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This evening's music features Chicago blues singer, songwriter, arranger, bandleader and bass player Willie Dixon. Enjoy!

"The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn't let them into the family brokerage business."

-- Lyndon B. Johnson

News and Opinion

Metadata Surveillance Didn’t Stop the Paris Attacks

Since terrorists struck Paris last Friday night, the debate over whether encryption prevents intelligence services from stopping attacks has reignited. The New York Times and Yahoo reported on vague claims that the terrorists’ use of encryption stymied investigators who might have thwarted their plans. CIA Director John Brennan made equally vague comments Monday morning, warning that thanks to the privacy protections of the post-Snowden era, it is now “much more challenging” for intelligence agencies to find terrorists. Jeb Bush piled on, saying that the United States needs to restore its program collecting metadata on U.S. phone calls, even though that program won’t be shut down until the end of this month.

Following a terrorism incident as shocking as the Paris attacks, it is no surprise that politicians and the intelligence establishment would want to widen American spying capabilities. But their arguments are conflating the forest—bulk metadata collection—and the trees: access to individual communications about the attack. To understand why that's the case, start with this tweet from former NSA and DHS official Stewart Baker: “NSA’s 215 program”—and by association the far larger metadata dragnet of which the domestically focused phone-metadata program is just a small part—“was designed to detect a Mumbai/Paris-style attack.”

Only it didn't.

The metadata surveillance system appears to have failed before it even got to the encryption stage.

The United States and United Kingdom’s metadata collection that focuses on the Middle East and Europe is far more extensive than the phone dragnet being shut down later this month, and its use has far more permissive rules. This dragnet is mostly limited by technology, not law. And France—which rewrote its surveillance laws after the Charlie Hebdo attack earlier this year—has its own surveillance system. Both are in place, yet neither detected the Nov. 13 plot. This means they failed to alert authorities to the people they should more closely target via both electronic and physical surveillance. In significant part, this system appears to have failed before it even got to the stage at which investigators would need to worry about terrorists’ use of encryption.

Intelligence agencies pounce on Paris attacks to pursue spy agenda

Government officials are wasting no time in attempting to exploit the tragedy in Paris to pass invasive anti-privacy laws and acquire extraordinary new powers that they have wanted for years. In the process, they are making incredibly dishonest arguments and are receiving virtually no pushback from the media.

Absent any actual information or evidence so far about intelligence failures leading up to the deplorable terrorist attack in Paris, pundits spent the weekend speculating that Edward Snowden and surveillance reform were to blame for the fact that the attack went undetected. Then on Monday, in an epic episode of blame shifting, the CIA director, John Brennan, reportedly said privacy advocates have undermined the ability of spies to monitor terrorists. He explained:

Because of a number of unauthorized disclosures and a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that are taken that make our ability collectively, internationally to find these terrorists much more challenging”, adding that there is a “misrepresentation of what the intelligence security services are doing”.

Read Brennan’s comments carefully because they are very revealing. When he says “legal actions”, he’s referring to the fact that multiple federal courts have ruled that the government’s secret mass surveillance on millions of Americans is illegal. So it sounds like the CIA director is saying it’s a shame that intelligence agencies can’t operate completely above the law any more, and is scapegoating any failings on his agency’s part on accountability that is the hallmark of any democracy. (Though he still can apparently operate above the law.) ...

The fact that officials are so eager to push for extraordinary new powers in the wake of this attack is not surprising. It was just a couple of months ago that the Washington Post published leaked emails from the general counsel for the director of national intelligence, Bob Litt, in which he said that although the legislative environment is very hostile today “it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement” and that there’s value in “keeping our options open for such a situation”.

Now we are faced with that situation. We are all appalled by the shocking events in Paris, but let’s not use them as an excuse to change our way of life and strip so many law-abiding citizens of their rights.

Can Obama Level with the People?

The atrocities in Paris, killing more than 120 people, have brought forth the usual condemnations against terrorism and expressions of sympathy for the victims, but the larger question is whether this latest shock will finally force Western leaders to address the true root causes of the problem.

Will President Barack Obama and other leaders finally level with the American people and the world about what the underlying reasons for this madness are? Will Obama explain how U.S. “allies” in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, have been fueling this Sunni extremism for years? Will he dare recognize that Israeli repression of the Palestinians is a major contributing factor, too?

On a practical level, will Obama finally release those 28 pages from the congressional 9/11 report that addressed evidence of Saudi support for the hijackers who attacked New York and Washington in 2001?

Does he have the courage to explain how this scourge of Sunni terrorism can be traced back even further to the late 1970s when President Jimmy Carter started a small-scale covert operation in Afghanistan to destabilize a Moscow-backed secular regime in Kabul and that President Ronald Reagan then vastly expanded the program with the help of the Saudis, pouring in a total of $1 billion a year and giving rise to Saudi militant Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?

Can Obama be convinced that telling hard truths to the American people is not only vital to a democratic Republic in a philosophical way but can have the practical effect of creating crucial public support for rational policies? Will he realize that propaganda schemes or “strategic communications” may be clever short-term tricks to manipulate the American people but they are ultimately counterproductive and dangerous? ...

If the history of the past seven years is any guide, there’s little doubt which direction President Obama will choose. He will go with Official Washington’s flow; he’ll worry about what the editorialists at the Post and Times might think of him; he’ll accommodate the neocons and liberal hawks who remain influential inside his own administration. In short, he’ll continue down the road toward destruction.

France's Colonial Past and Blowback

US Supports French ISIS Attacks in Syria without ‘Boots on the Ground’

The U.S. will work closely with France to intensify the air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria while avoiding American "boots on the ground," the White House said Sunday.

"We absolutely agree" with France that the horrific Paris attacks were an act of war, said White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, and the U.S. will stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" with France in responding.

However, "we do not believe a solution involves significant numbers of combat troops going in" to engage ISIS in a ground war in Syria and Iraq, Rhodes said on the "Fox News Sunday" program.

The U.S. has limited the role of about 3,500 troops in Iraq to training and equipping the Iraqi Security Forces. About 50 Special Forces advisers being sent into Syria will also be kept off the front lines, according to the Pentagon.

Russia, France, and UK Bomb Islamic State Targets, as Manhunt Continues for Paris Attackers

France and Russia launched fresh airstrikes on the Islamic State (IS) stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria on Tuesday, as police made 128 overnight raids across France in the hunt for accomplices to Friday's Paris attacks claimed by the Islamist group.

In northern Iraq, British RAF Tornado fighter bombers attacked Islamic State militants targeting Kurdish forces, killing more than 30 people, the Ministry of Defence said.

French warplanes targeted a command centre and a recruitment centre for jihadists in Raqqa in the second consecutive night of strikes ordered by President Francois Hollande, a military command spokesman told Reuters.

The strike involved 10 fighter jets launched from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. French defense officials said the United States had stepped up intelligence sharing, enabling Paris to identify more specific targets.

Russia also launched new strikes on Raqqa. ... The action followed President Vladimir Putin's announcement that Moscow would intensify air strikes in Syria after Russia's Federal Security Service confirmed that a bomb caused the crash of a Russian tourist airliner over Egypt's Sinai peninsula in October.

Russia Confirms That a Bomb Brought Down Tourist Jet

The Kremlin said for the first time on Tuesday that a bomb had ripped apart a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month and promised to hunt down those responsible and intensify its air strikes on Islamist militants in Syria in response.

Until Tuesday, Russia had played down assertions from Western countries that the crash, in which 224 people were killed on October 31, was a terrorist incident, saying it was important to let the official investigation run its course.

But in a late night Kremlin meeting on Monday three days after Islamist gunmen and bombers killed 129 people in Paris, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's FSB security service, told a meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin that traces of foreign-made explosive had been found on fragments of the downed plane and on passengers' personal belongings.

Paris Attack Mastermind a Known Terrorist, Knew ISIS Chief

New reports are emerging identifying Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud, a 28-year-old Brussels-born ISIS member, as the probable “mastermind” behind Friday’s attacks in Paris. Abu Oud was said to have been talking up plans to “attack a concert hall” after returning from Syria.

Abu Oud joined ISIS back in 2013 and was reportedly a close confidant of ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He was also a long-time associate of Saleh Abdeslam, the lone surviving attacker in the Paris strike, who is still at large. ...

While other attackers were known to officials before Friday, none appears to have been nearly so high-profile as Abu Oud, and the failure in keeping tabs on him seems virtually certain to be a subject of controversy for intelligence agencies going forward.

This is doubly so because French officials had publicly linked Abu Oud to two previous attacks they said they foiled, adding more questions about why officials never seemed able to catch up with him.

Turkey Notified France About Paris Suicide Bomber Twice in Past Year

Speaking at the G20 summit, President Obama insisted he was “not aware” of any particular intelligence in the lead-up to Friday’s ISIS attacks in Paris, saying there have been concerns “periodically” but no specific mentions of anything to prove France ahead of time.

This is just the latest in a series of reports in which US officials say their intelligence had nothing on the Paris attack, despite a growing number of other countries which reported providing direct intelligence to France of an impending attack in the days (and even hours) before the strike.

Turkey reported that they’d also provided intelligence to France relating to one of the attacks, Omar Mostefai, a 29-year-old Parisian who was identified as one of the suicide bombers. Turkey says they’d provided France intelligence on him twice in the past year.

EU Foreign Affairs Chief: All Paris Attackers Were European Nationals

European Union Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, discussing Friday’s attack on Paris and speculation about ISIS using refugees as infiltrators, reiterated that all of the identified attackers so far were European nationals with valid EU passports.

Indeed, most of the identified attackers appear to be either French or Belgian nationals, and while some indeed had gone to Syria to fight with ISIS at some point, they were the sort of returnees the Western intelligence community has been warning about, Western nationals with access that most jihadists simply wouldn’t have.

Syrian al-Qaeda Kills ISIS-Linked Rebel Leaders

With everyone else in the world piling on ISIS after Friday evening’s Paris attacks, al-Qaeda’s Syria faction, Jabhat al-Nusra, is also reporting that they killed multiple leaders of the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, a faction with a presence in southern Syria and ISIS ties.

Nusra’s statement emphasized the ISIS link of the slain leaders, naming Abu Ali al-Baridi as one of the slain. The only other detail offered was that they were killed in an “heroic suicide bombing.” The attack reportedly took place in the Golan Heights. ...

In addition to claiming credit for the suicide bombing, the al-Qaeda statement went on to urge ISIS and its supporters to surrender to al-Qaeda before it is too late.

Predictable and Deplorable: Over Half of US Governors Vow to Slam Door on Refugees

In what appears to be a textbook case of xenophobia and political fearmongering in the wake of a tragedy, governors from more than half of the U.S. states said they oppose the resettlement of Syrian refugees within their borders. The 27 states are: Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Maine, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, and Michigan.

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan was the first Democratic governor to join her Republican counterparts.

In a statement Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the country's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, decried the rolling announcements as "un-American," saying those who reject refugees are allowing fear to overrun national ideals.

"This un-American rejection of refugees, who will face significant security checks prior to entry, sends entirely the wrong message," CAIR said. "Governors who reject those fleeing war and persecution abandon our ideals and instead project our fears to the world."

Jamar Clark: 51 arrests at protests over Minneapolis shooting by police

People assemble outside precinct demanding video footage and block freeway amid claims that suspect was already restrained when gunned down

Police detained 51 people after a night of protests in Minneapolis over the shooting of Jamar Clark during an arrest.

Police have said Clark was shot following a struggle when they tried to arrest him, but family members insist he was shot “execution-style” and witnesses have said he was already in handcuffs.

On Monday the Minneapolis mayor, Betsy Hodges, asked for help from the Department of Justice in investigating Clark’s death, and Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison wrote to attorney general Loretta Lynch formally requesting an investigation.

This failed to fully satisfy activists, community leaders and protesters, who took to the streets on Monday for the second night in a row. They assembled outside the Minneapolis police fourth precinct building – less than 100 metres from the small makeshift shrine which marks the spot where Clark was shot and gravely wounded – and demanded the release of video footage from the shooting.

Protesters closed the road, put up tents outside the precinct including a makeshift canteen, and built a fire pit. Outside in the street activists chanted “Handcuffs, don’t shoot!” - a variation on the “Hands up, don’t shoot” refrain of the Black Lives Matter movement since the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Utah judge removes himself from same-sex couple foster baby case

A Utah judge who had ordered a baby girl taken away from her lesbian foster parents and placed with a heterosexual couple has removed himself from the case as criticism mounted into calls for his impeachment.

Judge Scott Johansen reversed his order last week to remove the nine-month-old baby from the home of April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce and allowed the girl to stay with the married couple. But there were concerns he could still have the baby removed from their home in Price, about 120 miles south of Salt Lake City, during a custody hearing set for 4 December.

The couple asked that the judge be disqualified. In an order released on Monday, Johansen wrote that while the couple do not have legal standing, he is nevertheless stepping aside.

In his initial decision, Johansen mentioned research showing children do better when raised by heterosexual families. The American Psychological Association, however, has said there is no scientific basis for believing that gays and lesbians are unfit parents based on sexual orientation.

U.S. industrial output falls for second straight month

U.S. industrial production fell for the second straight month in October, the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday, raising concerns for the robustness of fourth-quarter economic growth.

The Fed said industrial production fell 0.2 percent last month after an unrevised 0.2 percent drop in September.

Industrial production tallied by the Fed comprises manufacturing, mining and electric and gas utilities. ...

With overall output declining, the percentage of industrial capacity in use fell 0.2 percentage point in October to 77.5 percent, from an upwardly revised 77.7 percent in September.

The U.S. central bank views capacity use as a leading indicator in deciding how much further the economy can grow before sparking higher inflation.

Wall Street Is Running the World's Central Banks

Wall Street is again leading to the corridors of central banks.

From Minneapolis to Paris, investors and financiers are increasingly being hired to help set monetary policy less than a decade since the banking crisis roiled the world economy and chilled their public-sector employment prospects. ...

Last week’s appointment of Neel Kashkari to run the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis as of January means a third of the Fed’s 12 district banks will soon be run by officials with past ties to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ...

The New York Fed’s William Dudley was Goldman’s chief U.S. economist for almost a decade before joining the central bank in 2007, while recently appointed Dallas Fed President Robert Steven Kaplan spent 22 years at Goldman and rose to become its vice chairman of investment banking.

Although Patrick Harker joined the Philadelphia Fed from the University of Delaware he also served as an independent trustee of Goldman Sachs Trust. ...

It’s not just the Fed. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi both famously worked for Goldman before entering central banking.

Hillary’s Wall Street Money Taint Goes Viral

Everyone has been waiting for the next shoe to drop in the Clinton cash scandals but no one expected Hillary to be the one to drop the shoe. But after making the stunning assertions in last Saturday night’s Democratic debate that most of her donors are “small” and her Wall Street spigot of funding was turned on as a result of her helping New York to rebuild after 9/11 – Hillary, the perpetual Teflon candidate, has been pummeled from Twitter to cable to mainstream media.

Elizabeth Bruenig, writing for the New Republic, pointed out that “large donations make up 81 percent” of Hillary’s current campaign donations, refuting the candidate’s misstatement that “most” of her funding is from small donations.

... Bruenig writes further that confidence in Hillary’s assistance in the post 9/11 era “wouldn’t explain the $125 million she and her husband Bill have accepted in personal payment from major firms since 2001, mostly in return for speaking engagements. Nor would it explain why, more than a decade down the line, Hillary Clinton is still making $200,000 per speech at banks like Goldman Sachs.”

Philip Bump of the Washington Post detailed how Hillary’s massive cash flow from Wall Street began prior to 9/11, including her first run for Senator.

Silicon Valley's labor views indicate a split in the Democratic party

The definition of a ‘worker’ is being redefined by the US tech industry, resisting the Democrats’ more traditional ties with labor unions

In America’s new era of political realignment, the Republican party is not the only one experiencing a grassroots political coup. A new breed of capitalism-loving and urbanized liberals are demanding an entirely new role for the federal government.

With heavy support from Silicon Valley, these new tech Democrats want the government to embrace economic disruption, with unlimited high-skilled immigrant visas, expansive trade deals, and performance-based funding that encourages charter schools to abandon teacher unions and adopt the management model of a modern startup.

“The replacement of working-class whites with upscale professionals has turned the Democratic coalition into an alliance with a built-in class division,” wrote Columbia journalism professor and New York Times columnist Thomas B Edsall on the migration of professionals from the Republican party to the Democrats.

“While constituting a minority, the relatively upscale wing clearly dominates party policy and provides the majority of the activists who run campaigns, serve as delegates to the convention and have become the core of the party’s donor base.” ...

Hillary Clinton’s splintered support is no longer obscuring a deeply divided party. On most major issues, Clinton supporters are tech Democrat pure-breeds, while Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential campaign, appeals to the blue-collar Occupy-Wall-Street European socialist. It is this new tribe of techno-Democrat that is undermining the Republicans’ position as the pro-business party.

The tech lobby is a big supporter of the Democratic Party because the industry relies heavily on governmental support for education, research and immigration. The communications industry has now eclipsed labor unions as one of the largest donors to liberal candidates, and as a result, on nearly every major issue the Democratic party leadership sides with the tech industry, notably whenever it conflicts with labor unions.

Sanders Punctures Clinton's Foreign Policy Experience Bubble

The Paris Attacks are right on time for the War Party's election drive and the New York Times does its traditional job, catapulting the propaganda:

In Presidential Campaign, It’s Now Terrorism, Not Taxes

The assault on Paris has thrust national security to the heart of the presidential race, forcing candidates to scramble and possibly prompting voters to reconsider their flirtations with unconventional candidates and to take a more sober measure of who is prepared to serve as commander in chief.

Until now, the campaign, when it did not descend into insult comedy on Twitter or become mired in biographical disputes, was focused on a subtler sort of threat to the country’s way of life: economic and racial inequality, for Democrats, and a less-defined fury about a loss of America’s identity, for Republicans. But the bloodshed in the heart of Paris posed concrete questions about how the contenders would respond to an urgent and seemingly metastasizing threat.

[Did you see that fnord that just went by? It was huge! - js]

“I think this incident in Paris will break down some of the false sense of separation from the experience the rest of the world is having with terrorism,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. He predicted that the campaign would “begin to focus as much on national security and foreign affairs as domestic matters and economic security.”

Or, as Tom Ridge, a former secretary of Homeland Security, put it: “The barbarians are no longer at the gate. They’re inside.”

[Hey, looky! Tom Ridge can still change the color of the threat level at the bidding of his political masters without even being in office! - js]

Amid Terror Fever, Sanders Refuses to Back Down on Climate Threat Stance

Despite being mocked by conservative media and Democratic operatives alike, Bernie Sanders is holding fast on his assertion that climate change is the greatest threat to national security and is "directly related to the growth of terrorism."

When asked during Saturday's debate if, in the wake of the Paris attacks, he still believed that "the global crisis of climate change" is our biggest threat, the Senator from Vermont responded: "Absolutely." 

During an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Sanders elaborated further.

"If we are going to see an increase in drought, in flood, and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that people all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources," he said. "If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you're going to see migrations of people fighting over land that will sustain them. And that will lead to international conflict."

In Syria, for example, Sanders said that drought has driven people to migrate into cities. "When people migrate into cities and they don't have jobs, there's going to be a lot more instability, a lot more unemployment, and people will be subject to the types of propaganda that al Qaeda and ISIS are using right now," he said.

Sanders noted that this belief, which he originally stated during the first Democratic debate, is in fact shared by both the CIA and the U.S. Defense Department.

Campaigners try to halt Japan whale hunt in last-ditch legal fight

Environmental campaigners are launching a last-ditch legal attempt to prevent Japan from slaughtering whales in the Antarctic this winter, after Tokyo indicated it would ignore a ban on its “scientific” expeditions.

The Australian branch of Humane Society International (HSI) will on Wednesday ask the federal court in Sydney to find Kyodo Senpaku, the Japanese company that organises the hunts, in contempt of a 2008 ruling that banned the whaling fleet from hunting in an area of the Southern Ocean that Australia recognises as a whale sanctuary.

Japan, however, does not recognise the sanctuary and has continued to hunt in the area over the past several years, although it has not killed a single whale there since the international court of justice (ICJ) rejected Japanese claims in March last year that “lethal sampling” was necessary to conduct scientific research into whale populations.

After initially agreeing to comply with last year’s landmark ICJ judgment in the Hague, Japan appears poised to defy the court and resume the hunts early next year.

HSI is launching its challenge to Kyodo Senpaku seven years after the federal court found Japan in breach of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and instructed it to halt whaling in the area.

Paris climate deal meeting still on as Republican leaders register opposition

The point person behind Barack Obama’s environmental agenda has declared Americans are fed up with climate change denial and other efforts to wreck a Paris summit to stop global warming.

Despite Friday’s horrific attacks, Obama and other world leaders still plan to travel to Paris on 30 November for the start of two weeks of talks aimed at securing a global agreement to reduce climate pollution.

Republicans in Congress could vote as early as Tuesday to repeal the main pillar of Obama’s climate plan – which would send the message to Paris that the president faces strong opposition to his agenda.

Republican leaders, including James Inhofe of Oklahoma – who notoriously once threw a snowball in the Senate in an attempt to disprove climate change – are also planning to travel to Paris to register their opposition to a global climate deal. ...

Republicans in Congress have threatened to overturn the main pillar of Obama’s climate change plan: rules cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that were written and are being implemented by McCarthy’s EPA.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, last month called the rules “a crusade for ideological purity”.

Stanford students begin 'indefinite' sit-in over fossil fuel divestment

Stanford University students have begun an indefinite sit-in to protest against the institution’s investments in fossil fuels.

According to protest organisers, more than 100 students attempted to enter the main administration building and office of the president on Monday afternoon. The students have been locked out but say they have encircled the building and will camp out there until Stanford acts on their demand to “completely divest” its financial holdings from the fossil fuel industry.

They are demanding action before UN climate negotiations in Paris at the end of November.

In May 2014 Stanford agreed it would not invest any more of its $22.2bn of endowed funds in coal mining companies, and would divest any current holdings. The pledge followed a campaign by student-led organisation Fossil Free Stanford, the group behind the latest protest, which now says that after three years of campaigning and negotiating the administration is not acting quickly enough.

Repeated calls for the university to move beyond coal to full fossil fuel divestment, which also covers oil and gas, have not been heeded. “We refuse to let Stanford stand idly by and continue to remain invested in the companies perpetuating the climate crisis,” said Michael Peñuelas, a Fossil Free Stanford organiser and master’s student.

Canada sued over approval of genetically modified salmon scheme

Environmental groups are taking the Canadian government to court in an attempt to halt the production of genetically modified salmon eggs, claiming that the process risks a “huge live experiment” with the genetic makeup of all wild Atlantic salmon.

A US firm has been granted permission to produce fertile salmon eggs in Canada and ship them to Panama, where they will be grown in the hope that the fish will be given approval for human consumption in the US and Canada.

AquaBounty Technologies, which is based in Massachusetts, insists that its genetically modified fish pose no threat to the environment and will be kept in special disease- and antibiotic-free conditions. The modified fish can grow to the size of wild salmon with 75% less feed, reducing the product’s carbon footprint by up to 25 times, AquaBounty claims.

However, environmentalists will head to Canada’s federal court on Tuesday to argue that there is a real risk of mixing between the GM salmon and wild fish and that the Canadian government was wrong to approve the production of the eggs in Prince Edward Island. ...

Mark Butler, campaigner at the Ecology Action Centre, said hurricanes, human error or equipment failure could release the GM fish from their land-based hatcheries into the ocean. He added that treatment to ensure the GM salmon cannot reproduce is not always effective.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

From Pol Pot to ISIS: the Blood Never Dried

Stock Prices of Weapons Manufacturers Soaring Since Paris Attack

A War the West Cannot Win

Agents of the Apocalypse: From Waco to ISIS

U.S. and Saudi Bombs Target Yemen’s Ancient Heritage

Thanks Amazon, but we don't need your solidarité

Will Janet Yellen Rather Protect Big Banks, or the Fed?

Carpetbagging ‘Crony Capitalism’ in Ukraine

Plutocracy: Political Repression In The U.S.A.

A Little Night Music

Willie Dixon w/John Sebastian - Spoonful

Willie Dixon - Back Door Man

Willie Dixon - I'm Nervous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lmgkDEvqtE

Willie Dixon - I can't quit you, baby

Willie Dixon - You Shook Me

Willie Dixon - I Just Want To Make Love To You

Billy Branch / Willie Dixon Little Red Rooster

Willie Dixon - Study War No More

Willie Dixon - Bassology

Willie Dixon - I ain't superstitious

Willie Dixon - Crazy For My Baby

Willie Dixon - 29 Ways

Blasters w/ Willie Dixon - Built For Comfort

Charles Clark - Hidden Charms

Willie Dixon - I Am The Blues