Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues guitarist and singer Houston Stackhouse. Enjoy!

"When we look at how, constitutionally, only Congress can declare war, and that is routinely ignored. Not NATO or the UN, but Congress has to authorize these endless wars, and it isn't."

-- Edward Snowden

News and Opinion

Afghanistan: Biden Vows to End Nation's Longest War by 9/11 After Decades of Bloodshed & Destruction

Biden to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by September 11

Joe Biden will withdraw all the remaining US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, a senior administration official has confirmed.

The president is expected to make a formal announcement on Wednesday. There are currently about 2,500 US troops in the country, serving alongside 7,000 other foreign troops as part of a Nato coalition. Most, if not all, Nato allies are likely to withdraw in coordination with the US. ...

The drawdown of US troops will begin by 1 May, the withdrawal deadline the Trump administration agreed with the Taliban last year, and will be completed by the 9/11 anniversary.

The only remaining US military presence after September 11 this year will be security for the US embassy, a task normally carried out by marines. The Biden administration has said it will negotiate with the Afghan government over the precise security arrangements for the diplomatic mission in Kabul.

About 800,000 US soldiers and other military personnel have served at least once in Afghanistan since the US invasion in 2001, launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks. More than 2,300 have been killed, and 20,000 wounded. Nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians have died in the conflict since 2001.

Saagar Enjeti: We MUST FIGHT Left, Right Neocons Trying To DERAIL Afghan Withdrawal Plans

Democrats waking up and realizing that their favorite neocon pundits love war more than anything else and want it to last forever, as they cheer for it and demand its endless continuation from a far-away and safe distance. https://t.co/qOtnLsJPiX

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 13, 2021

CrossTalk | Spoiling for War

Meditations On US Forces Firing A Howitzer Into The Empty Desert “Just To Say We’re Here”

I saw a line in a recent New Yorker article about America’s endless wars, and it’s been been rattling around in my head ever since:

“In Syria, McKenzie visited the Green Village, a community of decrepit apartment blocks near a bombed-out oil facility that served as the operational headquarters for the final push to erase the caliphate, in 2019. These days, the only military action there is from U.S. forces firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert, at no specific target, ‘just to say we’re here,’ one officer told me.”

U.S. forces firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert, at no specific target, “just to say we’re here.”

Tell me that’s not the sexiest line you have ever read in your entire life. The poetical beauty! The ennui! The oh-so-relatable existential ache! Oh God, I need a cigarette.

I mean it just hits on so many different levels. Could you ask for a better snapshot of life within the soulless US war machine than a small cast of Beckettian soldiers, waiting around near a bombed-out oil facility for a Godot who never arrives, firing heavy artillery rounds into the desert twice a week for no reason whatsoever? You just want to hang it in an ornate wooden frame with the caption “YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK, LADIES AND GENTS” and then shove it so far up Tom Cotton’s personal anatomy that it takes an entire emergency room team to extract it.

And isn’t it such a wonderfully concrete, in-your-face iteration of the meaningless struggle so many of us are going through in this decaying fustercluck of end-stage metastatic global capitalism? Firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert at no specific target “just to say we’re here” is simply the military’s version of working at a desk forty hours a week doing essentially nothing other than making the boss and the shareholders a tiny bit richer than they already were. Working to pay the bills so you can afford the car you drive to work and the food and shelter which sustains your ability to work is no less pointless and absurd than what those soldiers were doing in the Green Village in 2019.

If you think about it, aren’t we all in our own way firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert at no specific target “just to say we’re here”? Lost and despondent in the wilderness, boxing with shadows, firing giant guns at imaginary enemies, watching our expensive artillery shells disappear into the emptiness and wondering why it hurts to live? Screaming a loud, violent noise into the abyss just to show we exist, and then seeing the abyss roll its eyes like an annoyed teenager and return its attention to its iPhone?

We are such silly, confused little ape mutants. We could be using these giant brains we just evolved to create a chill, harmonious world where everyone has enough and we work in collaboration with each other and our ecosystem, where creativity has space to flourish and art gushes from our heads like the air we exhale. Instead we’re coasting to armageddon under the thumb of an empire that pours its wealth and resources into an endlessly expanding worldwide military campaign while impoverishing its people at home and keeping them in line with an increasingly violent and militarized police force.

We could have paradise on earth; there’s not one single valid reason why we cannot. Instead we’re letting governments controlled by a few idiotic sociopaths wave nuclear weapons at one another in the name of an imaginary god called unipolarity. Instead we’re letting ourselves be pressed into an absurd competition-based model where we must step on our neighbor’s head just to keep our own above water while destroying the environment we depend on for survival. Instead we’re firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert, at no specific target, “just to say we’re here.”

This world is so silly. So beautifully, insanely, bittersweet cup of extinction noodles silly. We hurdle on a spinning rock we do not understand, through a universe we do not understand, made of particles we do not understand, and we behold one another in a field of consciousness we do not understand, and we shrug.

God I love us. I love us so much.

I really hope we make it.

Nuclear deal: suspected Israel attack could strengthen Iran's hand

Russia redeploys 2 armies, 3 airborne units to western border in view of NATO threat - Shoigu

Russia is taking measures in response to the threats posed by NATO, and it has redeployed two armies and three Airborne Forces units to its western borders as part of an ongoing readiness inspection, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

"We've taken proper measures in response to the alliance's military activities which threaten Russia," Shoigu said at a meeting in Severomorsk on Tuesday.

"Two armies and three Airborne Forces units were successfully redeployed to combat training areas close to the Russian Federation's western borders in three weeks," he said.

Biden urges Putin to show restraint in Ukraine amid troop build-up on border

NATO concentrating over 40,000 troops near Russian border

NATO will concentrate 40,000 troops and 15,000 items of armament and military hardware near Russian borders, basically in the Black Sea and Baltic regions, Russia’s Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.

Overall, "40,000 troops and 15,000 items of armament and military hardware, including strategic aircraft, will be concentrated" near the Russian borders, the defense chief said.

The American troops are now redeploying from continental North America to Europe through the Atlantic, Shoigu said.

"The troops in Europe are moving towards Russian borders. The basic forces are being amassed in the Black Sea area and in the Baltic region," the defense chief said.

U.S. ships have nothing to do near Russian coasts - Russian deputy FM

The presence of United States warships in the Black Sea is a provocative step, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.

"I wouldn't like to go too much into particulars of various interpretations of what freedom of navigation and freedom of the seas is, especially in this context. I know one thing: American ships have absolutely nothing to do near our coasts, and this is a purely provocative undertaking. It's provocative in the literal sense of this word: they're testing our patience and getting on our nerves. This won't work," Ryabkov told journalists. ...

"Apparently seeing itself as the queen of the seas [...] the U.S. should understand after all that the risks of various incidents are very high. We warn the U.S. that it should steer clear of Crimea and our Black Sea coast. This would be to their own benefit," Ryabkov said.

Wow, if Biden is feeling pressure, that letter must have been sternly-worded!

Pressure on Biden to End Yemen Blockade Builds With New Letter From Lawmakers

A bipartisan letter that members of Congress sent Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken increased growing pressure on the Biden administration to fully end U.S. support for Yemeni suffering and push the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to "lift its obstruction of commercial and humanitarian imports" to the war-torn country.

Although President Joe Biden was praised early in his term for a series of actions on Yemen—temporarily freezing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, ending U.S. support for the coalition's "offensive operations," and reversing the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization—lawmakers and activists want him to go further and criticize the administration's denial of the blockade.

In light of the president's recent actions, the letter (pdf) to Blinken—led by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.)—expresses appreciation for "the Biden administration's commitment to address the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and resolve the underlying conflict that drives it," while also pushing for additional action.

"Since 2015, the restrictions imposed by the coalition have critically exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Yemen," the letter says. "The interference, delay, and outright blocking of commercial goods and humanitarian assistance shipped to Yemen's ports is a principal cause of price inflation, food insecurity, economic collapse, and the failure of public services in Yemen. These measures do not interrupt the supply of Iranian and other weapons to the Houthis."

The letter acknowledges recent progress on getting fuel into Yemen as positive but adds that "none of this excuses the Saudi-led coalition's continued obstruction of commercial and humanitarian imports to Yemen, which serves no legitimate humanitarian, political, or security purpose. Ending this practice will boost Yemen's economy, de-escalate the conflict, and prevent this humanitarian catastrophe from worsening—all important U.S. objectives."

Worth a full read:

Glenn Greenwald: Big Corporations Now Deploying Woke Ideology the Way Intelligence Agencies Do: As a Disguise

The British spy agency GCHQ is so aggressive, extreme and unconstrained by law or ethics that the NSA — not exactly world renowned for its restraint — often farms out spying activities too scandalous or illegal for the NSA to their eager British counterparts. There is, as the Snowden reporting demonstrated, virtually nothing too deceitful or invasive for the GCHQ. They spy on entire populations, deliberately disseminate fake news, exploit psychological research to control behavior and manipulate public perception, and destroy the reputations, including through the use of sex traps, of anyone deemed adversarial to the British government. But they want you to know that they absolutely adore gay people. In fact, they love the cause of LGBT equality so very much that, beginning on May 17, 2015 — International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia — they started draping their creepy, UFO-style headquarters in the colors of the rainbow flag. The prior year, in 2014, they had merely raised the rainbow flag in front of their headquarters, but in 2015, they announced, “we wanted to make a bold statement to show the nation we serve how strongly we believe in this.”

Who could possibly be opposed to an institution that offers such noble gestures and works behind such a pretty facade? How bad could the GCHQ really be if they are so deeply committed to the rights of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people? Sure, maybe they go a little overboard with the spying sometimes, and maybe some of their surveillance and disinformation programs are a bit questionable, and they do not necessarily have the highest regard for law, privacy and truth. But we know that, deep down, these are fundamentally good people working within a fundamentally benign institution. Just look at their flamboyant support for this virtuous cause of social justice. Similar agencies of deceit, militarism and imperialism now robustly use this same branding tactic. The CIA — in between military coups, domestic disinformation campaigns, planting false stories with their journalist-partners, and drone-assassinating U.S. citizens without due process — joyously celebrates Women’s Day, promotes what it calls The Agency Network of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Officers (ANGLE), hosts activities for Pride Month, and organizes events to commemorate Black History Month. The FBI does the same.

It’s so sweet that one is tempted to forget about, or at least be more understanding of, all the bombing campaigns and all the dictatorships they install and prop up that repress and kill the very people that they purport to honor and cherish. Like the GCHQ, how menacing can an intelligence agency be when it is so deeply and sincerely supportive of the rights of the people they routinely spy on, repress and kill? Again, this does not make the CIA perfect — sure, they make some mistakes and engage in some actions that are worthy of criticism — but to combat real evil, you do not go protest at Langley. They are engaged in important work combating homophobia, racism and misogyny. Thus, real warriors against evil look not to them but instead go searching online for the Boogaloo Boys and boomers on Facebook who post Q-Anon and other problematic memes. That is where your focus should remain if you want to root out the real threats.

Large corporations have obviously witnessed the success of this tactic — to prettify the face of militarism and imperialism with the costumes of social justice — and are now weaponizing it for themselves. As a result, they are becoming increasingly aggressive in their involvement in partisan and highly politicized debates, always on the side of the same causes of social justice which entities of imperialism and militarism have so effectively co-opted. Corporations have always sought to control the legislative process and executive branch, usually with much success. ... But they are now going far beyond clandestine corporatist control of the government for their own interests. They are now becoming increasingly powerful participants in highly polarizing and democratic debates. In the wake of the George Floyd killing last summer, it became virtually obligatory for every large corporation to proclaim support for the #BlackLivesMatter agenda even though many, if not most, had never previously evinced the slightest interest in questions of racial justice or policing. ...

Ever since, large corporations are diving into numerous other political debates with great vigor and force — provided that their views are in alignment with affluent liberal culture and prevailing social justice pieties (though, like NBA officials and stars, they confine themselves to easy domestic causes and scripted liberal platitudes while they steadfastly avoid commenting on any injustices that may implicate their business interests, such as debates over labor abuses in China or Amazon’s abuse of its workers). The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported that “dozens of chief executives and other senior leaders gathered on Zoom this weekend to plot what several said big businesses should do next about new voting laws under way in Texas and other states.” The campaign against these laws includes not just corporate giants but also the nation’s largest and richest corporate law firms.

Briahna Joy Gray: IRS Commissioner ADMITS Rich Avoiding $1 TRILLION In Taxes

Right-Wing Banker Pulls Off Upset Win in Ecuador Over Leftist Champion

Following left-wing economist Andrés Arauz's loss to right-wing former banker Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador's recent presidential election, Progressive International on Monday argued that the disappointing results reflect the unsettling "triumph of lawfare" and underscore the need for progressive forces of all stripes to unify behind an emancipatory vision in order to "defeat the reactionary right" worldwide.

In a contest that pitted Lasso's neoliberal agenda of privatization and upward redistribution against Arauz's social-democratic plans to improve the welfare of working-class Ecuadorians, many expected Arauz to emerge victorious.

Instead, Arauz—considered a protégé of former President Rafael Correa, a champion of the left who implemented policies that increased standards of living for the poor when he governed Ecuador from 2007 to 2017—conceded defeat.

"I congratulate him on his electoral triumph today and I will show him our democratic convictions," Arauz said Sunday night in the wake of Lasso's surprising win. Lasso, a two-time runner-up in presidential elections, received about 53% of ballots to Arauz's 47%. 

David Adler, co-founder of Progressive International, a global coalition seeking egalitarian change, commended Arauz for running on a "creative and compassionate" platform of "political-economic transformation that should inspire the world."

In the wake of Arauz's "devastating loss," Adler said, "now is the time for reflection."

According to Adler, "The triumph of lawfare should send a chill through the global community."

Last year, Steve Striffler, a professor of anthropology at University of Massachusetts Boston who studies labor history and Latin American politics, warned that the prosecution of Correa by a judiciary acting on behalf of Ecuador's then-President Lenin Moreno represented an expansion of "lawfare," which he defined as "a well-worn strategy" used by the region's "resurgent right" to sideline progressive political opponents through "manipulation of the judicial system."

"What is new in the case of Ecuador is the scale of this practice," wrote Striffler. "Perverting the legal system in order to subvert the democratic process has become the defining strategy—indeed, the essence—of [Moreno's] government, which is faced with plummeting popularity and an opposition that would win in any fair election. This is not good news for democracy in Ecuador or Latin America."

Striffler's warning looks prescient. Correa—who is now living in his wife's home country of Belgium after his politicized corruption conviction sent him into exile—backed Arauz, but years of right-wing attacks on Correa and his political allies appear to have hurt the leftist movement he spearheaded and his successor's campaign.

Some observers have also suggested that intraleft conflicts over extraction and Indigenous rights in Ecuador, where oil resources helped finance Correa's social programs, played a role in Arauz's defeat.

In February, Arauz led the first round of voting with more than 30% while Lasso barely made it into the final by beating Yaku Pérez, an Indigenous candidate from the Pachakutik party, by roughly half a percentage point.

According to France24, "Pachakutik refused to back either candidate in the second round and promoted blank votes."

"Pérez publicly annulled his own vote writing, 'Yaku president resistance' on his ballot," the news outlet reported. "Around 16% of votes were invalid, up from 9.55% in the first round."

Krystal Ball: Is Joe Biden The Mythical Populist Right Leader That MAGA's Been Waiting For?

pic.twitter.com/YSlHDHR0tY

— Susan Sarandon (@SusanSarandon) April 13, 2021

Wisconsin officer cleared over Jacob Blake shooting returns to duty

A white police officer from Wisconsin who was investigated and cleared for shooting and injuring a black man during a domestic dispute has returned from administrative leave, officials said on Tuesday. Officer Rusten Sheskey was not charged in the August 2020 incident that left Jacob Blake Jr paralyzed from the waist down. Sheskey shot Blake seven times while Blake was about to get into an SUV.

Kenosha’s police chief, Daniel Miskinis, said in a release that Sheskey returned to duty on 31 March. The release said Sheskey was found to have been acting within policy and will not be disciplined.

“Although this incident has been reviewed at multiple levels, I know that some will not be pleased with the outcome; however, given the facts, the only lawful and appropriate decision was made,” Miskinis said in the statement.

More trial details at link:

Derek Chauvin trial: defence opens its case with ex-police officer

The defence in the Derek Chauvin murder trial opened its case on Tuesday by attempting to show George Floyd had a history of failing to cooperate with the police while under the influence of drugs. Scott Creighton, a former Minneapolis police officer, testified that he stopped a vehicle in May 2019 in which Floyd was a passenger and found him incoherent and unable to obey orders.

But the picture that emerged from the testimony and body-camera video may be of limited help to the defence. Floyd comes across as frightened and not threatening, pleading with the police not to shoot him while Creighton and other officers give contradictory orders and rapidly escalate the situation.

One officer tells Floyd to put his hands on the dashboard while another orders him to put them on his head. “You’re not going to get beat up or nothing if you’re just going to do what we’re asking you to do,” Creighton says to Floyd at one point.

A paramedic who treated Floyd after his 2019 arrest, Michelle Moseng, said he told her he had swallowed opioid pills.

The judge permitted the video and testimony on the grounds it provided medical evidence of Floyd rapidly ingesting drugs when he was stopped by the police, similar to the situation the defence says happened on the day of his death in May last year. But he warned the jurors that they should not use Creighton’s evidence to judge Floyd’s character.

Daunte Wright is another Oscar Grant, we seen this before and know exactly how it will play out, when claiming "I meant to use my taser and accidentally pulled my server weapon" We watched it play out in court.

— Uncle Bobby X (@unclebobbyx) April 12, 2021

Daunte Wright shooting: parents say they ‘can’t accept’ killing was a mistake

The parents of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man shot dead by a white Minnesota police officer that superiors say mistook her handgun for a Taser, said on Tuesday they “could not accept” their son’s killing was a mistake.

Aubrey Wright and Katie Wright spoke to ABC’s Good Morning America after a second night of protests over their son’s death in a traffic stop on Sunday in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center.

The official explanation of officer Kim Potter’s actions, by police chief Tim Gannon at a Monday press conference, angered Aubrey Wright, who pointed to the officer’s considerable experience. “I lost my son, he’s never coming back,” Aubrey Wright said. “I can’t accept that, a mistake, that doesn’t even sound right. This officer has been on the force for 26 years. I can’t accept that.”

Potter and Gannon resigned on Tuesday. But as the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) continues its investigation, Gannon’s description of a death caused by “accidental discharge” has come under scrutiny.

Pay close attention to how news media is now flooded with Black people representing law enforcement and speaking in favor of reforms we already know don’t work. Policing remains an overwhelmingly white institution. This is a deliberate editorial choice to distort reality.

— DEFUND & ABOLISH POLICE (@BreeNewsome) April 13, 2021

Chicago Awaits Video of Police Killing of 13-Year-Old Boy

The city of Chicago is on edge, haunted by its past and fearful of what lies ahead, for once again a police officer has killed a child on its streets.

On March 29 in Little Village, a predominantly Latino neighborhood on the West Side, police pursued and fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo in what the police department has described as an “armed confrontation.”

In the days since, details have trickled out in a manner that has done little to dispel the climate of distrust that now attends police shootings. On the contrary, the incident has reawakened the collective civic trauma inflicted by the 2014 police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

In contrast to the administration of her predecessor Rahm Emanuel, which withheld dashcam video of McDonald’s murder from the public for 13 months and then suffered an irremediable collapse of credibility when it was finally released, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration has said it will make relevant video footage public as soon as the Toledo family has had an opportunity to view it.

In anticipation of protests and possible civil unrest after the video footage is released, the Chicago Police Department has informed officers that days off will be canceled and that they will move to 12-hour shifts.

American Insurrection: Deadly Far-Right Extremism from Charlottesville to Capitol Attack. What Next?

NY's Ron Kim: Cuomo FORCED To Repeal His Own Corrupt Nursing Home Legislation

Greenpeace Says Japan's Plan to Contaminate Pacific Ocean With Fukushima Water Would Violate International Law

In a decision that sparked condemnation from environmental advocates, fisherfolk, and neighboring countries, Japan announced Tuesday a plan to dump over 1.2 million tons of stored contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

The decision made by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's Cabinet gives Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) the green light to release Fukushima's wastewater into the sea just over a decade after one of the worst nuclear disasters in history; discharges won't begin for two years, as TEPCO prepares for a process that is expected to take decades.

Greenpeace said in a statement that the decision, which has long been contemplated but delayed due to strong public opposition, is a violation of international maritime law that "completely disregards the human rights and interests of the people in Fukushima, wider Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region."

"The Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima," said Kazue Suzuki, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Japan. "The government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes." ...

Last year, Jan Haverkamp, a senior expert on nuclear energy policy at Greenpeace, warned that there remains "a lot of uncertainty about the effects of tritium."

"The moment that I hear the word 'treated' being used instead of 'contaminated,'" Haverkamp said, "I can't think differently than this is a kind of newspeak."

Disposal of contaminated wastewater has been delayed for years by safety concerns and protests, but Suga told lawmakers that releasing it into the Pacific Ocean was "a problem that cannot be avoided" because, according to the New York Times, "the space used to store the water is expected to run out next year."

But Greenpeace's Suzuki said the Japansese government "has discounted the radiation risks and turned its back on the clear evidence that sufficient storage capacity is available on the nuclear site as well as in surrounding districts."

"Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the long term," said Suzuki, "they have opted for the cheapest option, dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean." ...

Jennifer Morgan, executive director at Greenpeace International, said that the current plan for wastewater disposal "is a violation of Japan's legal obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and will be strongly resisted over the coming months."

Florida to close wastewater reservoir that poured into Tampa Bay

Florida is moving to permanently close the leaky Piney Point wastewater reservoir that poured millions of gallons of water into Tampa Bay while threatening to burst open and flood nearby homes and businesses, the governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Tuesday.

The Republican governor said at a news conference at the site that the chronic challenges of containing polluted water at the long-closed phosphate plant must end.

“We want this to be the last chapter of the Piney Point story,” DeSantis said. The reservoir is located just south of Tampa in Manatee county, near waterways that flow into Tampa Bay.

The governor said he has directed the department of environmental protection (DEP) to develop a closure plan, and that $15.4m in existing agency funds would be used to treat the wastewater to reduce the nutrients that can cause algae blooms and fish kills. ...

Noah Valenstein, the Florida DEP secretary, said the state also plans to sue HRK Holdings, which bought the Piney Point property in 2006 and promised a cleanup. Instead, the company filed for bankruptcy following a 2011 spill of 170m gallons.

Living near a US toxic waste site could shave a year off your life, study finds

Superfund sites are scattered across America: they’re places like landfills and manufacturing plants so contaminated with hazardous waste that the federal government has designated them a national priority to clean up. And according to a new, large-scale study, living near one can shave months – and in some cases, more than a year – off how long you live.

After Hurricane Harvey made landfall in south-east Texas in 2017, the University of Houston’s Hanadi Rifai began research along the 50-mile-long Houston Ship Channel, the petrochemical industry’s main artery. Rifai and her colleagues noticed how neighborhoods adjacent to hazardous waste sites, such as where the San Jacinto River meets the channel, seemed to have a lower life expectancy. “That got us interested in a more comprehensive [national] study,” Rifai said.

In a first-of-its-kind study out Tuesday in Nature Communications, Rifai and a team of researchers found that living in a zip code in close proximity to a Superfund site may decrease average life expectancy by 0.2 years. It could be up to a year in socioeconomically challenged communities, says Rifai, who is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the study’s lead author.

In places with an even higher concentration of waste sites, like Texas’s Harris County, where Rifai lives, “we’re not talking 0.2 [years] – we’re talking a few years.”

Wisconsin poised for devastating wildfire season as hundreds of blazes rage

Wisconsin is on track to see its worst fire season in more than five years, officials say, after hundreds of unseasonal blazes prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency. In just the first four months of the year, Wisconsin has lost nearly as much acreage to wildfires as it did in all of 2020. Since January, 365 wildfires have flared across the midwestern state, burning more than 1,500 acres, and 162 of those fires have ignited since the start of April alone.

While no fatalities have been reported from this year’s fires, 26 structures have been lost, according to the state’s department of natural resources (DNR), and officials say it is unusual to have seen so many fires sparked this early in the spring.

Below-average precipitation, coupled with snowpack that melted early, meant fire season arrived about two weeks earlier than usual, said Marc Sass, cooperative area forest ranger with the state’s DNR. ...

While midwestern states are generally wetter and less prone to wildfires than western states, rural forestlands in Minnesota and Wisconsin are susceptible to destructive fires in dry conditions. The Peshtigo fire of 1871, the deadliest fire in US history, occurred in north-eastern Wisconsin, near Green Bay. The fire scorched more than 1m acres and killed as many as 2,500 people. ...

Between 2016 and 2020, Wisconsin averaged 742 fires per year and lost 1,200 acres to fires. This year, 365 fires have consumed 1,518 acres, according to DNR tracking. There are no fires actively burning in the state.

Also of Interest

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

Western Media Eager to See Ukraine Use US-Supplied Weapons Against Russia

Facing the Facts of War with Russia

U.S., NATO Give Up - Will Leave Afghanistan By September 11

Due Process Is Good, He Said Controversially

Margin Debt Has Exploded by 49 Percent in One Year to $814 Billion. The Actual Figure May Be in the Trillions. Here’s Why.

Hundreds capture spectacular fireball passing uncomfortably close to Earth

Bernie Madoff, mastermind of worst financial crime in US history, dies in prison

Krystal and Saagar: Who Ordered Capitol Police To STAND DOWN On 1/6?

Krystal & Saagar: Jon Stewart SHAMES Congress AGAIN For Not Passing 'Burn Pits' Veterans Healthcare

Krystal and Saagar: Did Fauci, CDC SCREW UP By Pausing J&J Vaccine?

A Little Night Music

Houston Stackhouse - Big Road Blues

Houston Stackhouse - Return Mail

Houston Stackhouse - My Babe

Houston Stackhouse - Bricks In My Pillow

Houston Stackhouse - Crying

Houston Stackhouse - I'm Gettin' Tired

Houston Stackhouse, Robert Nighthawk & Peck Curtis - Right round the corner

Houston Stackhouse, Robert Nighthawk & Peck Curtis - Cool Water Blues

Houston Stackhouse - Sweet Home Chicago

Houston Stackhouse - Mean Red Spider