October 29, 2020

Well, I guess Florida Man got what he asked for......

DAVIE, Fla. - A man was mauled by a captive black leopard in a backyard zoo in South Florida, wildlife officials said.

The man paid $150 for a “full-contact experience" with the black leopard, which allowed him to “play with it, rub its belly and take pictures,” WPLG reported.

A report by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says the incident happened Aug. 31 in Davie, which is near Fort Lauderdale.

The agency charged the owner with allowing full contact with an extremely dangerous animal and was cited for maintaining captive wildlife in an unsafe condition. ...........(more)

https://www.fox13news.com/news/leopard-mauls-florida-man-who-paid-for-full-contact-experience-with-big-cat

October 29, 2020

Obama 'getting under Trump's skin' as he campaigns for Biden in swing states, former aides say

(Independent UK) Barack Obama has been traveling to battleground states to support Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 US election - and to try to get under Donald Trump's skin.

Mr Obama made stops in Pennsylvania and Florida to stump for Mr Biden.

Fox News aired coverage of one of Mr Obama's speeches, much to Mr Trump's displeasure.

The president mentions Mr Obama on a regular basis during his rallies and in interviews. Mr Trump often blames the Obama administration for leaving him "a mess" and regularly accuses Mr Obama of spying on his campaign prior to the 2016 election.

.....(snip).....

“He has allowed Obama to get under his skin and is obsessed with the fact that his presidency pales in comparison to the prior one,” he said. “He is living in a fantasy land where he is just a celebrated cable commentator on Fox commenting on the conspiracy theory of the day and he doesn’t have to run against Joe Biden to win another term. But reality is creeping up on him fast.” ............(more)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/trump-news-today-florida-tampa-barack-obama-joe-biden-us-2020-election-b1424773.html

October 29, 2020

Crazy Donnie's Going-out-of-Business Sale: ALL RACIST/SEXIST TROPES MUST GO!

now it's time to push the 'angry black woman' theme


(Independent UK) President Donald Trump on Wednesday launched a fresh attack on Kamala Harris — the first Black and Asian women to be nominated for national office by a major party — suggesting she laughs with "anger" when political opponents pronounce her name incorrectly.

"Kamala. Kamala. You know, if you don't pronounce her name exactly right, she gets very angry at you," Mr Trump, 74, said at a campaign rally in Arizona, a key battleground state that could be key in deciding who is in the White House next year.

"And then she starts — you know what she does when she gets angry? She starts laughing. Like she did on 60 Minutes. Uncontrollable laughs. That means she's angry," the president told hundreds of his supporters who had crammed into Phoenix Goodyear Airport.

Mr Trump had been referring to a recent interview senator Harris, Democrat vice presidential candidate and Joe Biden's running mate, gave to the CBS News's '60 Minutes' in which she was quizzed on her record in office ahead of November's election. ...........(more)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-kamala-harris-angry-biden-rally-goodyear-arizona-b1417612.html?

October 29, 2020

What happens when a narcissist loses?

What happens when a narcissist loses? Expect "rage" and "terror," psychologists warn
"A truly significant loss… may trigger not only a reign of terror but destruction without limit," one expert says

MATTHEW ROZSA
OCTOBER 28, 2020 11:00PM


(Salon) There is agreement among psychologists — and, for that matter, anyone who has been abused by narcissistic personalities — that President Donald Trump fits the psychological profile of a narcissist. What does that mean for the upcoming election, particularly if Trump loses, as polls suggest? Psychologists tell Salon that pathological narcissists who do not get their way tend to react abusively — which could lead to one of several devastating political scenarios for the nation in the election's aftermath.

"One does not have to diagnose to recognize pathological or toxic narcissism," Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatrist who has taught at Yale and authored the new book "Profile of a Nation: Trump's Mind, America's Soul," told Salon by email. "This is behavior, not a diagnosis — and the media need not fixate so much on 'the Goldwater rule,' which applies to only 6% of practicing mental health professionals (that is, members of the American Psychiatric Association, the only association in the world with this rule)."

The so-called Goldwater Rule holds that "it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement." However, the rule does not apply to describing obvious narcissistic behavior in a public figure, any more than it would disqualify someone from describing celebrities who spend most of their days drinking liquor as having an alcohol problem.

"Those with pathological narcissism are abusive and dangerous because of their catastrophic neediness," Lee explained. "Think of a drowning person gasping for air: a survival instinct just may push you down in order to save one's own life. In the manner that the body needs oxygen, the soul needs love, and self-love is what a toxic narcissist is desperately lacking. This is why he must overcompensate, creating for himself a self-image where he is the best at everything, never wrong, better than all the experts, and a 'stable genius.'" .........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/10/28/trump-narcissism-psychology-election-loss-pathology-personality-disorders/

October 28, 2020

Canadians increasingly open to welcoming immigrants and refugees - study

(Guardian UK) Despite a global pandemic that has destroyed economies and fanned nationalism around the world, Canadians say they are increasingly open to welcoming immigrants and refugees.

A new study from the polling firm Environics Institute found that attitudes among Canadians have become increasingly positive, even as millions remain out of work and the country faces grim economic projections.

“These views are not a blip. They’re not chance. They seem to be deeply rooted and widely spread,” said Andrew Parkin, executive director at Environics.

Since 1976, the Focus Canada survey, administered by Environics, has periodically sampled Canadians to gauge their views on the topic. ...........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/28/canadians-immigrants-refugees-study-environics-institute

October 28, 2020

The Death Of Seasons

The Death Of Seasons
How the climate crisis could forever change winter, spring, summer and fall.


(HuffPost) In January, even before the coronavirus pandemic put the world askew, Jan Tore Jensen noticed some disturbing changes to the rhythms of life in his home city of Oslo, Norway. “The botanical garden in Oslo was opening up. Flowers were blooming, and something was kind of off,” recalls Jensen, head of Norwegian outdoor-gear company Bergans.

The normally wintry city was free of snow until the last day of January, and for the first time ever, Oslo ― along with fellow Scandinavian cities Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki ― witnessed temperatures above freezing every day of the month, the warmest European January on record.

Winters have been trending warmer for years, and in northern European countries like Norway, where snow-filled winters are part of the national identity, the loss is palpable.

....(snip)....

While the past year has brought dramatic manifestations of a warming planet — Cyclone Amphan killed more than 100 people in India and Bangladesh and Hurricane Laura caused widespread damage to the Caribbean and the U.S. — such catastrophes have a specific geography and time span. Those who live in the American West couldn’t easily escape the climate implications of this fall’s massive wildfires, but for people elsewhere in the country, this unprecedented disaster was often painted as just a California problem.

People often fail to understand climate change because it can feel either too doom-ridden or too distant from their personal lives, research has found.

But everyone experiences seasons — from the four seasons commonly recognized in temperate climes to the extremes of the Arctic, which oscillates between ice, extreme cold and thaw, to the tropics, with its dry and rainy seasons. In some cultures and regions, people observe even more intricate seasonal variations: For instance, the aboriginal calendar in southwest Australia traditionally features six seasons. .............(more)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-slow-death-of-seasons_n_5f903d32c5b61c185f460273?

October 28, 2020

Americans Are Super-Gloomy About Holiday Spending, But Industry Ramps Up for Blockbuster Christmas

Americans Are Super-Gloomy About Holiday Spending, But Industry Ramps Up for Blockbuster Christmas
by Wolf Richter • Oct 27, 2020 •

Something is afoot here. And someone is going to be wrong.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.


That would be embarrassing: There has been the massive surge in shipments to and within the US, amid warnings of shipping capacity shortages, as companies are stocking up for the holiday shopping season because they don’t want to run out of merchandise, following record retail sales over the past few months, along with supply shortages. Americans were spending their extra unemployment money and stimulus checks, and spending money on stuff that they didn’t spend on services such as vacations, flights, and hotels, and spending money they made working from home and in the stock market. The expectation in the industry is that this surge in retail spending would continue and lead to blockbuster holidays sales.

But now there’s the second major survey of consumer intentions that throws cold water on this thesis. Gallup asked consumers, as it does every year at this time, “Roughly how much money do you think you personally will spend on Christmas gifts this year?” The response on average was $805. That was down 17% from what folks told Gallup at the same time last year ($942), and the lowest since 2016 (there was no survey data for 2012), and the biggest year-over-year drop in the data going back to 2006:



This comes after the National Retail Federation had said last week, based on its annual October survey, that consumers on average expect to spend about $998 on gifts, holiday food and decorations, and additional “non-gift” purchases. This was down nearly 5% from the October 2019 survey.

The amount these folks said they’d spend on gifts was down just a tad from last year, and most of the decline in spending intentions came from non-gift items they’d buy for themselves or their families. ..............(more)

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/10/27/americans-are-super-gloomy-about-holiday-spending-industry-ramps-up-for-blockbuster-christmas/

October 28, 2020

'Sleeping giant' Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find

(Guardian UK) Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.

High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating.

The slope sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.

The international team onboard the Russian research ship R/V Akademik Keldysh said most of the bubbles were currently dissolving in the water but methane levels at the surface were four to eight times what would normally be expected and this was venting into the atmosphere.

“At this moment, there is unlikely to be any major impact on global warming, but the point is that this process has now been triggered. This East Siberian slope methane hydrate system has been perturbed and the process will be ongoing,” said the Swedish scientist Örjan Gustafsson, of Stockholm University, in a satellite call from the vessel. ..........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find?

October 28, 2020

We thought Reagan was the devil - then came Trump. America, we're rooting for you

We thought Reagan was the devil – then came Trump. America, we're rooting for you
Ian Martin

Veep writer Ian Martin once raged against the Gipper. Forty years later, the US is saddled with a human cronut
Wed 28 Oct 2020 01.00 EDT


(Guardian UK) Dear America,

HEY! How you guys doing? Longtime British Americanophile “reaching out” across the Atlantic. I’m here to heart you, USA. I’m like “hope the hurting stops soon” (strong-arm mid-tone emoji).

I guess you’re all making a list of The Worst Things Trump Did, then checking it twice because really, who’d believe it. And I know he’s primarily your monstrous problem. But even Brits are citizens of what we used to call “the free world”. Your president was once the leader of it. And one of the very worst things Trump’s done is to make Ronald Reagan look like an intellectual giant. Simply by comparison, Trump has humanised Reagan and elevated his memory to sainthood.

I’m currently researching the Gipper for a project and honestly, next to Trump he genuinely seems like … not the good guy, exactly? But definitely presidential. “Let’s make America great again” was Reagan’s slogan, of course. It was about “American values”, making America great in the world again. Trump’s slogan initially stood for rebuilding economic power. Now it’s shorthand for “let’s win the culture war I relentlessly inflame and sure, bring on an actual armed civil war if I lose the election”.

....(snip)....

Some of the stuff Trump’s pulling isn’t new, it’s just louder. You couldn’t imagine any of the other presidents not wanting America First. And like Trump, Reagan was an authoritarian who sent armed police in to break up civil protest. Reagan was indifferent to Aids; Trump is indifferent to Covid-19. More than 89,000 people died of Aids over seven years under Reagan administrations. Covid deaths in the US over seven months under Trump are 225,000 and rising … (more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/27/ronald-reagan-vs-donald-trump

October 28, 2020

When worlds collide: Can reality finally defeat the Trumpian delusion?

When worlds collide: Can reality finally defeat the Trumpian delusion?
Like him or not, Joe Biden is from Earth. Donald Trump is from a malignant shadow-realm and has almost destroyed us

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
OCTOBER 28, 2020 11:00AM


(Salon) Republicans and Democrats; conservatives and liberals; Trumpists and progressives — technically, they live on the same plane of existence, but in very different realities.

They do not consume the same news media. They do not go to the same schools. They do not live in the same communities. They rarely encounter one another in meaningful ways in person. They do not pray or worship together. They live in the same country but not the same nation. They do not share the same values. They do not communicate with one another in meaningful ways. They do not speak the same political language.

What happens when these worlds collide? We have no certain answer.

But we know one thing: Trumpism must be defeated on Election Day if the United States is to have any chance of remaining a democracy and then healing itself from the immediate and long-term harm done by Donald Trump and his movement over the last four-plus years.

For this to happen there can and should be no compromise between Trump and his movement, and Americans of conscience who are committed to the country's multiracial democracy. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/10/28/when-worlds-collide-can-reality-finally-defeat-the-trumpian-delusion/