>http://mileswmathis.com/monroe.pdf
did you notice this little sourceless article?
Oct 28 2003
"Terrorists or geeks could end the world"
US acknowledges Northwest dams have devastated the region’s Native tribes
SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. government on Tuesday acknowledged, for the first time, the harmful role it has played over the past century in building and operating dams in the Pacific Northwest — dams that devastated Native American tribes by inundating their villages and decimating salmon runs while bringing electricity, irrigation and jobs to nearby communities.
In a new report, the Biden administration said those cultural, spiritual and economic detriments continue to pain the tribes, which consider salmon part of their cultural and spiritual identity, as well as a crucial food source. The government downplayed or accepted the well-known risk to the fish in its drive for industrial development, converting the wealth of the tribes into the wealth of non-Native people, according to the report.
“The government afforded little, if any, consideration to the devastation the dams would bring to Tribal communities, including to their cultures, sacred sites, economies, and homes,” the report said. It added: “Despite decades of efforts and an enormous amount of funding attempting to mitigate these impacts, salmon stocks remain threatened or endangered and continued operation of the dams perpetuates the myriad adverse effects.”
The Interior Department’s report comes amid a $1 billion effort announced earlier this year to restore the region’s salmon runs before more become extinct — and to better partner with the tribes on the actions necessary to make that happen.
That includes increasing the production and storage of renewable energy to replace hydropower generation that would be lost if four dams on the lower Snake River are ever breached. Tribes, conservationists and even federal scientists say that would be the best hope for recovering the salmon, providing the fish with access to hundreds of miles of pristine habitat and spawning grounds in Idaho.
>watch the water
https://apnews.com/article/columbia-snake-river-dams-tribes-58f5c6737df3c3e141cbc8e1cd4926ca
Hundreds died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia amid intense heat, officials say
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Hundreds of people died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia as the faithful faced intense high temperatures at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom, officials said Wednesday as people tried to claim their loved ones’ bodies.
Saudi Arabia has not commented on the death toll amid the heat during the pilgrimage, required of every able Muslim once in their life, nor offered any causes for those who died. However, hundreds of people had lined up at the Emergency Complex in Al-Muaisem neighborhood in Mecca, trying to get information about their missing family members.
One list circulating online suggested at least 550 people died during the five-day Hajj. A medic who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss information not released publicly by the government said that the names listed appeared genuine. That medic and another official who also spoke on condition of anonymity said they believed at least 600 bodies were at the facility.
Temperatures on Tuesday reached 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in Mecca and the sacred sites in and around the city, according to the Saudi National Center for Meteorology. Onlookers saw some people faint while trying to perform the symbolic stoning of the devil. At the Grand Mosque in Mecca, temperatures reached 51.8 C (125 F) on Monday though pilgrims had already left for Mina, authorities said.
Others, including many Egyptians, lost track of their loved ones in the heat and the crowds. More than 1.83 million Muslims performed the Hajj in 2024, including more than 1.6 million pilgrims from 22 countries, and around 222,000 Saudi citizens and residents, according to the Saudi Hajj authorities.
https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-hajj-pilgrimage-heat-deaths-1d5199ba89da3c66dca00ccf6fca8045
Flubbed climate test won’t deter rich donors from altering the sky
Wealthy philanthropists with ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley are unbowed by a botched climate experiment to limit the amount of sunlight hitting the earth, vowing to continue bankrolling future solar geoengineering tests as temperatures catapult upward.
POLITICO contacted a dozen people or groups who funded a controversial program by the University of Washington to reflect sun rays by altering clouds. Those who responded indicated that it’s worth pushing through the public skepticism surrounding efforts to determine how to best deploy the last-ditch global warming fix — if at all.
“The Pritzker Innovation Fund believes in the importance of research that helps improve climate models and enables policymakers and the public to better understand whether climate interventions like marine cloud brightening are feasible and advisable,” Rachel Pritzker, the fund’s founder and president, said in a statement. “We will only get answers to these questions through open research that can inform science-based, democratic decision-making.”
The funders’ comments came after two high-profile experiments were shutdown following public backlash, pointing to the challenges of conducting controversial research that could result in weather disruptions or other unintended consequences. The latest experiment was derailed earlier this month when local officials in Alameda, California, rejected a request by Washington researchers to restart a test to brighten clouds from the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay.
The move followed the March cancellation of another solar geoengineering project in Sweden.
…
The Quadrature Climate Foundation, a philanthropy associated with the hedge fund Quadrature Capital, said most of its grants are dedicated to reducing carbon emissions and removing them from the atmosphere, rather than blocking sunlight. But it will continue to support geoengineering, which accounts for less than 5 percent of its $930 million funding portfolio.
Longtime Google executive Alan Eustace, who helped fund the University of Washington’s marine cloud brightening program, declined to comment on whether he would continue to support its solar geoengeering tests. Other people or groups backing the program did not respond to requests for comment.
They include the Larsen Lam Climate Change Foundation, which was established by cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam; the Kissick Family Foundation launched by the late investor John Kissick; and the Cohler Charitable Fund of former Facebook executive Matt Cohler.
The program’s other supporters are inventor Armand Neukermans, venture capitalists Chris and Crystal Sacca, and software engineer Dan Scales.
>Rachel Pritzker is an heir of the Pritzker family fortune, a center-left Democratic activist and funder, and a proponent of ecomodernism. She is the chair of Third Way, the Breakthrough Institute, and the Pritzker Innovation Fund. She was a founding board member of Media Matters of America and the Democracy Alliance
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/19/flubbed-climate-test-rich-donors-altering-sky-00164011
DAN HODGES: How Nigel Farage COULD become Prime Minister. With Tory wipe-out guaranteed, this chain smoking populist now has a plausible path to Downing Street…
Oh, how they laughed. Asked on Monday whether it was his intention to campaign for outright power in 2029, Nigel Farage was clear. ‘Yes, absolutely,’ he told the BBC. He planned to ‘build a bridgehead in the commons’ at this election, then construct a ‘big national campaigning movement around the country over the course of the next five years for genuine change’.
The response was mockery. ‘Ridiculous,’ said departing Cabinet minister Michael Gove. ‘Don’t be silly,’ proclaimed Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul.
They’re wrong. Our political establishment may not want to hear it. But with only two weeks of the campaign left, Reform’s leader now has a clear and credible path to Downing Street. Stage one involves him winning in Clacton. And that currently appears to be a formality. A projection published yesterday by pollster Ipsos has Farage on 52 per cent, with Labour way back on 24 per cent. The bookies have him 1-5 on to win the Essex seat. Yesterday he packed out the 820-seat Princes Theatre, in an event that one journalist likened to a rock concert.
Stage two is even easier to navigate, because it involves Tory wipe-out (guaranteed), followed by a realignment on the Right (equally inevitable). The current state of the Government’s fortunes was perfectly summed up by Mel Stride’s performance on this morning’s media round. The fact the hitherto anonymous Work and Pensions Secretary is now regularly being sent out to act as a sort of political pinata tells its own story.
But if anyone failed to get the message, Stride himself spelt it out. ‘You could see a Labour government with 450 or 460 seats, the biggest majority in the history of this country,’ he explained helpfully.
Once that wipe-out has occurred, the remnants of the Conservative Party will draw a single, simple conclusion. That they can never again go into a campaign with their electoral coalition split in two.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13546525/DAN-HODGES-Nigel-Farage-Prime-Minister-Tory-wipe-guaranteed-chain-smoking-populist-plausible-path-Downing-Street.html
Alleged bestiality bus with dozens of animals stopped in Pennsylvania
A bus suspected of being used for a bestiality operation was pulled over in southern Pennsylvania, causing authorities to notify the Adams County SPCA of a “strange situation.”
The incident occurred Saturday night when police said they came across a broken down school bus full of animals, which was pulling a trailer that also contained live mammals. Cops contacted the animal rescue workers, who said on Facebook the cargo included 30 birds, four shepherd-breed dogs, a bull and a pony. They were able to secure the animals overnight and remove them from their squalid conditions the following day.
“The dogs were being fed the chickens and the bull and pony were being used for bestiality purposes (in another state),” the SPCA wrote.
The organization said Tuesday that due to “past crimes” committed by Shawn Hirschbine, the driver of the bus, they would spend $10,000 to check the animals for human DNA.
The animals aren’t ready for new homes, but the Adams County SPCA, which planned to close for a few days to deal with the matter, was seeking donations to help cover the care of the animals. >Pennsylvania NBC affiliate WJAC said Hirschbine was arrested on an outstanding warrant in West Virginia for distributing obscene material to children.
It’s currently unclear what charges he could face, if any, for the treatment of the animals.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/06/18/adams-county-pa-bestiality-bus-driver-arrested
Another arrest in 2022: https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/-two-arrests-made-after-spca-serving-erie-county-rescues-farm-animals-and-dogs-from-property-in-orchard-park