Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features soul singer Otis Clay. Enjoy!

“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”

-- George Bernard Shaw

News and Opinion

Grrrr... not going to let go of this bone, dammit!

Biden: Ukraine invasion still ‘distinctly possible’ despite Russian claims

Joe Biden has claimed that 150,000 Russian troops remain in a “threatening position” around Ukraine, despite Russian claims of a withdrawal, and he warned that an invasion “remains distinctly possible”. In a televised address from the White House on Tuesday afternoon, Biden combined a repeated offer of security talks with a warning of severe repercussions if Russia carries out an attack that US intelligence has reportedly assessed could take place as early as Wednesday.

He said he would “rally the world” to oppose Russian military action but made clear that the response would be primarily economic, saying: “I will not send American servicemen to fight in Ukraine.” But he made clear that any attack on Nato territory or harm to Americans would be treated differently.

“We’re not seeking direct confrontation with Russia, though I’ve been clear that if Russia targets Americans and Ukraine, we will respond forcefully,” Biden said. “If Russia attacks the United States or our allies through asymmetric means, like disruptive cyber-attacks against our companies or critical infrastructure, we’re prepared to respond.”

Earlier in the day, the websites run by the Ukrainian defence ministry, the armed forces and the country’s largest commercial bank, PrivatBank, were closed down after a cyber-attack. The Washington Post cited intelligence sources as saying the attack was probably the work of Russian government hackers, but the White House said it could not comment on attribution.

Ukrainian Pacifist’s Message to the World: U.S., NATO & Russia Share Responsibility to Avoid War

Duma manoeuvre points to Kremlin impatience in Ukraine standoff

Russian lawmakers have passed a direct appeal to Vladimir Putin to recognise the Russian-controlled separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk, providing a way to up the ante in the regional crisis without launching an attack on Ukraine. Putin has said he will not immediately recognise the so-called republics but he is likely to wield that option as a bargaining chip as he continues to demand security guarantees from the west.

The stage-managed manoeuvre unfolded on Tuesday as Putin also confirmed a “partial” withdrawal of Russian forces from the Ukrainian border, a decision that would reduce the potential for a war if it involves a large number of troops. It is not yet clear that it will. ...

The Minsk ceasefire deal signed in 2015 formalised a plan to reinsert the Donbas territories into Ukraine but give them a veto over Kyiv’s foreign policy choices, including potential accession to Nato. But the deal has stalled over ceasefire violations, disagreements about what steps to take first, and a growing belief in Ukraine that the deal was signed at gunpoint and is no longer politically viable.

Hawkish officials and prominent figures in Russia such as the head of RT, Margarita Simonyan, have called for recognition of the regions’ independence. But that is far from a popular sentiment and would remove a key element of the Kremlin’s leverage over Ukraine by killing the Minsk deal.

Ukraine crisis: Moscow announces end of Crimea drills, NATO unconvinced

“Russian Propaganda” Means Disputing US Propaganda

The Associated Press has published yet another article based on unevidenced assertions by anonymous government officials about the scary horrifying frightening Russian menace, this time to accuse another media outlet of promoting propaganda. Without a trace of irony.

“U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians have taken direction from Russian spies,” AP reports. “The officials said Zero Hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers, published articles created by Moscow-controlled media that were then shared by outlets and people unaware of their nexus to Russian intelligence. The officials did not say whether they thought Zero Hedge knew of any links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia.”

“The officials briefed The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence sources,” AP adds, repeating the refrain we’re all familiar with now which is always used to justify a complete absence of evidence or accountability for incendiary claims about governments the United States doesn’t like.

So @joebiden’s spooks are smearing random websites as Russian agents if they challenge White House warmongering and lies. A direct government attack on free speech. https://t.co/AK79MPdldp

— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) February 15, 2022

You have to scroll down to the eleventh paragraph for some examples of the “Kremlin propaganda” that Zero Hedge is accused of “amplifying”. These turn out to be entirely innocuous objections to western imperial narratives that were “written by people affiliated with the Strategic Culture Foundation,” an outlet the Biden administration sanctioned last year “for allegedly taking part in Russia’s interference in the 2020 U.S. election.”

“Recent articles listed as authored by the foundation and published by Zero Hedge include those with the headlines: ‘NATO Sliding Towards War Against Russia In Ukraine,’ ‘Americans Need A Conspiracy Theory They Can All Agree On’ and ‘Theater Of Absurd… Pentagon Demands Russia Explain Troops On Russian Soil,’” writes AP’s Nomaan Merchant.

You can read those three articles AP lists by clicking here, here and here respectively. Decide for yourself if these are sinister foreign psyops which require the urgent attention of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world acting in concert with one of the most influential news agencies on earth, or if they are not in fact relatively reasonable opinions which only stand out because they fall outside the Overton window of what’s considered acceptable debate in the tightly controlled spectrum of mainstream political discourse.

For its own part, Zero Hedge says that “this website has never worked, collaborated or cooperated with Russia, nor are there any links to spy (or any other) agencies.” The Associated Press offers no evidence or arguments to the contrary.

Zero Hedge happens to be one of the numerous outlets who periodically avail themselves of my open offer for anyone to republish my work free of charge if they want to, and what’s funny is I was just the other day noticing the number of views they get when they do so and marvelling that the US narrative control machine hasn’t done a better job of reducing their audience. Now a few days later here’s the US intelligence cartel using its media mouthpieces to brand it a Kremlin propaganda operation in what Electronic Intifada director Ali Abunimah calls a “direct government attack on free speech.”

I’ve disagreed with plenty of things I’ve seen published in Zero Hedge. I’ve also seen a lot of very useful information which is highly inconvenient for the US-centralized empire. It’s that exact kind of information that the empire has been working very hard to marginalize and minimize amid widespread public access to the internet.

The US government is not actually worried about Russian propaganda. The US government is worried about people disrupting US propaganda. Every day we’re offered new reasons why it’s important to regulate what online materials are seen by people, from fake news clickbait to Russian propaganda to Covid misinformation to foreign trolls to domestic extremism to election security, and the only thing they all have in common is that the solution is a more tightly regulated internet. At a certain point you can only conclude it is internet regulation itself that they are after, in the same way you’d conclude after a stranger kept offering you different reasons why you should let him hold your wallet that he’s really just after your wallet.

NBC Caught Pushing Neo-Nazi Propaganda w/Aaron Mate'

Biden’s Multi-Billion Afghan Theft Gets Scant Mention on TV News

Two months ago (FAIR.org, 12/21/21), I noted the striking contrast between vocal media outrage—ostensibly grounded in concern for Afghan people—over President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and the relative silence over the growing humanitarian crisis in that country, which threatens millions with life-threatening levels of famine.

While influenced by drought and Taliban policies, the current crisis is primarily driven by the US decisions to freeze the assets of the country’s central bank and maintain economic sanctions, which have destabilized the banking system and sent the economy into a tailspin.

Last Friday, Biden announced his intention to take the $7 billion in frozen funds currently held in US banks and use them as he sees fit, giving half to a humanitarian aid trust fund for Afghans and half to families of 9/11 victims.

Lest anyone imagine this to be generous in any way, note that the $7 billion—most of which originated as international aid, and representing the vast majority of the central bank’s assets—belongs to the Afghan people, not to Biden. And the Afghan people bear zero responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. On the contrary, they are also its victims, because of the subsequent US decision to invade and occupy their country.

Beyond that, giving them back half of the money that is rightfully theirs in the form of “aid”—instead of returning it to the banking system—is not only a band-aid that doesn’t solve the country’s liquidity problem, it’s nearly impossible to do anyway, given the sanctions still in place (Relief Web, 2/12/21).

Biden’s announcement offered a perfect hook for reporting on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and anyone who truly cares about the Afghan people and their rights should be tearing their hair out and screaming at the top of their lungs about this audacious injustice that will surely result in more deaths and hardship. But despite their wailing about the Taliban’s impact on Afghan women’s futures, few in US TV news seem concerned about those same women facing starvation as a result of US policy.

Since Biden’s announcement on February 11, there have been a total of 10 mentions on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and MSNBC: six the day of the announcement, four the next day, and none by the third day. The broadcast network news shows, which have more viewers than cable news, aired exactly zero reports on the issue. CNN made eight mentions, MSNBC two and Fox one. Six of the ten were brief mentions that noted no criticism of the move.

Only two shows deemed the story big enough to bring on a guest to discuss it: Jake Tapper‘s CNN show (2/11/22) and Chris Hayes‘ MSNBC show (2/11/22). Hayes devoted the last several minutes of his show to an interview with guest Masuda Sultan of the group Unfreeze Afghanistan. Hayes noted that the US “could help [the Afghan] people by simply doing one thing, unfreezing of the billions of dollars of Afghan government assets that are sitting in New York banks,” and Sultan argued that Biden’s move would simply create “a bigger and bigger humanitarian disaster, by not allowing banking to function and not allowing the economy to be back on its feet”:

What Afghans need more than anything, is food, indeed, they need aid, but they also need jobs, they need an economy, they need to be able to import food, they need to be able to pay their teachers, pay their healthcare workers. You know, all of these sort of normal functions that you expect to happen in a country are now crippled.

Tapper, in contrast, invited a family member of a 9/11 victim for her perspective on the decision. (Tapper did ask his guest to respond to “the people who say this is just penalizing this move today, the Afghan people who are suffering greatly, and they shouldn’t be hurt because of what happened on 9/11.”)

CNN‘s Newsroom (2/11/22) and New Day Saturday (2/12/22) were the only other two shows to even briefly mention any criticisms or questions about the legitimacy or efficacy of the decision.

On Newsroom, reporter Jeremy Diamond noted that “there are questions, though, about whether taking these funds away from the central bank could make it more difficult for Afghanistan to stabilize its currency.”

A serious report would have explained that these aren’t merely questions, they’re certainties, and Biden knows it. As a senior Democratic foreign policy aide told the Intercept‘s Austin Ahlman (2/11/22), Biden

has had warnings from the UN secretary general, the International Rescue Committee and the Red Cross, with a unanimous consensus that the liquidity of the central bank is of paramount importance, and no amount of aid can compensate for the destruction of Afghanistan’s financial system and the whole macro economy.

On CNN, Diamond’s colleague Jim Sciutto concluded: “Trying to strike some sort of middle line here between not helping the Taliban, but somehow getting help urgently to the Afghan people.”

It’s the best possible framing a murderous multi-billion-dollar theft could get.

"It Can't Be Illegal to Help a People": The US Persecution of Alex Saab

“It’s not a crime to fulfill a diplomatic mission. It’s not a crime to evade sanctions that are harming an entire country. It can’t be illegal to help a people.” Camilla Fabri Saab made these impassioned remarks when explaining the situation behind the illegal arrest and extradition - the kidnapping, in essence - of her husband, Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab.

Alex Saab is virtually unknown in the United States, where he is currently languishing in a Miami prison, but he has been vital to Venezuela’s ability to survive the brutal economic war being waged by the U.S. He is a political prisoner whose case has parallels to that of Julian Assange. Both have been subjected to extraterritorial reach by U.S. authorities, as neither are U.S. citizens, and their alleged crimes took place outside of the country. Assange is in jail for telling the truth. Saab is in jail for helping feed Venezuelans.

Saab faces a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering for his involvement in Venezuela’s housing program and was sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2019 for his work with Venezuela’s CLAP, a program that sends food and other necessities to Venezuelan families.

Routinely referred to in the media as a Colombian businessman, Saab has dual Venezuela-Colombian citizenship and is a diplomat. He was appointed as a Venezuelan special envoy in April 2018, more than two years before his arrest. Under the Vienna Convention and the U.S. Diplomatic Relations Act, a diplomat cannot be arrested by a foreign power. This includes diplomats who are in transit between the sending and receiving countries, Venezuela and Iran, in Saab’s case.

Alex Saab was flying from Venezuela to Iran when his plane stopped to refuel in Cabo Verde, an island country off the western coast of Africa. He was arrested without a warrant and held in Cabo Verde for nearly 500 days as a protracted battle over his extradition to the U.S. played out in the courts. He was beaten, denied medical care and held in isolation. Cabo Verde ignored a ruling from a regional court ordering his release, as well as a decision by the United Nations Human Rights Committee suspending his extradition. Neither his family nor his lawyers were informed of his extradition until after it occurred.

In short, Saab was kidnapped twice: once when his plane was refueling and again when he was spirited to the U.S.

The U.S. argues that the extradition was legal and that any violation of the Vienna Convention was committed by Cabo Verde. David Rivkin, one of Saab’s attorneys, says the fact that “Cabo Verde absolutely violated its legal obligation does not provide any excuse for the United States.” He describes the case against Saab as “unprecedented,” given the broad and protective view the U.S. has typically held on diplomatic immunity. Saab has an April appearance in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on this very issue.

“The U.S. cannot have a world in which third countries can molest U.S. diplomats and if you establish a rule that says third country diplomats can be molested by the United States, it is inevitable that the same would happen to U.S. diplomats. This prosecution is not based on the law and is not in the long-term interests of the United States itself,” Rivkin explains.

Beyond the crucial issue of diplomatic immunity, the charges and case against Saab are clearly political. For years, the U.S. has gone after key figures in Venezuela, including putting bounties on President Maduro and others, as part of its attempts to overthrow the government. These attempts, which include waging a barbaric and illegal economic war that has decimated Venezuela’s economy, led to increased migration and caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans. Camila Saab rightfully calls U.S. sanctions an “act of war against the entire Venezuelan population.”

Her husband played a key role in mitigating the disastrous consequences of the sanctions. He first became involved with Venezuela by winning contracts for the Great Housing Mission, a government social program that has built 3.9 million homes for working class Venezuelans since 2011, the majority of those with the country under sanctions. Saab later won contracts for Venezuela’s CLAP program, through which 7 million Venezuelan families receive boxes of food and essential goods each month.

The sanctions not only make life difficult for Venezuelans, they make it a challenge to do business with Venezuela. Banks refuse to carry out transactions (even when they’re perfectly legal). Insurance companies raise prices or back out altogether. Shipping companies raise rates. Vendors demand cash and won’t operate on credit. Instead of pulling out from Venezuela, as many businesses did, Saab decided to stick with the Veneuzelan people and went from the private sector into the public one, becoming a diplomat tasked with finding “practical solutions” to the “economic and financial blockade” imposed on Venezuela since 2015, which included brokering trade deals with Iran.

The economic relationship with Iran has been critical in helping with the recuperation of Venezuela’s oil industry, and by extension, its economy. Saab played a critical role in trade agreements between Iran and Venezuela for everything from gasoline and spare parts to food and medicine. According to Forbes, Saab was a target of the U.S. because he had “the means and know-how to help discreetly keep an entire economy moving under the eyes of a watching world.”

Saab has denied the allegations against him and points to a Swiss investigation that was dropped after three years due to a lack of evidence. “The merits of the charges are weak on their face. They involve activities that did not take place in the United States and their connection to the U.S. is very tenuous,” says attorney David Rivkin.

His arrest in Cabo Verde, at the behest of the U.S. government, came just months after Trump announced a “maximum pressure” campaign on Venezuela. His extradition to the U.S. derailed the dialogue between the Venezuelan government and opposition. The U.S. now plans to “pressure” Saab “to shed light on Venezuela’s post-sanction economic network,” according to Forbes. After enduring torture in Cabo Verde, the word pressure is an understatement.

“Since the day he flew to Iran, they have persecuted all of us. We have been harassed in the media, they have demonized us, they have not let us see him,” Camilla Saab said, describing what her family has been through.

A cancer survivor, Alex Saab hasn’t been able to take his daily medicines since his arrest. He’s lost 65 pounds. His parents died of COVID-19 while he was imprisoned in Cabo Verde. His adult children were sanctioned by the Trump administration. His youngest daughter has never met him. Yet in all of his communications, Saab maintains his allegiance to the Venezuelan people.

In persecuting him, Camila Saab believes the U.S. is sending a message: “They’re trying to intimidate but the Venezuelan people resist and continue in their fight for sovereignty. The U.S. is not the world’s police force. Free Alex Saab!”

Ex-president arrested in Honduras as US requests extradition on drugs charges

Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández has been arrested, a day after the US Department of Justice requested his extradition over drug trafficking and weapons charges, culminating a spectacular fall from grace for a man who was once considered one of Washington’s top allies in Central America.

On Tuesday afternoon Hernández left his home in a wealthy neighborhood in the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa, where he was cuffed at the hands and feet and provided a bullet-proof vest before being taken away in a police caravan to a special forces base. He will appear before a judge for his first hearing within 24 hours.

According to the extradition request submitted to Honduras, Hernández was part of a “violent drug-trafficking” conspiracy that trafficked roughly 500,000 kilos of cocaine since 2004.

The long-rumored indictment comes just over two weeks after Hernández, 53, left office and strikes a critical blow to the reputation of a former president who had been praised early in his presidency by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for his government’s efforts to extradite drug traffickers. ...

Formal accusations of Hernández’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking first came to light in August 2019 when he was named in a court filing as a co-conspirator of his brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, who was arrested while visiting the United States. During the subsequent trial, prosecutors accused the brothers of overseeing a scheme that they described as “state-sponsored drug trafficking”. Tony Hernández was convicted on drug trafficking conspiracy and related weapons charges. He was sentenced last year to life in prison.

Senators REVEAL Illegal CIA Spying On Americans

US Amazon warehouse workers prepare for historic union vote

Workers at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, have begun the rerun of a historic union election after the US labor regulator ruled Amazon’s conduct had interfered with a previous election in 2021 and ordered a new vote. ...

If successful, the warehouse would be the first Amazon facility to unionize in the US. Employees said that Amazon – which now employs more than 1 million people in the US – is fighting hard to make sure this vote also fails, but some are feeling more confident the second time around.

Darryl Richardson, an employee at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer for two years, said workers and organizers are now more apt to resist Amazon’s union-busting efforts. “They’re still using the same scare tactics they used last time, but due to the first election, you have employees who understand and know that Amazon isn’t telling them the truth,” said Richardson. “I feel better this time than I did the first time. Employees have been voicing their opinions and standing strong this election.”

More than 6,100 workers are eligible to vote in the union election, which will determine if workers will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Due to high employee turnover, almost half of the eligible workers in this election were not working at Amazon during the first union election.

Ballots were sent to Alabama workers on 4 February, with ballots due to be returned by 25 March. Results will be tallied beginning on 28 March.

Capitol attack investigators target Trump circle over fake elector ploy

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack issued subpoenas on Tuesday to top Trump campaign and Republican officials involved in the scheme to send false electors for Donald Trump in states won by Joe Biden, as it examines the coordination behind the effort.

The panel sent subpoenas to six individuals who were involved in a brazen attempt to meet and submit fake electoral college certificates that formed the backbone of a Trump-connected scheme to have Congress return the former president to office.

Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, suggested in a statement that the subpoenas aimed to compel cooperation from the key actors about whether the Trump White House oversaw the effort to have so-called alternate electors participate in the scheme. ...

The second set of subpoenas to people involved in the scheme comes weeks after the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, confirmed that the justice department had opened its own investigation into the matter, raising the stakes for the fake electors and the Trump White House.

Pffftt!!! As if it existed now.

Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Very real risk’ US democracy won’t exist in 10 years

The progressive New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes the Republican-led pressure on political systems is so great that there is “a very real risk” democracy will cease to exist in the US within a decade.

The leftist Democratic politician derided efforts by Republican legislatures around the country to restrict voting rights as the “opening salvos” in a war on democracy, which she said could result in a return to the Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement of racial minorities.

In the interview with the New Yorker, she warned that the clock was ticking for Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders to do anything about it, with huge chunks of the president’s agenda, including legislation to protect voting rights, stalled in Congress by more conservative or moderate members of her own party.

“Honestly, it is a shitshow,” Ocasio-Cortez said of working in the same Democratic-controlled Congress in which centrist senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have blocked both electoral reforms and Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better social spending initiative.

“We don’t have much time,” she said. “The president has not been using his executive power to the extent that some would say is necessary.”

NOAA Predicts One-Foot Sea-Level Rise by 2050

Ocean levels along the U.S. coastline are projected to rise by an average of 10 to 12 inches over the next three decades, worsening the threat of flooding in dozens of highly populated cities, according to a new report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal agencies.

The additional foot of sea-level rise that millions in the U.S. are predicted to face by mid-century is equivalent to the amount experienced in the previous hundred years—a manifestation of the climate crisis that scientists attribute to unmitigated greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

This intensification of rising seas "will create a profound increase in the frequency of coastal flooding, even in the absence of storms or heavy rainfall," said NOAA.

"By 2050, moderate flooding⁠—which is typically disruptive and damaging by today's weather, sea-level, and infrastructure standards—is expected to occur more than 10 times as often as it does today," Nicole LeBoeuf, NOAA National Ocean Service director, said in a statement. "These numbers mean a change from a single event every two to five years to multiple events each year, in some places."

William Sweet, an oceanographer at the NOAA National Ocean Service, told the Washington Post that "we're unfortunately headed for a flood regime shift."

"There will be water in the streets unless action is taken in more and more communities," warned Sweet.

Using evidence gleaned from tidal gauges and satellite imagery, as well as models from the most recent United Nations report on climate change, the NOAA-led analysis provides decade-by-decade projections for sea-level rise for all U.S. states and territories over the next century and beyond.

Thanks to methodological advances, the authors were able to make more definitive estimates than they did in a 2017 study on the topic, and this new information powers a number of tools, including the NOAA Sea-Level Rise Viewer designed to make "actionable climate data accessible to those who need it."

Patterns will vary regionally due to changes in land and ocean height. According to the new report, residents of the Gulf Coast should anticipate 14 to 18 inches of sea-level rise, compared with 10 to 14 inches for the East Coast, eight to 10 inches for the Caribbean and northern Alaska, six to eight inches for the Hawaiian Islands, and four to eight inches for the West Coast.

Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Post that research she and colleagues have conducted suggests that 10 to 12 inches of sea-level rise by 2050 would threaten approximately 140,000 homes with "chronic inundation," or flooding every other week on average.

Citing Dahl, the Post reported that "high-tide flooding in places such as Charleston, South Carolina, has quadrupled in frequency since the 1970s. Other communities, from Louisiana to New Jersey to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, have wrestled with flooding that has become more common and costly."

"They're already having to make difficult decisions or major investments to cope with the flooding they are seeing," said Dahl, who was not involved in Tuesday's report. Although some coastal communities have so far avoided substantial damage, "they will have to start grappling with these same kinds of issues."

While NOAA makes clear that the trajectory for sea-level rise over the next 30 years is all but certain based on past GHG emissions, Dahl stressed that this only underscores the importance of rapidly moving away from fossil fuels and implementing other significant political and economic changes.

Wood burners emit more particle pollution than traffic, UK data shows

Wood burning in homes produces more small particle pollution than all road traffic in the UK, according to revised government data.

The new data significantly cuts the estimated proportion of small particle pollution that comes from wood burners from 38% to 17%. But wood burning pollution remains a “major contributor” to particle pollution, another government report said. Road transport is responsible for 13% of particle pollution.

The data shows tiny particle pollution, called PM2.5, produced by wood burning rose by a third from 2010 to 2020, when it reached 13,900 tonnes a year. This all comes from the 8% of homes that have wood burners, 95% of which have other sources of heating. The data revision was made after a survey of 50,000 homes provided updated information on the use of wood stoves.

Particle pollution is well known to damage health and cause early deaths. “These toxins may enter the bloodstream and be transported around the body, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs,” the report said. “Therefore, exposure can result in serious impacts to health.”

The report also found that since the late 2000s, significant decreases in particle pollution from coal burning, industry and vehicles have been “largely offset by increases in emissions from wood burning in domestic settings and [biomass] burning by industry”.

Elon Musk’s brain chip company, Neuralink, faces animal abuse claims

Elon Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink is defending itself against claims that its researchers abused monkeys in the testing of its products.

Neuralink – which hopes to create a revolutionary interface that would allow humans to control devices with their brains – said in a statement on Monday that its research animals were “respected and honored by our team”. The company was responding to allegations that the animals were tortured and left to die in horrific experiments at its facilities.

In a lengthy complaint filed with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) said the research caused “extreme suffering” in its test subjects, who “had their brains mutilated in shoddy experiments and were left to suffer and die”. PCRM is a non-profit advocacy organization that promotes a plant-based diet and alternatives to animal testing. The complaint targets a partnership between Neuralink and the University of California, Davis that was carried out between 2017 and 2020, in which researchers implanted a device “approximately the size of a quarter” into the skull of macaque monkey test subjects.

PCRM obtained hundreds of pages of health records, necropsy reports and other documents related to the $1.4m partnership through California’s open records laws. It said the documents reveal the monkeys suffered “extreme psychological distress” from the “crude surgeries”.

In the complaint, PCRM said Neuralink used a substance known as “BioGlue” that destroyed parts of the monkeys’ brains. It described animals exhibiting substantial psychological effects from the experiments, including anxiety, vomiting, poor appetite, hair loss and self-mutilating behavior including removing their own fingers.

Also of Interest

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

60 Years of War-Making May Yet Result in the Destruction of US Democracy

UK Denies It Agreed to Train Neo-Nazi Linked Ukraine Unit

The Big White House Plans Behind Its 'Russian Invasion' Scam

Twenty years on, we haven’t closed the book on America’s torture program

Since the Fed Announced It Was “Tapering” Last November, It’s Actually Added $332 Billion in Liquidity with New Debt Security Purchases

Private equity’s dirty dozen: the 12 US firms funding dirty energy projects

Peasants Marginalized by Big Farms

Third person apparently cured of HIV using novel stem cell transplant

Did Justin Trudeau Just Make The Case For Crypto?

Lawyer Who Left WH LAST MONTH Up For Massive 9/11 Family Payout From Seized Afghan Assets: Ryan Grim

Marianne Williamson: Cancel Culture, Purity Tests Detrimental To Left-Wing Political Efforts

A Little Night Music

Otis Clay - Trying To Live My Life Without You

Otis Clay - I Testify

Otis Clay - A Lasting Love

Otis Clay - It’s Easier Said, Than Done

Otis Clay - Do Right Woman, Do Right Man

Otis Clay - I'm Qualified

Otis Clay - She's about a mover

Otis Clay - Pouring Water on a Drowning Man

Otis Clay - Victim Of Circumstance

Billy Price & Otis Clay - A Nickel and a Nail

Otis Clay - Piece Of My Heart