Sermon on the Mount
A look at what would have happened to Jesus in COVID-19 times.
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Methane Acceleration Sets Record
In the year 2021 methane (CH4) concentration in the atmosphere exceeded 1,900 ppb for the first time in human history recorded by Global Monitoring Laboratory, Earth System Research Laboratories, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
That level of 1,900 ppb is triple the pre-industrial level of 700 ppb. Furthermore, it is suddenly mysteriously accelerating over just the past 13 years. In turn, this exceptional acceleration could hasten global warming considerably. Of even more concern, the acceleration appears to be regenerating on its own accord sans human influence.
“Methane levels are growing dangerously fast,” according to Euan Nisbet, Earth scientist at Royal Holloway, …
Clare Daly: EU Debates Russian Invasion in Ukraine
Excerpt from Clare Daly (The Left):
Mr President, I wholeheartedly welcome the EU’s unprecedented provision of immediate protection for Ukrainian refugees fleeing this devastating war. This rightfully respects our mandate to protect the fundamental rights of those entering our territories and it’s heartening to see the outpouring of support and solidarity from every point of the EU.
But how do we explain that solidarity with, for example, in Poland, less than three months ago, the fact that 19 people perished from cold on our borders, met with barbed wire and water cannon? How do we explain that solidarity with the fact that …
Rotten Rulings: Julian Assange and the UK Supreme Court
Julian Assange, even as he is being judicially and procedurally tormented, has braved every legal hoop in his effort to avoid extradition to the United States. Kept and caged in Belmarsh throughout this farce of judicial history, he risks being extradited to face 18 charges, 17 based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.
District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser initially ruled on January 4, 2021 against the US, finding that Assange would be at serious risk of suicide given the risk posed by Special Administrative Measures and the possibility that he would end his days in the ADX Florence …
Remember the Nazi-CIA Connection
Standard operating procedure in the Home of the Brave
Reminder: When attempting to unravel the behaviors of today’s ruling class, it helps to educate yourself about their actions in the past. For example, the U.S. and the CIA rescued and recruited Nazi war criminals after World War II to bolster their intelligence, military, and space program efforts.
The most well-known of these men was Wernher von Braun — a man described as the “leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany and a pioneer of rocket and space technology in the United States.” His career — from exploiting Jewish slave labor …
The Blunt Economic, Mental, Spiritual Ravages of the Millionaires
Oh, you can pull a million images and a million news briefs from the Internet to illustrate the powerful and their stupidity and their absolute disdain for the rest of us.
She laughs when asked about refugees, this time, from Ukraine. She is laughing about being in either the west or east flank in Poland. She doesn’t know for sure. This is the blunt end of a hammer. They all may be woke and full of civet-feces coffee and gourmet bacon-laced canopies, but they are still blunt ends of the …
Putin and the War in Ukraine
President Vladimir Putin is not a military general. He is a modernist leader, a trained spymaster and strategist who understands that war is a continuation of politics by other means (Clausewitz). Accordingly, if we want to grasp Putin’s motives we should refrain from trying to assess Russia’s military campaign in terms of ‘strict military objectives.’ We should instead look at the military campaign as a political instrument that is set to mobilize a global and regional geopolitical shift and on a mammoth scale.
It is clear that Putin’s army is doing its best …
Business as Usual: Facebook, Russia, and Hate Speech
Seedy, compromised and creepy, the surveillance machine of Facebook, now operating under the broader fold of its parent company Meta Platforms, is currently giving out the very signals that it was condemned for doing before: encourage discussions on hating a group and certain figures, while spreading the bad word to everyone else to do so.
The Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin, and Russians in general emerge as the latest contenders, the comic strip villains who …
News on China | No. 90
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes. Among the news items is China’s introduction of Algorithm Law to protect people from Big Tech manipulating public opinion.
Cat’s Paw
It sued to be that people’s rights were protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada and the Bill of Rights in the United States. But more and more its seems the rights aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.
“Artistic Freedom,” Censorship, Counter-Revolution, and Cuba
A Shameful Petition Circulates as Biden’s Blockade Falters (Part 1)
If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
— Malcolm X (December 13, 1964 at the Audubon Ballroom, New York City)
A Shameful Petition
A shameful “petition” has been issued, under the auspices of PEN-International and Human Rights Watch (HRW). See here.
The document purports to be a defense of beleaguered Cuban artists and creative performers against a government that “fears and condemns” artists. Under the cover of …
The Uyghur Podcast Brought to You by a CIA Torture Propagandist
On February 2nd, eagle-eyed pro-China activist Arnaud Bertrand revealed that WEghur Stories, a podcast “working to create a conversation within and about the global Uyghur diaspora” that has been aggressively promoted on Facebook and Spotify, is funded by Washington’s French diplomatic mission—and that John Bair, its co-creator, co-host and producer, is a former CIA operative….
On the Edge of a Nuclear Abyss
Two days after Russia attacked Ukraine and the day before Vladimir Putin put Russia on nuclear alert, I wrote a little article whose first sentence was: “Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, but I am starting to conclude that the nuclear madmen running the U.S./NATO New Cold War they started decades ago are itching to start a nuclear war with Russia.”
It was an intuition based on my knowledge of U.S./Russia history, including the U.S engineered coup in Ukraine in 2014, and a reading of current events. I refer to it as …
Trolling Used to Refer to Fishing
Instead of a tactic to catch fish, governments and corporations have taken to trolling controversial information to disorient people.
You Are Also a Victim of War like Us
Daniela Edburg (Mexico), Atomic Picnic, 2007.
On 27 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin met the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. ‘The top officials of the leading NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] countries have made aggressive statements against our country’, Putin said. Therefore, he told his top officials ‘to transfer the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty’. The last phrase, …
Ethics of a DNA Registry
Among the ethical concerns of having one’s DNA in a registry are, first of all, privacy and the fact that for forensic purposes DNA evidence is not 100%; there is human bias in analysis, so innocent people might be linked to crimes.
Politics and Sports Do Mix: On FIFA’s Hypocrisy in Palestine and the Need to Isolate Apartheid Israel
Israel’s war on Palestinian sports is as old as the Israeli state itself.
For Palestinians, sport is a critical aspect of their popular culture, and since Palestinian culture itself is a target for the ongoing Israeli attack on Palestinian life in all of its manifestations, sports and athletes have been purposely targeted as well. Yet, the world’s main football governing body, FIFA, along with other international sports organizations, has done nothing to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinian sports.
Now that FIFA, along with UEFA, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and others have swiftly joined the West’s anti-Russia measures …
Foreign Policy Tripe: Scott Morrison’s “Arc of Autocracy”
Grand foreign policy speeches are not usually the specialty of Australian Prime Ministers. Little insight can be gleaned from them. A more profitable exercise would be consulting the US State Department’s briefings, which give more accurate barometric readings of policy in Canberra. The same goes for the selected adversary of the day. Washington’s adversaries must be those of Canberra’s. To challenge such assumptions would be heretical. To act upon them would be apostasy.
The speech by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on March 7 to the Lowy Institute lived down to expectations. Where it did serve some value was to highlight …
The Crime of Julian Assange
Let justice work Yet another piece extolling the virtue of the Australian government getting involved in the Assange case (“Time is right for Morrison to step up for Assange,” December 16). This man is involved in a complex legal fight, being prosecuted and defended by the most senior legal minds, and being heard before the highest courts in the land. What would be the relevance of a prime ministerial letter to the court suggesting that the man be set free on the basis of him being an Australian citizen and demonstrating …
What Happens After the Russia-Ukraine Conflict?
Offering predictions about what will follow the Russia-Ukraine conflict is probably a foolhardy exercise but here a few thoughts that might engender further speculation and discussion.
First, after the Ukraine crisis is resolved we’re likely to see a self-congratulatory period in Washington over its temporarily forcing Western European nations into a closer integration with U.S. imperialism, guaranteeing more European purchases of U.S. weapons and giving an immediate boost to Pentagon spending. The United States will portray the Russian Bear as intent on gobbling up more European countries and every effort will be made to ignite Cold War, Phase 2. These efforts …
The Rise of Global Fascism and the End of the World as We Know It
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
— “The Hollow Men,” T.S. Eliot
Barely three years into the 2020s, and we seem to be living out the prophesies of the Book of Revelation with its dire warnings about plague, poverty, hatred and war.
Just as the government hysteria over the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be dying down, new threats have arisen to occupy our attention and fuel our fears: food shortages, spiking inflation, rocketing gas prices, and a Ukraine-Russia conflict that threatens to bring about a world …
Which is More Trustworthy: America’s Press, or China’s Press?
On March 2, the New York Times bannered “China Asked Russia to Delay Ukraine War Until After Olympics, U.S. Officials Say,” and reported that:
A Western intelligence report said senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to senior Biden administration officials and a European official. …
The intelligence on the exchange between the Chinese and Russian officials was classified. It was collected by a Western intelligence service and considered credible by officials. Senior officials in the United States and allied governments …
There’s Nothing More Dangerous than Doctors, Hospitals, and the Medical Industry
Far worse than war, guns, crime, or car accidents — combined
If someone is killed in a terrorist attack, it’s headline news. If another person dies at the hands of police, it’ll be the top story for weeks. But when was the last time you saw breaking news about a deadly medical error? It’s at least the third leading cause of death in the U.S. but it’s so common that it rarely (if ever) warrants notice. Then, of course, there’s also the whole cover-up aspect of it all. We’re never supposed to question the infallible men and women in white coats, right?…
Revenge of the Putin-Nazis!
And they’re back! It’s like one of those 1960s Hammer Film Productions horror-movie series with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee … Return of the Putin-Nazis! Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! Return of the Revenge of the Bride of the Putin-Nazis! And this time they are not horsing around with stealing elections from Hillary Clinton with anti-masturbation Facebook ads. They are going straight for “Democracy’s” jugular!
Yes, that’s right, folks, Vladimir Putin, leader of the Putin-Nazis and official “Evil Dictator of the Day,” has launched a Kamikazi attack on the United Forces of Goodness (and Freedom) to provoke us …
Economic Restructuring, Democratic Deficit and Locking Down Liberty
Remember how the notion of freedom was spun by the ideologues of neoliberalism for decades prior to COVID? The freedom to consume. The freedom to make money. The freedom to be plunged into poverty and debt.
Platitudes about ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘standing on your own two feet’. A relentless ideological attack on the state and collective responsibility. The doctrine of ‘no such thing as society’ Thatcherism. Ideologically, at least, the individual and ‘the market’ were paramount. But in reality, of course, there was no genuine rolling back of the state: its machinery was used differently to facilitate the needs of …
O Child, Where Art Thou?
I had to check. Was I still at an actual news site, or had I inadvertently clicked myself into a satirical outlet? Perhaps the article came from The Onion or some other humorous blog? Well, it hadn’t. I was still viewing news through The NYT, and with a quick search, I could see the same article posted at several valid news sites: “Pastor Resigns After Incorrectly Performing Thousands of Baptisms.”
It seems the Rev. Andres Arango was heard performing a baptism using the words “We baptize you …” rather than the Vatican approved “I baptize you …” What’s more, he had apparently used …
The Crisis in Ukraine is a Planetary Crisis Provoked by the U.S. that Threatens Nuclear War
Let us begin a conversation in response to what currently qualifies as the most profound question, the one that needs most urgently to be addressed if we are to have any chance of understanding what we conveniently refer to as the “Ukraine crisis.” This is, more accurately, a planetary crisis—close in magnitude to the near-certainty of species extinction within the next century, but in some ways ahead of secondary catastrophes such as the obscene, raging inequality between peoples and nations unleashed by President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret …
Temptation
John Emerich Edward Dalberg wrote in a letter to archbishop Mandell Creighton: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…”
Cutting Ties: The West, Ukraine, and the Russian Academy
Working with Russian academics and institutions. The attack upon Ukraine by Russia. These are two features playing out heavily in university discussions. As typifies such chitchat, nuance features rather less than cant and sanctimony. As writer and lecturer Paolo Nori of Milano-Bicocca University stated after discovering that his course on Fyodor Dostoevsky would be cancelled in response to the war, “Not only is it a fault to be a living Russian in Italy today, but also to be a dead Russian.” (Dostoevsky has since been reprieved; the course will now run.)
Throughout history, academic cooperation between universities and academic institutions, …
An Ill Informed Anti-war Movement Bodes Ill
Deflecting from the Supreme Warmonger
… the claim that Russia should not have violated Ukrainian sovereignty is based on the erroneous belief that Ukraine was invaded. This assertion is based on ignorance. Quite aside from the international-law issues posed by the sovereign claims of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), and hence whether they could exert sovereign rights to conclude treaties and hence invite military aid, there is the long-standing original threat and active aggression of NATO in and through Ukraine’s governments. The recognition of sovereignty does not outweigh the right of self-defense.
Prominent anti-war activist …