tingilinde

russia, trump and mcgonigal

Tim Snyder is a historian who studies tyrannies..  His latest post is well worth your time.

snip

...

The reporting on this so far seems to miss the larger implications. One of them is that Trump’s historical position looks far cloudier. In 2016, Trump's campaign manager (Manafort) was a former employee of a Russian oligarch (Deripaska), and owed money to that same Russian oligarch. And the FBI special agent (McGonigal) who was charged with investigating the Trump campaign's Russian connections then went to work (according to the indictment) for that very same Russian oligarch (Deripaska). This is obviously very bad for Trump personally. But it is also very bad for FBI New York, for the FBI generally, and for the United States of America.

Another is that we must revisit the Russian influence operation on Trump’s behalf in 2016, and the strangely weak American response. Moscow’s goal was to move minds and institutions such that Hillary Clinton would lose and Donald Trump would win. We might like to think that any FBI special agent would resist, oppose, or at least be immune to such an operation. Now we are reliably informed that a trusted FBI actor, one who was responsible for dealing with just this sort of operation, was corrupt. And again, the issue is not just the particular person. If someone as important as McGonigal could take money from foreigners while on the job at FBI New York, and then go to work for a sanctioned Russian oligarch he was once investigating, what is at stake, at a bare minimum, is the culture of the FBI's New York office. The larger issue is the health of our national discussions of politics and the integrity of our election process.

...

 

 

on water in the southwest

There isn't enough and it's about to get nasty.

snip

...

The outcome of that dispute will shape the future of the southwestern United States.

“We’re using more water than nature is going to provide,” said Eric Kuhn, who worked on previous water agreements as general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. “Someone is going to have to cut back very significantly.”

...

 

 

south korean misogyny and the low birth rate

South Korea's low birthrate, misogyny and a conservative government.  Many issues at play and women are losing.  

Will the spread of Christo-fascism in some states lead to similar issues among young women?

 

playing the coal game

Some interesting characters at a Montana operation.

snip

...

As night fell, a driver traveling along a state road some 20 miles away from Bluefield noticed a man on the roadside: a disheveled Mr. Price, who was rushed to a hospital. He told investigators he had been abducted by an outlaw biker gang that drugged him and took him to his motorcycle shop where they robbed him before loading him into a van and dumping him on the roadside. When surveillance cameras showed there hadn’t been a robbery, he changed his story, saying that the gang had asked him for coal train schedules for a scheme to traffic methamphetamines by rail.

The truth was, Mr. Price hadn’t been kidnapped at all. As he later admitted in court, he had staged his own kidnapping, a last-ditch attempt to escape investors’ wrath for embezzlement schemes totaling more than $20 million that he’d hatched with the president of the Montana coal mine.

...

 

 

taking your computer in for repair

There may be some issues..  sadly this isn't surprising.

snip

...

Researchers at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, recovered logs from laptops after receiving overnight repairs from 12 commercial shops. The logs showed that technicians from six of the locations had accessed personal data and that two of those shops also copied data onto a personal device. Devices belonging to females were more likely to be snooped on, and that snooping tended to seek more sensitive data, including both sexually revealing and non-sexual pictures, documents, and financial information.

...

 

 

 

how's your snowfall going this winter?

Almost none in this area of New Jersey.  Check out a variety of cities around the US.

 

 

 

io

One of the most active bodies in the solar system.

snip

...

Despite a number of close-flying spacecrafts over the past few decades — including the Voyager 1 and Galileo missions — as well as constant observation from Earth, there are lasting mysteries about the kind of volcanic activity on Io and how the moon’s fiery energy interacts with Jupiter and other nearby bodies.

Last year, Dr. Morgenthaler, who studies gases Io emits and the cloud said gases create around Jupiter, picked up signs that a different kind of eruption — a more powerful or more persistent one — was occurring.

...

 

 

a sweet jwst result

Detection of the ring system of tiny Chariklo

More a proof of concept rather than a discovery, but still very nice.

 

 

probably a right wing hero

Selling fake Covid-19 vaccination cards and destroying vaccines..  a Utah plastic surgeon and his friend.

At the very least he should pay a large fine and loose his medical license.

 

 

on ethics