#fire safety services market

[jackgarlond]

hmmm I do not see how I'm going to be able to make it to 26

[weprintindia]

Why Fire Safety and Fire Protection Are Essential for Kanpur

Fire safety and fire protection are crucial for every community, but in a city like Kanpur, they take on even greater significance. With its dense population, growing industrial sector, and increasing residential developments, Kanpur faces unique challenges that make robust fire safety measures essential. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the reasons why fire safety and fire protection are indispensable for Kanpur, covering various aspects from industrial risks to residential safety, and offer insights on effective strategies and practices.

1. Understanding Kanpur's Fire Safety Landscape

Kanpur, one of the largest cities in Uttar Pradesh, India, is characterized by its bustling industrial activities and dense residential neighborhoods. The city's rapid urbanization and economic growth have brought about both opportunities and challenges, particularly concerning fire safety.

1.1 The Industrial Hub

Kanpur's industrial sector, particularly its leather industry, is a significant contributor to the city's economy. However, industries that handle flammable materials and chemicals are inherently prone to fire risks. The concentration of factories and warehouses increases the potential for large-scale fires, making effective fire safety measures vital.

1.2 Expanding Residential Areas

As Kanpur continues to grow, new residential areas are emerging. With this expansion, the risk of fire incidents in residential buildings has also increased. High-rise apartments, densely populated neighborhoods, and the presence of informal housing further complicate fire safety efforts.

1.3 Existing Fire Safety Infrastructure

Despite efforts to improve fire safety, many areas in Kanpur still face challenges. The city's fire safety infrastructure, including fire stations, equipment, and trained personnel, must continually evolve to address the growing needs of its diverse population.

2. The Importance of Fire Safety and Protection

Fire safety and protection are not just regulatory requirements; they are essential for safeguarding lives, property, and the environment. Here’s why they are crucial for Kanpur:

2.1 Protecting Lives

The primary goal of fire safety is to protect human lives. Fires can lead to fatalities, injuries, and long-term health issues. Ensuring that buildings are equipped with the right fire detection and suppression systems can significantly reduce the risk of loss of life.

2.2 Minimizing Property Damage

Fires can cause devastating damage to property, including homes, businesses, and public infrastructure. Implementing robust fire protection measures helps to minimize damage, preserve assets, and reduce the financial burden on individuals and businesses.

2.3 Ensuring Business Continuity

For Kanpur's numerous businesses, particularly in the industrial sector, fire safety is critical for operational continuity. Fires can disrupt production, damage equipment, and lead to financial losses. Effective fire protection systems and emergency preparedness plans are essential for maintaining business operations.

2.4 Complying with Regulations

Fire safety regulations are put in place to ensure that buildings and businesses adhere to minimum safety standards. Compliance with these regulations not only helps in avoiding legal penalties but also fosters a culture of safety within the community.

2.5 Enhancing Community Resilience

A well-prepared community is better equipped to handle emergencies. By investing in fire safety education and infrastructure, Kanpur can build resilience among its residents, ensuring that they are prepared to respond effectively to fire emergencies.

3. Key Fire Safety Challenges in Kanpur

Kanpur's unique landscape presents several fire safety challenges that need to be addressed:

3.1 Industrial Fire Risks

The leather industry and other manufacturing sectors in Kanpur handle highly flammable materials and operate heavy machinery. This increases the risk of industrial fires, which can be catastrophic if not managed properly. Implementing advanced fire suppression systems and regular safety audits are crucial.

3.2 Residential Fire Hazards

In residential areas, particularly in older buildings and informal settlements, fire hazards are prevalent. Issues such as outdated wiring, the use of flammable materials in construction, and inadequate fire safety equipment can exacerbate risks. Ensuring that residential buildings meet fire safety standards is essential.

3.3 Infrastructure and Resource Limitations

Kanpur's fire safety infrastructure, including fire stations and emergency response teams, must be equipped to handle the city’s growing needs. Limited resources and outdated equipment can hinder effective fire response and prevention efforts.

3.4 Public Awareness and Training

Lack of awareness and training among residents and businesses can lead to ineffective fire prevention and response. Educating the public about fire safety practices and emergency procedures is vital for improving overall fire safety in Kanpur.

4. Effective Fire Safety Strategies for Kanpur

To address the fire safety challenges and ensure comprehensive protection, Kanpur must implement a range of strategies and practices:

4.1 Upgrading Fire Safety Infrastructure

Investing in modern fire safety infrastructure is essential for effective fire prevention and response. This includes upgrading fire stations, equipping them with advanced firefighting equipment, and ensuring that emergency response teams are well-trained and prepared.

4.2 Implementing Fire Suppression Systems

For industrial facilities, implementing advanced fire suppression systems, such as foam systems, gas-based suppression, and sprinkler systems, is crucial. These systems are designed to control and extinguish fires quickly, minimizing damage and ensuring safety.

4.3 Enhancing Residential Fire Safety

Residential fire safety can be improved by:

Installing Smoke Detectors: Ensure that smoke detectors are installed and maintained in every home.

Regular Fire Drills: Conduct fire drills to familiarize residents with evacuation procedures.

Upgrading Electrical Systems: Address outdated wiring and electrical hazards in older buildings.

Educating Residents: Provide fire safety education and resources to residents.

4.4 Conducting Regular Fire Safety Audits

Regular fire safety audits help identify potential hazards and ensure compliance with safety regulations. Businesses and residential buildings should schedule periodic audits to assess their fire safety measures and address any issues.

4.5 Promoting Public Awareness and Training

Increasing public awareness and providing fire safety training are key to enhancing community resilience. This includes:

Fire Safety Workshops: Organize workshops for residents and businesses to learn about fire prevention and emergency response.

Community Outreach Programs: Engage with the community through outreach programs and informational campaigns.

School Programs: Implement fire safety education programs in schools to teach children about fire hazards and safety measures.

4.6 Collaborating with Local Authorities

Collaboration between local authorities, fire departments, and businesses is essential for effective fire safety management. By working together, stakeholders can develop and implement strategies that address specific fire safety needs in Kanpur.

5. Conclusion

Fire safety and fire protection are paramount for Kanpur, given its unique blend of industrial activity and residential growth. By addressing fire safety challenges through strategic investments in infrastructure, implementing effective fire suppression systems, enhancing residential safety, and promoting public awareness, Kanpur can build a safer and more resilient community. Prioritizing fire safety not only protects lives and property but also ensures the continued growth and prosperity of the city.

As Kanpur continues to evolve, maintaining a proactive approach to fire safety will be crucial for safeguarding the well-being of its residents and the success of its businesses. Investing in fire safety today will help secure a safer tomorrow for all.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All bets are off

When unions are outlawed, only outlaws will have unions. Unions don't owe their existence to labor laws that protect organizing activities. Rather, labor laws exist because once-illegal unions were formed in the teeth of violent suppression, and those unions demanded – and got – labor law.

Bosses have hated unions since the start, and they've really hated laws protecting workers. Dress this up in whatever self-serving rationale you want – "the freedom to contract," or "meritocracy" – it all cashes out to this: when workers bargain collectively, value that would otherwise go to investors and executives goes to the workers.

I'm not just talking about wages here, either. If an employer is forced – by a union, or by a labor law that only exists because of union militancy – to operate a safe workplace, they have to spend money on things like fire suppression, PPE, and paid breaks to avoid repetitive strain injuries. In the absence of some force that corrals bosses into providing these safety measures, they can use that money to pay themselves, and externalize the cost of on-the-job injuries to their workers.

The cost and price of a good or service is the tangible expression of power. It is a matter of politics, not economics. If consumer protection agencies demand that companies provide safe, well-manufactured goods, if there are prohibitions on price-fixing and profiteering, then value shifts from the corporation to its customers.

Now, if labor has few rights and consumers have many rights, then bosses can pass their consumer-side losses on to their workers. This is the Walmart story, the Amazon story: cheap goods paid for with low wages and dangerous working conditions. Likewise, if consumer rights are weak but labor rights are strong, then bosses can pass their costs onto their customers, continuing to take high profits by charging more. This is the story of local gig-work ordinances like NYC's, which guaranteed a minimum wage to delivery drivers – restaurateurs responded by demanding the right to add a surcharge to their bills:

https://table.skift.com/2018/06/22/nyc-surcharge-debate/

But if labor and consumer groups act in solidarity, then they can operate as a bloc and bosses and investors have to eat shit. Back in 2017, the pilots' union for American Airlines forced their bosses into a raise. Wall Street freaked out and tanked AA's stock. Analysts for big banks were outraged. Citi's Kevin Crissey summed up the situation perfectly, in a fuming memo: "This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers":

https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/4/29/15471634/american-airlines-raise

Limiting the wealth of the investor class also limits their power, because money translates pretty directly into political power. This sets up a virtuous cycle: the less money the investor class has to spend on political projects, the more space there is for consumer- and labor-protection laws to be enacted and enforced. As labor and consumer law gets more stringent, the share of the national income going to people who make things, and people who use the things they make, goes up – and the share going to people who own things goes down.

Seen this way, it's obvious that prices and wages are a political matter, not an "economic" one. Orthodox economists maintain the pretense that they practice a kind of physics of money, discovering the "natural," "empirical" way that prices and wages move. They dress this up with mumbo-jumbo like the "efficient market hypothesis," "price discovery," "public choice," and that old favorite, "trickle-down theory." Strip away the doublespeak and it boils down to this: "Actually, your boss is right. He does deserve more of the value than you do":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/09/low-wage-100/#executive-excess

Even if you've been suckered by the lie that bosses have a legal "fiduciary duty" to maximize shareholder returns (this is a myth, by the way – no such law exists), it doesn't follow that customers or workers share that fiduciary duty. As a customer, you are not legally obliged to arrange your affairs to maximize the dividends paid by to investors in your corporate landlord or by the merchants you patronize. As a worker, you are under no legal obligation to consider shareholders' interests when you bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions.

The "fiduciary duty" lie is another instance of politics masquerading as economics: even if bosses bargain for as big a slice of the pie as they can get, the size of that slice is determined by the relative power of bosses, customers and workers.

This is why bosses hate unions. It's why the scab presidency of Donald Trump has waged all-out war on unions. Trump just effectively shuttered the National Labor Relations Board, unilaterally halting its enforcement actions and investigations. He also illegally fired one of the Democratic NLRB board members, leaving the agency with too few board members to take any new actions, meaning that no unions can be recognized – indeed, the NLRB can't do anything – for the foreseeable future:

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/28/nx-s1-5277103/nlrb-trump-wilcox-abruzzo-democrats-labor

Trump also fired the NLRB's outstanding General Counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was one of the stars of the Biden administration, who promulgated rules that decisively tilted the balance in favor of labor:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Trump is playing Grinch here – he's descended upon Whoville to take all the Christmas decorations, in the belief that these are the source of Christmas. But the Grinch was wrong (and so is Trump): Christmas was in the heart of the Whos, and the tinsel and baubles were the expression of that Christmas spirit. Likewise, labor rights come from labor organizing, not the other way around.

Labor rights were enshrined in federal law in 1935, with the National Labor Relations Act. Bosses hated – and hate – the NLRA. 12 years later, they passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which substantially gutted the NLRA. Most notably, Taft-Hartley bans "sympathy strikes" – when unions walk out in support of one another. Sympathy strikes are a hugely powerful way for workers to claim value away from bosses and investors, which is why bosses got rid of them.

But even then, bosses who were honest with themselves would admit that they preferred life under the NLRA to life before it. Remember: labor militancy created the NLRA, not the other way around. When workers didn't have the legal means to organize, they organized by illegal means. When they didn't have legal ways of striking, they struck illegally. The result was pitched battles, even bloodbaths, as cops beat and even killed labor organizers. Bosses hired thugs who committed mass murder – literally. In 1913, strikebreakers working for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company started a stampede during a union Christmas party that killed 73 people, including many copper miners' children:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Hall_disaster

Workers didn't take this lying down. Violence was met with violence. Bombs went off outside factories and stately mansions. There was gunfire and arson. Bosses had to hire armed guards to escort them as they scurried between their estates and their fancy parties and their executive offices. The country was in a state of near-perpetual chaos.

The NLRA created a set of rules for labor/boss negotiations – rules that helped workers claim a bigger slice of the pie without blood in the streets. But the NLRA also had benefits for bosses: unions were obliged to play by its rules, if they wanted to reap its benefits. The NLRA didn't just put a ceiling over boss power – it also put a ceiling over worker militancy. Von Clausewitz says that "war is politics by other means," which implies that politics are war by other means. The alternative to politics isn't capitulation, it's war.

Trump has torn up the rules to the labor game, but that doesn't mean the game ends. That just means there are no rules.

The labor movement has many great organizer/writers, but few can match the incredible Jane McAlevey, who died of cancer last summer (rest in power). In her classic A Collective Bargain, McAlevey describes her organizer training, from a tradition that went back to the days before the National Labor Relations Act:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey was very clear that labor law owes its existence to union power, not the other way around. She explains very clearly that union organizers invented labor law after they invented unions, and that unions can (and indeed, must) exist separately from government agencies that are charged with protecting labor law. But she goes farther: in Collective Bargain, McAlevey describes how the 2019 LA Teachers' Strike didn't just win all the wage and benefits demands of the teachers, but also got the school district to promise to put a park or playground near every school in the system, and got a ban on ICE agents harassing parents at the school gates.

This wildly successful strike forged bonds among teachers, and between teachers and their communities. These teachers went on to run a political get-out-the-vote campaign in the 2020 elections and elected two Democratic reps to Congress and secured the Dems' majority. McAlevey contrasted the active way good unions involve workers as participants with the thin, anemic way that the Democratic Party engages with supporters – solely by asking them for money in a stream of frothing, clickbait text messages. As McAlevey wrote, "Workplace democracy is a training ground for true national democracy."

Militant labor doesn't just protect labor rights – it protects human rights. Remember: MLK, Jr was assassinated while campaigning for union janitors in Memphis. LA teachers ended ICE sweeps at the school gates. Librarian unions are leading the fight against book bans.

The good news is that public opinion has swung wildly in favor of unions over the past decade. More people want to join unions than at any time in generations. More people support unions that at any time in generations.

The bad news is that union leadership fucking suuuuuuuucks. As Hamilton Nolan writes, union bosses are sitting on vast, heretofore unseen warchests of cash, and they just experienced a four-year period of governmental support for unions unheard of since the Carter administration, and they did fuck all with that opportunity:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/confirmed-unions-squandered-the-biden

Big unions have effectively stopped trying to organize new workers, even when workers beg them for help forming a union. Union organizing budgets are so small as to be indistinguishable from zero. Despite the record number of workers who want to be in a union, the number of workers who are in a union actually fell during the Biden years.

Indeed, some union bosses actually campaigned for Trump, a notorious scab. Teamsters boss Sean O'Brien spoke at the fucking RNC, a political favor that Trump repaid by killing the NLRB and every labor enforcement action and investigation in the country. Nice one, O'Brien. See you in hell:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/teamster-union-trump/679513/

Union bosses squandered a historical opportunity to build countervailing power. Now, Trump's stormtroopers are rounding up workers with the goal of illegally deporting them. Fascism is on the rise. Labor and fascism are archenemies. Organized labor has always been the biggest threat to fascism, every time it has reared its head. That's why fascists target unions first. Union bosses cost us an organized force that could effectively defend our friends and neighbors from Trump's deportation stormtroopers:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-01-28-trumps-lawbreaking-also-aimed-at-workers/

Not every union boss is a scab like O'Brien. Shawn Fain, head of the UAW, won an historic strike against all three of the Big Three automakers, and made sure that the new contracts all ran out in 2028, and called on other unions to do the same, so that the country could have a general strike in 2028 without violating the Taft-Hartley Act (Fain was operating on the now-dead assumption that unions had to play by the rules):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/11/rip-jane-mcalevey/#organize

A general strike isn't just a strike for workers' rights. Under Trump, a general strike is a strike against Trumpism and all its horrors: kids in cages, forced birth, trans erasure, climate accelerationism – the whole fucking thing.

A general strike would build the worker power to occupy the Democratic Party and force it to stand up for the American people against oligarchy, rather than meekly capitulating to fascism (and fundraising), which is all they know how to do anymore:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smoke-filled-room-where-it-happens/#dinosaurs

But before we can occupy the Dems, we have to occupy the unions. We need union bosses who are committed to signing up every worker who wants workplace democracy, and unionizing every workplace in spite of the NLRB, not with its help. We need to go back to our roots, when there were no rules.

That's the world Trump made. We need to make him regret that decision.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/29/which-side-are-you-on/#strike-three-yer-out

[silverbazell]

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[nerdygirlramblings]

more spitfire soldier

tw: canon-typical violence

"I got yer six," you shout, "go go go!"

Ghost barrels through the next door. You hear the rat-a-tat-tat of his SA80 and sweep the room behind him, clearing any hostiles he might have missed or those who come running at the sound of his gun.

You count three bodies on the floor when you hear footsteps coming from your right. You turn and fire as two more combatants dressed in black turn the corner. Both go down quickly, but the second got off a few shots of their own.

You don't think anything of it, too high on adrenaline and too focused on the mission. But you notice your gait slowing as you catch up to Ghost.

He waits at the next door, watching you approach. "Sit rep, Mav?" he asks.

"Fookin' fine, Lt. Wha'd're we waitin' fer?"

"If yer not solid, I'm not gonna put us both as risk," he reminds you. His safety depends on you and vice versa.

"Feel fine, Lt, really." You meet his eyes. "Really."

He nods once and breaks through this last barrier between where you are and where you need to be. The room is filled with drafting tables covered with blueprints and files. You call over comms, "Looks like everything is hard copy, Captain. No computers in sight. How do you want us to proceed?"

You hear Price's muttered curse. Intel said this group had data about black market arms deals, but if it's all hard copy, it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to grab what you came for.

As you wait on Price to make a decision, you watch Ghost round the far side of the room. You can hear commotion from the direction you just came. "C'mon, Cap. It's gunna go tits up in five. We need orders and we need an exfil."

Price tells you to grab anything that looks promising and light the rest up. Six minutes later you and Ghost are heading out a service entrance Gaz found on the complex blueprints. When you hit the ground floor, you head west where transport should be only to find a bare stretch of woods.

"Captain, where the fook is exfil? Ain't no one 'ere!" You turn in a circle looking for a way out and stumble.

Ghost catches you under the arm and peers at your face. "Hey, Mav, you broken?"

You try to answer, but suddenly your tongue feels heavy in your mouth. You blink and notice black at the edges of your vision. You put a hand to your side and it comes away sticky. You look from your bloody hand to Ghost.

He wraps an arm around you, hoisting you against his side. You hear a roaring in your ears, or maybe it's just Ghost as he shouts to Price about your injury. You want to tell him to be quieter, he's going to let the enemy know your location, but you can't make the words come. Your last thought before you slip into unconsciousness is you've never heard that tone from Ghost before. If you could believe it, he sounds almost scared.

first previous

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

They are trying to illegally fire tens of thousands of Federal workers at the worst possible time of year. These are middle class to lower middle class people in DC and probably about a third or so of them voted for Trump. Contrary to publican opinion nobody gets rich working for the Federal government, especially in a major city where the cost of living is very high as are mortgages and rents. A disproportionate number of them are African-American, women, and other marginalized people since government employment is a safe haven for them with the added safety of being largely Unionized. To be honest there aren’t a lot of jobs open in the DC area with the pay and benefits of a unionized government job.

Musk is trying to run the government as if it were a business and that model does not apply. Government is not supposed to make a profit or pay dividends to shareholders. The primary purpose of government is to SPEND money to improve the lives and safety of all Americans.

Mass firings will not only ruin the lives of those removed from employment but it will have a ripple effect throughout the greater DC, Virginia, and Maryland area. All retail outlets will suffer immediately from lost business. Community and social services will be strained to the breaking point by hordes of people becoming unemployed all at once. The housing and rental market will collapse. Banks and Credit Unions will be stressed by loss of revenue. Families will dissolve and suicides will increase and so on. For those of you who don’t have sympathy for Federal employees, wait until the inconvenience of having almost no government services available to you strikes home. Think of the benefits that will be cut off. Think of the aid you won’t be able to receive when something goes wrong in your. Wait until you try to call a government agency to correct something to find out it doesn’t exist or is run by a skeleton crew.

You can look up the salaries of the rank and file workers and see it’s not great especially for one of the priciest markets in the country. This is a cold and heartless move which will have a devastating impact on large numbers of real people. It won’t just be in DC because they plan on spreading to field offices around the country so the pain will begin to seep into every county in the nation.

Government is not as simplistic as a business and can’t be run like one or by business people, entrepreneurs, oligarchs, CEO’s etc. Republicans, and other thoughtless people, need to separate themselves from the notion that someone who runs a business can run a country, or even a government agency. Diplomacy for example is much more complicated than a simple business deal. Diplomats spend lifetimes working on treaties and international agreements that will be in effect for decades or even centuries. It takes detailed knowledge of the past, current demographics and their needs, and years of forethought to play out every possible outcome of a treaty. Each word and phrase is excruciatingly analyzed for months or even years to achieve the desired effect and avoid any misinterpretations, misunderstandings, or vagaries of translation.

Treaties and national policy can’t be rationally drawn up by amateurs over a drunken round of golf, or a drunken steak dinner, or an amateurish conference call with the complexities of foreign languages which required highly skilled diplomatic translators who know the particularities of not only the mother tongue but each regional accent and dialect to avoid any posssible faux pas.

Trump and his henchmen are arrogant, poorly educated, unqualified, and often inebriated bigots and racists trying to run the world’s largest and most complex governing body as if it were a chain restaurant franchise.

Have you noticed yet nobody is talking about cutting aid to big energy companies, airlines, big pharma, or virtually any big corporate enterprise. Felon Muskrat says he’s uncovered billions in corruption and waste at every federal agency, in only a week. Felon hasn’t offered one scrap of documentation or proof though and neither had Trump. The media reports their claims of billions in waste and the Republican voters accept it as true. After a few weeks of hearing it in the news many of you will accept the lie as truth simply because you’ve heard it so often.

They are deliberately trying to overwhelm you, distract you, and wear you out. Democratic lawmakers trying to enter the very Federal agencies they fund have been locked out and kept at bay by armed private security wearing no identification and unwilling to state their names. Unwilling to say anything except you can’t enter.

They are pushing back but most of you seem to have forgotten that they became the minority party in both houses of Congress and the minority doesn’t have the ability to win a vote and pass anything or do anything other than protest and try to delay. Fortunately majority labor unions are out protesting in front of all the major agencies being targeted so far. Protests are also happing in some big cities but you’d never know it because it is virtually ignored as always by tv news.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo:

During his interview with Time Magazine, which once again named him “Person of the Year,” Donald Trump unsurprisingly said many startling things between his usual ramblings. Today I want to focus on one of them in particular: vaccines. Trump declared he is “going to do what’s good for the country.” When asked whether that includes getting rid of some vaccinations, Trump responded, “It could if I think it’s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial,” but then added, “I don’t think it’s going to be very controversial in the end.” This is a stark departure from earlier assurances by anti-vax nut job RFK, Jr., who promised earlier that he would not take vaccines away from anyone who wants them. Now it seems the team he hopes to gather at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will propose a review of vaccine safety and, depending on the results, could possibly pull some critical ones from the market.

But could and would they really do something so crazy as ban life-saving shots like the Hepatitis B, measles mumps and rubella, and polio vaccines? Trump’s interview set off alarms among health experts, especially epidemiologists. And it raises many questions, not the least of which is exactly how vaccines might be reviewed by the government to confirm if they are “dangerous” or “not beneficial,” if and when RFK, Jr. is confirmed as head of HHS. Adding fuel to this dumpster fire is a report out this morning by the New York Times that RFK, Jr.’s lawyer, Aaron Siri, is an anti-vax crusader who has previously petitioned the FDA to revoke approval for polio and other vaccines. Trump’s statements imply that he really meant what he said on the campaign trail about letting RFK, Jr. go “wild on health.” And with zealots like Siri helping to shape national health policy, we are dangerously close to returning to an era where childhood diseases, once considered largely eradicated, could make a deadly comeback.

[...]

Anyone familiar with the way anti-vax groups regularly challenge FDA approvals, Covid mandates, scientists and drug manufacturers likely feels a rock in their gut reading this. First, it appears that Trump has taken up a dangerous and false claim that purports to link childhood vaccinations to autism. That theory has been widely debunked, but it has managed to produce mass hysteria for two decades. And now it has the bully pulpit of the Oval Office behind it. The fact that the president-elect agrees with this discredited theory, and is appointing someone to head HHS who actively pushes it, is troubling in the extreme.

[...]

An anti-vax zealot gets his shot

Aaron Siri probably can’t believe his good fortune. He has made his legal career out of representing anti-vax clients, including a group called the Informed Consent Action Network, an organization whose founder is also a close Kennedy ally. In that capacity, as the Times reports, as recently as 2022 Siri petitioned the FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. That’s right, he wants to see the polio vaccine withdrawn, even though it has saved countless children from death or lifetime disability. Siri has gone after 13 other vaccines, too, including the Hepatitis B vaccine, and has crusaded around the country to lift Covid mandates. His tactic is to impugn the integrity of the scientists responsible for developing the vaccines and poke as many holes as he can into their product development, safety studies and approvals. He does this by playing on the preconceptions and fears of the conspiracy-minded, making otherwise harmless errors or oversights appear as massive and even intentional frauds upon the public. One critic of Siri’s crusades is Dr. Stanley Plotkin, the inventor of the vaccine that eliminated rubella in the 1960s. Before the vaccine, it was a disease that killed thousands of newborns. Siri deposed Plotkin in a lawsuit Siri had brought. After spending nine hours being grilled by Siri, Dr. Plotkin believes that putting Siri in any position of influence “would be a disaster.” Dr. Plotkin added, “I find him laughable in many ways — except, of course, that he’s a danger to public health.”

Siri still managed to put a target on Dr. Plotkin, however, by publishing snippets of that deposition online, along with those of one Dr. Kathryn Edwards, another noted inventor of vaccines. Siri had the help of an anti-vax documentary maker and podcaster, Del Bigtree—who is also RFK, Jr.’s former campaign communications director and founder of the Informed Consent Action Network. As a result, Drs. Plotkin and Edwards have been vilified by anti-vaxxers instead of celebrated for their stunning accomplishments.

“You’re taking the leaders in vaccinology,” Dr. Edwards told the Times, “the people that have spent their whole lives studying these vaccines and seeing their impact, you’re marginalizing and making them look like they are prostitutes of pharma.” Of great concern is how Siri is now working with RFK, Jr. to actively vet candidates for top positions at HHS. According to the Times, Siri has asked candidates about their view on vaccines, potentially setting up HHS to have a uniformly anti-vax agenda. RFK, Jr. and his advisors, like Siri and Bigtree, could succeed in having vaccines actually pulled from the market based on the “studies” they are demanding, the conclusions of which we can assume are pre-ordained. But even short of actually yanking important vaccines, the platforming of anti-vax conspiracies and disinformation will create widespread vaccine hesitancy, which could result in serious and deadly outbreaks.

History could repeat on a huge scale

We need only look at what RFK, Jr. did in Samoa to understand the extent of the damage and even death his views can cause. In 2019, the small island nation experienced a deadly outbreak of measles, with 5,700 infections out of a population of 200,000. Hospitals were full, and the country was in a state of emergency. In the end, 83 people died, most of them young children. But what had caused this outbreak? Childhood measles vaccinations rates plummeted from 90 percent in 2013 to just a third of all infants by 2019 due to a health scandal where nurses had improperly mixed the measles vaccine with the wrong liquid, resulting in two deaths. That incident opened the floodgates for vaccine misinformation driven by RFK, Jr. and his anti-vaccine non-profit, the Children’s Health Defense. At one point RFK, Jr. even sent the Samoan prime minister a letter suggesting the measles vaccine itself may have caused the outbreak. He falsely asserted that it had “failed to produce antibodies” in mothers sufficient to provide infants with immunity, that it perhaps provoked “the evolution of more virulent measles strains” and even that children who received the vaccine may have inadvertently spread the virus to other children.

[...]

There is still an opportunity to stop RFK’s confirmation, if the GOP-controlled Senate finds enough backbone and common sense. But time is running out to change minds and stand up to Trump. Meanwhile, RFK Jr.’s allies in the anti-vax movement, like Siri and Bigtree, are gearing up to unleash a true nightmare upon our health system.

This is very disturbing: the anti-vaxxer extremist movement is on the prowl, as both Donald Trump and RFK Jr. are making moves to potentially yank some vaccines off the market-- including the polio-- and champion the debunked lie that vaccines “cause” autism.

See Also:

Daily Kos: We got rid of polio with vaccines. RFK's lawyer wants to bring it back

[hopeforchanges]

*matthew mcconaughey enters the chat*

alright alright alright fellas how do we feel about an au where Galadriel, a commander in the High King's service, is dispatched to a desolate outpost in the far reaches of Middle-earth—a remote coastal village overlooked by the rest of the world. Her task? To guard an ancient relic that could tip the balance of power in the eternal struggle against Sauron. The mission is cloaked in such secrecy that she’s forbidden from disclosing her presence, let alone the true purpose of her assignment, to anyone.

She doesn’t expect much to happen in such an isolated place. But Galadriel, being Galadriel, can’t let well enough alone. One evening, restless and needing an escape from the crushing solitude, she ventures into the town’s tavern. There, she overhears whispers of a slaver ship docked at the harbor, its captives destined for the black markets of Umbar.

Galadriel doesn’t hesitate. Under the cover of night, she infiltrates the ship, intending to free the prisoners. Her plan is flawless until it isn’t—she’s discovered by the slavers just as she begins unlocking the captives’ chains. Before she can fight her way out, another intruder crashes the scene: a rogue sailor and smuggler named Halbrand, armed with nothing but sheer audacity and a blade sharper than his tongue.

Halbrand commandeers the entire operation, loading the freed prisoners (and an increasingly frustrated Galadriel) onto his ship and sailing them to safety. When they’re finally free, Galadriel realizes her predicament: she cannot return to her outpost without arousing suspicion, nor can she explain her mission to Halbrand. Meanwhile, Halbrand assumes she’s one of the captives he’s rescued—a noblewoman perhaps, judging by her sharp gaze and sharper words.

Bound by circumstance, Galadriel finds herself aboard Halbrand’s ship, playing the role of an enigmatic survivor. She’s constantly torn between her sense of duty and her growing reluctance to leave. Halbrand, for his part, is intrigued by her. There’s a storm in her eyes that speaks of battles fought and lost, and he can’t help but feel a strange connection to her—something he doesn’t quite understand but doesn’t want to lose.

As they sail across Middle-earth, smuggling goods, dodging corsairs, and helping the downtrodden, Galadriel begins to see the world through Halbrand’s eyes. She’s fascinated by his wit, his resilience, and the surprising kindness he hides beneath his roguish charm. Halbrand, in turn, finds himself captivated by her fire and her unshakable sense of purpose, even when she tries so hard to mask it.

But secrets have a way of surfacing. As Galadriel struggles with her hidden mission and the growing weight of her feelings for Halbrand, she begins to wonder: has she found something worth fighting for beyond her duty? And will Halbrand, if he ever learns the truth, see her as a betrayer or the unexpected gift he’s starting to believe she is?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Thanks Derek Plummer

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 14, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 15, 2024

As the two presidential campaigns position themselves for the final sprint to the election on November 5, the difference between them is dramatic. 

Trump is hunkering down behind what has always appeared to be a plan not to attract voters but instead to create chaos on Election Day. Creating confusion around the election could enable his loyalists to put in place the plan the Trump team concocted in 2020 to throw the election into the House of Representatives or get it before the Supreme Court, stacked as it is with Trump loyalists. 

A central piece of that plan appears to be to rile up his supporters to violence, and a few of them have been delivering. News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations. 

A man has been arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers with an assault rifle. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

To the extent Trump or his running mate Ohio senator J.D. Vance talks about them, their policies are promises to repair what they insist is the damage caused by President Joe Biden (although the stock market hit record highs again today), or threats that reinforce an authoritarian Christian nationalist worldview. Today, Bill Barrow of the Associated Press explored the extensive overlap of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups and the plans that Trump and Vance have set out. 

Both promise to cut taxes for the wealthy, but Project 2025 has more detail about how. Both plan to cut off immigration and to fire federal workers, replacing them with loyalists. Both say the president can decide not to use the money Congress has appropriated (in 2019, Trump refused to disburse the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine until Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to smear Trump’s chief Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden). Both call for slashing government regulations and getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and programs addressing climate change. 

But perhaps most revealing of both Trump’s ideology and his plan for the election was his statement to Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would like to use the military against what he called “the enemy from within…radical left lunatics" to guard the election. While this is a threat to use the power of the government against his political opponents if he is elected—he mentioned California representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff by name—it also seems likely his loyalists will hear this as a call for violence at election sites. 

Trump’s statement has not gone unnoticed. 

Tonight, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper posted a dictionary definition of the word “fascism”: “A populist political philosophy, movement…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.” 

On the show, Tapper pressed Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to comment on Trump’s statement that as commander-in-chief, he would use the military against political opposition. When Youngkin denied that Trump had said any such thing, Tapper replied: “I’m literally reading his quotes to you.” Youngkin’s willingness to deny what was right in front of him did not exactly quell talk of fascism, since in his dystopian novel 1984 about authoritarianism, George Orwell famously wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

If Trump is hunkering down, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz are still pushing ahead, pressing Trump on both his personal weakness and his now open embrace of fascism. Harris’s advisor Ian Sams went on the Fox News Channel today to note that it’s been a month since Trump “did a mainstream media interview, and we got to wonder why. We called this weekend for him to release his medical records…. Donald Trump’s team, I heard him on your air last hour insisting that everything is okay and that…there’s nothing to see here. And your anchor rightly asked, ‘Well, if that’s true, why not just put them out?’” 

At 1:12 this morning, Trump posted on his social media site: “I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her.” Sams hit that as well, noting that in the middle of the night, Trump felt obliged to write about Harris and a cognitive test “[a]s he refuses to release his medical records, sit with 60 Minutes, or debate her again—instead retreating solely to rambling rallies where he’s increasingly making no sense[.] Is he okay?” 

In Erie, Pennsylvania, today, Harris outlined how her proposals for an “opportunity economy” will help Black men, calling for business loans for entrepreneurs, more apprenticeships, rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, and study of diseases that disproportionately affect Black men. 

She also continues her outreach to Republicans. Today, former Trump friend and talk show host Geraldo Rivera endorsed her. So did former Wisconsin Republican state senate majority leader Dale Schultz. “I tell people, ‘Look, I didn’t leave the party. The party left me,’” he said. “This is a critically important race, and…Donald Trump should never be allowed in the Oval Office again.”

Today Harris’s campaign announced she will be sitting down with Fox News Channel reporter Bret Baier for an interview on Wednesday from the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Fox News Channel is scheduled to tape a town hall with Trump in front of an audience of women on Tuesday. It is supposed to air on Wednesday morning, while the Harris interview will air Wednesday night.  

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight, Harris reiterated Trump’s refusal to talk to any but the right-wing media and recalled his promise to terminate the Constitution. And then she used Trump’s own words against him, playing a video montage of Trump’s calls for violence, his threats against “the enemy within,” and his call for using the military against his political opponents. 

“You heard his words, coming from him,” she told the audience. “[H]e considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country…. He’s saying that he would use the military to go after them…. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn’t like. Election officials who refuse to cheat by…finding extra votes for him. Judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous…. Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for.”

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump's golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

“The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[viktorviolettaenterprises]

Glock Pistols Series (Tribute to Gaston Glock)

GET YOURS HERE!!!

Just remastered some old works of the Glock Pistol Series as a tribute to the late Gaston Glock, the inventor of the Glock Pistol that has significantly contributed to the firearms industry since 1982. Rest in peace, sir. Your legacy will remain in our hearts, and your contribution to the firearms industry, especially pistols in Late 20th Century. Sorry For Late Tribute Post. I Need to Find the Best Glock Model for this Tribute and Improving the Existing Models Thank you @exzentra-reblog @coffee-cc-finds @bdangkingfish @evgenyesipov1999 @sparkiekong @helenofsimblr @igglemouse

Known for its distinct shape like a box, Glock emphasizes its tradition of perfection in almost every design they issue. The journey began in 1982 when Glock Ges.mbH introduced their 17th patent, which would later be known as the Glock 17. It is a 9mm-chambered pistol that would change the mindset of the sidearm industry. Although not the first polymer-made pistol (the first was an HK VP70), it offered the value of a lightweight, high-capacity magazine pistol. The Glock 17 entered the US market in 1986. Despite initial rejection by both Glock and the US Military as a replacement for the 1911, Glock started to capture the attention of American police departments (PDs).

By 1987, it began to be adopted by police departments, with others following suit in issuing Glocks as their standard sidearm. The key to Glock's success in police departments lies in its affordable price, ease of maintenance, numerous interchangeable parts, and, of course, the double-trigger system. Although it may be challenging to execute a follow-up shot quickly, it ensures safety when the pistol is not in use. Additionally, this sidearm is popular for deployment alongside the Secret Service.

In this case, VVE covers some of the Glock series to the SimVerse usage, like :

Standard

Standards Glocks are full-sized pistols that are designed for duty and home defense use. Barrel lengths are 4.49 inches and 4.61 inches depending on caliber. Standard-sized Glocks are some of the most commonly sold pistols and strike the right balance between size, weight, and controllability.

Glock 17

The Glock 17 is the original 9×19mm Parabellum model, with a standard magazine capacity of 17 rounds, introduced in 1982. Glock also offers a version of the standard magazine which incorporates a longer "+2" base plate to provide a capacity of 19 rounds. Also, a 10-round version of the standard magazine was created for markets that restrict the magazine capacity of handguns. And, Glock offers an extended 24 round (with flush base plate) magazine for the Glock 17. Finally, the Glock 17 can use the Glock 18's extended 33 round (with +2 base plate) magazine. The base plates for the extended magazines can be swapped out to create 26 and 31 round magazines as well

Thank you For @effiethejay For NYPD Uniform!

Glock 22

Also a standard-barrel version, but in this case, with a silver sliding) in Reality this is Just A Glock 17 Chambered with 40 Smith & Wesson for Better Punch. Perfect Pistol For FBI And Law Enforcement who looking better Punch but Maintain Controllability.

GLOCK 18

The Glock 18 is a Select Version variant of the Glock 17, designed for the Austrian counter-terrorist unit EKO Cobra. Introduced in 1986, it features a selective-fire option, allowing both fully automatic (1,100–1,200 RPM) and semi-automatic firing modes. The circular selector switch on the rear left side of the slide controls the firing mode. The pistol is often equipped with a 33-round magazine and can be used with or without a shoulder stock for added stability. This Particular Model is First Production of Glock 18 which marked by Extended Barrel and Lack of Compensator to Reduce the Recoil.

Thank you For @plazasims For Jill Valentine outfit & @mimoto-sims For Pose

GLOCK 18C

The Improved Model Of Glock 18. The compensator cuts start about halfway back on the top of the barrel. The two rear cuts are narrower than the two front cuts. The slide is hollowed, or dished-out, in a rectangular pattern between the rear of the ejection port and the rear sight. The rate of fire in fully automatic mode is around 1,100–1,200 rounds per minute. Most of the other characteristics are equivalent to the Glock 17, although the slide, frame, and certain fire-control parts of the Glock 18 are not interchangeable with other Glock models.

Thank you For @pandorassims4cc For Pose

Compact

Compact is a relative term. These Glocks are still somewhat large with barrel lengths of 4.02 inches and grips that fill your hand. The slightly shorter grip and barrel length allow them to be easier to conceal and more comfortable to carry while maintaining control over the gun. That being said, this is the most popular category of the Glock sizes.

GLOCK 19

The Glock 19 is effectively a reduced-size Glock 17, called the "Compact" by the manufacturer. It was first produced in 1988, primarily for military and law enforcement. The Glock 19's barrel and pistol grip are shorter by about 12 mm (0.5 in) than the Glock 17, and it uses a magazine with a standard capacity of 15 rounds. A 10 round version of this magazine is also made for markets that restrict the magazine capacity of handguns. And, a "+2" base plate can make the standard magazine into a longer 17 round magazine. The pistol is also compatible with any magazines designed for the Glock 17 and Glock 18, providing factory magazine capacities of 17, 19, 24 and 33. Changing out base plates adds capacities of 26 or 31 rounds.

Subcompact

Subcompact Glocks are designed to be concealed carry weapons and backup guns. These guns sport ultra-short frames, and barrel lengths vary between 3.43 inches and 3.78 inches depending on caliber. These guns are straightforward to carry and conceal in almost any way you want.

The Glock 26, a 9×19mm "subcompact" variant designed for concealed carry, was introduced in 1995, primarily for the civilian market. It has also been acquired by the US military and designated MK 26. Featuring a smaller frame compared to the Glock 19, the pistol grip supports only two fingers, and it has a shorter barrel and slide, along with a double-stack magazine with a standard capacity of 10 rounds. A factory magazine with a +2 extension gives it a capacity of 12 rounds. Additionally, the Glock 26 can use factory magazines from the Glock 17, Glock 18, and Glock 19. One can swap out base plates to give it capacities of 15, 17, 19, 24, 26, 31, and 33 rounds. More than simply a "shortened" Glock 19, the design of the subcompact Glock 26 required extensive rework of the frame, locking block, and spring assembly, which features a dual recoil spring.

Competition & Long Slide

By bigger than full-size, we are talking about guns mostly made for competition shooting. They have standard sized frames but longer slides and barrels. The longer slide and barrel gives a longer sight radius and a higher velocity, as well as less recoil and muzzle flip.

GLOCK 34

The Glock 34 is a competition version of the Glock 17. It is similar to its predecessor, the Glock 17L, but with a slightly shorter slide and barrel, to meet the maximum size requirements for many sanctioned action pistol sporting events. It was developed and produced in 1998, and compared to the Glock 17, features a 21 mm (0.8 in) longer barrel and slide. It has an extended magazine release, extended slide stop lever, 20 N trigger pull, and an adjustable rear sight. The sides at the front of the slide are slanted instead of squared. Further, the top of the slide and parts of its inside are milled out, creating a conspicuous hole at the top designed to reduce front-end muzzle weight to better balance the pistol and reduce the overall weight of the slide. The Glock 34 can accept any magazine the Glock 17 can accept.

[darkmaga-returns]

Small Communities Across America Are Being Overwhelmed And Stretched Thin As Migrants Take Up Resources And Aid

Jon Hall

Oct 28, 2024

Back in September, a proposal was introduced in Pennsylvania to potentially house migrants in an abandoned school building. USA Up Star, a disaster response company based out of Indiana who owns the school building, wrote the county board to ask about turning the school into migrant housing.

The school building was shut down in 2009 and sold off after being founded in 1895 to provide an education for children of service members and local war veterans of the community.

USA Up Star’s request to turn the school campus into migrant housing was denied due to township zoning regulations. The board’s letter to the company mentioned that the decision could be appealed but hasn’t been as of yet.

Nearby county officials spoke out on the increase in demand the migrants pose to Greene county where the abandoned school is located:

“In addition to impacting the housing market, an increase in population puts an increased demand on basic services such as water, sewer, trash removal… It also puts a strain on school systems, child care services… health care providers, and public safety personnel such as our fire departments, EMS, police and the criminal justice system.”

Locals crowded a township board meeting to raise their concerns over the potential of the school being converted to migrant housing. Among these concerns was the fact the migrants are unvetted, with residents fearing they’re associated with gangs, drugs, or human trafficking.

Representatives Rob Kauffman and Senator Doug Mastriano - Republicans - vowed to do everything they could to prevent plans being put together to convert the campus.

[girlactionfigure]

🟡 SAT after Shabbat  - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

Shavua tov, Chodesh Tov - may we be blessed with a good new Jewish month of Tammuz and a good week with return of the hostages and success and safety for our warriors.

🔸DEAL OR NO DEAL?  Another round: Hamas informed Hezbollah that it agreed to the cease-fire proposal.  Despite Hamas announcements that it would give up the demand to end the war, no agreement yet and details remain “to be negotiated”.

🔸DEAL ANALYSIS - Abu Ali:  For a deal to go through, one of the following must happen:

1. Israel will give up its demand for the resumption of hostilities after the first phase of the deal.

2. Hamas will give up its demand for a permanent ceasefire in the first phase of the deal.

When you are told that there is progress and there is flexibility and there is a breakthrough, ask which of the parties gave up the demand that thwarted the deal last time.

▪️EUROPEAN HOSPITAL - KHAN YUNIS.. was evacuated when the IDF instructed the area, following rocket barrages from it, to clear out.  AND THEN immediately the FULL contents of the hospital, ALL THE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES, were stolen - looted.  They showed up in nearby markets the next day.

▪️PROTEST - ANTI-GOVT and FREE THE HOSTAGES.. Kaplan area, Tel Aviv weekend protest, LARGE.

▪️ECONOMY - Shekel value up: NIS 3.69 to US $1.

♦️IDF: a week of fighting in Sheja'ia, face-to-face encounters with terrorists, raids on Hamas combat compounds, locating many weapons and destroying captured buildings. As always, PILES of heavy weapons found, under civilian beds, rooms, etc.

♦️TARGETED ELIMINATION - BA’ALBEK, LEBANON.  Al-Arabiya sources: Maysam al-Attar, the target, is a Hezbollah military official who deals with missiles.  One dead reported, not clear if it was the target.

♦️AIRSTRIKE ON ROCKET LAUNCHERS SET UP IN HUMANITARIAN ZONE.. the rocket launcher was located in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah, adjacent to a shelter for displaced civilians.

♦️COUNTER-TERROR OPERATIONS - BALATA, SHECHEM area.. firefight, enemy wounded.  And KABLAN, south Shechem.

♦️LEBANON - variety of reports of IDF airstrikes and artillery, including at least 2 counter-strikes on launchers.

♦️SAMARIA - FORCES ATTACKED.. A terrorist was killed and 3 more terrorists were wounded while throwing Molotov cocktails at IDF forces, near the village of Beit Ur al-Fuka, Ramallah area.

🔺UNUSUAL: Palestinian security services are confiscating and neutralizing homemade explosive devices planted by the terrorists near the Tigra Mosque in the city of Tubas against Israeli forces.  Two days ago such a bomb exploded in a failed neutralization attempt (a work accident) inside the police station in Nablus.

⭕ ROCKETS (5) from HEZBOLLAH at Kiryat Shmona, 4 got through - HIT on a residential home, large fire.  2 soldiers injured in rocket impacts.  Also rocket hits in Shalom.

⭕ 15 rounds of ROCKETS and SUICIDE DRONES from HEZBOLLAH at northern towns over Shabbat.

⭕ HAMAS ROCKETS at Kfar Aza, Sderot, Ibim, Nir Am, Nir Am Shooting Range, Nachal Oz

[bouncinghedgehog]

October 14, 2024 (Monday)

As the two presidential campaigns position themselves for the final sprint to the election on November 5, the difference between them is dramatic.

Trump is hunkering down behind what has always appeared to be a plan not to attract voters but instead to create chaos on Election Day. Creating confusion around the election could enable his loyalists to put in place the plan the Trump team concocted in 2020 to throw the election into the House of Representatives or get it before the Supreme Court, stacked as it is with Trump loyalists.

A central piece of that plan appears to be to rile up his supporters to violence, and a few of them have been delivering. News broke yesterday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had advised federal emergency workers to evacuate Rutherford County, North Carolina, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, because of concerns about their safety after Trump and MAGA Republicans spread the false rumor that federal agents are forcing people off their land to start lithium mining projects. The alert came after the U.S. Forest Service sent an email to federal responders saying that National Guard troops had encountered armed militia saying they were “hunting FEMA.” FEMA officials will no longer go door-to-door with disaster assistance, but instead will stay in fixed locations.

A man has been arrested and charged with threatening FEMA workers with an assault rifle. He was released on a $10,000 bond.

To the extent Trump or his running mate Ohio senator J.D. Vance talks about them, their policies are promises to repair what they insist is the damage caused by President Joe Biden (although the stock market hit record highs again today), or threats that reinforce an authoritarian Christian nationalist worldview. Today, Bill Barrow of the Associated Press explored the extensive overlap of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups and the plans that Trump and Vance have set out.

Both promise to cut taxes for the wealthy, but Project 2025 has more detail about how. Both plan to cut off immigration and to fire federal workers, replacing them with loyalists. Both say the president can decide not to use the money Congress has appropriated (in 2019, Trump refused to disburse the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine until Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to smear Trump’s chief Democratic rival for the presidency, Joe Biden). Both call for slashing government regulations and getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as well as protections for LGBTQ+ individuals and programs addressing climate change.

But perhaps most revealing of both Trump’s ideology and his plan for the election was his statement to Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would like to use the military against what he called “the enemy from within…radical left lunatics" to guard the election. While this is a threat to use the power of the government against his political opponents if he is elected—he mentioned California representative and Senate candidate Adam Schiff by name—it also seems likely his loyalists will hear this as a call for violence at election sites.

Trump’s statement has not gone unnoticed.

Tonight, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper posted a dictionary definition of the word “fascism”: “A populist political philosophy, movement…that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.”

On the show, Tapper pressed Republican Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to comment on Trump’s statement that as commander-in-chief, he would use the military against political opposition. When Youngkin denied that Trump had said any such thing, Tapper replied: “I’m literally reading his quotes to you.” Youngkin’s willingness to deny what was right in front of him did not exactly quell talk of fascism, since in his dystopian novel 1984 about authoritarianism, George Orwell famously wrote: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

If Trump is hunkering down, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz are still pushing ahead, pressing Trump on both his personal weakness and his now open embrace of fascism. Harris’s advisor Ian Sams went on the Fox News Channel today to note that it’s been a month since Trump “did a mainstream media interview, and we got to wonder why. We called this weekend for him to release his medical records…. Donald Trump’s team, I heard him on your air last hour insisting that everything is okay and that…there’s nothing to see here. And your anchor rightly asked, ‘Well, if that’s true, why not just put them out?’”

At 1:12 this morning, Trump posted on his social media site: “I believe it is very important that Kamala Harris pass a test on Cognitive Stamina and Agility. Her actions have led many to believe that there could be something very wrong with her.” Sams hit that as well, noting that in the middle of the night, Trump felt obliged to write about Harris and a cognitive test “[a]s he refuses to release his medical records, sit with 60 Minutes, or debate her again—instead retreating solely to rambling rallies where he’s increasingly making no sense[.] Is he okay?”

In Erie, Pennsylvania, today, Harris outlined how her proposals for an “opportunity economy” will help Black men, calling for business loans for entrepreneurs, more apprenticeships, rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, and study of diseases that disproportionately affect Black men.

She also continues her outreach to Republicans. Today, former Trump friend and talk show host Geraldo Rivera endorsed her. So did former Wisconsin Republican state senate majority leader Dale Schultz. “I tell people, ‘Look, I didn’t leave the party. The party left me,’” he said. “This is a critically important race, and…Donald Trump should never be allowed in the Oval Office again.”

Today Harris’s campaign announced she will be sitting down with Fox News Channel reporter Bret Baier for an interview on Wednesday from the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Fox News Channel is scheduled to tape a town hall with Trump in front of an audience of women on Tuesday. It is supposed to air on Wednesday morning, while the Harris interview will air Wednesday night.

At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight, Harris reiterated Trump’s refusal to talk to any but the right-wing media and recalled his promise to terminate the Constitution. And then she used Trump’s own words against him, playing a video montage of Trump’s calls for violence, his threats against “the enemy within,” and his call for using the military against his political opponents.

“You heard his words, coming from him,” she told the audience. “[H]e considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country…. He’s saying that he would use the military to go after them…. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before. Journalists whose stories he doesn’t like. Election officials who refuse to cheat by…finding extra votes for him. Judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous…. Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for.”

In Oaks, Pennsylvania, tonight, Trump was supposed to take questions from preselected attendees at a town hall with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. He did, at first, although his answers were all over the place and he urged people to vote on January 5. But then, in the hot and crowded space, two people needed medical attention. Slurring, Trump then said: "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?" And then he stood on stage and swayed for 39 minutes of songs from his personal playlist before seeming to recall that he was supposed to be talking about the election, which he suddenly told the confused crowd was “the most important election in the history of our country” before turning back to the music.

Rob Crilly of the U.K.’s The Daily Mail wrote: “I was at Trump's golden escalator launch, flew out of Washington with him in 2020 and have probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” The headline over Marianne LeVine’s Washington Post story about the event read: “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in bizarre town-hall episode.

"The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump, 78, unstable and called into question his mental acuity.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Train managers earn bonuses for greenlighting unsafe cars

Tomorrow (November 16) I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

Almost no one knows this, but last June, a 90-car train got away from its crew in Hernando, MS, rolling three miles through two public crossings, a ghost train that included 47 potentially explosive propane cars. The "bomb train" neither crashed nor derailed, which meant that Grenada Railroad/Gulf & Atantic didn't have to report it.

This is just one of many terrifying near-misses that are increasingly common in America's hyper-concentrated, private equity-dominated rail sector, where unsafe practices dominate and whistleblowers face brutal retaliation for coming forward to regulators.

These unsafe practices – and the corporate policies that deliberately gave rise to them – are documented in terrifying, eye-watering detail in a deeply reported Propublica story by Topher Sanders, Jessica Lussenhop,Dan Schwartz, Danelle Morton and Gabriel L Sandoval:

https://www.propublica.org/article/railroad-safety-union-pacific-csx-bnsf-trains-freight

It's a tale of depraved indifference to public safety, backstopped by worker intimidation. The reporting is centered on railyard maintenance inspectors, who are charged with writing up "bad orders" to prevent unsafe railcars from shipping out. As private equity firms consolidated rail into an ever-dwindling number of companies, these workers face supervisors who are increasingly hostile to these bad orders.

It got so alarming that some staffers started carrying hidden digital recorders, so they could capture audio of their bosses illegally ordering them to greenlight railcars that were too unsafe for use. The article features direct – and alarming – quotes, like supervisor Andrew Letcher, boss of the maintenance crews at Union Pacific's Kansas City yard saying, "If I was an inspector on a train I would probably let some of that nitpicky shit go."

Letcher – and fellow managers for other Tier 1 railroads quoted in the piece – aren't innately hostile to public safety. They are quite frank about why they want inspectors to "let that nitpicky shit go." As Letcher explains, "The first thing that I’m getting questioned about right now, every day, is why we’re over 200 bad orders and what we’re doing to get them down."

In other words, corporate rail owners have ordered their supervisors to reduce the amount of maintenance outages on the rail lines, but have not given them additional preventative maintenance budgets or crew. These supervisors warn their employees that high numbers of bad orders could cost them their jobs, even lead to the shutdown of the car shops where inspectors are prone to pulling dangerous cars out of service.

It's a ruthless form of winnowing. Gresham's Law holds that "bad money drives out good" – in an economy where counterfeit money circulates, people preferentially spend their fake money to get it out of their hands, until all the money in circulation is funny money. This is the rail safety equivalent: simply fire everyone who reports unsafe conditions and all your railcars will be deemed safe, with the worst railcars shipped out first. A market for lemons – except these aren't balky used sedans, they're unsafe railcars full of toxic chemicals or explosive propane.

When cataclysmic rail disasters occur – like this year's East Palestine derailment – the rail industry reassures us that this is an isolated incident, pointing to the system's excellent overall safety record. But that record is a mirage, because the near-misses don't have to be reported. Those near-misses are coming more frequently, as the culture of profit over safety incurs a mounting maintenance debt, filling America's rails with potential "bomb cars."

Rail mergers and other forms of deregulated, anything-goes capitalism are justified by conservative economists who insist that "incentives matter," and that the profit motive provides the incentive to improve efficiency, leading to lower costs and better service. But the incentive to externalize risk, kick the can down the road, and capture regulators rarely concerns the "incentives matter" crowd.

Here's an incentive that matters. Rail managers' bonuses – as much as a fifth of their take home pay – are only paid if the trains they oversee run on time. Inspectors have recorded their managers admitting that they have quotas – a maximum number of bad orders their facility may produce, irrespective of how much unsafe rolling stock passes through the facility.

Inspectors have caught their managers removing repair order tags from cars they've flagged as unsafe. Inspectors will log orders in a database, only to have the record mysteriously deleted, or marked as serviced when no service has occurred. Some inspectors have seen the same cars in their yard with the same problems, and repeatedly flagged them without any maintenance being performed before they're shipped out again.

Former managers from Union Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern told Propublica that they operated in an environment where safety reports were discouraged, and that workers who filed these reports were viewed as "complainers." Workers furnished Propublica with recordings of rail managers berating them for reporting persistent unsafe conditions the Federal Railroad Administration. Other workers from BNSF said that they believed that their bosses were told when they called the company's "confidential" work-safety tipline, setting them up for retaliation by bosses who'd falsified safety reports.

Whistleblowers who seek justice at OSHA are stymied by long delays, and while switching their cases to court can win them cash settlements, these do not get recorded on the company's safety record, which allows the company to go on claiming to be a paragon of safety and prudence.

The culture of retaliation is pervasive, which explains how the 47-cars worth of propane on the "bomb train" that rolled unattended over three miles of track never made the news. There is a voluntary Close Call Reporting System (operated by NASA!) where rail companies can report these disasters. Not one of America's Class 1 rail companies participate in it.

After the East Palestine disaster, Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed the rail companies to join, but a year later, none have. It's part of an overall pattern with Secretary Buttigieg, who has prodigious, far-reaching powers under USC40 Section 41712(a), which allow him to punish companies for "unfair and deceptive" practices or "unfair methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Buttigieg can't simply hand down orders under 41712(a) – to wield this power, he must follow administrative procedures, conducting market studies, seeking comment, and proposing a rule. Other members of the Biden administration with similar powers, like FTC chair Lina Khan, arrived in office with a ranked-priority list of bad corporate conduct and immediately set about teeing up rules to give relief to the American public.

By contrast, Buttigieg's agency has done precious little to establish the evidentiary record to punish the worst American companies under its remit. His most-touted achievement was to fine five airlines for saving money by cancelling their flights and stranding their passengers. But of the five airlines affected by Buttigieg's order, four were not US companies. The sole affected US carrier was Spirit airlines, with 2% of the market. The Big Four US airlines – who have a much worse record than the ones that were fined – were not affected at all:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/ftc-noncompete-airline-flight-cancellation-buttigieg/

Rather than directly regulating the US transportation sector, Buttigieg prefers exacting nonbinding promises from them (like the Tier 1 rail companies' broken promise to sign up to the Close Call Reporting System). Under his leadership, the Federal Railroad Agency has proposed weakening rail safety standards, rescinding an order to improve the braking systems on undermaintained, mile-long trains carrying potentially deadly freight:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

The US transportation system is accumulating a terrifying safety debt, behind a veil of corporate secrecy. It badly demands direct regulation and close oversight.

If you are interested in rail safety, I strongly recommend this episode of Well There's Your Problem, "a podcast about engineering disasters, with slides" – you will laugh your head off and then never sleep again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BMQTdYXaH8

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/15/safety-third/#all-the-livelong-day

[silverbazell]

Benefits of 3D Walkthrough Animation in the Real Estate Industry

3D videos can show a property from different angles, leading to more sales. The real estate industry has started using 3D videos in marketing to showcase buildings in a 360-degree view. If you own a real estate business, 3D walkthrough animation services are a perfect fit for your organization.

Read more - https://silverbazel.mystrikingly.com/blog/benefits-of-3d-walkthrough-animation-in-the-real-estate-industry