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"War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men."

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

News and Opinion

This War Wasn’t Just Provoked — It Was Provoked Deliberately

In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention.

The article is titled “In closer ties to Ukraine, U.S. officials long saw promise and peril,” and it features named and unnamed veterans of the US intelligence cartel saying that long before the February 2022 invasion they were fully aware that the US had “provoked” Russia in Ukraine and created a powderkeg situation that would likely lead to war.

“By last summer [meaning the summer of 2021], the baseline view of most U.S. intelligence community analysts was that Russia felt sufficiently provoked over Ukraine that some unknown trigger could set off an attack by Moscow,” a former CIA official told Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman, who adds, “(The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.)”

Dorfman writes that initial support provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration had been “calibrated to avoid aggravating Moscow,” but that “partially spurred by Congress, as well as the Trump administration, which was more willing to be aggressive on weapon transfers to Kyiv, overt U.S. military support for Ukraine grew over time — and with it the risk of a deadly Russian response, some CIA officials believed at the time.”

Policymakers “would always say, ‘If we do X thing, if we give the Ukrainians X system, how are the Russians going to react?’ And our answer would always be, ‘You can’t look at any one thing in isolation,’” the unnamed former CIA official told Yahoo News. “And we might look and say, ‘Well, it’s just a few hundred MANPADs [man-portable air-defense systems] or a few hundred Humvees,’ but it’s missing the point that the Russians are taking all of this stuff in the aggregate, and they’re drawing this picture of this ever-increasing relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine.”

“I understand the moral argument,” says former CIA official Jeffrey Edmonds regarding the weapons transfers into Ukraine, “but I also understand the argument that, well, why would you want to give these things if it’s just going to increase the chances that Russia does something?”

So while we members of the public were blindly speculating about whether or not Russia would attack Ukraine, the US intelligence cartel was fully aware that the US was taking actions ensuring that that would happen. That’s the environment the US security state knew it was operating under when it continued to taunt the idea of adding Ukraine and Georgia to NATO right up until the final moments before the invasion.

This war wasn’t just provoked, it was knowingly provoked. Off ramp after off ramp was sped past by the US war machine at a hundred miles an hour on its beeline toward a horrific proxy war, because empire managers had calculated that such a war would serve US interests. And now we routinely see US officials like Mitch McConnell openly saying that this war serves US interests.

They really couldn’t be more obvious about it if they tried.

It’s been funny to watch the response of empire apologists to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s surprising refutation of a year and a half of empire propaganda by openly admitting that NATO expansion provoked the invasion of Ukraine and acknowledging that NATO powers rejected Moscow’s proposed compromises which could have averted the war. Basically the only argument they now have after this admission is to say that Russia should not have viewed NATO expansion as an existential threat.

Their only remaining trick is to argue with reality; to basically say that yes it’s reality that NATO expansion provoked this war because Moscow saw it as a threat, but reality shouldn’t have been what reality was. They argue that Russia should have felt completely different feelings about a military threat on its border than nations like the United States would feel, since as we’ve discussed previously the last time there was a credible military threat near the US border the US responded so aggressively that the world almost ended.

That’s really all they’ve got: “Yes it’s true that all the people who’ve died and lost their homes in this war did so because we were amassing a hostile military alliance near Russia’s border, but in our defense the Russians should’ve thought different thoughts in their heads than the ones that we ourselves would think about a hostile military threat on our border.”

If all westerners deeply understood all the suffering and danger that has been unleashed upon our world by this war, and deeply understood the fact that their own governments played a role in starting it, the political status quo of the western world would be impossible to maintain. Which is why such unprecedented levels of propaganda and internet censorship have gone into preventing westerners from coming to such an understanding. 

Westerners were deceived into supporting yet another evil war, which once again is showing every sign of dragging on for the foreseeable future with no exit strategy in sight. The only difference between this war and all those other wars is that this one is laden with the risk of nuclear annihilation, a risk which the US empire has been treading less and less carefully around as the bloodshed continues.

The more you think about it, the more horrifying it gets.

These people are absolute monsters.

Zelensky at the UN, kicking and screaming

US agrees to send long-range missiles to Ukraine in military boost for Kyiv

US president Joe Biden has decided to supply Ukraine with long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMS), an important boost to Kyiv’s capacity to target Russian military logistics at long range distances as the country prepares for a second winter at war.

Biden told Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a private meeting that a small number of the weapons would be transferred, NBC reported, citing US officials.

Ukraine has been asking for ATACMS for months. Officials in the US were reluctant as the country’s own stockpile is limited and because of fears Russia could accuse Washington of escalation.

But Ukraine will commit not to target Russian territory with them and a waiver allowing the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine has expanded the number of potential missiles that could be used there, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Fired from a mobile launcher, ATACMS can hit targets up to 190 miles (300km) away, allowing Ukrainian forces to strike far beyond the front lines. Potential targets include command headquarters, weapons depots and supply networks, including railways.

LITERAL NAZI Honored By Zelensky, Canada In Parliament

You couldn't make this stuff up:

Zelenskyy joins Canadian Parliament’s ovation to 98-year-old veteran who fought with Nazis

The Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation on Friday to a 98-year-old immigrant from Ukraine who fought in a Third Reich military formation accused of war crimes.

The elderly veteran, Yaroslav Hunka was honored during a session in which President Volodomyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the lawmakers to thank them for their support since Russia invaded his country, saying Canada has always been on “the bright side of history.” The Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota — who had compared Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill — recognized a “veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98.”

The assembly then rose to applaud a man in a khaki uniform standing on the balcony, who saluted, according to this screenshot from Canadian television.

The AP caption described Hunka as having “fought with the First Ukrainian Division in World War II before later immigrating to Canada.” The First Ukrainian Division is another name for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party; the unit was also called SS Galichina. ... Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was composed of recruits from the Galicia region in western Ukraine. The unit was armed and trained by the Nazis and commanded by German officers. In 1944, the division was visited by SS head Heinrich Himmler, who spoke of the soldiers’ willingness to slaughter Poles.”

Three months earlier, SS Galichina subunits perpetrated what is known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, burning 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers alive. ...

After the war, thousands of SS Galichina veterans were allowed to resettle in the West, around 2,000 of them in Canada. By then, the unit was universally known as the First Ukrainian Division.

Ethnic Armenians flee Karabakh after breakaway region's defeat

First evacuees from Nagorno-Karabakh cross into Armenia

The first several hundred refugees from war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh have crossed into Armenian territory, as a historic evacuation begins that could lead to a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians while Azerbaijan appears on the brink of taking control of the breakaway region.

They are the first civilians to have crossed from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia in nearly a year, reuniting families after a 10-month blockade and an intensive Azerbaijan military offensive this week that has left hundreds dead, wounded or missing. Officials in the breakaway Armenian government in Nagorno-Karabakh have said they plan to evacuate thousands of displaced people from the region into Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s blockade of the territory has led to desperate shortages of food, fuel and water in the local capital, Stepanakert, and surrounding areas.

The local ethnic Armenian government has called for Azerbaijan to open up the road along the Lachin corridor into Armenia to allow humanitarian aid into and the local population out of Nagorno-Karabakh. Many fear a campaign of ethnic cleansing when Azerbaijani authorities take control.

The local government said evacuees would be accompanied across the border from the disputed region into Armenia by Russian peacekeepers.

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ends, Pashinyan refuses to step down

France to withdraw ambassador and troops from Niger

France will withdraw its ambassador from Niger followed by the French military contingent in the next months, Emmanuel Macron has said in the aftermath of the coup in the west African country that ousted the pro-Paris president. The French president’s announcement appeared to end two months of defiance in which Paris’s ambassador had been kept in place in Niamey despite coup leaders ordering him to leave. ...

Macron added that military cooperation was over and French troops would withdraw in “the months and weeks to come” with a full pullout by the end of the year. He added: “We will consult the putschists, because we want this to be done peacefully.”

Niger’s military rulers responded swiftly in a statement read out on national television. “This Sunday, we celebrate a new step towards the sovereignty of Niger,” said the statement from the military rulers, who seized power by overthrowing President Mohamed Bazoum on 26 July. “This is a historic moment, which speaks to the determination and will of the Nigerien people,” the Niger statement added.

Looks like the U.S. under Biden can't seem to compete with China:

Biden Pacific summit suffers setback as Solomon Islands PM skips meeting

The White House has said it is disappointed the Solomon Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, will not attend a Pacific Islands summit with Joe Biden next week. The US president will host a second summit with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum at the White House on Monday as part of his efforts to step up engagement with a region where the US is in a battle for influence with China.

“We are disappointed that PM Sogavare of the Solomons does not plan to attend,” a Biden Administration official said.

Sogavare used his speech to the United Nations general assembly in New York on Friday to praise China’s development cooperation as “less restrictive, more responsive and aligned to our national needs”, and said Beijing was its lead infrastructure partner.

Sogavare said he reached an understanding with President Xi Jinping during a July visit to China for Solomon Islands to achieve development through China’s policies, including the belt and road initiative (BRI) and the global security initiative.

Separately, China and Timor Leste announced they had upgraded bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, potentially giving Beijing more influence in the region.

Political outsider Stefanos Kasselakis wins race to lead Greece’s Syriza

Stefanos Kasselakis, an outsider with no previous experience of politics in Greece, has emerged the victor of an electric race to lead the leftwing Syriza, the country’s main opposition party.

The Greek-American entrepreneur, who announced his candidacy for the post barely four weeks ago, attained 56.69% of the vote against 43.31% for Efi Achtsioglou, a former labour minister who had long been viewed as the favourite. Kasselakis’ win now makes him one of the most powerful people in Greece. ...

A shipping executive in the US, Kasselakis stepped into the race when Aléxis Tsípras, the party’s president for the past 15 years, announced he would be stepping down after Syriza’s double defeat in general elections held in May and June. The prime minister from 2015 to 2019, Tsipras had kept a “neutral” stance, refusing to endorse either candidate after Kasselakis’ unexpected win in the first round last week. As the results rolled in late Sunday, the businessman’s victory was described as both stunning and unprecedented.

Some 133,600 voters cast ballots at an estimated 537 polling stations nationwide with Syriza cadres describing the turnout as not only impressive but indicative of the desire to see a newly reinvigorated and strong opposition party facing a government intent on demolishing hard-won rights. ...

The Greek-American has signalled that he will apply root-and-branch change to Syriza, a progressive alliance that includes Marxists, Euro-communists, ecologists and social democrats. He has stated that if the party ever wants to taste power again it should “just copy the US formula as soon as possible” by transforming into a “big tent” US-style Democratic party.

Australian MPs campaign for Assange's freedom in DC

Heh, count your fingers when you shake his hand:

Biden to 'Join the Picket Line and Stand in Solidarity' With Striking Autoworkers

In a historic move, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed Friday to travel to Michigan next week and stand with striking United Auto Workers members, an announcement that came just hours after union autoworkers widened their strike to include all U.S. General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution centers.

"Tuesday, I'll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create," Biden said on social media. "It's time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs."

Last Friday, Biden called on automakers to share more of their windfall with UAW workers, who are seeking better pay and benefits.

"Auto companies have seen record profits... They have not been shared fairly with workers," the president said. "I understand the workers' frustration. Over generations, autoworkers have sacrificed so much to keep the industry alive and strong, especially during the economic crisis and the pandemic."

"The companies have made some significant offers," Biden added. "But I believe they should go further to ensure that record corporate profits mean record contracts for the UAW."

Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—is a self-described "pro-labor president" but his response to the UAW is notably different from last year, when he came under fire for signing legislation to block a nationwide rail strike.

Nebraska Woman Gets Two Years in Prison After Giving Abortion Pills to Teen Daughter

Amid a wave of right-wing efforts to quash abortion rights across the United States, a Nebraska judge on Friday sentenced Jessica Burgess to two years in prison after helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy and bury the remains in early 2022.

Police have said that over two years ago, then-17-year-old Celeste Burgess took abortion pills—provided by her mother—at approximately 29 weeks pregnant and gave birth to a stillborn fetus, which the pair burned and buried in Norfolk, Nebraska.

Celeste Burgess was sentenced to 90 days behind bars and released earlier this month. Tanner Barnhill, who pleaded no contest to attempting to conceal a death for helping with the burial, was sentenced to nine months of probation and 40 hours of community service.

Jessica Burgess, who took a plea deal, faced up to five years in prison. She pleaded guilty to providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, tampering with human remains, and false reporting. As Jezebel noted, the 42-year-old was charged even though the state's 20-week ban that was in effect at the time applied to "licensed abortion providers, not people self-managing their own terminations."

As Rafa Kidvai, director of If/When/How's Repro Legal Defense Fund—which is not representing Jessica Burgess—put it to Jezebel, "In this particular case, here's the audacity: Self-managed abortion is not even a crime in fucking Nebraska."

"None of this is about justice or safety or someone's health or society being better or kinder or safer—this is about control from the state," Kidvai argued. "Everything is a distraction, including conversations around gestational age... They're distracting you constantly by telling you that your individual choices are the problem, not the systems that keep you oppressed."

Bob Menendez Indicted: Egypt Tried to Keep U.S. Military Aid Flowing Through Bribery and Corruption

Indictment of Democratic Senator Menendez exposes corruption in the US political establishment

In a Department of Justice press release Friday, US Attorney Damian Williams said a grand jury charged the Menendezes for engaging in “a corrupt relationship” with New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes and unnamed Egyptian government officials between 2018 and 2022. Williams’ statement went on to say the businessmen “collectively paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes, including cash, gold, a Mercedes Benz, and other things of value—in exchange for Senator Menendez agreeing to use his power and influence to protect and enrich those businessmen and to benefit the Government of Egypt.”

Responding eight hours after the indictment, leading Democratic Party leaders in the Garden State, including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, called on Menendez to resign. Murphy said the allegations are “deeply disturbing” and “implicate national security and the integrity of our criminal justice system.” The governor continued, saying the “facts are so serious they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state.”

Clearly, the stench of corruption surrounding the longtime federal legislator from New Jersey—Menendez held a seat in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2006 and has been in the Senate since 2006—was so strong that the Department of Justice was forced to shut him down. Senator Menendez was implicated in ethics violations in 2006 for renting property he owned to a non-profit agency that received federal funding. In 2015, he was indicted on bribery and fraud charges involving requests that the State Department pressure the Dominican Republic to enforce a government contract that benefited a Florida businessman, who gave the senator money and paid for his expensive vacation trips on a private jet. In the corruption trial in 2017, Menendez escaped conviction when a US District Court judge in New Jersey declared a mistrial due to a hung jury. In January 2018, the Department of Justice announced that it was dropping all charges against him.

Menendez has responded defiantly to the new charges. He issued a statement saying he would “fight for the people of New Jersey with the same success I’ve had for the past five decades,” although he did not elaborate on whom he was fighting for or what his supposed success was. Menendez then injected a bogus claim of ethnic discrimination, saying, “It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” and adding, “I am not going anywhere.”

Reprising legal arguments he advanced during his trial in 2017, Menendez also said of the prosecution, “They have misrepresented the normal work of a congressional office. On top of that, not content with making false claims against me, they have attacked my wife for the longstanding friendships she had before she and I even met.” In one sense Menendez is right. The type of horse-trading and favors for friends in business that he is charged with is in fact “the normal work of a congressional office,” although perhaps his fellow senators are less indiscreet in their displays of the proceeds.

Menendez Announces REELECTION BID Amid Federal BRIBERY INDICTMENT

SCOTUS Ethics Scandal Continues: Clarence Thomas Didn't Disclose Attendance At Koch Fundraisers

Revelations of Clarence Thomas’s Koch links stoke supreme court reform calls

A report detailing how Clarence Thomas secretly participated in donor events staged by the hard-right Koch network drew more fierce protests and outrage over the conservative supreme court justice’s proliferating ethics scandals.

Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee who has advanced ethics reform amid reports about Thomas and other justices, said: “Oh, my.

“More undisclosed private jet travel, more fingerprints of the billionaire-funded court fixer Leonard Leo” – a rightwing activist widely linked to Thomas – “more engagement with billionaire-funded organisations scheming to influence the court.”

Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, said: “Once again, Justice Thomas’s gaggle of fawning billionaires expands and their influence on the court grows larger.

“The Koch brothers are the architects of one of the largest, most successful political operations in history, aimed at influencing all levels of government and the courts. Justice Thomas hid the extent of his involvement with the Koch political network and never reported gifts associated with these engagements.”

The report linking Thomas to Koch donor summits at Bohemian Grove, an exclusive all-male resort in California, was just the latest blockbuster from ProPublica, the nonprofit newsroom that has hounded the justice over his failure to declare links to and generous gifts from rich rightwing donors often with business before the court.

Louisiana police accused of ‘unconscionable’ abuse in ‘Brave Cave’

Across from an industrial hose and gasket supplier’s office, in a mostly empty and fenced-off lot behind a precinct house belonging to the police department of Louisiana’s capital city, there sits a white storage shed without any markings explaining its purpose. That single-story warehouse – within a couple of blocks of a daycare center, an eatery specializing in chicken wings and a gasoline station frequented by unwary residents – is now the focus of local and federal authorities examining alarming claims that officers with the Baton Rouge police department (BRPD) took detained people there and brutalized them.

Allegations portraying the warehouse once used by the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination, or Brave, anti-street crime unit as a sort of black site or torture chamber are contained in two federal court lawsuits filed relatively recently. One of the lawsuits maintains that a woman was illegally forced to disrobe and endure a humiliating search of her body. Another contends a man was so badly beaten by officers who took him to their so-called “Brave Cave” that one of his ribs was broken.

The plaintiffs accuse police of violating their civil rights and have demanded damages, prompting not only public outcry against the local law enforcement establishment – but also having an impact, at least at this early stage of the scandal.

After the first of the two lawsuits, the Brave unit primarily addressing drug-related complaints was disbanded, and its warehouse was shuttered. One of the officers named in both lawsuits – Troy Lawrence Jr, the son of the BRPD’s deputy chief – has resigned, and he has also been arrested on a count of battery in connection with a third case that got a closer look because of the Brave Cave allegations.

NIGHTMARE POLL? Biden Trails Trump By 10 PERCENTAGE POINTS, WaPo Says It's An 'OUTLIER'

Major Poll showing Trump up 10 points over Biden for 2024 election criticized

A new Washington Post-ABC poll showing Joe Biden trailing his presidential predecessor Donald Trump by 10 percentage points was excoriated by leading political pollster Larry Sabato. Noting that the pollsters themselves cautioned that their survey was an outlier, Sabato – the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia – called the decision to release it “ridiculous”.

“Ignore the Washington Post–ABC poll,” Sabato wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “How could you even publish a poll so absurd on its face? Will be a lingering embarrassment for you.” He added: “Just plain embarrassing – for them.”

The New York Times’ chief political analyst Nate Cohn also criticized the poll that said Trump was ahead of Biden in the 2024 White House race. Referring to a Post-ABC poll in May that found Trump was up seven percentage points on Biden, which was similarly inconsistent with most polling, Cohn wrote on X : “It’s really really hard to release outlying poll results, so you’ve got to give credit to ABC/Post here, but I do have a fairly major quibble with ABC/Post here: if you release consecutive ‘outlying’ poll results … you don’t get to dismiss your results. ...

The Washington Post acknowledged its survey was not in line with most polling, which generally finds that the Democratic incumbent Biden and the former Republican president Trump would be in a close, competitive race if they faced each other in the 2024 election.

Clueless progressives can't seem to figure out that economically strained people aren't going to shell out when there is nothing in it for them.

US progressive groups facing ‘five-alarm fire’ ahead of 2024 as donations down

Progressive political fundraising in America is facing a crisis, according to a leading Democratic grassroots donor organization, which warned this month that donations to progressive groups are “way down in 2023 across the board”.

According to the Movement Voter Project, progressives have “a five-alarm fire going into 2024”. The organization’s director, Bill Wimsatt, said he was “pressing the panic button” because donor inaction is creating a movement-wide crisis.

Wimsatt said there had been a peak for progressive causes around the time of Black Lives Matter in 2020 and amid campaigning to get Donald Trump out of office. “The sense of urgency and existential necessity has dissipated in people’s minds,” he said, “though the situation going into 2024 isn’t any less existential.”

Wildfires turn Canada’s vast forests from carbon sink into super-emitter

The vast swaths of pine, spruce and larch forest that blanket much of Canada have been prized for generations. Not only do they provide a home to hundreds of species – including some of the most threatened in the country – but they also absorb more greenhouse gases than they emit, acting as a huge carbon sink. This summer, however, as flames devoured one of the largest contiguous stretches of woodland on the planet, 2bn tonnes (2.2bn tons) of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere.

Emissions from Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season are probably triple the country’s annual carbon footprint, experts warn, as climate systems reach a “tipping point”. The trajectory of the country’s wildfires has raised questions about how Canada can better tackle the blazes – and whether the issue is a global problem as nations race to reduce the volume of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Werner Kurz, a recently retired scientist with Natural Resources Canada, estimates nearly 2bn tonnes of carbon have already been released into the atmosphere from the record-breaking wildfire season, which federal officials warn could persist into the winter. “It’s definitely off the scale,” said Kurz, a key figure in developing tools to measure the “carbon budget” of the country’s forests.

The figure far exceeds all of the emissions tied to Canada’s economy each year, which emit a total of 670m tonnes. ... But when the final tally is measured in the coming years, the emissions from wildfires will not be counted against Canada’s Paris agreement commitments, a reality that has long frustrated climate scientists, who fear far more carbon is released into the atmosphere than people realize.

In 2018, the governing Liberal party pledged to plant 2bn trees within the decade – a goal it looks unlikely to fulfil. At the time, the federal government touted the aim as a way of eliminating 2m tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions annually – a figure now dwarfed by this year’s wildfire emissions. The way in which forests, long prized for the way they actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, have easily eclipsed all combined emissions from Canada, has rewritten a longstanding narrative of the sprawling boreal landscape.

New Orleans declares emergency over saltwater intrusion in drinking water

The New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell, signed an emergency declaration for the city on Friday amid concerns about saltwater from the the Gulf of Mexico that has been creeping up the drought-hit Mississippi River in Louisiana. The declaration came amid concerns the saltwater, which is impacting the river because it is at such low levels, could impact the drinking water of thousands of residents in the next few weeks

The Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, said the state would be requesting an emergency declaration from the federal government in the next couple of days as well to get federal funds and agencies involved. For those who rely on the Mississippi River for drinking water, the saltwater intrusion is a potential health risk, as high concentrations of salt in drinking water may cause people to develop increased blood pressure and corrode drinking water infrastructure.

The saltwater has already entered the drinking water of communities south of New Orleans – from Empire Bridge to Venice, Louisiana – making the water undrinkable for about 2,000 residents and causing water outages at local schools. As the saltwater moves upriver, it could affect the drinking water for another 20,000 people in Belle Chasse. After that it could reach the drinking water intake for the New Orleans community of Algiers, across the river from the French Quarter.

To slow the progression of the saltwater, the army corps of engineers constructed an underwater barrier downriver from New Orleans in July. On Friday, the corps released an updated timeline of the saltwater intrusion in the river that includes the delay added by the underwater barrier. With the barrier in place, the saltwater would not reach the Belle Chasse drinking water intake until 13 October and the Algiers intake until 22 October. ...

Colonel Cullen Jones of the army corps of engineers said that 10in of rain would be needed across the entire Mississippi Valley to increase the Mississippi River flow high enough to push back the seawater.

HERE’S Why There Was No Water For Maui Fire!

Lego abandons effort to make bricks from recycled plastic bottles

Lego has stopped a project to make bricks from recycled drinks bottles instead of oil-based plastic, saying it would have led to higher carbon emissions over the product’s lifetime.

The move, first reported by the Financial Times, followed efforts by the world’s largest toymaker to research more sustainable materials, as part of a wave of companies reassessing their contribution to global emissions as the climate crisis hits. ...

The “level of disruption to the manufacturing environment was such that we needed to change everything in our factories” to scale up recycled PET use, he said. “After all that, the carbon footprint would have been higher. It was disappointing.”

Also of Interest

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

CIA abuse rendered 9/11 defendant unfit for trial: US military judge

We’re Being Prepared For The Ukraine War To Last Into The 2030s

US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine

Netanyahu Shows Map of 'New Middle East'—Without Palestine—to UN General Assembly

‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’: Yanis Varoufakis on extremism, Starmer, and the tyranny of big tech

A Valuable Lesson from Mexico: AMLO Government Cancels Extortionate Public-Private Partnerships for 9 Public Hospitals

The Baltimore Sun’s Reckoning on Freddie Gray

CIVIL WAR: Matt Gaetz FIGHTS With Maria Bartiromo On Shutdown Politics

UAW President SHREDS Big 3 LIES On Car Prices

Russell Brand UNDER INVESTIGATION By London Met Police

A Little Night Music

Lee Dorsey - Ya Ya

Holy Cow

Lee Dorsey - Rock

Lee Dorsey – Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley

Lee Dorsey – Who's Gonna' Help Brother Get Further

Lee Dorsey – Ride Your Pony

Lee Dorsey - Give It Up

Lee Dorsey - Work, Work, Work

Lee Dorsey – Yes We Can