The Right Coast

This is what Earth’s continents will look like in 250 million years

Up to 92% of Earth could be uninhabitable to mammals in 250 million years, researchers predict. The planet’s landmasses are expected to form a supercontinent, driving volcanism and increases to carbon dioxide levels that will leave most of its land barren.

“It does seem like life is going to have a bit more of a hard time in the future,” says Hannah Davies, a geologist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. “It’s a bit depressing.”

Earth is currently thought to be in the middle of a supercontinent cycle¹ as its present-day continents drift. The last supercontinent, Pangaea, broke apart about 200 million years ago. The next, dubbed Pangaea Ultima, is expected to form at the equator in about 250 million years, as the Atlantic Ocean shrinks and a merged Afro-Eurasian continent crashes into the Americas.

via www.nature.com

This gives us a sort of hard deadline.

More UFO Whistleblowers SECRETLY CONFIRM 'Non-Human Biologics' & 'Retrieval Programs': Shellenberger

via www.youtube.com

What is the relationship between soul and body in conjoined twins? #AskAFriar (Aquinas 101)

via www.youtube.com

This question had not occurred to me.

US Republicans could finally win the argument on immigration | Financial Times

Political conditions in the US are ripe for rare progress on immigration. The issue has always fallen victim to debates over timing. Which should come first — serious border enforcement or an amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the country? Progressives, content with weak enforcement and a rising population that expected to be granted legal status in any eventual compromise, have long felt that time was on their side. But a confluence of forces is now shifting that calculus. 

What appeared at one time a stunt — Republican governors sending busloads of illegal immigrants to cities unprepared to handle the influx — has evolved into a systemic crisis. More than 100,000 migrants have arrived in New York City over the past year and a half; 60,000 reside in temporary government shelters there. Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency and a recent poll of the state’s generally progressive population found that immigration had risen suddenly to the fourth most important issue facing residents. 

Public perception of the problem is compounded by the surge in lawlessness under the Biden administration. The transition from the Trump administration’s harsh enforcement in 2020 to the new administration’s lax approach in 2021 yielded a quadrupling of illegal border crossings to an all-time high. This crisis is a policy choice, not some irresistible force. 

Americans have previously reacted with resignation. But not this time. A national poll conducted this month by CBS News found that only 34 per cent of Americans approve of Joe Biden’s handling of the issue, with lower marks only on inflation. Among Hispanics that figure fell to 29 per cent, and among independents to 26 per cent. Such numbers will worry the Democrats as they head into a presidential election that is likely to pit Biden against former president Donald Trump, for whom immigration is a signature issue. Exactly how worried they will be depends on how the Republicans now play their hand. 

via www.ft.com

Just the Facts on 'Geofencing,' the Intrusive, App-Based 'Dragnet' That Sgt. Joe Friday Never Dreamed Of | RealClearInvestigations

Satellites were locking in on cell phones owned by members of the nondenominational Protestant church in San Jose, Calif. Their location eventually worked its way to a private company, which then sold the information to the government of Santa Clara County. This data, along with observations from enforcement officers on the ground, was used to levy heavy fines against the church for violating COVID-19 restrictions regarding public gatherings.            

“Every Sunday,” Calvary’s assistant pastor, Carson Atherly, would later testify, the officers “would serve me a notice of violation during or after church service.”

Calvary is suing the county for its use of location data, a controversial tool increasingly deployed by governments at all levels – notably in relation to the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. While enabling law enforcement to more easily identify potential offenders, the practice, called “geofencing,” has also emerged as a cutting-edge privacy issue, raising constitutional issues involving warrantless searches and, with Calvary Chapel, religious liberty.

via www.realclearinvestigations.com

Why does the government need to keep track of Calvary Church and who's going there?

Lost Michigan toddler found asleep in woods using family dog as furry pillow | Michigan | The Guardian

“She laid down and used one of the dogs as a pillow, and the other dog laid right next to her and kept her safe,” Lt Mark Giannunzio said on Thursday. “It’s a really remarkable story.”

Troopers used drones and police dogs in the search while local police and citizens from both Michigan and adjacent Wisconsin helped look for the girl in the remote wooded area.

Troopers from Michigan state police’s Iron Mountain post had been called to a home in the Faithorn area of Menominee county about 8pm Wednesday after the girl wandered away.

Around midnight, a citizen on an ATV found the girl about three miles (4.8km) from her home, state police said.

via www.theguardian.com

Media and Architects of Online Censorship Law Heap Pressure on Rumble After it Defends Principle of Neutrality

Media outlets and architects of the UK’s censorship law, the Online Safety Bill, are increasing the pressure on neutral video sharing platform Rumble after it refused to bow down to the UK Parliament’s pressure to demonetize comedian Russell Brand.

The pressure to demonetize Brand came after anonymous sexual assault allegations were made against him. Brand has denied the allegations and has not been arrested, charged, or convicted of any of the allegations made against him.

Several companies, including YouTube, took action against Brand after the allegations surfaced, despite Brand having no content violations on YouTube. But Rumble stood up to the pressure and rejected the UK Parliament’s request to cut off Brand’s monetization, with CEO Chris Pavlovski noting that the allegations against Brand have “nothing to do with content on Rumble’s platform.”

Now, several media outlets and people who helped craft the UK’s online censorship law, the upcoming Online Safety Bill, are targeting Rumble’s stance.

via reclaimthenet.org

Democrats chose Biden — now they're doomed in 2024

If Joe Biden is their nominee, Democrats will lose the White House next year.

That conclusion gets harder to deny with each passing week.

But what can Democrats do about it?

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has Biden trailing Donald Trump by nine points, 42% to 51%.

Progressive pundits have reacted with denial, anger and bargaining.

The once-mainstream polling analyst Larry Sabato could only rage on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “It’s a ridiculous outlier (Trump up 10 over Biden — laughable). My question: How could you even publish a poll so absurd on its face?”

Where would the profession be if pollsters discarded the data every time they didn’t like what their surveys told them?

via nypost.com

The golden age of polling is over. So is the silver and bronze age. Maybe we're in the pewter age.

Don Mellein, Jeni Pearsons suing FBI after allegedly losing hundreds of thousands in rare coins during raid

Two Americans are alleging the FBI lost or stole their property after seizing it through a “shady” process.

“All we know is that their property was in a box and safe before the FBI broke into the box,” Joe Gay, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice, told Fox News. “Once the FBI broke into the box, we honestly don’t know exactly what happened.”

“We don’t know if they lost it. We don’t know if somebody pocketed it and walked away,” he continued. “We have no way to know.”

The Institute for Justice filed two lawsuits Friday on behalf of clients who had property seized from their safety deposit boxes in a March 2021 FBI raid on U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills–based company.

After prevailing in court, and the FBI agreeing to return their property, both Don Mellein and Jeni Pearsons discovered some of their property was missing and suspect the FBI’s haphazard raid or sticky fingers are to blame. 

via nypost.com

Hide them where they can't find them.

Battles Over ESG in 401(k)s Will Outlast Judge’s Surprise Ruling

Although significant, particularly considering Kacsmaryk’s conservative track record, the Texas case once considered the GOP’s best shot at undoing the Biden rule is now just one piece of a bigger partisan push to scrub ESG consideration among Wall Street asset managers. Republicans on Capitol Hill are now investigating public coffers, retail portfolios, and proxy voting firms over their ESG treatment.

That political pressure has inadvertently caught a seemingly benign DOL regulation in an effort to shape nearly $30 trillion in investment capital and the returns of more than 140 million workplace savers. With the stakes so high, the department’s rule itself may be safe for now, but the future holds uncertainty.

“In the short term, this is a very major step in protecting the future of the Biden administration’s rule,” said Josh Lichtenstein, a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP in New York. “In the long term, the way this has been treated as a political issue isn’t likely to change.”

via news.bloomberglaw.com

Unfortunate.