Post date: Mar 21, 2018 3:36:59 AM
The John James Newsletter 219
9 March 2018
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The corporate grip on opinion in the US is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent
Gore Vidal
By exporting dollars and dollar-denominated bank credit, America creates wealth for both the US government and the major American banks, and the dollar’s reserve status is vital to the US economy
Alasdair Macleod
The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise
James Larkin
UN experts denounce the myth that pesticides are necessary to feed the world
Report warns of catastrophic consequences and blames manufacturers for ‘systematic denial of harms’ and ‘unethical marketing tactics’. Pesticides have “catastrophic impacts on the environment, human health and society as a whole”, including an estimated 200,000 deaths a year from acute poisoning.
Conflicts target inner circle of Trump White House
The past week has seen an unprecedented escalation of the conflicts within the American ruling class, with the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NBC and other leading corporate media outlets acting as the spearhead for a campaign to cripple the Trump White House.
Koch Document Reveals Laundry List of Policy Victories Extracted under Trump
In the backdrop of a chaotic first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the conservative Koch brothers have won victory after victory in their bid to reshape American government to their interests.Ethics forms reveal that officials across the government, including at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, previously served at Koch think tanks or other Koch groups.“We’ve made more progress in the last five years than I had in the last 50,” Charles Koch reportedly said. “The capabilities we have now can take us to a whole new level.”
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/25/koch-brothers-trump-administration/
This is what we have always said the whole issue was about: securing the safety of the Korean state from foreign aggressors.
North Korea says it could give up nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees
They have agreed to hold a summit next month, with Pyongyang saying it would consider abandoning nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees. If confirmed by Pyongyang, the offer would mark the first time under the current leadership the North had declared itself willing to discuss conditions under which it might consider giving up its nuclear arsenal -- a move it has previously insisted was firmly off the negotiating table.
China’s Financial War Strategy
The end game for the dollar and America’s harvesting of foreign countries is therefore in sight, and it will likely end with a final dollar crisis. China could bring this about at a time of its own choosing, simply by introducing the planned oil futures yuan contract alongside the gold futures yuan contract. This explains the dynamics being played out at the highest levels, and America has the most to lose. But because China still owns large quantities of US Treasuries and dollar reserves, for the moment she might prefer more time before executing the coup de grace. But execute it, she will. Her fundamental objective is to remove America’s ability to profit from having everything priced in dollars.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46961.htm
Bad air worse than bad genes for many diseases
Major study finds pollution, especially from burning coal, has more influence on disease risk than genetic inheritance. Air pollution causes spikes in heart attacks and stroke, triggers hospital admissions for asthma, upsets diabetes control and, for good measure, is a class one carcinogen known to cause lung cancer. The disease risk from particulate matter may have more to do with the genetic changes conferred by pollution than with the genes your mum and dad gave you. Of all the pollutants sulphur dioxide appears to be the worst, which comes mostly from coal-fired power plants, was linked to changes affecting 170 genes that made asthma and cardiovascular disease worse. It more impact than smoking, socioeconomic disadvantage, or issues affecting green space and footpaths, suggesting that, as harmful environmental variables go, sulphur dioxide is true royalty.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/bad-air-worse-than-bad-genes-for-many-diseases
Federal Judge's Unprecedented Order on Climate Science opens the way for Lawsuits against Big Oil
The court is forcing these companies to go on the record about their understanding of climate science, which they have desperately tried to avoid doing. This will be the closest that we have seen to a trial on climate science in the United States, to date. "At the core of the plaintiff's lawsuit is the idea that these companies have long known about risks of their products yet they took a course of action that resisted regulation and sought to keep them on the market as long as possible."
7 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF AVAAZ…
https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/thousand_stories_reportback_mar_18/
We may have won our campaign to stop Colombia’s massive deforestation!
We might help win the largest ocean reserve in the Atlantic!
We worked our hearts out to stop a far-right win in Italy!
We got Monsanto backpedaling on their monster subpoena
...And we’re at the centre of their monster merger attempt
We seized the moment in the US on gun control
African leaders about to sign our petition to ban ivory!
And we're getting ivory tested in a lab!
We’re gearing up for Europe's final battle to save the Bees
We may finally have a way to stop the horror in Yemen
We’re fiercely advocating on behalf of Ahed Tamimi and Palestinian children in detention
We’re investigating Trump around the world
We’re gunning to shut down more slaughterhouses!
We’re getting traction for a new vision of how to save the world
We're failing to run a campaign on Syria :(
We pressed governments to tackle fake news effectively
European Parliament members circulated our Monsanto email to 189 MEPs
Interviewed women leaders for our campaign encouraging more women to run for office
Lobbying MPs in the UK Parliament to require a vote on the next Brexit de
Britain's Massive Charity Scam
More than half the humanitarian donations from the United Kingdom to Syria through small NGOs have ended up in the hands of ISIS and other jihadist groups, according to the Quilliam Foundation. In this way, millions of pounds, thanks to the generosity of British taxpayers, have fallen in the hands of terror groups. Fatiha-Global, which should have brought help to Syrian refugees fleeing the war, instead diverted the funds to the Islamic State, the very terror group which had caused the refugee crisis to begin with.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11998/britain-charities-scandal
Australian homes, business installed 6.5 solar panels per minute in 2017
or more than 9500 installed every day. There was a 41% increase in installed renewable energy capacity across all states and territories compared to 2016. This growth was headed by Queensland, which installed 295MW; while the Australian Capital Territory took top place for biggest annual increase, up 57%.
Global deforestation hotspot: 3m hectares of Australian forest to be lost in 15 years
Australia is in the midst of a full-blown land-clearing crisis. Projections suggest that in the two decades to 2030, 3m hectares of untouched forest will have been bulldozed in eastern Australia. The crisis is driven primarily by a booming livestock industry but is ushered in by governments that fail to introduce restrictions and refuse to apply existing restrictions. Australia has a rich biodiversity, with nearly 8% of all Earth’s plant and animal species finding a home on the continent. About 85% of the country’s plants, 84% of its mammals and 45% of its birds are found nowhere else. But land clearing is putting that at risk. About three-quarters of Australia’s 1,640 plants and animals listed by the government as threatened have habitat loss listed as one of their main threats.
Southeast Asia getting killed by logging and mining
Soon, nothing original will be left here. Billions of dollars will be made by those very few rich, and the poor majority will be stuck with the coolie’s jobs. The plundering of the environment is creating dependency syndrome and very little advancement for the society. The money flows, but not where it is supposed to flow. Like in the Gulf, almost nothing or very little is being invested into science, technology, the arts and creative sectors. Ruined islands and peninsulas will keep producing ‘blood fruits’. Land owners, corrupt politicians, middlemen and traders will keep getting outrageously rich. But the great majority of people will have to get used to living with a polluted and totally unnatural environment. They’d be stuck, in fact most of them are already stuck, in some sort of depressing concentration camps surrounded by unnatural, hostile crops, and by the chemically-contaminated land.
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/03/02/southeast-asia-getting-killed-by-logging-and-mining/
Eat Your Strawberries Before Climate Change Wipes Them Out
A temperature change of just a few degrees is “closely related to yield reductions” in some of the most cherished California crops: almonds, wine grapes, strawberries, walnuts, freestone peaches, and cherries. Avocado production could plummet. Because of fewer winter chill hours only 10% of the Central Valley will remain viable to grow fruits like apricots, kiwis, peaches, and nectarines. California provides a third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of our fruits and nuts.
95% of Plastic Polluting our oceans comes from just Ten Rivers
10 rivers including the Ganges and Niger, account for most of plastic waste in Earth’s oceans. Eight of these are in Asia.
https://wordlesstech.com/95-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-ten-rivers/
Here Come the Fake Videos, Too
Artificial intelligence video tools make it relatively easy to put one person’s face on another person’s body with few traces of manipulation. I tried it on myself. What could go wrong?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/technology/fake-videos-deepfakes.html
New Nanobots Kill Cancerous Tumours by Cutting off Their Blood Supply
Using a technique known as DNA origami, scientists programmed tiny robots to carry payloads of a blood-clotting enzyme called thrombin to tumor-associated blood vessels in mice. Once the nanobots reached the surface of those blood vessels, they sent the thrombin to the heart of the tumour. The nanobots blocked the tumour’s blood supply and caused damage to its tissue within 24 hours of treatment.
Warning Bells about Fracking and Earthquakes Growing Louder
The technology is causing more earthquakes than expected and that it doesn’t take the injection of much fluid to trigger a tremor. In Texas, the volume of sand used to prop open cracks in shale formations to release hydrocarbons has increased from 1,360 tonnes per well to 6,800 tonnes. In Canada, use has tripled from 3,000 tonnes per well to 12,000 tonnes.
https://thetyee.ca/News/2018/03/01/Warning-Bells-Fracking-Earthquakes-Louder/
Total ban on bee-harming pesticides likely after major new EU analysis
Analysis from EU’s scientific risk assessors finds neonicotinoids pose a serious danger to all bees, making total field ban highly likely.
'Truly Wicked': Trump EPA ends Program to study Effects of Chemical Exposure on Children
"Finally America's children will be allowed to choke on the freedom of a lighter regulatory burden."As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the leadership of Scott Pruitt moves to make it easier for big industry to dump dangerous chemicals into the nation's air and water, the agency announced late Monday that it is dissolving a program that funds studies on the effects of pollution and chemical exposure on America's children.
Why the Shooting Will Continue
America has a unique history with firearms. The settler colonial state enshrined gun ownership into the constitution because of a determination to maintain chattel slavery and the violent enforcement which had to go with it. More than two hundred years later that imperative remains. All the sound and fury about gun control is useless because this society demands that the slave patrol never disband.
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/03/02/freedom-rider-why-the-shooting-will-continue/
Who's Getting Rich Off the US Gun Crisis?
The firearms manufacturing industry, which, along with ammunitions production, accounts for an estimated $17 billion in revenue.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43748-gun-profiteers-who-s-getting-rich-off-the-us-gun-crisis