The Weekly Watch
Carolyn Devonshire
Winds expire, February debuts in quiet
Dazzling lavender blooms on cherry trees wake first
Sweet aroma o’er the verdant landscape’s dispersed
Summer lures eager tourists to beaches in May
Dipping their toes, they feel the ocean’s salty spray
Torrid heat ushers hurricane season in June
Cautious homeowners await the year’s first typhoon
But for late November, Fall seems nonexistent
Taking to nature trails, hikers’ hours are now spent
Wild boar and turkeys identified by their musk
Gopher tortoises chill in shells, deer await dusk
Locals celebrate yuletide holidays with joy
Brevity of winter - nature’s cruelest ploy
It may be April 2nd, but we're still stuck with the fools...apparently hellbent on the destruction of the planet for their short term (but significant) profit. Naomi Klein suggest (on the intercepted podcast) the oligarchs plan to head for their gilded bunkers and hire blackwater type ops to protect them from the masses. Perhaps the wall is a plan to prevent climate refugees entry? But don't worry, at our current pace even the oligarchs will go extinct with the rest of our species....equality at last.
The winter arctic ice cap was the smallest yet, 97,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles) below the previous lowest maximum that occurred on February 25, 2015
Since climate change was only covered 146 minutes last year in the lame stream media, let's lead with the story this week...as all mention, study, and remediation by the federal government has been halted. The Real News started releasing little ad like shorts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw0kwM5DJso (1.5 min)
The first segment of the intercepted podcast was quite good this week. Jeremy Scahill and Naomi Klein had a great conversation about climate in the first 15 min or so (plus there is a great mash up of Pink Panther and the Nunes escapade at the start)...there are a few short ads.
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/29/intercepted-podcast-trump-war-planet/
Interesting interview with Greg Palast suggesting the XL keystone approval was a trade off involving the Koch bros and Ryancare. (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk4OQVYWOrM
Bill Mckibben suggest people will again stop the TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline which would cross the Yellowstone River, as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest freshwater aquifer in the United States. (9 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlWOATxEGYA
A couple of informative interviews with scientist Michael Mann about Climate change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7QfMbQFwno (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gThvsFZ8nQo (11 min)
At the end of the last clip Mann admits rapid change is possible.
Guy McPherson goes farther than Michael Mann and suggests methane release and increasing water vapor spells very rapid change and likely extinction. (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpqxtXmDwS0
The corporate strategy is to continue to obscure, deny, and out right lie.
http://www.salon.com/2017/03/31/a-climate-of-lies-denialism-goes-wider-a...
...and attack the agency tasked with the problem, the EPA
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/house-republicans-launch-a-new-assau...
Don't be depressed! Human extinction might be best.
Have you heard George Carlin's rant about Global Warming. Hey it's better to laugh... (7.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4
Why worry? Al Gore is on the job. He has a sequel ... An inconvienent Sequel (2.5 min trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB5Fwm8co0Y
There's no doubt of sealevel rise, just look how quickly the DC swamp is rising!
New faces, but the same old government-sachs
NAFTA, Trump, and Goldman-Sachs...a whole lot of bad deals for working folks (4 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWnZZWLJcfw
What may have driven ex-National Security Advisor's Michael Flynn controversial lobbying work tied to Turkey: an unknown Israeli natural gas company seeking a Turkish pipeline. (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO13RDfDWMQ
Calls are growing for House Republican Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes to step down from his committee’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia (19 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgEuubGD16E
Funny Nunes sketch from Colbert (10.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7niptfGSrhk
Sessions threatens sanctuary cities (6.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI_VnpP8BUY
In Austin, ICE raids are retribution for Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez’s new policy that limited cooperation between local and federal authorities. (5.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkU8IrqFkyY
We've got to have our nuclear weapons! Princeton’s Zia Mian talks about the proposed U.N. nuclear ban treaty, the U.S. boycott and the U.S. trillion dollar plan to "modernize" its nuclear arsenal. Zia Mian is a physicist, nuclear expert and disarmament activist (21 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDQlVRzZ7o8
Just a reminder...They lie about everything (3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSoCMxt4TIg
If you have any doubt about the rule of the oligarchs, (you know the one -those that have the gold make the rules)... listen to the next story
How about this as a corporate strategy...if someone sues you, just arrest their lawyer. Works great! Mike Papantonio discusses the attacks on trial lawyers by insurance companies and organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and speaks with Mikal Watts, an attorney who successfully defended himself against federal prosecutors in a landmark fraud case involving BP and the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. (11 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_1V-YEddRs
Or...read this piece by Glenn Greenwald. Nobody can claim with a straight face that allowing AT&T and Comcast to sell their users’ browser histories has any relationship to national security.
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/29/to-serve-att-and-comcast-congression...
Time for a weather report...
The poor old dems
Wendell Potter, a health insurance executive turned whistleblower, on the GOP failure to repeal Obamacare and what lessons the 2009 defeat of the public option – (11.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP9T5f4iOk
Jimmy Dore does a great comparison of Bernie and Pelosi on healthcare (18 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2RcTdVMRVo
The Real News has a draft Bernie ad (piece) 1.5 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDD5fFewl64
Bernie is introducing a bill that would expand the Medicare program to everybody in America, creating a single-payer health care system.
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/31/bernie-sanders-wants-to-expand-medic...
...and Tulsi Gabbard introduced a new bill to decriminalize marijuana. Jimmy Dore (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN6qM2z5eXY
Media
Glenn Greenwald explains why people don't trust the media. U.S. outlets published this falsehood and yet, 10 days later, have said literally nothing, continuing to allow what they now know is a factually false story to remain online uncorrected.
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/why-has-trust-in-media-collapsed-loo...
Blocking the new privacy rules (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlCYtJjIWe8
Interesting quest to hold ISPs responsible for the roll back regulation
https://theintercept.com/2017/03/29/i-spent-a-week-trying-to-make-intern...
We speak with Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Cindy Cohn about thousands of documents WikiLeaks published this week, dubbed "Vault 7," that describe CIA programs to hack into both Apple and Android cellphones, smart TVs and even cars. (6.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS2nK2o1WWo
It would be nice to hear from prophets. Chris Hedges is joined by Professor Albert Raboteau, author of “American Prophets: Seven Religious Radicals. They discuss prophetic figures and their importance in an age of radical evil (27 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueMQ2s2ZPfc
Around the world
Nobody interferes with elections better than us (1 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6RJG6s97Z0
Five ways the west exploits the third world (2 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH6Tg2O6Yf8
The Middle East
There were several interesting stories about Israel this week. I wonder if the BDS movement is beginning to move people? https://bdsmovement.net/ BDS supporters are now banned from entry into Israel.
Journalist Max Blumenthal sits down with renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé to talk about his forthcoming book, Ten Myths About Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxQNk81ELbI (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CzpStKqpHM (14 min)
An interesting conversation comparing Zionism and Judaism. Tariq Ali talks with Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, about the findings of his report for the UN, which describe how Israel has come to dominate the Palestinians. (30 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55BXncWCcoM
While the Israeli state espouses multiculturalism and diversity, it oppresses not just the Palestinian population, but also any Black person within its borders. Abby Martin (25 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YtaYX7Rstc
Iraq - Hundreds of Mosul residents were killed by airstrikes in their homes following repeated instructions from Iraqi authorities not to leave (7 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_1V-YEddRs
Syria
In the last week alone there were several attacks against Daesh in Iraq and Northern Syria led by the United States in which civilian casualties were considerable, says Vijay Prashad (11 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vQJ51LW-gY
Yemen
Independent journalist Iona Craig recently traveled to the Yemeni village where the U.S. Navy SEALs conducted a raid in January that left 25 civilians and one Navy SEAL dead. (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkmNogW4J8 (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvxGNcmnoio (8min)
More than 100,000 people protested in Yemen’s capital this weekend to mark the second anniversary of their country’s horrific civil war (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuWMIQ2qyRo
Turkey
Trent University lecturer Baris Karaagac says if the 'yes' vote wins, the state will have a very limited ability to restrain President Erdogan’s heightened executive powers (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc8V1O4rNh8
Tillerson visits Turkey (9 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fcuBVzHzFY
Mexico Max interviews Professor John Mill Ackerman in Mexico City. (last 15 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKiORY0keEM
Ecuador's elections are today
http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0331-ecuador-election-no-good-option-fo...
Assange's fate hangs in the balance (2 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ZoE2d8ZjQ
(it is?)
It sure is interesting how the US and T-rump are viewed overseas. Here's a subscripted sketch from the Finnish comedy show Putous. the Finnish T-rump (4.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Ymr9E7u1Y
And for something completely different...
A Cryptogram is a simple substitution cipher puzzle in which each particular letter of the alphabet is replaced by a different letter consistently throughout the puzzle. That is, if "A" is replaced by "B", then "A" is replaced by "B" throughout the puzzle. Cryptogram puzzles can be found in many newspapers.Here's this weeks Cryptoquote (quote concludes with the author's name – hint : M=W)
NO RXQ LXY'D ZHFL DJH YHMTBFBHZ, RXQ'ZH QYNYOXZIHL. NO RXQ ZHFL DJH YHMTBFBHZ, RXQ'ZH INTNYOXZIHL.
IFZG DMFNYThe answer will appear next week.
Movie of the week
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSCCC1ydag
Classified section
Speaking of foreign correspondents, it sure would be nice to add a more worldly view to the weekly. If any of you regularly read foreign sources or research particular topics I sure would appreciate your insights and links to meaningful media. It could be as simple as a few links in the comments to developing a regular column which could be included in the Weekly Watch or as an accompanying essay. Please PM Lookout if you have ideas.
Special thanks to our benevolent host, JtC, for the welcoming e-home. Send him some love.
There are community arts and products for sale:
https://caucus99percent.com/caucuscatalog
What to do...
My goal is to spread rational reasonable news. I think many of our problems revolve around an uninformed public. People can learn if they are exposed to information. The c99 community excels in searching for explanations with sources. We know the lame stream media with their vested corporate interest do everything to misinform.
The for profit president T-rump typifies the corporate oligarchy...acted out like an alternate reality TV star and providing a look in the mirror at our country's elites. Despite the ugliness, we must do more than shout anti-Trump rhetoric. We need to help people see that for decades there has been a steady march in the US toward the corporate take over, and we have become a global corporate oligarchy drenched in oil and addicted to war. http://addictedtowar.org/ We need to speak for people and the planet.
April marches
15th http://taxmarch.org/
22nd https://www.marchforscience.com/
29th https://peoplesclimate.org/
We join a large and ancient chorus...
Using music to unite indigenous peoples
http://amazonwatch.org/news/2017/0324-visiting-indigenous-communities-in...
Love Letters to God by Nahko and Medicine for the People. (5.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-QGkYNc0Ls
...and another one celebrating Mexico, Aloha Ke Akua with beautiful photography. (10.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgP8LkEopM
Life goes on and spring unfolds. Here's a shot from yesterday...no foolin'.
It is your comments, thoughts, and stories that make C99 such a informative and cordial site.
Comments
Regular readers...
might note the weekly isn't this morning's open thread. I'm hoping to put more eyes on these sources and links. Please help to spread the stories that speak to you.
I hope you will feel free to add any comment you would like.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Like the organization of your topics. And leading off with
climate change, should be everyone's number one. Nice roundup.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
If you can donate, please! POP Money is available for bank-to-bank transfers. Email JtC to make a monthly donation.
Thanks LCH
Funny how the weeks news tends to sort itself into topics. Of course much of that due to 6 major media conglomerates. Have you seen this clip before (about 1 min)?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PStpvviPgxk&index=3&list=PLkTIcPsQ3C60b_...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Not until now. Thank you.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
If you can donate, please! POP Money is available for bank-to-bank transfers. Email JtC to make a monthly donation.
Wow
It's amazing when put together like that, how they are all simply parroting the exact same lines. I've noticed how printed news is the same, online and in print. The exact same paragraphs and wording are used over and over. Reporting is now just a cut and paste job, no original content necessary.
Like that incredibly annoying, inaccurate and misleading phrase "Obama era privacy regulations" which appear in virtually every story on that topic - used to refer to rules issued last October, that were never even implemented.
It starts to look like a conspiracy to make people believe that under Obama we actually had these protections all along. Why? Is the news media actually trying to help democrats for some reason? I suppose that's possible.
But I'm also thinking now it's probably just laziness. Cut and paste the provided verbiage, hit publish, go to lunch. Who cares if it's right or not, who will even know?
Thanks for also including the video where a couple of apparently real journalists discuss the ISP privacy issue truthfully. That was refreshing to see! And for the great collection of other news and information too. Enough to keep me busy all day.
may be it's time for my tin hat, but...
I think there is some connection between the CIA, the dems, and big lame stream media (except for FOX). The whole Russia thing smells of collusion between them. My sense anyway.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
russ baker's
whowhatwhy.org has some articles concerning the FBI's long term monitoring of russian mobsters which 'incidentally' involved some Trumpsters and thereby makes the public investigation a problem of unveiling sources, double agents and such.
bygorry
Thanks
I'll check him out bygorry ...I like the whowhatwhy name it's like a line in a Phil Ochs song -
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the weekly watch!
unintended consequences are everywhere.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/01/is-farming-salmon-ba...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
what a mess we have made
Didn't know about fish lice, but it sure makes sense that if you cage wild critters there will be problems. I always look for and buy "wild caught" fish. The food they use to farm raise fish is kinda scary.
Thanks for the link ggersh!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
another protest action...
https://popularresistance.org/protest-groups-uniting-as-the-majority-for...
Over 50 groups are working together for a May Day movement. Now, 50 years after Dr. King’s historic address, a new coalition called “The Majority” is emerging to tackle the triple evils identified by Dr. King and build a “multi-racial, cross-movement fight for justice, freedom and the right to live fully, with dignity and respect”. This 50-organization-strong initiative includes the Black Lives Matter Global Network, Mijente, Fight for $15, Indigenous Environmental Network and many more organizations.
Sounds interesting...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Great job, as is your way, Lookout!
Several years ago I travelled to Ecuador, a proud socialist country. Free universities, free health care, a very sensible sentencing system in their criminal justice, guaranteed retirement benefits, and a pride in their river and rainforests, great respect for the indigenous people.
They hoped for American ex-pats. I certainly toyed with the idea.
At least I got to see the wilds.
Sigh...
At the same time China seems to be protecting "theirs", they have no problem with Ecuador destroying their environment.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thanks otc
I hope to go the Ecuador one day, and am wishing them the best in their election. We've been meddling trying to take out every government that works for its people instead of our corporations. I'm concerned for Julian too.
Glad you dropped by...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Great job Lookout
Always look forward to this each week.
It's my online progressive Sunday paper.
I want a Pony!
Thanks Arrow
I would appreciate recommendations to your buddies. I want more people reading and watching better content. Thanks for the support.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Exccellent OT as always Lookout.
I watched that video about the arms shows in Jordan. Amazing. It brings to mind what I've felt and known for a long time. It/they will not stop. They will always and continuously try to come up with better and more lethal war weapons like we try to keep one upping ourselves in everything else we create. Unless we stop them. DARPA and others have plans for war toys and tools out 100 years, they're going to have fricking robots ready to fight on the battlefield in ten years. Imagine sending a battalion of robots to some country? As a thirty year fed employee I had a taste of how private industry markets it's products to the government and government officials. It shows how powerful the MIC is and how very few in the government are willing to go against that grain. It also shows how limited humans are to spend the prime resources and creativity on killing each other.
What amazed me
about the Jordan arms fair was the way US China Britain etc all had booths together and all their generals were smiling and shopping. It was like a home expo. Pretty disgusting.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Did Israeli arms makers have booths there, I wonder
Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, so why wouldn’t the King welcome them? Israel is on his side.
They were all there
Here's the link from last week if you have an interest...
The business of war (20 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_3Qg-SADY
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
This is really scary
because the majority of humans have difficulties enough with linear processes. Actually, most humans experience the world as a series of static events and do not process the linear approximation natively.
Scientists are not trustworthy because they think different. There are even some scientists that have difficulty with multi dimensional non-linear differential equations and as such have difficulty understanding the significance of the changes in arctic ice and the even more scary changes at the other pole.
Education was the answer, but the dwell time is such that while we must continue educating: The time is too short for that to be the only approach to dealing with the situation. We just might have to do something drastic (like martial law) to get action where action is needed, NOW.
as a scientist...
don't you think it is too late? already so much C buffered into the atmosphere added to the increasing CH4. Believe me I ain't wishing it on us...I just think it will be too little too late. The intercept podcast discussion with Naomi was interesting. I agree with you and appreciate your comment. It needs to be like WWIII...but is ignored instead.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I think it is way too late
to simply reverse the process to get the world back to the previous state. In fact it has always been too late for that. The biosphere is not governed by time symmetric low order differential equations. In order to do science with the usual constraints we deal with simplified models (read equations) that only at best give rough predictions. The truth is you can't un-cook a pig, it just won't work, sorry.
It is never too late to do something. Some species are already on the way out, the shifts have already insured that as a given. The question is, "Do we want to ameliorate the consequences or do we want to slam into the trompe l'oeil painting on the rock face.
We have created havoc, and while the processes are not reversible in the simpleminded sense, they are modifiable. We can influence the outcome, as in mitigate some aspects of the outcome. Extinctions have occurred in the past and they will occur in the future, this one may or may not eliminate us, the jury is still out on that point.
Hell, even if we are at an end, the very least we can do is learn as much as we can by doing the science. But when the masses storm the laboratories ... well ... I'll just say, "I have read that novel, and it doesn't end pretty."
That’s a nice image of Homo sapiens as Wile E. Coyote,
suspended over the abyss, as usual relying on ACME technology about whose proper deployment he is clueless . . .
Excellent job, Lookout.
Thanks very much.
Also have been meaning to compliment you on your tagline. I presume it is an MLK quote but like so many of his, it is universal.
Hi
MLK was my source but it is from the book of Amos (which I learned here at c99).
Here's the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
MLK was the
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp4339EbVn8]
I like to think the MLK would smile.
Foreign power interfering in and deciding U.S. elections!
Philip Giraldi for the Unz Review:
AIPAC is back in town!