Woody biomass, or burning trees to produce renewable energy, is spreading beyond the shores of Europe, where it’s wildly popular and outpacing solar and wind. It’s headed for Japan and South Korea, where subsidies for woody biomass displace funding for solar and wind. Umm, what’s wrong with this picture?
In order to know specifically what’s wrong it’s pertinent to take notice of the factual details about the integrity of woody biomass to discover whether it’s truly one of the biggest blunders of the 21st century.
Woody biomass is not a viable solution for global warming mitigation purposes. It has been the subject …
All elections are filled with the half-truths, mistruths and full-fledged lies. Victory is rarely bought on a platform of complete honesty. But the road to the current Australian federal election has been potholed by more deception than most. This is bound to happen when policy platforms are weak and rickety, leaving the opponents large scope to undermine each other. The personal prevails over the substantive; ideas play little to no role.
Much of the influence of misinformation and its more aggressive twin, disinformation, is given a legendary status ahead of time. Commentaries abound about how to spot “fake news” from outlets …
In the terrifying opening to his 2020 novel, The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson depicts an intense heatwave in India. In an ‘ordinary town’ in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, people are struggling to cope with unbearable heat and humidity. It is the combination of the two, measured by the so-called ‘wet-bulb temperature’, that is potentially fatal. When it approaches the core body temperature of 36C, sweat cannot evaporate and humans can no longer cool themselves down. Dehydration rises to dangerous levels. Vital organs …
On 11 May 2022, an Israeli sniper fired at the head of the veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh as she reported on an Israeli military raid on a refugee settlement in Jenin (part of the Occupied Palestine Territories). The snipers continued to fire at the journalists who were with her, preventing them from aiding her. When she finally arrived at Ibn Sina Hospital, she was pronounced dead.
After Abu Aqleh’s death, the Israeli military raided her home in occupied East Jerusalem, where they confiscated Palestinian flags and attempted …
Staging a vice-presidential candidates debate in the run-up to Colombia’s May 29th national elections was entirely appropriate. Nevertheless, the location of the event in Washington and its promotion by US-state functionaries requires some explanation. Because of its venue and sponsors, the affair had elements of an audition or a vetting process overseen by the US government.
Along with the Washington consensus crowd, members of the Colombian diaspora attended the May 13th event, especially supporters of popular vice-presidential candidate Francia Márquez. Afro-descendent environmentalist Márquez is running with presidential candidate Gustavo Petro. Their frontrunning ticket could be the first …
Instead of buying into the World Economic Forum’s dystopian “Great Reset,” we can build an alternative system with a mandate to serve the people.
This is part two to a May 4, 2022 article called “A Monetary Reset Where the Rich Don’t Own Everything,” the gist of which was that national and global debt levels are unsustainably high. We need a “reset,” but of what sort? The “Great Reset” of the World Economic Forum (WEF) would leave the people as non-owner tenants in a feudalistic technocracy. The reset of the Eurasian Economic Union would allow participating nations to opt out of …
It’s the last week of an election between the uninspiring and the unspeakable. Australia’s conservative incumbents – the unspeakable ones – are even desperate enough to concede to a lack of popularity. Dislike us, but for heaven’s sake, vote us in. The times are wretched, the cost of living is rising, and we are going to look after you in the spiral. The opposition, in contrast, is being stingy on detail and sparing on scope. Memories of 2019 continue to traumatise the Australian Labor Party.
Scouring the election platforms, statements, and town hall debates, is a glaring absence of one particular …
On May 16, the Biden administration announced new measures to “increase support for the Cuban people.” They included easing travel restrictions and helping Cuban-Americans support and connect with their families. They mark a step forward but a baby step, given that most U.S. sanctions on Cuba remain in place. Also in place is a ridiculous Biden administration policy of trying to isolate Cuba, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela, from the rest of the hemisphere by excluding them from the upcoming Summit of the Americas that will take place in …
On May 16 2022, Finland and Sweden decided to become members of NATO.
Not only is this totally against the 1991 US / NATO promise to then Russian President Gorbachev, that “NATO will not move an inch eastward from Berlin”. Then total NATO members were 14, two in the Americas – US and Canada – and 12 in Europe. By late 1990’s, expansion started rapidly and today NATO counts 30 members, 28 in Europe and the same two in the Americas. Most of the new ones are East of Berlin.
Finland shares a 1,340 km border with Russia. Thus, as a NATO …
Two years in, the Labour leader’s war on the left has shifted to ideological tests that even Pope Francis and Amnesty International would fail
by Jonathan Cook / May 18th, 2022
The local authority election results earlier this month in the UK were as bleak as expected for Boris Johnson’s government, with the electorate ready to punish the ruling party both for its glaring corruption and rocketing high-street prices.
A few weeks earlier, the police fined Johnson – the first of several such penalties he is expected to receive – for attending a series of parties that broke the very lockdown rules his own government set. And the election took place as news broke that the UK would soon face …
While the so-called liberal and conservative corporate mainstream media – all stenographers for the intelligence agencies – pour forth the most blatant propaganda about Russia and Ukraine that is so conspicuous that it is comedic if it weren’t so dangerous, the self-depicted cognoscenti also ingest subtler messages, often from the alternative media.
A woman I know, and who knows my sociological analyses of propaganda, contacted me to tell me there was an excellent article about the war in Ukraine at The Intercept, an on-line publication funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar I have long considered a leading example of much …
The occasions when an activist, writer or commentator triumph over defamation lawsuits launched by a thin-skinned politician are rare in Australia. When it comes to matters regarding the law of reputation, Australia remains a place where parliamentarians, as a species, thrive in the knowledge they can use favourable provisions to protect their hurt feelings and soiled reputations.
The country, in also lacking a bill of rights protecting free speech and the press, has further emboldened politicians. At best, the Australian High Court has only left an anaemic implied right “to protect freedom of communication on political subjects”, which should …
Anti-Abortion and Supply and Demand of Infants for Adoption
by Mirah Riben / May 17th, 2022
With all the posturing as to whether or not a fetus is deserving of autonomous rights, a major aspect of the abortion debate that entangles it up with adoption has become overlooked until a footnote from the CDC on page 34 in the infamous leaked majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade which addressed the supply and demand of babies for adoption garnered a great deal of discussion on social media and in the press.
“46. See, e.g., Centers for Disease Control, Adoption Experiences of Women and Men and Demand for Children to Adopt by Women 18-44 Years of Age in …
Canada’s “left wing” party is openly opposed to negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
In “Feds must do more to support Ukraine, say experts, Ukrainians, opposition MPs” NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson repeats the party’s call to send more weapons to fight Russia and suggests the NDP formally opposes negotiations. The Monday Hill Times article reported, “McPherson said while the NDP will always look at non-violent means of conflict resolution by diplomatic and humanitarian means, Russia’s war against Ukraine is not a case when it can be done.”
MP Charlie Angus is more forthright in his opposition to …
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research releases a new dossier on the legacy of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art eight decades later.
On 2 May 1942, hundreds of China’s top writers, artists, and communist leaders gathered to discuss the most urgent cultural questions of the time. Dossier no. 52, Go to Yan’an! Culture and National Liberation, explores the history and enduring legacy of the three-week forum as well as the text that Mao Zedong published the following year …
Reminder: No such thing as a “self-made” billionaire
by Mickey Z. / May 17th, 2022
I’m getting a genuine kick out of watching the so-called Left panic about the possibility of free speech ever happening on social media. But… this does not mean I support Elon Musk — a transhumanist parasite hellbent on constructing a control grid for the elites, e.g.
Tesla helps create a proliferation of electric cars which allows the powers that shouldn’t be to manage where we go, when, and how far
Twitter is a massive wellspring of data voluntarily offered up by a compliant population Neuralink takes data collection to …
Never underestimate the potency, and deceptive malice, of the British political mind. In responding to the threat posed by Imperial Germany during the First World War, the British propaganda campaign made much of the atrocity tale, the nun raping German and the baby bayoneting Hun. The effectiveness of the campaign was so impressive it sowed doubt amongst a generation about the reliability of war crimes accounts.
In its efforts to try to win US support for its cause against Hitler in World War II, the train of British propaganda again operated with a concerted effect, demonising isolationists and denigrating supporters and …
The last three economic updates (see end of article) focused primarily on the U.S., whereas this update focuses more on global conditions.
The data coming in every day, month after month, is revealing a clear picture of the dire straits confronting millions globally. Problems appear at every level and on every continent. There is no letup in deteriorating economic and social conditions at home and abroad. Things are dreadful and getting worse in most parts of the world, and the decline began long before top-down covid lockdowns started more than two years ago.
Unfortunately, mainstream economic news is largely irrational, contradictory, and …
Henry Kissinger and Klaus Schwab in Davos.
If for some inexplicable reason, you couldn’t come up with a reason to be ashamed of the U.S., I’ve got one for you: Henry Kissinger has been a widely revered thinker and statesman for six decades, and is the recipient of awards like the Nobel Peace Prize (1973); Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977); and Medal of Liberty (1986).
I may soon write a long article to document at least some of Kissinger’s heinous catalog of criminality. For now, I’d simply like to clarify his …
It has dominated news cycles, debates and policies since 2020, but COVID-19 continues to exercise the interest of number crunchers and talliers. While the ghoulish daily press announcements about infections and deaths across many a country have diminished and, in some cases, disappeared altogether, publications abound about how many were taken in the pandemic.
The World Health Organization, ever that herald of dark news, has offered a revised assessment across of the SARS-CoV-2 death toll associated either directly or indirectly with the pandemic. Between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021, the global health body suggests that the mortality figure …
The following is an unpublished transcript of an interview the author did for a UK-based TV channel that covers issues of interest to the worldwide Sikh diaspora. It concerns three pieces of farm legislation in India that were repealed in late 2021 after a prolonged protest by India’s farmers that gained global support and recognition.
Although the interview took place before the laws were repealed, the issues discussed remain highly relevant. That is because farmers are concerned that the government is dragging its feet on a number of issues more than six months after the legislation was repealed, not least a …
The Russia-Ukraine war has quickly turned into a global conflict. One of the likely outcomes of this war is the very redefinition of the current world order, which has been in effect, at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union over three decades ago.
Indeed, there is a growing sense that a new global agenda is forthcoming, one that could unite Russia and China and, to a degree, India and others, under the same banner. This is evident, not only by the succession of the earth-shattering events underway, but, equally important, the language employed to describe these events.
This is the latest on the fierce military conflict between the US and Canada.
To recap, tensions have been escalating over the past 24 months. Then four weeks ago, the US announced it had irrefutable proof that militant, America-hating militias had joined with the regular military forces of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, to position a formidable, threatening, highly lethal military presence right on the US border, stretching from Washington State east to Minnesota. Concentrations of troops hunkered in reinforced battlements were also allegedly discovered in southern Ontario and south of Montreal …
The change in marijuana laws across the US raises issues far beyond, “Hey, dude, we can blow a joint now without getting busted.” The racism that permeated the age of criminalization now lurks throughout the phase of decriminalization. The burgeoning business of growing pot raises the specter of corporate agriculture with its threats to human health and natural ecosystems. Are there ways to enjoy weed while challenging racism and corporate domination over the environment?
An Attack on Black and Brown Cultures
Spanish-speaking people, who have lived in the US since …
Francisca Lita Sa?ez (Spain), An Unequal Fight, 2020.
These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), and to galvanise new faith in public action. Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to treat people during these outbreaks. Not so.
NATO sanctions have affected trade, nonetheless, China and Russia continue to co-operate on energy, military, and space technology and dedollarization; BRI partner Argentina is invited to the next BRICS summit in June; John Lee Ka-chiu will be Hong Kong’s next chief executive; there is an online exercise boom.
The New York Times has a job to do – and it has done that job spectacularly well over the past few months. The Times is a leader, in the opinion of this writer, the leader in spelling out the US narrative on the war in Ukraine, a tale designed to keep up morale, give the war a high moral purpose and justify the untold billions pouring from the taxpayers’ pockets into Joe Biden’s proxy war on Russia. Day in and day out, in page after page of word and picture, it has been instructing one and all, including politicians …
What follows is a series of emails from a comrade, HCE. He is a Russian citizen and has lived and worked in Moscow for many years. He is a Marxist-Leninist. The questions we asked him are in bold.
Dear Bruce:
Before I start answering more of your questions, I would like to make a comment on the very complicated situation concerning access to data which affects both my three previous letters and as well as any future letters.
Rocky times in the political economy and computerized and digital world
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia embarked on an extremely complicated process of switching …
