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This evening's music features blues and r&b singer, guitarist and songwriter Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Enjoy!

"The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct."

-- Calvin Coolidge

News and Opinion

Obama's response to the DAPL conflict is even more cowardly, pathetic and irresponsible than Hillary Clinton's. It is clear that neither of them has any desire to intercede to stop the violence visited on indigenous people by the minions of global capital.

Standing Rock: Obama suggests 'reroute' of Dakota pipeline being investigated

Obama prefers to wait ‘several more weeks’ and see if dispute between Native American leaders and the Dakota Access pipeline oil company can be resolved

Barack Obama has suggested the Dakota Access pipeline could be rerouted around sacred Native American lands in comments that are the president’s first on the controversial oil project since police arrested hundreds of indigenous protesters during violent clashes.

After months of pleas from activists in North Dakota to stop construction of a pipeline that the Standing Rock tribe says could contaminate its water supply and threaten its cultural heritage, Obama said in an interview released on Tuesday night that the government was “going to let it play out for several more weeks and determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to the traditions of the first Americans”.

Asked about the high-profile demonstrations against the $3.8bn pipeline, Obama told news website NowThis: “We’re monitoring this closely and I think as a general rule, my view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans, and I think that right now the army corps is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline.” ...

Obama had been silent since the army corp’s announcement, and Energy Transfer Partners, the company operating the pipeline, has rapidly moved forward with construction, in recent days approaching the massive protest camps and river where Native American leaders fear significant damage. ...

Asked about “shocking footage” showing police firing rubber bullets at protesters, Obama said: “It’s a challenging situation. I think that my general rule when I talk to governors and state and local officials whenever they’re dealing with protests, including for example during the Black Lives Matters protests, is there’s an obligation for protesters to be peaceful and there’s an obligation for authorities to show restraint.”

He continued: “I want to make sure that as everybody is exercising their constitutional rights to be heard, that both sides are refraining from situations that might result in people being hurt.”

His comments comes as a group with the United Nations investigates allegations of human rights abuses after jailed Native Americans said they were held in cages and faced cruel and inhumane treatment behind bars.

Can we suspend construction in the meantime so this isn't just more pandering? #NoDAPL https://t.co/wuciX4Mfre

— CJ Kadakia (@cjkadakia) November 2, 2016

Shots fired at Standing Rock as protesters clash with cops over the Dakota Access Pipeline project

A Standing Rock protester was formally charged Monday with attempted murder of an officer after she allegedly fired three shots when officers tried to forcibly remove her and other protesters near the Dakota Access Pipeline easement in Morton County, North Dakota, last week. ...

Red Fawn Fallis, 37, was arrested along with 140 others on Thursday. Police said Fallis fired three rounds, saying it was “unbelievable” that officers weren’t shot. “I was standing two feet from her when it happened, so I know how lucky we can be, OK?” North Dakota Highway Patrol Captain Bryan Niewind said at a press conference Monday night. “It happened right by me.”

Other protesters reported injuries after the clash, including bruises and broken bones, and said police used pepper spray and a Taser and fired beanbag and sponge rounds to subdue them, according to The Bismarck Tribune.

Happening Now: Armed Police Descend on Water Protectors at DAPL Site

Police reportedly began descending on water protectors in North Dakota on Wednesday, as images on social media showed a dramatic standoff along a creek that borders a construction site for the long-opposed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

According to independent media outlet Unicorn Riot, which is on the ground in the town of Cannon Ball, hundreds of water protectors are attempting to cross footbridges built over Cantapeta Creek to reach the DAPL construction area on the other shore, but police in riot gear are currently pulling the bridges apart. One protector said the walkways had been built to help elders reach the construction area to pray for sacred sites.

The Bismarck Tribune writes that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which lays claim to the land along the shoreline, gave Morton County the orders to arrest protesters and break down the bridge. According to Grand Forks Herald, law enforcement officers used a boat to pull the bridge apart.

People on the ground said women and children were being evacuated from the protest camps, multiple people had already been maced, and police had fired rubber bullets, injuring at least one person.

#NoDAPL
Currently happening... pic.twitter.com/oy6cTFxKi3

— Native Life ☄#NoDAPL (@_Native_Life) November 2, 2016

In Sign of 'Overwhelming Support,' Water Protectors Raise Over $3 Million to Fight Dakota Access

Water protectors battling the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline have been stunned by incredible support for their fight, as allies near and far have flooded the protest camp's fundraiser with over $3 million.

One crowdsourcing campaign had an initial goal of raising only $5,000, the Associated Press reported Sunday, but topped $1 million. Other fundraising streams have increased the total raised to over $3 million, and the money is going toward legal costs, food, shelter, and other necessities for the camp of hundreds of water protectors near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

"One online legal defense fund has raised more than $655,000 for 'the legal defense of warriors protecting land, water, and human rights,'" AP notes. ...

The successful fundraising efforts point to the extent to which the Standing Rock Sioux's battle against Dakota Access has resonated around the world.

Indeed, Monday alone saw separate solidarity protests in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and Montreal, Quebec; another action even shut down New York City's Grand Central Station.

"I know the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is not alone; we have overwhelming support," Standing Rock Sioux Tribe chairman Dave Archambault II told AP, "adding that his tribe would in return help other tribes 'in their fight against corporations.'"

The looming age of US aggression

Presidential candidates always promise to win wars. When asked how, they say they will do it by using “the world’s greatest military.” Throughout history, though, most wars have ended with negotiated peace, not absolute victory. That requires diplomacy. Yet neither of our presidential candidates has shown any true appreciation for diplomacy. One scorns the very idea of compromise. The other was secretary of state for four years without carrying out a single major negotiation. Whoever wins next week’s election, the United States is likely to become more aggressive in the world. The era of Obama was hardly a golden age for diplomacy, but in comparison with what lies ahead, it will seem so. ...

The greatest diplomatic opportunity we missed in recent years came in 2012, when Kofi Annan, named by the United Nations and the Arab League to mediate the Syria crisis, invited all warring parties to negotiate. The United States refused. Any negotiated accord would necessarily have accommodated the interests of the Syrian government and other forces we oppose. We found that unacceptable. Rather than negotiate, we stuck to our traditional policy: Talk to your friends, bomb your enemies. That policy does not fit the modern world’s turbulent geopolitics. Now, with American power less overwhelming than it once was, we best protect our interests by calming crises through diplomacy, even at some geopolitical cost, rather than by trying to bluster or bomb our way to total victory. ...

Ronald Reagan trenchantly observed that “diplomacy, the most honorable of professions, can bring the most blessed of gifts, the gift of peace.” Yet this year’s presidential candidates seem to consider the idea of sitting around a table with other countries as vaguely un-American. It implies not getting everything we want. That feels like a step back from power. If we have the strength to impose our will on others, both presidential candidates argue, there is no reason to compromise — which means no need for diplomacy. Empires that approach the world this way never thrive for long.

NATO, Russia to Hold Parallel Drills in the Balkans

NATO is holding an emergency exercise drill in Montenegro while Russian troops will participate in a war game in Serbia as the two Balkan neighbors seem to be heading in different directions strategically.

The five-day drill in Montenegro that started Monday includes fighting floods and chemical attacks. It will involve 680 unarmed personnel from seven NATO countries and 10 partner states.

The 13-day armed exercise in Serbia, dubbed "The Slavic Brotherhood 2016," begins Wednesday. It will include 150 Russian paratroopers, 50 air force staffers, 3 transport planes and an unspecified number of troops from Serbia and Belarus, Russia's Defense Ministry said.

Praise Mosul, bash Aleppo: Western media guide for Iraq-Syria coverage

Vladimir Putin orders 10-hour Aleppo truce on Friday

Vladimir Putin has ordered a 10-hour truce on Friday in the war-ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo, the Russian defence ministry has said.

“A decision was made to introduce a ‘humanitarian pause’ in Aleppo on 4 November from 9am to 7pm,” the chief of Russia’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Gerasimov said the decision was approved by Syrian authorities and was meant to “prevent senseless casualties” by allowing civilians and armed combatants to leave the rebel-held eastern part of the city.

He said eight corridors – six for civilians and two for fighters – could be used for this. Rebels launched a major assault on Friday to break the siege of Aleppo but have been met this week by fierce resistance from regime forces.

UN: All Sides in Aleppo May Be Committing War Crimes

A new statement from the UN Human Rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned that there is growing evidence that all sides fighting around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo are engaged in war crimes by conducting indiscriminate strikes in civilian-populated areas.

Shamdasani warned that while the UN lacked details to attribute individual attacks to different factions in the area, the indications are that everyone has basically ignored the “fundamental prohibition” on launching such attacks when civilians are present.

This has been a recurring concern for months in Aleppo, with large civilian casualties reported on a disturbingly regular basis. And while most of the international forces with an interest in Syria are keen to exclusively blame one side or the other, civilians in both sides’ neighborhoods are being killed.

WikiLeaks Reveals Team Hillary’s Libya Spin: It Would Be Syria Without Clinton’s War

New emails from John Podesta show talking points circulated during her marathon Benghazi testimony to defend the war and blame the victims for not embracing the U.S. more.

In the lead-up to Hillary Clinton’s marathon testimony before Congress on Benghazi in October 2015, her presidential campaign prepared to make some eye-popping claims—including that Libya would have turned into Syria without U.S. intervention.

That’s according to an internal talking-point memo released in Tuesday’s dump of WikiLeaks emails. ... The Clinton campaign knew the Libya intervention was a political liability to her, so it urged its backers to say that not intervening would have made things much worse—and to blame the violence in part on the Libyan people’s lack of openness to greater U.S. military involvement. ...

Despite the memo’s claim that Libya would have devolved much like Syria had the West not intervened, Libya and Syria are in fact two very different countries. Where Syria is a myriad of ethnicities and sects of Islam, Libya in 2011 was far more monolithic. Libya’s roughly 6 million people were nearly all Sunni Muslims, followers of a certain school of Islam called Maliki. Libya was divided by tribes and three regions that formed the artificially created state. Syria, meanwhile, is home to Russia’s biggest naval presence in the region, and its geography makes it valuable to the West and Iran as well.

Had the West not intervened in Libya, no one can say for sure what would have happened. Gaddafi might have put down the uprising or a years-long civil war could have erupted. But unlike Syria, where war could easily turn into a direct proxy war between various states, the conflict in Libya would likely not have spread far beyond its borders. ...

This memo gives a valuable window into how the Clinton campaign put together its communications strategy on the Benghazi attacks and subsequent violence in Libya: When facing criticism, claim anything other than your decision would have been apocalyptic. And if your decision had a bloody fallout, blame the victims.

Mosul: Aid workers fear humanitarian crisis | DW News

Iraqi forces reportedly kill 116 ISIS fighters as they enter Mosul

Iraqi fighter jets reportedly killed 116 Islamic State Group fighters during bombing raids on the IS-stronghold on Tuesday, including 67 who were at a meeting in a hotel swimming pool which has been described as the terrorist group’s war room.

The details of the attacks were reported by Kurdish news outlet Rudaw citing the Iraqi war media office. The report says that along with the deaths of 67 militants of several nationalities at the hotel pool, militants were killed at three other sites, including 10 who were standing guard at a weapons depot, destroying an ISIS air defense site in the process.

Turkey Deploys Tanks, Artillery Along Iraq Border

Adding to concerns about tensions between the Turkish and Iraqi government, Turkey has deployed a convoy of tanks and artillery along the Iraqi border today, a move they say it meant to prepare for any potential “developments” in the region.

The deployment appears to be centered on the area around Mosul. Turkish President Erdogan promised to participate in the invasion of Mosul, but was spurned by the Abadi government in Iraq. This has been an ongoing argument between the two sides, and the deployment may suggest Turkey plans an involvement in Mosul, however unwelcome.

The deployment also comes following a recent spate of fighting with the Kurdish PKK inside southeastern Turkey, and some reports have speculated that the deployment could be intended as further force against the PKK forces on the Iraqi side of the border.

Hillary Clinton Expresses Regret For Not Interfering in Palestinian Elections in 2006 Tape

24 Killed, Mostly Civilians, as Indian, Pakistani Forces Trade Fire in Kashmir

One villager in the area described the situation as like a “full blown war,” as Pakistani and Indian troops have exchanged a growing amount of fire across the Line of Control in Kashmir. The latest firing began on Friday and has continued to grow ever since.

Both sides are accusing the other, as usual, of starting the situation, and civilians living along the LoC are being evacuated in growing numbers. Since Friday at least 24 people have been killed in the firing, with the majority of them civilian bystanders.

This is the latest dust-up along the LoC since September, when militants attacked Indian forces within Kashmir and India responded with raids across the LoC, getting into fights with the Pakistani military on the other side.

Who Gains From Colombia’s Vote for Permanent War?

In early October, the Colombian people voted NO to peace. ...

Most pundits have begun the post-mortem analysis of the referendum by saying something like “Colombians did not vote against peace.” They go on to discuss other factors, including people’s ignorance of the accords, or their mistaken belief that after four years it could simply be renegotiated. But the fact of the matter is that the NO voters voted clearly and unambiguously to continue the war. ... The NO promoters knew what they were doing. They were not promoting an alternative peace. As a 32-year old NO voter quoted in the New York Times put it, “If ‘no’ wins, we won’t have peace, but at least we won’t give the country away to the guerrillas.” ...

To pretend that everyone wants peace and the only issue is how to get it is to ignore the fact that the war benefits many powerful interests. Those interests will fight to keep fighting.

On the political front, war assures military control over a population and justifies authoritarianism and repression through fear. In general, the most militarized parts of the country are areas where peasants, Afro-Colombians, and indigenous peoples are defending their lands and resources from the incursions of transnational corporations and mega development projects. Fear and murder are powerful repressive tools.

War is also a huge business. Thanks to U.S. Plan Colombia and policies that fanned the conflict, Colombia became the third largest recipient of US aid in the world during the war, behind only Israel and Egypt. Colombia’s budget for security forces skyrocketed; between 2001 and 2005, it grew more than 30 percent, and by 2006 it was double its 1990 levels – some $4.48 billion for military and police.

The US military-industrial complex also has a vested interest in continuing the war. The conflict justified Plan Colombia, the $10 billion dollar counterinsurgency and counternarcotics plan that allowed the Pentagon to establish a military presence in Colombia, both physically and by proxy. With the pretext of Colombia’s internal conflict, the US government built up a platform not only for control in Colombia, but also for regional strike capacity, as leaked in the proposed agreement to establish seven US military bases.

Plan Colombia and its later incarnations kept US contracts for weapons, espionage, intelligence equipment, and military and police training flowing to the most powerful lobbying industries in the nation. ... In the process, Colombia was converted into a testing ground for the latest in counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare techniques and equipment from the United States. The blood spilled on its soil feeds the global war machine, to such an extent that Colombia has been groomed as an exporter of counterinsurgency and “security” training, despite its reputation as a gross violator of human rights and the disastrous humanitarian impact of its prolonged war. Colombian forces now work throughout the region to promote the same counternarcotics-counterinsurgency model that left more than 5 million people displaced and untold thousands of innocent peasants executed by security forces.

An analysis published by the US Army War College, although it is not an official document, openly expresses relief at the continuation of indefinite war in Colombia. Through a mixture of hawkish arguments and lies, the analysis recognizes that the country now enters into a “period of uncertainty,” but notes that this “presents a strategic situation less grave and more manageable, than had the accords been approved.”

Alarmed by Admiral's data grab? Wait until insurers can see the contents of your fridge

Anybody who has been overcharged by an insurance company, denied a claim or given the runaround by an insurer’s customer disservice should shudder at the idea of insurers learning how to deploy the internet as a way of monitoring customers and using their online data to determine how much they should pay.

The latest, inevitable news is that Admiral, one of the UK’s biggest insurers, is to use customers’ Facebook data to help calculate how much car insurance they should pay.

Insurers are always looking for new ways to strengthen their position and sell their services. And while social media might seem to indicate personality traits associated with safe driving, a new seam of far more personal and invasive monitoring is opening up in the Internet of Things (IOT) – thousands of internet-connected devices that monitor our lives at home, work and in transit. ...

Insurers are already designing and deploying internet-connected devices. Progressive Insurance’s “Snapshot” plugs into your car to track how and when you drive, while other insurers are partnering with IoT firm Nest – which makes smart thermostats and smoke alarm – and fitness tracker Fitbit to offer discounts for allowing data reports about your behaviour. ...

The tradeoff of control for convenience – dataveillance for discounts – may seem innocuous now. But when insurers exert influence over the IoT, they will have access to powerful monitoring abilities. By design, smart devices record and report information about our behaviours, lifestyles and preferences. Each device is like a window into a different part of your life, and insurers want to be the ones pressing their face against the glass. ...

The IoT can help insurers manipulating our behaviour, through policy conditions and incentives. Discounts can quickly become penalties once expectations about data disclosure shift from novel to normal. As surveillance by insurers “becomes more accepted”, argues law professor Scott Peppet, “it will give rise to its own stigma: when disclosure becomes low-cost and routine, those who hold out are suspect”. Impeding the flow of data – and grasping for privacy – “may carry with it the presumption that one is hiding information”.

NYPD settlement on Muslim surveillance not 'sufficient', judge rules

A judge has rejected the settlement of a lawsuit triggered by the New York City police department’s surveillance of Muslims, on the grounds that the terms did not go far enough.

The settlement ruled upon was a January resolution of two cases, which stem from 2011 revelations that the NYPD was conducting widespread surveillance of Muslims that plaintiffs argued had violated their rights.

January’s settlement resulted in Mayor Bill De Blasio agreeing to appoint a civilian monitor of the NYPD’s counter-terrorism units, pending approval by a judge.

The presiding judge in the case, Charles S Haight Jr, agreed with the overall structure of the settlement but found that the powers of the civilian representative agreed upon in the settlement did not go far enough.

“The proposed role and powers of the civilian representative do not furnish sufficient protection from potential violations of the constitutional rights of those law-abiding Muslims and believers in Islam who live, move and have their being in this city,” Haight wrote in his ruling.

This means that a new settlement will have to be negotiated by the parties involved or take the matter to court.

Clinton aide advised: 'Dump all those emails'

Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman advised a longtime aide that they were "going to have to dump all those emails" on the day that a report revealed Clinton's exclusive use of a private email server while secretary of State, according to stolen emails released Tuesday by WikiLeaks.

“Not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later,” says the March 2015 message, labeled as from John Podesta to Cheryl Mills and apparently referencing longtime Clinton confidant Lanny Davis.

“Think you just got your new nick name,” Mills replied.

Prof. Michael Hudson on Hillary Clinton and the US Elections

Here’s the Problem With the Story Connecting Russia to Donald Trump’s Email Server

On Monday night, Slate’s Franklin Foer published a story that’s been circulating through the dark web and various newsrooms since summertime, an enormous, eyebrow-raising claim that Donald Trump uses a secret server to communicate with Russia. That claim resulted in an explosive night of Twitter confusion and misinformation. ...

These claims are based entirely on “DNS logs,” digital records of when one server looks up how to contact another across the internet. ... The logs ... [were] shared with a small group of academics, were provided to The Intercept and a handful of other news organizations. The New York Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, the Daily Beast, and Vice all examined these materials to at least some extent and did not publish the claims. ...

These DNS records alone simply cannot prove that any specific messages were sent at those times. In fact, they can’t really prove anything at all, and certainly not “communication” between Trump and Alfa. No one ... can show that a single message was exchanged between Trump and Alfa. ...

Security researcher Rob Graham points out that it’s a stretch to even claim that this server is truly “Trump’s”:

The evidence available on the internet is that Trump neither (directly) controls the domain “trump-email.com,” nor has access to the server. Instead, the domain was setup and controlled by Cendyn, a company that does marketing/promotions for hotels, including many of Trump’s hotels. Cendyn outsources the email portions of its campaigns to a company called Listrak, which actually owns/operates the physical server in a data center in Philadelphia. …

… When you view this “secret” server in context, surrounded by the other email servers operated by Listrak on behalf of Cendyn, it becomes more obvious what’s going on. In the same internet address range of Trump’s servers you see a bunch of similar servers, many named [client]-email.com. In other words, trump-email.com is not intended as a normal email server you and I are familiar with, but as a server used for marketing/promotional campaigns.

... Could it be that Donald Trump used one of his shoddy empire’s spam marketing machines, one with his last name built right into the domain name, to secretly collaborate with a Moscow bank? Sure. At this moment, there’s literally no way to disprove that. But there’s also literally no way to prove it, and such a grand claim carries a high burden of proof.

Trump adviser reveals how Assange ally warned him about leaked Clinton emails

A key confidante of Donald Trump has provided new details about the “mutual friend” of Julian Assange who served as a back channel to give him broad tips in advance about WikiLeaks’ releases of emails to and from key allies of Hillary Clinton.

Roger Stone, a longtime unofficial adviser to the Republican presidential nominee, was briefed in general terms in advance about the sensitive and embarrassing leaked Democratic emails by an American libertarian who works in the media on the “opinion side”, he told the Guardian in an interview.

Stone claims his American source, whom he declined to identify, has met with Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, in London and is a “mutual friend” of Stone and Assange. The WikiLeaks source, Stone said, is not tied in any way to the Trump campaign but has served as a back channel for Stone, who is an outside adviser to the Republican presidential candidate, allowing the adviser to tweet and comment very broadly prior to some key WikiLeaks disclosures.

A source close to Trump Tower also told the Guardian that Stone once boasted to him of meeting with Assange himself and told the source, who is active in GOP political circles, that WikiLeaks would be “coming down like a ton of bricks” on Clinton. Stone adamantly denied meeting with Assange (“Your source is bullshitting u” he wrote in an email) or having any direct contact with Assange or anyone with WikiLeaks.

Despite Stone’s advance tweets and comments about some major WikiLeaks disclosures – including recent ones in October relating to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and the Clinton Foundation – the self-styled “rabble rouser” and onetime Watergate dirty tricks operative said the FBI had not contacted him in its investigation into the illegal computer hacking of private Democratic emails, and he was not worried.

Election polls tighten – but turnout is the real key to Clinton v Trump

Polls are often conducted over multiple days, so we’re only just starting to measure the effect of the FBI’s decision to release new details of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to lawmakers on Friday. According to the ABC/Washington Post tracking poll published on Tuesday (conducted October 27-30), the Democratic candidate has now slipped behind Donald Trump, on 45% to her Republican opponent’s 46%. The polling average calculated by RealClearPolitics, a much better indication of national sentiment, shows Clinton is now leading by just 2 percentage points, down from 5 percentage points a week ago.

Those numbers are interesting but not necessarily indicative – polling won’t neatly translate to votes. Far more important will be the turnout - especially since the two leading presidential candidates are so close in terms of unpopularity. And the candidates know it. A senior adviser to Donald Trump reportedly revealed last week that “we have three major voter suppression operations under way” intended to reduce votes for Clinton among African Americans, white liberals and young women. ...

The early results offer mixed news for Clinton. Early votes suggest that young voters – who are much more likely than older voters to lean Democratic – might be staying at home. In 12 states, fewer Americans aged 18 to 29 have cast a ballot so far in this election compared with this point in 2012. This could be especially problematic for Clinton if this group is indicative of a broader “Bernie or bust” sentiment in which supporters of the former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders choose to stay at home rather than voting for Clinton.

Young voters aren’t the only demographic group that appears put off. Early votes suggest that black turnout has fallen in eight states – especially in North Carolina, a state that yields 15 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election and where polling suggests Clinton is in a close contest. If Trump’s strategy is indeed to suppress the black vote, that makes a lot of sense – those voters could be crucial for Clinton to secure the White House.

Oil drilling caused killer earthquake in boomtime California, scientists suspect

Several damaging Los Angeles-area earthquakes of the 1920s and 1930s, including the deadliest ever in southern California, may have been brought on by oil production during the region’s drilling boom of that era, US government scientists have reported. ...

The new study, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, also noted that early 20th-century industry techniques differed greatly from today, so the findings “do not necessarily imply a high likelihood of induced earthquakes at the present time”.

The report suggested four major Los Angeles-area quakes in 1920, 1929, 1930 and 1933 were triggered by early drilling methods in which oil was extracted without water being pumped into the ground to replace it, causing the ground to subside. This could have artificially placed more pressure on seismic faults near oilfields.

The most devastating event was the so-called Long Beach earthquake of 10 March 1933, a 6.4-magnitude quake that ruptured the Newport-Inglewood fault along the coast, toppling scores of buildings and killing 115 to 120 people – the highest death toll on record from a southern California earthquake.

Indigenous rights are key to preserving forests, climate change study finds

The world’s indigenous communities need to be given a bigger role in climate stabilisation, according to a new study that shows at least a quarter of forest carbon is stored on communal land, particularly in Brazil.

The research by a group of academic institutions and environmental NGOs is the most comprehensive effort yet to quantify the contribution of traditional forest guardians to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Authors say the expansion of tribal land rights is the most cost-effective way to protect forests and sequester carbon – an issue that they hope will receive more prominence at the upcoming United Nations climate conference in Marrakech.

The paper by the Rights and Resources Initiative, Woods Hole Research Centre and World Resources Institute aims to encourage governments to recognise indigenous land rights and include tribal input in national action plans. Currently this is not the case for 167 of 188 nations in the Paris agreement, including Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are home to some of the world’s biggest forests. ...

Based on satellite surveys of 37 tropical countries, the study estimates community-claimed lands sequester at least 54,546m tonnes of carbon – roughly four times the world’s annual emissions.

As Flint Suffers, Nestlé Plans Dramatic Expansion of Water Privatization in Michigan

The state of Michigan has reportedly issued preliminary approval for bottled water behemoth Nestlé to nearly triple the amount of groundwater it will pump, to be bottled and sold at its Ice Mountain plant, which lies roughly 120 miles northwest of the beleaguered community of Flint. ...

People in Detroit are having their water cut off, and Flint has to pay for poison water but Nestle gets water for free and makes a profit?

— Wendy Harless (@wendyharless) November 1, 2016

"Nestlé Waters North America is asking the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for permission to increase allowed pumping from 150 to 400 gallons-per-minute at one of its production wells north of Evart," MLive reported on Monday.

"The DEQ Water Resources Division conducted a site review and signed-off on the pumping increase in January, but the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance is approving the permit," the report continued. The agency is accepting public comment on the proposal (pdf) until Thursday, Nov. 3. ...

What's more, Nestlé, the biggest food company in the world, gets to pump that water at no cost. As MLive reports, "Michigan law allows any private property owner to withdraw from the aquifer under their property for free, subject only to a nominal $200 annual paperwork fee. The interstate Great Lakes compact prohibits water diversions outside of the Great Lakes basin, but a bottling exemption within the law allows water to be sold outside the region if it's shipped in bottles smaller than 5.7 gallons."

Also of Interest

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

As Pipeline Construction and Repression Grows, DAPL Protest is Looking More Like a Mass Movement

Changing the Culture of Wall Street Requires Ending Continuity Government in Washington

Gundlach warns the ‘dam is breaking’ for stocks

Oil futures drop after EIA reports a whopping 14.4 million-barrel climb in U.S. crude supply

End the Death Penalty or Speed It Up – California Faces Opposing Ballot Initiatives

Center for American Progress Shilling for the United Arab Emirates

CIA Releases Controversial Bay of Pigs History

Without the power of kindness, our society will fall apart

A Little Night Music

Johnny Guitar Watson - Deana Baby

Johnny Guitar Watson - You Can Stay But Noise Must Go

Johnny Guitar Watson - The Bear

Floyd Dixon & Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Let's Go Smitty

Johnny Guitar Watson - Posin'

Johnny Guitar Watson - Sweet Lovin' Mama

Johnny Guitar Watson - She Moves Me

Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Keep On Lovin' You

Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Looking Back

Johnny "Guitar" Watson - One Kiss

Johnny Guitar Watson - Space Guitar