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News and Opinion

Guardian coverage fnords and all:

Biden to speak with Putin amid Russia’s increased presence near Ukraine

Joe Biden will speak on Thursday with Vladimir Putin regarding the Russian leader’s increased security demands in eastern Europe. The two leaders will discuss a range of topics, including “upcoming diplomatic engagements in Russia”, said US national security council spokesperson Emily Horne in a statement announcing the call.

Thursday’s talks come at the request of Russia amid Russia’s increased security presence near Ukraine as the US and its allies watch on warily. The buildup of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border has grown to an estimated 100,000 and has fueled fears that Moscow is preparing to invade Ukraine.

[What? No mention of Russia's 10,000 troop drawdown after drills were complete? Shocking! - js]

“This dialogue should, and we expect will, proceed on the basis of reciprocity. There will be topics where we can make meaningful progress and topics where we will have differences. That’s the nature of diplomacy,” said a senior Biden administration official in a background press call.

Biden, Putin to discuss Ukraine crisis in new call

Israeli Military Presents Iran Strike Scenarios, but Can't Say What They'll Achieve

The Israeli military has presented the country's political leadership with several possible scenarios for striking targets in Iran, but emphasized that it would be difficult to determine the outcome of such strikes or assess how it would affect Tehran's nuclear program.

The military says that as part of its preparations in past months for a possible attack on Iran, it has been acquiring advanced weapons, conducting air force training exercises and collecting new strike targets for Military Intelligence's target bank. The IDF was given an additional budget of 9 billion shekels ($2.9 billion) for this purpose.

Military officials said the IDF will be ready to strike Iran as soon as the government gives its approval. According to the military, it is also preparing for the consequences of striking Iran, including a round of fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In this scenario, the IDF is laying the groundwork to make the terror groups pay a heavy toll, and to make significant gains on these fronts.

According to the IDF's assessment, Iran has increased and improved its air defense array over the past years, making an air strike more complex. The Iranians have also managed to significantly increase their arsenal of long-range missiles, which can easily hit any point in Israel. Due to this development, the Israeli military signed several contracts over the past year worth billions of shekels in order to expand and strengthen Israel's air defense.

Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster

The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover. Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.

He said more than half the Afghan population was facing extreme hunger, including 1 million children at risk of starving to death, citing International Monetary Fund predictions that the country’s economy would contract by 20-30% in the next year. “No country in recent times is suffering from such ‘universal poverty’ in the way that Afghanistan may do,” Brown wrote in an article for the Times.

“It is ironic that when the whole international community is pledged to achieve the sustainable development goals – to free all the world from absolute poverty this decade – almost every citizen of Afghanistan will be condemned to that dire fate. Instead of no absolute poverty in any country, we will have the horror of practically an entire country living in absolute poverty.” Brown stressed the effects may be felt within Europe, given thousands of Afghans would be faced with the choice of starving or emigrating.

As Afghan Humanitarian Crisis Spikes, US News Coverage Plummets

Despite unprecedented levels of hunger and starvation for which U.S. sanctions bear important responsibility, Afghanistan has once again virtually disappeared from the most important single source of world news for most Americans.

Since September, which marked the end of U.S. efforts to evacuate its citizens and its foreign and Afghan allies, the evening news programs of the three dominant U.S. television networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS—have collectively devoted a grand total of 21 minutes—spread over ten story segments—to Afghanistan.

That marks a stunning plunge in evening news attention from a total of 427 minutes devoted to Afghanistan in the two previous months, about 75 percent of which were broadcast in August during the Taliban's takeover of the country and the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and allied personnel. Just one three-minute segment has aired since December 1.

"For the American networks this year, what was newsworthy was the fall of Kabul and the pullout of U.S. troops, not the fate of the Afghan people in the aftermath," noted Andrew Tyndall, editor of the authoritative Tyndall Report, which has monitored the three networks' nightly news broadcasts each weekday since 1988. ...

No more U.S. soldiers and marines on the ground, no more coverage on the evening news, and Afghanistan, despite Washington's enormous impact on the country, both through its military intervention and now through its sanctions, fades quickly into distant memory. Left behind: 23 million Afghans at risk of starvation to add to the roughly 176,000 Afghans killed during America's longest war.

Chomsky Blasts the "Torture" of Julian Assange & Biden's Provocative Acts Against China

NDAA signed this week by Biden bars him from closing Gitmo detention center, a longtime Democratic Party goal

The annual Pentagon policy bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week bars him from taking steps toward closing the controversial detention facility at the United States’ Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Biden, in a statement issued after signing the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on Monday, criticized the language included in the bill, which precludes him from sending law of war detainees to certain countries or transferring them to prisons on U.S. soil. The Guantanamo By facility currently houses 39 detainees — all captured early in the American war on terror launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch that these provisions unduly impair the ability of the executive branch to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo Bay detainees and where to send them upon release,” Biden said in the statement. “In some circumstances these provisions could make it difficult to comply with the final judgment of a court that has directed the release of a detainee on a writ of habeas corpus.” ...

Biden in July transferred one detainee, Abdul Latif Nasser, to his home country Morocco after he had been held without charges since 2002. It was the first transfer of a detainee from Guantanamo Bay since the Trump administration sent a man in May 2018 to his native Saudi Arabia to complete a 13-year sentence for terrorism-related charges to which he had pleaded guilty.

ONLY 50% Of 2020 College Grads Have Jobs So Far

If you're interested in the inflation issue, I highly recommend this article from Matt Stoller, it's really good and easy to follow.

We have a powerful weapon to fight inflation: price controls. It’s time we use it

Inflation is near a 40-year high. Central banks around the world just promised to intervene. However, a critical factor that is driving up prices remains largely overlooked: an explosion in profits. In 2021, US non-financial profit margins have reached levels not seen since the aftermath of the second world war. This is no coincidence. The end of the war required a sudden restructuring of production which created bottlenecks similar to those caused by the pandemic. Then and now large corporations with market power have used supply problems as an opportunity to increase prices and scoop windfall profits. The Federal Reserve has taken a hawkish turn this month. But cutting monetary stimulus will not fix supply chains. What we need instead is a serious conversation about strategic price controls – just like after the war. ...

After the war, the question was what to do with the price controls. Should they be released in one big bang as southern Democrats, Republicans and big business were urging? Or did price controls have a role to play in the transition to a postwar economy? Some of the most distinguished American economists of the 20th century called for a continuation of price controls in the New York Times. This included the likes of Paul Samuelson, Irving Fisher, Frank Knight, Simon Kuznets, Paul Sweezy and Wesley Mitchell, as well as 11 former presidents of the American Economic Association. The reasons they presented for price controls also apply to our present situation.

They argued that as long as bottlenecks made it impossible for supply to meet demand, price controls for important goods should be continued to prevent prices from shooting up. The tsar of wartime price controls, John Kenneth Galbraith, joined these calls. He explained “the role of price controls” would be “strategic”. “No more than the economist ever supposed will it stop inflation,” he added. “But it both establishes the base and gains the time for the measures that do.” ...

Today, there is once more a choice between tolerating the ongoing explosion of profits that drives up prices or tailored controls on carefully selected prices. Price controls would buy time to deal with bottlenecks that will continue as long as the pandemic prevails. Strategic price controls could also contribute to the monetary stability needed to mobilize public investments towards economic resilience, climate change mitigation and carbon-neutrality. The cost of waiting for inflation to go away is high. Senator Manchin’s withdrawal from the Build Back Better Act demonstrates the threat of a shrinking policy space at a time when large scale government action is in order. Austerity would be even worse: it risks manufacturing stagflation. We need a systematic consideration of strategic price controls as a tool in the broader policy response to the enormous macroeconomic challenges instead of pretending there is no alternative beyond wait-and-see or austerity.

Ranchers DROPPING LIKE FLIES As Meatpackers Fleece Public

Matt Taibbi: Dems' Education Lunacies Will Bring Back Trump. Youngkin Win PROVED Parents Want A Say

Indictment of alleged Proud Boys leaders over US Capitol attack upheld

A federal judge has refused to dismiss an indictment charging four alleged Proud Boys leaders with conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding during the 6 January attack on the US Capitol – a development that could have potential implications for Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, the US district judge Timothy Kelly rejected arguments by defence lawyers that Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Charles Donohoe are charged with conduct that is protected by the first amendment right to free speech.

He said they had multiple nonviolent options to express their opinions about the 2020 presidential election, in which former president Trump lost to Joe Biden. “Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests,” he wrote in a 43-page ruling. “Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever first amendment protection it may have had.”

As reported by the Guardian last week, expectation is growing that Trump may face charges for trying to obstruct Congress from certifying Biden’s election this year as a House panel is collecting more evidence into the attack.

EVEN MSNBC SLAMS Pelosi's Defense Of Insider Trading

Warmer in Alaska Than San Diego This Week as Temperature Record 'Pulverized'

As parts of Alaska obliterated high-temperature records earlier this week, meteorologists and climate scientists warned that extreme heat and rainfall are the new normal in the nation's largest state and other Arctic and subarctic zones.

On Sunday, the town of Kodiak in southern Alaska hit 67°F—seven degrees warmer than the daytime high in San Diego—and shattering the December record for Alaska by nine degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The town also broke the local December record by more than 20 degrees. ...

A study published last month in Nature Communications noted that "as the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of the planet, evidence mounts that the region is experiencing unprecedented environmental change," with "the hydrological cycle... projected to intensify throughout the 21st century [and] increased evaporation from expanding open water areas and more precipitation."

The paper projected that Arctic winters will experience more rain than snow beginning sometime in the 2060s.

Extreme temperatures aren't just occurring during the Alaskan winters. In July 2019, Anchorage recorded an all-time high of 90°F. In July 2021, the record-breaking heatwave during which Lytton, British Columbia set a Canadian record of 121°F triggered a 2.7-magnitude cryoseism, or "ice quake," near Juneau, Alaska's capital, as 92-degree heat melted glacier ice that subsequently saturated into the soil and then rapidly refroze.

Wildfires—which accelerate global heating by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—are also increasing along with Alaska's rising temperatures.

Scientists also warn that thawing Arctic permafrost in the northern parts of the state constitutes a "geological time bomb" set to release potentially devastating quantities of methane—a super-potent greenhouse gas whose emissions are roughly 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide emissions over a 20-year period—into the atmosphere.

Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say

Simple plastic beads could save the lives of some of the thousands of porpoises and other cetaceans that get caught in fishing nets each year, scientists say. Harbour porpoises use echolocation to find their prey and for orientation. However, their acoustic signals cannot pick up the mesh of a gillnet, and as a result they often become trapped.

Daniel Stepputtis, a marine biologist at the Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries in Rostock, Germany, says a porpoise will notice floats and leadlines, “but when it detects two obstacles with a few metres of space in between, it obviously thinks ‘I can pass through there’.”

Stepputtis and his colleagues have come up with an elegant new concept to make the nets visible to aquatic mammals using echolocation. They fit the nets with transparent beads made of acrylic glass. The material has approximately the same density as water, so it adds hardly any extra weight to the fishing gear. But when it is hit by biosonar, the polymer sends back an extraordinarily strong echo, warning animals that there is something ahead.

The first trials of the technology, conducted off the Danish island of Funen in the western Baltic, have shown promise. Harbour porpoises hunting in the area kept clear of a bead-equipped net. ... The method may have some limitations, though. The scientists conducted another series of tests in the Black Sea, where a turbot fishery produces a very large bycatch of harbour porpoises. ... The researchers carried out 10 hauls each with a standard gillnet and a net fitted with the beads. Five porpoises were killed in the standard nets and two in the modified nets.

Stepputtis suggests the entangled animals might have been asleep. Dormant porpoises keep on swimming but only occasionally switch on their biosonar. For this reason, Stepputtis and colleagues are also using a new acoustic alerting device that emits synthetic porpoise warning signals. In field trials, the device reduced bycatch by almost 80%.

Also of Interest

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

Russian Admiral: Israel Attack Did Minor Damage to Syrian Port

The Hounding of Julian Assange Leaves Honest Journalism With No Refuge

Throwing a Shoe at the Illegal US War on Iraq

Oklahoma Bill Would Empower Parents to Remove Books From School Libraries

How New England bungled its plan to transition to renewable energy

Ocean Heating This Century Could Create Hurricane Conditions Unseen in 3 Million Years: Study

Noam Chomsky on Rising Fascism in U.S., Class Warfare & the Climate Emergency

Andrew Cuomo FORCED To Return Book Earnings After Fraud

Homelessness in the US: Tiny home villages being built around Los Angeles

A Little Night Music

Snooks Eaglin - Malaguena

Snooks Eaglin - That's All Right

Snooks Eaglin - I hear you knockin

Snooks Eaglin - Hideaway

Snooks Eaglin - Nine Pound Steel

Snooks Eaglin - I Get the Blues When It Rains

Snooks Eaglin - Let The Four Winds Blow

Snooks Eaglin - Drop The Bomb

Snooks Eaglin - Playgirl

Snooks Eaglin - Sleepwalk