Land privatization and water depletion, 150 years ago, set the stage for the Lahaina fire this year.

Recreating the eliminated wetlands may be desirable, but it won't be easy while sea level is rising. Coastal wetlands will turn into bays. To have wetlands 50 years from now will require making wetlands where there were no wetlands before.

On Ex-Twitter, scammers now buy the "blue checkmark" that used to indicate verification of identity.

The bullshitter leads a cult that systematically teaches its members to distrust everyone but him. That includes their friends, their families, and their religious leaders.

Interestingly, almost 1/3 of them don't trust the bullshitter either, but they are more likely to trust him that trust anyone else.

Black Britons convicted of a killing without evidence that they had anything directly to do with it are challenging the verdict.

It may well be true that the practice of convicting people of murder by labeling them as gangsters because they are friends with a murderer is applied most often to blacks. Perhaps the decision to apply the practice is made in a biased manner.

But the crucial problem with this practice is that it is fundamentally not a valid way to determine that certain people are a gang. It is only an unreliable heuristic. Each time it is applied, whatever the demographics of those it is applied to, it is likely to result in a miscarriage of justice. We need not ask what race they are to condemn the practice.

If the practice were valid, thugs could nonetheless apply it based on racist criteria. Many thugs are racist and they often do that. But that is a different kind of issue.

It is important to monitor SARS-COV-2 in the human population in order to keep track of its mutations.