RO systems remove microplastics better than other filters alone

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10054062/

Not surprisingly, RO systems are better at removing microplastics than other filters and do so quite efficiently.  (I was even worried the RO might add microplastics, because the membrane itself is plastic, but apparently whatever it adds is dwarfed by what it removes.)

Other research shows that microplastics mainly result from heat, such as heating water in plastic cups.

I'm shocked at how many liberals and leftists are utterly opposed to RO filtration and insist you must drink tap water.

I use RO water for drinking--including icemaking, cooking, and facial cleansing.  I plan to get a chlorine filter for my shower.

I think it's worth it just for removing the chlorine and chlorine byproducts, not to mention mediocre taste, especially after chilling.  My chilled 9ppm RO filtered water tastes wonderfully crisp and everything cooked tastes better.

I noticed fewer issues on my fact when I started using RO water for facial cleansing.

Chlorine is one of the most reactive substances there is, but strangely people regard it as safe in tiny amounts in their drinking water, while sweating even smaller amounts of metals like lead (also removed by RO) which are fairly inert, in water supplies, chocolate, and protein powders.

For that matter, microplastics are fairly inert too.

It is true that calcium supplementation is more called for since I would otherwise be getting about 250mg calcium from my water, which is largely lost.  But that would be true anyway, just in slightly smaller amount.

The Gaza Genocide numbers

Tony goes through the numbers of Gazans and Israelis killed by Hamas and IDF.

Looking at who was killed, on October 7.

Total number of people killed    1139. (According to Israel's own security agency, Bituah Leumi. and not the often cited "1200")

Total number of babies killed    1     (accidental, name: Mila Cohen)

Soldiers and Police                    400    (legitimate military targets)

Civilians (1139-400)                 739    (mostly killed by Israel 'Hannibal Directive')

The Hannibal Directive to kill Israelis in danger of being taken hostage was invoked as early as 7:18 am, when an drone attack was ordered against soldiers at Erez Junction.

Tony cites a report indicating that ALL of the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri were killed by IDF.  (There is a well known report from one house...but a commander indicates it was the entire Kibbutz that had been identified as subject to Hannibal Directive...killing 112 people..."a difficult decision to make.")

The bombed out cars escaping from the Supernova music festival were certainly bombed by IDF helicopters because the light arms carried by Hamas could not have done such damage.

This all suggests the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas (<400) was lower than the number of active duty security forces killed by Hamas, as well as lower than the number of civilians killed by Israel itself.

(If we counted all security forces, we'd have to count all adult Israelis because all have served in IDF and are prepared to defend Israel.  Gaza couldn't afford that even with outside help, plus women are exempt.)

On the Gazan side, we have to not that history did not begin on October 7.  Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in periodic military operations called "Mowing the Lawn" that have been performed on Gaza since 2008/9.  Plus 300 peaceful protestors, medics, and journalists at the Great March of Return.  (And that's not even mentioning the fact that Gaza has been a cruel open air prison for refugees who lost their property elsewhere in Israel in 1947-48, under total blockade now for decades.)

Tony goes through a bunch of estimates reaching concluding that number of killed civilians in Gaza is likely over 600,000 by now, mostly uncounted, from starvation and crushed buildings.

That is a number almost 2000 times higher than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas on October 7.

Cory Doctorow

I just read this essay by Cory Doctorow, and I thought it was great.  Possibly with a few things I'd change (notably the Russophobia), but still great.  I'm just discovering Cory Doctorow now.  

(I've long followed Gilbert Doctorow, a European/Russian affairs analyst, not related, and Cory has inconsistently denied he's related to E.L. Doctorow, a novelist.)

Not some right wing crank, Doctorow is a DSA member, and has long had mutualistic associations with EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which aims to protect users digital rights.  (He was NOT a founder of EFF.)

That EFF connection is what enrages another of my sources, Yasha Levine.  Levine calls EFF "Electronic Friends of Facebook."  (That certainly isn't the impression you get reading EFF or Doctorow, but Levine finds connections underneath the surface.)

Generally, as an analyst of present affairs, I think I'm siding more with Doctorow, but seeing some faults in both.

Perhaps only because I know him better, I find more (minor) faults and food fights in Levine's work, so much so I quite subscribing to him about 5 years ago, but still treasure his book and other insights at least sometimes.  It's only because of Levine I know that Signal and Tor, for example, were CIA funded and promoted to the public because they didn't want only spies using them.  It's not that these networks are insecure, they are among the most secure, but users are serving as cover for the spying operations they were built for.  Doctorow would never say those things, EFF was also a proud sponsor of Signal and Tor.

But it's a minor issue, IMO.  I don't expect ANYTHING on the internet to be SECURE, and Signal and Tor are about as good as you can get.  Meanwhile, there are a whole host of other issues beyond simple privacy, which I care little about.  (I want to share my work with as many as possible, even if that includes spooks reading my hard drive, as I presume it does.*  I know they will never embarrass me because that would reveal their sources and methods, which they are loathe to do.  And keeping scammers in check is mostly the job of the financial institutions I deal with.)

Though identified with digital privacy, Cory's big baddie these days has been DRM, which is something I sympathize with him on.

* With ICE running rampant, and a looming future of repression, how can I say these things?  I don't expect martyrdom as I'm not important enough, nor am I begging for it, but it is one path to the greatness which has otherwise eluded me.  Anyway, if they wanted to find leftists, all they need to do is look at my fully public social media.  There isn't much more than that on my hard drive.

The Nobel War Prize

bernard of MoA explains how the Nobel Peace Price went to a US puppet in Venezuela who has been on the US payroll for years, already participated in two unsuccessful regime change operations there, along with the recent fantastical claims of winning the election.   Basically, this was a way of placating Trump while not giving the award to Trump either but to one of his puppets in a now gathering war with Venezuela the US is starting.

Thinking back over the history of the Prize, it's about time it's renamed to The Nobel War Prize.

One of those commenting on bernhard's post fills in some of the history:

Le Duc Tho refused to accept his joint award (Vietnam War) saying “Peace had not been established yet”. Yeah, any decent person would ignore the Nobel prizes as just another irrelevant construct.

Terrorist – Menachem Begin

War Criminal – Kissinger, Obama, Abiy Ahmed

Genocidal PM – Aung San Suu Kyi

Imperialist – Kipling

Chemical weapons – Haber (WW1)

Pedo – Guillaume

Degenerates – The EU (advancing peace, human rights and democracy), really can’t make this shit up.

There’s an article “The Dark History of the Nobel Prize (They prefer you forgot) from 2021.

This is not quite right either, Kipling won the prize in literature, Haber won the prize in Chemistry, and Guillaume won the prize in Physics.  But there's enough in there to illustrate the point even about the vaunted "Peace" prize.  The Nobel prizes are steered by western imperial interests.  The fact that any Americans, part of the largest and most powerful empire in history, have won the Prize shows that.  Meanwhile, few countries did more to defend actual democracy (against US empire and its endless puppets and vassals) in third world countries than the Soviet Union and China, and where are their prizes?

But most westerners will simply regard the latest prize as yet another proof that we're the good guys (see, even the Nobel Prize Committee agrees) and all the cranks in the wilderness who criticize western empire can be ignored.

The imperialistic weaponization of political formations in the USA

I'd wouldn't want to call our top down controlled political formations in the USA "Parties."

But for brevity's sake, I'll use the convention.

Looking only at the imperial posturing of each Party, the Democratic Party fosters war with Russia most, and the Republican Party fosters war with China most.

But mainstream parts of each Party will essentially tell the same story about the two most powerful geopolitical competitors with the USA.  They're the face of evil, brutal, endless tyranny and war crimes, etc.  Which in most cases wouldn't be a bad description of the USA and even moreso for some countries it supports, notably Israel.  But you can pretty much count on claims made about both Russia and China in the political center of the USA to be unfounded propaganda.

Only at the fringes, the ultra right and the ultra left, is some clarity allowed, for the other side.  So, on the ultra right, there is mass acceptance of Russia, and likewise for China on the ultra left.

It is more on these fringes that the truth is to be found, the mainstream being the standard pro-US propaganda.

So as general rule, I defer all claims of atrocities, war crimes, etc, by the Russians and Chinese, at least until I've had a chance to do my investigation of such.  Those I've done so var have always shown the US version to be propaganda.* In some cases, on left and right, there nevertheless will be some individuals and groups consistently opposing US imperialism.  There's a difference here worthy of note.

There ARE left formations, notably on the fringes, including some socialists and most communist, equally critical of US imperialism in all contests.

On the "left" (of some imaginary center which is more like center-right) this is seen as reducing the Democratic party vote, which is intended to absorb all voters on the left, keeping them on the controllable mainstream.

Fine, that aids Capital, the Oligarchs, etc, because it means fewer votes for democrats in the contest of Democrats v Republicans, when the democrats might bend over slightly less for Capital.

On the right, these people have rightwing economic and social values anyway, and will end up voting Republican anyway.  And that obviously aids capital in that same contest.

So in the end, the layout of permissable opinion in foreign affairs is intended to be all about aiding Capital, the Oligarchs, etc.  As should be expected.  Impermissable opinion is shadow banned in various ways.  At some point, for example, you won't advance in your academic, government, or business career if you hold the wrong opinions.

This also explains why it's necessary to include some otherwise right leaning blogs and hosts in my reading list.  There are precious few who share my domestic political leaning and a good critique of US imperialism (such as ConsortiumNews and some of the authors there, especially Aron Mate).  Another of my favorite commentators, Scott Ritter, is somewhat right leaning but keeps that out of his productions (I'd classify him as right leaning centrist, definitely not MAGA).  He has the most complete defense of Russia coming from a US commentator, also MoonOfAlabama, a German (from what used to be East Germany), who is also a right leaning centrist.  On the left, a multitude of smart people, including Tony Greenstein and his friends in UK.  Another of the best is John Helmer, former US journalist now living in Moscow.

*I include such things as claimed genocides in Ukraine (the Holodomor) and in Xinjiang...both of which I believe are fabrications of propaganda.  The Nazi Holocaust was real (and don't forget it included Communists and Homosexuals too, and the Communists were first).  Stalin's purges were far smaller than commonly claimed, and completely dwarfed by political killing performed or funded by the US.  To the point where, it was not surprising that most Russians of the time, later, and even at present still regard Stalin as a hero for directing Russia to become an industrial powerhouse and win the world war, while still providing jobs for all and some kind of simulation of modernity (which is looking comforting nowadays).  The mobs didn't rise up and kill Stalin, he was poisoned in a way implicating some insiders possibly having foreign connections.

Socialism vs Communism

Professor Wolff gives reasonable good explanations of Socialism vs Communism. However the idea of 'Communism' is more than just employee control of workplaces, it is the absence of all exploitation, of which the employee/employer relationship is only one kind. It should also be the end of state/subject and sex related exploitations for example. Marx called it the Realm of Freedom. And the practical difference between really existing Socialist and Communist parties (whose policies, as Wolff explains, are actually Socialist in one of three forms, and not actually Communist) is that Socialist parties usually fall in line with the foreign policy of their capitalist home government, whereas Communist parties consistently oppose capitalist Imperialism everywhere. That's why I am a member of the CPUSA, the original Communist party in the USA. (ACP is an upstart which wants to separate itself from concern over LGBTQ issues among others.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMn7RxaUJL4

The largest socialist group in USA, DSA, was once fairly ambivalent about US support of Israel (lots of liberal Zionists were part of DSA) until recently, when DSA has taken a strong stand against Gaza Genocide.  Many liberal Zionists left the party.  I have remained a member of DSA too, there's no rule that says I can't be.  (DSA used to enforce a rule that Communist members could not vote in DSA elections.  The founder of DSA was extremely anti-Communist.)

PSL is another anti-imperialist and essentially communist party, possibly one I like the most, but as it turns out, it's so Marxist-Leninist that only dedicated cadres can become true members rather than just supporters.  That was like Lenin's Bolshevik party, until it rose to power, he wanted only a small number of the most dedicated and trustworthy.  So I am a supporter but not a member.

It may be instructive to examine their official statements on the war in Ukraine.

https://international.dsausa.org/ukraine/

https://cpusa.org/article/the-communist-partys-position-on-russias-war-in-ukraine/

https://liberationnews.org/psl-statement-on-russias-military-intervention-in-ukraine/

DSA condemns Russia the most, PSL condemns Russia the least, and CPUSA is somewhere in between, with condemnation of US/NATO trending in the opposite direction.

ACP, which may at yet be a very small organization with an outsized influence in social media, has a position which does not condemn Russia at all.  I can't find a link but google AI says:

• Support for Russia: The ACP supports Russia's "special military operation," arguing that Ukraine represents a "legacy of fascism" while Russia continues the "legacy of the Soviet Union" in aiding developing countries.
• Denounces Ukraine's government: The ACP has described the government that took power in Ukraine in 2014 as a fascist-backed "junta" and expresses solidarity with communists in Russia, the Donbas, and Ukraine who oppose it.
• International cooperation: The ACP cooperates with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and Russian Left Front, and has received praise from KPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov.
• Humanitarian aid: The ACP has provided humanitarian aid to Donbas, which it says is to "make the lives of people there better and help them fight NATO aggression".
• Current status: In August 2025, the party's continued alignment with Russia was noted by Zyuganov and other Russian officials.

In my experience, most actual communists think more like PSL or even ACP.  They will emphasize that the US 'provoked' this war and the Russian response was defensive towards ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

I am shocked to see I agree most with ACP here.  I am disappointed with DSA and CPUSA which in my view mostly soft pedal the 80 years of US meddling in Ukraine and what that means wrt the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government and what that means wrt the war (though CPUSA does spell that out in detail and condemn it, they simply both-sides it with the 'Russian aggression' which in my view is unfair to Russia).

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

 I saw news post in Nextdoor "Oakland-level embarrassed: Former mayor warns dangers of losing Spurs."  I was going to add my comment: "Go Spurs Go!  And don't let the door hit you on the way out."

But comments were already full of similar comments and no more were accepted.

American cities are classless and clueless.  From time immemorial, good cities have invested in the arts to improve their citizens and their quality of life.

Instead, in American cities, and San Antonio in particular, we blow billions of taxpayer money (that ends up in the pockets of wealthy owners, developers, and millionaire players) in pointless activities that have no beneficial effect on people's minds or bodies, stuff them full of cancer causing junk food, spoil their sleep and study time, etc.  If anything "positive" comes from this, it's pure tribalism, and that's not positive at all.  We'd be better off with gambling halls and racetracks, which at least develop a kind of numerical literacy. 

Also here in San Antonio we starve the arts, like the former San Antonio Symphony, and likewise it's successor San Antonio Philharmonic which have to pay their own way for awful facilities in awful parts of town with awful parking whose cost accrues to nearby churches.  (Actually, the parking was fine when they were at First Baptist, but now that they are at the Masonic Temple, parking is in the terrible First Presbyterian lot.)

The last Mayor, Ron Nirenberg, who let the San Antonio Symphony fail, and then refused to provide subsidies for it's successor Philharmonic, is forever seared in my mind as one of the worst.  When he was first running, he promised incredible things like mass transit, instead all we got was more billionaire developer giveaways and the initiation of Project Marvel.  No mayor was more in the pocket of developers, which is the pocket all of them are in.