Senseless deaths

Common sense would tell you that when temperatures rise to extraordinarily high levels, you should avoid exertion and stay indoors. The hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia undertaken by devout Muslims is done outdoors and is pretty grueling at the best of times. But when it is done during a heat wave, it is positively dangerous, and so it proved this year when temperatures reached 125F.

At least 550 pilgrims have died during the hajj, underscoring the gruelling nature of the pilgrimage which again unfolded in scorching temperatures this year.

At least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, the two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told AFP.

“All of them [the Egyptians] died because of heat” except for one who sustained fatal injuries during a minor crowd crush, one of the diplomats said, adding that the total figure came from the hospital morgue in the Al-Muaisem neighbourhood of Mecca.

At least 60 Jordanians have died, the diplomats said, up from an official tally of 41 given earlier on Tuesday by Amman.

The new deaths bring the total reported so far by multiple countries to 577, according to an AFP tally.

The diplomats said the total at the morgue in Al-Muaisem, one of the biggest in Mecca, was 550.
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Saudi authorities have reported treating more than 2,000 pilgrims suffering from heat stress but have not updated that figure since Sunday and have not provided information on fatalities.

At least 240 pilgrims were reported dead by various countries last year, most of them Indonesians.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and all Muslims with the means to must complete it at least once.

The pilgrimage is increasingly affected by climate breakdown, according to a Saudi study published last month that said temperatures in the area where rituals are performed were rising 0.4C (0.72F) each decade.

Temperatures hit 51.8C at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Monday, the Saudi national meteorology centre said.

It is madness to choose to go out in such temperatures. These people died because of their religious fervor.

Another monolith appears!

In 2020 there were several gleaming monoliths similar to the one that was shown in the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey that mysteriously appeared in remote areas of the world. As far as I am aware, the question of who was responsible was never solved.

Now yet another monolith has appeared, this time in the Nevada desert.

Las Vegas police said on the social platform X that members of its search and rescue unit found the otherworldly object over the weekend near Gass Peak, part of the vast Desert National Wildlife Refuge where bighorn sheep and desert tortoises can be found roaming. At 6,937 feet (2,114 meters), it is among the highest peaks in the area north of Las Vegas.
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In November of [2020 a similar metal monolith was found deep in the Mars-like landscape of Utah’s red-rock desert. Then came sightings in Romania, central California and on the famed Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

All of them disappeared as quickly as they popped up.

The Utah structure, which captured the world’s imagination during the pandemic, is believed to be the first in the series. It stood at about 12 feet (3.6 meters) and had been embedded in the rock in an area so remote that officials didn’t immediately reveal its location for fear of people getting lost or stranded while trying to find it.

Hordes of curious tourists still managed to find it, and along the way flattened plants with their cars and left behind human waste in the bathroom-free backcountry. Two men known for extreme sports in Utah’s sweeping outdoor landscapes say it was that kind of damage that made them step in late at night and tear it down.

The article does not give the dimensions of the latest monolith but whatever its size, it is a pretty impressive stunt to pull off.

Is raw milk the new right wing thing?

The MAGAnuts have been relentless in their efforts to promote alternative realities that postulate that well-respected institutions that are science-based are actually part of a secret cabal that is trying to … well I don’t know what exactly but whatever it is, they tell us that those institutions should not be trusted. In pursuing that goal, they have been promoting alternative theories that go against the scientific consensus in many areas. If the scientific community argues for vaccines, they claim that vaccines are actually harmful. If the scientific community points to the dangers of greenhouse gases and global warming, they say that emitting those gases is good for the environment. It seems like they seize of anything that the FDA, NIH, EPA, and other organizations recommend to promote public health and oppose it. ‘Experts’, you know the people who spend decades studying issues and building up evidence to reach reliable conclusions, are dismissed as know nothings or, worse, as positively evil with a nefarious agenda.

Now these people are arguing that pasteurizing milk is not necessary and can actually be bad for you and that unpasteurized (so-called ‘raw’) milk is to be preferred. See this letter put out by raw milk advocates that asserts the alleged benefits of raw milk that is ‘carefully produced’.
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Easy way to solve the climate crisis

The US southwest is already suffering from heat waves that are expected to spread to other parts of thecountry this coming week.

The scorching heatwave that has swept the US south-east in recent weeks will soon spread to the country’s midwest and north-east regions, affecting nearly 250 million Americans.

Temperatures are stuck at 90F (32C) or above for at least the next week in much of the US, the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted. The NWS defines a heatwave as a period of temperatures exceeding 90F for two or more days, and this one could last until 26 June.

The NWS said: “The first heatwave of the summer begins Sunday over the middle of the nation, before spreading to the midwest and to the north-east by Tuesday then lasting most of next week,” with temperatures expected to approach 105F and break records, with very warm nights.

Parts of Florida have set record high temperatures.
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Limited victory for abortion rights

The US Supreme Court unanimously allowed the use of the abortion medication mifepristone.

The nine justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent actions to ease access to it. The case had threatened to restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in states where abortion remains legal.

Abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy in 14 states, and after about six weeks of pregnancy in three others, often before women realize they’re pregnant.
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Kavanaugh’s opinion managed to unite a court deeply divided over abortion and many other divisive social issues by employing a minimalist approach that focused solely on the technical legal issue of standing and reached no judgment about the FDA’s actions. Kavanaugh’s seven “pro-life” references to abortion opponents may have been the only language in his opinion that revealed anything of his views on abortion.
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About two-thirds of U.S. adults oppose banning the use of mifepristone, or medication abortion, nationwide, according to a KFF poll conducted in February. About one-third would support a nationwide ban.
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More than 6 million people have used mifepristone since 2000. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and primes the uterus to respond to the contraction-causing effect of a second drug, misoprostol. The two-drug regimen has been used to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation.

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Does getting shot really throw someone back?

It is a familiar trope in any violent action scene. Some gets shot and the impact causes the person to fall back, sometimes even thrown into the air or, more spectacularly, propelled backwards through a glass window. Filmmakers seem to love such scenes but it would never happen in reality. This is because although the bullet is traveling at high velocity, it also has very small mass and so its momentum (mass times velocity( is small, not enough to knock the victim over. At best they might move back a couple of inches

Bullets cause damage by penetrating the body and hitting the various organs inside and causing loss of blood.

This article explains why.
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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?

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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A better AI system?

Via Kevin Drum, I learned that the Wall Street Journal had tested five AI engines and the winner was one that I had not heard of before called Perplexity, where the basic version is free.

As readers may recall, back in December I tried out ChatGPT and Bard with the prompt “What can you tell me about Mano Singham?” and got back some accurate information mixed in with false ones. I read that turning out some false information was common in these AI systems, making them of highly dubious value.

I tried the prompt “Who is Mano Singham” on Perplexity and got results that were fairly extensive and correct and did not have any false information. I used a prompt asking about myself not because of vanity (at least not entirely) but because that way I can know what is true and false immediately without having to do any further research.
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