Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. Enjoy!

"The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned."

-- Henry A. Wallace

News and Opinion

The KKK is not a federally designated terrorist group and the feds don't treat groups like the neo-nazis as domestic terrorists - but anti fascist groups and nonviolent protest groups like occupy wall street and environmental protesters the feds have no trouble calling terrorists.

Go figure.

FBI, Homeland Security warn of more ‘antifa’ attacks

Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO. ...

Previously unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that “anarchist extremists” were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government and political institutions, along with symbols of “the capitalist system,” racism, social injustice and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by DHS and the FBI.

After President Donald Trump’s election in November, the antifa activists locked onto another target — his supporters, especially those from white supremacist and nationalist groups suddenly turning out in droves to hail his victory, support crackdowns on immigrants and Muslims and to protest efforts to remove symbols of the Confederacy. Those reports appear to bolster Trump’s insistence that extremists on the left bore some blame for the clashes in Charlottesville and represent a “problem” nationally. But they also reflect the extent that his own political movement has spurred the violent backlash.

In interviews, law enforcement authorities made clear that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies — first as a candidate and then as president — helped to create a situation that has escalated so quickly and extensively that they do not have a handle on it.

The media is busy creating a left-wing “threat” to balance out the awful racist right-wing hordes who threaten civil society

In these dark days, an intergenerational warning is in order: Antifa folks — be wary. They are coming for you.

Some of us have seen this movie before. In my generation, when I was a teenage member of MSU’s SDS in the late 1960s, I remember the guy who was always yelling, “Kill the pigs,” and encouraging us to burn down the ROTC building on campus. In later years, I heard from old SDS colleagues that when they sued the police, they learned that the outspoken guy was a police officer and his friends were informants.

For my dad’s generation, the right-wing takeover of a protest movement happened in Germany generations ago, so most Americans don’t even recognize Marinus van der Lubbe’s name. But the Germans remember well that fateful day eighty-one years ago — February 27, 1933. And many of them are looking at the confrontations in our streets and worrying.

It started when the government, struggling with questions of its own legitimacy and the instability of its leader, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. Historians are still debating whether the “terrorist” was a mentally incompetent young man maneuvered into place to take the fall for the crime, or was an actual communist ideologue (of limited intellectual means and probably schizophrenic; that seems to be one thing most agree on). ...

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” Hitler proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out German Parliament building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion — “a sign from God,” he called it — to declare an “all-out war on terrorism” and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion. And, he said, their fellow travelers — “communists” like the man who’d set the Reichstag on fire — needed to be tracked down and utterly destroyed. ...

There’s little doubt in my mind — having lived through the era of COINTELPRO and the PATRIOT Act — that somewhere out there is a person who’s planning to commit an act of terrorism. It may be a dedicated but deluded left-winger, or, more likely, it’s a right-winger hoping to stir things up by pretending to be a left-winger. And Trump and his friendly “news” outlets are ready to use it. Perhaps apocryphally, Mark Twain once noted that, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

There’s no shortage of examples of that rhyme, and given all the “mainstream” press now being thrown at the Antifa movement, it’s a sure thing that they’re going to be the Administration’s and the media’s next big boogeyman. Somewhere out there is the next Marinus van der Lubbe, and Trump and his press are ready.

Worth a full read:

The Anti-Capitalist Politics of Antifa

As antifa has burst into the mainstream in recent weeks, suddenly the efficacy of confronting Nazis in the streets is being debated on the national stage. Antifa is not one particular group, but a term used to describe anti-fascists committed to stamping out fascism before it can rise to power. The debate around antifa tends to stay narrowly focused on the use of physical self-defense in public spaces. What’s received less attention is the anti-capitalist politics of antifa, and how some anti-fascists and are putting these politics into practice through workplace organizing. ...

When Tiffany S. started working at the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-op in Takoma Park, MD, she encountered disrespectful management and no way to address it. There were even sexual harassment allegations against the general manager. Tiffany recalls feeling disempowered at the time: “You couldn’t do anything because you might get fired.” ... Tiffany frames the connection between capitalism and other forms of oppression as being rooted in our material reality. “When I think about the connections between capital and white supremacy, I think- who owns what, and how did they come to own it? Slaves were working the land, producing cotton, or tobacco, or sugar. Where did that money go, and what does that mean?” For Tiffany, using concrete material conditions of workers’ lives as a starting point is the easiest way of making connections between systems of capitalism and white supremacy.

In his new book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Mark Bray places current antifa struggles within a larger political ideology that is explicitly anti-capitalist. He notes that antifa has historically brought together broad segments of the left, including anarchists, communists, and socialists. “Many anti-fascists will argue that you can’t really be an anti-fascist without being an anti-capitalist, because they argue that capitalism breeds the conditions for fascism,” says Bray.

While anti-fascists have differing opinions about how fascism takes roots and grows, “what they agree on is that you can’t take fascism as a blemish on capitalist society, but instead as a key part of it.” Bray identifies this anti-capitalist analysis as a key distinction between militant anti-fascism in Europe and post-World War II modern European governments, noting that these states grew out of World War II and then juxtaposed themselves against fascism. An integral part of antifa’s politics is understanding that these states “didn’t actually thoroughly uproot traces of nazism and fascism, and by virtue of being capitalist states are still contributing to the root causes of fascism. In that sense, anti-capitalism is a key defining feature of what separates those two perspectives on what anti-fascism means.”

In the wake of the horrors of Charlottesville, elected officials from both major parties were falling over themselves to denounce “hate,” “evil,” and other seemingly apolitical concepts. These statements, divorced from any historical or political analysis, posit “hate” as an abstract concept, as if it just fell from the sky. By putting forth a decidedly anti-capitalist set of politics, antifa challenges this notion. Instead, we find that hate is not an isolated occurrence, detached from the rest of society, but very much a symptom of a system built on exploitation. Viewed within this political framework, attempts to break down our social systems should be viewed as an affront to our inherent right to live in community with one another and to fully participate in the social and political mechanisms of society.

Why Fascist Speech is Not Free Speech

The growing fascist movement in the United States often claims that it is marching for “free speech” and complains that Antifa and other opponents are violating their rights. Unfortunately, this cynical claim has won some credibility among liberals and even the ACLU. But the law does not protect the advocacy of violence any more than it protects child pornography. These well-established legal principles should be extended to prohibit the advocacy of genocide, the ultimate violence.

Arguing about the free speech rights of Nazis, fascists, and KKK members is a trap. The issue is not speech, it is violence. The fascists do not want to argue with us, they want to kill us. A brief review of U.S. law demonstrates that fascist advocacy of violence and genocide can and should be prohibited. In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that there is no free speech right to advocate violence when there is a likelihood that violence will actually occur. ...

The Nazis, fascists, and related groups who marched in Charlottesville, Berkeley, and other places recently went to these cities to commit acts of violence and did what they promised. In their march at the University of Virginia the fascists called for the elimination of African Americans and Jews. Their websites and public statements openly call for acts of violence and genocide. In June 2016 in Sacramento fascists stabbed at least seven people, most of them African Americans. ...

We are not proposing that offensive speech, or even speech that many consider hateful because of its abusive treatment of people based upon their race, gender or ethnicity, be outlawed. A free society must tolerate speech that is hurtful or offensive. But no civilized society must or should tolerate behavior by individuals or groups of people that promotes violence and even the total destruction of people based upon their color, gender, religion, or origin.

Larry Wilkerson: North Korea is Not an Existential Threat - But Many People Benefit by Saying It Is

Haley lays out argument to say Iran not abiding nuclear deal

President Donald Trump's envoy to the United Nations laid out an argument Tuesday for the U.S. to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear deal, but suggested the Trump administration might then leave it to Congress to decide whether to withdraw.

In a speech to a conservative think tank, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said she didn't know what decision Trump would ultimately make, as a series of deadlines approach. Yet she said Trump would be on solid ground if he did decide against certifying Iran's compliance, and added, "What happens next is significantly in Congress' hands." ...

The Trump administration's argument for Iran's noncompliance has centered on narrowing the lines between pursuit of nuclear weapons, which is forbidden under the deal, and Iran's other transgressions, like support for extremists in other parts of the region. The nuclear deal was intentionally structured to avoid those issues so the nuclear threat could be prioritized, in what's become critics' chief complaint about the deal.

But Haley suggested another way Iran could be deemed to be violating its nuclear obligations: its ballistic missile development, also excluded from the deal but still illegal under other U.N. resolutions.

"You can call it non-nuclear all you want: Missile technology cannot be separate from pursuit of a nuclear weapon," Haley said.

North Korea: "A diplomatic solution needs to provide security assurances to Pyongyang"

North Korea Says It Might Negotiate on Nuclear Weapons. But the Washington Post Isn’t Reporting That.

I recommend you pay close attention to this, from a recent column by the Post’s deputy editorial page editor, Jackson Diehl, about North Korea:

[North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un] has shown no interest in talks — he won’t even set foot in China, his biggest patron. Even if negotiations took place, the current regime has made clear that “it will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiating table,” as one envoy recently put it. [emphasis added]

Here’s why that matters:

While the Post’s link is dead, it’s meant to take you to this Associated Press story.

This is what the envoy, North Korea’s Deputy UN Ambassador Kim In Ryong, actually said, according to a transcript from North Korea’s UN Mission quoted in the AP article:

“As long as the U.S. hostile policy and nuclear threat continue [emphasis added], the DPRK, no matter who may say what, will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiation table or flinch an inch from the road chosen by itself, the road of bolstering up the state nuclear force.”

There’s of course a significant difference between North Korea saying it will never negotiate to halt or eliminate its nuclear weapons program, and that it will never negotiate as long as the U.S. continues to threaten it.

Seoul pleads with Putin to help tame North Korea

South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, has warned that the crisis on the Korean peninsula risks becoming “uncontrollable” as Asia-Pacific stocks tumbled for the third day running. “The global political situation has become very serious due to North Korea’s repeated provocations,” Moon told the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, during bilateral talks in Vladivostok on Wednesday.

According to South Korean media, Moon asked Putin to help “tame” North Korea, as the international community considers its response to Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test on Sunday. There was further evidence that North Korea had made significant progress in its nuclear programme, with Japan saying it had revised upwards the estimated yield from Sunday’s bomb to 160 kilotons – making it more than 10 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb. ...

Putin has said he opposes fresh economic measures against the regime. While he condemned North Korea’s provocations, Putin said further sanctions would be useless and ineffective, describing the measures as a “road to nowhere”. China, too, opposes any measure – namely an oil embargo favoured by the US and Japan – that could foment a domestic crisis big enough topple North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and potentially end the country’s status as a buffer between China and South Korea, where US forces are based.

End Games: the Apocalyptic Trope That Swallowed the World

Everywhere you look these days, you see the trope: the “end of the world” is nigh from a nuclear war. You see it in somber headlines, in weighty punditry, even in throwaway jokes in the middle of, say, a TV review: “Looks like the BBC finally has a comedy hit — just as the world is about to blow up!” Ha ha. The current situation with North Korea is being portrayed as if it’s a reboot of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with two massively armed superpowers on the brink of all-out global conflagration.

But putting aside the entirely context-less hype and fear-mongering of our media and political elites, even if there were some kind of war between the US and North Korea, it would not remotely lead to anything like the “end of the world.” The US has thousands of immediately launchable nuclear weapons; North Korea has, er, none. And even if you believe Pyongyang’s propaganda (and if you swallow it about their nuclear weapons program, why not believe their BS about the happy workers’ paradise they have there?), you’re still left with the fact that North Korea might be able to put a weapon on a missile at some point in the future. OK, then they could possibly lob this missile (or heck, two or three of them, maybe) in the direction of the United States – which, we assume, would just stand back and watch this happen, despite having North Korea absolutely blanketed with surveillance and having the ability to destroy any launcher the instant it reared skyward. And then North Korea would be obliterated by a US retaliation.

So even if this actually impossible worst-case scenario happened, where is the global nuclear conflagration that would destroy the entire world? Is Russia – the only other country actually capable of destroying a good bit of the world – going to launch a suicidal nuclear attack on the US because North Korea launched a sneak attack on the US and the US responded? Would China launch its handful of nukes at the US, knowing it would face instant annihilation? Gormless goobers like Donald Trump and John McCain might think so. But Russia and China have already said they themselves would punish North Korea if it launched an unprovoked attack on the US (or anyone else).

Thus, even if, God forbid, there was a nuclear exchange between the US and North Korea, the world would not end, human civilization would not collapse, etc, etc. Where would the other missiles, the ones that would destroy the whole world, come from? Are people assuming that if North Korea launched one of the nuclear-armed missiles it doesn’t have at the US, the US would then launch its entire nuclear arsenal all over the world in a paroxysm of destruction? This fear-mongering trope makes no actual sense. But is certainly very useful in keeping people cringing and anxious – and looking to their “leaders” to save them from the weirdo insane crazy animal in North Korea who is somehow going to blow up the entire world all by himself! Oh, Mr. President, we forgive all that Nazi-coddling stuff; just save us from the monster!

US aircraft are striking stranded ISIS fighters if they try to take a leak

Eight days ago, a convoy of 17 buses carrying 300 to 500 fighters and their families left the eastern side of the country after a truce was reached between surrendering ISIS fighters and Syrian government forces, which are backed by Hezbollah.

The US has objected to the truce, and in the days since the convoy departed, US aircraft have targeted 40 vehicles and any members of the convoy who stray too far from the main group. "Whether it's to evade by foot or to relieve themselves, if they make it far enough out there for us to strike, then we will," US Army Col. Ryan Dillon told Foreign Policy.

Last week, US airstrikes destroyed a bridge and made a road impassable, and the convoy has since been stuck between the Syrian cities of As Sukhnah and Abu Kamal, the latter of which is on the border with Iraq. Six of the buses have turned back toward territory held by the Syrian government; the rest have been resupplied by trucks coming from Syrian government territory.

US aircraft have blocked what's left of the convoy from reaching Deir ez-Zur, an ISIS stronghold. (Syrian government forces recently broke a years-long ISIS siege around Dier ez-Zur, but the terrorist group still has positions in the area.)

Human Rights Group Calls Conditions in Gaza 'Unlivable' for One Million Children

Save the Children called on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, reporting that one million children there are coping with "unlivable" conditions, as schools and households struggle to function with limited basic services and the constant threat of conflict. While the United Nations warned in 2012 that the Gaza Strip would become unlivable by 2020 if Israel's blockade was not lifted, the humanitarian group finds that the area has already descended into uninhabitable conditions.

The U.N. has reported similar findings, with its top humanitarian official in Gaza, Robert Piper, saying last week, "for most of us that unlivability point has already been passed. And yet somehow the Gazans soldier on."

Following the seizure of the Gaza Strip in 2007 by Hamas, Israel's air, sea, and land blockade has left the 139-square-mile strip—one of the most densely populated places in the world—completely isolated. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli offensives in the region since 2008. "Sadly, the children of Gaza are caught in one of the most politicized conflicts in the world," said Jennifer Moorehead, country director of the Occupied Palestinian Territories for Save the Children. "The continued Israeli occupation and splits within the Palestinian leadership are making life unbearable. If you're ten years old in Gaza you've already witnessed three massive and violent escalations of conflict."

Many households in Gaza are struggling with only two to four hours of electricity per day, while more than 740 schools are barely functional amid the energy crisis that's plagued the region since April, when Gaza's sole power plant was forced to shut down due to lack of fuel reserves and funds. The Gaza Strip's crumbling infrastructure has also created a shortage of safe drinking water, Save the Children reported, with 90 percent of the region's water too contaminated for consumption.

Your tax dollars at work providing Israel with free F-35s:

Israel finalizes order of 17 more F-35 stealth fighter jets from US company

Israel finalized a deal to order 17 more F-35 stealth fighter jets from the U.S. company Lockheed Martin. The planes were originally authorized and ordered in November 2016, but the negotiations with the company were completed over the weekend, according to reports.

Each plane costs about $100 million. The money comes from the 10-year, $38 billion U.S. military aid package for Israel signed by President Barak Obama in September 2016. Most of the aid must be spent in the United States. The order brings to 50 the number of F-35s to be built for Israel.

Hey, the US has lots of your tax dollars to throw around!

Albania gets US military Humvees to bolster its army

Albania's Defense Ministry says that the United States has provided the first light trucks to bolster its military capacities.

A statement Tuesday said that the first six out of 248 Humvees have arrived in Albania, as part of a $12 million aid package. The tiny Western Balkan country will support their transport and maintenance.

U.S. Ambassador Donald Lu said Albania is one of four NATO allies in Europe to get these vehicles so that it "has an infantry group fully modernized, operational and autonomous until 2019."

Hackers attacking US and European energy firms could sabotage power grids

A hacking campaign is targeting the energy sector in Europe and the US to potentially sabotage national power grids, a cybersecurity firm has warned. The group, dubbed “Dragonfly” by researchers at Symantec, has been in operation since at least 2011 but went dark in 2014 after it was first exposed, secretly placing backdoors in the industrial control systems of power plants across the US and Europe.

Now, Symantec reports, the group has resumed operations, apparently working since late 2015 to investigate and penetrate energy facilities in at least three countries: the US, Turkey and Switzerland. “The Dragonfly group appears to be interested in both learning how energy facilities operate and also gaining access to operational systems themselves, to the extent that the group now potentially has the ability to sabotage or gain control of these systems should it decide to do so,” the cybersecurity firm warns. ...

The researchers are unable to determine who is behind the Dragonfly campaign: some of the code is in Russian, but some is in French, “which indicates that one of these languages may be a false flag. “Conflicting evidence and what appear to be attempts at misattribution make it difficult to definitively state where this attack group is based or who is behind it,” the report concludes.

Meet Cesar Espinosa: After Surviving Harvey, He's Fighting for his Future as Trump Rescinds DACA

Trump's Pick to Head DOJ Civil Rights Division Embodies 'Disdain for Civil Rights'

Civil rights organizations are raising alarm ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Eric Dreiband, who groups argue has an "overwhelmingly anti-civil rights record" and is therefore "unfit" for the position.

CNN summarized Dreiband's history:

Civil rights groups are concerned about Dreiband's work since 2005 as a labor attorney for prominent Washington law firms Akin Gump and Jones Day, where he is currently a partner. Dreiband has defended companies like R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in an age discrimination case, Bloomberg in a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit, CVS Pharmacy in an employee severance agreement lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Dreiband also represented the University of North Carolina when it faced lawsuits after deciding to enforce the state's anti-transgender "bathroom bill," which was later repealed.

In a letter addressed to Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday, Lambda Legal and 46 other national, state, and local LGBTQ groups argued that the nomination of Dreiband "embodies this Justice Department's lack of commitment to defending the civil rights of LGBT people," and said it is yet another indication of Trump's "disdain for civil rights."

Trump's Department of Justice "appears not only to have abandoned its obligation to defend civil rights, but has decided instead to use its authority to inflict additional harm on communities already under attack, including (but certainly not limited to) the LGBT community," the groups wrote, urging the Senate to oppose Dreiband's confirmation.

From the Department of Lame-Assed Excuses:

Ray Lewis: Ravens shunned Kaepernick due to 'racist' tweet from girlfriend

The latest reason for Colin Kaepernick’s absence from the NFL is apparently not down to his throwing accuracy, his wage demands or his protest against injustice in the United States. Instead, Ray Lewis claims a “racist” tweet sent by his girlfriend Nessa Diab stopped the Baltimore Ravens from signing the quarterback. ...

“We were going to close the deal to sign him,” Lewis told Showtime’s Inside the NFL on Tuesday night. “[Ravens owner] Steve Bisciotti said: ‘I want to hear Colin Kaepernick speak to let me know that he wants to play football.’ And it never happened because that picture comes up the next day.”

@raylewis pic.twitter.com/N9k7nDgmDh

— NESSA (@nessnitty) August 3, 2017

The tweet, from 2 August, compared Lewis and Biscotti to Samuel L Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters in Django Unchained. In the film, Jackson plays a loyal slave to DiCaprio’s racist plantation owner. Diab’s tweet was addressed to Lewis and has not been deleted.

Corporate Democrats Have a Vested Interest in Not Listening to Workers

I'm totally sick and tired of reading about Hillary and Bernie's less than excellent adventure, but this commentary at Wall Street on Parade was amusing and quite well done. Here's a taste:

Hillary’s New Book: It’s About Ponies and Money and Blaming Bernie

Hillary Clinton’s Excuses Tour continues in the form of her new book, What Happened, set for release on September 12. Enough photos of pages with text from the book have been leaked by media outlets to get a reliable feel for what Hillary hopes to accomplish with her latest tome.

For starters, Hillary portrays herself as the mature politician who understands what can and cannot be accomplished in Washington while Senator Bernie Sanders (the wildly popular candidate who opposed her in the primary race; has survived for a quarter of a century in Congress without a scandal; and was secretly targeted for defeat by the Democratic National Committee) was irrationally promising ponies to get votes. Hillary provides a passage for how this pony-promising-strategy by Sanders derailed her message:

Bernie: I think America should get a pony.

Hillary: How will you pay for the pony? Where will the pony come from? How will you get Congress to agree to the pony?

Bernie: Hillary thinks America doesn’t deserve a pony.

Bernie Supporters: Hillary hates ponies!

Hillary: Actually, I love ponies.

Bernie Supporters: She changed her position on ponies! #WhichHillary? #WitchHillary

Headline: “Hillary Refuses to Give Every American a Pony”

Debate Moderator: Hillary, how do you feel when people say you lie about ponies?

Pesticides can cause brain damage and organic food is the future, EU report says

Eating food with high levels of pesticides has an adverse effect on the brain, according to a review of existing scientific evidence commissioned by the European Parliament. The MEPs wanted to know whether organic food was healthier than conventionally grown crops and asked experts to look at the relevant research.

A report based on the review said a California study had found that children whose mothers had traces of organophosphate metabolites – the basis for many pesticides – during pregnancy were more likely to have “adverse mental development at two years of age, attention problems at three-and-a-half and five years, and poorer intellectual development at seven years".

Another study calculated that an estimated 13 million IQ points a year are lost as a result of pesticides, which represents a loss of approximately €125bn (£109bn) across the European Union. The report suggested this figure was likely to be an under-estimation, as it failed to take into account the possible impact of pesticides on diseases like Parkinson’s, diabetes and some types of cancer.

M&M Mars counters Trump's climate stance with $1bn sustainability plan

The corporate backlash is growing against Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, with Mars launching a $1bn sustainability plan and an M&M’s campaign centred on renewable energy. It is the latest climate move by the family owned firm, which emerged as a vocal critic of the US president’s decision to pull out of the 2015 climate pact, saying it was “disappointed” with the withdrawal and stressing that corporations could not go it alone when it came to tackling climate change.

Mars is now rolling out a $1bn (£771m) investment to help cut greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 67% by 2050, run a poverty reduction and sustainability programme for farmers and suppliers, and ramp up food safety and security efforts. Chief executive Grant F Reid said: “This plan is about not just doing better, but doing what’s necessary. We’re doing this because it’s the right thing to do but also because it’s good business. We expect to have a competitive advantage from a more resource-efficient supply chain, and from ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is doing well.”

The Snickers, Twix, Milky Way and Skittles maker has also revealed plans to champion renewable energy through its M&M’s brand, featuring images of things such as wind turbines alongside its red and yellow candy characters.

Plastic fibres found in tap water around the world, study reveals

Microplastic contamination has been found in tap water in countries around the world, leading to calls from scientists for urgent research on the implications for health. Scores of tap water samples from more than a dozen nations were analysed by scientists for an investigation by Orb Media, who shared the findings with the Guardian. Overall, 83% of the samples were contaminated with plastic fibres.

The US had the highest contamination rate, at 94%, with plastic fibres found in tap water sampled at sites including Congress buildings, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters, and Trump Tower in New York. Lebanon and India had the next highest rates. European nations including the UK, Germany and France had the lowest contamination rate, but this was still 72%. The average number of fibres found in each 500ml sample ranged from 4.8 in the US to 1.9 in Europe. ...

“We have enough data from looking at wildlife, and the impacts that it’s having on wildlife, to be concerned,” said Dr Sherri Mason, a microplastic expert at the State University of New York in Fredonia, who supervised the analyses for Orb. “If it’s impacting [wildlife], then how do we think that it’s not going to somehow impact us?”

Microplastics are also known to contain and absorb toxic chemicals and research on wild animals shows they are released in the body. Prof Richard Thompson, at Plymouth University, UK, told Orb: “It became clear very early on that the plastic would release those chemicals and that actually, the conditions in the gut would facilitate really quite rapid release.” His research has shown microplastics are found in a third of fish caught in the UK.

Hurricane Irma: "So powerful that it's registering on devices used to measure earthquakes"

Irma: Atlantic's most powerful hurricane ever makes landfall in Caribbean

The most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricane in recorded history has made its first landfall on the islands of the north-east Caribbean, following a path predicted to hit Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba before possibly heading for Florida over the weekend.

The eye of Hurricane Irma passed over Barbuda at about 1.47am local time, the National Weather Service said. Residents said over local radio that phone lines had gone down. Heavy rain and howling winds hit the neighbouring island of Antigua, sending debris flying as people huddled in their homes or government shelters. ...

Irma then slammed into the islands of Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin, causing major flooding in low-lying areas. Coastlines are being “battered extremely violently” by the sea, the French weather office said, adding: “These islands are suffering major impacts.” As the category 5 storm approached French-run Saint Barthélemy, a favourite jet-setters’ destination also known as St Barts, the office measured winds of 151 mph (244km/h). Its monitoring equipment has since been destroyed by the hurricane, it said. ...

Warm water is fuel for hurricanes and Irma is over water that is one degree celsius (1.8F) warmer than normal. The 26C (79F) water that hurricanes need goes about 80 metres (250ft) deep, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private forecasting service Weather Underground.

People are already evacuating Florida as Irma pounds the Caribbean

As Hurricane Irma roars across the Caribbean, people have begun to leave the Florida Keys amid fears the storm will reach the U.S. coast. Officials in Florida began mandatory evacuations Wednesday as the “potentially catastrophic” hurricane batters the northern Leeward Islands — and if that weren’t enough to contend with, another weather system directly behind Irma is now forecast to become a hurricane later on Wednesday.

Hurricane Irma is already the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, generating winds of up to 185 miles per hour. The National Hurricane Center described the latest storm to threaten the U.S. mainland as “potentially catastrophic,” and predicted it will make landfall somewhere in Florida over the weekend. It said “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.”

Really feel for the northern Leeward Islds- a #hurricane this strong there only comes around once a generation or two. Please be safe! #Irma pic.twitter.com/mv6eVe7PNX

— Eric Blake (@EricBlake12) September 5, 2017

The hurricane has already begun hitting islands in the Caribbean, with the northern Leeward Islands first to be hit Wednesday morning. The hurricane is then predicted to hit the Virgin Islands later in the day and track close to Puerto Rico Wednesday night.

Also of Interest

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

Myth of the Duopoly: Progressive Supermajority Slowly Rises as “Impenetrable” Democratic/Republican Barrier Breaks

The Rollback of Pro-Worker Policies Since Trump Took Office Is Staggering

The USS Liberty Wins One!

Israel's Minister of Truth

The Drudgery of Modern Work

The Case for a Millionaire Tax

A brief history of protest art from the 1940s until now

A Little Night Music

Oscar Peterson - Cakewalk

Oscar Peterson & Count Basie - Jumpin' At The Woodside

Oscar Peterson - Eight Bar Boogie Blues

Oscar Peterson - Cool Walk

Milt Jackson + Oscar Peterson - John Brown's Body

Oscar Peterson - C Jam

Oscar Peterson - The Backyard Blues