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“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

-- Gautama Buddha

News and Opinion

An interesting article worth a full read. Here's a taste:

How tech's richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. ... After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys – yes, all men – from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own. They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less affected by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the Event?”

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: at least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the ageing process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

It’s Been Over a Year Since MSNBC Has Mentioned US War in Yemen

As FAIR has noted before (1/8/18, 3/20/18), to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a non-issue.

On July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera. The US is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of March, ground troops. None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18) calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.

By way of contrast, as MSNBC was marking a year without mentioning the US role in Yemen, the PBS NewsHour was running a three-part series on the war, with the second part (7/3/18) headlined, “American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.” The NewsHour’s Jane Ferguson reported:

The aerial bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but has hit weddings, hospitals and homes. The US military supports the Saudi coalition with logistics and intelligence. The United States it also sells the Saudis and coalition partners many of the bombs they drop on Yemen.

MSNBC chat show/Starbucks commercial Morning Joe did run one segment (4/25/18) that vaguely mentioned the war on Yemen, but failed to note the US’s role in it at all, much less that Washington is arming and backing the conflict’s primary aggressor. Instead, they did the perverse inversion––previously mastered by Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl (FAIR.org, 6/27/17)—of not only ignoring the US’s major role in killing thousands, but painting the US as a noble haven for refugees. The schlocky segment, an interview with writer Mohammed Al Samawi, was a shallow mixture of “interfaith” pablum, poverty porn and self-congratulations to the US for taking in refugees (without, of course, acknowledging that they’re seeking refuge from a crisis the US has created).

For a bit more context, in the time period of July 3, 2017, to July 3, 2018, MSNBC dedicated zero segments to the US’s war in Yemen, but 455 segments to Stormy Daniels.

Debunking the Putin Panic with Stephen F. Cohen

North Korea: satellite images show dismantling of missile test facilities – report

Satellite images indicate North Korea has begun dismantling key facilities at a site used to develop engines for ballistic missiles, in a first step toward fulfilling a pledge made to US President Donald Trump at a June summit, reports a Washington-based think tank.

The images from 20 July showed work at the Sohae satellite launching station to dismantle a building used to assemble space-launch vehicles and a nearby rocket engine test stand used to develop liquid-fuel engines for ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles, the 38 North think tank said.

“Since these facilities are believed to have played an important role in the development of technologies for the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile program, these efforts represent a significant confidence-building measure on the part of North Korea,” it said in a report. ...

South Korea’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it plans to reduce guard posts and equipment along the demilitarised zone on its border with the north, the Yonhap news agency reported.

Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law Constitutionally Enshrines Racism Against Palestinians

Erdogan rebuked for claiming Israeli officials have 'Hitler spirit'

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that “Hitler’s spirit” was resurgent among Israeli officials, while Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Turkey was becoming a “dark dictatorship” as the two regional powers clashed over a new law defining Israel as a Jewish state.

At a meeting with lawmakers from his Justice and Development (AK) party on Tuesday, Erdoğan condemned the nation state law passed in the Knesset last week, which he said mirrored the Nazi obsession with Aryan racial purity.

“This law is evidence that, without doubt, Israel is the most Zionist, fascist, and racist state in the world,” Erdogan said. “The Israeli administration’s view to identify those ancient lands as belonging to Jews alone is no different from Hitler’s obsession with the Aryan race,” he added. “The Hitler spirit, which dragged the world into a major disaster, has risen again among some Israeli officials.”

Netanyahu hit back on social media, describing Turkey under Erdogan as a “dark dictatorship”. “Erdogan is massacring Syrians and Kurds and has jailed tens of thousands of his citizens. The fact that the great ‘democrat’ Erdogan is attacking the nation state law is the greatest compliment for this law. Turkey, under Erdogan’s rule, is becoming a dark dictatorship whereas Israel scrupulously maintains equal rights for all its citizens, both before and after introducing this law,” Netanyahu said in a statement."

The war of words escalated further, with Ibrahim Kalin, a top aide to Erdogan and the presidential spokesman, describing Netanyahu as “the prime minister of a Zionist apartheid state” who lacked the moral authority to lecture the Turkish president.

Buying out of the crisis: EU offers €6,000 compensation for migrants

To Make Sure They Know 'The Internet Is Keeping Score,' Net Neutrality Defenders Ramp Up Pressure on House Lawmakers

Turning up the heat on representatives who have yet to indicate their support for a joint resolution to restore open internet protections repealed by Trump's FCC, net neutrality advocates on Monday launched a new tool to make sure the lawmakers know "the internet is keeping score." The new "scorecard" lets constituents know not only whether their representative backs a petition to force a vote on a measure that would override the FCC's repeal, but also how much in campaign contributions they have received from big internet service providers (ISPs)  and the number of small businesses in the district that have signed an open letter in support of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution. It also features a tool to quickly contact representatives.

"Some elected officials are still under the woefully incorrect impression that they can hide from their constituents when it comes to net neutrality, or attempt to fool them by supporting symbolic legislation instead of the CRA," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future. Fight for the Future is part of the trio, along with Demand Progress and Free Press Action Fund, that makes up the tenacious BattleForTheNet.com team, which plans on ramping up its efforts to restore net neutrality through Congress's August recess.

The groups scored a victory in May after the Senate passed Sen. Ed Markey's resolution to restore net neutrality. And then the focus centered on the House, where Republican Speaker Paul Ryan's refusal to bring the resolution to the floor has necessitated a petition to force a vote. A positive sign came just last week, however, when the first House Republican, Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, added his name to the petition.

Now, Battle for the Net says, "victory [is] increasingly within reach."

Showing 'Anti-Choice Agenda Is Out-of-Touch and Patently Un-American,' Public Support for Roe v. Wade Hits Record High

While reproductive rights advocates raise alarm about President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as the administration and Republican lawmakers continue to wage war on women's access to healthcare, new polling shows that public support for Roe v. Wade—the landmark ruling that constitutionally guarantees a woman's right to have an abortion—has hit a record high across the political spectrum.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll published Monday found that 71 percent of all respondents do not want the 1973 ruling overturned—the highest degree of support in the poll's 13-year history. Notably, those supporters spanned political party affiliation, with 88 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independents, and 52 percent of Republicans indicating that they want Roe upheld.

New, from the NBC/WSJ poll: As the Supreme Court stands to be reshaped with Trump's new nominee, public support for the court's decision in Roe v. Wade hits a new high. https://t.co/KlDCYKNpGi pic.twitter.com/EU7hAbC8t8

— Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) July 23, 2018

"Voters also say that they are more likely to vote for a political candidate who supports abortion rights rather than for one who opposes them," NBC reported. "Forty-four percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a pro-abortion-rights candidate, while 26 percent said they would be more likely to support a candidate who backs restrictions on abortions."

Amid Mounting Concerns About Kavanaugh's Threat to Reproductive Rights, Massachusetts Repeals 173-Year-Old Abortion Ban

Massachusetts lawmakers on Monday passed legislation repealing an unenforced 173-year-old abortion ban—which Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said he will sign—highlighting concerns among reproductive rights advocates about the record of President Donald Trump's latest nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, and what his confirmation could mean for women's rights.

While right-wing state legislators in Republican-controlled states have steadily worked to curtail abortion rights with the ultimate goal of forcing the nation's highest court to re-examine its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, advocacy groups are raising alarm about Kavanaugh to pressure senators to reject his nomination, and states such as Massachusetts are working to protect a woman's right to choose.

"The changing dynamics of the Supreme Court is a real and legitimate concern," said Massachusetts state Rep. Claire Cronin, a Democrat. "We have both a president and a vice president who have expressed an intent to overturn Roe v. Wade and we take them at their word." Massachusetts' Negating Archaic Statutes Targeting Young (NASTY) Women Act , as WBUR noted, will also repeal "a ban on unmarried people having access to contraception and a ban on distributing information about how to access contraception or abortions."
While the measure was welcomed by reproductive rights advocates, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts president Rebecca Hart Holder encouraged state lawmakers to go even further. "Repealing antiquated laws is the first, critical step to ensuring that even if Roe v. Wade were overturned tomorrow, the reproductive freedom of the people of Massachusetts would be unequivocally protected," Hart Holder responded, while also urging elected officials to "enshrine protections for abortion access in state law and become a safe haven state for reproductive healthcare."

Trump administration to provide $12bn in aid to farmers hurt by tariffs

The US government has announced a $12bn plan to assist farmers who have been hurt by Donald Trump’s trade disputes with China and other trading partners.

The plan focuses on midwest soya bean producers and others targeted by retaliatory measures.

The agriculture department said the proposal would include direct assistance for farmers, purchases of excess crops and trade promotion activities aimed at building new export markets. Officials said the plan would not require congressional approval and would come through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a wing of the department that addresses agricultural prices.

“This is a short-term solution that will give President Trump and his administration the time to work on long-term trade deals,” said agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue. Officials said the direct payments could help producers of soya beans, which have been hit hard by the Trump tariffs, along with sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, dairy and farmers raising hogs.

“Bring the War Home”: The Long History of White Power and Paramilitary Violence in the United States

Lawsuit Against Project Veritas May Shed New Light on Right-Wing Group’s Internal Operations

A Michigan judge issued a ruling late last week granting the American Federation of Teachers the right to discovery in an ongoing legal battle with Project Veritas, the sting group launched by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe. The escalating fight, which is being played out in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, began last September, when the teachers union filed a lawsuit accusing Project Veritas of infiltrating and illegally gathering proprietary information from its Michigan affiliate.

Project Veritas, a right-wing activist group known for releasing undercover video exposés of liberal organizations like ACORN and Planned Parenthood, has taken a special interest in targeting teacher unions over the last eight years. The group has been accused of routinely doctoring its videos, and last year it was caught trying to feed a false story about Roy Moore, then a U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, to the Washington Post. The discovery in the Michigan case may shed new light on its internal operations.

According to the September complaint, which was filed in state court, Marisa Jorge, a political operative for Project Veritas, presented herself as a University of Michigan student named Marissa Perez who was interested in becoming a teacher. She applied for a summer internship with AFT Michigan and was hired in May 2017. For the next three months, she allegedly gathered a wide range of confidential information on the teachers union. The lawsuit claims that on multiple occasions Jorge was found alone in other employees’ offices, accessing information she, as an intern, had no right to see. In other cases, she requested to attend bargaining sessions, was given access to internal databases, and secretly recorded conversations, according to the complaint. ...

“It’s going to get interesting now because we have the opportunity to dig pretty deep into Project Veritas and their activities,” AFT Michigan attorney Mark Cousens told The Intercept. “We can discover not only how they work, but what they did in Michigan.” Cousens said the union, through discovery, might request information on Jorge’s relationship to Project Veritas, background on Jorge, and what materials she may have taken while working as an intern.

Powerful Hawaii Progressive Calls Out Democrat Corruption w/Kaniela Ing

Senator Orrin Hatch’s office claims he’s not dead

Google briefly declared Senator Orrin Hatch dead on Monday night. ... A search for 84-year-old Hatch, the veteran Republican senator from Utah who’s retiring at the end of his term, showed on Monday night that he’d died on September 11 of 2017.

Hi.. @Google?

We might need to talk. pic.twitter.com/vdHbcccy7x

— Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) July 24, 2018

The popular search engine quickly fixed their mistake, and by Tuesday morning showed Hatch to be alive and well, born in 1934 and not dead yet.

One “mistake” Google hasn’t fixed yet: Type in a search for “idiot” and you’ll find photos of another prominent Republican.

Trump Takes Aim at California's Highly Successful Auto Emissions Standards

The Trump administration is set this week to propose a rollback of California's highly successful auto emissions standards, in a move that could result in yet another sweeping environmental anti-regulatory measure.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are expected to propose an end to the 2009 waiver that gave California the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and mandate that car companies reach a quota of electric vehicles sold, according to Bloomberg News. ...

The Trump administration will also put forth a plan to weaken fuel efficiency rules put in place by President Barack Obama, who aimed to require automakers to sell cars with an average of fuel efficiency of 50 miles per gallon by 2025, according to Bloomberg. Trump would allow car companies to stop improving efficiency after 2020, when federal law mandates only 35-mile-per-gallon requirements.

On social media, some noted that Trump's attack on California's ability to regulate emissions on its own roads flies in the face of conservative arguments in favor of "states' rights"—often invoked in debates over states' ability to regulate abortion access and LGBTQ rights, as well as racial integration and slavery in the past.

Because states rights are only applicable to women’s reproductive health...

Trump will seek to revoke California’s authority to regulate automobile emissions, including its mandate for electric car sales.

https://t.co/8IiAxv6dNG

— Maggie Jordan: (@MaggieJordanACN) July 23, 2018

Trump officials may allow 'shaker machines' to search arctic refuge for oil

The Trump administration has announced it is considering a proposal to conduct seismic testing for oil and gas in the Arctic national wildlife refuge, the largest such preserve in the US. If the plan moves forward, vehicles with “shakers” – diesel-powered equipment that sends tremors through the landscape – will be deployed along Alaska’s northern coastal plain in an effort to map underground hydrocarbon deposits.

SAExploration, the Colorado-based firm that would carry out the work, has committed to mitigating environmental impact by using large sleds, and non-industrial vehicles along ice roads, to minimize scarring and impact on flora and fauna. Nevertheless, airstrips would need to be built in the pristine wilderness to service the two 150-person teams in charge of the mapping.

Biologists and environmentalists argue that the testing will cause irreparable harm to the pristine wilderness. The Porcupine caribou herd, which migrates 1,500 miles through the refuge – the longest migration of any mammal on earth – ends its journey along the plain where the testing will take place. The caribou calve along the coast and provide critical subsistence food for the Gwich’in Nation, which has lived and depended on the land for thousands of years.

In April, the US interior department commissioned an expedited environmental review of the impact of leasing the land for oil and gas drilling. Since its founding by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, the refuge has embodied the American ideal of “wilderness” – where no roads, buildings, or any trace of human presence is allowed, save for temporary shelter. ...

In July, the Porcupine caribou herd will conclude its calving season and head back into the mountains for the winter. Leases for full-scale drilling along the coast could be available as early as summer 2019 – right about when the caribou herd descends on to the coastal plain after its long journey to give birth once more.

Monsanto's 'cancer-causing' weedkiller destroyed my life, dying man tells court

Dewayne Johnson said that if he had known what he knew now about Roundup weedkiller, “I would’ve never sprayed that product on school grounds ... if I knew it would cause harm ... It’s unethical.” Johnson, a former school groundskeeper in northern California who is terminally ill, was testifying Monday in his landmark suit against Monsanto about the cancer risks of the company’s popular weedkiller. He is the first person to take the agrochemical company to trial over allegations that the chemical sold under the Roundup brand is linked to cancer.

He spoke for the first time during the trial in San Francisco, detailing his use of Monsanto’s products, his extensive exposure to herbicides, and his belief that the chemicals caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a blood cell cancer. He also described the suffering he endured as skin lesions took over his body. “I’ve been going through a lot of pain,” said Johnson, a father of three who goes by the name Lee. “It really takes everything out of you ... I’m not getting any better.” ...

Thousands have brought similar legal claims across the US, and a federal judge in California ruled this month that hundreds of cancer survivors or those who lost loved ones can also proceed to trial. Johnson’s case has attracted international attention, with the judge allowing his team to present scientific arguments about glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide.

Johnson, 46, took the stand in a crowded courtroom and said he was excited when he first got a job as a groundskeeper and pest manager for the school district in Benicia, a suburb north of San Francisco. Part of the work, which began in 2012, involved spraying herbicide to control weeds on school grounds – sometimes for several hours a day. Although he wore extensive protective gear while spraying, he was often exposed to the Roundup and Ranger Pro chemicals, both glyphosate-based Monsanto products, due to “drift”, he testified. “You were getting it on your face everyday,” he said. “It was kind of unavoidable.”

Johnson described two incidents in which he said he was badly exposed to the chemicals due to mishaps and leaking while spraying, including a hose breaking. “It got on my clothes, got on everything,” he said of one incident, noting that prior to his cancer, he had “perfect skin”, but after he started spraying and suffered exposures, he got sick and began seeing rashes, lesions and sores all over his body. “I’ve had it bad everywhere.”

Greece wildfires: at least 20 dead as residents urged to flee homes

At least 20 people have been killed and more than 100 injured as two forest fires rage out of control near the Greek capital of Athens.

Authorities urged people to abandon their homes on Monday after high winds whipped up the worst fires for more than a decade in two areas either side of the capital, destroying properties and closing the the main motorway west to Corinth. ...

As darkness fell, the extent of the disaster was impossible to gauge. The country was like a tinderbox, emergency workers said, after a dry winter and a summer heatwave that has seen temperatures above 40C. ... Wildfires are common in Greece in summer, but a dry winter has created tinderbox conditions.

Dozens of people died when fires raged for days across the Peloponnese in 2007. Last November, more than 20 people were killed in flash flooding in the area of Mandra near Kineta.

Also of Interest

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

The World According to Ben Rhodes: Hypocrisy in Obama’s Foreign Policy

Key Fact Obscured in Immigration Coverage: MS-13 Was Made in USA

Entering a 1984 World, Trump-Style

Garden photographer of the year: macro winners – in pictures

A Little Night Music

Son House - Depot Blues

Son House - Levee Camp Moan

Son House - Grinnin' in Your Face

Son House - Low Down, Dirty Dog Blues

Son House - John The Revelator

Son House - Levee Camp Blues

Son House - Pearline

Son House - Downhearted Blues

Son House - Pony Blues

Son House w/Buddy Guy - My Black Mama