Asymmetric Media

Paul Rosenberg discusses a study published in the Columbia Journalism Review in which "fake news" is identified as a problem, but "its overall impact was overshadowed by the sheer volume of stories coming from the established media".

Although "92% of claims of media bias in the 1988, 1992, and 1996 elections came from Republicans alleging liberal bias", Rosenberg characterizes The New York Times as "effectively hacked by pro-[von Clownstick] forces" and describes the findings of the CJR study as "shocking".

The Times was de facto strongly biased against Hillary Clinton and in favor of [Fuckface von Clownstick], simply by what the paper chose to focus on.

In particular:

[The study] found roughly four times as many Clinton-related sentences that described scandals as opposed to policies, whereas [von Clownstick]-related sentences were one-and-a-half times as likely to be about policy as scandal. Given the sheer number of scandals in which [Fuckface] was implicated ... it is striking that the media devoted more attention to his policies than to his personal failings. Even more striking, the various Clinton-related email scandals ... accounted for more sentences than all of [von Clownstick's] scandals combined (65,000 vs. 40,000) and more than twice as many as were devoted to all of her policy positions.

To the extent that voters mistrusted Hillary Clinton, or considered her conduct as secretary of state to have been negligent or even potentially criminal, or were generally unaware of what her policies contained or how they may have differed from [Fuckface von Clownstick's], these numbers suggest their views were influenced more by mainstream news sources than by fake news.

Rosenberg quotes co-author Duncan Watts' explanation for the bias.

[E]veryone was assuming Hillary would win and didn’t want to look as if they had helped her, so they were (either consciously or unconsciously) tougher on her.

[Second], liberal intellectual types (which describes most journalists) are much more worried than conservatives and anti-intellectuals about appearing to be unbiased, and so overcompensate.

Rosenberg maintains that conservatives do strategize ways to manipulate the establishment media.

That’s exactly what I mean by employing the metaphor of hacking: The right uses Enlightenment values, practices and institutions to subvert and destroy those very values, practices and institutions. They are essentially hacking our culture.

Update (April 25, 2018):  New York Times reporter Amy Chozick concedes in her book that poor judgement was used during the election.

In a chapter titled “How I Became an Unwitting Agent of Russian Intelligence,” Chozick, who spent a decade covering Hillary Clinton for the Times and The Wall Street Journal, recounts the October afternoon when WikiLeaks began releasing a new set of documents obtained from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s Gmail account. By then, journalists had reason to suspect that hackers working for Russian intelligence services were the source of the emails. Nonetheless, Chozick writes that she “chose the byline” rather than urging her editors to consider the possibility that the paper was being used by a hostile government. She was not alone -- virtually every major publication devoted significant attention to the hacked emails.

Update (June 22, 2018):  The Washington Post reports that The National Inquirer would regularly pass along stories about von Clownstick to Michael Cohen for approval before publication. Matthew Rozsa comments:

[T]his [demonstrates] that the same man who regularly complains about "fake news" has no qualms about colluding with a publication that literally publishes fake news if it can help his political career.

Never Ending Job Insecurity

Michael Hobbes takes an in-depth look at the economic troubles his generation faces.

All of these trends—the cost of education, the rise of contracting, the barriers to skilled occupations—add up to an economy that has deliberately shifted the risk of economic recession and industry disruption away from companies and onto individuals. For our parents, a job was a guarantee of a secure adulthood. For us, it is a gamble. And if we suffer a setback along the way, there’s so little to keep us from sliding into disaster.

In one of the most infuriating conversations I had for this article, my father breezily informed me that he bought his first house at 29. It was 1973, he had just moved to Seattle and his job as a university professor paid him (adjusted for inflation) around $76,000 a year. The house cost $124,000 — again, in today’s dollars. I am six years older now than my dad was then. I earn less than he did and the median home price in Seattle is around $730,000. My father’s first house cost him 20 months of his salary. My first house will cost more than 10 years of mine.

We live in a very wealthy nation in which it is still possible to find shocking poverty. The middle class is being eroded away in favor of the rich. A decent retirement is becoming elusive. Oligarchy cements it's control over public goods like the internet itself and even the idea of government is under attack. Despite some hopeful signs, Lucian Truscott is having nightmares.

Could one political party actually have a plan to harm the citizens?

Absolutely, [said a friend]. ... He had been on the school board for many years, one of three Democrats on board controlled by a Republican majority. This was a wealthy suburban county with a healthy tax base and a school budget that was in excellent shape ... [so] that they could fund a study of the problems their schools faced .... Their data in past studies was good enough that they had tried funding some solutions, and they worked. If they spent this much, they could increase graduation rates by ten points. If they spent that much, they could increase reading scores at fourth and eighth grade levels.

Then the Republicans reached their limit. They knew that spending another few hundred per student per year would yield specific improvements in graduation rates, the numbers of students who would qualify for college, and so forth. But businesses needed a certain number of high school drop-outs to fill minimum wage jobs. They needed a population with a certain percentage that hadn’t gone to a four year college and would take low-wage jobs. They needed, in short, an underclass, and spending more on education wouldn’t yield one that was large enough.

My friend told me that privately Republicans would admit what they were doing. But they never talked about it publicly.

Republicans aren’t a political party anymore. They’re the American Taliban. They’ve set out to lay waste to America as we’ve known it.

It’s not a nightmare, it’s a goddamned political program .... If they were willing to support Roy Moore’s failed campaign for United States Senate, they’ll do anything. They’re in it for the long haul and they won’t stop.

Update (December 23):  Now that the tax cuts are in place, should the Republicans be wary of what they wished for? Conor Lynch:

Capitalism is, after all, an inherently unstable system that breeds inequality and class conflict. When the “free market” is left unfettered, these tendencies — what Marxists call the “contradictions of capitalism” — go unchecked and worsen over time. There is a real irony in the Republican effort to reverse Obama’s economic agenda in the name of reviving the capitalist spirit, since their right-wing agenda will likely do more to engender a crisis of capitalism than anything the “anti-capitalist” Obama ever did.

And Andrew O'Hehir insists that we reject the "dark gifts" from Dear Leader at our peril.

What [he] shows us ... is a society where Enlightenment values are withering away because economic reality no longer supports them — where the “passionate belief in progress” has soured into endless, spiritless consumption, where the middle class believes itself stuck or sinking, and where massive wealth inequality has produced a new oligarchic order that would put the feudal lords to shame.

Is that the whole truth of our society? Not at all. Does [Fuckface] understand the vision he is showing us, or possess a remedy for it? Of course not. But he is a clever goblin; there is always truth beneath his lies, if you can stand to dig for it. Can we save democracy if we are unwilling to accept his gifts, and try to learn from them? Not a chance.

Update (December 31):  Nomi Prins sees trouble ahead.

[T]he Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and other smaller regulatory authorities in Washington will push for greater deregulation of the financial systems and banking industry on any level possible. If there is another financial crisis in 2018 or later, it will be worse than the last one because the system remains fundamentally unreformed, banks remain too big to fail and the Fed and other central banks continue to control the flow of funds to these banks (and through to the markets) by maintaining a cheap cost of funds.

Politically, no one in any position of power will do anything to fix any of this.

Update (January 2, 2018):  Valerie Vande Panne confronts the arguments used to defend capitalism.

Capitalism is, at its core, an entrenched system of addiction, whose very root is the greed of over-consumption, whether it's food, sex, money, mouse clicks, or property.

Here are five myths people continue to promote that we’ll all be better off without:
1. Jobs will save us
2. Brand loyalty over small businesses
3. Trickledown economics works
4. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps
5. Everyone is free in a capitalist society

Capitalism ... [robs] freedom from millions of Americans who could, in another time and under a humane system of economic governance, might prosper in communities they are able to contribute to and benefit from.

Update (February 10, 2018):  With some oscillations in the stock market, maybe the economy isn't as great as some tout it to be.

Update (February 20, 2018):  Paul Buchheit responds to those who deny the fact that millions of Americans are among the world's poorest.

Poverty is not just the few dollars a day coming into the household, cash or non-cash. There is poverty in the diminishing quality of life for the bottom half of America. Poverty is the stress of overwhelming debt; the inability to pay for medical treatment during years of declining health; the lack of community support as part of a true safety net; the near-absence of retirement savings for over half the population; the steady decline of jobs that pay enough to support a family; the well-documented impact of America's inequality on its citizens' physical and mental well-being. Part of the definition of poverty is "the state of being inferior in quality." The extreme level of inequality in the U.S. is battering the poor with a sense of inferiority. It's ripping apart once-interdependent communities, and it's triggering a surge in drug and alcohol and suicide "deaths of despair."

Update (March 21, 2018):  Rent Cafe used Census data to discover that the percentage of renters grew faster than home owners in 97 of the 100 largest U.S. cities from 2006 to 2016. And in 22 of those cities, renters became the majority of the population.

Update (March 23, 2018):  Mary Elizabeth Williams has a personal story about the burden of student loan debt.

[A]s my firstborn daughter now approaches her high school graduation, I know that 18 years of saving have not yielded much in the way of college tuition. I also know that the current American student tuition and loan system is a more shocking shell game than I'd even dreamed.

Update (March 28, 2018):  Here's an old idea starting to get some traction:

Have the federal government guarantee employment, with benefits and a living wage, to every American willing and able to work.

Update (May 5, 2018):  David Lynch finds indications that "soaring stocks, cheap loans and low inflation" is in the process of changing.

[T]he rise in consumer prices and interest rates — and the stagnating stock market — are seen by many as warning signs that this period of easy growth could be ending.

Also, automation has the potential to cut jobs in unionized occupations which makes unions even weaker to help workers make a transition.

Update (May 28, 2018):  The Health of American report from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association finds that diagnoses for major depression are increasing.

The data, based on insurance claims filed by 41 million privately insured Blue Cross Blue Shield members, shows a 63 percent rise in diagnosis rates in adolescents (ages 12 to 17) from 2013 to 2016. According to the report, millennials ages 18 to 34 have experienced a 47 percent increase in major depression diagnoses.

Update (June 14, 2018):  Bruce Levine argues that many people are "broken".

My experience is that young people, in general, are becoming increasingly pained and weakened by multiple oppressive forces, and older people who give a damn about them can help. The 1% will always attempt to seize powerful technologies and institutions to pacify all of us—especially young people. To manage these technologies and institutions, the 1% needs technocrats, administrators, and guards; thus, what would help is what Howard Zinn called a “revolt of the guards.” However, if technicians, teachers, mental health professionals, and other guards never even admit to ourselves our societal role—as guards who maintain the status quo—then we guards will never consider a revolt. Many older people are guards, and they can choose to revolt and help young people gain the strength necessary to resist injustices.

Update (June 15, 2018):  Richard Wolff makes the case for worker cooperatives.

Under the cooperative model, workers have decision-making power that corresponds to the risks and productivity of their employment. Each worker gets an equal vote on decisions, which are made on a majority basis.

Update (June 22, 2018):  Casey Bond looks at several reasons why home ownership isn't worth it anymore.

Update (June 24, 2018):  Inflation was at a six-year high last month and way down at the bottom of the story, Bloomberg admits:

For production and nonsupervisory workers, real average hourly earnings fell 0.1 percent from a year earlier.

I think The Young Turks overhypes this news a bit, but they do point out that this impacts about 80 percent of workers and cite experts who claim any kind of decrease in wages is unusual at a time of low unemployment.

Senator Child Molester--Not!

With the election of Roy Moore, we now know that the idea of Republicans upholding some kind of morality is an absolute, fucking lie. Charles Blow:

Republicans have surrendered the moral high ground they thought they held, and have dived face-first into the sewer.

There will be no way to shake the stench of this homophobic, Islamophobic, sexist, racist apologist and accused pedophile. He is them, and they are him. Any pretense of tolerance and egalitarianism, already damaged by a Republican history of words and deeds, will be completely obliterated.

Update:  Never happier to be more wrong. By about one and a half percent, Doug Jones was elected. Maybe there is a limit to just how big of an asshole people will put up with.

Steven Law of the conservative Senate Leadership Fund is already pulling out the knives.

This is a brutal reminder that candidate quality matters regardless of where you are running. Not only did Steve Bannon cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the president of the United States into his fiasco.

Update (December 13):  Jonathan Cohn thinks the GOP is in trouble.

One of the most remarkable results Tuesday was exit polling that showed Alabama voters split down the middle, 48 percent to 48 percent, on whether they approved of [von Clownstick's] performance in office. That’s quite a statement from voters in a state that voted overwhelmingly for [Fuckface] just a little more than a year ago.

And Amanda Marcotte notes that turnout matters--a lot.

The lesson here is simple: Democrats should stop chasing those elusive Republicans who have had enough. Generally speaking, they will vote for a child molester over a Democrat. There is no "too far" for Republicans, at least when it comes to beating Democrats. Instead, stop treating constituencies that loyally vote for Democrats as an afterthought, and put them first, both in policy and in organizing.

Update (December 14):  Ron Browstein agrees that the GOP has problems.

Jones beat Moore with a strong turnout and a crushing lead among African Americans, a decisive advantage among younger voters, and major gains among college-educated and suburban whites, especially women. That allowed Jones to overcome big margins for Moore among the key elements of [von Clownstick's] coalition: older, blue-collar, evangelical, and nonurban white voters.

This was the same equation that powered the Democratic victories in the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races. The consistency of these results suggests that Democrats are coalescing a powerful coalition of the very voters that polls have shown are the most disenchanted, even disgusted, by [Fuckface's] performance and behavior as president.

Heather Digby Parton summarizes.

[Dear Leader] is creating a rabidly loyal following among shrinking demographics, while inflaming those groups that are growing.

And continues.

Then there were the brave women who came forward to tell their stories about Roy Moore stalking and molesting them when they were teenage girls. That took a lot of guts and undoubtedly made a difference in the race. Women supported Jones by a 57 to 42 percent margin, while men gave Moore almost the identical advantage, 57 to 40 percent.

It's true that a majority of white women went for the Republican (as a majority of white voters have typically done in recent years), but many more white college-educated women voted for Doug Jones than usual. That demographic is moving rapidly into the Democratic column and there are many reasons for it, most obviously that the Republican Party keeps nominating misogynists for high office and dismissing women who come forward to reveal the truth about their characters.

Update (December 15):  Jones won despite ongoing voter suppression.

Chauncey DeVega notes that notes that Moore won the vast majority of white votes.

Sociologist Michael Kimmel explained the toxic allure of sexism and racism for white Republican voters to me by email: "I think that the tradition which Moore represents is one of 'everyone knowing their place.' That is, women in the kitchen and black people subservient to whites. And in that sense, 'making American great again' is returning to that imagined era."

Naturally, a double standard still exists.

If black Christians cited scripture to make excuses for a man who by all accounts and preyed on underage girls for decades, sober people on television would call for a "national discussion" about whether the "black church" was a public menace. On cue, right-wing bloviators would issue poisonous rhetorical questions: Where are the black fathers? Where are the black leaders? Where do black people learn such values?

Update (December 17):  Andrew O'Hehir says it's not just about winning.

One way of framing the looming contests of 2018 and 2020 is to ask whether a party with no ideas can defeat a party with no soul. ... I don’t mean that question to sound as moralistic or prejudicial as it probably does. Maybe ideas and ideology don’t much matter in American politics, or at least don’t matter now. [Fuckface von Clownstick] certainly doesn’t have any.

But at some point the question of what ideas animate the Democratic Party -- and whether ideas even matter, in the ... symbolic shadow-play of American politics -- will become unavoidable if we are to have a functioning democracy.

And Neal Gabler thinks we're facing serious and permanent damage to our politics--that conservatism has become a civic religion.

Modern conservatism, like debased religion, has an explanation for everything, and there is nothing mysterious or spiritual about it. [Von Clownstick] understood the desire for some all-encompassing answer, as demagogues always do. Demagogues assume the proportions of religious leaders, but without the moral instruction. Through a process of simplification, they purport to tell their followers what happened and who is responsible. In short, they provide cosmology, not for the purpose of enlightenment, but for the opposite — benightedness.

The way to defeat them is to live ethically.

[P]rogressives need to provide an alternative narrative ... that will explain the world without distorting it. It should tell the story of economic inequality, and of plutocracy, and of the role of conservatives in enabling these things. It should also provide a positive vision of community and mutual assistance and global interdependence. It should promote compassion and empathy. It should be simple, powerful and affirmative, and it should be repeated endlessly the way [Fuckface] repeats his racist/nativist/sexist/phobic narrative. I am convinced that you don’t fight fire with fire, which is why I am dubious of Democratic efforts to out tough [Dear Leader]. You fight fire with water.

Update (December 24):  Apparently, Senator Mitch McConnell sent a memo to the White House proposing ways of postponing the election.

In the weeks leading up to the special election, as accusations of misconduct appeared to weaken Roy Moore’s standing in the polls and it seemed he might leave the race, Republican leaders explored options for delaying the election—presumably to reduce their party’s chances of losing.

Update (December 28):  An asshole and a sore loser.

Update (November 27, 2018):  The child molester got stopped, but not the white supremacist.

Update (June 20, 2019):  What. The. Fuck.

Disgraced former Alabama Judge Roy Moore, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault, is running for the U.S. Senate again.

A Tantrum Away

From Beatrice Fihn, executive director of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons:

Fear is rational. The threat is real. We have avoided nuclear war not through prudent leadership but good fortune. Sooner or later, if we fail to act, our luck will run out.

A moment of panic or carelessness, a misconstrued comment or bruised ego, could easily lead us unavoidably to the destruction of entire cities. A calculated military escalation could lead to the indiscriminate mass murder of civilians.

The end is inevitable. But will that end be the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us? We must choose one.

Climate Models

A study by Patrick Brown and Ken Caldeira published in Nature uses statistical analysis to show that the climate models that most accurately simulate the recent past tend to predict greater future warming. The effort tries to reduce the uncertainty of climate projections. Caldeira:

Our study indicates that if emissions follow a commonly used business-as-usual scenario, there is a 93 percent chance that global warming will exceed 4C by the end of this century.

Update (December 15):  Any revision on climate estimates (even if there is some good news) is used by the right-wing media to say, "Oh, well, it was all wrong before then!"

Update (May 29, 2019):  Revised climate models will be incorporated into the next IPCC report. The models now indicate a climate sensitivity (doubled carbon dioxide concentration) of around 5 degrees Celsius rather the previous estimate of around 3 degrees.

Update (July 21, 2019):  It's interesting how a non-peer-reviewed paper is seized by rightwing sites as a major blow to anthopogenic climate change. Zeke Hausfather shows how to explain climate models:

Update (July 28, 2019):  Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky reports on papers published in Nature and Nature Geoscience that drive a "stake through heart of skeptics' argument". New global temperature reconstructions find that previous cooling or warming trends had been more localized than present.

[T]he rise in global temperatures over the past 150 years has been far more rapid and widespread than any warming period in the past 2,000 years — a finding that undercuts claims that today’s global warming isn’t necessarily the result of human activity.

Update (August 25, 2019):  The CO2 Coalition is hard at work trying to discredit climate models. I'd like to see a response to specific claims, but my initial thought is that the projections might just as easily be too low as they could be too high. The actual data show a clear trend and we're already seeing significant consequences. Uncertainty about just how bad off we'll be in the future is no reason not to treat climate instability as a major problem.

Wildfire

California's wildfire season was already the worst on record with over half-million acres burned. And new fires have started which are not yet contained.

The largest of those, the Thomas fire, has so far burned over 90,000 acres and had 5 percent containment as of Wednesday evening, according to Ventura city officials. The fire has destroyed at least 150 structures (that number is expected to grow substantially ― the latest incident report lists 12,000 structures as threatened) and forced the evacuation of 50,000 people.

Update (December 7):  High winds are helping to spread the fires. Twelve million people were sent text alerts.

Update (December 16):  The Thomas fire is now 252,000 acres.

Update (December 24):  With 273,400 acres burned, the Thomas fire is now the largest recorded in California.

Update (December 27):  Chris Mooney examines the dangers of wildfire smoke.

[W]ildfires fill the air with the byproducts of combustion, including very dangerous small particles known as PM2.5, which can get into the lungs and bloodstream. A growing body of research has demonstrated that these particles degrade health and contribute to thousands of deaths each year in the United States alone by causing respiratory, cardiovascular and other health problems.

Update (August 6, 2018):  The Mendocino Complex fire is now the second-largest for California at over 273,600 acres.

Update (August 7, 2018):  And now the largest at 283,800 acres.

Update (August 17, 2018):  There are 566 fires burning in British Columbia.

Update (August 22, 2018):  Washington State experienced hazardous air quality.

Update (September 19, 2018):  The Mendocino Complex fire is now contained at 459,123 acres.

Update (November 9, 2018):  More devastation in California.

Update (November 10, 2018):  The Camp fire is the most destructive in state history with 7000 structures lost.

Update (November 12, 2018):  With at least 42 people killed, the Camp fire is now the deadliest in state history.

Update (November 17, 2018):  Now 74 dead and possibly over 1000 missing.

Update (November 25, 2018):  The Camp fire has destroyed about 14,000 homes and killed at least 85 people. The number of missing has been revised to 249.

Update (August 1, 2019):  About 7.9 million acres are on fire in Siberia, an area nearly three times the size of Yakima County.

Update (August 20, 2019):  Nancy Fresco conducts research on wildfires at the University of Alaska.

The evidence shows that overall, fires in the far North are becoming bigger, hotter and more frequent. Older conifers are losing ground to younger deciduous trees, altering whole ecosystems. Torched trees are releasing carbon, along with soils rich in dead plant matter that are burning more deeply than in the past. As these releases fuel further warming, climate change is causing more climate change, which affects the entire planet.

Also, fires in the Amazon rainforest have been burning for weeks with little media coverage. The number of fires is 83 percent higher than last year.

Update (August 22, 2019):  Wildfires in the Amazon seem to follow increased deforestation encouraged by Brazil's rightwing government.

Fires are common in the Amazon during the region’s dry season, but this year has not been drier or windier than normal, experts have said, meaning many of the outbreaks have likely come from ranchers and farmers. And many environmental advocates have pointed to rapid destruction of the forest as the driver in the spread of the flames.

Update (August 27, 2019):  And now the trade wars started by Dear Leader turn out to be environmentally destructive.

As unsold U.S. soybeans are stored in silos across the farm belt, Brazilian farmers and corporations scramble to satisfy the voracious Chinese market. The push to break new ground ... is putting increasing pressure on the Amazon rainforest and is likely linked to the region’s devastating fires.

Also, Umair Irfan explains how this year's increase in fires brings us closer to a "forest dieback" which could switch the Amazon from a carbon sink to a carbon source.

Update (August 29, 2019):  Dean Baker notes a certain unfairness with international pressure on Brazil to do something about the Amazon.

The rich countries [previous] lack of concern for the environment made it cheaper for them to develop. Now poorer countries, who are struggling to develop, are being told that they need to respect the environment for the good of the planet.

Update (August 31, 2019):  Travis Waldron and Chris D’Angelo echo the thought that Brazil doesn't shoulder all the blame.

The sheer scale of the global economy and the complexity of the supply chains and financial systems that make it work mean that nearly every company, corporation and banking and investment institution on the planet is complicit in the destruction of the Amazon and other forest ecosystems around the world.

Update (October 31, 2019):  More fires in California.

[W]ith portions of the state living under an unprecedented "Extreme Red Flag Warning" issued by the National Weather Service due to the severe conditions—some climate experts are openly wondering if this kind of harrowing "new normal" brought on by the climate crisis could make vast regions of the country entirely uninhabitable.

Update (November 11, 2019):  Bush fires in eastern Australia have led to a state of emergency declaration.

Update (December 22, 2019):  Fires continue to burn in Australia with no relief in sight. Saffron Howden posted a map.

Update (December 30, 2019):  Thomas Klikauer reports on the year in wildfires.

Literally, the burning question of global warming is overshadowing Christmas and the turn of the year from 2019 to 2020. The world is no longer celebrating the modest victories many governments have achieved. Even the few imaginary goals discussed at the climate summit in Madrid remain insufficient. With the help of the Japan, USA, Australia and Saudi Arabia, effective decisions on climate protection were killed off. Neither last year’s heat deaths nor the current devastating forest fires have led to greater commitment to climate change among the delegations of Japan, the USA, Brazil and Australia.

In other words, three countries – USA, Brazil and Australia – whose forest fires on the ground are having catastrophic consequences in recent days have not caused concern for global warming.

Update (December 31, 2019):  Red skies in Mallacoota, Australia as wildfire threatens to push people into the sea.

Update (January 2, 2020):  An estimated 500 million animals have died in the Australian fires.

Update (July 29, 2020):  It's now estimated that 3 billion animals died or were displaced in the fires.

This finding, revealed Tuesday in an interim report commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia, is nearly three times higher than an estimate in January. It’s based on a fire impact area of 28.3 million acres and is broken down into a staggering 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs.

Update (September 9, 2020):  Over 2 million acres have burned in California and the historically worst part of fire season is yet to come. Brazil is also facing a rough fire season. In central Washington State, the air quality index was well past hazardous for several hours two days ago.

Update (September 10, 2020):  Now with over 3 million acres burned and 6 of the 20 largest fires in California history, Nicole Karlis considers the future. She quotes Michael Mann:

This is climate change. The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle — we're witnessing them right now on our television screens as unprecedented wildfires engulf the west.

If we continue to add carbon pollution to the atmosphere and warm up the planet, we can expect ever larger, hotter-burning, faster-spreading wildfires.

Update (September 11, 2020):  Due to West Coast fires, today Portland, Seattle, Vancouver BC, and San Francisco have the worst air quality in the world. 

Update (August 13, 2021):  Massive fires in Siberia now cover more area than all other current fires in the world.

Historical Inequality

A study published in Nature by lead author Timothy Kohler, Regents professor of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology at Washington State University, finds "that wealth disparities generally increased with the domestication of plants and animals and with increased sociopolitical scale".

The study gathered data from 63 archaeological sites or groups of sites. Comparing house sizes within each site, researchers assigned Gini coefficients.

The researchers found that hunter-gatherer societies typically had low wealth disparities, with a median Gini of 0.17  Their mobility would make it hard to accumulate wealth, let alone pass it on to subsequent generations. Horticulturalists--small-scale, low-intensity farmers--had a median Gini of 0.27  Larger scale agricultural societies had a median Gini of 0.35

The researchers' models put the highest Ginis in the ancient Old World at 0.59, close to that of contemporary Greece's 0.56 and Spain's 0.58  It is well short of China's 0.73 and the United States 0.80

Conor Lynch characterizes the conclusion of the study as he argues that capitalism is not worth saving.

[W]e are currently living in one of the most unequal periods in human history (going back to the Neolithic age), and history indicates that greater levels of inequality lead to greater social instability and unrest.

Taxes

Sam Pizzigati recounts the story of how an outraged electorate in 1932 pressured Congress to defeat a national sales tax and enact a higher tax bracket on the wealthy.

Just two weeks after the tax brouhaha in Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a leading candidate for the 1932 Democratic Party nomination, would begin a remarkable series of addresses that aligned his candidacy four-square with America’s grassroots push against plutocracy.

Modern day Republicans are desperate for some kind of win despite the unpopularity of the current tax "reform". Principle goes out the window and the failure in Kansas is ignored. And now, a ruling from the parliamentarian has left Senators scrambling as they rush to push something through.

Paul Rosenberg cites Bruce Bartlett to point out that “In reality, there’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth". Rosenberg argues for a different kind of tax debate.

The question, in short, is not about how to cut corners and do everything on the cheap, but about what kind of world we want to have. There’s always enough money for that.

Update:  The Senate bill passes 51 to 49.

Update (December 3):  Steven Rosenfeld points out the lasting damage Republicans will create.

If all the Republicans were doing was lining the pockets of the already rich, that would be bad enough—pick your adjective. But that’s not the endgame.

[T]he Republicans ... are more immediately targeting safety nets. ... [S]tarting with the tax bill’s anti-healthcare provisions, the GOP is willfully imposing unnecessary hardship and serious stress on millions of Americans.

Update (December 6):  Rosenfeld has ten key differences between the House and Senate tax bills. If we're lucky it will be too hard to please everyone.

Update (December 8):  Here's hoping things don't work out.

[I]t should be clear at this point ... that someone is going to get hoodwinked. At least one GOP leader is going to have to go back on his word.

Update (December 9):  Laura Paddison looks at six progressive tax reform ideas.

Update (December 11):  Heather Cox Richardson describes the Republican tax bill as an attack on the New Deal.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts slashes taxes on the very wealthy and kills regulations with the idea that rich businessmen will invest their money into the economy to support workers — the same idea that Republicans embraced in the 1920s. The $1.4 trillion hole the bill creates in the deficit will require crippling cuts to Medicare and Medicaid: This is deliberate. The bill also repeals the individual mandate, the piece of the ACA that enables it to work.

Update (December 12):  Passing the bill might be a bit tougher with Senator Jones.

Update (December 13):  In an interview, Nancy MacLean explains the dangers of the Republican agenda.

[T]hese people don't just want to get rid of Obama’s legacy. They want to reverse the whole 20th-century model of citizen-driven government and make it so that property reigns supreme.

Meanwhile, a deal on the tax bill seems close.

Update (December 15):  Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights:

The proposed tax reform package stakes out America’s bid to become the most unequal society in the world, and will greatly increase the already high levels of wealth and income inequality between the richest 1% and the poorest 50% of Americans.

He adds:

If you want to talk about the American dream, a child born into poverty has almost no chance of getting out of poverty in today’s United States.

Update (December 17):  It's good to know Congress has our best interests in mind.

A last-minute addition to the tax bill that could personally save [Fuckface von Clownstick] and several GOP leaders millions of dollars in taxes was a way to “cobble together” enough votes to get the controversial measure passed, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) admitted to ABC.

Update (December 19):  Even a Fox Business Network host is critical of the tax bill.

This bill is good for CORPORATIONS, but for individuals, this is more like an ugly piece of coal!

The conference bill passes the House 227 to 203. May it's vast unpopularity bite them in the ass next year.

Update (December 20):  A version of the bill passes the Senate 51 to 48.

The final bill passes the House 224 to 201. John Cassady:

The shortfall in tax revenues could be enormous. Perhaps that is what Republicans want to happen. Undoubtedly, there are some in the Party who would like to see the tax base decimated, the I.R.S. crippled, and the federal government forced to slash spending on domestic programs, particularly entitlement programs. But, for anybody who believes in a properly functioning government, a rational, clearly defined tax system is essential. The Republican reform doesn’t meet that standard.

So I guess we'll run this experiment and see who's right. If the tax cuts are really so beneficial, why the rush to pass it now?

Oh, and then there's this:

Congress’ failure to renew a program that provides health care to low-income children by year’s end could cause almost 2 million kids to lose their coverage as soon as next month.

Billions for the rich and then fuck everyone else.

Update (December 21):  Heather Digby Parton thinks the GOP may have screwed themselves.

Many middle-class people will see a small change in their paychecks, and the very wealthy will get a tremendous windfall, which undoubtedly makes them very happy. But there is another group that is going to see some very unpleasant results: college-educated folks earning $80,000 to $250,000 in urban areas and wealthy suburbs. Tens of millions of upper middle-class people in those areas will see major tax increases from the changes in home mortgage deductions and local sales taxes.

The Republicans got their tax-cut Holy Grail. But in the process they exacerbated their most challenging demographic crisis: Their growing estrangement with white, college educated voters in the upper middle-class. 

Michelangelo Signorile's take on why the GOP would do anything for a "win" even if it means they have screwed themselves.

[M]uch of the motivation ... seems to be desperation among many Republicans who see the handwriting on the wall. Between the Russia investigation and [von Clownstick's] plummeting approval, they know [Fuckface] will fall, or that they will soon lose control of the House and possibly the Senate ― or both.

[Dear Leader] ... is clearly freaking out about the Russia investigation and is desperately trying to cling to his base, no matter what the costs.

By placating some aspects of the base ... he’s actually scaring away others ... and GOP leader see this. From Virginia to Alabama, they know the blue wave is building into a possible tsunami next fall.

They didn't have time to think it out, so they had to grab what they could now for the donors. And so the actual content of the bill itself makes prospects worse for them.

Update (December 23):  Dave Chappelle has a message for white voters who think von Clownstick is on their side.

I’m standing there thinking in my mind, you dumb motherfucker. You are poor — he’s fighting for me!

Also, "[Fuckface] Voters Celebrate Massive Tax Cut for Everyone But Them".

Update (December 24):  Two friends of the president relayed private comments made at his Florida resort to CBS News.

You all just got a lot richer.

Matthew Rozsa notes:

The statement contradicted [Fuckface's] earlier assertion that the tax reform bill is mainly geared toward helping the middle class.

Igor Bobic observes:

The president himself is set to save $11 million a year from a single rule change in the bill, according to Forbes.

Update (December 30):  David Masciotra suggests Americans might support paying higher taxes if we actually got something for it.

Unlike citizens of Sweden or France, Americans feel that their taxes do not pay for much of anything, including civilized society.

When most [Americans] consider their financial status, they do not pause to reflect on the local efficacy of a highway expansion project or even the crucial existence of a fully functional educational program for children with developmental disabilities. They think in terms of losses and gains for themselves and their own family.

The Norwegian, even the Canadian, can justify relatively high tax rates with the knowledge of access to excellent health care, opportunities at tuition-free public universities, and readily available and affordable childcare. She can consider her routine use of safe, efficient and comfortable public transportation, and she can recall the joy of a culture with a vibrant public arts program. She can feel grateful for civilization.

If Americans had larger political imagination and ambition, along with more comparative knowledge, they would insist on universal health care, affordable universities and complimentary childcare. Instead, they endure the condescension of Paul Ryan smugly grinning as he promises that a family of four will save $1,182 because of the GOP’s tax beneficence. If we are going to tolerate vulgarity, we might as well fully commit. Ryan’s savings, averaged out, amount to $98.50 per month. This is not nothing, but neither does it come close to covering a month of daycare for one child and the parent's student loan payment.

Update (January 9, 2018):  States are now looking for ways to get around the new limit on local tax deductions.

Update (February 5, 2018):  OK, I admit I was wrong about the tax cut. A tweet from Speaker Ryan:

A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week… she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.

Update (February 16, 2018):  Getting around the limits on local tax deductions won't be easy.

Update (February 19, 2018):  Conor Lynch says anyone who claims to believe "trickle-down" economics works is lying.

[T]he past few months have basically confirmed what those on the left have long maintained: Supply-side theory is simply a pretext for right-wingers to wage a class war on behalf of their corporate donors and billionaire benefactors.

As The New York Times editorial board put it last week, “recent actions [by Republicans in Congress] have revealed that the real game is to cut taxes on businesses and the wealthy, and use the resulting deficits as a pretext for cutting programs like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security that benefit the poor and the middle class.”

Update (February 23, 2018):  Looks like I'm in the majority when it comes to this scam.

A survey from Politico and Morning Consult found that only 37 percent of employed people have seen an increase in their paychecks since the law went into effect, while 53 percent of people have not noticed any change.

Update (March 3, 2018):  Sophia Tesfaye shows how the tax bill remains unpopular.

Every Democrat up for re-election — blue, purple, or red state — can run against the ultimate cost of the law — Republicans’ threats to cuts to Medicaid, Social Security and the rest of the social safety net.

Update (July 22, 2018):  The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that lost government revenue from 2000 through 2025 is expected to be about $10 trillion with one-fifth of that going to the top one percent.

Update (September 22, 2018):  Republicans now realize they have "lost the messaging battle" on the new tax law.

Bloomberg obtained a private, internal poll from the Republican National Committee showing “By a 2-to-1 margin — 61 percent to 30 percent — respondents said the law benefits ‘large corporations and rich Americans’ over ‘middle class families.'”

Update (September 29, 2018):  The House of Representatives votes to permanently extend the tax cuts in last year's bill.

Update (October 17, 2018):  Turns out the tax cuts are blowing up the deficit. And now Republicans are talking about cutting entitlements. Might as well throw in ACA. Are they trying to lose the election? We don't have the guts to stand up to Fuckface, so we'll promise all these bad things and then it will be out of our hands when we lose.

Update (January 11, 2019):  An interview with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has lead to discussion about the economics of higher marginal tax rates for upper incomes.

Update (February 5, 2019):  Anecdotal evidence that Fuckface supporters are unhappy with their tax returns.

Update (February 15, 2019):  Arthur Delaney explains how the tax law and laziness makes Republicans look bad.

[The] administration decided not to make major changes to the withholding tables that employers are required to use to make sure everybody is paying the right amount of tax.

Coming up with new forms would have taken at least half a year, and would have been a chore for everyone.

Update (March 22, 2019):  The Council of Economic Advisers which had projected growth rates of 3 to 5 percent from the tax cuts, now expects less than 3 percent growth and even that is considered optimistic.

Update (May 30, 2019):  A report from the Congressional Research Service finds that only large corporations benefited from the 2017 tax revision.

Update (August 24, 2019):  Cody Fenwick points to new data that shows the big tax cut created fewer jobs and less growth than previously reported.

Marine Ice-cliff Instability

Eric Holthaus describes research aimed at understanding how quickly sea levels could rise.

The glaciers [Pine Island and Thwaites] are two of the largest and fastest-melting in Antarctica. Together, they act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world’s oceans — an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet.

A wholesale collapse of Pine Island and Thwaites would set off a catastrophe. Giant icebergs would stream away from Antarctica like a parade of frozen soldiers. All over the world, high tides would creep higher, slowly burying every shoreline on the planet, flooding coastal cities and creating hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years — much too quickly for humanity to adapt.

Update (June 10, 2018):  Peter Clark discusses updates to the IPCC projections on sea level rise.

Update (February 4, 2019):  Robert Hunziker cites a study with a surprising discovery in Antarctica.

The new NASA study, utilizing IceBridge, shows a surprising loss of 14B tons of ice in only three years from the Thwaites Glacier, where a humongous hole lurks beneath the glacier’s icy/snowy surface, a massive cavity nearly the size of NYC but hidden within the core of the ice sheet.

Update (February 22, 2019):  Robert Hunziker has bad news from Antarctica.

According to NASA: "East Antarctica has the potential to reshape coastlines around the world through sea level rise, but scientists have long considered it more stable than its neighbor, West Antarctica. Now, new detailed NASA maps of ice velocity and elevation show that a group of glaciers spanning one-eighth of East Antarctica’s coast have begun to lose ice over the past decade, hinting at widespread changes in the ocean."

Update (January 28, 2020):  Robert Hunziker follows up on the news about Thwaites.

Update (February 5, 2020):  The faster than expected melting of Thwaites Glacier will eventually produce a 10 foot sea level rise by itself.

Big Tech

Deborah James warns that the major technology companies are seeking favorable rules in World Trade Organization negotiations.

[T]he rules they are seeking go far beyond what most of us think of as “e-commerce.” Their top agenda is to ensure free ― for them ― access to the world’s most valuable resource ― the new oil, which is data. They want to be able to capture the billions of data points that we as digitally-connected humans produce on a daily basis, transfer the data wherever they want, and store them on servers in the United States. This would endanger privacy and data protections around the world, given the lack of legal protections on data in the US.

Then they can process data into intelligence, which can be packaged and sold to third parties for large profits, akin to monopoly rents. It is also the raw material for artificial intelligence, which is based on the massive accumulation of data in order to “train” algorithms to make decisions. In the economy of the future, whoever owns the data will dominate the market. These companies are already being widely criticized for their monopolistic and oligopolistic behaviors, which would be consolidated under these proposals.

Underreported War Deaths

A New York Times investigation finds that civilian deaths from airstrikes in Iraq are underreported by a factor of 31.

Since the U.S.-war against ISIS began in August 2014, the coalition has released monthly reports in which it claims tens of thousands of ISIS combatants and 466 civilians have been killed in Iraq. While the coalition claims civilians have died in only 89 of its more than 14,000 airstrikes in Iraq, Khan and Gopal's on-the-ground reporting suggests the civilian death toll from coalition bombings in well into the thousands. U.K.-based Airwars estimates at least 3,000 civilians have been killed.

Special Election

It will be interesting to see if more results like this come along in reaction to the current political climate.

Democrat Allison Ikley-Freeman defeated Republican Brian O’Hara in Tuesday’s special election for a state Senate seat representing parts of Tulsa.

The 26-year-old said Oklahoma’s continuing state budget problems were a big concern of voters she spoke with during the campaign.

“Everyone I was engaging with depends in some way or another on basic needs that are provided through the state budget,” Ikley-Freeman said. “People started to feel scared.”

Update (December 6):  DSA member Ross Grooters was elected to the city council in Pleasant Hill, Iowa.

I realized politically minding my own business and having political apathy was not going to make my life better.

Whether you are on the left or the right of the political spectrum, everybody is facing the same economic hardships.

Update (December 19):  Control of the Virginia House of Delegates came down to a single vote in one race.

Update (December 23):  That vote total is now officially a tie--so it comes down to drawing a name out of bowl.

Update (January 4, 2018):  The Republican won the draw.

Update (January 17, 2018):  A heavily Republican state senate district in Wisconsin elected a Democrat with 55 percent of the vote.

Update (February 6, 2018):  Another flip in a deep red Missouri district. It was a 31 point swing from the 2016 election.

Update (February 21, 2018):  A legislative district in Kentucky that went 72 to 23 for Republicans in 2016 flipped 68 to 32 for a Democrat.

Update (March 15, 2018):  A Congressional district in Pennsylvania has likely flipped.

Update (April 4, 2018):  A Democrat won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a wide margin.

Update (April 24, 2018):  No win for the Democrat, but Republicans had to spend $1.2 million in a suburban Arizona Congressional district. And it was a 15 point swing for Democrats. But a Democrat did win a New York state assembly seat held by Republicans for 40 years.

Update (June 13, 2018):  Another Democratic upset in Wisconsin.

Update (August 7, 2018):  Are Fuckface supporters getting tired of his antics? The Republican barely squeaked by in a solid Ohio district.

No Big Bang?

Ahmed Farag Ali and Saurya Das propose a new cosmological model.

The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once.

The Big Bang is typically described as a well established theory. But I just can't wrap my head around dark matter/dark energy--it seems too "made up". I'm in no position to judge, but the new idea somehow feels right.

Update (December 22, 2019):  I have no idea if this has anything to do with a big bang, but apparently two ways of determining the Hubble constant are producing two diverging values. It implies two greatly different age estimates for the universe and suggests a fundamental misunderstanding somewhere in the physics.

Second Notice

Over 15,000 scientists have signed on to an updated warning first issued 25 years ago.

Humanity is now being given a second notice, as illustrated by these alarming trends. We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats. By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.

Update (July 2, 2018):  Just came across a neat summary at Collapse of Industrial Civilization:

Like mindless bacteria bent on their own success, humans are victims of their own DNA and ingenuity.