#national parks eastern u.s. map

[wanderlustphotosblog]

Planning an Epic Eastern National Parks Road Trip

Follow along as I show you how to plan an incredible national parks road trip in the Eastern United States. I outline some of the incredible parks, spectacular hikes, and can't miss adventures to have on a road trip of a lifetime.

If you follow my blog closely, you know how much of a national parks enthusiast I am. I believe that preserving the world’s incredible landscapes and national parklands is a great way to do that. In the United States, we are blessed with many outstanding parks. I am planning an Eastern National Parks road trip to explore some Eastern parks I have yet to visit. In this eastern national parks road…

[mariacallous]

MONS, Belgium—It was the summer of 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war in Ukraine was 6 months old. NATO officials feared more than ever that they would one day have to send hundreds of thousands of troops to fight and die against the Russians.

With war on NATO’s doorstep, the alliance faced an existential question: Was it up to the job of defending every square inch of its turf? Christopher Cavoli, the four-star U.S. Army general tapped as the alliance’s military chief that July, decided it wasn’t.

Cavoli ordered his top lieutenants to come up with a plan to transform Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE)—NATO’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, which had lost most of its power after the Cold War—into a proper war command center.

“His initial guidance and direction that started all of this was: I need to be able to command,” said Col. Bryan Frizzelle, the project manager for SHAPE’s strategic warfighting headquarters.

The effort to remake the alliance’s headquarters is just one element in the most ambitious military reforms that NATO has embarked on in years. NATO is growing the size of its response force by eightfold. The war room in Mons has been remade to call up troop reinforcements and map out long-range military strikes on Russian soil even before a war breaks out. For the first time, NATO forces are exercising those brand new war plans in Europe’s hinterlands this spring.

The plans could take years more to put in place. “We are talking decades—potentially plural,” said Becca Wasser, a senior fellow for the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank.

But the war in Ukraine is already 2 years old. Most NATO nations are struggling to boost defense spending and produce artillery shells. Russia’s military is reconstituting faster than anyone expected. And the United States is just nine months away from a presidential election in which the Republican front-runner, former U.S. President Donald Trump, is already openly questioning whether the United States would help enforce Article 5—the self-defense clause at the heart of NATO—if he is elected as U.S. president.

All of this means that the alliance may not have decades to get its act together. “That’s the open question,” Wasser said. “Does NATO actually have that time?”

The first thing you see at SHAPE is the bunker. Built in 1985, when NATO’s military headquarters had a Soviet nuclear target on its back, the massive concrete structure looms over the parking lot. It’s not built to withstand a modern Russian nuclear blast—you can’t dig deep enough to shelter from that—but it’s a symbol of what SHAPE used to be at the height of the Cold War: the central nervous system of NATO’s 3 million troops and 100 army divisions in Europe.

It’s also where a group of NATO planners from a half-dozen countries took the first steps toward rebuilding the sleepy military command. As the Kremlin was building up more than 100,000 troops to invade Ukraine in late 2021 and early 2022, NATO scrambled jets, rolled tanks, and hardened the eastern flank with more than 8,000 troops from 30 countries. NATO once again needed a central nervous system to command them.

Anyone who worked at SHAPE had an open invitation to join a planning session in the bunker on a Saturday afternoon in late fall of 2022. Few did. Of the nearly 3,000 people who work at SHAPE, just 30 people showed up. That ragtag group of volunteers who committed to work nights and weekends became the so-called “Tiger Team” that would remake—and is still remaking—NATO’s military headquarters for war.

The team members came from all over the headquarters and hailed from all across Europe, including Denmark, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom. Some got roped in on long email chains by their bosses. Some told their colleagues about it and convinced them to join. Frizzelle told a few of them himself. Kenneth Boesgaard, a Danish special operations officer, found out the agenda had very little to do with special operations, but he went anyway. The fear of missing out was too strong.

They didn’t waste any time. Led by a three-star French Army general, they went right after NATO’s sacred cows. The two-hour discussion became the foundation for a series of “hard truths.” SHAPE was no longer useful. It was built for peacetime, not to fend off a Russian attack. It was no longer “fit for purpose,” Frizzelle said.

The group had homework: to deliver an update to Cavoli in just eight weeks, cutting through four ranks in the chain of command. And they had only four full-time planners.

By December 2022, they had written a first draft of SHAPE’s new job description. It had about a half-dozen major bullet points. It included planning for war as well as resourcing and commanding it. SHAPE also still had to advise NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on military policy and take the 31-nation political commitments that come out of NATO summits—carefully worded and littered with diplomatic jargon—and turn them into military reality: sensors, shooters, troops, and brigades on the ground.

Then they had to get the rest of the headquarters to buy in. “[In] NATO, you’ve got to build consensus,” said Lt. Col. Alex Price, a British Army officer involved in the project. “I’ve learned that the hard way.” The Tiger Team didn’t need any convincing. But the biggest problem was getting the rest of SHAPE to understand what a “strategic warfighting headquarters” was supposed to do.

The job of the command is to say who goes where—whether it’s a bomber, a fighter jet, or a rocket artillery system—and what they’re going to hit. For years, it was the other way around. NATO’s three joint force commands, which are meant to divide up responsibility for security in Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean and report back to Mons, did most of SHAPE’s job for it. They ran the show in the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, and Afghanistan, where NATO’s military might was mostly delivered in airstrikes, not boots on the ground to stop Russian tanks.

By the time Putin invaded Ukraine, about 80 percent of SHAPE’s work was reporting to Stoltenberg, NATO’s civilian leader. “We were not in charge,” said French Army Lt. Gen. Hubert Cottereau, SHAPE’s vice chief of staff, who oversees the headquarters transformation effort.

That worked in the small wars of the 1990s. But computer simulations quickly made it clear that that approach wouldn’t work on a larger scale. In one digital exercise in September 2022, officials at Naples, Italy, the hub of NATO’s naval forces, and Brunssum, Netherlands, the nerve center for NATO ground troops, told SHAPE to step aside: Just give them the shooters, sensors, and troops, and they would plot out the targets.

Once the simulated bullets started flying in NATO’s digitized war with “Occasus”—a bloc of four fictional Russia-like countries—the lower-level commanders hit a wall. Who would prioritize the main effort? Who would give them the resources? And who would call up the reserves?

They needed SHAPE to do it.

Cavoli didn’t go easy on the Tiger Team. The group had missed a key bullet point: strategic targeting. If Putin ever ordered Russian troops onto NATO soil, Cavoli knew he would need to be able to strike back, hitting targets deep inside Russia to paralyze the Kremlin’s war industry and break their logistical chains.

Dating back to the end of the Cold War, most NATO countries wanted to make nice with Russia. Few were comfortable with identifying military targets in the Kremlin’s backyard, fearing that first Boris Yeltsin, and then Putin, would see it as warmongering. So they gave that power away.

“We discovered that SHAPE actually in peacetime had no targeting authorities because that was politically sensitive,” Frizzelle said. If a war had broken out, NATO military planners would have had to start planning out Russian targets from scratch.

Ukraine changed everything. In the summer of 2023, during the annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the alliance unanimously granted SHAPE the ability to conduct targeting. Now, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, SHAPE is using that authority—in peacetime. NATO planners are deciding what would be valid targets on Russian soil, plotting them out for Naples, Brunssum, and NATO’s U.S.-based command in Norfolk, Virginia, and running the potential bull’s-eyes through all of the legal traps.

Cavoli needed to get NATO’s eyes on the target, too. Until last summer, SHAPE’s around-the-clock watch center had only a dozen seats. After a three-month construction project, the center now fits a workforce of 85 people, seven times as big as it was.

Left: SHAPE’s new headquarters appears under construction in Mons on March 21, 1967. Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images   Right: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (second from right) walks with outgoing and incoming Supreme Allied Commander Europe generals toward a change-of-command ceremony at SHAPE in Mons on May 4, 2016. Thierry Monasse/AFP via Getty Images

It’s not just a watch center, though. Officials see it as a nerve center of all of NATO’s military operations. By putting all of the experts in one room, within a few minutes, a few chair swivels, and a couple of phone calls, the new multidomain operations team can quickly give Cavoli and his aides-de-camp everything they need to respond to a Russian attack.

“Let’s say there’s a report of a Russian rocket or part of a drone landing in Romania,” Frizzelle said. “The senior watch officer can turn around in her chair and say, ‘OK, we have this report. Give me the geographic subject matter expert.’” They can brief Cavoli within a few minutes of getting the alert.

They’re still getting all of the right people in place. In a crisis, there’s no time to be flipping through the phone book; SHAPE needs officers in the bunker who can immediately direct it to NATO’s land, air, and maritime commanders. The idea is to be able to connect from Mons to a shooter on the eastern flank if war breaks out—almost instantly.

“The key to effective deterrence is the demonstrated capability to inflict real pain on Russia,” said Ben Hodges, a former head of U.S. Army Europe who is now a NATO senior mentor for logistics. “If you want to prevent the Russians from making a terrible decision, then that means we have to be able to move as fast—or faster—than them.”

Two years into Russia’s invasion, NATO nations have now put 150,000 ground troops on the eastern flank. But NATO has no troops of its own. It has no tanks. It has no fighter jets. It’s the job of each country to get its troops, tanks, and planes ready to go when the alliance asks for them.

“The biggest catastrophe can be summed up in two words,” Cottereau said. “Too late.”

For decades, SHAPE had very little power over troops in NATO countries. But Russia’s invasion prompted those nations to give Cavoli more authority. He can adjust the level of air defense cover in Europe. He can move NATO’s two standing maritime task forces at sea. He can scale up the eight battlegroups on Russia’s border from battalions, with just over 1,000 troops, all the way up to brigades, which are at least three times that size. Some of them are already on the way.

Cavoli still can’t order troops to fire, but he can order more troops to move into place—or get ready to move. And he now has at his command 300,000 troops ready to exercise and respond to a crisis—almost eight times what he had before the war. It’s called the Allied Response Force.

Once it’s activated in July, the newly readied force will be trained twice a year: once for a pre-crisis simulation and again for an out-of-area operation that simulates a real war. The aim is to send a clear message to Russia: Keep out.

“Every ship that sails, every aircraft that flies, every tank that rolls sends a message,” said Gunnar Bruegner, the one-star German general who serves as assistant chief of staff to Cavoli for developing and training NATO’s forces. “We are ready.”

The new force is intended to be the tip of NATO’s spear, similar to the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, the Pentagon’s on-call force of paratroopers that deployed to Afghanistan for the 2021 evacuation effort and then served as the boots on the ground in Poland when Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine started.

The next stage is to keep a larger reserve of forces prepared for an Article 5-level war, distinct from the eastern flank battlegroups, that would be the size of somewhere between the 300,000-troop rapid response force and the 3.2 million-plus troops in NATO’s 31 militaries. Each unit will be assigned its own patch of dirt to defend and will exercise based on NATO’s war plans. Cavoli could order some of those troops to be ready immediately, more at a month’s notice, and even more in six months.

“That’s the kind of process we’re going through now,” said a NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity based on ground rules set by the alliance. “[We’re] going to allies and saying, ‘What have you got? What could you stick on the table in an Article 5 situation?’”

Although defense spending in Europe has grown by almost a third in the past decade and as many as 20 countries could hit the alliance’s 2 percent defense spending target this year, there’s an ongoing give-and-take. In NATO, members have the control button by providing the money and the troops. Just one ally saying “no” can cause a major headache. Greece refused to participate in airstrikes on the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. During NATO’s 2011 intervention to shut down Libya’s skies, Germany refused to provide its early warning aircraft.

The NATO official said European nations are going to have to invest more in weapons systems and training that they’ve been leaning on the Americans to provide, such as air and missile defense, long-range artillery and missiles, command and control, and land combat formations.

And the biggest question mark is Trump. Again the Republican front-runner in the 2024 election, the former president is publicly throwing cold water on NATO’s self-defense pledge. If European nations don’t pay up for defense, he said at a campaign rally this month, he would encourage Russia to attack them. (NATO officials fired back: While the alliance gives nations a defense spending target, it is not a dues-paying group. “This is not a country club,” Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told CNN.)

Trump’s rhetoric might not have been an existential issue for NATO in the days of voluntary operations such as Kosovo and Libya. But after Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, everything has changed.

“Article 5 is fundamentally different,” the NATO official said. “Everybody is on the hook.”

When he was Estonia’s defense chief, between 2016 and 2017, Margus Tsahkna and his aides counted more than 120,000 Russian troops massed on the other side of the country’s Baltic border. Putin could send those troops into battle within 24 to 48 hours. “All that was needed was the command from the Kremlin,” said Tsahkna, now Estonia’s top diplomat.

The invasion never came. Today, two years after Russian troops began to roll over the border into Ukraine, most of the soldiers arrayed against the borders of the three former Soviet nations on NATO’s eastern flank—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—are gone. Many of them have fought and died in Ukraine.

It may not be an all-out invasion of the Baltic states that’s coming. After all, more than 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured in Ukraine. It could be a hybrid attack, too—cyberattacks, the cutting of pipelines, or a limited invasion to undermine Western confidence in Article 5 that’s already been damaged by Trump. But either way, there’s a growing fear in the West that Russia is already picking itself up off the mat much faster than anyone expected.

The question is not just when a Russian attack might come but where.

“[Putin] will continue. He must continue the aggression. He needs to have a new conflict somewhere,” Tsahkna said. “Testing NATO, is it Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland? I don’t know. [But] it’s not even a question.”

Estonian officials believe that Putin is planning to put two to three times more firepower against the borders with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland than it did before the Ukraine war. And Putin is making up for Russia’s combat losses, expanding the size of the military to more than 1.3 million troops, only a bit smaller than the U.S. armed forces.

NATO planners said last October that they were following expert estimates that Russia could reconstitute in a three-to-five-year period after the shooting stops in Ukraine, with Russian land forces degraded but much of the rest of the military intact. But Russia’s military comeback has accelerated. Some European officials now believe Russia could attack NATO directly. This month, Denmark’s defense minister said Russia could test Article 5 within three to five years.

So NATO’s planning has accelerated, too.

This year’s ongoing Steadfast Defender exercise, which started in January and won’t end until May, will top out at 90,000 troops—only about a quarter of them American. Marines from three countries will ship out of Norfolk aboard the USS Gunston Hall and launch an amphibious assault to take back the beaches of Norway. Then NATO’s highest-readiness troops will assault across the Vistula River in Poland.

It’s the alliance’s biggest military demonstration in 36 years. “If you’re Russia, you might say: ‘I can attack this spot here now, and maybe I’ve got a temporary advantage,’” the NATO official said. “But the knowledge that we can and will bring basically two full American corps to Europe—and they will fight—that is a pretty big deterrent.”

Another key reason for doing large-scale exercises so soon after Cavoli’s team put the plans on paper is to see what works and what doesn’t. How do you move land forces across Europe? How do you supply them? And when the shooting starts, will they arrive in time?

“There might be a big attack coming on NATO,” Bruegner said. “It gives you the bloody truth about what you really are capable of doing.”

Back in Mons, dozens of military officers from NATO countries huddled in the SHAPE bunker in October 2023 to test their latest plans in a 10-day exercise dubbed “Steadfast Jupiter.” This time, they were fighting off a fictional invasion of Eastern Europe from Occasus, their Russia-like foe.

In the end, SHAPE received more than a passing grade. The allies didn’t steamroll their enemy but degraded Occasus enough to the point that the mock conflict could end at the bargaining table.

Every three to four months, Frizzelle’s team emerges from the bunker to present Cavoli with another set of recommendations to change the SHAPE headquarters, each time wrenching down on more problems. In the October exercise, Cavoli and his team realized their rules of engagement were too strict—better suited for Afghanistan than Article 5. So they tweaked them.

Their next assignment is to present their work to all 31 NATO allies—and Sweden—at the upcoming Washington summit in July. It’s a chance for the civilian brass to grill Cavoli. “How far are we? How good are we at being able to execute the plans?” said Royal Netherlands Navy Adm. Rob Bauer, the chair of NATO’s Military Committee.

In the meantime, they’ve got more homework to do. SHAPE’s experts are still looking at how to optimize intelligence gathering, integrating artificial intelligence into the headquarters, and building out their own wargaming capability, with a team of experts who live, breathe, eat, and sleep Russian tactics as the “red team” on the other side.

The tweaking will continue as long as Cavoli is NATO’s military commander—at least for the next year and a half. But they’ll never be 100 percent sure that the war plans will work until the first shot is fired in an actual war.

“We’ve built an airplane—the new strategic warfighting headquarters,” Frizzelle said. “It’s informed by the blueprints of airplanes that have flown well in the past. But until we fly the airplane, we don’t know how it’s going to handle. We don’t know if we’ve forgotten a part.”

“Hopefully,” he added. “We haven’t.”

[dream-world-universe]

Chief Mountain

Mountain in Montana

Chief Mountain, Glacier National Park, Montana, U.S.

Chief Mountain is located in the U.S. state of Montana on the eastern border of Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. 

Mountain range: Lewis Range

Elevation: 2,769 m

Prominence: 561 m

First ascent: 1892 by Stimson, et al.

Topo map: USGS Chief Mountain, MT

Chief Mountain - Wikipedia

[newstfionline]

Monday, June 17, 2024

Much of US braces for extreme weather (AP) After days of intense flooding in Florida, that state and many others are bracing for an intense heat wave, while the Pacific Northwest will experience unseasonably cold weather and there is a potential for late-season snow in the Rocky Mountains early next week. The chaotic weather map includes the possibility of severe thunderstorms developing in between hot and cold fronts. Forecasters said the colliding fronts could lead to areas of flash flooding between eastern Nebraska and northern Wisconsin on Saturday night, as well as strong storms across parts of eastern Montana into North and South Dakota. Meanwhile a plume of tropical moisture will reach the central Gulf Coast during the next couple of days, with heavy rain expected to start Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Shooting in Detroit suburb injures 9, leaving an 8-year-old in critical condition (AP) Nine people were injured, including two young children and their mother, after a shooter opened fire at a splash pad in a Detroit suburb where families gathered to escape the summer heat Saturday. Law enforcement tracked a suspect to a home, where the man died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. An 8-year-old boy was shot in the head and in critical condition Saturday night, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said during a news conference. The boy’s mother also was in critical condition after being wounded in the abdomen and leg, and his 4-year-old brother was in stable condition with a leg wound. Bouchard said the attack appeared to be random, with the shooter driving up to the park, walking to the splash pad and firing as many as 28 times, stopping multiple times to reload.

US attack sub, Canada navy patrol ship arrive in Cuba on heels of Russian warships (Reuters) A Canadian navy patrol ship sailed into Havana early on Friday, just hours after the United States announced a fast-attack submarine had docked at its Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, both vessels on the heels of Russian warships that arrived on the island earlier this week. The confluence of Russian, Canadian and U.S. vessels in Cuba—a Communist-run island nation just 145 km (90 miles) south of Florida—was a reminder of old Cold War tensions and fraught ties between Russia and Western nations over the Ukraine war. However, both the U.S. and Cuba have said the Russian warships pose no threat to the region. Russia has also characterized the arrival of its warships in allied Cuba as routine.

Honduras plans to build a 20,000-capacity ‘megaprison’ for gang members as part of a crackdown (AP) The president of Honduras has announced the creation of a new 20,000-capacity “megaprison,” part of the government’s larger crackdown on gang violence and efforts to overhaul its long-troubled prison system. President Xiomara Castro unveiled a series of emergency measures in a nationally televised address early Saturday, including plans to strengthen the military’s role in fighting organized crime, prosecute drug traffickers as terrorists and build new facilities to ease overcrowding as narcoviolence and other crimes mount in the nation of 10 million. Left-wing Castro’s “megaprison” ambitions mirror those of President Nayib Bukele in neighboring El Salvador, who has built the largest prison in Latin America—a 40,000-capacity facility to house a surging number of detainees

UK polls point to ‘electoral extinction’ for Prime Minister Sunak’s Conservatives (Reuters) Three British opinion polls released late on Saturday presented a grim picture for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, and one pollster warned that the party faced “electoral extinction” in July 4’s election. Market research company Savanta found 46% support for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, up 2 points on the previous poll five days earlier, while support for the Conservatives dropped 4 points to 21%. Labour’s 25-point lead was the largest since the premiership of Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, whose tax cut plans prompted investors to dump British government bonds, pushing up interest rates and forcing a Bank of England intervention.

Parisians on TikTok Plead: ‘Don’t Come’ to Paris for the Olympics (NYT) “This is a video for anyone that’s coming to Paris Olympics 2024,” a woman says in a clip posted to TikTok. She pauses briefly, and then continues: “Don’t come. Cancel everything.” The video, which was uploaded in November, now has more than 700,000 views. The creator, Miranda Starcevic, is a 31-year-old French American who lives in Paris. She wanted her viewers to know that from her perspective, of French citizens who “are kind of middle class,” as she put it: “Nobody wants the Olympic Games. It’s just a hot mess.” As a visual-first international platform with many young users, TikTok is full of Olympics content. But in addition to the feel-good windows into athletes’ lives and promotional videos from organizers and sponsors, there are also unfiltered clips from residents of Paris warning potential visitors that the city may not deliver its best during the Games.

Short on troops, Ukraine is freeing criminals to fight (Washington Post) To fill a critical shortage of infantry on the front line, Ukraine has embraced one of Russia’s most cynical tactics: releasing convicted—even violent—felons who agree to fight in high-risk assault brigades. More than 2,750 men have been released from Ukrainian prisons since the parliament adopted a law in May authorizing certain convicts to enlist, including those jailed for dealing drugs, stealing phones and committing armed assaults and murders, among other serious crimes. Now—seeking revenge against Russia, or in pursuit of personal redemption and freedom—they are trading their prison jumpsuits for Ukrainian army uniforms and deploying to the front lines. Recruiting criminals—a common practice in Russia, where tens of thousands were freed to fight in Ukraine—is the latest sign of Kyiv’s struggle to replenish its forces, which are depleted and exhausted after more than two years of virtually nonstop fighting.

Ukraine employs a flexible defense while waiting for new Western ammo to get to the front (AP) Ukrainian firepower has been improving since U.S. lawmakers approved a much-needed military aid package this spring, though not quickly enough to halt the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine. Although the influx of Western munitions has shrunk Kyiv’s glaring artillery disadvantage, Moscow’s forces are still gaining ground along the snaking front line and will likely continue to do so through the summer, when the drier ground and longer days will only aid their push. Kyiv has turned to a bend-but-don’t-break strategy to buy time until it can get more Western weapons and ammunition to the front. By ceding some territory, Ukraine has been able to fight from better defended positions, according to interviews with senior Ukrainian military leaders, soldiers and officers in the field, and analysts.

New Caledonia reopening its international airport and shortening curfew as unrest continues to ebb (AP) The French Pacific territory of New Caledonia is shortening its overnight curfew and reopening its international airport that was closed to commercial flights for more than a month because of deadly violence that wracked the archipelago where pro-independence Indigenous Kanaks want to break from France. La Tontouta airport that links New Caledonia’s capital, Nouméa, to Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore and other Pacific hubs will reopen Monday, the territory’s high commissioner announced in a statement Sunday. The overnight curfew is also being shortened by two hours. With France now plunged into frenzied campaigning for snap parliamentary elections, French President Emmanuel Macron has suspended the reforms that would have altered voting rights in New Caledonia. The revolt prompted France on May 15 to impose a state of emergency on the archipelago and rush in reinforcements for police who were overwhelmed by armed clashes, looting and arson.

As War Drags On, Gazans More Willing to Speak Out Against Hamas (NYT) On Oct. 7, as the Hamas-led attack on Israel was unfolding, many Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate what they likened to a prison break and saw as the sudden humiliation of an occupier. But it was just a temporary boost for Hamas, whose support among Gazans has been low for some time. And as the Israeli onslaught has brought widespread devastation and tens of thousands of deaths, the group and its leaders have remained broadly unpopular in the enclave. More Gazans have even been willing to speak out against Hamas, risking retribution. In interviews with nearly a dozen Gaza residents in recent months, a number of them said they held Hamas responsible for starting the war and helping to bring death and destruction upon them, even as they blame Israel first and foremost.

Accumulating waste poses catastrophic health risks in Gaza, UNRWA says. (NYT) Mountains of trash have accumulated across the Gaza Strip, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned this week, deepening the wartime perils for the vast number of displaced Palestinians sheltering in often squalid encampments or in the crowded homes of relatives. UNRWA said on social media on Thursday that more than 330,000 tons of solid waste had accumulated in or near populated areas throughout Gaza, which it said posed “catastrophic environmental & health risks.” Many displaced people do not have access to clean water, working toilets or reliable medical care. Among the dangers the agency has highlighted is hepatitis A, a virus, often transmitted through person-to-person contact or contaminated food, that may cause liver disease. More immediately, those infected can suffer debilitating fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, jaundice and other problems. Lack of fuel for waste-removal vehicles has compounded sanitation problems, and UNRWA accuses the Israeli military of blocking UNRWA members from accessing landfills. In addition, many of the agency’s sanitation centers, machinery and trucks for removing trash have been destroyed.

The Influencer Is a young teenage girl. Her audience is 92% adult men. (WSJ) A mother started an Instagram account for her preteen dancer daughter as a pandemic-era diversion, which quickly grew in popularity. However, she soon noticed that most followers were adult men. Investigations by The Wall Street Journal and outside researchers have found that, upon recognizing that an account might be sexually interested in children, Instagram’s algorithm recommends child accounts for the user to follow, as well as sexual content related to both children and adults. That algorithm powers the growth of a world in which young girls’ online popularity is predicated on gaining large numbers of male followers—forcing their parents to make tough choices.

[wikiuntamed]

On this day in Wikipedia: Wednesday, 7th February

Welcome, sveiki, 欢迎 (huānyíng), witamy 🤗 What does @Wikipedia say about 7th February through the years 🏛️📜🗓️?

7th February 2021 🗓️ : Event - 2021 Uttarakhand flood The 2021 Uttarakhand flood begins. "The 2021 Uttarakhand flood, also known as the Chamoli disaster, began on 7 February 2021 in the environs of the Nanda Devi National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the outer Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand state, India (Maps 1 and 2). It was caused by a large rock and ice avalanche consisting..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0? by Superbenjamin

7th February 2019 🗓️ : Death - Frank Robinson Frank Robinson, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1935) "Frank Robinson (August 31, 1935 – February 7, 2019) was an American professional baseball outfielder and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for five teams over 21 seasons: the Cincinnati Reds (1956–1965), Baltimore Orioles (1966–1971), Los Angeles Dodgers (1972), California Angels..."

Image by Unknown authorUnknown author

7th February 2014 🗓️ : Event - Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea An inquiry report of the United Nations Human Rights Council found systematic and wide-ranging violations of human rights in North Korea. "The Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the landmark document resulting from the investigations on human rights in North Korea commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013 and concluded in 2014.The report..."

Image by U.S. Mission Geneva/ Eric Bridiers

7th February 1974 🗓️ : Event - Grenada Grenada gains independence from the United Kingdom. "Grenada ( grə-NAY-də; Grenadian Creole French: Gwenad ) is an island nation of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The southernmost of the Windward Islands, Grenada is directly south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and about 100 miles north of Trinidad and the South American mainland...."

Image by See file history below for details.

7th February 1923 🗓️ : Birth - Dora Bryan Dora Bryan, English actress and restaurateur (d. 2014) "Dora May Broadbent, (7 February 1923 – 23 July 2014), known as Dora Bryan, was a British actress of stage, film and television...."

7th February 1823 🗓️ : Death - Ann Radcliffe Ann Radcliffe, English author (b. 1764) "Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for Gothic fiction in the 1790s. Radcliffe was the most popular..."

Image by Unknown authorUnknown author

7th February 🗓️ : Holiday - Christian feast day: Blessed Pope Pius IX "Beatification (from Latin beatus, "blessed" and facere, "to make") is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name. Beati is the plural form, referring to those who have undergone..."

Image by User Magnus Manske on en.wikipedia

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Slate:

A sign at the foot of San Juan County, Utah, welcomes visitors to the “world’s greatest outdoor museum.” In the south are the rugged walls and totems of Monument Valley, the image of the West for Americans raised on John Wayne, Looney Tunes, and Marlboro ads. In the east is Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest human-made lake, which draws more than 4 million visitors every year to swim, fish, and water-ski. In the north is Canyonlands, Utah’s largest national park, where hiking trails wind beneath sandstone arches. Three towns dot the county’s more settled eastern edge, tracing the Mormon journey south from Salt Lake City 140 years ago.

Between these landmarks is harsh, arid terrain where each generation of white settlers has tried to make a fickle living: from farming, from livestock, from minerals. Most dramatic was the 1950s uranium rush, when prospectors laid claim to 40 percent of San Juan County and mine profits spurred a building boom. The bust left thousands of abandoned shafts and radioactive waste sites across the plateau and a sprawling road network that connects places no longer worth connecting. But the hope has endured that because San Juan County once made money from the land, it could do so again.

That is the white map of the territory, but there’s another way of seeing things. South of the San Juan River is the Navajo Nation, the largest and most populous Indian reservation in the United States. The median household income in Utah’s section of the Nation is $25,000—about half what it is on the other side of the river. (In recent months, the Nation has also been ravaged by the coronavirus, though I visited San Juan County and talked to everyone here long before the pandemic hit.) Nearby is a reservation of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the people who gave the state its name. The county is home to tens of thousands of ancient Anasazi archaeological sites, spread across a territory the size of Connecticut. Right at the center of San Juan County are the cedar-covered twin buttes known as the Bears Ears, a sacred site to Indigenous people from various tribes who venture onto the land to gather medicine and firewood or to pray. It is the birthplace of Chief Manuelito, the headman who resisted the U.S. government and signed the treaty establishing a sovereign Navajo state in 1868.

Since Utah gained statehood 124 years ago, power in San Juan County has largely rested with a small, resilient band of Mormon families who settled the region in the late 19th century. An equal-sized contingent of Native Americans, mostly Navajos and Utes, have lived on reservations near the Arizona border and had virtually no say in affairs outside their boundaries.

But this is changing. In the 1980s, Navajos sued for fair representation on the county board. In 2012, they sued again. And just two years ago, the three-person County Commission became majority Native American for the first time in history. A wave of vitriol followed the Navajo commissioners into office. “I don’t want to call it a race war,” one local reflected recently. “But that’s what it was.”

A rural Utah county commission is generally a sleepy little operation, but only San Juan County has a backyard that became ground zero for a national debate on American wilderness. Obama declared Bears Ears a national monument in 2016; one year later, Trump contracted its area by 85 percent. Outerwear brands like Patagonia have crusaded to protect the monument. Oil companies have pushed for more drilling. And in the midst of all this are the people of San Juan County, fighting—with outsiders and with one another—over what to do with the land.

[weemsbotts]

Juneteenth: Delving into the Realities of Freedom

By: Lisa Timmerman, Executive Director

The Town of Dumfries was an attractive strategic target for both Union and Confederate soldiers. Union soldiers occupied Prince William County during their Fredericksburg campaign. Acting under James Ewell Brown Stuart, General Wade Hampton led three raids, two of them successful. On 12/10/1862, General Wade Hampton and 500 cavalrymen raided the Town of Dumfries and vicinity. Union Colonel Anson Stager, superintendent of the U.S. Military Telegraph, reported that Hampton’s soldiers attacked a Confederate telegraph station and “…cut telegraph and captured two operators and one repairer; also several officers, orderlies, etc…They stated that they were only a detachment of the force that had crossed with them, saying they expected, and came to meet, a large force of cavalry.” Anson noted that Union General Steinwehr’s division engaged the “rebels” and was able to release the captured officers. On 12/17/1862, Hampton led a raid towards Occoquan, capturing more men and supplies.

Dumfries was already in a state of decline when considering their previous nautical power fueled by the intense labor of the enslaved and the tobacco economy. One soldier remarked that Dumfries was an “old, God-forsaken town”, and the Civil War certainly did not help the Town’s economy. However, Confederate J.F. Wheat later recounted a different experience near Dumfries, “…My cousin C.A. Dunnington & myself while scouting within the enemies lines one cold winter night called at this cabin & asked for something to eat & to be permitted to warm and rest our tired bodies. King Bates invited us in & gave of such food as he had – permitted us to spend the night & occupy his bed. This negro was a quiet, orderly, sober & industrious citizen, he could have easily captured us…As it were, we were warmed & fed and sheltered… Bates lived many years after the war and did a great deal of work for the old soldiers that he had fed & sheltered during the war. The Cabin is standing today & looks about as it did 43 years ago. Poor old King has passed into that unknown world after a long life of faithful service. The writer will never cease to remember him with feelings of gratitude & good will.” The original photo and negative of “King Bates Log Cabin” with the Confederate’s inscription are currently on display at The Weems-Botts Museum.

(Source: 1863 Issued Army of the Potomac Map,  Eastern PWC, Library of Congress)

On 01/01/1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all enslaved persons from rebellious states, “…And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” The Union army and sometimes navy, attempted to enforce the Proclamation, but there were areas of exemptions and the government did not equally free everyone. During the Civil War, Virginia divided into two parts – the nationally recognized “official” state (future West Virginia), and the Confederate state. In 12/1863, Governor Francis H. Pierpont requested Virginia’s General Assembly convene and abolish slavery via a Constitutional Convention. On 03/10/1864, the Constitutional Convention voted in favor of abolishing slavery, “Slavery and involuntary servitude (except for crime) is hereby abolished and prohibited in the State forever.” Did this finally free all the enslaved persons in Virginia? No. It was not uniformly enforced and even in Union controlled areas, the enslaved remained enslaved. The people of Virginia were not truly freed until the end of the Civil War when the state fully operated under the Constitution of 1864, the army enforced the Emancipation Proclamation, and the General Assembly ratified the 13th Amendment and U.S. Constitution.          

Juneteenth celebrates the day Major General Gordon Granger issued General Orders No. 3 on 06/19/1865 in Galveston, Texas. “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, "all slaves are free." This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” Many factors contributed to the delay in news reaching Texas ranging from racism, resistance, miscommunication, and inability to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. Although the celebration of Juneteenth spread outside of Texas over the decades, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s planned Poor People’s March (carried out by Ralph Abernathy and others after Dr. King’s assassination) led to its national recognition in 1968.

The Weems-Botts Museum usually hosts a face-to-face children’s program inviting families to write their own proclamations and craft/color a Juneteenth flag. Due to the pandemic, we are celebrating this program online with a downloadable PDF on our website and a Zoom book reading. Although social distancing has led to many missed face-to-face opportunities, it has also allowed for more accessible online programs and events. Consider attending Councilwoman Neville’s Virtual Genealogy session (contact Ms. Neville at HonCNeville@DumfriesVA.gov) and submitting your performance piece to the Rosa Parks Museum (contact Madeline at mburkhardt@troy.edu) as your family safely recognizes and celebrates Juneteenth 2020.

(Sources: Thunderbird Archaeology Phase I Archaeological Investigation of the +110 Acre 12th High School Property, Prince William County, Virginia, By Kimberly A. Snyder and Boyd Sipe, 08/2008; Encyclopedia Virginia: The Abolition of Slavery in Virginia by Brent Tarter; National Park Service: Prince William Forest: Civil War; Smithsonian Magazine: Why Juneteenth Celebrates the New Birth of Freedom)      

[orlandobusiness-blog]

Top Shopping Centers In Orlando, FL 32806

The time zone of Orlando is UTC−5 (Eastern (EST)), Summer (DST) UTC−4 (EDT). It features a metro population of 2,387,138, and CSA population of 3,129,308. Orlando is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County. Orlando is specifically located in Central Florida, and also the center of the Orlando metropolitan area. This metropolitan area was reported as home to 2,509,831 people by the United States Census Bureau in 2017. There are several amazing shopping centers in Orlando where you can visit to shop for quality goods. These shopping centers attract a lot of visitors to Orlando daily. If you visit Orlando and wish to shop, you needn’t stress yourself unnecessarily wandering around, just drive to any of the top shopping centers the city houses. Below are the top shopping centers in Orlando:

SODO Shopping Center: take a ride to S Orange Ave, Orlando, FL 32806, United States, there, you will find this fantastic shopping center. It is an urban complex of living & office space where you will find national chain stores, specialty boutiques, and dining. Market at Southside: this is a modern shopping center located at S Orange Ave &, E Michigan St, Orlando, FL 32806, United States. It is a straightforward strip mall featuring an eclectic mix of stores, restaurants, and service providers. Lee Vista Promenade: to locate this contemporary center offering familiar big-box retailers, drive to 5800 Lee Vista Blvd, Orlando, FL 32822, United States. There, you will find chain restaurants & a movie theater. It has large parking spaces for customers. Member Spotlight Datson Fence 1700 Cloverlawn Ave Orlando, FL 32806 407-297-8329 https://datsonfence.com What kind of fence do you want for your house? Datson Fence is a Fence company in Orlando offering different fence types ranging from a Pressure Treated Pine wood fence to Vinyl, Chain Link fence among others.                                            Get Map Directions:-

[fatehbaz]

Distribution range map for the 16 subspecies of American black bear

Got tired of not being able to find an adequate distribution map for the formally-recognized subspecies of American black bear (Ursus americanus). Unsurprisingly, the fertility, biomass, and ecological diversity of the Pacific Northwest has allowed for intense genetic diversity of black bear (half of the black bear’s subspecies can be found in the Pacific Northwest). For the curious, the “spirit bear” of the Great Bear Rainforest is known as Ursus americanus kermodei.

The distribution of the nominate subspecies - U.a. americanus - in the eastern U.S. is spotty and hard to accurately depict on range maps. The amount of urbanization, devegetation, and rural agriculture has pushed the bear out of permanent residency in many areas, though they still occasionally travel through much of the area east of the Mississippi.

Here are the formally-recognized “common” names of each of the subspecies:

1. U.a. perniger: Kenai black bear 2. U.a. pugnax: Alexander Archipelago black bear 3. U.a. emmonsii: glacier bear 4. U.a. carlottae: Haida Gwaii bear 5. U.a. kermodei: Kermode bear or spirit bear 6. U.a. vancouveri: Vancouver Island black bear 7. U.a. altifrontalis: Olympic black bear or Pacific Northwest black bear 8. U.a. californiensis: California black bear 9. U.a. amblyceps: New Mexico black bear 10. U.a. cinnamomum: cinnamon bear or “Rocky Mountain black bear” 11. U.a. machetes: West Mexico black bear or Sierra Occidental black bear 12. U.a. eremicus: East Mexico black bear 13. U.a. luteolus: Louisiana black bear 14. U.a. floridanus: Florida black bear 15. U.a. hamiltoni: Newfoundland black bear 16. U.a. americanus: American black bear or eastern black bear

Cinnamon bears - the primary subspecies of the Rocky Mountains - in Montana (Photo by National Parks Service):

-

Spirit bear in the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia (Photo 1 by Kyle Breckenridge; Photo 2 by Paul Nicklen for National Geographic):

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Louisiana black bear, a species of the pine forests of the Gulf Coast 9Photo by US Fish and WIldlife):

[acworth-ga-first]

Eye Contact in Acworth, GA

One of the essential ways to have healthy living is to take care of one’s eyesight. Well, healthy eyes help you perfect tasks well. No wonder it is important to rely on a top-notch eye doctor. To find a superb eye doctor or service provider, you should check about Eye Contact. Basically, they understand your need to receive treatment in a practice where you feel comfortable, safe, and welcome. In that case, you can schedule an appointment with them. Besides, you can stop by for a complete tour of their practice. Then, you will get to meet their team, walk through their office and treatment areas, and learn more about the treatments they provide.

Eye Contact

The representatives at Eye Contact in Acworth, GA are remarkable. After all, it is a well-known eye clinic in the area. Their optometrist provides fantastic health services to patients. In addition, they offer vision testing. In that case, they shared that regular vision testing and evaluations ensure that you always have the clearest vision possible. Aside from that, they will provide regular vision acuity test as part of a comprehensive eye exam. In addition, the doctor will measure how each eye is seeing by using a wall eye chart and a reading eye chart. Lastly, their eye clinic is located at 1720 Mars Hill Rd Suite 160, Acworth, GA 30101.

Acworth, GA

Are you familiar with the historical background of Acworth, GA location? The area now containing Acworth was carved out of the former Cherokee Nation in 1831, just like the rest of Cobb County. It happened after the natives were expelled. Aside from that, the Western and Atlantic Railroad were completed through town in 1840. In addition, a watering station for the locomotives was established there. The town received its current name in 1843 from Western & Atlantic Railroad engineer Joseph L. Gregg, who named it for his hometown of Acworth, New Hampshire. The latter was named for the former Royal Navy Surveyor Sir Jacob Acworth.

Red Top Mountain State Park in Acworth, GA    

In Acworth, GA area, Red Top Mountain State Park is famous. It is also the perfect place to go on an adventure. Besides, it is a state park in the U.S. state of Georgia. The tourist spot is located in the north-western part of the state, on the north-western edge of metro Atlanta, in south-eastern Bartow County near Cartersville. It is named for iron-rich Red Top Mountain. In addition, the park covers 1,776 acres on a peninsula jutting north into Lake Allatoona, formed on the park's north and east sides by the Etowah River arm and on the west by Allatoona Creek arm.

Acworth hosts community-wide job fair to help local businesses

These days, local business owners are trying to get back on their feet. The pandemic has changed everything, after all. Based on a latest news report in Acworth, GA, there was a topic about a job fair event. As reported, businesses across the country are having problems finding workers. In Acworth, some businesses have had to cut back their hours because they don't have enough workers. In that case, city leaders recognized their local businesses were struggling, so they teamed up with the Acworth Business Association and held a community wide job fair. As a result, many businesses such as from health care to the food industry to public safety showed up hoping to make new hires.

Link to maps

Red Top Mountain State Park 50 Lodge Rd SE, Acworth, GA 30102, United States Follow Red Top Mountain Rd SE to Joe Frank Harris Pkwy SE/US Hwy 41 S in Emerson 4 min (1.9 mi) Follow US Hwy 41 S to Mars Hill Rd in Acworth 11 min (8.5 mi) Follow Mars Hill Rd to your destination 7 min (3.3 mi) Eye Contact 1720 Mars Hill Rd Suite 160, Acworth, GA 30101, United States

[andimthedad]

It smells like smoked gouda, except without the gouda.

Beth, age 10, commenting on the haze in the air. Leave it to her to use a cheese analogy.

Coming from the East Coast, we’ve never experienced anything like the Western U.S. wildfire season. California seems to be hit especially hard, and even Glacier National Park in Montana — which we just visited less than two weeks ago — announced closures due to wildfires. There are dozens more around (see map). The resulting haze spreads across the country, and its constant presence is a new experience for us.

As my wife said, “I’ve never lived any place where ‘smoke’ was a type of weather.”

Friends in eastern Washington are actual volunteer firefighters, out dealing with wildfires. Meanwhile, my friends in California say, essentially, “Deal with it.”

[nicklesthename]

Welcome back to Radio Stories from Fallout 4! These posts are my way of appreciating the world-building and storytelling in the modern Fallout games. I’ve already explored the tales broadcasted by towers 0MC-810 and 3SM-U81. This next relay tower is found north of Fort Hagen, so watch out for Rust Devils!

Raider Radio Signal

https://mymoderndeardiaryblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/raider-ad.mp3

“Anyone out there interested in buying some chems? Come find me. I’m at the three trees with flags. Wait for me there, and I promise you won’t be disappointed. These chems will really take your head off and spin it around. This has been a pre-recorded message. Message repeats in three seconds.”

This one just makes me laugh. He gives about the worst directions to where he is possible, barely contains the bloodthirsty madness in his voice, but damn it, he tried! Also when you find his little hut, which features exactly one (1) chem, a 10 mm, and a baseball bat. Maybe it’s the tone of his voice or maybe I’ve just been playing these games too much, but it sounds like when he said take your head off and spin it around, he more meant shoot your head off and hit a home run with it.

  Distress signal

https://mymoderndeardiaryblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/distress-signal.mp3

And here we have another poor wastelander trying to survive by holing up, but never coming back out. He’s hiding out in a secret basement of a trailer park that is currently crawling with ghouls. The trailer park itself has an interesting story to it as well. And by interesting I mean kind of twisted. So the guy who actually set up the signal can be found in a surprisingly well-hidden bunker door next to the community swimming pool. As I’m sure you could have predicted, he didn’t quite make it. He seemed to last a while though, considering he’s a regular body and not a skeleton, like some of the people who broadcast these signals.

  But there is a much more…interesting story that happened at this trailer park. Sprinkled around the trailers are three holotapes called “The New Squirrel” with 3 parts total.  The first two parts are a wholesome tale all about friendship and welcoming others into our families. Ricky the squirrel meets a red squirrel and despite his elder squirrel warnings to not trust this new squirrel, Ricky decides to open his home to the newcomer. Then, in part three, we discover the red squirrel’s true intentions!

Storytime Simon here with the exciting conclusion to “The New Squirrel”. “Tomorrow we can get to know each other and become best friends!” said Ricky to the red squirrel. The red squirrel made a sound that Ricky took for agreement, and the two squirrels curled up to sleep. Later that night, Ricky woke up to the sound of leaves rustling in the oak tree. He looked around. The red squirrel was gone! Ricky surveyed the landscape below and saw a pack of glowing eyes approaching the base of his tree. Cats! Ricky heard a voice from a nearby tree. It was the red squirrel! “I’m sorry.” he said. “They were following me, and I couldn’t bring them to my tree. They would have eaten my family!” As the cats ascended the tree and began to devour Ricky’s friends and family, Ricky reflected on his decisions. His last words were “I really wish I would have trusted my elders.” The End.

Yep. The red squirrel brought a hoard of hungry cats to Ricky’s tree to protect his own family. Ricky learns a valuable lesson about trusting strangers and disobeying elders. What?! What kind of story is that? Especially the fact that the story is told in a relatively cheery voice and in the style of children’s show.

The Fallout wiki has a theory that makes a lot of sense to me about the origins of the New Squirrel. They say the story is telling about “a fictional tale mirroring rumours and reports of Chinese communist infiltrators operating in the United States.” The allegory works like this: “the tree, the one that is the turf of the protagonist brown squirrel, is intended to represent the U.S. The red squirrel’s role is a Chinese infiltrator, and the cats are the People’s Liberation Army.” It’s all about not trusting Chinese people because they could be agents of the PLA. Charming…

I’d like to add to that theory and claim that the skeleton of a man found in a locked trailer belongs to the original Storytime Simon. He’s pretty clearly an ex-military guy, considering his helmet, ammo box, and power armour. My theory is that he survived the bombs dropping and went a little mad in the process. He would have been trained to never, ever trust Chinese nationals and in his mania, this is how he dealt with the trauma.

Civil Alert System Broadcast

Despite being a pretty bland signal to follow, this broadcast is in the trickiest of the three to get to. Well, at least if you have Automatron installed and active. This bunker is found at the base of the southwest satellite at the Fort Hagen satellite array which has double-duty as the base of the Rust Devils, the new faction introduced by the DLC. Basically, instead of going into the secret base of the Devils, take a walk to the opposite side of the satellite and hop into the hatch there.

Inside you’ll find…a bunker! This one is a military bunker, so there’s some computer consoles, ammo and storage containers, propaganda posters, and dog tags on the table. Basically, this signal is just your typical warning system put in place to warn civilians of the incoming bombs. I’ll be honest…I think the warning came a bit late. The most interesting part of the bunker to me in the dog tags, since the wording in the message had to have been spoken and not automated, they probably belonged to the man who recorded that message. Why did he leave his nametags behind? Where did he go? Did he survive? Who knows!

  Here is a run down of the stories heard on the radio at the north eastern part of the map! Welcome back to Radio Stories from Fallout 4! These posts are my way of appreciating the world-building and storytelling in the modern Fallout games.

[xtruss]

Barbed wire disappears to the horizon in Wyoming, where a single county has been found to have 4,500 miles of fencing. Photograph By Alfred Buellesbach, VISUM/REDUX

In Wyoming, Fences Are Coming Down To Make Way For Wildlife

More than 600,000 miles of fences crisscross the American West, blocking animal migration. Outside Yellowstone this summer, volunteers dismantled a few.

— By Hillary Rosner | August 17, 2021

On a warm July morning, roughly two dozen volunteers gathered at a ranch outside Cody, Wyoming, carrying wire cutters, gloves, buckets, and bottles of water. The goal was to take down several miles of barbed wire that had not been used to fence livestock for many years—and were now a useless and even dangerous blemish on the landscape.

West of Cody, on the road to Yellowstone National Park, the North Fork of the Shoshone River winds through the Absaroka Mountains, a landscape of extinct volcanoes that once towered thousands of feet higher. Strange formations of eroded volcanic rock, known as hoodoos, cap the hillsides. If you’re lucky, you might see a flock of bighorn sheep scampering beneath these ancient deposits. But that’s much less likely than it would have been a century or two ago, when settlers first began developing—and fencing—the landscape.

Scientists conservatively estimate that more than 600,000 miles of fences crisscross the American West, and that’s without counting property fencing in cities and suburbs. In just one Wyoming county, researchers mapped roughly 4,500 miles of fences—longer than the U.S. border with Mexico. The Absarokas and other western landscapes may look wide open and sprawling, particularly to road-trippers from more paved-over parts of the country, but in fact they are sliced up by miles and miles of barbed wire, put there to keep livestock in (or out), to mark boundaries between public and private lands, or to keep animals away from roads.

In some cases, the fences are simply remnants, erected decades ago and no longer serving any purpose. In others, they were constructed with little thought about their impact on other species. But land managers and conservation groups in the United States are increasingly aware of how fences can harm wild animals, and they are beginning to push for fence removal or replacement as a solution that many otherwise-at-odds constituents can get behind.

“Everyone can agree on this,” says Tony Mong, a wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Mong is chair of the Absaroka Fence Initiative, a local organization that organized the fence takedown outside Cody last month.

Deer, Interrupted

Fences can spell disaster for wildlife that need to migrate seasonally or simply move around for their basic needs. Mule deer can get their legs caught as they try to jump over fencing and can die there. Pronghorn antelopes, which tend to scramble under fences, can get stuck or scraped on the bottom wire, leading to death or to cuts and scars that never heal and are prone to infection.

One study looked at pronghorn in the northern sagebrush steppe in Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan—where the study area contained enough fence to wrap around the planet eight times—and found, not surprisingly, that pronghorn chose paths that crossed less fencing. That means there is actually less habitat available to them than it might seem just from the vastness of the landscape.

A remote camera captures a mule deer walking a game trail above the Buffalo Fork River near Grand Teton. Photograph By Charlie Hamilton James, National Geographic Image Collection

No matter where you are in the western U.S., says Wenjing Xu, a graduate student at University of California Berkeley, on average you are likely less than two miles from a fence.

“From a human perspective, fences are for managing land and livestock, and they are barely visible from afar,” says Xu. “For animals that need to roam, however, every ‘invisible’ fence line could be an actual barrier that they have to figure out how to overcome.”

In the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, of which the Absarokas are a part, migration of ungulates—pronghorn and deer but also elk and bighorn sheep—are “what make this whole system run,” says Arthur Middleton, a wildlife ecologist who heads up the Berkeley lab that Xu works in. Fences are just one of many types of habitat fragmentation—along with roads, pipelines, and residential subdivisions—that constrain wildlife movement.

“It’s death by 5,000 cuts,” Middleton says.

Middleton and Xu are part of an emerging field of research known as fence ecology, which has sprung up to understand the impacts of all these fences and how to mitigate them. Until recently there had been very little such research. Because it’s usually not possible to see fences in satellite imagery, they are often overlooked in conservation planning; they also do not factor into the Global Human Footprint Index, a widely used mapping tool that shows the relative influence of humans on landscapes around the world. In fact, says Xu, fences tend to proliferate in areas that appear to have an otherwise low human footprint.

A Worldwide Concern

Globally, fencing is a growing problem for wildlife movement, with a host of impacts that vary depending on the type of fence, the type of ecosystem, and the type of animal. An exponential increase in fencing in East Africa’s Maasai Mara grasslands, for example, is interfering with the huge seasonal migration of wildebeest and other animals.

In Botswana’s Okavango Delta, “veterinary fences”—built to keep cattle free from wildlife diseases—have blocked the passage of zebra, wildebeest, giraffes, buffalo, and other animals through this unique land-locked wetland. The fences have been linked to a multi-decade decline in wildlife populations; animals die trying to cross the fences or are picked off there by poachers. One study found that the Botswana fences also changed the vegetation, with far less woodlands where the wildlife became concentrated.

In Argentina’s Patagonia region, pervasive livestock fences are death traps for guanaco, a type of wild llama, which get stuck on the barbed wire and starve. In just one two-year period on one sheep ranch, scientists recorded 124 guanaco deaths.

In parts of Eastern Europe, there is more border fencing now than there was during the Cold War, and new fences designed to deter human migrants from the Middle East and Africa are slicing through crucial habitat for carnivores like bear, lynx, and wolves. Meanwhile, along the U.S. border with Mexico, the partially constructed border wall, 30 feet high in some places, cuts off migration corridors for jaguars, ocelots, Mexican gray wolves, and many others. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, it potentially threatens more than 90 endangered species.

Doing a Little Good

The Absaroka Fence Initiative (AFI) includes state agencies like Mong’s and federal ones like the Bureau of Land Management, conservation groups such as the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and local landowners. AFI has been organizing fence-removal and modification events over the past year. One in May drew 80 volunteers, who removed three miles of fencing, consisting of nearly 4,000 pounds of wire and posts.

The July effort was smaller, with 25 volunteers recruited from AFI’s ranks rather than the general public. Teams were organized and fanned out to several sites across the ranch. I tagged along with a group that included Xu and Middleton, as well as representatives from TNC and the Mule Deer Foundation, and one of the ranch’s owners, among others. For three hours we slowly made our way south and then east between a road and an irrigated field, removing fasteners that held barbed wire onto posts, clipping and rolling huge lengths of wire, and untangling the strands from thick sagebrush that had grown up and entwined itself around the fencing.

The ranch owner, who asked to remain anonymous, pointed out several well-worn elk trails that the animals used several times a day to cross from the hills down into the valley.

As the sun rose higher the temperature rose with it, and it was a relief when some other volunteers arrived in an ATV with cold drinks. By the time the work was done for the day, the teams had removed two miles of fencing.

For volunteers, this kind of work yields instant gratification, a sense that you are having a direct impact on the land and animals. “There’s a growing recognition of how important these open working lands are,” says Abby Scott, Northwest Wyoming program director for TNC, who says she has been contacted by other groups working on fence removal. “I think we are right on the edge of becoming something bigger.”

Middleton hopes that’s the case. Around 30 miles to the west, Yellowstone National Park is thronged with tourists, many of whom hope to see charismatic megafauna. But those same animals migrate in and out of the park, and without the “out” part, they can’t survive.

“People don’t make connections between the wildlife they want to see in Yellowstone and the conservation work that needs to happen here,” Middleton says.

Cody is in the middle of a post-COVID development boom. People from the coasts who can work from anywhere but are priced out of the likes of Jackson, Wyoming, or Bozeman, Montana, are descending on the little town. Much of the development pressure will likely be right in the middle of pronghorn, deer, and elk migration routes—also key habitat for grizzlies. As we drove back to Cody that day, proud of having opened some new pathways, we passed new homes under construction on a subdivided ranch on the valley floor. They were being built along a recognized animal corridor.

[rjzimmerman]

My editorial comment first: I don’t think this project will be built. Capital, if available, will be too expensive, reflecting the risk of developing a project that is adamantly opposed to environmentalists, notwithstanding support provided by several prominent politicians. I also think the damage to the environment as a consequence of yanking out all the water required to run the hydropower plant will be severe.

Eagle Crest Energy Company, based in Santa Monica, was issued a license In June 2014 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to develop its proposed hydropower plant on an abandoned iron ore mine site near Eagle Mountain, adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park. The license required that construction would commence by June 2016. That didn’t happen, primarily because of a regulatory issue that had not been resolved. In June 2016, FERC extended the construction start deadline from June 2016 to June 19, 2018. When FERC agreed to extend the deadline to June 19, 2018, officials reminded Eagle Crest that under federal law, they could only grant one extension.

Eagle Crest’s “partner” (I don’t understand the relationship) for the project is NextEra, a major power generator which has been shifting its portfolio toward renewable sources of energy. NextEra owns several large solar farms in the California desert, including the 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight project, just a few miles from the Eagle Mountain site

June 19 has come and gone, and construction still hasn’t started. Now what? By law the license should be revoked. Conservationists are pleased.  Politicians are not. Representative Paul Cook, a republican in whose district the project would be located, has introduced legislation to provide relief from the consequences of revocation of the license, by giving the developer an extra six years to start the project.

Here’s a map of the location of the proposed hydropower plant and a schematic showing how it would work. At night, water would be released from the upper reservoir through the water tunnel to the lower reservoir, spinning a turbine, generating electricity. In the daytime, using power from the Desert Sunlight solar plant (to the east, in Desert Center), the water would pumped from the lower reservoir back to the upper reservoir. Where does the water come from? The developer proposed to pump billions of gallons from the aquifer, replenishing when needed, which conservationists contend will seriously adversely affect the sources of water in adjacent desert areas, including Joshua Tree National Park.

Some more facts. The developer says it will be yanking about 100,000 acre feet of water from the aquifer during the life of the project. That is about 32 billion gallons of water. Initially, to fill the reservoirs, the developer would withdraw 9 billion gallons. The project would generate 1,300 megawatts of electricity — enough to supply nearly 1 million homes. It would cost about $2 billion. No purchaser of the electricity generated has stepped up.

After the map and infographic are two aerial photos that I took in the spring of 2017, showing the mine pits that would be the upper and lower reservoir. The upper reservoir is located in the upper right corner of the first photo.

Then an excerpt from the Desert Sun article, reminding us that campaign money speaks very loudly, regardless of political party.

Excerpt from the article:

The bill was introduced by Rep. Paul Cook, a Republican from California's high desert who has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the developer, Eagle Crest Energy Company. Cook's bill would allow federal officials to extend the construction start deadline specifically for Eagle Crest's project until 2024, giving the developer more time to find a buyer for the electricity the facility would generate.

Conservationists are bitterly opposed to Eagle Crest Energy Company's plan to pump billions of gallons of groundwater in the open desert east of the Coachella Valley and use the water to generate electricity in the Eagle Mountain area, on a property as close as 1.5 miles to the edge of the national park. But politicians from both parties have expressed support for Eagle Crest, including Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who put the hydropower plant on a list of priority infrastructure projects, and state Assembly member Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat who represents the eastern Coachella Valley.

Eagle Crest has given $4,000 to Garcia's current re-election campaign, and gave $4,600 to his 2016 campaign even though he was running unopposed. The company and its president, Steve Lowe, have also given $1,000 each this campaign cycle to Republicans Chad Mayes and Jeff Stone, who represent the Coachella Valley in Sacramento, as well as $2,000 to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, campaign-finance records show.

Lowe and his company have also given $4,000 this cycle to Cook, who introduced the bill allowing for the extension of the construction start deadline. (Cook's campaign later refunded $1,000 to Eagle Crest.) Since 2016, the company has released two press releases quoting Cook as supporting its hydropower project.

[your-dietician]

‘Jaw-dropping’ forecast is warning sign of climate change’s future impact in Washington, scientists say

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/jaw-dropping-forecast-is-warning-sign-of-climate-changes-future-impact-in-washington-scientists-say/

‘Jaw-dropping’ forecast is warning sign of climate change’s future impact in Washington, scientists say

It’s a forecast so hot that it left some seasoned meteorologists initially in disbelief.

Weekend temperatures are expected to approach 100 degrees in Seattle, top 109 in Portland and reach 115 in Eastern Washington — threatening to topple historical records and upend people’s lives. 

“Is this just the models being wonky, or is this a real deal?” said Joe Boomgard-Zagrodnik, a postdoctoral researcher in agricultural meteorology at Washington State University, describing his reaction to initial temperature readouts.

When he assessed the data himself, “it was jaw-dropping.” 

Climate scientists and meteorologists say the forthcoming heat wave — which could persist into next week — is a manifestation of climate change and a concerning signal of what they expect more frequently in the Pacific Northwest, which is poorly adapted to extreme heat.

“This is pretty early in the season to be experiencing so many days where temperatures are record breaking. It’s worrisome. It’s just June,” said Deepti Singh, a climate scientist and associate professor at WSU Vancouver. “This should be a warning sign for us that we’re experiencing the impacts of climate change right now.”

The science of heat

The weather pattern bringing scorching hot temperatures to the Northwest is the result of a large ridge of high atmospheric pressure sometimes called a heat dome.

High pressure systems suppress storms, offering clear skies with full sun, and they act as a cap and trap heat near the surface.  

“Air is sinking and it’s warming as it sinks,” Boomgard-Zagrodnik said. 

This weather pattern itself is extreme, but not unprecedented, said Washington State Climatologist Nick Bond. He does not predict that patterns of pressure will change in the coming decades, though he acknowledges that research is still developing. 

What has changed is that the region has warmed nearly 2 degrees since 1900, according to the 2018 national climate assessment by U.S. Global Change Research Program, crafted with input from 13 federal agencies. 

“Now, when you have heat waves, when that baseline has moved up … it’s that much more severe,” Bond said. 

Heat waves are projected to increase in frequency and intensity across the country, according to the climate assessment. 

Researchers say Seattle and other areas of the Pacific Northwest are poorly adapted to extreme heat. Residents are not physically acclimated to heat and fewer than half have home air conditioning, one of the lowest rates among big U.S. cities. 

And nighttime temperatures, which often provided a respite on hot Seattle days, are less reliably comfortable. In the Northwest, overnight low temperatures are actually warming more rapidly than daytime temperatures.

In the Puget Sound region, average minimum temperatures have climbed between 3 and 4 degrees, Bond said.

Because this weekend’s bout with scorching temperatures follows relatively recent rain, Boomgard-Zagrodnik said he expected little relief at night.

“It’s going to be pretty bad, probably, because of the high humidity” and light evening winds, Boomgard-Zagrodnik said, adding that he would be surprised if overnight temperatures dropped below 70 degrees. 

Show caption

Respites from the heat

The heat wave could have profound effects on Washington state. 

“Hospitals in past heat events have seen marked increases in heat stroke, heart attacks and kidney failure,” said Addison Houston, an environmental health mitigation & response planner with Public Health Seattle & King County, citing an analysis of emergency calls in King County. 

Vulnerable people, such as children, older adults and people with underlying health conditions, need access to cooling during heat waves, said Singh, the WSU climate scientist. 

Seattle is offering at least 13 air-conditioned public library branches, 10 wading pools, nine spray parks and eight lifeguarded beaches as spots to cool down.

“Often I hear: Go to the coast or go to the Cascades,” Singh said. ”If you’re well off, sure, that’s an option, but that’s not an option for everybody.” 

Air quality could worsen, Singh said, because heat and sunlight can intensify chemical reactions that create surface-level ozone, which can inflame the respiratory system.

Any power outages would exacerbate difficulties for those who lose electricity for fans or air conditioning, but utility officials in the Pacific Northwest say that’s unlikely to happen.

Officials at the Bonneville Power Administration, which operates the regional transmission system that delivers much of the electricity to regional utilities, say they should be able to get through the peak heat days without service interruptions.

The Portland-based BPA has benefitted from the return to service of the Columbia Generation Station, a nuclear power plant outside of Richland that is the third-largest generator of electricity in the region and had been down for more than 40 days for refueling.

The hydroelectric dams along the Columbia River, which collectively represent the largest source of the region’s power, have shifted from spring to summer operations, which reduces spill for fish and enables more overall power generation.

“At this time, we thoroughly expect to be able to meet the load demands of our customers,” said Kevin Wingert, a BPA spokesman.

Seattle City Light, which owns hydroelectric dams that provide about half of its power, also appears in good shape.

“We expect to be able to meet projected demand with the high temps forecasted for this weekend and are not anticipating impacts to the grid,” said Julie Moore, a Seattle City Light spokesperson.

Puget Sound Energy’s system is “currently performing well,” and the utility plans to meet all demand with its own generation assets, according to Janet Kim, a company spokesperson.

Still, utility officials say conservation always is encouraged and can include opening windows at night to allow cooler air in, limiting use of appliances that generate heat and turning off ceiling fans when you leave a room.

Extreme heat also increases the potential of wildfires and smoke. 

Unlike other parts of the Western U.S., Washington’s mountain ranges built a hearty snowpack over winter.

“There’s still a fair amount of snow above 5,000 feet,” Bond said. But at lower elevations, mixed grasslands on the east flank of the Cascades are “ready to go” and catch fire, he added. 

The high pressure system is expected to quell winds when temperatures are peaking, which reduces the chances of runaway fires, but also cuts back on power generation by wind turbines that are an increasingly important part of the region’s energy mix.

Next week, as the heat wave eases, winds are expected to pick up and fire dangers will increase, with the landscape baked in heat.

With the robust snowpack, irrigators on the big river systems, such as the Columbia and Yakima, should have sufficient water for orchards and vineyards, Bond said. But portions of Washington remain in a drought, which is particularly severe in the southeastern corner of the state. Crops that often are not irrigated, like wheat and barley, already are suffering.

Bond said climate models are at consensus that the remaining summer months will be warmer than average. He expects stream temperatures on some of the state’s smaller rivers to become “dangerously warm” for salmon and trout later in the summer. 

Disparate impacts

The forthcoming heat event won’t be felt evenly. 

Boomgard-Zagrodnik expects the broad heat dome to suppress large-scale wind patterns, such as the onshore flow typical to the region. But with Puget Sound waters still relatively cool, local winds and geography could create huge differences in how people feel over the weekend.

“Islands and uneven coastlines — the topography and where you’re located relative to the water is going to make a big difference in whether you’ll have the chance to get up to 95, 100 or more, or whether you’ll get a nice breeze in the afternoon,” he said. 

The Whidbey and San Juan Islands are likely to pick up a sea breeze, whereas areas south of Seattle, like Olympia, will be shielded from the cooling flow.  

In Portland, the National Weather Service forecasts temperatures rising to 104 degrees on Saturday, reaching 109 on Sunday before easing back to 104 on Monday. 

This early summer heat, if it reached those levels, would blow away records for three consecutive days. Portland’s all-time high is 107, reached twice in August 1981 and once in July 1965. The record for June is 102.

In urban areas, heat does not affect everyone equally. Analysis of temperature records in King County on a hot day last July showed heat impacts varied widely in communities mere miles apart. Trees mitigated heat while industry and dense buildings intensified it.

Communities affected by other environmental health concerns, such as poverty and pollution, are among the hottest communities, the mapping suggests.

Scientists for decades have warned that our reliance on fossil fuels is warming our world. Now, they say, we’re taking the heat.  

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[fatehbaz]

Two of my favorite maps of forest density in North America

Map 1 - Total Tree Presence - 2016

Nearly all tree-range maps share two characteristics: they show a single species at a time, and they show each species's range as a solid-colored blob — like this. But for most people, the species is less meaningful than the genus — pine rather than white pine, red pine, and so on — and trees are never uniformly distributed within their range. (...)

In addition to the absolute and relative distribution of the twenty most dominant tree types, I'm also showing higher-level patterns: species diversity, deciduosity, and non-American trees. The usual split between eastern and western forests is immediately apparent, but so is the less well-known wedge of deciduous trees, which stretches from the Great Plains savanna and Mississippi alluvial plain to the forests of southern New England. (...) Data based on kNN modeling from the US Forest Service (2013) and the Canadian Forest Service (2014, 2016). Discontinuities are due to differences in metrics, modeling, and species selection.

Map by Bill Rankin.

Map 2 - Aboveground Woody Biomass  - 2011

The National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD) is the largest high-resolution map of forest biomass yet assembled. Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center created the map by combining satellite data with precise ground-based measurements.

“Resource managers need to see forests down to the disturbance resolution—the scale at which parking lots or developments or farms are carved out by deforestation,” says Josef Kellndorfer of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC). His research team recently took it down to that level when they released the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD) for the United States in April 2011. Over six years, Kellndorfer, Wayne Walker, and their Woods Hole team collaborated with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to assemble a national forest map from space-based radar and optical sensors, computer modeling, and a massive amount of ground-based data. They divided the country into 66 mapping zones and ended up mapping 265 million segments of the American land surface. Kellndorfer estimates that the mapping database includes measurements of about five million trees.

Map by Robert Simmon using data from Woods Hole Research Center.

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The local areas with the most trees and biomass in North America north of the Rio Grande include:

- temperate rainforest of the coastal Pacific Northwest - the inland temperate rainforest (“interior cedar-hemlock zone”) of Idaho, Montana, and eastern British Columbia - the western slope of the Sierra Nevada - the “Great Lakes / St. Lawrence mixed forest” - New England - the crest of the Appalachians