News bits: Brass knuckles capitalism strikes again; Russian space boo-boo; Etc.

The ever playful sprites that run American Capitalism, Inc., are always protecting their revenues and profits by all available means. Sometimes that means breaking laws. Sometimes it means changing things that were illegal into things that are legal (I call that deep capture and deep political corruption). And, it almost always that means lying to and deceiving the public. Stanford News reports about how the meat and dairy sectors fall back on good old fashioned American capitalist-style deep capture and deep political corruption:

How the meat and dairy sector resists competition 

from alternative animal products

A new Stanford study reveals how meat and dairy industry lobbying has influenced government regulations and funding to stifle competition from alternative meat products with smaller climate and environmental impacts. The analysis, published Aug. 18 in One Earth, compares innovations and policies related to plant-based meat alternatives and lab-grown meat in the U.S. and European Union. Its findings could help ensure legislation, such as the $428 billion U.S. Farm Bill set to expire Sept. 30, levels the food industry playing field.

“The lack of policies focused on reducing our reliance on animal-derived products and the lack of sufficient support to alternative technologies to make them competitive are symptomatic of a system still resisting fundamental changes,” said study lead author Simona Vallone, an Earth system science research associate in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability at the time of the research.

Livestock production is the agriculture sector’s largest emitter of the potent greenhouse gas methane, due to emissions from ruminants such as cattle, sheep, and goats. It’s also the main direct cause of tropical deforestation, due to pasture expansion and feed crop production. Numerous studies have demonstrated that dietary changes hold great potential to reduce humanity’s ecological footprint, especially a reduction in red meat consumption. At the same time, Western-style meat-heavy diets are becoming more popular around the world.

“It’s clear that powerful vested interests have exerted political influence to maintain the animal-farming system status quo.” — Eric Lambin, George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor (Provostial, mind you, harrumph!)

In the U.S., about 800 times more public funding and 190 times more lobbying money goes to animal-source food products than alternatives. In the EU, about 1,200 times more public funding and three times more lobbying money goes to animal-source food products.

• EU cattle producers were highly dependent on direct subsidy payments, which constituted at least 50% of their income during the study period. Some of these payments incentivized farmers to maintain herd size, keep pasture in production, or increase overall output.

• In 2017, following a European Court of Justice ruling, dairy terms such as milk and cheese could no longer be used to market most alternative milk and dairy products. Similarly, a proposed amendment to the U.S. Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act would prohibit the sale of alternative meats unless the product label included the word “imitation” and other clarifying statements indicating the non-animal origin.

Not the difference in lobby (corruption) cash intensity in the brass knuckles capitalist US (anti-public interest) and the squishier capitalist (much more pro-public interest) EU. 

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Those pesky Ruskis are sneaking around in space, as usual. One of their nefarious exploits blew a gasket. The NYT reports:

Russia’s Lunar Lander Crashes Into the Moon

The robotic Luna-25 spacecraft appeared to have “ceased its existence” after a failed orbital adjustment, the space agency Roscosmos said  

On Sunday, Roscosmos said that it had lost contact with the spacecraft 47 minutes after the start of the engine firing. Attempts to re-establish communications failed, and Luna-25 had deviated from its planned orbit and “ceased its existence as a result of a collision with the lunar surface,” Roscosmos said.

Luna 25 on its way to a ceased existence as a 

result of co-mingling with the moon's surface

Oops.

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It's going to rain in San Diego because a tropical storm is going to hit later today.

Aaarrrggh!! Rain??

Now that I am fully prepared, I feel better. Carry on.

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Griping about the USSC: A WaPo opinion opines:

Rosalie Silberman Abella is the Samuel and Judith Pisar visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School and is a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. This op-ed is adapted from her speech upon receiving the 2023 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Medal of Honor from the World Jurist Association.

Regrettably, that regressive climate is where we find ourselves today, especially about the judiciary. Critics call the good news of an independent judiciary the bad news of judicial autocracy. They call women and minorities seeking the right to be free from discrimination special interest groups seeking to jump the queue. They call efforts to reverse discrimination “reverse discrimination.” They say courts should only interpret, not make, law, thereby ignoring the entire history of common law. They call the advocates for diversity “biased” and defenders of social stagnation “impartial.” They prefer ideology to ideas, replacing the exquisite democratic choreography of checks and balances with the myopic march of majoritarianism.

All this has put us at the edge of a global era unlike any I’ve seen in my lifetime. We’re in a mean-spirited moral free-for-all, a climate polluted by bombastic insensitivity, antisemitism, racism, sexism, islamophobia, homophobia and discrimination generally. Too often, law and justice are in a dysfunctional relationship. Too often, hate kills, truth is homeless and lives don’t matter. 

We need to put justice back in charge, and to do that, we need to put compassion back in the service of law and law in the service of humanity. We need the rule of justice, not just the rule of law. Otherwise, what’s the point of law? Or lawyers? What good is the rule of law if there’s no justice? And to make justice happen, we can never forget how the world looks to those who are vulnerable. It’s what I consider to be the law’s majestic purpose and the legal profession’s noble mandate.

A moral free for all. Hate kills. Truth is homeless. A political climate polluted by bombastic insensitivity. Racism. All of that sounds like America's radical right.

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From the MAGA files: Politico reports about an incident where DeSantis channeled Hillary and is experiencing his very own "deplorables" blowback moment. MAGAlandia has been rudely thrown into a gigantic snit: 

The Trump campaign and MAGA world on Saturday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for remarks appearing to label some of the former president’s supporters “listless vessels.”

“DeSantis goes full-blown Hillary and call[s] MAGA supporters ‘Listless Vessels,’” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung wrote on X, referring to a DeSantis interview with The Florida Standard in which the GOP presidential candidate stated that a strong conservative movement needed to be based on principles.

Listless vessels?? 

Bwaahahahahahaha!!

Politics can't get any better than this. 🤪