Noam Chomsky Turns 92 Today.

by Daniel King from Mother Jones shared with thanks

Noam Chomsky Turns 92 Today. He’s Celebrating With a Livestream on Planetary Peril and Democratic Uprisings.

It was just seven years ago that Mother Jones ran an article by Noam Chomsky titled “Destroying a Planet Without Really Trying.” In his sights: “dangers like pandemics.”

Noam Chomsky thinks the biggest news of November 8 was actually ‘barely noted’

He saw epidemiological and environmental threats as intertwined, on top of oil profiteering, labor exploitation, Indigenous rights violations, and institutional inaction and obstacles. “That’s what the future historian—if there is one—would see,” he wrote.

“If you ask what the world is going to look like, it’s not a pretty picture. Unless people do something about it. We always can.”

That last bit—we always can—is the takeaway not just of his 2013 article, but of his life’s work. If there’s a throughline in his canon of criticism of imperialism and capitalism’s wreckage, it’s that idea. Action is takable. Solutions are available. “It’s not that there are no alternatives. The alternatives just aren’t being taken.”

Chomsky marks his 92nd birthday today with a livestream on “the future of democracy, nuclear threat, and the looming environmental catastrophe in a post-Trumpian world.”

Chomsky ‘chomps up’ capitalists

The video is here.

His 2013 article is here.

Chomsky sipping coconut water through a straw is here.

If you’re a glutton for archival punishment, his 1969 autopsy of William F. Buckley Jr. is here.

The US vulture fund Cerberus and BBVA to evict 38 families with minors on Dec 9th

UPDATE UPDATE victory FOR NOW

After the demonstrations, press conference, occupation and picket Cerberus and BBVV agreed to SUSPEND THE EVICTIONS

“The Eviction Paralysed!” by the #GuerraACerberus of the @PAH_Valencia Y @rmartinezdalmau #SiSePuede #DecretoStopDesahucios ALREADY

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BBVA and the investment fund Cerberus want to evict 38 families with minors in La Pobla de Vallbona

by Ester Fayos December 2, 2020at La Directa. translation the freeonline

80% of Divarian’s assets are owned by Cerberus vulture fund, managed in Spain by the eldest son of former far-right Spanish President José María Aznar, José María Aznar Botella, through Haya Real Estate; while the bank retains 20%. In 2018 it closed its accounts in Spain with profits of more than 274 million euros.

Last Wednesday, the PAH, @EntreBarris and the affected families held a mobilization, from the PSOE headquarters to the headquarters of Haya Real Estate – a company created by Cerberus to manage and market the properties – located on Avenida Cardenal Benlloch of Valencia, to stop the eviction, scheduled for December 9.

#GuerraACerberus #CapMésDesnonament

They also demand a housing alternative, as well as the approval of a royal decree to stop evictions and cuts in basic supplies until 2023.

Castellón, Vila-real, the Vall d’Uixó, Valencia, Torrent, Catarroja, Alicante, Elche… The Divarian real estate investment fund is everywhere. This is the company created by BBVA and the American vulture fund Cerberus Capital Management, which in 2018 closed its accounts in Spain with profits of more than 274 million euros.

According to its website, it has at least 3,561 properties spread between Barcelona and Valencia and, together with Blackstone, is the largest investor in the Spanish tile market, with almost 50 billion euros invested in recent years.

Faced with speculation with the house by this large landlord, this Monday, in Barcelona, the Guerra a Cerberus movement confronted him with an action at the headquarters of Haya Real Estate – a company created by Cerberus to manage and sell real estate.

Continue reading “The US vulture fund Cerberus and BBVA to evict 38 families with minors on Dec 9th”

Roll up! Capitalist Looters! Come and exploit the Amazon rainforest!

Bolsonaro’s latest sales pitch? Come exploit the Amazon rainforest

Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has been called a ‘termite eating the ministry from the inside’ by his predecessor.

By Simone Preissler Iglesias and Shannon Sims.. at Al Jazeera English shared with thanks!

After fires devastated Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, US President-elect Joe Biden said the government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro should face consequences if he continues to fail to protect it [File: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters]

Brazil’s environment minister has a vision for the Amazon — as a money-making venture open to business.

In meetings with international fund managers, Ricardo Salles pitches the rainforest as a novel opportunity ripe for investment. Where conservationists see a fragile region in urgent need of protection, Salles sells an image of cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies exploiting the jungle’s myriad exotic herbs, nuts and fruits.

“We have to attract private capital to the Amazon,” Salles, 45, said in an interview last month in his office in Brasilia, a large map of Brazil’s environmentally protected areas on one wall and a view of the capital’s treetops behind him. “This is my approach in all of the meetings that I have in Europe and the U.S.”

Continue reading “Roll up! Capitalist Looters! Come and exploit the Amazon rainforest!”

World is ‘doubling down’ on fossil fuels despite climate crisis – UN report

The Extinction Chronicles

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/02/world-is-doubling-down-on-fossil-fuels-despite-climate-crisis-un-report

Production must fall by 6% a year to avoid ‘severe climate disruption’ but Covid-19 funding is supporting increases

Damian CarringtonEnvironment editor@dpcarrington

Wed 2 Dec 202009.00ESTLast modified on Wed 2 Dec 202023.37EST

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Ocean oil rig silhouette at sunset. — Nations are planning production increases of 2% per year and G20 countries are giving 50% more coronavirus recovery funding to fossil fuels than to clean energy. Photograph: Dazman/Getty Images

The world’s governments are “doubling down” on fossil fuels despite the urgent need for cuts in carbon emissions to tackle the climate crisis, a report by the UN and partners has found.

The researchers say production of coal, oil and gas must fall by 6% a year until 2030 to keep global heating under the 1.5C target agreed in the Paris accord and avoid “severe climate disruption”. But nations are planning production increases of 2% a year and G20 countries are giving 50% more coronavirus recovery…

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This Quantum Internet model Will Blow Your Mind: info goes Faster than the Speed of Light.

The Quantum Internet Will Blow Your Mind. Here’s What It Will Look Like

The next generation of the Internet will rely on revolutionary new tech — allowing for unhackable networks and

By Dan Hurley from Discover Magazine shared with thanks..

(Credit: Jurik Peter/Shutterstock)

This article appeared in the November 2020 issue of Discover magazine as “The Quest for a Quantum Internet.” Subscribe for more stories like these.

Call it the quantum Garden of Eden. Fifty or so miles east of New York City, on the campus of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Eden Figueroa is one of the world’s pioneering gardeners planting the seeds of a quantum internet. Capable of sending enormous amounts of data over vast distances, it would work not just faster than the current internet but faster than the speed of light — instantaneously, in fact, like the teleportation of Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk in Star Trek.

Sitting in Brookhaven’s light-filled cafeteria, his shoulder-length black hair fighting to free itself from the clutches of a ponytail, Figueroa — a Mexico native who is an associate professor at Stony Brook University — tries to explain how it will work.

He grabs hold of two plastic coffee cup lids, a saltshaker, a pepper shaker and a small cup of water, and begins moving them around on the lunch table like a magician with cards

Continue reading “This Quantum Internet model Will Blow Your Mind: info goes Faster than the Speed of Light.”