uphillbothways

“Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?”

After six consecutive days of drone attacks on the Moscow region this week, one would think the shock of sudden late-night explosions might compel some Russians to consider what Ukrainian civilians have endured during 550 days of relentless Russian attacks.

Instead, some residents near the Russian capital have taken to social media to vent about the inconvenience of being woken up in the middle of the night, question why the “international community” isn’t coming to their rescue, and blame Ukrainian “terrorists” for targeting civilian areas. (Never mind that Moscow has repeatedly attacked residential areas in Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed drones.)

No injuries have been reported in the recent string of attacks, and Russian officials claim to have shot down most of the drones that they say caused only “minor damage” to a building in Moscow City and several broken windows elsewhere. Kyiv has not confirmed or denied involvement in the drone strikes.

Russian media widely covered the attacks, airing interviews with residents who showed off their broken windows.

“It was scary to go up to the window,” said one man recounting his shock to wake up and find his window shattered. “This is the first time anything like this has happened to me.”

Separately, he told Deutsche Welle, “At first, there was panic. I thought the building had been hit by a shell.”

“It’s very scary. What if it hits the house next time?” another resident told DW, noting that she has a young child in the home. “Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?” she asked, unironically.
...

archive link: https://archive.is/xFkDe

“Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?”

After six consecutive days of drone attacks on the Moscow region this week, one would think the shock of sudden late-night explosions might compel some Russians to consider what Ukrainian civilians have endured during 550 days of relentless Russian attacks.

Instead, some residents near the Russian capital have taken to social media to vent about the inconvenience of being woken up in the middle of the night, question why the “international community” isn’t coming to their rescue, and blame Ukrainian “terrorists” for targeting civilian areas. (Never mind that Moscow has repeatedly attacked residential areas in Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed drones.)

No injuries have been reported in the recent string of attacks, and Russian officials claim to have shot down most of the drones that they say caused only “minor damage” to a building in Moscow City and several broken windows elsewhere. Kyiv has not confirmed or denied involvement in the drone strikes.

Russian media widely covered the attacks, airing interviews with residents who showed off their broken windows.

“It was scary to go up to the window,” said one man recounting his shock to wake up and find his window shattered. “This is the first time anything like this has happened to me.”

Separately, he told Deutsche Welle, “At first, there was panic. I thought the building had been hit by a shell.”

“It’s very scary. What if it hits the house next time?” another resident told DW, noting that she has a young child in the home. “Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?” she asked, unironically.
...

archive link: https://archive.is/xFkDe

Protesters say classification as ‘domestic terrorists’ for opposing planned Georgia police facility has upended their lives

Before boarding a flight from San Francisco to New York last month, Luke “Lucky” Harper was pulled aside and subjected to a search of his body and his belongings in front of other passengers waiting to board.

The experience would have been even more upsetting if it wasn’t the third time in several weeks. Harper was also searched in airports in Nashville, Tennessee, and Salt Lake City, Utah. His name was called out on a loudspeaker; officials swabbed his hands, seeking traces of explosives.

The 27-year-old aspiring writer had recently been released from jail in Dekalb county, Georgia, after being arrested on state domestic terrorism charges at a music festival on 5 March. He is one of 42 people facing the same charges in Georgia in connection with ongoing protests against a planned police and fire department training center known as “Cop City”. Another dozen or so people have been arrested and charged with felony stalking of a police officer – after handing out flyers – and money laundering, among other charges. Some were jailed in solitary confinement for days without explanation.

Although nearly a year has passed since the earliest arrests, no one has been indicted. The terrorism charges have been denounced as part of a “broader attempt to smear protesters as national security threats” in a letter by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other groups.

As with Harper, the lives of the arrestees have been upended. Some have lost jobs or been barred from attending school. Most are living with the psychological impacts of the criminal justice system being wielded against them with little to no publicly released evidence of having committed any crimes. At least 13 of them have posted fundraisers online to help with everything from housing to mental health.

Harper was arrested after arriving at the public park near the Cop City site the day before a 5 March music festival, part of a week of activities against the training center.

“I was there because I was curious,” Harper said.

He had never been to the forest before. During the festival, at least 100 people walked into the woods, crossed a creek and knocked over a fence where construction of the training center had begun. Some of them threw rocks and burned equipment. Harper was arrested hours later and accused of participating, in part due to his clothes being muddy and to a photo allegedly showing him at the scene.
...

archive link: https://archive.is/wip/Y7oKo

Land privatization and water depletion set the stage for the Lahaina fire 150 years ago. Now, land companies may benefit even more

In the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.

But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.

“The rise of plantation capital spawned the drying of the west side of Maui,” said Kamana Beamer, a historian and a former member of the Hawaii commission on water resource management, which is charged with protecting and regulating water resources. “You can see the link between extractive, unfettered capitalism at the expense of our natural resources and the ecosystem.”

Drawn to Hawaii’s temperate climate and prodigious rainfall, sugar and pineapple white magnates began arriving on the islands in the early 1800s. For much of the next two centuries, Maui-based plantation owners like Alexander & Baldwin and Maui Land & Pineapple Company reaped enormous fortunes, uprooting native trees and extracting billions of gallons of water from streams to grow their thirsty crops. (Annual sugar cane production averaged 1m tons until the mid-1980s; a pound of sugar requires 2,000lb of freshwater to produce.)

Invasive plants that were introduced as livestock forage, like guinea grass, now cover a quarter of Hawaii’s surface area. The extensive use of pesticides on Maui’s pineapple fields poisoned nearby water wells.

The dawn of large-scale agriculture dramatically changed land practices in Maui, where natural resources no longer served as a mode of food production or a habitat for birds but a means of generating fast cash, said Lucienne de Naie, an east Maui historian and chair of the Sierra Club Maui group.

n the late 18th century, when the Hawaiian Kingdom became a sovereign state, Lahaina carried such an abundance of water that early explorers reportedly anointed it “Venice of the Pacific”. A glut of natural wetlands nourished breadfruit trees, extensive taro terraces and fishponds that sustained wildlife and generations of Native Hawaiian families.

But more than a century and a half of plantation agriculture, driven by American and European colonists, have depleted Lahaina’s streams and turned biodiverse food forests into tinderboxes. Today, Hawaii spends $3bn a year importing up to 90% of its food. This altered ecology, experts say, gave rise to the 8 August blaze that decimated the historic west Maui town and killed more than 111 people.

“The rise of plantation capital spawned the drying of the west side of Maui,” said Kamana Beamer, a historian and a former member of the Hawaii commission on water resource management, which is charged with protecting and regulating water resources. “You can see the link between extractive, unfettered capitalism at the expense of our natural resources and the ecosystem.”
...

archive link: https://archive.is/of1Ln

The second-largest planet in our solar system will glow extra-bright with a golden light in the coming days.

One of the year’s must-see stargazing events is underway, giving us an incredible look at one of our solar system’s outer planets.

Once a year, Earth passes in between the sun and Saturn, which brings the famously ringed planet opposite the sun in our sky — an alignment astronomers call “opposition,” which in 2023 will occur overnight on August 26-27, according to the astronomy site EarthSky.

Opposition is the time during the year when Saturn is at its closest to Earth and shines its brightest, making this weekend, and the days following, an exceptional time to view this impressive planet. You don’t need special equipment to see Saturn’s glow in the night sky, but a telescope of any size can dramatically change the experience by revealing its spectacular rings.

To the unaided eye, Saturn will be visible in the night sky as a bright, faintly golden point of light. Its shine will be steady, not twinkling.

A telescope, however, will show Saturn’s rings — an awe-inspiring sight. A small backyard telescope is enough to see Saturn’s distinct ringed shape, though larger telescopes can provide even more gasp-inducing views, so check with local astronomy groups and planetariums for public stargazing events.

Look for Saturn to rise in the east around sunset; it will be visible all night. It will reach exact opposition at 4 a.m. ET on August 27, when it will be in the constellation of Aquarius, the water bearer. If the weather doesn’t cooperate for viewing this weekend, don’t worry; while it will diminish in brightness, Saturn will be visible in the evening sky for the remainder of the year.

archive link: https://archive.is/wip/k9wOa

The second-largest planet in our solar system will glow extra-bright with a golden light in the coming days.

One of the year’s must-see stargazing events is underway, giving us an incredible look at one of our solar system’s outer planets.

Once a year, Earth passes in between the sun and Saturn, which brings the famously ringed planet opposite the sun in our sky — an alignment astronomers call “opposition,” which in 2023 will occur overnight on August 26-27, according to the astronomy site EarthSky.

Opposition is the time during the year when Saturn is at its closest to Earth and shines its brightest, making this weekend, and the days following, an exceptional time to view this impressive planet. You don’t need special equipment to see Saturn’s glow in the night sky, but a telescope of any size can dramatically change the experience by revealing its spectacular rings.

To the unaided eye, Saturn will be visible in the night sky as a bright, faintly golden point of light. Its shine will be steady, not twinkling.

A telescope, however, will show Saturn’s rings — an awe-inspiring sight. A small backyard telescope is enough to see Saturn’s distinct ringed shape, though larger telescopes can provide even more gasp-inducing views, so check with local astronomy groups and planetariums for public stargazing events.

Look for Saturn to rise in the east around sunset; it will be visible all night. It will reach exact opposition at 4 a.m. ET on August 27, when it will be in the constellation of Aquarius, the water bearer. If the weather doesn’t cooperate for viewing this weekend, don’t worry; while it will diminish in brightness, Saturn will be visible in the evening sky for the remainder of the year.

archive link: https://archive.is/wip/k9wOa

The SpaceX Crew-7 mission launched from Florida on Saturday morning, hosting one of the most internationally diverse astronaut crews to date, with members from the US, Japan, Russia and Denmark.

CNN
—
Four astronauts — representing four nations and space agencies across the globe — launched aboard a SpaceX rocket toward the International Space Station, kicking off a mission expected to last more than six months.

The crew is riding aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance capsule on the mission, dubbed Crew-7. The spacecraft launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:27 a.m. ET Saturday.

The four astronauts on the mission include NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, who is serving as mission commander; Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen representing the European Space Agency; Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA; and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos.
....

archive link: https://archive.ph/iam7z

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office.

A Florida lawyer is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to disqualify his current run for president. Lawrence A. Caplan’s Thursday lawsuit claims that the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would make him ineligible to run again, thanks to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment—a Civil War-era addition aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office. “Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case,” the lawsuit says, also citing Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Legal experts say it’s an uphill battle to argue in court, since the amendment has hardly been exercised in modern history. “Realistically, it’s not a Hail Mary, but it’s just tossing the ball up and hoping it lands in the right place,” Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies at Nova Southeastern University, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

archive link to South Florida Sun Sentinel article: https://archive.ph/1BntD

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office.

A Florida lawyer is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to disqualify his current run for president. Lawrence A. Caplan’s Thursday lawsuit claims that the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would make him ineligible to run again, thanks to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment—a Civil War-era addition aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office. “Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case,” the lawsuit says, also citing Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Legal experts say it’s an uphill battle to argue in court, since the amendment has hardly been exercised in modern history. “Realistically, it’s not a Hail Mary, but it’s just tossing the ball up and hoping it lands in the right place,” Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies at Nova Southeastern University, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

archive link to South Florida Sun Sentinel article: https://archive.ph/1BntD

Get ready for the flood of kompromat

As Vladimir Putin sits thinking in his bomb-proof office, he may come to regret the fact that the entire world is sure that he ordered the death of the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Kremlin is a Camorra, a mafia style parliament, running a gangster operation to fill Putin’s pockets and those of his oligarchs and elites. But as the Japanese found in Burma in 1944, if you prosecute a war with terror you will likely come unstuck against a well led, motivated and moral organisation like General ‘Bill’ Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’.

Putin may in fact have signed his own death warrant. His fingerprints may not have been on the firing button when Prigozhin’s jet was brought down, and may not have been on the Polonium or Novichok which killed some of his other opponents, but his DNA is all over the orders. He now has two very powerful groups to worry about – quite apart from the International Criminal Court, which no doubt has so much evidence that if he ever gets to the Hague he will never leave.

Firstly, Putin must worry about his oligarchs who have now been holed up in their dachas in Moscow for over 18 months, unable to use their superyachts or villas in the Mediterranean. As their leader is further vilified around the globe over this latest murder, the oligarchs may come to see that their only chance to break out of Russia, now so diminished economically and socially, is to dispose of Putin.

Secondly, the Wagner Group might have lost their ‘cowboy’ leader and his deputy, but they remain a large force of thugs and murderers. Prigozhin was no military commander, but the Wagner Group is the most successful military outfit that Russia has managed to put into the field, no matter that they are paid mercenaries, many of them recruited out of Russian jails. To control such a rabble, you need some very hard ‘lieutenants’ running the show and these men will now be considering the future in Belarus and Africa. How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia. My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.

archive link: https://archive.is/mMry3

Get ready for the flood of kompromat

As Vladimir Putin sits thinking in his bomb-proof office, he may come to regret the fact that the entire world is sure that he ordered the death of the mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Kremlin is a Camorra, a mafia style parliament, running a gangster operation to fill Putin’s pockets and those of his oligarchs and elites. But as the Japanese found in Burma in 1944, if you prosecute a war with terror you will likely come unstuck against a well led, motivated and moral organisation like General ‘Bill’ Slim’s ‘Forgotten Army’.

Putin may in fact have signed his own death warrant. His fingerprints may not have been on the firing button when Prigozhin’s jet was brought down, and may not have been on the Polonium or Novichok which killed some of his other opponents, but his DNA is all over the orders. He now has two very powerful groups to worry about – quite apart from the International Criminal Court, which no doubt has so much evidence that if he ever gets to the Hague he will never leave.

Firstly, Putin must worry about his oligarchs who have now been holed up in their dachas in Moscow for over 18 months, unable to use their superyachts or villas in the Mediterranean. As their leader is further vilified around the globe over this latest murder, the oligarchs may come to see that their only chance to break out of Russia, now so diminished economically and socially, is to dispose of Putin.

Secondly, the Wagner Group might have lost their ‘cowboy’ leader and his deputy, but they remain a large force of thugs and murderers. Prigozhin was no military commander, but the Wagner Group is the most successful military outfit that Russia has managed to put into the field, no matter that they are paid mercenaries, many of them recruited out of Russian jails. To control such a rabble, you need some very hard ‘lieutenants’ running the show and these men will now be considering the future in Belarus and Africa. How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia. My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take.

archive link: https://archive.is/mMry3

These rare kills in Washington State have biologists searching for answers. “Everyone always assumes wolves have the upper hand,” says one scientist. “But that’s not always the case.”

archive link: https://archive.is/JCvom