Best of the Web:


Fire

Best of the Web: Air quality levels in parts of the U.S. plunge as Canada wildfires rage

Denise Chow and Evan Bush
NBC News
Wed, 07 Jun 2023 16:39 UTC
A screenshot of a radar-based analysis by the
© NOAAA screenshot of a radar-based analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration taken late Tuesday afternoon shows near-surface smoke over the U.S.
Millions of people in the eastern U.S. faced unhealthy air quality conditions Tuesday as smoke from wildfires in eastern Canada wafts over much of the country.

An air quality advisory was in effect for several regions of New York state Tuesday. Air monitoring stations in some parts of New York City showed measures considered unhealthy for anyone Tuesday afternoon.

New York City ranked second and Detroit third among major cities for the worst air quality worldwide around 1 a.m. Wednesday, according to IQAir, a Swiss air monitoring company.

"Try to limit your outdoor activities today to the absolute necessities," Mayor Eric Adams advised anyone with breathing issues on Twitter.

It was the second day of hazy skies across a wide stretch of the country. Smoke blanketed the landscape from the Ohio Valley to as far south as the Carolinas on Monday. Air quality advisories were in effect Monday in southeastern Minnesota and parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as well as in more than 60 counties in Wisconsin.


Comment: Wildfire smoke blankets much of Canada, raising health risks

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Sherlock

Best of the Web: Independent Nord Stream expedition discovers clue missed by official investigators

Jeffrey Brodsky
The Grayzone
Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:37 UTC
Navy diving boot Nord Stream explosion
© The GrayzoneThe boot spotted by the expedition’s drone.
The Grayzone participated in what appears to be the first independent expedition investigating the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. Near one of the blast sites, we discovered a diving boot used by US Navy divers. How did Swedish investigators miss this?

On the evening of May 24, 2023, I stood aboard a small ship called the Baltic Explorer. With sun still high overhead in the Baltic Sea, our boat sat anchored thirty-one nautical miles from the coast of Denmark, and directly above the ruptured Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the exclusive economic zone of Sweden.

For several minutes, I stared at a live video feed from an underwater drone showing never-before-seen footage of the ruptures in the pipeline. Suddenly, a strange object appeared on the screen. It was a black and orange diver's boot.

Comment: More corroboration for the theory that the U.S. was behind the pipeline attack. Good work, Grayzone!

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Eye 2

Best of the Web: Kiev's long-term "last resort" plan to blow up the Kakhova Dam exposed

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 06 Jun 2023 16:09 UTC
dam kherson
Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka dam ‘blown up’
A day after Ukraine's much-heralded counter-offensive appears to have failed, almost before it had even begun, a major dam in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson is suddenly bombed, prompting mass evacuations as floods spread across the region.

As we detailed earlier, both sides accuse each other of the attack that puts tens of thousands of homes at risk and might even threaten the safety of Europe's largest nuclear power plant.

However, as Raul Ilargi Meijer writes, twice last year (here and here), Ukrainian officials discussed Kiev's plans to blow up the dam.

Comment:



As if things weren't bad enough:



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Cardboard Box

Best of the Web: Seymour Hersh: Russiagate's missing pieces

Seymour Hersh
Scheerpost
Sat, 03 Jun 2023 00:00 UTC
Durham
© Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty ImagesSpecial Counsel John Durham • 2022
What was not said in the Durham Report?

The first thing to understand about John Durham is that he was a fearless prosecutor who went after organized crime and put in prison retired and active FBI agents who protected the mob for money or other enticements. One of the agents he stopped had enabled James "Whitey" Bulger Jr., once one of America's most wanted men, the Winter Hill Gang boss who evaded arrest for sixteen years.

In his forty-five years as a state and federal prosecutor in Connecticut and Virginia, Durham worked often and closely with FBI agents, especially on cases that involved violations of federal racketeering statutes.

Durham also handled two inquiries into the CIA's conduct in the War on Terror, and he did so without angering his superiors in the executive branch. In one case he was asked to investigate the alleged destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations, the so-called torture tapes. His final report on the matter remains secret, and he recommended that no charges be filed. He was later asked to lead a Justice Department inquiry into the legality of the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" that resulted in the death of two detainees. In that case, he was told that officers who were given and obeyed what were determined to be illegal orders — there were many of those after 9/11 — could not be prosecuted. No charges were filed.

Durham's 306-page report was made public on May 15, and it pleased no one with its focus on the obvious.

Comment: 'There is more to know'...could be said of anything. The issue for the public is the placement of the fulcrum counterbalancing 'expectations' with indisputable 'facts'.

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Attention

Best of the Web: Xi tells China's security chiefs to prepare for 'dangerous storms'


RT
Wed, 31 May 2023 18:38 UTC
Xi/Tshisekadi
© Thomas Peter/Getty ImagesChinese President XI • Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi
The president has warned that the country must prepare for "worst-case" scenarios as its security situation deteriorates...

China faces increasingly difficult and complex national security challenges and must prepare for "worst-case" scenarios by increasing its capacity to deal with internal and external threats, President Xi Jinping has warned.

"We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios and be ready to withstand the major test of high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms," state-run news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying on Tuesday in a meeting with China's top security officials in Beijing. He added that more efforts were needed to modernize the nation's security architecture and "get prepared for actual combat and dealing with practical problems."

Xi made his comments to the National Security Commission amid increasing tensions with the US. Just this week, Beijing declined Washington's request for a meeting between the two countries' defense chiefs when both men attend a security conference in Singapore in June, citing the need for US officials to respect China's sovereignty and security concerns.

Comment: Smart move: China is kicking its self-preservation mode into high gear.

See also:

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UFO

Best of the Web: NASA task force to hold first meeting on UFO study

Eden Villalovas
Washington Examiner
Wed, 31 May 2023 12:09 UTC
UFO in sky
© unknown
A NASA panel formed to study "unidentified anomalous phenomena" is holding a press conference on Wednesday to discuss its preliminary findings after months of work.

The space agency launched last year an independent study team consisting of 16 widely varied experts to research what it calls "unidentified anomalous phenomena," perhaps more commonly known as unidentified flying objects. NASA will live broadcast the four-hour conference starting at 10:30 am EDT through the NASA website.


Comment: NASA panel to offer insights on years of data collection:
An independent team of 16 scientists are due to report their findings in a report by the end of July, with today's working meeting a forum for its final deliberations.

Astrophysicist David Spergel, chair of the study, said in livestreamed remarks:
"The current existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence. One of the lessons we've drawn is the need for more high quality data and data that is, measured with well calibrated instruments, multiple observations, and there's a need for high quality data curation."
There have been more than 800 events collected over 27 years, of which 2% to 5% are thought to be possibly irregular, said science journalist Nadia Drake, part of the study.
"These are defined as anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor, or something that is doing something weird."


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Black Magic

Best of the Web: The Screwtape Stratagem

Mark Bisone
The Cat Was Never Found
Tue, 30 May 2023 17:41 UTC
How global networks drive the efficiency curve of Evil (and why it will screw them in the end).
"Is the dullness of your present fare not a very small price to pay for the delicious knowledge that His whole great experiment is petering out? But not only that. As the great sinners grow fewer, and the majority lose all individuality, the great sinners become far more effective agents for us. Every dictator or even demagogue — almost every film star or crooner — can now draw tens of thousands of the human sheep with him. They give themselves (what there is of them) to him; in him, to us. There may come a time when we shall have no need to bother about individual temptation at all, except for the few. Catch the bellwether, and his whole flock comes after him."

— excerpt from Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C.S. Lewis.
The meals the arch-demon Screwtape describes above are the souls of modern people, whose sins aren't nearly as delectable as those of the past. By this he means both the great and bloody criminals of history and the deeper participation of the average person in their crimes. When comparing these to the more commonplace and mundane forms of graft, dishonor and impiety that spread in modernity's wake, Screwtape demonstrates how the latter is preferable in utilitarian terms; "quantity over quality" is essentially his argument.

What prompted me to look up this quote and contemplate it was a conversation thread with fellow Deimos Station member, in which she posited that Screwtape's graduation speech aptly described the "infestation" phase of what we might call demonic possession. I agreed, adding that it could be the kind of phenomenon that occurs at multiple levels and fractal iterations. I think as well that Screwtape's depiction of the modern sinner as less-tasty-but-more-prevalent dovetails neatly with the growth of global communications networks. The net is cast ever wider, but also ever shallower, because a greater number of meaning-starved fish gather near the surface to feed.

Comment:
c s lewis quote
The Screwtape Letters— C.S. Lewis


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Roses

Best of the Web: The hospital protocol killed their loved ones and they want justice

Stella Paul
Brownstone Institute
Wed, 17 May 2023 00:00 UTC
hospital death
When the federal government sent $9,000 to Patty Myers to pay for her husband's funeral, she got angry. "I didn't want to take a penny. It felt like hush money, like they were paying me to keep quiet about how my husband died in the hospital."

In a burst of inspiration, Patty decided to take the government's money and use it to make a documentary. She found a director through a church friend on Facebook and created Making A Killing, which exposes the covid hospital protocol that she believes killed her husband and thousands of other Americans.

"When I started making this film, I didn't know about the federal money driving the protocol. I do now," Patty told me. The federal money was titanic, flooding hospitals with cash that stimulated record-breaking profits. A new report from Open The Books reveals that the 20 largest nonprofit hospitals in America received more than $23 billion in federal aid during the 2018 - 2021 time period, and "their cumulative net assets soared to $324.3 billion in 2021, up from 200.6 billion in 2018." And, in a wonderful development for the hospitals' top executives, those lavish taxpayer funds enabled many of them to get paid $10 million or more a year.
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Fire

Best of the Web: Nova Scotia wildfire: Raging blaze forces 16,000+ residents from their homes


Global News
Mon, 29 May 2023 14:21 UTC
Marion and Peter Gillespie said they couldn't see the road because of the smoke and flames.
Marion and Peter Gillespie said they couldn't see the road because of the smoke and flames.
A wildfire burning out-of-control near Halifax has forced more than 16,000 people from their homes, and the situation is worsening due to dry weather and gusting winds.

No injuries or missing people have been reported as a result of the blaze, but its impact has been devastating and the province remains on edge.

Global's Callum Smith reports on the race to contain the fire in the Tantallon, N.S., and Hammonds Plains, N.S., areas, and the financial support the government is offering evacuees.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/9729777/ha...

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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Russia issues arrest warrant for war criminal Lindsey Graham after Ukraine comments

Alexander Bolton -
The Hill
Mon, 29 May 2023 20:39 UTC
mccain neo nazi ukraine maiden graham
© Petro Poroshenko/TwitterPoroshenko tweeted in 2016, "Arrived at the command post in the Shirokino area with John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Amy Klobuchar to wish our Warriors a Happy New Year"
Russia's Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) after he praised U.S. military aid to Ukraine as "the best money we've ever spent."

Russian officials reacted to a video of Graham's meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Graham acknowledged "Russians are dying" and later said, "it's the best money we ever spent."

Graham appeared to make the comments in different parts of the conversation, which was edited and posted on Zelensky's social media account.

The South Carolina senator Monday said it "brings me immense joy" to know that his support for Ukraine "has drawn the ire of [Russia President Vladimir] Putin's regime."

Comment: Graham has been beating the war drums in Ukraine for years:



Warhag Nuland ups the ante:


In a sane world, Congress would censure Graham, Nuland, and the rest of the neocons and then toss them out as an embarrassment to the U.S. government, not to mention a menace to society.

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