1. The Devil’s Advocate
Time Stamp: 7:29
- Is Life Sacred?
- Satanic view of life
- Context of hunting & eating
- Life in relation to vegetation
- chlorophyll in their leaves, and if you look at the structure of a chlorophyll molecule it’s really similar to a hemoglobin molecule which makes our blood red. The main difference would be there’s a metal atom in the middle of each of those molecules, and in the case of plant chlorophyll it’s magnesium, which gives it a green color, and in our case it’s iron and that gives us a red color.
- Life consumes natural resources, not just humans but animals and plants too
- Life requires a balanced ecosystem to continue… plants and animals interrupt that naturally, we need checks on invasive species
- Life is an abnormality, it is not natural
- What is living? Awareness of experience or simply being?
2. Infernal Informant
Time Stamp: 26:59
- New Conditions on Alaskan Mine Could Delay Vast Project That Donald Trump Jr. Opposes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/politics/pebble-mine.html- The Army Corps of Engineers will impose new demands for mitigating environmental damage from a vast proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska, potentially delaying approvals for the project beyond the presidential election
- it will not issue a permit until the company presents plans to protect an area in the surrounding watershed, a critical breeding ground for salmon, equal in size to the acreage that the mine would damage.
- That requirement could significantly slow a project that had been sailing toward approval until it incurred the opposition of President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Vice President Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, Nick Ayers. If Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, prevails in November, the project is likely to die.
- “The mine will be close to killed by this,” said Whit Fosburgh, the president of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
- The proposed Pebble Mine, in a remote region about 200 miles from Anchorage, would be one of the largest open-pit mines in the world and could potentially produce hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of metals. But it would be dug near pristine spawning streams that support subsistence fishing by some Alaska Natives, a large sport-fishing industry and one of the biggest commercial wild salmon fisheries in the world, in nearby Bristol Bay.
- Blocked by the Obama administration but revived under President Trump, the project was the subject of an environmental review by the Corps of Engineers, which issued a final report last month and promised a final permitting decision that, by law, must come at least 30 days later.
- since the final review was published, the president’s eldest son and some high-profile Republican donors have joined environmentalists and some Alaska Natives in opposition.
- Thomas J. Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research, an organization that supports the use of fossil fuels, said: “It appears there is an organized last-minute push to persuade Trump to put the brakes on the mine. He should resist.”
- He added, “It is a small subset of wealthy hunter types.”
- One of those “hunter types” is the president’s son, however.
- Meantime, Mr. Wood said, “a crescendo of voices” was rising to oppose the project.
- This month, the younger Mr. Trump, who has fished in the Bristol Bay region, seconded a Twitter post from Mr. Ayers asking the president to stop the project, adding, “The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with.”
- Data show Trump didn’t ‘build’ a great economy. He inherited it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/data-show-trump-didn-t-build-great-economy-he-inherited-n1237793- President Donald Trump’s campaign speeches can careen into many topics, but his primary appeal continues to be that he built “the greatest economy that we’ve had in our history” before the COVID-19 pandemic and he can do it again.
- But the real story of the Trump economy, and the president’s role in building it, is not so simple. If you compare key economic indicators from Barack Obama’s second term in office to the first three years of Trump’s time (that is, before the pandemic hit), the data show a continuation of trends, not a dramatic shift. It suggests Trump didn’t build something new; rather he inherited a pretty good situation.
- Start with the broadest measure of economic health, gross domestic product. In 2016, Trump said he was unhappy that the country’s economic growth rate was under 3 percent a year. Trump said he thought the economy could grow at better-than-4-percent annual rate.
- But the numbers show that average quarterly economic growth under Trump, 2.5 percent, was almost exactly what it was under Obama in the second term, 2.4 percent.
- the growth that began in Obama’s second term and essentially continued under Trump was enough to create an economy that even Trump believes was great. In other words, there might be something to be said for slow-steady growth over a prolonged period of time.
- Job numbers for Obama and Trump show a similar story.
- The president rightly takes credit for having low unemployment during his presidency. In December of 2019, the unemployment rate was a scant 3.5 percent, the lowest it had been in 50 years.
- when Trump took office the rate was already at 4.7 percent.
- the numbers look like the continuation of a trend, not something new.
- And the job creation numbers show more evidence for that view.
- On average, the country created 215,000 new jobs a month in Obama’s second term. In Trump’s first three years, the figure was 182,000.
- Since the recovery from the last recession the numbers look like a slow, steady build. There is no sudden change when Trump takes office in 2017.
- There is one big indicator that suggests a change under Trump, the rise in the stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average in particular took off when he won the presidency.
- To be clear, Obama’s figures were not bad on this measure. From his second Election Day until 2016, the Dow climbed 38 percent. But Trump can rightfully brag about that climb and this week the DJIA has recovered most of what it lost in 2020.
- the idea that the president somehow rescued a nation that was struggling economically when he arrived simply isn’t borne out in the data.
3. Creature Feature
Time Stamp: 48:26
- The Current Occupant
https://www.hulu.com/movie/the-current-occupant-0001a9d7-38a2-4e6f-bbc8-35f9a26f2ff7- Trapped in a mysterious psychiatric ward, a man with no memory comes to believe that he’s the President of the United States and the subject of a diabolical political conspiracy. As the asylum’s soul-crushing forces bear down on him, he fights to preserve his sanity and escape so that he can return to power.
- Director: Julius Ramsay
- Writer: Alston Ramsay
- Starring:
- Barry Watson – Henry Cameron
- Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III – Orderly (as Marvin Jones III)
- Sonita Henry – Dr. Larson
- INTO THE DARK
https://www.hulu.com/into-the-dark