If the Solar System's 'Planet Nine' is actually a small black hole, here's how we could detect it... wait, what?

There may be a small black hole on the edge of our Solar System? 2020, please stop

The suggestion that the Solar System's hypothesized Planet Nine is actually a small black hole could be supported by searching for outbursts of energy using the Vera Rubin Observatory, scientists say.

The observatory, previously known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), has been under construction in Chile since 2015, and is expected to begin observing the heavens this year. It will be home to a giant telescope that employs a “three-mirror, three-lens optical assembly” to focus light from the night’s sky onto the “world’s largest CCD camera.”

Avi Loeb and Amir Siraj, chairman of the Department of Astronomy and an undergraduate student, respectively, at Harvard University believe the new telescope will be able to determine whether or not Planet Nine, a hypothetical object, may be a black hole or not within a year of the instrument becoming operational.

Planet Nine, if it exists, has remained elusive since it was predicted by a pair of astronomers at the California Institute of Technology in 2015. Fruitless searching for the strange body has led some scientists to believe it’s not visible at all because it may, in fact, be a black hole.

Loeb and Siraj have come up with a method to detect Planet Nine if, of course, it really is a black hole estimated to mass something in the order of five to ten Earth-sized planets. Their approach is described in a paper expected to appear in The Astrophysical Journal – a pre-print version is here. The abstract summarizes the method thus:


Planet Nine has been proposed to potentially be a black hole in the outer solar system. We investigate the accretion flares that would result from impacts of small Oort cloud objects, and find that the upcoming LSST observing program will be able to either rule out or confirm Planet Nine as a black hole within a year.

What that means is, their technique involves spotting luminous flares erupting at the outer edge of our Solar System. These bursts will be produced whenever the black hole, if it exists, gobbles up any comets and other stuff that flies too close to the proposed swirling disk of gas and dust.

"In the vicinity of a black hole, small bodies that approach it will melt as a result of heating from the background accretion of gas from the interstellar medium onto the black hole," said Siraj. "Once they melt, the small bodies are subject to tidal disruption by the black hole, followed by accretion from the tidally disrupted body onto the black hole."

In other words, matter flying towards Planet Nine will get pulled apart and swallowed, if it is a black hole. The interaction produces electromagnetic energy that signals the potential presence of this invisible void.

"Because black holes are intrinsically dark, the radiation that matter emits on its way to the mouth of the black hole is our only way to illuminate this dark environment," said Loeb.

The new telescope has a wide-field view that can search for these random flashes of light in outer space. "LSST has a wide field of view, covering the entire sky again and again, and searching for transient flares," said Loeb. "Other telescopes are good at pointing at a known target but we do not know exactly where to look for Planet Nine. We only know the broad region in which it may reside," Siraj added.

Captain, the computer has identified 250 alien stars that infiltrated our galaxy – actual science, not science-fiction

Neural network trained to spot emigrated suns in our Milky Way uncovers mysterious Nyx collective

Wed 8 Jul 2020 

Deep-learning software has singled out a group of 250 stars in the Milky Way that appear to have been born outside our galaxy. That's according to a research paper published this week in Nature Astronomy.

The oddballs, known collectively as Nyx, were described as a “vast stellar stream in the vicinity of the Sun,” by Lina Necib, first author of the paper [pre-print] and a postdoctoral scholar in theoretical physics at Caltech.

However, unlike our own star, these suns don’t look like they really belong in the Milky Way.

The Nyx collective moves through the galaxy in a manner unlike nearby stars, and some stars in the group have a similar chemical composition that suggests the Milky Way inherited these stars when it merged with a dwarf galaxy in its past.

The Caltech team discovered Nyx by running stars observed by ESA's Gaia spacecraft through a neural network. Specifically, they used a model that had been trained to predict whether a given star has an intergalactic origin from its kinematics. The network was taught using synthetic data derived from simulations run by the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. Thus when the neutral net was shown real stars, it could attempt to predict, from their movements, whether they came from beyond the Milky Way.

The team were mindful they had to ensure their resulting AI system was grounded in reality, and reflected how the Milky Way actually worked, rather than predicting what would happen in a simulator. This was accomplished by incorporating real stars into the training process using transfer learning.

We worry that machines trained on them may learn the simulation and not real physics

“At the LHC, we have incredible simulations, but we worry that machines trained on them may learn the simulation and not real physics," said Bryan Ostdiek, co-author of the paper, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, and previously worked on the Large Hadron Collider. "In a similar way, the FIRE galaxies provide a wonderful environment to train our models, but they are not the Milky Way. We had to learn not only what could help us identify the interesting stars in simulation, but also how to get this to generalize to our real galaxy."

They assigned the stars in the training data labels to indicate whether they were born in their galaxy, or accreted there as a result of a galaxy merger. After they trained their neural net, the academics fed it real data taken from the Gaia spacecraft to see if those observed suns were foreign to the Milky Way or not.

“We asked the neural network, ‘based on what you've learned, can you label if the stars were accreted or not?’” said Necib.

For each given star, the neural network generates a number between zero and one to indicate the likelihood it was formed inside the virtual model of the Milky Way or outside of it, respectively. To test their predictive model's accuracy, they checked if it was able to identify a separate group of stars known come from a separate galaxy merger some six to ten billion years ago. The foreign stars from that mash-up form what the scientists called a “Gaia sausage.”

Indeed, their model highlighted the Gaia sausage of stars – and a previously unknown group.

Your first instinct is that you have a bug

"Your first instinct is that you have a bug," Necib said. "And you're like, 'Oh no!' So, I didn't tell any of my collaborators for three weeks. Then I started realizing it's not a bug, it's actually real and it's new." She named the group Nyx.

“Nyx exists, there is no question about it,” she told The Register. “We can still debate its interpretation, as we are still gathering data to confirm the origin of these stars, but the machine-learning algorithm helped us identify these as interesting stars.

"We later studied their kinematics and indeed they are different from those of the [Milky Way's] disk; they have highly eccentric orbits, and lag behind the disk by about 90 kilometres per second, which is highly unusual for disk stars, even after collisions.”

Here's a headline we'll run this century, mark our words: Alien invaders' AI found on Mars searching for signs of life

READ MORE

The astrophysicists were hesitant to say these stars were definitely formed outside of our galaxy, and are the result of a dwarf galaxy merger, though they believe there is enough evidence to speculate that’s the case.

It’s possible, but unlikely, the model is incorrect, Ostdiek told The Register: “For any given star within Nyx, it is possible that the network is wrong about it. However, there are hundreds of stars which seem to be moving together and are all selected by the network. The network itself only identifies individual stars, not whole streams. The stars that it finds interesting are there, and are moving together.”

Necib said that to confirm whether the Milky Way did collide with a mystery dwarf galaxy in its past, they would have to study other sources of data: “We further need high-resolution spectroscopy to evaluate the chemical abundances of the Nyx stars. We expect these abundances to be different for disk stars compared to dwarf galaxies.” ®

https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/08/ai_galaxy_gobble/

NASA trusted 'traditional' Boeing to program its Starliner without close supervision... It failed to dock due to bugs

All eyes were instead on SpaceX and its newer programming techniques

Wed 8 Jul 2020 

Katyanna Quach 

At a press conference on Tuesday, NASA confirmed why Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spaceship failed to hook up with the International Space Station last year. The answer: as expected, buggy code.

Crucially, NASA admitted it did not supervise Boeing closely enough during the craft's software development stage because the agency trusted the aerospace corp's seemingly "more traditional" engineering methods, and thought it had a good grasp on Boeing's processes. NASA thus focused its attention instead on assessing rival SpaceX's newer programming techniques.

Back in December, Boeing was tasked with sending a Starliner packed with cargo to Earth's orbiting science lab. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Boeing to demonstrate it was on track with the spacecraft, which it hopes will safely ferry humans into the heavens in the not-too-distant future. However, the flight was plagued with software glitches, and the Starliner ultimately failed to dock with the station.

Boeing round the twist ... the CST-100 Starliner after it returned to Earth, where it remains grounded. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Ground control was able to bring Boeing’s calamity cargo ship back to Earth, and NASA launched a thorough investigation to figure out what went wrong. As a result of that probe, NASA and Boeing boffins have come up with a list of 80 recommendations to fix Starliner's glaring problems, Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, said in a conference call with reporters.

A full report detailing these changes will not be publicly released, however, as it contains Boeing's proprietary information that could allegedly provide its competitors an unfair advantage. That's amusing given Boeing is far behind rival SpaceX, and its tech doesn't even work properly. Boeing and SpaceX were both contracted to run deliveries to the space station, and while Elon Musk's upstart has put two astronauts in orbit, Boeing is stuck in the doldrums. A redacted report has not been published yet, either.

Lueders admitted NASA was not as closely involved with the Starliner's software development stage as it could have been, leading to the deployment of poor code. This was partly because the agency thought it already had a solid handle on Boeing's development processes.

“Perhaps we didn’t have as many people embedded in that process as we should have,” she said. Instead, NASA focused on areas it deemed “higher risk,” particularly those involving the safety of the crew.

“The strategy was because we’re buying a service, NASA did not have a requirement to have a systems engineering management plan," she said. "If we had understood what that structure was, we would have been better able to plug into the decision-making process. In particular, how they were integrating software and hardware pieces together. We thought we understood it, but over time we realized it had changed."

Two out of three parachutes... is just as planned for Boeing's Starliner this time around

READ MORE

You might think the Starliner mishap dented Boeing’s standing, yet NASA isn’t giving up on the aerospace company. Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said the American agency expected to launch a new and improved Starliner in the “latter part of the year.”

He couldn’t speculate on the launch date, and said NASA and Boeing eggheads are still making the necessary changes to Boeing’s flight software. “Once we see how that shapes out, we’ll talk about when to go fly,” Stich said.

Boeing’s approach to writing and testing software in its Starliner was described as being “more traditional” than SpaceX’s programming techniques for its crewed Dragon pod. For that reason, NASA staff monitored SpaceX's coders more closely than Boeing's. “When one provider has a newer approach than the other, it's natural for human beings to focus more on that one,” Stich said.

SpaceX successfully sent astronauts off to the space station in its Dragon capsule atop its own Falcon 9 rocket in May. Stich said NASA’s working relationship with both companies was still very solid despite Boeing’s blunders.

“From my perspective, every early space company goes through these anomalies and you learn from it," he said. "These kinds of things disappear. Every time they work to become better... I can’t envision a future where SpaceX is the only provider. We need Boeing and SpaceX to be both be there for us." ®

https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/08/nasa_boeing_starliner/

The world's nonsense keeping you awake in middle of the night? Good news. Go outside and see this two-tail comet

At 65 million miles away, that's what we call social distancing

Sat 11 Jul 2020  Katyanna Quach
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/11/neowise_comet_spotting/

A two-pronged comet with billowing tails of gas and dust will streak across the sky this month.

If you're in the northern hemisphere, and gazing up at the right moment – around 4am local time, July 10 to 15, looking northeast; and potentially an hour after sunset, July 14 to 23, looking northwest – you should catch a glimpse of the comet, C/2020 F3 NEOWISE. And local time really does mean the time wherever you are.

The glowing lump of ice and rock was discovered by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) probe on March 27 – hence the name. Astronauts onboard the International Space Station also clocked the comet.

Read the directions ... When to expect the comet when looking northeast. Click to enlarge. Source: Sky & Telescope. Used with permission

Solar radiation vaporizes the ice in the comet's nucleus. Gas and dust are freed as a result, and it all forms a cloud, or coma, around the comet’s body as well its two tails. One of the tails contains ionized gas, and the other, brighter, one is made up of dust. The comet made its closest approach to the Sun on July 3. Now, it’s making its way towards Earth and will eventually cross our planet’s orbit and return to the outer edges of our Solar System by August.

Go west ... When to expect the comet when looking northwest. Click to enlarge. Source: Sky & Telescope. Used with permission

The best chance of seeing the comet is a few hours before sunrise until about July 14. Find some place with a good open view of the sky and not too much light pollution. It’s best viewed with a telescope or binoculars, though the naked eye may do just fine. After July 14, you can look for it after sunset though bear in mind it may be too faint for the naked eye.

The trick to finding the comet is to locate Venus, the brightest planet in the eastern direction. After you’ve spotted Venus, find the star Capella... or use one of those free sky-mapping apps for smartphones.

“Look far to Capella’s lower left, by somewhat more than the width of your clenched fist at arm’s length,” Diana Hannikainen, observing editor of Sky & Telescope, America's venerable astronomy magazine, said this week. That’s roughly the spot where the comet will be.

It will appear in the sky as a fuzzy ball of light with a bright streak. “Across the same latitude, observers in both the US and the UK will see the same thing,” Hannikainen told El Reg.

“The difference in what viewers will see of Comet NEOWISE depends more on latitude than on longitude. For the UK, the comet is 'circumpolar,' which means it doesn't set.

“Nevertheless, the best viewing options in the UK are similar to [the US]: for the next few days, the best sights of the comet are those early in the morning, before the Sun rises, while after 14 July or so, the comet will be better placed in the evening, while still remaining visible throughout the night until dawn."

To find the comet in the second half of this month, look for the Big Dipper stars in the Ursa Major constellation, and search just below it, though, again, you may need some equipment to see it.

The comet will pass by Earth no closer than about 64 million miles (103 million kilometres), and is estimated to measure about three miles (five kilometres) across. ®

Genocide denial gains ground 25 years after Srebrenica massacre 

Even as remains continue to be identified, denialism is moving from far-right fringe into mainstream

by Shaun Walker in Srebrenica THE GUARDIAN Fri 10 Jul 2020 

A genocide survivor prays near the graves of his father and two brothers at the memorial centre near Srebrenica. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

At the genocide memorial centre outside Srebrenica, thousands of simple white gravestones stretch across the gently inclined hillside for as far as the eye can see.

Nearby, over a number of days in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces systematically murdered around 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys. It was the worst crime of the Bosnian war, and remains the only massacre on European soil since the second world war to be ruled a genocide.

Even today, remains of victims are still being found and identified. Owing to a cover-up operation to hide the crimes by digging up and dispersing the contents of mass graves, there are cases in which partial remains of the same individual have been found at as many as five sites several miles apart. At a 25th anniversary commemoration on Saturday, at least eight more victims will finally be laid to rest at the cemetery.

A quarter of a century after the events, however, the truth about what happened at Srebrenica is being subjected to a growing chorus of denial, starting in Bosnia itself and echoing around the world, moving from the fringes of the far right into mainstream discourse. 

Coffins containing remains of newly identified victims before their burial. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

In Srebrenica, the denial starts with the mayor. The current population of around 7,000 is one-fifth of the pre-war total, and there are now more Serbs than Bosniaks, a reversal of the situation before the war and genocide. Four years ago, Srebrenica elected its first Serb mayor, Mladen Grujičić, and official rhetoric changed overnight.

Grujičić, 38, an energetic former chemistry teacher, has no time for talk of genocide. “No Serb would deny that Bosniaks were killed here in horrible crimes … but a genocide means the deliberate destruction of a people. There was no deliberate attempt to do that here,” he said in an interview at his office in the centre of Srebrenica.

He was 10 when the war started. His father was killed during the war in a village not far from Srebrenica. Grujičić pointed out that there were victims on all sides during the conflict, which tore apart multi-ethnic Bosnia after the collapse of Yugoslavia.

But what about the international courts that have forensically sifted the evidence and come to the conclusion that the systematic slaughter around Srebrenica in July 1995 did constitute genocide, unlike other crimes during the war? “Unfortunately, all these courts have been biased against the Serbs and this has only deepened divisions here,” he shrugged. He has not once during his time in office visited the genocide memorial, which is a five-minute drive from the town hall.

Mladen Grujičić, the Srebrenica mayor. Photograph: Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images

His views are in line with those of most Serb politicians in Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated entity that makes up half of Bosnia’s complicated post-war political system. Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, has called the Srebrenica genocide “a fabricated myth”, and the Republika Srpska authorities have set up a commission to investigate the events. Its report, due later this year, is expected to whitewash the crimes of Bosnian Serb forces.

“This is the next phase, even worse than genocide denial: to try to create a new historical reality,” said Serge Brammertz, who spent nearly a decade as chief prosecutor at the UN international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The tribunal convicted the Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić and the military commander Ratko Mladić of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mladić’s appeal is still under way.

The genocide has long been an inspiration for far-right extremists and Islamophobes. The Christchurch mosque attacker last year played a song glorifying Karadžić just prior to the assault, and years earlier Anders Breivik also sought inspiration in the Balkan wars and Serb ultra-nationalism.

Recently, however, questioning the genocide has been gaining more mainstream approval. Most infuriating for survivors was the award of last year’s Nobel prize for literature to the Austrian writer Peter Handke. He had delivered a eulogy at the funeral of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević and made a number of revisionist statements about the events of the Bosnian war that have led to accusations of genocide denial.
Remains found in a mass grave in the eastern village of Kamenica, believed to have been transferred from Srebrenica. Photograph: Danilo Krstanovic/ReutersIn a press conference before the prize-giving ceremony, when Handke was asked whether he accepted that the Srebrenica massacre had happened, he dodged the question, calling it “empty and ignorant” and comparing it to hate mail he said he had received containing soiled toilet paper.

Emir Suljagić, who runs the sombre genocide memorial centre at Potočari, just outside Srebrenica, said: “I am not a fan of cancel culture but if there’s one thing that should cancel you, surely it’s genocide denial, it’s speaking at Milošević’s funeral.”

The memorial centre is located in the former headquarters of the Dutch UN battalion that in July 1995 failed to protect the people gathered in Srebrenica, which had been declared a UN safe zone. Suljagić, who survived because he worked as a translator for the mission, spoke of the trauma for returnees who have to live in places where the crimes took place. He told a story from his years working as a journalist, covering war crimes trials in The Hague.

Suljagić was watching two former Bosnian Serb soldiers give evidence against their commander at one trial. The men testified under pseudonyms and with their voice and appearance altered, but as they recounted their role in a massacre, Suljagić pieced together their identities from information given to the court. He had been to school with both of them. He assumed they had been given immunity for their role in the massacre in exchange for testifying against their commander.

“Nine years later, I’m in the parking lot of the local supermarket and one of those guys comes out and recognises me and says: ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ They both live locally. And I’m thinking: ‘Do I tell him? Do I tell him I know?’ In the end, I said nothing, but I still see them occasionally.

” 

An aerial view of the memorial centre. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters
With survivors and perpetrators living side by side, and given the country’s divided politics, it is hard to imagine closure and reconciliation coming soon. Hasan Hasanović, who lost his twin brother and his father in the genocide, said it would be possible to talk about progress when school trips of Serb pupils come to tour the genocide memorial, where he works as a guide.

Schooling, like so much in Bosnia, is still divided along ethnic lines. Pupils are split into separate classes for “national subjects” such as history, and while the Bosniak textbooks cover the genocide, the Serb textbooks gloss it over. There is little hope of a unified curriculum in the country in the foreseeable future. “The main nationalist parties that continue to benefit from social division have no interest in changing a divisive status quo,” said Valery Perry, of the Democratization Policy Council in Sarajevo.

At Srebrenica’s elementary school, teachers avoid discussing the war at all, said the headmaster, Dragi Jovanović. “Even adults, when we sit together, we simply do not touch these topics ... We are trying not to hurt people’s feelings, and at this point you can’t educate the children without hurting their feelings,” he said.

How, then, would he respond to a pupil who asked why there was such a vast cemetery on the outskirts of town? “I have never been asked such a question,” he said.

25 Years After Srebrenica: No Peace or Reconciliation in West Balkans

Imagine it is 1970 — and still there is no peace or reconciliation between France and Germany. Fast forward to the present and consider the situation in the West Balkans.
By Denis MacShane, July 11, 2020 THE GLOBALIST


Credit: djstanek - www.flickr.com

Takeaways
Imagine it is 1970 and still there is no reconciliation between France and Germany. That’s where the West Balkans are 25 years after the Srebrenica massacre.

Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vucic, a longtime cheerleader of “Serbia über Alles,” earlier in his career was proud to play chess with Ratko Mladic -- the Srebrenica killer-in-chief.

Aleksandar Vucic -- who was Slobodan Milosevic’s Information Minister during the later genocidal attacks on Kosovan villages -- today is making nice with the Chinese.

In line with his love of China’s masters, Aleksandar Vucic has created an elected authoritarianism making Serbia a one-man-rule state.

It weakens Josep Borrell’s position that he cannot speak for a united Europe. Kosovo keeps looking to the US and is hoping for a Biden win.

Belgrade “no war, no peace” politics is keeping the West Balkans from integrating into the EU.

Imagine it is 1970 — and still there is no peace or reconciliation between France and Germany.

Now, fast forward to the present and realize that 25 years after the worst genocidal slaughter of Europeans since the World War Two, there is still no final peace or agreement on the most basic of relations between peoples and states in the West Balkans — the region of Europe between the Alps and the Aegean.
An indisputable war crime

25 years ago, on July 11, 1995 8,000 men and boys were taken out from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. They were put to death one by one. Serb soldiers had prepared the mass graves with excavators.

They had exactly the right number of plastic handcuffs to fasten arms behind backs. The Serb executioners had been issued with enough bullets for their murder, and given regular coffee breaks in case they got tired.
Truly dark parallels

The world was outraged by Nazi killings in Lidice in what is now the Czech Republic. Then 173 were killed by the SS as revenge for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich — the Nazi ruler of occupied Bohemia.

In Oradour-sur-Glane in the summer of 1944 the Das Reich Division slaughtered 642 villagers as a reprisal for French resistance attacks on German soldiers hurrying north to take part in the Battle for Normandy.

Those two moments of Nazi murderous brutality are insignificant compared to the genocidal attacks at Srebenica. Yet, for years the political leadership as well as the military commanders responsible for the killings were protected by Serbia where politicians put every obstacle in the path of UN investigators.

The dirt on the hands of Serbia’s president today

A cheerleader for this approach of “Serbia über Alles” was a young politician, Aleksandar Vucic. Now Serbia’s president, he was then proud to play chess with the likes of “General” Ratko Mladic, the Srebrenica killer-in-chief.

Vucic was in the Serbian Radical Party and called for the creation of a Greater Serbia and proclaimed that “For every Serb killed we will kill 100 Muslims.”

Today, Serge Bammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, set up by the UN Security Council argues that “a number of alleged genocidists have fled to Serbia and found safe haven there, including political leaders and military commanders.”

Meanwhile, Aleksandar Vucic dominates Serbian politics as President of his country. True to form, the man who then acted as Slobodan Milosevic’s Information Minister during the later genocidal attacks on Kosovan villages and farmers by Serbs during the Kosovo war of liberation 1998-99 today is making nice with the Chinese.
Milosevic’s long reach via his presidential understudy

At the time, Vucic banned foreign TV crews from Belgrade and took control of Serb media to pump out anti-Kosovan propaganda and whip up hate against the Kosovans as they sought their own independence and identity.

Vucic has copied his master, Slobadan Milosevic, in pumping up Serb nationalism as the main political force field in the country. He easily won an election in July which was boycotted by opposition parties.

A China lover

In line with his love of China’s masters, Vucic has created an elected authoritarianism making Serbia a one-man-ruled state. The question now is what he does with his supreme power.

This week, Vucic was received by President Macron and also held talks with the Kosovo prime minister brokered by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
A complete road block

In the 21 years since the end of the Kosovo war and expulsion of the Serb death squads and military from the small Balkan nation, the Serbs have refused to accept that Kosovo is no longer a province of Serbia ruled by Belgrade. It is this denial of reality that blocks any final peace settlement in this small corner of Europe.

Borrell’s predecessors in charge of EU foreign policy — first Britain’s Cathy Ashton then Italy’s Frederic a Mogherini — tried to bring Belgrade and Pristina together but everything foundered on Vucic’s Serb nationalism and refusal to accept the existence of Kosovo.
Also doing Putin’s bidding

Vucic has always had the backing of Putin who enjoys the sight of neither the United States nor the EU able to make a final peace in the West Balkans. Vucic is helped by the short-sighted policy of five EU member states who like Serbia refuse to recognize Kosovo.

Each of them has disputes with neighbors over territorial claims. Romania and Slovakia nonetheless recognize Hungary despite Hungarian irredentism.

Cyprus and Greece recognize Turkey despite opposing Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. Spain has a problem with Catalonia but the comparison with Kosovo refusing to be ruled by Serbia is absurd.
Europe not united

It does however weaken Borrell’s position as he cannot speak for a united Europe. Kosovo keeps looking to the United States and is hoping for a Biden win. It pins its hopes on the fact that Joe Biden’s beloved late son Beau Biden (who died from cancer) had served in Kosovo and that Joe Biden as Vice President had visited Kosovo to offer U.S. support.

In the 1990s, the complaint laid at the EU’s door was that it failed to stop the Milosevic wars and stamp down on Serb aggression and nationalism which gave rise to Srebrenica.

In 2020, the EU still seems unable to face down Vucic’s Serb nationalism and get Belgrade to accept that its no war, no peace politics is keeping the Western Balkans as a whole from integrating into Europe.

More on this topic
A World of Twenty-Year Cycles?
Serbia and Kosovo — On the Road to Europe?
Letter from Serbia: The EU and the Western Balkans


About 

Denis MacShane is a Contributing Editor at The Globalist. He was the UK's Minister for Europe from 2002 to 2005 — and is the author of “Brexiternity. The Uncertain Fate of Britain” published by IB Tauris-Bloomsbury, London, October 2019. Follow him @DenisMacShane

The Quarantine Stream: ‘Starship Troopers’ is a Hilarious, Chilling Satire That Arrived a Few Decades Early

Posted on Friday, July 10th, 2020 by Jacob Hall

(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

The Movie: Starship Troopers

Where You Can Stream It: Netflix

The Pitch: 10 years after making his first blistering satire of American culture disguised as a silly action movie with RoboCop, director Paul Verhoeven topped himself. His big screen take on Robert Heinlein’s militaristic science fiction novel Starship Troopers is less of an adaptation and more of an evisceration, a shiny, big-budget middle finger to fascism disguised as a vapid blockbuster. Would you like to know more?

Why It’s Essential Viewing: I was too young too fully wrap my head around Starship Troopers when it first came out in 1997. As a youngster, it was clearly a big, bombastic action movie filled with violence and epic battles and dizzying visual effects. Watching armies of soldiers battle armies of giant bugs was a blast. But it was also lunkheaded, stupid, filled with wooden actors playing stock characters. It was all nonsense: lightweight fluff that was enjoyable enough as cinematic junk food. But Paul Verhoeven had proven himself ahead of the curve with RoboCop and he proved it again here, because Starship Troopers is the most damning, angry, brutal satire of authoritarianism ever made by a major studio. And it’s been smuggled inside of a different movie altogether. Would you like to know more?

Verhoeven famously read the novel of Starship Troopers when offered the film, found himself depressed by its right-wing politics, and decided to subvert the material rather than adapt it. The result is a movie that only bears a passing resemblance to the source material, “celebrating” its macho, fascist, idiotic politics by putting them in the spotlight and exposing them as the trite nonsense that they are. A high school teacher lectures about the failure of democracy. Only military veterans are allowed to vote. Only “citizens” (a status given to those who serve) have an easy route to having a child. Criminals are caught, tried and executed, on live TV, in a single day. The film’s cheery, cheesy tone – one part old-school propaganda film and one part teen soap opera – add both a humor and menace to all of this. It’s funny because it’s ridiculous. It’s chilling because all of the characters just accept that yep, this is the way things are and it’s pretty great. Would you like to know more?

The costuming and production design set the stage and plant the seeds early, whether you realize it or not. The Federation’s logo, a giant stylized eagle, could be representative of the United States, but it sure owes a thing or two to a certain political regime run by a terrible man with a tiny mustache. Those military uniforms sure are stylish. Do you know what other group was known for their stylish uniforms? And just when you think it could be a coincidence or that you’re overthinking things, Neil Patrick Harris shows up dressed in a literal SS uniform to take triumphant pleasure in an enemy’s fear. Would you like to know more?

Of course, Harris’ casting as a psychic military intelligence wunderkind was a joke back in 1997. He had not yet evolved into his final form, so here was Doogie Howser, space Nazi. The rest of the cast is also a big wink. Soap opera star Casper Van Dien: handsome, square-jawed, proudly blank. Denise Richards: gorgeous, wide-eyed, proudly blank. Verhoeven didn’t cast these young men and women because there were hot at the time – he cast them to reflect a society where everyone is blandly pretty, where everyone does what they’re told, where everyone reflects some kind of ideal master race. Sure, there are people of color in Starship Troopers, but not many of them. And most of the cast are white folks hailing from Buenos Aires, all of them with Latinx surnames. Where…where did all of the brown people in South America go? It’s chilling that Starship Troopers never addresses this. Would you like to know more?

Once you key into the fact that Starship Troopers is satire, a comedy, it becomes a rich and unsettling experience. In a “fist-pump” moment, one character threatens an alien leader with literal genocide. Ground forces wade into battle with no actual tactics, as if mass slaughter on both sides is the only way this society knows how to fight. And when it’s suggested that perhaps, maybe, peace is possible, a character declares “I say kill them all!” In a fascist regime, violence is fuel. Without war, without brutality, such a society loses its reason to exist. After all, Paul Verhoeven grew up in the Netherlands during World War II. He saw this firsthand. And he knows Americans will gobble down a big silly action movie rather than accept a lecture about how empty and grotesque fascism is. Would you like to know more?

That’s the dark secret of Starship Troopers: it’s a fun, funny, fluffy, and extremely entertaining science fiction action movie about something horrible, something that no one wants to talk about. It’s about how people trapped in the bubble of extremism annihilate themselves to further a needless and brutal cause. It’s about how happily we embrace darkness and self-destruction. It’s also a brilliantly staged action movie whose set pieces make its contemporaries look trite in comparison. Paul Verhoeven decided he wanted this movie to have it all. And he succeeded. The result is a film that was a curiosity 23 years ago and has now become vital. Unmissable. Important. Would you like to know more?

Sen. Duckworth Has Some Choice Words For Tucker Carlson About Patriotism

POSTED BY ELLEN - ON JULY 09, 2020  NEWSHOUNDS



Sen. Tammy Duckworth fired back at Tucker Carlson for attacking her patriotism, in a New York Times op-ed this evening. It could make you stand up and cheer.

As The New York Times reported yesterday, Duckworth is being considered as a running mate by Joe Biden. The Times also noted:

VoteVets, the liberal veterans organization that has pushed for Mr. Biden to choose Ms. Duckworth as his running mate, on Wednesday morning posted a video calling Ms. Duckworth “tough as hell” and accusing Mr. Trump of being scared to run against her.

“He sicced Tucker Carlson on a suicide mission to take her down,” the video’s narrator says.

Today, Duckworth came out with this:

Even knowing how my tour in Iraq would turn out, even knowing that I’d lose both my legs in a battlefield just north of Baghdad in late 2004, I would do it all over again. Because if there’s anything that my ancestors’ service taught me, it’s the importance of protecting our founding values, including every American’s right to speak out. In a nation born out of an act of protest, there is nothing more patriotic than standing up for what you believe in, even if it goes against those in power.

Our founders’ refusal to blindly follow their leader was what I was reflecting on this Fourth of July weekend, when some on the far right started attacking me for suggesting that all Americans should be heard, even those whose opinions differ from our own. Led by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and egged on by President Trump, they began questioning my love for the country I went to war to protect, using words I never actually said and ascribing a position to me that I do not actually hold.

She went through Carlson’s deceitful twisting of her comments about George Washington and Confederate statues (which I wrote about yesterday), then she went on offense – always a good idea with bullies.

They’re doing it because they’re desperate for America’s attention to be on anything other than Donald Trump’s failure to lead our nation, and because they think that Mr. Trump’s electoral prospects will be better if they can turn us against one another. Their goal isn’t to make — or keep — America great. It’s to keep Mr. Trump in power, whatever the cost.

It’s better for Mr. Trump to have you focused on whether an Asian-American woman is sufficiently American than to have you mourning the 130,000 Americans killed by a virus he claimed would disappear in February. It’s better for his campaign to distract Americans with whether a combat veteran is sufficiently patriotic than for people to recall that this failed commander in chief has still apparently done nothing about reports of Russia putting bounties on the heads of American troops in Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump and his team have made the political calculation that, no matter what, they can’t let Americans remember that so many of his decisions suggest that he cares more about lining his pockets and bolstering his political prospects than he does about protecting our troops or our nation.

Do read the rest of her op-ed. It will likely make your day.

I don’t know what Joe Biden thinks but I think this woman would make an excellent vice president.

You can watch VoteVets' great video defending Duckworth below.


NEWSHOUNDS

Showing 1 reaction
 scooter commented 17 hours ago ·
God bless Senator Tammy Duckworth, and God damn Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson.

Trump undercuts health experts — again — even as US hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths keep climbing
By JILL COLVIN AND MIKE STOBBE
ASSOCIATED PRESS JUL 10, 2020

President Donald Trump listens during a "National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America's Schools," event in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 7, 2020, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)

WASHINGTON — The White House seating chart spoke volumes.

When the president convened a roundtable this week on how to safely reopen schools with coronavirus cases rising, the seats surrounding him were filled with parents, teachers and top White House officials, including the first and second ladies.

But the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, usually the leader of disease-fighting efforts, was relegated to secondary seating in the back with the children of parents who had been invited to speak.

Intentional or not, it was a telling indication of the regard that President Donald Trump has for the government’s top health professionals as he pushes the country to move past the coronavirus. Whatever they say, he’s determined to revive the battered economy and resuscitate his reelection chances, even as U.S. hospitalizations and deaths keep climbing.

Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. hit the 3 million mark this week, with over 130,000 deaths now recorded. The surge has led to new equipment shortages as well as long lines at testing sites and delayed results.

States are responding.

At midnight Friday, Nevada was to enforce new restrictions on bars and restaurants in several areas including Las Vegas and Reno after a spike in cases. And New Mexico's Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said her state was halting indoor restaurant service, closing state parks to nonresidents and suspending autumn contact sports at schools in response to surging infections within its boundaries and neighboring Texas and Arizona.

Yet Trump paints a rosy picture of progress and ramps up his attacks on his government's own public health officials, challenging the CDC's school-reopening guidelines and publicly undermining the nation's top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci.

“Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes,” Trump told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity in a call-in interview Thursday, pointing, in part, to changes in guidance on mask-wearing over time.

In his latest beef with the CDC, the president accused the Atlanta-based federal agency of “asking schools to do very impractical things” in order to reopen. The recommended measures include spacing students’ desks 6 feet apart, staggering start and arrival times, and teaching kids effective hygiene measures to try to prevent infections.

After Trump’s scolding comment, Vice President Mike Pence announced Wednesday that the CDC would be “issuing new guidance” that would “give all-new tools to our schools.”

But the agency's director, Dr. Robert Redfield, pushed back amid criticism that he was bowing to pressure from the president.

“I want to clarify, really what we’re providing is different reference documents. ... It’s not a revision of the guidelines,” he said the next day. Indeed, draft documents obtained by The Associated Press seem to confirm Redfield’s assertion, though officials stress the drafts are still under review.

DAS ASCHENKISSER

Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the plan to research, manufacture and distribute a coronavirus vaccine, known as Operation Warp Speed, July 2, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Saul Loeb/AP)
Deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere issued a supportive statement Friday: “The White House and CDC have been working together in partnership since the very beginning of this pandemic to carry out the president’s highest priority: the health and safety of the American public.”

But the flap has touched a nerve amid increasing concern over how the administration has sidelined, muzzled and seemed to derail the CDC. Repeatedly now, the administration has shelved or altered CDC draft guidance, or even told the the agency to take down guidance it has already posted. That includes in early March, when administration officials overruled CDC doctors who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the pandemic.

In May, officials removed some recommendations for reopening religious events hours after posting them, deleting guidance that discouraged choir gatherings and shared communion cups.

“Here we have at this time the 21st century’s biggest public health crisis, and the CDC has been shunted aside,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. They have “been sidelined and their voices — their clear, consistent, transparent voices — have been muffled or even completely silenced.”

While Trump has led the way, he’s not the only one sending messages contrary to those of public health officials. At a briefing this week by the White House coronavirus task force, Pence’s message to those in states like Texas, Florida, California and Arizona where cases are rising, was simple: “We believe the takeaway from this for every American, particularly in those states that are impacted, is: Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Not so, said Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force’s response coordinator. She said those states should instead close bars, end indoor dining and limit gatherings “back down to our phase one recommendation, which was 10 or less.”


A health care worker carries a stack of clipboards at a COVID-19 testing site sponsored by Community Heath of South Florida at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Clinica Campesina Health Center, during the coronavirus pandemic, Monday, July 6, 2020, in Homestead, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
Experts warn the U.S. has suffered from a lack of clear, science-based messaging during the pandemic — typically provided by the CDC. But Trump and the White House have kept the agency at arm's length since the early days, when it botched development of a test kit, delaying tracking efforts.

Trump also grew enraged in late February when Dr. Nancy Messonnier — a CDC official who was then leading the agency’s coronavirus response but has since been sidelined — contradicted statements by other federal officials that the virus was contained.

“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when,” Messonnier said, sending stocks plunging and infuriating Trump, even though she proved correct.

Many outside the White House also fault Redfield, who was appointed two years ago, for failing to adequately assert himself and his agency. Redfield does not have a close personal relationship with the president and has rubbed some at the White House the wrong way.

This week, before his later, tougher comments, Redfield appeared to fold before Trump’s complaints, saying that the CDC guidelines should not “be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.”

“This is the opposite of good public health practice,” said Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington evolutionary biologist who studies emerging infectious diseases. “You put guidelines out there about what’s necessary to keep people safe and then you expect people to follow them — not act disappointed if people follow them.”

The school re-opening controversy is just the latest chapter in a depressing tale, said Jason Schwartz, a government health policy expert at the Yale School of Public Health.

“This reflects a failure on the part of the CDC director to defend his agency, his scientists and the science through the pandemic. And this is what has led to this crisis in the CDC’s public standing, and frankly will take years to recover,” Schwartz said.

Some others expressed more sympathy for Redfield.

Vanderbilt's Schaffner said that Redfield's commitment to public health is clear, but said he nonetheless lacks the standing and forcefulness needed to influence the president's thinking.

“His rhetorical style is nothing like what would be necessary for him to push back. And it’s unclear how much he could push back without being removed,” he said.

AP writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Susan Montoya Bryan in New Mexico and Michelle Price in Nevada contributed. Stobbe reported from New York.

7,000 Floridians hospitalized with COVID-19; state finally releases data by county


By NASEEM S. MILLER ORLANDO SENTINEL JUL 10, 2020


An entrance at Jackson Memorial Hospital is shown, Thursday, July 9, 2020, in Miami. Florida reported on Thursday the biggest 24-hour jump in hospitalizations, with more than 400 patients being admitted. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Nearly 7,000 Floridians are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to new county-by-county data released Friday by the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

The data, which for the first time breaks down the number of people in the hospital with coronavirus, was promised by the state two weeks ago.

It does not show how many patients are in general hospital beds or intensive care units.



CORONAVIRUS

Florida reports 120 COVID-19 fatalities, its deadliest day of pandemic

JUL 09, 2020 AT 7:18 PM



As of Friday, Miami-Dade had more than 1,500 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the largest number reported in Florida, followed by Broward County at 970 and Palm Beach County at 600. Orange County had the fourth-largest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations at 478.


Up to now, Florida has been one of only three states to withhold current COVID-19 hospitalization data from the public. Experts have criticized the state for not releasing the data, which is a valuable metric for epidemiologists and researchers in assessing the spread of the disease. Hospitalizations provide a glimpse of what was happening two weeks ago when people were being exposed to the virus.
“Hospitalizations are a measure of severity [of the epidemic],” said Dr. Jason Salemi, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, in a recent interview. “It not only can demonstrated the impact on people, but also on our health systems and how many cases they’re starting to see.”


Seminole County ranked 10th in the state with 164 hospitalizations.

Seminole has been one of the few counties in the state to post its current COVID-19 hospitalization data on a personalized dashboard, which currently shows 235 COVID-19 hospitalizations, a difference of 70 patients from what the state is reporting.

Seminole County officials said they get their data directly from the county’s four different hospitals and are constantly updating their dashboard. They weren’t sure what accounts for the difference with the state.



They said the number reported by hospitals in Seminole County is for all patients who are hospitalized and are isolated because they have COVID-19.

It’s not exactly clear what criteria the state is using to count current COVID-19 hospitalizations. It could be that the state is only counting patients who are hospitalized because of COVID-19 and not those who are diagnosed with the disease while hospitalized for other reasons.

The data also shows how many people are hospitalized in Lake and Osceola counties, information those counties had not released. With 183 COVID-19 hospitalizations, Osceola County ranked ninth in the state; Lake ranked 14th with 124 hospitalizations.

According to a dashboard by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 16% of Florida hospitals’ inpatient beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients.

So far, local health systems have said that their number of COVID-19 patients are growing, but they still have the ability to handle the cases and are not overwhelmed.

Naseem Miller is a reporter at the Orlando Sentinel, covering health care, medicine and science on multiple platforms, but she remains partial to the written word. She has a bachelor's degree in molecular & microbiology. Her master's degree is in multimedia journalism.

US Supreme Court decisions attack separation of church and state and workers’ rights

By Ed Hightower 9 July 2020 WSWS.ORG


In a pair of 7-2 decisions handed down Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States granted religious and religion-linked institutions unprecedented and unreviewable authority over their employees, undermining the democratic principle of the separation of church and state.


The court’s ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru permits employment discrimination at religious schools, while the ruling in Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania deprives women workers at religion-linked institutions—including hospitals—of contraception and family planning services.


Wednesday’s rulings follow another major attack on the separation of church and state this term in Espinoza v. Montana, which sanctioned the use of tax-deductible scholarship donations to fund religious schools, further undermining public education.


The facts at issue in Our Lady of Guadalupe School, which consolidated two separate cases by lay teachers at Catholic schools, testify to the anti-working-class character of the resulting precedent.


One plaintiff—Kristen Biel—worked as a fifth-grade teacher at St. James School in Los Angeles. Prior to teaching at the Catholic school, she had no formal religious training, such as in a seminary. The school did not require her to be Catholic in order to teach there. She taught English, spelling, reading, literature, mathematics, science and social studies. Her religious duties were limited to telling students when it was time for prayers, though a student led the prayers, and making sure the students were orderly at chapel services.


After Biel advised school administrators of a recent diagnosis of breast cancer and her intention to undergo chemotherapy, the school declined to renew her employment contract for the next school year. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination for a disability (cancer) and was allowed to sue St. James School under federal law.


The other plaintiff in Our Lady of Guadalupe School taught at a Catholic school under similar circumstances, the main difference being that she alleged age discrimination when her employment status was downgraded from full- to part-time.


Under existing federal law, religious schools receive some deference in employment discrimination cases that concern leaders of a church or faith. This “ministerial exception” protects churches or other religious organizations in decisions about the hiring and firing of ministers or leading spiritual figures, especially those with theological training. Rabbis, priests, ministers, pastors and imams would all qualify for the ministerial exception.


Underlying the ministerial exception is the notion that the courts should not second guess internal religious decisions—perhaps firing a priest—that may hinge on interpretation of religious doctrine, dogma or belief. The church itself, so the logic goes, probably knows its own beliefs better than a court of law and stands in a better position to determine if a minister should be hired or fired for failing to conform to the church’s religious beliefs.


According to Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court’s majority, a religious school could designate nearly anyone as a “minister,” and thus claim legal immunity from federal anti-discrimination laws. Notably, one of the plaintiff-teachers deemed to be a “minister” was not even a Catholic. As a result of this ruling, therefore, the law now sets the bar as to what constitutes a “minister” so low that virtually any employee of a religious school can be stripped of federal anti-discrimination protection.


The same tortured logic that converts a non-Catholic elementary school teacher into a Catholic minister could easily be applied to the school’s custodian, librarian, nurse or cook. Discrimination—whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—can flourish under the fig leaf justification of the free exercise of religion. Employees of religious schools have essentially no job security or legal protection from discrimination.


While a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, challenges this exception-turned-rule, Justices Steven Breyer (appointed by Bill Clinton) and Elena Kagan (appointed by Barack Obama) joined in Alito’s opinion in full. One could hardly offer better proof of the hollowness of their “liberal” credentials.


Kagan did write a concurring opinion in the second case, Little Sisters, which Breyer joined. That case concerns legal requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) that employer-sponsored health insurance plans cover contraception and other women’s health care needs (known as the contraceptive mandate). Hiding behind the largely inscrutable minutiae of administrative law, Kagan in her opinion upholds the Trump administration’s decision to allow a broad exemption for religion-linked institutions.


She writes: “Sometimes when I squint, I read the law as giving HRSA [Health Resources and Services Administration] discretion over all coverage issues: The agency gets to decide who needs to provide what services to women. At other times, I see the statute [ACA] as putting the agency in charge of only the ‘what’ question, and not the ‘who.’ If I had to, I would of course decide which is the marginally better reading.”