All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Angry Schwarzenegger condemns Trump for wrecking clean-air standards | US news | The Guardian

The former governor also pointed to a contradiction between the conservative principle of states’ rights and the behaviour of the Trump administration. “How many times have you heard conservatives beat the drum of states’ rights?” he asked. “But suddenly, when a state wants to pollute less and protect its citizens from deadly pollution, conservatives throw states’ rights straight out the window.” California’s economic success, he said, was built on long-term planning. In contrast, the administration’s “knee-jerk reactionary policies such as the move to revoke our clean-air waiver create uncertainty”. “They didn’t ask for the Trump administration’s backward thinking, and they know it won’t help them,” he said of four big car companies that have worked with California on limiting emissions. He added: “California will fight this decision. And I promise you, we will win.”

Source: Angry Schwarzenegger condemns Trump for wrecking clean-air standards | US news | The Guardian

Open Thread | Taking Away SNAP Benefits…Because The Cruelty IS the Point of This Administration😠😠😠 | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Their cruelty aside, once again, they haven’t thought things through. Sure, they will hurt ‘ those people’, but, the bottom line is that SNAP is nothing but another FARMER WELFARE PROGRAM. …and a federal subsidy for WALMART. The farmers might not care, after all, he’s bankrupting them, and destroying their overseas markets, and they still support him. Let him destroy their domestic market too….but, he’ll be hurting ‘ the right people’, so they’re cool with it. But, WALMART…. The amount of funds they will lose if they lost the SNAP benefits. It is quite obvious that SNAP benefits are beneficial to the economy, because, this is money that is immediately spent and put back into our economy. We’ve already seen the signs of a slowing economy. Take away the buying power of 3.6 MILLION people….you don’t think that won’t have a negative ripple effect upon the economy? But, as always….THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT.

Source: Open Thread | Taking Away SNAP Benefits…Because The Cruelty IS the Point of This Administration😠😠😠 | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Drought Has Revealed Spain’s Long-Submerged ‘Stonehenge’

via Telma T.

This summer has been unusually scorching across Europe and beyond, and things have only grown more intense in the already hot and dry region of Extremadura in Spain. Months into an official drought that could be developing into a mega-drought, local farmers are facing the loss of hundreds of millions of euros. Many think this is just a sign of things to come.

Droughts, and the way that they strip the land of plant cover and drain lakes and reservoirs, for all the problems they cause, are often a boon for archaeologists. The water level of the Valdecañas Reservoir in the province of Cáceres has dropped so low that it is providing an extraordinary glimpse into the past.

“All my life, people had told me about the dolmen,” says Angel Castaño, a resident of Peraleda de la Mata, a village just a couple miles from the reservoir, and president of the local cultural association. “I had seen parts of it peeking out from the water before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in full. It’s spectacular because you can appreciate the entire complex for the first time in decades.”

The dolmen he’s talking about is known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal, the remains of a 7,000-year old megalithic monument consisting of around 100 standing stones—some up to six feet tall—arranged around an oval open space. It takes hours of hiking to get to the dolmen, which is now a few dozen yards away from the edge of the tranquil blue water. Visitors today are more likely to see deer than guards. Traces of aquatic plant life in the sand show that the site is dry and accessible only temporarily.

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“When we saw it, we were completely thrilled,” Castaño says. “It felt like we had discovered a megalithic monument ourselves.”

Archaeologists believe the dolmen was likely erected on the banks of the Tagus River in the fifth millennium BC, as a completely enclosed space, like a stone house with a massive cap stone on top. And though it had been known, perhaps even damaged, by the Romans, it had faded beyond memory until German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier led an excavation of the site in the mid-1920s. Obermaier’s work wasn’t published until 1960, but by then the tide of the 20th century was on its way to the ancient site.

In his quest to modernize Spain, Francisco Franco’s regime carried out a number of massive civil engineering projects, including a dam and reservoir that flooded the Dolmen of Guadalperal in 1963. Archaeological studies and environmental impact reports before such projects weren’t regular practice at the time, says Primitiva Bueno Ramirez, a specialist in prehistory at the University of Alcalá. “You couldn’t believe how many authentic archaeological and historic gems are submerged under Spain’s man-made lakes.”

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The Valdecañas Reservoir brought water and electricity to underdeveloped parts of western Spain, but that came at a cost. “The flooding was tragic on many levels,” says Castaño. “From the historic point of view, it drowned these megalithic monuments and most of the remains of a Roman city called Augustóbriga. [Portions of the ruins were relocated to a nearby hilltop.] From the human point of view, an inhabited town was flooded and people were forced to move out of their homes.”

As water levels in the reservoir have fluctuated over the years, the tips of the tallest stones sometimes become visible, but it is a rare occurrence—so far—for the entire structure to be high and dry. Dolmens like this one were tombs or sites for ritual—think Stonehenge—and ones like it appear in different cultures all over the world, from Ireland to India to the Korean Peninsula. One of the standout attributes of the Dolmen of Guadalperal is a large stone, or menhir, that marked the entrance. A human figure is engraved on its front, along with a long squiggly line on another face. Scientists believe it is a representation of a snake.

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When Castaño, a philologist by trade, saw it, he saw an ancient map of the now-flooded portions of the Tagus River. It’s not a widely accepted theory, but there are similarities between the “squiggle” and the course of the river. If he’s right, it could represent one of the oldest maps ever found. “It was intuition,” he says. “Before the area was flooded, the river had a strange bend that matched where the snake’s head was supposed to be. I rushed to consult an old map of the river, and I realized that the curvy line corresponded nearly 100 percent to the river’s path.”

Bueno, who studied the monument in the 1990s, when the waters were low enough for the top half of the dolmen to emerge, has her doubts. “I appreciate his enthusiasm, but from my archaeological understanding, I would say that the line is geometric and similar to ones found in megalithic art across Europe. In this case, it could be identified as a serpent.” She adds that further studies are needed.

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While the Dolmen of Guadalperal has widely been compared to Stonehenge—and rightly so—the Spanish example was once an entirely enclosed space. And it could also be around 2,000 years older.

When it was intact, according to Bueno, people would have entered through a dark, narrow hallway adorned with engravings and other decorations, probably carrying a torch. This would lead to an access portal into the more spacious main chamber, which had a diameter of around 16 feet, where the dead would be laid to rest. It’s also likely that the monument was oriented around the summer solstice, allowing, for just a few moments a year, the sun to shine on the community’s ancestors. Construction of such a large space, with such heavy materials, would have taken a great deal of both effort and ingenuity.

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According to Bueno, archaeologists have also found that this region presents some of the earliest evidence of humans making flour (more than 8,000 years ago) and using honey (more than 7,000 years ago). By the third and fourth millennium BC, they were even brewing their own cerveza.

Odd as it might seem for something that is 7,000 years old and made of stone, the fate of the dolmen now depends on Madrid. The granite stones are porous and vulnerable to ongoing erosion. After more than 50 years underwater, some stones that were standing when Obermaier studied them now lie flat, others that were once intact are now cracked. Castaño and his organization are urging the government to move the stones to permanently dry land, but Bueno worries that this could just accelerate the damage, especially if the process is rushed, without extensive study first. And within a month the dolmen could again be swallowed up by the lake.

“Whatever we do here, needs to be done extremely carefully,” Bueno says. “We need high-quality studies using the latest archaeological technology. It may cost money, but we already have one of the most difficult things to obtain—this incredible historic monument. In the end, money is the easy part. The past can’t be bought.”

Not a single illegal immigrant will stay, says India after Assam register excludes millions

Fascist India on the rise.

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Threat comes after controversial project in border state that forced 33 million residents to prove their heritage

India’s home affairs minister has said his government “will not allow a single illegal immigrant to stay” amid outcry over a citizenship register in Assam that could leave almost 2 million people stateless.

The comment were made by Amit Shah during a visit to the border state. The home affairs ministry, paraphrasing Shah’s speech, said he was satisfied with the “timely completion of the process”.

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South Carolina, Kansas Republicans block Trump challengers – Los Angeles Times

Canceling primaries, caucuses and other voting is not an unusual move for the party of the White House incumbent seeking a second term, and allows Trump to try to consolidate his support.
— Read on www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-07/states-gop-scrap-2020-presidential-preference-votes

Trump putsch against democracy in GOP! 😜🤬

‘Ding dong, it’s time’: dancing tarantulas emerge in droves to mate in western US

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Males have begun their walkabout seeking a mate (and hoping not to get eaten) – and this year has seen a big turnout

Gaggles of tarantulas are emerging from their burrows across the western US on a quest to mate, hunting for love in prairies, foothills and a garage belonging to Kim Kardashian West.

From August to October, the eight-legged crawlers go on a walkabout for a once-in-a-lifetime foray to find a partner. The phenomenon is now occurring on a unusually large scale from northern California to Colorado and Texas, shining a light on the arachnids’ remarkable mating behavior, which can involve dancing and cannibalism.

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Long-awaited Russia-Ukraine prisoner exchange takes place

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Each country releases 35 prisoners in biggest exchange since start of Crimea conflict

Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged dozens of prisoners in a dramatic operation that resulted in freedom for 24 Ukrainian sailors taken captive by Russia, as well as a potential suspect and key witness in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was on the tarmac at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport to greet the prisoners released by Russia on Saturday morning. There were emotional scenes as family members were reunited on the runway.

Oleg Sentsov, a film-maker sentenced to 20 years by Russia on hotly disputed “terrorism” charges, was also among those released.

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