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International Departures  

Kieran Williams Photography posted a photo:

 
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Day 245 of 366: 6 am Chime  

Vanda Ralevska posted a photo:

© Vanda Ralevska
Website | Facebook | Tumblr

What is the chance of turning up on Westminster Bridge as Big Ben starts its 6 am chime and there is nobody around, not even a car? A perfect moment to be captured and remembered.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/19/494648888/feds-to-set-rules-on-self-driving-vehicles?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
Feds To Set Rules On Self-Driving Vehicles  

Transportation officials say they will unveil a sweeping plan to make sure the federal government is involved in ensuring the safety of self-driving vehicles.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/19/494574944/new-yorks-use-of-phone-alert-shines-spotlight-on-wireless-emergency-system?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
New York's Use Of Phone Alert Shines Spotlight On Wireless Emergency System  

"WANTED," blared New York's alert. "Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28-year-old male." This year, nonfederal authorities have sent as many wireless emergency alerts as in the previous three years put together.

 
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http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/19/494279204/pundits-vs-machine-predicting-controversies-in-the-presidential-race?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
Pundits Vs. Machine: Predicting Controversies In The Presidential Race  

How well can a computer program predict which controversies around Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are likely to re-emerge in the coming weeks? Two human pundits agree to compete against the machine.

 
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http://www.npr.org/2016/09/19/494538482/npr-podcast-how-i-built-this-instagram?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
How Luck And Intuition Helped To Build Instagram  

David Greene talks to Guy Raz — host of the new NPR podcast "How I Built This" — about how the founders of the photo-sharing app Instagram got their business off the ground.

 
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http://www.npr.org/2016/09/19/493923472/the-night-instagram-launched-it-crashed-but-didnt-burn?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=technology  
The Night Instagram Launched, It Crashed, But Didn't Burn  

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched their photo-sharing app with a server that crashed every other hour. Despite a chaotic start, Instagram became one of the most popular apps in the world.

 
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http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/20/apple_seeks_patent_for_paper_bag_you_read_that_right_a_paper_bag/  
Apple seeks patent for paper bag - you read that right, a paper bag  

Not all bags, just one very cunning bag with planet-friendly gussets and folds

Apple is trying to patent a paper bag.…

 
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Pluto's emitting X-rays, and NASA doesn't quite know how  

The best words in science: 'That's odd'

The Chandra space telescope has spotted X-rays emanating from Pluto.…

 
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DSC_2828  

photographer695 posted a photo:

London West End Soho Sunset Strip Striptease Cabaret Show

 
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DSC_2827  

photographer695 posted a photo:

London West End Soho Sunset Strip Striptease Cabaret Show

 
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http://twitter.com/vickystarkinc/status/778115682525450243 
What to Expect at CITES: A Sneak Peak at Upcoming Endangered Species Meeting https://t.co/syIM0JNgvZ via @NatGeo 
https://t.co/syIM0JNgvZ 

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http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/20/swat_robot_disarms_shooter/  
ROBO-PLOD! 'Droid snatches scumbag's shotgun in standoff  

Californian Elmer Fudd foiled by mechanical means

A stealthy robot run by a Los Angeles SWAT team has successfully disarmed a murder suspect by sneaking up behind him and stealing his weapon.…

 
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http://twitter.com/SweettoothGU/status/778112457353166848 
What to Expect at CITES: A Sneak Peak at Upcoming Endangered Species Meeting https://t.co/ARMEOhv06u # via @NatGeo 
https://t.co/ARMEOhv06u 

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http://twitter.com/louisa1000/status/778110361669165058 
What to Expect at CITES: A Sneak Peak at Upcoming Endangered Species Meeting https://t.co/EUQqda5E2V via @NatGeo #citescop17 #CoP17 
https://t.co/EUQqda5E2V 

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http://www.ozy.com/true-story/can-you-ever-forgive-your-parents-for-splitting-up/70960  
Can You Ever Forgive Your Parents for Splitting Up?  
At 13, Greg Gerke's father walked out on his mother, and he chose to walk away from his father.  
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http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/all-611-of-chimezie-metu-could-be-headed-to-the-nba/71598  
All 6'11" of Chimezie Metu Could Be Headed to the NBA  
When he went toe-to-toe with Hassan Whiteside, the muscled mega-man of the Miami Heat, he stood equal - at least for a moment.  
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/hypocrisy-they-name-is-cl_b_12082480.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green  
Hypocrisy, They Name Is Climate Change Denial  
Earlier this month, my co-author Tom Toles (the Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post) and I published our new book: The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy.

Some great early reviews of the book can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Tom and I had a commentary excerpting parts of the book in yesterday's (Sunday) Washington Post. In addition to calling out the most prominent current climate change denier of them all--Donald Trump--we profile eight other leading climate change deniers in the world of politics, individuals whom--as the commentary notes--have been responsible for "clouding the climate change debate" and stalling action by participating in "a campaign of deliberate misinformation".



Among the Rogues Gallary of leading climate change deniers are (from left to right, top to bottom): congressman Joe Barton (R-TX), fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, self-styled "Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg, scientist-turned-denier-for-hire Fred Singer, the inimitable Sarah Palin, conservative funders Charles and David Koch (aka the Koch Brothers), and "swift-boat" architect Marc Morano.

A notable honorable mentionee is James Inhofe (R-OK). Though Inhofe didn't make the Rogues Gallery, he gets the attention he deserves in the book. From chapter 6 of the book (entitled "Hypocrisy, They Name is Climate Change Denial"):

Consider Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a recipient of extensive funding over the years from the fossil fuel interests including ExxonMobil and the Koch Brothers . He is perhaps best known for declaring that climate change is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and for introducing a snowball on the U.S. Senate floor as ostensible proof against global warming.

And Inhofe of course gets the full TTT (Tom Toles Treatment):


When it comes to hypocrisy and irony, Inhofe is truly king. Under the heading of "you can't make this stuff up", there is for example this particular episode that we recount in the book:

Back in July 2011, Inhofe was selected as keynote speaker at the Heartland Institute's annual global warming denier "conference". He had to cancel out at the last minute however. He had grown ill swimming in a lake back in his home state of Oklahoma. The lake was suffering from an algal bloom as a result of the unprecedented heat and drought that Oklahoma experienced that summer --an event that scientists have determined was tied to climate change.

Though he quipped afterward, "the environment strikes back", he was obviously undeterred in his climate change-denying ways, remaining one of the most prominent advocates for fossil fuel interests in the U.S. Senate.

Which, finally, brings us to Inhofe's home-town newspaper, The Oklahoman, named the "Worst newspaper in America" by the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) for "conformance to the right-wing political views" of the paper's owners and its "alleged racist hiring practices" among other things.

The Oklahoman has an unusually atrocious record on all things environment. As CJR notes:

Where else can you find a big-city editorial page -- run by a Christian Coalition devotee plucked from Washington D.C.'s right-wing Free Congress Foundation -- that..demonizes..environmentalists...

.

And it hardly comes as a surprise that The Oklahoman, like Inhofe, is a major promoter of climate change denialism, acting as thinly veiled advocates for the fossil fuel lobby that dominates their state rather than a conduit of objective news for their readers.

So how low could they go, you might add? This is how low:

Stan Glantz has been called the "Ralph Nader of the anti-tobacco movement". He has led the effort to expose how tobacco interests hid the detrimental effects of their product on human health from the public, and has advocated staunchly for policies to reduce smoking.

Glantz has explicitly likened the fossil fuel industry's campaign to deny the science of human-caused climate change to the earlier campaign by the tobacco industry to deny the adverse health impacts of their product. Same modus operandi, even some of the same paid deniers-for-hire (like Fred Singer listed in the Rogues Gallery above).

Just last week, Glantz published a new high-profile study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) exposing how yet another industry tried to hide the adverse health impacts of their product. Glantz and colleagues found internal documents revealing that the junk food industry paid scientists to "play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead".

So, how does The Oklahoman cover this development? You guessed it: by turning the entire matter on its head, attempting to use it as an opportunity to blame the government rather than the powerful corporate interests who were exposed by Glantz' research. And, for good measure, they attempt to use the episode to attack the science of climate change! Indeed, they attack me specifically, resurrecting untruthful climate change denier talking points about the the discredited 'climategate' affair, and the widely debunked attacks on the famous "hockey stick" curve my co-authors and I published in the late 1990s (if you want to learn the truth behind all of this, consider reading my previous book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars).

It is possible that such a twisted viewpoint, wherein an obvious example of industry malfeasance is used to attack the scientific community, including climate scientists specifically, could arise purely from profound ignorance, rather than cynicism and malice. Yes, anything is possible.

But in the end, we see that Hypocrisy: Thy Name is Truly Climate Change Denial.

Thy Nickname might just be The Oklahoman.

__________

Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Pennsylvania State University and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change, and just out in September, The Madhouse Effect, with Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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"The road forward for these shark species will likely be bumpy, especially when compared to the listing of five... https://t.co/O2hixCF471 
https://t.co/O2hixCF471 

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/connecting-the-dots-between-the-opioid-epidemic-and-philanthropy_b_11996752.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science  
Connecting The Dots Between The Opioid Epidemic And Philanthropy  
The Sackler family is justly famous in one way -- and justly notorious in two others.

Arthur, Raymond, and Mortimer Sackler (and members of their families) have been among the world's greatest contributors to good causes -- particularly in the arts and sciences. The Sackler name is prominently displayed at the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim, Tate, Louvre, and Harvard Museums; at various medical and science facilities at Berkeley, Tufts, MIT,  Oxford, King's College, University Of London, and Tel Aviv University; at the beautiful Kew Gardens; and in many other important institutions in the US and abroad.

The Sacklers are on the short list of the world's greatest and most honored philanthropists. Family members have received the very highest awards and titles, bestowed in many different countries, by among many others, the Queen of England.

The great honor that comes from Sackler giving is tainted by the great dishonor in how their fortunes have been accumulated. Sackler notoriety comes from the two unsavory sources of their wealth.

The lesser evil was inventing drug company marketing; the greater evil was pushing opioid prescription painkillers that now kill close to 20,000 people a year in the U.S. alone.

The Sackler fortune is enormous and self-made. Even with all their previous generous philanthropy, the Sackler family still retains a net worth of $13 billion -- more than the much more famous, old money families like the Rockefellers, the Busches, and the Mellons.

Strikingly, none of the Sackler family fortune was inherited. The Sackler brothers all began their careers as psychiatrists, an unpromising profession when it comes to accumulating vast wealth. But the Sacklers were enterprising, energetic, and early on displayed remarkable business savvy. They made their initial fortune by inventing many of the aggressive marketing techniques that turned the pharmaceutical industry into a profit machine. They taught drug companies how to conduct the full court selling of drugs to doctors and how to gear sales pitches directly to consumers.

One can heartily dislike the pharma marketing machine and disapprove of the Sackler role in creating it -- but still recognize it as within moral bounds. It is much harder, however, to justify the Sackler role in creating the prescription opioid epidemic.

In 1952, the Sacklers purchased a small drug company -- Purdue Pharma -- and have since turned it into a giant cash cow. In the past 20 years, the company has generated more than than $35 billion in the U.S. and about an equal amount in other countries.

The star attraction was OxyContin, a time-released, preparation of oxycodone, that was misleadingly marketed as addiction-proof. In a later blog, we will go into detail on all the ways Purdue pushed opioids and created the deadliest drug epidemic in our history. Suffice to say, the company was only marginally less ruthless than the drug cartels and is now responsible for at least twice as many deaths per year.

The Sackler family seeks publicity and fame when it comes to their philanthropy, but keeps a very low profile when it comes to the notoriety of OxyContin gains. Thus far, they have largely succeeded in avoiding blame for the devastating epidemic of prescription opioid addiction that they caused and continue to profit from. This despite the fact that nine family members are currently on the Purdue board. There are encouraging signs, however, that Sackler impunity may soon change.

Richard Sackler has been the most active family member directing Purdue affairs and has left his fingerprints all over the OxyContin disaster. In 1971, shortly after graduating medical school, he began work at Purdue and has held just about every important leadership position in the company -- from directing its research and marketing to serving as president and co-chair of the board.

Of great public interest, Richard Sackler was recently deposed in a lawsuit for the first time -- in regard to Kentucky's claims charging Purdue with continued illegal marketing of OxyContin. It is easy to imagine the questions he must have been asked: What did you know about the addicting impact of OxyContin? When did you know it? What have you done to cause or prevent Purdue's misleading the medical profession and the public? What do your internal company documents show?

Current efforts to make Sackler's testimony public are crucial in strides to make the family accountable for the actions of the company and perhaps might result in the clawing back of some significant portion of their ill-gotten gains.

Sackler's deposition is one of several sealed documents that a Kentucky judge ordered to be released to the public at the request of STAT. Purdue said it will appeal the ruling, meaning the documents will be withheld, pending the outcome of the appeal.

For at least a decade, everyone knew OxyContin was misleadingly marketed and causing great damage. The $600+ million dollar fine levied in 2007 as punishment for Purdue's criminal activity would surely have been a wake up call for its company co-chairman. It is hard to believe that Richard Sackler can offer even a shred of plausible deniability.

If the Sacklers really are philanthropists, and not just seekers of fame, they should want to do the right thing and help those they have hurt.

Purdue is a privately held company and all its profits go to the Sacklers in one form or another. In any fair world, Purdue and the Sacklers should be hit with multibillion dollar fines -- the proceeds devoted to the compensation and rehabilitation of the millions of people they have harmed and to the reimbursement of the states (and their taxpayers) for the enormous public costs occasioned by the opioid epidemic.

It makes no sense to allow the Sacklers free rein to accumulate ever more I'll gotten profits and to launder them with donations to museums and medical centers -- in the service of glorifying and cleansing the Sackler name. The family should be forced to disgorge a significant portion of its fortune to help clean up the opioid mess they created.

If the Sacklers really are philanthropists, and not just seekers of fame, they should want to do the right thing and would come forward now to offer help to those they have harmed. 

---

This article was originally published on Recovery Brands' Pro Talk/Pro Corner.


Allen Frances is a professor emeritus at Duke University and was the chairman of the DSM-IV task force.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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http://twitter.com/greenvegansbook/status/778044257810587648 
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https://t.co/aEKccfVnsn 

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||| by Giulia Monacolli  

||| by Giulia Monacolli

Giulia Monacolli: Photos

 
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https://www.newscientist.com/article/2106369-chinas-fancy-for-aquatic-cocaine-could-wipe-out-rare-porpoise/  
China's fancy for ‘aquatic cocaine' could wipe out rare porpoise  
Illegal trade in the swim bladder of the totoaba fish fuels fishing practices that may drive the critically endangered vaquita to extinction  
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