Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Piedmont blues and gospel singer Reverend Gary Davis. Enjoy!

"The idiots take over in the final days of crumbling civilizations. Idiot generals wage endless, unwinnable wars that bankrupt the nation. Idiot economists call for reducing taxes for the rich and cutting social service programs for the poor, and project economic growth on the basis of myth. Idiot industrialists poison the water, the soil and the air, slash jobs and depress wages. Idiot bankers gamble on self-created financial bubbles and impose crippling debt peonage on the citizens. Idiot journalists and public intellectuals pretend despotism is democracy. Idiot intelligence operatives orchestrate the overthrow of foreign governments to create lawless enclaves that give rise to enraged fanatics. Idiot professors, “experts” and “specialists” busy themselves with unintelligible jargon and arcane theory that buttresses the policies of the rulers. Idiot entertainers and producers create lurid spectacles of sex, gore and fantasy.

There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it.

The idiots know only one word—“more.” They are unencumbered by common sense. They hoard wealth and resources until workers cannot make a living and the infrastructure collapses. They live in privileged compounds where they eat chocolate cake and order missile strikes. They see the state as a projection of their vanity. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanov, Wilhelmine, Pahlavi and Soviet dynasties crumbled because the whims and obsessions of ruling idiots were law."

-- Chris Hedges

News and Opinion

NSA Backs Down on Major Surveillance Program That Captured Americans’ Communications Without a Warrant

Under pressure from the secret court that oversees its practices, the NSA said its “upstream” program would no longer grab communications directly from the U.S. internet backbone “about” specific foreign targets — only communication to and from those targets. This is a major change, essentially abandoning a bulk surveillance program that captured vast amounts of communications of innocent Americans – and turning instead to a still extensive but more targeted approach. ...

The “upstream” surveillance program is one of two controversial programs authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is scheduled to expire in December unless it is reauthorized by Congress. ... Until now, upstream was examining every Internet communication that traveled on the huge telecommunication cables going in and out of the U.S., searching through every word, grabbing sometimes very big chunks of data that included even a single mention of a specific target, and then putting everything into a database for NSA analysts to look through. ...

The NSA statement on Friday said the move came “after a comprehensive review of mission needs, current technological constraints, United States person privacy interests, and certain difficulties in implementation.” But reading between the lines, it wasn’t voluntary. In a companion statement, the NSA acknowledged that it had failed to follow the rules the FISA court established for “about” collection in 2011. ...

“NSA self-reported the incidents to both Congress and the FISC, as it is required to do. Following these reports, the FISC issued two extensions as NSA worked to fix the problems before the government submitted a new application for continued Section 702 certification. The FISC recently approved the changes after an extensive review.”

In other words, after giving the NSA two extensions, the court refused to reauthorize the wider program until it stopped “about” searches entirely.

North Korea launches missile that crashes almost immediately, South Korea says

North Korea launched a ballistic missile Saturday morning local time, U.S. Pacific Command confirmed, though the missile never left North Korean territory.

The missile appeared to be test-fired from Pukchang airfield, about 40 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang. South Korean military officials called the test a failure, and the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported that the missile exploded just a few seconds after launch. Officials didn’t reveal what kind of missile it was.

Russia's foreign ministry says US placement of missiles in Romania and Poland violates an existing arms treaty

The US switched on an $US800 million missile shield in Romania nearly a year ago and was planning to create another site in Poland, seeing it as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states.

n 2016, the Kremlin said it was aimed at blunting its own nuclear arsenal.

The foreign ministry said on Saturday the plans violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INFT), signed by Washington and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s in an attempt to eliminate nuclear and conventional short-and intermediate range missiles.

Tensions rise between Turkey, US along Syrian border

Tensions rose Saturday along the Turkish-Syrian border as both Turkey and the United States moved armored vehicles to the region and Turkey’s leader once again demanded that the United States stop supporting Syrian Kurdish militants there.

The relocation of Turkish troops to the area came a day after U.S. troops were seen patrolling the tense border in Syria. Those patrols followed a Turkish airstrike against bases of Syrian Kurdish militia, the United States’ main ally in combating Islamic State militants in Syria.

More U.S. troops were seen Saturday in armored vehicles in Syria in Kurdish areas. Kurdish officials described U.S. troop movements as a “buffer” between them and Turkey. ...

Tensions in the border area rose last week when Turkey conducted airstrikes against YPG bases in Syria and Iraq on Tuesday. The Turkish military said that it killed at least 90 militants and wounded scores more. The Kurdish group in Syria said that 20 of its fighters and media activists were killed in the strike, which was followed by cross-border clashes.

Erdogan hinted that his country was also ready to repeat its attacks in Sinjar, Iraq, to prevent it from turning into a base for the Kurdish militia.

Hamas to present new charter accepting a Palestine based on 1967 borders

Hamas is to try to break the deadlock in the Middle East peace process – and end its own international isolation – by unveiling a new version of its founding charter which called for the destruction of Israel. The new statement will say that Hamas accepts in principle a future Palestine based on 1967 borders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but will not explicitly recognize the state of Israel.

The new charter will also distinguish between the group’s objection to Zionism rather than to the Jewish people. The ultimate aim of the new charter is to repair divisions within the Palestinian movement and strike a deal that allows international reconstruction to start in war-ravaged Gaza by allowing some opening up of Gaza’s economy.

One diplomatic source said: “This could be the one last chance to put Gaza on a sensible path before it utterly destructs.” The new charter was due to be unveiled at a press conference in Qatar by the head of the movement’s political bureau, Khaled Meshal, and follows nearly two years of only partially resolved internal debate. The new charter will still contain language to which Israel, the US and Europe object – and there will be questions about why the new charter is additional to the existing charter first issued in 1988 rather than supplanting the existing version. Assurances have been given that Arabic text is the same as the English text.

Wilkerson: Trump's Cuts to Foreign Aid Threaten Global Health, Benefit War & Disaster Profiteers

U.S. Signals Possible Airstrikes in Somalia by Asking Aid Groups for Their Locations

US officials this week requested the geographic coordinates of aid groups working in Somalia, according to a document obtained by The Intercept — a move that could indicate an escalation of military action against the Shabab. The notice to NGOs comes a month after President Trump declared portions of the country an “area of active hostilities,” giving the military wider scope to launch strikes that could potentially kill more civilians.

“Due to the need for increased operational security in Somalia, and based on best practices in other complex emergencies, humanitarian and development organizations may want to provide information about their fixed locations in Somalia for deconfliction,” states the letter, written by USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance and intended for “all international and local humanitarian and development organizations with operations in Somalia.” Aid groups have an extensive presence in Somalia, where the government declared a state of disaster in February due to crippling drought and food shortages. ... It also includes a bold-type warning that providing the information does not “guarantee the safety of personnel, vehicles, facilities, or sites. Entities operating in this environment continue to do so at their own risk.”

This is an excellent article on the state of the media from Robert Parry. Here's a teaser:

The Existential Question of Whom to Trust

The looming threat of World War III, a potential extermination event for the human species, is made more likely because the world’s public can’t count on supposedly objective experts to ascertain and evaluate facts. Instead, careerism is the order of the day among journalists, intelligence analysts and international monitors – meaning that almost no one who might normally be relied on to tell the truth can be trusted. The dangerous reality is that this careerism, which often is expressed by a smug certainty about whatever the prevailing groupthink is, pervades not just the political world, where lies seem to be the common currency, but also the worlds of journalism, intelligence and international oversight, including United Nations agencies that are often granted greater credibility because they are perceived as less beholden to specific governments but in reality have become deeply corrupted, too.

In other words, many professionals who are counted on for digging out the facts and speaking truth to power have sold themselves to those same powerful interests in order to keep high-paying jobs and to not get tossed out onto the street. Many of these self-aggrandizing professionals – caught up in the many accouterments of success – don’t even seem to recognize how far they’ve drifted from principled professionalism. A good example was Saturday night’s spectacle of national journalists preening in their tuxedos and gowns at the White House Correspondents Dinner, sporting First Amendment pins as if they were some brave victims of persecution. They seemed oblivious to how removed they are from Middle America and how unlikely any of them would risk their careers by challenging one of the Establishment’s favored groupthinks. Instead, these national journalists take easy shots at President Trump’s buffoonish behavior and his serial falsehoods — and count themselves as endangered heroes for the effort.

Ironically, though, these pompous journalists gave Trump what was arguably his best moment in his first 100 days by serving as foils for the President as he traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday and basked in the adulation of blue-collar Americans who view the mainstream media as just one more appendage of a corrupt ruling elite. Breaking with tradition by snubbing the annual press gala, Trump delighted the Harrisburg crowd by saying: “A large group of Hollywood celebrities and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom” and adding: “I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from [the] Washington swamp … with much, much better people.” The crowd booed references to the elites and cheered Trump’s choice to be with the common folk.

Trump’s rejection of the dinner and his frequent criticism of the mainstream media brought a defensive response from Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, who complained: “We are not fake news. We are not failing news organizations. And we are not the enemy of the American people.” That brought the black-tie-and-gown gathering to its feet in a standing ovation. Perhaps the assembled media elite had forgotten that it was the mainstream U.S. media – particularly The Washington Post and The New York Times – that popularized the phrase “fake news” and directed it blunderbuss-style not only at the few Web sites that intentionally invent stories to increase their clicks but at independent-minded journalism outlets that have dared question the elite’s groupthinks on issues of war, peace and globalization.

Panel: Chris Hedges, Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman, & more (w/ appearance by Julian Assange)

Mélenchon, Hero to France’s Far-Left, Will Not Vote for Le Pen, But Won’t Endorse Macron

The leader of a far-left movement who won nearly 20 percent of the vote in the first round of France’s presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, told his seven million voters in a YouTube address on Friday that he would not tell them how to vote in the final-round run-off next weekend. As for himself, Mélenchon said that he would cast a ballot, and that it would not be for Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Front, who courted his voters in a video of her own on Friday. ...

Instead, Mélenchon predicted that forcing France to choose between a candidate of “the extreme right” and one of “extreme finance” would led to a political crisis, and left open the possibility that he would submit a blank ballot, a form of protest vote permitted under French electoral law. (Mélenchon’s platform included provisions for voting to be made mandatory, and for blank ballots to be recognized under law.) The appeal for unity, to construct a barrage, or dam, against the rising tide of the far-right, Mélenchon said, was, in fact, a disguised attempt to force voters like him, who profoundly disagree with Macron’s economic policies, to endorse his project.

Amid fears that widespread abstention and protest votes for neither candidate could lower the threshold for Le Pen to win with 50 percent of the valid votes cast, Mélenchon’s refusal to join the sort of united front against Le Pen that led to her father’s defeat in 2002 caused anxiety to spike.

Le Pen and Macron trade barbs amid May Day clashes

Glenn Greenwald checks in with a report on the ongoing struggle in Brazil to rid itself of a nasty, festering plague of capitalist scum and compares it to infestations in the US and Europe. It's worth a read.

Brazil Paralyzed by Nationwide Strike, Driven by a Familiar Global Dynamic of Elite Corruption and Impunity

Just over one year ago, Brazil’s elected president, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached — ostensibly due to budgetary lawbreaking — and replaced with her centrist vice president, Michel Temer. Since then, virtually every aspect of the nation’s political and economic crisis — especially corruption — has worsened. Temer’s approval ratings have collapsed to single digits. His closest political allies — the same officials who engineered Dilma’s impeachment and installed him in the presidency — recently became the official targets of a sprawling criminal investigation. The president himself has been implicated by new revelations, saved only by the legal immunity he enjoys. ...

The disgust validly generated by all of these failures finally exploded this week. A nationwide strike, and tumultuous protests in numerous cities, paralyzed much of the country Friday, shutting roads, airports, and schools. It is the largest strike to hit Brazil in at least two decades. The protests were largely peaceful, but some random violence emerged. The proximate cause of the anger is a set of “reforms” the Temer government is ushering in that will limit the rights of workers, raise their retirement age by several years, and cut various pension and social security benefits. These austerity measures are being imposed at a time of great suffering, with the unemployment rate rising dramatically and social improvements of the last decade, which raised millions of people out of poverty, unraveling.

Brazil paralyzed by national strike. Unemployment rate climbs to 13.7%. 14m out of work-Increase of 1.8m since 12/16 https://t.co/4B4JqBMV6b pic.twitter.com/U0nFP46O3x

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 28, 2017

But the actual cause is broader, and it is one familiar far beyond Brazil. During the past three years, Brazilians have been subjected to one revelation after the next of extreme corruption pervading the country’s political and economic class. ... But this moral perversion — in which ordinary victims uniquely bear the burden for elite crimes — is familiar to citizens far away from Brazil. Indeed, one of the prime authors of Brazil’s economic suffering — the 2008 economic crisis caused by Wall Street — pioneered this odious formula. The reckless tycoons and sociopathic financial wizards responsible for that 2008 economic collapse paid virtually no price for the harm they caused. ... Worse, the U.S. government quickly acted to protect the interests of the culprits — bailing them out with public funds, protecting them from nationalization or break-up, preserving their ability to plunder with little risk to themselves.

Donald Trump builds relations with authoritarian Asian leaders

Donald Trump has revived US relations with two of Asia’s most authoritarian heads of state – the leader of Thailand’s junta and the president of the Philippines – by inviting them to the White House. In separate phonecalls over the weekend, Trump spoke with Thailand’s prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general who took power in a 2014 coup, and the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, who is accused of mass murder.

The calls aimed to rally regional allies as Washington takes an increasingly hard line towards North Korea’s nuclear programme. ...

The governments of Thailand and the Philippines had cooperative but strained relationships with the US before Trump took office, mostly because of human rights concerns expressed by the former administration. Neither leader was offered an official White House visit during Barack Obama’s tenur, although Prayuth did attend a summit in California. Obama cancelled a meeting with Duterte after the Filipino strongman referred to him as a “son of a whore”.

Asked on Monday about his invitation from Trump, Duterte was non-committal, telling reporters: “I’m tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia and go to Israel.” Thailand’s deputy government spokesman, Lt Gen Werachon Sukondhapatipak, did not mention North Korea but said “[the US and Thailand] stand ready to enhance bilateral cooperation in all dimensions”.

That damned piece of paper is getting in the way again.

Donald Trump blames constitution for chaos of his first 100 days

On his 100th day in office on Saturday, facing historically low popularity ratings, a succession of intractable foreign crises and multiple investigations of his links with Moscow, Donald Trump reminded the nation that 1 May was Loyalty Day.

The day is a US tradition dating back to the cold war, when it was a bolster to stop May Day becoming a rallying point for socialists and unionised workers, but for an embattled president learning politics on the job it has an added resonance.

In an interview with Fox News to mark the 100-day mark, he declared himself “disappointed” with congressional Republicans, despite his many “great relationships” with them.

He blamed the constitutional checks and balances built in to US governance. “It’s a very rough system,” he said. “It’s an archaic system … It’s really a bad thing for the country.”

Democrats and Republicans avoid a shutdown by giving everyone more money

The federal government was set to shutdown at the end of this week but Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress struck a deal over the weekend to keep the government open by agreeing to spend more money on all of their priorities.

The Trump administration had requested $18 billion in cuts to domestic agencies in a trial balloon budget floated in March. Instead, Congress got together and made sure both parties got even more of the government dough in the $1 trillion spending bill.

Military spending, a priority for President Trump and congressional Republicans, will be increased by $12.5 billion, with an extra $2.5 billion if and when the White House presents a plan to Congress on fighting ISIS according to Politico. ...

Funding for the National Institute of Health will increase by $2 billion and will put money toward President Barack Obama’s cancer program. Police departments like NYPD will be compensated for security costs incurred from protecting the President and his family. And Planned Parenthood funding will not be cut despite some Republican wishes.

In the midst of a bunch of silly Democrat puffery, Jon Schwarz locates a clue that is worthy of consideration.

Here’s Why We Shouldn’t Laugh at Donald Trump’s 100-Day Faceplant

Obama said American healthcare was in crisis and that “plans that tinker and halfway measures now belong to yesterday.” Obama was also outraged by pharmaceutical companies gouging Medicare. According to Trump, “People all across the country are devastated” by the healthcare system, but if we put him in charge, “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” Trump was also infuriated by Big Pharma and just like Obama vowed to crush them. Yet Obama delivered a halfway measure that tinkered with the problem, and never went after drug manufacturers. Trump is now poised to give America … literally the same thing. ...

Obama called NAFTA “devastating” and “a big mistake” in 2008. In 2016 Trump said NAFTA had caused “devastation” and was “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed.” But Obama didn’t renegotiate NAFTA. Trump just announced he’s not going to pull out of it, and it seems clear the odds of any real renegotiation are slim. Obama attacked Wall Street, and so did Trump. Both then stocked their administrations with bankers. And Obama and Trump both ran against the Iraq War, and both of their constituencies understood them to mean they would rethink our entire policy toward the Middle East. Both Obama and Trump then faithfully continued the Afghanistan War, bombed Syria, and helped Saudi Arabia starve Yemen.

On the core issues of politics — the ones about which the one percent/globalists/Bilderbergers/disguised space lizards truly care — Obama did not produce genuine change. And, it now seems more and more likely, neither will Trump. ... We have to get busy creating a place for this country’s anger and despair to be used constructively, or it will eventually birth something even worse than Trump.

Elizabeth Warren warms up her rhetoric ahead of elections. Apparently now she is willing to say things that would have been far more meaningful some time ago. Better late than never, or, another phony who knows what you have to tell the little people to get elected? Pfffttt!!!

Elizabeth Warren calls out Obama and Democrats for losing way on economy

Elizabeth Warren, one of the most prominent Democrats in the Senate, has broken ranks to criticise Barack Obama for misreading the economy and a swath of Democrats for selling out to wealthy elites. ...

“I think President Obama, like many others in both parties, talk about a set of big national statistics that look shiny and great but increasingly have giant blind spots,” she told the Guardian. “That GDP, unemployment, no longer reflect the lived experiences of most Americans.

“And the lived experiences of most Americans is that they are being left behind in this economy. Worse than being left behind, they’re getting kicked in the teeth.”

The senator went on take a swipe at members of her own party while describing the collapse of old distinctions between left and right. “I think there are real differences between the Republicans and the Democrats here in the United States,” she said. “The Republicans have clearly thrown their lot in with the rich and the powerful, but so have a lot of Democrats.”

Warren, a former Harvard law professor, sat on the fence during last year’s gruelling Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, an old friend.

Barack Obama's $400,000 speaking fees reveal what few want to admit

The reason many of us have been critical of Barack Obama’s outrageous $400,000 speaking fee is that it robs us of a fantasy: that sooner or later, the first black president was going to use his considerable powers, in or out of office, to help the economic ravages of the poor, who are disproportionately black. That Obama’s project was or ever would be racial and economic justice was always a dream – and the sooner we let go of this and recognize Obama for who he is and what he does, the better we’ll all be. ...

As Robert Jones, Jr, the writer and creator behind Son of Baldwin, noted, it’s significant that Obama’s first big talk was to a Wall Street gathering, considering it’s “the same Wall Street that he used our money to bail out and, in return, instead of lowering our credit interest rates and raising our savings interest rates, that same Wall Street raised our credit interest rates and lowered our saving interest rates for what was the definition of ungrateful.” Like so many people, when I campaigned for Obama before I was a journalist in 2008, I wanted him to take on the specific and persistent racial inequalities generated by American capitalism. I had read Dreams From My Father and hoped, once in office, this thoughtful writer about race would directly address economic racism. But the 2009 bailout, and Obama’s subsequent failure to pursue any significant prosecutions related to it, should have taught us all that racial economic justice just wasn’t Obama’s main priority.

We hoped, maybe in a second term, he’d come out swinging on systemic racism. But when Mike Brown’s killing in Ferguson ignited a rebellion, Obama looked very uncomfortable when he had to pause his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to address the ugly truths of American policing, as he did again when Brown’s killer was not even indicted. He never visited St Louis after that.

Still, some of us so desired our first black president to lead a Martin Luther King-like charge against the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism” that we hoped maybe, perhaps, after he left office, he’d really speak his mind. It was naive of me, but after I saw Obama speak in person about his My Brother’s Keeper initiative here in New York, I fantasized that he’d spend his days out of office working with young black people in a similar way that Jimmy Carter builds houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Instead, it seems like Obama will spend his post-presidency hauling in money as the Clintons have. ... The high-paid speeches were a sign that Obama’s post-presidency will, like his presidency was, be Democratic business as usual. And that means not radically altering the racial injustices of American economics.

Pro-Clinton Probe of 2016 Reveals That, Yes, Democrats Have a 'Wall Street Problem'

Underscoring previous assessments that the Democratic establishment, including the party's 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, has "a Wall Street problem," new polling and focus group data shows that Democrats are perceived as woefully out of touch when it comes to the economy.

The pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA surveyed 801 voters who backed former President Barack Obama in 2012 but who then voted for Donald Trump in 2016, as well as hundreds of drop-off voters who opted to stay home on election day. Priorities USA also conducted a series of focus groups with voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida—swing states that had voted for Obama but switched to Trump, handing him the presidency. 

Reporting on the survey, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent wrote Monday: "One finding from the polling stands out: A shockingly large percentage of these Obama-Trump voters said Democrats' economic policies will favor the wealthy—twice the percentage that said the same about Trump."

Forty-two percent of Obama-Trump voters, according to the survey, believe the ultimate goal of Congressional Dems' is to benefit the elite, compared with 21 percent who said that of Trump, despite the fact that he is a billionaire real estate mogul. ...

Notably, 40 percent of drop-off voters and 47 percent of Obama-Trump voters said they were either somewhat or very dissatisfied with the state of the U.S. economy. Further, 43 percent of individuals who voted for Trump despite having "mixed feelings" about him were drawn to "the fact that he is not a typical politician." A full 53 percent from that group said their vote was "more a vote against Clinton."

As the pollsters wrote in their key take-aways: "Clinton and Democrats' economic message did not break through to drop-off or Obama-Trump voters, even though drop-off voters are decidedly anti-Trump."

Trump orders Atlantic and Arctic waters opened for oil drilling

Adding to his list of accomplishments [accomplishments!???! - js] on the eve of his 100th day as president, Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday undoing Barack Obama’s restrictions on drilling in federally held waters along the eastern seaboard and the Arctic.

The “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy” aims to clear the path for offshore drilling in millions of acres of federal waters for oil and gas leasing — areas Obama had attempted to protect in the waning days of his presidency.

[Was Obama aiming to protect them, or just give the appearance of having an environmental accomplishment to burnish his "legacy"? - js]

Industry officials say that in order to make drilling more appealing in the Arctic, regulatory changes would need to be paired with new federal leases, according to the Washington Post. Without additional action from Congress, those regulations will stay in place.

The process of putting federal lands up for auction to oil and gas companies could take two years, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters Thursday. Environmental groups are already saying the order is illegal, and it’s almost certain it will be challenged in court, like several other orders Trump has signed.

350.org's Bill McKibben on People's Climate March: "Weekends Are for Fighting Tyranny"

Tens of thousands brave 91-degree-heat to protest climate change in D.C.

On the 100th day of Donald Trump's presidency, tens of thousands of protesters alarmed by the government’s stance toward the environment gathered in Washington to participate in the People’s Climate March. It was fittingly hot in D.C. The 91-degree heat tied the April 29th record in Washington, amplifying the march’s message. ...

Estimates suggest that 200,000 people marched in D.C., exceeding the 100,000 organizers expected. More than 300 smaller protests took place around the country and the world, including large crowds in Amsterdam, Lisbon, and London.

Time-lapse, bird's-eye video shows thousands of protesters marching toward White House for action on climate change https://t.co/yoYEIbNWAO pic.twitter.com/jNpi7WceZi

— CNN (@CNN) April 29, 2017

Swiss factory will be the first to suck up carbon dioxide and feed it to plants

On May 31, the Swiss company Climeworks will turn on the first commercial plant to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and feed it to vegetables in a neighboring greenhouse. Located in the tiny, agricultural municipality of Hinwil, Switzerland, the plant stands 40 feet tall and looks like a rectangular wall of oversized dryers stacked three-high.

It will be the first business to sell carbon dioxide drawn right out of its surroundings, using a technology called direct air capture. To date, carbon capture technologies have been restricted to areas where there are high concentrations — like the smokestacks of coal-fired plants. But the promise of direct air capture is to grab the kind of ambient carbon emitted by cars, aircraft, and trains.

Since it’s not happening at the source, direct air capture must be able to deal with lower concentrations (0.04 percent of air), making the technology inherently more difficult, and expensive. That’s why until now, it has been demonstrated only in small, experimental pilot plants. ...

Climate scientists say so-called negative-emissions technologies — which remove pollutants from air — will be crucial to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 deal co-signed by 196 nations, to hold the increase in global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.

“Climeworks is the first to scale up to substantive level,” said Julio Friedmann, a former principal deputy assistant for fossil energy for the U.S. Department of Energy and senior adviser at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. “There’s almost no way to hit those targets without using negative emissions, and in some cases, quite soon.”

Sparking Fears of Airborne Radiation, Wildfire Burns in Fukushima 'No-Go Zone'

A wildfire broke out in the highly radioactive "no-go zone" near the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant over the weekend, reviving concerns over potential airborne radiation.

Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reports that lightning was likely to blame for sparking the fire Saturday on Mount Juman in Namie, which lies in the Fukushima Prefecture and was one of the areas evacuated following the 2011 meltdown. The area continues to be barred to entry as it is designated a "difficult-to-return zone" due to continually high radiation levels.

Local officials were forced to call in the Japanese military, the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), to help battle the blaze, which continued to burn on Monday. At least 10 hectares of forest have burned so far. ...

In a blog post last year, Anton Beneslavsky, a member of Greenpeace Russia's firefighting group who has been deployed to fight blazes in nuclear Chernobyl, outlined the specific dangers of wildfires in contaminated areas.

"During a fire, radionuclides like caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium rise into the air and travel with the wind," Beneslavsky wrote. "This is a health concern because when these unstable atoms are inhaled, people become internally exposed to radiation."

Contaminated forests such as those outside fallout sites like Fukushima and Chernobyl "are ticking time bombs," scientist and former regional government official Ludmila Komogortseva told Beneslavsky. "Woods and peat accumulate radiation," she explained "and every moment, every grass burning, every dropped cigarette or camp fire can spark a new disaster."

Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: Reign of Idiots

Barack Obama Is Using His Presidency to Cash In, But Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter Refused

This Chart Proves Paul Krugman Is Dead Wrong on Wall Street Reform

If You Want to Know What the Democratic Party Is, Just Ask Their Lawyer

Taser Will Use Police Body Camera Videos “to Anticipate Criminal Activity”

More NYT ‘Spin’ on the Syria-Sarin Case

4,033 Killed in Iraq during April

Team Trump Lines Up with Israel

Government Has Allowed Corporations to Be More Powerful Than the State

Trump Targets Undocumented Families, Not Felons, in First 100 Days

Erdogan bans Wikipedia and Daytime Dating Shows

How a Professional Climate Change Denier Discovered the Lies and Decided to Fight for Science

Photo Essay: A New Pipeline Encroaches on Florida’s Fragile Everglades

A Little Night Music

Reverend Gary Davis - If I Had My Way

Rev Gary Davis - Twelve Gates To The City

Reverend Gary Davis - I'll Fly Away

Rev. Gary Davis - Slow Drag / Cincinnati Flow Rag

Rev. Gary Davis - Candyman

Rev Gary Davis - I Am The Light Of The World

Rev. Gary Davis - Cocaine Blues

Reverend Gary Davis - I Heard the Angels Singing

Rev Gary Davis w/ Sonny Terry - You've Got To Move

Reverend Gary Davis - Got On My Traveling Shoes

Reverend Gary Davis - Seven Sisters