Ralph Nader on inequality in the United States (and the universality of the 1%)

Own goal of the Century?

After prolonged rubbing up the wrong way by the US FP apparatus of the junior superpower of the Russian Federation (in concert with the US' labradoodles of the EU/UK) and prolonged rubbing up the wrong way by the US FP apparatus of the truly next superpower of the People's Republic of China (in concert with the US' labradoodles of the EU/UK), the unimaginable is happening: rapprochement between the RF and the PRC!

Well done Captain America! Swell!! America's back! Bumbling as ever...

Front 242: Nostalgia or Brilliant Belgian Cold Wave Synthpop?

I fell in love this collective at one of Font 242's earliest concerts, organised by one of my then closest friends, in Ghent (where I was reading Chemistry) I promptly bought their first (then vinyl) album ('Geography'), still have it and still cherish it.

In the early eighties, there could of course be no German, Swiss ('Grauzone'), French, British or Belgian New Wave/Cold Wave without the muse of Kraftwerk. Belgium's main Cold Wave bands back then were Front 242, The Neon Judgement and the seriously cultish Snowy Red.

Front 242's raw beats, combined with unmodulated monotonic synthesisers, linguistic confusion (they use two of Belgium's languages, French and German, plus English) and visuals like a video/audio collage (at least live) made it the perfect backdrop of early eighties/Cold War angst. The band went on the showcase their 'installation-style' performances at New York's Danceteria

Despite the group's claim their lyrics don't mean anything it's hard to consider at least some of them as pure poetry: it may be about 'nothing' but a dedicated observer knows perfectly what it's about.

Here's 'Operating Tracks' (no pun intended) The video is 'pre-video' (and it shows). While maybe dated, produced on a shoestring it still packs a punch today.

And then there's 'U-men', possibly their poppiest track ever (from the first album). Again it's easy to declare that 'don't worry the lyrics are just soundscape' but from my perspective that's not true.

'Headhunter' and 'Tragedy for you' to follow later.

Confluence between the Far Right and antivaxxers?

Thousands took to streets across Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane on Saturday November 20 to protest COVID-19 lockdown measures and vaccine mandates.

The rallies occurred after weeks of protests in Melbourne against the Public Health and Wellbeing (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021. The Monday prior, protesters hung an inflatable effigy of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on a gallows assembled in Melbourne’s CBD.

This needs to be highlighted. Here are death threats directly aimed at Dan Andrews on the microphone.

“I look forward to the day I get to see you dance on the end of a rope” pic.twitter.com/E5zQQ0tNAz

— The Sage (@SarkySage) November 16, 2021

Moments like these connect anti-vax movements to far right and white supremacist extremist groups and conspiracy communities in Europe and white settler nations around the world including Australia, Canada, USA and New Zealand. Resistance to vaccinations in Australia is due to a range of mitigating factors. Vaccine hesitancy and resistance to pandemic

legislation among minority communities including Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, is due to institutional distrust caused by centuries of colonial medical and legislative violence. This could be the reason why some members of these communities are taking part in protests.

The Conversation.

You don't have free will, but don't worry

In the Physics version of the question 'Is there free will?' the answer is a firm 'NO!' but things are more subtle than that. The delectable Sabine Hossenfelder explains:

Congo-Kinshasa: Colonial Crimes - Experts Recommend That Belgium Compensate

"Monetary payment of a colonial debt, in light of Belgium's moral responsibility". This is one of the strong recommendations in an expert report published on October 27. For a year, ten historians, jurists and political scientists have been working to provide the Special Commission on the Colonial Past with a situational analysis. Other avenues are also being explored, including the restitution of looted objects.

The long-awaited report appeared on the website of the House of Representatives on October 27, following a brief announcement on Twitter by the chairman of the Special Commission on the Colonial Past, Wouter De Vriendt.

This work, while essential, is only the beginning. "The purpose of this report is not to make decisions but to inform the decisions that will fall to the Special Commission," write the experts. "The analysis produced here is the antithesis of a report to close the debate. On the contrary, it is intended to open up perspectives and, we hope, provide some useful tools to help build a just society [... ]". These researchers and professors also stress the hope that this project has raised, noting that it is "the first initiative of a former colonial power to face up to its entire colonial past and explicitly question the links between colonialism and racism".

Undeniable systemic violence

Their 689-page report falls into three parts. The first, about 400 pages long, is devoted to the history of Belgian colonization in the Congo, and, in a less documented way, in Rwanda and Burundi. The aim is to identify points of colonial history on which research is still needed to substantiate certain facts. But some facts, notably the violent exploitation of human labour, are undeniable.

"Exploitation and violence are systemic features of colonialism, not incidental by-products of it," the experts assert. "The idea that the worst excesses of colonial violence under Leopold II's regime were the work of marginal and isolated individuals is not consistent with current research findings, which reveal multiple regimes of terror and violent extortion combined with frequent impunity for their perpetrators. Rather than being accidental, this reign of terror served the purpose of exploiting Congo's resources. Systemic violence did not end with the takeover of the Congo from Leopold II by the Belgian state. This idea was peddled by the efficient propaganda machine of the Belgian Congo. It conceals the oppression, forced labour and other forms of violence that continued to characterize colonial rule in the Belgian Congo." As for racism, "it was a structural feature of colonialism, embedded in political, legal, social, cultural, religious and knowledge structures, with ongoing effects".

Source.

Nader and Fein at HLS: "America's Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama"

The Divided States of America (Amy Chua)

Dominic Turnip: 'Ship'em to Albania!'

Message to Kyle Rittenhouse

Dear Kyle,

Congratulations on your full acquittal (I'm not sure what to think about it but I won't try and spoil your undoubted elation)

However, please do not forget to sue your parents for parental abuse. A 17 year old imbecile should never be allowed near a combat zone with a loaded assault rifle, legalities set aside.

Now leave your steely penis extension in its box and try and get a real girl to shag you.

All the best.

Stanislaw Szukalski: A collection of 116 works

Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski (Netflix)

British Poodles now more Zionist than their American Overlords?

The latest move to criminalise critiques of Zionism is coming from cretinous Priti Patel. Will Washington now follow suit?

Hamas reacts with fury as Britain moves to ban group

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is pushing to ban the Palestinian movement under the Terrorism Act.

Hamas has condemned a move by Britain towards banning the group as a terrorist organisation which could see supporters of the Palestinian movement face up to 14 years in prison.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, who will push for the ban in Parliament next week, argued on Friday that it was not possible to distinguish between Hamas’s political and military wings. She called Hamas “fundamentally and rabidly anti-Semitic”, adding the proscription was required to protect the Jewish community.

Hamas responded in a statement, saying: “Instead of apologising and correcting its historical sin against the Palestinian people … [Britain] supports the aggressors at the expense of the victims.”

That comment referred to the Balfour Declaration and British Mandate, which it said handed “Palestinian lands to the Zionist movement”.

“Resisting occupation, by all available means, including armed resistance, is a right guaranteed by international law to people under occupation,” added the statement.

The group called on its supporters to condemn the UK’s move, as it described Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, forcible displacement of Palestinians, the demolition of their homes, and the siege of more than two million people in Gaza Strip, as “terrorism”.

Patel, who is on a trip to Washington, DC, said her move was “based upon a wide range of intelligence, information and also links to terrorism”.

Jeera.

David Baddiel and his upside down world

David Baddiel, footie maniac, mediocre comedian and infamous blackfacer, has written a new bookywook, the central thesis of which posits that 'antisemitism just isn't taken seriously enough!'

Had Baddiel, definitely not the sharpest tool in the box, who delivered a copy of his cowpad to Sir Kier Starmer by hand no less, looked around he would have known that he has it of course completely backwards. Antisemitism is by far the most monitored form of racism among all forms of racism, at least in Little Britain.

Starmer himself has suspended unprecedented numbers of Jews from the Labour party, nearly all of them as punishment for their anti-Zionist critiques of the State of Israel.

Accusations of antisemitism can land the accused in very hot water: suspension from the PLP or dismissal from one's profession being very likely outcomes. Jeremy Corbyn owns his (temporary) political demise to a witch hunt involving loads of fake antisemitism accusations.

Baddiel isn't, as far as I can tell, much of a Zionist. That leads me to believe the beliefs expressed in his book are either the result of plain stupidity or of a very Jewcentric view of the world.

The Social Brain: culture, change and evolution | Bret Weinstein

Wave functions: 1D Hydrogen atom (Part 2)

In Part 1 we posed the problem of the One Dimensional Hydrogen Atom, determined its Schrödinger equation and posited an Ansatz. In Part 2 we'll calculate some derivatives, posit a second Ansatz and determine the system's energy quantisation.

Big Think: America's anti-science problem

Fun with "Structured water", "Hexagonal water", "Water memory" and Mordorian Quacks and Mountebanks! Lies for cash!

From the great debunker and brilliant author of "IS THIS WIFI ORGANIC?" (LOL)

Beautiful Physics: Quantum Field Theory for Laymen

This beautiful video attempts to shed some light on one of Science's most succesful theories.

Beautiful Physics: "Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Albert!" (Quantum Entanglement)

Israeli State Terrorism – Israeli Police Make Unprovoked Attack on Palestinian Sitting in his Car – Then they did what comes naturally to Zionists – they lied about it

Gideon Levy via Tony Greenstein.

Video of the arrest. The police said the ‘suspect refused to open the vehicle door.’

Marwan al-Husseini and his mother Raisa were traveling to see relatives when undercover police stopped their car and dragged them from it violently. The officers beat Marwan and strip-searched Raisa before releasing them. The police later lied about what happened - but the incident was caught on video

Just watch the video. You’ll be stunned. A man sits at the wheel of his car, wearing a white T-shirt and dark sunglasses. Cellphone earphones dangle from his face; he’s listening to Arabic music. He’s wearing a seat belt, his car is barely progressing and is trailed by a line of other vehicles trails. They are stuck in a traffic jam at a security checkpoint. After a moment, he puts a corona mask on his face. He’s relaxed, one hand leaning on the window of the car. Cars pass in the opposite direction, while his moves at snail’s pace. The music plays loudly. He adjusts the mask.

Suddenly there are loud voices. “Stop the car!” “Get out!” The shouts in Hebrew and Arabic create the impression of an approaching storm. Everything happens fast. While he still seems to be wondering what’s going on, a baton is already smashing the window of his car. The man tries to protect his head with his hands. Someone who looks to be a security guard opens the back door, thrusts himself into the car and sits in the back seat shouting. The man is frightened; the guard, wearing blue rubber gloves but no uniform, grabs his neck from behind. The driver’s elderly mother, sitting in the passenger seat up front, is not captured in the footage taken by the car’s web camera. Another guard opens the driver’s door, unfastens the seat belt and forcibly drags him out of the car. The shouting does not stop. A very dangerous criminal has apparently been captured.

The music continues to play, the driver’s door remains open, the webcam keeps recording. Cars pass by in the opposite direction. One armed man – it later turns out that he and all the others were police officers in civilian clothes – opens one of the back doors of the car, while his comrades continue to yell and beat the driver who’s been pulled out of the car, and breaking the window next to the driver's seat.

This must be a case of a so-called ticking bomb that must be defused at all costs. The man shouts and the guards continue to kick and beat him, guns visible in their holsters. There are four or five attackers at first, then more join in. The camera manages to catch what’s happening through the broken window; someone else is seen being dragged out. The rear door slams shut. An elderly woman in a head scarf is seen screaming, near the beaten man on the ground. The volume of the music in the car increases dramatically, as if cued by the film’s director. The gunmen can be seen going back and forth. Probably a serious incident. The video cuts.

Video of the arrest. The police said the ‘suspect refused to open the vehicle door.’

This is what happened on Tuesday, October 12, around 1 P.M. Marwan al-Husseini, 38, and his mother Raisa, 65, residents of Hebron, were on their way to visit family in the village of Al-Azariya, several kilometers east of Jerusalem. When they passed by the village of Al-Zaim en route, they encountered a checkpoint and the traffic slowed their car down. The video footage obtained by B’Tselem was taken by Marwan, who was streaming with Facebook Live from the car. He wanted to record himself on an outing with his mother, as he occasionally does, and found himself documenting a wild kidnapping in broad daylight, in real time. The armed security personnel who attacked him were Israeli police officers who were in civilian clothes.

At the Husseini home, in the western part of Hebron, emotions are still running high when we visit this week, and there is an air of mourning. Husseini, a stocky man, is surrounded by his equally stocky brothers and some friends. He had worked for years in Israel and now works as a taxi driver in the West Bank. His wife is pregnant with their first child. On that Tuesday, they were going to visit his mother’s sister in Facebook Live Anata, a few kilometers northeast of Jerusalem. En route, about 40 meters before the traffic circle near the entrance to the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, he noticed police vehicles on both sides of the road. He recalls hurriedly putting on his mask, lest the police fine him. It never occurred to him that they were lurking in wait – for him. There were three civilian cars before him in the line. He recalls being pulled violently out of the car without any explanation and being beaten, even after he was knocked to the ground. He says he lost consciousness and woke up in a van that took him to a police station at the entrance to Ma’aleh Adumim. He lost consciousness again, regaining it intermittently. In the van, he recalls, the officers continued to jab at him with their elbows. They did not utter a word about why he was being detained.

Husseini says his mother panicked and had difficulty removing her seat belt; a female officer dragged her out of their car and let her fall to the ground. Raisa was taken to the same police station but in a separate vehicle.

The police brought Hussein’s car to the station and dismantled its seats, apparently searching for weapons. He was bleeding and in serious pain after being beaten all over. An Israeli ambulance arrived, a paramedic examined him and left. The officers made him sit on a chair in the hallway. His whole body was aching and he could not sit from the pain, so he lay on the floor. He remembers vomiting twice there, whereupon the officers scolded him, threatening him that if he threw up again, he would be forced to clean up the corridor after himself.

Raisa Al-Husseini, Marwan's mother. Three female police officers strip-searched her.Credit: Moti Milrod

Husseini begged the police to arrange for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. One of them told him: “If you want an ambulance, you will have to pay 4,000 shekels [$1,300] for it,” Marwan says he replied: “I will pay 10,000 shekels, just get me to a hospital.”

When he asked about his mother, a door opened to one of the rooms and he saw her. She was trembling all over. A few days later, Raisa told Musa Abu Hashhash, a field researcher for the B’Tselem Israeli human rights organization, that three female officers had forced her to strip naked for a body search – it’s not clear for what reason. Her son kept crying out and begging for an ambulance. The officers forbade them to exchange a word.

So it was that Husseini was lying in pain on the station floor for about five hours, until about 10 P.M. When he asked why he and his mother were being detained, an officer said: “Because you did not stop for the police when they told you to do so.” Marwan replied, “When you stopped me the car was not in motion” – proof of which can be seen in the video footage from his webcam.

He tells us now that his entire interrogation boiled down to one question, asked by one of the officers in the hallway: “Where is your weapon?” To which Husseini replied, “You have my car, and you can find any weapon that’s there with ease.” Of course, he had no idea what weapon they were talking about.

Marwan Al-Husseini in Hebron, last week. He was hospitalized for six days, and underwent surgery.

Shortly after 10 P.M., Husseini was asked if they had any relatives in the area who could come and take him and his mother home, but he demanded first to be taken to the hospital. He says the officers aggressively forced him out of the station and into the yard, where he was shocked to see his dismantled car.

“Take your car and drive off,” police ordered.

“How do you expect me to drive a broken car?” he asked.

Then Husseini’s cellphone rang. Anxious relatives had been searching for him and his mother throughout the afternoon and evening, but it was only now that the officers guarding him allowed him to answer. This time, when he answered, it was his brother Bader, a bearded young man, on the line; Bader is now sitting with us. Marwan told him what happened and asked for someone to come and collect him and their mother.

Marwan Al-Husseini's car following the arrest. The police pulled the seats apart.

The wife of one of the Husseinis’ cousins who lives nearby, drove to pick them, followed by Bader and another brother, Ibrahim, who lives in Jericho. They took Marwan and his mother to Hebron-Alia Hospital and had the car towed to Hebron.

Raisa told B’Tselem’s Abu Hashhash that during her arrest she wet herself out of anxiety; she has diabetes and high blood pressure. She is now seated with us in the yard of her house, silent and surrounded by her children and grandchildren. The signs of shock are still evident. “I’m exhausted,” she tells us.

She had been released from the hospital at 4 A.M. on October 12, extremely shaken up but not injured.

Marwan Al-Husseini and his brother Bader in Hebron, last week.Credit: Moti Milrod

Marwan ended up being hospitalized for six days; he required surgery for injuries to his groin, from the kicks he received from the police. He shows us some images of his bruises, which are hard to look at. Even now he looks battered and broken; his gait is slow and his gaze forlorn. He tells us that he had to pay 20,000 shekels to repair the damage to his car, which is owned by his blind sister-in-law, whom he drives around.

The Israel Police provided this statement regarding the incident: “As part of an operational activity against weapons offenses, the arrest of a suspect was carried out near al-Azaryia. During the arrest, said suspect refused to open the vehicle door and out of concern that he would conceal evidence or harm the police officers, the latter were forced to break into the vehicle and arrest him. The suspect along with another passenger who was in the vehicle were taken to the police station and at the end of the investigation and the search, they were released.”

The video – which was due to be passed on to the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department – proves, as would a thousand witnesses, that the police’s claim that Marwan al-Husseini refused to stop his car and open the door when asked is a complete lie. It also clearly shows the officers’ brutal violence. Violence that has resulted in the injury of a yet another person innocent of any crime, even according to the police themselves.

Lords of Scam (Netflix)

This piece has been described as 'boring' by several reviewers. I'll give them credit for Lords of Scam being a tad too long.

But the story of a band of brothers/scammers, some of them basically finance-illiterate, defrauding the CO2 ('carbon') trading market by over Є1 Bn (a billion Euros) with simple VAT schemes, is nonetheless fascinating.

As their illicit wealth grows jealousies begin to foster, resulting in a few vicious murders and leading to arrests and several lengthy prison sentences (but not for murder) Of the money, only about Є250 Mln was ever recovered...

Watch it and learn!

Recipe for a Hero (Reinaldo Ferreira)

Full poem</a>.

On Monday they swear they'll 'never go', by Wednesday they're gone, muttering something about '... temporary lapse of judgement...'

Tory sleaze catching up with Masters of the Universe

The row over Tory sleaze reached new heights on Saturday night as MPs demanded details of any lobbying by Owen Paterson of government ministers on behalf of a company that won almost £500m of Covid-19 related contracts last year.

The crisis facing Boris Johnson also worsened after the former Tory prime minister, Sir John Major, described his successor’s attempts to block Paterson’s suspension from parliament last week for breaching paid advocacy rules as “shameful”.

A new Opinium poll for the Observer shows ratings for Johnson and his party have slumped dramatically since last weekend, with the prime minister’s personal approval figures hitting their lowest ever level.

With Tory MPs already fearing their party is regaining its reputation for financial impropriety after last week’s chaotic events involving Paterson, all the main opposition parties turned up the pressure.

Labour, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party all switched their focus to the award of pandemic contracts, demanding investigations by the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, or the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Kathryn Stone, into Paterson’s contacts with ministers during the pandemic.

More @ Grauniad.

Wave functions: 1D Hydrogen atom (Part 1)

Part 2 and be foud at the former link.

Maid (Netflix)

The Netflix NFLX limited series, Maid, was released on the streaming platform on October 1 and has remained in the Top 5 Shows most viewed ever since in many countries. According to Netflix, the series is on its way to reach 67 million households in its first four weeks, surpassing the record set by last year’s big hit, The Queen’s Gambit, which was watched by 62 million subscribers.

If you’ve not seen Maid yet, its popularity being overshadowed in the headlines by Squid Game’s overwhelming success (viewed by an amazing 142 million accounts), the 10-episode limited series takes viewers on the personal emotional journey of a young woman dealing with domestic abuse, the precarity of poverty and homelessness, and a troubled mother/daughter relationship.

Maid is inspired by Stephanie Land’s Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, a New York Times best-selling memoir. The series expands on the book, putting more emphasis on Alex’s relationship with her ex-Sean and her mother Paula.

Alex, played by Margaret Qualley, is a young mother escaping an abusive relationship. As the series opens, Alex is leaving her boyfriend Sean (Nick Robinson) in the middle of the night, taking their daughter with her. Homeless and without a job, Alex battles to make ends meet for her and her young daughter Maddy, played by Rylea Nevaeh Whittet, to survive. Alex has no one really to turn to for help. Her mother Paula, played by Qualley’s own mother Andie MacDowell, is an eccentric artist who proves to be unreliable and incapable of looking out for Alex. Her absent father Hank (Billy Burke) is at first unwilling to help. Alex’s friends are all Sean’s. She is alone, fending for herself and her daughter. She seeks help from social services, but finds no real support. The social worker though does help her find a job at Value Maids, but the pay she gets from it barely covers her finances.

From the synopsis, the series sounds like a dire ten hours to go through, so why has it become so popular? What showrunner and writer Molly Smith Metzler, and her team of writers, Marcus Gardley, Bekah Brunstetter, Colin McKenna and Michelle Denise Jackson, along with the directors John Wells, Nzingha Stewart, Lila Neugebauer, Helen Shaver and Quyen “Q” Tran, have managed to create is a tender and at times funny series that makes viewers feel invested in Alex’s journey. The camera never strays too far from Alex, showing her point of view of the situations she finds herself in. We, the viewers, go through her experiences with her, thanks to Qualley’s incredible performance.

The series is at its most powerful in its raw depiction of the devastating impact domestic abuse has, showing the clear difference between couple arguments and emotional abuse. The series emphasizes the sense of complete isolation in which a young woman such as Alex would find herself. One of the most chilling moments (amongst many) in Maid is a scene where Sean is emotionally abusing Alex, forcing her to go sit at the table, while her father looks on, not saying a word. It is one of the most difficult episodes of the series, showing Alex sinking, removing herself from reality, only her unmoving shell remains, inert. Throughout the episodes, Alex has received no support. No one around her seems to understand her actions. In the opening sequence, when seeking refuge at her friend’s, one of Sean’s friends appears telling Alex “to stop being a bitch.” Perhaps none of them have seen the way Sean can be with Alex. But in that scene with Alex’s father Hank, there is a witness to the behavior. And he does nothing.

There is a rawness to Maid that prevents it from falling into the melodramatic. It plunges us into Alex’s reality, her tender moments with her daughter, her difficult relationship with her mother, who needs help herself, and her darkest moments. It is a must-see.

Forbes.

Tony Greenstein's Blog: Israel is not just racist towards Palestinians but...

Tony Greenstein's Blog: Israel is not just racist towards Palestinians but...: If Israel is primarily a Jewish Supremacist State it is ALSO a White Supremacist State In February 2019, in response to an article on Al ...

Colin in Black and White review – Kaepernick drama will take your breath away

The athlete turned activist joins forces with Ava Duvernay for a bold and devastating docudrama mixing the story of his early life with shocking stats on racial inequality

Colin Kaepernick became famous in the US as an NFL quarterback. He became famous around the world, and infamous in his own country, when he became a civil rights protester and – shortly after that – no longer an NFL quarterback. Kaepernick drew admiration and condemnation when he took the knee during the playing of the US national anthem at a preseason game in 2016, in protest against US police brutality and racial inequality after multiple police shootings of black people and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

His actions inspired many more players to join him in similar actions – then president Trump to recommend that such players should be fired. At the end of the season, the managers at his team, the San Francisco 49ers, told him they were going to release him – a move largely seen as politically rather than practically motivated, despite the 49ers’ claim that he didn’t fit in with their new coach’s plans. His activism has increased and he has remained unsigned since.

Colin in Black and White (Netflix) tells the story of his formative teenage years. The six-part collaboration between Kaepernick and Ava DuVernay (the director of Selma and the creator of the magnificent drama When They See Us, about the young black men falsely accused of the rape and beating of a jogger in Central Park) is a bold creation, shaped and fuelled by anger, aimed at educating as much as – if not even more than – entertaining. It takes your breath away.

Grauniad.

The price of truth: Al Jazeera marks 25 dangerous years

Killings, threats, and full-on aerial attacks on its bureaus; Al Jazeera has endured a staggering amount of tragedy and obstacles during its 25 years of covering the human story.

By Farah Najjar

Doha, Qatar – As Al Jazeera marks its 25th anniversary on November 1, the history of the media network is beset with the inherent risks, obstacles and outright attacks it had to weather by reporting from the world’s most strife-stricken places.

The dangers faced by Al Jazeera included multiple threats to shut down its bureaus and the killing or detention of its front-line journalists. They ranged from phone hacking and network-wide cyber-attacks, to state-sanctioned satellite scrambling and outright aerial bombardments on bureau locations.

Al Jazeera.

Are we really going to do this?

With humanity already struggling to cope with rising seas, more powerful storms, deadly heat waves and rapidly changing ecosystems needed to sustain life, the global climate summit in Glasgow opened on Monday with a series of desperate pleas for action from nations large and small.

“Climate change is already ravaging the world,” President Biden said in a speech at the summit, known as COP26, on Monday afternoon. But even while global warming is causing widespread economic damage and upending lives, he said, this was also a moment of opportunity to reshape the way humans live in better harmony with nature.

“We are standing at an inflection point in world history,” he said, calling climate change an “existential threat to human existence as we know it.”

That point was echoed by Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados. “If our existence is to mean anything we must act,” she said.

Underscoring the urgency of the moment, with leaders of more than 120 countries gathered for the summit, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said that the effects of a warming planet were being felt “from the ocean depths to the mountaintops.”

“Sea level rise has doubled from 30 years ago,” he said. Oceans are hotter than ever, parts of the Amazon rain forest emit more carbon than they absorb, and in the last decade about four billion people were affected by events related to the changing climate. “Sea level rise has doubled from 30 years ago,” he said. Oceans are hotter than ever, parts of the Amazon rain forest emit more carbon than they absorb, and in the last decade about four billion people were affected by events related to the changing climate.

“Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper,” Mr. Guterres said. “We are digging our own graves.”

The conference’s aim is to prevent the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with levels before the Industrial Revolution. That is the threshold beyond which scientists say the dangers of global warming — such as deadly heat waves, water shortages, crop failures and ecosystem collapse — grow immensely.

Mr. Guterres called on countries to return to the summit every year to nudge one another “until keeping to 1.5 degrees is assured, until subsidies to fossil fuels end, until there is a price on carbon and until coal is phased out.”

Many countries will press against such specific measures, and the absence of leaders from Russia and China from the meeting cast doubts on how united the world can be in the struggle.

China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, proposed a new emissions target that is largely indistinguishable from one it made six years ago. The United States, the largest historic emitter, has an ambitious emissions goal but has not been able to pass legislation to achieve it. And Australia, India and Russia have not made any new pledges to draw down climate pollution this decade.

Much more...

Is the Th-MSR nuclear reactor the future of nuclear energy?

At first they laugh at you...

ThorCon: (High temperature, low pressure)