https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1114702

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territory is ‘apartheid’: UN rights expert

25 March 2022

Human Rights

I posted this chart earlier this week, but a lot of people were confused what it meant, so I'm going to expand on this.

Some people thinks this is no big deal. This is a huge mistake. To give you some idea, consider this chart.

Here's Cornel West on Sabrina Salvati's podcast, explaining why he decided to run as an independent instead of as a Green Party member. The first few minutes will give you a sense of the whole thing:

Healing the Land...
and Ourselves

Like humans, soils and ecosystems are individuals. We all can heal. Different people, like different ecosystems, require unique solutions fitted to the situation. There are some universals like clean water is healing, and there are ways to trap and store water with good management. We in the US have the worst health outcomes at the highest price tag in the world. This is largely a product of addictive processed foods which TPTB recommend we eat. Western society as a whole is ill. Seeking profit above all else has promoted a divisive culture (you're with us or against us) and has broken or at least damaged our social bonds.

Afternoon folks!

Well, after a few days youtube increased my daily upload limit to 70% of what it used to be, so there's a little more here than I was expecting earlier this week.

We've got some serious blues from Chicago blues guitarist Fenton Robinson, followed by an album by guitarist and singer Bumble Bee Slim backed by some serious jazz players and we finish up with a compilation from New Orleans songwriter and piano player Huey "Piano" Smith and His Clowns.

In the blues rock vein, we've got an album from the Blues Magoos. After that there's a half-speed mastered reissue pressed on really quiet vinyl of It's A Beautiful Day's self-titled album - to my ear the best version of it out there.

We finish up with the Holy Modal Rounders doing their folk/blues/rock/sarcasm best.

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Conflict broke out last night when Hamas attacked Israel. Live updates report possible Israeli soldiers captured, multiple dead and 545 people are being treated in Israeli hospitals.

A lot of people seem to be unaware that the bond market is twice as big as the stock market.
Which is why the recent bond market crash is so scary.

Longer-term bond prices have cratered in recent weeks, turning an already-rough period for the asset class into a rout that rivals some of the worst-ever US financial-market crashes.

Ten-year Treasury notes have plummeted 46% since March 2020, according to data from Bloomberg, while 30-year Treasurys are down 53% over the same period.

Stocks last suffered losses of that magnitude 15 years ago, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the 2008 financial crisis led to the benchmark S&P 500 index plunging 48% in the space of six months.

To put this into perspective, this is even worse than the last bond bear market.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

It's been a little toasty the last few days with temps in the mid 90s. Yesterday the Nation Weather Service issued a heat advisory that will be in effect until tomorrow night and temps will remain high until Tuesday before it starts to cool off.
Filled up the car yesterday, $5.85 for a gal of regular. It was $6.09 at the Shell station just down the street from where I filled up. So glad I ditched my gas guzzler for a hybrid last year.

This time of year the Damselflies and Dragonflies are out in numbers so I've made three visits to Santee Lakes in the last week to photograph them. So far I've only seen one species of Damselfly, the Rambur's Forktail. Most of those have been blue but I did see a few orange ones. I saw five different species of Dragonflies and managed to get shots of three of them. I spotted both the Black Saddlebags and Western Pondhawk but wasn't able to get any shots of them, but I did get shots of the Blue-eyed Darner, Common Green Darner, and Female Variable Darner.

Blue-eyed Darner