Just as Qatar basically bought this world cup, so too are they buying their fans. Qatar soccer culture is not enough to fill the stands and ensure that they have loud and enthusiastic fans (in the first match, almost half of the stadium was empty by the end). Not to say that these fans don't want to be there. Although they are supporting another country, to go to the world cup for free and support another arab country has a big attraction to many people.

46% of the land in Africa is being degraded by unsustainable agricultural practices. Agriculture needs to adapt to climate change through clean energy and better irrigation to avoid widespread famine.

Brushed off any mention of reparations while still committing over 10 billion dollars to developing nations to fight climate change. Boris Johnson, also at COP27, put it even more bluntly when he said the UK could not afford reparations at all. I wonder if this is out of fear of the huge check that could be tallied when calculating the ultimate cost of reparations. Also brought up another thought: climate emmissions have grown at an almost exponential rate since 1900, should we be paying climate 'reparations' for our current emissions as well as our past ones, given how much we are emitting at the moment. '

Interesting how the sponsor (even that it has to have a sponsor) is Coca-Cola, which is still using and manufacturing a lot of plastic, which I would think would have been against the conference.

Say's something about the unpopularity of Mexican politicians that Eugenio Derbez, a movie actor, outperformed most of Mexico's traditional opposition parties (PRI, PAN, PRD). However, the current president, Lopez Obrador, still rides on historically high approval ratings and is intent on framing himself and his party (Morena) as disruptors to the status quo.

Interesting how Walker is attempting to harness feelings around safety and law enforcement to propel him to the senate.

Interesting how abortion has completely upended the midterms and seems to have almost shot the republicans in the foot, turning the elections from a sure-fire win to a 50-50 chance of them retaking the senate and house.

Talking about how zero covid is making it a lot harder for the large portion of migrant laborers to get a good job and move of the socioeconomic ladder. In my opinion, China's zero covid policy, while in part sensible due to their large portion of elderly unvaccinated population, is simply delaying the inevitable opening of borders at a terrible cost.

Record heat throughout the Western US. Power grid managed to avoid rolling blackouts among soaring demand, but some outages still happened throughout the Bay Area.

Ukrainians still celebrate independence day despite the war