Music: Stacey Kent — ‘Photograph’
A threshold crossed: On genocidal intent and the duty to prevent genocide in Palestine
In the Journal of Genocide Research, Dr Nimer Sultany, Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London, writes: By any measure, Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is unprecedented. Israel claims that the killing of civilians is typical of warfare. Yet by the end of November 2023 it was clear that “even a conservative reading of the casualty figures” showed that “the pace of death during Israel’s campaign has few precedents in this century.” It also showed that the proportion of…
Coalition of European countries consider recognizing Palestinian State on May 21
RTÉ News reports: Ireland, Spain and a number of other EU member states are considering 21 May as the date on which they will jointly recognise the State of Palestine, RTÉ News understands. Two sources have said that 21 May is being looked at. A third source said contacts between Dublin and Madrid, as well as between Slovenia and Malta, have been intensifying with a view to the countries jointly recognising Palestinian statehood. In a statement jointly signed on 22…
Trump requests $1 billion donation from oil execs in exchange for rolling back environmental regulations
The New York Times reports: Former President Donald J. Trump told a group of oil executives and lobbyists gathered at a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month that they should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign because, if elected, he would roll back environmental rules that he said hampered their industry, according to two people who were there. About 20 people attended an April 11 event billed as an “energy round table” at Mr. Trump’s private club, according…
Oil industry writes executive orders for Trump to sign
Politico reports: The U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term, according to energy executives with direct knowledge of the work. The effort stems from the industry’s skepticism that the Trump campaign will be able to focus on energy issues as Election Day draws closer — and worries that the former president is too distracted…
Vermont poised to become first state to charge big oil for climate damage
The Guardian reports: Vermont is poised to pass a groundbreaking measure forcing major polluting companies to help pay for damages caused by the climate crisis, in a move being closely watched by other states including New York and California. Modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, which forces companies to pay for toxic waste cleanup, the climate superfund bill would charge major fossil fuel companies doing business within the state billions of dollars for their past emissions. The measure…
Trump’s political fate likely won’t be decided by the courts after all
Politico reports: What once resembled a wall of legal obstacles that stood between Donald Trump and his return to the White House is now looking like little more than a series of speed bumps. Prosecutors handling cases from Georgia to Florida to Washington, D.C., are discovering that bringing groundbreaking criminal charges against a former president is a lot easier than getting them to trial. The four criminal cases that Trump is facing have diverted him from the campaign trail and…
Consciousness came before life
Stuart Hameroff, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, and Dante Lauretta writes: Most scientists and philosophers believe that life came before consciousness. Life appeared on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago; consciousness and feelings, it’s said, evolved later due to complex biological information processing, perhaps only recently in brains with language and tool-making abilities. In fact, though, there’s good reason to think that consciousness preceded life, and was central to making life and evolution possible. What is life? It is often described as its…
Music: Stacey Kent — ‘The Changing Lights’
Where are the artists and other celebrities willing to show the courage of America’s protesting students?
The Nation reports: Honestly @macklemore’s “Hind’s Hall” is the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine. — Tom Morello (@tmorello) May 7, 2024 The foremost authority on the revolutionary rock/rap band Rage Against the Machine, their own guitarist Tom Morello, tweeted this. Rage Against the Machine filled stadiums in the 1990s with its brand of radical, political fire. Now Macklemore is carrying the flame. For those who haven’t heard it, “Hind’s Hall”—named after Columbia’s renamed building…
Moral clarity from a doctoral student at the U of C taking a stand against U.S. complicity in genocide
University of Chicago student speaks out in the face of intimidation from cowards who choose to blindly follow orders rather than defy immoral authorities.
U.S. pauses Israel arms shipment over Rafah assault fears as Biden pushes for a cease-fire
NBC News reports: The United States halted a large shipment of offensive weapons to Israel last week in a sign of its growing concern over a possible military offensive on Rafah, senior administration officials told NBC News. The decision comes as President Joe Biden pushes for Israel and Hamas to compromise and reach a cease-fire deal that would head off a large-scale assault on the city in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering in dire conditions….
Gaza’s unexploded-bomb crisis
Isaac Chotiner writes: Late last month, Charles (Mungo) Birch, who oversees the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in the Palestinian territories, issued a warning about the dangers posed by unexploded ordnance in Gaza, especially if and when Gazan civilians return to the enclave’s north. (On Tuesday, the Israeli military entered the southern city of Rafah, after ordering tens of thousands of people to evacuate, and took control of the Rafah border crossing.) Birch said that more unexploded missiles and…
Judge Cannon conjures a ‘myriad’ of excuses for postponing Trump’s stolen docs trial indefinitely
Liz Dye writes: Judge Aileen Cannon has done her duty by not doing her job. It was clear for months that the Trump-appointee was going to hold this trial after the 2024 election, or never — and preferably the second. She spent weeks considering idiotic motions and holding hearings on such thorny issues as “should the Mar-a-Lago groundskeeper who is charged with obstructing the grand jury be allowed to see the highly classified evidence his boss stole.” Spoiler alert: No….
Finally, a possible explanation for why Biden’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, was suspended
Josh Rogin writes: Considering Iran’s collaboration with U.S. adversaries in the Middle East crisis and the Ukraine war, not to mention the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions, the Biden administration would surely like to have its top diplomat for Iran on the playing field. But the State Department’s special envoy, Robert Malley, has been sidelined while under federal investigation for going on one year — without any official explanation. Now, new information about the case is coming to light. Malley, who…
Sperm whale clicks could hide a surprisingly complex ‘alphabet’
Science Alert reports: A recent analysis of a sperm whale’s vocalizations suggests variations in ‘clicks’ represent a kind of alphabet that forms the basis of a complex communication system. Members of the conservation initiative Project CETI discovered series of clicks less than 2 seconds in length act as codas – basic units (phonemes) of cetacean speech. The highly social mammals have previously been heard identifying themselves with unique patterns of clicking, but this is the first time a combinatorial and…