What on Earth is going on in the world today? It's gone mad

[Federberg]

This is stunning in a way, but then again, maybe not so much. It’s no secret that I have believed that this is the geopolitical machination that underpins Brexit and the Us elections in 2016. The shocking thing is that this is still not being confronted head on....

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertonardelli/salvini-russia-oil-deal-secret-recording

 

[mrzz]

I guess everyone is following the news about the fires in the Amazon rain forest... it is a long, complex theme and I am not able to detail it here decently (I am not the best person to do it, anyway, even if I have reasonable picture of what is going on. On one hand is well known reality, on the other is getting worst given some recent developments).

When our ultra-mega retarded in chief got elected, I was afraid of a lot of different possible outcomes, one that this would be a an aggressive, violent government (that did not occur), other that this would be an extremely weak and profoundly incompetent government, with tough words and occasional showings of brute force. The second option was the right one, and now I can calmly say that this is, beyond any reasonable doubt, the worst government of all times, on a global scale.

There are a lot of examples and completely crazy situations, but let's stick with the "Amazon crisis". By the way, in this internet time of post-truth and everyone labeling everyone this and that, distorting facts and etc, I will stick only with what came straight out of the horse's mouth.

Three weeks ago, the Brazilian government agency which is roughly our correspondent of NASA (called INPE) published (as it annually does) data about Amazon deforestation. These data shows that it increased considerably. This is completely technical, the data, the sources, the methodology is all there for everyone to check. Anyone with a minimal technical background can see what is going on. The president here was trying to stop INPE from publishing it (saying it would make "Brazil look bad"). He could not do it, then after it was published he called the press to say that the person in charge of INPE was taking money from NGO's to alter the data(!). As simply as that. Obviously the guy resigned.

The US equivalent would be Trump firing the National Hurricane Center director because he does not deny that hurricanes hit the US soil.

Fast forward three weeks, we have all these wild fires (which are directly linked to deforestation). Note, those fires are indeed seasonal, but i) the higher the deforestation, the more dry fuel it has; and ii) a good part of it is criminal, with a lot of different purposes (open land for crops, for mining, etc..). Now, we just lost a good part of the international funds to fight those fires, thanks to our president's inability to talk to foreign actors in a rational way (ok, this is just coincidence, for now). But obviously he turned a blind eye to the question (which is complex) from day one, whatever incipient control we had was gone and the consequences are there.

And what the guys does, yesterday, when the images of what is going on for weeks got viral? He says that those fires are there because the NGO's are setting them up!!!! He said that with a straight face in a press conference. Ok, a lot of shady people in the NGO's here (and everywhere), but.. c'mon, this is beyond absurd, beyond retarded. Even if all the NGO's (assuming the world view of this idiot) wanted to do that, it is not their MO. If they are corrupt, what they do best is to take money destined to environmental programs. Those are bureau thieves. Even if they were in complete control of the process (which they are obviously not, as there is a plethora of different organizations involved), they would not act like that. Even still, they can not travel back in time and change satellite imagery that INPE has been calling attention to for months.

We have an internet troll as president. I am not sure if I could show how profoundly amateurish, ignorant and unprepared this guy is. He must be an embarrassment to any living conservative in the world.

 

[tented]

 

[tented]

Three weeks ago, the Brazilian government agency which is roughly our correspondent of NASA (called INPE) published (as it annually does) data about Amazon deforestation. These data shows that it increased considerably. This is completely technical, the data, the sources, the methodology is all there for everyone to check. Anyone with a minimal technical background can see what is going on. The president here was trying to stop INPE from publishing it (saying it would make "Brazil look bad"). He could not do it, then after it was published he called the press to say that the person in charge of INPE was taking money from NGO's to alter the data(!). As simply as that. Obviously the guy resigned.

The US equivalent would be Trump firing the National Hurricane Center director because he does not deny that hurricanes hit the US soil.

Please don’t give him any ideas like this.

 

[Horsa]

I guess everyone is following the news about the fires in the Amazon rain forest... it is a long, complex theme and I am not able to detail it here decently (I am not the best person to do it, anyway, even if I have reasonable picture of what is going on. On one hand is well known reality, on the other is getting worst given some recent developments).

When our ultra-mega retarded in chief got elected, I was afraid of a lot of different possible outcomes, one that this would be a an aggressive, violent government (that did not occur), other that this would be an extremely weak and profoundly incompetent government, with tough words and occasional showings of brute force. The second option was the right one, and now I can calmly say that this is, beyond any reasonable doubt, the worst government of all times, on a global scale.

There are a lot of examples and completely crazy situations, but let's stick with the "Amazon crisis". By the way, in this internet time of post-truth and everyone labeling everyone this and that, distorting facts and etc, I will stick only with what came straight out of the horse's mouth.

Three weeks ago, the Brazilian government agency which is roughly our correspondent of NASA (called INPE) published (as it annually does) data about Amazon deforestation. These data shows that it increased considerably. This is completely technical, the data, the sources, the methodology is all there for everyone to check. Anyone with a minimal technical background can see what is going on. The president here was trying to stop INPE from publishing it (saying it would make "Brazil look bad"). He could not do it, then after it was published he called the press to say that the person in charge of INPE was taking money from NGO's to alter the data(!). As simply as that. Obviously the guy resigned.

The US equivalent would be Trump firing the National Hurricane Center director because he does not deny that hurricanes hit the US soil.

Fast forward three weeks, we have all these wild fires (which are directly linked to deforestation). Note, those fires are indeed seasonal, but i) the higher the deforestation, the more dry fuel it has; and ii) a good part of it is criminal, with a lot of different purposes (open land for crops, for mining, etc..). Now, we just lost a good part of the international funds to fight those fires, thanks to our president's inability to talk to foreign actors in a rational way (ok, this is just coincidence, for now). But obviously he turned a blind eye to the question (which is complex) from day one, whatever incipient control we had was gone and the consequences are there.

And what the guys does, yesterday, when the images of what is going on for weeks got viral? He says that those fires are there because the NGO's are setting them up!!!! He said that with a straight face in a press conference. Ok, a lot of shady people in the NGO's here (and everywhere), but.. c'mon, this is beyond absurd, beyond retarded. Even if all the NGO's (assuming the world view of this idiot) wanted to do that, it is not their MO. If they are corrupt, what they do best is to take money destined to environmental programs. Those are bureau thieves. Even if they were in complete control of the process (which they are obviously not, as there is a plethora of different organizations involved), they would not act like that. Even still, they can not travel back in time and change satellite imagery that INPE has been calling attention to for months.

We have an internet troll as president. I am not sure if I could show how profoundly amateurish, ignorant and unprepared this guy is. He must be an embarrassment to any living conservative in the world.

Thank you very much for the information. To tell you the truth I didn't know because I just haven't had time to read or watch the news as I've been so busy with my new job, sewing & learning archiving & the like.

I'm very sorry to hear about that. It's dreadful. I hope the situation gets sorted out A.S.A.P. with as little damage caused as can be expected.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

The details of this news by CNN need to be clarified and the whole "global impact story" put into perspective, otherwise an uninformed listener can become confused. First, CNN's claim that "Amazon rainforest supplies 20% of world's oxygen". It's not clear what they want to say here, but whatever they mean by it, they presented it in a very misleading way. Then, if said forest were to be totally destroyed we would have "significant difficulty in breathing". That is a complete and utter rubbish: ridiculous sensationalism.

The facts are: Amazon rainforest is the single largest land biosphere that is a source of O2 in the O2<->CO2 natural exchange. That exchange amounts for ~100Gt of CO2 circulation. Perhaps this is what they meant here: Amazon rainforest does participate in 20% (20Gt C) of carbon circulation. No doubt said rainforest is a net C sink in this process. How much CO2 is sunk in Amazon annually I don't know. But I do know, that even if we destroyed 100% of this forest, other CO2 sinks (rain-forests & oceans) would pickup the job and started to assimilate more due to increased greenhouse effect. So the global impact of Amazon destruction would not be as bad as "removing 20% of oxygen production". Most likely the impacts would be absorbed by the system with only temporary (few years maybe) bump in CO2 levels by dozen or so ppm. Long term impact (over decades/centuries) is insignificant compared to the impact of extra CO2 from continuous fossil fuel burning.

Now to the absurd bunkum of "significant difficulty in breathing". If the whole biomass of Amazon were irreversibly destroyed by burning, about 90-140 Gt of CO2 would be added to atmosphere. That's about 3 times as much as annual input from FF burning (40Gt CO2). Fossil fuel burning increases atmospheric content of CO2 by 2ppm per annum (at the moment from 0.0410% to 0.0412%). So, the Amazon total burnout means a sudden increase of CO2 content from 0.0412% to about 0.0418% or so). The corresponding decrease of O2 content would be from 20.9% down to 20.8994%. Ergo, O2 decrease is insignificant. CO2 increase is significant, but still pales in comparison with total accumulated increase from pre-industrial levels of 280ppm to current level of 412ppm and rising. So much for the stupid "suffocation" argument.

In recap, the global impact of Amazon total burnout pales in comparison with the cumulative impact of FF burning. But FF burning does not "look bad" because it's internalised in thousands/millions of coal power generators and metal smelters and car engines running for 100 years non stop, while Amazon burns open and can be seen on satellite imaginary. It's worth keeping things in proper perspective when talking about global impact.

That said, it's obviously bad to add more CO2 into atmosphere for no reason (forest clearing by farmers seeking to expand their agricultural land is not a valid reason) when we should be urgently seeking to minimise CO2 emissions, even to remove CO2 down to levels of 350ppm according to some scientists, to escape the destructive effects of continuing global warming.

The more serious (and more immediate) effects of Amazon destruction will be felt locally (in Brazil & S America) with changing rainfall patterns, more droughts & massive local extinctions & rainforest ecosystem collapse.

It goes without saying that the retard in chief in Brasil does not understand all of that, Mrzz is right with his assessment of the situation and I 100% agree with his opinions above. I also agree the situation with Amazon fires (most likely started by the farmers seeking to clear the land) is serious and will have global impact. But it's worth knowing this is just part of the social problem humanity is facing while trying to combat AGW. There are many stupid world leaders like said Brazilian retard in chief (t-man in US, sheikhs in middle east, Duterte in Philipines, in general most of conservative politicians throughout the world) who don't care about the environment and climate change and collectively lead the world into dangerous warming. I agree the actions of the retard in chief stand out at the moment as having big impact. To make things clear, it should be stated that he's indirectly responsible for setting all of those fires with his encouragement to develop the Amazon land. In his stupidity, he likely does not mind if the Amazon be totally logged out/destroyed. What he minds is that the destruction "looks bad" with those fires visible by satellites. The moron does not understand that his "good" vision is no different in terms of environmental damage.

 

[mrzz]

The details of this news by CNN need to be clarified and the whole "global impact story" put into perspective, otherwise an uninformed listener can become confused. First, CNN's claim that "Amazon rainforest supplies 20% of world's oxygen". It's not clear what they want to say here, but whatever they mean by it, they presented it in a very misleading way. Then, if said forest were to be totally destroyed we would have "significant difficulty in breathing". That is a complete and utter rubbish: ridiculous sensationalism.

The facts are: Amazon rainforest is the single largest land biosphere that is a source of O2 in the O2<->CO2 natural exchange. That exchange amounts for ~100Gt of CO2 circulation. Perhaps this is what they meant here: Amazon rainforest does participate in 20% (20Gt C) of carbon circulation. No doubt said rainforest is a net C sink in this process. How much CO2 is sunk in Amazon annually I don't know. But I do know, that even if we destroyed 100% of this forest, other CO2 sinks (rain-forests & oceans) would pickup the job and started to assimilate more due to increased greenhouse effect. So the global impact of Amazon destruction would not be as bad as "removing 20% of oxygen production". Most likely the impacts would be absorbed by the system with only temporary (few years maybe) bump in CO2 levels by dozen or so ppm. Long term impact (over decades/centuries) is insignificant compared to the impact of extra CO2 from continuous fossil fuel burning.

Now to the absurd bunkum of "significant difficulty in breathing". If the whole biomass of Amazon were irreversibly destroyed by burning, about 90-140 Gt of CO2 would be added to atmosphere. That's about 3 times as much as annual input from FF burning (40Gt CO2). Fossil fuel burning increases atmospheric content of CO2 by 2ppm per annum (at the moment from 0.0410% to 0.0412%). So, the Amazon total burnout means a sudden increase of CO2 content from 0.0412% to about 0.0418% or so). The corresponding decrease of O2 content would be from 20.9% down to 20.8994%. Ergo, O2 decrease is insignificant. CO2 increase is significant, but still pales in comparison with total accumulated increase from pre-industrial levels of 280ppm to current level of 412ppm and rising. So much for the stupid "suffocation" argument.

In recap, the global impact of Amazon total burnout pales in comparison with the cumulative impact of FF burning. But FF burning does not "look bad" because it's internalised in thousands/millions of coal power generators and metal smelters and car engines running for 100 years non stop, while Amazon burns open and can be seen on satellite imaginary. It's worth keeping things in proper perspective when talking about global impact.

That said, it's obviously bad to add more CO2 into atmosphere for no reason (forest clearing by farmers seeking to expand their agricultural land is not a valid reason) when we should be urgently seeking to minimise C emissions, even to remove CO2 down to levels of 350ppm according to some scientists, to escape the destructive effects of continuing global warming.

The more serious (and more immediate) effects of Amazon destruction will be felt locally (in Brazil & S America) with changing rainfall patterns, more droughts & massive local extinctions & rainforest ecosystem collapse.

It goes without saying that the retard in chief in Brasil does not understand all of that, Mrzz is right with his assessment of the situation and I 100% agree with his opinions above. I also agree the situation with Amazon fires (most likely started by the farmers seeking to clear the land) is serious and will have global impact, it's worth knowing this is just part of the social problem humanity is facing while trying to combat AGW. There are many stupid world leaders like said Brazilian retard in chief (t-man in US, sheikhs in middle east, Duterte in Philipines, in general most of conservative politicians throughout the world) who don't care about the environment and climate change and collectively lead the world into dangerous warming. I agree the actions of the retard in chief stand out at the moment as having big impact. To make things clear, it should be stated that he's indirectly responsible for setting all of those fires with his encouragement to develop the Amazon land. In his stupidity, he likely does not mind if the Amazon be totally logged out/destroyed. What he minds is that the destruction "looks bad" with those fires visible by satellites. The moron does not understand that his "good" vision is no different in terms of environmental damage.

Thanks for the informative analysis, Chris (boy, you process information fast). These kind of "helpful" reportings drive me mad. No wonder Trump got elected... it seems that these guys like to lose arguments. I mean, bloody hell, you have the largest biome in the world, and largest by far, burning. There is nothing else that needs to be said. I mean, how is the most efficient way not to help? Make sensationalists lies about it.

Let's say for some reason that in a given town, in a given month there were 5 cases of crazy teens raping their mothers. Then the municipality decides that, to counter it, the best thing to do is to tell people that raping one's mother causes cancer. Little detail is that EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS THAT RAPING YOUR MOTHER IS A FUCKING BAD THING. You don't need to make it even worse by adding some another wrong bad thing about it. This way you only give the opportunity to some random guy to go to the TV and say that, well, raping your mother does not cause cancer. Then some other guy with his feet on the table, remote control in one hand and a can of beer in the other burps and says to his friends, "see, raping your mother does not cause cancer. Maybe it is not that bad after all".

Tsar bombs. 80 megatons. One in each city, even the ones with 12 inhabitants. That is the only possible solution to global stupidity.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Thanks for the informative analysis, Chris (boy, you process information fast). These kind of "helpful" reportings drive me mad. No wonder Trump got elected... it seems that these guys like to lose arguments. I mean, bloody hell, you have the largest biome in the world, and largest by far, burning. There is nothing else that needs to be said. I mean, how is the most efficient way not to help? Make sensationalists lies about it.

Let's say for some reason that in a given town, in a given month there were 5 cases of crazy teens raping their mothers. Then the municipality decides that, to counter it, the best thing to do is to tell people that raping one's mother causes cancer. Little detail is that EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS THAT RAPING YOUR MOTHER IS A FUCKING BAD THING. You don't need to make it even worse by adding some another wrong bad thing about it. This way you only give the opportunity to some random guy to go to the TV and say that, well, raping your mother does not cause cancer. Then some other guy with his feet on the table, remote control in one hand and a can of beer in the other burps and says to his friends, "see, raping your mother does not cause cancer. Maybe it is not that bad after all".

Tsar bombs. 80 megatons. One in each city, even the ones with 12 inhabitants. That is the only possible solution to global stupidity.

Your analogies are always very vivid, mrzz. I like that style (even if some students may find them bit "too strong"), because emotional analogies stimulate learning paths in recipient brains.

 

[Horsa]

Your analogies are always very vivid, mrzz. I like that style (even if some students may find them bit "too strong"), because emotional analogies stimulate learning paths in recipient brains.

I agree. :0)

 

[mrzz]

Your analogies are always very vivid, mrzz. I like that style (even if some students may find them bit "too strong"), because emotional analogies stimulate learning paths in recipient brains.

hahahaha, nothing like a bit of a bad mood to make things vivid!

 

[Horsa]

hahahaha, nothing like a bit of a bad mood to make things vivid!

Haha! I love you in your story-telling mode because you get people interested in what you have to say & keep them interested & leave them wanting more but I don't like to see you in a bad mood.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

It turns out the retardant traits are inherited in Bolsonaro's family (or is it just the upbringing?). Eduardo (the nominee for US ambassador) shows similar worldview and thinking process as his father:

I don't understand Portuguese but the French subtitles are good enough for me. Even without attention to words, the pictures tell good enough story about the retard-junior. I laughed hard from the very start of it whan t-man endorses Eduardo as "really competent, just like his father".

So when Macron accused his father of lying about the environment:
https://www.lemonde.fr/internationa...n-europeenne-et-le-mercosur_5502068_3210.html
the retard-junior, called Macron "idiot" (the Portuguese term calhorda is even more insulting, very hard to adequately translate)
https://www.lemonde.fr/internationa...des-responsables-bresiliens_5502898_3210.html

The above exchange predated the latest appalling & disrespectful remark by the retard in chief towards Macron's wife and a classy response by Macron:
https://www.lematin.ch/monde/brigitte-insultee-macron-triste-bolsonaro/story/10797987
If you don't understand French, you can read/watch the story on CNN (decent translation):
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/26/europe/macron-bolsonaro-brigitte-macron-intl/index.html

There is no need to explain whose side reasonable people are on.

 

[mrzz]

Eduardo is one of three sons, and they fight hard to be the most idiotic one. Eduardo is the one with "higher profile" and more media coverage.

Just one curiosity (to illustrate that those guys are actually not even true, or decent, conservatives): at one point in the video he says that he is a defender of the American second amendment, and talks about the right to form armed militias. Well, his family is deeply connected with armed militias in Rio de Janeiro, and not only those are illegal in Brazil, but the Brazilian militias act in a way that would be completely illegal for an American militia as well (because they don't enforce the law, they act the same way as the Mafia does, only thing is that they kill in war-like numbers.). Actually he probably does not have a clue about what "Militia" actually means in the United States. He probably just noted the similarity of the English word with the Portuguese one and saw an opportunity to defend his family business. Those guys are not conservatives, they are just ordinary criminals.

 

[Horsa]

It turns out the retardant traits are inherited in Bolsonaro's family (or is it just the upbringing?). Eduardo (the nominee for US ambassador) shows similar worldview and thinking process as his father:

I don't understand Portuguese but the French subtitles are good enough for me. Even without attention to words, the pictures tell good enough story about the retard-junior. I laughed hard from the very start of it whan t-man endorses Eduardo as "really competent, just like his father".

So when Macron accused his father of lying about the environment:
https://www.lemonde.fr/internationa...n-europeenne-et-le-mercosur_5502068_3210.html
the retard-junior, called Macron "idiot" (the Portuguese term calhorda is even more insulting, very hard to adequately translate)
https://www.lemonde.fr/internationa...des-responsables-bresiliens_5502898_3210.html

The above exchange predated the latest appalling & disrespectful remark by the retard in chief towards Macron's wife and a classy response by Macron:
https://www.lematin.ch/monde/brigitte-insultee-macron-triste-bolsonaro/story/10797987
If you don't understand French, you can read/watch the story on CNN (decent translation):
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/26/europe/macron-bolsonaro-brigitte-macron-intl/index.html

There is no need to explain whose side reasonable people are on.

I agree with your 1st paragraph.

I don't understand Portuguese but understood the video without reading the subtitles anyway. Portuguese seems a cross between Spanish & French to me though it's a bit different. I know "Ola!" means "Hello!", "Bom Dia!" means "Good day!" & "Desculpe" means "sorry" unless it's accompanied by "Faz favor" which makes it "Excuse me". "Faz favor" on it's own means "please".

Thank you very much for the information.

Reasonable people will be scared, wondering what's going to happen in their country, worried about their future & waiting patiently (or impatiently in some cases) until his term in office ends. I can understand why they feel that way.

Back to the current situation which is dreadful. There are some primitive tribes living in the Amazon rainforest. The fact that farmer's were supposedly encouraged to burn the forest to make more room for farming means these primitive tribes aren't given the same rights as everyone else. There are also lots of animals in the Amazon that aren't found anywhere else & some are endangered species too. He doesn't care about them either. That's in addition to the environmental damage you & Mr.Zz. mentioned beforehand. It's horrendous that these forest fires haven't been died out before now.

 

[Horsa]

Eduardo is one of three sons, and they fight hard to be the most idiotic one. Eduardo is the one with "higher profile" and more media coverage.

Just one curiosity (to illustrate that those guys are actually not even true, or decent, conservatives): at one point in the video he says that he is a defender of the American second amendment, and talks about the right to form armed militias. Well, his family is deeply connected with armed militias in Rio de Janeiro, and not only those are illegal in Brazil, but the Brazilian militias act in a way that would be completely illegal for an American militia as well (because they don't enforce the law, they act the same way as the Mafia does, only thing is that they kill in war-like numbers.). Actually he probably does not have a clue about what "Militia" actually means in the United States. He probably just noted the similarity of the English word with the Portuguese one and saw an opportunity to defend his family business. Those guys are not conservatives, they are just ordinary criminals.

What a stupid competition! In our family the competition was the practicality competition. I always lost because I've never been any good with my hands. My parents prized practicality over everything else so my Sister was always the favourite. I couldn't do anything right because I was never very practical.

Thank you very much for the extra information. What is going on in your country is dreadful. No wonder why you're up in arms about it. It's dreadful that the head of a family of criminals gets the opportunity to run an entire country. It shouldn't happen either.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Eduardo is one of three sons, and they fight hard to be the most idiotic one. Eduardo is the one with "higher profile" and more media coverage.

Just one curiosity (to illustrate that those guys are actually not even true, or decent, conservatives): at one point in the video he says that he is a defender of the American second amendment, and talks about the right to form armed militias. Well, his family is deeply connected with armed militias in Rio de Janeiro, and not only those are illegal in Brazil, but the Brazilian militias act in a way that would be completely illegal for an American militia as well (because they don't enforce the law, they act the same way as the Mafia does, only thing is that they kill in war-like numbers.). Actually he probably does not have a clue about what "Militia" actually means in the United States. He probably just noted the similarity of the English word with the Portuguese one and saw an opportunity to defend his family business. Those guys are not conservatives, they are just ordinary criminals.

How about a Russian word "Militsiya"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militsiya
It was an organisation in former Soviet Union + satellite countries, a state sponsored force, similar to Western police but used to persecute political opponents of ruling regime, in addition to policing. So Eduardo's militia, created to fight communism, the regime pictured as "shit" on his t-shirt, is in fact very similar org to the communist Militsiya. How stupid Eduardo must be, by embracing a type and name of an organisation and the methods of the system (communism) he hates so much and denigrates so much and swears to fight against. Such self-contradictory proclamations are beyond absurd.

 

[mrzz]

Thanks for the informative link, @Chris Koziarz.

The thing with Braz. militias and the connection to the Bolsonaro clan is a bit different. The origin of the Braz Militias lies in the complete absence of the State in the "favelas" in large urban areas, like Rio and SP but actually spread across the country. Those areas became completely "lawless" and at some point the "security" was done by the drug dealers themselves or by corrupt police officers that would charge people for security, for basic services (either provided by the state or "pirate" ones) and, mainly, judge and execute low criminals and local adversaries. This is much more like Mafia than anything else, but there is a deep connection with the corrupt sector of the security forces.

Now these people need political representation, and "favelas" are densely populated and have a huge number of votes. That is where Bolsonaro enters. He was a low ranked military -- a cast out in fact, given that he was, according to the own Brazilian military, a "bad soldier" -- that was outspoken and managed to get votes enough of radical people back in the 90's to become a state legislator for Rio de Janeiro. Then he found a way to stay there and eventually became a congressman, but always known for his stupid remarks. He was kind of a folkloric figure and you cannot imagine how surreal it is that he became president. Point is that during this time he was one of the politicians that became part of the militias representative force in politics, and with his connections in the police and low ranks in the army, he got involved with the militias himself -- he and his family. There are a lot of official and solid sources of that.

This "anti-communist" part is relatively knew. It is something that came about around 2014 -- while this process began around 20 years before that. It is as low as it can get. The funny thing is that this guy got elected with a law and order discourse

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Forbes debunks some of the hysteria Western news outlets are spinning around the current Amazon fires.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...ing-that-its-the-lungs-of-the-world-is-wrong/
Largely compatible with what I debunked above. However some new info was added, incompatible with the facts as I know so far. For example, the 80% increase meant to be in number of fires (compared to 2018 fire season), whereas the total area burned increased by 7% only, so apparently now as bad. I don't know how to read it, because the news are alarming and if SP becomes dark at full daylight like never before, and if the smoke is so serious that they had to cancel a football match (national sport) like never before, then the problem must be serious from some point of view, right? I don't trust Forbes, because in the past, they've provided biased env news, including news about climate change. The article herein quotes an opinion of a guy from IPCC, although I don't know him, so not sure if I should trust him. The guy talks like a conservative economist rather than a climate scientist. It's also possible Forbes has distorted his opinion. However it's worth superposing this news with the other western news and trying to find the objective facts that must lie somewhere in the middle. Some of the Western news might still be hysteria as Forbes claims, although not all of it.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

This "anti-communist" part is relatively knew. It is something that came about around 2014 -- while this process began around 20 years before that. It is as low as it can get. The funny thing is that this guy got elected with a law and order discourse

I find it laughable that they started the anti-communist rhetoric as late as 2014. What prompted them to start it? What's the point? Communism is pretty much dead now (has been since about mid-1990s) and does not need a primitive and disgusting rhetoric like what they are doing.
If they are trying to find an enemy in order to create populist movement, they are doing it in a very silly way. In my mind they look like necrophiliacs digging a cadaver from an old grave and saying: "look, it smells like shit!".

 

[Chris Koziarz]

T-man once again has shown us that he takes climate change seriously only when it affects himself. He canceled his planned visit to Poland because Mar-a-Lago (his "second White House") is threatened by Dorian.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-...an-approaches-mar-a-lago-20190830-p52me6.html
No surprise really. We've seen similar t-man reaction to a rising sea level tghreatening his golf estate in Ireland I believe.
I like Kim Campbell's statement: "I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago!"
but I don't think Dorian would teach anything to t-man, who is a lost case. Even if a precious White Hpouse is destroyed, he will blame God, Evil and other leaders who enraged said Evil.