Weds, July 7, 2021, 11 AM (CT). TOPICS: Voting Info; Riders will soon have access to free Wi-Fi systemwide on METRO vehicles; Harris County establishes flood resilience trust …; Cy-Fair restaurant owners struggle to fill job openings; Home construction accelerates in Cy-Fair’s remaining open land tracts; State Rep. Dan Huberty [R-District 127] reflects on 87th legislative session, Texas public education; Allen West announces he is running against Gov. Greg Abbott in Republican primary; Texans with disabilities fear voting will get harder for them as special session on GOP restrictions nears; Democrats mull options for special session, including another walkout; Hobby Lobby advocates for a Christian-run government in Independence Day ads placed in many national newspapers; European powers warn Iran over enriched uranium metal production; US withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 90% complete, Pentagon says; The Arctic Threat That Must Not be Named; Marine heatwaves are human-made; How humans are altering the tides of the oceans; Is There a Black Hole in Our Backyard?; More. [AUDIO/VIDEO] #KPFTHouston 90.1 HD2

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Beginning on June 2^nd, Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) moved to Wednesdays at 11AM on KPFT HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

Live online at KPFT.org
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Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on 90.1 KPFT- HD2, Where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories.

My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

Listen live on the radio, or on the internet from anywhere in the world! Please take a moment to visit Pledge.KPFT.org and choose THINKWING RADIO from the drop-down list when you donate.

For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:

An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend t become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

POSSIBLE TOPICS: Voting info; Riders will soon have access to free Wi-Fi systemwide on METRO vehicles; Harris County establishes flood resilience trust …; Cy-Fair restaurant owners struggle to fill job openings; Home construction accelerates in Cy-Fair’s remaining open land tracts; State Rep. Dan Huberty [R-District 127] reflects on 87th legislative session, Texas public education; Allen West announces he is running against Gov. Greg Abbott in Republican primary; Texans with disabilities fear voting will get harder for them as special session on GOP restrictions nears; Democrats mull options for special session, including another walkout; Hobby Lobby advocates for a Christian-run government in Independence Day ads placed in many national newspapers; European powers warn Iran over enriched uranium metal production; US withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 90% complete, Pentagon says; The Arctic Threat That Must Not be Named; Marine heatwaves are human-made; How humans are altering the tides of the oceans; Is There a Black Hole in Our Backyard?; More.

Pledge to support KPFT by Text: Listeners can now text “GIVE” to 713-526-5738 and they’ll receive a text message back with a link to KPFT’s donation page, with which they can make their pledge on-line at their convenience.

Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
1. 1. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2021
2. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
3. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
4. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX) <– UPDATED LINK
5. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
6. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
7. Waller County (TX) Elections
8. Chambers County (TX) Elections
9. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
10. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
11. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
  1. 1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
    2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
    3. Current utility bill
    4. Bank statement
    5. Government check
    6. Paycheck
    7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
  2. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
    1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
    2. Sick or disabled;
    3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
    4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
  3. Make sure you are registered:
  4. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
  5. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
  6. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
  7. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
Riders will soon have access to free Wi-Fi systemwide on METRO vehicles; By Andy Yanez | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 6:30 AM Jul 5, 2021 CDT
1. METRO’s addition of the free Wi-Fi on its buses, paratransit vehicles and trains will occur over the next several months in a phased rollout, it said in the release. According to METRO Public Information Officer Monica Russo, over 50% of METRO’s vehicles are already equipped with the free Wi-Fi. …
Harris County establishes flood resilience trust …; By Hannah Zedaker | COM | 9:07 AM Jun 30, 2021 CDT | Updated 12:18 PM Jun 30, 2021 CDT
1. Harris County Commissioners Court established an $833 million flood resilience trust at its June 29 meeting as a means of filling the funding gap the Harris County Flood Control District is currently facing with regard to its $2.5 billion bond program approved by voters in 2018.
2. As previously reported by Community Impact Newspaper, the 2018 bond program was created and presented to voters as being composed of $2.5 billion in flood control district bonds plus an additional $2.5 billion from planned federal, state and local partners. However, the Harris County Budget Office presented data March 9 revealing a $1.3 billion shortfall in funds needed to complete all of the flood mitigation projects included in the 2018 bond program, due largely in part to a lack of partner funds. …
3. Upon return to the court at the June 29 meeting, the flood control district outlined an updated funding plan for the 2018 bond program …
4. Similarly, the budget department recommended [a number of] actions …
5. Upon implementation, county officials said the key recommendations are expected to fully fund and ensure equitable progress across the 2018 bond program while also laying the groundwork for the district’s needs beyond the 2018 bond program. The court unanimously approved both updated funding plans for the 2018 bond program. …
6. Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said, “With this flood resilience trust, we’re taking money that we could have used on other projects—flood mitigation projects or transportation projects—but … the GLO [Texas General Land Office] put the screws to us with money that was not theirs; it was federal money, [so] we have to create this trust to make up [the funding] if we don’t get it [from the GLO],”. “We are robbing Peter to pay Paul because we have not gotten the money from the GLO.”
7. Mike: I hate to be cynical, but I wonder if the problem with the TxGLO releasing federal funding is related to Harris County be heavily Democratic?
A good snapshot of the hiring problems facing the hospitality industry generally: Cy-Fair restaurant owners struggle to fill job openings; By Emily Jaroszewski, Anna Lotz | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:45 PM Jul 2, 2021 CDT
1. “Now hiring” signs are posted outside restaurants across Cy-Fair, from locally owned eateries to fast food chains. Employers are incentivizing applicants actively searching for jobs.
2. Local restaurant owners said they are shocked people are not taking advantage of the surplus of job openings, some requiring no experience, as they recover from a global pandemic.
3. The Gulf Coast Workforce Board, the public workforce system in the 13-county Houston-Galveston region, found [that] food preparation, operation and servers had the second-highest job demand among all industries in February.
4. About 20,573 food industry jobs in the region — including servers, food preparation workers and various positions in fast food chains — were open at the time. The restaurant industry is struggling to stay afloat and cater to the high volume of customers coming in as COVID-19 vaccines availability is more widespread, local business owners said.
5. Even with a $250 signing bonus incentive for employees that stay longer than 90 days, Mia’s Table Manager Alicia Valdivia said she cannot find enough workers to open the new Cypress location on Fry Road. Valdivia said she believes Mia’s Table is not drawing in workers because they are unmotivated to return to work, especially if they have been receiving unemployment benefits. …
6. Greg Abbott announced to the U.S. Department of Labor on May 17 that Texas would be opting out of federal unemployment compensation related to the COVID-19 pandemic effective June 26, which includes the expiration of a $300 weekly supplemental benefit. …
7. “I think it’s kind of a short-sighted strategy to cut off these resources when people have that money coming into their pockets,” Lewis said. “They’re then able to continue to buy the goods and services that support businesses, and so you know, it’s kind of like shooting yourself in the foot if you’re going to cut off these federal benefits while people are still trying to find employment that is suitable for them.” …
8. Another issue facing a return to the workforce for some unemployed workers is salaries not meeting the needs of workers to afford basic things, such as child care or health insurance. In Harris County, the average family of four needs to bring in $6,084 monthly to afford housing, food, transportation, health care and other necessities, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that considers the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions.
9. “Wages really benefit society as a whole, so seeing workers be able to kind of negotiate wages up is a really good thing for everybody,” Lewis said.
10. However, the state’s minimum wage has remained $7.25 for more than 10 years, while the national average has increased to $9.21 since 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. …
11. To cover more tables with a smaller staff, Marty Wadsworth, vice president of marketing at Willie’s Grill and Icehouse, said the restaurant switched over to a digital ordering system combined with servers bringing out food to the tables for faster turnover rates.
12. “Our team members during the last six months here … are averaging over $20 an hour right now simply by picking up more tables,” Wadsworth said.
13. Melissa Stewart, executive director of the Texas Restaurant Association, said hiring bonuses and referral bonuses are common when trying to recruit more staff members at restaurants. …
14. While some are eager to return to the workforce, the challenges of finding good child care for single parents is still weighing on families, Stewart said. Employment may resume at a normal rate when schools and day cares open up in the fall to give those parents a chance to work, she said. …
15. In the meantime, Stewart said she encourages restaurateurs to highlight the benefits of working in the industry, such as flexible hours, competitive pay, a great starting job for high school or college students and a reliable second job when needed.
16. “We’re great for somebody who needs that extra little income,” she said.
17. Mike: $20/hour (an optimistic number for most servers and hospitality workers) equals $41,600/year before taxes. Now let’s look at the next story.
Westward expansion: Home construction accelerates in Cy-Fair’s remaining open land tracts; By Danica Lloyd | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 8:25 AM Jul 1, 2021 CDT
1. As Cy-Fair’s remaining large tracts of land are built out, PASA [Population and Survey Analysts] projects by 2024, the development of multifamily units will outpace the growth of single-family homes, amounting to about 18,220 new units by 2030.
2. “That math probably is accurate only in that we’re running out of land in Cy-Fair,” said Fred Caldwell, president and CEO of Caldwell Companies, which developed Towne Lake and other Cypress neighborhoods. “You end up with smaller tracts that are going to lend themselves toward multifamily.”
3. PASA estimates about 13% of Cy-Fair’s developable land is yet to be developed, most of which is east of the Grand Parkway and south of Hwy. 290. …
4. Bridge Creek [neighborhood] began home sales last year … Homes range from $200,000-$500,000, which [Tim] Johnson said meets the budgets for many young families in the market. …
5. Mike: Just ‘ball-parking’ here. A $200,000 “starter home” from a builder might require as little as 5% down ($10,000). That leaves a $190,000 mortgage at, let’s say, 3% for 30 years. By my calculation, that’s about $800/month plus taxes and insurance. For starters. Cypress-area property tax rates are about 2.4%, adding $400/month. Insurance might be about $1824/year, or $152/month. So a monthly mortgage payment (including escrow) on that $200,000 starter home is going to be about $1352/month, optimistically. That will require a monthly household income of about $4000/month AFTER TAXES. So let’s say a gross household income of about $60,000/year.
6. There are many different ways to calculate this with many variables that can significantly affect these numbers. They’re very optimistic.
7. Now, let’s discuss this in the context of the previous article on the need for hospitality workers.
State Rep. Dan Huberty [R-District 127] reflects on 87th legislative session, Texas public education;By Brooke Ontiveros | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:50 PM Jul 2, 2021 CDT | Updated 4:52 PM Jul 2, 2021 CDT
1. State Rep. Dan Huberty [R-District 127] discussed the effects of virtual learning on standardized test scores as much of the state saw significant declines in 2021 English and math assessments at Partnership Lake Houston’s State of the State luncheon June 30. …
2. In late June, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness benchmark, or STAAR test, released its results. The percentage of students who passed exams was lower in almost every subject in spring 2021 compared to the last time the state administered STAAR tests in spring 2019, according to previous reporting by Community Impact Newspaper.
3. Huberty said , “And that is what this online education did. Humble outperformed many of the districts in the Houston area because they had their kids back in the classroom.” …
4. Huberty also sponsored House Bill 1525, which passed during the legislative session, allowing the state to maintain teacher salaries, increase the state contribution for retired teachers, and refunded dyslexia and autism grants programs. …
5. Huberty said the state needs to incentivize businesses to come to Texas and build out additional generation units. Huberty hopes to address this in the special legislative session that begins July 8.
6. “We’re burning about 79,000 megawatts. That’s the capacity that we have,” Huberty said. “And you’re always going to have plants that go down. So, you know, when we think about the capacity issues that we had, we were down 20,000 megawatts when we were doing the rolling blackouts [during Winter Storm Uri]. That’s a significant problem in businesses that rely on that manufacturing.”
Allen West announces he is running against Gov. Greg Abbott in Republican primary; The Texas GOP chairman made his campaign official Sunday. by Patrick Svitek | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | July 4, 2021 Updated: 12 PM Central
1. … Since his election as Texas GOP chair in July of last year when he soundly beat then-incumbent James Dickey, West has criticized Abbott’s coronavirus response and sought to push the governor’s legislative agenda further to the right. ..
2. West is also a vocal Trump ally, though he has brushed off the impact of Trump’s endorsement on his future political plans. …
3. West represented Florida in Congress from 2011-2013. He moved to Texas in 2014 to become the CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas think tank that shuttered three years later.
Texans with disabilities fear voting will get harder for them as special session on GOP restrictions nears; The extent to which Republicans’ proposed voting restrictions might affect voters of color has received much attention, but Texans with disabilities also face the prospect of new barriers to the ballot box. by Alexa Ura | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | July 5, 202117 hours ago
1. It took Nancy Crowther three hours, four public bus rides and an impressive amount of gumption to make sure her vote counted in the 2020 election. She’s hoping Texas lawmakers don’t make it even harder the next time.
2. With Texas Republicans determined to enact additional voting restrictions in the upcoming special legislative session, much of the uproar has focused on changes that could make it harder for people of color to cast ballots. Less attention has fallen on another group of voters bracing for what could happen to them under the GOP’s renewed push to further tighten the state’s voting procedures — people with disabilities, for whom the voting process is already lined with potential obstacles. …
3. … Crowther, a 64-year-old retiree, who could have been shut out from voting last November had it not been for her own tenacious determination. Immunocompromised because of a neuromuscular disease, Crowther chose to forgo her usual trip to a nearby polling place and instead turned to mail-in voting in hopes of safeguarding her health during the pandemic. But as Election Day neared — and after experiencing interruptions in her mail service — she began to worry her ballot wouldn’t make it back to the county in time. … Under Texas law, she couldn’t ask someone else to return her ballot, so Crowther, who uses a wheelchair, had to make the trip herself. …
4. When she finally got to where she thought she was supposed to be going, Crowther queued up in a line of cars for 20 minutes before a county worker asked if she was there to register a vehicle. She realized she was in the wrong line. Spotting the ballot envelope carefully tucked into the belt of her wheelchair, the worker pointed to some tents across the parking lot where ballot collection was taking place.
5. “I dropped it in and everybody cheered because they knew how much of a hassle it was, and I thought, ‘OK, where’s the bus I catch to go home?’” she said.
6. In a state with some of the strictest voting rules in the country, Crowther’s ordeal illustrates how easily access to the ballot box can contract for marginalized voters when new challenges emerge — and the risk lawmakers run in setting up new restrictions, including changes some disabled voters might not be able to overcome. …
7. Texas Republicans have pursued broad efforts this year to ratchet up voting restrictions in the aftermath of a high-turnout election that saw high-profile fights over the state’s voting rules, including the tight eligibility requirements for absentee voting. …
8. But as the GOP has worked to clamp down on what remains a limited voting option, voters with disabilities — who are among the few groups of Texans eligible to vote by mail — have been caught in the middle of the fight.
9. Republicans have cast their proposals as “election integrity” measures to protect the voting process from fraud, even though there is no evidence it occurs on a widespread basis. But throughout the spring legislative session, nearly every version of the GOP’s priority voting legislation raised alarms for disability rights advocates who warned lawmakers they would likely run afoul of federal protections for disabled voters. …
10. Mike: This lengthy article goes on to discuss a number of Republican proposals last session that would limit, inhibit, or intimidate disabled voters, among others. In the next “emergency session”, these and other suppressive proposals will no doubt be resurrected.
“Everything is on the table”: Democrats mull options for special session, including another walkout; After killing Republicans’ priority voting bill during the regular legislative session, Democratic lawmakers are mulling how to try to stop it in the special session that starts July 8. by Patrick Svitek and Cassandra Pollock | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | July 1, 20214 PM Central
1. Outnumbered and virtually powerless to block conservative priorities they oppose, Democrats in the Texas Legislature say they are keeping their options open as they prepare for a special session that is expected to revive the GOP elections bill they killed last month.
2. The line coming from Democrats across the spectrum: “Everything is on the table.” That includes another walkout like the one that doomed Senate Bill 7 in the final hours of the regular legislative session when Democrats broke quorum. But this time, such a move could now imperil the pay of their staffers, since Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the funding for the legislative branch while telling lawmakers they could restore it in the special session that starts in less than a week. …
3. There are still a number of unknowns before Democrats can settle on a strategy, including what the full agenda will be for the special session, how Abbott will structure it and what the elections bill will look like. Abbott announced June 22 that the special session will begin July 8 but offered no other details, only saying the agenda would be announced before the session starts.
4. Democrats will also have to consider Abbott’s veto of funding for the Legislature for the two-year budget cycle starting Sept. 1. That gives lawmakers an incentive to participate in the special session — or potentially sacrifice their staffers’ pay. Abbott’s veto was in retribution for the Democrats’ walk out, but it affects more than 2,100 legislative staffers and individuals working at legislative agencies. (Abbott has acknowledged the lawmakers’ salaries are protected by the state Constitution.)
5. Bottom of Form
6. Top of Form
7. Bottom of Form
8. Last week, Democrats and staffers sued over Abbott’s veto, asking the state Supreme Court to reverse it. Abbott’s office faces a Monday deadline to respond to the lawsuit. …
9. Whatever Democrats decide to do, it could only cause another temporary delay in consideration of the election bill given that they remain in the minority at the Legislature and only one Republican — Rep. Lyle Larson of San Antonio — has shown interest in splitting with his party. …
10. The special session also presents potentially tough choices for some Republicans, namely House Speaker Dade Phelan. After the walkout, he drew the wrath of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who charged Phelan with mismanaging the House calendar and allowing Democrats the opportunity to break quorum. Phelan has denied that.
11. At the same time, Phelan has said he will not resort to the most drastic of measures — locking the chambers doors and dispatching state police — if Democrats seek to abandon the chamber again. His office is nonetheless emphasizing its commitment to finishing the job on the voting legislation.
12. “If it takes a hundred special sessions, the Texas Legislature will pass an election integrity bill that instills further confidence in the accuracy of our elections,” Phelan spokesperson Enrique Marquez said in a statement for this story. …
13. One question for Democrats is how much they should work with Republicans on the elections legislation, especially after they were largely cut out of negotiations over the final version of SB 7 at the end of the regular session. …
14. To be clear, House Democrats were not unanimous in their decision to break quorum over SB 7, and several appeared to stay behind, including a group of border-area representatives.
15. One of them, Rep. Eddie Morales of Eagle Pass, said in a text message Tuesday that he “supported and will continue to support” fellow Democrats who walked out, but in his case, he felt it was best to remain on the floor with other Democrats from the border region and argue against the bill in person.
16. “As far as this special session goes,” Morales said, “I need to visit with the rest of my colleagues and leadership to see what strategies we plan on using.”
Hobby Lobby advocates for a Christian-run government in Independence Day ads placed in many national newspapers; By Sarah Al-Arshani | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | Jul 4, 2021, 9:23 PM
1. On Independence Day, Hobby Lobby ran an advertisement in many newspapers across the country that advocated for a Christian-run government.
2. The ad, under the title “One Nation Under God,” included the biblical verse: “Blessed is the Nation whose God is the lord.”…
3. The full-page ad featured three columns that quote former US presidents and other historical figures, as well as Supreme Court rulings about Christianity.
4. “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor,” the ad reads in part, quoting George Washington.
5. In a holiday message posted on its website, Hobby Lobby said they’d been placing holiday advertisements since founder David Greene felt “commissioned” by God to make them after he saw advertisements during the 1995 Christmas season.
6. “Before long, Hobby Lobby was placing beautiful full-page ads celebrating the real meaning of Christmas, Easter, and Independence Day in newspapers across the country. The impact and relevancy of these messages is ongoing,” the message said.
7. Some who saw the ad were upset at the call for combining Church and State.
8. MIKE: So @HobbyLobby can be considered an out-and-proud un-American, anti-Constitutional, Christo-fascist advocacy organization.
9. Good to know when you shop.
10. Maybe better to know when the FBI is investigating where #CorporateOwners’ and #HobbyLobby’s #DarkMoney is going
11. Now, let’s examine the different aspects of this story, as I see it:
12. The Constitution of United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992), Amendment 1 reads thusly: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
13. In my humble lay opinion, the 1^st Amendment wraps this up very nicely. So what does the First Amendment mean in the context of the Hobby Lobby ad and tweet?
14. In the first place, it means that Hobby Lobby (or anyone else) can place an ad in any venue willing to publish it, and they can pretty much say anything they want. In the absence of a publishing venue (which they are not guaranteed), they can stand on a street corner and say it, or they can somehow publish it themselves, as they have actually done.
15. However, the so-called “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment also literally prohibits a Christian U.S. government, saying: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” In this, it has been interpreted as meaning the establishment of a State-sponsored or -endorsed religion. It’s the reason that State-sponsored prayer in school has been ruled un-Constitutional.
16. To understand the importance and intent of this, remember that when the Constitution was written, the Reformation’s religious wars in Europe were recent history, occurring from the 16^th century through to the early 18^th century. It’s literally like today’s adults having knowledge of World War 2. This is what was on the minds of the founders when they wrote the establishment clause. (Wikipedia: “The European wars of religion were a series of wars waged in Europe during the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries.^[1][2] Fought after the Protestant Reformation began in 1517, the wars disrupted the religious and political order in the Catholic countries of Europe.”)
17. The Constitution also states in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;”
18. So the Constitution’s First Amendment comes fully into play here; both in terms of Hobby Lobby’s advocacy of a Christian U.S. and the Constitutional prohibition against it.
19. Hobby Lobby is advocating a type of civil US Government prohibited by the Constitution, but they have every right to advocate it and you have every right to be vehemently against it.
European powers warn Iran over enriched uranium metal production; COM | Published 2021-JUL-7, 2 hours ago
1. Tehran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the process was to develop fuel for a research reactor.
2. But uranium metal could also be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb.
3. European powers said Iran’s move breached a nuclear deal and threatened talks to revive it. The US called it an “unfortunate step backwards”.
4. The 2015 deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saw Iran agree to restrictions its nuclear programme that were designed to minimise the risk of it developing a nuclear weapon.
5. In return, six world powers – China, France, Germany, Russia, the US and the UK – agreed to lift economic sanctions that were in place.
6. Former US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018 and reinstated sanctions on Iran. Iran retaliated by gradually breaching its commitments under the accord.
7. MIKE: As in many things, timing is everything. Trump broke it and the JCPOA may be like Humpty Dumpty: nearly impossible to put back together again.
US withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 90% complete, Pentagon says; By Amanda Macias @amanda_m_macias | CNBC.COM | Published Tue, Jul 6 202112:08 PM EDT, Updated Tue, Jul 6 20213:14 PM EDT
1. MIKE: This you have probably already heard.
2. But what’s interesting is considering the geopolitical implications for the 6 countries that border Afghanistan: There are Iran and Pakistan. Then there are the former Soviet Republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Plus, a narrow strip of Afghanistan extends to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. (Country Guide: AFGHANISTAN (washingtonpost.com))
3. Afghanistan is also in close proximity to Russia and other countries.
4. No matter how these countries feel about the United States, they all undoubtedly had mixed feelings about the US being there. For some, the US was a counter-balance to Russia and China. To others, it was an extension of US Imperialism at or near their doorsteps.
5. To China, Russia and others, the US also acted as a check on the Taliban.
6. Now, everything is changing. Russia is having to invest assets in aiding its former Soviet states in protecting their borders, although this may also serve Russia’s interest in binding them closer to Russia. Nonetheless, Russia is not a rich country. It will be costly and require diverting Russian assets from their European ambitions.
7. China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region shares a small border with Afghanistan. Uygurs are predominantly Muslim, and one of China’s big concerns is a Taliban-style insurgency starting up there. The US presence in Afghanistan served China’s interests in that way.
8. While Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan are mostly Muslim countries, they have no desire to be destabilized by a Taliban-inspired insurgency, so they have also indirectly benefited from a US presence in Afghanistan.
9. Biden’s stated reason for quickly leaving Afghanistan is to end America’s longest war. The US did not accomplish much of what it hoped in the 20 years it’s been there. But in many complicated ways, it may now geopolitically accomplish more by leaving.
10. How much of this may have affected Biden’s decision?
The Arctic Threat That Must Not be Named; By Sharon E. Burke | WARONTHEROCKS.COM | January 28, 2021
1. … Climate change is melting the ice in the Arctic. Climate change is opening up a new polar transit route. Climate change is unlocking access to oil, gas, and critical minerals under the ice. In fact, Pompeo not only wouldn’t say the words, he reportedly refused to sign the communique the Arctic Council partners had worked out because it explicitly mentioned climate change. This is more than just eliding a term he found distasteful: Climate change is the variable that will drive all other calculations in the region, whether it’s the icebreaker gap or China’s pursuit of cryospheric real estate. Not taking climate fully into account risks higher opportunity costs at best, and poor preparation for a challenging future at worst. And there is no time to waste, with troubling signs that changes in the high north may actually be much worse than previously thought.
2. [T]he Defense Department’s civilian leadership needs to take charge of the resourcing decisions and profusion of service-specific strategic visions. Otherwise, the Biden Pentagon may find it has backed into spending money on the wrong things at a bad time.
3. [T]here are legitimate U.S. geostrategic and national interests that require attention in the Arctic. The new or expanding missions include search and rescue for increased tourist and commercial traffic in newly thawed seas; environmental cleanup; border safety, deterrence, and defense; protection of important infrastructure, such as undersea communications cables; and freedom of navigation through an increasingly open ocean.
4. Moreover, Russia has taken an aggressive and occasionally provocative posture in the region, and China has declared itself a “near Arctic nation,” with its third heavy icebreaker under construction and land acquisition across the area. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has become increasingly ill-equipped to defend U.S. interests in this area, but rectifying that mistake has to happen in the context of climate change. …
5. The Arctic is unusual in that climate change is agitating underlying frictions that are geopolitical in scope and involve some of the most advanced and well-armed societies in the world. While World War III is unlikely to start at the North Pole, there is a risk of miscalculation, which could lead to escalation. Moreover, the friction in the north between the United States, Russia, and China is part of a larger pattern. What happens in the Arctic reflects what is happening in the South China Sea and Ukraine, and vice versa. Climate change has the potential to light a fuse in a formerly frozen place, with impacts across the geopolitical landscape — or this formerly frozen place may be where a fuse lit elsewhere explodes. Admittedly, the latter is unlikely for now, given the truly challenging operating conditions. When it comes to Russia, though, the Trump administration did a lousy job of allocating resources to the risk. A good polar strategy should reflect the overall approach to the U.S. relationship with Russia. Deterrence in the north was never going to be especially productive when it was paired with [Russian] impunity everywhere else. …
6. … NATO should be one of the most important U.S. investments in the region. Four of the five Arctic coastal states are NATO members, Russia being the fifth. Iceland, just a squidge off the littoral, is a permanent member of the Arctic Council, and also a NATO founding member. The United States has close bilateral and multilateral relationships with these nations, and with the other Arctic Council member states, Sweden and Finland, as well. These alliances and partnerships are an asset as tangible as any platform, and far more powerful. All of these Arctic nations, including the United States, have pragmatic cooperative relationships with Russia and China, as well, but the behavior of both countries in recent years has given most Arctic nations pause and a reason for increased cooperation with each other. The Trump administration more or less squandered that opportunity, with its negative messaging from the top, but the Biden administration gets the benefit of a fresh start. …
7. ANDREW: I have a radical idea. Why not have the U.S. and Canada cooperate with Russia and China for some of these geopolitical interests? Search and rescue, environmental protection and cleanup, and traffic management. Sure, border and infrastructure stuff is probably too top-secret to collaborate on, I get that, and honestly, I’d prefer we stop the climate change that will create these new geopolitical interests in the first place. But if it’s happening anyway, there’s an opportunity here to repair the fraught relationship between Northwest and Northeast. It would probably have to be a gradual process, after all the U.S.’s influence-expansionism and warmongering traits will have cultivated plenty of mistrust, but if we’re lucky, we might be able to turn the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday clock back a minute or two. I’m all for anything averting Armageddon.
Marine heatwaves are human-made; by University of Bern | PHYS.ORG | September 25, 2020
1. Heatwaves in the world’s oceans have become over 20 times more frequent due to human influence. This is what researchers from the Oeschger Center for Climate Research at the University of Bern are now able to prove. Marine heatwaves destroy ecosystems and damage fisheries.
2. A marine heatwave (ocean heatwave) is an extended period of time in which the water temperature in a particular ocean region is abnormally high. In recent years, heatwaves of this kind have caused considerable changes to the ecosystems in the open seas and at the coast. Their list of negative effects is long: Marine heatwaves can lead to increased mortality among birds, fish and marine mammals, they can trigger harmful algal blooms, and greatly reduce the supply of nutrients in the ocean. Heatwaves also lead to coral bleaching, trigger movements of fish communities to colder waters, and may contribute to the sharp decline of the polar icecaps. …
3. In a study recently published in Science, [the authors] concluded that the probability of such events has increased massively as a result of global warming. The analysis has shown that in the past 40 years, marine heatwaves have become considerably longer and more pronounced in all of the world’s oceans. “The recent heatwaves have had a serious impact on marine ecosystems, which need a long time to recover afterwards—if they ever fully recover,” explains Charlotte Laufkötter.
4. According to the findings of the attribution studies, major marine heatwaves have become more than 20 times more frequent due to human influence. While they occurred every hundred or thousand years in the pre-industrial age, depending on the progress of global warming, in the future they are set to become the norm. If we are able to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, heatwaves will occur once every decade or century. If temperatures rise by 3 degrees, however, extreme situations can be expected to occur in the world’s oceans once per year or decade.
How humans are altering the tides of the oceans, By Alexandra Witze | BBC.COM/FUTURE from KNOWABLEMAGAZINE.ORG | 5th July 2020
1. … In the mid-2000s [Stefan Talke] was a postdoctoral scholar at Utrecht University, studying the river Ems that empties into the North Sea between Germany and the Netherlands. Decades earlier, engineers had begun dredging parts of the Ems so that newly built ships could navigate it from a shipyard upriver.
2. But those changes also changed the rhythm with which tides ebbed and flowed into the river from the sea. Those shifting tides stirred up sediment from the river bottom and muddied its waters. Over the last 120 years the tidal range – the distance between high and low tide – has quintupled in the Ems estuary. …
3. … Most people think of tides as regular and predictable – the rise and fall of coastal waters, caused by the gravitational tug of the Moon and the Sun, forecast down to the minute with a mariner’s tide table. But oceanographers have recently started to realise that tides in many places around the world are undergoing notable changes, in ways that can’t be explained by interactions among celestial bodies. …
4. Rather, it is people that are changing the tides. Dredging river channels like the Ems or filling in coastal wetlands can trigger shifts. The nature of those shifts is complicated. In some locations the tidal range grows more dramatic, whereas in others it shrinks. Either way, the shifting tides have big implications for hundreds of millions of coastal residents.
5. Perhaps the biggest challenge is how changing tides might add to the risks of sea level rise. …
6. Engineers have known for at least a century that tides can change locally…
7. But only recently have scientists collected modern, precise tide-gauge data from around the world, showing just how widespread tidal changes have become. “It wasn’t really until about 10 years ago that we started to appreciate that it’s occurring on a much wider level,” says [Ivan Haigh, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton, UK]. …
8. In that sense, it’s not terribly surprising that tides have changed dramatically in places where people have changed the shape of the underwater landscape. …
9. [I]n the Thames estuary that runs through London, engineers have narrowed and deepened the river over centuries – its tidal range has increased from around 2m (6.6ft) in the time of the Romans to around 8m (26.2ft) in the Victorian age. …
10. Water depth is another important factor in tidal changes, says Haigh. Because tides propagate as shallow-water waves, they change the most wherever the water is also shallow. That’s why the Bay of Fundy, between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, has some of the most dramatic tidal ranges in the world, with waters rising and falling more than 11m (36ft) each day. Shallow spots like this are likely to see large changes in tidal range as sea levels rise, Haigh says. …
Is There a Black Hole in Our Backyard? – Astrophysicists have recently begun hatching plans to find out just how weird Planet Nine might be. By Dennis Overbye | NYTIMES.COM | Sept. 11, 2020
1. …Although it is probably wishful thinking, some astronomers contend that a black hole may be lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. All summer, they have been arguing over how to find it, if indeed it is there, and what to do about it, proposing plans that are only halfway out of this world.
2. The speculation began back in 2016 [with] calculations, that object would be roughly 10 times as massive as Earth and would occupy an egg-shaped orbit that brought it as near as 20 billion miles from the sun — several times the distance from the sun to Pluto — and took it as far as 100 billion miles away every 10,000 to 20,000 years. …
3. [N]obody has yet seen this thing through a telescope. …
4. Last year, another pair of astronomers … suggested that Planet Nine might actually be a black hole. But not just any kind of black hole.
5. … In 1971, Stephen Hawking, drawing on an idea earlier suggested in 1966 by [two] Russian physicists…, theorized that intense pressures during the Big Bang could have collapsed matter directly into black holes. Those primordial black holes could be of any size and could be anywhere. A black hole as massive as Earth would be about the size of a Ping-Pong ball and would be exceptionally hard to see. …
6. That would make Planet Nine the nearest black hole to Earth by many light-years, so close that humans could contemplate sending a robot probe there, much as New Horizons has passed Pluto and the dumbbell iceberg now known as Arrokoth four billion miles from here.
7. But first we must find Planet Nine. …
8. [I]n July [Dr. Avi Loeb, chair of the astronomy department at Harvard], with a student, Amir Siraj, [had] a new idea for finding the Planet Nine black hole. If a black hole were out there, they argued, it would occasionally rip apart small comets, causing bright flares that could soon be spotted by the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, previously known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, now under construction in Chile. The observatory’s mission, starting in 2021, is to make a movie of the universe, producing a panorama of the entire southern night sky every few days and revealing anything that has changed or moved.
9. Such flares should occur a few times a year, they noted. “Our calculations show that the flares will be bright enough for the Vera Rubin Observatory to rule out or confirm Planet Nine as a black hole within one year of monitoring the sky with its L.S.S.T. survey,” Dr. Loeb wrote in an email.
10. Moreover, because the Rubin telescope examines such a large swath of sky, it could detect or rule out black holes of similar size all the way out to the Oort cloud, a vague and diffuse assemblage of protocomets and primordial, frozen riffraff a trillion miles from the sun, they said. …
11. If the theory pans out, it’s not crazy to think that humans could contemplate sending a probe to study our local black hole. What would it learn there?
12. Astronomers Have a Plan to Detect a Possible Black Hole in Our Solar System, By George Dvorsky | GIZMODO.COM | July 10, 2020, Yesterday 3:43PM
13. You may have heard about Planet Nine—a hypothetical planet thought to exist in the outer reaches of the solar system. One possibility is that it’s not a planet at all but a tiny black hole. New research outlines a potential strategy for detecting this supposed black hole, in a search that could begin as early as next year.
14. Harvard astronomers Avi Loeb and Amir Siraj have proposed a new strategy for detecting a grapefruit-sized black hole in the outer solar system, in a paper that has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, still under construction in Chile, astronomers could indirectly detect this object by observing it do what black holes do best: gobble up stuff.
15. The reason for thinking a black hole might be lurking out there has to do with an unexplained set of astronomical observations. Something—we don’t know what—appears to be affecting a group of objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. A possible explanation is an undetected planet, dubbed Planet Nine, with a mass between 5 and 10 Earth masses and in an elongated orbit between 400 and 800 AU from the Sun, in which 1 AU is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. Recently, scientists proposed another explanation: a primordial black hole of a similar mass. …

1 thought on “Weds, July 7, 2021, 11 AM (CT). TOPICS: Voting Info; Riders will soon have access to free Wi-Fi systemwide on METRO vehicles; Harris County establishes flood resilience trust …; Cy-Fair restaurant owners struggle to fill job openings; Home construction accelerates in Cy-Fair’s remaining open land tracts; State Rep. Dan Huberty [R-District 127] reflects on 87th legislative session, Texas public education; Allen West announces he is running against Gov. Greg Abbott in Republican primary; Texans with disabilities fear voting will get harder for them as special session on GOP restrictions nears; Democrats mull options for special session, including another walkout; Hobby Lobby advocates for a Christian-run government in Independence Day ads placed in many national newspapers; European powers warn Iran over enriched uranium metal production; US withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 90% complete, Pentagon says; The Arctic Threat That Must Not be Named; Marine heatwaves are human-made; How humans are altering the tides of the oceans; Is There a Black Hole in Our Backyard?; More. [AUDIO/VIDEO] #KPFTHouston 90.1 HD2”

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Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig

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