Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues guitarist Robert Johnson. Enjoy!

"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly."

-- Isaac Asimov

News and Opinion

Perfect:

Harris Says “Far Too Many Civilians Have Been Killed” In Genocide She Supports

“Far too many children have been eaten by hyenas,” the politician sobbed to the news camera while lowering more children into the hyena pit.

“Finally, a candidate who cares deeply about those poor children who keep getting killed by hyenas,” said Sally, turning up the volume on the television.

“What do you mean? She’s literally lowering those children into the hyena pit while she says that,” Phil objected.

“Okay but have you seen what the other candidate is saying?” Sally replied. “He says it’s good that the children are being eaten!”

“It’s such a sad and tragic tragedy,” the politician on TV shouted over the sound of screaming children. “We urgently need to get to the bottom of this problem.”

“Look, she just called it a tragedy,” said Sally. “The other candidate doesn’t think it’s sad or tragic at all.”

“But the end result is the same!” Phil exclaimed in exasperation. “In both cases the children are being killed, but when she kills them she’s acting sad about it!”

“She’s not killing the children, the hyenas are,” objected Sally. “Blame them!”

“Yeah but the hyenas couldn’t kill the children without her help,” Phil retorted.

“Well the hyenas have a right to eat,” said Sally. “What are you, anti-wildlife?”

“Oh my god, you ALWAYS accuse me of hating all wildlife when I object to our government’s policy of feeding children to hungry hyenas kept in a pit that was constructed for that specific purpose!”

“Okay well then if you’re not anti-wildlife I don’t understand why you’re so fixated on this one specific issue, Phil. There are other issues like reproductive rights, fiscal policy, and immigration reform you could be focusing on, but all you want to talk about is this small pit of hyenas which our government officials happen to lower a cage full of children into every morning.”

“Well maybe I don’t feel comfortable supporting anyone who’s going to feed children to hyenas at all, regardless of what words they happen to be saying about it and what emotions they happen to be expressing while doing so.”

“Look, she’s just making hard choices within the framework of the political realities of our day. If she stopped feeding children to the hyenas altogether, the hyena lobby would never let her become president.”

“Well then maybe that’s the problem, Sally! Maybe the problem is that we have a system that only lets us choose between politicians who want to feed children to hyenas! Maybe we should be fighting the fact that powerful interest groups exert so much control over our electoral and governmental systems that they can force the advancement of extremely depraved agendas with no accountability to the electorate, instead of fighting over which child killer we should be electing to lower children into the hyena pit!”

“What I’m hearing is that you want the guy who doesn’t say compassionate things about dying children to win, AND you also hate wildlife.”

“I’m turning off the TV, Sally.”

“Pieces of People”: Israeli Strike on Gaza School Kills 100+, Bodies Destroyed Beyond Recognition

Children Among 100 Killed by Israel Bombing of Gaza School Just Hours After US Weapons Approval

Just hours after the Biden administration Friday announced approval of $3.5 billion in military funds for Israel and shipments for new weaponry, an Israeli bombing of a school-turned-shelter in Gaza has killed 100 people or more, including scores of civilian men, women, and children in what was described as a "bloody massacre" that struck during morning prayers, leaving body parts scattered "in pieces" and healthcare workers overwhelmed with the dead and wounded.

The Palestinian Authority's Fatah government in the Occupied West Bank released a statement Saturday describing the attack on the al-Tabin school in Gaza City as a "heinous bloody massacre" that represents the "peak of terrorism and criminality" by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Committing these massacres confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt its efforts to exterminate our people through the policy of cumulative killing and mass massacres that make living consciences tremble," said the PA.

Footage taken by volunteers working alongside Palestinian medical units in Gaza City showed wounded small children and adults being taken to local hospitals as well as scenes of carnage from the scene of the bombing [Warning: Images are graphic]. Gaza journalist Motasem A. Dalloul also posted his reporting from the scene, including footage of the carnage [Also graphic].

Thousands flee Khan Younis after Israel warns of new offensive

Thousands of people have fled the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis after the Israeli military warned of a new operation to flush out Hamas militants that it says have regrouped there.

In al-Jala, a neighbourhood in the south of the city that the Israel Defense Forces had previously designated a humanitarian zone, residents on Sunday packed their belongings, uncertain where to seek refuge. Israel said rockets had been fired from the area.

“We don’t know where to go,” Amal Abu Yahia, a 42-year-old mother of three, told the Associated Press news agency. She took her children to al-Mawasi, a crammed tent camp by the coast, but could not find anywhere to shelter there. Her husband was killed when an Israeli airstrike hit their neighbours’ house in March, but they had returned to Khan Younis in June to shelter in their severely damaged home. “This is my fourth displacement,” she said.

Vast swaths of Gaza have been bombed to rubble: Khan Younis suffered widespread destruction during the IDF’s months-long battle to take the city at the beginning of the year. Israeli troops are increasingly being forced to return to areas that had been previous targets for intense fighting, re-engaging Hamas and other militants that have regrouped in urban areas.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a post on “The people of Gaza are trapped & have nowhere to go. Just in the past few days, more than 75,000 people have been displaced in southwest Gaza. Some are only able to carry their children with them, some carry their whole lives in one small bag. They are going to overcrowded places where shelters are already overflowing.”

Does Israel's use of a 'self-defence' narrative mean an endless cycle of war?

Palestinians Say US Responsible for Latest 'Massacre' of Children in Gaza

The office of the Palestinian Authority's president is holding the U.S. government responsible for a weekend bombing in Gaza that killed an estimated 100 people, including at least 11 children. The victims of the attack on the al-Tabin school were blown to 'pieces,' according to video evidence and on-the-ground reporting, when U.S.-provided missiles were fired on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.

In the wake of the attack that stirred global outrage and condemnation Saturday, the Palestinian presidency's spokesperson Nabih Abu Rudeineh condemned the massacre and said the PA held the Biden administration "responsible for the massacre due to its financial, military, and political support for Israel."

Rudeineh demanded the U.S. pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cease indiscriminate attacks that have left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians dead, wounded, and displaced over recent months. In addition, he said, the U.S. must conform to international law by ending its "blind support" to Israel "that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly."

As Common Dreams previously reported, the bombing of the al-Tabin school complex came just hours after the U.S. State Department announced the release of $3.5 billion in military aid for Israel and made new weapons transfers available to help refresh the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stockpiles.

"U.S. funding of Israeli genocide is ballooning as the Israeli army uses ever more lethal bombs," said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, in an online post Sunday. "The ones used yesterday in the Al-Tabin School massacre sliced bodies to the point of making them unrecognizable. They are now identified by weight: 70kg bag = 1 adult. Revolting."

A journalist asked me how I "feel" about Gaza today. How am I supposed to feel in the face of a Western-sponsored army relentlessly butchering people trapped in what resembles a circle of Dante's Hell?

I feel sick. https://t.co/ts5Cc1ay9u

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) August 10, 2024

The head of Gaza's Government Media Office told Al Jazeera that the three bombs dropped on the school weighed 2,000 pounds each, matching the size of the MK-84 munitions provided by the thousands to the IDF by the United States over the last year.

"Another day of horror in Gaza, another school hit with reports of dozens of Palestinian killed among them women, children and older people,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), Saturday in response to the attack. "It's time for these horrors unfolding under our watch to end. We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm. The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity."

The UN human rights office said the latest attack was "at least the 21st strike on a school, each serving as a shelter, that the UN [the agency] has recorded since 4 July. These strikes have resulted in at least 274 fatalities, including women and children."

Responding to claims by the IDF that the bombing was aimed at militants it claimed were using the facility, OHCHR said in a statement that "co-location by armed groups of military objectives with civilians" does not release Israel from its "obligation to comply strictly with [international humanitarian law], including the principles of proportionality, distinction and precaution when carrying out military operations. Israel, as the occupying power, is obliged to provide the population it has forcibly displaced with basic humanitarian needs, including safe shelter."

Asked about the situation in Gaza on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, said during a campaign stop in Phoenix, Arizona that she and President Joe Biden have been working "around the clock" to secure a ceasefire deal that would see the fighting end and Israeli hostages held by Hamas returned safely.

Specifically about Saturday's bombing of the school complex, Harris said, "Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed."

Despite global outrage over Saturday's attack, the Israeli military overnight Sunday issued new evacuation orders for southern Gaza.

Dear International Criminal Court judges,

It is now beyond dispute: Israel has set out systematically to eliminate every aspect of Palestinian life in Gaza. It is not just the 186,000 lives that the Lancet estimates to have been lost. It is more than that. You have already…

— Yanis Varoufakis (@yanisvaroufakis) August 10, 2024

[the rest of the tweet. -js]

witnessed:

1. The most intensive bombing of any densely populated urban area in living memory

2. The most deliberately targeted starvation of a population in post-WW2 history

3. The greatest number of journalists killed in any war worldwide

4. The largest number of UN staff killed in 10 months.

And that's not all: Israel attacks schools, universities, libraries, archives, cultural centres, heritage sites, mosques and churches. It assassinates professors and slaughters teachers, along with their students - often their entire families too.

When will you act?
If you don't, what is the point of having the ICC?
If you don't, is there a smidgeon of an iota of a possibility that anyone will take the ICC seriously in the future?

Alastair Crooke : Is Middle East War Inevitable?

Iran's war of nerves with neocons

Threat of Middle East war on hair-trigger as Israel kills Hamas official in Lebanon, US lifts ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia

The danger of a region-wide war in the Middle East continues to loom large, provoked by the aggressive actions of Israel and its American imperialist ally. On Friday, the Israel Defence Forces carried out the targeted killing of a Hamas official deep inside Lebanon, while a Reuters report revealed that Washington will lift a three-year ban on the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. The Israeli strike on a car killed Samer al-Hajj and two civilians near the Lebanese town of Sidon. Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from southern Lebanon, commented:

Sidon is roughly just over 50km [31 miles] from Lebanon’s southern border and around 40km [25 miles] from the capital, Beirut, and what it shows is that Israel is going deeper into Lebanon.

The killing of yet another senior Hamas official makes a mockery of the far-right Netanyahu government’s claim to be interested in negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas, not to mention the posturing by its imperialist backers in favour of a ceasefire. It comes less than two weeks after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, underscoring Israel’s deliberate policy of systematically wiping out the leadership of the organisation with which it is supposedly negotiating. ...

Washington views the war preparations with Iran as intimately connected to the other fronts of the global conflict in which it is engaged with the aim of subjugating its rivals in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. ... Responding to a report that Russian military personnel were in Iran to receive training on short-range Fath-360 ballistic missiles, a White House National Security Council spokesman menaced Tehran with the warning that the US and NATO “are prepared to deliver a swift and severe response if Iran were to move forward with such transfers.” ...

Recognising how close the region is to all-out war, Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is reportedly divided over how to respond to Haniyeh’s assassination. Although the targeted killing was a humiliation for the Iranian authorities that virtually compels them to respond, Pezeshkian is reportedly trying to convince the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps not to launch a direct strike on Israel for fear that it could trigger war. Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Pezeshkian would prefer instead to strike Mossad spy bases in neighbouring Azerbaijan or Iraq. Leading IRGC officials are in favour of striking military facilities in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities in alliance with Hezbollah.

Ukraine INVADES RUSSIA With US Backing

Larry Johnson : Did Ukraine Really Invade Russia?

Ukrainian attack on Kursk prompts media calls for US escalation against Russia

Ukraine extended its offensive into the Kursk region of Russia for a fourth day Friday, continuing to advance despite claims by Russian officials that the offensive had been contained. ... Ukrainian, US and NATO officials have been largely silent on the operational details of the offensive, leaving social media footage as the only general indicator of the situation.

On Friday, footage published on social media and allegedly verified by US news outlets showed the aftermath of a Ukrainian attack on an armored infantry column of Russian reinforcements being transferred to the front. While no official figures were given, the footage showed approximately a dozen disabled vehicles and mass casualties, leading to speculation, as yet unverified, that the attack could have killed hundreds of Russian troops. Alexei Smirnov, governor of the Kursk region, said that the Russian federal government had declared a state of emergency and told residents to “stay calm and keep up your fighting spirit, support each other, do not give in to panic and despondency.” To date, approximately 3,000 Russians were reported to have been evacuated from the region.

Separately, Ukrainian troops published a video in which they claimed to have taken full control of the town of Sudzha, about six miles inside the Russian border, capturing a key natural gas facility.

The US media have responded to the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region with demands for a further loosening of the rules of engagement for targeting Russia with NATO weapons, bringing NATO and Russia closer to a direct confrontation. “Will the US help Kyiv stay on offense?,” the Wall Street Journal pressed in an editorial, demanding that the Biden administration cross more of its “red lines” for direct involvement in the war against a nuclear-armed state.

Matt Taibbi: Tulsi Gabbard HARASSED By TSA’s Creepy QUIET SKIES Surveillance Program

This soulless prick Gavin Newsom is what a Democrat leaders think will make a fine president some day.

Newsom Threatens to Defund California Counties That Don't Clear Homeless Encampments

After personally participating in the forced displacement of homeless people in a Los Angeles encampment, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to withhold funding from counties that don't sufficiently crack down on the unhoused.

Buoyed by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's recent City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson ruling—which was welcomed by Newsom and other Democratic leaders like San Francisco Mayor London Breed who filed amicus briefs in the case—the governor issued an executive order last month directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, which have proliferated amid rampant economic inequality and stratospheric housing prices in the nation's most populous state.

After taking part in a Thursday sweep of an encampment in Mission Hills in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, Newsom declared: "I want to see results... If we don't see demonstrable results, I'll start to redirect money."

Gavin Newsom hates homeless people so much he's literally removing their stuff himself.
Newsom has a personal net worth of more than $22 MILLION.
Preppy silver-spoon elites like Newsome are some of the most depraved in our society. https://t.co/kNaxVPKzcZ

— Zeynab Day (@ZeynabDay) August 9, 2024

Newsom praised leaders like Breed and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for reducing the number of people sleeping on their cities' streets and directed his ire mostly toward county governments.

"This is a sincerely held belief that we need local government to step up," the governor added. "This is a crisis. Act like it."

Newsom has made—and followed through on—similar promises in the past. Last month, his office redirected a $10 million grant for San Diego County to buy so-called "tiny homes" for the unhoused because officials there "could not move with the urgency the housing and homelessness crisis demands."

University of California, Los Angeles sociology professor and homelessness expert Chris Herring toldThe Guardian following Newsom's executive order that the directive is "giving a green light to a harsher approach" to tackling California's unhoused crisis, which critics say criminalizes people for being poor.

"It sends a clear message to municipalities that even if you do not have shelter available, you can go through with this," Herring said. "The law now allows cities and counties to cite and incarcerate individuals for sleeping outside."

In San Francisco—where Breed, a moderate Democrat, is up for reelection in November—police have begun aggressively sweeping homeless encampments. Unhoused residents are given a choice between capacity-challenged shelters, where they're often separated from family and pets and subjected to dangerous conditions, or jail.

This, in a city that's short several thousand shelter beds.

Some San Franciscans who initially supported police sweeps have recoiled when faced with what one small business owner called the "inhumane" reality of the policy.

As The San Francisco Standard's Christin Evans reported this week:

One woman described to me having her wallet—containing her ID, debit, and EBT cards—pulled from her hand as a police officer proceeded to "taunt" her with possible arrest. Why? Because she declined to accept a bed at a crowded shelter where she would be separated from her husband. A day later, police officers arrived at the site where the couple had relocated a few blocks away and issued a citation for illegal lodging. Now, the couple have a court date to address a "crime" that is punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.

Experts from across the political spectrum have asserted that homeless sweeps don't work. A study of Los Angeles' homeless population published in July by the Rand Corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank, found that cleared encampments generally return after a month or two.

"We found continuing evidence that local encampment cleanup activities don't appear to lead to a persistent reduction in the number of unsheltered residents in the area," study co-author Jason Ward said during a video conference, according to an article published last week by The American Prospect. "They just tend to move them around and the numbers tend to return in our relatively small area to previous trends pretty quickly."

"Homelessness is dangerous, humiliating, and traumatic. Nobody needs to be reminded of these truths," article author Nicholas Slayton wrote. "If Gavin Newson wants to fix the problem, he could work to get more housing built, especially affordable units—by, for instance, signing rather than vetoing a social housing bill."

"But if he wants to sweep the problem under the rug so as to pretend like he's doing something useful while actually making the problem worse, he could continue on his present course," he added.

Jill Stein reportedly seeks Palestinian Americans as potential running mate

Green party presidential nominee Jill Stein is seeking Palestinian Americans as potential running mates for her long shot White House bid, according to reports. Speaking to NBC on Friday, several potential candidates said that they had multiple conversations with Stein about the vice-president position.

Stein, who is expected to announce her running mate next Friday, has been a fierce critic of Israel’s ongoing deadly war on Gaza which has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians since Hamas’s attack last October that killed 1,200 Israelis.

One candidate is Noura Erakat, a prominent human rights lawyer and professor at Rutgers University. On Friday, Erakat took to X to announce that Stein’s team “approached me to run as her vice-presidential candidate & I am seriously considering it”.

Jill Stein’s team approached me to run as her vice-presidential candidate, & I am seriously considering it. The Harris team is demanding our votes to “save our democracy” but has been oblivious to the fact that supporting a #genocide poses the most significant threat to it

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) August 10, 2024

Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the Washington DC-based American-Arab anti-discrimination committee, announced that he has also been approached by Stein’s team, calling it an “honor to be considered for the VP position”.

https://t.co/zSBp6QY8IL

It is an honor to be considered for the VP position on the Dr. Jill Stein presidential ticket. This has been a humbling experience, and there are many things to consider moving forward.

Since the start of the genocide I have made a commitment to stick…

— Abed A. Ayoub (@aayoub) August 9, 2024

‘Uncontacted’ Indigenous group attacks loggers in the Peruvian Amazon

Members of an “uncontacted” Indigenous group used bows and arrows to attack loggers in the Peruvian Amazon in a confrontation that left at least one person injured, according to a local Indigenous organisation. The incident came just weeks after more than 50 men and boys from the isolated group known as the Mashco Piro made a rare appearance on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon.

Campaigners warn that the Mashco Piro are under siege from logging activity – both illegal and legal – and the latest clashes are likely to increase calls for the government to finally demarcate their ancestral territory after years of conflict. “This is a permanent emergency,” said Teresa Mayo, Peru researcher for Survival International, an NGO that promotes Indigenous rights, which released images of the Mashco Piro last month. ...

Mayo said the conflict took place in an area of the rainforest acknowledged by the government to be Mashco Piro territory, but which has not yet been formally protected. It is inside the “expansion area” that Indigenous organizations have demanded be added to the current reserve. ...

Aside from the threat of violence, isolated people have very weak immunological defences against illnesses, such as the common cold.

Startling genome discovery in butterfly project reveals impact of climate change in Europe

The chalkhill blue has some surprising claims to fame. For a start, it is one of the UK’s most beautiful butterflies, as can be seen as they flutter above the grasslands of southern England in summer.

Then there is their close and unusual relationship with ants. Caterpillars of Lysandra coridon – found across Europe – exude a type of honeydew that is milked by ants and provides them with energy. In return, they are given protection in cells below ground especially created for them by the ants. Chalkhill blues thrive as a result, though their numbers are now coming under threat.

It is an extraordinary catalogue of features, to which scientists have now made a striking addition thanks to a pioneering new project, known as Psyche, which aims to sequence the genomes of all 11,000 species of butterflies and moths in Europe and reveal in fine detail how climate change and habitat loss are affecting them.

As part of Psyche, scientists have found that, depending on location, the cells of the chalkhill blue have different numbers of chromosomes – the packets of DNA that contain their genetic blueprint. In southern Europe, they have a total of 87 chromosomes, adding them one at a time as they head north until their northern limit is reached, where chalkhill blues have 90 chromosomes. “That very much goes against the dogma which states that a given species has a given number of chromosomes,” said evolutionary biologist Charlotte Wright of the Wellcome Sanger Institute near Cambridge.

“Why this is changing in the chalkhill blue is intriguing. It is clear that, as it has moved in Europe as glaciers retreated since the end of the last ice age, it has added a chromosome one by one while progressing northwards. It is a surprising observation.” This point was backed by Mark Blaxter, who is also based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “If we look back a million years or so, we can tell when two species have split from a single originator. But how does that happen? More to the point, how would we spot what was going on at the time? That is what we are probably seeing here. We are seeing two species in the act of being created from one. We are shining a light on evolution in action.”

US landfills are major source of toxic PFAS pollution, study finds

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution. Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air.

PFAS gas that emits from landfill waste ends up highly concentrated in the facilities’ gas treatment systems, but the systems are not designed to manage or destroy the chemicals, and much of them probably end up in the environment.

The findings, which showed up to three times as much PFAS in landfill gas as in leachate, are “definitely an alarming thing for us to see”, said Ashley Lin, a University of Florida researcher and the lead author of the study. “These findings suggest that landfill gas, a less scrutinized byproduct, serves as a major pathway for the mobility of PFAS from landfills,” the paper’s authors wrote. ...

The chemicals concentrate in landfills because they are widely used across dozens of industries and are in thousands of consumer products that end up in the facilities at their lives’ end. As the products decompose, the chemicals can turn into gas and be released into the air.

Also of Interest

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

Nobody Would Vote For Any Of This Bullshit Without Extensive Manipulation

Washington Further Escalates Its War On Dissent

Palestinians Demand ICC Arrest Warrant for Smotrich

US Deploys Pathetic Wizard of Oz Messaging Strategy to Pretend It Can Influence Iran Conflict Trajectory

Patrick Lawrence: Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait …

Consortium News Condemns FBI Raid on CN Columnist’s Home

The Sanctions Are Working

Utah’s famed ‘Double Arch’ geological feature collapses

U.S. Attacking Yemen!

Meloni tries to break free from her EU rulers

A Little Night Music

Robert Johnson - Love In Vain

Robert Johnson - Come on in my Kitchen

Robert Johnson - Crossroad

Robert Johnson - Hell Hound On My Trail

Robert Johnson - I'm A Steady Rollin' Man

Robert Johnson - Preachin Blues

Robert Johnson - From Four Until Late

Robert Johnson - They're Red Hot

Robert Johnson - I Believe I'll Dust My Broom