Category: Article Share

Syria & the Fall of Bashar al-Assad – Why Assad’s military folded and what’s next

Posted on by Lone Candle

By 2024 Assad’s army was significantly weakened by multiple causes, and so were Assad’s allies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzXlat-TcE

FBI informant accused of lying about Bidens agrees to plead guilty

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A former FBI informant charged with fabricating corruption allegations about President Joe Biden and his son has agreed to plead guilty to four felony charges to resolve two pending federal criminal cases against him, according to a court filing.
Alexander Smirnov, 44, admitted to lying when he told the FBI that he took part in meetings with executives from Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2015 or 2016 about a scheme to pay $10 million to Joe and Hunter Biden. Joe Biden was the vice president at the time of the fabricated meetings, and Smirnov claimed the purported payments were bribes to “protect us … from all kinds of problems,” according to a plea agreement filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/12/smirnov-bidens-plea-agreement-00194004

4 Presidential Pardons From History That Were Way More Controversial Than Biden’s

Posted on by Lone Candle

“as a historical matter, the critics are dead wrong when they insist that the Hunter Biden pardon is a unique and uniquely polarizing use of the pardon power. Presidents since George Washington have wielded that power, often in extraordinarily controversial ways.
The question isn’t whether Biden’s action was somehow singular in its offensiveness — history shows us that it is not. It’s whether the pardon power, a constitutional holdover from the divine rights of kings, is a power worth removing altogether from the Constitution.

Here are four earlier examples of controversial uses of the pardon power, from Washington to Bill Clinton. Together, they make Biden’s pardon look almost quaint.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/04/biden-presidential-pardon-controversy-00192404

The most dangerous roads in America have one thing in common

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Although only 14 percent of urban road miles nationwide are under state control, two-thirds of all crash deaths in the 101 largest metro areas occur there, according to a recent Transportation for America report. In some places, this disparity is widening: From 2016 to 2022, road fatalities in Austin, Texas, fell 20 percent on locally managed roads while soaring 98 percent on those the state oversees.”

…

“Instead of fixing such roadways, state officials tend to keep them as they are, citing limited resources or a need to maintain traffic speeds. In doing so, they constrain the capacity of even the most comprehensive local reforms to respond to urgent problems like car crash deaths, which are far more widespread in the US than among peer countries, or unreliable bus service.
Unless state DOTs recognize that a successful urban road must do more than facilitate fast car trips, that problem will persist.”

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/384562/state-highways-dots-car-crashes-pedestrian

We were supposed to hit peak emissions. Why won’t they stop rising?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The big reason is that fossil fuel consumption is up. Oil and gas account for the bulk of this increase in emissions, with coal a distant third. While greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are rising, their output is level or falling from some of the largest historical emitters. The European Union’s emissions are declining. US emissions are holding steady. China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, is on track to see its output grow by just 0.2 percent this year, one of the tiniest increases in years.
Bucking this trend are many developing countries like India, currently the world’s third-largest emitter. India has seen a huge increase in renewable energy deployment, but its still developing energy from all sources, including fossil fuels. The Global Carbon Budget found India’s fossil fuel emissions are on track to increase 4.6 percent this year.

There are a few additional factors that drove up emissions this year. The lingering effects of El Niño helped push global temperatures to record highs. Extraordinary heat waves in India and China pushed up energy demand for cooling, and that meant burning more fossil fuels. “We’re beginning to see some of those negative feedback loops where the climate crisis itself is impacting on the energy system and making it harder to reduce emissions,” Grant said.

Still, there are glimmers of good news. More than 30 countries have already managed to grow their economies while cutting carbon dioxide pollution, a clear sign that coal, oil, and natural gas are not the only paths to prosperity. These countries have already summited their emissions peaks and are now on the descent, breaking a pattern that has held for nearly two centuries.”

https://www.vox.com/climate/385183/cop29-climate-change-emissions-rising-trump-baku