizarre and largely undisclosed incident involving a swarm of drones occurred on successive September evenings in 2019. The location? America’s most powerful nuclear plant, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Station situated roughly two dozen miles west of Phoenix, near Tonopah, Arizona.
…
This particular story starts on Sept. 29, 2019. Shortly before 11:00 PM local time at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, Daphne Rodriguez, an Acting Security Section Chief at the plant, called the duty officer at NRC’s Headquarters Operations Center (HOC). Rodriguez reported that a number of drones were flying over and around a restricted area near the nuclear power plant’s Unit 3, which houses one of its three pressurized water reactors.
Crew Demo-2 Splashdown
August 2nd, 2020Via: SpaceX:
