Future Timeline

June 16, 2021

Richard R. Ernst, a Swiss chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1991 for his work refining nuclear magnetic resonance, or N.M.R., spectroscopy, the powerful method of chemical analysis behind M.R.I. technology, died on June 4 in Winterthur, in northern Switzerland. He was 87.

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), where Dr. Ernst had spent almost his entire career, announced the death on its website. No cause was given.

Dr. Ernst — whose work and interests spanned chemistry, physics, math, music and art — helped develop N.M.R. from a niche, time-intensive technique into a critical scientific tool routinely used in local hospitals and undergraduate chemistry labs.

As a chemist he was pre-eminent.

“To compare him to Einstein would offend physicists,” said Jeffrey A. Reimer, an N.M.R. expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “But in terms of his impact in the discipline, Ernst is foundational.”

(AP via Politico) SEASIDE, Calif. — Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record and confronted Barack Obama about nuclear weapons during a later presidential run, has died. He was 91.

Gravel, who represented Alaska as a Democrat in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, died Saturday, according to his daughter, Lynne Mosier. Gravel had been living in Seaside, California, and was in failing health, said Theodore W. Johnson, a former aide.

Gravel’s two terms came during tumultuous years for Alaska when construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was authorized and when Congress was deciding how to settle Alaska Native land claims and whether to classify enormous amounts of federal land as parks, preserves and monuments.

…Gravel reentered national politics decades after his time in the Senate to twice run for president. Gravel, then 75, and his wife, Whitney, took public transportation in 2006 to announce he was running for president as a Democrat in the 2008 election ultimately won by Obama.
He launched his quest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination as a critic of the Iraq war.

John McAfee: Anti-virus creator found dead in prison cell

(Newsweek) The widow of British-American anti-virus software entrepreneur John McAfee is blaming the U.S. and its "politically motivated charges" for his death, she said.

Janice McAfee, 38, told reporters her husband's final words to her were "I love you and I will call you in the evening," before he was found dead Wednesday at 75 in a prison cell in Spain as he was awaiting extradition to the U.S. He was imprisoned for being accused of tax evasion and Spanish authorities are maintaining it appears he committed suicide.

"I blame the U.S. authorities for this tragedy: Because of these politically motivated charges against him my husband is now dead," Janice McAfee said.
She also said her husband's last words to her were "not words of somebody who is suicidal," and is calling for a "thorough investigation" into his death.

McAfee was arrested at Barcelona's airport in October 2020 after Tennessee prosecutors put out a warrant for him based on his alleged tax evasion.
Authorities in Spain are conducting an autopsy on McAfee's body.

(Vanity Fair)John McAfee, the creator of the antivirus software carrying his name, died in a Spanish prison cell last week, where he was awaiting extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges. McAfee’s lawyer, Javier Villalba, told Reuters last week that prison wardens found him hanging in his cell. As the outlet noted on Monday, the Spanish newspaper El País has now reported, citing sources familiar with the process, that an official autopsy ruled McAfee’s death a suicide. A spokesperson for the Catalonian court system overseeing the autopsy told Reuters that it didn’t have any information on the report.

Prior to his arrest McAfee had been on the run from U.S. authorities for years. He sold his famous firm in 1994, but the dramatic details of his life continued to accumulate up until his death. On Twitter in late 2019, he claimed that the U.S. government would kill him and cover it up as a suicide, also getting a tattoo that read “$WHACKD” to commemorate the hypothesis. In the days since his death, McAfee’s widow, Janice, has echoed elements of that theory, telling reporters on Friday, “His last words to me were, ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening.’” She also demanded a “thorough investigation” of his death.

McAfee’s death has caused enough conspiracy theorizing in the broader public that some news outlets had to clarify on Monday that there was no evidence he owned a unit in the Florida high-rise building that partially collapsed last week. A source told the Associated Press that McAfee had a suicide note on him when he was found. According to Villalba, Janice McAfee has requested a second, independent autopsy of her late husband.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has died at the age of 88, according to a statement released Wednesday by his family.

“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather. At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico,” the statement read, without specifying when Rumsfeld died.

“History may remember him for his extraordinary accomplishments over six decades of public service, but for those who knew him best and whose lives were forever changed as a result, we will remember his unwavering love for his wife Joyce, his family and friends, and the integrity he brought to a life dedicated to country.”

wjfox wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 12:35 pm Haiti President Jovenel Moïse killed in attack at home

13 minutes ago

Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse has been killed in an attack on his home in the nation's capital, according to the country's interim prime minister.

Claude Joseph said the president's home in Port-au-Prince was stormed by unidentified armed men at 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT).

First Lady Martine Moïse was also injured in the attack.

Mr Joseph said that "all measures had been taken to guarantee the continuance of the state".

He said the president was fatally shot in the "heinous, inhuman and barbaric act" and called for the public to remain calm.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57750358

(Common Dreams) In the run-up to the March 2003 invasion, figures who might be thought of as "anti-Cassandras" took center stage. Unlike the Greek seer, these unfortunates were apparently doomed to tell falsehoods—and be believed. Among them was Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security advisor, who, when pressed for evidence that Saddam Hussein actually possessed WMD, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," implying Iraq represented a nuclear threat to this country.

Then there was secretary of State Colin Powell, who put the case for war to the United Nations General Assembly in February 2003, emphasizing the supposedly factual basis of everything he presented:

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and
conclusions based on solid intelligence."

It wasn't true, of course, but around the world, many believed him.

And let's not leave the mainstream press out here. There's plenty of blame to go around, but perhaps the anti-Cassandra crown should go to the New York Times for its promotion of Bush administration war propaganda, especially by its reporter Judith Miller. In 2004, the Times published an extraordinary mea culpa, an apologetic note "from the editors" that said,

"[W]e have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged—or failed to emerge."