Tag: USA

Japan confronts a new reality…becoming a nation of the elderly

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Average age of workers in this mountain village restaurant is 70

…This dynamic is happening all over Japan as the birth rate continues its decades-long decline. The country’s population peaked in 2010, at 128 million. Now it’s less than 125 million and projected to keep shrinking over the next four decades. At the same time, Japanese people are living longer—87.6 years for women and 81.5 years for men, on average. Except for the tiny principality of Monaco, Japan’s population is now the oldest in the world.

The numbers, though stark, don’t convey how profoundly this demographic shift is playing out day to day. The increasingly disproportionate mix of more and more seniors and fewer and fewer young people is already altering every aspect of life in Japan, from its physical appearance to its social policies, from business strategy to the labour market, from public spaces to private homes. Japan is becoming a country designed for and dominated by the old…

Japan’s path foreshadows what’s coming in many areas of the world. China, South Korea, Italy, and Germany are on a similar trajectory; so too is the United States, although at a slower pace. Five years ago, the world reached an ominous milestone: For the first time in history, adults 65 and older outnumbered children under five years old.

If Japan is any guide, ageing will change the fabric of society in ways both obvious and subtle. It will run up a huge bill that governments will struggle to pay. Meeting the challenge won’t be easy, but the future isn’t necessarily all downhill. Japan’s experience, with its characteristic attention to detail and design, suggests extreme ageing—a world in which an increasing share of the population is old—may inspire an era of innovation.

I don’t doubt the Japanese will get it right. Workable, functional, eventually meeting all critical standards global society is capable of. I’m not so confident about the GOUSA. Not with our out-of-date politicians in place…beholden to 19th Century standards. Which start off…your most important task is to get re-elected. Then (maybe), you start to consider the needs of the folks who elected you.

Last Blood Moon total eclipse until 2025 is tomorrow morning – Tuesday, the 8th

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Odds are you don’t have any plans for 4:09 a.m. E.T. on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Assuming your calendar is indeed clear, it might be worth setting your alarm for that time, because it’s then that the last total lunar eclipse until 2025 will begin—and the show should be a dazzler.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, casting a deep shadow across the lunar surface. In theory, a lunar eclipse should happen monthly, since the moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the Earth once every 27 days during the lunar passage around the planet. But the moon’s orbit is inclined 5 degrees relative to the Earth’s equator, meaning that most of the time, the Earth’s shadow passes above or below the moon.

It is only about once every year and a half that the three bodies line up perfectly to make an eclipse happen. That year and a half frequency is just an average, however. Tomorrow’s total eclipse will actually be the second one of 2022—the last one having occurred on May 15. After this coming eclipse, a three-year wait for the next one will begin.

The eclipse begins when the Moon enters Earth’s penumbra, our planet’s lighter, outer shadow. That happens at 3:02:17 A.M. (all times are EST). The partial eclipse, which is when the Moon first touches Earth’s umbra (its darker, inner shadow), begins at 4:09:12 A.M. Totality starts at 5:16:39 A.M., with greatest eclipse at 5:59:09 A.M. Totality ends at 6:41:37 A.M.

We embrace world class…hypocrisy!

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Thanks, gocomics.com

I’ve spent most years of my life marching on the streets of protest against injustice. Opposing racism, sexism, class exploitation…opposing imperial nations; but, circumstances pretty much guaranteed most of the time I had to deal with the GOUSA. Our press, our politicians, rarely speak out unless the guilty party is a furriner. Even among the cartoonists whose commentary I post here daily, only Ted Rail has stood up straight and strong.

If the crocodile tears for Ukraine were to wash away the names of all those nations on the cell wall, I need only write one to remind my peers of our history: VIETNAM.

Afghanistan can’t wait for the U.S. to get out of the way — to let in China and Pakistan

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As the U.S. exits Afghanistan, Beijing is preparing to swoop into the war-torn country and fill the vacuum left by the departed U.S. and NATO troops.

China is poised to make an exclusive entry into post-U.S. Afghanistan with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source close to government officials in Afghanistan told The Daily Beast that Kabul authorities are growing more intensively engaged with China on an extension of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — the flagship project of BRI, which involves the construction of highways, railways and energy pipelines between Pakistan and China — to Afghanistan…

In other words: The Afghan government, behind the scenes, is welcoming China immediately after saying goodbye to America.

Yup. All part of an obviously subversive plot. Here’s Uncle Sugar finishing decades of superb foreign policy – stationing tens of thousands of American troops in yet one more small nation to show off the benefits of American democracy [and military hardware]. We’re going out the door. Meanwhile, the “subversive” Chinese and their Pakistani allies in the Belt-and-Road Initiative are actually going to build highways, railways and energy pipelines – making the country a key link in East/West infrastructure. And profits.

How sly.

Growing Marijuana in a vertical farm

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Jean Chung/Bloomberg

South Korean startup Farm 8 Co. is among a proliferation of indoor urban growers that saw sales jump during Covid-19. It’s looking to increase sales by almost 50% to 90 billion won ($79 million) this year, partly by boosting production of medical and cosmetic-based plants such as ginseng, centella asiatica and artemisia campestris, Chief Executive Officer Kang Dae Hyun said. In August, the company joined the country’s first regulation-free zone for medical cannabis, growing and processing hemp for cannabidiol (CBD)…

Other vertical farms are also using the technology to meet rising demand for stringent quality control in medical and cosmetic applications, such as Denmark’s International Cosmetics Science Centre, Poland’s Vertigo Farms and California-based MedMen Enterprises…

Farm 8 currently grows about 1.2 tons of salad greens per day on less than an acre (0.5 hectare) of land, spread across locations in three cities in South Korea, including in a busy subway station in South Korea’s capital. It’s one of the top local lettuce producers for fast-food chains including Subway Restaurants, Burger King Corp. and KFC Corp. Sales rose 30% last year…

South Korea became the first country in East Asia to legalize cannabis for medical use in 2018, and in August 2020, the government set up a free trade zone for industrial hemp in the southeastern city of Andong to develop and extract cannabidiol for medical use with private companies. Marijuana remains illegal for recreational use in the country.

Just like the culture wars here in the GOUSA, the political powers-that-be in South Korea are sidling up to legalizing weed across the board. And like the candyass pols running things here, agonizing over electoral politics with a last century outlook is more important than medical and scientific reality.

I suppose the traditional relationship of cash over Christianity will continue to win out, albeit slowly. The legal weed bill here in New Mexico passed through the representative side of our state legislature and is sitting and waiting for action on the Senate side. The average glacier moves forward faster than so many “modern” political institutions.

Coronavirus infections increase 21% among children. Please ignore Trump!

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The mask that Trump should be required to wear

A report released by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association shows 74,160 new cases of coronavirus among children from August 6 to August 20. According to the report, this is an increase of 21 percent in cases over the past two weeks…

In regard to hospitalizations, between 0.2 percent and 8.6 percent of children diagnosed with coronavirus were hospitalized. “At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is rare among children,” the report said.

They don’t get as sick as the people around them that they infect.

An entire fourth grade-class in Mississippi was forced to quarantine and move to online-only learning after multiple teachers tested positive for coronavirus. Adam Pugh, Superintendent of the Lafayette County told The Associated Press that 200 students were told to quarantine after a majority of students were exposed…

You’d think there might be rational limits to stupid. You’d be wrong. After more than 500 students, faculty and staff tested positive at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox ordered all bars in the city to close down for two weeks.

I’m not certain how useful the reasoning was.