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This evening's music features blues singer and piano player Big Walter Price. Enjoy!

"There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them."

-- Sitting Bull

News and Opinion

"Groundbreaking" Expose Shows Pentagon Thwarting Obama's Bid to Transfer Guantanamo Prisoners

My friend was released from Guantánamo Bay – only to be locked up again

In 2010, the US administration decided that Younous did not pose any threat to the US – or to any of its allies. Six US federal agencies unanimously cleared him for release. But he has not spent one day in freedom since.

For the past 14 years, time has stopped for him. I can barely believe that he must now be 47 years old. When I first got to know him he was in his early 30s. For 14 years, Younous, an innocent man, languished in Guantánamo Bay. On 16 September, he was finally released from that hellhole of a prison – when I heard, I was so relieved. Finally my friend would join me in freedom. But it didn’t turn out that way. Upon his arrival in Morocco, Younous was detained and the Moroccan authorities have still not set him free.

I learned from Younous’s lawyers at the international human rights organization Reprieve, that the US claimed to have successfully negotiated diplomatic assurances with the Moroccans. They had allegedly agreed that Younous would not be charged with any crime upon his arrival there and that he would not be detained in Morocco for longer than 72 hours. These assurances were apparently completely worthless. Younous has been behind bars in a Moroccan prison for over 72 days. ...

Mr Obama must stand up to his promise to my friend and make sure that Younous finally walks free. I appeal to Mr Obama not let this important moment pass. He must speak to the Moroccan authorities and hold them to their word. It is not too late.

Cleared for Release, Pentagon Obstruction Prolongs Hunger-Striking Gitmo Prisoner's Nightmare

Syrian civil war: No end in sight for terrorism or the refugees fleeing to safety

It was a year of dramatic events in the war in Syria and Iraq, but the political and military stalemate at the beginning of 2015 was still there at the end of it. The most important change on the ground was the start of the Russian air campaign on 30 September which ended a series of significant defeats for the Syrian army. So far the Russians have helped to restabilise the military situation, but they have not transformed it by capturing the rebel-held half of Aleppo or sealing the Syrian-Turkish border.

The outside world’s perception of the war and its consequences has gone through strange gyrations. After the massacre of 130 people in Paris by an Isis suicide squad on 13 November, there was wall-to-wall coverage of the killings by the media. Television bulletins and newspapers issued apocalyptic warnings about how the slaughter had changed the world, but in the event there was not much new in the policies of the United States and its allies towards Isis and the war.

It may be that the way in which the media provides relentless round-the-clock coverage of a single outrage ends up by becoming a substitute for an effective government response. Over-reaction is followed by under-reaction. Politicians are under intense pressure to do something for a week or more and then under almost no pressure at all. The Isis was reportedly pleased that by deploying a single suicide squad of less than a dozen people in France, it was able to dominate the international news agenda for so long. ...

A depressing feature of the terror attacks and the exodus of Syrian refugees over the past year is that they have not led to an effective policy for ending the Syrian-Iraq war or eliminating Isis. It is difficult to see the peace talks in Vienna scheduled for January getting anywhere because those with real military strength in Syria do not want them to succeed. President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian army may not be able to win the war with increased Russian and Iranian support but they are unlikely to lose it. The armed opposition, dominated by Isis, the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra Front and the ideologically similar Ahrar al-Sham, has likewise every reason to go on fighting. ...

As the war enters its fifth year, players may not expect to win, but they have invested so much of their credibility in a successful outcome that they would prefer the conflict to go on rather than accept defeat.

‘A game of cards’: Seymour Hersh nails Obama & Kerry’s take on Assad

Holy crap! A media outlet notices that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy positions are totally bat-shit crazy.

Hillary Clinton’s insane plan for a no-fly zone

The Democratic presidential frontrunner is calling for war against Russia over Syria and hoping no one notices

During the Dec. 19 Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire, moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC News generally steered the candidates toward hawkish positions on foreign policy. She appeared to accept the premise that the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also called ISIS) is both necessary and urgent. But one position advanced by former Secretary of State and current frontrunner Hillary Clinton was so hawkish, so cavalier, that even Raddatz felt compelled to push back. After Clinton said she supported a no-fly zone in Syria in the context of fighting ISIL, Raddatz skeptically followed up:

RADDATZ: Secretary Clinton, I’d like to go back to that if I could. ISIS doesn’t have aircraft, Al Qaida doesn’t have aircraft. So would you shoot down a Syrian military aircraft or a Russian airplane?

CLINTON: I do not think it would come to that. We are already de-conflicting airspace. […] I am advocating the no-fly zone both because I think it would help us on the ground to protect Syrians; I’m also advocating it because I think it gives us some leverage in our conversations with Russia […] The no-fly zone, I would hope, would be also shared by Russia. If they will begin to turn their military attention away from going after the adversaries of Assad toward ISIS and put the Assad future on the political and diplomatic track, where it belongs.

Raddatz moved on, but this exchange illustrates the absurdity of Clinton’s support for a “no-fly zone.” A no-fly zone over Syria, as all parties understand, is a tacit declaration of war not only against Syria, but also against their longtime ally Russia, whose air force is currently flying over Syria to defend the government of Bashar al-Assad against both ISIL and various rebel groups, some overtly or covertly backed by the United States. ...

The term “no-fly zone” is casually thrown around in the debates unchallenged, either because the moderators themselves don’t know what exactly it means or because they assume their audience doesn’t. Either way, “no-fly zone” has become the most effective way of calling for regime change in Syria without appearing to do so. It’s a neocon dog-whistle designed to appeal to hawks without offending a war-weary public. As George Orwell wrote in “Politics and the English Language,” “such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

Speaking of bat-shit crazy, Mad-dog Sultan on the make Erdogan has now decided that he'd like to push his luck with some NATO allies:

Greek and Turkish jets in dogfight over Aegean

Greek and Turkish jets engaged in a brief dogfight over the Aegean Sea on Tuesday after Turkish aircraft violated Greek national air space several times.

A formation of six Turkish jets, flanked by two CN-235 aircraft that were not in formation, violated Greek air space nine times, according to Greek defense officials.

In all cases the Turkish jets were chased off by Greek aircraft. Two of the eight Turkish aircraft were armed.

If Top General Gets His Way, America's "Longest War" Will Become Even Longer

General John Campbell says he wants to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible—and is considering asking for even more

If the highest ranking U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan gets his way, America's longest official war could become even more protracted.

Army General John Campbell said in a USA Today article published on Tuesday that he wants to keep the 9,800 American troops currently in Afghanistan there for as long as possible—and is considering asking for even more boots on the ground.

"My intent would be to keep as much as I could for as long as I could," Campbell told the paper from Kabul.

The general's comments follow President Barack Obama's October announcement that he plans to reverse his prior pledge to remove all but 1,000 U.S. troops from the country by the conclusion of 2016. Instead, Obama proclaimed that the 9,800 troops will be maintained through most of 2016 and then cut to 5,500 by the beginning of 2017.

Even then, Obama's statement came despite the official declaration a year ago that the war was "over."

But now Campbell plans to ask the president to put off troop withdrawals even further by delaying the reduction to 5,500 troops. ...

The general expressed confidence that he will get his way. "My job as commander on the ground is to continually make assessments," Campbell said. "Every time I've gone to the president and said, 'I need X,' I've been very, very fortunate that he’s provided that. So he’s been very flexible."

Pentagon Seeks ‘Long-Term’ Presence at Afghanistan’s Bagram

14+ years into the military occupation of Afghanistan, a lot of US bases inside the country have become “long-term” But with Bagram Airbase, which is been one of the centerpiece military holdings of the war, the Pentagon is looking to formalize that long-term nature.

The official plan right now is to return Bagram to the Afghan government at some point after 2016, but the Pentagon is pushing hard to keep Bagram under its control in an open-ended way, with officials saying Afghanistan will never survive without a “sizable” US military force.

US Desperate to Spin Ramadi Capture as ‘Vindication’ for War Strategy

After a year and a half of spinning mounting losses in Iraq and Syria as progress, the Obama Administration is salivating at the tentative recapture of the Anbar Province capital city of Ramadi by Iraqi forces as “vindication” for their war strategy, and proof that they’ll eventually win.

Ramadi was a stunning defeat for the Iraqi military in May, and at the time US officials were dismissing the city of a half million people as totally irrelevant to the overall war, trying to downplay the defeat. Now that the city is mostly recaptured, it’s hugely important again, and a big, big win. ...

That it’s being embraced so loudly by officials at all is a testament to how little they have to work with, despite White House claims of “continued progress” on the war, the costly, tentative retaking of the city is one thing they can point to which at the very least isn’t a total fiasco yet.

Iraq PM’s Ramadi Victory Lap Undercut by ISIS Shooting at Him

Fresh off the Iraqi military declaring a full victory and “liberation” of the Anbar capital city of Ramadi, Prime Minister Hayder Abadi was in town to plant a flag, adding more hype to the “decisive” victory over ISIS, which they are presenting as a major shift in the war.

Though Iraqi media reported the flag planting went off without a hitch, the claim of “liberation” seems to have been dramatically undercut when ISIS ground troops, still inside Ramadi, opened fire on his helicopter. This led the army to concede that there are “pockets of resistance” to their takeover still.

Turkey Says It Has Foiled a Planned New Year's Eve Attack by the Islamic State

Turkish police on Wednesday detained two suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) militant group believed to have been plotting suicide attacks in the capital Ankara on New Year's Eve, a senior government official said.

The official said the two men, who entered Turkey from Syria, were thought to have been preparing an attack on Kizilay square in the center of the city, where crowds usually gather to celebrate the New Year. ...

Local media are reporting that the suspects are Turkish and identified only by the initials MC and AY. During the raid police officers also discovered suicide vests and bombs reinforced with steel balls and sticks, according to Hurriyet.

Turkish police target Kurds with tear gas and water canon

Israel: New Eastern Settlement Plans ‘Invalid’

Of the 55,000-plus new settlement unit plans unveiled yesterday by Peace Now in a report on documents at the Israeli Housing Ministry, the most eye-opening were those in E1, east of East Jerusalem, which would effectively prevent a Palestinian state from ever being contiguous.

Israeli officials, particularly in the PM’s office, are seeking to reassure people that the plans are “invalid” however and will never actually be put into effect, saying that they were penned by former Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a far-right settler, without any authorization from the government to do so.

Brazil's anti-corruption prosecutor: graft is 'endemic. It has spread like cancer'

As the lead prosecutor in Brazil’s biggest corruption investigation, Deltan Dallagnol had long been aware he was making history, but he only appreciated the case’s impact on the country’s people when a stranger stopped him in the street to give thanks.

“He said he had cried when he saw the prince of a huge company being arrested because it made him realise the law is being applied equally. He never imagined something like that happening in Brazil,” the young lawyer recalled. “A lot of people have put their hopes in us.”

There cannot be many graft investigations in the world that prompt tears of gratitude, but for millions of Brazilians, a string of high-profile arrests have been a source of solace in an otherwise dismal year – a sign that some of the country’s institutions are functioning effectively, even with the economy suffering its worst crisis in decades and parliament riven by an impeachment struggle.

The Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation headed by Dallagnol is, however, partly responsible for the chaos. Overturning decades of impunity, it has charged more than 70 political leaders, lobbyists and captains of industry with bribery, tax evasion or misuse of public funds.

This has paralysed several industries, adding to the decline of GDP. It has also contributed to a vicious battle in congress, where the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, has initiated moves to remove President Dilma Rousseff as a tactic to dodge accusations that he accepted $5m in bribes from the state oil company Petrobras.

U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress

... The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. ... White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. ...

Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.

In closed-door debate, the Obama administration weighed which allied leaders belonged on a so-called protected list, shielding them from NSA snooping. French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders made the list, but the administration permitted the NSA to target the leaders’ top advisers, current and former U.S. officials said. Other allies were excluded from the protected list, including Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of NATO ally Turkey, which allowed the NSA to spy on their communications at the discretion of top officials.

Lawmakers only care about others' privacy when their own is at stake

The Wall Street Journal published an extensive investigation on Tuesday night detailing how a large NSA spying operation targeting the Israeli government and its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, also swept up communications of sitting members of Congress.

It shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise that the NSA is spying on Israeli leaders, given Israel has attempted to sabotage US foreign policy objectives like the Iran nuclear deal, and the fact that the Israeli intelligence services are notoriously aggressive in their own spying on the US government (See Newsweek reporter Jeff Stein’s excellent series on the extreme lengths Israel will go to spy on United States officials). But this latest story demonstrates the startling powers the NSA holds to collect the communications of other branches of government without repercussion. And it’s a prime example of how innocent Americans often end up in the databases of the world’s most powerful spy agency.

Unfortunately, it’s only when members of Congress are caught up in the NSA’s dragnet that many of them start to pretend to care about the privacy of others. Former congressman Pete Hoekstra, who used to head the House intelligence committee and supported the NSA’s illegal spying program under George W Bush, tweeted that the NSA and Obama administration should be “prosecuted” if there were “any truth” to the Journal report.

We’ve seen this before: former Democratic ranking member of the House intel committee Jane Harmon was also a critical defender of Bush’s wiretapping program in the mid-2000s – that is, until she was caught on NSA wiretaps talking to an alleged Israeli agent. Then she quickly changed her tune. Likewise, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is notorious for defending the NSA no matter the scandal, so strongly condemned the NSA for spying on Germany’s Angela Merkel that a lot of people suspected she was so enraged because it was likely she was on some of Merkel’s recorded phone calls.

It’d be nice if members of Congress were not only outraged with the NSA spying on Americans when the Americans happen to be them.

Bill Cosby Was Just Charged With Felony Sexual Assault

Comedian Bill Cosby has been charged with sexual assault in connection with an incident at his Philadelphia-area mansion in 2004, a Pennsylvania prosecutor said on Wednesday.

An arrest warrant has been issued for the 78-year-old comedian for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in January 2004, Montgomery County First Assistant District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said at a news conference. ...

The charge against Cosby is aggravated indecent assault, which is a felony in the first degree.

Spending Millions to Save Much More: How the Uber-Wealthy Avoid Paying Their Fair Share

A special report out Tuesday from the New York Times shines a light on the so-called "income-defense industry," which exploits "a dizzying array of tax maneuvers" so that the uber-wealthy can shield their fortunes. 

"Operating largely out of public view — in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions, and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service — the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them," write Times reporters Patricia Cohen and Noam Scheiber. "The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans." ...

The income-shielding maneuvers, which range from organizing one's business as a partnership to capitalizing on "a range of esoteric and customized tax deductions that go far beyond writing off a home office or dinner with a client," are largely unavailable to the average taxpayer, due to cost and complexity.

The ultra-wealthy "literally pay millions of dollars for these services," Jeffrey A. Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, told the Times. In return, he said, they "save in the tens or hundreds of millions in taxes."

2015: The Year Police Killings in America Were Counted

The Black Lives Matter movement that swept the country in 2015 has—among other accomplishments—forced global media outlets to afford victims of police killings the most basic acknowledgement: a public record of their names and deaths.

Such a grim tally was maintained this year by both the Guardian and the Washington Post, following the consistent failure of the U.S. government to keep adequate records.

According to the Guardian, 1,126 people were killed by police so far in 2015, averaging more than three a day, with 27 percent of those slain facing mental health issues.

The numbers confirm the racial injustices highlighted by nationwide protests. Among black people in America, 6.9 per million were killed by police, compared to 2.86 white people per million. In other words, African-Americans were nearly 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police as their white counterparts.

Native-Americans and Latinos were also disproportionately likely to have their lives taken by law enforcement, with 3.4 per million and 3.35 per million killed respectively.

The high number of killings was corroborated by the Washington Post, which only tracks fatal police shootings—not killings by taser, beating, and other forms of force, such as the high-profile death of African-American man Freddie Gray in Baltimore. The paper concluded, nonetheless, that nearly 1,000 civilians were shot and killed by police this year.

IMF chief Lagarde warns of disappointing global growth in 2016

Global economic growth will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has also deteriorated, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, said the prospect of rising interest rates in the US and an economic slowdown in China were feeding uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide.

Added to that, growth in global trade has slowed considerably and a decline in raw material prices was posing problems for economies reliant on commodities, while many countries still had weak financial sectors as the financial risks increase in emerging markets, she said.
“All of that means global growth will be disappointing and uneven in 2016,” Lagarde said, noting that mid-term prospects had also weakened as low productivity, ageing populations and the effects of the global financial crisis dampened growth.

Hated 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli's Former Pharmaceutical Company Files for Bankruptcy

Apparently it's pretty hard for a company to stay in business when its former CEO is one of the most reviled people on the internet. Just ask KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, the company formerly run by everyone's least favorite price-gouging "pharma bro," Martin Shkreli. It filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday.

Shkreli was arrested two weeks ago on fraud charges and for allegedly running a Ponzi-like scheme when he was the CEO of yet another biopharmaceutical company, Retrophin. He was released later that day on a $5 million bond package. ...

Shkreli initially drew national scorn from all corners of the internet for raising the price of the drug Daraprim, a common anti-parasitic medication, from $13.50 to $750 per tablet after he acquired the drug at Turing. Politicians and the public pointed to his actions as proof of the pharmaceutical industry's greed. His swift downfall has been met with near rapturous schadenfreude.

Pharma Exec for Maker of $150,000 Cancer Drug Tells Investors Its Pricing Is “Very Responsible”

A top official at pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson dismissed questions on a recent earnings call about the drug price reform debate in Washington, saying that the company is “responsible” in its pricing. ...

“Despite significant media attention on drug pricing, there really isn’t a consensus on policy solutions that would lower prices without negatively lowering innovation,” he said. ...

“Johnson and Johnson’s justification for their prescription drug prices are outrageous,” Vijay Das, a health care advocate at Public Citizen, told The Intercept in response to Carusos’s comments to investors. Sick patients and taxpayers are held hostage in order for the drug maker to extract extreme profits.”

Das pointed to investor documents Johnson & Johnson uploaded that show the company spent 12.6 percent of its total sales in research and development, compared to 26.6 percent it spent on selling, marketing, and administrative expenses. This means the company was spending twice as much on marketing and sales as on actually developing the drugs.

Donald Trump says he will spend $2m a week on TV campaign ads

Billionaire US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he plans to spend at least $2m a week on television advertising in the first three voting states, a move that would mark a departure for a candidate who has so far relied on free media to fuel his insurgent campaign.

Trump told reporters on his private jet on Tuesday that he did not want to take anything for granted.

“I don’t think I need to spend anything. And I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve spent the least and achieved the best result,” Trump told reporters before a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “I feel I should spend. And honestly I don’t want to take any chances.”

Trump, who leads in national Republican preference polls, has seen his lead dissolve in Iowa, where Texas senator Ted Cruz is surging on the backing of the state’s robust evangelical conservative voting bloc.

The frontrunner has spent nothing on television advertising to date, and just over $300,000 on radio ad time, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media’s CMAG – far less than his rivals. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, for example, has spent more than $40m, but trails Trump and several other candidates.

What to do after your mindless, heedless pursuit of your ideology has resulted in the poisoning of 100,000 of the people that you were elected to serve? Offer sacrifices, of course! Personal responsibility is for the little people.

Governor Rick Snyder 'very sorry' about Flint water lead levels debacle

Michigan governor Rick Snyder apologized on Tuesday for the debacle that caused the city of Flint’s water supply to be poisoned by lead, while the top state environment official resigned in light of a report that chiefly placed the blame for the crisis on his department.

The resignation was the latest in the crisis that has consumed the city of 100,000, as local doctors have warned in recent weeks that contaminated drinking water flowing from household taps may have affected more residents than originally thought. ...

It was the lackadaisical approach by the MDEQ in addressing the crisis – from failing to properly treat the Flint river to officials belittling responses to public outcry – that bears the “primary responsibility for what happened in Flint” and must be held accountable, a Snyder-appointed task force said on Tuesday in a three-page report of interim findings.

The task force was created by Snyder to review what caused the situation and issue future recommendations. Along with Wyant, the environmental department’s spokesperson, Brad Wurfel, also resigned on Tuesday – saying he’s “particularly satisfied” with how he has “trained department staff to better communicate with the public and the press, and other departments”.

Mich. Gov. 'Sorry' as Flint's 'Man-Made' Water Catastrophe Continues

In the latest fallout from Flint, Michigan's public health crisis of lead poisoning its drinking water, Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday said he was "very sorry" and the state's top environmental official resigned. One advocacy group, however, says that full accountability and transparency for this "man-made catastrophe" are still absent. ...

But the Lansing-based group Progress Michigan says that the people of Flint still need justice.

"So far under Gov. Rick Snyder’s watch, there has been zero accountability in this crisis and that continues today," said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan. "Dan Wyant gets to walk away from this crisis, but the people of Flint do not. There's a lot we don’t know about this man-made catastrophe.

"What did Gov. Snyder know and when did he know it? We need complete transparency so that justice for the families of Flint can be realized and the proper people can be held accountable. All documentation related this this crisis needs to be released to the public immediately," Scott stated.

Fracked Gas Won’t Achieve Paris Climate Goals, But Empowering Communities Could

The United States is undergoing a massive energy transition that isn’t receiving enough attention, and it could render the Paris climate agreement meaningless. We’re swapping one climate-damaging fuel, coal, for another that is actually worse: fracked gas.

It’s a stark contradiction for U.S. climate policy. The Obama administration used its executive power to push the agreement and its aspirational goal of keeping warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. The agreement is a good thing. But for the U.S., a big part of reaching its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) commitment is implementing the Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s framework for states to reduce their carbon emissions. It’s designed to facilitate a wholesale transition from coal to natural gas, much of which is a product of fracking. ...

Gas power plants emit less CO2 than coal, so they sneak under the Clean Power Plan CO2 limits, and it’s easy and cheap to swap gas burners for coal burners in existing power plants. But natural gas is mostly methane, which is about a hundred times more powerful than CO2 as a warming agent. Gas drilling, fracking, and transport via pipelines and compressors means massive amounts of it will leak directly into the atmosphere before it’s even burned, swamping any potential gains in CO2 emissions for the global climate, while also causing local environmental and health damage.

The industry is currently proposing, and the Obama administration is busy approving, hundreds of power plants, hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines, compressor stations, LNG terminals and other fracked gas infrastructure across America. It’s like Keystone XL times 100 (in Roman numerals that would be Keystone CD, for “carbon dump”). They’re ramming through the Constitution pipeline in upstate New York, the CPV power plant in Middletown, New York, the NED pipeline through New England, two massive gas fired power plants in Denton, Texas, the Millennium pipeline expansion in Pennsylvania, the Tennessee pipeline in West Virginia, the gas storage facility at Seneca Lake, New York, and on and on.

Local communities are fighting these projects across the country, but they are largely unconnected to each other and lack the tools and resources they need to win. ... Cities and towns can make the transition to renewables now. Some are succeeding in stopping fracked-gas infrastructure projects and winning bans and moratoria on fracking, but they know the only permanent ban is switching to a different energy source.

An indoor agriculture startup is bringing 'local farming' to every corner of the US

In early October, a little more than a hundred people gathered in an unlikely event space in New York City to talk about farming. They discussed water usage and efficient transportation, the price of LEDs and intellectual property concerns.

This was the first time the event, dubbed Indoor Ag Con, was held in New York, and it brought together the founders of alternative farming companies like BrightFarm, Aerofarms and Gotham Greens alongside technologists, lighting experts and researchers.

Indoor agriculture refers to an increasingly popular form of crop cultivation that happens inside, making it less of a traditional farm and more of a manufacturing facility. Where traditional farms rely on irrigation systems, soil and sunlight, indoor farms use LEDs or high pressure sodium lamps, and grow in hydroponic or aeroponic systems. Without bugs, proponents say, pesticides can be reduced and the overall product is not only more controlled but healthier.

Critics, however, warn that indoor agriculture is an energy-intensive way for companies to take over areas of food production where family farms and small businesses have excelled in recent years, as demand for local, organic products has increased. ...

It’s not hard to find people who don’t believe that indoor farming is a panacea. In a presentation this September, Bruce Bugbee from Utah State University’s Department of Plants, Soils and Climate made the case that the fossil fuels needed to support the crops would add up to about $400,000 per acre. And even though lights are getting more efficient, the amount of solar panels needed would take up about five times the area as the cropland itself.

Lou Albright, professor emeritus at Cornell University estimated in a February 2014 presentation that each pound of lettuce created in an indoor farm would require about eight pounds of carbon dioxide.

Hunger threatens millions as El Niño causes drought and floods

Aid agencies have warned that tens of millions of people in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia face severe hunger in the next six months following failed harvests, stunted crops and soaring prices of staple foods.

Droughts and floods have occurred across the world as a result of the strongest recorded El Niño weather event. The natural climate phenomenon is peaking now and leading to a humanitarian disaster, say agencies including Oxfam, ActionAid, Care International, Plan and Catholic Relief Services.

“The effects of the strongest El Niño in several decades are set to put the world’s humanitarian system under an unprecedented level of strain in 2016 as it already struggles to cope with the fallout from conflicts in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere,” said Oxfam in a briefing paper.

Food shortages are expected to peak in southern Africa in February. South Africa has already declared several provinces as disaster areas due to drought. Malawi’s national food security forecast for 2015–16 estimates that 2.8 million people will require humanitarian assistance before March.

A further 2 million people across Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua already need food aid after drought and erratic rains, and millions more in Haiti and Papua New Guinea are likely to need help. The situation is expected to deteriorate in January as floods affect Central America.

Also of Interest

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

The year of fear: Republicans and media stoked bigotry and anxiety in 2015

Middle East still rocking from first world war pacts made 100 years ago

Recession, retrenchment, revolution? Impact of low crude prices on oil powers

Bail-Ins Begin: a Crisis Worse than ISIS?

Rakhigarhi: Indian town could unlock mystery of Indus civilisation

The best of the wildlife photography awards 2015

A Little Night Music

Big Walter Price - San Antonio

Big Walter Price and His ThunderBirds - Calling Margie

Big Walter Price - I Don't know

Big Walter & his Thunderbirds Six Weeks Of Misery

Big Walter And His Thunderbirds - You're The One I Need

Big Walter - Oh Ramona

Big Walter - Gamblin' Woman

Big Walter Price - Get To Gettin

Big Walter And The Thunderbirds - Watusi Freeze

Big Walter Price + His Thunderbirds - Feelin' A Little Worried

Big Walter Price & Albert Collins - My Tears

Big Walter Price - Breakfast In Bed

Big Walter - Shirley Jean

Big Walter Price and His Thunderbirds - Junior Jumped In

J. Geils - Pack Fair and Square