It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 23, 2021
MY MP
Blake Desjarlais is Canada’s first Two Spirit Canadian MP: ‘We’re starting to see ourselves more’
NDP candidate Desjarlais won his seat Monday night with 40.5 per cent of the votes, flipping the riding from Conservative. Former Edmonton city councillor Kerry Diotte held the seat since it was created in 2015.
“I think what made the difference in our election is making sure that we’re present in the community, we’re active in the community, and we’re there for people, because we’re going to be,” Desjarlais told Shaye Ganam on Thursday
Two Spirit is a difficult identity to explain. According to Chalifoux, who uses they/them pronouns, the definition can mean something different to different Indigenous people.
The Edmonton 2 Spirit Society has adopted the understanding that “Two Spirit peoples transcend the boundaries that are set by the binary of male and female, thereby restoring our gender fluidity among our people,” they explained.
“It’s to really help understand the diversity of traditions, cultures and understandings that have been lost to our people as we try to redefine ourselves, as well as find those cultures and traditions that have been buried.”
Canada election: Indigenous issues ‘never really risen to top’
Canada election: Indigenous issues ‘never really risen to top’
Electing someone who identifies in a way that is maybe less understood or common than other parts of the LGBTQ2S community, Chalifoux said, not only helps to make that identity more commonplace, it shows Indigenous youth growing up who may identify as Two Spirit that their voices can be heard.
“There is space available for us, even though we have been pushed to the margins and nearly eradicated and we are going through high amounts of suicide and grief and loss right now in our communities, as we have for some time.
“Our youth are going to know that, that it’s ok. It’s ok to identify who you are, to be your true being, and to see that, you know, we can be represented on TV, we can be represented in the news, we can be represented in our leadership and in parliament.”
In the 2021 election, there will be three new Indigenous MPs: Desjarlais, Adam Chambers, also Metis, who took the seat of Simcoe-North in Ontario for the Conservatives and Lori Idlout, who kept Nunavut orange, will replace NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who decided not to run again.
That means there will be 12 Indigenous MPs in this cabinet, up by one from the 2019 election.
How embracing her two-spirit self changed Kish’s life
How embracing her two-spirit self changed Kish’s life – Jun 13, 2021
On top of being Indigenous and Two Spirit, Desjarlais is also one of the youngest people elected in this campaign.
“These are some of the issues and some of the demographics that are currently missing from the House of Commons and have historically missed these perspectives from the House of Commons, which largely, I believe, contribute to the disenfranchisement of so many people in our community.”
Desjarlais is the only Indigenous MP from Alberta.
Blake Desjarlais to become Canada’s first two-spirit MP
Federal NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais has made history. The MP-elect in Edmonton-Griesbach will be the first openly two-spirit Métis member of Parliament. His journey to the top was far from conventional. Chris Chacon reports.
MP Blake Desjarlais on how he will represent Edmonton-Griesbach in Ottawa
Blake Desjarlais is the new member of Parliament for Edmonton-Griesbach. Desjarlais is from the Fishing Lake Metis Settlement and former energy industry worker. He’s also the first two spirit MP in the country. He joined Vinesh Pratap on the noon news to talk about how he plans to represent all his constituents in Canada’s capital.
NDP's Blake Desjarlais reacts to big win in Edmonton Griesbach
Sep 23, 2021
Cannabis in elite sports: Performing on a high
What's wrong with lighting up a joint ahead of the big game?
Things aren't quite that simple when it comes to cannabis in competitive sports.
The World Anti-Doping Agency is set to review its list of banned substances.
Safety issues could arise when using cannabis before competing in certain elite sports, say some experts
Sha'Carri Richardson would have been a favorite to win a medal in Tokyo. The sprinter won the 100 meters at the US Olympic trials. Then she was slapped with a 30-day ban from competition after testing positive for marijuana use. This forced the 21-year-old from Texas to miss the 2021 Summer Olympics.
"I know what I did," she told American broadcaster NBC.
Sha'Carri Richardson missed out on the Tokyo Olympics due to a postive test for cannabis
An elite athlete speaking publicly about drug use is about as common as England's national football team winning a penalty shootout. However, the fact that many athletes use cannabis or hemp products is an open secret. Longtime NBA player Matt Barnes is one former athlete to have spoken about his use of the substance.
"I would smoke cannabis six hours before a game. We'd have a shoot-around in the morning, I'd come home and smoke a joint, take a nap, shower, eat and go and play," he told the BBC in 2018. A certain odor
Since Barnes uttered those words, a certain odor has been swirling around US basketball players — to say the least. Taking to the court on a high? Is that not a prohibited way of enhancing one's performance?
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has announced that it is set to review whether cannabis remains on its list of banned substances. This follows requests from a number of "stakeholders" to review the status of cannabis on the Prohibited List, WADA spokeswoman Maggie Durand told DW.
However, at its recent executive committee meeting in Istanbul, WADA announced that no changes would be coming for 2022, meaning that the status quo will remain in place for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. This, WADA said, was due to the time required to conduct such a review.
Hemp products such as CBD oils are readily available without a prescription
Cannabis is the Latin word for hemp. And even the definition of the term and substance is somewhat complicated for the layman. After all, hemp products are freely available and are enjoying increasing popularity — in the form of CBD oils, for example. In 1999, the International Olympic Committee banned the use of cannabis from its competitions and WADA has gone along with the ban — at least so far. 'Endangering oneself and others'
According to the doping lexicon of the Institute of Biochemistry in Cologne, the use of cannabis "does not actually lead to an improvement in peak athletic performance." But the problem lies in another regard, as sports scientist Mario Thevis of the Center for Preventive Doping Research at the German Sport University in Cologne explained.
"First and foremost, what can be observed is the effectiveness of cannabinoids in limiting one's own risk assessment, that is, of the situation itself," the professor told DW.
"If a Formula 1 driver were to misjudge speed only minimally, he would endanger both himself and others. The same could apply to the skier who fails to recognize risks at enormously high speeds, which could be his undoing."
Mario Thevis of the German Sport University Cologne points to the drawbacks of athletes using cannabis
Proponents of cannabis legalization argue that the substance can be helpful in regeneration, muscle relaxation or pain reduction, in addition to its anxiety-relieving component.
This is countered by what the German Journal of Sports Medicine writes on the subject: "Although the physical effects of cannabis are relatively minor, the increase in heart rate and blood pressure can cause problems. There are known cases in which cannabis has caused or promoted cardiac arrhythmias, heart attacks, and probably strokes."
In order to convict athletes seeking to gain a competitive advantage, the doping offense limit has been raised to 150 ng/ml of urine, it adds.
"Athletes who smoke a joint now and then without intent to dope are thus protected." A clear head
For its part, Germany's National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) expressed confidence that WADA will take a decision on the issue while "taking into account the latest scientific findings."
So, it seems safe to assume that the researchers and officials on WADA's committees will be keeping a clear head.
Peru's coca farmers caught between drug gangs and starvation
Issued on: 23/09/2021
Peru is the world's second-largest producer of coca, after Colombia. About half of Peru's 49,000 hectares of coca plantations are found in the VRAEM valley
ERNESTO BENAVIDES AFP
Vizcatán del Ene (Perú) (AFP)
In an impoverished village in Peru's largest coca-growing region, Angelica Lapa mourns her 19-year-old son, killed four months ago by remnant Shining Path guerrillas who maintain a grip of terror over the forgotten region.
On May 23, a Sunday, armed men stormed the far-flung settlement of San Miguel del Ene -- population 300 -- and attacked two taverns, mowing down 16 people. Four were children.
Lapa's son Luis Fernando was among the victims.
"My son was innocent, humble. His death was very difficult for us," the 67-year-old said as she wept on the small farm where she ekes out a living growing mainly coca -- the leaf used to make cocaine.
The plant is much coveted by drug dealers the government says work in cahoots with Shining Path rebels -- a convergence of interests that places the community in constant peril.
This was not the first time Lapa -- her hands worn by many years of labor in the earth and sun -- had loved ones killed by Shining Path.
In the 1980s, at the height of Peru's war, she lost cousins, uncles and grandparents to the Maoist guerrillas fighting to overthrow the government.
After so much suffering, she told AFP, it was time for "the government to send the army to put pressure on those who have killed so many innocent people."
Shining Path is labelled a terrorist organization by Lima, the European Union and United States. - 'Comrade Jose' -
The government blamed the May 23 attack on a last active group of Shining Path guerrillas.
The attackers had left behind pamphlets warning the villagers, who live in extreme poverty in precarious wood and brick huts, not to vote for Keiko Fujimori -- then a candidate for presidential elections which have since been settled in favor of her rival Pedro Castillo.
Angelica Lapa with a photo of her son Luis Fernando, killed in the attack on May 23
ERNESTO BENAVIDES AFP
After being militarily overwhelmed in the 1990s, the vast majority of Shining Path leaders were arrested, and the movement has dwindled to just about 200 remaining fighters led by renegade commander Victor Quispe Palomino or "Comrade Jose"
They are active in the remote, mountainous valley formed by the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro rivers, though the Shining Path's original leaders do not recognize these fighters as members.
Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman died aged 86 at a maximum security prison on September 11, while serving a life sentence.
The sixteen victims of San Miguel del Ene are the latest on a long list of tens of thousands people killed in two decades of internal conflict from 1980 to 2000.
A tavern in San Miguel del Ene still bears the bloody evidence of a massacre of civilians blamed on Shining Path guerrillas
Ernesto BENAVIDES AFP
In the long-suffering VRAEM valley, so-called after the three rivers that form it, coca leaf cultivation is the only means of survival for many people in a place that does not even have sanitation or potable water.
The plant yields four times a year, making it more profitable than cacao, which is harvested only once a year, or lower-priced bananas.
"Economically, the leaf sustains us," Angelica's other son Roy, 35, told AFP. - Most grown for drugs -
Peru is the world's second-largest producer of coca, after Colombia. About half of Peru's 49,000 hectares of coca plantations are found in the VRAEM valley.
The plant is allowed to be grown for traditional use -- usually chewed or brewed in a tea and consumed as a stimulant or to counter altitude sickness.
But for the most part, the coca grown in the VRAEM is destined for the production of cocaine -- of which the United States is the world's largest consumer.
According to Peru's DEVIDA anti-drug commission, about 90 percent of the 120,000 tons of coca grown in the country every year ends up being used in illicit drugs -- only 12,000 tons are reserved for traditional consumption.
In 2019, before the global pandemic, one "arroba" (11.5 kilograms) of coca leaf sold for up to 200 soles, or about $60. It is now five to six times less
ERNESTO BENAVIDES AFP
In 2019, before the global pandemic, one "arroba" (11.5 kilograms) of coca leaf sold to drug traffickers for up to 200 soles, or about $60.
Now, they get five or six times less, coca growers told AFP.
"The pandemic ruined us economically because the price fell," said Roy.
Dina Manrique, 45, explained the locals had nowhere else to turn.
"There is no other product for us. Sometimes we grow cacao and we can't make a sale. We were selling to Enaco (the state coca company), now we have to sell to other people. I don't know what they will do," she said.
For as long as many people remember Colombia has been a violence riven country that has been a major hub in the global cocaine trade.What many people do not realize is that Colombia is one of Latin America’s largest oil producers. For the first seven months of 2021, Colombia pumped an average of 730,015 barrels per day, ranking it as the region’s third largest producer behind Mexico and then Brazil.
Over the last three decades Colombia has become increasingly dependent on petroleum to drive its economy, leaving it vulnerable to brutal price swings and the investment decisions made by big oil. Even during 2020 when oil prices plummeted because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on economic activity and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, crude oil remained Colombia’s top export. During that year, petroleum was also responsible for 17% of the national government’s revenue and contributed around 3% of gross domestic product.
The importance of Colombia’s crude oil industry is rapidly rising because of Bogota’s focus on bolstering economic growth, after a year where the economy shrank nearly 7%, and filling a massive budget black hole with a deficit equal to nearly 9% of GDP.
The urgency with which Colombia needs to attract additional petroleum investment is emphasized by steadily rising prices, with the international Brent benchmark rising more than 50% this year and currently trading at over $75 per barrel. Ironically, while Colombia is pumping more petroleum than neighboring Venezuela, 731,255 barrels per day compared to 523,000 barrels, Colombia has paltry reserves totaling 1.8 billion barrels compared to Venezuela’s 304 billion barrels. This illustrates the urgency with which Bogota must act to attract substantial foreign energy investment while reducing the geopolitical risks faced by oil companies operating in Colombia.
A combination of rising insecurity, increased lawlessness, nationwide anti-government protests, sharply weaker oil prices, and the pandemic are all weighing heavily on investment and ultimately Colombia’s petroleum production. Last year oil industry investment plunged to $2.05 billion, its lowest level in over a decade, and even after oil prices rallied it is only forecast to be $3.2 billion for 2021, a marked 20.5% less than the $40.03 billion spent during 2019.
As a result, hydrocarbon production remains weak, well below the one million barrels once targeted by Bogota as being the optimal level to drive economic growth. Ministry of Mines and Energy data (Spanish) shows Colombia only pumped an average of 731,255 barrels per day during July 2021. This was 0.5% less than the same period a year earlier, at the height of the pandemic, when there were only six active drill rigs compared to 19 at the end of July 2021.
Source: Colombia Ministry of Mines and Energy, U.S. EIA.
There is a long way to go before Colombia’s economically crucial petroleum output returns to pre-pandemic levels. That could not occur at a worse time for a government battling to increase revenues, reduce inflation caused by a sharply weaker peso, and fund social programs to alleviate a marked uptick in poverty. Four-month-long nationwide anti-government demonstrations had a material impact on Colombia’s crude oil production causing the Andean country’s oil output to plunge to a multi-year low of 650,884 barrels per day by late May 2021.
These are not the only events weighing heavily on Colombia’s economically crucial petroleum industry. A significant uptick in violence and lawlessness across Colombia, particularly since 2018, is deterring investment and preventing the effective exploration of many remote parts of the country for the presence of hydrocarbons.
Colombia is enormously underexplored, with it estimated that less than a third of the Andean country has been examined for the presence of hydrocarbons, yet it possesses considerable potential. It is estimated that combined, Colombia’s 18 sedimentary basins possess potential hydrocarbon resources of 37 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which is more than twenty times greater than Colombia’s proven petroleum reserves. Only seven of those 18 sedimentary basins have commercial crude oil-producing operations. The primary reason for the lack of hydrocarbon exploration and presence of industry operations is Colombia’s long history of civil conflict with many petroleum-rich areas located in zones long dominated by armed non-state actors.Related: Crude Prices Jump On Oil Sands Outages
Bogota believed that the 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC – Spanish initials) would open up large swathes of territory controlled by the leftist guerillas to oil exploration. This has not occurred because of a sharp uptick in violence and lawlessness since President Ivan Duque took power after defeating leftist candidate and senator Gustavo Petro in the 2018 presidential election. That, in part, can be blamed on Duque’s reluctance to effectively implement the FARC peace accord which is responsible for a growing number of dissident combatants who do not recognize the agreement.
Those dissident FARC groups are fighting among themselves as well as with the Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN – Spanish initials) and various paramilitary successor groups for control of lucrative coca cropping, illegal gold mining, and smuggling routes. At the end of 2020, it was estimated there were around 7,000 combatants comprising the various non-state armed groups operating in Colombia, with FARC dissidents and the ELN accounting for roughly 2,500 fighters each.
The remaining combatants were split across various paramilitary successor groups, the most prominent being the Gulf Clan. It is the massive profits generated by the production and trafficking of cocaine, which for decades has fueled Colombia’s multi-party low-level asymmetric conflict, that is estimated to have claimed around 220,000 lives. Control of coca cropping regions, with the leaves of the coca plant being the key ingredient needed to produce cocaine, is the primary driver of escalating violence. A historically weak state presence in many of the remote areas where coca growing occurs is further adding to the escalating conflict.
Those zones are also rich in crude oil, containing Colombia’s most important onshore sedimentary basins where most of the Andean country’s oil reserves and operational oilfields are. This includes the prolific Llanos Basin which forms the hub of Colombia’s onshore oil industry and contains the Rubiales field, which is found in the fifth-ranked coca-producing area.
The southern Putumayo Basin, one of the Andean country’s main producing sedimentary basins, is in Colombia’s fourth-largest coca cropping region. Much of the Andean country’s crude oil resources and key hydrocarbon-bearing geological formations are found in those basins. Crucial petroleum pipelines, the only economic means of transporting crude oil from points of production to coastal ports to access global energy markets, travel through Colombia’s main coca-growing regions.
The 210,000 barrel per day Caño Limon-Coveñas pipeline, which connects Colombia’s second-largest oilfield, Caño Limon, in the department of Arauca to the port of Coveñas passes through Cataumbo, which according to the UN is the Andean country’s second largest coca-growing region. It has frequently been the target of attacks by the ELN and FARC. The 190,000 barrel per day Transandino pipeline connecting oilfields in the Putumayo Basin passes through the Pacific region which the UN recently ranked as Colombia’s largest coca-growing area. Frequent pipeline outages due to sabotage also impact Colombia’s petroleum output, with drillers forced to shutter operations, once onsite storage reaches capacity, if those pipelines are out of operation.
Heightened conflict and lawlessness are deterring foreign investment in oil exploration and operations in those regions. Cocaine production is only climbing, with the UN coca cultivation survey indicating Colombia’s cocaine output during 2020 reached another record high of 1,228 metric tons, which was 8% greater than in 2019. This is significantly higher than Colombia’s cocaine output when the Medellin Cartel was at the height of its power during the 1980s.
Even the Duque administration’s focus on eradication and interdiction, which saw the volume of cocaine seized by authorities during 2020 rise by a notable 18% year over year, has made little inroads into what is a pressing problem for Colombia. The problem is so severe that cocaine profits are now estimated to be worth up to 4%, or $12 billion, of the Andean country’s GDP, which is more than the roughly 3% generated by crude oil. Such large amounts of funds will only further finance rising levels of conflict and attract additional violence from non-state armed actors seeking to expand their revenue. That will further deter urgently required foreign investment in Colombia’s economically crucial oil industry with low proven reserves of 1.8 billion barrels likely to run out in just over six years.
By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com
Congress to NASA: What comes after the International Space Station?
The specter of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program loomed large as congressional representatives sought details about the agency's plans for orbital spaceflight after the International Space Station.
Questions of how long the station — already over 20 years old — can last and how international and industry partnerships might drive activity in low Earth orbit (LEO) filled a two-hour hearing held by the House Science, Space and Technology's subcommittee on space and aeronautics on Tuesday (Sept. 21). The International Space Station partners are currently committed to operating the orbiting laboratory until 2024. NASA has long argued that the facility is safe to occupy until at least 2028 and the U.S. space agency's AdministratorBill Nelson has endorsed keeping the station operational until 2030.
But some worry that pushing the lab so far beyond its design lifetime is courting disaster, particularly as a string of incidents have shown the facility's wizened age. (Construction of the station began in 1998.) Others fear that relying on commercially operated orbital stations will leave NASA stranded on Earth — a particularly grim prospect just a year after NASA regained direct access to the orbiting laboratory in 2020 via SpaceX's commercial Dragon ships after nearly a decade of hitching Soyuz rides from Russia.
"We did experience a gap in our transportation system when we retired the shuttle that we do not wish to repeat with our U.S. human presence in low Earth orbit," Robyn Gatens, NASA's director for the International Space Station (ISS), said during the hearing.
"We cannot have a gap in American human spaceflight in low Earth orbit," she emphasized. "This is why NASA is committed to an orderly transition from ISS operations in LEO to U.S. commercially provided destinations in low Earth orbit." An American presence in low Earth orbit
NASA has long held that reliable access to low Earth orbit is vital for agency operations, regardless of how long the International Space Station itself lasts. Orbit provides a lower-risk environment for the agency to test technologies and procedures for crewed missions to more distant destinations and to evaluate health risks astronauts on such missions might face.
But the space station carries a hefty price tag: $3 billion or $4 billion each year. If NASA can foster commercial outposts in orbit and then pay to conduct research there instead, the agency could save more than $1 billion each year, Gatens said preliminary estimates show.
Gatens teased continuing work on NASA's plan for transitioning from the International Space Station to smaller, privately operated orbital outposts that NASA astronauts can visit to conduct research in microgravity. The agency currently owes Congress an updated report on plans for the transition, as committee members noted; Gatens said that report should be ready for legislators "in the coming weeks."
As part of the plan, she said, NASA has outlined a series of so-called transition indicators to guide the agency's handover of U.S. presence in low Earth orbit.
"The first and foremost indicator is that we have commercial LEO destinations to transition to," Gatens said. "That may sound pretty obvious, but that's a prerequisite so that we don't have a gap in low Earth orbit." Other indicators include the structural health of the International Space Station and the development of commercial markets, she said.
Politics and spaceflight
In addition to Gatens, committee members heard testimony from current NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, former astronaut and commander of the first space station crew William Shepherd, the CEO of aerospace company and space station participant Nanoracks and a think-tank staffer who focuses on space.
The discussion of what happens next in low Earth orbit is complicated by international politics. NASA and its Russian counterpart co-lead the decades-old partnership behind the International Space Station, but the relationship between the two agencies has been strained in recent years. Lately, Russia has discussed building its own orbital station, and it has also been in talks with China about space partnerships.
That strain might be mirrored on the space station itself, parts of which have spent a full 20 years in orbit and are showing signs of their age. Even a new addition is proving difficult: Russia's new science module caused the entire space station to flip and spin more than 540 degrees when its thrusters inappropriately fired during docking in late July, potentially straining the unwieldy structure.
Shepherd said that the aftermath of the incident has shown how the international partnership has weakened, since NASA still doesn't have details about how the Russians first noticed an issue, attempts to counteract it, and other aspects of how the event unfolded.
"We have not had that discussion in intimate detail but that would have been very common 20 years ago," Shepherd said.
"The business of making the space station work was to get close together and sit around the table and work out the problems," he said. "We do not have that correlation with our Russian counterparts right now."
Gatens noted during her own comments that part of NASA's transition plan involves developing ways to continue current international cooperation in low Earth orbit in addition to the agency's ongoing efforts to court partnerships for its moon-bound Artemis program.
NASA splits human spaceflight unit in two, reflecting new orbital economy
Reuters Washington Published: Sep 23, 2021,
Painters refurbish the NASA logo on the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in Florida on May 29, 2020
NASA chief Bill Nelson announced the reorganisation on Tuesday. This is reflective of evolving relationship between NASA, a US government agency that had monopoly on spaceflight for decades, and private players like SpaceX that have increasingly commercialised rocket travel
NASA is splitting its human spaceflight department into two separate bodies - one centered on big, future-oriented missions to the moon and Mars, the other on the International Space Station and other operations closer to Earth.
The reorganization, announced by NASA chief Bill Nelson on Tuesday, reflects an evolving relationship between private companies, such as SpaceX, that have increasingly commercialised rocket travel and the federal agency that had exercised a US monopoly over spaceflight for decades.
Nelson said the shake-up was also spurred by a recent proliferation of flights and commercial investment in low-Earth orbit even as NASA steps up its development of deep-space aspirations.
"Today is more than organizational change," Nelson said at a press briefing. "It's setting the stage for the next 20 years, it's defining NASA's future in a growing space economy."
The move breaks up NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, currently headed by Kathy Leuders, into two separate branches.
Leuders will keep her associate administrator title as head of the new Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, focusing on NASA's most ambitious, long-term programs, such as plans to return astronauts to the moon under project Artemis, and eventual human exploration of Mars.
A retired deputy associate administrator, James Free, who played key roles in NASA's space station and commercial crew and cargo programs, will return to the agency as head of the new Space Operations Mission Directorate.
His branch will primarily oversee more routine launch and spaceflight activities, including missions involving the space station and privatization of low-Earth orbit, as well as sustaining lunar operations once those have been established.
"This approach with two areas focused on human spaceflight allows one mission directorate to operate in space while the other builds future space systems," NASA said in a press release announcing the move.
The announcement came less than a week after SpaceX, which had already flown numerous astronaut missions and cargo payloads to the space station for NASA, launched the first all-civilian crew ever to reach orbit and returned them safely to Earth.
Elon Musk says Inspiration4 crew had 'challenges' with the toilet
The Crew Dragon loo with a view needs some upgrades.
Inspiration4 mission commander Jared Isaacman poses inside the Crew Dragon cupola window. Inspiration4
SpaceX's Inspiration4 orbital mission with four non-professional astronauts was by all accounts quite a triumph for space history, space tourism and fundraising for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. However, there may have been some tense moments when it came to using the toilet on board the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted Monday night that the Inspiration4 crew had some "challenges" with the loo. He promised upgrades for future missions.
For better or worse, Musk didn't elaborate on the exact challenges. The all-civilian crew of four consisted of billionaire Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman, St. Jude physician assistant and childhood cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, geoscientist Sian Proctor and aerospace industry professional Chris Sembroski.
SpaceX hasn't revealed much about how the toilet works, but Isaacman told Insider in July that the facilities were located near the spacecraft's large cupola window with a curtain to allow for a wee bit of privacy. He described the toilet as having "one hell of a view."
Toilets in space can be tricky. The International Space Station got a new toilet last year. It uses a suction system to keep waste from floating about and incorporates upgrades to better accommodate female astronauts.
European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet took a flight to the ISS on a Crew Dragon earlier this year and tweeted a photo of the toilet on his ride, calling it "one of the most secret yet useful systems on the spacecraft."
Inspiration4 spent three days in orbit before returning to Earth with a splashdown on Saturday. That's three days of using the bathroom in microgravity while in very close quarters with others. Upon hearing of the mission's potty problems, bidet company Tushy said its product engineers were standing at the ready to develop the first ever space bidet, the Tushy Ass Blast 9000. Anything that improves the toilet situation will no doubt be welcomed by the next crew to board the Dragon.
THEY REALLY NEED TO CALL
Report: America's 400 wealthiest families paid 8.2% in income taxes
Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The 400 wealthiest families in America paid an average federal income tax rate of 8.2% on $1.8 trillion of income between 2010 and 2018, according to a recent analysis by the White House.
Senior White House Economist Greg Leiserson and Chief White House Economist Danny Yagan authored the report based on Internal Revenue Services statistics, the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances and Forbes magazine estimates.
It comes as President Joe Biden proposes tax increases on the wealthy and corporations to pay for spending in areas like healthcare and childcare.
America's wealthiest 400 families have been taxed at preferred rates and have been able to avoid taxes on investment gains, placing their tax burden fall below the maximum 37%.
Investment gains are a primary source of income for wealthy families. A "stepped-up basis" tax preference allows wealthy families to pass investment gains to their heirs without having capital gains income appear on their tax returns.
Biden's budget proposes to end the "stepped-up basis" for the highest-income Americans to ensure that all investment gains are subject to income tax.
"Two factors that contribute to this low estimated tax rate include low tax rates on the capital gains and dividends that are taxed, and wealthy families' ability to permanently avoid paying tax on investment gains that are excluded from taxable income," the report said.
The White House estimate of how much the wealthiest American's pay in taxes is far below that of other analyses due to the inclusion of the value of stock portfolio's as income, The New York Times noted.
An estimate by the Tax Policy Center put the average effective tax rate of the top 1,400 American households at 24% in 2015, compared with 14% for all taxpayers.
Who are the Saputos?: Meet the Quebec billionaire family thriving on North America's love affair with pizza and mozzarella
Lino Saputo persuaded his father to start a cheese-making business in the 1950s — now the company is an international dairy behemoth
Author of the article: Quentin Casey Publishing date:Sep 22, 2021 •
Lino Saputo Sr., front, of the Montreal dairy giant Saputo Inc., and Lino A. Saputo Jr., president of and chief executive officer of the company, are seen at the annual Saputo meeting in Laval, in 2009. PHOTO BY DARIO AYALA/THE GAZETTE FILES
Considering its global reach, billions of dollars in sales, and the wealth of its founding family, Saputo Inc. is not an overly well-known Canadian company.
And yet over 70 years Saputo Inc., started by a family of Italian immigrants, has grown swiftly into an international dairy behemoth.
The Montreal-headquartered company is one of the biggest dairy processors in the world, selling cheese, milk, and other dairy products in more than 60 countries. It has in excess of 17,000 employees, 65 plants (18 in Canada; 27 in the U.S.; the rest in Argentina, Australia and the U.K.), and dozens of brands, such as Dairyland, Neilson, Milk2Go, Armstrong, Frigo, Baxter, Scotsburn, and Stella. Combined, Saputo Inc.’s brands generate north of $14 billion in annual revenue.
The company’s immense growth has propelled the founding Saputo family into the ranks of billionaires. As of September, founder Emanuele (Lino) Saputo and his family had a net worth of US$5.5 billion, according to Forbes, placing the family in the No. 486 spot on the Forbes list of global billionaires.
A sign at a Montreal Saputo plant, pictured in 2014.
PHOTO BY RYAN REMIORZ/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES
Despite its size and status as a publicly traded company, Saputo Inc. still treads heavily on its humble origin story.
In the early 1950s, members of the Saputo family, led by Giuseppe, a cheesemaker, immigrated to Canada from the Italian village of Montelepre. One of Giuseppe’s sons, Lino, persuaded him to start a cheese-making business. According to the company’s corporate history, the family used $500 to buy equipment — and a bicycle for deliveries — in September 1954. The company built its first significant production facility three years later, and quickly benefited from the boom in the North American appetite for pizza and, specifically, mozzarella.
The company, long helmed by Lino Saputo, grew in large part through acquisition, including the 1988 purchase of two American cheese plants. The company went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in October 1997 and shortly after tripled its size by acquiring Stella Foods in the U.S. Jolina Capital Inc., a holding company controlled by Lino Saputo, holds 32 per cent of Saputo Inc., making Jolina the principal shareholder.
Saputo, the son of an immigrant cheesemaker, had become a billionaire, philanthropist, and head of Quebec’s richest family.
“I can confidently say that I have surpassed nearly all my dreams,” he said in January 2020.
Saputo, now 84, stepped aside as Saputo Inc. chief executive in 2003, replaced by his son Lino Saputo Jr., marking a transition to third-generation family management. Lino Saputo Sr. remained as chair of the board until 2017, when he was again followed by his son. The company did not make either father or son available for an interview, saying Lino Sr. “is enjoying his well-earned retirement,” while Lino Jr. was too busy.
Lino Saputo Jr., now described as the richest man in Quebec, has continued Saputo Inc.’s regular diet of acquisitions, even buying companies focused on dairy alternatives, in an attempt to profit from the move by many consumers to non-dairy products.
The company says it has spent $9.1 billion to expand its operations since its 1997 initial public offering, including through 35 acquisitions, earning it a strong reputation for integrating and improving the many companies it has gobbled up. The company has made four acquisitions in 2021 alone, the most recent being its September purchase of the Carolina Aseptic and Carolina Dairy businesses in North Carolina for US$118 million (approximately $149 million)
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Saputo Inc. chief executive Lino Saputo Jr., speaks during the company’s annual general meeting in Laval, Que., in 2019.
PHOTO BY GRAHAM HUGHES/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES
“We’re very fortunate that we’ve gotten very good at acquisitions,” Saputo Jr. told the Financial Post in 2019 when he was named Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year. “First and foremost, it’s through the due diligence process that we recognize how important it is to integrate effectively. I would say that we’ve looked at over 300 files and we’ve only made 31 acquisitions since we went public in 1997, so we have looked at a lot of files and we’ve walked away from a lot more files than we’ve materialized.”
Overall, Saputo Inc. posted revenue of $14.2 billion for the fiscal year ended March 2021 (down slightly from $14.9 billion in 2020), with $6.1 billion of 2021 revenue coming from the U.S., its largest geographic source of sales. Adjusted net earnings in 2021 were $715 million, down from $724 million in 2020.
Saputo Jr., now in his mid-50s, has been with the family-controlled company for 33 years, including nearly two decades as chief executive. According to a 2019 profile in the Globe and Mail, he has a constantly revolving collection of luxury cars, with a particular affinity for 1980s-era Porsches. A hockey fanatic, he built a private three-on-three rink that’s also used for a yearly company hockey tournament.
Saputo Jr., who plays goalie, says he enjoys the hot seat because “the puck stops with you.”
“No matter how many mistakes the people in front of you make, if the puck’s in the net, it’s on you. I love that pressure and I love that responsibility,” he told the Post. “Yes, it’s also a lonely position, just like sometimes when you’re a CEO it is a lonely position. Although you’re well supported with people around you, at the end of the day, you’re responsible for the success and the failure of the organization.”
The extent of his goaltending prowess is unclear, though it’s apparent he’s so far helped stop Saputo Inc. from following the tradition of third-generation family business decay.
“In the United States, a familiar aphorism — ‘Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations’ — describes the propensity of family-owned enterprises to fail by the time the founder’s grandchildren have taken charge,” wrote George Stalk Jr. and Henry Foley in the Harvard Business Review in 2012. “Some 70 per cent of family-owned businesses fail or are sold before the second generation gets a chance to take over… In many ways, leading a family-owned business has never been harder.”
I don’t take anything for granted at all. It forces me to work a little harder
LINO SAPUTO JR.
Saputo Jr. told the Post he is familiar with the third-generation curse or, as he put it, “rags to riches to rags.”
“I don’t want to be the third generation that brings in that factor. I’m mindful of that every single day so I don’t take anything for granted at all. It forces me to work a little harder.”
