Federal judge demands Trump administration reveal how its drilling plans will fuel climate change

Federal judge demands Trump administration reveal how its drilling plans will fuel climate change

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing in the West. The decision by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of Washington could force the Trump administration to account for the full climate impact of its energy-dominance agenda, and it could signal trouble for the president’s plan to boost fossil fuel production across the country. Contreras concluded…

Read More Read More

How social media’s business model helped the New Zealand massacre go viral

How social media’s business model helped the New Zealand massacre go viral

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: The ability of Internet users to spread a video of Friday’s slaughter in New Zealand marked a triumph — however appalling — of human ingenuity over computerized systems designed to block troubling images of violence and hate. People celebrating the mosque attacks that left 50 people dead were able to keep posting and reposting videos on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter despite the websites’ use of largely automated systems powered by artificial intelligence to block them. Clips…

Read More Read More

The rise of farming altered our bite and changed how people talk

The rise of farming altered our bite and changed how people talk

Comments 0 Comment

Science News reports: Humankind’s gift of gab is not set in stone, and farming could help to explain why. Over the last 6,000 years or so, farming societies increasingly have substituted processed dairy and grain products for tougher-to-chew game meat and wild plants common in hunter-gatherer diets. Switching to those diets of softer, processed foods altered people’s jaw structure over time, rendering certain sounds like “f” and “v” easier to utter, and changing languages worldwide, scientists contend. People who regularly…

Read More Read More

Descartes was wrong. ‘A person is a person through other persons’

Descartes was wrong. ‘A person is a person through other persons’

Comments 0 Comment

By Abeba Birhane According to Ubuntu philosophy, which has its origins in ancient Africa, a newborn baby is not a person. People are born without ‘ena’, or selfhood, and instead must acquire it through interactions and experiences over time. So the ‘self’/‘other’ distinction that’s axiomatic in Western philosophy is much blurrier in Ubuntu thought. As the Kenyan-born philosopher John Mbiti put it in African Religions and Philosophy (1975): ‘I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.’…

Read More Read More

Protecting indigenous lands protects the environment. Trump and Bolsonaro threaten both

Protecting indigenous lands protects the environment. Trump and Bolsonaro threaten both

Comments 0 Comment

Deb Haaland and Joênia Wapichana write: On Tuesday, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will meet with President Trump at the White House. Both administrations are pushing a host of policies that are detrimental to the rights of indigenous people. As two of the first female indigenous members of Congress in the United States and Brazil, respectively, we are concerned about these policies and the mounting threats facing our communities. We must stand up against toxic rhetoric and brutal attacks on the…

Read More Read More

‘Real leaders do exist’: Jacinda Ardern uses solace and steel to guide a broken nation

‘Real leaders do exist’: Jacinda Ardern uses solace and steel to guide a broken nation

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: In the hours after a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques in central Christchurch, prime minister Jacinda Ardern called a press conference that set the tone for a grief-stricken country. It has become a seminal moment of her leadership story. The 38-year-old prime minister has been tested like few New Zealand leaders before, leading the country as it deals with the worst terrorism attack in the nation’s modern history. Fifty people killed while at Friday prayers….

Read More Read More

The New Zealand massacre grew from Australian roots

The New Zealand massacre grew from Australian roots

Comments 0 Comment

Pankaj Mishra writes: The Australian-born gunman who killed 50 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week cited U.S. President Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” with his murderous white-supremacist cause. Trump condemned the massacre and said he was being unfairly blamed for it, setting off a familiar argument over the impact of his fondness for stoking existential fears among many white people around the world. He has indeed spoken, like the…

Read More Read More

The real reason the Trump administration is constantly losing in court

The real reason the Trump administration is constantly losing in court

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: Federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration at least 63 times over the past two years, an extraordinary record of legal defeat that has stymied large parts of the president’s agenda on the environment, immigration and other matters. In case after case, judges have rebuked Trump officials for failing to follow the most basic rules of governance for shifting policy, including providing legitimate explanations supported by facts and, where required, public input. Many of the…

Read More Read More

Mitochondria are much more than the powerhouses inside cells

Mitochondria are much more than the powerhouses inside cells

Comments 0 Comment

Diana Kwon writes: Of all the organelles to be found inside eukaryotic cells, the DNA-sheltering nuclei might be the best-known, but the mitochondria are surely not far behind. Mitochondria are familiar as bean-shaped structures floating in the cytoplasm, and they are almost inevitably referred to as “powerhouses” of the cell because they generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel for most metabolic processes. For more than a century, biologists believed that energy production was their only role. But that simple picture…

Read More Read More

Speaker Bercow’s ruling has breathed new life into the people’s vote on Brexit

Speaker Bercow’s ruling has breathed new life into the people’s vote on Brexit

Comments 0 Comment

Polly Toynbee writes: Brexit fatigue and Brexit bullying are Theresa May’s instruments of torture to grind recalcitrant MPs into passing her destructive deal. No more, says the Speaker: this war of attrition must stop. Her deal must change and if she brings one back, it must be “fundamentally different”. How different? He can’t say until he sees what plan, if any, she will present. Rightly John Bercow complains of time wasted, of running down the clock as she tries to…

Read More Read More

Republicans are denying the undeniable truth of Trump’s bigotry against Muslims

Republicans are denying the undeniable truth of Trump’s bigotry against Muslims

Comments 0 Comment

Jonathan Chait writes: The man who murdered 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, has hailed President Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity.” But Trump’s supporters piously deny he is any such thing. “If you find yourself using the tragedy in New Zealand to take backhanded swipes at conservatives in America — many of my colleagues already have — then you really have no shame and you are part of the problem,” complains Texas representative Dan Crenshaw. Acting White…

Read More Read More

Why do white supremacists love Tucker Carlson so much?

Why do white supremacists love Tucker Carlson so much?

Comments 0 Comment

Aiden Pink writes: Here’s what white supremacists said about Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson when they thought no one else was looking: “Tucker is really doing divine work.” “A lone voice of reason in the media.” “Tucker is a blessing, def[initely] our guy.” The uproar this past week over numerous recently-uncovered insensitive comments Carlson made on a radio show overshadowed news that could have been even worse for him: A massive leak of internal chat logs from Identity Evropa,…

Read More Read More

House Judiciary Committee planning hearing on the rise of white nationalism

House Judiciary Committee planning hearing on the rise of white nationalism

Comments 0 Comment

The Daily Beast reports: The House Judiciary Committee is planning on hosting a hearing in the coming weeks addressing the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. and the hate crime and hate speech surrounding the movement, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the committee’s schedule. The hearing comes on the heels of two mass shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed 50 people. According to local law enforcement, the man charged with those attacks wrote…

Read More Read More