Sonic weapon used on peaceful protestors

As reported by AP News:

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian officials denied Sunday that the country’s security forces used a military-grade sonic weapon to disperse and scare protesters at a huge anti-government rally in the capital.

Opposition officials and Serbian rights groups claimed that the widely banned acoustic weapon that emits a targeted beam to temporarily incapacitate people was used during the protest Saturday. They say they will file charges with the European Court of Human Rights and domestic courts against those who ordered the attack.

Serbia has not denied that it has the acoustic device in its arsenal.

At least 100,000 people descended on Belgrade on Saturday for a mass rally seen as a culmination of months-long protests against Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government.

The rally was part of a nationwide anti-corruption movement that erupted after a concrete canopy collapsed at a train station in Serbia’s north in November, killing 15 people...

Footage from the rally show people standing during 15 minutes of silence for the rail station disaster while suddenly experiencing a whooshing sound that immediately triggered panic and a brief stampede.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene said people started scrambling for cover, leaving the middle of the downtown street almost empty as they started falling over each other.

Those exposed to the weapon experience sharp ear pain, disorientation and panic, military experts say. Prolonged exposure can cause eardrum ruptures and irreversible hearing damage. 

The "sonic cannon" is an LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device).  Discussion at the woahdude subreddit included a link to this video on how to defend oneself against acoustic weapons:

I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that the U.S. and other Western regimes have these weapons as well.

Addendum:  this from The Guardian:

"Vučić has cultivated Donald Trump, approving the construction of a Trump hotel in Belgrade, and on Thursday gave an interview to the US president’s son Don Jr, who echoed the Serbian government’s unsubstantiated claims that the protest movement was fuelled by foreign funding.

The younger Trump suggested the protests had been “weaponised … to incite, potentially, a revolution”, airing conspiracy theories about how the protests were organised and paid for."

White supremacy presented as religion

"In rural Minnesota, a fringe Heathen group known as the Asatru Folk Assembly has purchased a local church – and membership is strictly whites-only. They worship Nordic, pre-Christian gods and they call themselves a 'folk religion' that only accepts those with northern European ancestry. Their racially exclusive ideology is protected by the first amendment. 

Amudalat Ajasa visits the church to understand how it is gaining influence across the country and to meet the anti-racist Heathens fighting back to reclaim their religion."

I couldn't watch this all the way through, but I'll post it because it's important to know about the existence of groups like the Asatru Folk Assembly.

Massive oil spill headed toward the Arctic Ocean

This is not the massive oil spill off the California coast.  And not the hurricane-induced one in the Gulf of Mexico.  This is another massive oil spill, as reported by The Siberian Times:

A huge flow of diesel has reached stunning Lake Pyasino in the Arctic after the recent accident at a thermal power plant near Norilsk, it is believed.

This indicates the failure of initial attempts to contain the toxic pollution, and with the lake linked by the Pyasina River to the Kara Sea there are now fears much worse is to come...

On 29 May, diesel leaked into the Ambarnaya and Daldykan rivers from a fuel tank weakened by permafrost thawing at Power Plant No. 3 of Norilsk-Taymyr Energy Company (NTEC), which is part of Norilsk Nickel and provides electricity for the Norilsk industrial district.

Disturbing pictures and footage of the discoloured toxic rivers were revealed by the media. It is now clear that early hopes of stemming the pollution have failed, and the scale of the ecological catastrophe is becoming clearer. 

The quantity fuel released mainly into the river system above the Arctic Circle would fit into 350 train wagons.

The lake under immediate threat is of glacial origin and is some 20 km from Norilsk. The only river flowing out of it - the Pyasina passes through the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve and flows into the Kara Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean... 

Disturbingly, she revealed that on the Ambarnaya, beyond the booms, the concentration varies from 80 to 116 times the maximum limits...

This sounds incredible but it was true: the state’s own local ecological watchdog officials were not permitted to visit the scene of an environmental emergency of huge proportions. 

‘They told us we must get permission from the chiefs of Norilsk Fuel and Energy Company, but we did not have much time,’ said Vasily Ryabinin. ‘We asked them: ‘Whose interests are you protecting, guys?’ But they did not allow us to enter. ..

‘The main problem is that the leak was not of oil itself, but of the product of its processing - diesel.  ‘An oil slick is held on the surface of the water, and diesel sinks to the bottom and mixes with water and silt. In addition, the chemical components of diesel fuel are much more toxic. 

‘Booms will not be able to completely stop the diesel, part of the oil product will still go beyond and then settle to the bottom. For complete cleaning, it is necessary to completely remove the soil from the bottom of water bodies. So far it is about at least collecting all the spots from the surface. 

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to reader Kolo Jezdec, who found this followup report by Greenpeace, which included this ominous map - 

Tampa football fans ain't afraid of no coronavirus

Want a cough drop in the hospital? That will be $10

I could spend all day blogging endless examples of the dystopia of the modern American medical care delivery system  (not the people... just the processes involved).

The cough drop example comes from a Reddit post where the discussion thread includes a lot of ranting but also some informed perspectives on why such things happen.

Harper's "Weekly Review"

Citing an unspecified “imminent” threat, President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the most powerful military official in Iran. Soleimani, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi Shiite militia leader who provided the United States with significant assistance in the fight against the Islamic State, and at least half a dozen others, were killed when a drone strike targeted their convoy outside Baghdad International Airport. After top Democratic leaders alleged that they had not received advance warning of the strike, Trump told Congress that he would notify them of any future military action through “Media Posts,” and it was reported that, days before the strike, Trump had told a group of guests at Mar-a-Lago to expect “big” action to be taken against Iran “soon.” Vice President Mike Pence, who in 2004 told Congress that “weapons of mass destruction have been found” in Iraq, tweeted false claims that Soleimani had been complicit in the 9/11 attacks, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted a video he claimed showed Iraqis “dancing in the street for freedom,” though a later eyewitness report put the number of dancers at 30 to 40 out of a gathering of thousands. Soleimani’s funeral drew crowds estimated to number in the millions, the largest seen in Iran since the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, promised “forceful revenge”; Trump threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, which is a war crime; the Iraqi parliament voted to expel U.S. troops from the country; the United States military diverted resources away from the war on the Islamic State to protect U.S. interests and personnel in the region; and Iran announced that it would no longer abide by the 2015 nuclear deal’s limits on uranium enrichment. In Washington State, more than sixty Iranians and Iranian Americans were held up at the border for up to ten hours by the Department of Homeland Security. “This is a bad time to be an Iranian,” one agent told them.

Australian bushfires had reportedly burned across as many as 15 million acres of land, causing the midday sky to turn black and red and creating weather patterns of fire tornadoes and thunderstorms, and the government announced its largest military deployment since World War II, for firefighting and evacuating tens of thousands of people from the southeastern coast. Prime Minister Scott Morrison assured the nation that “there’s no better place to raise kids anywhere on the planet,” lamented the “tragedy” of spoiled milk caused by power outages from the fires, and was booed out of a meeting with bushfire victims who called him a “scumbag.” Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott complained on an Israeli radio show that the world is “in the grip of a climate cult.” In Newcastle, New South Wales, an Australian magpie was filmed mimicking emergency sirens, and on the southern coast, the population of Eden was evacuated. A woman disembarking a plane in Canberra, where the air quality was rated poorer than in New Delhi, went into respiratory distress and died. Amid a massive cold wave in northern India, temperatures plummeted to their lowest levels since record-keeping began, in 1901; regions of Africa and the Middle East were being struck by the most severe locust plague in 25 years; and Russia published a climate-change plan that, in part, aims to “use the advantages” of warmer temperatures to Russia’s economic benefit.

The FAA launched an investigation of reports of groups of up to 15 drones flying in formation over parts of rural Colorado and Nebraska. “These drones have made residents in our community very nervous and anxious,” wrote the Yuma County, Colorado, sheriff. “People do not like the unknown as it upsets the balance of our lives.” Newly released documents revealed that the Canadian military struggled to deal with Pokémon Go players trying to gain access to restricted facilities. “Plse advise the Commissionaires that apparently Fort Frontenac is both a Pokégym and a Pokéstop. I will be completely honest in that I have not idea what that is [sic],” wrote one Ontario official in an email. Former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, whose demotion for posing with the body of a dead prisoner in Iraq was reversed by Donald Trump this fall and who was accused by fellow SEALs of murdering that prisoner as well as killing an old man and a young girl with sniper fire, was reported to have launched a “coastal lifestyle brand with an edge” called Salty Frog Gear, and to have been endorsing muscle-building supplements called Total War and Double Tap on his Instagram account. Benjamin Netanyahu accidentally referred to Israel as a “nuclear power” at a cabinet meeting, then explained that he meant to say “energy power,” and two undercover Israeli police officers disguised as Palestinians were beaten and pepper-sprayed by teenage Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Detroit’s fire commissioner investigated 18 firefighters who posed for photographs in front of a burning house on New Year’s Eve to celebrate a retirement. An English teacher in Whitewater, Wisconsin, was fined after admitting he had defecated in Natureland Park five days a week for the past two years. “Teachers are the people that are supposed to be giving our kids an education,” said one park attendee. “Not using our parks as a bathroom.” The Newseum, Washington’s museum dedicated to the history of journalism, closed.

 

Footnoted version with links to citation sources.

Public school teachers as scavengers

From a report in the Washington Post:

Like nearly all teachers in America, Becky Cranson spends her own money to buy supplies for her students. Working in a rural school district in Michigan, where 70 percent of her middle-school students come from low-income families, she shells out at least $1,000 a year for pencils, books, journals, glue sticks, tissues and much more...

“I am a scavenger,” said Cranson, who teaches English at Bronson Jr./Sr. High School in Bronson, Mich. “My friend who works in the Michigan [Department of Natural Resources] office gives me their used binders, and my husband brings me furniture and supplies that the hospital he works at is throwing away.”..

Federal data show that more than 9 in 10 educators spend an average of nearly $500 a year on supplies, but The Post review revealed that the problem is deeper, with teachers going to great lengths to secure resources for their classrooms... The vast majority of teachers who responded to The Post said they could not be identified by name or even district because they feared retaliation from bosses. One New England teacher spoke for many: “Please keep my name anonymous as I love teaching and would hate to face disciplinary action for simply being honest.”

They told similar stories about their search for supplies: paper and pencils and pens, erasers, markers and notebooks, tissue, furniture, books, menstrual pads, clothes, shoes, musical instruments, paint and clay, crayons, books, scissors, bulletin boards, food...

The time-sucking and sometimes soul-crushing process, teachers said, is one of the fundamental indignities they face. Asked to do the work of counselors, social workers, librarians, security officers and coaches, teachers earned on average 21.4 percent a week less than other comparably educated professionals in 2018, one study found. Yet they still are expected to buy supplies...

Kathryn Vaughn, an elementary school teacher in rural Tennessee north of Memphis, said her district provides her with $200 a year for supplies and two boxes of copy paper to teach visual arts to about 800 students from low-income families.

The recycling of old binders and furniture is good, but it's easy to see why some people feel that American politicians don't want to have a well-educated public.

"Overtourism"

Staggering graph in a screencap from an Atlantic video about overtourism. 

And note the vertical scale is not truncated for emphasis (the x-axis is zeroed).  I'm old enough to remember the left side of this graph.  It was a different world.

Not, in my view, a "feel good story"

"Medical tourism" goes to the next level

Most Americans are familiar with the concept of "medical tourism" - traveling to another country to get necessary care at more affordable prices.  An article in Kaiser Health News shows how far this concept can be taken.  The patient from Mississippi traveled to Mexico, as did a surgeon from Wisconsin.  Her total knee replacement prosthesis was made in the United States.  And the entire process was paid for by her American medical insurance company.

The hospital costs of the American medical system are so high that it made financial sense for both a highly trained orthopedist from Milwaukee and a patient from Mississippi to leave the country and meet at an upscale private Mexican hospital for the surgery.

Ferguson gets her health coverage through her husband’s employer, Ashley Furniture Industries. The cost to Ashley was less than half of what a knee replacement in the United States would have been. That’s why its employees and dependents who use this option have no out-of-pocket copayments or deductibles for the procedure; in fact, they receive a $5,000 payment from the company, and all their travel costs are covered...

Parisi, a graduate of the Mayo Clinic, is one of about 40 orthopedic surgeons in the United States who have signed up with NASH to travel to Cancun on their days off to treat American patients. NASH is betting that having an American surgeon will alleviate concerns some people have about going outside the country, and persuade self-insured American employers to offer this option to their workers to save money and still provide high-quality care...

The high prices charged at American hospitals make it relatively easy to offer surgical bargains in Mexico: In the United States, knee replacement surgery costs an average of about $30,000 — sometimes double or triple that — but at Galenia, it is only $12,000, said Dr. Gabriela Flores Teón, medical director of the facility.

The standard charge for a night in the hospital is $300 at Galenia, Flores said, compared with $2,000 on average at hospitals in the United States.

The other big savings is the cost of the medical device — made by a subsidiary of the New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson — used in Ferguson’s knee replacement surgery. The very same implant she would have received at home costs $3,500 at Galenia, compared with nearly $8,000 in the United States, Flores said...

“It’s been a great experience,” she said two days after the surgery. “Even if I had to pay, I would come back here because it’s just a different level of care — they treat you like family."

When CPR is a "huge mistake"

"This is what end of life looks like in the U.S. My wife had insurance she paid $500 per month for. The bottom two bills are for $400,000 the rest are between $50 to $5000. Sudden cardiac arrest at 47. I did CPR. Huge mistake. She lived two weeks in intensive care then told she was brain dead.?

This is not a "feel-good story"

Absolutely incredible!

Sweet Logan and his family came in to the Cedartown Home Depot with a mission. They were worried their insurance wouldn’t pay for the walker Logan needed, and had read about how to make one out of PVC piping online. Well, as soon as The Home Depot associates heard that, they told Logan’s family not to worry, they were on it! Those workers built the walker in no time and had Logan wheeling around the store with a HUGE smile on his face. It’s acts of kindness like this that make our world worth living in, and I am so thankful for those workers who took time out of their own day to make this family’s dream a reality!

There are lots of stories like this.  Acts of kindness to provide medical care.  Crowdfunding to pay for a hospital visit.  These stories shouldn't have to exist.

Let's go back a bit.  The child has hypotonia (a muscle disorder).  But the family "were worried their insurance wouldn’t pay for the walker."  Another version from Good Morning America: "Moore said the insurance process to get Logan a walker is a long one, and he has not yet been approved. While waiting, the Moores watched YouTube instruction videos on how to make one for Logan."

Why do Americans put up with this bullshit??   Why do we allow ourselves to be bullied and robbed by a gargantuan, soulless, complex medical insurance system?  This boy didn't need a bone marrow transplant or tailored gene therapy.  All he needed was a simple device made of aluminum or plastic with some old tennis balls on the bottom, for fuck's sake.

Go ahead and praise the Home Depot employees, but after searching for a long time this morning, I didn't find a single news source that cited the name of the godforsaken medical insurance company that created this dystopian nightmare.  Report about them, interview their president, call this travesty what it is, and remind the American people that they can change this system at the ballot box.

Addendum:  For a superb compilation of similar stories, see this article at FAIR.  With a hat tip to reader escapefromwisconsin.