A moon rock decorates Biden’s Oval Office
Posted by Kelly Whitt | SPACE | January 23, 2021

A lunar sample collected during Apollo 17, the final mission to the moon, is now on display in President Biden’s Oval Office.



This moon rock – from the Apollo 17 mission to the moon in 1972 – now sits on a bookshelf in President Joe Biden’s Oval Office. Image via NASA.


Like any other employee starting a job at a new office, a new U.S. president can decorate the Oval Office with photos, artwork and other decorative items of his choice. The 46th president, Joe Biden, has chosen to incorporate a moon rock into his environs. The moon rock, collected in 1972 during Apollo 17, the last lunar mission, is meant as a symbol of earlier generations’ ambitions and accomplishments. It also represents support for America’s current Moon to Mars exploration approach.

The Biden administration requested the moon rock, which was provided by the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

The prism-shaped case in which the moon rock resides is labeled Sample 76015,143 and inscribed with the following:

Apollo 17 astronaut Ronald Evans and moonwalkers Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan, the last humans to set foot on the moon, chipped this sample from a large boulder at the base of the North Massif in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, 3 km (almost 2 miles) from the Lunar Module. This 332 gram piece of the moon (less than a pound), which was collected in 1972, is a 3.9-billion-year-old sample formed during the last large impact event on the nearside of the moon, the Imbrium Impact Basin, which is 1,145 km or 711.5 miles in diameter. You can see this impact basin for yourself during the next full moon. Look for Mare Imbrium as a very large dark circular shape in the upper left portion of the moon: this giant lava plain covers the floor of one of the largest craters in the entire solar system.

The lunar Mare Imbrium, or Sea of Rains, via Pete Lawrence’s Moon guides.

The irregular sample surfaces contain tiny craters created as micrometeorite impacts have sand-blasted the rock over millions of years. The flat, sawn sides were created in NASA’s Lunar Curation Laboratory when slices were cut for scientific research. This ongoing research is imperative as we continue to learn about our planet and the moon, and prepare for future missions to the cislunar orbit and beyond.


Harrison Schmitt was the only geologist to visit the moon. He and Eugene Cernan collected the 1972 rock samples and were the last people to walk on the moon. Many hope that, in the coming years, NASA’s ongoing Artemis mission will change that. Artemis originally had the goal of placing the next man and first woman on the moon by 2024. New technologies being developed for the mission did not progress as rapidly as hoped over the past several years, so that date now looks unlikely, but many are still hopeful the mission will continue to move forward under Joe Biden.

President Bill Clinton also had a piece of the moon in his Oval Office. His lunar sample was labeled 10057,30 and was presented to him in 1999 by the astronauts who collected it: Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins. Clinton’s moon rock was cut from a larger chunk labeled 10057; a different sample cut from the same chunk was placed into a stained glass window in the Washington National Cathedral in 1974.

President Richard Nixon presented lunar samples to all 50 states plus many nations and territories, although many of those samples have since gone missing.

Back in the heyday of the Apollo program, everyday Americans could check out moon rocks for educational purposes. The program continues today, but with much more stringent guidelines. Colleges and universities with geoscience programs can request samples for use by advanced geology students in petrology or microscopic petrography courses. The loan is limited to a two-week period.

Bottom line: A lunar sample collected during Apollo 17, the final mission to the moon, is now on display in President Biden’s Oval Office.

Read more from the Washington Post: A look inside Biden’s Oval Office

Hydrogen gas-fuelled airships could spur development in remote communities
Barry E. Prentice, Professor of Supply Chain Management, University of Manitoba 3 days ago

What do tomatoes, hemp and hydrogen gas have in common? Only one thing: they were all victims of misinformation that banned their use. Harmless products that could have had a positive role in the economy and society were shunned for generations. 

© (Piqsels) Hydrogen gas was banned for use in airships based on misinformation and outright falsehoods 100 years ago.

It seems incredible today to think that Europeans believed tomatoes were poisonous for about 200 years. People did get sick, and some died after eating tomatoes. The culprit was pewter dishes favoured by the upper classes. Tomato acid leached out enough lead out to be poisonous.

The advent of porcelain dishware and Italian pizza finally sorted out the real problem. But once a myth is born, it can be hard for the truth to emerge. Europe lagged a long time behind North America in tomato consumption.

The prohibition of hemp, the fibre of the cannabis plant, has a more nuanced story and competing explanations. Some accounts sound like conspiracy theories.

The alleged conspirators were industrialists in paper, plastics and pharmaceuticals who sought drug regulations to eliminate hemp as their competitor. This is difficult to prove, but economist George Stigler’s seminal article in 1971 on the economics of regulation lends support to the theory.

 

© (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) In this August 2019 photo, rows plants are shown at an industrial hemp farm in Michigan.

The best-documented cause of hemp’s vilification is racism. Notable racist slurs by U.S. government official Harry Anslinger, who drafted the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, leave no doubt of his bias. As commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, he targeted racialized minorities who used hemp plants.

The fear-mongering has ended in most places and important uses for hemp and cannabis are making a valuable contribution to health care, nutrition and fibre. But the stigma of the false claims continue, as does prohibition in many places.
Hydrogen ban

Unlike the prohibition on hemp, hydrogen gas bans in the United States and Canada are extremely narrow. It’s legal to use hydrogen for almost every conceivable purpose, except one: as a gas to provide buoyancy for airships, more commonly known as blimps (although there are differences between airships, blimps and dirigibles).

In fact, Canada still has a ban enshrined in its air regulations that states: “Hydrogen is not an acceptable lifting gas for use in airships.”

Canada’s ban on this use of hydrogen is strange given that Canada has never had an airship industry. The origins of the false information that led to this ban on the use of hydrogen are even more surprising.

Helium was discovered in natural gas in Kansas in 1903, and an experimental refinery was built in Texas in 1915. At great expense, a few barrage balloons were filled with helium during the First World War.

After the war, the need for helium was unclear. But officials from the U.S. Bureau of Mines wanted to protect their newly established helium refinery. They took advantage of the Roma airship accident in 1922 to sell helium to the military.

The Roma was a hydrogen-filled, Italian-built airship sold to the U.S. army. During trials, its rudder broke and the airship crashed in Norfolk, Va., hitting power lines during its descent. All 34 crew members were lost. 

 

© (National Archives) The Italian airship Roma flying over Norfolk, Va., in 1921.

Spreading a falsehood via the media that the crew would have survived had the airship had been filled with helium, the Bureau of Mines was given an audience in Washington, D.C. Before Congress, they staged a demonstration with two balloons and a burning splint.

The one filled with helium doused the burning splint. The one marked hydrogen would have put the flame out too, if it were more than 75 per cent pure, but contaminated hydrogen gas is explosive. When the burning splint touched the balloon, it went off like a cannon, rattling the windows in Congress.

Based on this poorly designed high school chemistry level experiment, U.S. politicians banned the use of hydrogen in airships.
Rubber-stamped laws

After the Second World War, when the U.S. became the dominant world air power, its regulations were rubber-stamped into the laws of other nations, including Canada. This is how Canada came to have a regulation banning hydrogen in airships that is grounded in neither science nor engineering research. The ban stems from a political decision made in a foreign country 98 years ago based on misinformation.

Hydrogen gas is increasingly heralded as the mobile energy source of the green economy. Hydrogen fuel cells are used for electric cars, buses, boats, forklifts, trains and recently a converted Piper airplane.

Read more: Hydrogen trains are coming – can they get rid of diesel for good?

It is perfectly legal to carry hydrogen in a high-pressure container to power any vehicle, including an airship, but not if carried in a zero-pressure container (gas cell) to lift the airship.

The prohibition on hydrogen has held back research and created doubts about the economic viability of airships that must depend on scarce, finite supplies of helium.

Lies and misinformation have consequences. Canada needs a transportation solution to the chronic problems of food insecurity, crowded housing and poverty in remote Indigenous communities.

Hydrogen-filled cargo airships could do for the Northern economy what the railways did for Western Canada 125 years ago. In the 21st century, myths and misrepresentations should not go unchallenged. Regulatory decisions made when we were still hand-cranking cars should either be justified or removed from the books.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Barry E. Prentice owns shares in Buoyant Aircraft Systems International (BASI), an airship research organization with no production and only one employee. He is also the president of ISO Polar, a not-for-profit think tank that encourages the use of cargo airships for northern transportation.

THE UNFINISHED BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION!

Tens of thousands protest across Russia in support of poisoned Putin critic Navalny

Tens of thousands of people have joined protests across dozens of cities in Russia, demanding the release of Alexey Navalny, the Kremlin critic who was jailed last week after he returned to the country for the first time since recovering from a poisoning with a nerve agent.

© Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images Protesters clash with riot police during a rally in support of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny in downtown Moscow on Jan. 23, 2021.

© Navalny team Youtube page/AFP via Getty Images Alexei Navalny speaking while waiting for a court hearing at a police station in Khimki, Russia, Jan. 18, 2021.

The protests were one of the largest displays of popular opposition to the rule of president Vladimir Putin in years, mushrooming in almost every large city across Russia and attracting unusually big crowds. Almost everywhere, the protesters were confronted by heavily armored riot police who moved to disperse them.

By early evening, police had detained over 1,600 people, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors arrests, and that number seemed likely to grow.

© Getty Images Young protesters hold banners as climb atop a lamppost in Pushkin Square, Moscow, Jan. 23, 2021.

In Moscow, Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalny, was detained at the protest, where lines of riot police later dispersed the crowd with batons.

Navalny had called for the nationwide protests on Saturday after authorities sent him to prison a week ago, setting up a test of the strength of Navalny's support in the country, following his poisoning and return to Russia.

© Dmitri Lovetsky/AP People gather to protest against the jailing of opposition leader Alexey Navalny in St.Petersburg, Russia, Jan. 23, 2021.

Protests were held in almost every large city, beginning first in Russia's far east which is seven hours ahead of Moscow and then continuing throughout the day, spreading across Siberia until reaching cities on the border of Europe. Videos posted online showed crowds-- ranging from several hundred to a few thousand-- gathering in groups or marching in long processions, chanting slogans including, "Putin is a thief."

In Moscow, part of the city center was flooded with thousands of people. While there's no definitive reported number on the size of the crowd, Reuters estimated it at 40,000. Moscow's police, who commonly undercount crowd size, said it was just 4,000.Russia extends Navalny's detention as outcry over his arrest grows

In the far eastern city of Vladivostok, a crowd of around 3,000 people gathered. Video posted on social media appear to show riot police officers charging at demonstrators with batons.

In many large eastern cities and in Siberia, other video posted online show long processions of people marching and chanting slogans such as "Putin is a thief."

© Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images Protesters clash with riot police during a rally in support of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny in downtown Moscow, Jan. 23, 2021.

The protests, although not huge outside of Moscow, were still remarkable for their size and geographic spread, stretching into regions normally indifferent to Navalny.

Navalny has traditionally had little pull beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg and his previous calls for nationwide protests have usually only seen small crowds of a few hundred in most regional cities.

Crowds, ranging from several hundred to a few thousand took to the streets in often biting cold. In the Siberian city Omsk, where an estimated thousand people marched the temperature was -20 degrees Fahrenheit. In Novosibirsk, videos filmed by local media showed riot police with steel shields chasing protesters onto a frozen lake.

© Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images Police detain a protester during a rally in support of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny in downtown Moscow on Jan. 23, 2021.

In the far eastern city Vladivostok, an estimated crowd of 3,000 marched. Videos posted on social media showed police charging protesters with batons.

In many cities, demonstrators pelted helmeted riot police with snowballs and in some places tussled in knee-deep snow.

Navalny has traditionally had little pull in Russia's vast regions outside Moscow and previous calls for nationwide protests have previously seen only small crowds of a few hundred in most of the large regional cities. The marches on Saturday appeared larger than usual.

© Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images People attend a rally in support of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny in downtown Moscow on Jan. 23, 2021.

Ahead of the protests, authorities launched a wave of arrests, detaining activists at their homes, including several of Navalny's top lieutenants. The prosecutor general's office issued a warning that anyone attending the protests risked arrest, and opened a broad criminal case on charges relating to unauthorized public events.

Navalny's support is strong among students, so universities and schools warned against attending, threatening expulsion.

Navalny is Russia's best-known opposition leader and is viewed as president Vladimir Putin's most troublesome political opponent. He has built a grassroots movement, galvanized by his investigations into alleged acts of corruption among powerful officials and businessmen close to Putin.

This week, a day after Navalny was jailed, his team released a new film claiming to lift the lid of an extravagant secret palace built by Putin on the Black Sea coast close to the city of Sochi. The film, which Navalny said is based on leaked blueprints, describes the interior of the palace, alleging it contains a personal casino, amphitheater, vineyard and even an underground hockey rink for Putin.

© Reuters People attend a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in Moscow, Russia Jan. 23, 2021.

Navalny is currently in a jail in Moscow. He was detained at the airport almost immediately upon his arrival in Moscow last Sunday from Germany, where he had been recovering from the nerve agent poisoning that nearly killed him. He was then ordered to stay behind bars for at least 30 days by a makeshift court set up inside a police station, and could be sentenced to years in prison at a parole hearing later this month, on Jan. 29.

Police detained Navalny for allegedly violating the terms of a suspended sentence from 2014, when he was found guilty of embezzlement in a trial that the European Court of Human Rights later ruled was unjust. Russia's prison service has requested that his three and a half-year sentence be converted into real prison time.

Though Navalny has been jailed before over his activism, he has never been imprisoned long, most observers believe because the Kremlin has never wanted to risk the political fallout.

© Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters A law enforcement officer detains a woman during a rally in support of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in Moscow, Jan. 23, 2021.

But following Navalny's poisoning, some observers believe that calculus may well have changed.Navalny says Russian agent accidentally admitted to poisoning him

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in Navalny's murder attempt, but an investigation by the independent group Bellingcat in December claimed it had found evidence identifying an alleged hit squad from Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service or FSB, that trailed Navalny for years and was present in Siberia when he fell sick in August. Navalny himself has published audio from a phone call with one of the alleged team members, in which the agent appears to unwittingly acknowledge the plot.

Navalny on Friday released a statement from jail via his lawyers in which he said he was feeling well and if anything were to suddenly happen to him while in jail, it should be treated as foul play.

"Just in case, I declare: My plans don't include hanging myself on a prison's window bars, or open my veins or cut my throat with a sharpened spoon," Navalny said in the statement posted on Instagram. "I'm being very careful walking downstairs. My blood pressure is measured every day, and it's like a cosmonaut's, so a heart attack is excluded."

3,400 arrested at protests demanding Navalny's release


MOSCOW — Russian police arrested more than 3,400 people Saturday in nationwide protests demanding the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin's most prominent foe, according to a group that counts political detentions.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The protests in scores of cities in temperatures as low as minus-50 C (minus-58 F) highlighted how Navalny has built influence far beyond the political and cultural centres of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In Moscow, an estimated 15,000 demonstrators gathered in and around Pushkin Square in the city centre, where clashes with police broke out and demonstrators were roughly dragged off by helmeted riot officers to police buses and detention trucks. Some were beaten with batons.

Navalny’s wife Yulia was among those arrested.

Police eventually pushed demonstrators out of the square. Thousands then regrouped along a wide boulevard about a kilometre (half-mile) away, many of them throwing snowballs at the police before dispersing.

Some later went to protest near the jail where Navalny is held. Police made an undetermined number of arrests there.

The protests stretched across Russia’s vast territory, from the island city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk north of Japan and the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk, where temperatures plunged to minus-50 Celsius, to Russia’s more populous European cities. Navalny and his anti-corruption campaign have built an extensive network of support despite official government repression and being routinely ignored by state media.

“The situation is getting worse and worse, it’s total lawlessness," said Andrei Gorkyov, a protester in Moscow. "And if we stay silent, it will go on forever.”

The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests, said at least 941 people were detained in Moscow and more than 350 at another large demonstration in St. Petersburg. Overall, it said 3,454 people had been arrested in some 90 cities. Russian police did not provide arrest figures.

Undeterred, Navalny's supporters called for protests again next weekend.

Navalny was arrested on Jan. 17 when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a severe nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin and which Russian authorities deny. Authorities say his stay in Germany violated terms of a suspended sentence in a 2014 criminal conviction, while Navalny says the conviction was for made-up charges.

The 44-year-old activist is well known nationally for his reports on the corruption that has flourished under President Vladimir Putin's government.

His wide support puts the Kremlin in a strategic bind — risking more protests and criticism from the West if it keeps him in custody but apparently unwilling to back down by letting him go free.

Navalny faces a court hearing in early February to determine whether his sentence in the criminal case for fraud and money-laundering — which Navalny says was politically motivated — is converted to 3 1/2 years behind bars.

Moscow police on Thursday arrested three top Navalny associates, two of whom were later jailed for periods of nine and 10 days.

Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities insisted that the doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was airlifted to Germany found no traces of poison and have challenged German officials to provide proof of his poisoning. Russia refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.

Last month, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB dismissed the recording as fake.

Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for a decade, unusually durable in an opposition movement often demoralized by repressions.

He has been jailed repeatedly in connection with protests and twice was convicted of financial misdeeds in cases that he said were politically motivated. He suffered significant eye damage when an assailant threw disinfectant into his face. He was taken from jail to a hospital in 2019 with an illness that authorities said was an allergic reaction but which many suspected was a poisoning.

Daria Litvinova And Jim Heintz, The Associated Press

Saturday's letters: Superlab cancellation akin to quashing Keystone

What is the similarity between Jason Kenney and Joe Biden? Both politicians made promises based on ideology and applied some of them almost instantly the first day on assuming government leadership. Kenney immediately stopped further progress of the superlab in Edmonton while President Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline. Both projects were in advanced early stages of construction.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Design of the Edmonton superlab.

Obviously, the superlab and the Keystone pipeline have nothing in common — except that both projects have cost the taxpayers of Alberta dearly.

Thomas Mojelsky, Edmonton

Keystone’s demise presents opportunity

With the cancellation of Keystone XL, Premier Kenney has essentially gambled away $1.5 billion of Alberta taxpayers’ money, betting on Trump being re-elected (which would have been arguably overall far worse for Canada than losing a pipeline). Biden has long ago made it clear he would cancel Keystone XL. Blaming Biden or Trudeau for this is, therefore, disingenuous.

The UCP could waste more of our dollars suing the U.S., which is unlikely to succeed, or invest in the new, diversified economy. The good news, should Kenney and the UCP recognize it, is that Alberta has some of the world’s best conditions for accessing solar and wind energy. There are many more potential jobs for building green energy infrastructure than for pipelines. Our provincial and federal governments should help retrain displaced pipeline workers for the renewable energy industry, which represents where the puck is going, not where it has been.

Victor Dorian, Edmonton

Recall legislation needed now

In a previous letter to the Journal editor, I lamented the absence of recall legislation promised by the UCP during the last election campaign. It’s time to revisit that promise. Since then, what have the UCP done that is beneficial to Albertans? They have fought with doctors and nurses, they have disregarded the advice of various experts regarding pandemic responses, they have gone on warm tropical vacations after telling us to stay home, they are giving away coal leases to their buddies with very little public consultation.

How about blowing $1.5 billion on a pipeline that everyone knew was going to be cancelled as soon as the U.S. changed presidents, which really never was in doubt. These are just a few of the poor decisions made by the UCP. This has to stop, and without the recall legislation they promised us, just think of the damage they will inflict on us until the next election.

Ed Matthews, Edmonton

UCP made $1.5 billion vanish

The United Clown Party of Alberta, led by the head clown, Mr. Kenney, just made over $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ dollars disappear. The next act in the circus? Hard-working Albertans can look forward to a dance with the federal government and mountains disappearing through coal mining. Stay tuned!

Bill Smith, Strathcona County

How political symbolism brought down Keystone XL

Aaron Wherry, CBC

  

© Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Students protesting against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline chant slogans in front of the White House in Washington, DC on March 2, 2014.

The new president of the United States described his inauguration on Wednesday as a moment to move forward. But moving forward properly requires a reckoning with the past. In Joe Biden's case, that reckoning came for the Keystone XL pipeline.

The project's fate seemed to be sealed years ago, but it haunts us still. And now, with strident words from Alberta Premier Jason Kenney about a trade war, it could haunt Canadian politics indefinitely.

Or, Canadian leaders could decide that it's time for them to move forward, too.

The executive order that rescinded Keystone XL's permit on Wednesday states that "the United States must be in a position to exercise vigorous climate leadership in order to achieve a significant increase in global climate action and put the world on a sustainable climate pathway."

If that sounds familiar, it's because President Barack Obama said almost the same thing when he blocked Keystone in November 2015. "America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change," Obama said. "And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership."

John Kerry — secretary of state in 2015 and now Biden's climate envoy — put an even finer point on the significance of Keystone in his own statement at the time. "The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves," he said.

A pipeline that became a referendum

In his remarks, Obama argued that the practical value of the pipeline had been wildly overstated — by both sides. Keystone XL, he said, would be neither "a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others."

But the economic arguments in favour of the pipeline could not overcome the profound symbolic value assigned to it by environmental groups and climate-focused voters.

On its own, Keystone wouldn't spell the difference between a green future and a "climate disaster." But the pipeline became a referendum on the U.S. government's commitment to combating climate change — a tangible thing on which American activists could focus their energies.

Trump, who actively sought to undermine attempts to fight climate change, revived the project. But the political frame that was placed around Keystone XL in 2015 never went away, while legal challenges to the project continued.

By the fall of 2019, most of the major Democratic candidates for the presidency had pledged to rescind Trump's order on their first day in office. Last May, Biden insisted that he would kill the pipeline.© Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden walk down the Hall of Honour on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, December 9, 2016.

After Biden's victory in the presidential election, the Eurasia Group said that rescinding the permit was a "table stake" for the Democratic president and that backing away would risk "raising the ire of activists, their committed followers, and — importantly — the left wing of the Democratic party in Congress."

"Rescinding KXL would be one area the Biden administration could act [on] and deliver a win to a key political constituency with no congressional interference," the global consulting firm said.

Bill McKibben, one of the activists who led the campaign against Keystone, wrote in the New Yorker on Thursday that he was grateful for Biden's decision and never doubted that the new president would follow through. "Even today," he wrote, "Keystone is far too closely identified with climate carelessness for a Democratic president to be able to waver."

So the second death of Keystone shouldn't have surprised anyone. It might have seemed rude of Biden to not wait a day or two to allow Canadian officials to make a fuller presentation on the pipeline's behalf, but that only would have delayed the inevitable.
The lingering costs of climate inaction

Perhaps Biden thought he was doing his neighbours a favour by ripping the Band-Aid off quickly.

What might have happened to Keystone XL had Canada and the United States taken more aggressive measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the years leading up to Obama's decision? It's an intriguing hypothetical. Keystone may have paid the price ultimately for decades of global inaction on climate change.

In the here and now, any debate about Keystone will have to consider whether its additional capacity is even needed at this point. In the meantime, Premier Kenney wants Justin Trudeau's government to impose trade sanctions on the United States if Biden refuses to revisit his decision.

Stephen Harper could be ungracious in his defence of Keystone — he famously said that approving it was a "no brainer" — but his government doesn't seem to have ever publicly threatened to impose sanctions if Obama rejected it. Nor does it appear anyone called for sanctions when Obama officially killed the project shortly after the Trudeau government came to office.
Sanctions out of spite?

This idea of reprisals seems to have originated recently with Jack Mintz, a Canadian economist, who also conceded that imposing tariffs could be akin to "cutting off our own nose to spite our face."

Notably, Erin O'Toole's federal Conservatives have not joined the premier in calling for sanctions. Kenney — whose government is polling poorly and whose party is being out-fundraised by the opposition — is spoiling for a fight. He has seized on the fact that federal officials did not respond to Biden's decision in particularly strong terms — and the Liberals may not have struck the right tone for those listening in the Prairies.

But before launching a trade war against this country's closest ally and its new leader, one should consider the potential results and opportunity costs.

Would a trade war convince President Biden to brave the wrath of his supporters and reverse a campaign promise? Or would a renewed fight over Keystone XL simply consume political and diplomatic capital that could be put toward other things?

Kenney has said sanctions might discourage the Biden administration from intervening against two other contested pipelines that originate in Alberta — Line 5 and Line 3. Writing in the New Yorker, McKibben did identify Line 3 as a target. But there's also a decent chance that sanctions would only inflame existing tensions around those projects.
Threats and futility

In May, 2015 — nearly six years ago — former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson wrote that it was time for the Canada-U.S. relationship to move on from Keystone XL. Robertson argued that there were too many other important things to talk about. Six years later, that list of important things includes fostering collaboration on clean energy, fending off 'Buy American' policies and combating China's aggression.

Still, Kenney warned that if the Trudeau government does not do more to defend Keystone, "that will only force us to go further in our fight for a fair deal in the federation."

But if the battle for Keystone was effectively lost more than five years ago, should the federal government's willingness to keep fighting it have any bearing on Alberta's relationship with the rest of the country?

The death of Keystone XL will have a real impact on those Albertans whose jobs depended on it. There are real anxieties and questions that need to be addressed, not least by the federal government.

But the question now is whether fighting over Keystone will do anything to address those concerns — or whether it's time to put that political energy toward other purposes.

Capitol attack reflects US extremist evolution over decades


The takeover in 2016 by right-wing extremists of a federal bird sanctuary in Oregon. A standoff in 1992 between white separatists and federal agents in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Right-wing extremism has previously played out for the most part in isolated pockets of America and in its smaller cities. The deadly assault by rioters on the U.S. Capitol, in contrast, targeted the very heart of government.

And it brought together, in large numbers, members of disparate groups, creating an opportunity for extremists to establish links with each other.

That, an expert says, potentially sets the stage for more violent actions.

“The events themselves, and participation in them, has a radicalizing effect. And they also have an inspirational effect. The battle of Capitol Hill is now part of the mythology,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert and senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation think-tank .

Mary McCord, a former acting U.S. assistant attorney general for national security, said the climate for the insurrection had been building throughout the Trump presidency.

She cited the 2017 “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that killed one person, aggressive demonstrations at statehouses by armed protesters railing against COVID-19 public health safety orders and mass shootings by people motivated by hate.

“All have led to this moment,” McCord, now a visiting law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said in an email.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors U.S. extremists, has recorded a 55% increase in the number of white nationalist hate groups since 2017.

Among those who participated in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol were members of the Oath Keepers, which often recruits current and former military, police or other first responders; the Proud Boys neo-fascist group; followers of QAnon, which spreads bizarre conspiracy theories; racists and anti-Semites; and others with nearly blind devotion to then-President Donald Trump.

“January 6th was kind of a Woodstock of the angry right,” Jenkins said in an interview. “The mere fact those groups were coming together, mingling, sharing this anger, displaying this passion — it is going to have effects.”

But what happens next? Will Jan. 6 be a high-water mark for right-wing extremists, or lead to other attacks on America's democracy?

Right now, the movement — if it can be called that — seems to be on pause.

Supposedly planned armed protests at all 50 state capitals and Washington this past week that the FBI issued a nationwide warning about drew virtually no one. That could indicate the groups are demoralized, at least temporarily.

Donald Trump is no longer president and his social media reach has been severely curtailed, with Twitter banning him. The extremists had come together in Washington on Jan. 6 because of their fervent belief in Trump's lies that the presidential election had been stolen, and in response to Trump's tweeted declaration that the protest in Washington “will be wild.”

But now, some are clearly angry that Trump disassociated himself with the very insurrection that he stoked. They're upset that he failed to come to the rescue of rioters who were arrested while he was still president and are still being detained and charged.

Online, some people associated with the Proud Boys, which adored Trump, appear to have dumped him.

“No pardons for middle class whites who risked their livelihoods by going to ‘war' for Trump," a Telegram channel associated with the group said after Trump issued many pardons, but none for the insurrectionists.

Another posting on the channel said: “I cannot wait to watch the GOP completely collapse. Out of the ashes, a true nationalist movement will arise.”

Believers in QAnon are also reeling after Trump left office without fulfilling their baseless belief that he would vanquish a supposed cabal of Satan-worshipping cannibals, including top Democrats, operating a child sex trafficking ring.

Among them was Ron Watkins, who helps run an online messaging board about QAnon conspiracy theories.

“We gave it our all. Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able,” Watkins wrote on Telegram after President Joe Biden was sworn in and Trump flew off to Florida.

Jenkins said the next phase for the extremist groups and people who saw Trump as a saviour could transform into a broader national movement in which factions co-ordinate and combine their assets.

Or the widespread condemnation of the insurrection could cause the movement to shrink, leaving more determined elements to strike out on their own and launch attacks.

Jenkins recalled the 1970s, when some anti-Vietnam War militants hardened into the Weather Underground, which launched a bombing campaign. Among places targeted were the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, but the only people who died were three militants who accidentally blew themselves up.

“I think given the events of this past year, and especially what we’ve seen in the last couple of months, this puts us into new territory," Jenkins said "And you don't put this back in the box that easily."

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Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz in Chicago and Garance Burke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky

Andrew Selsky, The Associated Press

Thank You To Chuck Schumer, For Mixing Up “Erection” With “Insurrection” On The Senate Floor

'NO REVOLUTION WITHOUT GENERAL COPULATION' MARAT SADE

As lawmakers are preparing to hold former President Donald Trump accountable on impeachment charges of inciting an insurrection, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke out on Friday after Pelosi said she would deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

© Provided by Refinery29 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S. on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there are still major differences to be bridged in the negotiations over a fiscal stimulus package with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Schumer announced the news on the Senate floor Friday morning, telling lawmakers that he was in discussions with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on how long the trial will last and when it will begin. “But make no mistake, a trial will be held in the United States Senate, and there will be a vote whether to convict the president,” Schumer told the Senate.

Then, something special happened: It was Schumer’s next line in his address to US senators that caused a much-needed laugh for some, if not a moment of (humble) embarrassment for the Senate Majority Leader. “When that trial ends, senators will have to decide whether they believe Donald John Trump incited the erection — insurrection — against the United States.” It was an unfortunate, yet hilarious, gaffe in the very serious matter of convicting a former president on charges of inciting the violent siege of the US Capitol. But it was the gaffe we all needed after a very serious week.

I regret to inform you that Chuck Schumer just said ‘erection’ instead of ‘insurrection’ on the Senate floor pic.twitter.com/U5xRRnkaQg— Dave Jamieson (@jamieson) January 22, 2021

In seriousness, Schumer is currently in talks with McConnell to solidify a start date for the trial after receiving a proposal from the Senate Minority Leader requesting to start the trial on February 13. But Schumer reportedly rejected McConnell’s last-minute request and is attempting to push forward with the trial. Whether or not both parties ultimately agree on whether to push the start date back, sources told CNN the articles will be read and senators and the presiding officer will be sworn in Tuesday afternoon.

The House voted to impeach the former president on January 13, just one week before President Joe Biden was inaugurated on the 20th. While Trump is no longer a sitting president, the Senate now has an opportunity to make sure he will never again be legally allowed to become president, after encouraging his supporters to overthrow the 2020 election results by force.

While Schumer was noticeably embarrassed by his “erection” comment, it was also a moment of levity that many people needed on this first Friday in Joe Biden’s America. And for that, we thank him.

Antifa.com redirects to White House website as trolls needle Biden

If you point your browser to antifa.com, you won't find black-outfitted protesters challenging racists and far-right extremists in a tense face-off. Instead, the URL will take you to President Joe Biden's spiffy new White House website, which has recently been redone to include accessibility features and a hidden message to coders

.

© Provided by CNET White House

Don't let the apparent connection between the antifascist movement and the newly sworn-in president alarm or outrage you. The redirect is simply a reflection of how the open web can work. Anyone with a few bucks can register an internet address, set up a website on it, and then take visitors to another website.

Often redirects are nothing more than harmless jokes, like a redirecting to videos of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, an internet prank that's come to be known as rickrolling. Sometimes, however, redirects are unsavory gags or deliberate misdirection.

The website redirect, a phenomenon that's dogged Biden since before he won the November election, is a good reminder to avoid jumping to conclusions based on something you see on the internet. Be even more careful about sharing your find with family and friends until you've vetted the source. Simply put, there's no shortage of disinformation, misinformation, propaganda, baseless conspiracy theories and flat-out lies online.


It's advice Republican Sen. Ted Cruz perhaps should've taken to heart before he tweeted in September that clicking on antifa.com told you "all you need to know." At that time, antifa.com redirected people to the Biden campaign website in an apparent attempt to falsely link the candidate to the loosely organized left-wing network. Conservative figures, including former President Donald Trump, have often called antifa activism an assault on law and order.© White House

It isn't clear who runs antifa.com. The public record of its ownership offers an identity obscured by a privacy service. Website hosting companies aren't required to disclose details.

Anyone could've set up the site. The same goes for the loser.com website, which redirects to the Trump Wikipedia page and which is run by an operator with a shielded identity.

The operator of antifa.com didn't respond to a request for comment. Neither did the White House or Cruz's office. In a September tweet, Rob Flaherty, the Biden campaign's digital director, called the antifa.com redirect the work of a troll, adding that Biden "obviously has/wants nothing to do with fringe groups."
Website shenanigans

No single authority fully controls the web or the internet. That's been a boon for free expression, but it's also opened up avenues for trouble.

In the early days of the internet, "cybersquatting" was a common problem. Companies or other organizations that wanted to set up a website often discovered that someone else had already registered the name and would transfer rights only for a hefty fee. The US and other countries have passed laws to curb the practice.

A related phenomenon, typo squatting, is designed to take advantage of people who misspell domain names, like using .cm instead of .com. That can fool people into entering sensitive information into a fake phishing site.

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, oversees the internet domain technology and has some mechanisms for trademark protection, but its role is limited. It doesn't referee issues such as redirects. "Our bylaws prohibit us from getting involved in website content-related matters," the organization said in a statement.

There are always new worries. One company, Vox Populi Registry, sells .sucks domains and says, "If you don't own your sh*t, someone else will."

Other tricks take the idea a level deeper. A practice called Google bombing manipulated websites to fool Google's algorithm so, for example, a search for "miserable failure" showed former President George W. Bush as the top result. (Google adjusts its software to try to shut off such manipulation mechanisms.)

Companies like Reputation.com exist to try to help people spruce up their online presence.
Antifa.com past and present

Antifa.com has had different incarnations over the years. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine shows it was around back in 1999, though not with an active website initially. In 2000 and 2001, it was apparently used to publish antifa-related website information. By 2008, the domain was up for sale.

In 2020, the URL seems to have gotten active again, first with a website that appears to have promoted antifa causes, then with a redirect to Biden's campaign website. It's also pointed to buildbackbetter.org, a Biden transition website, and to Vice President Kamala Harris' kamalaharris.org site. It's also pointed to itsgoingdown.org, a website "for anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements."

Don't expect clarity on antifa.com anytime soon, however. After all, this is the internet.

MERE ANARCHY

Portland protests: Here's why they're gathering

Rioters again took to the streets of Portland, Oregon, on Thursday -- the first full day of Joe Biden's presidency -- to let the Democratic establishment know they are still fighting for racial justice, some told CNN.  

THESE ARE THE RIOTERS

© John Rudoff/Sipa USA

PORTLAND AND SEATTLE COPS CAUSE THE RIOTS

"We wanted to symbolize that both parties are the oppressor," said a 25-year-old who wished not to be identified, fearing government reprisal. "We've all experienced firsthand that police violence is police violence regardless (of which political party holds power). ... It doesn't make a difference to the person being beaten."

"For White people, maybe they feel there's time to let the administration work, but for Black and Indigenous people who have had a rope around their neck, there is no time," the 25-year-old said. "There's no justice, so there is no peace."

Biden in his inaugural speech Wednesday called for racial justice and unity in America, acknowledging the nation has been deeply divided by systemic racism and political forces. He denounced White supremacy and domestic terrorism and said the country must be healed.

"A cry for racial justice, some 400 years in the making, moves us," Biden said. "The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer."

Still, rioters wearing all black clothing and gas masks took to the streets Thursday in Portland, where social justice demonstrations have endured for months. Rioters there a day earlier had vandalized the state Democratic Party headquarters and a federal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, building, police said, and four people have been charged in connection with those events.

CNN witnessed more arrests on Thursday night, when most people attending a riot at the ICE building were White. Indeed, the demographic of Portland's protest movement has often been criticized. Protesters say it should be neither surprising, given that the city is 77% White.

"I want to dispel that White anarchists are co-opting this for their own gain," said the 25-year-old rioter, who is White and told CNN he's lived in Portland for most of his life. "There are Black and Indigenous people out there that can't have the same outward action as White people can."

'It doesn't matter who's president'

Some rioters' anger is fueled by their assumption the Biden administration won't take up their key demands: abolishing ICE and defunding the police, a concept that can range from reinvesting police resources in marginalized communities to disbanding forces altogether, they told CNN.

"There is a lot of anger and rage" over social inequity among Americans, rioter Alix Powell told CNN. And vandalism is how some people express their anger, she said.

"There's a lot of hopelessness in people my age and people I know who feel like no matter how you vote, no matter what you do, they're not listening," she said Thursday. "A riot is the language of the unheard."

"It doesn't matter who's president: Black lives don't matter, Arab lives don't matter, they don't care about us. They just don't," another rioter of Arab descent, who also wished to remain anonymous, told CNN on Thursday.

National Black leaders are counting on the new President to unify the county and enact policies that address the disparities Black people face in housing, education, jobs, health care and voter suppression, they have said. They also want Biden to undo the harm caused by President Donald's Trump offensive rhetoric toward people of color and refusal to address police brutality in the Black community.

Among the first three executive orders Biden signed on Inauguration Day was one meant to ensure racial equality and support underserved communities. Biden also has assembled the most racially diverse presidential Cabinet in US history. His Department of Homeland Security has paused deportations for 100 days, with some exceptions. And on Friday, he's set to sign executive orders that expand aid to low-income Americans.


Portland's many months of protests

As in cities across the country, protests erupted in Portland late last spring over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and expanded to include demands for police accountability and prosecutorial reform in the cases of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain and other Black victims.

The events have ranged from peaceful Black Lives Matter marches to violent riots including arson and vandalism. Some have become a target for hate groups seeking to antagonize those who come out to defend the rights of marginalized communities.

Oregon's complicated racial tensions trace to the time of the nation's founding. As late as 1854, the Oregon Constitution was amended with exclusionary language to keep Black people out of the state, according to a timeline published by Portland city officials.

The 14th Amendment, giving citizenship to Black people, passed there in 1868, two years after Congress approved it.

But it wasn't until the 1950s that Oregon began peeling back laws and rules that propped up racial discrimination in housing, schools and employment.

© Paul L/AP Protesters shield themselves from chemical irritants Wednesday evening outside the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Oregon.

#OHS

Rescuers at risk: emergency personnel face trauma and post traumatic stress symptoms

Emergency workers face suicidal thoughts and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), with emergency department and psychiatric department staff most at risk

FRONTIERS

Research News

 

A new study in Frontiers in Psychiatry has for the first time, demonstrated differences in the prevalence of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in different groups of rescue workers and emergency personnel, including firefighters, police officers and psychiatric nurses. The researchers showed that the varying experiences and circumstances these workers encounter, such as handling aggressive people, working with families or dealing with deaths and suicide, are tied to varying levels of PTSS and suicidal thoughts, with emergency department staff and psychiatric nurses showing the highest levels of PTSS and suicidal thoughts out of the emergency professions studied. The findings highlight the urgent need for bespoke training and counselling services across the rescue and emergency industries, which would help staff to cope with the trauma they experience, improving their quality of life and mental wellbeing in such high-risk professions. The study was led by Dr Leila Soravia and Dr Thomas Müller at the University of Bern's Hospital of Psychiatry in Switzerland.

Rescue workers and emergency personnel often encounter traumatic events as part of their roles and are therefore at a higher risk of developing PTSD and suicidal thought patterns than the general public. Dr Soravia explains:

"Though rescue workers across different professions will often be engaged at the same event or emergency, they have very different roles and responsibilities on the scene: this can mean the stress experienced by different workers is very subjective - whether that's from dealing with deaths, working with families of victims, or being exposed to violence. The mental wellbeing training that is offered to staff to teach them how to cope with this stress and trauma also often varies across these different professions. We therefore speculated that the prominence of PTSS and other related factors would vary across different rescue workers, which has not been studied so far."

The researchers distributed an anonymous online survey to rescue workers across Bern, Switzerland, which included police officers, firefighters, ambulance personnel, emergency department staff and psychiatric nurses. All the participants were asked questions about traumatic events they had experienced before and during the course of their job, any PTSS or suicidal thoughts they experienced, and were also asked to rate how well they thought they coped with stress and PTSS.

The study found significant differences in the prevalence of PTSS between different professions, and notably, emergency department staff and psychiatric nurses featured the highest prevalence of PTSS. For individuals who demonstrated PTSS, dysfunctional coping strategies, such as alcohol abuse or avoidance of a situation or emotion related to their stress was one of the most robust predictors of their symptoms.

"The findings highlight how even the same emergency situations can affect the mental health of rescue workers differently. We urgently need profession-specific training that can improve emergency workers' abilities to cope with the stresses of their job to reduce their PTSS and enhance their quality of life in such high-risk professions," highlights Dr Soravia.

"Long term studies would help us understand the predictors of PTSS in emergency personnel - a more profound understanding of these symptoms could then be a valuable basis for mental wellbeing training and support in the future."

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ALS study reveals a unique population

Scientists discover that ALS patients in Malta do not have flaws in major ALS genes

UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

Research News

 

IMAGE: MALTESE OUT ON A SUNDAY, ON ONE OF THE BUSIEST STREETS IN VALLETTA, MALTA'S CAPITAL CITY view more 

CREDIT: SOURCE: JONATHAN BORG, TIMES OF MALTA

Malta, a sovereign microstate in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, has no shortage of sunny beaches, honey-bricked villages and rugged countryside. Beyond its Mediterranean charm, Malta is home to a geographically and culturally isolated population whose unique genetic makeup, makes this island nation a goldmine for genetics research.

Four years ago, the University of Malta set up a national ALS Registry and Biobank to identify patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and collect data on their residence, occupation, lifestyle and environmental exposures. Blood samples donated by participants will remain stored in high-tech storage facilities at the University over many years.

ALS is a progressive neurological disease that destroys the nerves that interact with the body's muscles. The disease typically leads to complete paralysis of the body, robbing patients of their ability to walk, speak, eat and breathe. There is no cure for ALS, and eventually, the disease is fatal.

Malta's ALS Biobank is providing scientists with an invaluable resource for understanding the causes of ALS. In the first landmark study, researchers have retrieved and scrutinised the DNA from blood samples to discover flaws in genes linked to ALS.

"The DNA results caught us by surprise. The most frequently mutated ALS genes were flawless in Maltese patients," said the study's lead researcher Dr Ruben J. Cauchi, PhD, a senior lecturer at the University's School of Medicine and lead investigator at the University's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Biobanking.

Collaborating with scientists at the University Medical Centre (UMC) Utrecht in The Netherlands, University of Malta researchers found that ALS patients in Malta did not have flaws in the C9orf72, SOD1, TARDBP and FUS genes, which are known to contribute to a major number of ALS cases worldwide.

The study nonetheless revealed that compared to other European populations, a higher percentage of Maltese patients with no prior family history of ALS have harmful flaws in their DNA. Intriguingly, these occur in genes that are rarely damaged in Europeans with ALS.

"Our results underscore the unique genetics of the Maltese population, shaped by centuries of relative isolation. We also established that genetic factors play a significant role in causing ALS in Malta," added Dr Cauchi.

Right now, the research team is on the hunt for what triggers ALS in more than half of the study subjects that had no flaws in known ALS genes. Thanks to the participation of patients and healthy volunteers, Malta's ALS Biobank is rapidly growing into a precious treasure trove of data that is expected to unveil more fascinating insights on the causes of ALS in the years to come.

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Study co-authors are Rebecca Borg, Maia Farrugia Wismayer, Dr Karl Bonavia, Dr Andrew Farrugia Wismayer and Prof Neville Vassallo from the University of Malta; Dr Malcolm Vella from Mater Dei Hospital; and Dr Joke J.F.A. van Vugt, Dr Brendan J. Kenna, Dr Kevin P. Kenna, and Prof Jan H. Veldink from UMC Utrecht.

The study was funded by the University of Malta Research Excellence Fund, an Endeavour Scholarship (part-financed by the European Social Fund), an EMBO fellowship, a Malta Council for Science & Technology Internationalisation Partnership Award, ALS Malta Foundation and the University of Malta's Research Trust (RIDT).