Giant Goldfish Shows Why You Should Never Flush Fish Down the Toilet Smithsonian
Climatic Constraints on Aggregate Economic Output NBER
Private equity races to spend record $2.5tn of dry powder FT
Financial temptation increases civic honesty Science
Syraqistan
Tehran confident that resisting Trump is working FT
Sources say downed UAV penetrated deep into Iranian airspace Duffel Blog
VIPS Memo to the President: Is Pompeo’s Iran Agenda the Same As Yours? Consortium News. As a side note: “CrowdStrike never gave Comey a final report on its forensic findings regarding alleged ‘Russian hacking.'” Oh.
Venezuela
Venezuela government says it derailed a coup attempt, opposition denies France24
Venezuela foils attempt on President Maduro’s life: government Deutsche Welle
Brexit
Jeremy Hunt Did It For The LOLs On Twitter After Boris Johnson Dodged TV Debate HuffPo
Boris Johnson’s premiership could be an ‘opportunity for disaster’, warns ex-civil service chief Independent
‘The Rooster Must Be Defended’: France’s Culture Clash Reaches a Coop NYT
French parties unite against Macron’s airports sell-off EU Observer
Macron’s War LRB
The French Insurgency New Left Review
Sanctions against Russia at Council of Europe lifted sparking outrage from Ukraine Independent
China?
Siege of Hong Kong police headquarters ends without clashes after 6-hour drama by extradition bill protesters South China Morning Post
What Carrie Lam should do next Chris Patten, Asia Times
Why Hong Kong’s Protesters Are Turning to G-20 Leaders for Help NYT
‘Democracy now, Free Hong Kong’: Thousands of protesters urge G20 to back anti-extradition law movement Hong Kong Free Press
Differences from 2003 Big Lychee, Various Sectors
* * * Trump and Xi’s ‘sidelines’ meeting set to overshadow G20 summit FT
Huawei Personnel Worked With China’s Military on Research Projects Bloomberg
The Confused U.S. Messaging Campaign on Huawei LawFare
Made in Vietnam: US-China tensions spark a manufacturing shift but not without growing pains CNBC
China No Match for Japan in Southeast Asia Infrastructure Race Bloomberg
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a bloody, logistical nightmare CNN
Trump Transition
The Night Donald Trump Became President The American Conservative
Thousands more National Guard troops to arrive in Tijuana San Diego Tribune. Mexico’s National Guard, not ours.
NRA pulls the plug on NRATV live programming amid dispute with ad agency, lobbyist resignation USA Today. Couldn’t happen to a nicer swamp creature.
2020
Which candidates America was Googling during the first Democratic presidential debate Mercury News (Geo).
Winners and losers from the Democratic presidential debate’s first night WaPo. Oddly, or not, WaPo erases Gabbard on Afghanistan.
Why Democratic Party Establishment Is Holding First Debate Of 2020 Primary In Miami Kevin Gosztola, Medium (UserFriendly).
Warren and Sanders: Compare and Contrast Counterpunch (ChiGal).
Medicare for All Splits Democrats on Future of Health Insurance Bloomberg
The Official Democratic Debates Drinking Game Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
No Easy Answers on Reparations NYT
Democrats in Disarray
A Democratic Think Tank Is Promoting Pushback Against Climate Lawsuits Truthout
Boeing
FAA finds new risk on 737 MAX and orders Boeing to make changes Seattle Times
Larry Page-backed Kitty Hawk partners with Boeing on flying car development The Verge
FAA reassigns three in office overseeing Southwest Airlines: source Reuters
Our Famously Free Press
Class Warfare
The new left economics: how a network of thinkers is transforming capitalism Guardian (MF).
The Case for Combining Tuition-Free College with Debt Relief Benjamin Studebaker
Antidote du Jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
237 comments
Comments are closed.
“Which candidates America was Googling during the first Democratic presidential debate”
Democratic National Committee: “Google! What the hell. Tulsi Gabbard got the most Google search traffic during the debate!”
Google: “Don’t worry – we’re on it. Just give a few hours to tweak our algorithms and your problem will go away”.
Something I’d been surprised about, after posting Kevin Gosztola’s article on DNC’s choice of Miami (Everglades, burning swamps as a background) was; mention of GND, M4A, livable minimum wage, everybody daring to question Beto, Tulsi’s smackdown of Ryan… these were all cheered, vociferously?
I didn’t see the debates, but I think this backs up Yves comment earlier that Gabbards manner of speaking resonates with ordinary people in a way that lots of out of touch journalists and insiders just don’t get. In the same way that Warren quite likely switches off people when she is talking in the wonky way that insiders love.
As happened so often in the last election cycle, the evidence from social media shows that regular viewers often come out with diametrically opposed conclusions than insider reporters. Which is why post-debate polls are much more interesting than articles written by political journalists in the aftermath of a major TV event.
This is true of everything from cars to movies. “Critically acclaimed” means “Hated by customers.”
Yes, and architectural award means totally unusable, as NC has pointed out.
The Z blogger speaks:
Instead of watching the debate … I scanned Twitter for reactions … This was something I did in the 2016 during the Republican debates. It turned out to be a much better gauge for how people were reacting than what was coming from the media.
Three things were fairly obvious, based on Twitter. One is the Democrat media was instructed to sell the hell out of Warren, which they tried hard to do, but Warren … is a pseudo-intellectual poseur.
Another thing that was made obvious to enthusiasts is that Beto O’Rourke is just a slacker who has been getting by on his looks … he is a bum.
The third thing that was obvious reading left-wing twitter is they could not stop noticing Tulsi Gabbard. The Democrat media was programmed to ignore her, so they will ignore her, but the lower ranking members, who don’t get to see the memos from the party, were noticing their hell out of Gabbard. She was the only candidate who said anything of substance picked up by the enthusiasts. The rest were judged on style. Gabbard was noticed because she made valid points about foreign policy.
> Gabbard was noticed because she made valid points about foreign policy.
Gabbard has style, too!
Do you agree with Z blogger that Warren is “pseudo-intellectual” and a “poseur” ?
Me? I have no particular opinion on her. Except that she cheated by playing a race card that she wasn’t entitled to.
Have you found out yet whether that woodpecker you mentioned as being on the ground sometimes . . . was a green woodpecker?
compared to Sanders, they all come off as posers
> Warren … is a pseudo-intellectual poseur.
That’s just nonsense. Warren has narrow but deep scholarly gifts (contract law, bankruptcy). Her issue is that outside her wheelhouse, she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know, and goes with conventional wisdom. She also had bad political instincts. Both these reasons mean that she should not be at the top of the ticket (and that she’s vulnerable to intra-party attack. If you run on “plans,” better make sure those plans are rock solid).
Yuuuuuup.
I like Warren and think shes a great academic professional unwittingly gatekeeping for the $$$%
While I only caught part of the debate my impression was that Warren lacks the political gift and is likely to go nowhere. Gabbard clearly does have that gift if allowed to break through. Of course regardless of what the general public thinks the DNC may have other ideas and a heavy thumb on the scales.
Warren was put in the undercard to shield her. All she had to do was not implode. Tonight I expect everyone to pile on Bernie Sanders to destroy him. The DNC types are coalescing around Warren.
Amen!
That’s actually a pretty positive thing, compared to where we were before. Warren for all her problems of being an Eisenhower Republican is still a significant upgrade over the pure neoliberal trash they were earlier pushing. If they run Warren, I will vote for her (though that’s as far to the right as I’m willing to compromise).
Thing is (assuming my Don Vito, didactic tone), it don’t stop there. DNC LLC knows their way to crush Bernie for good, is to use Warren. We’d mostly vote for her, and I’m guessing so would a LOT of ‘Murika? Then, they’ll use Biden to unleash their flying monkeys at the convention. Superdelegates ARE the very slumlords, vulture capitalists,’ criminal’ lawyers & Pay Day Loan monsters Warren’s purports to smite. I was surprised by everybody feeling free to call out Beto, last night. So, once Biden takes his dive: Buttigieg & Harris? Shuckins, if I’m gonna lose any sleep. Their portfolios are hurting now, but they’re steady pulling up the ladder.
yeah i have no faith they wouldn’t stab warren in the back, too, though she might be of hold my nose and vote for her against trump quality.
> Warren was put in the undercard to shield her
Wait, what? You don’t believe the DNC drawing was random? [snicker]
Warren is simply not good on camera. Gabbard on the other hand always appears calm, steady and in command, even when she’s indignant about some foreign policy outrage. Unfortunately Warren appears to have two settings, boring, wonky, wine and cheese technocrat or agitated, shaky grandma that is convinced the home health help has been stealing from her. Maybe that’s why the network and media bigwigs seem to be rallying around Warren. They know Trump will mop the floor with her and they hope to keep their plutocratic, tax cheat, deregulatory President that as an added bonus also happens to be great for ratings.
The only person the Democrats have that has the stones to stand up to Trump is Gabbard. She offers him absolutely nothing to unleash his rhetorical might on, no faux pas, no ridiculous personality. She is all substance, which will force Trump immediately into questionable waters where lots of doors lead lots of places he wont be able to handle going.
Your characterization of Warren is spot on. She was rather unbearable last night, the de facto ring leader of the playground kids yelling at one another. Then there was 8 year old St. Booker in the corner pleading, “Can’t we all just get along [in Spanish]”. It was a complete farce.
I agree with both of you.
The Dems have a history of physically attractive candidates–Gary Hart, John Edwards–being mysteriously sabotaged by the press. It’s almost as if they (or the “liberal media”) are in deadly fear of charisma.
A candidate with the ability to appeal directly to the people is an elite nightmare.
I believe that Hart and Edwards, in spite of their good looks, were sabotaged primarily for going against the interests of empire: Hart had a role on the Church Committee that investigated the abuses of the CIA (The empire’s strong arm), and Edwards was a pre-Bernie Sanders who spoke about inequality and poverty and in his second attempt at the presidency positioned himself as a New Deal Democrat who favored organized labor and favored a strong New Deal jobs program.
agreed, for example they like beto who seems to be a good looking person. no doubt it’s true they fear a candidate with the “wrong” ideology who is also attractive and charismatic.
> Warren is simply not good on camera.
She was quite good in those YouTubes savaging bankers — the ones where she was wearing a red dress. Perhaps (imperial, Clintonite) purple does not suit her.
That said, there was something about the V-shape of her brow and eyebrows that made her look querulous and ineffective. (Same deal with one of the male interchangeable candidates, who looked distorted along the vertical axis where Klobuchar looked distorted on the horizontal.) I really think there was some sort of lighting/makeup debacle to go with the mic debacle; or maybe I don’t watch enough TV to understand that weird is the new normal.
The steady gravitas of Gabbard has always been a pleasure to behold, that’s what happens when you have actual moral conviction. People have radar, honed over millennia, that help them read this: is this person lying? Do they really believe what they are saying? Can I believe them?
I think Trump would have a very tricky time debating her since she can easily call him out on substance and he would have very limited zingers against her.
Of course we can’t have her, I’m sure Twitter will censor her tweets just like they announced they will be doing for Trump. So instead of a presidential election let’s have an election for the members of The Council for Algorithmic Fairness. Google, Twitter, and Facebook. The Council then decides what wars we start, who dies from no health care, etc.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-27/twitter-censor-trump-tweets-ahead-2020-election
I didn’t see the debates either, though when I read of Gabbard’s google search ratings I concluded it was mostly a result of the media cultivated and directed ignorance endemic among the American public, whose curiosity was piqued by an unknown, pretty face among a crop of wall flowers. I think Yves mentioned this as well regarding Gabbard’s presentation.
Unsurprisingly the whole corporate electoral debate extravaganza is much more about superficial appearances than a discussion of substantial issues and reflects how those manufacturing consent can rely on human cognitive shortcomings and the effectiveness of money in the electoral system to manage the outcome. Trying to determine heads or tails about who’s ahead in this botched process is akin to deciphering the appetites of the Roman sacred chickens.
But presidential elections are about personality and they should be. Saying you are for something is one thing. Making it happen is another.
Personalities / charisma are important but if decisive explain Nixon’s landslide over McGovern on that basis.
Anyway I think my point was elections are about appearances, something even less substantial than personality, whatever that might be. I think Hume and others more recently postulate there may be no there there.
The presidency should be about issues; in the US’s unmanageable tripartite system of checks and balances designed to fatigue and suppress the will of the people, the national will is summarized in the office of president who advocates for policy.
It’s all rather moot as TPTB will surely not let a candidate who openly says the rich control America and our wars are pointless to become president.
This is true in theory, but these debates are not actual debates where logical arguments and approaches to problems are presented and clash. Here bloviating idiots spout off moronic, pseudo-moralities while smiling so that they look good. Whatever policy jargon comes out is completely meaningless in this arena (see Castro claiming trans people should have the right to choose regarding abortion–what??) What is relevant is the way they handle the situation, their personality. That tells you more about who is honest and likely believable.
Debates even in their purest form are not a particularly good process for examining issues. The spectacle put on by the Commission on Presidential Debates as others have noted is pure obfuscation as far as discussing the issues go.
As for judging honest personalities through the media filter I refer you to Marx (Groucho)
“Sincerity is the key to success. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.”
I had the cynical thought, “debates” like that are in perfect parallel with a social media, smartphone distracted, world though. It comes too fast, it makes no sense, who knows, let me check my twitter feed. And we’re kinda used to it.
It all must be resisted including taking much from debates unless one reads them, and even then, but how many have the will to resist such brain candy for political junkies? Maybe like slow food we need slow debates.
Right. Neil Postman in, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” made the observation, “form excludes the content.”
I’m not sure if TV is or is not a good medium for complex issues or just that the commons of the airwaves has been impounded by a few mega corporations whose interests are maximising profits and maintaining control of the money machine.
I’ve watched book tv and some youtube stuff that succeeds in taking the medium in depth into issues.
thanks for reminding me about that book.
it’s very relevant and reminded me of what the romans throughout history did…
‘bread and circus’!
Public choice theory – ?????
> to deciphering the appetites of the Roman sacred chickens
You think those chickens weren’t gamed?
When the sacred chickens wouldn’t cooperate on a planned naval expedition a Roman general supposedly exclaimed as he tossed them overboard, “If they’re not hungry perhaps they’re thirsty.
If I recall he should have listened to the chickens.
Didn’t he lose the battle and the Romans kill him for it?
“But nearly every time she showed up onscreen, she saw a big rise in search traffic.”
I was mad last night when I saw how few times she was called on, but on reflection, it seemed that her fewer, better words would leave a better impression on viewers relative to the import of her content, and a break from politiblab.
i.e. “We must guarantee abortions for transgenders!”
Is this what the MSM Democratic Party has become?
A bunch of social-justice horn-honking circus clowns, spinning more and more plates, on a high wire with no net?
My opinion: Bernie+Tulsi is the only ticket to beat Trump.
Imagine Tulsi in a one on one debate with Pence? She would massacre him.
Yuuuuuup.
Bernie w/Tulsi as VP is what i recommend. If warren is smart, she will endorse them.
But she aint smart. At least, not in that way.
I can think of a real head-snapper that both Sanders and Gabbard could engage in. Perhaps it is a “second best” maneuver to the ” all Decent Democrat delegates vote for the Decent Democrat with the most delegates on the First Ballot”.
And here it is. Sanders should state publicly that if nominated, he will request Gabbard to be his running mate. And Gabbard should say that if nominated, she will request Sanders to be her running mate. It will sure get people talking.
Maybe the CFP Fake News MSM will scream about it before they realize they wanted to censor all word of it.
i don’t think it’s a matter of intelligence or political instincts, i think she’s already made a decision to be the left side of the overton window, to win the nomination. maybe not explicitly, but as a strategy.
“Politiblab” is an interesting word. So is “politigab” Some people might like the sound of one of them better. Other people might like the sound of the other one better.
“Politigab” came to me based on “bafflegab”.
There are two other dark reasons why Tulsi would make the best VP choice for Bernie. We have seen how the Blob and the Clintonites have tried just about anything to bring Trump down beginning with the day after the election. This was their reaction to a billionaire businessman with a few unorthodox views.
How would they react in the extremely unlikely event that Bernie Sanders is elected President? Having Tulsi as VP would serve as a life insurance policy for Bernie.
Second, and this is why I’ve placed this as a reply to you because of your experience, if any James Mattoon Scott gets ideas about a coup, my impression is that Tulsi Gabbard is almost uniquely capable of speaking to the rank-and-file troops to urge them to remain true to the Constitution.
LIke I said, dark reasons.
Golden Path right thurrrrrrr
Abolish NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, Secret Service…They all have too much power.
They could never travel together.
Vice President Gabbard would have to live hidden-from-view in Dick Cheney’s ” undisclosed secure location”. Maybe she would want to have Dick Cheney’s man-sized safe moved into her office. It would show a level of political sense of humor.
+1000
The problem, of course, is the type of crap articles on Gabbard that are likely to come up using Google as already configured. I can’t remember many in the MSM that weren’t blatant smear pieces. But it is good she got some attention. That may be the best one can hope for in a “debate” like this.
One thing is for sure, she has to continue improving her official and unofficial websites if people want to learn about her.
TulsiGabbard. org
is beautiful, but “Burn pits” is the first alphabetized entry.
It should be the number one issue facing Americans:
Healthcare, followed by foreign wars, etc.
Tulsi, please hire a pro!
One thing I noticed about her “store items” is in addition to caps, cups, pins, etc., she includes a yard sign for $20. I’m old enough to believe in the power of yard signs. Not many neighbors follow you on twitter but they all notice the sign in your yard.
Terry, I will raise you one:
http://www.freewayblogger.com/
This is some serious public exposure.
I half watched the debate, while reading Twitter and Naked Capitalism. Twitter argued that Warren was getting more debate time and was being “protected” by the moderators, who didn’t ask her minefield-type questions.
Tulsi Gabbard’s voice and presentation matched the seriousness of the issues she raised. Her responses were sobering and probably resonated with many viewers.
Starting immediately after the debate and continuing, anti-Gabbard attackers came out in force, with the usual smears, such as the candidate of Putin and the far right.
I would simply expand a little on your comment. The tonal quality of Tulsi Gabbard’s voice and her speech rhythm are major assets. There is confidence and clarity in the way she presents herself. Frankly, she was the only one last night that I could imagine in the oval office.
Agree.
What she should have said about not raising her hand to give up private insurance was:
“I didn’t raise my hand because I have public insurance as an army major and member of congress.
“This is what I want to give to all Americans as part of the taxes they already pay.”“
Agree. Her demeanor and her voice made her stand out above all the others, including Warren.
I read the Who Was Googled article before watching the debate, so that may have biased my thoughts.
I thought Gabard was very straightforward and I could certainly see why people would be interested in her: an anti-war veteran. That she is pretty probably doesn’t hurt. It reminds me of when my Great Aunts would gush over John Edwards – talking about how much he reminded them of JFK. She did strike me as the only candidate that seemed dedicated to keeping us out of the next stupid war we have little interest in.
I thought Klobucher did well, though I thought her saying a gun buyback wasn’t confiscation was a bit ridiculous.
John Delaney surprised me by not sounding like a lunatic: my default assumption for Democrats from Maryland. Him and Tim Ryan (the Ohio guy) seemed to be going after the blue collar concerns in particular.
I thought Warren started strong, but with so many folks up on the stage, I guess it’s hard not to fade a bit.
>Democratic “Debate” #1
Anyone who thought that was a debate is delusional. I just kept thinking how Marshal McLuhan would have had a field day analyzing the media/medium…the simulacra, the “heroic” music, the eye candy, the camera panning in and out, the moderators standing/sitting, posturing.
As far as substance, those who stated that the most serious existential threat facing America is the Russia (Bill Deblasio) was just sucking up to Maddow, China? would Walmart Agree, Climate change, perhaps if we don’t blow up the planet with nuclear weapons, the obvious answer…jeez what a bunch of morons.
And what the hell was “Beto” randomly going off on a Spanish linguistic pirouette for, not to be out done by Booker shortly after…
I’ll take a 2 hour interview on the Joe Rogan Experience or even a town hall debate on CNN over what the DNC and MSNBC put on last night.
I went in favoring Tulsi, and I left favoring Tulsi…though I was impressed with what appeared to be Warren’s unwavering support for M4A…which runs counter to equivocations I’ver heard from her in the past.
I think Beto will be fine. Next time, he just needs to bring his bass and open with a punk version of “Deportee” in Spanish. He will soar to the top of Neera’s chart.
Tulsi did herself some good as demonstrated by the search tallies, but I hope she will engage more with the folks on the stage next time the way I’ve seen her do in her one-on-one TV interviews. That will be tough since they’re all trying to shun her, but the more relaxed and conversational she is, the more compelling her presentation. She can afford to relax since she’s the only one up there telling the truth about our foreign policy and military.
I wonder if the Tulsi team, knowing ahead of the debate that she would be mostly shut out, strategized to be more “quiet”. I’m rooting for Tulsi and was frustrated that she didn’t impose herself more like the other candidates.
But rewatching some of the debate clips this morning, I can now see through the eyes of new voters that perhaps Tulsi stood out exactly because of her calmness. This might also explains the uptick in the Tulsi google searches.
The abrupt nature and volume of search evinces just how well media had rendered her invisible & just how deep and dark Google’s Memory Hole remains? PS: Funny how Jacobin & WSJ seem to be able to SEE?
Notice how the Washington Post called her “a loser” in the debate, contrary to Google, Druge, etc.
What else could the CIA, MIC, NeoCon mouthpiece say?
It’s like the tale of the frog and the scorpion.
She could try engaging with her stage-mates and smiling and looking nice for the cameras. Her stage mates will shun her and be mean with those same cameras watching. People watching at home will see that and wonder.
I liked the look on Beto’s face when Booker broke out in Spanish. His accent was a bit wooden but he spoke well enough to impress.
It was bad as information yes, another decent source of seeing candidates in action is forums, the poverty forum, was an immigration forum, supposed to be an abortion forum etc.. They usually are posted on youtube.
Tulsi, hands-down, out of the line-up.
re: “Warren’s unwavering support for M4A”:
Didn’t Obama campaign with repeated, and seemingly sincere promises that any healthcare plan he signed must contain a “public option”? After his election, didn’t Obama then claim he never campaigned on a public option?
After the debate, there were some disturbing Tweets about Gabbard’s policy positions in 2014, concerning Russia and Ukraine. Her policy position on this issue could have been written by Nuland. Has Gabbard evolved on this issue?
Not sure if her positions now are different from what is listed here. Looks like she sponsored some bills condemning Russian actions in Ukraine and Crimea. A sour note for me.
“Sources say downed UAV penetrated deep into Iranian airspace”
Of course stuff like this happens in real life and sometimes it is caught on film-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW9Fiu9IlA4 (Definitely NSFW)
Figure I heard is 4 miles inside Iranian airspace (via radar tracks published by Iran, YMMV).
We won’t know for a while, but I imagine that Trump had an inkling that he was getting “Gulf of Tonkin”-ed by Bolton and pushed back when some general admitted that the drone was in/right on the cusp of Iranian airspace.
that said, it’s appalling that the gang who couldn’t get Iraq II right is clamoring for more war and the press just cheers them on/serves as their enablers.
Bolton, after his previous “performances” should not be let anywhere near real levers of power.
That said, human race does not have a good record on repeatedly giving the levers of power to those most likely to misuse them against all evidence.
Adding to the echos of “Gulf of Tonkin” was the crew of 38 (as reported by Iran, which would obviously mean spies on the ground in Dubai)
Wikipedia reports the P-8 has 7 mission specialists and 2 crew, for a total complement of 9 which would suggest there were some 29 additional souls on board, doing who knows what.
I have read allegations that these were a multi-national bunch, which might come in handy if you were trying to assemble a post-crash coalition.
A comment on Andrei Martyanov’s blog put forward the scenario that the P-8 was bait for Iran’s anti-aircraft missiles with the drone there to record the shoot down.
For what it’s worth, we have been sending drones and US Air Force warplanes into Iranian airspace for years. One of the main purposes is to probe defensive radar positions. If the Iranians respond by “lighting up” their defensive radars, response times and locations are mapped. Often the Iranians do not light up all their positions, just one or two consistently known sites in order to track our stuff, but they leave the rest quiet. We continue to do it in order to force a previously unknown site to mistakenly “light up”.
The typical method is to turn off the flight transponders a few miles from the Iranian Border and in that way we say we have no records of any incursions and then “legitimately” deny, deny, deny (the plausible deniability tact).
But of course that can backfire. Back in 2011, a CIA Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drone was flying over Iran when an Iranian cyber warfare unit spoofed it into landing in Iran itself. Obama demanded it back but Iran said no. Cheney wanted to bomb it but even Obama was not belligerent enough to try that. Iran then reverse-engineered the captured drone in spite of the Pentagon’s doubts and now the Iranians have drones in service based on what they learnt from that RQ-170-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident
The U.S. has no right to be offended about anything being shot down way over there.
“Iran Air flight 655, an Iranian airliner was shot down by the missile cruiser USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988, over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 people on board. The passenger plane, which was in Iranian airspace, had been incorrectly identified as a fighter jet.”
Imagine an Iranian missile cruiser in the Gulf of Mexico, shooting down a United flight over Alabama, mistaking it for a fighter jet?
Just shows how f* up “our” foreign policy is.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-44614512/when-the-us-shot-down-an-iranian-airliner
You did notice the source was Duffel Blog?
I’m pretty sure the Duffelblog article is a parody. Or more precisely a pair-ody.
…or was it? They had been training for this moment!
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/05/30/that-f-35-sky-penis-above-luke-afb-wasnt-intended-to-be-sky-penis-base-says/
I heard the crack Iranian Red Devils air force team can make a reasonable facsimile of a vagina mid-air, bringing about the possibility of unprotected consensual contrail intercourse, should our jets be @ the rumble.
HOT AF
Bring the Russians and Israelis for a Sky Gangbang
Even though I always enjoy Duffelblog’s satire, I admit the deadpan headline had me wondering, until I read the piece:
While Iran maintains that the UAV definitely intruded into its airspace, the country claims, “It wasn’t as deep in there as the U.S. would like to think it was.”
“While the drone did violate our sovereign airspace near the Gulf of Oman, we barely even noticed it was in there, and we definitely received no pleasure from it,” said Iranian Gen. Hossein Salami. “We were forced to shoot it down after it repeatedly ignored our warnings to pull out.”
Also checked out the Wikipedia entry on Duffelblog, where among other things, it notes:
Yet another article, about Guantanamo detainees getting GI Bill benefits, resulted in a formal inquiry by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell. The letter from McConnell’s office to the Pentagon leaked in 2013, generating national headlines and subjecting the senator to mockery on cable news.
I’m surprised at those figures, as I’d always assumed that China had supplanted Japan in infrastructure supports. My impression has always been in poorer parts of Asia is that Japan provides a great deal of direct support (most of the roads in Laos and Cambodia have been built with direct Japanese aid), but seem very poor at the soft power aspects of leveraging this support into local influence. A lot probably comes down to historic sensitivities (i.e. the little matter of Japans behaviour in WWII).
But I think culturally the Japanese seem to struggle at using soft power in a way that is much more natural to the Chinese, with their many links to ethnic Chinese expats around the region. In short, while the Japanese provide more money, and the money is almost certainly better spent, the Chinese will in political terms get more bang for their buck.
Maybe another factor PK is all that murder-thingey that the Japanese were doing back in WW2. A lot of countries in that region bear a grudge against the Japanese for that reason, especially both Koreas, and there is not a lot of trust for Japan – and with good reason. Japan was not suppose to be building aircraft carriers but what they did was build helicopter carriers and now they have announced that a carrier will be deploying F35s aboard which of course makes it an aircraft carrier. A lot of countries in this region will have taken note of that military sleight of hand and having a nationalist leader is not a confidence builder either.
Aircraft carriers either work or don’t work. What do these nations think of the effectiveness of these ships?
More importantly, centuries-old anti-Chinese history in the region, unfortunately, comes into the play versus the more recent events of WWII. These diaspora Chinese have or had been suspected of divided loyalties, and that complicates making deals with China. These factors are internal. The factors relating to Japan are more external, and more visible. I think this disadvantages Beijing.
I think the article is a bit misleading. First, the table at top shows China at 210 bil (assume it is USD), while Japan is at 240 (not clear why the figures in the text are different). The biggest difference is in the Philippines and Vietnam (8/29 vs 25/74). That Vietnam would be cautious with Chinese investments is to be expected. But more importantly, look at the countries Bloomberg picked – they are mostly to the south of China.
If we assume that China’s biggest investments center on integrating Eurasia (aka BRI, Belt and Road initiative), then many investments would fan out west. Bloomberg does not look at the Central Asian countries (i.e., the five “stans”), Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq and Syria.
Misinformation and propaganda work best using omission.
The article is up-front from the start, as the title says it is looking only at Southeast Asia.
Perhaps it should look at the whole world, but yesterday, there was a link about China winning the cold war on the Mekong (that is even smaller area-wise than Southeast Asia). If looking at Southeast Asia was a bit misleading (by not looking at the whole world), that article would be even more so.
It is misleading. Even if one considers “southeast Asia,” the headline misleads. A more accurate one would say “Vietnam,” not SE Asia. This article on yahoo finance has a handy table that shows the level of investment in all those countries. As I said, only Phil. and Vietnam have more investments than all others. Context matters.
It says it’s looking at Southeast Asia as whole, and it does that.
Of the 10 countries in the table shown, Japan leads in 5 of them, and ties in another one.
If you go with the figures of $367 billions vs. $255 billions, in the text, you can maybe say ‘no match,’ but if you go $240 billions vs. $210 billions, it’s not quite ‘no match.’
But I don’t know if it’s about whether it should say ‘Vietnam’ or ‘Southeast Asia.’
Those ethnic Chinese are not expats only. Not a few can trace their ancestry there back to as early as the Ming dynasty.
I am somewhat neutral in opinion toward him, but Bernie Sanders had a nice opinion piece in the hard copy Wall Street Journal this morning titled “Trump is the Worsts Kind of Socialist”.
Basically stating that what we have now is socialism, it’s just a socialism that supports the big corporate interests and not common people or small business. This is something I see a lot of support for from the folks I know that are big Rush Limbaugh fans. Its the same type correspondence (affinity?) that you get when Elizabeth Warren wrote the Two Income Trap, and Republicans paid as much attention to it as her left leaning colleagues.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-is-the-worst-kind-of-socialist-11561589372
So, we are all socialists now and the only question is socialism for whom. Sanders delivers a rhetorical masterstroke.
Very interesting that the WSJ allowed Sander’s Op-Ed. Perfect, reality-based framing from him. Bravo
And on the day he’s debating, too.
i’m pretty shocked they allowed that.
Public service as in “Know thy enemy”?
Just a thought…
the usual msm preference is to smear the person instead of allowing them a platform to convince people of their position.
But I would guess that the average WSJ reader would be among those most likely to react with disgust and derision to Sanders policy platform.
Smearing him with the truth, perhaps.
Can we please not refer to what is happing in Miami as a “debate”?
Sure it was, just American style. Anything in American politics that is primarily televised is just doomed to be stupid.
Debates are fairly stupid anyway in an age of mass literacy. There is room for poking hokes in the arguments of the state in the case of a trial, but nothing can be gleaned from debates. Take Biden. He’s an obvious moron, but debates against two of the biggest dopes in politics made Biden seem like a good debator.
Buckley v Vidal. One was an evil segregationist. I suppose it was useful for novelty aspects, but nothing new comes in these events. Lincoln-Douglas style debates are vaguely illuminating, but Lincoln’s star rose because his positions in the debate were widely disseminated after the debate series without Douglas’ part.
Town halls can be okay. Politicians can’t be expected to be omniscient. Being able to bring awareness of issues to politicians and other voters in a public forum is important especially if there is a follow up process, a way to ask the question the original questioner didn’t think of due to inexperience.
A town hall meeting is not in the cards for my Congressman, people might start asking questions.
De BAIT? Asking Warren if she’d run right out and fetch up everysomebody’s 223 WallyWorld BushMASTER was somehow interrupted (I was in a room, but facing AWAY from the TV?) DIYD-DIYD questions managed to avoid Israeli snipers, swamp fires, Beto’s funding, Wall Street, K Street… Warren showed up for a debate at NB/DNC Thunderdome.
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/06/democratic-debate-winner-bernie-sanders/
A Varsity Rally, with the ‘Heathers’ moderating ?? …. A Quick Draw @ the NOT OK Corral, guns misfiring ?? …. A ToastedMasters practice run ?? …..
“Made in Vietnam: US-China tensions spark a manufacturing shift but not without growing pains”
Yeah, about those growing pains. Trump is already making tariff threats against Vietnam-
“Well, a lot of companies are moving to Vietnam, but Vietnam takes advantage of us even worse than China,” Trump said.
Asked bluntly if he wants to “tariff” Vietnam, Trump did not say no.
“Well, we’re in discussions with Vietnam. Vietnam is almost the single worst – much smaller than China, much, but it’s almost the single worst abuser of everybody,” eliciting a “wow” from his interviewer.
Trump did acknowledge that Vietnam was a large buyer of West Virginian coal, “which makes me happy.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-threatens-vietnam-which-has-been-benefiting-from-us-tariffs-on-china-2019-06-26
So Trump is now showing he is as clever and insightful a geopolitical strategist as McNamara and Kissenger.
It’s a Domino Factor situation alright, the Bizarro World variant.
I don’t know about that but it might be entertaining to watch the “Fog of War” back-to-back with an aged Trump starring in “Fog of Tariffs” — or perhaps a series of “Fog of …” documentaries starring old man Trump. He seems quite able to generate a large number of future “Fog’s of …”. Kissenger impresses me as a much darker more malevolent creature than McNamara or Trump — I picture him as Loki’s older brother making preparations for Ragnarok.
Consider this:
North Korea as the next manufacturing hub. Incredibly docile and controllable population with nothing, willing to work for nothing. South Korea, as poor as NK just 70 years ago, an example of what Koreans can do.
Industrialization can happen a lot faster now, as the evisceration of the Midwest manufacturing complex demonstrates.
You don’t think the globalists have considered this?
I am waiting for the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad down to Seoul to get underway. Wasn’t the region of Korea which became North Korea a manufacturing hub a few wars ago? And wasn’t the region of Korea which became South Korea a largely a region of peasant farmers?
Of course the interests of those you called globalists seem different from the interest of others looking at power arrangements in Asia.
Interesting link.
and
I think its true to say that Xi’s honeymoon in world opinion – and arguably China’s honeymoon as a soft power – is now over. People have long been willing to give China and the CCP the benefit of the doubt, no doubt aided by the hopes of oceans of Chinese money. I don’t think its necessarily paranoid to see China as an increasingly malignant presence when it comes to its willingness to extend its powers over other countries. The CCP will no doubt be patient as it clamps down and ‘normalizes’ Hong Kong, but it does seem that young people there won’t let that happen without a fight.
06/27/2019 NPR: Trump Wants To Withdraw Deportation Protections For Families Of Active Troops
This brings to my mind that this is a leading point towards bringing about a draft of true blue Americans. Think about it. A segment of the active duty troops who will, and apparently are, missing in the numbers. And, as is already discussed, many young people in this country are already without a lot of choices for good jobs, college opportunities, without crippling debt for themselves( and often their parents or grandparents), unable to even contemplate the proverbial “A Merican Dream” of buying a starter home, having a family, security of careers or work advancement in jobs, the Spector of climate change disasters, the environmental destruction all around them, the fact that many of their cohort are depressed or have high anxiety and on “medications “. This is a feature: the kids ,and many of their parents or other care givers, will be much more vulnerable to not resisting a chance to join our brave troops to protect and serve the homeland. I hope with so my heart I am way of off base in this awful scenario in our country. Maybe, if Bernie, Tulsi, Elizabeth win the Democrat nomination there will be a chance to stop the endless wars. In the meantime? Maybe we have had some kind of “divine intervention”? After all, we are still here on planet earth.
RE: Case for combining tuition free college and debt relief
“The tuition-free component looks forward, protecting the right for those who are yet to pass through the education system, protecting the freedom of future generations and ensuring they will always get to make meaningful choices early in life…”
The tuituon-free component would best be about giving people meaningful choices at many stages of life. That is how this would work. It would best be for more people than 18 year olds – that could right a lot of BS.
And he can’t admit that sine people just made stipid uninformed choices – they didn’t have a dream or plan.
The idea that at 17/18 years old a person is supposed to make a decision on the wisest investment for how their potential skill set/interests will function in future job markets over the next many decades and how that skill set will pay off the debt investment is kind of ridiculous. Especially with how rapidly markets are “disrupted” now days.
I’m old enough to have heard folklore about a bygone era when employers offered job training to new hires. Now they expect potential hires to have paid for their own training at overpriced institutions that used to be meant for education of the whole person and not just about developing marketable skills.
the ultimate sub prime borrower?
+1 we need a much deeper transformation in training and jobs. There is a decent book on this titled “Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs” (Peter Cappelli). It’s not due to a “skills gap”. The American job market is badly broken even when there are jobs around it is slow to fill them, more so than job markets many other places, and companies don’t train anymore and that’s part of it. The problem is that even practical degrees don’t define marketable skills the narrow way jobs do, for that you really do need on the job training.
at my second job, I work for a small NFP that trains low income workers to become nurses.
Classroom studies and on the job training, paid for by the NFP, not the hospitals employing them.
It’s hard to get funding from the private sector, and most if the funding comes from businesses/individuals outside of the medical sector, the industry that this NFP serves.
it is crazy to me the disconnect.
I would also recommend Charles Hugh Smith’s
Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy
He is an interesting writer who can condense fairly complicated subjects into an objective and informative daily essay. Another device in the toolkit of citizen awareness.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
Yes you are right of course, however tuition at 40 or 50 +, even if it was free as the breeze, isn’t necessarily going to amount to meaningful choices unless we have social transformation.
It just becomes all that “retraining/reskilling” that ISN’T WORKING. We quite literally don’t even have effective protections against age discrimination. This is the most base level requirement. And anyway noone is going to hire freshly minted middle age or older people to a brand new career, well maybe a job guarantee will. So the people whose jobs are gone and who kill themselves, they are going to keep on killing themselves, very few of the free college programs help them (Bernie’s program is a broader economic program though ..)
In this same vein, Studebaker (Sanders?) fails to address the slackers and the clueless who built up debt, but failed to graduate. Moreover, how does one discriminate between such people and motivated students who failed for lack of aptitude or failed due to circumstances (family or personal illness, or family financial responsibilities)? Statistically, about 50% of college entrants fail to attain degrees but get to keep their debts.
OFFS, You just don’t discriminate between them.
jrs: As you say, let them eat training just ISN’T WORKING. Aircraft Maintenance Engineer trades training and business admin focused on accounting for me. Highest grades in the class with the aircraft maintenance training and no less than an A in any business class – and if it wasn’t for my parents having been quite successful from about my late teens on I probably wouldn’t even be able to afford to live under an overpass right now.
I also suspect that due to your parents success, they were able to live in a good neighborhood with an excellent, or at least good, school system that provided the foundation to get the A grades. A foundation that poorer people, and in some cases black people with money, but not the right skin color, are not able to monetize the advantage of a superior school system in a good neighborhood.
I think RMO is saying he couldn’t monetize it either :)
Which is the folly of all privilege discussions, privilege that can’t be turned into anything in the real concrete world, isn’t privilege (although anything in the real world, can and probably should be broadly defined). Alleged “privilege” that leaves one sleeping under a bridge is something else entirely.
I’d like to promote the VIPS Memo to the President to must-read, if I may. Demolishes Pompeo. Demolishes Comey. Demolishes RussiaRussia (again, but you may have to have more ammunition in your argument). Demolishes the idea that the rancid alphabet soup of “intelligence” agencies has any claim of competence.
And the list of signatories is interesting: Mike Gravel (!), bless him.
Maybe Trump is finally waking up to the fact that as far as Bolton & Pompeo are concerned, Trump is a disposable asset and if Trump loses re-election in 2020 because he started a war with Iran or got into a brawl with China, they would not care so long as they got what they wanted. I bet that that is one thing that Tucker Carlson pointed out to Trump.
Demolishes the idea that the rancid alphabet soup of “intelligence” agencies has any claim of competence.
—-
I think Trump came into the office thinking that. Didn’t he refuse their daily briefings*?
*Not sure anyone came out to support him on that. Not Tulsi, if I recall correctly.
I agree–must read for VIPS memo–
Best part is the revelation that Trump told Pompeo to meet with Binney
“You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk to you.”
VIPS–maybe what Folks with real dirty hands do when they dry out or realize Karma is a real thing?
Goooood Moooorning Fiatnam!
Who would’ve thought that back in the world half a century later, we would count on Vietnam to send them booty bags of empty containers that China doesn’t want anymore, while taking advantage of their lack of tariffist-a tax, on their country, in hopes that they can supply us military uniforms et al, a wee bit cheaper?
Naked opportunism is the name of the game.
Sounds like McConnell and the GOP has found a bipartisan issue they can work together with the Pelosi/DNC sector of the Dem Party on:
Same talking points as we hear from Delaney and other “establishment” Dems.
I saw one of their ads out here in Hawaii. It hit on the usual thing about long wait times for treatment in countries that have single payer. No mention of how under our system a lot of people can’t get treatment at all…
Oh yeah, when I recently needed cataract surgery here in Canada I was given a wait of all of a month for the first eye (I chose to defer it a little until after Christmas) and then for the second eye I had to wait just long enough for the first eye to heal and for the doctor to be sure everything was good with it. It’s an absolute nightmare here I tells ya.
I love how they act all worried about how awful it would be for the good citizen consumers they address to wait when they clearly don’t give a flying (family blog) about the same people suffering and dying bankrupt.
Off topic DRM rant. I just thought of an album I bought in three different formats over the years: vinyl, cassette tape, and compact disc. I no longer have any of them, so to hear it now I play it on YouTube. It may not be long until that will be impossible, so I will have to buy it again.
Cassettes are making a comeback, at least in the UK. I saw some for sale at a gig last weekend (£10).
Quite why is beyond me. I never took to them first time around – though they were the only option on the go for a long time and lent themselves to copying I guess. Must be something ‘authentic’ going on.
Just had a flashback to 1981, skiing @ Snow Valley, Walkman clipped to my pants, listening to a cassette playing Duran Duran as I flung myself down steep embankments repeatedly…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEgseXuLUZ0&list=PLHIVsjOzX-UuBINULb_Ll1hkzWwWD3Hfd&index=5
Milennials n gen z think cassettes are hip. I hate cassettes. Vinyl FTW
It took quite a while for CD’s to start outselling cassettes – which was good for a lot of the musicians because for a long time into the CD age record companies paid lower royalties on CD’s on the pretext that they were incurring extra costs by taking on a “new technology.” They also routinely kept breakage clauses in contracts where the artist isn’t paid on all the records/CD’s/cassettes that the company shipped arguing that a certain percentage would be broken in shipping and not sold. Cassettes could be OK if you bought high quality ones and recorded and played them on good quality decks – something that surprised me the first time I tried it – but the prerecorded ones really were quite often rubbish.
I’m a physical media person myself. I like having it in my hands and in my control. There’s also a lot of stuff which just isn’t on the online and streaming services.
Still have all my CD’s and any digital music I have has been purchased from the artist and sites I am able to download the music from – and I back up those downloads onto CDs for safe keeping.
1. This protects my music from “disappearing” and allows me to listen when not connected to the grid.
2. I like to make sure what I’ve paid goes to the artist and not just a streaming site.
Speaking of music, if you are in the mood for a new band that is amazing (sounds like if Cowboy Junkies rocked like Led Zepplyn) I highly recommend them. Been hooked since I first heard them.
https://palodine.bandcamp.com
I’m vaguely intrigued just what Hauwai will come up with, to supplant hateful Android apps? I’d p2p’d numerous early R&B & baroque recordings from individuals on something called “the internet” before Microsoft tried to make you pay for recordings you’d purchased, previously. I’d a great uncle almost get pulled into a clothes wringer (Lower Paleolithic?) he’d believed his wife was tugging flirtatiously at his vest… at first.
I’d like a phone that doesn’t come with Facebook already installed. BTW, on my current phone, said app can’t be deleted, just disabled.
What’s that $400 Pixel 3, with the same spectacular camera? I’m wondering if Alphabet gets some tax break for distribution of a way past that pesky Bill O’ Rights? Nobody’s going to DARE to buy the unlocked Huawei or Oppo competitors?
> app can’t be deleted, just disabled
It’s almost like you don’t really own your phone
i’ve read that updates can re-enable apps that have been disabled, so you have to keep checking. i don’t know if it is true.
Guess I’ll have to buy the White album again.
I saw that-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKlmoCzBPdw
Also, not that I should be encouraging this, but since you’ve already purchased the albums in the past I guess it’s ok: you can use iSkySoft’s media downloaded to download audio in any format you want from YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, and just about any other site. That way you can keep your music instead of having to rely on YouTube.
Just to note that the LRB commentary by Didier Fassin is an excellent dissection of the Macron presidency.
Yes, the last paragraph in particular is a good summary. But it’s striking how far Macron’s iconography and discourse recalls, not Napoleon as is sometimes suggested, but Louis XIV. The ´populism’ of Macron that the article describes is in effect Macron’s attempt to recapture the idea of a direct and even mystical bond between the King and the people. This kind of nationalism is the nationalism of loyalty to your rightful ruler, whereas the nationalism of the gilets jaunes is the post-revolutionary nationalism of community and identification with republican principles. Revolution 2.0 anyone ?
If revolution, then Macron will have been Louis XVI (?).
That has indeed been suggested …..
He does seem to want to incarnate the state. Not ever a good idea. You’d think that even his mentor Attali would have warned him off such nonsense but all those guys are worried about is making sure that he’s France’s Blair.
A friend says people are afraid of getting rid of private health insurance because cosmetic peocedures will become more expensive. I thought about that in the selfie age and he may be on to something.
I thought that private insurance didn’t cover such procedures. Last I heard, the patients had to pay for them with their own money.
It depends on what you term cosmetic, for instance on account of political sway from the NRA many were covered under auspices of political expediency, and I might add that adding appendages ala Vishnu, isn’t just for looks, it gives you another arm with which to shoot your gat.
Missing news:
The UN rapporteur on torture has written a scathing op-ed in support of Julian Assange, in which he says the publisher was the victim of a smear campaign, and also says that MSM are snubbing the piece.
https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian-assange-b252ffdcb768
“This Op-Ed has been offered for publication to the Guardian, The Times, the Financial Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, the Canberra Times, the Telegraph, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Newsweek.”
thanks for that link – if anyone has a big Twitter following here, it would be useful to get it into circulation…
It had the feel last night of trying to sort out who would be best to be our trio of shot putters for the upcoming 1940 Tokyo Olympics.
I was kinda shocked, Comcast wouldn’t spring for Trump to moderate?
All the NEWS was going on elsewhere; wish we had a correspondent?
https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/06/woman-indicted-in-shooting-death-of-her-unborn-child-charges-against-shooter-dismissed.html
Re: Climatic Constraints on Aggregate Economic Output NBER
Unfortunately only the summary available. From a personal point of view this looks like the typical econo[family-blog] that focuses on GDP growth. Nevertheless I have to admit that papers like this may help to bring conventional economists to green new deals, with the caveat that conventional wisdom remains unaltered. I guess that erasing that focus would be the following step.
Couldn’t peer beyond the jargony paywalled summary but to me it reinforced the proposition that humanity is now and will soon have to deal with ever more massive and cataclysmic climate refugees.
Humans as they are now organised by nation state and a global corporate over and underlying structure are facing a paradigmatic shift that they are clearly incapable of.
At some point humanity either must embrace cooperation instead of competition as the overriding operative philosophy or perish.
Yep. Also, we’ve reached the point in which conservatism should be preceptive rather than voluntary but we are resisting its application
It’s going to be a world of heavily armed and patrolled borders, likely with much killing as well.
I hope there might be some way to avoid “bring[ing] ‘conventional economists’ to green new deals”. I don’t believe ‘conventional economists’ can contribute much of value to thinking about how to deal with Climate Chaos — any more than they have proven capable to meaningfully contribute much of value to thinking about political economics.
‘How the OPCW’s investigation of the Douma incident was nobbled – Working Group on Syria’
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/06/how-the-opcws-investigation-of-the-douma-incident-was-nobbled-working-group-on-syria.html
The Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and the Media have done some excellent and detailed work in this area — and have been viciously smeared for it in the British media. It is noteworthy that Pat Lang reposted their latest report on the OPCW fraud at Sic Semper Tyrannis. Given the MSM recycling of old anti-Syrian propaganda in recent weeks, it is worth checking out.
“Sanctions against Russia at Council of Europe lifted sparking outrage from Ukraine”
More than just outrage. Some people went ballistic. The Ukrainian delegation said they leave the body in protest, with one member even declaring “all Russians are b*******” after the decision and another compared the move to the appeasement of the Nazis in Munich in 1938. Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Georgia may also follow Ukraine out of the European Council in opposition to Russia’s return. When the German Foreign Office welcomed Russia’s return to the Council of Europe in a tweet, Garry Kasparov tweeted in reply ‘On behalf of Russian civil society forced to live abroad, f*** you. Appeasing a dictator and rewarding aggression will make things worse, it always has.’
I guess that some people just can’t take a joke.
Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian, Georgia and Ukraine…
They all are Russia’s neighbors (Poland is not immediately next door though).
Finland, also bordering Russia, is the one notable exception (going by the quote above, which may or may not have missed it).
Why are these neighbors not getting along with Moscow?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OrthodoxyInEurope.png
Historically Roman Catholic on one side, Orthodox on the other.
The faultline also runs between formerly Polish Galicia and the remainder of what is now one country; Ukraine.
Perhaps, but Georgia, on the list, is mostly Gerogian Orthodox, not Roman Catholic, and Finland, not on the list, is Evangelical Lutheran mostlly.
Not as close, geographically, Italy or Spain, for example, are Roman Catholic mostly, and are not on that list above. Perhaps distance negates the religion factor.
Maybe religion plays some part, but not the sole one.
Yes, I should have said the common thread was being on the historical border between Orthodoxy and Christianity (rather than Roman Catholicism)
Finland split their vote 2 in favor 2 against.
The 100% against were Estonia,Latvia,Lithuania Georgia,Ukraine and Poland.
Link to vote
http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/Votes/DB-VotesResults-EN.asp?VoteID=37964&DocID=18997&MemberID=&Sort=2
I don’t honestly know, but if I were to guess, it would be long memories keeping them from getting on with Moscow. Whenever and wherever there has been bitter and prolonged conflict, this is a human norm, and is the main reason why I say that no one ever truly wins war, not even the winners. These unforgiven memories persist and inform the actions and reactions of people and polities long after the fact, poisoning what might be.
I’m no historian–however someone commented here (anecdotally) about that fracture around the turn of the first millennium over doctrine.
While I’m still plodding around in it, I have figured out who got the gold and world influence out of deal. Putin professes a belief in the Othodox.
Religion is only a small part of it. Poland’s (or at least its elite’s) hatred of all things Russian dates back centuries. Here is one extensive article on the question:
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201705281054072276-polish-kingdom-history/
“These are the Soviet Union’s incorporation of eastern Poland into the Ukrainian and Belarusian republics in 1939, Moscow’s push to establish the Polish People’s Republic after World War II, and Poland’s absorption into the Russian Empire, in 1773, 1793, 1795, and finally, in 1815.”
In my humble view, it is also the fact that many Poles view themselves as a part of a grand nation, although, historically, the last time Poland was grand was during the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in the mid-15th to mid-17th centuries. It was partly undone by the Ukrainian Cossacks, who asked for the protection of the Russian czar. (There’s not much love lost between some Poles and Ukrainians.) Subsequently, this grand nation was torn to pieces – over the centuries by various powers, including Germans, Russians, French, and Austro-Hungarians. For some reason, though, the Poles cannot forgive the Russians. (Some of it is simple envy and resentment, imho, of a larger nation.)
The Baltic states have had different histories, but all three came under the rule of Russian czars as a result of wars waged against Russia (by the Swedes, Napoleon):
http://www.truelithuania.com/the-rule-of-russian-empire-in-lithuania-1795-1918-254
https://www.spottinghistory.com/historicalperiod/russian-empire-estonia/
https://www.spottinghistory.com/historicalperiod/russian-empire-latvia/
In 1918, Lenin had to sign a “peace” treaty at Brest-Litovsk, in which Germany appropriated the Baltic territory. (To be fair, the Balts likely chafed under the czars.) When USSR won WWII, it took the territory back (as is often the case with victors in a war). The Balts later claimed they were independent in between the wars, but in reality, they were under the German rule. Just like with Ukraine, they did well economically in the USSR, but old resentments die slowly. There were many fascists in Litva/Latvia. Now, that all three countries have lost significant chunks of population, reviving the hatred of all things Russian serves a purpose.
MLTPB,
They were all behind the Iron Curtain, back in the day.
Finland wasn’t though it lost a good deal of territory to the Soviet Union. It would have lost more had the Finns not fought as they did.
Beautiful horse – looks like an Okapi
The original source claims it to be a donkey.
I was assuming that critter was a photo tribute to the donkey debates.
Donkey Show-ty
Pancho!, bring me my hackneyed talking points~
“Oh Cysco! (systems) You don’t want to mess with those Gringo Politicos! Muy malo hombres! Grandes mentirosos tambien! I still much prefer los medicos on our side of the border! We have kept them.”
Apologies, Link not working – Axios article on trumps tweets….
Penguin stops printing Pedro Baños book after antisemitism claims
Investigation led by Julia Neuberger finds Spanish edition of How They Rule the World has ‘echoes of Jewish conspiracy theories’
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/27/pedro-banos-how-they-rule-the-world-penguin-antisemitism-julia-neuberger
Puff, this was based on a Jeremy Duns’ critique that is so thin skinned as to produce laugther: Duns for instance considered that the cover showing a blue octopus over the globe has “nazi reminiscences” because in Mein Kampf Hitler used octopus arms as a metaphor for world dominance. The author of the book has also been accused for being “pro-russian” by spanish conservatives when he was going to be appointed as Chief of National Security in Spain.
> octopus arms
Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall take its place! We serve the Supreme Hydra, as the world shall soon serve us!
Hahahaha! I wasn’t sure if “tentáculos” is something like tentacles in english and wrote that stupidity. When I noticed I couldn’t correct
HAIL HYDRA!
Capt America is my 3rd fav Marvel Superhero film behind Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok
Thousands more National Guard troops to arrive in Tijuana San Diego Tribune
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I’m kind of blown away @ how distant yet close tourist relations are in SD among the locals. My over the hill skiing group is all San Diegans aside from my wife & I, and all 60-70 years old and all have lived in SD most of their lives.
I asked 7 of them a few months back if any ever go to Tijuana, and they all shrugged their heads in a sideways fashion, nobody goes there anymore. Same thing with Rosarito Beach and points south. Back in the day, they all said they’d go 5-10x a year typically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vtF5GjVeaY
Last time I visited San Diego a decade ago I was told the Navy declared San Diego “Off-Limits” to its Sailors and Marines.
When I was growing up there long long ago, I used to go down to Tijuana with my dad to buy a couple kilos of tortillas, some monkey bananas, and apple mangoes. The tortillas were thick, soft, and delicious — made from ground corn you could watch grinding at one end of the little factory. [I don’t know where tortillas are made like that now — thanks to the US dumping industrial corn masa into Mexico, one of the ‘benefits’ of NAFTA.]
The refugee problems of the future are only just beginning. Thousands of National Guard along either side of our borders is a foul portent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IFYk–tfTw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YEfoQdj2bA
For those wondering about my idea/theory that there’s 2 primaries right now…check out the above clips.
The TYT crowd is openly pro-Bernie, but like Warren and they seem genuinely confused/surprised by this. I’ve been seeing this kind of pattern for awhile and couldn’t quite make sense of it.
I really think there’s a battle within more establishment/elite-ish circles….warren’s pulling that crowd left.
There’s also the more average people portion of the primary….where Biden’s electability/status quo ante message is fighting Bernie’s message of big, sweeping changes.
Don’t be surprised if media starts turning on Warren a bit more….she’s squeezing out Harris, Buttigieg more than she’s sapping support from Sanders.
Why on earth has she not had elocution lessons to lower the pitch of her voice? It’s amateurish to shriek at people whose support you want.
“Not my type,” eh?
She certainly can come off as schoolmarm-ish and shrill. Not a good look.
“warren’s pulling that crowd left.”
I don’t see that in those clips. I don’t see a wider awareness. I see one woman say that Bernie is extreme without explaining how he is extreme. A woman in the clip blamed him for splitting the party in 2016, as if a party that forces right wingers to share space with social democrats isn’t going to run into problems, especially given the trajectory of that party and the country. Another said he supported Warren and then said he also liked Harris. Are they in the same place policy wise? In another clip by TYT, when those people are asked about single payer, the younger woman in the clip that called Bernie “extreme” responded with “I’m a businesses student” and made it be known that she was indifferent to Warren supporting single payer. Pulling people left involves an increasing awareness of things, issues, power dynamics, how we got here and an appreciation for why we need structural change. I don’t see that in the clips.
I am not surprised by this though, since it is obvious that while people say that the support this or that policy, they don’t often vote based on policy. Warren herself is policy focused, but those people largely weren’t. It is sometimes just privilege, sometimes just not paying attention closely for various reasons, where they get their information (and propaganda) from, their own ideological biases, emotional attachment to particular politicians, sometimes even difficulties in making sense of complex issues. But, people vote for reasons that aren’t based on policy or real world impacts. Given the nature of the environmental crisis and the economic trajectory of the country, it’s disastrous. Fact is, people here are very policy focused. Many Democratic voters are not, which at least helps a bit to explain why people say they support this or that policy in that party and rarely vote for politicians that support those things.
” Another said he supported Warren and then said he also liked Harris. Are they in the same place policy wise?”
on paper with the policies they claim to support, yes. Harris is convincing people she is progressive. See her issues page. Now that said, I’m not shilling for Harris here, I don’t trust Harris much at all (but Californians probably have more of that perspective on her than much of the country seems to at this point). And then I am a bit iffy on my trust in Warren as well.
I don’t think we can reduce this to people not voting on policy, since many of the candidates propose decent policy (ok a few of them propose horrible policy but ..). The question is will they follow through.
I agree, I don’t entirely trust Warren, most will not follow through. I was responding to the notion that she is pulling people to the left. I do not see that, Bernie clearly has. I don’t know where I would place those people ideologically, only two of the people in those clips seemed to be focused on policy. One pointed out that Warren supporters that reject Bernie often lack substance and seem to not be very focused on policy. Seems about right.
Bernie and Tulsi supporters have left TYT. I don’t see what you see.
On to Jimmy Dore!
Found an interesting article by a former Sanders supporter (link below) who switched his vote to Warren because, in his opinion, Bernie is all talk and no action while Warren’s rhetoric isn’t as broadly appealing and inspiring but she makes up for it by actually backing up her words with actions.
The author examines their respective voting history to back up his assertions and he also points to Bernie’s July 2016 transformation into a Clinton sycophant who didn’t have what it takes to follow through with his “revolution.”
My Bernie supporting friends don’t like hearing that their guy folds like a cheap suit when the pressure is on but I stand by my prediction that the Bern will burn his supporters in 2020 just like he did in 2016. Just last week he said he’d vote for Biden if Aw Shucks Joe gets the nomination (because Trump) and he’d already signed that Democratic Party pledge a few months ago to vote for the Dem candidate (because Trump). How independent of him.
Warren I’m not a big fan of to be honest, her technocratic neoliberal thing combined with the American Exceptionalist “tough” talk is a bit much but the article raises some fair points in her favor that I hadn’t considered. If she picks Tulsi Gabbard as her VP running mate (yeah right) that could make things really interesting. Still, if someone is hell bent on voting Democrat Warren is probably a more reliable choice than Bernie.
Warren and Sanders: Compare and Contrast
I recall warren folding herself into the democratic valise pretty early on in 2016, am I wrong?
that article is already in Links cuz I sent it to Lambert. as a Bernie fan parts of it I found too dismissive of him, but its fundamental point that structural change should precede redistributive policies or they will easily be reversed is, I think, worth considering.
+2+
Because the plutocracy has great skill in diverting pro-democracy demands into non-strategic and even counterproductive dead ends each reform must be itself carefully-crafted to eliminate the loopholes.
The article though fails to make a convincing case that Warren is better situated to push those structural changes through. Was it her or Bernie that inspired people on the left (including AOC) to run, and who has pushed the entire policy discussion to the left, even in the dominant media? Was the media even discussing single payer before he ran? Was it her or Bernie that applied pressure on large companies to raise wages? Who has more experience and engagement with social movements? I don’t see at this point why it would be assumed that she would be better than Bernie on that, nor do I think that he is a pushover on policy. I prefer the single payer bill in the House to his, but he has a detailed single payer bill, the particulars of which he has been debating in the media for some time. Where is her plan? Her student loan plan, if you ask me, is in fact overly complex and Bernie’s is universal. His chief economic adviser, Kelton, is no intellectual or policy lightweight (in the same rough area as Warren) and she co-published a paper on the macroeconomic impacts of a total elimination of student loan debt, as well as the ways it could be accomplished, early last year. Bernie, when he talks about a political revolution, is talking about social movements pushing those changes through and is stressing the need to implement those changes as quickly as possible. It isn’t empty rhetoric, it is how structural changes have always come about. A series of reforms can turn into structural changes, or they can be reversed. The outcome depends on a number of factors. Any student of Howard Zinn knows that. To dismiss that is odd, for someone claiming to be on the left like that author.
+1
> structural change should precede redistributive policies or they will easily be reversed
Ding ding ding we have a winner
I’ll read it in more detail, I did read that article very quickly yesterday. It’s decently argued although no Bernie supporter will like it. But some major issues:
1) Warren is almost certainly more hawkish than Bernie – I mean if your litmus test is anti-war you go Tulsi and that’s likely to be the most consistent voice, but nontheless as regards Warren v Bernie.
2) he might be right that Bernie didn’t build a movement, he’s been there a long time afterall with nothing much but Vermont (I wonder sometimes if the guy just says to himself: I’m old, time to go all out while to make a change while I’m still around). But what is certain is Bernie circa 2016 at the very least INSPIRED a movement, there is really no way around that conclusion.
Bernie built a movement.
Trust me.
My problem with Warren is I don’t believe her. Last night she was suddenly all in for M4A. I call BS. The second she’s in she’ll dump that for her original, and obviously more heartfelt positions.
I would respect any politician more if they took an informed stance and stuck with it than pulling a weathervane act.
from the links: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/06/democratic-debate-winner-bernie-sanders/
As a 2016 Sanders voter in the primary and Stein in the general I don’t consider I was “burned” in the slightest. Sanders made an agreement to support the nominee and clearly considered Trump a far greater evil. Agree or disagree with those positions, but they don’t constitute folding.
Had he refused to endorse or run some vanity independent campaign he would have forfeited the ability to run in 2020, and it’s doubtful that his programs would have set the bar for other candidates as referenced in urblintz’s Jacobin link @11:28 am.
+1, I think he played a bad situation well. Where would he be and what would people be saying now if he had gone scorched earth and divided the dems in 2016? Instead he is now pretty solid, certainly not a shoo in, but not fringe by any means.
I had a number of problems with that article. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, a thoughtful analysis of them both from a leftist perspective. He quoted Barnie Frank approvingly, and said that he was “always a sharp observer of such matters”. I’d beg to differ, and what is his current job? What was he saying back in 2016? It claims that Warren supporters are paying more attention to specifics (based on polls where he pieces together information) but Sanders supporters are not. Does the link above by TYT show that? Is that everyone’s personal experience? Are there not Clinton types now supporting her? Are there no identity first folks? Is she not winning over some “moderates” and “third way” folks that support her at least in part as a means of opposing Bernie? Are those people policy-focused? Seems that supporters of Sanders are very focused on policy, that is the entirety of the reason I support him. He cited a litany of polls, which have been critiqued pretty roundly here and elsewhere, but didn’t mention the continuous propaganda against Bernie for years now by the entirety of the media, and most of the two parties. When people say, for example, that they are following things closely, what exactly are they following? Where are they getting their information from? Who is being polled? When people call themselves “progressive” or “very liberal”, what exactly do those words mean? How many “progressives” and “liberals” are now supporting Biden, Harris and the like? How many supported Clinton in 2016?
In regards to Bernie; he was fighting against NAFTA and neoliberal economics, the war in Iraq, fought against many of the things Warren now opposes when she herself was voting for Reagan and Republicans thereafter. He has long been involved in fights for structural change, going back to his college years. If Sanders supports structural changes, which the CFPB is not (although it is important in its own right), and if he is swimming against the current and surrounded by corrupt politicians in both parties that are opposed to the things Warren now says she supports, what exactly was he to do? He didn’t fail to build movements, the entirety of the left did. He was for some time a novelty, a socialist former mayor from a small town in a small state. Even now, Warren can propose reforms that largely keep the system in place, Bernie supports those things too and often did far before she did, but why is she more likely than he is to push forward the structural changes that need to happen? The article doesn’t make a good case in explaining that. Structural changes are different than keeping the system largely in place but modifying it to an extent. They both will run up against the same interests when it comes to structural changes. Despite this, Sanders was the “amendment king”. He was far outnumbered, went against the grain, so he did tons of work to make horrible bills less bad. Bernie recently did the bill with Yemen, and put pressure on large companies to raise wages. Hell, his presence alone is scaring the entirety of capital, those that own the media and those that own the two major parties. Analyzing Bernie in that era and Warren now is problematic and the article doesn’t touch on that.
Back in 2016, it is said that Bernie wanted Warren to run but she declined. He then stepped into the race and from multiple reports, he didn’t think for some time that he really had a chance. Frankly, neither did I. He thought he would be an issue candidate. It wasn’t until a few months before it was over that he and his campaign thought it had an actual chance to win. When the time came to support Bernie, given that she herself declined to run and given that Warren could have at least helped him in her own state, which he narrowly lost, what did she do? Nothing. Since that time, has Bernie or Warren inspired many of the DSA style of candidates to run? Which of the two have been important as far as talking about leftist policies in the dominant media and pushing the Overton window to the left? Even on policy, did Warren support many of these progressive policies before Bernie, and how many did she support before she decided to run? Take student loan debt. Yes, she had a decent plan. Kelton co-published a great article on the macroeconomic impacts of student loan cancellation early last year, and also went over the various ways it could be accomplished. Kelton has been a key economic adviser of Bernie’s since his last run.
Warren has been wishy washy on single payer, is atrocious on foreign policy (has Albright as a foreign policy adviser) and has not been great in regards to her comments on the funding of her campaign, where the money is coming from. I like a lot about her, but there are real issues to grapple with for anyone on the left. He glosses over all of this. It makes sense that Warren would have the respect of those on Wall Street, since that is her area of expertise. But, outside of her area of expertise, is she better than Bernie, is she more detailed? Debatable, to say the least.
The article seemed to make a false dichotomy between Warren progressivism and Sanders socialism. According to the author Sanders is vague in his beliefs while Warren has a very specific agenda,
To me this is not an asset for Warren. Warren has very specific plans that she wants to implement and Lambert has pointed to the Mike Tyson quote “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Warren is a technocrat much like Hillary and it is easy to fight specific plans by muddying the waters by fighting specifics in those plans. Bernie is more of a visionary and it is more difficult to fight broad ideas.
In addition Warren is more in the “I have a plan for that”, following the Trump authoritarian line “I’m personally saving the country”. Bernie is more “It’s not me but us.”
IMHO Bernie is the one that is creating a progressive movement that will continue whether he wins or loses. But I sure hope he wins.
“..Warren is a technocrat much like Hillary and it is easy to fight specific plans by muddying the waters by fighting specifics in those plans. Bernie is more of a visionary and it is more difficult to fight broad ideas.”
Exactly. Thanks for that.
Floridians deserve a little break: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2019/06/florida-gov-ron-desantis-sides-with-growing-fruits-and-vegetables-over-aesthetics/
Private equity races to spend record $2.5tn of dry powder FT
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I’ve never been able to break through the great paywall of FT, but here’s a potential headline from 2022:
Ford goes bankrupt and closes all dealerships after they have a 50% off sale on all models, with a 75% off sale on remaining stock after a month. And none come with any warranty. Private equity had acquired Ford only a few years prior, and was able to field strip anything out of value and sell it before the usual ending came all of the sudden but not surprising.
If they want to spend $2.5Tn why don’t they just send some of it my way, that way they can take a tax write-off on it! It’s win-win!
(remember those bumper stickers, “Where’s my bailout?”)
Dontcha hate it when people talk over one another in a debate in quadraphonic, ricocheting points wounding everybody’s chance on stage.
A bunch of Tambien-rans
NPR = National Pentagon Radio
nancy pelosi radio?
NPR–loooooong time listener and ex-supporter
Now I really listen intently–who their talking to: what they ask and what they don’t ask: their tone and colloquialisms, and I could go on.
Their audience is huge and very susceptible and they know it.
BTW–This past Saturday the ATC hostess confirmed Iran did it all–without question or challenge
My cynical sense is most of their on air staff really are awaiting promotion to the Entertainment or Popular Culture beats.
Sad
I turned off NPR permanently after they became cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion.
Related (to Wright’s case in point): U.A.E. Splits With U.S. Over Blame for Oil Tanker Attack in May
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-26/u-a-e-splits-with-u-s-over-blame-for-oil-tanker-attack-in-may
Nullus recursus publicae
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6v34Curh5d4
Neoliberal Propaganda Radio
As I’ve said before though, you have to distinguish between NPR and your local public radio station. Their politics may not be the same. When Obamacare was being debated the station here was running locally produced programs supporting single payer. Of course YMMV but at least give your local station a chance.
Why won’t VIPS crack a book for once and brush up on computer forensics. [Try DOJ’s manual, “Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section Criminal Division” pg 78.] The DNC’s network is hosted all over the place, on Amazon servers, on Google servers, all over the country. There is nothing to be learned from swiping some drone’s PC at the DNC, and taking it home, that would not be captured by imaging the drives from all servers. What is especially telling is that the Consortium article is without a byline, just a list of members [none of whom have conducted an investigation in this century.] DNC data was exfiltrated first to a server in Illinois purchased by GRU agents. There is the possibility that the GRU offers Criminal Assets as Service [CaaS] to third parties but that would not change liability. The GRU probably deployed anti-forensics. BUT the GRU wanted the work to appear as inside job, purchasing domestic server space, and luckily, bulletproof servers are not hosted [yet] in the US. The purchaser’s false credentials were matched with travel movements of real GRU agents. Old fashioned CI legwork, having nothing to do hacking signatures, won the day. –The fact that there is this much flak against the allegation almost proves the investigation is accurate. False leads are not professionally discouraged with a PR blitz and narrative laundering.
Read page 78 of the book. It says:
Source: the actual manual.
Did FBI agents ever create a digital copy of the servers hard drives? Or did they rely on a 3rd party to provide that information to them?
and
Source: Wired article.
Seems like you still have a chain of custody issue.
Creating an exact digital image (copy) of a hard drive is literally child’s play (as I’m sure many teenagers easily do it), and even for a fairly large drive, takes less than an hour. And the software to do so is free, even.
Most commercial cloning programs do NOT actually clone everything on the drive regardless of whether it is still listed in the file system. IOW, deleted information which can be recoverable on an original hard drive is not on most cloning software that teenagers can use. At least not on the software I have used.
That does not mean that there is not a means of doing a really exact copy of a drive, just that it is not literally child’s play. And that unless one has access to the original drive and are a participant in making that ‘exact’ digital copy there is a loss of evidence and recoverable data that may be evidence.
Sure.
But the FBI didnt mirror any drives at all.
Somebody else did. Ie crowdsource
Your daily dose of counterfactuals and unsourced claims, courtesy of Sharkleberry Fin!
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a bloody, logistical nightmare CNN
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One factor not mentioned, on purpose or not, is that, at any given moment, there are many Taiwanese in China and many Chinese in Taiwan.
The party that moves first will first take control of those visitors*, and at the same time, deploy their visiting patriotic citizens, who could sizeable and effective, cross the strait.
*some of them long term visitors, and it is possible that some have since ‘converted’ and can be put to good use.
Watch Quemoy & Matsu take up about 4 minutes of the 1960 Presidential debate, starting around 5:45 in the video. JFK hands Nixon his hat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jznAJySwkmM
Giant Goldfish Shows Why You Should Never Flush Fish Down the Toilet Smithsonian
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Owning a horse that dies on you isn’t as easy as a burial @ sea for a pet you’d always been fond of but were never sure if the feeling was being reciprocated. Some years ago a friend’s mount expired, and he had to get a fellow with a backhoe to dig a trench deep and wide enough for its final resting place and then the lifting of the half ton 1 horsepower carcass. Yes, a little bit more involved.
The NYT article on reparations mentions James Forman in passing, describing him as a “civil rights pioneer.” He made a name for himself by way of a manifesto in which he demanded that white churches and synagogues pay $500 million in reparations. He plainly threatened violence if they failed to comply. I first came across that manifesto while reading Arendt’s On Violence. She describes Forman in less flattering terms, probably because she only very narrowly escaped being murdered by violent anti-Semites back in Germany (and later France, where she spent some time in a concentration camp). I’m pretty sure that’s how she saw Forman: violent anti-Semite. I don’t know enough about the man to judge, but threatening synagogues is not a good look.
The Syraqistan section particularly sarcastic today. Has even Naked Capitalism run out of patience?
Thanks much for the NLR article on les gilets jaunes. Very good. I’ve been missing news and discussion of them here on NC.