Saturday, August 15, 2020

When Lab Mice Attack: Engineering Bio-Disasters

Engineered COVID-19-Infected Mouse Bites Researcher Amid ‘Explosion’ Of Risky Coronavirus Research

by Jonathan Latham, PhD - Independent Science News


August 13, 2020
University researchers genetically engineer a human pandemic virus. They inject the new virus into a laboratory mouse. The infected mouse then bites a researcher…..It is a plot worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster about risky coronavirus research.

But according to newly obtained minutes of the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) of the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, these exact events need not be imagined. They occurred for real between April 1st and May 6th this year.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Picking Kamhilla: Democratic Party Retrenches Right

The selection of Kamala Harris and the degradation of American politics

by Joseph Kishore—SEP candidate for US president  - WSWS


13 August 2020
With the selection of Kamala Harris to be the running mate of Joe Biden, the framework of the 2020 elections has been set. As was to be expected, the Democrats have chosen the most right-wing candidates to run the most right-wing campaign possible. There is a certain inevitability to the choice of Harris.

In July of last year, the World Socialist Web Site—based on a survey of who would be the worst, most reactionary and at the same time most suitable choice for second spot on the Democratic Party ticket—predicted that Harris would most likely be named the vice presidential candidate if she failed to win the nomination. 

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Bye, Bye Pension Plan! Trump Circles Social Security/Medicare

Alert! Social Security and Medicare are in Critical Danger: Trump launches attack on key programs for the elderly 

by Dave Lindorff - This Can't Be Happening


August 10, 2020
Watch out! Uncle Donald is coming for your and all your relatives’ Social Security and your Medicare!
Street protests will be needed to save Social Security and Medicare 
from its attackers — Trump and complicit Democrats alike 
(photo by sagesnow licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The all-out attack on Social Security and Medicare, those two remaining standing edifices of the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, has begun in earnest with President Trump’s latest executive order calling for the postponement, until year’s end, of the payroll taxes by employees and employers that finance those critically important social programs.

Aftermath: Day of the Generals Dawns Again in Benighted Lebanon

The Politics of War: What is Israel’s Endgame in Lebanon and Syria?

by Ramzy Baroud


August 12, 2020
 On August 4, hours before a massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued an ominous warning to Lebanon.
Israeli soldiers stationed at the border with Lebanon. (Photo: via Social Media)

“We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers. I suggest to all of them, including Hezbollah, to consider this,” Netanyahu said during an official tour of a military facility in central Israel.

Building on Shaking Foundations:"Fracking Mess" Compound Site C "Geotechnical Problems"

A Big Fracking Mess: As Site C dam construction bogs down in geotechnical problems, thousands of earthquakes triggered by fracking operations occur nearby 

by Ben Parfitt - CCPA


August 12, 2020
Earthquakes triggered by natural gas industry fracking operations near BC Hydro’s troubled Site C dam construction project are far greater in number than previously thought, raising troubling questions about whether they are adding to the already formidable geotechnical challenges at the site.

Not only are more earthquakes occurring in proximity to the costliest public infrastructure project in British Columbia’s history, but many of the fracking-induced tremors—including one that shook the ground so hard two years ago at Site C that workers were ordered to evacuate—are occurring in a fault-riddled zone to the south of the dam that geoscientists have warned can become quickly unstable during fracking operations.

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Christopher Black, David Rovics August 13th, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com


August 13, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio's continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via Skype from our home-based ... studios on this date, August 5th, 2020.

Twenty months in to her Vancouver house arrest, Huawei CFO, (and daughter of the Chinese corporate leviathan's founder) Meng Wanzhou entered a new court filing in B.C.'s Supreme Court. In late July Meng's legal team charged that, among other things the proceedings against their client had quote, "been poisoned" and "can no longer be reasonably regarded as fair...".

Meng has already lost one appeal to throw out the extradition petition filed by the United States in B.C. courts, and the case has predictably proven a particularly prickly political sticking point in Canada-China relations.

Christopher Black is a Toronto-based criminal lawyer specializing in international war crimes cases. He’s also an executive member of the Canadian Peace Congress.

Listen. Hear.

Black’s articles on international law, politics, and World events appear at New Eastern Outlook among other places. And, his timely novel, 'Beneath the Clouds' “a story of how people, acting collectively, can defeat tyranny” is newly out.

Christopher Black in the first half.


And; federal troops entered Portland nearly two months in to daily police brutality demonstrations there. The American president decided to deploy the "Minneapolis" treatment to the uppity city; or as Attorney General, Bill Barr calls it, the "Occupy Model". And Trump promises, more (Democrat Party-administered) cities are slated to receive the same.

Itinerant musician and now covid-caged broadcaster, David Rovics is in Portland, where his relatively mild-mannered home city has suddenly become the center of Civil War 2.020. As he can't tour, David is doing the next best thing, raising Hell on the internet, and helping foment a Renters strike at home.

David Rovics and resisting the tearing down of community in Portland in the second half.

And; CFUV broadcaster and host of Plant Based Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of what’s good to do in and around our town in the coming week. But first Christopher Black and the international tug-of-war testing Canada's "Rule of Law" credentials.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Monday, August 10, 2020

American Bonaparte: Waterloo, or Watch the Republic Die

Trump's illegal power grab and the specter of American Bonapartism

by Andre Damon - WSWS


10 August 2020
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced a series of measures ostensibly targeting the cutoff of federal unemployment benefits that mark a new stage in his effort to abolish all constitutional restraints on the power of the president.

Trump announced a deferral of the federal payroll tax, which would defund Social Security, and the extension of federal unemployment benefits at a much lower level.