Fracking, It’s Bad for Water.

Fracking water needs a closer look, EPA says. CREDIT: AP Photo/Brennan Linsley.

Fracking water needs a closer look, EPA says. CREDIT: AP Photo/Brennan Linsley.

Has everyone recovered from the surprise and shock that fracking is bad for water? I suppose it’s good that the EPA finally managed to spit this one out, now that it will most likely be dismantled.

The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) can affect drinking water.

In light of the facts that tap water near some fracking wells has become flammable, that two families in Pennsylvania last year won a court case over the impacts of fracking on their water, and that scientists have found arsenic in water sources near fracking, the EPA’s announcement Tuesday should not come as a surprise.

But it does, since just 18 months ago, a draft version of the EPA’s fracking report said that the EPA “did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”

[…]

It’s not clear that the science will continue to be investigated, at least in the near term. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested dismantling the EPA, and his nominee to head the agency has come out strongly in favor of oil and gas development.

Trump is in the process of assembling what will be the most anti-environment, pro-fossil fuel cabinet in modern history. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has fought EPA regulations for years, has been tapped to run the EPA.

It’s worth noting that water quality is not the only thing at risk from fracking. Fracking has been linked to numerous air quality concerns, including in areas where fracking wells are located close to schools. Fracking has been tied to asthma, migraines, and other health impacts.

And let’s not forget that fracking causes earthquakes. We really don’t need to cause earthquakes, they are bad enough when they happen naturally. The government that is poised to take power seems to want to hasten the death of our earth, and all of us on it.

Full story at Think Progress.

A History of False Balance Journalism.

CREDIT: NAACP via the Library of Congress.

CREDIT: NAACP via the Library of Congress.

Racist mobs murdered African Americans with bullets, nooses, and knives. Innocent people were mutilated, strung up, and roasted alive. In the late 1800s, when these killings reached their peak, more than a thousand African Americans were killed in just five years. In one year, 1892, “there were twice as many lynchings of blacks as there were legal executions of all races throughout the United States.”

And yet, as media scholar David Mindich details in his book, Just the Facts: How “Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism, elite press coverage of these murders typically presented them as morally ambiguous affairs that pitted a crowd’s desire for immediate justice against the horrific — and, very often, fabricated — crimes of the black victim.

The same ethic, in other words, that leads modern day reporters to claim Hillary Clinton’s denunciation of racists is the moral equivalent of Donald Trump’s racism also led journalists from another century to be extra careful to include the murderers’ perspective when writing about lynching.

[…]

Eighty-five years after Wells’ death, newspapers are hardly blind to the financial incentives that placed balance before truth.

Many opinion editors, the Washington Post reports, are alarmed that they do not have any columnists who share the racist belligerence of our incoming president. They are now struggling mightily to find writers who will defend the views of a man that a large minority of Americans voted for.

Meanwhile, writers who suggest that the news media did a sub-optimal job of explaining the relative shortcomings of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are often met with a brush off no less dismissive than the one the Times gave to Ida B. Wells.

Ian Millhiser’s article about false balance journalism is fascinating, and provides a much needed insight into just how journalism works, and who and what is the driving factor in most media. Highly recommended reading: The dark history of how false balance journalism enabled lynching.

Purple Prose and Intellectual Pedophiles.

Lance Wallnau.

Lance Wallnau.

Lance Wallnau is on another tear, this time, about college, specifically, college professors. He indulges in some terrible purple prose in his attempt to get across just how really, truly, oh for realz, evil they are. Really.

Wallnau, an early and vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, is a leading advocate of Seven Mountains dominionism, the idea that Christians are to “do whatever is necessary” to take control of all aspects of the culture in order to implement the will of God throughout the world. One of the “mountains” that Christians needs to gain control of is “the university mountain,” Wallnau said, “because the professors are the factory foremen that are shaping the mind of the next generation.”

Wallnau lamented that radicals from the 1960s went into academia and have spent decades warping the minds of students, which is why conservative Christians continue to lose battles in the culture war.

Sigh. The ever present culture war. No, this is about Christians constantly attempting to retard any and all social progress, and to stomp on the idea of social justice. This is about wanting those mythical 1950s back, where you pretend everything was just great. There’s always noise being made about all the awful secularists, and the awful atheists, and the awful nones, and so forth, but very little about all those other Christians. People like to say that getting atheists to agree on something is like herding cats (which isn’t difficult at all), but the same applies to Christians. The various denominations of Christianity go on and on and on and on. They don’t agree with one another. Within that incomplete list, there are a fair number of Christians who would, and will be ardently opposed to your stance, Lance. Those would be Christians who think social progress and inclusivity is a good thing. You don’t want to win a culture war, you want to crush all dissent, and crown yourself the Jesus King.

“Anything we do regarding abortion, prayer, marriage,” he said, “anything we do that doesn’t get into the educational narrative that is affecting the minds of students will be lost within eight to 10 years because you’ve got gatekeeper priests, there are priests of Baal at the top of the university mountain, poisoning the minds [of young people.] They’re like intellectual pedophiles molesting the virgin territory of your children’s imaginations.”

Last time I looked, most people in college are legal adults. I have to wonder if you went to college, Lance, because professors don’t get to treat class time as “hey, free time, I can pontificate about whatever I want!” They have to teach a class, and their personal views aren’t a part of that. As for poisoning the minds of actual children, I don’t think we need to look much further than religion, do we?

Via Right Wing Watch.

Oceti Sakowin Camp.

Photo by Tom Jefferson.

Photo by Tom Jefferson.

There are still people at the Oceti Sakowin camp, a considerably smaller number, around 2,000, who will stay until DA is gone. They are requesting that no one new come into camp right now, as weather conditions are very harsh. Those of us fighting the Black Snake still need help. You can signal boost, get involved in various actions, or donate, all is appreciated, deeply.

Have a look at the Oceti Sakowin Camp site, and see if there is a way to add your voice to the many.

The Dakota Access Pipeline may be on hold, but Water Protectors are still fighting for their freedom.

This Is The Age of Puritan Nazis.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

Republicans from all over the place have been jubilant over the possibilities of legislating their hatred, in particular, their hatred of LGBTIA people. Much old legislation is having the dust blown off, polished up, and gleefully presented once again, their hopes high on being able to oppress people, and have that oppression stick.

FADA is a bill (HR 2802) that would create a special status of protection exclusively for individuals who oppose same-sex marriage or premarital sex. The federal government would be prohibited from taking any “discriminatory action” against them, including denying tax exemptions, withholding grants or contracts, or denying any federal benefit. In other words, it would require the federal government to prop up anti-gay (and anti-sex) discrimination.

“Hopefully November’s results will give us the momentum we need to get this done next year,” Conn Carroll, Lee’s spokesman, told BuzzFeed. “We do plan to reintroduce FADA next Congress and we welcome Trump’s positive words about the bill.”

FADA co-sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) similarly boasted, “The prospects for protecting religious freedom are brighter now than they have been in a long time.”

This is not about protecting religious freedom, or religious anything, and it never has been. This is the bare assertion that Christians have a legal right to hate, and to oppress people based on a specific religious belief. Christians do not need protecting, in any way, shape, or form. In spite of their constant desire to present themselves as persecuted, nothing could be further from the truth here in uStates. People are free to pray wherever the hell they want to, and unless you’re into the anti-biblical kind of showy praying, how would anyone even know you’re praying? You can carry a bible anywhere you like. The fact that others are free to walk away, argue, or criticise you if you whip it out? That’s not persecution. If you think you require legal protection from all the evil sluts who want something horrific, like contraception, then I’d suggest the field you find yourself in is not a good fit. Really, it’s not difficult to get along without crying a persecution game, and convincing yourself you need protection from the menacing tide of perfectly normal, nice people is simply evil.

Christians just love a narrative of persecution, implying they are the brave soldiers, standing strong for their god, a god who must be quite the weakling, considering it can’t ever stand up for itself, but the insistence on legislating bigotry and hate points to only one thing: cowardice. Craven, cringing, cowardly Christians, who just cannot face a day where they might encounter a queer person doing something hideous, like offering money for a service, oh my!

The only refuge LGBT people might find if both Congress and the White House turn against them is in the courts. For example, in July, Federal Judge Carlton Reeves, an Obama appointee, ruled against Mississippi’s HB 1523, which largely mirrors FADA’s protections for those who oppose marriage equality. “A law declaring that in general it shall be more difficult for one group of citizens than for all others to seek aid from the government is itself a denial of equal protection of the laws in the most literal sense,” he wrote.

But if FADA or similar legislation passes, LGBT people will have to fight it with the Justice Department working against them.

If we can be sure of one thing, it’s that republicans will be presenting a near overwhelming amount of anti-LGBTIA legislation, and at least some of it is sure to pass.

Zack Ford has the full story at Think Progress.

Word Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday is a popular thing for a lot of WordPress bloggers. I do love photography, but I also love words, so I’m going to do Word Wednesday. Just because. If you have a word you’d like featured, drop me a line (email is on the sidebar). All languages are happily accepted.

Esurient.

adjective.
1. hungry; greedy. 2. greedy; voracious.
Derived Forms:
esurience, esuriency, noun.
esuriently, adverb.
1665-75; < Latin ēsurient- (stem of ēsuriēns, present participle of ēsurīre) hungering, equivalent to ēsur- hunger + -ent- -ent.

adj.

1670s, from Latin esurientem (nominative esuriens), present participle of esurire “to be hungry,” from stem of edere “to eat”. Related: Esurience ; esuriency.

“My bear charm was fully charged and I felt completely restored, albeit dreadfully thirsty and a bit esurient.” – Hounded: The Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne.

Finding A Lost City.

Artist's recreation of downtown Cahokia, with Monk's Mound at its center.

Artist’s recreation of downtown Cahokia, with Monk’s Mound at its center.

Ars Technica takes a fascinating look at the unearthing of a long ago lost city.

A thousand years ago, huge pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East St. Louis sprawls today in Southern Illinois. This majestic urban architecture towered over the swampy Mississippi River floodplains, blotting out the region’s tiny villages. Beginning in the late 900s, word about the city spread throughout the southeast. Thousands of people visited for feasts and rituals, lured by the promise of a new kind of civilization. Many decided to stay.

At the city’s apex in 1100, the population exploded to as many as 30 thousand people. It was the largest pre-Columbian city in North America, bigger than London or Paris at the time. Its colorful wooden homes and monuments rose along the eastern side of the Mississippi, eventually spreading across the river to St. Louis. One particularly magnificent structure, known today as Monk’s Mound, marked the center of downtown. It towered 30 meters over an enormous central plaza and had three dramatic ascending levels, each covered in ceremonial buildings. Standing on the highest level, a person speaking loudly could be heard all the way across the Grand Plaza below. Flanking Monk’s Mound to the west was a circle of tall wooden poles, dubbed Woodhenge, that marked the solstices.

Despite its greatness, the city’s name has been lost to time. Its culture is known simply as Mississippian. When Europeans explored Illinois in the 17th century, the city had been abandoned for hundreds of years. At that time, the region was inhabited by the Cahokia, a tribe from the Illinois Confederation. Europeans decided to name the ancient city after them, despite the fact that the Cahokia themselves claimed no connection to it.

Centuries later, Cahokia’s meteoric rise and fall remain a mystery. It was booming in 1050, and by 1400 its population had disappeared, leaving behind a landscape completely geoengineered by human hands. Looking for clues about its history, archaeologists dig through the thick, wet, stubborn clay that Cahokians once used to construct their mounds. Buried beneath just a few feet of earth are millennia-old building foundations, trash pits, the cryptic remains of public rituals, and in some places, even, graves.

To find out what happened to Cahokia, I joined an archaeological dig there in July.

Finding North America’s lost medieval city.

Imaginary Latvians.

deepbaltic.com

deepbaltic.com

Much fun here, thanks to rq!

One of the more interesting and unusual Baltic-related sites of recent years has been Imaginary Latvians, started in 2014, a Medium-based project to compile as many references to Latvians in literature and film as possible, and which now has dozens of entries from all over the world. Examples range from imaginary “beautiful, proud and pitiless” witches to imaginary itinerant old men who give out cheques for thousands of dollars, to imaginary mice in Disney films.

Latvian-American Rihards Kalniņš, the chief seeker of imaginary Latvians, recently spoke to Deep Baltic about what he has learnt from the project.

The interview is here, and you can do much reading at Imaginary Latvians.

Pray for Trump Because…

Credit: Kingdom Life.

Credit: Kingdom Life.

Rev. Franklin Graham told CNN’s Carol Costello that he backs President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to bring back manufacturing jobs because people are not proud of modern jobs in computer science.

During an interview on Tuesday, Graham praised Trump for finding a way to “work with the thugs” like Russian President Vladimir Putin “so that we can have peace in this world.”

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. Trump loves Putin, because Putin says nice things about him, and in Donald’s world, that’s what matters. They are also both consumed by money and power. Best buds. I’m afraid if you’re going to call Putin a thug, you have to call Trump one, too. In no way will their working together bring peace to this world. If the Exxon and Rosnet deal goes through, that’s 500 billion for power-mad tyrants to play with.

“That’s the problem with the politicians in Washington,” he said. “They sit down there and they do nothing. Now we’ve got a man who’s coming into the White House who wants to get things done. And I hope and I pray — we all as Americans, we need to pray for the president-elect and vice president-elect.”

Well yes, republicans aren’t overly keen on working, unless they’ve cooked up some sort of legislation to oppress marginalized people even more. Then you see some enthusiasm.

“Start working to make America great again, that’s what Trump wants to do,” the pastor continued. “We need jobs, we need to get employment up, we need to have hope for the future. And the only way you’re going to have hope for the future is if a kid goes to college and comes out and knows, ‘I can get a job and I can get a good paying job and maybe I can work my way up the ladder.’”

Oh for Crispy Fried Christ’s Sake. No. I addressed this in an earlier post, but going to college should not be tied to “get a good job”, it should be tied to a love of learning. And, as too many young people have found out, and keep finding out, a college degree is no guarantee of getting any sort of job. As for that “up the ladder” isht, I’d dearly love to see that colonial minded concept die. No. Learn to be content, learn when enough is more than enough. Learn that you do not need to compete your whole life long, with yourself, your neighbours, colleagues, or anyone else. Who gives a flying fuck what they think?

According to Graham, graduates are not finding jobs because companies have shifted to overseas manufacturing.

“This is terrible. I live in North Carolina where so much of our manufacturing base has gone to other countries,” he insisted. “And people are out of jobs, are out of work. And they say, ‘But we’ll retrain you, we’ll let you be a computer programmer.’”

Nothing wrong with that, it’s a job, right?

“They don’t want to be a computer programmer!” Graham continued. “They want to do the same job as their fathers and their grandfathers. There was pride in the manufacturing and the building. And we’ve taken all that away and it’s sad.”

Oh for fuck’s sake, make up your bloody mind. Either they go to college and get jobs which are not factory jobs, or they don’t go to college, and get a factory job. As for Trump, well, he’s not overly keen on anything being manufactured here, costs too much, y’know, those workers, they want to be paid a living wage. And unions! Oh, the archenemy of billionaires everywhere. Trump happily scammed the hell out of people with the whole Carrier deal, and now Carrier is richer by millions, big tax cuts, and they are going to use that money to automate people right out of a job. (Carrier one, Carrier two.) Trump has no intention of “bringing back jobs”. Trump is interested in making more money, and making sure his fellow billionaires make more, too.

So, go ahead and pray, Mr. Franklin, for all the good it will do. You’re providing a fine example of why we are so very fucked.

Via Raw Story.

SUF Uppsala: Demonstration mot DAPL!

https://twitter.com/SUFUppsala

And Now, Gingerbread!

Courtesy IPCC Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest submission includes a mini Pueblo building structure in a decorated bowl. Note: The submission is entirely edible.

Courtesy IPCC
Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest submission includes a mini Pueblo building structure in a decorated bowl. Note: The submission is entirely edible.

The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center’s 8th Annual Gingerbread House Contest is its most successful to date, with more than 70 submissions by adults and children.

The contest was judged last week by prominent Pueblo artists and elders, as well as leaders from the Albuquerque community. Winners in both Adult and Children’s categories will be announced on December 14, with a combined $2,500 in prizes to be awarded.

Though the formal and initial voting process is complete, the public is welcome to visit the East Lobby of the IPCC, 2401 12th Street NW, Albuquerque and vote for their People’s Choice Award favorites through January 3. The People’s Choice Award is sponsored by Isleta Resort and Casino. Winners will be announced on January 5.

Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest submission (courtesy IPCC).

Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest submission (courtesy IPCC).

 

Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest submission (courtesy IPCC).

Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest submission (courtesy IPCC).

You can read about, and see more at ICTMN.