The Evening Blues - 7-24-19
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features r&b singer Ruby Johnson. Enjoy!
Ruby Johnson - Keep on Keeping On
“Every major power has some widely publicized justification for its procurement and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction, often including a reptilian reminder of the presumed character and cultural defects of potential enemies (as opposed to us stout fellows), or of the intentions of others, but never ourselves, to conquer the world.”
-- Carl Sagan
News and Opinion
Iran rejects UK's proposal for European-led maritime force
Plans for a European-led maritime security force in the Gulf unveiled by the UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, hit choppy waters as the plan was rejected by Iran and met resistance from supporters of the incoming prime minister, Boris Johnson.
It has also been seen by British shipping industry experts as not providing a short-term solution to the crisis facing UK-flagged shipping in the Gulf. On Monday, Hunt unveiled a plan for a European-led maritime security force, making clear he regarded a proposed rival plan for a US force as likely to be seen by the Iranians as an escalatory step, partly since Washington opposes the Iran nuclear deal. ...
The Iranian vice-president, Eshaq Jahangiri, said any international coalition to protect the Gulf would bring only insecurity. “There is no need to form a coalition because these kinds of coalitions and the presence of foreigners in the region by itself creates insecurity,” he said. “And other than increasing insecurity it will not achieve anything else.” ...
Johnson’s allies appear to be willing to continue Britain’s support for the Iran nuclear deal, but see no need for America to be excluded from plans for a maritime security patrols through the Gulf. There is also resentment at the fact Hunt is attempting such far-reaching steps with implications for the future of the “special relationship” when he may be living on borrowed time as foreign secretary.
Uncertainty Looms Over Boris Johnson’s Response to Iranian Seizure of British Tanker
Experts fear deserted oil tanker off Yemen could explode
A deserted oil tanker described as a “floating bomb” that is currently anchored off the coast of war-torn Yemen has the potential to create an environmental disaster, according to experts.
A byproduct of the battle between the Saudi-backed UN Yemen government and the Houthis, the tanker, containing over 1m barrels of oil, is said to be eroding fast, but UN officials’ plans to visit the ship this week to assess the scale of the damage have been blocked. There are fears that gases have built up in the storage tanks, which means the ship could explode. Mark Lowcock, the UN humanitarian coordinator, told the UN security council last week an inspection team had again been refused permissions by Houthis to visit the ship moored several kilometres outside the Red Sea port of Ras Isa, north of Hodeidah.
The two sides in the conflict in conversation with the UN blame each other for failing to reach a solution about what to do about the ship, and its valuable cargo. The Houthis want guarantees that they will be able to control the revenues from the oil on the ship valued at $80m (£64m), a move that might require a new oil export mechanism.
The UN-recognised Yemen government has warned in a letter to the UN of a “bad and deteriorating situation” that threatens an “imminent environmental and humanitarian catastrophe in the Red Sea”. It has also produced a video warning of an environmental disaster that could dwarf any previous oil spillage.
Doug Weir, director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory, said the cause for concern was genuine. He told the Guardian: “Until a UN technical inspection takes place it is difficult to determine the precise risk that the vessel poses, however the potential for a serious environmental emergency is clear. An explosion leading to a spill would have a severe effect on the Red Sea marine environment, and on both biodiversity and livelihoods, an emergency made worse because the ongoing conflict would hamper efforts to control and respond to the pollution it would cause.”
Fury in India over Donald Trump's Kashmir claims
India’s foreign minister has firmly denied Donald Trump’s claim that the US president was invited by the Indian government to mediate in the Kashmir dispute, following a furious response from opposition MPs. Trump’s remarks, made sitting alongside the Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, on Monday, provoked uproar in the Indian parliament and demands for the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to respond.
While Pakistan has called for third-party involvement over the long-running dispute, India has always insisted the issue can only be resolved through direct talks with Islamabad.
Kashmir, in the Himalayas, is claimed by India and Pakistan in full and ruled in part by both. An insurgency has waxed and waned on the Indian-administered side for three decades, and tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict. ...
Analysts believe it is more likely that Trump misinterpreted India’s calls for it to place greater international pressure on Pakistan to crack down on extremism. If Modi had asked for US intervention, this would amount to India “changing its policy on third party involvement entirely, and turning it on its head,” said Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy, associate director of Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in Delhi.
South Korea Fighter Jets Just Fired 360 Warning Shots at a Russian Aircraft
South Korean fighter jets fired hundreds of warning shots at a Russian military aircraft after it entered South Korean airspace on Tuesday morning. The Korean military said a Russian A-50 early warning and control aircraft flew into territorial skies, known as the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ), twice in the space of an hour just after 9 a.m. local time (7 p.m. ET Monday). South Korea claims one of the aircraft flew over Dokdo, a disputed island that is occupied by South Korea but also claimed by Japan, which calls it Takeshima.
The flights were in breach of international treaties, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. F-15 and F-16 fighter jets were scrambled. In total, 360 warning shots were fired at the Russian plane. ... It’s the first time a Russian military aircraft has violated Korean airspace, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said in a statement Tuesday. ...
Japan reacted angrily Tuesday to South Korea’s decision to fire warning shots in what Japan claims was its airspace. ...
Earlier on Tuesday, two Russian bombers and two Chinese bombers had twice entered the KADIZ, conducting flights of around 30 minutes each time. Russia said this was the first joint long-range air patrol it has conducted with China in the Asia-Pacific region, but that it had not been aimed at another country. ... But the Kremlin denies it violated Korean airspace, claiming that it does not recognize the KADIZ. It accuses the Korean pilots of acting recklessly.
'War crime': Amnesty Intl condemns Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes
House Overwhelmingly Passes Anti-BDS Bill
In a 398-17 vote, the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed H. Res 246,
a bill which expresses opposition to the BDS movement targeting Israel.
The language of the bill presents BDS as contrary to US policy, and
claims that BDS is harmful to the two-state solution that the US
supports. ...While Democrats overwhelmingly backed the anti-BDS bill today, there remains a political split on the issue. That’s because Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is offering a competing resolution which expresses support for Americans’ right to boycott other nations, including Israel. Democratic leadership were quick to condemn Omar’s proposal as “dead on arrival.”
Historically, of course, boycotting other nations has been considered an aspect of Americans’ right to free speech. Omar’s resolution, however, isn’t expected to even get a serious discussion in committee, let alone a proper vote on the floor of the House.
As Israel commits war crimes against Palestinians and their soldiers laugh & pose with civilian homes they destroyed, Congress does this.
What they don't get is, this is precisely why civil society boycotts continue to grow; the abject failure of govt to hold Israel accountable https://t.co/bUyynXgp9Z
— (((YousefMunayyer))) (@YousefMunayyer) July 24, 2019
Google Continues Investments in Military and Police AI Technology Through Venture Capital Arm
Last year,Google faced internal revolt from many employees over its handling of Project Maven, a secretive contract between the company and the Department of Defense to use artificial intelligence to improve the military’s drone targeting capabilities. After a series of internal, worker-led protests and resignations following reporting by The Intercept and Gizmodo, the company said it would wind down the drone project and promised a more transparent approach to similar work in the future.
Now, a number of Google workers are voicing concerns that the Mountain View, California-based search giant is continuing to deploy cutting-edge AI technology to the Pentagon and law enforcement customers.
Rather than directly engage in controversial contracts, Google is providing financial, technological, and engineering support to a range of startups through Gradient Ventures, a venture capital arm that Google launched in 2017 to nurture companies deploying AI in a range of fields. Google promises interested firms access to its own AI training data and sometimes places Google engineers within the companies as a resource. The firms it supports include companies that provide AI technology to military and law enforcement.
Cogniac, one of the firms in the Gradient Ventures portfolio, is providing image-processing software to the U.S. Army to quickly analyze battlefield drone data and to an Arizona county sheriff’s department to help identify when individuals cross the U.S.-Mexico border. CAPE Productions, another Gradient Ventures-backed startup, has established itself as a premier AI-powered software solution to provide law enforcement with the ability to fly fleets of drones to conduct aerial surveillance over American cities and respond to crimes and other emergency calls.
Google employees — who spoke anonymously, fearing reprisal — said the work embraced by Gradient Ventures startups appears to circumvent the commitment by their employer to carefully vet and disclose military and law enforcement applications of AI technology.
To Keep Public Housing From Becoming 'Panopticon of Automated Face Scanning,' Democrats Push Facial Recognition Ban
Privacy and civil liberties advocates applauded a pair of Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday as they prepared to introduce legislation to protect public housing residents from the rise of facial recognition surveillance. In a letter sent to their fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) invited co-sponsors for the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act, which would stop public housing complexes which accept funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from installing facial recognition tools.
Tlaib and Clarke cited strong evidence that facial recognition software disproportionately misidentifies women, transgender people, and people of color and could subject public housing residents to unlawful arrests as well as violating their privacy. "The policing and criminalization of poverty is already an ugly reality for many people living in these communities," the congresswomen wrote. "Public housing exists to provide shelter for our constituents, not another opportunity to be wrongly profiled. We simply cannot allow untested and biased technologies to undermine tenants' civil liberties or their quality of life."
Fight for the Future, which launched a campaign earlier this month demanding a federal ban on government use of facial recognition surveillance and warning the technology "enables automated and ubiquitous monitoring of an entire population," praised Tlaib and Clarke's proposed legislation. "Facial recognition surveillance should be banned everywhere, but keeping it out of public housing is an excellent start," said Evan Greer, the group's deputy director. "If public housing units become a panopticon of automated face scanning and monitoring, it will mean more people in prison, more police abuse, and more families torn apart. Surveillance of poor communities isn't about safety, it's about social control."
US justice department targets big tech firms in antitrust review
The US justice department is opening a broad antitrust review into major technology firms, as criticism over the companies’ growing reach and power heats up. The investigation will focus on growing complaints that the companies are unlawfully stifling competition.
“The Department’s review will consider the widespread concerns that consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and some retail services online,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
“Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands,” added the assistant attorney general Makan Delrahim, of the antitrust division. The review will investigate practices of online platforms including Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon and Apple.
The investigation comes amid calls from lawmakers, including Democratic presidential candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, that the companies should face more scrutiny.
Aaron Maté's Questions for Mueller
Gee, you'd almost think that "progressive" Nancy Pelosi wanted to assure that a progressive agenda would fail in congress if she and the DNC fail in their efforts at undermining all of the progressive presidential candidates.
"It's as Bad as It Looks": Pelosi Under Fire for Debt Ceiling Deal That Hands GOP Power to Kneecap Progressive Agenda
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have helped temporarily avert a looming fiscal crisis on Monday by striking a budget deal with the Trump administration, but progressives warned the agreement hands Republicans power to kneecap the next president's agenda by suspending the debt ceiling until after the 2020 elections. The debt ceiling is the legislative limit on how much the federal government can borrow. If the ceiling is not raised, the U.S. would risk defaulting on its debts and potentially sparking a global financial crisis.
Former congressional staffers and other critics said that by agreeing to suspend the debt ceiling until 2021, Pelosi gave Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) the ability to extract massive spending cuts and other concessions from a Democratic president in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Paul Blest of Splinter wrote Tuesday that "if the eventual Democratic presidential nominee defeats Trump in 2020, this will be one of the things they have to deal with in their first year in office."
"If you really listen," Blest wrote, "you can almost hear [Texas Sen.] Ted Cruz yelling on the floor of the Senate that Congress shouldn't raise the debt limit by one more dollar unless President Bernie Sanders promises to drop his demand for Medicare for All."
In 2011 Republicans used the debt ceiling to cripple Obama and impose trillions in cuts. Today, Dem leaders agreed to lift the debt ceiling for the remainder of Trump’s presidency but reimpose it in 2021, when Republicans could again use it to cripple a Democratic president. https://t.co/fHH2m25IkB
— Adam Jentleson (@AJentleson) July 22, 2019
Pelosi's agreement with Mnuchin—which President Donald Trump applauded in a series of tweets Monday night—must be approved by the House and Senate. The deal would lift spending limits by $320 billion and hand the Pentagon a $738 billion budget, a $22 billion increase from the previous year. In a joint statement, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hailed the agreement as a bipartisan compromise "that will enhance our national security and invest in middle class priorities that advance the health, financial security, and well-being of the American people."
Brian Fallon, executive director of progressive advocacy group Demand Justice and former aide to Schumer, was not as enthusiastic about the deal. "It was fun for a while to debate whether the Democrat who beats Trump should focus on election reform or climate change in 2021," Fallon tweeted. "Now Republicans will make it a fight over lifting the debt ceiling."
Donald Trump Praises Boris Johnson, Who Once Called Him “Unfit to Hold the Office of President of the United States”
“We’re respected all over the world,” Donald Trump told an audience of young Republican operatives in Washington on Tuesday. By way of example, he cited the votes of 92,153 members of the British Conservative Party who chose his ally Boris Johnson to be their party’s new leader — paving the way for the man who led the Brexit campaign to succeed Theresa May as prime minister.
“A really good man is going to be the prime minister of the U.K. now, Boris Johnson,” Trump said. “He’s tough and he’s smart. They’re saying, ‘Britain Trump.’ They call him, ‘Britain Trump.’ And people are saying that’s a good thing. They like me over there, that’s what they wanted. That’s what they need.”
Trump’s praise for Johnson suggests that no one in his inner circle has yet worked up the courage to show him the video of the former mayor of London denouncing Trump, during the 2016 campaign, as “clearly out of his mind.” In late 2015, when Trump first called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” Johnson stood in front of a television camera to express his disgust. ...
Referring to Trump’s subsequent claim that his ban was justified because immigrants had made parts of London “no go zones” for non-Muslims, including police officers, Johnson went on to say that Trump was “betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of president of the United States.”
Puerto Rican Officials Caught in That Sexist Group Chat Have to Turn Over Their Phones
A judge in Puerto Rico has issued search warrants for the phones of government officials who participated in the sexist and homophobic group chat that leaked.
The news, confirmed by El Nuevo Día, came as more than half a million people took to the streets Monday and shut down one of the island’s major highways with continued demands that the governor resign. They want repentance for his role in the chats, known as #TelegramGate, as well as allegations of ongoing corruption on his administration. ...
The chat included some of Rosselló’s top officials, including Chief Financial Officer Christian Sobrino and Secretary of State Luis G. Rivera Marín, who’s next in line for the governorship. They have since resigned. El Nuevo Dia doesn’t mention which officials are facing warrants, although CBS reported it's all 12 members of the chat, including Rosselló.
Puerto Rico Enters Uncharted Territory as Ricardo Rosselló Prepares to Resign as Governor
The MAGA Bomber Planned His Morning Routine Around “Fox & Friends”
The so-called “MAGA bomber” was living in a cramped van in Florida in 2015, working in strip clubs and delivering pizzas, when he learned that his longtime idol, Donald Trump, was running for president. Quickly swept up in MAGA fever, Cesar Sayoc began organizing his days around Fox News shows, and for the first time, he became a vocal political participant on social media, signing up to hundreds of right-wing Facebook groups, according to new court documents filed this week by his defense lawyers. ...
And three years after Trump rode down the golden escalator in Trump Tower, 57-year-old Sayoc waged a weeklong mailbombing campaign targeting the president’s biggest critics.
Nobody was hurt, but the mailbombs added to a toxic political climate and stoked nationwide fear of more MAGA-fueled violence. Recipients of Sayoc's bomb packages last October included liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, former president Barack Obama, actor Robert DeNiro, and California congresswoman Maxine Waters, and the offices of CNN.
In the hours after SWAT teams closed in on Sayoc’s van — which was adorned with pro-Trump stickers — his numerous social media accounts were brought to light, and revealed a man consumed by right-wing conspiracies and paranoia. ... “He began watching Fox News religiously at the gym, planning his morning workout to coincide with ‘Fox and Friends’ and his evenings to dovetail with Hannity,” his lawyers wrote.
Mother Jones Is Failing Its Namesake
Kevin Drum, a political columnist for Mother Jones, wrote in a blog post (6/26/19) last month that he did not understand why workers do not want their employer to work with the government agencies carrying out President Donald Trump’s brutal immigration policies, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). When workers at home goods website Wayfair staged a walkout because their company was supplying bunk beds and mattresses for a child detention camp in Texas, Drum could not fathom their insubordination.
“This is a genuine question, not snark,” Drum wrote. He continued:
They want Wayfair to stop sales to ICE or CBP or any other agency involved with keeping kids in cages…. But isn’t our whole complaint that these kids are being treated badly? Shouldn’t we want companies to sell the government toothpaste and soap and beds and so forth? What am I missing here?
What Drum is missing, and in a just slightly better world could have realized with moment of thinking, is that there is no reason whatsoever for children to be detained. The dismal conditions are part of the cruelty, but the existence of a place to sleep in a prison certainly does not negate the evil of its condition. Even detainees at Guantánamo Bay get beds.
This month, Drum further revealed his disdain for immigrants in a piece, “Are Democrats Now the Party of Open Borders?” (7/12/19), criticizing Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren’s border plan. Once again, he asked, “Am I missing something here?” And then:
Does Warren’s plan explicitly make it vanishingly unlikely that anyone crossing our border will ever be caught and sent back?
...
Just like there should be no need for beds in child prisons because there should be no child prisons, there is no need for a wall or criminalizing migration. In a cruel and violent world, full of exponentially increasing climate change, natural disasters, food shortages and wars, people cross borders in search of a place where they have a sliver of a chance to survive. That determination for life should be celebrated, not criminalized. Drum has an attitude toward immigrants that is xenophobic and deeply embarrassing for Mother Jones. ...
The legacy of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, the radical labor organizer who famously said to “pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living,” has long been let down by the magazine named for her, but Drum’s latest columns are a substantial deterioration. Jones was herself a child refugee. She fled famine in Cork, Ireland, for Toronto, Canada, with her family in the 1840s. ...
Mother Jones worked to stop cruelty toward children. Kevin Drum, Mother Jones writer, criticizes workers who protest the practice of child detention. In the factories, and in the concentration camps, children deserve to experience more from life than only suffering and a place to sleep.
An 18-Year-Old Citizen Has Been in Immigration Detention for a Month. It’s Not the First Time.
A Texas mom is fighting to get her teenage son — a U.S. citizen — out of an immigrant detention center where she says he’s been wrongly held for more than three weeks.
Federal immigration authorities have held Francisco Erwin Galicia, a Texas-born teen, in custody since June 27, when the 18-year-old student was crossing the U.S.-Mexico border at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Falfurrias, his attorney told the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Post. He was accompanied by his 17-year-old brother, Marlon Galicia, who lacks legal status and was born in Mexico.
Both teens were asked to provide travel documents. Marlon had only his school identification; Francisco had his Texas ID, a Social Security card, and a small copy of his birth certificate, but was unable to present a U.S. passport. The brothers were detained, and Marlon was deported to Reynosa to stay with family. The brothers were traveling for a soccer scouting event, according to the Post.
Art Neville, New Orleans funk star, dies aged 81
Art Neville, one of the most celebrated funk musicians in the US, has died aged 81.
His manager, Kent Sorrell, confirmed that the keyboardist and vocalist “passed away peacefully this morning at home, with his adoring wife, Lorraine, by his side”. No cause of death has been given, but his health had declined in recent years. He had suffered a stroke as well as complications from back surgery in 2001.
Born in 1937, Neville grew up in New Orleans. His career began in the mid-50s when he joined the band the Hawketts, which he went on to front. ... After six years in the navy, he formed his own band in the mid-60s, Art Neville & the Neville Sounds, renamed the Meters in 1968. ... They officially disbanded in 1980 but re-formed in 1989, changing their name to the Funky Meters in the mid-90s.
Meanwhile, Neville joined his brothers Aaron, Charles and Cyril to form the Neville Brothers, who had a major success in 1989 with the Daniel Lanois-produced, gold-certified album Yellow Moon. Neville continued to play in his later years, despite health problems and reduced mobility, but retired in December 2018.
Joe Biden Has a Plan on Weed (That Doesn’t Involve Legalizing It)
Former Vice President Joe Biden is staking out a position to the political right of the 2020 field when it comes to marijuana policy. Biden would not legalize weed as president, but he called for expungement of all past convictions for pot use as part of a criminal justice reform plan released by his presidential campaign Tuesday.
Biden would support the decriminalization but not legalization of marijuana for recreational use. That keeps him out of step with every other top-tier Democratic presidential candidate, all of whom have called for the full federal legalization of the plant.
Biden would take marijuana off of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s most severe classification list, where it’s considered the same as heroin, LSD, MDMA and peyote as a substance with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
But while other campaigns have called for fully declassifying cannabis, Biden would make it a Schedule II drug, on par with cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl, all of which the DEA considers “drugs with a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence.” The upshot is that lowering marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II would allow the government to research it, according to a senior Biden campaign official, who briefed reporters on his plan.
Berkeley became first US city to ban natural gas. Here's what that may mean for the future
Berkeley this week became the first city in the United States to ban natural, fossil gas hook-ups in new buildings. The landmark ordinance was passed into law on Tuesday, after being approved unanimously by the city council the previous week amid resounding public support. Although Berkeley may be pushing the vanguard, the city is hardly alone. Governments across the US and Europe are looking at strategies to phase out gas. In California alone, dozens of cities and counties are considering eliminating fossil fuel hook-ups to power stoves and heat homes in new buildings, while California state agencies pencil out new rules and regulations that would slash emissions.
Natural gas, it seems, has become the new climate crisis frontline.
Berkeley’s ordinance, which goes into effect on 1 January, will ban gas hook-ups in new multi-family construction, with some allowances for first-floor retail and certain types of large structures. The reasons behind the decision are multifold. Energy use in buildings accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in California. If the state is to meet its goal of 100% zero-carbon energy by 2045, the gas will have to go. ...
“There’s been a lingering perception that burning gas was cleaner than electricity, which might have been true 20 years ago when electricity came from burning coal,” said Pierre Delforge, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council . “When we look at electrification policies, we need to think about what the grid will look like in 10 or 20 years, not what it looked like yesterday.”
A state energy commission report released in early 2019 concluded that building electrification was “a key strategy” for reducing the state’s climate impacts, one that “offers the most promising path to achieving [greenhouse gas] reduction targets in the least costly manner”.
Climate Change Is Impacting Every Aspect of Modern Life, But the Press Fails to “Connect the Dots”
'This Is the Beginning': New Study Warns Climate Crisis May Have Been Pivotal in Rise of Drug-Resistant Superbug
A new analysis warns that "global warming may have played a pivotal role" in the recent rise of a multidrug-resistant fungal superbug, sparking questions and concerns about the emerging public health threats of the human-caused climate crisis.
Reporting on the research Tuesday, CNN outlined the history of Candida auris:
Until recently, scientists considered it a mystery how C. auris popped up in more than 30 countries around the globe a decade after it was first discovered in 2009. It emerged simultaneously on three continents—in India, Venezuela, and South Africa—between 2012 and 2015, each strain being genetically distinct.
The study—published Tuesday in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology—argues that Candida auris "may be the first example of a new fungal disease emerging from climate change."
"The argument that we are making based on comparison to other close relative fungi is that as the climate has gotten warmer, some of these organisms, including Candida auris, have adapted to the higher temperature, and as they adapt, they break through human's protective temperatures," lead author Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement.
Fungal diseases are relatively uncommon in humans because of body temperature—but if they adapt to rising temperatures, and aren't easily treatable with medications, they could increasingly endanger human health on a global scale. Casadevall warned that while C. auris may be the first fungal disease whose emergence scientists have tied to rising temperatures, it potentially won't be the last.
"Global warming may lead to new fungal diseases that we don't even know about right now," he said. "What this study suggests is this is the beginning of fungi adapting to higher temperatures, and we are going to have more and more problems as the century goes on."
Animals failing to adapt to speed of climate crisis, study finds
The speed of climate disruption is outstripping many animals’ capacity to adapt, according to a study that warns of a growing threat to even common species such as sparrows, magpies and deer.
Scientists behind the research described the results as alarming because they showed a dangerous lag between a human-driven shift in the seasons and behavioural changes in the natural world. Previous academic work has shown that species respond to warming temperatures by earlier timing of biological events, for example egg-laying by birds, budding of plants and flying of insects. The new metastudy, published in Nature Research, examines how effective this is in terms of reproduction and survival.
Based on 10,090 abstracts and extracted data from 71 published studies, it found a clear lag in the majority of species studied and none could be considered safe. “The probability that none of the study species is at risk is virtually zero,” the paper notes.
The authors said hundreds of thousands of species were not covered by their study, which was weighted heavily towards birds in the northern hemisphere, but they said the problems of adaptation to climate change were likely to be even greater for other animals already deemed at risk of extinction.
Viktoriia Radchuk of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, said: “Personally I find the results alarming. Species attempt to adapt to changing environment, but they cannot do it at a sufficient pace to ensure that populations are viable. Climate change has caused irreversible damage to our biodiversity already, as evidenced by the findings of this study. The fact that species struggle to adapt to the current rate of climate change means we have to take action immediately in order to at least halt or decrease the rate.”
Climate Activists from Extinction Rebellion Glued Themselves to the Capitol to Disrupt House Votes
On Tuesday evening, members of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Extinction Rebellion superglued themselves to each other and to the passages connecting the Capitol to the Rayburn and Cannon office buildings, where House members have their offices. The protesters, who are part of an international group that uses nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to advocate for action on climate change, aimed to confront House members on their way to floor votes.
Many of the protesters, who did not expect the protest to last longer than 15 minutes, remained glued for more than two hours, alongside dozens of demonstrators who rallied as a distraction. They wore signs over their shirts that said “Declare Climate Emergency” and chanted: “What do we want? Green New Deal! When do we want it? Now!” Capitol police asked bystanders and reporters to move back and after three warnings, kicked everyone out — except, of course, those who were glued. They arrested 13 activists, according to Extinction Rebellion, around 8:30 p.m. ...
Extinction Rebellion U.S. has four demands, which include the reduction of carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and the creation of a citizens’ assembly to oversee the “bold, swift and long-term changes necessary” to tackle the crisis. On Tuesday, protesters were specifically calling for the immediate passage of the joint resolution for the U.S. to declare the climate crisis an official emergency.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently introduced the nonbinding resolution in the Senate, alongside Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who introduced a version in the House. “The global warming caused by human activities,” the resolution reads, in part, “demands a national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization of the resources and labor of the United States at a massive scale to halt, reverse, mitigate, and prepare for the consequences of the climate emergency and to restore the climate for future generations.”
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Aaron Maté: These Questions for Mueller Show Why Russiagate Was Never the Answer
Left Unchecked, Trump Will Obliterate Right to Asylum
'Unconscionable': Trump USDA Proposes New Rule to Strip Food Stamps From Over 3 Million Americans
'Big Win' for Rhode Island in Court Battle to Make Polluters Pay for Consequences of Climate Crisis
'A rip through the desert': photos show how California earthquakes reshaped the land
100m bacteria a day keep the doctor away, apple research suggests
BB King's 'Lucille' guitar to be auctioned
A Little Night Music
Ruby Johnson - I'm Hooked
Ruby Johnson - Don't Start Nothing
Ruby Johnson - I'll Run Your Hurt Away
Ruby Johnson - Calling All Boys
Ruby Johnson - I'm Hooked
Ruby Johnson - Come to me my Darling
Ruby Johnson - What More Can A Woman Do
Ruby Johnson - Here I Go Again
Ruby Johnson - Pleadin' Heart
Ruby Johnson - I'd Rather Fight Than Switch
Ruby Johnson - Reach Out And Touch Me
Ruby Johnson - What Comes Up Must Come Down
Comments
What a Blowhard
Recently polling shows only 21% of Great Britain's people have a positive opinion of Pres. Trump. If Boris Johnson is "Britain Trump", he won't last very long as prime minister. It will be interesting to see how Johnson navigates the Trump waters.
evening karl...
i don't think that boris is going to stay popular for very long. i doubt that he can deliver the miracle that the tories have promised and his predecessor couldn't deliver.
i think that he's smarter and better educated than trump, but he's still a twit.
also, i don't think that he is in a position to outmaneuver president bolton. so, i guess the uk military might take this opportunity to make preparations to become lapdog cannon fodder.
The empire always comes home
we're so screwed on every level, it's difficult to
see how dumb ameriKa got overnight
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/an-american-tragedy-empire-at-home-and...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
evening ggersh...
i'd say generally that this is nothing new. consider the state of things before, during and in the aftermath of wwi and wwii. each conflict created american monsters on the homefront (woodrow wilson, a. mitchell palmer, j. edgar hoover, joe mccarthy, etc.)
after each of these eras, there was a reaction to the fascist overreach during wartime. unfortunately, now the u.s. is engaged in an endless wartime state (james madison is rolling over in his grave) and the technology of totalitarianism is improving.
imagine what joe mccarthy would have done with the capabilities of today's nsa.
i doubt that the people running the ship today are any more scrupulous, moral or honorable than joe mccarthy. i doubt that their ambitions are any less.
I don't see anyone equaling mccarthy
This might be the understatement of the century, ya think?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
the next mccarthy...
should be along any time now. wait until the anti-socialist furor gets whipped up during this election cycle and likely associated with russiarussiarussia by centrists who fear losing control.
Being Chinese-American has already become a liability
in science and research.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=chinese+american+research+suspicion
You can add Walter Plecker to the list of monsters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Plecker
Bastitch saw everything in black and white, and I mean that very, very literally. Those who were brown, or red, or "other", got shoved into "black" by his decree.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
The US favors the ideology behind *this* wall, so it came home
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=israel+wall&iax=images&ia=images
Nothing surprising about it.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The wall has been a big success for Israel. Ethno-nationalism, “blood and soil,” conquest, treating fellow humans like an occupied Other and Lesser for generations — all that has proved to be a winning formula for Making Israel Greater Again, so why wouldn’t there be billionaires bringing it back home. Billionaires are practically sovereign; money loves open borders. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is a satisfied backer of both Netanyahu and Trump.
An ethnic nationalist who bombs and destabilizes his neighbors can saber-rattle his country’s rogue-proliferated nukes. A feudal clan chief can be all-powerful king. So now our political culture has become more like that of our close allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Why wouldn’t that happen? The world’s rulers are one big unitary globalized elite now. All rub shoulders with each other, are examples for each other.
Well said
and there aren't many outs let alone
innings left in this game..
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
hi joe
Francisco Erwin Galicia, who you mention above, has been released; late yesterday afternoon. Unbelievable, what they're doing to people. Over a "border." Which doesn't exist. Is but shared madness.
evening hecate...
yep, the u.s. citizens wrongfully detained or deported by our border storm troopers numbers in the thousands.
not to worry, it's just 'merica's way of saying that we like ethnic cleansing.
Kevin Drum and Eric Alterman
Those two have really gone to the middle. Or I have really gone more left. Mother Jones is a disgrace to its namesake and The Nation needs to have John Nichols do more/better recruiting of progressive writers.
Appreciate tonight's jukebox. Love Ruby Johnson!
One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--Tennyson
evening benny...
mother jones has been declining in quality for years now. i stopped reading it sometime around the end of the shrub administration. now, whenever i read an article from that rag i begin to think about operation mockingbird.
i rarely read anything from the nation these days, either. i dropped my subscription to them when they came out against nader. i would say, though, that they are not as universally awful as mother jones is.
glad you liked ruby j. she had a great voice. stax recorded a whole bunch of tunes and only released 3 of them at the time. they have more recently released much more of those sessions material. they really failed to appreciate her talent.
You dropped The Nation ?
I dropped Mother Jones after 2016 but I just re-upped with The Nation.
They're not perfect but they do give Aaron Maté a platform and, of course, Katrina's husband.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
yep...
back in 2000. i don't refuse to read some of their articles, but i refuse to support a left media outlet that comes out against a third party movement in order to support neoliberal democrats.
The Nation is
definitely a mixed bag, being the long-time Establishment Left mag that it is. And by "left" I mean a mix of respectable, slightly to the left of Sherrod Brown and over to barely to the left of Amy Klobuchar.
The voices of cautious, polite center-left liberals like the woman who used to run Salon.com (nice lady, forget her name) are present, as are more principled progressive voices like Maté (if he still writes for them) and Stephen Cohen (spouse of Nation publisher).
On Russiagate, they decided to represent both pro and con voices. Somone can remind me which Nation idiot(s) repped the pro side and wasted precious site bandwidth.
Eric Altermann I've always been suspicious of. Strikes me as a controlled, left gate-keeper. And when was the last time any true prog cited his work favorably on the webs? A nonentity non-factor. The same could be said of a few other voices at The Nation.
MoJo -- long ago it ceased to be in the progressive mold. Also another "left" outlet which promoted R-gate. Irrelevant in progressive discussions, similar to the Washington Monthly, another irrelevant, marginal crowd of cautious centrists and party hacks.
I really don't have words for the shitbag
That is 'Boris' Johnson.
He's entirely a fraud. His first name is Alexander (and that's how family/friends refer to him). Boris is his second name, self chosen, for his 'clown' persona.
The UK is fcuked.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Yep, the UK is fucked
hard to believe they could find someone worse than May
but by golly they did.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB1ag0hNM6s&feature=youtu.be]
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
His twattish speech
just reminded me of every Oxbridge twerp I've ever had to engage with.
Lots of bullish, Public School, drivel. And we're supposed to be impressed with the accent.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
evening bollox...
it's going to be a bumpy ride.
on the other hand, if jackasses like trump and johnson don't inspire the people to revolt, what is it going to take?
Redundant
.....
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Great article on the Ukraine plane shoot down cover up
BREAKING: MH17 Evidence-Tampering Exposed – Cover-Ups, Hiding Records, False Testimony, & FBI Seizures
Oh well. The people on the plane were considered collateral damage for the great USA so it could get its hands on Crimea and build its own naval base right off the coast of Russia. Never mind that those people had a right to live and left families in ruins. Plus there were many scientists on the plane that were on their way to an AIDS conference.
I'm not sure that I want to see anyone else in the dock at The Hague the most besides Obama. Michelle has been tweeting about how his administration was scandal free. My ass it was!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening snoopy...
interesting article. it'll be interesting to see if any of it hits the mainstream media here, though somehow i can't imagine that it would. to far from the official narrative of "russia double plus ungood."
a
federal judge blocks a Klansman "boot stamping on a brown child's face—forever."
The judge is a migrant; born in London. The judge's father represented Terry Nichols, a man The Klansman will no doubt pardon at some point: “I don’t know Mr. Nichols, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
heh...
that whooshing sound you hear is the sound of the klansman's lawyers rushing to file an appeal.
he
is running out of lawyers, because he persists in being such a lawless liar. Before he at last gave it up, all his census lawyers quit on him, and he was going to have to return to court represented by Goober Pyle and Jar Jar Binks.
Evening Joe. They're pusning the envelope with that BDS
shit. A Berkeley City boycott ordinance (South Africa, I think) was once struck down as violating Federal Govt. Foreign policy prerogatives, but because it was an incorporated city and hence an arm of the state of California, etc. I remember thinking at that time that the same logic and rhetoric would not apply to individual private citizens, nor to clubs and similar voluntary organizations. They are still willfully violating the 1st amendment and have no real supporting precedent.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
i certainly hope that there's a challenge to it soon. i would guess that even the current supreme court would shut it down on first amendment grounds.
Hola, Joe! Just a quick 'shout-out'
to say 'thanks' for the photo info the other evening. (An issue came up unexpectedly, so, had to cut out.) The good news--the little photo banner works!
So, will put it in my permanent signature line by this weekend (for a while, and, for a change).
Thanks for tonight's EB. Quite busy today, but, caught (off and on) some of the two hearings. Was blown away by Mueller's total lack of knowledge/substance. Almost felt sorry for the Dude. Not certain, but, wondering if there was a perjury trap set for him (about the FBI interview). Or, perhaps, I should say 'attempted.' Mr M heard a bit more, and said Mueller used the 'I don't recall' line quite a few times. I only heard it once--regarding the FBI interview.
Anyhoo, it's a bit late now, but, may post the video of him being questioned about this, tomorrow evening. I'd be curious if anyone else thinks he may have been caught dissembling--judging from his reply and body language. Can't believe he'd take the chance. So, maybe he's just an oddball!
Hey, weather's been gorgeous for 1-1/2 days--yeah! Almost perfect Spring-like weather. Can't believe it, after what we've been through (around here)--miserable, almost dangerous heatwave, followed by monsoons!
Everyone have a nice evening. Stay cool.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
evening mollie...
i missed the mueller hearings today. in checking out various reports on it, i have come to the conclusion that two different hearings happened at the same time. the democrats think that they can now impeach the donald and the republicans think that they scored bigly against mueller.
in the clips that i saw, mueller did look ill at ease and not really on top of the information that one would expect him to have on the front burner. i don't know if that was an act to avoid having to say anything of substance or if it just reflected his state of mind.
heh, it is 70 degrees right now. it feels miraculous.
have a great evening!
Good point. Was it just an attempt at deflection--by playing
dumb?. Dunno.
BTW, since I posted previous comment, heard that there's 'talk of' filing perjury charges against Mueller. So, will post that 5-minute video tomorrow afternoon, soon after you post.
IOW, the Repub lawmaker/questioner (an attorney, former JAG) 'was' making the point that he wasn't testifying truthfully. Sure sounded that way to me--it was a very pointed question, and Mueller looked very uncomfortable. And, sounded unconvincing.
(Again, would have to see him charged, before I'd believe it, unless there's recording of him, or something.)
Glad you Guys are getting some relief, as well. Fingers crossed that it'll last a few more days!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Well, the "hard of hearing"
act (I first saw it on display in the 70s, when CIA counterintelligence spook Jimmy Angleton trotted it out frequently when questioned at a cong'l hearing) is rather old and shopworn by now, and even Dems have begun to be suspicious. So on to another tactic, the "old and maybe ailing guy with low energy" routine.
By most accounts, the Dems struck out with the Muller appearance. But please don't ask about anything else on his testimony -- it's beyond my purview.
Dems really do need this upcoming 6-week vacation, or recess as they call it. Good idea -- go outside, get some fresh air, play on the playground equipment, come back into the lunchroom once in a while and come up with something a little more effective.
great tunes JS!
Great tunes... love her voice.
The Israeli's comitted war crimes in Palestine? Color me shocked. If they acted civily I would be surprised. Funny how Israel, the U.S. and the Sauds, all neighbors from hell, all love each other. Bullies of the world unite. All think they are above the law.
Then we have what is supposed to be our House of Representatives defending the Constitution passing a resolution for an exception to the first amendment, for Israel. But nothing about money in politics or AIPAC having to register as the foreign agents they are.
Oh yeah, but Russia and Muler. A Muler is one that herds jackasses navigating the deep states bizness.
Superbug: One day it will be said man created the bug, or freed the virus, that did them in.
Amazing that land movement at Ridgecrest. Growing up in socal done quite a few of those rodeos. The best though was my brother, a friend and I were 30 miles from the epicenter of three 6's in 12 hours, in the Owens Valley CA near Big Pine on the east side of the Sierras, the same weekend Mt. St. Helens blew. It was rad being that close to epicenter for 6.+, but we were where only the earth could open up so just loved the ride at the time. For the best one we were on a landmark rock at 9000', called balance rock, you have to hike to it up Big Pine Creek, a 20 ton chunk of granite which was rocking with us on it. It was awesome moving about 6" or so back and forth on its axis. We had to grab the tequila, clips and such...
thanks for the great sounds!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein