Savoy Family Cajun Band concert, "Reel of Joy," Cajun accordion, Acadiana

This is a concert from a famous Cajun band, and the dual fiddling number, Reel de Joie, is a show-stopper. (From 3:30 - to 8:00 minute mark on the YouTube video of Day 1 of the concert).

"Reel of Joy" indeed! That should be enough to put a spring in your step for the rest of the week!  

Here is Day 2 of  the concert.  

From the YouTube description of the concert (translated from French):

Published on Jul 11, 2012 by PatakaisseTV
An exceptional rendezvous with the Savoy family. This was a highlight of the Pontchartrain Festival, "a Bridge to Louisiana", May 25, 2012. With Samuel Giarrusso on drums. To the cameras: Patrick Lebette, Patrick Larue, Jean-Pierre Bruneau, Pierre Emmanuel Martinet, Siegfried Renner. Sound: Vincent Boissonnet and Hugo Mèche de Silence sas!

There's not a Wikipedia entry for the band so I'm not sure all the members are related. But from Wikipedia's article on Marc Savoy, he and his wife Ann (both shown in the photo above) are part of the band. Savoy not only plays the Cajun accordion but also makes those specialized instruments, which contribute so much to the characteristic Cajun music 'sound' -- although the same accordions are also used by Zydeco and Creole musicians throughout Acadiana country. 

See the wonderful 17 minute documentary, Marc Savoy and the Cajun Accordion, posted at YouTube:

Published on Oct 22, 2012National Heritage Fellow Marc Savoy shares his story of how he came to love the accordion, build them, and lead a revival of Cajun music and culture. From the moment he heard the instrument to when he began building them, and 51 years later, his passion for the instrument and Cajun music continues to entertain audiences around the world.

Marc Savoy's Acadian brand accordion

From Wikipedia's article on the Cajun accordion:

Many different accordions were developed in Europe throughout the 19th century, and exported worldwide. Accordions were brought to Acadiana in the 1890s and became popular by the early 1900s (decade),[1] eventually becoming a staple of Cajun music.

Many of the German factories producing diatonic accordions for the United States market were destroyed during World War II. As a result, some Cajuns, such as Sidney Brown, began producing their own instruments, based on the popular one-row German accordions but with modifications to suit the nuances of the Cajun playing style.[2] Since the end of World War II, there has been a surge in the number of Cajun accordion makers in Louisiana, as well as several in Texas.[3]

Construction

The Cajun accordion is generally defined as a single-row diatonic accordion, as compared to multiple-row instruments commonly used in Irish, Italian, polka, and other styles of music.

The Cajun accordion has multiple reeds for every button, and the number of reeds that sound is controlled by four stops or knobs. The standard number of melody buttons is ten, with two buttons on the left-hand side: one for the bass note and one for the chord. The tonic note and major chord of the key play on when the bellows are pushed, and the dominant note and major chord when pulled (for instance, C major and G major respectively in the key of C).[4]

Louisiana-constructed accordions are usually built in small backyard shops like Marc Savoy's Acadian brand and Larry Miller's Bon Cajun brand. Clarence "Junior" Martin of Lafayette Louisiana is a Master Craftsman who also builds accordions in his shop.

Characteristics [for the musically literate]
[...] 

 Acadiana

Map of Louisiana state with Acadiana region highlighted 

From Wikipedia:

The word Acadiana reputedly has two origins. Its first recorded appearance dates to the mid-1950s, when a Crowley, Louisiana, newspaper, the Crowley Daily Signal, coined the term in reference to Acadia Parish, Louisiana.[2]

However, KATC television in Lafayette independently coined "Acadiana" in the early 1960s, giving it a new, broader meaning, and popularized it throughout south Louisiana. Founded in 1962, KATC was owned by the Acadian Television Corporation. In early 1963, the ABC affiliate received an invoice erroneously addressed to the Acadiana Television Corp. Someone had typed an extra "a" at the end of the word "Acadian." The station started using it to describe the region covered by its broadcast signal.[3]

In 1971, the Louisiana State Legislature officially recognized twenty-two Louisiana parishes and "other parishes of similar cultural environment" for their "strong French Acadian cultural aspects" (House Concurrent Resolution No. 496, June 6, 1971, authored by Carl W. Bauer of St. Mary Parish), and made The Heart of Acadiana the official name of the region. The public, however, prefers the one-word place name Acadiana to refer to the region.[4] The official term appears on regional maps and highway markers.

[...] 

********

US opioid-related death rate 24 percent higher than reported by government

The Opioid Epidemic is Growing More Deadly, New Data Suggests
by ANJALI TSUI, Abrams Journalism Fellow, FRONTLINE/Columbia Journalism School Fellowships
August 8, 2017
FRONTLINE

Deaths from drug overdoses — including heroin and other opioids — climbed to record levels in 2016, according to new figures released by the federal government on Tuesday.

Numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics reveal the worsening toll of the opioid epidemic in communities across the country. There were around 20 overdose deaths for every 100,000 people during the third quarter of 2016, according to the data, compared to 16.7 deaths during the same period a year earlier. More than half of all overdose deaths involve an opioid.

Overdose deaths also rose during the first half of 2016, according to government estimates. Figures for the final three months of the year are not yet available, but if trends persist, the total number of drug related deaths are on pace to eclipse the record 52,404 experienced in 2015.

Perhaps more as alarming, a new study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine on Monday suggests that government estimates are failing to capture the full extent of the opioid crisis.

Christopher Ruhm, the study’s author and a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, analyzed data from death certificates around the country and found that the opioid-related death rate was 24 percent higher than reported by the government. Deaths caused by heroin overdoses were 22 percent higher than official estimates.

Overdose deaths were vastly undercounted in Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to the analysis. In these states, the opioid-related death rates were more than 100 percent higher than official estimates.

Overdose deaths are being undercounted, in part, because hospitals do not always list the specific drug that led to a person’s death. In some years, up to a quarter of all death certificates do not contain this information.

The two reports were released just days after the President’s Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis urged the White House to declare the epidemic a national emergency. “With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks,” the commission wrote in an interim report to the president.

[...]
********

Marijuana hypertension high death risk grows with every year of use

Warnings came as early as the 1980s that pot is not a benign drug -- not in its industrial cultivation, not in its inhalation or ingestion. The question is how much longer the dope industry, the governments that want the big revenues from legal pot sales, and the Soros crowd can keep hiding bad health news about marijuana. Well, at least the curtain has been raised on the connection between pot and high blood pressure:     

Marijuana use holds three-fold blood pressure death risk: study

By Kate Kelland

August 9, 2017 - 2:37 AM EDT
Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - People who smoke marijuana have a three times greater risk of dying from hypertension, or high blood pressure, than those who have never used the drug, scientists said on Wednesday.

The risk grows with every year of use, they said.

The findings, from a study of some 1,200 people, could have implications in the United States among other countries. Several states have legalized marijuana and others are moving toward it. It is decriminalized in a number of other countries.

"Support for liberal marijuana use is partly due to claims that it is beneficial and possibly not harmful to health," said Barbara Yankey, who co-led the research at the school of public health at Georgia State University in the United States.

"It is important to establish whether any health benefits outweigh the potential health, social and economic risks. If marijuana use is implicated in cardiovascular diseases and deaths, then it rests on the health community and policy makers to protect the public."

Marijuana is also sometimes used for medicinal purposes, such as for glaucoma.

The study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, was a retrospective follow-up study of 1,213 people aged 20 or above who had been involved in a large and ongoing National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In 2005–2006, they were asked if they had ever used marijuana.

For Yankey's study, information on marijuana use was merged with mortality data in 2011 from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, and adjusted for confounding factors such as tobacco smoking and variables including sex, age and ethnicity.

The average duration of use among users of marijuana, or cannabis, was 11.5 years.

The results showed marijuana users had a 3.42-times higher risk of death from hypertension than non-users, and a 1.04 greater risk for each year of use.

There was no link between marijuana use and dying from heart or cerebrovascular diseases such as strokes.

Yankey said were limitations in the way marijuana use was assessed -- including that researchers could not be sure whether people had used the drug continuously since they first tried it.

But she said the results chimed with plausible risks, since marijuana is known to affect the cardiovascular system.

"Marijuana stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, leading to increases in heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen demand," she said.

Experts not directly involved in the study said its findings would need to be replicated, but already raised concerns.

"Despite the widely held view that cannabis is benign, this research adds to previous work suggesting otherwise," said Ian Hamilton, a lecturer in mental health at Britain's York University.

Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Jeremy Gaunt

********

Cajun dance music is rooted in human DNA. Allons danser!

I know this because even people who can't dance can dance to Cajun. And it has the same effect on people all over the world. Yup, everybody loves to dance to Cajun. Sure enough, it's in our DNA.  Also you can do any kind of dance moves to Cajun dance music, except maybe classical ballet but then I'd like to see what Cajun musicians could do with Swan Lake.

All right, let's start with Jo-El Sonnier playing Evangeline Special (live performance).

Then, let's see -- how about the Lost Bayou Ramblers playing Blue Moon Special at a club in Stockholm. That's in Sweden.

We'll finish up the special set with Lee Benoit and The Bayou Stompers playing the Lacassine Special at a club, maybe somewhere in Cajun country.

   

Now for a nice big breakfast of grits, home fries, ham, scrambled eggs and buttered toast with strawberry jam.

Thus fortified, I will turn to study the day's news. Or maybe I'll play hooky and see if I can find a Cajun club nearby. Allons danser!

*********

Just think, Californians are selling that incredibly toxic pot all over the U.S.

Toxic waste from U.S. pot farms alarms experts
Reporting by Sharon Bernstein
July 6, 2017
Reuters

WEAVERVILLE, Calif. (Reuters) - Pollution from illegal marijuana farms deep in California's national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the hospital.

The volume of banned or restricted pesticides and illegally applied fertilizers in the woods dwarfs estimates by the U.S. Forest Service in 2014, when a top enforcement official testified that the pollution was threatening forest land in California and other states.

California accounts for more than 90 percent of illegal U.S. marijuana farming, with much of it exported to other states from thousands of sites hidden deep inside forested federal land, and more on private property, law enforcement officials said. The state is still developing a licensing system for growers even though legal retail sales of the drug will begin next year, and medical use has been allowed for decades.

Ecologist Mourad Gabriel, who documents the issue for the Forest Service as well as other state, local and federal law enforcement agencies, estimates California's forests hold 41 times more solid fertilizers and 80 times more liquid pesticides than Forest Service investigators found in 2013.

Growers use fertilizers and pesticides long restricted or banned in the United States, including carbofuran and zinc phosphide. In previous years, it was commonly sold fertilizers and pesticides that were used illegally, law enforcement officials said.

Exposure to the pesticides has sent at least five law enforcement officials and two suspects to hospitals with skin rashes, respiratory problems and other symptoms, court documents and state data show.

Use of any chemicals in national forests is against federal law, as pesticides have killed sensitive species and fertilizers can cause algae blooms and bacteria problems in rivers and streams.

According to unpublished data seen by Reuters, Gabriel, who has visited more than 100 sites in California and is widely considered the top expert on toxics at marijuana farms, calculated that federal land in California contains 731,000 pounds of solid fertilizer, 491,000 ounces of concentrated liquid fertilizer and 200,000 ounces of toxic pesticides.

If much of the pesticide and fertilizer were released into a single stream rather than scattered around the state in leaky containers, the volume would exceed the amount of chemicals spilled in 2014 into the Elk River in West Virginia, which left 300,000 residents without access to potable water.

"We're getting contamination over and over again at those locations," said Gabriel, as toxins move from unsafe containers into the soil and water.

"These places aren't safe to go into," said state Assemblyman Jim Wood, who has pushed for cleanup funding.

Use of toxics has grown over the past three to four years, and chemicals have been found at sites in Oregon and Washington as well, said Chris Boehm, the Forest Service's assistant director for enforcement and investigation. "In the last couple years we've lost a lot of the ground we had picked up in eradicating and cleaning up the new sites we find."

The expense and danger of cleanup has created a backlog of 639 illegal marijuana farms awaiting restoration in California, according to U.S. Forest Service data compiled for Reuters. Each farm covers up to 50 acres.

Gabriel said that figure understated the problem, and pointed out that toxics are used at thousands of illegal farms on private and tribal land. After a year or two, growers often abandon sites, leaving containers of chemicals so toxic a quarter-teaspoon could kill a bear.

As California moves to license growers, officials plan to regulate the use of chemicals. But rules can only be enforced against those who cultivate pot legally.

"There are a lot of incentives for continuing to grow illegally," said Washington Fish and Wildlife Deputy Chief Mike Cenci, citing growers' distaste for taxes and red tape.

"We've got 4,000 illegal grows in our county," said Keith Groves, a supervisor of Trinity County in Northern California. "I'll be happy if we can get 500 of them to become licensed."

Editing by Ben Klayman and Richard Chang

[END REPORT]

********

Saudi regime denies its FM made rational statements about Assad and Syria

Well, that was a short-lived hope. 

There is no place for Assad in Syria’s future: Saudi FM
By Leith Fadel
August 7, 2017

AMN

BEIRUT, LEBANON (1:15 A.M.) – The Saudi Foreign Ministry denied reports on Sunday that ‘Adel Al-Jubeir stated Bashar Al-Assad’s future should be decided by the Syrian people.

“There is no place for Assad in Syria’s future,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry’s statement read on Sunday.

“The position of the kingdom on the Syrian crisis is firm, and it is based on the Geneva 1 communique and on U.N. Security Council resolution 2254 that stipulated the formation of a transitional body that will run the country,” the statement added.

The Al-Saud regime has been one of Assad’s biggest critics in the international community, spending billions of dollars to overthrow his government and destabilize his country.

[END REPORT]

Signs you are a victim of bad luck

Sign of bad luck

Cracked Mirror

Sign of Worse Bad Luck

Seeing Bill the Cat in a dream

Absolutely Worst Bad Luck

The big boss catching you dancing on your desk to the tune of "Bad Luck"

******

Black Swan: Fast onset of severe drought blindsides America's northern plains states UPDATE 7:25am EDT

UPDATE
For more on the phenomenon of flash drought, see Grist, August 1, ‘Flash drought’ could devastate half the High Plains wheat harvest. 

*****

This is a very troubling situation, not only because of the effects of the drought itself, but also because of the incredible speed with which it struck, taking meteorologists off guard. This kind of drought is called by climatologists a "flash drought" -- a term I hadn't come across until I read the following report. I'd gotten used to learning about droughts that took years to deplete a region's water supplies. The idea that it can happen within a few weeks is a horror story.

Of course such rapid depletions are somewhat illusory in that there was an underlying situation of water supplies stretched to the limit but regions getting by because there was 'always' just enough rain to get through a dry spell. But when the weather suddenly shifts, the illusion is a killer.      

Drought spreads and intensifies across US Northern Plains
By Matt Volz
August 4, 2017
The Associated Press via Farm Forum

[I've highlighted parts of the report that jumped out and slapped me]

HELENA, Montana (AP) — The drought plaguing eastern Montana and much of North and South Dakota came on quickly and is intensifying, leading ranchers to sell their cattle and farmers to harvest early whatever crops that have grown so far this summer.

Just three months ago, no areas of moderate drought were recorded in the Northern Plains region by the U.S. Drought Monitor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. But July’s soaring temperatures and lack of rain quickly parched the soil and dried up waterways, creating what climatologists call a “flash drought.”

Now, 62 percent of North Dakota, more than half of South Dakota and 40 percent of Montana are in severe, extreme or exceptional drought, according to the drought monitor’s weekly report released on Aug. 3. There are also pockets of drought in the Southern Plain states of Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas.

In Montana, 12 percent of the state’s land is experiencing “exceptional drought,” meaning widespread crop and pasture losses and water-shortage emergencies, mainly in the northeastern part of the state.

“We would expect to see conditions that bad once or twice in 100 years,” said Deborah Bathke, a climatologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s National Drought Mitigation Center and a co-author of the drought monitor.

The effect has been devastating on farmers and ranchers. Farmers are harvesting beans, peas and lentils two or three weeks earlier than normal, with a yield of about half of what they see in a normal year, said Lola Raska of the Montana Grain Growers Association.

Wheat crop yields are even worse, coming in at about a third of normal, she said.

“A lot of wheat prices are still very low,” Raska said. “That, in addition to low yields, is going to have a ripple effect throughout the entire economy.”

Jay Bodner of the Montana Stockgrowers Association said the extreme drought means ranchers are running out of pasture and water. They are reducing their herds by selling older cows and weaning and shipping young calves early.

It could take years for ranchers to build their herds back up, meaning extended economic losses, Bodner said.

“These high temperatures in July deteriorated things really quickly,” he said. “We typically don’t see those severe conditions.”

The region saw more than 20 days in July with temperatures exceeded 90 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Rainfall for the month ranged from trace amounts in eastern Montana’s Miles City to 1.68 inches (4.27 centimeters) in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Half of Montana’s 1.5 million head of cattle are in drought areas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. government officials have opened more federal land to grazing and water is being trucked in, but those are temporary fixes, Bodner said.

The drought also made the land more vulnerable to wildfires. Montana’s largest fire devastated more than 420 square miles of farm and ranchland in eastern Montana, compounding the problems for growers in the region.

The outlook is grim with the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center’s predicting the drought will last into the fall, with higher-than-normal temperatures and low precipitation expected.

That could force farmers to delay fall planting and ranchers to make more cattle reductions.

“If these conditions persist well into the fall, it will have ramifications of some more magnitude,” Bodner said.

[END REPORT]

*********

"Saudi FM to Syrian Dissidents: Assad to Remain in Power" UPDATE 8/7 - 9 AM EDT

UPDATE
From AMN today, the Saudi regime is denying what Jubeir was reported to have told Syrian dissidents about Assad (below).  
END UPDATE

Sun Aug 06, 2017 1:50 [PM local time]

FARS

TEHRAN (FNA)- Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has told the Syrian dissidents that President Bashar al-Assad will keep power, the Russian media reported on Sunday.

According to the Arabic website of Russia Today (RT), a senior Syrian dissident source has quoted al-Jubeir as saying in a meeting with a delegation of negotiating dissidents on August 3 that Bashar al-Assad will remain in power.

Meantime, el-Jisser news website affiliated to the dissidents reported that the high delegation of Syrian dissidents negotiating with the government in peace talks has quoted Jubeir as saying that Assad is highly unlikely to step down under the current conditions.

Jubeir told the dissidents' representatives that it would be impossible to get Assad step down power in the first days of the transition stage.

The remarks came after Russia's Ambassador in Geneva Alexei Borodavkin said last month that the UN-led Syria talks have a chance of making progress because demands for the overthrow of President Assad have receded.

Borodavkin said the seventh round of talks, which ended on Friday, had produced positive results, especially a "correction" in the approach of the main opposition delegation, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. [emphasis mine]

"The essence of this correction is that during this round the opposition never once demanded the immediate resignation of President Bashar al-Assad and the legitimate Syrian government."

The HNC and its backers in Western and (Persian) Gulf capitals had realized that peace needed to come first, and then political reforms could be negotiated, he said.

"Assad must go" was long the mantra of the HNC and its international backers, a call flatly rejected by Russia, which is widely seen as holding the balance of power in Syria because of its military involvement and alliance with Assad.

But over the past year the opposition suffered military defeats at the hands of forces loyal to Assad, and neither US President Donald Trump nor French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for his immediate removal.

[END FARS REPORT]

********

BREAKING NEWS: SAA liberates al-Sukhnah from Islamic State

Breaking: Syrian Army fully captures ISIS stronghold Al-Sukhnah in east Homs countryside
By Ibrahim Joudeh
June 6, 2017 [no time stamp]
AMN

A Syrian Army military source just announced full liberation of Sukhna city in east Homs countryside.

Last night, Syrian Army and allies entered the city from south and south-west amid heavy clashes with ISIS terrorists, where SAA managed to crush the last ISIS defense lines inside the city and advanced deep toward the northern part before fully capturing it.

SAA demining experts have started working on demining the city districts as ISIS [typically] planted IEDs all across the city before retreating.

MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

[END AMN REPORT]

What is clearly an earlier report today from Iran's FARS provides considerable detail about the battle for Al-Sukhnah and environs:

Syrian Soldiers Continue Tough Street-Battle in ISIL-Held Al-Sukhnah in Eastern Homs
August 6, 2017 - 12:56 [PM]

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian Army troops engaged in very tough battle with ISIL terrorists in different neighborhoods of the key town of al-Sukhnah and managed to impose control over more positions.

The army men clashed fiercely with ISIL in the last stronghold of the terrorists in Eastern Homs and captured the Western neighborhood of the town.

Also, the army units advanced against ISIL from the Southern flank and seized control over the town's hospital.

Meantime, a military source said that al-Sukhnah is under the army's siege from the South, South-West and South-East, adding that the army men plan to advance towards Bazaar following the capture of the hospital.

The source added that the army has dispatched a large number of forces and a large volume of equipment from Quneitra to al-Sukhnah.

The source went on to say that a large number of ISIL terrorists have been killed or wounded and their military hardware has been destroyed in the battle.

Relevant reports said on Saturday that the army troops entered the key town al-Sukhnah, the last stronghold of ISIL terrorists in Eastern Homs minutes ago, after days of battle in their push towards Deir Ezzur.

The army soldiers, backed up by the country's Air Force and artillery fire, continued to hit ISIL's defense lines in Eastern Homs and entered al-Sukhnah.

The army men prevail over ISIL's defense lines from two directions and entered the town.

Field reports said that the army men captured Jabal al-Tantour North-East of al-Sukhnah and imposed military control over Bazaar of al-Sukhnah after fortifying positions in Jabal al-Tantour.

The reports added that other units of the army advanced from the Western direction of the town and captured al-Sukhnah-Rowz al-Wahash (zoo) crossroad at the entrance of the town near Palmyra-al-Sukhnah highway.

In the meantime, the Syrian forces managed to repel ISIL's heavy attack around al-Sukhnah and destroyed a bomb-laden vehicle and two military cars.

[END FARS REPORT]

Here are two graphics from the SouthFront comment section celebrating SAA advances against IS in Sukhnah city. Not that I'm partisan or anything. 

GO TIGERS! 

********

Get it straight, Sharmine: We don't have to show you any stinking badges

Yet when questioned about the international law grounds for this U.S. military presence inside Syria, CENTCOM didn’t have a response on hand. They referred me to the Office of the Secretary of Defense whose spokesman obstinately cited U.S. domestic law — an issue quite irrelevant to Syrians. He, in turn, referred me to the White House and State Department on the international-law angle. The State Department sent me back to the Department of Defense, the White House pointed me in the direction of the National Security Council,  and the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel blankly ignored my repeated requests.

Is the Expanding U.S. Military Presence in Syria Legal?
By Sharmine Narwani
August 4, 2017
The American Conservative

Washington has gone rogue.

In July the White House and Pentagon requested authority from Congress to build further “temporary intermediate staging facilities” inside Syria in order to combat ISIS more effectively. This request, it must be noted, comes in the wake of devastating ISIS defeats in Syria, mostly by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied forces.

Shortly afterward, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency revealed previously unknown details and locations of ten U.S. bases and outposts in northern Syria, several of them with airfields. These are in addition to at least two further U.S. outposts already identified in southern Syria, on the Iraqi border.

When asked about these military bases, a CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) spokesman told me: “We don’t have bases in Syria. We have soldiers throughout Syria providing training and assist to the SDF (the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in the north of the country).” How many soldiers? “Roughly 1,200 troops,” says CENTCOM.

Yet when questioned about the international law grounds for this U.S. military presence inside Syria, CENTCOM didn’t have a response on hand. They referred me to the Office of the Secretary of Defense whose spokesman obstinately cited U.S. domestic law—an issue quite irrelevant to Syrians. He, in turn, referred me to the White House and State Department on the international-law angle. The State Department sent me back to the Department of Defense, the White House pointed me in the direction of the National Security Council (NSC), and the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel blankly ignored my repeated requests.

It isn’t hard to conclude that official Washington simply doesn’t want to answer the “international law” question on Syria. To be fair, in December 2016, the Obama administration offered up an assessment on the legalities of the use of force in Syria, but perhaps subsequent ground developments—the SAA and its allies defeating ISIS and Al Qaeda left, right, and center—have tightened some lips in the nation’s capital.

[MAP of U.S. military bases and, uh, outposts in Syria -- See website]

The map of U.S. bases in Syria is confusing. For starters, it reveals that many of the US outposts—or “staging facilities”—are nowhere near ISIS-controlled areas. This has generated some legitimate suspicion about U.S. motives in Syria, especially since American forces have begun to attack Syrian military targets with more frequency. This summer saw U.S. strikes against Syrian allied forces, drones, and a fighter jet all in the space of a few weeks. And most memorably, in September 2016, Coalition fighters killed over 100 SAA troops fighting ISIS in Deir Ezzor, paving the way for a brief ISIS takeover of strategic points in the oil-rich province.

It appears that U.S. intentions may go beyond the stated objective of fighting terrorism in Syria—and that Washington’s goals are also territorial and political and seek to retain post-conflict zones of influence within the country: in the south, north, and along the Syrian-Iraqi border.

Former Obama White House and NSC senior legal official Brian Egan believes the coming challenge for U.S. policymakers—in terms of international law—will be to justify clashes with Syrian forces and their allies.

“I think the harder international law question to defend is with respect to use of force against the [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad regime,” warns Egan. “For example, the U.S. strike in response to the [alleged] chemical weapons attack. There’s no self-defense justification, there’s no UN Security Council resolution. It’s an open question what the U.S. depends on in terms of international law.”

“Theories that might be applicable against terrorist groups like ISIS don’t appear to apply for U.S. military ops against Syrian forces. The more that U.S. forces are in-theater in Syria, the greater the chance of conflict between the U.S. and Syrian forces, which makes it essential that [this administration] explains its justification for potential operations in Syria,” emphasizes Egan.

But it’s not only Syrian forces and military targets that have come under American fire. In a stream of letters to the UN Security Council this year, the Syrian government asserts U.S. air strikes have also “systematically” destroyed vital infrastructure and economic assets throughout the country for months, and complains that the attacks are “being carried out outside the framework of international legality.” 

The Syrians claim that these infrastructure targets include the Ghalban oil collection branch station, Umar oilfield, wells and facilities, electrical transformer stations, Tanak oil field and facilities, Izbah oil field and installations—all in Deir Ezzor governorate—a gas plant and bridges and structures of the Balikh Canal in Raqqa, buildings and facilities belonging to the General Establishment of Geology and Mineral Resources in Homs, Furat and Baath Dam facilities, the Euphrates Dam, the Tishrin Dam and their reservoirs, irrigation and power generation facilities, and many other vital sites across the country.

With U.S. legal arguments supporting military presence in Syria unravelling, the Pentagon’s untenable position has become noticeable, even within its own ranks.

“Here’s the conundrum,” explained U.S. Special Operations Command Chief Army General Raymond Thomas to an Aspen gathering last week, in response to a question about whether U.S. forces will stay in Syria, post-ISIS: “We are operating in the sovereign country of Syria. The Russians, their stalwarts, their back-stoppers, have already uninvited the Turks from Syria. We’re a bad day away from the Russians saying, ‘Why are you still in Syria, U.S.?’”

The Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah, and other allied Syrian forces are in Syria legally, at the invitation of the UN-recognized state authority. The United States and its coalition partners are not.

At the moment, the latter are trying hard to ignore that elephant in the room. But as ISIS collapses, the question “why are you still here?” is going to rise in volume.

When the U.S.-led coalition first launched overt military operations inside Syria in September 2014, various western governments cited both the recently-passed UNSC Resolution 2249 and Article 51 (Iraq’s invitation for “collective self-defense”) as their legal justification for doing so.

Neither of these justifications provided legal grounds for use of force in Syria, however. There are basically only three clear-cut international law justifications for use of force: a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution providing Chapter 7authority, self-defense against an act of aggression by a territorial state, and an invitation by the legitimate authority of a sovereign state for foreign troops to act within its borders—“consent of a territorial state.”

While UNSC Res. 2249 called upon member states to “take all necessary measures” against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, it explicitly stated that any such measures must be “in compliance with international law, in particular with the UN Charter”—which requires consent of a territorial state, in this case, the Syrian government.

And while Iraq did invite the Coalition to militarily engage ISIS within its territory, its “collective self-defense” argument does not justify the use of force inside Syrian territory—because Syria did not attack Iraq.

To make up for the gaping holes in its international-law arguments, the U.S.-led Coalition performed some legal acrobatics. The “unwilling and unable” theory posits that the Coalition could engage militarily in Syria because the legitimate government of Syria was either unable or unwilling (or both) to fight ISIS.

An onslaught of media articles and carefully-framed narratives were employed to set the scene for this theory. Recall, if you will, the slew of articles claiming that ISIS controlled around 50 percent of Syria—areas which were outside of Syrian state control—all meant to guide us to the conclusion that Syria was “unable” to fight ISIS. Or the narratives that insisted, until ground evidence proved otherwise, that the Syrian government aided ISIS, that it never fought the terror group, that it only targeted “moderate rebels”—all intended to persuade us that Syria was “unwilling” to target ISIS.

In fact, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have fought ISIS throughout this conflict, but were often distracted by more urgent battles against U.S., Turkish, British, French, Saudi, UAE and Qatari-backed Islamist militants in the western corridor of the country, where Syria’s main population and infrastructure hubs are located. ISIS-controlled territories, it should be noted, were mostly in the largely barren, sparsely populated and desert regions in the north-east and east of Syria.

The NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council strategy appears to ping-pong Syrian troops from east to west, north to south, wearing them down, cleverly diverting them from any battle in which they were making gains. And it was working, until the Russians stepped into the fray in September 2015 and sunk the Coalition’s “unwilling and unable” theory.

As Major Patrick Walsh, associate professor in the International and Operational Law Department at the US Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Virginia, wrote that October:

“The United States and others who are acting in collective defense of Iraq and Turkey are in a precarious position. The international community is calling on Russia to stop attacking rebel groups and start attacking ISIS. But if Russia does, and if the Assad government commits to preventing ISIS from attacking Syria’s neighbors and delivers on that commitment, then the unwilling or unable theory for intervention in Syria would no longer apply. Nations would be unable to legally intervene inside Syria against ISIS without the Assad government’s consent.”

The UK’s leading security and defense analyst firm IHT Markit observed in an April 2017 report that during the time period in which ISIS suffered its most crippling defeats, Syrian allied forces fought the terror group two and a half times as often as U.S.-backed ones. With the Russian air force providing Syrian allied troops with game-changing air cover, the battle against ISIS and other terror groups began to turn decisively in Syria’s favor. And, with that, out went even the “theoretical” justification for U.S. military intervention in Syria.

As ISIS and Al Qaeda are beaten back in Syria, the American conversation about what comes next is missing a most critical point. In terms of international law, Washington has gone rogue in Syria. Will the world take notice?

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Mideast geopolitics, based in Beirut.

[END REPORT]

The real question is whether the Syrian War is a satire on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. 

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Drought in S. Saskatchewan so bad it's causing electrical fires from ground shifting

"The hot, arid conditions are compacting and shifting the ground so much that the underground wires are yanked out of the boxes. The frayed copper wires continue to conduct electricity, and this can set off sparks and cause the wires or power meter boxes to ignite ..."

That is the strangest drought consequence I can remember learning about. 

Why didn't the same happen in California's Central Valley, given the significant land subsidence there due to overpumping of ground water during the drought? The land sinkage was big enough to crack bridges, roads and irrigation pipes.

I don't know what would explain the difference (unless it did happen in California and wasn't reported) but the CBC report (below) mentions clay soil in S. Saskatchewan. So a wild guess is that when clay soil compacts and shifts, it's got more 'power,' applies more weight on underground wires, than the other soil when it's dried out? Or maybe the wires aren't underground in the Central Valley?        

'The damage is done': Home electricity boxes igniting in Sask. drought
Regina's driest July in 130 years also threatening livestock, crops and farmers' livelihoods

By Bonnie Allen, Senior Reporter, CBC News

Aug 04, 2017 - 3:00 AM CT

[See the CBC website for dramatic video of a power meter in Regina catching fire] 

While it's not surprising that scorching heat and bone-dry conditions are baking crops and thwarting mosquitoes, this summer's drought in southern Saskatchewan [province] has also had some unexpected, and potentially dangerous, impacts.

Thousands of homes could be at risk from igniting electricity wires and meter boxes.

In its driest year since 1887, Regina only got 1.8 millimetres of rain the entire month of July, compared to its usual average 66 millimetres.

The city also had 11 days in July where temperatures soared above 30 C [86 F]. The forecast for August calls for more heat, and little rain.

The hot, arid conditions are compacting and shifting the ground so much that the underground wires are yanked out of the boxes. The frayed copper wires continue to conduct electricity, and this can set off sparks and cause the wires or power meter boxes to ignite, leaving black smoke billowing in the air.

There have been seven such fires in Regina this summer.

Saskatchewan's energy utility, SaskPower, says thousands of homes are at risk. As of Thursday, it had inspected 3,200 homes and found that 1,200 needed repairs.

"All our resources are committed to inspections, and we have no end date," SaskPower spokesperson Jonathan Tremblay told reporters. "Rain may help here and there, but certainly the damage is done."

Thirsty, hungry livestock

The drought is also having an impact on the livelihoods of livestock producers, who are warning that a looming hay shortage could have a critical impact on the industry.

Bill Aulie only harvested 1,200 hay bales this summer, compared with the usual 3,000-5,000, and it won't be enough to feed his Clydesdale horses through the winter.

[...]

Hay and water shortages could force some ranchers to reduce the size of their cattle herds, according to industry experts.

"[S]ome of those smaller guys will just sell their herds off ... and they'll be out of the cattle business," Lewis said. "It's a pretty critical situation for the industry."

Some ranchers have already lost livestock.

In early July, ranchers near Shamrock, Sask., were shocked when 200 cattle died from dehydration and salt poisoning: extreme heat evaporated the animals' water source to such an extent that the salt concentration became deadly.

The province's chief veterinarian said it was like drinking ocean water.

Drought stresses crops

Aulie says he hasn't seen a drop of rain in 53 days, and that has meant his already smaller-than-normal lentil crop is ready for harvest two weeks early.
"It didn't fully mature, but it dried up and was forced into a ripening stage," Aulie said.

He expects his canola and wheat harvest to be disappointing, as well. Aulie says his crops would have shriveled up entirely if not for last year's heavy rainfall and the clay soil in his area that retains moisture well. He also credits advanced farming practices that conserve water.

[...]

More of the same in August

Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips predicts the hot, dry weather will continue in August.

"It's almost like nature has forgotten how to rain in southern Saskatchewan," Phillips said.

Any rain would come too late to help the farmers anyway.

[END REPORT]

********

No such thing as a pollution credit swap

"In 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a report that said two-thirds of groundwater and one-third of surface water in China was unsafe for human contact."

- Business Insider, March 24, 2016, 13 striking photos that show how polluted China's water has become 

A fisherman in Chaohu Lake, covered in blue-green algae, in Chaohu city, Anhui province, in 2013. REUTERS/China Daily 

This year's 'Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico, "Stretching from the coast of Louisiana at the Mississippi River Delta westward to the shores of Texas, the area of severe hypoxia — when the water is so depleted of oxygen that it can’t sustain fish and [any other] marine life — encompasses 8,776 square miles." 

- Vox, August 3, 2017, The biggest ever "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico is the size of New Jersey

Graphic: N. Rabalais, LSU/LUMCON 

What causes the hypoxia? From the Vox report:

The dead zone in the Gulf has become a worrisome annual phenomenon mainly due to excess nitrogen and other nutrients that run off from rivers like the Mississippi into the Gulf and feed the growth of algae. When the massive blooms of algae and phytoplankton die, their decomposition consumes [almost] all the oxygen in the ocean [area], creating a hypoxic area, or dead zone. ["No" oxygen is actually anoxic, not hypoxic.] Fish that can swim away do, but the organisms that can’t, including the plants that fish feed on, die.

[...]

Almost every summer since 1985, NOAA has sponsored research and monitoring of hypoxia off the coast of Louisiana. It says the record-breaker this year is a result of higher rainfall in the Midwest and heavier river flows than usual.

[...]

The most problematic nutrients that end up in the Gulf and feed the algae are nitrogen and phosphorous, which run off from myriad big and small farms across the country. Farmers use the nutrients as fertilizers on their fields, but rain can then wash that fertilizer into nearby streams and rivers. The Nature Conservancy estimates that the Mississippi River and its tributaries drain from 41 percent of the United States, delivering quite a lot of nutrient pollution to the Gulf.

A recent report by the environmental group Mighty Earth blames much of the nutrient pollution in the Gulf on the meat industry. The report implicates the entire meat supply chain, but it identifies the fertilizer runoff in livestock feed production as well as the dumping of cattle manure as the biggest sources of pollution. The report calls on companies like Tyson Foods to reform unsustainable practices.

Given that voluntary efforts at curbing the fertilizer pollution haven't worked, Vox reports that Don Scavia, a former "top scientist" at NOAA recommends:

A broader national approach that includes more enforced regulations and a modification of the American diet to consume less meat is necessary.

Nowhere in the Vox report is there mention of the American beef export industry (or any U.S. meat export industry), which at least since the mid-1980s began putting the price of steaks and other quality cuts of beef out of reach of lower-income Americans, and made beef the most expensive part of Americans' average grocery bill. This happened because U.S. cattle ranchers found they could make a bigger profit raising cows for exported meat rather than domestic consumption. 

So while a March 2017 New York Times report offers a number of reasons for Americans eating 19 percent less beef in the years 2005-2014 it also quotes these blunt assessments:

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a trade group for beef producers, said the main reason for beef’s decline [in the American diet] was a reduced supply of meat because of increased exports: The United States was a net exporter of beef from 2010 to 2013.

[...]

Asked what prompted them to eat less beef, 37 percent of consumers surveyed cited its price as the No. 1 reason in research published in January by Mintel, a consumer research firm.

It could take a great deal of research (and heated debate) to establish whether there is a direct correlation between massive algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico and the large increase in feed for U.S. livestock raised for meat exports, but there is no question American beef exports are set to increase even more. See U.S. beef exports to [Mainland] China and Hong Kong have soared this year from a U.S. Meat Exporters Federation press release and Chinese beef buyers race to get hands on American steak; Reuters, June 19.

And certainly it doesn't take large-scale exports in manufacturing, agriculture, or meat to mess up a nation's waterways. See Soap Opera and Soap Opera 2, Pundita, 2015. In Brazil, in India, and many other parts of the world, untreated household runoffs and simply using rivers to wash clothes with modern detergents will turn waterways into toxic bubble baths.

However, India and Brazil can't boast of creating a vast "biological desert," as the Gulf of Mexico dead zone is also termed. Nor can they can match the horrors wreaked on China's waterways when that country became the manufacturing export engine of the world.

Yet it's tough to argue against the current levels of globalized trade, if the reaction from the U.S. beef association to global warmists' accusations is any guide. To return to the NYT report:

The [environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council] is hailing the plummeting popularity of beef as a victory in the fight against climate change, because greenhouse gases are produced when cattle are raised. The group estimates that the resulting reduction in pollution would equal the emissions of 39 million cars, or about one-sixth of the number of cars registered in the United States in 2015. 

[...]

The beef association said it was “fallacious” to draw a link between beef consumption and automobile emissions. Sara Place, the group’s senior director of sustainable beef production research, said consumers could do more to reduce carbon emissions by throwing away less food, particularly fruits and vegetables, than by eating less beef. ...

I imagine Ms Place would have a similar reply to any complaint that the huge U.S. beef exporting industry was doing serious damage to marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.

Perhaps the tiebreaker is to ask about the health of the Mississippi River. We don't have far to look for the answer:

Thanks to the obscene amount of pollution that gets dumped into it, scientists and conservationists have dubbed the Mississippi "the most tainted coastal ecosystem in the world" and the "most polluted river in the river in the country." It's a massive, bona fide toxic cesspool.

That from a Vice Motherboard article in February 2014, The Mississippi River Was a Toxic Mess Long Before the Oil Spill.  From a Missouri newspaper article in 2012 we can surmise that the Mississippi would have stiff competition from the Ohio River if it wanted to hang onto the crown of most polluted river in the USA.  

To sum, the global warmists' ability to keep the conversation in the public forum on greenhouse gas emissions has crowded out the toughest questions about a manic level of globalized trade and its connection to unsustainable levels of pollution. How did the global warmists manage that feat? Maybe because there is no such thing as a pollution credit, as there is for carbon emission. 

********

Ah! A comprehensible map of the Syrian War status!

Shamelessly sequestered from AMN. For a compact large view of the map, visit AMN. A few notes:

> The "M" designations are names of major roadways; e.g., M1, M5. 

> Islamic State is referred to so many different ways in news reports, etc. that the map legend shows three of the prevalent terms (ISIS, Daesh, IS) but they're all the exact same organization. 

> There are so many Al Qaeda front groups that the mapmaker doesn't even bother with listing the names, which are always subject to change at a moment's notice anyhow. The important point at this time, which the map clearly conveys, is that Al Qaeda now controls Idlib City and the entire Idlib province except for a couple pockets in the south of the province controlled by the SAA.    

> See the caption below the map for a summary of the situation regarding who controls what. And see AMN (same link as above) for mapmaker Andrew Illingworth's expanded discussion of the battle situation as of August 2, 2017, but here's the good news in one sentence from his report:

BEIRUT, LEBANON (7:55 P.M.) – As the month of August commences it appears that the ISIS terrorist group will continue to suffer major military and territorial setbacks at both the hands of pro-government forces and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Yet as the map shows it's too soon to celebrate.

> As to the symbolism of the little white doohickies -- given the varying sizes and their placement at the most important cities, I'd guess they're meant to convey a population size?  

> As to the meaning of the numbers at the bottom, outside Syria, e.g., "65" -- you got me there. Some kind of coordinates, maybe, left over from another map?   

CAPTION:  #Syria Situational Map (August 2, 2017) - SAA and allies advance against ISIS terrorists in eastern #Homs, southeastern #Raqqa and #DeirEzzor Governorates. Advances also made by pro-government forces in eastern #Hama (too small to project on this map for the time being). Kurdish-led forces take control of about 50 percent of Raqqa city. Claims that pro-government forces took the T-2 area in southern DeirEzzor region are 100% false.