Alan

@metaphase@toot.community
185 Followers
658 Following
4.4K Posts
Interested in living better together. #solarpunk #climate #permaculture #cooperatives
Because of a statutory requirement to automatically impose budget cuts when legislation increases the deficit … Medicare is one of the programs that will face the axe, and the damage sums to $490 billion over the next ten years. https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-03-republicans-cutting-medicare-not-only-medicaid/
Republicans Are Cutting Medicare. Not Only Medicaid, Medicare.

Passage of the Big Beautiful Bill will force mandatory sequestration that will mean half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts.

The American Prospect

I looked at USA damages from #climatechange related disasters 2011 to 2024.
I compare the adjusted dollar damages
to the US federal budget 2024, which was 6.7 trillion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_federal_budget

On an annual basis, damages average at 1.42% of that budget,
range from 0.31 in 2014 to 3.61 in 2017. No trend yet.

And the sum total of #climatechange -related damages since 2011 is 20% of that 2024 budget,
1.346 trillion adjusted dollars.

Which equals 4.7% of the holy GDP in 2023 (28.64 tn).
The annual damages average at
0.000000000004286 % of GDP.
Okay... (Maybe GDP 2023 was 6 trillion smaller. I used numbers from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_federal_budget )

I know, damage dollars aren't lost to the holy "economy".
Assuming that most of the stuff got repaired by now, many individuals even profited from the damage. From construction workers to shareholders of kitchen appliance companies – 
and if these don't live in regions where insurance premiums go up, climate disasters are a net profit for them.
Yay.
Only 39% of the damage since 2011 was insured. No trend there either... I guess, getting new insurance is just too costly, so the insured fraction doesn't grow.

Oh, and
injured: 9090
deaths: 6104
temporary homeless: 182,676.

Why are you seeing the charts?

I got blocked on Bluesky yesterday. By Jonathan Foley. @globalecoguy
Because I politely and with humour corrected his false statement: since 2007, the US had reduced emissions by 20% and at the same time, increased its economy by 40%.
False on both accounts.
Take consumption-based CO2, and since 2011 rather than 2007,
to exclude the bloody stupid banking crisis, caused by the bloody stupid US Americans.
Lo and behold, USA emission reduction since 2011 is 3%, not 20.
Haha. I call that natural variability, not the result of a strategic effort. -3% is merely the effect of the pandemic, and US emissions are rising again as well..

Since Jonathan is so oldschool that he still likes to mention unqualified economic growth: GDP grew by 23%, not his 40.
All figures easily accessed on OurWorldInData.
Emissions:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?stackMode=relative&time=2011..latest&country=CHN~USA~IND~GBR~OWID_EU27&Gas+or+Warming=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Consumption-based&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country
and GDP:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=line&stackMode=relative&time=2011..latest

What a liar... and he sells Hopium with his lies. Project Drawdown, my ass... let#s hope it draws him down big time.

Now, there I branched out a bit. Thinking, how much of that economic growth was actually due to repairs and rebuilding after climate disasters? Only a teeny weeny amount.

But before I could post the charts which took me an hour to prepare from https://www.emdat.be
he blocked my account.
Wanker.

I still thought it useful to share.

8 July 1942 | A French Jewish girl, Denise Repper, was born in Paris to Alexander and Madeleine.

In December 1943 she was deported to #Auschwitz. After the selection she was murdered in a gas chamber.

Apropos of nothing, in 1960s Vienna the socialist city government decided—against vehement protests of the conservatives—to spend a lot of money on a major civil engineering flood protection project.

In 2013, the Danube reached a 500-year flood in Vienna.

Nothing was destroyed and no one got seriously hurt.

The New York Times's shocking race-science investigation into Zohran Mamdani shows the paper will stop at nothing to upend the progressive star. It is a clear sign of how the paper is stuck in the worst muck of the Israel lobby.

https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/new-york-times-mamdani-smear-shows-how-out-of-touch-the-paper-is-with-progressives-especially-on-palestine/

#Palestine #Israel #Gaza
@palestine @israel

‘New York Times’ Mamdani smear shows how out of touch the paper is with progressives, especially on Palestine

The New York Times’s shocking race-science investigation into Zohran Mamdani shows the paper will stop at nothing to upend the progressive star. It is a clear sign of how the paper is stuck in the worst muck of the Israel lobby.

Mondoweiss

To whomever it may concern,

I am writing to respectfully express my concern regarding the recent suspension of a Year 11 student at Coburg High School, following their questioning of Assistant Minister for Defence Peter Khalil during his visit to the school. The student’s conduct appears to have been a principled and thoughtful attempt to engage with an issue of considerable international and humanitarian significance.

While schools must maintain standards of respectful discourse, it is essential to distinguish between disruptive behaviour and legitimate civic engagement. In this instance, the student’s actions appear to have embodied the core values outlined in Coburg High School’s motto: Excellence | Integrity | Curiosity | Community.

The student showed Excellence in their capacity to critically analyse and respond to current global events, showcasing the analytical rigour we seek to foster in all young learners.

Integrity was evident in the student’s willingness to speak out on behalf of a marginalised population, guided by ethical conviction and a commitment to justice.

They showed Curiosity in their inquiry into government policy and foreign affairs, a sign of an intellectually engaged and politically aware member of the school's student body.

Their actions were grounded in a strong sense of Community, as the student advocated for global solidarity and the recognition of shared human rights and dignity.

In times of profound global violence and human suffering, silence is not neutrality, it is complicity. To quote Howard Zinn, "You can't be neutral on a moving train."

In the face of what many in the international community (from scholars, to legal experts, to human rights organisations) have described as acts of genocide, the moral imperative to speak out in defence of Palestine becomes even more urgent.

Students must be encouraged to use their voices against injustice, even when their views are uncomfortable or challenging. That is the essence of ethical citizenship.

Rather than being met with punitive measures, such civic-mindedness, moral courage and passion for justice should be recognised as the very qualities that education aims to cultivate.

I urge the school leadership to reconsider the disciplinary action and to affirm its commitment to fostering thoughtful, informed, and principled student voice.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Kind regards
Aby [redacted]

#israel #Gaza #FreePalestine #FuckColonisation #VicPol #Victoria #Australia

🤦‍♂️
"in 2024 the MTA was tasked by its elected board of directors with creating resources for educators themselves to learn the history of Palestine.

The ADL improperly took those internal materials, cherry-picked elements to claim that presenting Palestinian perspectives amounted to “glorifying terrorists,” and “manipulated [them]... to label the state’s largest union of educators as promoters of antisemitism,” MTA leaders wrote in February."
https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2025/07/educators-union-rejects-anti-defamation-league-cuts-ties

Educators Union Rejects Anti-Defamation League, Cuts Ties

The Anti-Defamation League has been a ubiquitous presence in U.S. schools for forty years, pushing curriculum, direct programming, and teacher training into K-12 schools and increasingly into universities, often over the objections of students, parents, and educators. Now, the three million-member National Education Association has finally said no. In July 6 vote, the NEA’s 7,000-member Representative Assembly cut all ties with the ADL.

Labor Notes
The Trump regime is engaging in ethnic cleansing. We need to say it aloud.
Call to action: farm workers and labourers across the US are planning a nationwide strike the #HUELGAPARALADIGNIDA translation #StrikeForDignity. They’ll announce it 3 days prior. If you work in other industries or are in a union organize to join the strike when it happens. #3E #NationalStrike

"While Texas drowned, he danced.

With people still missing, he golfed.

He gutted the weather service. Slashed NOAA’s budget. As a result, the alerts came too late. 78 people died, including 28 children, with 41 more missing."

~ From Letters from God at Substack, in an email to subscribers

Either drastic cuts to NWS and NOAA budgets play a role — for weal or woe — in how those services function, or they don't. We can't have it both ways.

#Trump #Texas #NWS #NOAA
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Downtown L.A., June 2025. Protesters fill the streets after mass ICE raids tear through immigrant neighborhoods. LAPD fire over 600 rounds—rubber bullets, tear gas, bean bags. Marines patrol the city. And still, they call it peacekeeping. Still, they call it order.

3/6

Image: Protesters clash with police downtown near a VA outpatient clinic. (Luke Johnson / LA Times).

A road cuts through what used to be a neighborhood. Concrete spills from gutted apartments. Wires hang loose like veins. A single building leans like it’s trying to stand. Three small figures walk down the middle—no destination.

Entire families buried beneath what was once home. Walls turned to dust. Lives turned to statistics.

4/6

Image: Aerial view of Palestinians walking past destroyed houses in the Gaza Strip’s Jabalia refugee camp, February 2024/Reuters.

And still, they say: this is defense. Still, they say: they seek peace. And those who bury their children are named the enemy.

Image: Protester lays prostrate surrounded by heavily armed LAPD. (Luke Johnson / LA Times).

Primary Sources:

Mason, John. A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable Taking of Their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637. Boston: S.G. Drake, 1869. Originally written in 1677. Source: https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofpe00maso/page/n8/mode/1up

5/6

More Primary Sources

PBS NewsHour. “Cleveland Police Forced Tamir Rice’s Sister to the Ground, Footage Reveals.” PBS NewsHour, January 8 2015.. Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/cleveland-police-forced-tamir-rices-sister-ground-footage-reveals

LA Times Staff, “How L.A. Law Enforcement Got Pulled into Trump’s Immigration Fight,” LA Times, Source:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-10/lapd-sheriffs-department-immigration-protests

Nidal Al‑Mughrabi, “Israeli Strikes Kill 33 People in Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, Medics Say,” Reuters, October 18, 2024, accessed June 22, 2025, Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-sends-more-troops-into-north-gaza-deepens-raid-2024-10-18/

6/6

Cleveland police forced Tamir Rice's sister to the ground, footage reveals

According to new security footage released Thursday, Cleveland police handcuffed the 14-year-old sister of Tamir Rice and kept her nearby in a patrol car after a police officer shot the boy within seconds of arriving to the scene.

PBS News
@Deglassco I love all your threads, Dr. Glassco, but I think this one is special in the way it ties together the recurrent theme of “those the law binds but does not protect, and those the law protects but does not bind.” Also, the way the latter define themselves as the “good guys” to the point of absurd atrocities like “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Thank you for your clear vision and historical perspective.

@Deglassco

The sad fact is that we're a violent species, and as violent as things are at the moment they aren't a patch on the violence we have historically meted out against each other.
Don't misunderstand me, I know there are peaceful, kind humans out there, but violence wins out every single time and the sooner those of us in the "merciful" camp, per the attached quote, acknowledge this fact the better.

@Deglassco
"Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant"
Where they make a desert, they call it peace
~ Tacitus
@Deglassco It is impossible that no one recognises these utter fuckers. Name and shame them. Also- why call to report a child playing with a probably fake gun?

@Deglassco
RE
A Brief History of the #Pequot War: Especially of the Memorable Taking of Their Fort at Mistick in Connecticut in 1637. Boston: S.G. Drake, 1869. ⭕Originally written in 1677

Thanks‼️

@Deglassco they love to hide their crimes behind misuse of words, re-framing, and what-about-ism. Tools to distract, deny and deflect from the crime they commit.

and they are crimes. They will use words to try to avoid accountability in the pursuit of power.

Fuck those assholes. All of them. Fuck them all. :(

@Deglassco "peacekeeping" like the "peacekeepers" in the Hunger Games.