Global warming Bezos’ Washington Post smears Sanders

This 26 February 2020 video from the USA is called Washington Post Desperate Smear: Bernie [Sanders] & Trump Both Deny Climate Change.

This is a half-truth, half blatant lie by the Washington Post.

The half about climate denialist President Donald Trump is true.

And yes, besides Trump, there is at least one (actually, more than one) other well-known person who is a climate crook.

That other person is not Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders, who has a better plan against global warming than any of the other Democratic party presidential candidates.

That other person is the richest man in the world. He is Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post and of Amazon.

Bezos, unlike Trump, does not run around screaming openly that climate change is supposedly a hoax. But his business empire contributes massively to it. Bezos is up to his eyeballs immersed in Big Oil. Bezos promotes wars, major causes of climate change and other pollution. Bezos finances right-wing pseudoscientists and politicians who do the dirty climate denialist work for him. Bezos tries to oppress, silence and sack Amazon workers who strike and speak out against Bezos’ contributions to global warming.

Middle spotted woodpecker in Dutch Alphen

This 27 February 2020 video shows a middle spotted woodpecker in the Dutch town Alphen in the western South Holland province.

This is special, as this is an eastern species in the Netherlands. In South Holland, it had only been seen twice before.

Luuk Punt made this video.

Coronavirus and global health care

This 27 February 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Mike Pence Attempts To Fix Trump’s Coronavirus Gaffes

What is Trump doing about the threat of the coronavirus in the United States? John Iadarola, Emma Vigeland, and Jayar Jackson, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.

TRUMP TAPS PENCE TO LEAD CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE President Donald Trump tapped Vice President Mike Pence to lead the country’s response to the coronavirus and told Americans that the risk of infection remained low, despite warnings from public health officials that it is only a matter of time before the disease spreads in the U.S. “We’re very, very ready for this, for anything, whether it’s going to be a breakout of larger proportions or whether it’s not,” Trump said. [HuffPost]

‘SCIENCE DENIER’ IN CHARGE OF OUTBREAK Critics are pointing out that Pence, tapped by Trump to lead the U.S. coronavirus response, once called global warming a “myth”, downplayed the health risks of smoking, and as governor of Indiana, led his state into an HIV crisis by cutting funding to Planned Parenthood and initially opposing needle exchange programs. In addition, Pence has no medical experience. [HuffPost]

Mike Pence’s Defining Moment As Governor? Enabling An HIV Outbreak: here.

By Alex Lantier in France:

The coronavirus pandemic and the need for global socialized medicine

27 February 2020

The coronavirus outbreak that began last December in Wuhan, China, has escalated into a global pandemic, requiring a coordinated international response to avert catastrophe. A planned, rational deployment of worldwide medical and industrial resources is essential to keep the disease from potentially claiming millions of lives.

The danger of an outbreak of infectious, untreatable and potentially fatal viral outbreaks causing pneumonia has been known for decades. Two different coronaviruses caused regional outbreaks, SARS in 2002–2004 mainly in China, and MERS in 2012–2014 mainly in Saudi Arabia. However, while SARS claimed 774 lives after infecting 8,000 people, and MERS killed 886 after infecting 2519 over two years, the highly contagious Wuhan coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading worldwide, infecting 81,296 and killing 2,770 in barely two months.

Major outbreaks are surging not only in East Asia, but in Europe and the Middle East, with 383 cases in Italy and at least 139 in Iran. China has managed to significantly slow the disease’s spread, limiting the number of cases to 78,073, with draconian measures to place hundreds of millions of people under lockdown and shut down much of its economy. However, it is apparent we are only in the initial stages of a global epidemic.

Initially, officials in the United States and internationally tried to downplay the new virus. Even yesterday, President Donald Trump—speaking for the broad sections of the financial aristocracy who look no further than their stock portfolios—took to Twitter to ignorantly berate the media for trying “to make the Caronavirus [sic] look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape!”

On Wednesday night, Trump gave a rambling news conference in which he alternatively downplayed the severity of the disease, shamelessly praised himself and his government for their response, and denounced his political opponents.

Such ignorant and irresponsible comments notwithstanding, this coronavirus is a highly dangerous and deadly disease. Fully eight percent (2,770) of the 33,129 detected cases no longer under treatment have ended in death. Of the 48,167 detected cases still battling the disease, 8,867 (18 percent) are in serious or critical condition—kept alive by intensive care and access to artificial ventilation and oxygenation requiring attention from multiple dedicated medical staff for each patient.

Moreover, World Health Organization (WHO) advisor and University of Florida professor Ira Longini told Bloomberg News epidemiological models show that without aggressive measures to contain the virus, up to “one third of the world” could catch the disease. This could overwhelm hospitals worldwide—even in the advanced capitalist countries—with millions of desperately ill, highly contagious patients.

This danger is all the greater as the disease spreads to Middle Eastern and African countries whose hospitals lack high technology, or have been devastated by decades of imperialist occupations, civil wars, or—in the case of Iran—vindictive US and European sanctions.

An internationally-coordinated response is essential to prevent the pandemic from devastating humanity. It is critical that the world’s health system be able to isolate patients, limit the speed of the disease’s spread, and devote the necessary resources to provide intensive care for those patients who develop pneumonia from the infection. The production and use of necessary treatments and medical equipment cannot be subordinated to the diktat of the financial markets and the profit motive, or to imperialist war policies.

Modern science provides medicine with tools of enormous power against the disease. The contrast with previous global pandemics, like the 1918 flu epidemic, could not be starker. Only two months into the pandemic, we have vast knowledge of the virus: its internal genetic RNA code, the form of its outer shell, and what cells and receptors it targets in the human body. Multiple teams internationally including in the United States, China and Europe are racing to produce vaccines, hoping to clinically test them by as early as next year.

Clinical trials in China also show that pre-existing drugs like chloroquine, used to treat malaria, or fapilavir, used to treat the flu, may also block the coronavirus and accelerate recovery.

At the same time, however, the pandemic is exposing the destructive irrationality of capitalism: it has wasted resources and wealth created by the international working class over decades, leaving humanity unprepared for the coronavirus.

The risk of coronaviruses causing highly contagious, untreatable and potentially fatal pneumonia has been known for nearly 20 years. After the SARS and MERS epidemics, 2017 research by the EcoHealth Alliance showed that Asian bats harbored hundreds of strains of coronaviruses that could potentially infect humans. Nevertheless, with the production of vaccines, viral drug and protective gear subordinated to the profit interests of major private investors, nothing was prepared for the risk of a major pandemic.

While massive resources were needed to invest in medical and industrial infrastructure, trillions of dollars were instead wasted on the 2008–2009 bank bailouts for the super-rich in America and Europe, as well as on US-NATO wars like the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. While hospitals were shut down in cities across America, the European Union imposed austerity that slashed health care wages and staffing levels to the bone.

Such policies not only have prevented the rational use of available technology to prepare for a global pandemic, but now cut across measures urgently needed to treat the pandemic.

Iran, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, provides perhaps the starkest illustration of this. Hundreds of Iranians have fallen ill and the disease is spreading rapidly, under conditions where US and European sanctions imposed first in 2012 and then again after the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear treaty in 2018 have slashed Iran’s access to critical medicine.

Last year, an Iranian doctor told America’s ABC News that “Out of every 20 people, we have to tell at least ten that we have run out of medications they need.” There are shortages of drugs for many critical conditions, including several like asthma, diabetes and cancer that often lead to complications and death in coronavirus patients. This was in part because the US Treasury vindictively prosecuted international firms exporting medical supplies to Iran.

Last year, the Atlantic Council think-tank noted that in Iran in “2012–2013, the price of medicine increased by 50–75 percent. Coupled with an economic downturn and an increase in unemployment, medicine became less affordable to Iranian patients. According to field research conducted in Iran during 2013, asthma, cancer, and multiple sclerosis patients struggled with either shortages of medicine or skyrocketing prices. This research further found that many cancer patients had stopped treatment because of an increase in the prices of medicine.”

Today, Iran is plunging into a coronavirus epidemic that is rapidly spreading not only to the Persian Gulf States, but to neighboring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, whose health infrastructure has been devastated by decades of US-NATO sanctions, bombings and military occupations.

With the lives of millions hanging in the balance, decisions in the critical battle against the coronavirus cannot be left up to the imperialist powers and the financial aristocracy. Sanctions against Iran must be lifted, hundreds of billions of dollars spent globally to fight the pandemic threat, and humanity’s scientific and industrial resources fully mobilized under the democratic control of working people.

WORLDWIDE VIRUS FEARS The number of new coronavirus infections inside China — the source of the outbreak — has for the first time been overtaken by fresh cases elsewhere, with Italy and Iran emerging as epicenters of the rapidly spreading illness. Asia reported hundreds of new cases, Brazil confirmed Latin America’s first infection and the new disease — COVID-19 — was also detected for the first time in Pakistan, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Romania and Algeria. [HuffPost]

SAUDI ARABIA banned foreigners from entering the kingdom to visit Islam’s holiest sites amid the coronavirus outbreak yesterday, ahead of Ramadan and the annual hajj pilgrimage. The ban, which will stop pilgrims from entering Mecca and Medina, is unprecedented in modern history: here.

How suckerfish hitchhike with sharks

This 2016 video says about itself:

Sharks and many other large ocean animals have sucker-equipped fish called remoras sticking to them. What are the remoras doing? Do they harm the shark? Jonathan goes on a mission to investigate remoras and their role in the food web. He even sticks one on himself.

From ScienceDaily:

Vertical fibers in the suckerfish’s suction cup-like fin help it hitchhike

February 26, 2020

As the hitchhikers of the marine world, the remora fish is well known for getting free rides by gripping onto hosts with its suction disc, a highly modified dorsal fin on its head. Now, work investigating the suction disc — appearing February 26 in the journal Matter — reveals that one of the secrets to the fish’s strong grip lies within the unique architecture of the lip of the disc.

“The remora fish‘s body shape and poor swimming ability don’t give him an edge in nature,” says senior co-author Li Wen of Beihang University, describing the flat-headed, eel-like fish. “The fish had to evolve its fin into a suction cup for hitchhiking for two reasons: food and mating.”

The suction disc of the remora — also known as the suckerfish or sharksucker — is so powerful that the fish can even stay attached to leaping dolphins. To understand the underlying mechanism, the researchers looked into the tissue on the soft lip of the suction disc. Between the surface and under-skin layer, they discovered a unique structure: vertically oriented collagen fibers. The fibrous structure provides elasticity for maximizing contact with substrates and decreases the deformation of the lip to maintain its adhesive force. This is the first paper to reveal the detailed morphology structure of the lip disc tissue in remora fish.

“Our research about remoras started with our co-senior author Li Wen’s study on sharks’ skin structure,” said corresponding author Juan Guan of Beihang University. “We were fascinated by the fact that remoras’ suction disc can adhere to surfaces as rough as sharkskin. Sharks swim very fast, yet remoras can hold on to the sharks’ skin very tightly.”

Inspired by the fish, researchers engineered a biomimetic disc infused with vertical nylon fibers with electrostatic flocking, a technique that utilizes an electric charge to align fibers. Compared to pure silicon discs, the biomimetic discs demonstrate an adhesion enhancement of 62.5% and show 3.4 times increment in attachment time. Moreover, the fiber-reinforced biomimetic sucker can hang onto objects that are heavy, irregular, rough, and even under aquatic conditions.

“There are some limitations in controlling the fiber density,” says Guan. “Although nylon and collagen are similar to some extent, we can’t fully mimic their morphological and chemical composition. But we proved a simple concept: by adding vertical fibers to your sucker, you can improve the sucker’s functionality significantly. We’re doing work that can be applied in real life.”

The next step for the team is to improve the current biomimetic sucker by studying and mimicking the structure on the surface skin and under-skin layer. Other improvements include introducing environmentally friendly and biodegradable materials such as silk. The development of vertical fibers could also be applied in soft robotics to achieve intricate movements through controlling deformation.

“There’s a lot of potential in future applications,” says Wen. “I’m a mechanical engineer; I make robots. If we can make a robot with a suction disc as strong as the remora’s, it could travel the world attached to whales and sharks. The mobile biomimetic device will be able to gather meaningful bio and environmental data. I hope the suction disc can be applied to protecting the marine environment and contribute to the marine bio-monitoring system in the future.”

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, National Natural Science Foundation of China support projects, and National Key R&D Program of China.

German nazi terrorists planned massacre of Muslims

This 6 July 2019 video says about itself:

Right-wing terrorism in Germany explained: How big is the threat? | DW News

On June 2, 2019, German politician Walter Lübcke was shot in the head at point-blank range for his … stance on refugees. The murder suspect is a right-wing extremist. Other German politicians have also been attacked or threatened, sparking a national debate on right-wing and far-right extremism in Germany. But how big is the threat? What does far-right terrorism actually mean and what needs to be done to deal with it? Gideon Botsch is an expert on right-wing extremism. Here’s what he had to say about the problem and its possible solutions.

By Gregor Link in Germany:

Germany: Nazi terrorist group planned mass murder of Muslims

27 February 2020

Over a week ago, German police arrested 12 right-wing extremists who were actively preparing mass murder against refugees, Muslims and political opponents. The arrests took place just before the murder of nine people in Hanau by a fascist gunmen, and the mowing down on Monday of bystanders at the Volkmarsen carnival.

According to Der Spiegel, the group had amassed large quantities of arms and ammunition to launch a coordinated series of “Kommando” raids on mosques across Germany and kill the people at prayer. Their aim was to provoke a backlash and a “civil war” throughout Germany. According to the investigating federal prosecutor, they sought to use these methods of “shock and awe” to cause havoc to the state and social order of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The suspected terrorists’ plans show striking parallels with those of the Saxon neo-Nazi group “Revolution Chemnitz”, the October 9, 2019, attack on a synagogue in Halle, and last year’s mass murder in Christchurch, New Zealand. In searches of houses, investigators discovered home-made hand grenades, large quantities of other weapons, including a functional large-calibre weapon built by a member from Saxony-Anhalt. The Halle assassin, Stefan Balliet, had built a similar “slam gun” and used it to murder two people.

The arrests once again highlight the existence of extensive terror networks, actively preparing a fascist coup in Germany and discussing the murder of thousands of political opponents.

In recent months, a number of neo-Nazi groups have been uncovered in the secret service, the police and the Bundeswehr (army). An administrative officer of the North Rhine-Westphalian police—since suspended—is among those who have now been arrested.

According to Bild-Zeitung, a V-man (Verfassungsschutz or secret service agent) was part of the alleged terror cell, but was the only one not arrested. Although investigators described the V-man as among the closest confidantes of the conspirators, they nonetheless stated that suspicion of his involvement had “not been substantiated”. German broadcasters SWR and ARD reported that the V-man had given extensive information to the police in early October. However, during the final week before the arrests, he had broken off contact with the investigators, who then made the arrests.

Members of the alleged terrorist cell operated in a violent neo-Nazi milieu of fascistic groups, “Freikorps” and vigilantes. They pursued relations with right-wing extremists throughout Germany and other European countries, as well as with the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD). They discussed their plans for assault in chat groups with names like “The Hard Core” and during a minimum of two face-to-face meetings. According to media reports, the men agreed to raise €50,000 to procure additional weapons and to participate in future attacks.

A week ago, more than 10 people who were under police observation attended a meeting in Minden, Westphalia, where, according to Der Spiegel, Werner S., the alleged leader of the group, presented the assault plans.

For five months, the members of “Group S.”, from all over Germany, have been the target of Baden-Württemberg police surveillance. The defence lawyer of one of the detainees stated that the police “sometimes monitored every move by the suspect”. Werner S. was also named a “threat” months ago.

Investigators considered Werner S., alias “Teutonico”, the undisputed head of the group. Der Spiegel reported that Werner S. looked for men who were “intelligent, tough, brutal, and quick” in order to build an underground army “along the lines of the radical right-wing Freikorps of the Weimar Republic.” (The Freikorps were paramilitary organisations formed after Germany’s defeat in World War I and formed the basis of Hitler’s Nazi forces).

A “Volunteer Association for the Mobilisation of Forces” would be built through a process of “military training”. “Treachery” will be “severely punished!” said one of the chats. Anyone who believes in doing “more than just taking part in demonstrations and the like” should contact Werner S. In his apartment near Augsburg, investigators found a functioning nine-millimetre pistol and ammunition.

Werner S.’s Facebook friends include an AfD official from Börde in Saxony-Anhalt. Two right-wing extremists arrested as “supporters” of the group, Steffen B. and Stefan K., are also from Saxony-Anhalt. They are among the regional leaders of an extreme right-wing militia called “Vikings Security Germania”, a spin-off from the Finnish “Soldiers of Odin”, which first appeared during the 2015 “refugee crisis”.

Another member of “Group S.”, Markus K., reportedly participated in a 2009 neo-Nazi march in Dortmund, during which hundreds of right-wing extremists attacked a demonstration organised by the German Trade Union Confederation. Stephan Ernst and Markus H., the suspected murderers of CDU politician Walter Lübcke on June 2, 2019, took part in this attack.

Thomas N. from Minden apparently hosted the group’s last meeting before the arrests. According to Der Spiegel, investigators found “a crossbow as well as axes, morning star medieval weapons, and numerous knives.” Thomas N. is close to the ultra-right “Reich Citizens’ Movement”. Referring to anti-fascist youth, he posted on Facebook that “It is time to get rid of this Dirt.”

According to the newspaper taz, Lower Saxony’s neo-Nazi Tony E. was “one of the driving forces in the group.” He is in close contact with well-known neo-Nazis from Hamburg, Harburg and Lüneburg; these people visited him after the police raid and were said to have threatened residents and journalists.

Tony E. follows former Verfassungsschutz Director Hans-Georg Maassen on Facebook and identifies himself as a supporter of paramilitary organisations such as the “German Defence League”, “Brigade 8” and the Hannibal association “Uniter”. According to taz, Tony E. is also a member of the “Freikorps Heimatschutz”, which advocates that members “prepare for the day when war will come and when it will be a question of defending our families and the fatherland.”

The group’s links with the security agencies and with “Uniter” are significant. This paramilitary association, which is registered as a “non-profit”, links former elite soldiers, reservists, security forces and arms dealers with one another; it trains the forces of far-right Philippine ruler Rodrigo Duterte.

The group Uniter was founded in 2016 by an employee of the Baden-Württemberg Verfassungsschutz (secret police). It is the organisational backbone of an armed network comprising elite police officers, commando soldiers, intelligence officers, judges and lawyers, in whose ranks have been forged the concrete plans for an armed coup on a “Day X”, along with the mass murder of political opponents.

This “shadow army” is orchestrated by André S., alias Hannibal, a former instructor of the Bundeswehr elite unit Command Special Forces (KSK). Hannibal was also a member of the founding board of Uniter and, according to taz, was the contact person for the German Military Intelligence Service (Militärischer Abschirmdienst—MAD), with whom he maintained friendly relations. In 2018, he threatened to bring in the MAD against the newspaper taz in order to stop its questioning. The MAD contact person warned Hannibal of upcoming raids by the federal prosecutor’s office, so that he could hide a laptop with sensitive information.

In December 2019, ARD news magazine Monitor published a 2018 drone video that documents the military operational training and combat exercises of the group. The video shows armed private individuals in combat gear who are practicing house-to-house fighting under the guidance of “Hannibal”. Because he illegally stashed cartridges along with fog and signal grenades, Hannibal recently had to appear in court for a violation of the weapons and explosives law; he was fined just €1,800.

Werner S. is a close ally of the right-wing-extremist Bundeswehr soldier Franco A. and has met him personally several times. Franco A. is under suspicion for planning to carry out political assassinations while falsely posing as a refugee. Though Franco A. will be charged with “preparing a serious crime that is dangerous to the state”, both he and Werner S. are currently not being held in custody.

Despite overwhelming evidence, including detailed reports from Focus, taz and SWR, at the end of January, MAD President Christof Gramm publicly denied the existence of a “shadow army” in the German state. Nevertheless, his own organisation is officially investigating 20 “suspected cases” of right-wing extremism in the secret Bundeswehr unit KSK.

It is possible that the arrest of the 12 members of “Group S.” was carried out to limit the damage and cover up the truth of these accusations. However, the fact that the group appeared to be ready to act after just two face-to-face meetings raises the question of whether it received support from the authorities.

What is certain is that the group’s extensive plans for terror, and its far-reaching preparations for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of murders, took place under the noses of the security apparatus, which is riddled with right-wing extremists. That the danger of fascist violence in Germany is greater than at any time since the end of the Nazi dictatorship is a result of the shift to the right of the entire political establishment, the propaganda of the AfD, and the systematic trivialisation, promotion and adoption of radical right-wing positions by the federal Grand Coalition.

How tadpoles breathe, new research

This 2019 video is called This Is How a Tadpole Transforms Into A Frog.

From the University of Connecticut in the USA:

Tadpoles break the tension with bubble-sucking

February 26, 2020

When it comes to the smallest of creatures, the hydrogen bonds that hold water molecules together to form “surface tension” lend enough strength to support their mass: think of insects that skip across the surface of water. But what happens to small creatures that dwell below the surface of the water?

UConn researchers have taken a close look, and in research published recently in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B, have documented how tiny tadpoles are able to access air above the water’s surface, breathing without having to break through the surface tension.

Tadpoles often live in water with low oxygen levels where fewer predators lurk, but this also means the tadpoles need a way to get to air to breathe. Tadpoles have gills, but they don’t usually provide enough oxygen for them to survive, so most tadpoles also have lungs and breathe air as a back-up. But during the earliest period of their lives, tadpoles are too small to break through the water’s surface to breathe. Luckily for the tadpoles, they have a way to work around this problem, says ecology and evolutionary biology professor Kurt Schwenk.

Tadpoles will often charge upward toward the surface of the water, yet due to their small size and the surface tension of the water, they bounce back down. While watching this during an unrelated study on aquatic salamanders feeding on tadpoles, Schwenk noticed a bubble left behind after one tadpole’s visit to the underside of the water’s surface.

“Many researchers have observed tadpoles breathing at the surface before, but unless you look very closely and slow the action down, you can’t see what is actually happening,” says Schwenk.

Using high-speed macro-videography, Schwenk and graduate researcher Jackson Phillips captured hundreds of breathing events on film shooting at the super slow motion rate of 500-1000 frames per second. The tadpoles were seen to use a never-before-described breathing mechanism they call “bubble-sucking”, a novel breathing mechanism for vertebrates captured with novel technology.

“This research would have been much more difficult to do before high-speed video cameras were developed, and that is probably why the behavior has not been described before,” says Schwenk.

The researchers studied tadpoles from five species of frogs — four of which can be found in Connecticut. What they found was that tadpoles of all species were able to inflate their lungs within a few days of hatching, despite being too small to access air.

Instead of breaching the water’s surface, the tadpoles were seen to bubble-suck. To bubble-suck, the tadpoles first attach their mouths to the undersurface of the water. They then open their jaws wide and draw a bubble of air into the mouth. What happens next was visible through the skin of some of the tadpoles. The tadpoles empty their lungs into their mouths, where the air mixes with the fresh air of the newly sucked bubble. After the mouth closes, the air bubble is forced down into the lungs, but since the bubble is larger than their lung capacity, a portion of the air remains in the mouth, which is then expelled as a small bubble that floats to the surface. The entire process takes about three-tenths of a second.

Bubble-sucking appears to be an adaptation the tadpoles use while they are still small. When they grow large enough and charge the water’s surface, they are able to break the surface tension and “breach-breathe.” The researchers observed bubble-sucking in other species, as well — larval salamanders and even snails. They note that it is likely limited to organisms that can create the suction necessary, therefore arthropods, like insects, cannot bubble-suck.

“As a result of an accidental observation, my research has taken a turn — I never expected to work on these organisms,” Schwenk says. “Before, I thought that tadpoles were uninteresting. But now I find them deeply fascinating.”

Schwenk says this accidental discovery conveys an important point about research in general.

“These frog species are incredibly well-studied and very common,” he says. “Yet, one can learn new things even about the most common animals, which is a good lesson for students, because when getting into research, one can be left with the sense that it has all been done. The fact is, it hasn’t been — we just have to be observant and keep asking questions.”

Ex-president Hindenburg no longer Berlin honorary citizen

Translated from Dutch NOS radio today:

Seventy years after the end of the Second World War, the German former president Paul von Hindenburg lost his honorary citizenship of Berlin. Hindenburg became president in the Weimar Republic in 1925 (he was then 77) and would remain so until his death in 1934.

He is no longer an honorary citizen of the capital, because in January 1933 he was politically responsible for the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. …

Hindenburg, who was of Prussian nobility and a hero of various wars, hoped, like other German conservatives, that Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor offered the possibility of using the Nazi leader for their own purposes. Hitler’s anti-Semitic and racist ideas and his expansive foreign plans were already well known when he became Chancellor.

Get rid of

But after his appointment, Hitler managed to gain all power. He put the parliament out of action and became president after the death of Hindenburg. He had political opponents, also within his own party, removed with violence.

Both Hindenburg and Hitler were named honorary citizens of Berlin on April 20, 1933 – Hitler’s birthday, but Hitler was denied that status in 1948.

The left-wing coalition that now controls Berlin removes Hindenburg from the list not only because of Hitler’s appointment, but also because he agreed to restrict various freedoms. He also encouraged Hitler’s takeover of power by giving him more and more special powers.

Hungry leopardess risks death by stealing food

This 26 February 2020 video from Africa says about itself:

A Leopard Risks Her Life to Steal Food

A female leopard is risking life and limb by trying to steal food from another, male, leopard. One wrong move and the male, a third bigger than she is, could make her pay.

United States Democratic party candidates’ debate

This 26 February 2020 video from the USA is called CBS’ Debate Was AWFUL: Inept Moderators, Stacked Audience—WTF? | Full Breakdown.

By Patrick Martin in the USA:

Attacks against Sanders intensify ahead of South Carolina primary

27 February 2020

Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, has been widely criticized in the corporate media, with the candidates’ performances denounced for “snarling incoherence” (Politico), for being “manic” (The Hill) and “a genuine freakout” (Frank Bruni in the New York Times), and like “watching professional wrestling” (Dana Milbank in the Washington Post).

What the media pundits were complaining about—particularly on the cable networks CNN and MSNBC—had little to do with the constant interruptions and general refusal of the candidates to follow the rules laid down but not enforced by the moderators, a panel of journalists from CBS. They were mainly upset that despite efforts by all six of the candidates opposed to frontrunner Bernie Sanders, they largely failed to coordinate their efforts and could not seem to agree on a common line of attack, replicating a similar failure in the debate last Wednesday in Nevada.

As a result, the Vermont senator is likely to take an insurmountable lead in convention delegates in the March 3 “Super Tuesday” primaries, held in 14 states, including California, Texas, North Carolina and Virginia. Those contests take place just three days after the February 29 primary in South Carolina.

Despite the cacophony on Tuesday night, it is clear that the capitalist politicians on the stage in Charleston were pursuing definite strategies, which reveal something about their own social base and shed light on the deepening crisis of the Democratic Party.

Four of the candidates were competing to become the “moderate” alternative to Sanders: billionaire Michael Bloomberg, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Two others made direct appeals to Sanders’ supporters. Senator Elizabeth Warren said she would be a more effective advocate for Sanders’ policies, which she claimed to support. Billionaire Tom Steyer, seeking to position himself somewhat to the left of the four “moderates”, claimed to agree with Sanders’ diagnosis of the problems in America while disagreeing with him on the solutions.

This 26 February 2020 video from the USA is called Mike Bloomberg Funding Massive Anti-Bernie Propaganda Campaign.

Bloomberg’s goal in the debate was clearly to survive it and avoid another debacle like that in Las Vegas, which would leave his campaign in danger of becoming an expensive laughingstock. He positioned himself as the most right-wing of the candidates, declaring his support for expanding charter schools, opposing the legalization of marijuana and making no reply when Warren pointed out his long history as a donor to Republican candidates, including such notorious pro-Trump figures as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

In his most revealing sally, Bloomberg boasted of how much he spent in the 2018 elections backing Democratic candidates whose victories gave the Democratic Party control of the House of Representatives. “They talk about 40 Democrats,” he said. “Twenty-one of those are people that I spent a hundred million dollars to help elect. All of the new Democrats that came in and put Nancy Pelosi in charge and gave the Congress the ability to control this president, I bought—I, I got them.”

The billionaire was about to say he had bought control of the House for the Democrats, but pulled back at the last second to make his comment slightly less obnoxious. But the implication was clear. He was suggesting that he was now in position to buy the White House for the Democrats, using essentially unlimited funds from his $60 billion fortune.

Bloomberg’s money had at least some impact on the debate, salting the audience with supporters who had to pay $1,750 to the Democratic National Committee for admission. As a result, there was audible booing when Warren and Sanders attacked Bloomberg for trying to buy the nomination.

So far, however, Bloomberg’s ability to actually accomplish the purchase is in doubt. The billionaire has pumped nearly $500 million into campaign advertising and organization in the 14 Super Tuesday states, but according to current polls he trails Sanders in all of them. A detailed analysis in the Washington Post projected that Bloomberg stood to win fewer than 100 delegates out of the nearly 1,400 to be chosen on March 3.

Buttigieg, the former naval intelligence officer and McKinsey consultant for the Pentagon, joined with Bloomberg in portraying Sanders as the candidate backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, allegedly because his nomination would ensure the reelection of President Trump, whom the Democrats have attacked from the right as a Russian stooge.

The former South Bend mayor spent the entire debate attacking Sanders from the right, frequently interrupting him to the point of deliberate disruption. He sought to present himself as the voice of the congressional Democrats, particularly those in marginal districts in the House of Representatives. He told Sanders that those newly elected in 2018 “are running away from your platform as fast as they possibly can.” These include the 11 representatives who have similar backgrounds to Buttigieg, with careers in the military-intelligence apparatus before they entered politics.

Biden’s campaign has made little secret that he must win the South Carolina primary on Saturday or face financial and political collapse. Given that position, Biden devoted every intervention in the debate to wooing older black voters, who comprise the main Democratic voting bloc in South Carolina. Sanders leads among black voters in South Carolina younger than 45, but older voters, particularly those over 65, are expected to support Biden.

This explains Biden’s effort to mention President Barack Obama in nearly every comment, as well as his choosing to focus his attack on Sanders on the issue of gun violence, citing Sanders’ votes against restrictive gun legislation some 30 years ago. Biden referred to the 2015 mass shooting by a white supremacist at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine African Americans.

Biden also targeted Steyer, who has dumped $20 million into advertising in South Carolina and risen to third in state polls. The former vice president attacked the billionaire for investing in a company operating private prisons in which young black men had been “hog-tied” and otherwise abused.

Significantly, Biden received little criticism from his “moderate” rivals. All of them want Biden to win South Carolina, because the alternative, a Sanders victory, would make his nomination far more likely. …

The fourth “moderate”, Senator Amy Klobuchar, focused her attack on Sanders on the cost of his proposed reforms, such as “Medicare for All” and free college tuition, claiming, “The math does not add up.” …

Two of the Democrats on the stage in Charleston sought to appeal to Sanders’ supporters more directly. Steyer said that “Sanders’ analysis is right”, in relation to the defects of an untrammeled private sector, but that his proposed remedies were wrong. “We all know, unchecked capitalism has failed”, Steyer said. “The answer is not for the government to take over the private sector, though. The answer is for us to break the corporate stranglehold on our government and have the government work for the people again.”

How the “corporate stranglehold” could be broken while leaving corporate power intact, he did not explain. Nor did he address the contradiction of a billionaire private equity investor presenting his own campaign as the vehicle for such an “anti-corporate” effort. Instead, he boasted of his efforts to support the impeachment of Trump, the only mention of that debacle on the Charleston stage.

…

Senator Elizabeth Warren presented herself as an ideological ally of Sanders, but one who would be a more effective advocate of similar policies. Her approach to Sanders was so conciliatory that she seemed to be auditioning to become his running mate. She then reverted to her role in the Las Vegas debate, targeting Bloomberg and citing his role as a Republican campaign donor, a sexist boss, and a law-and-order mayor of New York City.

Sanders, given center stage as the leader in delegates and poll numbers, sought to demonstrate that his policies were not “radical”, as claimed by his right-wing opponents, citing the example of state-financed health care systems in Western Europe. He combined this with some “left” talk on foreign policy issues, denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a “reactionary racist” and declaring that “it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy, and that includes the fact that America has overthrown governments all over the world.” …

Large sections of the American population are far to the left of all of the candidates, including Sanders, a political fact that strikes terror in the Democratic Party establishment. They are frightened not that Sanders’ modest reform policies will alienate working people, but that they might open the door to far more radical demands that directly threaten the profit system and the global operations of American imperialism.

That explains the apparent contradiction in the party establishment hysteria over Sanders: The more he runs up his vote totals and demonstrates popular support, the more they scream he is unelectable.

Red panda, two, not one, species?

This 2018 video is called World’s Weirdest Animals: Red Panda.

From New Scientist:

Red panda genes suggest there are actually two different species

26 February 2020

By Gege Li

We now have the strongest indicator yet that there are two separate species of red panda: the Chinese red panda (Ailurus styani) and the Himalayan red panda (Ailurus fulgens). Previously, these were classified as subspecies based on the pandas’ physical characteristics and location, but this has been contested due to a lack of genetic evidence.

To address this gap, Yibo Hu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, and his colleagues sequenced the whole genomes of 65 red pandas by extracting DNA from blood, muscle and skin samples taken from museum specimens and red pandas in captivity.

These red pandas came from wild populations living in the Himalayas in Nepal and India, or the Qionglai mountains in China’s Sichuan province.

Using data from 49 red pandas, the team compared their haplotypes, variations in DNA inherited from a single parent – for example, their mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother, and Y chromosomes, which are inherited from the father.

Compared to Chinese red pandas, the Himalayan red pandas had 50 per cent fewer mutations in the single letters, or bases, that make up DNA across their whole genomes . Hu’s team also found that the haplotypes clustered together in different regions of the genomes of Himalayan and Chinese red pandas, and there were no shared Y chromosome variants between red pandas from the eastern Himalayas and those from Sichuan.

Hu says this shows that they genetically diverged from each other, with minimal transfer of genetic variation between the populations, resulting in the two species. This divergence happened about 200,000 years ago, he says.

Physical differences between the two populations supported the classification – the Chinese red panda has redder fur on its face and more prominent tail rings, for example.

Though there is clearly genetic differentiation between the sampled populations, no red pandas were sampled in Bhutan and northern India where the animals are also found, says Jon Slate at the University of Sheffield in the UK. “Without having sampled pandas there, it’s harder to really confidently say there are two distinct species here,” he says.

The genome analyses also showed that the Himalayan red panda underwent a drastic reduction in population three times, with the most recent decline taking place 90,000 years ago. This has resulted in a low genetic diversity and small population size in today’s Himalayan species.

In comparison, the Chinese red panda experienced a population drop twice – most likely due to glacial periods – but managed to recover after each event.

However, both species’ numbers are dwindling due to habitat loss and climate change, though it isn’t clear how many individuals are left in the wild. “To conserve the genetic uniqueness of the two species, we should avoid their interbreeding in captivity,” says Hu.