January 24, 2019 in 2,001 words

to set a mood • • •

_{Ed. Today’s not a Groundhog Day. I’m just really, really late cobbling these errant ramblings barely uninteresting at all things up. Sorry. It will happen again.}

Trapped in a hoax: survivors of conspiracy theories speak out

_{^{What happens to those caught up in the toxic lies of conspiracy theorists? The Guardian spoke to five victims whose lives were wrecked by falsehoods}}

_{According to a recent study, half of the American public endorses at least one conspiracy theory.}

Conspiracy theories used to be seen as bizarre expressions of harmless eccentrics. Not any more. Gone are the days of outlandish theories about Roswell’s UFOs, the “hoax” moon landings or grassy knolls. Instead, today’s iterations have morphed into political weapons. Turbocharged by social media, they spread with astonishing speed, using death threats as currency.

Together with their first cousins, fake news, they are challenging society’s trust in facts. At its most toxic, this contagion poses a profound threat to democracy by damaging its bedrock: a shared commitment to truth.

Their growing reach and scale is astonishing. A University of Chicago study estimated in 2014 that half of the American public consistently endorses at least one conspiracy theory. When they repeated the survey last November, the proportion had risen to 61%. The startling finding was echoed by a recent study from the University of Cambridge that found 60% of Britons are wedded to a false narrative.

The trend began on obscure online forums such as the alt-right playground 4chan. Soon, media entrepreneurs realized there was money to be made – most notoriously Alex Jones, whose site Infowars feeds its millions of readers a potent diet of lurid lies (9/11 was a government hit job; the feds manipulate the weather.)

Now the conspiracy theorist-in-chief sits in the White House. Donald Trump cut his political teeth on the “birther” lie that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and went on to embrace climate change denial, rampant voter fraud and the discredited belief that childhood vaccines may cause autism.

Amid this explosive growth, one aspect has been underappreciated: the human cost. What is the toll paid by those caught up in these falsehoods? And how are they fighting back?

The Guardian talked to five people who can speak from bitter personal experience. We begin in a town we will not identify in Massachusetts where a young man, who tells his story here for the first time, was asleep in his bed. …

Photos: Bangkok fights air pollution with water-spraying drones

_{MIST OPPORTUNITY}

_{The drones have been a modest success… in a very small area.}

Air pollution has reached hazardous levels in Bangkok, Thailand, leading some officials to attempt an unusual approach: letting drones spray the pollution out of the sky.

Earlier in the week, levels of PM2.5—tiny particles 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller that can penetrate deep into the lungs—reached 185 micrograms per cubic meter. Anything above 150 is deemed hazardous for all individuals (50 or below is considered good).

The government has responded by unleashing a small fleet of drones that can spray water into the air and eliminate some of the pollution. Photos from a test on Tuesday (Jan. 22) show the yellow aircraft dispensing water and a “non-hazardous chemical spray,” reported the Bangkok Post. An official from the Defense Technology Institute, a government agency, said the test, in which drones sprayed for less than an hour, reduced the concentration of PM2.5 by 10 micrograms per cubic meter on average.

_{A drone flies and sprays chemicals during an operation to reduce air pollution in Bangkok, Thailand on Jan. 22.}

_{Officials used a small park to test the drones, but it isn’t clear if the scheme is scalable to an entire city.}

It’s unclear if the plan is scalable, as it was only attempted in a single Bangkok park. China tried a similar approach in 2014, dropping drones fitted with parachutes. Elsewhere in Bangkok, people were fighting air pollution with a slightly more head-on tactic, spraying a water cannon from on top of a truck. …

5 Unbelievably Dumb Lawsuits That Actually Happened

Most stories of frivolous lawsuits are clickbait bullshit, like the infamous lawsuit over coffee being hot. But some, motivated by either a desire for attention or sheer insanity, are real … and even crazier than you could have imagined.

5. A Woman Alleged That Disney Stole Her Life Story For Frozen

Frozen, if you can remember anything beyond that fucking song, was loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen story from the 1800s. Or that’s what Disney wants you to think. In reality, or at least in the reality that Isabella Tanikumi lives in, Frozen is a blatant ripoff of her 2010 autobiography, appropriately titled Living My Truth.

By now you’re probably recalling how Frozen featured magic, a talking snowman, and several elaborate musical numbers. But any thieving hack can invent supplementary details like those. Only a true artist can invent the elements that Tanikumi claimed Disney stole, including the fact that both stories take place in a village at the base of a snow-covered mountain, feature loving sisters who are close in age, and use open gates as metaphors. Perhaps the biggest gotcha is that both stories contain a key scene set under the moon, because we all know that only the bravest artists use the moon in their work, while most fear and shun it.

Tanikumi sued for $250 million and the immediate cessation of sales of all Frozen merchandise, which at their peak represented 37 percent of America’s GDP. Because honestly, what’s more likely? That Disney injected some common tropes and their own trademark style into a fairy tale, or that a gigantic corporation capable of employing as many writers as its black heart desires stumbled across a book self-published in Peru and decided that they had to steal this groundbreaking idea about sisters who go on an adventure?

_{“I rode in a sleigh once, this is plagiarism! … Well, a bus, but close enough.”}

Now, there is a whole genre of frivolous lawsuit wherein the creator of an obscure work will sue the creator of a popular work to get free publicity (a small army of hacks sued J.K. Rowling for the attention). But given that Tanikumi’s books aren’t easily available, she’s been going on about this for years, and she’s been alleging that Facebook is suppressing her rambling demands for justice, she appears to be a true believer.

On one hand, her claims are beyond inane, and while the government keeps reminding us that we’re not legal experts, it seems like the ruling should obviously be in Disney’s favor. On the other hand, Disney responded to the suit by telling Tanikumi to “let it go,” so we demand that the courts award her a billion dollars. …

Zombie clunkers: has your local bus been resurrected in Guatemala?

_{Phased out vehicles often end up back in use in developing countries – a form of dumping with serious environmental consequences.}

_{Intercity buses like this one are refurbished with chrome and elaborate custom paint jobs, but under the surface they are clunkers.}

In a sparsely furnished office overlooking dozens of buses at the Zone 21 depot in Guatemala City, Jorge Castro flips through photographs on his mobile phone. He settles on one.

“There’s the bus when I bought it in Maryland,” he says proudly. It is a blue and white bus emblazoned with the words “Ride On”, the name of Montgomery County’s public transit system.

The same bus is now parked outside with a new paint job that reads “Transurbano”, the name of Guatemala City’s bus network. Castro’s job is to buy and refurbish used buses for the city’s bus lines. He bought the bus outside and seven others in 2017 last year from Maryland’s public fleet after they were phased out. He drove them to a New Jersey port and loaded them on a cargo ship bound for Guatemala. He also bought another dozen in Houston, Texas, which he drove south through Mexico, a three-day journey.

_{A Ride On bus when it was still in Maryland, US.}

In a little-known form of environmental dumping, your city’s used bus or your old car might have a new life in a developing country. It is a pattern that plays out all over the world. Many of the buses that crowd Guatemala City’s streets came from the US. Sri Lanka imports used cars from Japan. A 20-year-old German car might end up on Lagos’s crowded roads. In developing countries with no domestic vehicle manufacturing and only limited controls on emissions, vehicles can continue operating for years beyond what is considered their useful lifetime in their countries of origin. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

VICE News talks to children recently released from the Tornillo children’s detention facility.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

As the government shutdown continues, Nancy Pelosi rejects President Trump’s request to deliver his State of the Union address in the House, and the FBI warns of botched investigations due to lack of funding.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

Nobody knows if we’re going to have a State of the Union address. Here’s how we got here…

The government shutdown has left undercover FBI agents unable to purchase narcotics or guns from gang members.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Not even a month-long shutdown can stop the government from continuing to make extremely stupid, nightmare decisions!

You might not remember, but a woman ran for President in 2016 and everyone lost their goddamn minds over it. The good news is that more women are running in 2020. The bad news is that the media has not evolved in that time.

_{THANKS to TBS and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at how President Trump’s former and current lawyers are causing problems for him in the Russia investigation.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

When business interests threatened Florida’s Everglades, writer and activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas stepped up to fight for the environment.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and Drunk History for making this program available on YouTube.}

種も仕掛けもございます。 It may have a trick…

FINALLY . . .

China’s Latest Cloned-Monkey Experiment Is an Ethical Mess

_{The cloned monkeys.}

Chinese researchers have cloned five gene-edited monkeys with a host of genetic disease symptoms, according to two scientific papers published today.

The researchers say they want to use the gene-edited macaques for biomedical research; basically, they hope that engineering sick primates will reduce the total number of macaques used in research around the world. But their experiment is a minefield of ethical quandaries—and makes you wonder whether the potential benefits to science are enough to warrant all of the harm to these monkeys.

The researchers began by using CRISPR/Cas9 to alter the DNA of a donor macaque. CRISPR/Cas9 is the often-discussed gene editing tool derived from bacteria that combines repeating sequences of DNA and a DNA-cutting enzyme in order to customize DNA sequences. Experts and the press have heralded it as an important advance due to how quickly and cheaply it can alter DNA, but recent research has demonstrated it may cause more unintended effects than previously thought.

In this experiment, the researchers turned off a gene called BMAL-1, which is partially responsible for the circadian rhythm. Monkeys with this gene turned off demonstrate increased anxiety and depression, reduced sleep time, and even “schizophrenia-like behaviors,” according to a Science China Press release. Circadian rhythm disruption has even been linked to diabetes and cancer.

The team then transferred the nuclei from the donor monkey’s tissue cells into an egg cell in order to create the clones. The result was five cloned monkeys, each exhibiting symptoms of the genetic disorder introduced into the donor monkey. The scientists described their results in a pair of papers published in the National Science Review. …

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Not?}