Stephan: I found this article very interesting because I see it as a first example of what I think is going to be a major restructuring of the economies and cultures of states all over the country. The end of the carbon power era is a particular consideration in West Virginia, but climate change, for instance, will be a major factor in changing California as chemical industrial monoculture agriculture becomes unsustainable.
Center, right: Gov. Jim Justice’s car parked outside the state capitol with the license plate “COAL 3.” Bottom: A view of the soon-to-close Mylan Pharmaceuticals plant. | Credit: Raymond Thompson, Jr./POLITICO
MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—In a hotel just off of West Virginia University’s campus in early June, drowsy night shift workers from the local pharmaceutical plant filed through a poorly lit suite, filling out unemployment paperwork, applying for supplemental health insurance and cracking jokes about the breathtaking advertisements for a new state program that will pay you to move to a place many of them are considering leaving.
Six months before, officials at Viatris announced that the plant, which has been a fixture in Morgantown since 1965, would close at the end of July, shipping more than 1,500 jobs overseas. In a state already suffering from the freefall of its signature coal mining industry, the loss of jobs that paid as much as $80,000 sent alarms through the capital.
This spring, the state legislature passed a resolution calling on the governor, Congress and union-friendly President Joe Biden to save the plant by […]
Stephan: We are going to see, as this article describes, massive change in the trees and bushes that in large measure create what we call our environment. This is going to impact all life, from insects to birds, to humans. Who but the science community do you think is even considering what this means. If you live in a Red value state does your governor and legislature even believe climate change is real?
Giant sequoias in Sequoia National Park, California Credit: Vladimir Kudinov / Unsplash
Some 56 million years ago, just after the Paleocene epoch gave way to the Eocene, the world suddenly warmed. Scientists continue to debate the ultimate cause of the warming, but they agree on its proximate cause: A huge burst of carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere, raising Earth’s average temperature by 7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), as this event is known, is “the best geologic analog” for modern anthropogenic climate change, said University of Wyoming paleobotanist Ellen Currano.
She studies how the PETM’s sudden warmth affected plants. Darwin famously compared the fossil record to a tattered book missing most of its pages and with all but a few lines obscured. The PETM, which lasted roughly 200,000 years, bears out the analogy. Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin is the only place on Earth where scientists have found plant macrofossils (visible to the naked eye, that is) that date to the PETM. The fossil leaves that Currano and her colleagues have found there paint a vivid portrait.
Jake Johnson, Staff Writer - Raw Story/Common Dreams
Stephan: The politicization of getting vaccinated is insane. More than that, it is literally killing people, and as it continues will kill more. This trend demonstrates very clearly that about a third of Americans are emotionally very psychologically disordered. And it is all being generated by Trump and the other social monsters who serve him. It is, as I said, mad, and lethal, and unnecessary.
Outdoor cookout barbecue party Credit: Shutterstock
A new data analysis by researchers at Georgetown University pinpoints a number of undervaccinated clusters of the United States that pose a significant threat to the nation’s—and potentially the world’s—gradual progress against the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly given their potential to serve as “factories” for extremely contagious variants such as the now-dominant Delta strain.
The five most significant clusters identified by the Georgetown researchers are largely located in the southern U.S., in states such as Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana—all of which are currently experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases as Delta rips through communities concentrated with people who have yet to receive a single vaccine shot. Those clusters include more than 15 million people.
“The group of counties in each cluster… together have lower vaccination coverage than expected, and make up a large population size. All of the top five clusters are focused in the southeastern U.S.,” the researchers note.
“The more geographically clustered unvaccinated individuals are,” the […]
Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting - MedPage Today
Stephan: MedPage over the years has proven to be a reliable source of accurate medical data. I say this at the beginning because the disinformation and outright nonsense about Ivermectin and Covid make getting reliable information very difficult. I know from correspondence from readers that the Ivermectin issue is causing a lot of confusion. It turns out from this meta-analysis that the drug is neither as good nor as bad as whichever side claims and further research is needed. This is the way science is supposed to work.
Proponents of ivermectin for COVID-19 have long been talking about an expected review and meta-analysis led by Andrew Hill, PhD, of the University of Liverpool.
These results were finally published this week in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, and they’re positive — but they haven’t escaped criticism, and most researchers still want results from a randomized controlled trial.
The review and meta-analysis was conducted as part of the International Ivermectin Project Team from December 2020 to May 2021. Ivermectin proponents said Hill was conducting the analysis for the WHO, but MedPage Today was not able to confirm WHO involvement. Hill did not respond to an email request for comment.
Hill and colleagues assessed 24 randomized trials totaling 3,328 patients that involved some type of control, whether it was standard of care or another therapy. Sample sizes ranged from 24 to 400 participants. Eight of the studies had been published, nine were preprints, six were unpublished results shared for the analysis, and one was reported on a trial registry website.
In the 11 trials (totaling 2,127 patients) that focused on moderate […]
Norman Solomon, National Director of RootsAction.org - Reader Supported News
Stephan: History would suggest that the Republicans will take both houses of Congress in 2022. If that happens you can kiss democracy goodbye. The only thing that is going to block this from happening is massive, and I do mean massive turn out electing Democrats already in office and new members of both the House and Senate. Are you up to it?
Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell
Since the Civil War, midterm elections have enabled the president’s party to gain ground in the House of Representatives only three times, and those were in single digits. The last few midterms have been typical: In 2006, with Republican George W. Bush in the White House, his party lost 31 House seats. Under Democrat Barack Obama, his party lost 63 seats in 2010 and then 13 seats in 2014. Under Donald Trump, in 2018, Republicans lost 41 seats. Overall, since World War II, losses have averaged 27 seats in the House.
Next year, if Republicans gain just five House seats, Rep. Kevin McCarthy or some other right-wing ideologue will become the House speaker, giving the GOP control over all committees and legislation. In the Senate, where the historic midterm pattern has been similar, a Republican gain of just one seat will reinstall Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader.
To prevent such disastrous results, Democrats would need to replicate what happened the last time the president’s party didn’t lose House or Senate […]
