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The Jeffrey Epstein saga goes on even though convicted pedophile Epstein himself has been found hanged in his jail cell in Manhattan. One has to wonder how he managed to kill himself, if that is indeed the case, as he was reportedly on suicide watch at the prison and it is to be presumed that he had been stripped of any clothing or accoutrements that would have been usable to that end. So, he is dead but did he do it himself or was he helped? There are many prominent individuals and powerful government agencies that will be very pleased that he is gone as most of his secrets will have gone to the grave with him.

Rainforests are a crucial feature of Earth’s biosphere. Apart from being critical to Earth’s climate and vital carbon sinks, the major player in Earth’s hydrological (water) cycle, a massive producer of oxygen and home to most of the world’s species, rainforests are the home of a large indigenous human population. They are also the source of many vital resources, including medicines, used by humans around the world.

However, the vast range of ecological services that rainforests have provided ongoingly for the 400 million years of their existence, and which have been critical to the survival of homo sapiens since we first walked the Earth 200,000 years ago, are not measured and valued by accountants and economists: Have you ever seen a balance sheet or set of national accounts that includes an entry for ‘Value of ecological services taken from nature and on which life and our entire production of goods and services depend’?

“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini (actually first written by Giovanni Gentile)

Remarks in Poulsbo, Washington, August 4, 2019

This week, 74 years ago, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were each hit with a single nuclear bomb that had the power of a third to a half of what NPR calls a low-yield or “usable” weapon. By NPR I mean both the Nuclear Posture Review and National Public Radio, both the U.S. government and what many people dangerously think of as a free press. These so-called usable nukes are for firing from the submarines based nearby here. They are two to three times the size of what destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the U.S. military’s plans involve using multiple nukes at once. But they really are tiny compared to other nuclear weapons that the United States and other nations have ready just in case some unfortunate scenario makes completely annihilating ours and other species the wisest course of action. Some U.S. nukes are 1,000 times what was used to vaporize Japanese populations. Each submarine can launch 5,000 times what was dropped on Hiroshima.

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine that a letter from the billionaire real-estate broker George M. Marcus was hand-delivered to the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking to meet with her. What are the chances that Pelosi would find time on her calendar?

Hint: Marcus gave $4.5 million to Pelosi’s House Majority PAC during the 2018 election cycle.

Or, if the letter had come from the hedge-fund billionaire James H. Simons -- who gave $10 million to that PAC during the last election cycle -- would his request for a meeting with Speaker Pelosi be granted?

In contrast, we don’t need to speculate about what would happen if Pelosi received a letter from seven progressive organizations “urgently” requesting a meeting to discuss her recent dismissive comments about four progressive congresswomen -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.

“Many people think that the fight for America is already lost. They couldn’t be more wrong. This is just the beginning of the fight for America and Europe. I am honored to head the fight to reclaim my country from destruction.”

This is how the El Paso killer ended his white supremacy screed, posted just before he “went in” and killed 22 “invaders” who were shopping at a Walmart’s store this past weekend. And, as everyone knows, half a day later another armed maniac wearing body armor and sporting a semiautomatic went on a shooting rampage outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine and wounding 26. And a few days earlier, a gunman killed three people, including two children, at a festival in Gilroy, Calif.

Remarks August 6, 2019, at Hiroshima to Hope in Seattle, Washington

How do we honor victims? We can remember them and appreciate who they were. But there were too many of them, and too many unknown to us. So, we can remember a sample of them, examples of them. And we can honor the living survivors, get to know and appreciate them while they are still alive.

We can remember the horrific way in which those killed were victimized, in hopes of manipulating ourselves into doing something serious about it. We can remember those who were instantly vaporized, but also those half-burnt, partially melted, those eaten out from the inside by maggots, those who died slowly in excruciating pain and in the presence of their screaming children, those who died from drinking water they knew would kill them but who were driven to it by thirst.

The classic fantasy card game “Magic The Gathering” (MTG) has been producing new art and play mechanics for nearly the past three decades. I grew up playing tabletop and card games, mostly competitive Pokemon when I was young. But Magic was always around and familiar, the demo stations were always there at gaming conventions.

As an adult, around a year ago, I became interested in picking up a game again. Over the course of the proceeding months I had two people hand me thousands of cards because they were extra cards they had no need of any longer. The nature of the value of cards of time and purchasing them through random booster packs can leave you with a lot of extra cards with no value, but that’s something we will get into later.

I went to the Ultimate Masters booster draft one day, where I met someone who gifted me a collection of cards. To those unfamiliar, there are tournaments held when new sets of cards come out and players build decks from randomized packs opened on site. There’s a small fee to play, but you end up keeping the cards, as well as being able to possibly win prizes for playing well.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's August 1-3
appearance at a Southeast Asian foreign ministers' conference occurred
alongside his rival Chinese and Russian counterparts, with all three
trying to woo Thailand's authoritarian government which is shopping
for foreign weapons and inviting business investments.

During his three-day visit, Mr. Pompeo discussed with Thai and
regional ministers the U.S.-China trade war, denuclearization of North
Korea, disputes in the South China Sea and other concerns.

He told Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, "to maintain the sanctions
that spurred diplomacy with North Korea, to speak out against Chinese
coercion in the South China Sea, to advocate for the voluntary, safe
and dignified return of the Rohingya to their homeland [Myanmar], and
to confront Iranian aggression."

After shaking hands with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, Mr. Pompeo
tweeted that the two men discussed "ways to advance democracy" and
regional issues.

Mr. Pompeo also met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on August 1. They

From almost the split second when the proverbial curtain lifts on Danny Cistone’s realistic SoCal house set, Vs. Theatre Company’s production of Sam Shepard’s True West crackles with tension. In this gripping, grim drama that’s so edgy I sat on the edge of my seat throughout the two-acter, two estranged brothers encounter one another for the first time in quite a spell at their mother’s (stage/screen stalwart Carole Goldman) home located near the Inland Empire while dear old ma visits Alaska.

Although the younger of the two, Austin (Johnny Clark, Vs. Theatre Company’s Artistic Director and co-founder) seems to have his shit together. In addition to being a family man, Austin is a reasonably successful screenwriter, who has a major pending deal with Hollywood producer Saul Kimmer (stage and screen veteran David Starzyk).