Category Archives: Fail!

OPINION: Eat a (farmed) fish, save the planet | Ensia – How could anyone so full of hope be so wrong? By thinking humans can engineer nature! Heard about the thousands of farmed salmon who escaped into open ocean? 

Of course, aquaculture isn’t the single answer to our future food needs. There is no single answer to how we construct our future food supply. But aquaculture changes a very somber outlook to one that fairly oozes hopefulness.

Source: OPINION: Eat a (farmed) fish, save the planet | Ensia

Why we have to cut off the head of fascism again and again | Books | The Guardian

The 43 Club was founded in early 1946. It was comprised, at first, of tough, well-trained Anglo-Jewish former servicemen. These men set about disrupting the public meetings of the resurgent fascist movement. They also infiltrated it, at great personal risk, to gather intelligence – to learn their enemy’s plans so as to then sabotage them. They fought the fascists on the streets of British cities, and attracted increasing numbers to their cause. They were disciplined, principled and restrained. They were highly effective tactically, and didn’t hesitate to use brute force when it was required. By 1949 the fascist movement in Britain was effectively finished. Mosley had moved to France.Much of this is told by a founding member of the 43 Group, Morris Beckman, in an extraordinary book called The 43 Group: Battling with Mosley’s Blackshirts, published by the History Press. It’s a story of heroic resistance, also a kind of secret history of that rather murky period. I have borrowed heavily from Beckman’s account of that resistance in my new book, The Wardrobe Mistress. It is a novel of the London theatre in those years, and of the simultaneous revival of fascism in Britain. I end the story in a graveyard, with a kind of echo of the Nazi salute. Fascism may at times seem to fade away but it does not die. Whenever it raises its head, as Beckman and his friends understood and as did those protesters in Charlottesville, it must be resisted. Its head must be cut off, yet again.

Source: Why we have to cut off the head of fascism again and again | Books | The Guardian

Fake Assanges Drive Far-Right Messages – DFRLab – Medium

@DFRLab identifed a number of tweets from the @RealAssange account which used the term #Antifa in late August, racking up thousands of engagements (retweets and/or likes). Most were deleted before they could be archived, but they achieved hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of engagements.Some of these tweets linked the term #Antifa with billionaire George Soros, who is regularly attacked by far-right (and pro-Kremlin) conspiracy theorists. Others attacked CNN and Black Lives Matter, two other perennial targets of the far-right.

Source: Fake Assanges Drive Far-Right Messages – DFRLab – Medium

Clinton Blames Bernie, Delusional “Bernie Bros” for Losing 2016 | Vanity Fair “I was with you till now. Bernie did not lose the election – many folks not voting or kept from voting in Florida, NC, PA and Ohio did the trick. Blasting Bernie is a mistake! Big time!”

“On issue after issue, it was like he kept promising four-minute abs, or even no-minutes abs. Magic abs!”

Source: Clinton Blames Bernie, Delusional “Bernie Bros” for Losing 2016 | Vanity Fair

Trump’s decision to end DACA shatters moral compass of the country – Latina Lista: News from the Latinx perspective

Barring that, this action by Trump is further evidence that his administration is now on a very dangerous trajectory towards the full-throated endorsement of white supremacy – the likes of which we haven’t seen in the open from a sitting president for a century.Trump followed up his weak and insincere response to racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia by pardoning notorious convicted racist Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff, and condoning Arpaio’s abuse of official power in defiance of federal law and court orders. Trump praised those who marched at the University of Virginia with torches shouting “Jews will not replace us,” and, in July 2015, he launched his campaign by saying Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers.But this action on DACA – to pull the rug out from under almost 800,000 documented immigrants and cast them back into the shadows – is the ugliest act of appeasement so far for the far-right’s white-supremacist goals.It has not gone unnoticed.

Source: Trump’s decision to end DACA shatters moral compass of the country – Latina Lista: News from the Latinx perspective

My colleague Maria was deported. I saw the void she – and others – leave behind | Nick Nelson | Opinion | The Guardian

Maria’s deportation is the worst possible outcome of an immigration policy that is not about the “rapists” and “criminals” with whom President Trump threatened us during his campaign, but about racist and inaccurate definitions of what it means to be American.Maria’s story makes it crystal clear that Trump’s immigration policy isn’t about keeping Americans safe; after all, it can’t even prioritize actual criminals over skilled healthcare workers who care for underserved patients. Rather, Trump’s policies pander to the worst impulses of a small segment of society who are afraid that a diverse America will leave no place for them.Maria was torn from our community and left a void which many will feel for a long time, in many cases for their entire lives. Nobody feels this more acutely than the three American daughters she left behind.Those of us who were her colleagues and her patients will miss her calm, compassionate competence. And I will miss the illusions I had about my community’s ability to protect our own when Trump’s minions come calling.

Source: My colleague Maria was deported. I saw the void she – and others – leave behind | Nick Nelson | Opinion | The Guardian

Yemen Red Crescent founder dies after being denied treatment | World news | The Guardian

Alkhamesi, who worked with international aid agencies in Yemen for decades, was a former head of the Yemeni doctors’ union.His son, Zubair, told the Guardian the family were initially unable to find stents – expandable tubes used in narrowed arteries – needed for his father’s heart surgery. He could not be transferred abroad for treatment because of restrictions on movement imposed by Saudi Arabia. He died in a hospital in Sana’a, and was buried on Friday.

Source: Yemen Red Crescent founder dies after being denied treatment | World news | The Guardian

UTAH OFFICER WHO ARRESTED NURSE OVER BLOOD TEST PUT ON LEAVE

Good police should be supported – bullies and cowboys should not! Police body-camera video shows Wubbels, who works in the burn unit, calmly explaining that she could not take blood from a patient who had been injured in a deadly car accident, citing a recent change in law. A 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said a blood sample cannot be taken without patient consent or a warrant. Wubbels told Payne that a patient had to allow a blood sample to determine intoxication or be under arrest. Otherwise, she said police needed a warrant. Police did not, but Payne insisted. The dispute ended with Payne saying, “We’re done, you’re under arrest” and pulling her outside while she screamed and said, “I’ve done nothing wrong!” He had called his supervisor and discussed the time-sensitive blood draw for over an hour with hospital staff, police spokeswoman Christina Judd said.”It’s not an excuse. It definitely doesn’t forgive what happened,” she said.Payne wrote in a police report that he grabbed Wubbels and took her outside to avoid causing a “scene” in the emergency room. He said his boss, a lieutenant whose actions also were being reviewed, told him to arrest Wubbels if she kept interfering.The detective left Wubbels in a hot police car for 20 minutes before realizing that blood had already been drawn as part of treatment, said her lawyer, Karra Porter. Wubbels was not charged.”This has upended her worldview in a way. She just couldn’t believe this could happen,” Porter said.Wubbels and her attorneys on Thursday released the video they obtained through a public records request to call for change. She has not sued, but that could change, said attorney Jake Macfarlane.Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said that the video was concerning and called the police chief to ask for a criminal investigation.The department is open to the inquiry that will be run by Salt Lake County’s Unified Police, Judd said. Gill’s office will review the findings.In response to the incident, Judd said the department updated its blood-draw policy last week to mirror what the hospital uses. She said officers have already received additional training.

Source: News from The Associated Press

A Long-Pursued ISIS Preacher Is Finally Charged in New York – The New York Times

 

#TraitorTrump and #PatsySessions fool themselves on terrorism too! The charges against Mr. Faisal have also raised concerns among F.B.I. agents about whether federal prosecutors have lost their appetite to pursue overseas terrorists because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said they should not be tried in civilian courts.

The charges against Mr. Faisal have also raised concerns among F.B.I. agents about whether federal prosecutors have lost their appetite to pursue overseas terrorists because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said they should not be tried in civilian courts. “Dozens of wannabe terrorists have been successfully tried in civilian courts but #TraitorTrump wants to use torture and put people in military prisons without trial or poof.”