Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues harmonica player Kid Thomas. Enjoy!

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”

-- Lemony Snicket

News and Opinion

Worth a click and a read:

Chris Hedges: Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I have covered enough wars to know that once you open that Pandora’s box, the many evils that pour out are beyond anyone’s control. War accelerates the whirlwind of industrial killing. The longer any war continues, the closer and closer each side comes to self-annihilation. Unless it is stopped, the proxy war between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine all but guarantees direct confrontation with Russia and, with it, the very real possibility of nuclear war. Joe Biden, who doesn’t always seem to be quite sure where he is or what he is supposed to be saying, is being propped up in the I-am-a-bigger-man-than-you contest with Vladimir Putin by a coterie of rabid warmongers who have orchestrated over 20 years of military fiascos. They are salivating at the prospect of taking on Russia, and then, if there is any habitation left on the globe, China. Trapped in the polarizing mindset of the Cold War — where any effort to de-escalate conflicts through diplomacy is considered appeasement, a perfidious Munich moment — they smugly push the human species closer and closer toward obliteration. Unfortunately for us, one of these true believers is Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing neither,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned. “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.”

Annihilated. Are these people insane?

You know we are in trouble when Donald Trump is the voice of reason. “We must demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in world war three” the former president said. “And there will be nothing left of our planet — all because stupid people didn’t have a clue … They don’t understand what they’re dealing with, the power of nuclear.”

I dealt with many of these ideologues — David Petraeus, Elliot Abrams, Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland — as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Once you strip away their chest full of medals or fancy degrees, you find shallow men and women, craven careerists who obsequiously serve the war industry that ensures their promotions, pays the budgets of their think tanks and showers them with money as board members of military contractors. They are the pimps of war. If you reported on them, as I did, you would not sleep well at night. They are vain enough and stupid enough to blow up the world long before we go extinct because of the climate crisis, which they have also dutifully accelerated. ...

Sixty-six U.N. members, most from the global south, have called for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, as required by the U.N. Charter. But few of the big power players are listening.

If you think nuclear war can’t happen, pay a visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These Japanese cities had no military value. They were wiped out because most of the rest of Japan’s urban centers had already been destroyed by saturation bombing campaigns directed by LeMay. The U.S. knew Japan was crippled and ready to surrender, but it wanted to send a message to the Soviet Union that with its new atomic weapons it was going to dominate the world.

We saw how that turned out.

'Russia losing' narrative, Russiagate, and Moby Dick

Fresh off of the Guardian's propaganda catapult:

US dismisses ‘transparently false’ Russian claims of Ukraine plan to use ‘dirty bomb’

The US has rejected as “transparently false” Russia’s evidence-free claim that Ukraine is preparing to use a “dirty bomb” on its own territory as part of an escalation of Vladimir Putin’s war. Secretary of state Antony Blinken told his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, on Sunday “the world would see through any attempt by Russia to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation”, and vowed to continue supporting Kyiv for as long as necessary.

Earlier on Sunday, Kuleba denounced Moscow’s claims as “absurd” and “dangerous”, adding: “Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves”.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacted swiftly to Moscow’s claims, calling for a united international response. “If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on social media. “I believe that now the world should react as harshly as possible.”

Progressives IMMEDIATELY Cave On Ukraine Diplomacy

The coalition of the wishy-washy checks in:

Progressive Democrats Break Rank With Call for Urgent Diplomacy in Ukraine

In a dramatic break with the Biden administration on the eve of the midterm elections, 30 House Democrats have sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to engage in direct talks with Russian President Vladmir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. In addition to bilateral talks, signatories to the letter, initiated by Progressive Caucus Chair Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, urge the White House to support a mutual ceasefire and diplomatic efforts to avoid a protracted war that threatens more human suffering and spiraling global inflation, as well as nuclear war through intention or miscalculation.

Despite President Biden’s recent acknowledgement that we have never been closer to nuclear Armageddon since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Biden has not met with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, and he recently told the press he will refuse to meet with Putin next month when the two attend the G-20 Summit in Bali.

In addition to Congresswoman Jayapal (D-WA), the Democratic signers of the letter are Representatives Adams (NC), Blumenauer (OR), Bowman (NY, Bush (MO), Carson (IN), Clarke (D-NY), De Fazio (D-OR), DeSaulnier (CA), Garcia (IL), Grijalva (AZ), Jackson Lee (TX), Jacobs (CA), Johnson (GA), Jones (NY), Khanna (CA), Lee (CA), Moore (WI), Newman (IL), Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Omar (MN), Paine (NJ), Pingree (ME), Pocan (WI), Pressley(MA), Raskin (MD), Takano (CA), Tlaib (MI), Velazquez (NY), and Watson Coleman (NJ).

Expressing praise for Biden’s “commitment to Ukraine's legitimate struggle against Russia's war of aggression,” the letter dodges the question of whether the United States should continue to arm Ukraine with medium-range rockets, ammunition, drones, tanks and other weapons.

The letter reads “.... we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.” The key words here are “has provided” as opposed to “will provide,” leaving open the possibility that some Democrats will oppose future weapons transfers.

Back in May, not a single Democrat voted against the eye-popping $40 billion Ukraine package, much of it earmarked for weapons, intelligence, and combat training. On September 30, Congress passed the “Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act,” giving another $12.35 billion of our tax dollars for training, equipment, weapons, and direct financial aid for Ukraine–without so much as a whisper of dissent from Democrats.

So far, the only congressional opposition to arming Ukraine has come from far right Republicans. Despite Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s enthusiastic support for the $40 billion package, 57 House Republicans and 11 GOP Senators voted against it. Some objected because they thought the U.S. military should focus on China or on the U.S.-Mexico border, but others cited concerns over the lack of oversight, unmet domestic needs and runaway spending.

One of the most prominent critics of Biden’s handling of the war is former President Donald Trump. Never mind that Trump reversed his predecessor President Barack Obama’s decision to refrain from sending offensive weapons to Ukraine and failed to negotiate the continuation of two vital arms control treaties with Russia—the Open Skies Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear-Range Forces Treaty (INF). Trump is now using his public appearances and the media, including his social media platform Truth Social, to call for peace talks.

“Be strategic, be smart (brilliant!), get a negotiated deal done NOW,” he wrote online. At an Arizona rally, Trump boomed, “With potentially hundreds of thousands of people dying, we must demand the immediate negotiation of the peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will be nothing left of our planet.”

Trump has also insisted that if he were president, the war in Ukraine would not have happened because unlike Biden, he would have met with Putin: “I’d talk to him; I’d meet with him. There is no communication between him and Biden.” Trump volunteered himself as a possible negotiator. “I will head up group???” he wrote on TruthSocial.

Also calling for negotiations is far right Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. Carlson says that the nuclear threat “is enough for any responsible person to say, ‘now we stop,’ especially if that person is the leader of the United States, the country which is funding this war and that could end this war tonight by calling Ukraine to the table.”

Tesla’s Elon Musk, now backing Republicans, told his 107 million Twitter followers that “the probability of nuclear war is rising rapidly” and suggested a very rational peace deal in which Russia keeps Crimea, Ukraine affirms neutrality from NATO and the UN oversees referendums in the Donbas.

Another newly minted Republican now condemning U.S. support for the war is former 2020 Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, once a supporter of Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders and a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. Gabbard announced that she is quitting the party in power, saying: “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers.”

Political observers might surmise that Gabbard is positioning herself for another presidential run, but whether or not that’s the case, her sharp criticism of Democrats is finding an audience among millions of Fox viewers.

If Republicans take over the House in November, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy warns they may turn off the money spigot for Ukraine. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine.”

McCarthy’s comment caused such panic on Capitol Hill that according to NBC News, leaders in both parties are considering passing legislation in the lame duck session to send Ukraine $50 billion more in weapons, military training and economic aid, bringing the total U.S. tab since the Russian invasion to over $100 billion, which exceeds the budget of the entire U.S. State Department.

It will be telling to see if any Democrats, including those who signed the Jayapal letter, will vote against more weapons. As inflation worsens and voters seek leaders to address their economic needs instead of endless war in Ukraine, Democrats, especially those who call themselves progressives, should not cede the peace position to Donald Trump and Tea Party Republicans bent on repealing voting rights, deregulating environmental protections, and banning abortion.

The future of their Democratic Party is at stake—and the human race, too.

Markos is still the biggest jackass on the internets. I hope that he enjoys radiation.

This, by @RepRashida, @RepRoKhanna and other progressives is unbelievably naive and stupid, asking for “diplomacy” with a murderous terrorist regime literally raping and pillaging through Ukraine. Biden tried diplomacy to prevent the war. Only overwhelming force will now end it https://t.co/Nm1Yrp35B6

— Markos Moulitsas (@markos) October 24, 2022

French President LASHES OUT At U.S. Over Russian Sanctions

Showdown as Saudi crown prince aims to dodge lawsuit over Khashoggi murder

Courtroom 30 in Washington’s district court might seem an unlikely venue for a diplomatic showdown between Saudi Arabia and the US. But for Hatice Cengiz it represents the last hope for justice following the brutal murder of her fiancee, the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. ...

In the coming weeks, Judge John Bates will determine whether a civil case brought by Cengiz and Dawn, the organization founded by Khashoggi, against Prince Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators can proceed. The litigation is seeking unspecified damages from the crown prince for Khashoggi’s murder.

That judge’s decision hinges on a complex legal question about whether the heir to the Saudi throne – widely seen as its de facto ruler – ought to be treated as a sovereign, and therefore granted immunity from US courts – or whether his status as a king-in-waiting means he is not yet a sovereign, and should be subjected to the full force of US law.

If the case was allowed to proceed it would allow for discovery in the case, as well as a potential deposition of Prince Mohammed or his brother, who was the Saudi ambassador to the US at the time of the killing. If the Saudi heir refused to cooperate, the court could make a summary judgment in Cengiz and Dawn’s favour, which might even lead to the seizure of the prince’s assets around the world – from a yacht to his chateau in France.

Most experts agree that Judge Bates’s decision would likely turn on whether the Biden administration, which has been asked to offer its own opinion on the matter, will tip the scales of justice in favour of Cengiz – further exacerbating a recent break with Saudi Arabia – or with Prince Mohammed, which one critic has said would give the crown prince “a licence to kill”.

Chinese spy duo charged in Huawei case as US condemns ‘egregious’ interference

Two Chinese intelligence officers tried to bribe a US law enforcement official as part of an effort to obtain inside information about a criminal case against the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed on Monday.

The announcement of charges against the two alleged agents came as attorney general Merrick Garland detailed two other cases in which Chinese intelligence operatives harassed dissidents inside the United States and pressured US academics to work for them.

Garland said that the cases showed that China “sought to interfere with the rights and freedoms of individuals in the United States and to undermine our judicial system that protects those rights.

“The justice department will not tolerate attempts by any foreign power to undermine the rule of law upon which our democracy is based,” he said.

Washington has long accused Beijing of meddling in US politics and attempting to steal intellectual property. But the move to unmask the espionage operation marked an escalation by the justice department after it accused Huawei in February 2020 of conducting racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets.

Media Narratives Shield Landlords From a Crisis of Their Own Making

As landlords continue their relentless pursuit of profits, and politicians allow pandemic-era eviction moratoriums to expire, the human toll of a fundamentally brutal housing system is arguably more visible than ever—particularly in America’s largest cities.

Much of corporate media’s coverage of the deepening housing crisis, however, focuses on what are presented as three great evils: that landlords of supposedly modest means are being squeezed; that individuals and families living without homes destroy the aesthetics of cities; and that, in line with the most recent manufactured panic over violent crime, people without homes pose a threat to the lives and property of law-abiding citizens.

By pushing these narratives, corporate media are engaging in a strategy of misdirection. This shields the propertied class from scrutiny regarding a crisis of its own making—from which it derives immense profits—while blame is assigned to over-burdened renters and people who are unhoused.

Over the past year, rents around the country have risen at a staggering rate—far outpacing the growth of workers’ incomes. The median asking rent in July 2022 was more than 30% greater than it had been just a year earlier. Over the same period, wages grew just 5%.

While individuals and families are being forced to sink an ever-greater proportion of their income into housing, and as more and more people face the life-altering prospect of dislocation, establishment media outlets have decided that the real profile-worthy victims of this crisis are landlords, faced with rising costs and hindered from raising rents by the strictures of law and public opinion.

Corporate media’s boundless sympathy for “small” and “medium-sized” landlords is well-established. As the pandemic raged and millions of people struggled to pay for basic necessities, establishment outlets consistently chose to focus on how eviction moratoriums were depriving property owners of their right to throw delinquent tenants onto the streets.

CNBC (6/25/21) quoted Dean Hunter, introduced as “CEO of the Small Multifamily Owners Association and a landlord himself”:

This is the most excessively and overly broad taking of private property in my lifetime…. The eviction moratorium is killing small landlords, not the pandemic.

During the early days of the pandemic, Time (6/11/20) predicted that eviction moratoriums would result in all kinds of disaster for the small landlord:

The mom-and-pop landlords who are able to draw on their own savings to make it through the eviction moratoriums imposed by their local governments may struggle to recoup their losses when it’s all over…. Evicted tenants sometimes get away with not paying their debts by changing bank accounts, ignoring collections agencies, working cash-only jobs, filing for bankruptcy or fleeing the state.

As it turned out, Time’s premonitions of scheming tenants using every available means to victimize their struggling landlords were wrong. A July 2021 study from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley found that just 35% of small rental property owners experienced any decline at all in revenue, while around 13% actually reported rising rent revenue in 2020. An October 2021 report from JPMorgan Chase, meanwhile, concluded:

For the median small landlord, rental income did decline, especially in the early months of the pandemic, but recovered quickly. The median landlord ended the year with a modest 3% shortfall in rent…. Our data show that landlords were able to cut their expenses by more than their rental revenues fell, which resulted in landlords’ cash balances growing during the pandemic.

Even as pandemic-era tenant protections have been allowed to lapse by politicians eager to serve the real estate lobby, corporate media continue to push the narrative that landlords are suffering—this time as a result of rising costs.

Along this line, the New York Times (9/27/22) ran a piece with the headline “Inflation Has Hit Tenants Hard. What About Their Landlords?” The article detailed the hardships faced by Neal Verma, whose company Nova Asset Management—to which the Times provided a link—manages 6,000 apartments in the Houston area. “It’s crushing our margins,” Mr. Verma said:

Our profits from last year have evaporated, and we’re running at break-even at a number of properties. There’s some people who think landlords must be making money. No. We’ve only gone up 12% to 14%, and our expenses have gone up 30%.

The Times, while broadcasting Verma’s consternation at “running at break-even at a number of properties,” failed to ask any of his tenants about how a 12% to 14% rent increase has impacted them. And although the article cited increased maintenance costs as one of the factors contributing to Verma’s plight, Nova’s Google reviews indicate that basic maintenance isn’t exactly high on its list of priorities.

By fixating on the supposed hardships faced by landlords, establishment outlets have pushed the idea that renters should bear the burden of runaway housing costs. To those who cannot afford this extortion, corporate media have been even less charitable.

[More at the link. -js]

Ex-Minneapolis officer pleads guilty to abetting murder of George Floyd

One of two former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding and abetting the killing of George Floyd, the Black man whose violent death prompted street protests around the world, has pleaded guilty as part of an agreement with prosecutors hours before jury selection in his trial was to start.

J Alexander Kueng pleaded guilty on Monday to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s killing. As part of the deal, Keung will serve 3.5 years in prison to run concurrently with a previous three-year sentence he was given in a federal trial, though a more serious charge of aiding and abetting second-degree murder will now be dropped.

The second officer, Tou Thao, has rejected a plea deal and will continue to trial. He told a judge in August that pleading guilty would be a “lie and a sin”. ...

While Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, a group of other police officers participated in aspects of the botched arrest. Kueng, who is Black, knelt on Floyd’s back, and in his plea deal admitted that he knew from his training that doing so was dangerous and unreasonable.

Thao, a Hmong American, acted as a human barricade between bystanders who questioned the police action and Floyd lying on the ground. In February, he was convicted of federal charges that he violated Floyd’s civil rights by depriving him of medical care and failing to try to stop Chauvin’s killing him.

Democrats’ midterms hurdle: Americans are getting used to eroded democracy

This much is clear: Democrats are in trouble in the midterms. After an initial bump from the widespread outrage at an extremist supreme court that stripped American women of our nationwide right to safe, legal abortion, voters are recalibrating, and falling into a familiar midterm routine: supporting the opposition party. Republicans, according to new polling, are leading with voters nationwide, and especially in a handful of crucial state races that will determine control of Congress.

But there’s something bigger going on here than just the usual political churn, or even the idea that voters are more motivated by pocketbook issues than amorphous ones like a potential future need for abortion. Voters are adapting to authoritarianism. And that doesn’t just portend a bad outcome for Democrats in November; it suggests America’s democratic future is at acute risk. ...

When the court overturned Roe v Wade, many Americans were initially incensed. Women registered to vote in astounding numbers. Significant majorities of Americans told pollsters that the court’s decision was flat-out wrong. The legitimacy of the court took such a huge hit that several of its justices made defensive statements about the value of their increasingly devalued institution. ... So what, then, explains this sharp swing back to Republican favorability? Simply put, voters acclimated. The media is still covering the impact of rightwing anti-abortion laws, but not with the overwhelming force we saw in the initial weeks after Roe fell. After all, at some point the litany of horror stories – of women being refused care for miscarriages, of women being forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term, of women traveling thousands of miles for basic health care, of women getting septic infections, of women losing their uteruses, of child rape victims being forced into motherhood – blend into each other, sound like the same story over again, and become old news. ...

The stripping of abortion rights is one clear indicator of America’s rising authoritarianism. And Americans know that we’re in trouble. Voters – especially Democratic and independent voters – are aware that democracy is under threat, and perhaps even that trust in free and fair elections, women’s rights, and America’s democratic institutions are on the ballot this November. While a whopping 71% of voters said that American democracy is at risk, however, just 7% named it as the most important issue in this election.

Ralph Nader Throws Support to Democrats Ahead of Midterms But Warns the Party's Message is Failing

In 'Affront to Justice,' Thomas Shields Graham From Subpoena in Georgia Election Case

Progressives on Monday repeated calls for a federal investigation into U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, after the judge unilaterally granted a request to shield Sen. Lindsey Graham from a subpoena regarding the 2020 election.

Thomas, who handles emergency requests filed in Georgia, temporarily blocked the subpoena, which was issued by the Fulton County district attorney and called on the South Carolina Republican senator to answer questions about phone calls he made to Georgia election officials after the election.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled last week that Graham should be required to testify before a grand jury about the phone calls, in which the senator allegedly asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger if he could reject certain absentee ballots to secure a more favorable outcome for then-President Donald Trump.

Thomas has faced calls to recuse himself from all cases related to the 2020 election because his wife contacted White House officials and Republican lawmakers in at least two other states following the election, asking them to help reverse Trump's loss.

Thomas' Monday ruling is a temporary stay, and the Supreme Court may act in the case again later this week and may rule that Graham must testify.

Critics said, however, that the justice's ruling indicates the kind of conflict of interest that that he has been accused of as his wife's involvement in spreading the "Big Lie" that the election was "stolen" from Trump.

"Clarence Thomas should not be ruling on any 2020 election-related case given his wife's behavior," said Emily C. Singer, a reporter at The American Independent. "Period. Full stop."

While Thomas' decision "doesn't really signal any cause for concern in terms of getting Sen. Graham before the Special Purpose Grand Jury eventually," added Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis, "the optics for the court are less than ideal to say the least."

The ruling sparked renewed outrage from groups that advocate for the expansion of the Supreme Court.

Business groups block action that could help tackle biodiversity crisis, report finds

Industry groups representing some of the world’s largest companies are “opposed to almost all major biodiversity-relevant policies” and are lobbying to block them, according to a new report. Researchers found that 89% of engagement by leading industry associations in Europe and the US is designed to delay, dilute and block progress on tackling the biodiversity crisis, which scientists say is as serious as the climate emergency. Just 5% of support was positive and the remaining 6% was mixed or neutral, according to the climate thinktank InfluenceMap.

The researchers focused on associations representing five key sectors – agriculture, fisheries, forestry and paper, oil and gas, and mining – which have the greatest impact on biodiversity loss. The study looked at 750 pieces of evidence such as press releases, blog posts, reports, speeches and social media accounts, made by 12 industry associations, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, BusinessEurope, and European farmers’ interest group, Copa-Cogeca. JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, Apple, Toyota, Microsoft, Samsung and ExxonMobil are among the members of these associations.

The US Chamber of Commerce has lobbied against efforts to regulate PFAS, the widespread but largely toxic “forever chemicals” that are often used in insecticides in the US. Copa-Cogeca, which represents farming groups, opposed pesticide reduction targets in the EU’s biodiversity and “farm to fork” strategies. It also opposed the EU’s ban on certain neonicotinoid pesticides. In 2021, the president of BusinessEurope published an open letter that appeared to oppose the single-use plastics directive guidelines. ...

“Although industry associations, especially in the US, appear reluctant to discuss the biodiversity crisis, they are clearly engaged on a wide range of policies with significant impacts on biodiversity loss,” researchers wrote in the report.

Weather tracker: ‘triple-dip’ La Niña heightens drought in US

The US drought monitor declared 60% of the country to be in a designated drought zone last Thursday, with 34% in a severe or deepening drought. Although such conditions are not unusual in the US, with approximately 14% of the country having experienced severe to extreme drought every year since 1895, the extent of the current situation certainly is.

Western states and parts of the Great Plains are experiencing the most severe droughts in the country. Some central states including Minnesota and Iowa have recorded less than 25mm of rain in the past month, compared with an average of 70-100mm in September.

Such little rainfall after a warmer than average July to September has caused parts of the Mississippi River to resemble a creek. At the same time, wildfires have been raging in Washington, Oregon and New Mexico, spanning a total of more than 200,000 hectares.

The driving force behind this worsening drought is a rare “triple-dip” La Niña winter – or three consecutive La Niña winters. The weather phenomenon is known for its large-scale cooling of sea surface temperatures, resulting in colder and drier conditions in the eastern Pacific that amplify the risk of drought and wildfires in the US during winter.

There is a near 50% chance of more neutral conditions from February to April, bringing total rainfall closer to the average.

The Netherlands discovers composting:

Let fallen leaves lie, gardeners in Netherlands town urged

A municipality in the Netherlands has declared fallen autumn leaves to be worth their weight in gold – ecologically speaking. Eindhoven, in North Brabant, is encouraging its citizens to abandon blowers and rakes and to let fallen leaves in gardens or parks lie.

Martijn van Gessel, an Eindhoven council spokesperson, said they were trying to change ideas about how public spaces should look. The city wants to retire leaf blowers in parks and create a warm, wet, winter leaf layer for insect life – even if it looks messier. ...

Raymond van de Sande, a manager at Ergon landscaping firm, said he sometimes had to explain the mission to the good folk of Eindhoven. “What is good about this is that it breaks with the tradition of gardening and the idea that everything has to look tidy,” he said.

He added that leaving leaves alone had many environmental benefits. “You let natural processes take their course, and you see that there are advantages not just in the areas of ecology and biodiversity but also with fewer weeds, and less need for water in the summer. When it rains, there is less runoff to the drains: it creates an entire process of improvements.”

Also of Interest

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

Western Narrative Escalation Over Ukraine War: A Warning of Coming Strong Countermeasures? Or a Sign of Desperate Impotence?

Some Media Won't Tell You When The Saudis Snub Biden

Tory backer says UK economy is ‘frankly doomed’ without Brexit renegotiation

The Inflationary Consequences of Friendzoning and Decoupling

The Fed’s Trading Scandal Broadens into a Scandal with the Mega Banks It “Regulates”

Immune system-evading hybrid virus observed for first time

Private Companies Helped Ruin Jackson’s Water

Landscape photographer of the year 2022 – in pictures

Paid Pro-Dem Twitter Influencers Invited To White House

Canada ADMITS Trucker Convoy Was PEACEFUL

Dem Hawks FREAK After Progressives Push Biden To Seek PEACE NEGOTIATIONS In Ukraine

A Little Night Music

Kid Thomas - You Heard What I Said

Kid Thomas - The Hurt Is On

Kid Thomas - The Spell

Kid Thomas - Jivin' Mess

Kid Thomas - The Wolf Pack

Kid Thomas - She's Fine

Kid Thomas - Rockin' This Joint To-Nite

Kid Thomas - Here Come The Night

Kid Thomas - Wail, Baby, Wail