Links and notes September 21, 2017

Not such voluminous posts please, I was told. Who can read all this? 140 Twitter characters are still the benchmark.
Okay, I will mix in a few shorter posts in future.

Concerning a related matter, I want to thank my fellow bloggers, who have subscribed here. It would be polite and show good manners to visit and subscribe their blogs too in return, but I’m always short on time, struggling to put out the occasional post, sifting incoming news, and making the necessary research.

Recently something (maybe curiosity) inspired me to visit the bloghttps://cathytea.wordpress.com/, and what I found was unexpected and new. This is what I wrote to Cathy Tea:

I visited this site because Cathy Tea follows my blog. I never played video games and never will, because I try to curtail the time spent on the computer. I see the value of experimenting with social relations in the simplified environment of a game, discovering thereby social functions which may be hidden and undetectable in the confusing richness and diversity of the real world. If the experiences and findings from the game can be applied to our natural environment and help to navigate and muddle through this complicated life, thats for sure a good thing.

When I first looked at the site it appeared completely strange to me and the only thing that I could take from it was “kindness.” Kindness is still my main impression, though related feelings, attitudes, moods like tolerance, sympathy, tenderness, calmness, serenity, love are also noticeable.

Kindness makes this site special, because the dominating mood of human society is aggressiveness. Aggressiveness rules, as it trumps, subjugates, drowns out any other emotions, dispositions, states of mind.

Aggressiveness predominantly means male, testosterone driven aggression. Male aggression is a prime cause of wars, crime, terrorism, oppression, destructive competition, inequality, injustice. Male aggression is hard wired, but it can be mitigated, reduced, unlearned. The human brain is flexible enough to make this possible — brain plasticity is the key. The sages, saints, prophets, teachers, preachers of the word, Buddhist monks, artists, poets, environmentalists, and activists for just social causes show that it is possible. 

I’m male and my life could have been much easier and more peaceful if testosterone levels would have been lower. It takes a long time to tame the beast inside. My mission is now to comfort, aid, teach, heal.

You have all my sympathies. Cary on, comfort, aid, teach, and heal.

Feline news:
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2111787/cat-mourning-refuses-leave-masters-grave-malaysia
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/07/gigantic-feline-ridiculously-long-legs-tallest-pet-cat-world/
http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/must_see/41221930/cats-invited-onto-local-japan-train
http://www.tmz.com/2017/09/10/hemingway-houses-cats-hurricane-irma-key-west/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4870610/Caretaker-Ernest-Hemingway-s-FL-home-rides-storm.html

Environmental news:
https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41191328?ocid=global_bbccom_email_07092017_top+news+stories
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21723394-biology-and-conservation-elephants-conserve-elephants-they-hold Save the elephants.
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/07/17/Coming-Global-Collapse/
http://nautil.us/issue/52/the-hive/how-we-cope-with-the-end-of-nature
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/09/this-is-how-your-world-could-end-climate-change-global-warming
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/new-park-city-witness-problems-open-space/
http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511?lo=ap_a1
https://businessconnectworld.com/2017/09/13/8-critical-factors-behind-food-crisis/ This article is a useful compilation of facts, yet in my opinion the root causes of food scarcity are overpopulation and the lavish, wasteful, and ultimately ruinous consumption of resources by a few rich nations.
This includes military spending (700 billion US$ by the USA alone), travel (tourism), transport of commodities and goods over long distances, and pathological consumerism, complemented with a reckless and negligent throw-away attitude.
In short: More people, who consume and destroy nature means less nature, and consequently less arable land, and consequently less food. Less available food will in turn reduce human population to sustainable levels. This is the way nature protects, heals, maintains itself.
One can dismiss this analysis as cynical and inhuman, as it indicates an indifference to human suffering. Well, this world never was a nice place and paradise is widely considered a religious myth. Our own conduct indicates clearly an indifference to the suffering of fellow animals and fellow living things, which we constantly destroy in a relentless war against the natural wold.
But we are the crown of nature, one may counter, we have every right to do as we please. And if nature doesn’t comply, we will destroy it and build our own and even better artificial environment.
Good luck with that, you will see soon how it turns out in the end.

Economic news:
https://journal-neo.org/2017/09/02/russia-vs-us-economic-war-whos-going-to-be-the-ultimate-loser/
http://evonomics.com/norway-toxic-trickle-down-david-sloan-wilson/
In 2015 an estimated 8 trillion US$ (more than 10 percent of global GDP (gross domestic product)) was hidden in offshore tax havens. 73 percent of Fortune 500 companies used tax havens, adding up to 2.5 trillion US$ in offshore profits, or about 717.8 billion US$ taxes which were not paid to the US government.

Media and technology news:
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2017/854-preferred-conclusions-the-bbc-syria-and-venezuela.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41169817?ocid=global_bbccom_email_05092017_top+news+stories Bullets against words. The bullets always win the debate. Shall we stop talking and start shooting? Or remain silent until we have found a way to disarm the violent thugs?
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/08/goog-s08.html The usual Google censoring.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41182519 Fake news is everything what contradicts the government approved narrative. The pressure to comply and toe the line increases month by month. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube accounts are shot down, blogs with alternative views are tolerated still but unfavorable search engine rankings make sure that nobody finds them. This is worse than the McCarthy era witch-hunts, it is worldwide and comprehensive.
The blog which you are just visiting is also effected, blacked out and getting not any search engine referrals. In addition I was personally targeted by a sting operation, when a blog reader tried to lure me into a money laundering operation with the promise of big financial reward with little effort. The little effort I was asked to undertake would have been a criminal offense though.
I still have all the messages and emails from this affair and reading them again I have to say, that the whole scheme was badly designed and showed 1. That US agents assume they are the most clever guys and their targets are idiots (the arrogance of the empire), 2. That they have no idea about other peoples values and way of thinking.
All signs point to the fact, that in the not so far future I will have to look for a non-US blogger-platform and I hope, that some of my readers will follow me when I have to make the move.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/21/pers-s21.html

Imperial news:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-lowndes-county-alabama-water-waste-treatment-poverty
http://www.workers.org/2017/09/11/nfl-star-michael-bennett-says-the-system-failed-me-after-he-survives-cop-attack/
http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/tns-san-diego-homeless-outbreak-hepatitis-tents.html
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2153 Who rules the USA? About the deep state, the taming of Donald Trump, the Israel lobby, and US militarism. This text is informative, though it sounds at some points overly dramatic and bitter. For a non-US citizen and anti-imperialist observer the chaos of the power struggle in the Trump administration has some positive sides, as it diminished appeal of and sympathy for the USA in outside populations worldwide and made US geopolitical strategies inconsistent and less effective.
On a side note: Former US President Barack Obama collects 1.2 million US$ for three speeches to major Wall Street firms (Cantor Fiztgerald, Northern Trust Corp, Carlyle Group). Sure, there’s no corruption in Washington D.C.

Imperial conquest news:
http://in.reuters.com/article/yemen-cholera/yemens-cholera-epidemic-hits-600000-confounding-expectations-idINKCN1BG141
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-americas-secret-war-with-isis-w501346 Kurds and Arabs die in a merciless war.
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/a-review-of-us-media-coverage-on-venezuela/
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/40-years-ago-this-chilean-exile-warned-us-about-the-shock-doctrine-then-he-was-assassinated/ The crimes of empire are not forgotten.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/09/palestine-ramallah-55-schools-demolition-alternatives-israel.html
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-divisions-of-cyprus-by-perry-anderson-3/ A long read, but worth it. The history of colonialism in Europe and the crimes of empire (not in Africa or Asia but in Europe itself).

Uncategorized news:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/18/hung-s18.html Hunger and malnutrition increase globally. This was predicted and it is only the start of the looming catastrophe. 
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/21/cata-s21.html Separatist movements have different motives:
1. Decreasing the dependence from a central state and a ruling class which only wants to economically exploit peripheral areas.
2. Getting rid of the liability to pay for poor areas of the state and not having to share the riches of the land with the less fortunate parts of the country.
3. Preserving a unique regional culture against the pressure of the state to install a unifying national identity.
4. Interference, incitement, bribing of regional elites by a foreign power who wants to destabilize, partition, destroy a country in order to achieve geopolitical advantages.
One or more of the above may apply.

News from cat paradise:

After the hedonism and the excesses of summer follows the inevitable sobering-up of the autumn days. Dark and cold times are ahead, lets cuddle together and indulge in memories of warmth and brightness. We have each other and, if the freaks in the power centers of the world can keep their ICBMs inside the missile silos and submarine compartments, there will be another spring and another summer.

The siege of Deir ez-Zor has ended

Deir ez-Zor was a beautiful city on the shores of the Euphrates River, surrounded by a fertile and prosperous farming area. It was also a tourist destination with riverbank restaurants, hotels, and a hub for trans-desert travels.

The Armenian Genocide Martyrs’ Memorial Church, completed in 1990, was not only a church, but also a museum, monument, archive centre, and exhibition. Every year in April thousands of Armenian pilgrims from all over the world descended onto Deir ez-Zor to commemorate the genocide victims in the presence of their religious leaders. In September 2014 the Church and all attached buildings were destroyed by the terrorists of IS (Islamic State).

The beautiful suspension bridge across the Euphrates was another famous tourist attraction, it is destroyed now as well. 

An epic battle

In 2013 a coalition of various Islamic militias, among them Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, captured most of Deir ez-Zor province and part of the capital city (in Syria, a province and its capital always have the same name), but soon infighting between the militias started and in April 2014 IS launched an offensive against their fellow jihadists which resulted in the total defeat of the other groups. In July IS controlled the whole Deir ez-Zor province with the exception of Deir ez-Zor city.

After closing all roads and cutting off power lines and communication cables to the city enclave, IS in December 2014 launched an offensive against the Deir ez-Zor military air base. During three days of fighting, some 200 Islamic fighters and 43 Syrian soldiers were killed. IS could penetrate the air base and seize a strategic mountain plus two nearby villages, but the Syrian army eventually repelled the offensive.

Several other attacks on the enclave followed and failed, yet in January 2016 a massive attack which included six SVBIEDs (suicide-vehicle-born-explosive-devices) overran the Baghiliya and Ayyash neighborhoods of the city. Some 400 civilians were captured and mostly executed (beheaded).

IS then assaulted the Sina’ah district, the industrial zone, the Thayyem Oil Fields and the strategic Jebel (mountain) Tharda. Heavy Russian air-strikes helped the troops stationed on the mountain to fend off the militants.

In September 2016, US and allied fighter aircrafts attacked Syrian positions on Jebel Tharda, killing over 80 soldiers and wounding 110 more in a two hour long raid. IS launched a broad offensive immediately after the bombing and was finally able to take Jebel Tharda and subsequently the whole mountainous areas overlooking the airport. This made the air base unusable for Syrian and Russian aircrafts, as the runway was exposed to IS fire.

Considering all known facts, the repeated averments and declarations of US-military spokespersons that the air raids were a mistake are implausible and unconvincing, the only explanation which makes sense is that the US-coalition jets were sent to help IS overrun the enclave.

In January 2017, IS was able to take the cemetery area and cut the road between Deir ez-Zor airport and the city, leaving the enclave split in two.

After that IS conducted waves of attacks on a daily basis, which were ultimately all repelled. Most of the attack were directed at the Panorama roundabout, the 137th regiment military base, and two hills at the southern entrance to the city.

Suffering and heroism

The three year long siege of Deir Ez-Zor by the Islamic State terrorists has ended now. After the victory in Aleppo this is another pivotal moment in the Syrian war and it will energize the defenders of Syria and demoralize the attacking jihadists.

The legendary commander of the “Tiger Forces” General Suheil al-Hassan personally led the offensive to relief Deir ez-Zor. He and his men were also responsible for breaking the siege of the Kuweires airport in November 2015. Kuweires is another epic tale of suffering and endurance, as only 300 of the 1,100 defenders survived.

During the siege of Deir ez-Zor the population of the city has decreased from 210,000 to 120,000, as many civilians have been evacuated via helicopter and an untold number of both soldiers and civilians died. The siege resulted in widespread malnutrition and starvation, though since 2015 Russia and the UN World Food Program have conducted airdrops of food and other humanitarian supplies to the besieged city. There is no electricity, a few power generators are used to pump water from wells and the river, but the water can be supplied only twice a week and it is untreated because IS has destroyed all treatment facilities with mortars and rockets.

The people of DeZ have suffered beyond comprehension, facing certain death at the hands of the Islamic terrorists in case of a defeat. The ones that stubbornly remained in the enclave are all ardent supporters of the Baath government and none of them would have been spared the wrath of IS.

It will never be known how many people parished during the siege, but the death toll includes for sure more than 2,000 Syrian soldiers and about 6,000 to 8,000 IS-fighters. In the war against IS, Deir ez-Zor may in fact be even more important that the Kurdish city Kobane, since it was the battlefield wich proved most costly to the terror organization. Many jihadists died in a massive minefield to the east of the city and the desert around the enclave is littered with corpses, left rotting in the blistering sun because it would be suicidal to retrieve them as snipers and gunners on both sides look for targets.

Deir Ez-Zor was defended by the elite Republican Guards of the 104th Airborne Brigade, which are led by the highly respected and famed General Issam Zahreddine. He took over the garrison after General Jameh Jameh was killed by a sniper. In November 2013, while commanding his forces in al-Rashdiya district, Zahreddine was wounded in the leg by a bullet. Zahreddine is a Druze, his son Yarob is also in the city, fighting alongside him. General Zahreddine is also on a EU sanctions list, a batch of honor he certainly will be proud of and enjoy.

New troops were brought in and wounded soldiers evacuated via helicopter, but this was always dangerous and could only be done in the night as IS tried to hit the helicopters with all available means. One Mi-8 helicopter was lost and a few others barely escaped attacks by guided missiles.

No words can describe the steadfastness and heroism of the garrison. This is, together with the victory in Aleppo, the most significant and iconic battle victory through the entire Syrian war. Books will be written and movies directed, the surviving defenders in the city enclave will be honored, praised, saluted, and never forgotten. They have made history.

How it happened

The biggest town between Palmyra and Deir-ez-Zor is al-Suknah, and the fight for it was bitter and bloody. The town could only be taken after it was approached from several axis, it is a wasteland now and sappers are still working to defuse mines and booby traps.

While approaching al-Suknah from Palmyra and al-Resafa, the Syrian forces cut off IS militants in two huge but sparsely populated pockets, consisting mainly of desert area with small isolated villages. The eastern one is cleared now, the western one is constantly shrinking and Ukayribat, the main town in this pocket, has just been liberated in a fierce battle after several failed attempts and setbacks due to IS suicide attacks. At the moment there is only a small area near al-Salamiya still under Islamist control.

There was also the option to reach Deir-ez-Zor in a push along the Euphrates River via al-Maadan, but IS recaptured a string of villages on the river in a devastating counteroffensive, killing more than 100 Syrian troops. The transfer of IS forces to al-Maadan though left the area between al-Suknah and Deir-ez-Zor exposed.

The terrain after al-Suknah is rather flat with the only exception of Jebel Bisri west of the city, so advancing from there was much easier than from Palmyra to Suknah. Jebel Bisri and the al-Kharata oilfield between Bisri and Deir-ez-Zor were captured surprisingly fast, indicating that IS-defense lines had collapsed.

The Syrian army (including Tiger Forces and Shaitat fighters) advanced on two fronts east of al-Suknah (Ayyash and Hrybsheh near Kabajeb) to meet at al-Shulah. They dismantled an IS communications network (sixth communication tower) near al-Shula and detained a large group of IS-members. The IS supply lines to the Deir ez-Zor front were largely cut.

A small special unit infiltrated under heavy air support IS positions at brigade 137 on the western edge of the city from the rear which allowed the defenders inside to retake several positions, while the army, Hezbollah, Republican guard, Tiger forces, Palestinian Galilee Forces, and 4th Division units, who were just days ago sent from Damascus, tried to establish a corridor to the Panorama Roundabout.

The effort was immens on both sides. IS hastily had sent reinforcements from al-Maadan back to the western and southern entrance of the city and also mobilized every single one of their fighters positioned near the enclave. They made a suicidal last stand, outnumbered, outsmarted, and an easy target for jets and artillery in the open desert. It would have made more sense to withdraw and disperse in the desert, but they chose getting slaughtered on the frontline.

IS tried to stop government troops advances by sending over a dozen of SVBIEDs against Syrian troops. Most of them were destroyed by the Russian Air Force, some were destroyed by anti-tank missiles. A Russian frigate in the Mediterranean Sea fired Kalibr cruise missiles at strategic IS targets, destroying a communications and command centre, ammunition depots, and an armored vehicle repair shop. Two Russian soldiers were killed, when their vehicle column was hit. IS also counter attacked on the northern flank of the Tiger Forces offensive in the vicinity of the al-Kharata oilfield.

In the Shoula area IS managed to get behind Syrian forces and to ambush an army unit, however, the attack was repelled eventually. As a result of the ambush, the army had to retreat temporarily. 

Meanwhile soldiers in the enclave were franticly working to open loopholes in the minefields to enable safe passage of arriving units and of the trucks full with food and medicine which they brought with them.

The air base was approached via the Al Tayyim Oil Well. This is a strategic important point wich allows the linking of the air base with the city and the recapture of the cemetery.

When finally a dozen Syrian tanks plus support vehicles entered the Brigade 137 base, it was clear that the siege had been broken. The new corridor is wide enough to allow a safe transfer of troops and supplies.

Already before this arrival the army had raised the Flag of the Syrian Arab Republic in the Armenian Cemetery at the southern entrance of Deir ez-Zor, only five kilometer from the Panorama Roundabout, and Governor Mohammed Ibrahim Samra had declared the end of the siege. The residents of Deir ez-Zor are celebrating in the streets since three days despite mortars and artillery shells from IS still raining down onto them.

Fighting is not over yet and it will take some days till the IS holdouts in the cemetery area and in the northern parts of the city have been eliminated.

Final notes

This development is so significant that not even Western mainstream media can ignore it and first reports appeared already on Reuters, AP, and the British Independent. The Syrian broadcaster SANA has started a life stream on YouTube which is watched by thousands, the Twitter and Facebook scene is buzzing with news, questions, and comments. This is big news, this is a game changer, this is a big moral boost for all Syrians who support the secular state, no matter how Western propagandists will try to spin it.

The relief of the siege has also geopolitical consequences, as it opens the way to Al-Qaim and Al-Bukamal on the Iraqi border. Palmyra, Sukhna, Deir ez-Zor, al-Bukamal are important links in the direct land route from Iran to Lebanon, which could become the backbone of the “Shia Crescent”.

The US-coalition pressures the Kurdish led SDF forces to reach al-Bukamal via the Khabur route, following the Khabur River from southern Hasakah province into Deir ez-Zor province. At al-Busayrah, where the Khabur meets the Euphrates, SDF forces would march south along the eastern bank of the Euphrates toward Mayadin and from there to al-Bukamal. As long as the SDF is fighting in Raqqa such an offensive is not likely, but after the fall of Raqqa there could be a tough race between the Syrian army and the SDF towards al-Bukamal.

One last word:

This is war, and though the inhabitants of Deir ez-Zor and with them all Syrians are more than entitled to celebrate this victory, an uninvolved observer has to remain sober and reflective. Whatever helps to avoid death and destruction has to be done, and the constant reconciliation and appeasement efforts of the Assad government and Russia are the right way, even if crimes remain unpunished and perpetrators evade justice.

It may not be possible to integrate the most severe cases, the psychopathic, unrepentant, remorseless, unalterable criminals back into society. They will have to be neutralized somehow. Other than that though, everyone deserves another chance to join humankind.

Related:
https://mato48.com/2014/08/07/the-tragedy-of-deir-ez-zor/
https://mato48.com/2016/09/18/evil-has-a-name/

Update

Another map:

Links September 2017

As Harvey devastated Texas, catastrophic floods unfolded in South Asia, mostly unnoticed in Western media. Monsoon rains have caused deluges and landslides affecting 41 million people in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, resulting in the death of more than 1,200 people.

Frequent floods in South Asia are common in the monsoon season between June and September. But this is “one of the most serious humanitarian crises” the region has seen in many years, according to Martin Faller, deputy regional director for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Aid organizations try to provide food and shelter for stranded victims, while the risk of water born diseases like Cholera, Hepatitis A, Leptospirosis, Typhoid, Malaria, Dengue fever grows.

The crisis has been going on since mid-August and the downpours have most recently come for India’s megacity Mumbai. Since one week the city’s roads are flooded, schools have closed early, and flights have been canceled. Life has come to a standstill.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/aug/31/mumbai-building-collapses-search-victims-floods-south-asia-floods-video-report
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/01/flod-s01.html
http://priceofoil.org/2017/08/30/1200-dead-up-to-41-million-affected-in-asian-flooding/

Feline news:
http://www.lovemeow.com/cats-rescued-houston-residents-stay-behind-to-help-save-stranded-animals-from-flood-waters-2478964880.html
http://www.lovemeow.com/woman-saves-kittens-from-drowning-in-nick-of-time-during-hurricane-harvey-2478791562.html
http://laist.com/2017/08/29/mountain_lion_kittens.php#photo-1

Environmental news:
http://e360.yale.edu/features/thirty-years-after-the-montreal-protocol-solving-the-ozone-problem-remains-elusive It’s not only the Antarctica ozone hole, the ozone layer has become thinner everywhere, with UV radiation increasing on every place on the earth.
https://www.newsdeeply.com/oceans/articles/2017/08/17/breakthrough-could-help-predict-a-catastrophic-loss-of-ocean-oxygen
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/18/kuwait-city-hottest-place-earth-climate-change-gulf-oil-temperatures
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41564-fukushima-plant-is-releasing-tons-of-radioactive-water-into-the-pacific-ocean Sharing the burden with all of humanity. Just pour the radioactive tritium water into the ocean. Where else should it go?
http://www.postandcourier.com/business/early-signs-of-incompetence-at-every-level-went-unheeded-as/article_b47acd2c-89a5-11e7-830a-9364c7e7b71b.html Good! Make it hurt.
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/toxification/globalizations-blowback/
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2989224/dealing_with_climate_migration_what_matters_are_our_actions.html
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/flame+retardant+couches+seats+mats+linked+98lower+reproductive/14353012/story.htmlAnother way to solve the problem of overpopulation.
https://news.mongabay.com/2017/08/these-3-companies-owe-indonesia-millions-of-dollars-for-damaging-the-environment-why-havent-they-paid/When insufficient environmental laws, underfunded government agencies, and armies of defense lawyers make it nearly impossible to punish environmental crimes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/26/windscreen-phenomenon-car-no-longer-covered-dead-insects/ This was reported before and is evident to everyone who has a sense for nature. Amphibians, birds, insects — who will be next? Maybe we ourselves?
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/08/china-plants-billions-of-trees-in-the-desert/
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/mass-extinction-life-on-earth-farming-industrial-agriculture-professor-raj-patel-a7914616.html Re-imagining a world with less stuff but more joy.
“When you turn the management over to the tree-huggers, the bird and bunny lovers and the rock lickers, you turn your heritage over.”
Mike Noel, a Republican state representative in Utah who wants to reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument and reopen the area for mining and drilling.

Media and technology news:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/googles-censorship-plans-restrict-publisher-advertising-raises-antitrust-issues.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/24/face-a24.html
http://www.dw.com/en/interior-ministry-shuts-down-raids-left-wing-german-indymedia-site/a-40232965 Acts of censorship will be more frequent and open. Get used to it — this is the new normal.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/new-america-foundation-head-anne-marie-slaughter-botches-laundering-googles-money.html
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/30/google-funded-think-tank-fired-google-critics-after-they-dared-criticize-google/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/09/28/why-we-must-still-defend-free-speech/
http://theantimedia.org/media-criticize-jeff-bezos/
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/google-and-the-building-of-a-totalitarian-empire/

Imperial news:
There are moments when US President Donald Trump seems to be in full meltdown mode, but he keeps going. Spokesman on national security matters Sebastian Gorka, a Bannon ally, has been pushed out.
Army and Marine officials in Trump’s cabinet — retired General John Kelly, retired General James Mattis and active duty General H.R. McMaster — have used the crisis surrounding Trump’s ambiguity over the far-right disturbances in Charlottesville and elsewhere, to strengthen the grip of the military over the government.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/24/pers-a24.html
http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/news-and-updates/hunger-blog/hunger-in-the-news-170818.html
https://grist.org/briefly/new-orleans-is-now-planning-to-evacuate-the-city-if-a-heavy-rainstorm-comes/
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/30/pers-a30.html How can one be that negative? Hurricane Harvey will be a boon for the economy, because hundred thousand homes need to be rebuilt, half a million cars and other vehicles be replaced, roads and all other infrastructure in a third of Houston have to be repaired or replaced. Think about how that will push up profits and GDP! (win-win-win)
https://newrepublic.com/article/144606/harveys-hidden-side-effectExxonMobil disclosed that hurricane damage at two of its Houston-area refineries may have released 12,000 pounds of contaminants into the air. Chevron Phillips Chemical reported that the shut down of its Cedar Bayou Plant may have released more than 745,000 pounds of contaminants. 300.000 people have no safe drinking water.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31082017/hurricane-harvey-health-risks-climate-change-disease-toxic-chemicals-mold
http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i35/Tropical-Storm-Harvey-causes-disruptions.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/28/pers-a28.html Correct observations about Houston floods, but one ideological issue: Ecological problems will not automatically be solved if capitalism ends. Socialism may have answers to some of the problems humanity faces, but it has no remedy against overpopulation, resource depletion, and the poisoning of the biosphere by human industrial activity.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/30/syph-a30.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-41118415/us-police-dashcam-we-only-kill-black-people
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ladawn-jones-jason-spencer-race_us_59a6e0dee4b00795c2a33a51 A white lawmaker in Georgia warns a black attorney she may “go missing” if Confederate statues are threatened.

Imperial conquest news:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/21/we-burned-down-every-town-in-north-korea/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ambassador-sudan-dead-mirgayas-shirinsky-swimming-pool-khartoum-a7909606.html
https://midtifleisen.wordpress.com/2017/08/27/real-fake-helicopter-money-cia-counterfeiting-currencies-to-destroy-national-economies/
https://www.sott.net/article/360675-Agents-of-Terror-on-Government-Payroll-Part-I-Anwar-Al-Awlaki

Uncategorized news:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/lifes-a-pitch.html One can surely describe a competitive capitalist society in this way, but there are more variables than “competition versus cooperation” in play, “private versus public” for instance or “central versus local.” Networking is not necessarily a bad thing, even “pitching” is not necessarily bad. Promoting, advertising, pushing ones ideas, ideals, visions may be necessary to draw attention and ignite a discussion. And in a more humane society pitching by downcast people will get them the help and care which they desperately need.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/08/27/533083/Israel-Bedouin-Negev
http://theduran.com/pakistan-karachi-school-drops-john-lennon-song-student-performance-blasphemous-lyrics/ Religious bigots reign in the Greater Middle East (and in the USA as well).

News from cat land:

Heavy rain pouring down here just like almost everywhere else in the world, but no flooding, because our home is on the gentle slope of a hill. 

Wendy was missing for nearly one day. The horror! In the morning, when usually all cats report for duty (and for food), I thought she will come later, but when she still had not arrived for lunch I got a lump in my throat, my puls increased, and I began to sweat. I went out into the rain, running through the forest dripping wet, calling: “Wendy, Wendy.” Gandhi Jr. accompanied me, also dripping wet and meowing as loud as he could.

Wendy didn’t respond and so Gandhi Jr. and I ended the search and went home. I started to write this blog post in order to distract me from painful concerns and worry.

Suddenly, at 5 PM Wendy unceremoniously reappeared and now everything is good again. She was not even wet and I wonder where she did hide. At the moment she sleeps on one of my used T-shirts (always a favorite cat resting place). She got special food and special attention, which is of course counter productive because it could prompt her to occasionally stay away longer in order to get the special treatment.
I found Wendy as a tiny kitten on an abandoned farm. She is nine years old and, together with the other members of the cat family, has become a part of my life. Nine years, that is a long time for a cat, it is even a long time for me.

Time doesn’t stand still and the cats get older. Miss Marple is now 19 years old, still in good health and not frail at all, Aunt Rosy is 13, Princess Min Ki 12. Its crazy how the days, month, and years rush by, as the seasons change and flowers grow just to wither away and die when it gets cold again.