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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Earl Hooker

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues guitarist Earl Hooker. Enjoy!

^{Earl Hooker - Off The Hook}

"What percentage of Americans even realize that Trump has bombed Somalia nearly a hundred times this year? I doubt it’s even one percent. The mainstream press barely mention it. Americans have hardly any idea who their own country is bombing.

In theory the press are there to create an informed electorate who can then use their votes to move their government in a healthy direction. In practice the press are there to keep the public too ignorant, propagandized and distracted to meddle in the workings of the imperial machine."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

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News and Opinion

They Want You Relying On Artificial Intelligence So That You Will Lose Your Natural Intelligence

Your rulers want you to depend on machines to do your thinking for you.

They want you relying on AI to do your reasoning, researching, analysis, and writing.

They want you to require easily controllable software to form your understanding of the world, and to express that understanding to others.

They can control the machines, but they can’t control the human mind. So they want you to abandon your mind for the machines.

They want you relying on artificial intelligence so you stop using your organic intelligence.

They want your critical thinking skills to atrophy.

They want your ability to locate and parse inconvenient pieces of information to deteriorate.

They want your inspiration and intuition to decay.

They want your sense of morality to waste and wither away.

They want you perceiving reality through interpretive lenses controlled by plutocratic tech companies which are inextricably intertwined with the power structure of the western empire.

Generative AI is just high-tech brainwashing. It’s the next level of propaganda indoctrination. It is there to turn our brains into useless sludge which cannot function without technological crutches controlled by the imperial plutocrats.

They want us to abandon our humanity for technology.

They don’t want us making our own art.

They don’t want us making our own music.

They don’t want us writing our own poetry.

They don’t want us contemplating philosophy for ourselves.

They don’t want us turning inwards and getting in touch with an authentic spirituality.

They want to replace the dynamic human spirit with predictable lines of code.

Our brains are conditioned to select for cognitive ease, and that’s what the AI merchants are selling us. The sales pitch is, “You don’t have to exert all that mental effort thinking new thoughts, learning new things, and expressing yourself creatively! This product will do it for you!”

But it comes at a cost. We have to trade in our ability to do those things for ourselves.

Historically when a new technology has shown up, that kind of tradeoff has been worth it. Not many people know how to start a fire with a bow drill anymore, but it rarely matters because modern technology has given us much more efficient ways of starting fires and keeping warm. It didn’t make sense to spend all the time and effort necessary to maintain our respective bow drill skills once that technology showed up.

But this isn’t like that. We’re not talking about some obsolete skill we won’t need anymore thanks to modern technological development, we’re talking about our minds. Our creative expression. Our inspiration. Our very humanness.

Even if AI worked well (it doesn’t) and even if our plutocratic overlords could be trusted to interpret reality on our behalf (they can’t
), those still wouldn’t be aspects of ourselves that we should want to relinquish.

In this oligarchic dystopia, it is an act of defiance just to insist upon maintaining your own cognitive faculties. Regularly exercising your own creativity, ingenuity and mental effort is a small but meaningful rebellion.

So exercise it.

You WON’T BELIEVE How Much Money We’re REALLY Sending To Israel!

10,000+ Palestinians Buried Beneath Gaza Rubble in ‘World’s Largest Mass Grave’

A civil society group in Gaza on Thursday appealed for international assistance to help recover the bodies of more than 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces who remain buried beneath the rubble of the flattened strip.

Referring to Gaza as "the world's largest mass grave," Aladdin Al-Aklouk, a spokesperson for the National Committee for Missing Persons in the Genocide Against Gaza, said that "these martyrs were buried under the rubble of their homes, which have turned into mass graves, without their final dignity being preserved or their bodies being retrieved."

"We express our shock and strong condemnation of the absence of an effective role by international organizations and humanitarian bodies, especially those concerned with the issue of missing persons, in light of the ongoing escalating humanitarian disaster," Al-Aklouk continued.

"The remnants are ticking time bombs and pose a danger to the population in the Gaza Strip. We need specialists alongside the teams working in the sector," he added. "We call on the world to send international teams to recover the bodies of the missing. We call on the world to provide the necessary equipment to recover the bodies."

According to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures have been deemed accurate by Israeli military officials and a likely undercount by multiple peer-reviewed studies—at least 68,875 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023. Although a US-brokered ceasefire technically remains in effect, Gaza officials have documented over 200 Israeli violations in which more than 240 Palestinians have been killed and over 600 others injured.

More than 170,600 other Gazans have been wounded in a war which is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case and for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.

Palestinians are struggling to dig through more than 60 million tons of debris after over 80% of all structures in Gaza were destroyed or damaged by two years of Israeli bombardment. That's more than 200,000 buildings and other structures.

United Nations experts estimate it will take seven years for 100 trucks to remove all debris across Gaza, where more than three-quarters of roads are damaged and unexploded ordnance and Israeli booby traps beneath the debris continue to pose deadly threats to recovery workers and survivors in general.

Israel's destruction and denial of the heavy equipment needed for such a monumental recovery operation has left Palestinians reliant upon rudimentary tools such as shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes, and even their bare hands. They dig amid the stench of death and decomposition that lingers in the air.

The Abu Naser family lost more than 130 members in an October 29, 2024 strike on their five-story home in Beit Lahia, where over 200 people were sheltering when it was bombed. Mohammed Nabil Abu Naser, who survived the bombing, immediately started digging through the rubble, first in search of survivors and later, for bodies.

“It was all bodies and body parts," he explained. More than a year later, many of the victims have yet to be recovered.

"About 50 of them are still under the rubble to this day, a full year later," Abu Naser told The Guardian on Monday.

Often, Gazans survived initial bombings only to die slowly trapped beneath rubble. Two American volunteer surgeons, Drs. Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa, last year described how wounded survivors suffered “unimaginably cruel deaths from dehydration and sepsis while trapped alone in a pitch-black tomb that alternates as an oven during the day and a freezer at night."

“One shudders to think how many children have died this way in Gaza," they added.

What Zohran's WIN Means for the Future of Palestine (w/ Jill Stein, Jasper Nathaniel, Ubai Aboudi)

Israel carries out wave of airstrikes on southern Lebanon

The Israeli military has carried out a wave of airstrikes in southern Lebanon in what it described as an attempt to prevent Hezbollah rearming.

Israeli warplanes struck the towns of Kfar Dounine, Tayr Debba and Zawtar al-Sharqiya on Thursday, about an hour after issuing evacuation warnings to residents. No deaths had been reported at the time of publishing.

The attacks came despite a ceasefire deal signed between Hezbollah and Israel nearly a year ago that ended 13 months of fighting. ...

The Israeli military bombs Lebanon on a near-daily basis, but Thursday’s strikes were unusual in their intensity and for being preceded by an evacuation warning.

They came hours after Hezbollah had sent an open letter to Lebanon’s leadership saying that while it was committed to the ceasefire, it still had a “legitimate right” to resist what it called the “Israeli occupation”. The group has fired at Israel once since the signing of the ceasefire in December 2024.

Ex-Israeli PM Olmert faces war crimes complaint over 2008 Gaza offensive

Human rights organisation Hind Rajab Foundation on Thursday said it has filed a complaint in Germany against former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for committing war crimes during the 2008-2009 attack on Gaza.

“Under Olmert’s leadership, the Israeli government and military high command executed a large-scale military campaign that resulted in the indiscriminate bombardment of densely populated civilian areas, the destruction of hospitals, schools, and UN facilities, and the killing of more than 1,300 Palestinians, among them over 300 children and 115 women,” the Hind Rajab Foundation said in a statement.

Larry C. Johnson & Col. Larry Wilkerson: Russia & Iran to Build a WAR SHIELD — China Just Stepped In

Russia Can ‘Mirror’ in Venezuela What West Is Doing in Ukraine

When regional relations Iran and Syria called on Russia to help defend them against attacks by America, Israel, and a swarm of former ISIS militants, they received no answer. Analysts at the time said, and the President of Ukraine in fact celebrated, that it was because of Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine that assistance could not be rendered to protect Moscow’s interests abroad. In contrast, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro has called for help, and Moscow has answered, with Russian outlet Gazeta confirming that additional Russian-made air defense systems have arrived in the South American country.

“Information about the volumes and exact names of what is brought from Russia is classified, so surprises may await the Americans,” said Alexei Zhuravlev, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee. “According to the latest information, the Russian Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E systems were delivered to Caracas by transport Il-76 just the other day”. ...

Another high-ranking Duma official, Sergey Mironov, leader of the opposition (and socialist) party released a statement in which he suggested his country could and probably should “provide the necessary assistance to the country to guarantee its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

“We can give the United States an opportunity to see what its policy in Ukraine towards Russia looks like…” Mironov said, who like Zhuravlev, singled out the Kalibr cruise missile by name. “In other words, Russia can ‘mirror’ in Venezuela the scenario that the West is implementing in Ukraine by supplying weapons to the Kyiv regime. The only significant difference is that Venezuela does not threaten anyone, and we have no plans to use this country as an anti-American springboard”. ...

Some unverified reports claim that Wagner Group personnel, which have worked in the country before, are in Venezuela training domestic military on at least the Pantsir-S1 system, as it requires specialized knowledge of radar operation and targeting software that it’s not clear the domestic military would possess. If Wagner was in situ preparing the Venezuelans to shoot down American drones, missiles, or pilots, it wouldn’t be any different than what CIA assets have been doing in Ukraine for three years now, but will undoubtedly mark a new, dangerous escalation between US and Russian relations.

Pull back or trickery? US Venezuela military operation doubts

US Again Flies Heavy Bombers Near Venezuela’s Coast

The US has once again flown heavy bombers over the Caribbean and near the coast of Venezuela, according to a report from Newsweek, which cited flight tracking data.

Two US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft made the provocative flight, marking the fourth time since October 15 that the US has sent bombers near Venezuela’s coast. The first flight also involved B-52s, and the second and third were conducted by B-1B Lancer bombers.

In each case, the US bombers kept their transponders on when flying near Venezuela, meaning they wanted to be seen. It’s been clear that one aspect of the US military activity in the region has been meant as a psychological operation against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as the Trump administration is hoping he decides to step down or someone in his inner circle turns on him, something that’s unlikely to happen.

Is the U.S. Planning to Assassinate Maduro?

Senate blocks Democrats’ bid to check Trump power over Venezuela strikes

The US Senate on Thursday blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country. The 49-51 vote against passing the resolution, mostly along party lines, came a month after a previous effort to stop strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in international waters similarly failed, 48-51.

The new resolution narrowed its scope to attract Republicans, but senators Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski remained the only two Republicans to cross party lines to support the resolution. Susan Collins and Thom Tillis, who had expressed reservations about the strikes, voted against.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has ramped up its military campaign against drug cartels – and to destabilize the Venezuelan government – deploying the United States’s most advanced aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, just days after Trump announced the US would next hit land-based targets. “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK?” Trump told reporters at the White House on 23 October. “We’re going to kill them, you know. They’re going to be, like, dead.”

The administration has also developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, according to two people familiar with the matter, and Trump’s aides have asked the justice department for additional guidance that could provide a legal basis to strike targets other than boats.

Venezuela, Kiev's Disastrous Day; Pokrovsk Cauldron Implodes Kupiansk Falls In Days, US Says Retreat; EU Argues

US House panel requests interview with Andrew in Jeffrey Epstein investigation

A US congressional panel investigating pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein has written to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly Britain’s Prince Andrew, to ask that he submit to questioning as part of its investigation into Epstein’s criminal operations. In a letter published on Thursday, California congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, requested that King Charles III’s younger brother help with its inquiry.

The formal request to answer questions comes a week after Mountbatten Windsor was stripped of his royal title and agreed to give up his leased home in Windsor. Mountbatten Windsor’s name appears in documents and flight logs subpoenaed from Epstein’s estate and publicly released by the committee. He has also been accused by one of Epstein’s victims of assault, the late Virginia Giuffre, of sexual assault.

“The oversight committee will investigate allegations of abuse by Mountbatten Windsor, and will seek information on Epstein’s operations, network, and associates based on the men’s longstanding and well-documented friendship,” the committee said in a press release. It demanded information from Mountbatten Windsor on specifics of his relationship with Epstein, who killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019. Andrew has always strongly denied any wrongdoing.

“It has been publicly reported that your friendship with Mr Epstein began in 1999 and that you remained close through and after his 2008 conviction for procuring minors for prostitution,” the letter said. It continued: “It has also been reported that you traveled with Epstein to his New York residence, the Queen’s residence at Balmoral, and to Mr Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands, where you have been accused of abusing minors. This close relationship with Mr Epstein, coupled with the recently revealed 2011 email exchange in which you wrote to him ‘we are in this together’, further confirms our suspicion that you may have valuable information about the crimes committed by Mr Epstein and his co-conspirators.”

A notification of the the letter said it was co-signed by 13 other Democrats on the committee and requests a response by 20 November. ... Garcia does not possess the power to subpoena the former prince and Congress itself cannot compel testimony from a foreign national.

Bessent Panics As U.S. Bonds Near Major Collapse Over $1 TRILLION In Reversal Payments

‘Mega-Layoffs’ Under Trump as Corporations Have Cut 1 Million Jobs This Year—Most Since 2003

The US labor market, which in recent months had ground nearly to a halt, now appears to be entering a downward spiral.

As reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, new data from corporate outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that employers in October announced 153,000 job cuts, which marked the highest number of layoffs in that month since October 2003.

Total announced job cuts in 2025 have now reached 1.1 million, a number that the Post describes as a "recession-like" level comparable to the steep job cuts announced in the wake of the dotcom bust of the early 2000s, the global financial crisis of 2008, and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

John Challenger, the CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told the Post that the huge number of October layoffs showed the economy was entering "new territory."

"We haven’t seen mega-layoffs of the size that are being discussed now—48,000 from UPS, potentially 30,000 from Amazon—since 2020 and before that, since the recession of 2009," he explained. "When you see companies making cuts of this size, it does signal a real shift in direction."

CNBC noted that the Challenger report found that the tech sector is currently being hardest hit by the layoffs, and it said that the adoption of artificial intelligence was a significant driver of job cuts.

"Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes," the report said. "Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market."

With the backing of Big Tech investors, President Donald Trump has pushed to prevent states from regulating AI, over the objections of labor groups and progressive lawmakers. Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned that without strong regulation, tech billionaires' investments in AI will likely "increase their wealth and power exponentially" while wiping out "tens of millions" of jobs.

According to Bloomberg, however, AI adoption is just one factor in companies' decision to enact mass layoffs, as some firms have also cited the need to protect their profit margins from the impacts of President Donald Trump's tariffs, which have raised prices for a wide variety of products and materials.

Democratic lawmakers were quick to seize on the news of mass layoffs as evidence that Trump is sending the US economy into a ditch.

"Trump put billionaires in charge of everything," remarked Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) in a social media post. "It’s a disaster."

"Trump inherited the fastest growing economy in the [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development], fastest reduction in inflation, record job creation," said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). "Dumb tariffs, racist immigration policies, attacks on the rule of law and termination of congressionally mandated programs did this."

Lisa Graves on the Supreme Court, Tariffs, Voting Rights & Legacy of John Roberts

US judge orders Trump administration to fully fund Snap benefits in November

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to find the money to fully fund food stamps for 42 million low-income Americans in November by Friday, in a rebuke to the government’s plan to only provide reduced aid during the shutdown.

US district judge John J McConnell Jr criticized the administration’s plan to partly fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits in November, saying it had failed to comply with an order he issued on Saturday requiring the government to ensure Americans received full or partial benefits no later than Wednesday.

He also said the administration plowed ahead with a plan to partly cover benefits without addressing – as required– the fact that in many states, it could take weeks or months to implement the reduced benefits. “The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur,” McConnell said. “That’s what irreparable harm here means.” The judge added: “This should never happen in America.”

McConnell gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through Snap, though it is unlikely that the people who rely on it will see the money on the debit cards they use for groceries that quickly. “The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund Snap,” McConnell said. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial Snap payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”

This type of order is usually not subject to an appeal, but the Trump administration has challenged similar rulings before.

Going all-out to deprive children of food. https://t.co/aCgFQOhFkq

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 6, 2025

Prof Richard Wolff | The Real Reason Behind US Government Shutdown

US airlines cancel flights after aviation agency directive to cut air traffic

United, Southwest and Delta airlines began cancelling flights for Friday in compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration’s directive that will see reductions in flights at 40 major airports from Friday to help address air traffic controller shortage safety concerns as a result of the government shutdown.

The Associated Press published the list after airline regulators identified “high-volume markets” where the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says air traffic must be reduced by 4% by 6am ET on Friday, a move that would force airlines to cancel thousands of flights and create a cascade of scheduling issues and delays at some of the nation’s largest airports. The FAA is also imposing restrictions on space launches but not imposing any cuts on international flights. ...

The FAA has said flights are being reduced to maintain air traffic control safety during the ongoing federal government shutdown, now the longest recorded and with no sign of a resolution between Republicans and Democrats to end the federal budget standoff, now in its 37th day. Experts predict hundreds if not thousands of flights could be canceled. The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by the aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The affected airports covering more than two dozen states include the busiest ones across the US – including Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth, Orlando, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. In some of the biggest cities – such as New York, Houston and Chicago – multiple airports will be be affected. All three airports serving the Washington DC area – Washington Dulles international, Baltimore/Washington international and Ronald Reagan Washington national – will be affected, inevitably causing delays and cancellations for lawmakers as well as other travelers.

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Dems Mourn Dick Cheney: Hero of the Resistance

It’s affordability, stupid: Republicans pay price for Trump’s forgotten promise

It’s the economy, stupid, as the timeworn saying goes, and affordability in particular. The age of aspiration has given way to the age of anxiety. The price of incumbency is that restless voters always believe that the grass is greener on the other side. A year ago Democrats were punished for “bad vibes” around the cost of living for the middle class, however much they protested that the economic data was positive. In that climate Trump represented change: at rally after rally, he promised to lower prices from day one. Many voters felt it was worth taking a gamble in case he was right.

Now the tables are turned. Trump occupies the White House but inflation remains hard to crack. The period from July to August saw the biggest month-to-month jump in grocery prices in three years. And average grocery prices in September were about 2.7% higher than they were a year earlier. There have been especially steep increases in the prices of coffee (up 18.9%) and beef and veal (up 14.7%).

Add to that the fundamentals of life like buying a home, once a foundation stone of the American dream. Millions of people now fear they will have to wait until their 40s or beyond. Trump’s critics argue that, since taking office in January, he has been making the situation worse, not better. His use of tariffs as a crude tool of diplomacy have had a negative impact. His indulgence of tech companies and datacentres has ensured an AI-driven boom in the stock market that does little to help people’s everyday lives.

Indeed, early in his second term, Trump expressed surprise at the national obsession with “groceries”, rolling the word around his mouth like an exotic fruit. Lately he has been saying, “Grocery prices are way down.” Like Biden before him, he risks missing the national mood. And he has poured fuel on those flames with his shows of excess. As thousands of federal workers were furloughed without pay because of the government shutdown, Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House to build a $300m ballroom, posted photos of the Lincoln Bathroom made over in marble and gold and threw a Great Gatsby-themed party at his private club, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

If Democrats had used AI to come up with a deepfake designed to make Trump look out of touch, they could not have done better.

Trump, struggling to explain why Republicans lost the Nov. 4 elections:

They have this new word called affordability and they don't talk about it enough pic.twitter.com/M9ldqyEG5q

— FactPost (@factpostnews) November 5, 2025

Survey Shows Large Majority of Grassroots Democrats Back Primary Challenges for Schumer and Jeffries

Democrats' sweeping victories in elections across the country this week may not be buying goodwill for party leadership among grassroots Democratic activists.

Progressive organizing group Our Revolution on Thursday released a survey over more than 3,500 voters showing there is overwhelming support for running primary challenges against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who for months have come under fire for failing to more aggressively combat President Donald Trump's administration.

Overall, the survey found 90% of respondents want Schumer to step aside as leader, while 92% would back a primary challenge against him when he's next up for reelection in 2028.

The survey showed less support for dumping Jeffries, although 70% said he should step aside, with 77% backing a primary challenger.

Additionally, two-thirds of respondents said that "current Democratic leaders do not understand the struggles of the working class, with confidence in party leadership remaining in the single digits."

Our Revolution also hailed New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's insurgent campaign as a successful model for Democrats across the country, as the organization said a message of "lowering the cost of living and holding corporations accountable" strongly resonated with progressive voters.

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, warned that establishment Democrats could pay the price if they try to brush off democratic socialist Mamdani's victory as a fluke.

"Mamdani’s victory was not an outlier. It was a rallying cry,” he said. “The grassroots are demanding change. They want a Democratic Party that fights for working families, taxes the rich, and takes on Trump and the oligarchs driving this affordability crisis. The old guard must step aside or risk losing the movement that delivered these wins."

Mamdani wasn't the only candidate to successfully run on lowering the cost of living, as Democrats on Tuesday also scored upset victories by flipping two seats on the Georgia’s Public Service Commission, which is responsible for regulating utility prices in the state. In those elections, the Democrats hammered GOP incumbents for signing off on six rate increases for the state’s largest electricity provider over the past two years.

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Scientists criticize ‘straw man’ arguments in Bill Gates climate memo

A new memo on the climate crisis from Bill Gates relies on “straw man” arguments about the threat to humanity and “false dichotomies” between spending on climate or aid for the poor, some climate scientists say. Published last week, the tech billionaire’s 17-page missive called for a “strategic pivot” away from focusing on slashing emissions and towards preventing poverty and suffering. It was quickly picked up by some on the right, including Donald Trump, who hailed it as a much-needed backpedaling on climate efforts. ...

“Where I think I disagree with Gates fundamentally is this idea that by taking money away from climate we’d suddenly have a lot more money for these other programs,” he told reporters at a Tuesday press briefing. “We don’t necessarily live in a zero-sum world.”

In his memo, Gates wrote that global warming “will not lead to humanity’s demise”. This misunderstands climate scientists’ warnings, said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “I have not seen a single scientific paper that ever posited that the human race would become extinct … it’s a straw man, the way he’s proposing it,” she said. “He’s speaking about it as if scientists are saying that, and we’re not: what we are saying is that suffering increases with each 10th of a degree of warming.”

The memo from a “very influential person who controls a lot of money” hinges on “inarguably a false binary” between a world where everything is fine and “literally the end of the world”, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. “In reality, there’s a whole hell of a lot of bad things that can happen in between,” he said. Climate policies have helped the world avert worst-case climate scenarios, but the track the world is on now would still yield huge amounts of human suffering due to increased sea level rise, droughts, floods and other dangers, said Swain.

Amazon lakes hit ‘unbearable’ hot-tub temperatures amid mass die-offs of pink river dolphins

Amazonian lakes are being transformed into simmering basins hotter than spa baths as severe heatwaves and drought grip the region, research shows.

The temperature of one lake exceeded 40C (104F) as water levels plummeted under intense sunlight and cloudless skies. The extreme heat triggered mass die-offs among endangered Amazon river dolphins and fish, which cannot survive in such high temperatures.

The shallow waters of Lake Tefé, which were only two metres deep, reached 41C – warmer than an average spa bath. “We couldn’t even put our fingers in the water. It was really hot, not just in the top bit, but right down to the bottom,” said the lead researcher, Ayan Fleischmann, from the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development. “You put your finger in and remove it instantaneously, it’s unbearable.”

Floating carcasses of up to 200 river dolphins washed up over a six-week period around September 2023. No one in the region had seen this happen over the past century, said Fleischmann. “It was completely surreal and really scary.”

This incident led them to look at other water bodies across the Amazon region. Half of the 10 lakes investigated experienced exceptionally high daytime water temperatures above 37C, according to the study, published in the journal Science.

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Also of Interest

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

Netanyahu's Government Pounces on the IDF Video Controversy

Pokrovsk Has Fallen, Now What?

Venezuelan Oil — American Gangster Politics

Despite Costs Soaring Under His Watch, Trump Tries to Jack Mamdani’s ‘Affordability’ Message

When is a tariff not a tax? When I say so, Trump tells supreme court

Can Trump Impose Taxes on Americans?

New York Post’s anti-Mamdani front page is a hit – with his supporters

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Dick Cheney War Criminal

Aaron Maté : Regime Change In Venezuela

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A Little Night Music

Earl Hooker – Blue Shadows Fall

Earl Hooker – Rockin' Wild

Brownie McGhee And Sonny Terry With Earl Hooker – Black Cat Bone

Earl Hooker - Hot And Heavy

Earl Hooker – Swear To Tell The Truth

Brownie McGhee And Sonny Terry With Earl Hooker – Tell Me Why

Earl Hooker – Calling All Blues

Earl Hooker & Junior Wells – Galloping Horses A Lazy Mule

Earl Hooker – Little By Little

Earl Hooker – She's Fine

Earl Hooker – Move On Down The Line

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