California’s succulent smugglers: plant poachers seed Asia’s desire for dudleya SCMP
Aquarius Rising New York Review of Books
16 of UK’s largest van fleets to go electric: 18,000 electric vans by 2028 Treehugger
Beyond Goop and Evil The Baffler
For safety’s sake, we must slow innovation in internet-connected things MIT Technology Review
The Air Force is determining ‘the appropriate process’ for Elon Musk smoking pot The Verge
Burn, Baby, Burn
Firefighters battle to gain on blazes across Northern California San Francisco Chronicle
WISCONSIN’S FLOODS ARE CATASTROPHIC—AND ONLY GETTING WORSE Wired
Hurricane Alley
Hurricane Florence Expected to Rapidly Intensify; Serious Rainfall Threat for U.S. East Coast Weather Underground
CBS’s Moonves Toppled by Harassment Allegations, Redstone Clash Bloomberg
Russia
Space: Another frontier for the US-Russian rivalry CNN (The Rev Kev)
Moscow Has Upped the Ante in Syria Consortium News (furzy)
Syraqistan
Syria: Rebel-held areas bombed as Turkey reinforces outposts Al Jazeera
China?
Why Beijing will sacrifice its middle class in trade war with Donald Trump SCMP (furzy)
India
Rupee Tumbles as Current-Account Deficit Widens to 5-Year High Bloomberg
Sweden
Swedish election: political uncertainty looms after deadlock Guardian
Brexit
Brexit: clash of the pygmies EUReferendum.com
Open warfare between top Tories over Boris Johnson ‘suicide vest’ jibe at May Independent
Democrats in Disarray
Booker heading to Iowa in October Politico
Waste Watch
Enormous amounts of food are wasted during manufacturing – here’s where it occurs The Conversation
Health Care
Big Brother IS Watching You Watch
ARE NEW YORK’S FREE LINKNYC INTERNET KIOSKS TRACKING YOUR MOVEMENTS? The Intercept
At Stake in Lawsuit: What Can Bosses Access on Your Personal Devices? WSJ
Gunz
SEC halts trading in two cryptocurrency products, citing market confusion Reuters
Tariff Tantrum
Ford insists it won’t build Chinese-made car in US despite Trump tweet The Hill
Trade war fears scupper Volvo Cars initial public offering FT
Ports compete to build ‘white elephant’ gas terminal Handelsblatt
China Invites Top Wall Street Executives to Beijing, FT Reports Bloomberg
Class Warfare
‘Monster’ Turns Our Farmers into Serfs and Sharecroppers American Conservative
EU seeks new powers for money laundering crackdown FT
Under Trump, the jobs boom has finally reached blue-collar workers. Will it last? WaPo
Land of Forever Tomorrow The Weekly Standard
Public Employees’ Pay, Benefits and Rights Become Campaign Issues Governing.com
WILL THE REAL VOTER FRAUD CRIMINALS PLEASE STAND UP WhoWhatWhy.org
How Purdue’s ‘one-two’ punch fuelled the market for opioids FT
Net Neutrality
ISPs Engage In Last Gasp Bid to Derail California’s Net Neutrality Law Motherboard
Trump Transition
The Deceptive Contrast Between Trump and Kavanaugh The New Yorker (furzy)
Divided America of Trump era challenges ad industry France 24
Trump waives millions in claims against Stormy Daniels in new fallout from illegal payoff LA Times
Imbalance in NATO spending between US and Europe is no accident Handelsblatt. A view from Germany.
Bob Woodward said Trump nearly provoked North Korea into war with a single tweet Business Insider
Antidote du Jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
144 comments
Comments are closed.
Link for “Trump waives Millions….” is incorrect. Shoud be: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-stormy-20180909-story.html#
Fixed– thanks!
This could be it — with or without Trump punching more buttons.
Putin is at least pretending to believe that the Russian ability to wipe out thousands of American troops in Northeast and Southeast Syria will deter any major American intervention around Idlib.
It’s hard to know what the American military top leadership is even pretending to believe, other than perhaps the career damage of a war being “lost” on their watch.
Trump wanted to get out of SK. Does SK want us out ? Crazy as Trump is the military has advised against the presidents and people’s best options since as far back as least WWII.
It’s easy, and many of us do it all the time, to say ‘crazy as Trump.’
But we don’t often say ‘crazy as the military,’ or ‘crazy as the Fed,’ etc. All these have stared us in the face for decades, by the way.
Playing crazy dimensional chess takes a certain talent.
Crazy or drunk
Sometimes, the best master is a drunken master.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1A6PnPZ6Gk
Goooooood Moooooorning Fiatnam!
It’d been a decade since the start of inequities, and Operation Loanbacker had proved it’s worth in that essentially our entire heir armada had been loaded to the gills with lucre, with which we were to pound the Fiatnamese into coercion.
Each B-52 could drop up to 70,000 pounds of bundled hundreds, and with a million in Benjamins weighing 22 pounds, that adds up in a hurry.
What you didn’t want to happen was flutter effect, and that came when a carelessly handled bundle was allowed to come apart mid-air, where the largess could end up with anybody-not the intended target, sometimes causing friendly ire incidents, where the would-be recipient would shake their empty fists in our general direction.
Re: Northern California fires
A few observations, from someone who lives in the area.
1. Fire fighters are successfully protecting heavily populated areas.
2. Repeated annual fires are consuming much of the drought-dry brush, possibly limiting future burns.
3. Fire fighters and first responders have become highly efficient at co-ordinating and responding to emergencies. I suspect that we may have the best trained emergency response teams in the country. They are doing superb work.
4. I see more people clearing trees and brush from around homes and buildings.
5. People’s allergies seem to be up. Possibly from the smoke in the air.
6. The weather has changed. The rains used to start every November, and continue til April, like clockwork. The last few years we have had only a few railnstorms in the entire winter.
7. Local people go out of their way to donate time, food, and shelter to people who are evacuated. Everyone has a story of family or friends living with them for a week or two.
Why not train the Johnny Got His Gun types the art of warfare, no, not the bang bang shoot shoot variety, but teach each and every GI Joe or Jane enlistee how to fight wildfires?
If inmates with scant training can do it, why not the military?
Besides, it’d be the one thing they’ll probably end up doing that isn’t a lost cause.
May not be that many military personnel available.
My understanding — from what I read — is that units and people are over extended from endless deployments in combat arenas.
Because they will say that there is not enough money in the military budget to fund these activities. Hahahahahahahahah!
I’m pretty sure the solution isn’t throwing more people at the problem.
Woud they do it for the same wages and working conditions as the prisoners? The ideal laborers as far as the state of California is concerned, apparently.
Inmates do not receive “scant training.” They are volunteers who are trained exactly like any other firefighter for the purpose. And are certified. The real issue that they are paid about $2 a day for risking their lives.
California’s succulent smugglers: plant poachers seed Asia’s desire for dudleya SCMP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dudleya do wrong, wow what a story.
Maybe we can convince the Asians to buy up Goat’s Heads instead, perhaps they’ll mistakenly think it’s another animal part they can make an aphrodisiac out of, and we get rid of a noxious weed with potent pointy bits?
Foxtails would be a nice addition, too. I know the local dogs and cats would be much happier.
Well, from my viewpoint, up here in the land of the Salish Sea, perhaps some enterprising Chinese flora rustlers can uproot and find a use for all that noxious scotch broom left to proliferate of it’s own accord, due to the now aged sentiments of some dudes from Edinburgh !
They’re welcome to all the Himalayan blackberry they can haul off also.
Scotch broom is a highly efficient Nitrogen fixer, and the non-native Asian blackberries reliably produce copious and delicious fruit with no pesticide, fertilizer, fossil fuel, or irrigation inputs at all necessary.
But they’re so cute.
And it’s the natural order to cull the old and infirm. Granted my not so old cat that made a meal for a presumed coyote was neither.
Your lips to the FSM’s ears.
This relates to a prior discussion on public access to environmentally sensitive areas of the California Coast (shoreline). Controlled access is better, and monitored access is best.
“Aquarius Rising”–
I’d consider it a must-read if only for the fact that it quotes my favorite prophet–Grace Slick–on the benefits of feeding your head with mescaline.
(My personal words to live by from Grace: “Don’t change before the Empire falls. You’ll laugh so hard you’ll crack the walls.”)
The Boomer author, Jackson Lears, works from Theodore Roszak (The Making of a Counterculture) and argues that we were engaged in a spiritual quest 50 years ago not only to find ourselves but also to lead society away from a spiritually empty, mentally depressing and physically deadly technocratic approach to life, each other and the Earth. I can’t disagree with his conclusion:
We’re at the point that there are three possible paths forward:
1) a fundamental and nearly universal change in outlook among Americans, something that looks like a spiritual awakening;
2) a panoptical, ruthlessly violent dictatorship; or
3) endless conflict, both abroad and at home, over vanishing resources and between ethnic, racial and religious groups.
We were partly manipulated and partly pushed at gunpoint into a very wrong turn 50 years ago. Tens of millions have died and billions suffered as a result. The really bad news is that unless we change fundamentally, individually and collectively, things will get much worse.
These two seem fully able to co-exist:
In light of the straightforward economic explanation, in December 2015, by Yanis Varoufakis, that today’s version of capitalism cannot much longer co-exist with meaningful democracy (source:
https://www.ted.com/talks/yanis_varoufakis_capitalism_will_eat_democracy_unless_we_speak_up)
… it’s hard not to infer that the increasingly self-assertive Deep-Staters have internally agreed on similar predictions, and are preparing to further entrench their anti-Democratic powers. This perspective makes the campaigns against “fake news” seem like much more than merely a series of reactions to events like Hillary’s shocking loss to Trump.
I intend a basic distinction, even conflict, between 2) and 3) because I see them as different ways to manage a severely repressed society with a dropping standard of living. Option 2) may be seen as too expensive, perhaps even impossible to maintain by some elites. After all, it’s quite clear who the enemy is under a dictatorship. Some of TPTB may believe it’s cheaper and better in the long run to maximize conflict among the repressed class to keep from focusing on them.
Don’t we enjoy (2) currently? Coupled with a new lead actor periodically from the unitary?
I think we have a ways to go yet. When we all know a few people who have been disappeared, when any sort of due process for loss of life, liberty or property becomes a distant memory, when family members inform on each other for thoughtcrime, then we’ll be there.
On the way? You bet. But it can get a lot worse than it is now.
I read the linked review of Easy Rider and Alice’s Restaurant under that article and got all the way through it until I realized that it was written in 1970.
Give it a try. Nothing has changed.
Notes on a scarecard:
Obviously the biggest story of the week is the object of some of our desire getting pummeled by a point margin of nearly 16-1, but long suffering Bills fans wouldn’t have it any other way, as nope springs eternal.
Was @ a wedding on Saturday and was talking to a top-rank L.A. lawyer from a large firm there, whose specialty is suing those that have been naughty not nice in the field of finance, and according to him, the reign of error has further weakened the SEC down to the role of a pipsqueak if that, and he was contemplating retirement.
with 9 weeks left before November, it’s pretty clear where we’re heading…
it appears that US natural gas supplies will start this winter at a 15 year low, & maybe even lower than that
can you believe that, after all the fracking hype you’ve heard over the years?
Export. Those pipelines aren’t for you. Its how we will remain world leaders and other neo liberal garbage.
regards that Handelsblatt article…
a recent Telegraph article gives the European price of natural gas:
€25.58/MWh = €7.50/mmBTU = $8.70/mmBTU
natural gas in the US is selling for $2.776 per mmBTU
it sure looks like there’s plenty of room for US gas exporters to liquefy US gas and ship it to Europe, cover their shipping & processing costs, and make a fat profit at the same time
The frackers have been working diligently to any stockpiles overseas as quickly as possible…act now while supplies last and the rest of us are stuck with a bunch of cancer clusters, the occasional explosion and some empty pipes to nowhere!
Here in MA, the industry has been desperately trying to off load the costs of pipelines to export terminals on to the public. It hasn’t been successful, but they’re still plugging away!
It’s all so crazy, we lay waste to what’s underfoot for dubious gain, by shipping so many coals to Newcastle.
Not all that different here in a fashion though. When reservoirs are full or nearly so, the 100 million or so almond trees are watered from down under about 50% of the time, approaching 100% in the midst of the drought.
For each pound of almonds sent to Asia, we are essentially shipping a very compacted 200 gallons to them for $3.
When the aquifers run dry, they’ll have to raise the price.
Alfalfa uses more water than almond farming.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html
Good point that. Years ago I read a CSIRO report that came out and said that with every ton of wheat that Australia ships overseas, most of it was actually water by weight so Australia was shipping potable water overseas never to return. Kinda jarring that when you think about the implications.
>the occasional explosion
And here is the latest!
https://www.wpxi.com/news/top-stories/live-updates-home-destroyed-in-gas-line-explosion-that-forced-evacuations/830644557
I’m wondering if “regular” might be more accurate than “occasional” at this point.
not related to natural gas supplies, but a few weeks back there was a discussion here about how close wells were to each other, and how the fracked areas might join underground..here’s a couple recent posts from the bakken oil blog that have diagrams showing just what that looks like on 1380 and 2560 acre units:
Newfield’s Plan To Add 42 New Wells To Three 1380-Acre Units In Siverston Oil Field
How Busy Is The Bakken? — September 3, 2018
Demands on Jeremy Corbyn by his enemies are neatly characterized in this cartoon: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/sep/05/steve-bell-on-labours-attempt-to-rebuild-trust-over-antisemitism-cartoon.
His enemies are so dishonest about their goals that it would be easy to overlook a significant kernel of truth in the complaint about a [‘new’] “culture of nastiness, bullying and intimidation” (source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/30/frank-field-resigns-labour-whip-over-antisemitism-crisis).
There is little Corbyn can do about the fact that, when a political system ignores, disrespects, impoverishes and ill-educates a majority of its population, which suddenly perceives an opportunity to grab the steering wheel of government, there is no way to impose “dinner party” etiquette on the process. Local constituencies’ votes of no-confidence are the ultimate expression of locally responsive democracy. Attempts to discredit them because anger is expressed impolitely says more about British MPs ‘cultural’ distance from, and inability to connect with, their poorer constituents than it does about Corbyn. To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson, it doesn’t matter if ‘all polite people are with you’, because ‘winning requires a majority’.
But the fleeing, and deselecting, of Blairite MPs ultimately helps Corbyn. The worst thing he could do is establish a government in which a major rump of his majority is dedicated to blocking his legislation and undermining his reputation. He would be better off if all the Blairite MPs join another party (before the next election) even if that leaves Labor outside the next government. The UK is going to be difficult to govern (indeed mere coherence on Brexit is going to be difficult to achieve by any coalition government that includes the Conservative Party) for quite a long time.
Even in the shorter-term, no matter how many voters the departing Blairite MPs take with them, it seems likely that a greater number of previous non-voters could be newly turned out once they believe that their voting and other electoral participation can have an impact on their own lives.
I haven’t followed the whole ‘anti-semitism row’ in the Labor Party in the UK, but as best I can tell, the Blairites were jealous that they couldn’t deploy a kind of Russia-gate narrative quite as effectively as in the US, so they decided to go one better and whip up an even dumber narrative based on even flimsier facts.
Am I wrong to read the the situation this way?
Has anyone in Labor actually done/said anything anti-semitic? Some remark made by Corbyn 5 years ago that’s only offensive if you squint really hard, have an axe to grind and exceptionally thin skin doesn’t count in my book.
Russia lover and Israel hater – six of one, half a dozen of the other to a neoliberal thirsting for a smear campaign.
Al Jazeera’s documentary The Lobby makes clear what is going on. The Blairites are the useful idiots, not the driving force.
There is an equivalent one for the US but Al Jazeera has ‘decided’ not to release it.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/is-donald-trump-too-doltish-to-be-dangerous
Finally, this still isn’t the behavior of a dictator. As much as Trump blusters about libel laws and maligns journalists, the press is doing just fine.* A truly dangerous president would cloak his aims in high principles and ask Congress to pass new laws.
….
On the other hand, the existence of an administrative coup inside the White House should be sobering, whether you’re pro-Trump or anti-Trump. It’s tempting to see the establishment as moderate or technocratic, but we’ve learned, since Trump’s rise, that it’s not.** It’s fiercely ideological, but, most of the time, invisibly so, because it has been unaccustomed to having its assumptions challenged….. As poorly as many of Washington’s aging economic and security policies have been serving us, its worldview remains unchanged.
At the same time, those who see this as evidence of an unaccountable elite defying the will of the people—the “steady state” as the op-ed writer dubbed it—seem to neglect a crucial reason for the phenomenon. Trump chose these people…….Why campaign like Pat Buchanan if you staff up like Jeb Bush.
===========================================
All sleight of hand
*Is it plausible Trump would be president without the quintessential American press?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A
**I think people should have learned long ago that the “establishment” isn’t moderate, and certainly doesn’t have their best interests at heart…..
“Dolt 45”
Nice – my own preferred locution is “Oaf of Office”.
Without the American press, Reagan wouldn’t have been President. 41 might be the only one who might have made it since then, even including the alternative nominees.
More specifically, without Dan Rather.
Ted Koppel did Nightline.
And Cronkite.
https://danratherjournalist.org/anchorman/breaking-news/iran-hostage-crisis
What I remember most was Rather’s daily announcement of the number of days the hostages had been held.
Trump would not be president without Hilary.
Also without the voters voting for him in 2016
And without NAFTA.
“It takes a village.”
As for choosing those people – sometimes you have to hire hackers to prevent hacking…just make sure they don’t hack you while working for you.
+ 100
Obama, his acolyte, Tim Geithner played big roles.
MyLessThanPrimeBeef
September 10, 2018 at 11:12 am
“Also without the voters voting for him in 2016”
electoral college voters….
More voters voted for Hillary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016
But thwarting the majority is something the US has a long history of
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/383015-poll-slim-majority-of-americans-support-single-payer-health-care
The voters voting for Trump did it strategically (or in enough states), I think, to win that election.
Was Uber right? https://slate.com/business/2018/09/after-losing-to-uber-cities-are-squeezing-scooters-and-bike-shares.html
Depends on your point of view. “Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class,” Al Capone.
And look what our mean old City Council just did:
https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/tucson-city-council-says-no-to-e-scooters-for-now
Darn. This means we won’t get to toss Birds off of roofs or set them ablaze.
Uber used the same tactic Citibank & Travelers used: act first, ask permission later. It is fairly obvious our government has zero counter-tactics, therefore big business wins again.
No no no no and NO!
I won’t bother to enumerate the reasons why they are wrong as they have been discussed here on so many occasions that their illegality should be memorized by now.
But I will highlight this one bit of stupidity which is exactly what infuriates me about all of these soi-disant sharing companies:
No, they most certainly did NOT invent a new mode of transportation overnight. It’s still a [family blog] bike ferchissakes.
Did anyone on NC live through the Wisconsin flooding events this summer? I think there were at least 3 enormous rain events that led to record flooding in different parts of the state. I am from MN and it feels like a grim preview of the Upper Midwest’s summer weather in 30 or so years (sooner?..).
Canoed the Kickapoo right before it started. They needed rain so much that the flood plain couldn’t absorb it. There was supposed to be a dam built back in the 70s but it would have destroyed the wilderness and moreover quickly gone bad with algae so they cancelled it and the condemned land is a State Park, which limits some of the damage. That said, Coon Valley and Gay Mills have really been hit hard.
I had not realized how many dams there are in Wisconsin, I am not sure if there are a similar amount in Minnesota and I just don’t know they exist. One of the floods in NW Wisconsin was exacerbated by a dam on a small tributary of the St. Croix collapsing. It makes me realize how little I know about how engineered the landscape is, even in seemingly rural places.
We were in Rochester in late September last year and it was hotter than in PHX (not exaggerating). Could not believe it.
Coup d’ta ta’s
~~~~~~~~~
Trump waives millions in claims against Stormy Daniels in new fallout from illegal payoff LA Times
“Hurricane Alley”: I think you misspelled “Northern Hemisphere”.
There are currently 5 hurricanes and 2 tropical storms north of the equator.
This is all well within the range of annual variab … glub, glub, glub …
Also too, from 6 years ago:
New Law in North Carolina Bans Latest Scientific Predictions of Sea-Level Rise [ABC]
Good thing that NC-20’s customers had these lobbyists go to bat on their behalf.
Sadly, Gaia gets to bat last, and at this point NC-20″ is looking like the rainfall prediction for this week.
Our ‘Ostricharchy’ will be ok as long as they keep their heads down, and keep repeating that as long as you don’t believe in climate change, nothing can harm you.
For people at the top, the I’ll Be Gone, You’ll Be Gone effect is a strong one.
If you’re a CEO who’s cashed in your stock options and moved to New Zealand,
GW is somebody else’s problem.
Boeing put their next generation factory
in right-to-work but exposed-to-rising-sea-levels North Charleston
and now that isn’t looking like such a great idea,
but the people who made that decision are long gone.
The Daily Mall carries an article by Peter Hitchens arguing that WW2 was not the noble war Britons are taught. Interesting venue…
For what it’s worth and perhaps too simply put: Hitler was shocked when the British-French declared war in Sept. 1939. Reportedly said, “Now, what?” Everybody then expected the war to descend into a WWI style stalemate with Germany eventually losing to the British-French. The German Generals were despondent. When the plan was put forward to attack with armour through the Ardennes forest they thought of it more as a desperate gambler’s last throw of the dice which might work but probably wouldn’t, so the plan was submitted. Hitler, of course, liked the idea, not that he had any great insights into anything military. Anyway, and unfortunately for Germany, the plan worked. The British-French were defeated and Hitler, now believing himself a genius, turned to satisfy his real desires, Lebensraum in the East and war with the Soviets. So a war in the West, which Germany was supposed to lose and which very well might have ended with Hitler’s arrest or assassination within a year, turned into a brief but misleading victory in the West and then a national catastrophe in the East.
That take completely ignores the fact that Blitzkrieg and the strategy of bypassing fixed defenses were both carefully crafted by the German military strategists to avoid the kind of quagmire that had occurred in WW1. That highly-mobile warfare was the result of long-term planning, not some kind of “whoopsie!” You don’t just roll over a country like France with ease by accident. The Germans had learned their lessons from WW1, while French and British had grown complacent. The big counterfactual in this is of course “what if Hitler had not decided to try to out-Napoleon Napoleon by invading Russia?” Without the bulk of German forces deployed on the Eastern front, a D-Day-style cross-channel invasion would have been a very diferent proposition.
If I remember this correctly, the Germans were going to go through Belgium like in August 1914 where the bulk of the Western armies were located. The French ended Maginot Line at the Belgium border, deliberately, so as to not make Belgium think it would be abandoned in the event of war. Everyone understood that the Maginot line would be by passed by the Germans. The French didn’t think that mechanized operations were possible through the Ardennes so they lightly defended in this area.
The original German plan, Fall Gelb/case yellow was to proceed into Belgium and establish positions for a long war. As per Wikipedia:
“Halder’s plan has been compared to the Schlieffen Plan, the name given to the German strategy of 1914 in the First World War.[29] It was similar in that both plans entailed an advance through the middle of Belgium. Aufmarschanweisung N°1 envisioned a frontal attack, sacrificing a projected half million German soldiers to attain the limited goal of throwing the Allies back to the River Somme. Germany’s strength for 1940 would then be spent; only in 1942 could the main attack against France begin.[30] When Hitler raised objections to the plan and instead advocated for a decisive armoured breakthrough as had happened in the invasion of Poland, Halder and Brauchitsch attempted to dissuade him, arguing that while the fast-moving mechanised tactics were all well and good against a “shoddy” Eastern European army, they would not work against a first-rate military like the French.[31]”
Hitler rejected this plan and eventually the Manstein plan of attack through the Ardennes was proposed. The Panzers were to go through the Ardennes, by pass the Western forces to the north, cut around them, and then make a mad dash for the English Channel cutting them off. This plan was almost beyond rational daring. Halder eventually backed the plan, not having anything else to offer Hitler, and was denounced by the German generals as the “grave digger” of the Panzer force.
“….the new plan provoked a storm of protest from the majority of German generals. They thought it utterly irresponsible to create a concentration of forces in a position impossible adequately to supply, along routes that could be cut easily by the French. If the Allies did not react as expected, the German offensive could end in catastrophe. Their objections were ignored and Halder argued that, as Germany’s strategic position seemed hopeless anyway, even the slightest chance of decisive victory should be grasped.[46].”
Well, the Germans fed off their own combined arms tactical proficiency but mostly fed off the plain old stupidity of the English and French generals who couldn’t react to the unexpected. So we got the defeat of France and England, the great German Blitzkrieg legend, and an endless stream of god awful Dunkirk and Winston Churchill movies.
By the way, what the Germans started, the Soviets perfected in their great “Blitzkrieg” huge enveloping campaigns of 1942 to 1945 beginning with Operation Uranus surrounding the German Sixth Army which won the war against Germany. Don’t forget, however, Soviet Deep Operations Theory which was also begun by the Soviets in the 20’s and 30’s and brought to perfection by Zhukov, whom many say was the greatest General of WWII.
I recall Lambert going to a Galligula rally and judging the man to be competent, but so far 20 months into the charade of having a vengeful village idiot ruling the roost while wearing his incivility like a badge of honor, i’m aghast.
The only thing that could conceivably save us, is Politenessman wielding his stainless steel hankie…
http://users.snowcrest.net/rrpap/Politenessman1.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/31/50360557_58f204c465.jpg
Curse that Putin! He has now tricked Germany into spending tens of billions to build a LNG port that isn’t even needed due to continental overcapacity, lock themselves into a 20-year contract for gas from Canada, start to spend billions to build the infrastructure to get it from this future port to the delivery network and billions more building a fleet of ships to get it across the Atlantic in an operation effectively starting from scratch. Can’t have been a great confidence builder when last winter the US had to bring in a coupla ships of Russian gas to meet a shortfall. Oh, and all the while having Germany depend on the reliability of contracts being fulfilled by any future US administration (Trump version 2.0?). And just to mock Germany, Putin continues to sell Russian gas at a far cheaper price through a network already in existence. Dash it, man! How fiendish is this man.
Just want to say thank you, Jerri-Lynn, for the last week with so many thought provoking posts with your unique perspective and excellent linky goodness.
When it comes to NC there is no other like you all. Not even close.
Well said.
Re: White House expected to to warn of sanctions….WaPo
John Bolton: ‘”America’s long-term security depends on refusing to recognize an iota of legitimacy” of the court, he wrote.’
The war criminal worms are worried about their own safety. This is the best news I have seen in months, maybe years, and I wish the Palestinians all the best in their efforts to send them to the Hague.
Re: White House expected to warn of sanctions
Evidently Bolton has succeeded in his further efforts to mangle international law. If the ICJ even dares considering a case against Israel, or U.S. soldiers in our various redoubts, we’re now going to freeze the assets of ICJ judges or forbid them to enter the U.S., or worse. Maybe tactical nukes to their homes?
Coincidentally, we’re throwing the Palestinians completely under the bus this morning, and evidently No. Korea announced it is not giving up its nukes, though I never thought they would.
Some days America makes me sick to my stomach.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/10/politics/us-bolton-icc-plo-intl/index.html
In ‘pro’ wrestling, oftentimes the good guys will go to the dark side and be the bad guy for awhile, all in pantomime for the adoring or horrified onlookers, but then again everybody knows that it’s fake, a put-on in which no casino in Vegas will take a wager on, as it’s merely athletic theater.
That’s what we’ve become…
I agree. Last year Pelosi bitched that “Can you believe it? There are still people who are angry at me for not impeaching Bush.” I remember this because just a few days earlier we had gotten a push poll about the Democratic Party, and her about-face on that issue was number one on my long list of grievances.
They are getting what they begged for, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Now the chickens are (hopefully) coming home to roost, and all of those people and countries whose rights and concerns were so arrogantly disregarded are now getting their say. It would appear that everyone is now sick to their stomach of American overreach, and that is cause for hope that maybe some change is finally in the air.
Actually, Mr. Bolton has no problem with the ICC going after soldiers. It’s when they have the temerity to suggest holding those who issued the orders accountable he gets all hot and bothered:
For the full text of his remarks to the Federalist Society: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/full-text-john-bolton-speech-federalist-society-180910172828633.html
“CBS’s Moonves Toppled by Harassment Cases, Redstone Clash”
Won’t be sorry to see him depart the scene. This was the guy who cancelled “Star Trek Enterprise” simply because he does not like nor understand science fiction and got it confused with “Star Wars”. Not only this of course. So he brings in “Star Trek Discovery” because he want CBS All Access to succeed. Now if done right with an experienced crew and actors, it could be easily done and CBS would just need to clear a space in the parking lot for all the dump trucks to drop their loads of money off. Instead, it becomes a spectacular fiasco that blew up underneath CBS, Netflix and anybody connected with this new series. They even resorted to plagiarism for some unknown reason. If you ever get the time, there is a 24-minute video explaining all the controversies behind the scene under his management. It gets so bad that it almost gets funny. Oh well, maybe he can get a job with CalPERS. Video mentioned at-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLl17YXrAZY
Agreed that “STD” could have been good if done with a bit of respect for established canon. The show bears no relation to the ST universe. A small community of you tubers have been actively discussing (and hoping for the downfall of Moonves to lead to a correction). Overlord DVD is the leading and most entertaining voice fighting the crapification of sci-fi TV and film.
Thanks so much to all for curating links during the well-deserved break. I am amazed at the continuing quality of both links and original reporting. It actually can lead to tangible change!
Yeah, Star Trek canon needs to be respected! In the second episode after the pilot of ST: TNG, Will Riker and the other bridge officers had no clue who Captain Kirk was despite recognizing Scotty who thought Kirk could be alive despite being present at his first death, and early episodes indicated the Klingons were part of the Federation, not just allies. Make Star Trek Great Again!
I should note that Captain Lorca spoke highly of Elon Musk, and given the twist, it might have been a shot at Musk. I will say I am disappointed by the absence of Garth of Izar, and as for no one mentioning the ship “Discovery”, the DS9 writers did a back of the envelope calculation to guess how large Starfleet was. The very conservative estimate was 40,000 ships.
The link to Elon Musk smoking pot should be catagorized under “Burn, Baby, Burn.”
On another note: did anyone else notice the irony of Musk wearing an #Occupy tshirt? That should have produced outrage.
You mean the billionaire defense contractor?
His shirt said occupy mars. I think that’s a great idea as long as he takes the entire 1% (kids and grand kids too) with him.
There’s a fun game I play whenever a 1%er is talking. In my head, at the end of every sentence they say, I think “You first!”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/governor/ny/new_york_governor_democratic_primary-6526.html
Any NY state gov race watchers looking at this? Nixon’s not even closing the gap against Cuomo at all since July? Unless these polls are way off, no progress in 2 months has got to be seen as a big failure.
Anyone have any insight on this one?
No insight but I will say entrenched Democrats are really, really hard to beat and we need to celebrate the occasional AOC rather than expect the table to be immediately overturned.
Cuomo and his like have:
1) All the power of incumbency which
1a) Gives him a lot of chits to cash with power brokers who can afford to spiff his image up yet again
1b) Gives him plenty of ribbon-cuttings and the like to seem like a Democrat to the regular Joe who doesn’t pay daily attention
2) Even the well-informed regular Joes and decent, if they exist, power brokers are afraid that any upstart may lose the general. NY has had plenty of Republican governors. Better (it goes in their minds) to have a guy with ‘D’ even if he’s a continual problem behind-the-scenes than an ‘R’ that can right out in the open defy you.
Polls for NY primaries that I have watched this year have shown no resemblance to reality.
This one in particular. Balter was the local dems pick. Perez-Williams was pushed into the race by the national dems and was supposedly up by 13 points. Balter won by 25 points.
https://www.syracuse.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/06/why_was_ny-24_poll_so_off_dana_balter_finished_strong_pollster_says.html
“Perez Williams had a 13-point lead (45-32 percent) in the Spectrum News/Siena College poll conducted June 10 to June 12. But in the end, Balter won by 25 percentage points (62-37 percent) in Tuesday’s primary election.”
Strong finish or the polls favor the powerful and well moneyed candidates?
They predict results based on past elections and turnouts. The 2016 polls were modeled with the idea it would match the 2008 results of Democrats, Republicans, Independents which ignored the whole turnout operation that the Democrats and especially the Clintons won’t match.
I remember an article on Gallup’s original idea for polling, but it wasn’t really about predicting as much as helping campaigns (political or commercial) tailor their message. If you polled enough red haired people, people with freckles, and people who wear funny hats, you could predict what a funnny hat, red haired, freckled person would think and tailor your message or make your message more accessible. The State Senator running for Congress or statewide might know his area, but the people over there might not like his accent or want to hear about Issue X before Issue Y even though they might support the State Senator’s positions they just need to hear it in the order of Issue X before Y.
Taking this out, Nixon should be using polling to have a better idea of how to pitch to upstate types or refine what she is doing. Opening up with the Subway might play in New York. I know a former state legislator and when she lost she ran one issue oriented ad which was a testimonial of a retired military doctor (staff) saying she was great on veteran’s issues. She was and had her own connections. This was true, but how did it play in her district? Its the area of the state with the low rate of veterans. She should have known better, but polling should have been used to address this problem because she was bringing up an issue no one in her district cares about.
” to pitch to upstate types”
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Upstate doesn’t have any bearing at all on what will happen with the dem gov primary. It will be completely decided downstate, as it always has been. If the “upstate voter” were to have decided the 2016 dem prez primary, it would have been Bernie. Hillary couldn’t even carry Albany County, seat of King Cuomo and his court.
That the polls always seem to favor the wealthy, well connected choice of the DNC seems to be a built in bias.
My mother is an Upstater. Don’t get her started on Downstate and its out-sized influence on New York State politics. Just don’t.
The hicks from NYC constantly try to stratergerize politics in NYS and the go to “smart sounding” line is always something something “upstate”
Where is the green?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Democratic_primary,_2016
Actually she probably has won upstate just by not being Cuomo. If upstate NY had any say Zephyr Teachout would have been the Democratic nominee rather than Cuomo last election. It was the NYC metropolitan area that won the primary for Cuomo. And those polls reflect numbers just slightly lower than Teachout’s. Which either means they are just being lazy, because Andy has pissed Off a lot of the metropolitan area voters since then OR is indicative of how much the fix is in because you know whose people count the votes.
It will be very interesting to watch what happens with the vote counting “machine”. Lots of races lately where the machine advantage downstate has been completely neutered. Lots of newer faces working their way up through the machine downstate.
I don’t know about fancy New York Polls but here in mass cappy capuano was supposed to win and didnt. I actually did a 20 minute phone poll /survey before the primary and dont see how it would have told anyone anything of value.
Are you much more likely, somewhat more likely , or slightly more likely ,slightly less likely , somewhat less likely , or much more likely to vote for the candidate?
Read the question again please? I have no idea sorry
> The Air Force is determining ‘the appropriate process’ for Elon Musk smoking pot
1.) does the government no longer do drug tests and require cleanliness for employment or high security access?
2.) Elon Musk did not inhale on the Rogan show.
3.) I bet Elon smokes a lot of weed but we don’t have any evidence yet of how much.
The Verge article is a waste of space.
I also want to know if Tom Delonge has been subjected to a drug test but nobody is reporting that one either as far as I have been able to tell. Maybe they are subjected to a testing regimen like the ones that Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds had to go through?
Elon was doing a drug test, and aside from ‘stareoid effect, didn’t seem any more out of kilter than usual, which is to say he reminds me of a runaway tv screen skidding up & down on a broken tv back in the 60’s.
He didn’t even smoke it! Looks like he thought it was a cigar.
Can’t believe that is the only thing that came out of the interview.
Tunnel Boring savant-
“earthquakes are essentially a surface phenomenon”
There are many, many other bits of ridiculous in that interview. The take away is that he smoked pot. He pulled a Bill Clinton– He didn’t inhale!!!
Everyone should have a relationship with The Herb. So many people know all about it while their primary source is drug war propaganda and their primary point of reference is alcohol. Ain’t that exceptional! It’s 2018, start over with this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujDHCTLpWy8
“Moscow Has Upped the Ante in Syria”
The Russians have committed a bucket load of military resources to the upcoming fight which has nothing to do with the upcoming Idlib campaign. They are there solely because of the planned western intervention to save groups like al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra and ISIS in this region. Not just my opinion but the US itself identified these groups having control of those province not that long ago. Turkey obviously does not want the Syrians to take back Idlib as they have plans to keep this province for themselves. The Syrians have mostly won the war against the Western/Saudi backed terrorists and so this amounts to one last chance to reverse the course of the war and let it continue for years more and all the suffering that that would entail.
After the sacrifices the Russians have made they are not about to let it all go for nothing which is why the piling in of Russian forces. Trump seems to be onboard with a fight as at first it was ‘we will attack as soon as a chemical attack starts’ but now it is ‘we will attack if we see civilian casualties’. Maybe someone should point of what happened in Raqqa. I don’t think that the US/UK/F group (and maybe Germany) will go after Russians forces directly but if a few got killed they would probably just fob it off as an ‘accident'(Oops, our bad!). The Russians will tolerate minor strikes like the previous ones but if serious attacks are made to destroy the Syrian Air Force and maybe kill the Assads then it will be Kitty bar the door. The Coalition cannot send in their Air Forces to demolish the Syrian military as the Russians probably have the capability of denying all access to the battle theater.
The Turks have pumped in more tanks and weapons in a 300-vehicle convoy but they would be going up against a battle-hardened Syrian military with container loads of captured anti-tank weaponry. The Turks would probably not being able to provide air cover for their isolated forces. In any case the Syrians might appreciate the opportunity of facing off with the Turks who up til now have been providing all sorts of weapons and supplies to the terrorists that the Syrians have been fighting.
Meanwhile the propaganda is flying thick and fast with British talk of ‘more babies than terrorists’ in Idlib so please let them all be. The stuff that I have been seeing on TV is as bad as the stuff that I saw in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. Are the western military proud of this service that they will be tasked to do? Or will it be a matter of ‘What did you do in the war, daddy?’ ‘Shut up son. I don’t want to talk about it.’ Fighting to save groups like al-Quada from attack? I can think of 3,000 people who would have thought that a terrible idea but nobody is listening to them anymore.
The Russians are pre-emptive the continuing generation of Muslim unrest, to prevent the unrest from affecting the ‘stans, and so protecting Russia itself from unrest to its south.
The US geopolitical strategy appears to be use Muslim unrest to destabilize Russia and destroy China’s new belt and road.
The propaganda from the usual suspects (Britain, US) is getting past the point of being farcical. The latest being that somehow they know that Assad has already “ordered” a chemical weapons attack on Idlib.
Not sure if this was Bolton’s idea but it is consistent with the increasingly desperate tone coming out of the White House (see sanctions on the ICC.)
Assuming he didn’t just accidentally type “CC: White House” on the memo to his military commanders authorizing mass killings (oops!) how/why would Assad have telegraphed such a thing? I mean if there were a CIA mole on the inside, by now that would have been leveraged into a drone strike to take him out directly or at the least sending all the battle plans to the CIA sponsored rebels/Al Qaeda, who at this point have gotten their arses thoroughly kicked and are down to their last province of Syria.
And rather than leak it to the media, if such intelligence did exist I am certain it would be kept secret and used to position every satellite and drone available to record the alleged “atrocity” for the world to see … a rather pathetic and lazy narrative even for this gang.
Surf’s up in Lemoore!
I wonder how far the ‘beach’ is away from the F-35 squadron based @ Naval Air Station Lemoore?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/09/07/the-worlds-best-surfers-head-inland-to-catch-a-wave/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c77e77e0be36
“California tries new tack on gun violence” — I’m telling you, Chris Rock had it figured out a long time ago: the 5 thousand dollar bullet. Buy all the guns you want….
Will the counter to that be 3-D ammo printing or DIY ammo kits?
Smuggling…
This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II
From Wikipeda:
It goes on to list these examples (exhaustive, recently?):
Attrition warfare and cannon fodder are listed under also-see, presumably they are distinct enough.
Since no nation is exceptional, those not mentioned above can not be assumed to be immune from using it.
Let’s keep all this in mind, when we ask if Beijing will sacrifice its middle class.
I’m not too worried about a human wave coming at us from the People’s Republic, as I figure most will get tired by the time they reach Quemoy or Matsu.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article218029535.html
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Perhaps we could get the NPS accountants in cahoots with the folks from CalPERS, as there’s a lots of wishy numbers involved.
Each plant from a bust being worth nearly a couple grand, yeah right.
More seriously since it’s legal and all that in California, it bums me out that ‘Meskin DTO’s are still plying their traits in the back of beyond, and not only do they make a mess of things, 5 or 6 campesinos are cooking over an open flame for the 4 month duration of gardening.
If a fire gets out of control miles from off trail where the activity is, it’s incredibly difficult to fight-my biggest concern, aside from them fouling the water supply when using a wide variety of chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers to grow something where the local soil is for crap, often cutting down the canopy carefully to hide their efforts. They also leave trash wherever it might lay, a real shambles.
Environmental damage or impact.
One more to the list: all that water for the precious weed, while other not-favored trees die from thirst.
Between, say, a sequoia and a marijuana plant, I’d let the latter perish.
Regarding the value of the plants.
Long ago a not-so-bright friend of mine was growing 2 plants in pots in a window plainly visible from the busy street below the window. He got busted of course. They included the weight of the soil in the pots to arrive at the total weight of the marijuana described in the criminal complaint. They probably watered the plants right before weigh in. SMH then, SMH even more now.
Cannabis can be and is illicitly grown without any significant environmental impacts. There are a swath of states where it will, in fact, happily grow wild even under decades of significant eradication pressure with no fertilizing, irrigation, or pesticidal inputs required at all. The hills of S. California are, however, spectacularly unsuited for that.
States that choose to should allow essentially anyone they want to grow as much cannabis as they like in the same way a brewer isn’t capped at some arbitrary amount of beer they can make. Pay the taxes, obey the state and local regulations, and that should be good. Why is it the problem of the “wet counties” to help enforce the dry laws in other counties or states? You want to ban cannabis? Fine, but don’t expect everyone to unconditionally play along.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Alcohol_control_in_the_United_States.svg
In the map linked to you can see wet and dry counties exist side by side all up the Lower Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. I’m sure the sellers in the wet counties adjacent to the dry ones aren’t expected to hold back from supplying cross-border demand. Heck, that’s not only good for the economy and helps raise public revenue in the wet counties, that’s good ol’ capitalism in action, something to be celebrated, right? You want to put in border controls across thousands of miles of often remote borderlands and pay for it all yourselves? Go ahead, it’s your money, your states.
“Drunk And Disorderly”
Hahahahah! Haven’t heard that expression in a while.
Might Sparrow from the archives!
Mind The Trigger/Taser Happy Yanks
Wasn’t feeling it yesterday, the first Sunday of the NFL season.
The teams are ho hum, the grievous injuries I witnessed made me wince even on the 3rd time I was forced to glimpse in slo-mo, a man’s head twisted in a way that nothing good could come of it in the future tense.
My way to gauge how the league is faring is when breast cancer awareness comes along and the players get to sport pink, but that’s obviously not enough in this day and age of lack of interest as of late, so I propose that the cheerleaders perform topless on the sidelines, so as to ramp up awareness and audience.
Contrast this with the recently concluded World Cup. Here in Tucson, this event was followed with a passion that’s usually reserved for University of Arizona sports. I was amazed at how engaged my fellow Tucsonans were, and I will also confess to cheering for Russia.
Will anyone knee to have females play football with male cheerleaders on the side?
That’s one more privilege waiting to be de(con)structed.
I read that the New Orleans Saints have a male cheerleader.
It would be presumptuous of any of us to say we should at least see some female kickers or punters, because we should not limit them to a few selective roles.
Wasn’t Bush 2 a cheerleader as a preppy?
yes. https://funfactz.com/funny-facts/george-bush-cheerleader/
Here in CA we are in a drought, and would like our water back. A small canal dug from WI to the source of the Colorado River will suffice.
#PagingElonMusk
/SARC
It’s not as if California hasn’t had catastrophic flooding about every 200 or 400 years, and by the way, we’re due for a gullywasher.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_flood_of_1605
Just imagine a perennial lake 300 km’s from the coast in the Mojave desert as the aftermath of the 1605 deluge?
Now, that’s a flood!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Was always fascinated by descriptions of Tulare Lake.
People Might Be Getting the Swedish Elections All Wrong [Zaid Jilani @ The Intercept]
This guy has absolutely no future as a DCCC consultant.
RE: ISPs Engage In Last Gasp Bid to Derail California’s Net Neutrality Law
These passages are bitterly hilarious:
Talk about no shame.
The USA has some of the slowest, most expensive broadband service in the world. Japan and Korea have universal, fiber optic broadband that is up to six times cheaper than so called “high speed service” in US tech hubs like San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, D.C., Boston and New York.
If Brown vetoes this bill, he should be recalled from office for sheer stupidity.
Never file under stupidity what might be any item of great interest to donors.
Good point. The voters certainly don’t matter anymore.
Sensational Antidote today! Wow.
Under Trump, the jobs boom has finally reached blue-collar workers. Will it last? WaPo
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There is that quantity vs. quality issue, but here, WaPo is conceding somewhat good news, for now (we’re reminded), for blue collar workers.
Why is it giving Trump, or us, that point? Is it a response to Amazon critics?
Perspective matters: http://www.unz.com/proberts/more-jobs-fictions/
As regards Monster; I couldn’t agree more. As someone who has watched the family farm from afar for over 65 years the few small farmers that are left and the agribusiness companies are on a train that will ruin the land that has sustained the country for thousands of years. First they chased yield with fertilizers that led to ground water pollution so bad that in our part of Iowa our well water is undrinkable. Then they chased yield by cutting down all the trees in the wind breaks and tree lined highways that Frankie Roosevelt planted to stop loss of dirt from the fields. Then they chased yield by cutting down every tree on every riverbank that once kept the soil from silting up the rivers so they could plant right to the waters edge. For the past 10 years the farmers have been awash in grain, building huge storage silos so they could slowly sell grain throughout the year instead of all at once. Now those silos are chock a block and they are storing grain right out in the open, giant piles of it.
Everyone should stop chasing yield. Start chasing what is good for all of us; water we can drink, trees to soak up carbon, soil that won’t blow away and rivers that are navigable. Steinbeck had it right.
Brexit: clash of the pygmies EUReferendum.com
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I read that we might have descended from the pygmies, or that they were the first modern human (or something like that).
In any case, first or not, I hope the term is not used derogatorily here….clash of pygmies, versus, what, clash of titans or giants?
Re access to cellphones, when I was employed by a state government we employees were told not to put any work content on personal electronic devices, because it would make the entire device accessible to legal discovery. Employees who needed access to work content outside the office were given devices to use for that.
Here are some quick-takes I recorded while perusing yesterday’s no-comment Links:
o What would happen if we all took smart drugs? BBC — Uh, we’d all become smart druggies?
o Ellsberg Says Assange, as a Journalist, Can’t Be Tried Under Espionage Act | Consortium News — Well, not in a nation of laws, he couldn’t be.
o Obama, who once surveilled reporters, criticizes Trump over press freedom | NY Post — Obama should have his middle name legally changed from “Hussein” to “Chutzpah”.
It’s the UK. There is a typo:
16 of UK’s largest van fleets to go eclectic: 18,000 eclectic vans by 2028
Does anybody else have a problem with Woodward’s “one tweet from WW3 story”? My paraphrase: Trump was going to send a tweet, but then NK told him not to because it would start WW3, so he didn’t and war was avoided. How the heck does NK know what Trump is going to tweet before he tweets it??!? What are these magical “back-channel” communications where tweets are shared before their tweeted? I thought Trump composes his tweet storms on the crapper every morning. Perhaps the mystery op-ed author is Trump’s Groom of the Stool?
Jerri-Lynn,
I really appreciate you including news outlines from India. Thank you,
Rohan