Just what the year 2020 needs: Locusts

Crises from all over the world seemed to be competing to grab the headlines in January: Australia’s devastating bushfires, the impeachment trial in America, Brexit finally becoming reality, and the coronavirus outbreak in China. But Africa, often starved for attention, has a growing crisis of its own: a swarm of locusts, already the largest in decades, and still growing.

Continue reading Just what the year 2020 needs: Locusts

Why scientists think they have identified the remains of Vesuvius victim Pliny the Elder

In the year 1900 Italian civil engineer Gennaro Matrone uncovered a cluster of bodies (73 eventually recovered) under volcanic rubble near the mouth of the Sarno River which flows from Mt. Vesuvius down to the Bay of Naples. This was only a few kilometers from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the twin towns famously buried in lava and ash by Vesuvius in 79 AD, and they appeared to be people who had fled to what was must then have been the shoreline. They were not fully encased and eerily preserved like many in Pompeii, but eroded down to skeletons, with sometimes a few coins from their pouches.

Continue reading Why scientists think they have identified the remains of Vesuvius victim Pliny the Elder

Still awaiting sentencing, Keith Raniere and other Nxivm leaders are now being sued

[Sarah Edmondson vs. Keith Raniere]

After a highly-publicized trial that resulted in the conviction or guilty pleas of six Nxivm leaders who now await sentencing, they and numerous others are now facing another kind of fight in court.

Continue reading Still awaiting sentencing, Keith Raniere and other Nxivm leaders are now being sued

From Nobel Peace Prize winner to genocide enabler?

The town of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh was once a popular trading post, named for Captain Hiram Cox of the East India Company in the early days of the British Raj, sited on a coast which boasts the longest stretch of sandy beach on the planet. The district was a violently contested no man’s land between the Sultanate of Bengal (most of which was in present-day Bangladesh) and the Principality of Arakan (a part of today’s Myanmar), where Portuguese pirates set up base until Cox took control. In happier times it became known as a pleasant resort. It is now best known for the largest refugee camp the world has ever seen, housing over seven hundred thousand of the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority in a largely Buddhist part of the world.

Continue reading From Nobel Peace Prize winner to genocide enabler?

The timing of the John Bolton book leak could not be worse for Trump’s legal team

Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

[Regarding this story: Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says]

Months after not being called to testify at the impeachment trial, John Bolton drops a bomb in a book that previews what his testimony would be if called.

Continue reading The timing of the John Bolton book leak could not be worse for Trump’s legal team

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The numerous reasons why the recording of Trump saying to ‘take her out’ matters

Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

[Regarding this story: ‘Take her out’: Recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired]

A few things to keep in mind and reasons this is significant:

Continue reading The numerous reasons why the recording of Trump saying to ‘take her out’ matters

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Derp-showitz: Trump team doesn’t like the Constitution, bases its defense in English law

Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

[Regarding this story: Constitutional Crabgrass: President Trump’s Defenders Distort the Impeachment Clause]

Yesterday I spent a few paragraphs deconstructing Alan Dershowitz’s argument (which he’s expected to make next week on the Senate floor) that “high crimes and misdemeanors” requires “criminal-like conduct,” whatever that’s supposed to mean it’s a term and standard Dershowitz simply made up that has no Constitutional support.

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Senate impeachment trial shaping up more to be a motion to dismiss than a trial

Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

Whatever the senate impeachment trial winds up being, it appears it will resemble a motion to dismiss more than a trial, since McConnell evidently has 51 votes for a process that won’t permit a vote on witnesses until after the two sides manage to pack 24 hours of argument into 48 hour terms.

Continue reading Senate impeachment trial shaping up more to be a motion to dismiss than a trial

Dershowitz for the defense: Only Giuliani has debased himself more zealously

[Alan Dershowitz]

Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

[Regarding this story: George Conway: Why Trump had to hire this legal odd couple]

I was never a Van Halen fan but nevertheless found myself wincing at a video of David Lee Roth in Las Vegas from a few weeks ago. He was always more flash and bombast than talent but seeing him bumbling around on stage mumbling every third word to the song, wholly oblivious to how badly things have gotten, was sad.

Continue reading Dershowitz for the defense: Only Giuliani has debased himself more zealously

Iconic sequoia dies 500 years before it should in another sign of the climate apocalypse

[California’s majestic sequoias are dying early]

“Lazarus” is the name given to an iconic specimen of giant sequoia, in the Giant Forest located in Sequoia National Park. These magnificent trees can reach 300 feet (90 meters) during a lifespan that can exceed 3,000 years, and are famously resistant to droughts and fires. Lazarus,
more than 2,000 years old, is so called because it shows scars from surviving numerous severe fires.

But now, though the death of such a large creature is not an instant process, it appears to have expired.

Continue reading Iconic sequoia dies 500 years before it should in another sign of the climate apocalypse