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This evening's music features slide guitar wizard Bob Brozman. Enjoy!

"The folly and hubris of the policy makers who heedlessly thrust the nation into an ill-defined and open-ended 'global war on terror' without the foggiest notion of what victory would look like, how it would be won, and what it might cost approached standards hitherto achieved only by slightly mad German warlords."

-- Andrew Bacevich

News and Opinion

We Are The Villains In This Story

Nobody wants to believe they’re the villain in the story. Nobody wants to believe their government is run by psychopaths who are inflicting unfathomable evils upon populations around the globe in order to rule the world.

It’s much nicer to believe you’re the Good Guys. Much easier to sit with the idea that your government might make an innocent mistake here and there, but overall is a driving force for the good of humankind, and is certainly superior to the villains it makes war with.

That’s a fiction, though. It’s a comfortable lie. A fairy tale that westerners tell themselves to avoid a profoundly uncomfortable truth.

No other nation comes even close. Every nation that you have been taught to hate, every leader you have demonised, every government that you call “regime”, none come close to these numbers. N. Americans will hear this and still believe they’re the good guys. Irredeemable place. https://t.co/MMSkyHLDw5

— Momodou (@MomodouTaal) March 9, 2026

The truth is that we are the villains.

We are the terrorists.

We are the tyrants.

We are the evil regime.

Our soldiers aren’t out there defending our country, they’re out there murdering people for defending their country. They’re not fighting for freedom and democracy, they’re fighting for money and power.

Daniel Crimmins from the US Army 3rd Infantry Division wrote the following about the Iraq War in 2015:

“Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all the contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.

“Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.

“Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.”

One of the most stunting liberal beliefs you have to uproot is that the United States bumbles its way into the horrors it creates rather than facing the fact that they are calculated decisions on behalf of capital. It’s not short-sightedness or miscalculation, it’s empire.

— they/them might be giants (@therealmxbs) March 10, 2026

That’s the reality right there, folks. We can wake up and start living in reality, or we can remain asleep in the fiction.

It’s time to wake up to the reality that western civilization is a depraved dystopia where most people are sleepwalking in a propaganda-addled stupor under an empire that is fueled by human blood. And it’s time to awaken to the fact that as westerners it is our duty to tear that empire down brick by brick, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and for the sake of our fellow man.

Iran To Inflict MAXIMUM PAIN On Israel, US

Tehran endures ‘worst night of strikes’ amid mixed US messages about more to come

Tehran residents say the Iranian capital has endured what they described as its worst night of aerial bombardment, as the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, followed Donald Trump’s suggestion on Monday the war could soon be over with a warning of more strikes to come.

“We are under heavy bombardment and I can hear back-to-back explosions. The place they hit has caught fire. It’s not clear where it exploded, but the buildings are shaking,” Niloufar, who lives in east Tehran said early on Tuesday, speaking under a pseudonym for security reasons. “They are destroying Iran,” they added, saying there were low-flying jets above.

Israel, which launched an air campaign against Iran with the US on 28 February, on Tuesday said it had hit a weapons development facility among a wave of strikes. Other residents told the Guardian of rolling blackouts, and that much of Iran’s communications were down.

The World Health Organization has urged Iranians to stay inside, saying “black rain” falling after strikes on oil facilities could cause respiratory problems. One Tehran resident described the city as “the last stop before hell”. At least 1,245 civilians have been killed, including 194 children, by the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran group.

As jets bombed Tehran, US officials issued contradictory messages as to how long the war could last. Trump said on Monday that “the war is very complete”, in a call with CBS News. Hours later, Hegseth said the war would end on “our timeline” and that the US would not stop until “the enemy is totally and decisively defeated”, promising Tuesday would see the most intense strikes in Iran yet.

'It's a lawless world led by idiots': Chris Hedges on the Iran war

Iran is becoming more defiant in face of US-Israeli onslaught

Iran has spurned two messages from Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, seeking a ceasefire as its leaders sense it is not losing the war and the US president is at the minimum feeling the political pressure.

The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has further said a unilateral declaration from Trump that the US had won the war would not bring an end to the conflict. The implication is that even if the US announced a willingness to end its attacks, Iran might be willing to continue the conflict in some form, or keep its chokehold on shipping seeking to navigate the strait of Hormuz.

Iran believes there can be no end to the conflict until it believes Trump has been shown the economic, political and military cost is so high that it is not worth repeating. It is instead insisting on a permanent deal that includes a US commitment not to attack Iran again.

“If a ceasefire is to be established or the war stopped there must be a guarantee that aggressive actions against Iran will not be repeated. Otherwise if another attack occurs after a few months such a ceasefire would be meaningless,” said Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy foreign minister. ...

“We are absolutely NOT seeking a ceasefire,” the speaker of the parliament, Mohammed Ghalibaf, posted to social media. “Let the enemy know that whatever they do, there will certainly be a proportionate and immediate retaliation […] We are fighting eye for eye, tooth for tooth, without compromise or exception.”

Trump FREAKS Over Iran MINES In Strait Of Hormuz

Pete Hegseth warns of ‘most intense’ day of US strikes on Iran yet

The Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, has warned that Tuesday would be the “most intense” day of US strikes yet, even as he blamed Iran for civilian casualties by claiming its forces were firing missiles from schools and hospitals. Speaking alongside Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Hegseth alleged Iran was deliberately firing missiles from schools and hospitals, describing the country’s leadership as “desperate and scrambling like the terrorist cowards they are”.

Caine said that US Central Command had so far struck more than 5,000 targets to date, destroyed over 50 Iranian naval vessels and hit several drone factories to degrade Iran’s autonomous weapons capability. He said US forces had dropped dozens of 2,000lb GPS-guided penetrating weapons on deeply buried missile launchers. Ballistic missile attacks continued to diminish, he said, adding that US forces and allies in the region had been intercepting one-way attack drones using fighters and attack helicopters.

Hegseth said Iran’s neighbors had abandoned them, and that their proxies – Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas – have been “either broken, ineffective or on the sidelines”. When pressed on civilian casualties, which involved a strike that killed more than 165 people at an all-girls school, most of them children, Hegseth instead pivoted to accuse Iran of moving rocket launches “into civilian neighborhoods, near schools, near hospitals, to try to prevent our ability to strike”.

He added: “That’s how terrorist regimes fight. They target civilians. We do not.” He insisted no nation in history had taken more precautions to avoid civilian deaths, though acknowledged that investigations “take time”. The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school was struck on the first morning of the campaign, 10 days ago while about 170 girls aged seven to 12 were in class. First responders told the Middle East Eye it appeared to be a “double tap” strike on the school. ...

Hegseth declined to comment on reports that Iran’s new supreme leader had been wounded, saying only that it “would be wise” for Iranian leadership to heed the president and renounce nuclear weapons. Mojtaba Khamenei was on Sunday elevated to the position after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the opening strikes of the campaign.

Pepe Escobar: Iran's Deadly Missile Strike STUNS Israel, Trump LOSING the War

US weighs sending forces into Iran to secure nuclear stockpile

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads. Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”.

Rubio did not go into greater detail, but there have been US and Israeli reports on discussions between the two countries on how such a mission might be carried out by special forces from either or both militaries. But nuclear experts say the complexity and risk involved would be considerable.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Monday that the UN watchdog body believed that 200kg of Iran’s HEU stockpile was in deep tunnels at its nuclear complex outside the city of Isfahan. He added that there was another “amount” of HEU in another nuclear centre at Natanz, where Iranians have constructed a new fortified and deeply buried facility called Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, known to western analysts as Pickaxe Mountain. The HEU is in the form of uranium hexafluoride, which is solid at room temperature but turns into a gas when heated allowing it to be further enriched. It is believed to be stored in metal canisters each about the size of a scuba diving tank, stored down deep shafts.

US and Israeli special forces have long trained for missions to extract nuclear materials from hostile environments, and the US has developed equipment, known as the Mobile Uranium Facility, designed to contain and remove HEU. But deploying it along with specialists and a force to protect them would involve major ground operations in at least two sites, both deep in Iran’s interior.

“That would be tough. It is pretty well defended and it’s large and bulky, so you’re not going to just go in and pick it up,” Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “Is a C-17 [military transport plane] going to land in the desert and you’re going to set up a security perimeter and cranes are going to drive off it? Or maybe you go in and blow it up and make a mess? All of these options seem fanciful to me,” Lewis said.

War on Iran Could Crash the Global Economy: Yanis Varoufakis Explains

Trump’s ‘free flow of energy’ vow fails to restart shipping in strait of Hormuz

Only two vessels not linked to Iran or Russia have made the “chicken run” through the strait of Hormuz since Donald Trump said he would “ensure the free flow of energy to the world”, according to maritime records. One of those that braved the journey since the US president’s announcement of emergency measures on Friday went “dark” by switching off its transponder and a second signalled it was Chinese owned and crewed.

The Hormuz sea passage, one of the world’s most strategically important choke points, would normally have about 100 vessels a day either exiting or entering the Gulf. In response to the US and Israeli attacks, Iran has effectively shut the strait, attacking at least 10 ships which were seeking to traverse it in the early days of the crisis.

On Friday, Trump announced a $20bn (£14.85bn) reinsurance scheme to revive shipping through the strait, which he said would come into effect immediately. He followed up by saying that shipowners should “show some guts” by sailing through the war zone. A small number of tankers and bulk carriers of dry goods have braved the crossing since Friday using a variety of methods to mitigate the risk, records show. ...

Matthew Wright, the lead freight analyst at Kpler, said the high freight rates that companies could charge meant the insurance premiums were not the main problem. “Even record-high freight rates have failed to break the deadlock,” he said. “Shipowners are primarily concerned with the risk of missile or drone attacks, and until there is a material improvement in the security environment, flows are likely to remain extremely limited. Iran is still displaying pretty comprehensive capabilities to strike targets and vessels if they want to."

The Epstein Regime Is Collapsing. Will It Take Down Humanity With It? w/ Indi Samarajiva

Aramco warns of oil market ‘catastrophe’ unless strait of Hormuz reopens soon

Saudi Arabia’s state oil company has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the world’s oil markets if the US-Israeli war with Iran continues to block shipping in the strait of Hormuz. The world’s biggest oil exporter expects to be able to supply the market with about 70% of its usual crude output despite the stranglehold on the vital trade artery, but its chief executive warned that there would still be “drastic” consequences for the world economy if the disruption continued.

Oil shipments from the Middle East have been blocked from passing through the narrow waterway since the US strikes on Iran 11 days ago, erasing about 20m barrels of oil from the global market every day. Despite the warning, oil prices fell on Tuesday after Donald Trump suggested the war could end “very soon”.

Amin Nasser, the chief executive of Aramco, said: “While we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s oil and gas industry has faced.” Aramco has been unable to ship crude cargoes out of the Gulf owing to the disruption, but it hopes to meet customer demands by flowing crude through the east-west pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, from where it could be shipped to buyers.

The company plans to increase shipments through the pipeline to reach its full capacity of 7m barrels a day in the next couple of days, it said. About 2m barrels a day will be sent to Saudi Arabia’s refineries in the west of the country, leaving 5m barrels a day for the global crude market. This represents about 70% of the kingdom’s usual exports.

US Iran Crisis Deepens; Iran Mines Hormuz Strait Continues Strikes Seeks Reparations; Bryansk Strike

Ex-DOGE Staffer Allegedly Stole Social Security Data

Critics of the Department of Government Efficiency are sounding the alarm after the Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Social Security Administration’s inspector general is investigating a whistleblower complaint accusing a former DOGE staffer of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.

The Post didn’t name the former DOGE software engineer, the company, or the whistleblower. However, the reporters spoke with the whistleblower and other unnamed sources, and also reviewed the related complaint as well as a letter from the acting inspector general to top members of four congressional committees.

The ex-DOGE staffer allegedly told multiple colleagues that he possessed two key databases of sensitive information on over 500 million living and dead US citizens, “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” and once he removed personal details, he wanted to plug the remaining data into his company’s system.

The newspaper noted that “the complaint does not allege that the engineer was successful in uploading the data to the company’s system,” and “a lawyer who represents the former DOGE member told the Post he denied all alleged wrongdoing.”

The reporting adds to a long list of concerns and criticism provoked by DOGE, which President Donald Trump launched shortly after taking office. Billionaire Elon Musk was the de facto leader of the government-gutting initiative until he departed the administration last May.

Responding to the report on Musk’s social media platform X, Congressman John Larson (D-Conn.), a longtime defender of Social Security, declared that “we need a full congressional investigation and answers!”

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) announced that he is expanding his investigation of DOGE-related data leaks at the SSA over the allegations. He said in a statement that “the deeply disturbing whistleblower information obtained by the committee shows the Trump administration’s callous disregard for the safety and security of Americans’ most sensitive information.”

“Not only has an ex-DOGE bro been accused of running around with the social security information of every American on a flash drive, he also may have the ability to edit and manipulate data at the Social Security Administration at will,” Garcia continued. “This is dangerous and outrageous, and Oversight Committee Democrats will fight for transparency and accountability.”

Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, similarly said: “Allegations that a ‘DOGE bro’ may have removed highly sensitive Social Security data onto a thumb drive should set off alarm bells across the country. Social Security holds some of the most personal information Americans have, including Social Security numbers, birth and health records, and lifetime earnings histories. If these reports are accurate, it is a stunning, illegal data security breach.”

“Americans deserve timely, honest answers about what happened, whose information may have been exposed, what will be done to protect them going forward,” he argued. “Anyone involved must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Congress and the Social Security inspector general must move quickly to get the facts and ensure that all involved in this reported data breach are punished.”

Senate Democrats introduce bill to shield small businesses from Trump’s new tariffs

A new Democrat-led bill seeks to exempt small businesses from Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs, as small business owners continue to reel from the impacts of the battle over the president’s signature economic policy. Introduced by the senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the bill, known as the “Small Business Liberation 2.0 Act”, would exempt goods imported by or for the use of small businesses from new tariffs, which Trump enacted on 20 February, immediately after the US supreme court’s ruling invalidating his “liberation day” tariffs.

The bill text also prohibits price gouging as a result of the latest tariffs. Democratic senators Chuck Schumer, Mazie Hirono, John Hickenlooper, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar and Chris Van Hollen are signed on as co-sponsors of the bill.

“Trump’s tariff tax scam is simple: if at first your policies are ruled illegal, double down and try, try again,” Markey, who is ranking member of the Senate small business and entrepreneurship committee, said. “America’s small businesses cannot bear another bruising round of uncertainty and consumers in Massachusetts and across the country cannot foot the bill for another punishing round of Trump’s tariff taxes.”

After the supreme court’s decision, the president announced he would enact a new 10% global baseline tariff under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs for 150 days.

Immigrant truck drivers are vital to the economy. ICE crackdown is forcing them off roads

With road freight responsible for 70% of all cargo by weight in the US, ICE officers have been targeting truck stops, weigh stations and immigrant truckers as they drive behind the wheel.

An estimated 9,500 drivers have been taken off the roads in recent months for failing English language proficiency requirements alone.

Industry analysts say the crackdown may be sending drivers out of entire regions of the country, specifically in the midwest, which is home to America’s main transport arteries that link the east coast with the south and western regions of the country.

Last summer, ICE agents went as far as deploying highway weigh stations in Florida as enforcement check points. Reports suggest that companies have also faced difficulty recovering freight and vehicles, often valued at millions of dollars per load, after their drivers are detained.

As part of the crackdown, last month transportation secretary Sean Duffy announced the shutting down of 550 commercial driving schools. That’s despite the number of fatalities involving large trucks declining in 2023 and the first half of 2024, the most recent period with available data. An estimated 17% of commercial semi-truck drivers in the US are foreign-born.

US judge limits federal agents’ use of teargas on protesters at Oregon ICE facility

A federal judge in Oregon on Monday restricted federal officers from using teargas at protests at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists.

Michael Simon, a US district judge, issued the preliminary injunction after a three-day hearing in which the plaintiffs – including a demonstrator known for wearing a chicken costume, a married couple in their 80s and two freelance journalists – testified about having chemical or projectile munitions used against them. The lawsuit, whose defendants include the Department of Homeland Security, argues that federal officers’ use of such munitions is a retaliation against protesters that chills their first amendment rights.

“Plaintiffs provided numerous videos, which were received in evidence and unambiguously show DHS officers spraying OC Spray directly into the faces of peaceful and nonviolent protesters engaged in, at most, passive resistance and discharging tear gas and firing pepper-ball munitions into crowds of peaceful and nonviolent protestors,” Simon wrote, using the term “OC Spray” to refer to pepper spray. “Defendants’ conduct – physically harming protestors and journalists without prior dispersal warnings – is objectively chilling.”

Simon had previously issued a temporary restraining order similarly limiting federal agents from using chemical munitions during protests at the ICE building. His preliminary injunction is the second in recent days restricting agents’ teargas use at the facility, following that of a federal judge overseeing a separate case brought by the residents of an adjacent affordable housing complex.

In his Monday order, Simon limited federal agents from using chemical or projectile munitions such as pepper balls and teargas unless someone poses an imminent threat of physical harm. He also ordered agents not to fire munitions at the head, neck or torso “unless the officer is legally justified in using deadly force against that person”.

Republican and Democrat head for run-off in election for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s House seat

Republican former prosecutor Clay Fuller and retired army general Shawn Harris, a Democrat, will head to a run-off after they came out ahead in a special election Tuesday to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress.

The election for the state’s 14th congressional district has been seen as a test of Donald Trump’s sway and may provide a rare opportunity for Democrats in a deep-red pocket of north-west Georgia.

Fuller has Trump’s endorsement and had raised more than $1m leading into voting Tuesday, but Harris, who faced Greene two years ago, has raised more than four times as much. ...

Fuller and Harris will face each other again on 7 April, and the winner will complete the rest of Greene’s term through the end of this year with hopes of re-election. ...

The Cook Political Report still rates the district as R+19, but Democrats have been over-performing in Republican districts since Trump’s election.

Billionaire Tax Supporters Up in California By Nearly 2-to-1, Poll Shows

Voters in California are supporting a proposed wealth tax on billionaires in their state by a ratio of almost 2-to-1, according to a poll conducted by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research.

Politico, which commissioned the poll from the center at the University of California, Berkeley, reported on Tuesday that support for the billionaire tax is currently at 50% of California voters, while just 28% registered opposition.

However, University of California Berkeley political scientist Jack Citrin told Politico that the measure’s passage isn’t yet a slam dunk because voters remain vulnerable to counterarguments against the plan, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ total wealth.

“The yes side has the current lead and you have some strong supporters, so that’s the good news,” Citrin explained. “Most experts on the initiative process say that the yes side has an advantage to start with because no one’s been talking about it and it sounds like a good idea... but then once the campaign begins you whittle away at that.”

Among other things, the poll found voters were concerned about whether the wealth tax would really be a one-time measure, whether it would push wealthy individuals out of the state, and whether the middle class would be forced to pay more in taxes to make up for the potentially departed billionaires.

Citrin told Politico that supporters of the wealth tax will have to convince voters that billionaires’ threats to leave California if the measure passes are a bluff.

A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally

Climate breakdown is shrinking the amount of time that people can safely go about their lives, according to a study that shows a third of the world’s population now resides in areas where heat severely limits activity. Rising temperatures, driven by the continued burning of fossil fuels, are making it difficult even for many young, healthy adults to do basic physical activities, such as housework or walking up stairs during daylight hours at the height of the summer, the report warns.

The limitations are greater for elderly people, who have less ability to sweat and thus control their body temperatures, according to the research, which combines physiological studies of heat tolerance with seven decades of global and regional data on population, temperatures and human development. On average, the report finds that people over 65 now experience about 900 hours each year when heat severely restricts safe outdoor activity, compared with 600 hours in 1950. This is equivalent to more than a month of daytime hours.

Worst-affected are those in poorer countries or regions, even though they are far less responsible for climate breakdown than wealthy consumers whose lifestyles produce higher greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of gas, oil and coal. In some tropical and subtropical regions, heat restricts outdoor activity for older adults for between one-quarter and one-third of the year. The most severe challenges are found in south-west Asia (Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman), south Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India) and parts of west Africa (Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Djibouti and Niger).

The study, which was led by scientists from the Nature Conservancy and published in the journal Environmental Research: Health on Tuesday, goes further than previous research on global heat risks by examining the social and physiological capacity to adapt to heat.

Testing the waters: can pumping chemicals into the ocean help stop global heating?

For four days last August, a thick slick of maroon bruised the waters of the Gulf of Maine. The scene, not unlike a toxic red tide, was the result of 65,000 litres of an alkaline chemical, tagged with a red dye, that had been deliberately pumped by scientists into the ocean. Though it sounds perverse, the event was part of a scientific experiment that could advance a technology to combat both global heating and ocean acidification. Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), as the approach is called, acts like natural weathering, but on human – rather than geological – timescales.

“The ocean is already incredibly alkaline. [It holds] 38,000bn tonnes of carbon, stored as dissolved bicarbonate, or baking soda,” says Adam Subhas, the lead oceanographer of the research team who announced early results from their test at the AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow. Boosting this natural alkalinity using a chemical antacid should, in theory, encourage the ocean to absorb more carbon. Over a large surface area, and in combination with sharp emissions reductions, OAE could prevent global temperatures exceeding 2C above preindustrial levels, while locally reducing ocean acidity, which is now higher than at any point in the past million years and poses a dire threat to marine life and fisheries.

Licensed by the US Environmental Protection Agency and overseen by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the experiment took place 50 miles off the coast of Massachusetts in an area commonly fished for cod, haddock and lobster. Albeit small in scale, their study, which has yet to go through peer review, found promising results. Over five days at sea, the Loc-Ness project used state-of-the-art technology including autonomous gliders, long-range autonomous underwater vehicles and shipboard sensors to trace the dispersal of 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide, an alkaline chemical that was tagged with a red dye, from the release site.

During that period, they measured up to 10 tonnes of carbon entering the ocean and an increase in local pH at the deployment site from 7.95 to 8.3, which represents a return of ocean alkalinity to preindustrial levels. The experiment showed no significant harm to creatures including plankton and fish and lobster larvae, though the team did not measure the impact on adult fish or marine mammals.

For some, using chemicals to solve an environmental problem seems reckless. “What we’re seeing is a push to exert more precise control over natural systems,” says Benjamin Day, a senior campaigner on climate and energy justice at Friends of the Earth US. Day says he is “profoundly concerned” about the environmental impacts of OAE happening at scale, including the risk of “catastrophic unforeseen consequences”. But, like it or not, we are already experimenting with the climate, in uncontrolled ways. “We really need to think about this in terms of stewardship,” says Phil Renforth, an expert in carbon dioxide removal (CDR) at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. “We’re adding CO2 to the atmosphere every year. A large proportion of that is going into the oceans, and the real question is: can we be proactive about how we manage it?”

Musk’s xAI wins permit for datacenter’s makeshift power plant despite backlash

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI won approval on Tuesday to run 41 methane gas turbines at its “Colossus 2” datacenter in northern Mississippi. That’s nearly double the amount it has been operating. The turbines will help power xAI’s massive datacenters, which house the company’s “AI supercomputers”, or giant arrays of advanced chips, which in turn power the controversial AI tool Grok, the company’s most recognizable product.

The decision, made by the Mississippi department of environmental quality, MDEQ, comes amid major public opposition to the datacenter, which demands enormous amounts of electricity. Community members and environmental advocates say the cluster of gas generators will contribute to hazardous air pollution in Southaven, Mississippi.

“We are outraged,” said Abre’ Conner, the director of environmental and climate justice for the NAACP. “MDEQ chose to bulldoze through a decision that silenced the very residents most harmed by it.”

Since xAI fired up Colossus 2 last year, bringing in unpermitted turbines, residents have complained of noise and air quality issues. At a public hearing held by MDEQ in Southaven last month, hundreds of people packed the room to express concerns over xAI’s impact on the community. According to NBC, no one spoke in favor of MDEQ granting the permit. “The scale, the speed, the intensity of this expansion are unlike anything this area has absorbed,” said Southaven resident Nathan Reed, per NBC. “This was not a thoughtful, phased development. It was an industrial surge imposed on our residential community.” ...

The gas generators that xAI is using emit fine particulate matter that contains hazardous chemicals such as formaldehyde and nitrogen oxide, according to environmental groups. These pollutants are tied to an increase in diseases, such as asthma, respiratory illness, heart attacks and certain cancers. The areas where xAI’s datacenters are located already struggle with pollution, with the American Lung Association giving an “F” grade to both DeSoto and Shelby counties.

Also of Interest

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

Patrick Lawrence: Another War We’re Not Supposed to See

Iran War: Administration Succeeds in Talking Down Oil Price to Below $100 as Trump Seeks Off Ramp to Opposition of Pentagon and Hawks; Iran Continues to Reject Talks, Announces Increase in Strikes, Pounds US Bases Into Dust

War On Iran – No. Taking Kharg Island Is Not An Option.

US-Israeli Strikes Hit Civilian Targets Across Iran

US media and Democratic Party enable Trump’s war of extermination against Iran

As U.S. Military Threats and Actions Escalate, Coalition Calls for Ending Preparations for a Military Draft

Shots fired at US consulate in Canada in what police call ‘national security incident’

After Secret Briefing, Dem Senators Warn Trump ‘On a Path’ to Ground Invasion of Iran

DAY 10: WAR ON IRAN

Sanctions on Israeli settlements are working – even without the US

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI

Death Valley bursts into superbloom for first time in a decade

A Little Night Music

Bob Brozman – Scene Of The Crime

Bob Brozman – Sister Kate Shimmy

Bob Brozman – Devil's Slide

Bob Brozman – Cypress Grove Blues

Bob Brozman – Never Hit The Same Place Twice

Bob Brozman – Mysterious Mose

Bob Brozman – Mean World Blues

Bob Brozman – Milenburg Joys

Bob Brozman - Love In Vain