Source

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12news.com

'It's awful, and we don't want it to happen again': Navajo Nation takes stand against uranium transports

A pause of the uranium transports from the mine south of the Grand Canyon through the Navajo Nation to Utah is currently in effect.

On Friday, a group of protestors walked on Highway 89 in Cameron, Ariz., protesting Pinyon Plain Mine owner Energy Fuels trucking uranium ore through the Navajo Nation to Utah. Uranium has a long history of impacts on the Navajo Nation and its people since the 1940s. "We've seen the effects of these things in the past on our land, the spills into our rivers, into our communities, the residual effects on our on our health, of our children, our elders," Cameron resident Adair Klopfenstein said. "It's awful, and we don't want it to happen again." The Pinyon Plain Mine, formerly known as Canyon Mine, began mining uranium ore in December and is expected to be actively mining for at least five years. The company had told 12News at the end of June it would start transporting the uranium ore to a mill in southeast Utah in July or August. That hauling appears to have started before the pause was put in place. "I call it illegal smuggling across our border and then through the Navajo Nation," Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said.

Inside Climate News

After Navajo Nation Condemns Uranium Hauling on Its Lands, Arizona Governor Negotiates a Pause - Inside Climate News

The temporary halt is intended to allow the tribe and Energy Fuels Resources to reach an agreement over transporting the radioactive materia

AP News

Navajo Nation plans to test limit of tribal law preventing transportation of uranium on its land

The Navajo Nation plans to test the limits of a tribal law that banned the transportation of uranium ore on its lands.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Uranium mining and the Navajo people - Wikipedia

And from June:

Cronkite News

Atom test downwinders and Navajo uranium workers seek justice after aid expires

Congress let the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expire June 10, leaving Navajo uranium workers and people downwind of nuclear weapons t

KUER

What's next for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act now that it's expired?

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expired on Friday, June 7, leaving many people who were affected by nuclear testing and research in

What is the purpose of the human species?

Think about it: what are the two things that have defined our entire genus for two million years?

Learn everything and care for each other.

It's been twelve thousand years since the beginning of civilization on Earth. In that time, humankind has invented dogs, the wheel, economics, the steam engine, capitalism, and the nuclear bomb. We're as much of a mess as we've always been; probably even more so. It can be kind of hard to see us for what we really are these days. But whenever someone mentions Sputnik, or Vostok 1, or the Apollo program, or the ISS, you know what they say?

"We did that."

That's why space exploration is important. That's why it's important to me. Not just because it instills hope, but… because it's the root of us, all over again.

Cooperation and curiosity are the bedrock of space exploration. You just can't go out there without the intersection of both. And lucky for us, they're the same two traits that got us from flint to fission over the past two million years. Another sophont species of different ancestry would balk at the unbelievable array of challenges inherent in spaceflight and probably decide it's not worthwhile. We do it anyways, because two million years of wanderlust sing in the bones of every one of us from the day we're born to the day we die.

We have to KNOW, you see? We have to KNOW, we have to EXPERIENCE, and we have to do it TOGETHER! When we go, we are becoming ourselves again. We are wandering together. That's what we were made to do.

"Drink this water of the spring, and rest here a while. We have a long way yet to go, and I can't go without you."

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

Les Misératbles

art by The Baby Goat

So you may or may not have heard, Biden is proposing a constitutional amendment that would reverse the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and create term limits for the Supreme Court. A constitutional amendment requires Congress to pass it. If you have thoughts on this and want to encourage your representative to vote a certain way then MAKE YOUR VOICE BE HEARD. CLICK HERE TO FIND AND CONTACT YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE AND SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS. Until Trump takes it away from us we’re still a democracy so LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!

AND DON’T FORGET: we’re not just voting for president this year, there’s also a ton of Congress seats (both House and Senate) that are up for re-election so if your local representatives are people that wouldn’t vote for this, then VOTE THEM OUT!

Contact them and tell them you won’t vote for them if they don’t support this amendment. Congress is supposed to work for us so MAKE THEM WORK FOR US!

I see these fellows in my garden all the time during summer, in addition to the few resident hummingbirds! I can tell you with confidence that actual hummingbirds are significantly larger than the largest hummingbird moth you'll ever see (at least twice to three times as big).

Oddly enough, while there are hummingbird moths in Europe and North America, hummingbirds themselves are strictly New World animals. Any reports of hummingbirds outside of the Americas is either an escaped captive bird or, more likely, a hummingbird moth.

Bonus fun fact: here in NorAm we also have a different genus of moths with the same adaptations: the clearwing moths!

Have any of you ever heard of the hummingbird moths we get in Britain?

So, I thought I saw a hummingbird last year. It was much bigger than a bug could be, I thought, and it hovered around flowers and looked like it had feathers.

I got pretty close but it was never still enough to see clearly. Then, when I told my parents they said "oh! it was probably a moth!" and I was baffled for a long time. Like, how could a moth look like and act so much like a hummingbird?

Until I googled "hummingbirds in the UK" and this fucker comes up:

Everyone, meet the hummingbird hawk-moth; one of the weirdest and coolest cases of convergent evolution on this planet.

This is the kinda thing I'd see in fiction and go "oooh cool, bug hummingbird! Wish we had those on earth!" But we do. We really do have them on earth!! Isn't that nuts?!?!?