'Operation Trafficking Halt'

She has fake conversations pretending to be her own baby

'A suspected terrorist'

In Kenya, on the edge of the legendary Tsavo National Park, African honey bees contentedly buzz about near rows of well-tended crops. It’s a scene that’s becoming more common in these rural areas and is driven by an extreme need: to deter elephants from encroaching on farmlands, eating crops, and destroying homes. “The beehive fences […] The post Farmers Use Bees to Deter Elephants from Romping Over Crops–a Win-Win for All appeared first on Good News Network.

Movies & TV Star Trek: Lower Decks A Signature Stink — Star Trek: Lower Decks: “Starbase 80?!” By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on November 14, 2024 Comment 1 Share New Share One of the more challenging storytelling needles to thread is that of the thing that is spoken of dramatically but never seen. It can be risky to actually show the thing, because after all the buildup, you don’t want to risk disappointing the viewer by not living up to what their imagination already came up with about it. Sometimes the best solution is to never see it, which is why, for example, the producers of Frasier never once actually put Niles Crane’s wife Maris on camera. And, to be fair, sometimes seeing it does work. Indeed, Star Trek has two excellent examples: Boothby, the Starfleet Academy groundskeeper first mentioned in TNG’s “Final Mission” and referenced a couple more times before being seen in “The First Duty,” where he was absolutely perfectly rendered by actor Ray Walston and writer Ronald D. Moore; and Quark’s cousin Gaila, first mentioned in DS9’s “Civil Defense,” and also referenced several times again before showing up, beautifully played by Josh Pais and written by Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, in “Business as Usual.” Alas, Lower Decks has rolled craps with their equivalent. We’d been hearing about Starbase 80 a few times before Mariner was assigned there as a punishment in “Trusted Sources,” and it so totally didn’t work. And then, with only one season left, the producers of LD decided that they’d waste an entire episode showing us Starbase 80. Look, I get it. This is a comedy. They want to do funny things. And I’m sure several people thought, “What would a backwater starbase really look like?” As we see here, it’s mostly just an excuse to show twenty-second- and twenty-third-century tech. They still use wall intercoms like they did on the original series! They have to cover themselves in decon gel before using the transporter just like they did on Enterprise! And the personnel still wear Enterprise-era uniforms even though those uniforms are from a completely different service for a government that doesn’t exist anymore! (The Starfleet of Enterprise was the space exploration arm of United Earth. The Starfleet of LD—and all the other Trek shows—is the military/space exploration arm of the United Federation of Planets. Starfleet personnel wearing those blue uniforms is like contemporary U.S. Army personnel wearing the uniforms of the Texas Rangers from 1846 while on duty. There is no circumstance under which it would happen.) Plus, we’re talking about a post-scarcity society with replicators. And we know that the producers of this show are aware of that because they built an entire damn episode around that fact just a couple of weeks ago in “Shades of Green.” Targalus IX just became a Federation member world five minutes ago, and they’re already okay with Boimler confiscating a vehicle because they can always just replicate another one. And yet, somehow, Starbase 80 is unable to be upgraded to modern specifications, which, again, makes absolutely no sense. It’s really hard for me to judge this episode, because I just find the entire premise impossible to swallow. Which is too bad, because there’s some fun stuff here. Mariner is finally starting to act like a Starfleet officer, proudly declaring at the top of the episode that she genuinely enjoyed the scientific mission to an ocean planet that they just finished. (Tendi jokingly checks to see if Mariner’s suffering an illness.) We get to see Cetacean Ops performing their actual function, as the problem of the week is catalyzed by something going wrong with navigation. And it’s always good to see Kimolu and Matt! When Boimler announces that Starbase 80 is the nearest port of call, Mariner nearly has a breakdown, as she’s suffering PTSD from being assigned there previously. Her mother isn’t much better off, as her alternate-universe counterpart in “Dos Cerritos” was assigned there, and Freeman is determined not to let even the possibility of that happen in the mainline universe. Plus we’ve got some fabulous guest casting! The great Stephen Root voices the starbase’s chief engineer, Gene Jakobowski, who manipulates Freeman and Ransom into making repairs for him that Starfleet hasn’t gotten around to fulfilling his requests for (yet another thing I don’t buy for a nanosecond), while Nailed It! host Nicole Byer plays an el-Aurian diplomatic liaison named Kassia Nox, who serves as a chirpy tour guide whose personality is, basically, that of Nicole Byer, host of Nailed It! There’s some technobabble stuff with a being of pure energy who got into the nav system and started possessing people by way of trying to make contact, but losing control of it, turning everyone on the Cerritos crew who uses their combadges into zombies with glowy eyes who lick the bulkheads. Eventually, our heroes figure out the problem and are able to come to an understanding with the energy being, which is, to be fair, a very Star Trek resolution to the storyline. (And the being turns out to be a young person trying very hard to impress his superiors, whom he describes as being a bunch of dicks, which is a very Lower Decks twist on that resolution.) Nox tries to convince everyone that the joy of Starbase 80 is not that it’s a shitty assignment, but that it’s a place for people to get second chances, and I’m sorry, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy any of it. LD is at its best when it looks at the Trek universe through a humorous lens. It’s at its worst when it contorts and distorts the Trek universe for a giggle, and that’s what this entire episode is, alas. Credit: CBS / Paramount+ Random thoughts Ransom really really loves the decon gel, because of course he does. Jerry O’Connell’s contented sigh as he runs the gel through his hair and says, “Oh yeah—that’s the stuff” is epic. This is not Root’s first appearance on Trek. He previously played a Klingon, Captain K’Vada, on TNG’s “Unification” two-parter. Starbase 80 has food vendors in lieu of food replicators. At one point Chad, the corn dog vendor, gets to save the day. Trek has twice had a title with an exclamation point—the original series’ “Operation—Annihilate!” and Voyager’s “Bride of Chaotica!”—and twice had a title with a question mark—the original series’ “Who Mourns for Adonais?” and DS9’s “Who Mourns for Morn?”—but this is the first title to have both an exclamation point and a question mark. Isn’t that amazing?! Boimler now has a full mustache, though the beard is still very much a work in progress, as he gets closer and closer to looking like his alternate-universe counterpart from “Dos Cerritos.” [end-mark] The post A Signature Stink — <i>Star Trek: Lower Decks</i>: “Starbase 80?!” appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A Senate committee in the US state of Michigan has approved Bill 707, which seeks to impose fines on those who, under the proposed legislation’s scope, are found to be spreading election misinformation, and doing that intentionally. Introduced earlier in the year by Senator Mary Cavanagh, if adopted, this bill would amend the Michigan election law to introduce fines ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 and qualify “spreading of election disinformation” as an offense. Disinformation here is defined as statements and misrepresentations that are considered false by the authorities – but the authorities would also have to determine if those statements are made intentionally. This is not the first time Cavanagh, a Democrat, has tried to push through legislation of this kind; the first attempt happened in 2022. And it’s not the first time that similar proposals, similarly vaguely worded have seen the light of day in the US these last years; here as well, opponents are wondering who would be “the judge and jury” that declares somebody had intent to spread false information – but also, how the amended bill would be enforced. “What is the burden of proof here? Is it clear and convincing evidence?,” asked Senator Ed McBroom, a Republican. Supporters of the new bill – accepted by the Senate’s Elections and Ethics Committee along party lines – say it would “clarify” the state’s existing law dealing with voter intimidation, and adapt it to “modern” intimidation techniques. Senator Cavanagh said that in addition to “specifying” that an individual (or a company employing them) must know their election-related statements are false, the bill aims to make sure voters in this swing state are aware of a Michigan Supreme Court ruling. Namely, it decided that the First Amendment protections somehow “do not extend to intentionally false speech about election misinformation,” Cavanagh noted. Therefore, what was left to do was introduce a new bill that “specifies” (but crucially, opponents think – it actually doesn’t) what passes for “intentionally spreading election disinformation,” and then suppress this speech. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Michigan Senate Advances Bill To Impose Fines for Spreading Election “Misinformation” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Anthony Fauci in the Crosshairs

I often report on fake “crises” pushed by media. Here’s one that may be real: Kids are anxious. In my new video, Lenore Skenazy, founder of the non-profit Let Grow, says it’s because today’s parents rarely allow their kids to experience the joys of independence. Skenazy once let her 9-year-old ride the New York City subway on his own. For that, the media labeled her “America’s worst mom.” “Law and Order,” the TV show, produced an episode where the child riding alone is kidnapped and murdered. But in real life, what Skenazy allowed isn’t so risky. Her son told me, “I know how to get around.” Nothing bad happened to him, and he gained the confidence that comes with taking care of yourself. Skenazy argues that not letting kids take care of themselves makes kids insecure. Anxiety and depression are “spiking off the charts,” she says, citing the Journal of Pediatrics, “How do you know the cause is lack of freedom?” I ask. “Maybe it’s social media.” “Anxiety and depression were going up before cellphones,” she replies. She says that the cause is the media’s hyping of isolated examples of child kidnapping and “stranger danger.” “That actually points everyone in the wrong direction,” she says. “The biggest threat to any child is somebody that they know, not a stranger.” Skenazy says parents should just teach kids to “recognize no one can touch you where your bathing suit covers. Resist, run, kick, scream. If somebody’s bothering you, don’t be nice. Resist. And then report.” “Those three R’s,” she says, “keep kids way safer than ‘stranger danger’ because most strangers do not present a danger.” Allowing kids to experience independence doesn’t just help kids, she says; it helps parents. “It’s no fun to think that the second your kids go outside, they’re going to be kidnapped ... and it’s no fun to have to be with your kids every single second.” The U.S. Surgeon General issued an “advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents,” writing, “Over the last decade, parents have been consistently more likely to report experiencing high levels of stress.” “It’s miserable if you have to spend every second watching, supervising, entertaining,” says Skenazy, “when there’s so much that you could be doing with your life!” “Let Grow, the nonprofit I run, has teachers give kids the homework assignment to go home and do something new on your own ... just so parents have the experience of ... watching the kid go off to the store, the park, or if you’re in a dangerous neighborhood, the kitchen to make pancakes without parents there to turn on the stove.” She says kids who do this “Let Grow Experience” feel better about themselves “because they’re trusted and doing something new, and it’s exciting.” Again, it’s not just kids who benefit. “The parents are ecstatic,” she says. “I used to think it was because they were so happy that their kid wasn’t kidnaped ... But then I started thinking, you have kids so that they will live on when you’re not around. Until you let your kid do something without you, you don’t know that they’re ever going to be OK without you. So, it is this ecstatic moment of realizing, ‘Hey, I had a kid who is going to be all right.’” She says Let Grow “is exposure therapy for parents” because they “have not been exposed to letting their kids go. They think that if I let my kid out, something bad will happen, or I’m a bad parent, or I could never forgive myself.” Kids need independence for the same reason adults do; it’s how we grow.

Climate correspondent and man with more frequent flyer miles than you, Bill Weir, joined CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta on Thursday to discuss what President-elect Donald Trump and EPA Administrator nominee Lee Zeldin mean for the environment. Naturally, Weir was quite gloomy, warning “these are such vital years” and worrying if the agency will be “able to hold the line.” Acosta began, “Bill, what can you tell us about this? Because, I mean, he could have picked a coal industry lobbyist or something like that, but Lee Zeldin?”     After recalling Trump’s previous EPA administrators, Weir dove into Zeldin’s environmental biography: Lee Zeldin, like all of these picks, a true loyalist, of course voted against the 2020 election certification, sat with Trumps in the box many times. Former New York, from Long Island, put himself, actually, on climate solutions caucuses and estuary committees, because the environment matters very much to folks on Long Island there. But if you look at his voting record, 50 times he voted against climate change legislation, against clean water legislation, eleven times, clean air eight times. The League of Conservation Voters tracks the voting records of every member of Congress, and on a scale of 100, he gets a 14, which is actually better than most Republicans, who are in the single digits.  The EPA may be the poster child for unaccountable, undemocratic governance, but Weir claimed that Zeldin’s confirmation hearing is a test to see how healthy the Senate is as an institution, “But it just seems like if these other picks, Jim, that you're talking about, are any indication, these are pressure tests, you know, for the American and for the Senate, and when it comes to environmental rollbacks and what, you know, what he would hope to do and gut from day one on, you've got to imagine the sky is the limit for Lee Zeldin and that agency.” Weir would add, “And there's a lot of folks who were there who survived the first term who are terrified today, Jim.” Acosta followed up by declaring, “And Bill, this is happening as we're still getting new indicators, warning lights, about our climate.” Weir naturally concurred, “Yeah, I mean, the temperatures are off the charts, the ocean temperatures, we're at the verge of these tipping points that once we go past them, when it comes to ocean currents or, you know, permafrost melting, we can't get back, right? So, these are such vital years right now that we're dealing with and this new administration, not only ambivalent about the science, but almost antagonistic. So, we'll see, we'll see who's able to hold the line.” Claiming the EPA should try to thwart the will of its elected leaders is what makes people want to support disruptive outsiders like “these other picks” in the first place. Nobody voted for the EPA, something both it and CNN would be well-advised to remember, just like they should remember that constantly doom prophecying about the environment tends to fall on deaf ears after years of being wrong. Here is a transcript for the November 14 show: CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta 11/14/2024 10:53 AM ET JIM ACOSTA: Bill, what can you tell us about this? Because, I mean, he could have picked a coal industry lobbyist or something like that, but Lee Zeldin? BILL WEIR: Yeah, that was the move, the last go around.  ACOSTA: Right. WEIR: You remember, Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who spent most of his year suing the EPA, put in charge of it, and then he flamed out during ethics scandals. Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, replaced him there, and probably wanted that job back, from what we understand. But Lee Zeldin, like all of these picks, a true loyalist, of course voted against the 2020 election certification, sat with Trumps in the box many times.  Former New York, from Long Island, put himself, actually, on climate solutions caucuses and estuary committees, because the environment matters very much to folks on Long Island there. But if you look at his voting record, 50 times he voted against climate change legislation, against clean water legislation, eleven times, clean air eight times. The League of Conservation Voters tracks the voting records of every member of Congress, and on a scale of 100, he gets a 14, which is actually better than most Republicans, who are in the single digits.  He did vote for regulating PFAS, forever chemicals, at one point and to give Native American tribes some money to actually release wild Buffalo, so that boosted his League of Conservation score a little bit.  But it just seems like if these other picks, Jim, that you're talking about, are any indication, these are pressure tests, you know, for the American and for the Senate, and when it comes to environmental rollbacks and what, you know, what he would hope to do and gut from day one on, you've got to imagine the sky is the limit for Lee Zeldin and that agency. ACOSTA: Yeah. WEIR: And there's a lot of folks who were there who survived the first term who are terrified today, Jim. ACOSTA: And Bill, this is happening as we're still getting new indicators, warning lights, about our climate. WEIR: Exactly. Yeah, I mean, the temperatures are off the charts, the ocean temperatures, we're at the verge of these tipping points that once we go past them, when it comes to ocean currents or, you know, permafrost melting, we can't get back, right? So, these are such vital years right now that we're dealing with and this new administration, not only ambivalent about the science, but almost antagonistic. So, we'll see, we'll see who's able to hold the line. ACOSTA: All right, Bill Weir, and of course, Donald Trump at the head of all of this has made a lot of claims that are just outright climate denialism. Bill Weir, thank you very much for your time.

Morning Joe has been among the most vituperatively anti-Trump shows in television. As NewsBusters has documented over the years, the show's stock in trade has been to vilify Trump as a fascist, a Hitler, and an existential threat to Madisonian democracy. So it would be a remarkable development if Morning Joe, in the wake of Trump's victory, were to drastically change course and go fair 'n balanced in its treatment of the incoming president. And yet, on Thursday's episode, that was Morning Joe's stated intention. Joe Scarborough opened the show by noting the compliments it's received from viewers on the "calm and measured" way that the show reported Trump's win (which NewsBusters also noticed in the item the morning after election day). "Many of you have reached out to us since the election, and though many were disappointed results, you let us know you appreciated our reporting, and the reporting of the results in a calm and measured way," he declared. This led right into co-host and wife Mika Brzezinski declaring: "We will continue our best efforts to be fair and objective in reporting on the incoming administration."  We'll see about that. Scarborough noted that the show's sudden devotion to fairness would be put to the test in the case of the nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Brzezinski also claimed "it goes without saying" that members of the Trump administration are invited to appear on the show, and she expressed the desire to have a "face-to-face" conversation with Trump himself.     There's nothing "goes without saying" at all about the intention to have members of the Trump administration on the show. For years, Morning Joe has been the exclusive domain of liberal politicians and media members. The only Republicans permitted to breathe the show's rarefied liberal air have been of the tame, Never Trumper, variety. It will be fascinating to see if members of the Trump administration do appear on Morning Joe, and to observe the kind of treatment they receive. As for scoring an interview with Trump himself any time soon, don't bet the rent money at Polymarkets on it, Mika! Here's the transcript. MSNBC's Morning Joe 11/14/24 6:02 am Eastern JOE SCARBOROUGH: Many of you have reached out to us since the election, and though many were disappointed results, you let us know you appreciated our reporting, and the reporting of the results in a calm and measured way. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah. We have been especially thankful for the kind words we received from those who voted for President Trump. And we're going to continue our best efforts to be fair and objective in reporting on the incoming administration. SCARBOROUGH: Now unfortunately, the next story does involve us personally a bit, but we still give you the facts while remaining objective. BRZEZINSKI: So here they are. President-Elect Donald Trump has selected Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida to serve as Attorney General and lead the Department of Justice.  (....) 6:05 a.m. Eastern BRZEZINSKI: And now, more on the character of Matt Gaetz and how it connects to this show. Donald Trump began tweeting about widely discredited conspiracy theories about Joe after receiving documents given to Trump by Congressman Gaetz. (....) 6:07 a.m. Eastern BRZEZINSKI: It goes without saying that we invite members of the incoming Trump administration to be on our show. And also, we look forward to discussing this issue, and others, face-to-face with President Trump himself.