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The Club PUBlication  05/30/2022

5/30/2022

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Burden of proof is on gun law resistance
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IVANB OUERRU AQUIRRE - NEW YOUR TIMES . Men pray outside Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Tesas, on Wednesday morning. Harrowing details began to emerge Wednesday of the massacre inside a Texas elementary school, as anguished families learned if their children were among those killed by 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde hours earlier.

​To put yourself in the proper frame of mind to weigh what we ask you to consider today, imagine that you were one of the parents waiting into the night Tuesday outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, knowing what had happened inside hours before — to put it bluntly, a barrage of handgun and semiautomatic-weapon fire shredding small bodies. You're waiting to know if your child survived this hell. You're waiting to know whether and how you'll go on.

Or imagine you were one of those children — fourth-graders — in that bewildering moment. Even young children are aware of what can happen to them these days in this society, in places where they should be safe. But nothing could truly prepare them, nor anyone, for the terror of an event like that.

Imagine as well that you're the family member of one of the victims of the shootings that occur routinely in cities like Minneapolis or St. Paul. If your empathy begins to wane at this change of considerations, revive it. Yes, some of these victims led lives that made them susceptible to danger. But many simply arrived there by circumstance. None of them deserved to die, and if guns were less almighty in this nation, maybe they wouldn't have.

We've written before that when any significant change is proposed to laws and policies that guide and restrict us, the burden of proof is on those seeking the change.
Separate shootings claimed the lives of three men in St. Paul within a six-hour span one day last week. The country as a whole has been shaken by two mass slaughters of innocents in the last few weeks alone. On Monday, the FBI released data showing that the trend line in active-shooter incidents is rising precipitously.

With respect to the need for stronger gun laws, the burden has been met. It does not fall now on those who want to do something about gun violence in America, but on those who resist.

That phrase "do something" is, of course, the catch. Shouldn't that "something" be demonstrably effective?

It should. But it's also clear that no law or procedure can individually stop the shootings, mass or otherwise. It will require a panoply of change, a wide net that can capture as many perpetrators as possible before they carry out their impulses and plans. Some of these actions will involve regulations on guns. Some will target other aspects of violent behavior or its potential.

One example is to expand criminal background checks and waiting periods for gun buyers so that there's more time for effective vetting. The U.S. House has passed legislation doing just that, and the bills await a vote in the Senate.

Another is the red-flag laws that allow police or family members to petition a court to allow weapons to be taken from people identified as a danger to themselves or others.
You can see, can't you, how these strategies would work in tandem?

An analysis of school shooting incidents ordered in 2018 by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, suggested that all of the deadliest school shootings in recent decades might have been prevented by a red flag law. Such laws exist in 19 states, but not in Minnesota.

Conservative commentator David French, writing in the Dispatch, suggests that while existing gun laws are not as effective at stopping suicide and mass killings as they are at addressing "common crime," red flag laws would be — if passed, and if people knew enough to enforce them.

While the motive of the Texas shooter was still being investigated Tuesday, it's been reported that he was bullied as a child and that he had lashed out violently to friends and strangers. Yet he was able to buy weapons shortly after turning 18. For comparison, he could not have legally bought alcohol until reaching 21. (It won't happen. He was killed by law enforcement officers to end Tuesday's siege.)

All proposals for addressing gun violence raise issues of liberty, of due process, of constitutionality. It's a sticky wicket for sure. But that's why we elect leaders — to find a way forward.

It appeared Tuesday that some semblance of movement might happen in the Senate after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was prepared to bring the House background check bills up for a vote. He acknowledged that passage was unlikely in the face of Republican and NRA opposition, but that it was important to put lawmakers on the record.

That's right, it is. So is urgency. Yet it seemed Wednesday that such a vote was unlikely to happen before the Memorial Day recess.

Huh. OK. Well, happy grilling and campaigning, members of Congress.
Hope it's lovely.

The need for action has been demonstrated over and over.
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The Club PUBlication  05/23/2022

5/23/2022

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Conspiracies are infecting outbreak of bird flu
The theories speak to a distrust of institutions.
By DAVID KLEPPER Associated Press

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Brad Moline, a fourth-generation Iowa turkey farmer, saw this happen before. In 2015, a virulent bird flu outbreak nearly wiped out his flock.

Barns once filled with chattering birds were suddenly silent. Employees were anguished by having to kill sickened animals. The family business, started in 1924, was at serious risk.

His business recovered, but now the virus is back, again imperiling the nation's poultry farms. And this time, there's another pernicious force at work: a potent wave of misinformation that claims the bird flu isn't real.

"You just want to beat your head against the wall," Moline said of the Facebook groups in which people insist the flu is fake or, maybe, a bioweapon.

"I understand the frustration with how COVID was handled.  I understand the lack of trust in the media today. I get it. But this is real."

While it poses little risk to humans, the global outbreak has led farmers to cull millions of birds and threatens to add to already rising food prices.

It's also spawning fantastical claims similar to the ones that arose during the COVID- 19 pandemic, underscoring how conspiracy theories often emerge at times of uncertainty, and how the internet and a deepening distrust of science and institutions fuel their spread.

The claims can be found on obscure online message boards and major platforms such as Twitter. Some versions claim the flu is fake, a hoax being used to justify reducing the supply of birds in an effort to drive up food prices, either to wreck the global economy or force people into vegetarianism.

"There is no 'bird flu' outbreak," wrote one man on Reddit.  "It's just Covid for chickens."

Other posters insist the flu is real, but that it was genetically engineered as a weapon, possibly intended to touch off a new round of COVID-style lockdowns. A version of the story popular in India posits that 5G cell towers are somehow to blame for the virus.

As evidence, many of those claiming that the flu is fake note that animal health authorities monitoring the outbreak are using some of the same technology used to test for COVID-19.

"They're testing the animals for bird flu with PCR tests.  That should give you a clue as to what's going on," wrote one Twitter user, in a post that has been liked and retweeted thousands of times.

In truth, PCR tests have been used routinely in medicine, biology and even law enforcement for decades; their creator won a Nobel Prize in 1993.

The reality of the outbreak is far more mundane, if no less devastating to birds and people who depend on them for their livelihood.

Farmers in states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota have already culled millions of fowl to prevent the outbreak from spreading. Zoos around the U.S. have moved exotic bird exhibits indoors to protect their animals, and wildlife authorities are discouraging backyard bird feeding in some states to prevent the spread by wild birds. The disease has also claimed bald eagles around the country.

The first known human case of the H5N1 outbreak in the U.S. was confirmed last month in Colorado in a prison inmate who had been assisting with culling and disposing of poultry at a local farm.

Most human cases involve direct contact with infected birds, meaning the risk to a broad population is low, but experts around the country are monitoring the virus closely just to be sure, according to Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, an agency that tracks animal disease in part to protect the state's agricultural industries.

"I can guarantee you, this is the real deal," Poulsen told the Associated Press. "We certainly aren't making this up."

Poultry farms drive the local economy in some parts of Wisconsin, Poulsen said, adding that a devastating outbreak of bird flu could create real hardships for farmers as well as consumers.

While the details may vary, the conspiracy theories about bird flu all speak to a distrust of authority and institutions, and a suspicion that millions of doctors, scientists, veterinarians, journalists and elected officials around the world can no longer be trusted.

"Americans clearly understand that the federal government and major media have lied to them repeatedly, and are completely corrupted by the pharmaceutical companies," said Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopath whose discredited claims about vaccines, masks and the coronavirus made him a prominent source of COVID- 19 misinformation.

Mercola's interest in the bird flu dates back years A 2006 book for sale on his website, which Mercola uses to sell unproven natural health remedies, is titled "The Great Bird Flu Hoax."

Polls show trust in many American institutions — including the news media — has fallen in recent years.  Trust in science and scientific experts is also down, and along partisan lines.

Moline, the Iowa turkey farmer, said he sympathizes with people who question what they read about viruses, given the last two years and bitter debates about masks, vaccines and lockdowns. But he said anyone who doubts the existence or seriousness of the bird flu doesn't understand the threat.
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The 2015 outbreak was later determined to be the most expensive animal health disaster in U.S. history. Moline's farm had to cull tens of thousands of turkeys after the flu got into one of his barns. Workers at the farm now abide by a hygiene policy meant to limit the spread of viruses, including using different pairs of boots and clothes for different barns.
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The Club PUBlication  05/16/2002

5/16/2022

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​Could satellite mapping technology help douse wildfires quickly?
By JUDITH KOHLER • Denver Post

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Wade Hutt checked out the camera attached to a fire-detecting plane in Englewood California.

With wildfires becoming bigger and more destructive, agencies and officials tasked with preventing and battling the blazes could soon have a new tool to add to their arsenal of prescribed burns, pick axes, chain saws and aircraft.

The high-tech help could from areas not normally associated with fighting wildfires: artificial intelligence and space.

Lockheed Martin Space, a division of Lockheed Martin headquartered in Denver, is tapping decades of experience in managing satellites, exploring space and providing information for the U.S. military. They want to use that expertise to offer more accurate data quicker to ground crews fighting wildfires and are talking to the U.S. Forest Service, university researchers and a Colorado state agency about how their technology could help.

By generating more timely information about on-the-ground conditions and running computer programs to process massive amounts of data, Lockheed Martin representatives say they can map fire perimeters in minutes rather than the hours it can take now.

They say the artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning the company has applied to military use can enhance predictions about a fire's direction and speed.

The work of firefighters "is very similar to that of the organizations and folks who defend our homeland and allies. It's a dynamic environment across multiple activities and responsibilities," said Dan Lordan, senior manager for AI integration at Lockheed Martin's Artificial Intelligence Center. The company's technology could reduce the time it takes to gather and share information about wildfires.

Since 2014, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control has flown planes equipped with infrared and color sensors to detect wildfires and provide the most upto-date information possible to crews on the ground. The onboard equipment is integrated with the Colorado Wildfire Information System, a database that provides images and details to local fire managers.

"Last year we found almost 200 new fires that nobody knew anything about," said Bruce Dikken, unit chief for the Colorado agency's multi-mission aircraft program. "I don't know if any of those 200 fires would have become big fires. I know they didn't become big fires because we found them."
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Often the people on the planes are tracking several fires at the same time. Dikken said the faster they can collect and process the data on a fire's perimeter, the faster they can move to the next fire.
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The Club PUBlication  05/09/2022

5/9/2022

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​Outbreak of bird flu nears worst ever in U.S.
By ZIJIA SONG, ELIZABETH ELKIN, MICHAEL HIRTZER Bloomberg News

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A bird flu virus that's sweeping across the U.S. is rapidly becoming the country's worst outbreak, having already killed over 37 million chickens and turkeys and with more deaths expected through next month as farmers perform mass culls across the Midwest.

Under guidance of the federal government, farms must destroy entire commercial flocks if just one bird tests positive for the virus, to stop the spread. That's leading to distressing scenes across rural America. In Iowa, millions of animals in vast barns are suffocated in high temperatures or with poisonous foam. In Wisconsin, lines of dump trucks have taken days to collect masses of bird carcasses and pile them in unused fields. Neighbors live with the stench of the decaying birds.

Nationwide, the crisis is hurting egg-laying hens and turkeys the most, with the disease largely being propagated by migrating wild birds that swarm above farms and leave droppings that get tracked into poultry houses. That's probably how the virus contaminated egg operations in Iowa, which produce liquid and powdered eggs that go into restaurant omelets or boxed cake mixes.
Under the same migration paths lie Minnesota's turkey farms, which supply everything from deli meats for submarine sandwiches to whole birds for the holidays.

Cases in Minnesota have leveled off after rapidly spreading in April. More than 2.8 million birds have been infected or killed, most of them at commercial turkey operations. Minnesota is the nation's leading turkey producer.

Prices for poultry products are soaring to records, adding to the fastest pace of U.S. inflation in four decades. The supply deficits triggered by the flu also come as world food prices reach new highs. From the war in Ukraine to adverse weather for crops, it's all throwing supply chains into turmoil and compounding the crisis that's pushed millions of people into hunger since the start of the pandemic.

"Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, here comes the bird flu," said Karyn Rispoli, an egg market reporter at commodity researcher Urner Barry.

Wholesale egg prices touched a record $2.90 a dozen in April in government data. Whole turkeys touched an all-time high $1.47 a pound according to Urner Barry.

The last time bird flu hit the U.S. in 2015, it took the lives of about 50 million animals by the end of the season and cost the federal government over $1 billion , as it handles killing and burying of birds. At the time, the industry beefed up its biosecurity around poultry houses, installing sound canons to repel wild birds, or even carwashes so that farm trucks wouldn't bring contamination from one farm to another, so that there wouldn't be a repeat.

This time around, even with that better biosecurity, the industry has failed to prevent the transmission from wild birds, said Michelle Kromm, an executive consultant for the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association. As a precaution, farmers are supposed to go through a laborious process of completely changing their clothing and shoes before entering barns, and making sure all supplies and tools are clean.

Yet weather and migration patterns are making it easier for the virus to win this year. Rare spring snowstorms originated in the Midwest and traveled up the East Coast, and the cold, wet weather kept the virus alive for longer, helping it spread.
The flu this year is also more lethal than in the past. The deaths so far this season are tracking above previous outbreaks at 37 million chickens and turkeys. The United States' flock of egg-laying hens totals more than 300 million birds.
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"We all need to maintain really high awareness that the environment is contaminated," said Beth Thompson, a veterinarian at the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. The weather "needs to warm up and dry out to kill that virus that's sitting out there."
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The Club PUBlication  05/02/2022

5/2/2022

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Russian threats redraw the global energy map
Europe scrambles to find other sources for gas, oil
By EVAN HALPER, STEVEN MUFSON and CHICO HARLAN Washington Post

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Germany, economic engine of Europe, is particularly unprepared for the moment. The PCK-Raffenerie is pictured ion Schwedt, Germany, this past week. Crude oil fro Russia arrives at the PCK petroleum refinery in Schwedt via the "Friendship" pipeline.

Algeria has long been a medium-stakes player in the global game of oil and gas exports, but the energy crisis in Europe has created an opening for the North African nation to up the ante. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi flew to Algiers just a few weeks ago to ink an agreement to boost natural gas imports from Algeria by 40% through an underused pipeline that runs beneath the Mediterranean Sea.

Other oil and gas exporters that were not previously front and center in the global energy conversation, such as Angola, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo, are also emerging as potential players in Europe's future. And European nations hurrying to unshackle themselves from Russian gas are turning to more reliable, but costly, liquefied natural gas providers such as Qatar and the United States.

The moves are part of a scramble in Europe to respond to the energy crisis prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days lashed out at his foes in the West by cutting off natural gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland for refusing to pay in rubles. Other large consumers of Russian gas, including Germany and Italy, have sought to reassure their citizens that they are seeking workarounds if Putin expands the cutoff as he has threatened.

But under almost every scenario, the next 18 months are going to be a harrowing time for Europe, as the impacts of high prices ripple around the world and governments struggle to power their factories, heat their homes and keep their electricity plants running. There are not enough alternatives in the near term to avoid major economic pain in the coming winter if Russia shuts down supply.

This month, for instance, the German central bank warned that the country's economy could shrink by 2% if the war persists.

"This is a very dangerous game that is playing out," said Edward Chow, an energy security scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who previously worked in the industry for decades. "I don't know how this is supposed to end. It feels like it is going to end in a very bad place for both Western Europe and Russia."

"There is only so much [natural gas] to go around," Chow said. "No one is going to be able to produce more liquefied natural gas quickly no matter what fantasies governments want to spin."

What has transpired is a sudden global reordering of the energy markets stoked by an abrupt turnaround by Russia, which spent decades trying to use its generous oil and gas reserves to integrate into the world economy, said Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and vice chairman of S&P Global.

For now, Europe's gas market has become a patchwork. Italy can turn to Algeria, Bulgaria can turn to Greece, and Poland can pivot to a long planned expansion of a terminal for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, imports and a pipeline coming online from Norway.

"It's a dramatic, unexpected reordering of world energy.

Two months ago the Europeans could not possibly have imagined shutting the door on Russian energy and now it's only a question at this point of how long will it take," Yergin said. "And it's happening faster than would have been imagined possible only two months ago. Putin in eight weeks of war has destroyed what he spent 22 years building: integrating Russia into the world economy."

Germany, the economic engine of Europe, is particularly unprepared for the moment. More than half its supply of natural gas was coming from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine.

Germany has shrunk that down to 35%, but it is not well positioned to get to zero Russian gas anytime soon. It lacks infrastructure to import liquefied gas, and the nation's aggressively anti-nuclear posture has left it with just three reactors online; the other 14 were closed after the tsunami hit the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan in 2011.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said he expects his country would slide into recession without Russian gas. "I take this very seriously," he said.  The country has managed to cut Russia's share of Germany's crude oil imports from 35% to 12%.
Instead of buying oil and natural gas from Russia — where production costs are very low and pipeline transportation cheap — Europe must turn in the immediate term to more expensive alternatives such as the United States, which until seven years ago had no gas export facilities at all. European companies must add on $1.50 per thousand cubic feet — anywhere from 30% to 50% of the cost of the gas itself — to get a tanker of liquefied natural gas to make the trip from the Gulf of Mexico to Europe.
Then the empty ship must make the return voyage, a total of 24 days in transit.

Where this all goes depends on the Kremlin's next moves.  Russia is heavily reliant on gas and oil revenue, and it would inflict economic pain on itself by cutting Europe's major economies off from natural gas.
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