Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Everyone’s welcome here, no special handshake required. Just check your meta at the door.
Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Breakfast News
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As The Planet Warms, Scientists Say More People Will Go Without Food And Water
Right now, in China’s Henan and Inner Mongolia regions, more than 300,000 people are without drinking water. Approximately 1 million hectares of farmland are too dry to work with, and more than 900,000 hectares of crops are unusable.
The reason for this increased lack of food and water is extreme heat and drought – the worst drought in 40 years, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua. Mainstay crops such as soybeans, barley, and rice have been impacted. And it’s not just in China, either.
According to two new studies published in the journals Nature Climate Change and Global Change Biology, rising global temperatures are increasingly harming crop yields in certain areas of the world – a phenomenon that could eventually lead to more famine. Warming combined with worsening air quality from ground level ozone pollution could exacerbate the problem even further, the study in Nature showed.
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Company In Which Joe Biden’s Son Is Director Prepares To Drill Shale Gas In East Ukraine
Recall what we said earlier today: the proxy Ukraine war just like that in Syria preceding it, “is all about energy.”
Recall also the following chart showing Ukraine’s shale gas deposits, keeping in mind that the Dnieper-Donets basin which lies in the hotly contested eastern part of the nation and where as everyone knows by now a bloody civil war is raging, is the major oil and gas producing region of Ukraine accounting for approximately 90 per cent of Ukrainian production and according to EIA may have 42 tcf of shale gas resources technically recoverable from 197 tcf of risked shale gas in place.
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Why Benjamin Netanyahu Should Be Very, Very Worried
Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday asked Benjamin Netanyahu whether he was worried about “a third intifada.” The Israeli prime minister replied that Hamas “wants to pile up” Gazan casualties in hope of instigating an uprising. In other words, he ducked the heart of the question.
Netanyahu should be worried. The Israeli public should be worried. All supporters of the Jewish state should be worried-not only about the prospect of current events spiraling out of control, but also about a confluence of demographic and social trends that threaten Israel’s ability to manage the war of perceptions.
Every nation has a story. Israel’s is that Arabs have long been unwilling to negotiate with the Jewish state, and that terrorists among the Palestinians want to destroy it. For decades, three significant factors helped make this the dominant Middle East narrative. First, it’s correct, at least when applied to the dangerous minority of Palestinians. Second, elite opinion-makers, including journalists and politicians in the West, embraced and amplified the Israeli case. Finally, public opinion in the West, and particularly in the United States, firmly supported Israel.
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Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza-Debunked
Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world’s only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.
Israel’s propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die (“culture of martyrdom”), staged their own death (“telegenically dead”) or were the tragic victims of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes (“human shielding”). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel-along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse-dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.
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The Rise of the Non-Working Rich
In a new Pew poll, more than three quarters of self-described conservatives believe “poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything.”
In reality, most of America’s poor work hard, often in two or more jobs.
The real non-workers are the wealthy who inherit their fortunes. And their ranks are growing.
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Must Read Blog Posts
glorifying war is a sin
by OPOL
Hellraisers Journal: Mass Arrests of Chicago Waitresses, “It Makes Them All The More Determined.”
by JayRaye
Sunday Train: HSR from Houston to Dallas one step closer to reality
by BruceMcF
12 Little Known Laws of Karma (That Will Change Your Life)
by the Mind Unleashed
9 Places to Travel Before They Disappear Forever
by James Stafford
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The Daily Wiki
Drought is an extended period when a region receives a deficiency in its water supply, whether atmospheric, surface or ground water. A drought can last for months or years, or may be declared after as few as 15 days.[1] Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region. Although droughts can persist for several years, even a short, intense drought can cause significant damage[2] and harm to the local economy.[3] Prolonged droughts have caused mass migrations and humanitarian crises.
Many plant species, such as cacti, have adaptations such as reduced leaf area and waxy cuticles to enhance their ability to tolerate drought. Some others survive dry periods as buried seeds. Semi-permanent drought produces arid biomes such as deserts and grasslands.[4] Most arid ecosystems have inherently low productivity.
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Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The good man is the friend of all living things. ~Mahatma Gandhi
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Breakfast Tunes
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Stupid Shit by LaEscapee
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