The Evening Blues - 8-27-20
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Georgia blues singer and guitarist Blind Willie Mctell. Enjoy!
Blind Willie McTell - Mr. McTell Got The Blues
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?" That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”
-- Hermann Hesse
News and Opinion
Up to half of world's water supply stolen annually
Between 30% and 50% of the world’s water supply is stolen each year, mainly by agricultural interests and farmers, yet the crime itself is not well understood, a new international study led by the University of Adelaide says. The lead author, Dr Adam Loch, from the university’s Centre for Global Food and Resources, said there was a lack of data around water theft partly because those stealing the resource were often poor, vulnerable and at-risk in developing countries.
“But theft also occurs in the developed world, especially in agricultural settings,” he said. “According to Interpol, thieves steal as much as 30% to 50% of the world’s water supply annually – a big number. Compounding this problem is the fact that, as the scarcity of our most precious resource increases due to climate and other challenges, so too do the drivers for water theft.” ...
In Australia, the issue of water theft was laid bare in 2017 by the ABC’s Four Corners program, which revealed cases of cotton irrigators taking water despite embargoes to protect environmental releases. The program also exposed the lack of metering in New South Wales and inadequate water-sharing rules that made it difficult to police the rules.
“Much of the world’s focus right now is on water efficiency investments, which might achieve [at best] between 10% to 20% savings for water managers,” Loch said. “But if we can recover 30% to 50% of ‘lost’ water, targeting those who steal for profit-making, then that would be good for our water supply, and good for us.”
The Modern US War Machine Kills More Like A Python Than A Tiger
Forbes has published two back-to-back articles about the analysis of retired Navy captain and political scientist Bradford Dismukes titled “To Defeat China In War, Strangle Its Economy” and “If Russia Invades Europe, NATO Could Sweep The Seas Of Russian Merchant Ships“.
The articles were authored by a man named David Axe, who is my new favorite small-time war propagandist because he’s so desperate to be recognized for his imperialist stenography that he often approaches his spin jobs in an informatively unskillful and ham-fisted way. The best one I’ve found so far is this 2013 piece about the time he spent with the “rebels” of Syria, who he takes great pains to assure us are not terrorists or extremists but brave freedom fighters who’d successfully “liberated” large swathes of Syrian territory.
Each of the two Dismukes articles focus on how the same military strategy can be employed against the first- and second-most powerful nations which have resisted absorption into the US-centralized power alliance, namely China and Russia respectively. They explain how “a coordinated effort by the whole of the U.S. government and its closest allies” can be used to “strangle” those nations economically via blockades which cut them off from trade and resources should the time come for an aggressive confrontation, thus minimizing the need for direct military combat.
“Cutting off China from its trading partners and sources of oil, natural gas and other resources could be the best, and least costly, way for the United States to defeat China in a major war,” Axe explains.
“In wartime, the U.S. and allied fleets could blockade Russian sea trade, putting a choke-hold on the Russian economy that could force Moscow to end the war on terms favorable to Washington and its friends,” he writes.
Unspoken by Axe and Dismukes is the fact that both Russia and China are nuclear-armed nations, so direct hot warfare is something the US power alliance would want to avoid anyway.
ndeed, the articles present a vision for confrontation with Russia and China that is not just realistic but probable, and not just probable but currently underway. This is exactly the reason the empire-like network of allies loosely centralized around the United States has been so forceful about controlling crucial resources like oil on the world stage; it’s not so that the US can use the oil itself, it’s so it can control who will have access to it. It’s also why they’ve been working to surround both China and Russia militarily via military bases and NATO expansionism.
These are the chess pieces that have been put in place during the slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized empire and the governments which haven’t yet been absorbed into it. In order to avoid nuclear conflict the imperialists know they’ve got to be patient and strategic, which they’ve learned can lead them to victory from past experience in the previous cold war against the Soviet Union. The fact that they’re imperiling the life of every organism on our planet in the meantime is for them mostly a non-issue.
This is how the US-centralized empire prefers to kill now. Not like a tiger, pouncing on its prey with old-school ground invasions and ripping out the jugular, but more like a python: slow, patient strangulation and suffocation.
That’s what you’re seeing with the murderous starvation sanctions that have been placed on Iran and Venezuela. With Yemen, where in addition to deadly blockades the Saudis have been deliberate targeting farms, fishing boats, marketplaces, food storage sites and cholera treatment centers with US-assisted airstrikes. With North Korea, where boats full of dead people have been washing up on Japan’s shores because fishermen get stuck out at sea trying to catch food since they can’t afford enough fuel to get back to shore, which former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attributed to US sanctions. With Gaza, where people are being deprived of an adequate amount of nutrients due to an Israeli blockade designed to “put the Palestinians on a diet”.
It’s a slow, suffocating strategy which only works if you’re the side in power, the side with all the resources and all the time in the world, the side which knows it can just relax and wait for the other side to starve to death. Not with the “shock and awe” invasions of the Bush era, but with sanctions, blockades, coups, psyops, CIA-backed uprisings and the arming of opposition forces like David Axe’s “rebel” friends.
This is one of many reasons you can be dismissive of any Trump supporter who defends their president by arguing that he “hasn’t started any new wars”. What they mean is he hasn’t launched any tiger-style old school ground invasions. He’s still attacking and killing with python-style sanctions and blockades and imperiling the world with dangerous new cold war escalations. He’s still continuing the slow-motion third world war. And we may be certain that if Biden wins he will do the same.
This is important to be aware of, because it changes what it means to be anti-war. We don’t have to just oppose direct hot war conflicts like the one we were afraid earlier this year might erupt between the US and Iran (which could still happen); we also need to aggressively fight the new strangulation-style warfare that is being increasingly favored by the US-centralized empire.
When it first rose to power with the Bush administration the neoconservative ideology of doing whatever it takes to ensure continued US unipolar hegemony was widely criticized. Now it’s the bipartisan beltway consensus, and if you question it you’re smeared as freakish and suspicious. You never even hear the word neoconservative or neocon anymore in mainstream US discourse, not because it went away but because it became the normalized default mainstream worldview.
And while all these imperialist psychopaths are waving literal armageddon weapons around in the name of an imaginary god named unipolarism, we’re also hurtling toward ecosystemic collapse and any number of other potential armageddon-level events. We’ve got to turn away from this trajectory as a species and begin collaborating with each other and with our ecosystem if we are to turn this disaster around.
US alleges Russian armoured car rammed American vehicle, injuring soldiers
The US has alleged a Russian armoured car rammed a US military vehicle, injuring American soldiers, in what the White House called “unsafe and unprofessional” behaviour when patrols from the two countries’ militaries confronted each other in north-eastern Syria.
According to the US national security council (NSC), the incident took place on Tuesday morning near a location it described as “Dayrick”, a possible reference to Derik, near the Turkish and Iraqi borders.
“During this interaction, a Russian vehicle struck a Coalition mine-resistant ambush protected all-terrain vehicle (M-ATV) causing injuries to the vehicle’s crew,” NSC spokesman John Ullyot said. “To de-escalate the situation, the Coalition patrol departed the area. Unsafe and unprofessional actions like this represent a breach of de-confliction protocols, committed to by the United States and Russia in December 2019.”
According to Politico, which first reported the incident, citing a draft military statement, four American soldiers were diagnosed with mild concussion.
Which one thinks my access to healthcare shouldn't depend on my employment status? #MedicareForAll https://t.co/WQYaxOsZYB
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) August 26, 2020
'This Change in Policy Will Kill': Scientists, Medical Experts Warn of Dangerous Loosening in CDC's Covid Guidelines
As the number of Covid-19 cases in the United States nears six million, and with more than 176,000 Americans dead from the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly altered its coronavirus guidelines, worrying public health experts and raising suspicions among healthcare advocates that the moves are politically motivated.
"This is a stunning betrayal of public health that will spread the pandemic and lead to more unnecessary deaths," Chuck Idelson of National Nurses United wrote on his personal Twitter account Tuesday night, referring to the CDC's newest recommendation that not all individuals potentially exposed to Covid-19 should be tested.
Idelson said the move offered "clear evidence of how Trump has destroyed every public agency that is supposed to carry out the public interest rather than hucksterism for his cult."
The CDC just revised their testing guidance to exclude people without symptoms. Our work on the ‘silent’ spread underscores the importance of testing people who have been exposed to #COVID-19 regardless of symptoms. This change in policy will kill. https://t.co/5zMctSS4wD
— Alison Galvani (@Alison_Galvani) August 26, 2020
On Friday the CDC released new guidelines for travelers, advising: "You may have been exposed to Covid-19 on your travels. You may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can be contagious without symptoms and spread the virus to others. You and your travel companions (including children) pose a risk to your family, friends, and community for 14 days after you were exposed to the virus."
The agency had previously urged international travelers and those traveling from areas within the U.S. with high Covid-19 infection rates to self-quarantine for 14 days. Multiple states currently have their own recommendations for out-of-state visitors, including a 14-day self quarantine on arrival.
On Monday, the CDC released guidance for business owners and employees regarding customers who refuse to wear masks in a given establishment, writing: "Don't argue with a customer if they make threats or become violent. If needed, go to a safe area (ideally, a room that locks from the inside, has a second exit route, and has a phone or silent alarm)." And "don't attempt to force anyone who appears upset or violent to follow Covid-19 prevention policies or other policies or practices related to Covid-19 (e.g., limited on number of household or food products)."
That guidance comes as retail workers, restaurant workers, and other frontline employees continue to be threatened by people refusing to comply with Covid-19 social distancing measures, including wearing masks.
But the guideline change that has created the most controversy so far concerns testing for Covid-19 in asymptomatic individuals. The new CDC recommendations, also released Monday, contradict what the agency and its director, Robert Redfield have been saying for weeks.
Redfield told ABC News in July, "Anyone who thinks they may be infected—independent of symptoms—should get a test."
But the new recommendations don't go that far. Instead, they read: "If you have been in close contact (within six feet) of a person with a Covid-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms...You do not necessarily need a test unless you are a vulnerable individual or your healthcare provider or state or local public health officials recommend you take one."
"Wow, that is a walk-back," Dr. Susan Butler-Wu, a clinical microbiologist at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, said in a New York Times article Wednesday. "We're in the middle of a pandemic, and that's a really big change.”
The Times reported, "By the CDC's own estimates, roughly 40 percent of people infected with the coronavirus may never go on to develop symptoms, remaining asymptomatic for the duration of their tenure with the virus."
Non-woven masks better to stop Covid-19, says Japanese supercomputer
Face masks made from non-woven fabric are more effective at blocking the spread of Covid-19 via airborne respiratory droplets than other types that are commonly available, according to modelling in Japan by the world’s fastest supercomputer.
Fugaku, which can perform more than 415 quadrillion computations a second, conducted simulations involving three types of mask, and found that non-woven masks were better than those made of cotton and polyester at blocking spray emitted when the wearer coughs, the Nikkei Asian Review said.
Non-woven masks refer to the disposable medical masks that are commonly worn in Japan during the flu season, and now during the coronavirus pandemic.
They are made from polypropylene, and are relatively cheap to make in large numbers. Woven masks, including those used in the Fugaku simulation, are typically made from fabrics such as cotton, and appeared in some countries after non-woven versions were temporarily in short supply.
GOP Lawmakers Asked Trump for Low Wage, Migrant Worker Visas
Sen. David Perdue has long argued that “strained working-class Americans” face an uneven playing field as they are forced to compete with “a steady supply of cheap, unskilled” immigrant labor. But the Georgia Republican has sung a different tune in private messages to the Trump administration. The lawmaker contacted the Department of Homeland Security and Labor Department in February, urging officials to increase the flow of visas offered to temporary migrant workers to be employed in low wage, nonagricultural jobs. ...
Despite increasing campaign rhetoric by leading Republicans about the downward impact on wages posed by some forms of immigration, many lawmakers are quietly helping business interests lobby for greater access to a pool of low-wage foreign workers. The Intercept, through a records request, obtained a number of recent requests by GOP lawmakers to the Trump administration. The legislative letters echo business demands that the government raise the number of available H-2B visas for employers to bring in migrant workers.
North Carolina Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, along with the GOP House delegation from North Carolina, requested that the administration “expeditiously release all 64,716 H-2B visas. House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wrote “on behalf of business” that her state needed emergency “H-2B cap relief.” Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., wrote similar letters earlier this year. None of the lawmakers’ offices responded to a request for comment.
The letters came a time of increasing political pressure to bring cheap labor into the country. The Wall Street Journal reported on a broad bipartisan effort in January to increase the number of H-2B visas available for employers. Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., signed onto the push.
After these letters were sent and following a coalition lobbying effort by employers in the seafood, landscaping, construction, and food services industries, the Trump administration approved 35,000 additional seasonal work visas in March, bringing the total available this year to 101,000. Business interests also won expedited approval of H-2B visas.
After receiving $5.8 billion through the CARES Act
American Airlines announces 19,000 to be laid off starting October 1American Airlines executives announced Tuesday that without additional government funding through the Payroll Support Program (PSR), included in the CARES Act passed earlier this year, it will proceed with furloughing 19,000 workers on October 1. Thousands may still be laid off regardless of whether Congress hands over more public money to the airline.
As part of the bipartisan CARES Act passed at the end of March this year, the major US airlines were bailed out to the tune of $25 billion, with American Airlines receiving a hefty $5.8 billion gratis from the US taxpayer. As part of the terms of the bailout, the airlines were required to use the money to retain workforces through September 30.
With the additional layoffs, American will have 40,000 fewer workers than it did before the pandemic. More than 12,500 workers have already been forced to leave through “voluntary” retirements, buyouts and other schemes.
In addition to American, Delta Air Lines announced on Monday that it will furlough over 1,940 pilots unless the Air Line Pilots Association agrees to a minimum 15 percent pay cut.
“Authoritarian Nightmare”: John Dean Helped Bring Down Nixon over Watergate. He Says Trump Is Worse
Analysis Shows US Billionaires $800 Billion Richer Since Pandemic Hit
As President Donald Trump and top members of his administration continue their push to deliver another round of tax cuts to rich investors, an analysis published Tuesday by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness showed that U.S. billionaires have seen their collective wealth soar by nearly $800 billion since Covid-19 began spreading rapidly across the country in March.
The new research found that between March 18 and August 20—a five-month period in which the economy tanked and tens of millions of people across the U.S. lost their jobs—the combined wealth of America's more than 600 billionaires jumped by $792 billion, bringing their collective net worth to a staggering $3.7 trillion.
"For billionaires, this is a heads we win, tails you lose economy, boosted by Trump policies to funnel wealth to the top," Chuck Collins, director of the IPS Program on Inequality, said in a statement.
Collins said the fact that just 12 U.S. billionaires now own more than a trillion dollars in combined wealth is "an unprecedented and disturbing indicator of the concentrated wealth during a pandemic." According to IPS, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—the richest man in the world—has seen his wealth grow by $81.9 billion since mid-March, a bigger jump than any other U.S. billionaire.
The updated wealth figures came just hours before Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economic adviser, boasted about the president's plan to slash the capital gains tax during a speech on the second night of the Republican National Convention Tuesday. The benefits of any cut to the capital gains tax would disproportionately flow to the wealthiest Americans.
“On a Hunting Spree”: Wisc. Rep. David Bowen Says Cops Turned Blind Eye to White Militias in Kenosha
Kenosha: teen charged with murder after two Black Lives Matter protesters killed
A 17-year-old has been arrested and charged with murder after two people were killed on Tuesday night when violence erupted in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after white vigilante-type agitators shot at Black Lives Matter protesters. The suspect has been named in court documents as Kyle Rittenhouse, from Antioch, Illinois, 20 miles south-west of Kenosha, where protesters have been marching on the streets demanding justice and reform since police shot and gravely wounded a young Black father, Jacob Blake, on Sunday. Rittenhouse was taken into custody in Antioch.
Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he was sending federal law enforcement agents to Kenosha, a controversial repeat of recent moves where federal agents were sent to Portland, Oregon, outside normal protocol and against the advice of local elected officials.
After an 8pm curfew went into operation on Tuesday night, chaos ensued when armed men, some of whom were linked by the authorities to citizen militia groups, appeared on the streets. Two people were shot dead and another injured when a gunman, also thought to be linked to a militia, opened fire during the protests.
David Beth, the county sheriff, said one of the victims was shot in the head and a second in the chest shortly before midnight on Tuesday. Police earlier said the FBI was involved in the hunt for a gunman, who had come to Kenosha to confront Black Lives Matter protesters.
Following the shootings a man could be seen on video approaching police vehicles still holding his rifle and with his hands raised as police cars drove past him ignoring shouts from bystanders that he was the shooter. ... The man arrested by the police appears to be the same person pictured repeatedly on social media at key points during the night both before and during the shooting, including interacting with police in a tactical vehicle who said they “appreciated” the vigilantes’ help and gave them bottled water.
Teen charged in killings of BLM protesters considered himself a militia member
Kyle Rittenhouse, who is suspected of involvement in fatally shooting two people and wounding another during the Kenosha, Wisconsin, protests on Tuesday night, appears to have long been interested in law enforcement – and considered himself a militia member working to protect property, social media posts and reports indicate.
Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with first degree intentional homicide for his alleged role in the shootings. He is presently jailed in nearby Lake county, according to law enforcement documents.
A Facebook account under Rittenhouse’s name, which can no longer be accessed, contained photos of him posing with an apparent assault-style rifle. Text surrounding the photo includes the pro-police phrase “blue lives matter”. Several other photos on this profile page feature that wording, as well as images showing local law enforcement agencies’ logos.
In December 2018, Rittenhouse created a fundraiser for “Humanizing the Badge,” an organization “seeking to forge stronger relationships between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve”. The post indicates that Rittenhouse was seeking donations for his birthday.
“The Games Will Not Go On”: Pro Athletes Strike for Black Lives, Bringing Leagues to Grinding Halt
BIDEN Big Donors CASH-IN On Human Suffering!
'Honor of My Life': Alex Morse Scores Big Boost with Ocasio-Cortez Endorsement
Taking aim at one of her party's most influential members, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday endorsed embattled progressive upstart Alex Morse in his Massachusetts congressional race against Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Ocasio-Cortez, often known by her initials AOC, made her endorsement via her political action committee, Courage to Change, the New York Times reports. Morse, the 31-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, faces an uphill battle in his bid to unseat a long-serving incumbent, just as Ocasio-Cortez did in her successful 2018 primary challenge against Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.).
Morse tweeted that he was "so proud" to gain the endorsement.
"When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took on her own entrenched incumbent in 2018, she changed public service for the better, further inspiring me and so many others to fight for our districts and empower those who have long been forgotten," Morse wrote in a statement, referring to the former bartender and organizer's historic upset of Crowley, who represented New York's 14th Congressional District for 20 years.
"I am honored to have the congresswoman's Courage to Change in our corner, and it will be the honor of my life to bring the people alongside me to Washington."
According to FiveThirtyEight, Ocasio-Cortez has personally endorsed just three progressive challengers during the 2020 primaries, while Courage to Change has now endorsed eight progressive candidates. In comparison, Sanders has endorsed five candidates, as have the activist groups Justice Democrats and Indivisible, while the pro-Sanders group Our Revolution has endorsed 15. Two of the three candidates personally endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez—Bowman and Marie Newman, who unseated anti-choice conservative Democrat Dan Lipinksi in Illinois—won their primaries. ...
Massachusetts voters are faced with a stark choice between Morse, who supports Medicare for All and a Green New Deal and who is not accepting corporate PAC campaign contributions, and Neal, one of the top recipients of corporate money in Congress. The latter counts insurance and pharmaceutical companies among his biggest contributors, and has taken over twice as much money from Big Pharma as the number two House recipient, Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.).
Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement comes less than a week after Pelosi endorsed Kennedy over Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in that state's Senate primary.
"No one gets to complain about primary challenges again," Ocasio-Cortez, who co-authored a Green New Deal climate resolution with Markey, tweeted on August 20 in response to the move by Pelosi, who like other Democrats has criticized members of her party for taking on incumbents.
Does Kamala Harris Pick Mean Dems Are DONE With Blue Collar Workers?
Cornel West On Whether The Left Should Stick With Dem Party Or Make A Clean BREAK
Four endangered birds missing after California fire destroys condor sanctuary
A California wildfire has destroyed a sanctuary for the endangered California condor and the fates of several condors, including a chick, remain unknown. A blaze began last Wednesday in Los Padres National Forest northwest of Los Angeles. By Friday, it had destroyed the 80-acre sanctuary in Big Sur that since 1997 has been used to release captive-bred condors into the wild, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
The sanctuary lost pens, a research building and other facilities. The nonprofit Ventana Wildlife Society of Monterey, which ran the facility, was seeking $500,000 in donations to rebuild it.
There weren’t any people or condors at the facility when it burned, the society’s executive director, Kelly Sorenson, told the Mercury News. However, at least four condors in the area are unaccounted for. One is a four-month-old condor chick named Iniko that was living in a nest in a redwood tree about a mile (1.6km) from the facility. The chick was too young to fly. The parents flew away as the fire approached but Sorenson said the remote camera that monitored the nest was destroyed on Thursday as he and his family watched from home.
“We were horrified. It was hard to watch. We still don’t know if the chick survived, or how well the free-flying birds have done,” he said. “I’m concerned we may have lost some condors. Any loss is a setback. I’m trying to keep the faith and keep hopeful.”
Much more at the link:
‘Wake-up call’: wildfires tear through drought-plagued US south-west
More than two dozen wildfires are burning across the American south-west as the region’s summers continue getting hotter and drier, laying bare the intensifying consequences of climate change. A continued drought this summer has made the south-west a tinderbox, with over a quarter-million acres burning in the Four Corners states alone, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Six major fires in Colorado have burnt nearly 200,000 acres as of Tuesday afternoon.
In Arizona, 16 blazes are affecting nearly 100,000 acres, including two major fires near the historic mining and tourism town of Globe that have forced evacuations.
Five fires have spread across more than 9,000 acres of Utah lands.
And in New Mexico, more than 4,400 acres are ablaze from four fires. The largest of them, the Medio fire, started in a national forest near Santa Fe and has threatened homes on the city’s outskirts.
The fires, plus the mega-fires burning on the west coast, are making for poor air quality across the south-west, according to AirNow. Monitoring stations in many cities show high enough pollution levels to cause health risks for certain at-risk people. Nikki Cooley, Northern Arizona University’s tribal climate change program manager, said she had heard of even healthy people becoming sickened by the smoke.
California firefighters make headway on blazes with help from cooler weather
Aided by cooler weather and reinforcements, firefighters in California made headway on Wednesday in containing the three giant blazes burning across the Bay Area.
The fires, which were sparked last week by an unusual bout of lightning and stoked by an extended heatwave that desiccated fire-fueling vegetation, were calmed in part by a marine layer – a layer of cool, humid air from the ocean – floating over the region. ...
The LNU Lightning Complex burning through California’s wine country was 33% contained on Wednesday morning. Having scorched through more than 357,000 acres, it is the third-largest wildfire on record.
Another huge fire, the SCU Lightning Complex burning east of the San Francisco Bay, was 25% contained, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency. It had engulfed more than 365,700 acres, becoming the second-largest fire recorded in California.
Meanwhile, the CZU Lightning Complex has burned through just under 80,000 acres in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties to the south of San Francisco, and is 19% contained. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, called the fire “another demonstrable example of the reality of climate change in this state”.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Unless we change course, the US agricultural system could collapse
Will We Ever Listen To The Warnings?
'We're at a crossroads': who do the fish of Hawaii belong to?
‘Coming here is a necessity’: demand for food aid soars in US amid job losses
LEE CAMP: We Gawk at Nonsense Political Theater While the Real Enemies Go Unnoticed
Belarus - NATO Lobby Acknowledges That Its Color Revolution Failed
China Fires Missiles Into South China Sea in ‘Warning’ to US
The Troubling History — and Unfinished Work — of the Suffragists
Jimmy Dore: ICE CUBE Understands Politics! Demands Something For His Vote!
Jimmy Dore: KAMALA HARRIS Concealed Documents Of Catholic Church Child Abusers!
A Little Night Music
Blind Willie McTell - Statesboro Blues
Blind Willie McTell w/Curley Weaver - You Was Born To Die
Blind Willie McTell - Travelin' Blues
Blind Willie McTell - Little Delia
Blind Willie McTell - Kill It Kid
Blind Willie McTell - Searching The Desert For The Blues
Blind Willie McTell - I Got To Cross The River Jordan
Blind Willie McTell - Warm It Up To Me
Blind Willie McTell - Dying Crapshooters Blues
Comments
Turn off the lights, the party is over
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/ih9dd9/weve_defunded_scho...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtGxusvUT3k]
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...
yep, here in murka all we need is god and guns.
Whoa there fella
Just who decides who is worth saving?
How many others think along these lines?
ETA
Isn’t this typical of Obama?
What a difference four years makes!
Hmm...wonder who was President then?
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
evening snoopy...
wow, that sheriff is something else, though not too different in his ideas from people i've met.
heh, perhap obama should consider renting himself out as a weather vane.
That's my Sheriff. Uff-Da. :-(
I have never voted for him but I bet many I know have. I doubt that clip is well known here in Kenosha. I showed it to my Mom. She was horrified. She never voted for the bastard either.
Well, the news from ground zero in the Blake attempted murder is a second quiet night. I'm glad the attacks on locals seems to be over...at least paused. No one likes the looting but the arson really has people pissed off. My guess is the arson was from opportunists looking to distract so they could loot. The northside tobacco store was looted but not burned. The staff was like "meh", what ever. All in, not a positive but really no one really cares. It's owned by an out of town corporation.
Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.
Many, many military families are African American
Despite what Obama said, my guess is they welcome all public protests supporting Black Lives Matter. Maybe Obama needs to look into who is in the military before making sweeping pronouncements about how they feel.
evening granma...
i guess obama went to home depot that week when they were having the extra-wide paintbrush sale.
I love Blind Willie McTell
Such amazing music. I really don’t know what else to say tonight. I’m worn out.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
evening dr jc...
heh, i know what you mean, i'm dragging a bit this week, too. glad you're enjoying willie mctell, he's got a fine, large catalog of recordings, all of them worth hearing.
Good evening Joe. Thanks. I wonder if water theft would
include situations where a government or governmental agency putatively has rights to water and gives it away or sells it at negligible cost to somebody like Arrowhead bottling or The Westside Irrigatin District? Then there's also the question of whether or not having an ownership interest in 1/4 acre of the surface entitles one, theoretically, to pump an entire aquifer dry?
I don't believe for an instant that the cops turned a blind eye toward white (supremacist) militias in Wisconsin or anywhere else. They knew exactly what was going on and took pains to stay out of the way and not interfere. The two groups are allies and have been for as long as anybody can remember. Just my opinion, mind you.
suddenly my primary browser, after crashing, is very selective in what videos it loads. time to dive into the settings yet again.
be well and have a good one
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 suspect that technical legality of some of those water rights transactions would probably keep them off of the quoted study's radar. i wouldn't be surprised if an investigation into the activities of companies like nestle wouldn't raise the documented quantity of stolen water considerably.
i'm with you on your opinion about the relationship of white supremacists and police orgs.
firefox just released a browser update that made using it on my phone a pain. don't know if they released it for linux yet.
I keep a copy of firefox running for certain things, but
mostly rely on chromium, which is starting to crash at random and otherwise bug me.
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 --
I keep a copy of firefox running for certain things, but
mostly rely on chromium, which is starting to crash at random and otherwise bug me.
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 --
With military strategists the US always win.
Experts thought the Soviets would fall very quickly when the Nazis invaded. So much for that one. Reading non-US thinkers, there is some consensus that navies are outdated and simply sitting ducks. The Russians have hyper-sonic missiles with intercontinental reach that can sink every floating navy vessel. In the Millennium Challenge 2002 War games a US Marine general playing an Iranian general sunk a ton of US vessels the very first day that the games have to be stopped and re-rigged so American won the war game.
The U.S. Lost a (Fictional) War With Iran 18 Years Ago
evening mr w...
yep, iran has for decades had missiles acquired from china at first that were faster than u.s. navy detection could handle. i figure that they park the 5th fleet out there in the middle east in hopes that the iranians will sink it and the u.s. can then justify a serious military engagement.
Evening all ...
Wake-up Call ? I hope so. It's only 20 or 30 years too late.
I didn't read the whole Guardian piece. I don't want to register.
This was in the NYT: Biden Wants to Return to a ‘Normal’ Foreign Policy. That’s the Problem.
Just what Thomas Frank talks about in his book.
From Jacobin: Last Night’s GOP Insanity Proves How Much the Two Parties Need Each Other
I thought this was interesting, global warming in northern Russia:
Emergency situation: the slow-moving tragedy of the Russian Arctic
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
thanks for the links!
from your quote the nyt (i didn't read the article because i don't want to register) is being cagey. they know that a "normal foreign policy" means outrageous sanctions, followed by drone strikes and troop deployments all of which the nyt will not just cheerlead for, but bark and salivate over.
marcetic does a pretty good redux of the bipartisan hustle with some color from the more colorful convention.
the russian north article was quite interesting. i would guess that they will have to abandon settlements there within a couple decades.
I can read the NYT OK.
I haven't read entire piece from The Guardian for a couple of weeks now,
ever since they starting asking me to register. Maybe I need to update my adblocker.
Did you register with them ?
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
no, every time it asks me to register ...
i click the button that says, "i'll register later."
the nyt allows a certain number of free articles a month, but apparently my private browsing settings make them upset.
Well what dya' know ...
I just tried it again and it let me read the whole thing.
This:
This is our second consecutive summer without much of a monsoon, a couple showers but nothing like it used to be. Southern Arizona without monsoons, it's sickening to contemplate.
For hundreds of years, everybody who has lived here has depended on these rains, the only thing that makes this desert livable.
Are they really gone ? Forever ?
It's a hard thing to face up to.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
well...
it seems pretty difficult to predict which areas will become unlivable due to climate change, but it seems like something that all of us that intend to live a decade or two more will need to deal with.
i suspect that internal migration is going to become a wave of the future.
Check this out
It’d be great if it went somewhere and they are held accountable.
Cynthia McKinney should run for office again
She was a one-woman “Squad” before the Squad was even a thing.
I’d like to see the bipartisan Powers That Be pull that stunt with the Capitol Police they ginned up to discredit her now, in the age of Black Lives Matter.
Kenosha
MSM spin on the shootings and arrest of Kyle Rittenhouse seem
determined to depict him and other militia as white supremacists
and aggressors.
Well, that's to be expected, the only problem being that it does not
appear to square at all with reality - as is shown in the breakdown of the events
(linked to below), which includes pre-shooting video of militia introducing themselves to
BLM and explaining their presence, a brief interview with Rittenhouse himself
where he explains himself, video of violence and aggressive behavior by the
first guy to be shot, multiple videos of the first shooting and of the second
and finally of Rittenhouse attempting to surrender to police, who just drive by and leave
him standing.
In each instance of shooting Rittenhouse was attempting to run away and was being chased and attacked. He was clearly attacked with potentially deadly force before the second shooting - kicked in the head by one guy (while lying on the ground), struck by a skateboard by a second guy and having a pistol pointed at him (at point blank range) by a third guy (convicted felon prohibited from owning a firearm).
Oh, and the militia was multi-ethnic - and employing the same expression "All lives don't matter until black lives matter." as expressed by the N. Carolina BLM 757 spokesman interviewed below. Not clear on how that makes them white supremacists.
Of course, I CANNOT EMBED the Harrison Smith/Owen Schroyer frame-by-frame video analysis but I invite you to check it out and explain to me how this is first degree murder and not legitimate self defense.
More like Blue Republic's kind of BLM:
Again, a bit surprisingly, UK’s Daily Mail has the best coverage
with lots of examination of actual photographic evidence.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8665383/One-shot-dead-two-wound...
Not so surprising,
actually...
Daily Mail fairly often covers American news stories in much greater detail
than US mainslime media.
But thank you for the link.
Only objections I'd have to their coverage is that they refer to Rittenhouse "brandishing" a weapon - which there is no evidence of in the various photos/videos. Might give the Brits a pass on that, but "brandishing"a weapon has a specific legal meaning in the US - which varies somewhat from state to state. OTC could probably elaborate on that.
In general, it means displaying a weapon in a manner intended to threaten or intimidate, but there are exceptions for self defense. In Wisconsin, for example:
Also, they don't really point out that the third guy to be shot (the one wounded in the arm) was armed and can be seen still holding the gun after being shot. Note that in the video(s) he raises his hands and backs up slightly - Rittenhouse does not shoot. But then, he drops his hands, one of which is holding the pistol and starts to point it at Rittenhouse who *then* shoots him. Turns out that he is an ex-felon (as were the two that were killed) who could not legally possess a firearm...
"You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization - including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain - without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large." ~ Thomas Sowell
trevor noah made an excellent inquiry ...
why does somebody arm themselves with a military-style weapon and drive across state lines to a community that they have no link to and protect a gas station?
love of gas stations?
or desire to use the weapon?
my guess is the latter.
Why not? Exact same model as bipartisan foreign policy＋Gulf wars
going all the way back to Jimmy Carter and the Carter Doctrine.
Crossing state lines = invading / destabilizing sovereign countries
Gas station = oil wells / petroleum reserves
Sticking one’s nose (and weaponry) in other people’s business = “Responsibility to protect” (R2P), baby! It’s the American Way!
Edited to add:
We have a great big militia called the U.S. Fifth Fleet berthed in Bahrain for the exact same purpose, guarding the “gas station”! Incidentally, that’s why Obama greenlit Saudi forces rolling into Bahrain to crush the budding democracy movement there!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Roundabout
Maybe a desire to help
in a situation where people were being victimized and police were either unable or unwilling to intervene to stop it.
That is what he *says* when being interviewed - and also points out he is carrying a med kit in case people need that sort of assistance. In fact, he breaks off the interview to go assist someone that has been gassed (appears to be one of the BLM or antifa).
The assumption that Rittenhouse has "no link" to Kenosha is just that - neither you nor Trevor Noah have any idea whether that is the case or not - he only lives twenty miles away. In a big city that would just be the other side of town.
he also was with a militia...
there to help?
armed militias are not there to "help." they have the wrong tools for the job.
armed militias are there to at a bare minimum introduce a threat of violence. often that threat is actualized.
i will be interested to see what further facts emerge.
Everything you asked is irrelevant
...and also wrong, but that's typical in cases like this. If anyone wants the play-by-play and the actual real story, with video to back up the entire thing, let me know.
Bottom line, Kyle did nothing wrong, and actually everything right.
And, his intentions turned out to be benign, if not a little noble; he was assaulted several times, and did not retaliate. He rendered aid to the "protestors" at least once, possibly twice. He was provided that weapon by someone who suggested he might need it, in case things go bad. Turned out, that was prescient and saved his life in the end. That type of mob mentality turns on a dime and what set them off, angered and looking for vengeance upon Kyle was when he extinguished one of their fires. When confronted by a raging psycho, he fled. Bricks and bottles were thrown at him while he ran, then someone shot at him, and that is what set the entire scenario in motion.
Again, everything is on video, documented.
Policing in Amsterdam in Covid-time facing wave of violent crime
https://www.parool.nl/english/amsterdam-s-underbelly-how-a-man-with-lear...
Het Parool (lit. “The Password” or “The Motto”) is an Amsterdam daily newspaper that started out as a clandestine resistance rag during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Although it is generally seen as politically Left due to its social-democratic roots, there are exceptions: during the Vietnam War, for example, it supported the war and sided with the U.S. government.
Amsterdam city government just announced they are going to start having police “stop and frisk” (Dutch fouilleren, sometimes also translated as “preventative search”) people in neighborhoods with particularly high levels of violent crime involving guns.
Some musing about the fish in the waters of Hawaii
and who they belong to.
My tired, hurting head made the connections about Hawaii, fish, and Hawaii's "favorite son", Obama.
My son (because of lack or things to tell each other everyday) told me he was gone fishing with a native Hawaiian amigo. I asked him, if he caught something. He said, yes, but all fish were tiny and we threw them back in the water.
"So what to do with the "big fish", if he would have luck and catch one" I asked. "I chop of the head, cut open the belly to let out all the internal 'organs'
secretsin the open, throw both away, roast it slowly over the fire and then ... hmmm, lecker ... eat the fish."Almost very good idea", I said, but don't throw away the head, the best piece of the fish is the meat at the side and below the gill. Soooo tender. Even if the fish is evil and black and toxic, that part still taste delicious.
My mind jumped to Obama and Drumpolino. Who was the bigger and the more poisonious fish? "Not important my son said, both are dark and toxic, so both have to be roasted (braised) well, before they can be eaten up and digested. But then it's delicious meal".
Jeez, I am a proud mama. I told him to roast and eat the big fish's head. It would be a service to his own health and that of the world.
That's all C99ers, gathering place for big and small fish with tasty heads.
Thanks always, JS, also for the choices of your daily quotes on top of the EB. They often are as delicious as the fish heads' meat. The news remind me how it is necessary to roast them before eating them. Otherwise they are simply unedible and undigestible.
I miss the DC fishmarket and MD crabs. Sigh.
Have a good weekend, all, stay healthy, if you can.
https://www.euronews.com/live
“Fish Heads” song Dr. Demento used to play on Armed Forces Radio
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A08m181VOd8]
redacted - double entry/nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
How Metallica secretly filmed a concert at a Sonoma winery
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/entertainment/how-metallica-secret...
welp that does it for me. hardest working band in show business jumps the fucking sharknado to get more money because they dont have a big enough pile yet i guess. i mean what could be more important right now then to film a fucking concert inside a fucking wealth induced brain damaged buttegeig loving wine cave. yeah i know it was outdoors not underground. because rich people need to see beauty too right. who wants to see poverty and homelessness all around when you can have the hardest working millionaires come rub it in their faces for you. dont look rub harder thats my advice.
omfg your little knoll. hello somebody lived there before you
boughtstole it you asshole. FUUUUUUUUCK YOUits torches and pitchforks from here on out. fuck those guys. f them all to h those craven plutocrats.
may all their grapes become tainted. from now until the end of eternity you fucking clueless greed bags.
yeah im having a bigly jimmy dore meltdown over metallica wtf. i want that fifty million for myself so i can project it down their ugly pie holes. aargh
leave no stone unturned
Metallica is a fascinating story
I think anyway. If you'd told me back when I discovered them (Master of Puppets, I think) they'd become one of the biggest bands in the world, I wouldn't have believed you. It's always interesting to me how they try, not always successfully, to navigate the waters of staying in touch with their roots and the realities of being super wealthy rock stars.
But I agree with you, this lands on the wrong side of that divide. $115 per carload to essentially watch a projected live DVD? Oof. I'm not even suggesting they do it for free, but by contrast, just yesterday, I purchased a ticket for a stream from a band who actually do rely on touring and merch sales (Thee Oh Sees). It cost me a whole $10 and included a download of the stream. Had I skipped the download, it would have been $4.
Again, I don't begrudge anyone the ability to make a living from their art, but sometimes I do have to shake my head and wonder what they're thinking.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.