The GOP war on democratic institutions

It is quite extraordinary how the Republican party seems determined to tear down institutions that have long been seen as fundamental to the smooth functioning of democratic societies.

The most recent and extreme has been the attack on the entire judiciary system in the US in the wake of the many charges that have been leveled against serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT). He has lost defamation suits brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, business fraud suit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, and the falsifying business records to further his election campaign brought by Manhattan district Attorney Alvin Bragg. He further faces charges of election interference in Georgia brought by Fulton Country district attorney Fani Willis, and two sets of charges involving the possession of classified documents brought by the special prosecutor Jack Smith.
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How did the dog find the camp site?

A man who was driving in Oregon with his four dogs, crashed his pickup truck through a guard rail and fell into a ravine. One of his dogs ran four miles back to the campsite where the family was and this alerted them to the problem and they managed to find them.

The case unfolded as Brandon Garrett was driving with his four dogs north on US Forest Service Road 39 in Baker county, near where his family was camping.

During the trip, Garrett failed to navigate a curve in the road and crashed over an embankment, according to a statement from the Baker county sheriff’s office.

Garrett survived the crash, but the accident left him stranded and forced him to wait – and hope – for help.

Thankfully for him, one of his dogs ran back to the campsite, and the animal’s appearance led the Garrett’s family to realize something had gone wrong. The dog ended up running nearly four miles through the wilderness before tracking down the other campers on 3 June at 9.30am.

What amazes me is that the dog was able to get back to the campsite at all. There have been many stories about the amazing ability of dogs to travel long distances to find their way back home. The article mentions the well known ability of dogs to use their sense of small. But it also mentions them having an inner compass that detects magnetic fields as aids. I had heard of birds using magnetism to navigate but had not heard of that applying to dogs.

Dogs do have an incredibly strong sense of smell that enables them to pick up the minutest traces of scents to track and navigate. But this dog was not going home. The group was camping so this was unfamiliar territory and, since the dog had been traveling by truck, there would have been no scent to follow back to camp. How did the dog know where to go?

Nearly all campus protests were peaceful

There has been an eruption of protests across the world at the absolutely horrific slaughter of people in Gaza by Israel, most of whom are women and children. In the US, college students have been in the forefront of these events . If you have been following them, you might have got the impression that violence was a common element of the protests. But the media coverage has been extraordinarily biased, focusing on the rare violence that occurred, often triggered by the actions of university administrations and the police. These few instances have been exploited by apologists for Israel in the US, especially in Congress, to distract from the real issues raised by the students, by raising the usual claim that any protests against the actions of the Israeli government or the military were antisemitic.

A study finds that in fact, 97% of the protests were peaceful and did not cause any serious damage to property.
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Some interesting primary results

The state of New Jersey had its primary elections on Tuesday and although this is a moderately Democratic state, there were some interesting features.

Three term congressperson Andy Kim won the Democratic primary for the senate seat and seems well on the way to becoming the state’s senator. The incumbent Robert Menendez is on trial for corruption and is vowing to run as an independent but his chances look slim. Kim should be a far better senator than the awful Menendez.

More interesting is that the candidate that serial sex offender and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) endorsed for the Republican senate nomination failed to win.
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Trump has to meet with a probation officer before sentencing

I am learning all manner of arcane things about how the criminal justice system works, thanks to the trial and conviction of serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT). For example, I used to wonder why there would be a long gap between the verdict and the sentencing. It turns out that this is because even though it is the judge who decides what the sentence should be, there is a process that leads up to it and one requirement is that the convicted felon first meet with a probation officer who will conduct an examination and give the judge a report.
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US beats Pakistan in World Cup cricket shocker

In their Group A game, the US pulled off a sensational win against Pakistan in a thrilling match in which the score was tied at 159 runs each after the regular 20 overs but then won 18-13 in the ‘super over’ tie-breaker. It is hard to think of a good comparison that would give those who do not follow cricket a sense of how big an upset this was. It is like a college football team beating an NFL team, since the US team consists of amateurs who have regular jobs while the Pakistanis are seasoned professionals who do this for a living.

The US is participating in the World Cup for the first time and only because it got an automatic entry because it is a co-host. Pakistan, on the other hand, is a perennial powerhouse that made it to the finals of the last World Cup and its match next week against favorites India is expected to draw a viewership that is five times that of the Super Bowl, while this is the just the second game ever for the US. In their first Group A match the US defeated Canada and they still have to play India and Ireland in their group. For them to defeat India would be for lightning to strike twice but defeating Ireland is not unrealistic and if they do so, they would likely end up second in their group next to India and thus qualify for the next round. Part of the reason that the US was chosen to co-host this World Cup with West Indies was to help popularize the sport in this country and this win will undoubtedly help in that effort. This win has already created considerable media coverage.
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Another day, another atrocity committed by the IDF

The Israeli military hit a school and killed over 30 people, 23 of whim were women and children trying to find refuge from the constant bombardment unleashed on the people of Gaza by the Israeli government.

An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school.
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Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA. The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli offensives and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said.

Ayman Rashed, a man displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering. He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open. “It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims,” Rashed said.

The stories are heartbreaking. It is tempting to turn away, just to avoid becoming depressed at the sheer level of inhumanity of display.

What happens to our bodies in excessive heat

It is astonishing that with record heat waves year after year, there are still those who refuse to acknowledge that we are experiencing dangerous levels of global warming, who not only ignore the warnings but even threaten journalists who write about it.

Almost four out of every 10 journalists covering the climate crisis and environment issues have been threatened as a result of their work, with 11% subjected to physical violence, according to groundbreaking new research.

A global survey of more than 740 reporters and editors from 102 countries found that 39% of those threatened “sometimes” or “frequently” were targeted by people engaged in illegal activities such as logging and mining. Some 30%, meanwhile, were threatened with legal action – reflecting a growing trend towards corporations and governments deploying the judicial system to muzzle free speech.

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