Dear patient readers,
Lambert and I, and many readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational environment ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of war — both real fog and stage fog — in comments. None of us need more cheerleading and link-free repetition of memes; there are platforms for that. Low-value, link-free pom pom-wavers will be summarily whacked.
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–Yves
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P.P.S. One of our mods is on holiday till the end of the month, so comment liberation may take longer than usual. We are very sorry! Please be patient.
Experience: I let a baby bird nest in my hair for 84 days Guardian (Dr. Kevin)
Photographer Captures Rare Glimpse of Siberian Tiger in Its Natural Environment My Modern Met
Levantine overkill: 1.5 million years of hunting down the body size distribution ScienceDirect (resilc)
Nearby star could explain why our sun didn’t have sunspots for 70 years PhysOrg (Kevin W)
Thousand-year-old oaks seed experimental ‘super forest’ BBC (David L)
#COVID-19
Science/Medicine
How can infections grow this fast when up to 30% have already been infected in the last Omicron wave? Well, for starters, BA.2 is quickly growing past 50% of infections and it is 30-50% more transmissible than the first Omicron wave (BA.1).
— Bill Comeau ???? (@Billius27) March 24, 2022
GM has warned of this being possible from the get-go (hat tip guurst):
3/
…that reinfections were more severe than first ones in terms of hospital admission—and also occur frequently. pic.twitter.com/3QzFssZ0Q1
— Chris Turnbull (@EnemyInAState) March 24, 2022
Asia
Hong Kong showing China how to live with the virus Asia Times. Kevin W: “ROTFLMAO.”
Climate/Environment
Ice shelf collapses in East Antarctica for first time Axios (David L)
Big Oil Is No Longer “Unbankable” OilPrice (BC)
Surge into plastic recycling by chemicals and oil groups meets pushback Financial Times
Largest American Wind Farm ever Built all-at-Once Opens in Oklahoma, Saves Customers $1 Billion over Fossil fuels Juan Cole (resic)
Kim’s ‘monster’ ICBM test kills four years of restraint Asia Times (Kevin W)
Brexit
"Northern Ireland has again been caught in the backwash of Tory immigration paranoia. Non-Irish EU citizens will lose the free, automatic access via the Common Travel Area to Northern Ireland, which is still in the EU Single Market. That is a breach of the spirit of the protocol" pic.twitter.com/ZBVxMZwWjW
— Brexit Bin ????? #BrexitReality (@BrexitBin) March 24, 2022
Old Blighty
P&O ferry detained over crew training concerns, says coastguard agency Guardian (Kevin W)
Tübingen: Europe’s fiercely vegan, fairy-tale city BBC (resilc)
Not So Cold New Cold War
Update on the Military Situation in Ukraine Larry Johnson (Chuck L)
From the French Ministry of Defense (hat tip Moon of Alabama), Ukraine : point de situation
One month into the Russian special operation in the Ukraine The Saker (Micael T). Pretty critical of Russians forces not doing enough in the way of post-Nazi-clearout administration.
Speech of the Head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy via Moon of Alabama. The English language version of the Russian government sites were accessible again overnight (I wanted to see if there was a published full text of Putin’s remarks on gas-for-roubles, but the President’s site didn’t have it). So this and other records might still be accessible from the West, at least for now.
Naïve Militarism and the “Lessons” of Neville Chamberlain The Racket (dk)
* * * President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Reducing Europe’s Dependence on Russian Energy C-SPAN (Kevin C)
Diesel Crisis In Europe Worsens As Austrian Energy Giant Limits Sales OilPrice (resilc)
German Industry Powerhouse Shaken to Core by War in Ukraine Bloomberg
Lessors worry as deadline looms for return of Russian planes RT (Kevin W)
* * * Washington Helped Trigger The Ukraine War American Conservative (guurst)
State Department: Blinken Hasn’t Spoken With Russian FM Since Before Invasion Antiwar.com. Kevin W: “Nearly seven weeks? Inconceivable.”
Ukraine Could Turn Into Another Endless War, Especially if NATO Decides More Than Just Peace is Needed CounterPunch (resilc)
From guurst. No backstory, but notice a child is shrink-wrapped too:
Uma criança amarrada junto com seu pai, deixadas para morrerem de frio, esse é o governo do @ZelenskyyUa , é isso que os porcos americanos @JoeBiden apoiam!@Nilsonhandebol @matheuspggomes @LeonelRadde #LulaPresidente2022 BOLSOLÃO DO MEC Milton Ribeiro URUCUM Bananinha pic.twitter.com/fCtfRa62PD
— ?️NTIF?️ LUL?️ 13?????? (@etdeesquerda) March 22, 2022
EU governments are terrorizing journalists Defend Democracy
Is Ukraine Barreling Toward a COVID Surge? Atlantic. Resilc: “Look at EU rates, how could they not……”
Cuba offered medical care to these children free of cost, only asking the USSR to pay for their flights.
Radiation treatment at this time, for just a single patient,cost more than the transportation for 100 people.
Cuba did all of this during its worst economic crisis in the 90s— ????????? ? (@LaborwaveCCCP) March 23, 2022
Ukrainian President Zelensky in talks with Academy to make Oscars appearance New York Post. (J-LS). Kill me now
Lula Counters FBI-Backed “Corruption” Prosecution to Lead Brazil’s 2022 Presidential Race Mint Press (guurst)
Syraqistan
Saudi Aramco’s Jeddah oil depot hit by Houthi attack Al Jazeera. Kevin W: “More oil shortages?”
UN Special Rapporteur says Israel is committing ‘pitiless’ apartheid in new report Mondoweiss (guurst)
Yemen promises ‘unprecedented surprises’ for Saudi Arabia during eighth year of war The Cradle (guurst)
Taez, Yemen.
Start of the new school year. pic.twitter.com/S53FyFS2B9
— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) March 21, 2022
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will go ahead after missile attack BBC
We Have New Evidence of Saudi Involvement in 9/11, and Barely Anyone Cares Jacobin (furzy). Releasing this during the Ukraine war is tantamount to a Friday in August release.
Assange
An open letter to British PM Boris Johnson: a modest proposal of a prisoner exchange Gilbert Doctorow. Won’t evah happen because this is a US drill, and Navalny is barely known here (aside from intel-state-so-mad-they-can’t-see-straight hatred of Assange).
Imperial Collapse Watch
Our Elites Need to Recognize that America’s ‘Unipolar Moment’ is Over RealClearDefense (Kevin W)
Roaming Charges: Both Ends Burning CounterPunch (resilc). On Madeline Albright.
Biden
TK Mashup: the Media Campaign to Protect Joe Biden Passes the Point of Absurdity Matt Taibbi
Trump
The “watermarked ballots” theory Ginni Thomas texted Mark Meadows. Slate (furzy)
Supremes
The Memo: Democrats hope GOP overplayed hand in Jackson hearings The Hill
Utah enacts anti-trans sports ban after Republican lawmakers override GOP governor’s veto CNN (Kevin W)
Police State Watch
The Met Just Apologised After Strip-Searching Me. I Don’t Believe a Word of It Novara Media (guurst)
Irate Google workers lash out at execs for cutting WFH staff salaries during heated town hall meeting – while those returning to tech titan’s California HQ are furious the BIDETS are being removed from restrooms Daily Mail. In a possible zeitgeist shift, not only no Ukraine stories above the fold, but not that many period.
Digital Markets Act: EU targets Big Tech with sweeping new antitrust rules CNBC (J-LS)
Why Boeing pilot Forkner was acquitted in the 737 MAX prosecution Seattle Times (furzy)
Class Warfare
After generations of stability, a family reckons with death, debts and a desperate fall from the American middle class Washington Post. Resilc: “+ 23% of Americans who died in the last five years had a net worth of zero or less.”
Percent Who Feel Employer Cares About Their Wellbeing Plummets Gallup
Amazon Warehouses Are Relentless, Dangerous Workplaces—but It’s Hard to Punish Them for It, Thanks to Bill Clinton New Republic (resilc)
Antidote du jour. CV sent this as while back:
And a bonus (guurst):
? This Squirrel family pic.twitter.com/rNSnoLF7PK
— Nature Is Metal (@NatureIs_Metal) March 25, 2022
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
257 comments
Comments are closed.
TK Mashup: the Media Campaign to Protect Joe Biden Passes the Point of Absurdity Matt Taibbi
Not to be petty, but — well, yes, let’s be petty, just a little, and point out that many of the people who were the most pompous about this story turned out to be the most wrong, including the conga line of Intercept editors and staffers who essentially knocked Glenn Greenwald all the way to Substack over the issue. There are more important things going on in the world, but for sheer bootlicking conformist excess and depraved journalist-on-journalist venom the “Russian disinformation” fiasco has no equal, and probably needs recording for posterity before it’s memory-holed via some creepy homage to Severance, or a next-gen algorithmic witch-hunt, or whatever other federally contracted monstrosities are being readied for deployment somewhere far up the anus of Silicon Valley.
===============================================
I disagree that there are more important things going on in the world – not the laptop, though that is important – but the fact that “news” is controlled by a cabal with an agenda, and that agenda is not reality. We are propagandized day and night, and it is hard to see how it can ever be corrected.
It probably can’t be corrected. I mentioned to a liberal friend last summer that I didn’t trust the msm and he immediately thought I was a fan of Fox News or corrupted by Trump’s propaganda. People don’t seem to have the slightest clue that there is a very longstanding leftist critique of the media or if they know they just automatically dismiss it.
Donald
Public discourse has been so degraded, and we are forced and pigeon holed into binary choices*, so that any discussion I have HAS to start with the caveat that I despise Trump before I can point out how the FBI, DoJ, and any number of high officials were involved in, if not a conspiracy, than group think to over turn a presidential election. Somehow, the media which essentailly got Trump elected can’t address that fact. The system is not self correcting.
* Choices:
2016 Clinton versus Trump
2020 Trump versus Biden
It is hard to imagine, but could we manage to do worse in 2024???
Every time that I encounter this deterioration I am reminded of an education system that produces citizens that cannot read, reckon or reason. Standards are dropping to the bottom: pass one, pass all so that they can consume.
Seconding this. Public schools in the poor neighborhoods here in the US are a joke. Students are numbers used to produce other numbers that whitewash the gaping holes in the learning process. Students without basic literacy skills are allowed to pass to avoid “cultural issues”. A population of illiterates, a new peasant class.
California’s two biggest university systems, the U of C archipelago and, in an announcement just days ago the Cal State system, have permanently abolished standardized tests like the SAT as a criterion in their admissions process.
It’s a national trend from the Ivy League on down. Is that pesky testing continuing to show something embarrassing that doesn’t comport with the political dogma of the day? Stop testing and call it a step toward more equity! Problem solved.
That deterioration is the result of years of effort by the people in charge. Divide and conquer keeps the mob powerless.
Trump vs Hillary.
It’s apparently a Russian sentiment that things are never so bad that they can’t get worse.
Meanwhile, from (Democrat) Boss Tweed: “I don’t care who people vote for as long as I can pick the candidates.”
Maybe we should begin referring to Clyburn and Obama as Boss Tweed Democrats.
Sure we can do worse, once Biden is put out to pasture in comes Kamala Harris.
And after Kamala Harris comes – wait for it – Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House!
However, she would lose to one of: Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo or Ron DeSantis!
I’ll go so far as to say that it probably WON’T be corrected, but I think there are ready solutions that can be tried.
My suggestion is a lavishly and completely government-funded range of state newspapers — importantly in ink on paper — that are explicitly edited from a range of pretty well established political perspectives: far left, center-left, center-right and far right. (The problem with our existing partly government-funded state media — NPR and PBS — is that they’re woke-center-left but won’t own up to it.) This would provide an alternative to the mainstream media’s rabid commercial obsession with serving up bunk to deranged niche audiences to ramp up ad revenue.
I’ll volunteer to edit the far-left (but class-focused and emphatically unwoke) paper. There, fixed it for ya.
It seem to be the instant “go to” — accusing anyone questioning the corporate media version of reality of being a Fox viewer, Trump supporter, Russian propagandist etc. I’m repeatedly seeing this online.
I’m seeing the same in Germany as well. Suggesting online that the West bears some responsibility for the Ukraine war even when prefixed with “Putin is, of course, ultimately responsible” is immediately countered by accusations of trolling for Putin. Mentioning some hitherto fairly uncontroversial opinion, say, Bush is a war criminal for starting an illegal war against Irak, will immediately be downvoted. I am sensing a pervasive compulsion to showcase the West’s moral superiority that cannot accept any suggestion that not everything is well in Denmark and people generally seem quite oblivious to the fact that we’re playing with atomar fire. I am increasingly having a bad feeling about this and that it might not end well for anybody. Seeing that we are being ruled by ignorant and arrogant idiots is not helping.
It’s a very strange time in Germany indeed. The last voice of anti-war sanity and balance in the German press is Jürgen Elsässer’s far-right Compact magazine, while the Green Party and the (nominally Green-left) daily Taz.de are now all-in on NATO, militarism, and war.
Even among other far-right / New Right publications it seems that, for example, Tichy’s Einblick and the weekly Junge Freiheit are now suddenly on the same anti-Russian / anti-Putin page as the government-lapdog establishment media they otherwise usually deplore.
Konkret ( http://www.konkret-magazin.de ) still carries some, if not exactly anti-war, at least balanced and realistic takes. And TAZ has been full NATO since back to the dismemberment of Jugoslawia days.
On a rural Progressive FB page I inhabit, I’m witlessly attacked for linking to informative articles I find here. People refuse to click–even onto Newsweek!–because I’m untrustworthy (I warn about propaganda and such). Self-bleaching brains have rotted the left and right equally, and the only antidote–self-education–is considered poison by both sides. Now that I’m a Putin apologist I see the power of his reductive nationalism sweeping the world: at least they believe in something more than tv.
I fear the problem is they only believe in TV. With an article, we can look quickly and come back to evidence or lies and come back. TV requires recording, finding the issue, going back over, and really transcribing, then there are the caveats people are just speaking off the cuff. It’s emotional. Articles from favorite news sources aren’t emotional and have utility in at least getting general time and place correct.
You might remember the greatest orator ever!, but Lambert would dissect his speeches. What really stood out was how much was mindless fluff. There is a reason Obama’s words aren’t repeated for a guy who was everywhere a few years ago. There is nothing to repeat. But he looked good on TV whereas Sanders was yellin’. TV is worshipped. Facebook moved to video after all. It’s anecdotal, but I’ve never met an Obama fan who actually read his books or at least seemed to not be able to recount anything about them. They never read them. They were ornaments. To be fair, they were self indulgent and whiny, and despite having borrowed them from a person who wasn’t a fan after reading them, I still feel like Obama owes me a refund.
For your time, pain, and suffering?
Taibbi references the brilliant Severance, an Apple TV series about a mysterious company called Lumon that injects workers with a device that separates their work life from their home life. Basically, when you are off of work you forget what u did. And vice versa. The latest episode directed by Ben Stiller was fn awesome!!!!!
It’s very very anti corporate. Highly recommend to all here!!!!
Also, Servant is great too. That’s M nights latest. Oh and The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey with Sam Jackson is amazing too!!!! Only drawback of these Ptolemy Grey is that it hems pretty close to the liberal wokespeak.
TLDR Apple TV producing great streaming.
Perhaps we here should view ourselves as a fellowship of Latter Day Irish Monks preserving what we can of the written record of Modern Civilization’s reality-based facts, theories, information, etc. in the midst of the New Dark Age rising all around us.
If I were rich enough (which I am not), I would set up my own desktop publishing setup and get hundreds of thousands of sheets of acid free paper ( lasts for centuries) and print print print everything on all the archives of Naked Capitalism onto acid free paper ( lasts for centuries). Every post, every link, every comment, every link offered in any comment, etc. For the future when every last digital think has been carefully erased and declared to have never even existed.
I would also save-by-printing other worthwhile material from off the digital mediasphere. What if a million “Latter Day Irish Monks” all did their own million versions of saving their own million separate choices of “best of the mediasphere” onto acid free paper ( lasts for centuries)? More reality-based info would be saved for a possible future than if no-one does it.
TK Mashup: the Media Campaign to Protect Joe Biden Passes the Point of Absurdity Matt Taibbi
I know it’s awfully late in the day to be mentioning this but for those who are not subscribed for Taibbi’s Substack this important piece is available in full at Scheerpost.
On Zelensky making an Oscar appearance:
I would LOVE to see Zelensky give a full-throated performance, firing up the attendees, leading them to a feverish 5 minute standing ovation – at which point Ukrainian troops would emerge from the wings, passing out camo, automatic weapons, MRE’s, etc., while Zelensky informs them that there are planes awaiting them right outside the theater to whisk them off to Mariupol where they can fully signal their virtuous sentiments.
It would be funny enough to see a befuddled Ashton Kucher holding his new weapon, not sure of what’s going on – but funnier still as weapons were also distributed to all female attendees, as Zelensky emphasizes that he fully supports gender equality and wouldn’t dream of not allowing the women the same opportunity to demonstrate their commitment.
Added fun if there are members of the Azov Battalion entering from the rear, prodding forward any of those who are hesitating…
Bonus points if his speech lasts all of Two Minutes.
Cowboy up!
I am sure that they will all give him a standing ovation and I bet that they will have a choir to sing the Ukrainian national anthem as well. This is the same people that gave an Al Qaeda PR unit an Oscar once. But I am not surprised that Ashton Kucher has his grubby mitts all over this. Not since that time that he sent out a tweet saying ‘Just sending out a morning shout to the men and woman of the intelligence community that keep us safe and protect our country. #gratitude #ty’
https://twitter.com/aplusk/status/1021409519098769408?lang=en
I wonder if they gave him that coffee mug.
I don’t often cut Kutcher a break, but in this case he is not relying on his own idiocy. His wife, Mika Kunis, was born in Ukraine and her family immigrated when she was a baby.
I find a lot of first gen immigrants buy the neoliberal party line, almost belligerently. Couple that with both of them being successful at a young age, which means they have been in a weird but complete bubble from their teens, so of course the western version is sacred.
Just to point out the complexity of the Ukrainian ethnoscape, Kunis is actually from a Russian-speaking Jewish family from a city that was part of Romania (Transylvania) until 1940.
he’s an adult, practically middle aged if not already there.
he’s relying on his own idiocy.
Re: 1st gen immigrants and neoliberalism.
This has got a lot of truth to it, and it is also true in my experience that many people from the former Soviet bloc are deeply suspicious of anything to the Right of Maggie Thatcher as “commie” influenced. I’m sure in Kunis’s case it is leavened with the usual Hollywood socially liberal window dressing, but I would be surprised if either her or Kutcher were committed egalitarians in any area except certain reified identitarian silo-categories, and even then, superficiallly and non-materially.
Also, I think this is too little thought about in terms of celebrities — they are often really, really poorly educated. Not poorly educated like Chelsea Clinton, who went to Stanford but showed herself on Twitter to not have done the reading there, but poorly educated as in have been in showbiz since age 12 and stopped serious schooling in junior high (I tend to see a lot of celebrities interact with the political in highly sentimental and simplistic ways, i.e.,, like they’re in middle school).
And the Zelensky worship by various PMCers I know on Zuckerberg’s Panopticon is just remarkable. These people would try to chew glass if they were told it was brave, forward-looking, progressive, etc.
Did you mean ” to the left of Maggie Thatcher” . . . in that sentence?
I did! Mea culpswa, and thanks for the correction!
He is even worse than that.
I wonder how much went to helping citizens and how much went to pockets?
Ooh! Maybe he can reprise his role as a pianist!
Or a dancer.
Can Hollywood help out by supplying those very special guns that never need reloading, and seemed to have done the trick for Chuck, Arnold, et al when surrounded by the bad guise.
Just send in Stallone. Call it Rambo 5: First Bloodier.
(And at least during the 80s Ruskie scare we got fantastic movies like Invasion USA. Granted, I don’t think I was getting them on the level they were intended.)
Sardonia: Only if all of this Oscar-induced posturing is preceded by a reprise of the immortal, “Springtime for Hitler and Germany.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovCf9VRLnDY
Things right now are so self-righteous and censorious (or do we say redactalicious?) that there are images in this production number I just linked to that will get all of us booted into reeducation camp.
I’m sure that many of the members of the Azov Battalion, as they escort the ripped young men and Zumba-ed young women to the recruiting station in Hollywood, will be only to happy to tell them that they are being shipped to Ukraine to struggle against Russian Toxic Masculinity.
There are times i wonder if Zelensky get the coverage he does, beause media think of him as one of them.
This similar to how Khashoggi seemed to get outsized coverage because he was a “journalist” (and thus one of them), rather than some random that the Saudis had sentenced to death (never mind his uncle’s involvement in the Iran-Contras fiasco). After all they beheaded some 80 people recently, and it seemed to barely get a headline.
The entertainment “class” seems more and more disconnected from the life of ordinary workers in the west, and lately i have found myself wondering how much the growth of Amazon has to do with it (no need to go shopping unless you want to, and thus no risk of finding yourself talking to the hoi polloi).
not to be flip, but when do you think the last time anyone in the entertainment class has ever forked over money on a counter for a roll of toilet paper?
these people haven’t gone into anything but a bijou boutique as soon as they had the money for house servants. nothing to do with Amazon, as evil as that place is.
Yeah sorry, the label is perhaps a bit too nebulous. I was including in it the various people working not just for Hollywood, but also other media outlets, websites and whatsnot that serve to entertain and distract the larger population.
I guess what i am trying to say that far more people now can avoid interacting with service workers, much less industrial workers, thanks to online shopping and such.
This then allowing them to develop a echo chamber of peers perhaps not seen since the Victorian era gentlemen clubs.
Maybe they will give an Oscar to the AZOV Battalion. After all they gave one to the White Helmets, and why not a special Oscar for Zelensky and his brown sweatsuit.
That would be enhanced by Kristin Sinema leading a cute cheerleading squad as he received his special Oscar. All would be outfitted in Ukrainian colors. She has experience in preening in a cheerleading costume for the US congress. Ended with her curtsy to Zelensky.
Maybe they were gearing up to give it to the “Angels of Ukraine”, a Ukrainian analog to the White Helmets. Unfortunately the Doctor running the outfit came out on TV and revealed his orders to have his medics castrate Russian POWs.
I wonder if Fahreed Zakharia will have him back on after a suitable interval.
Perhaps he has been asked to do his dance routine. Hot as, would fit right in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQxsWHvbuHI
Maybe he’s just hoping for an Oscar for his acting career?
I would hit the OFF button in a nanosecond. Not interested in Zelensky nor neo-Nazis. I watch the Oscars for the hideous/hilarious fashion show.
“Tübingen: Europe’s fiercely vegan, fairy-tale city”
Just a bit of context here. Shouldn’t be surprised that it is Tübingen as that town is in Swabia which has its own reputation in Germany – and they tend to go their own way (German readers can step in if they disagree). Their dialect is supposed to be unintelligible to fellow Germans and though reckoned to be hard workers, are also supposed to be miserly. Having wrote this, it kinda makes them sound like the Scots of Germany. :)
Erwin Rommel was a local boy and when he was rampaging his way through North Africa, more than a few people in Swabia assumed it to be a Swabian Korps. He actually had to write back and explain that the Afrika Korps had Germans from all over and even some “sau Preussen”. Here is an article that talks about them-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/shoot-swabians-berlin-berates-its-bourgeois-invaders-8439039.html
In Bavaria, anyway, the term is “sau Preiss.” As in my favorite Bayerische bumper sticker: “It’s nice to be a Preiss, but it’s higher to be a Bayer.”
I’m from Tü and the culture here is completely different from rest of Swabia. 1/3rd of the city is just students.
For a hot minute, I thought the article discussing the employer / employee relationship and well being of the employee to be of the Onion or the Bee. No, that was a serious initial take. Curious data point on the manager’s survey result, compared to the prior year; down 11% seems like a marked decline.
I’d like a 4 day work week but getting paid for 5 days of work, but that ain’t never gonna happen. Until that day comes, well for current and future employers I desire to work hard for my salary and meager benefits but don’t push the needle. Quality of life matters, more today than 20 years ago and I now acknowledge all those mistakes by my younger but cash-strapped self.
It’s up to you: If you want it to happen, first get an office-type job. The more concerned the organisation is with communication, branding and brand-value, the more information-type meetings there will be. During those meetings, do other things and reclaim your time.
Soon you will be doing 2-3 days of actual work, getting paid for 5 and still get good performance reviews, having a rested mind, behaving happy and friendly.
Insomniatic wanderings between Saker, Moon, Storm and others made me aware of the possibility that Poland may send its forces into Western Ukraine, independently and outside the NATO alliance (mentioned in the Saker link). It was noted elsewhere that this move by Poland could easily draw Belarus into the war.
This seems to be the plan.
Lukashenko is already being sanctioned, labled as Putin’s puppet, and Belarus accused of covertly providing material support of Russia’s offensive.
I may be wrong, but if Polish “peacekeepers” or whatever they may call them are deployed in large numbers in Western Ukraine, where Russia has already struck targets, would not the Poles wish to control the airspace above their forces? And if a Russian aircraft fell victim to a SAM over such territory…
It’s starting to feel like NATO is going to be actively drawn into this conflict in the next few months.
Here’s another R pov (prop?) for consideration– veracity I do not vouch for, as my Русский язык очень плохой and they speak too quickly for me to keep up:
https://t.me/s/intelslava?before=23421
Article 5 despite the billing otherwise, does not require NATO members to defend each other. They just have to think about it. Hungary has already said it won’t come to Poland’s aid if it does something stupid.
Russia has those nasty missiles. They already took out a NATO training facility and a NATO barracks near the Polish border. Unlike Ukrainian cities, where they have really pulled their punches, Russia would have no compunction about blasting any troops that enter.
Hungary has already said it won’t come to Poland’s aid if it does something stupid.
Hungary appears to be sitting this one out, to the point of not allowing overflights/transit of weapons shipments destined to Ukraine.
I understand that member countries of NATO can get themselves into trouble and not expect an automatic bailout from the alliance, but if Poland makes themselves part of this conflict I would expect Russia to cut off resupply of Polish forces, and I would think that this could extend to military/transportation targets within Poland.
On the other hand, Russia could simply leave the Poles alone if Poland did strictly confine itself to Western Ukraine, especially former Polish territory in Ukraine. Heck, the Russians might even let the Poles claim, “Hey! We stopped Russia!” and let NATO save a bit of face. And USA will still get to sell a lot of guns to Russia’s NATO neighbors so that they can “protect themselves,” make some cash while lessening the chances that this party ends in a blinding flash.
I really hate to think that there’s a possibility that Polish jokes could have an element of truth to them… …and I learned first-hand long ago to never underestimate stupidity as a factor in decision-making, especially amongst “leadership.”
Poland taking over western Ukraine/Lviv like Turkey took over northern Syria is oneof those ideas that sound great to a politician or think tanker but will be an awful quagmire.
the stereotype is that Western Ukrainian nationalists hate Poland as much as Russia.
10 million Ukrainians to govern when Poland only was 40 million sounds like a slow motion disaster. Russia should be happy if Poland picks up those pieces
Yeah, I think that you are right here. I can’t see this working-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia
It would be a bit like happened with Boeing after they absorbed McDonnell Douglas.
Maybe the Poles have heard Putin’s call and want to denazify Ukraine?
It does seem like certain political elements in Poland wants to use this conflict as a way to give Russia a bloody nose, as payback for WW2 and the communist era.
Never mind that the most westerly part of Ukraine may well house a population that still consider themselves polish, similar to the Russians in Donbass and Crimea.
From a certain angle, this whole mess is starting to look like Yugoslavia in the 90s. And i think that is also what Putin alluded to in a sloppy fashion at the outset of this affair. Calling upon NATO to recall their (supposedly one sided) intervention and likening that to what Russia was about to do.
The overwhelming majority of ethnic Poles in the region that had been Galicia, then eastern Poland between the wars, then western Ukraine after WW2 were moved to the west when Poland’s eastern border was shifted to the west after WW2.
Also, the numbers in the Wikipedia for the ethnic Polish minority within Ukraine are quite small.
The Russian elite might be quite happy to let Poland have the western most part of Ukraine. Then Poland would have to deal with the anti-Semitic, anti-Russian, and anti-Polish right-wingers.
Most of Ukraine was divided in half by Poland and Russia in the 1600s*. The hatred of Poland as a foreign conqueror and oppressor is as real as the hatred of Russia.
*Crimea and the nearby Black Sea coast of Ukraine were part of the Crimean Khanate (an Ottoman subsidiary) or the Ottoman Empire itself until conquered by Russia.
Reasons for Hungary to hold back from the anti-Russia campaign:
1) There is a sliver of far Western Ukraine bordering Hungary that Hungary may hope to take back. Resentment about how Hungary’s borders were drawn after WW1 to put many Hungarians on the far side of the border as minorities in other nations seems to be a powerful factor in Hungarian politics.
2) Culturally, the Orban administration in Hungary emphasizes its anti-wokeness and thus would sympathize with the current Russian administration and also might fear a victorious EU pressing Hungary harder to conform with EU standards of wokeness.
3) Hungary was never part of Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Union and was only under Soviet control 1945-1991. It does not have the history of centuries of Tsarist/Soviet domination that Poland, Finland, Ukraine, and the Baltics have.
I think the “anti-whatever-itic” word form might be useful beyond just “antisemitic” to indicate the brain-crazy hatefulness of those people who indulge in such thinking and feeling against whatever the target.
So, ” antisemitic, antirussianitic, and antipolonitic” ?
In case any of you are interested in knowing which of our Congress critters hold a foreign country’s welfare higher than their own, here’s a list of members of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.
‘
Vote against them in November, warmongers all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Ukrainian_Caucus
Kind of on that note, LinkedIn (PMC Central no doubt) is swarming with fawning pro Ukriane/Zelensky posts. One was drooling over GWB laying a wreath at fallen soldiers while honoring heroic Ukraine military. I posted regarding how many civilians lost their lives in GWB’s Iraq War vs the current war, and included a Wikipedia link entitled Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (I’m surprised it hasn’t been erased form Wikipedia or modified by the CIA) discussing how many Poles were subjected to ethnic cleansing and noted Western Ukraine was an equal opportunity ethnic cleanser which also included Jews and Russians to create a ethnically pure Ukraine.
I expect LinkedIn will remove that post.
LinkedIn is indeed swarming with such posts. And Yours Truly just scrolls right past them.
For context, not for condoning: In the interwar years during which eastern Galicia and Volhynia were part of the newly restored Poland, Poland made concerted efforts to make the population Polish, for example by suppressing the Ukrainian language in favor of Polish. There was some level of violence involved. Also, Poland had ruled the entire Western half of Ukraine (from Kiev west) until Poland itself was partitioned in the late 1700s.
The difficulties that the Ukrainian people faced in establishing their own nation-state are somewhat similar to those of the Korean people. The Ukrainians were pinioned between Poland and Russia, the Koreans between China and Japan (the whale and the shark).
Again, this does not excuse anti-Polish pogroms by Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis during WW2, nor does it excuse US funding those war criminals in their guerrilla campaign against the Soviet Union into the early 1950s, nor does it excuse the glorification of such war criminals in contemporary Ukraine when Ukraine has real heroes such as Nestor Makhno in its history, but it does provide some context.
Thanks! Very interesting.
Now do Israel.
And baseline is that the whole DC apparatus holds corporate welfare, which is essentially Supra- and post-national, above an honestly defined national interest.
Russia appears to be on the way to teaching the world some interesting lessons about thoughtfully and carefully defined long-looking interests and the strength of, and need for, national sentiments.
If they like Ukraine so much they should be sent on a one way trip to Kiev whre they can fight alongside the Nazis.
It may be bipartisan but I don’t see any Republican leadership in there. I did notice the Speaker of the House, though.
> Amazon Warehouses Are Relentless, Dangerous Workplaces—but It’s Hard to Punish Them for It, Thanks to Bill Clinton New Republic (resilc)
The word inhumane is never mentioned in the article.
Amazon shopper = whip cracking sadist
Would you want your mother working there? If you hate her, yes. In two years she can join the human trash heap piling up behind every Amazon warehouse.
Amazon sets the pace on the road to dystopia. All else must be worse, lest they get eaten by Amazon.
Amazon sets the pace on the road to dystopia. All else must be worse, lest they get eaten by Amazon.
You’d have to be really desperate to work there, but fortunately for Amazon, desperation is something our country does not lack.
Amazon should get those Google bidets and install them in that warehouse in Alabama. Unionization drive instantly ended.
Maybe Amazon switch out the driver seat of delivery vans with bidets. Solves PR problem and let’s drivers stop urinating in bottles.
You know America’s unipolar moment ended when the bidets got pulled from Google HQ.
Google leaves Russia and bidets get removed. If Hitler was as clever as Putin, Germany would have won WWII.
Google could donate the bidets to the Azov battalion in Mariupol. They’re Nazis, not animals. No one should face annihilation at the hands of Chechens and the Red Army with an itchy behind.
It seems like Amazon is very good at sorting out the “strong” from the “weak” among applicants. Those that can’t mentally and physically do the work, or those that might, rightly, tell management that the pace of work is unsustainable and inhumane, are eliminated quickly.
Amazon is also good at convincing those who stay that they are the strong, and those that won’t accept such treatment are the weak.
More… independent thinkers may observe that the labels are 180 degrees out of place. Some people crave the master’s yoke, I guess. No wonder it’s so hard to unionize Amazon, on top of the company’s comprehensive and state-abetted union-busting.
your post about the “weak” vs “strong” and associated propaganda is what i’ve noticed about the entire social realm of the U.S. during my entire lifespan, and only getting worse.
the definition of “bootstrap mentality”, combined with a few liberal dashes of supremacy or genetic eugenicism.
> . . .Amazon is very good at sorting out the “strong” from the “weak”
. . . then grinds them to dust in two years.
Even were the pace cut in half, it would never be a long term survivable jawb.
People who buy from Amazon deserve to have to work there.
One wonders if the day is coming when NOmazon retailers , seeking to preserve their existence from the cannibal Bezos, begin studying whether jobseekers at their NOmazon places of business buy at or above a certain percent of things from Amazon. Such NOmazon businesses may well decide that they don’t want to spend their money on a prospective worker who would turn around and spend that money on a company plotting to destroy every NOmazon business on the face of the earth.
Perhaps such a “don’t hire enemy collaborators” movement among the NOmazon business community could begin turning Amazon into a self-cannibalizing tail-eating snake.
I remember everyone LAUGHING & hooting at the breakroom scene in Chloé Zhao’s hilarious “Nomadland.” We constantly saw Frances at UWS’ Yuppie Farmer’s Market and never DARED spoke; since back here, specious obliviousness is our neighbors’ most treasured commodity. I’d worked & lived amidst many, who’d been happy to get back to a literally Dickensian pipe mill after Amazon’s absolutely unbelievable COVID slaughterhouses around Hazelton & Allentown. My neighbors’ Pelatons, InstaPots, $325 Dutch coffeemakers, 72″ AMOLED & standing desks all delivered by chronically PASC essentials (the new Black) in ice rain, amidst idling Ambulances, the last two years, just LOVED the movie’s “gritty reality” of us poor folks now, the last masked folks, as servers unmask to fetch tips at Brunch & happy hour.
I don’t know why they call Tubingen vegan. I can still remember the wonderful liver soup I used to eat out in a restaurant in 1959 — and the ham sandwiches I bought at the university.
But a few years ago I was there with David Graeber for a conference, and we went to a French restaurant — thinking that finally we might get satisfactory German beef, we shared a T-bone steak. It was awful and tough. So I concluded that even French cooks couldn’t get good cuts of beef in Germany. (I usually settle for turkey thighs there, or go to Greek restaurant.)
But these days there are mainly Turkish restaurants in Tubingen.
@Michael Hudson Re beef in Germany. Switzerland is just as bad and outrageously expensive. If you eat beef in Switzerland make certain it’s imported from somewhere else such as France, Ireland or even South America, otherwise choose something else from the menu.
HELLZ YEAH, DOC!!!!!
KEEP ON KEEPING ON, BROTHER!!!!
#HUDSONHAWK
#HUDSON2024
Modern rock music fans wake up to sad news overnight. The long time drummer for the Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins, has passed away while the band was on tour in South America. I heard his story about Hawkins when he was first hired, to tour with Sass Jordan, he was shocked to learn they paid him like $200 a week.
https://apnews.com/article/taylor-hawkins-foo-fighters-dead-e2044f117e4aa92566b313144fbee285
its very sad news. Foo Fighters have long been one of my guilty pleasures and I loved his drumming (yes, I know some drummers considered him over rated, but if he was good enough for Dave Grohl, he was good enough for me).
I’ve seen a few interviews with him and Grohl and they made a great comedy couple. He seemed to be genuinely delightful and full of life with no sign of ego. He just seemed to be amazed that he was so successful at just doing what he loved doing.
It must be rough on Grohl. He was drummer in a band that lost its lead singer tragically, and now he’s lead singer in a band that lost its drummer.
I have a soft spot for them as well. And this is so very sad. Grohl may have taken lead but it was very clear to me that they were a band that was a well functioning unit, not just back up. This is a blow on multiple levels.
Too young, man. He had only turned fifty not long ago-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_L4Rixya64 (4:15 mins)
I think watching Everlong live is the best way to see just how good Hawkins was on drums. Although so far as I know, Grohl played most instruments on their recordings.
Sad news and do not mean to be disrespectful, but on a light0hearted note, is this the all clear for Nandi Bushell? Check out Youtube, the girl is amazing!
I’m not a fan of Grohl or the Foo Fighters, but as a musician myself I have to admit that Taylor Hawkins was a beast of a drummer. I wonder if he had COVID at any point, and if he died of heart failure?
I’ll trust that he died peacefully perhaps, until further information is available. As I voiced to someone on the phone just today…and yet the Kardashians continue to live. I do not write that in jest either.
Same here. I respected the man’s obvious talent and he and Grohl seemed to have a real chemistry beyond the band itself. A lot of people in my circle had a run in with Taylor and he seemed to be a genuinely good guy too.
The Foo Fighters just put out a horror movie called Studio 666 where they record an album in a haunted LA Mansion. Gotta say that band is fn hilarious! It’s decent.
That being said, I liked My Hero from the Varsity Blues soundtrack but that’s about it. I find their music ? kinda bland.
I find their image to be strangely dark, especially Grohl. Of course, imo. So, the news about a horror movie called Studio 666 is just interesting. Ha, ha.
Latest reports are that he had enough dope in him to field quite a medicine chest. Drugs and rock ‘n’ roll are still very much alive and well. No pun intended and condolences to his loved ones.
The frequency of what gets played on most radio or satellite radio may indeed get categorized that way. Out of their albums I own and the ones I do not, the album featuring Walk and Rope was a pretty strong effort. I’ve had first hand accounts of their live show being excellent.
Varsity Blues has a few memorable moments in the film.
#$%#%!
Rest in peace my friend.
“One month into the Russian special operation in the Ukraine”
Lots to assimilate here and you have to contrast this with what we are told in the west. So they are saying that because things are going so bad for the Russians, that they are scaling back their war goals and that they ‘would focus on completely “liberating” Ukraine’s breakaway eastern Donbass region.’ I don’t think that the media get it. That Donbass region is where the Russians and the Donbass forces have about a third of the Ukrainian military locked up in a cauldron. So they are talking about eliminating that force which means kill or capture. It has been a month now so the Ukrainians must have run down their resources a fair bit. I was checking on the range of the Tochka-u ballistic missiles that have been hitting the Donbass, not for military reasons mind you but just to kill civilians like those old V-2s from WW2. Turns out about 120 kilometers (75 miles) so I bet they they have been launching them from this cauldron. With the cauldron eliminated and Mariupol cleared out, those freed-up forces would be able to advance along the south and take the entire coastline and the city of Odessa as well. I would assume that the Russians forces in the north will be demonstrating to pin down the Ukrainian forces there. Of course this is all my take as the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation have not shared their plans with me unfortunately.
After this weekend (Biden visit), you might want to keep your eyes on Poland and Belarus (I have/had a comment on this, in the ether, dependent on the atmosphere (I used some Russian– no bad words, this time– and it could be lost to the void).
Will be interested to see the comment. Just my opinion: When Russia is just about wrapped up in Ukraine, IMO now is the time to take out the NATO bases with Angus systems in Poland and Russia. And include in that a statement from Russia she will not tolerate NATO moving one inch closer, that doing so will also follow the fate of those NATO Angus bases in Poland and Romania.
It’s not worth it. The hypersonic missiles would take the missile defense systems out instantly. The threat was NATO moving enough forces to overwhelm in a first strike and hit the cruise missile platforms early. The large airbases are too far away, and a few brigades are a joke.
It’s the same in reverse. Part of what happened in the former Ukraine is the Russian Fort Bragg is basically on the border from Soviet days. Going beyond the Dnieper is where things would get wonky.
This is presuming they work. We didn’t try to shoot down Russian missiles at least publicly.
timbers — by NATO Angus I believe you meant the two Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland. Unlike the shipboard Aegis, the SPY-1 phased array has only three of the four faces so not 360 degree coverage. Currently loaded with SM-3s which are a ballistic missile defense missile. I don’t know if operational control (vice manning) has been transferred to NATO but with the Supreme Allied Commander being an American that’s a distinction without a difference.
Due to the American manning and operational control, Russia will not attack them until WW III begins.
DoD is considering changes to Aegis Ashore that would allow it to load the SM-2 anti-air warfare missile and the awesome SM-6 missile which is believed to include anti-ship and land attack capabilities as well as AAW and BMD.
Putin predicted these changes when Obama said Aegis Ashore was just BMD for Iranian missiles.
Notice how the complete liberation-occupation of Mariupol is not in the headlines of western media.
Big news, shown on the map, yet undiscussed.
IMO, non-zero odds that ultranationalists will launch a coup and topple Zelensky and blame him for not rescuing 7,000+ ultranationalist fighters who got encircled in Mariupol
Everything I see on twitter from western media sources constantly talks about how poorly Russia is doing. I did see a telegram post that allegedly shows dead members of the Azov battalion, which apparently have been dispersed or destroyed: https://t.me/intelslava/23407
Indeed, Chuck Todd via Jimmy Dore just informed me that the Russian assault has ground to a halt, leaving innocent civilians as their only targets. Oh, and the Nazi’s are the lesser of the two evils in the fight between Good and Evil. That’s right, evil plus evil = Good versus Evil:
https://youtu.be/mTdt7jfxBVE
The Ukrainian ultranationalists may see themselves as in the same position as the anti-Gorbachev Soviet putschists in summer 1991. They are so dependent on US support and approval that they dare not move fully against the US’s darling. In that last-gasp pro-Soviet coup attempt in 1991, the putschists did not unleash the intense repression that they would have need in order to win because by then the Soviet Union had become dependent on the US even for food. Even Yelstin’s ascension and that of Kutschma (the Ukrainian leader) required US approval.
(See “Collapse” by Zubok.)
If the ultranationalists did get rid of Zelensky, that might well function as the signal for the West to back out. Or at least for the wall of propaganda angel-izing Ukraine to collapse, leading to the Western mind control machine turning attention to some new reason to panic and follow your leaders blindly.
I agree with you especially regarding the West portraying this as Russian weakness. In reality, it was not clear – especially to the Western Media that for a while could not stop discussing why so many Russian tanks rolling toward Kiev as proof Putin has lost his mind – exactly what Russian military objectives were. Turns out it was a deliberate strategy to tie down Ukraine forces far from Russia’s intended military objectives.
I for one am pleased Russia has no intention of taking Kiev and other large cities because too much effort for so little gain. Mariupol however was essential as it was part of Donbass and an Azov Battalion stronghold.
But not sure if Russia intends to proceed further west along the coast towards Odessa. There are benefits/costs to be weighed such as linking Moldova with Russia and sealing Ukraine from the coast but at the cost of occupying an area with a much less Russian population that might be open to gorilla warfare.
It was pretty obvious. Kiev has 7 bridges plus too much river traffic to monitor. Closing the approaches to the city was necessary to prevent the movement of weapons necessary for a guerilla operation.
I’m not sure about what they intend to do in the northern Crimea (whatever it’s called). I just going with road maps. They had told the engineers to prepare to accept water, so it’s possible that was a one time thing to fill resovoirs given efforts to address the water supply.
Seizing Kiev would be messy, and province level borders are often around natural borders. There isn’t a good spot between Kiev and the borders of the old oblasts per topography maps without taking Kiev and the other river communities on the north south part of the Dneiper. Going right up to the bend that goes east west to the Black Sea makes some sense.
I think that the Russians will secure that entire coastline and turn the Ukraine into a land-locked country for a very good reason. Apart from the fact that they are mostly Russian-speakers in this region, Russia has their major naval base at Sevastopol in the Crimea. And before the war, the UK/US were setting up two missile-boat bases for the Ukraine so that they could threaten that Russian naval base with a zero-warning attack at any time. No nation will tolerate a deadly threat like that so the Russians are probably going to eliminate that treat possibility for good.
Very possible. Don’t know enough about the region to have an opinion. As you say those are benefits and as NotTim notes, another benefit would be that Russia would have less to worry about Ukraine cutting of water to Crimea. And as you say, keeping US/UK out of Black Sea is a biggy, too.
> And before the war, the UK/US were setting up two missile-boat bases for the Ukraine so that they could threaten that Russian naval base with a zero-warning attack at any time.
Can you substantiate this please?
Something like this?
Russian ambassador to UK assumed they would evolve into UK bases eventually.
So . . . two new countries? Russiakraine and Galiciakraine?
For some reason people treat Putin and the rest of the Kremlin as consummate liars.
Yet i get the impression that they are frequently honest, except that one has to be up to speed on the regional history and such in order to get what they are saying.
After all, the initial declaration was for “peacekeeping” forces to be sent to the Donbass region.
If they take Odessa they’ve got something west Ukraine will be desperate to get back, good bargaining chip.
Moldova? Maybe you mean Transnistria. That is a different kettle of fish.
Perhaps all the Ruskies have to do is sit their Black Sea fleet off the coast of Odessa, wave their weapons, and do absolutely nothing. The threat of bombardment could be useful enough.
It has been instructive to me how those who know what they are about have shown how to direct their counterpart’s forces geographicly with minimal kinetics. Very smart! The Ruskies have a doctrine called Maskirovka which they seem to be adept at –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_deception
So Putin and his crowd play chess, while we play checkers!
Buckle up, this may be a long and expensive haul.
Ricardo — I agree that Putin needn’t occupy Odessa, which is one of Ukraine’s largest cities, but rather station a military and coast guard presence offshore. Currently shipping is jammed up by the existence of Ukrainian mines and by shippers deciding it’s safer to remain in port or to stay far away.
After hostilities cease, the continuing military presence plus the coast guard threat of boarding ships to search for weapons and other contraband will stymie efficient shipping. This situation may pertain until a safe conduct arrangement is made with the UN World Food Programme to allow wheat, etc humanitarian shipments.
I think the narrative promoted by the US through the media has been “Russia is trying to conquer all of Ukraine”, so that if/when Russia achieves its actual, lesser objectives, the US can trumpet “We successfully fought off weak Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine!” Spin, spin, spin in advance.
Hence the new chemical weapon line. Biden’s resilience scared Putin.
And it also preempt any potential spillage from the supposed labs that it seems a certain Hunter Biden may have “involved” in setting up.
The longer this drags on, the dirtier the whole situation looks.
For those interested, there is a great YT video here from armoured vehicle expert The Chieftan (Nicholas Moran) on why nobody should pay much attention to the wave of videos and commentary from the war. He is almost unique (The Bazaar of War being one other) in that he is a genuine expert who has been refraining from much comment, precisely because he is an expert and knows how difficult it is to draw conclusions from random videos and one-sided commentary.
This, of course, hasn’t stopped a lot of western armchair generals (and a few real, live, generals) from spouting nonsense on twitter and other venues about the course of the war.
Interesting video indeed. Couldn’t agree more with the message.
Right at the beginning, Moran states that there is nothing new in this war, “except the surprising incompetence of the Russian military”. Again that assessment of incompetence — if so, why are NATO countries in such a frenzy of rearming?
There is another series of commentaries about tanks in the Ukraine war posted on Youtube by Ralf Raths, the director of the Panzermuseum Munster. As a professional historian, he considers the overall context.
For those who do not understand German, here are his main points:
a) Forget about the fine differences between T-64, T-72, T-80, T-90 — these are all tanks following similar designs or derived from each other, and all have been modernized. The paramount factor is crew training and how capable is the staff directing their operations.
b) Contrarily to all their tradition and doctrine, Russians have not been employing mass tank formations for breakthroughs and concentrated firepower. Curiously enough, they are using tanks as they were during the first couple of years of WWII by most belligerents: as infantry support. Russian tank units are probably quite unfamiliar with those tactics, and this may explain their hesitancy and some goofs. Neither have the Ukrainians, using the same tanks and trained with similar tactics, resorted to mass tank attacks.
c) Russian tanks are design to be compact and low profile. This also means that, contrarily to Western tanks, they cannot be quickly repaired on the field. In case they are disabled (by a shot or a mechanical failure), they are abandoned, and, when the army has secured the battlefield and moved the frontline sufficiently far away, they are towed/transported to a workshop. This explains why Ukrainians can exhibit so much disabled Russian armor.
d) Putin is not irrational or unpredictable: the conduct of war shows Russian follow a traditional power play — i.e. viewing the space of operations in terms of buffer zones, regions with friendly or unfriendly populations, harbours, industrial centres, breadbaskets, etc. The way things are evolving indicate that Russia wants to control Western Ukraine, and is not interested in conquering large cities such as Kiev.
e) A possible solution to the conflict would be a partition of Ukraine with transfers of population — like the partition leading to India and Pakistan. A brutal outcome, but one that would be eventually more stable than a country with unending separatist conflicts.
f) Drones, missiles and helicopters do not mean the end of tanks. They have already been there with the Yom Kippur war in 1973 — which was truly devastating for the Israeli tank forces because of the Soviet-made portable anti-tank missiles. The answer will be a change in the (traditional) tank design, and countering new threats with combined arms tactics. Moran makes the same argument.
Note that Raths made those comments already two weeks ago.
Ever since Chechnya the Russia tank doctrine has been what they call a “carousel”: tanks operate in small groups with infantry protection, and when encountering enemy the tanks take turns in peeking out and shooting. It’s effective enough they taught it to Syrians, too.
The goofs are best explained by the fact that very few of the crews have fought a war before, at least not at this level. As far as I know, most abandoned vehicles on both sides have been just lack of fuel.
In order to collect abandoned tanks from the battlefield, one has to be in the possession of the battlefield, so there’s a good reason to doubt the Ukrainian claims since they have been mostly withdrawing or digging in. I’ve seen tens of videos by Donetsk militia driving captured Ukrainian tanks away, which makes sense since they are advancing into Ukrainian positions.
That is indeed a great video, thanks PK.
It’s been frustrating winnowing down the hyperbolic and hopedrowned sources and finding almost no real news left behind. As you say, Bazaar of War when he(?) posts is always worth it, but is posting very little (no doubt for the same “we dont know” reasons as the Chieftain you linked).
Skimming telegram for a few channels that have proven relatively sane is the last refuge I’ve found to get any clue what’s actually happened in the last day. And it’s incredibly doubtful all round.
On youtube you can check the China Global Television Network CGTN, which while pushing China’s take on other issues seems to be rather unbiased regarding Ukraine and they have a reporter (Dmitriy Maslak) on the ground in Donetsk. As in having to take cover from the artillery once in a while.
Also I’ve been told, but haven’t checked out myself yet, that Defense Politics Asia channel from Singapore is delivering good analysis and trying to be neutral.
I am guessing they would want to capture the Ukranormal soldiers whereas they would want to kill the Azovazi brigadiers.
Lessors worry as deadline looms for return of Russian planes
This Russian airline is reducing its fleet. It appears to be proactively putting some aircraft on standby for parts.
https://www.rbc.ru/business/25/03/2022/623deb339a7947829384ed00
Per the VA reinfections of Covid are more risky study–is the sample size on that really telling enough?
49 out of 189 compared to 1,500 our of 9,000 who had a second reinfection? Its certainly something to be paying attention too, but all other sources I see seem to indicate reinfections are less severe (granted this is usually from going from 1 to 2, not 2 to 3 and whoever funds this research may well have biases)
Reinfections may be less severe in terms of symptoms, but from what I’m reading they continue to do damage and increase the chances of long COVID.
On this:
Some anecdotal ‘evidence’ I can provide on the reactions I have seen here in Madrid about the informational environment after the initial shock when Russia started the invasion of Ukraine. Even if most if not all media are crazily adopting the official and radical EU-NATO posturing, people in general realize something (or a lot) is wrong with the information environment. Many, possibly most, tend not to believe all of it. Particularly, I can tell about a municipal cultural facility close to home, where people that go to various courses are asking the History professor to prepare for them a ‘master class’ on the near historical-geographical context before the invasion and particularly on Maidan and post-Maidan period. Asking for context, that’s rational. Seems that many (don’t know if a majority or not) are not buying all the propaganda and not willing to fall so easily on Russophobia. On the other side, media ‘opinionators’ in at least the most radical anti-Russian outlets, such as El Pais, are crying that no sacrifice is unnecessary against the evil Putin and no economical reasons should be put before the defence of our “common values”. Preparing us psychologistically for permanent high prices and rationing? Anyway, my guess is that people in all political spectres are not buying this narrative.
Are the protests of the Spanish fishermen being covered in Spanish media? The viral social media videos has a Yellow Vests-Freedom Convoy vibe to the fishermen protests.
2022 elections are going to be a crazy year for US politics. Wonder if EU will be the same. Macron lucks out in having his election before the fallout of Ukraine becomes painful.
Yes, of course. Those thing are always reported. In local and some general media go to first page before Ukraine (Not at El Pais where only an EU agreement on energy outcompetes Ukraine)
My 81-year old mother has noticed the standing buildings around the bombed sites.
Ignacio: Also a series of anecdotes.
Here in Torino, LaStampa is in a dither because the Russian ambassador to Italy has filed a complaint in the courts about an article that he claims calls for the murder of Putin.
LaStampa spent much ink on the first few pages today blathering about freedom of the press. More blather about how LaStampa only reports the facts.
In the Buongiorno rubric, Feltri tried to take the partisans’ association (WWII partisan war) to task for not being sufficiently bellicose. The ANPI has called for a negotiated peace and has also stated that the war in Ukraine shouldn’t be compared with WWII Italy and its partisan war / civil war.
Meanwhile, in the realm of facts: LaStampa regularly publishes Anna Zafesova, the Rachel Maddow media worker of Italy, who has claimed that shelves are empty in Moscow and that Russia will run out of consumer products any minute.
Then there was the article with the owner of the kosher restaurant in Lviv / Leopoli, who claimed that there is no anti-Semitism in Ukraine.
Then there was the article that asserted that Russian’s plans for denazification were mere propaganda–hey, what nazifascists?
Then there was the thumbsucker about Prof Orsini, the latest critic of the invasion who is being run off television for having dissenting views.
I had lunch with a friend of mine, who isn’t buying any of this. Because LaStampa is tied to the Agnelli / Elkann family, it is the paper of the big manufacturers. (People buy it for the local coverage, book reviews, TorinoSette, and Sunday Specchio–which seem to come from another editorial world.)
As you write, the elites are clueless, blabbering about common democratic values. Italy can’t survive without gas imported from Russia. Yet there is no plan, as the economy, which did so well in 2021, turns into a not-so-slow train wreck.
Is El Pais this toxic?
It is more or less as toxic as that DJG, difficult to go quantitative on this, don’t you think? With the difference that Russian gas does not enter Spain but both Italy and Spain buy, and so compete, for Algerian gas. I really think that if the leadership goes on in this mode we could see economic confrontations arising within the EU in not that far horizon. Ending like a hen house.
Intra-EU confrontations re sanctions are already starting, despite the veneer of solidarity. Mish Shedlock has a good summary of companies that are not pulling out of Russia so far:
https://mishtalk.com/economics/after-mcdonalds-closed-847-restaurants-in-russia-russian-government-renamed-them-uncle-vanya
French companies are prominent, notably Total (oil), Auchan (think French Walmart), and Leroy Merlin (think French Home Depot). Whereas German competitors Metro and Obi (vs Auchan and Leroy Merlin) have suspended their operations in Russia (which are huge). If this war drags on (as I expect it will, Putin seems to be in no hurry), the already rickety coalition government in Berlin will come under excruciating pressure from Germany’s powerful business lobby (which has invested massively in Russia since 1991). Could Russia nationalize German operations in Russia and then offer them to French companies at bargain prices? That would be a cynical ploy after Putin’s cold heart. At this point, anything is possible.
This may not happen but Sweden appears to be moving closer to joining NATO. Political parties are now discussing how many votes in Parliament would be needed to join.
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/three-quarters-in-favour-or-not-parties-disagree-on-rules-for-a-nato-vote
That one audio article is followed by a number of others on the same subject.
Not sure how much it matters given how close the Sweden cooperates with NATO already:
Swedish air force reconnaissance aircraft are now flying over Poland along Ukrainian border
https://twitter.com/cazorrp/status/1507660307585540097/photo/1
What is really outrageous is that nobody in Sweden even ask the question what value NATO actually brings. Given its glorious successes in Afghanistan, Libya and wherever they have been, only a true fool or a pure evil would even consider such an organisation as part of their defence strategy.
When even a blood thirsty neoliberal like Macron calls NATO a zombie – the equivalent of Hannibal Lecter complaining that another serial killer is too much of cannibal – one should at least think again. Wouldn’t you?
I suspect that the Russians do not care. Once Russia, China, and India get together then NATO is irrelevant.
tindrum — yep I agree. So is AUKUS.
Satire Alert
China’s reaction to AUKUS announcement Faking injury
Re the Antidote du jour. If that rabbit could leave a review on Yelp, I am sure that it would say that ‘the leaves are delicious but the ambience leaves a lot to be desired.’
Another version:
The birds whom frequent our feeders say those feeders are meticulously kept clean and filled with delicious seeds or hummingbird sugar water. The ambience of the cat watching us from the glass door leaves something to be desired. The local chipmunk, teases the cat, so his dining experience, from seeds on the deck, says it’s a fun place to visit.
A book recommendation for those with an interest in the effects of a Nuclear exchange: “The Fate of the Earth” by Johnathan Schell.
It’s a short book, but not a comforting read.
I had to put it down more than once for several days at a time because the subject matter is so horrifying.
In short, the living will envy the dead.
I can second this. But I felt it to be a long book, perhaps because of the subject. The first part was the most interesting, discussing how people deal with the prospect of extinction–or rather, don’t deal with it. We are doing the same thing with climate change, not contemplating it and not doing anything about it.
Everybody is talking about bunkers and such for an event. When it starts, it may be surprising the number of people that will make their way towards the next blast.
Have you ever read Douglas Coupland’s book “Generation X”? It’s a fictional story but has a reoccurring theme where the main character’s mind will wander during mundane moments (grocery checkout line, wandering a mall, making photocopies at work, etc) and imagine a nuclear strike. It gets fairly graphic but is very thought provoking and I’ve found myself doing the same lately.
There’s a sense of helplessness going about the mundane aspects of day-to-day life knowing the psychopaths in power are perpetually on the verge of eradicating life here. But, heck, I could be hit by a bus at any moment too so…
Anyway, for those into lighter reading, it’s a fun and thoughtful book.
Tübingen’s mayor Boris Palmer has been quite popular with the town’s electorate — arguably due to his willingness to buck both the zeitgeist and his (former) party, the Greens, when it comes to “political correct” speech or topics such as immigration.
Unsurprisingly, accusations of racism and the like eventually culminated in a Green party convent last May voting to expel him from their ranks.
It appears that Steven Bannon and others on the Right are advocating for paper ballots counted by hand. Libs react by defending computerized voting machines as TINA: “it would be impossible to count that many ballots.”
I think the Libs are melting away even faster than the planetary Poles (the other Poles seem inclined to suicide by Russian Army).
In the parliamentary democracy I aspire to live in – and of which, through the magic of citizenship by descent, I have been a citizen for about a year/all my life [by the date of receipt of my certificate/by what it says on that certificate] – federal elections are held separately from provincial and local elections, and one votes for one candidate – the person you wish to be your member of parliament. Right now it’s whoever gets the most votes in the first round – reforms have been discussed but not implemented. Most likely there will be another federal election in the Great Multicultural North in 2025 – if I’m there by then I’ll vote Liberal or maybe NDP.
Sounds good. But it is the right we’re talking about here, which means that it is not at all what it seems.
In today’s Financial Times piece by Gillian Tett titled “The world needs to come clean about dirty money”, she mentions the anthropological concept of “social silence” – “a cultural blind spot that goes unnoticed because it is so familiar to insiders who have little incentive to challenge it.”
And in the NY Times of March 24, there is “The Story Behind That Photo of Ketanji Brown Jackson and Her Daughter. A Times photographer talks about documenting history and pride at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/style/ketanji-brown-jackson-daughter-photo.html
What is striking about the story is that not a word is said about Judge Jackson’s husband and her daughter’s father – his prominent presence in the photo is not acknowledged, even in the caption.
In her opening statement to the committee Judge Jackson said, “I would like to introduce you to my husband of 25 years: Dr. Patrick Jackson. I have no doubt that without him by my side from the very beginning of this incredible, professional journey, none of this would have been possible. We met in college more than three decades ago, and since then, he’s been the best husband, father and friend that I could ever imagine. Patrick, I love you.”
I’m happy for Judge Jackson being nominated but I think ID politics is the wrong way to approach nominations. I fear that Judge Jackson, should she be successful in receiving the nomination, will be led by the nose by the crooked politicians from both parties.*
BTW, the young lady (Judge Jackson’s) daughter is rightfully proud of her daughter and the article was solely about her. No mention of the other members of her family!
* I have little or no faith in our legal system – the more money you have the more justice you can buy. Corporations are people and money is free speech? Yeah, right! Both parties love that ruling.
Masks back up at UCSD Health as COVID-19 signals surge in San Diego wastewater
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2022-03-24/masks-back-up-at-ucsd-health-as-covid-19-signal-surges-in-san-diego-wastewater
SEARCH, a coalition of local institutions that has been testing local effluent for more than one year now, posted an update late Wednesday evening that 2.1 million viruses per liter were detected at the Point Loma treatment facility Monday, nearly double the 1.2 million viruses per liter found one week earlier.
Around here (rural eastern WA) I’d estimate that only 5-10% of people are wearing masks since the mandate was lifted. I’m still wearing mine whenever I go out.
Our mask mandate was lifted, but at work on the 2 research floors I frequent I’d say ~99% are still wearing masks. It’s been interesting. Very rare to come across someone without one on, but there are one or two. Same in grocery stores I was at this morning, percent not as high, but still pretty high. The undergrads are starting to roll back in this weekend, though, so stay tuned.
Where are you located, petal?
northern NH
On a Friday shopping excursion in Syracuse area to BJ’s, a supermarket and bagel store, maybe 10% mask usage. This is in an area where positives are back to late January levels… Hochul declared victory a few weeks ago. I’m resigned to KN95s for the foreseeable future.
Went to Winn Dixie in Metairie, LA. 0% mask wearage by both Customers and Workers.
The one on Veteran’s or the one on Airline? The last I was there, those two spots were still very different in their demos.
The one on Vets (Veterans Blvd). Lot of Petite Bourgeois Landlords in my neck of the woods.
The mask mandate at the state university here was partially lifted on Monday (still required in all classrooms, optional everywhere else) and mask discipline is still good. Very few students and employees are maskless (except for the facilities management staff — nary a mask to be seen with that crew).
A quick stop at the grocery store this morning and, while it was moderately busy, I saw only one other shopper with a mask on. I have not yet gotten the stink-eye from anyone for still wearing a mask in public, but then people normally give me a wide berth so I wouldn’t consider myself an accurate barometer for measuring anti-mask sentiments. ;)
Dropped off a box of 3M Auras at my elderly mother’s house and she was as grateful for them as I was for seeing her not thinking the pandemic is over.
So, despite the no-mask rules and everyone acting as if this thing is over, there is a thread of commentary and data suggesting quite strongly that another wave is coming and coming fast. I see a steady list of places in the US starting upward again. Lambert’s charts are showing this. Deaths are down and still dropping, here, but despite this huge effort to argue that the Hong Kong nightmare is somehow utterly different than what could happen in the US, I wonder…..I am vaxxed J&J and boosted, have never caught this thing unless I am entirely asymptomatic, and while 75 years old pretty healthy, but I am finding myself trying to decide whether or not to finally get on a plane and and fly to New England to see family and friends I haven;t seen for 3 years. This would be May 12-21, 7 weeks from now? I have a very strong feeling this is similar to the way it was in 2020 in the spring, people still thinking it wouldn’t get that bad, trying to make plans. Back then I called off a trip I had planned and that was the right call. I am damn close to bagging this May trip, too, because I have this vivid image of being on the damn plane May 12th and coming down with the damn thing, and then what?
Wear an N95 or better yet a P100 if you fly.
‘How can infections grow this fast when up to 30% have already been infected in the last Omicron wave? Well, for starters, BA.2 is quickly growing past 50% of infections and it is 30-50% more transmissible than the first Omicron wave (BA.1).’
Here in Oz they cannot remove the restrictions fast enough whether it be masks, testing, etc. And yet for some mysterious reason kids in school are getting infected left, right and center as well as their teachers. So strange this. So what is our TV media reporting on? Why the threat of the oncoming flu season of course. Jesus wept-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-23/queensland-schools-face-staff-shortages-covid-19-cases-increase/100933334
>Why Boeing pilot Forkner was acquitted in the 737 MAX prosecution Seattle Times (furzy)
I think this is a good article. It shows how the government, when forced to do something, goes after a small fish like Forkner (a mid-level employee at Boeing) and attempts to make him a “scapegoat”. Those seeking justice want blood? Okay, we’ll give them blood, but it certainly won’t be blue.
One of his texts to a fellow employee is a spot-on, all-too-true description of the current state of the FAA. In it he dismissed FAA engineers listening to a technical presentation as like “dogs watching TV”.
Beautiful. As truth always is.
From the conclusion of the article (emphasis added):
Forkner’s acquittal seems to mark the end of legal risk for Boeing and its employees.
In January 2021, the Justice Department agreed to a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the company that explicitly exonerated Boeing’s senior management.
The sole criminal consequence for Boeing is the fine imposed in that agreement: $244 million.
I can only hope people vote with their feet in regards to air travel, and avoid the MAX or whatever rebranded name it might have/get and possibly any Boeing planes at all, if given the choice.
With the pandemic I can’t imagine ever flying again, but were I to do so, I’d certainly avoid any Boeing airframes.
I check the aircraft for any flight I want to book and avoid flying on the MAX. But recently a 737-800 crashed in China (plunged at a 35 degree angle). The Dreamliner is fraught with problems. What’s left?
the 737-800 has an excellent safety record, iirc from wikipedia 0.17 hull losses per million flights. Beyond covid concerns and concerns with specific carriers, I would fly on one without hesitation. It’s far too soon to draw conclusions about the recent crash.
On the recent Boeing 737 crash in China. The headlines I have seen all say either China Airlines or Chinese Crash, leave out Boeing. Boeing PR/NARRATIVE Department must be working overtime these past years. One wonders if there are standing agreements corporations have with media regarding negative publicity and “reporting”, if any exists anymore.
“Hey, Joe, the payment is on the way regarding that latest crash.”
When US-made airliners crash in foreign countries the tendency has long been for media to ignore it, especially if the crew was foreign. Blaming a crash on pilot error is touchy business in the US because the pilot’s union can sue, but if the crew was foreign, it is easy to blame “pilot error” and forget the whole thing.
‘Cuba offered medical care to these children free of cost, only asking the USSR to pay for their flights. Radiation treatment at this time, for just a single patient,cost more than the transportation for 100 people. Cuba did all of this during its worst economic crisis in the 90s’
You think about this. How their doctors and nurses are treating people all around the world, how common diseases have been eliminated from their country and how their medical establishment has still managed to come up with a vaccine for Coronavirus – all the while their country being under economic siege. Imagine if countries did not have to waste so much of their budget on military gear and could devote it to medicine and public health instead.
The large truth buried in a small story.
Hard, shriveled and cold hearts are threatened and angered by compassionate and unselfish ones. Defense is to vilify the other.
Cuba has also developed a vaccine against lung cancer. It’s illegal for Americans to use it.
I tried to link to the USA Today report on the vaccine but failed to link correctly! But a search will reveal all.
I cant help but think of the how it was the USSR that trained and help build up the Cuban medical system in the early days. They also trained millions of doctors and public health workers and in other specialties from the developing world. USSR still saving lives long after its gone! I imagine they also would have attempted to snuff out sars cov 2 like the Chinese. Instead there are nearly a million excess deaths in Russia over the last two years not including the other republics which were part of the USSR. Even when Soviet citizens were rightly cynical of their government they trusted the medical system and would routinely have the highest vaccination rates around the world.
Another Biden link at TheHill The Memo: Biden in a bind as Ukraine crisis fails to pump up polls
Communism had effectively neutered itself from Capitalism by using its own monetary system of countries in the bloc party, each with their own ‘sovereign currency’ and none of them had easy convertibility (there was typically a set exchange rate in each country versus say the $, but maybe worth a fifth of that in the west) versus our bloc of competitive currencies.
And there was little to buy in Communist countries with bloc party moolah, my mom told me how she attracted advances often in her many visits from 1973 through to the finish line in ’89 with both male and female admirers of her greenbacks, looking to off some Czech Koruna so they could spend them @ the Tuzex.
It was illegal to do so, and she related they all had kind of a Peter Lorre stealth approach after ascertaining her for an American… ‘dhuu heb dollars to exchange?’
Her favorite was a debonair fellow in coat and tails in Prague who had Hollywood looks, trying to charm semollians out of her purse.
Now it seems the old guard of western currencies of countries that really don’t produce that much compared to the eastern bloc, want to effectively neuter themselves, turnabout being fair play according to Bizarro World rules.
~After generations of stability, a family reckons with death, debts and a desperate fall from the American middle class~
“Dave Jr. and his two daughters were inheriting during a time of accelerating inequality in the United States was the exact opposite of intergenerational wealth: his father’s end-of-life expenses, thousands of dollars in debts,”
Debts die with the debtor.
This is why it is essential for poor or middle class people in old age to convert whatever they can afford to and are able to into fungible items that the IRS and state tax officials, credit card companies and other corporate zombies cannot grab.
Any person who dies of old age without a substantial credit card debt has practiced bad estate planning.
My mother passed away several years ago. I’ve been receiving income tax statements in her name (she was living with us when she died) that reports the credit card charge offs as “ income”
There’s no estate, no probate, my accountant said to ignore them.
Still…Makes me think something hinky is slithering forward from the credit card companies.
Another Not So Cold New Cold War link: Indian diplomat (retired) M. K. BHADRAKUMAR describes Biden’s reality check in Europe
It sounds like an emerging opportunity for new emerging parties in EUrope to run on the concept of terminating NATO or terminating their membership in it. And perhaps forming a NEATO ( North East Atlantic Treaty Organization) without America or Canada or UK in it.
China-India rapprochement beginning with India, China discuss steps to end border impasse early Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has met with his Indian counterpart and the national security adviser to expedite the disengagement of thousands of Indian and Chinese forces involved in a tense faceoff and occasional clashes along their disputed border
China says resolving border issues shouldn’t impede progress while India says that is the necessary first step
The article about the “lessons” from Chamberlain and Munich is quite right about the perpetual stupid and flatulent warmongering propaganda in all such references. Unfortunately it completely misses the historical reality of Munich 1938 despite containing one citation that, better than anything, expresses the real point: “In 1937, Chamberlain told King George VI that he had ‘sketched out the prospect of Germany and England as the two pillars of European peace and buttresses against Communism.’” The point is that word “Communism.” It was NOT directed at Russia–Stalin was at that very moment at the peak of his civil war (called The Great Purge) to annihiliate physically the surviving generation of communists (Old Bolsheviks) who had made the October Revolution and won the Civil War, in preparation for open alliance with his fellow pogromchik in Berlin. The revolutionary “Communism” that Chamberlain so dreaded was at that moment right on his doorstep in Barcelona and Paris, and had only been staved off from central Europe by recently-imposed fascism in Germany and Austria. The key to Munich 1938 is that Chamberlain was well aware from the Oster Group’s connections to British Intelligence that the Wehrmacht High Command was so sure that war would be disastrous that they were prepared to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Nazis the moment Hitler would order an invasion of Czechoslovakia. But the nazi regime, and thus the German capitalist regime as a whole, was so unstable that its overthrow would raise the threat of another 1919-23, the threat of renewed proletarian revolution. Hitler therefore had to be kept in power, at any cost, until Allied armament had reached the point, not only of defeating Germany but, above all, of occupying it. That threat was what made Unconditional Surrender and Carpet Bombing the central points of Allied Strategy. Hitler was the nominal enemy. The real enemies were those phoenixes Luxemburg and Trotsky.
re: Utah enacts sports ban….
(CNN)Young transgender athletes in Utah have been banned from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams after GOP state lawmakers on Friday overrode a veto from their Republican governor to enact the controversial measure.
Good. This covers k-12 public schools. (It’s not a controversial measure to most people who’ve spent years trying to build up girls’ teams school sports.)
Seems like this should be the top story everywhere, no? But aside from here and a handful of other places that still take covid seriously, I have seen no discussions of it.
Instead, all I see is constant denigrating of China’s zero covid strategy. I guess we’ll see how successful this “just pretend it isn’t happening” strategy works for the neoliberal west, by contrast.
Navratilova speaking in 2019:
“I don’t think it should be up to women and girls to prove there is a disadvantage for us. I think it needs to be proven the other way — that there is no disadvantage — so that women and girls are not discouraged from playing the sport they love because they have no chance.”
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/09/11/martina-navratilova-including-trans-women-sport-tricky/
The dive:
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220322075644-02-university-pennsylvania-lia-thomas-super-169.jpg
And the finish:
https://www.thehamdenjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Female-swimmers-beaten-by-transgender-athlete-stage-podium-protest-at-1024×640.jpeg
Not defending any one way of thinking here, I dislike the demanding, bully-ish streak in trans activism. I am on Dave Chapelle’s side in his fight. Sometimes it is about simple biology. But I also know a trans person who lost her entire family when she came out so I have some sympathy. Maybe sports will change to simple levels where gender doesn’t matter. Like boxing with it’s different weight categories. There will be qualifications/qualifying rounds. Athletes of different weights, heights, whatever category makes sense for the sport, compete against each other, not men vs women. Many team sports could be mixed.
An easier path to tread for trans activism would be the fight to change acting awards. Best actor by genre I.e. comedy, drama, musical is doable right now, feminists should have tackled that one long ago.
Here’s a paper that examines the biology wrt sports performance.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33289906/
Right on! Regardless of any ID or political correctness in the situation, the fact is that trans women were born as male human beings. That is “science”. When most biologists, medical professionals are asked to weigh in on the discussion they , if truthful, will state that a trans women, no matter what surgery or other medical interventions, has physiology that is still male. There is a reason that boys and girls play with their own genders. The whole argument that trans women are being discriminated against, if not allowed to play on female teams or in sports, is mute. We have a gifted athlete in our family. Would be saddened and angry if she had to compete in her sport against trans women.
Caitlyn Jenner agrees. (And she would know.) I’m glad to see a famous former male athlete who is now a famous trans women push back on this nonsense in womans sports.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/e2-80-98i-had-the-balls-to-stand-up-for-women-e2-80-99-caitlyn-jenner-rails-against-allowing-trans-women-to-compete-against-biological-females/ar-AAVfCLj
I understand that Mike Tyson is going to declare that he self-identifies as both a woman & as a lightweight and so will be part of the Olympic’s Women’s Boxing team for 2024. /sarc
Big news for webheads–Andrew Cockburn, that other Cockburn brother, now has a Substack. So far the posts live up the excellent reputation he acquired at Harper’s. Here are two that seem particularly NC relevant.
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/what-caused-boeings-downfall
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/the-worst-defense-program-of-all
and needless to say his journalistic specialty is highly relevant just lately.
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/the-purpose-of-sanctions-hunger-desperation
Regarding the Assange situation, I think that the prospect of expedition to the US has long been a forgone conclusion, simply because of the UK’s membership in the Five Eyes program. There is also the fact that Assange is such a public enemy in the eyes of US intelligence agencies, that I am sure that the UK legal authorities would rather sacrifice him to the US kangaroo courts rather than hold on to him, because the latter would result in a rather serious diplomatic upset between US and UK intelligence organizations. As far as the UK is concerned, no political prisoner would be worth the risk of overturning the proverbial apple cart.
Assange’s goose is cooked, and neither the UK nor the US will listen or even cares what anybody else thinks about it as this was the plan for years ever since he released embarassing details on US malfeasance.
Antiwar article on Blinken not deigning to speak with Lavrov.
The level of incompetence, self-indulgence, and sheer immorality makes one wonder, doesn’t it?
Now that the death of Madeleine Albright has reminded us that hell is other people, I see that Antony Blinken wants to show us how much he embodies Arendt’s idea of the banality of evil.
As we say here at Naked Capitalism, thanks to reminders from Yves Smith and Lambert Strether, these are clarifying times.
From just a bit ago in a Biden speech; Biden Says Putin Can’t Remain in Power After Ukraine War
There is also video of the speech floating around. Biden plainly said Putin cannot remain in power.
I’m thinking go long commodities and bomb manufacturers.
Of local note from NW Ohio – on my travels today 87 octane gas is between $4.09 & $4.19, the highest it has been since July of 08. This won’t end well.
Go long seeds, solar panels and a well. I wonder if Amfortas has room for a spare.
If you think hi-tech civilization might collapse enough that solar panels might no longer be replaceable or obtainable, you might want a pet steam engine for generating electricity instead.
https://mikebrownsolutions.com/steam-engines/
I hear that Juan Guaido is looking for ‘new opportunities.’
I would Biden’s behavior means the US will still recognize Pete Buttigieg as President of Venezuela as would you make a deal with Biden. Any potential Iran deal is likely dead now.
*I would say Biden’s behavior
WH spokesperson trying to walk that back… If this is Biden’s famous gaffe-prone garrulousness, that would be a heckuva way for the world to end…
Noticed this morning that diesel has hit $5.199/gal here in Hanover, NH. Topped off my tank, figuring the rest will follow shortly. And a can of Progresso soup is now running anywhere from $3-3.29 at the large chain grocery stores.
Is it too late to vote for Trump?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/06/trump-muses-about-really-bad-quite-possibly-illegal-idea-bomb-russia-using-chinese-flags/
Yeah , I miss trump and his big brain energy.
Didn’t Bush and Blair once consider one a false flag event where they were going to accuse the Iraqis or Iranians of shooting down a UN flagged jet? And back in the early 60s, didn’t the DoD plan on using the CIA to commit terrorist attacks on military & civilians in the US itself to justify an invasion of Cuba?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Trump was just lazy and he was simply trying to steal previous ideas.
What’s really funny about this is on the NBC nightly news program tonight (I am hostage to family and watch it for current events homework), on the annoucement about this statement in the speech in the lead in, same sentence, they added the White House had already walked the statement back(!!).
What the eff is going on? I presume some Armando Iannuci-esque situation where nobody is in control and many factions are fighting, and also everyone is an insufferable narcissist and pretty stupid. But this is something between comical and pathetic with tragic overtones.
yes, unbelievable that after all our catastrophic misadventures during the War on Terror, the U.S. president is again calling for regime change—in Russia.
Biden is a danger to himself and others.
Unbelievable. Just went looking and found him saying these words in a video-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agEaCr6InEM (1:08 mins)
Our ‘elite’ are delusional and I could easily seeing them push us into Great Depression 2.0 territory without being aware that they are doing it or worse yet not even caring. Russia has now been pushed into an existential fight for their lives and even Putin said that the west is trying to cancel everything Russian. And they will fight. Wouldn’t we?
Just found this-
‘Alexander S. Vindman
@AVindman
This was an historical speech for @POTUS
. Like Kennedy’s Berlin Speech, this is the one Biden will be remembered for. Biden laid down a marker that the US will defend its allies & democracy. I’m proud of my POTUS & his powerful leadership during a climactic battle for democracy.’
https://mobile.twitter.com/AVindman/status/1507785729941782528
All his dreams are coming true. And the comments below that tweet are interesting too.
>>>The Met Just Apologised After Strip-Searching Me. I Don’t Believe a Word of It
Interesting. One could almost lift this word for word for some random police abuse case in the States with the major difference being the American police tend to be more psychopathically violent in all areas of the country.
More on ukraine and mines breaking loose of mooring. ukraine denies everything as usual.
https://www.rt.com/news/552764-turkey-bosphorus-naval-mine/
Typical. Back in 2001 the Ukrainians accidentally shot down a Russian airliner carrying mostly Israelis and killing all 78 passengers and crew but denied it. Even Putin denied it, probably for political reasons. But when the Ukraine had to admit that it was them, in the compensation agreement they made it stated that “Ukraine is not legally responsible for the accident that occurred to the plane and free of any obligations regarding it.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812
Long-COVID research:
Unfortunately, this is paywalled, but here are a few key excerpts [ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-researchers-are-working-to-understand-the-scale-and-scope-of-long/ ] It’s not hard to imagine how some politicized health authorities are going to gaslight this one, i.e. this is all in your head, and it’s just a bunch of nutty women …
Sad but hopeful Climate/Environment news from HI $1.1 Billion and Counting for US Navy’s Obstinance in Shutting Down Dangerous, Leaking Red Hill Jet Fuel Tanks in Honolulu
Coronavirus.
————
Out of date , incomplete and done using spread sheets, but at least you have a vague idea of what is going on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
Ukraine.
——–
Participants in the special operation in ukraine will have access to the social protection system used by veterans of Afghanistan, Syria, and other hot spots.
https://tass.com/russia/1427737
A glimpse at how sanctions get circumvented and how it is business as usual.
https://www.icij.org/
Please tell me it is not true and the west is targeting sick people.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/russians-are-panic-buying-medicines-amid-western-sanctions-boycotts/
Other News.
———–
North Korea hackers take an opportunity while everybody is looking away.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/03/north-korean-hackers-unleashed-chrome-0-day-exploit-on-hundreds-of-us-targets/
Funny how an oil shortage will concentrate minds and old enemies become friends.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/26/eu-envoy-in-tehran-to-help-finalise-stalled-nuclear-deal-talks
Sanctions against Russia ripple out across asia. New enemys in the making.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/25/ukraine-war-is-central-asia-loosening-ties-with-russia
Meanwhile China gets on with tackling unintended effects of the Ukraine war. Throw more fertilizer at it even though China already has overuse.
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202203/25/WS623d072aa310fd2b29e532c0.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X21000469
N. Korean hackers…
Not one shred of evidence or a description thereof. In fact, I could swap out North Korean-backed with US gov’t-backed and pin responsibility on any number of N. American-based hacking groups and the story would have just as much credibility, if not more. So much garbage being dispensed nowadays.
The ars technica story is false. Western drug companies have not stopped supplying Russia and say they intend to keep sending meds. Now some Russians may not believe them…..
It’s sad day when we have to look to Big Pharma as an example of decency.
https://mobile.twitter.com/marceelias/status/1507730465309925377
I can’t wait to see Lambert’s comment on this.
The replies are even worse than the original tweet! Where do these people come from?
On a side note, if paper ballots, hand marked, counted in public were implemented, from a practical point of view, having separate federal, state and local elections would be less complicated to manage. All governmental offices and ballot question piled into a single ballot on one day would be very difficult to tally. The US elections are not like the UK or Canada national parliamentary elections where results are quickly tallied.
I’d be interested in further discussion of this issue. I don’t know how to find out details about procedures and results in countries that hand count a large volume, and have complex ballots beyond random browsing. So I have an unappealing vision of stacks of ballots in the current US format (large number races and candidates on a single ballot, many differences across jurisdictions) being stacked, and counted, and tallied over and over for days and days.
Arizona Republican legislators, with few exceptions, supported “tallied over and over” ballots. Be careful how a good idea can be twisted to attempt some ends.
One proposal I saw reported in AZ raised the opposite problem. The proposal was to count all the votes in 24 hours. I don’t know what that would mean for state and local elections. For federal elections there’s reason to be wary if a hand count along with a narrow window for counting is part of the current Republican focus on the independent state legislature doctrine, with a possibility of ignoring the vote count if it isn’t completed “on time.”
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2022/03/21/gop-senators-want-kill-early-voting-arizona-what-genius-plan/7123391001/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/supreme-court-democracy-independent-state-legislature.html
The problem could be solved by people who would want to solve it.
The problem would be worsened by people who would want to worsen it.
Re Drumlin@2:29
Indeed. I have participated in at least 6 paper ballot counts in Canada at the federal and provincial levels. The counting process is very smooth and is generally over within 90 minutes. In the rare case of a very close result there is a recount. Then the result may not be available for several days.
Bob’s Burgers had the appropriate take:
“It’s a privilege just to be in the room with so much dumb.”
I was out and about Sonoma County today, Santa Rosa, Forestville and Woketown ( Formerly Sebastopol).
I stopped outside Whole Foods for a few minutes, then Safeway, I also looked into several businesses.
Less than 10% of the people I saw were masked.
Because the Pandemic is over, the SeedeeCee and the pundits on TeeVee have spoken and all is right with the world.
The blowback will be spectacular.
I would say ‘clapback,’ but that’s another class of disease entirely.
Just as certain STDs are referred to as “The gift that keeps on giving,” we can call the Coronavirus “The gift that keeps on taking, a little bit at a time.”
” The Lyme disease of viruses.”
Anecdote: I was chatting with two ladies last night and the Ukraine came up. One opined that nuclear war was impossible because no one would ever push the button. I countered that there were people who had been hand selected for fanaticism/psychopathology and trained to do exactly that. Furthermore, at least twice during the Cold War there were near launches and accidental detonations of nukes.
The other mused as to whether we were safe from nukes “over here”. I replied no we were not, not only were there ICBM’s but also nuclear armed submarines right off of the coast somewhere. The conversation quickly changed away to more pleasant things.
Total ignorance. No sense of history, no sense of the power of ideology, of human failings. More to the point, an inability to see that others might not see things the way they do. These were nice women, not at all slavering liberals hungry for war. Just ignorant and presumptuous Americans. The norm.
I will guess that the vast majority of Americans assume that nuclear war will never happen. Something so horrific simply cannot be believed to be possible. Certainly not likely. An alien abduction is seen as far more likely than is global nuclear war.
In case you have not heard enough bad news, Shanghai seems like its heading for let ‘er rip
Shanghai can’t be locked down; nucleic acid and antigen self-testing an exploration for the city: official
High-intensity large-scale urban warfare is all hell:
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-104-from-mostar-to-mariupol
Re: Not So Cold New Cold War
There are claims that the six Russian generals reportedly killed on the Ukrainian battlefield may have been targeted by US intelligence operatives:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/03/23/pentagon-targeting-russian-generals-is-us-at-war-with-russia-in-all-but-name/
US has form when it comes to kill lists, of course. Targeted for assassination by covert forces or special air operations: Congo PM Patrice Lumumba in 1960 (successful), Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1961 (successful), president Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963 (successful), Cuban president Fidel Castro in 1963 (unsuccessful), president Sukarno of Indonesia in 1965 (unsuccessful), Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 1986 (unsuccessful, though killed his daughter), Serbia’s president Slobodan Milosevic in 1999 (unsuccessful), Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003 (unsuccessful), al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 (successful), al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 (successful), al Qaeda militant Anwar Awlaki in 2011 (successful), Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in 2020 (successful).
A mixed track record. But Putin at his long table probably not daft to fear death by coronavirus or some other biochemical means.
Could be. Both Mikhail “Givi” Tolstykh and Arsen “Motorola” Pavlov – two popular Donbass commanders – were assassinated by the Ukrainians a coupla years ago but you just know that the US was heavily involved. Right from 2014, the US were training the Ukrainians in assassination and sabotage techniques. And if you do not think that there are western special forces from countries like the US, the UK, Poland, etc. running around the Ukraine right now helping the Ukrainians kill Russians, then I can’t help you. They did the same in Syria where they helped the Jihadists fight government forces and there is circumstantial evidence that they gave ISIS commanders real time intelligence in some of their fights.
Also . . . President Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King?
Well, quite…
Here’s a tweet on the current wastewater indications in the Bay Area, with easier-to-read graphs than the stuff I usually link to:
https://twitter.com/cha_myoung/status/1507849665667993601
He doesn’t mention the Oceanside treatment facility in San Francisco. The Oceanside data had a large, problematic variation to the downside recently and their relative prevalence data is, well, lamentably hard to discern current trends from. Myoung Cha is right to leave it off his list. But, having watched California Covid data over the course of the pandemic, I’ve come to regard these kinds of apparent artifacts as a reliable indicator that the situation is getting ugly.
Much as with the Wuhan strain in New York, Omicron first flared disproportionately in the most afflutent areas of California. I’ve been wondering if there will be any echo of that with BA.2. Currently it seems as if there might be.
How to ride a bike on city streets:
https://www.ktvu.com/news/cars-collide-narrowly-missing-san-jose-cyclist-video
see story
“Athletes of different weights, heights, whatever category makes sense for the sport, compete against each other, not men vs women.”
No, sports teams cannot be mixed by sex. Sex matters in athletic performance. In almost all sports, there are significant differences between male and female performance. High school boys consistently break women Olympic records. Women are not just men with low testosterone, and reducing testosterone does not eliminate these differences.
There are large and overwhelming differences between the male and female bodies, especially when you reach competitive/elite levels. If you do not separate male/female bodies, competitive sports will separate into male and transgender female (i.e. male) categories. There is a reason that transgender women are breaking sports records and transgender men are not.
Men have more muscle mass and lower body fat, period. A heroically low, period-eliminating body fat level for a woman is <10% while men can get down to 3-5%.
Men also have heavier bones and less joint laxity, so they can also take impact and ballistic force with lower risk of injury.
I can’t help wonder if all this started with 9/11 reinvigorating a latent US warrior culture. As from what i can tell anthropology has found that third genders crop up invariably in such cultures.
This in order to sort the warrior men from the non-warrior men. Often via potentially lethal rituals designed to tests one’s “bravery” (or lack of one’s sense of mortality) around when puberty kicked in.
Only that back then the “best” they could do was chop things off, if they even bothered with that, and slap a diminutive label on those that washed out.
Now however they can do all kinds of things with scalpels and chemistry.
Biden’s Comments About Putin Were An Unforced Error | The Atlantic
“Putin, whose strategic aims have now collapsed, might yet murder more Ukrainians in rage at his humiliation.”
Was this article written by an AI? Surely no human being believes Putin is ‘raging’ in Ukraine, on a murderous rampage over his hurt feelings? Though, I heard back in 2008 they told him his invitation to the EU was in the mail, and he only figured it out last month.
You have no idea how many articles I have been sent by people who ought to know better claiming that Putin is suffering from ‘roid rage, that his face proves it. Ahem, guess they never noticed that he’s looked this way for years and clear has had (actually pretty good) plastic surgery.
All indications are that WWIII has started. “German Industry Powerhouse Shaken to Core by War in Ukraine” and “U.S. president is again calling for regime change—in Russia.” This is like August 1914 where the national armies are being transported by train on fixed timetables within striking distance of each other.
Neoliberals built a global trade supra-structure and demolished good government in order to benefit themselves financially. Like WWI this infrastructure is now being destroyed by the ruling neo-aristocracy who know not what they are doing. For example, Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics, is credited with the Russian sanctions that seized their Central Bank reserves which violates sovereign immunity and destroys the “full faith and credit” of the safe haven money deposited in the USA.
The next month will tell if corporations can call in their chips and coerce their political managers to call off the hounds of war that assures that their companies will shut down due to lack of raw commodities, parts and workers (or even their destruction in a nuclear war) and force the war parties to sign a peace treaty partitioning Ukraine. Or, is it too late like a century ago?
“Let’s go Brandon.”
Does anyone in DC do irony anymore? The “freedom-loving” USA just called for regime change because they don’t like the guy who was elected with 77% of the vote by his own citizens. Democracy my ass.
The Kremlin has already dryly said that it is not up to Biden to choose the Russian President but the Russian people. So much for those claims by the UK, France and the US that this was never about regime change. The White House is already back-peddling Biden’s grandpa moment because it looks like he went off-script with that remark.
Per Newsweek, they’re also walking back an earlier statement by Biden which implied that U.S. troops would be sent to Ukraine:
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-rolls-out-multiple-tweets-after-white-house-retracts-putin-comments-1692196
It’s a new dance move – the “Biden Two-Step”. Old Joe will go off the reservation and step forward with some stupid neocon statement and then the White House has to step it back again.
This is looking like the inverse of the Eisenhower/Dulles years. Where Eisenhower would try to reconcile with USSR, and then Dulles’ state department would issue a statement that would demolish the attempt.
“1,000-year-old oaks used to create ‘super forest’Z”
A fascinating experiment to grow a small forest. There is mention of carbon capture but I wonder if they have factored in changing temperatures as the climate warms up. Still, very much worth the effort to recreate what the whole country use to look like once and which to a large extent is gone.
Several decades ago I took a class at my University called Woody Plants, taught by some world famous ( in their fields) people who still wanted to teach. In the lab section, we were taken to one or another University field property each week to look at one or another kind of forest or at least multi-species woody plants community. One of the last classes was a visit to the University’s re-created strictly-European-species forest. Where everything else was in bright fall colors or even past fall colors and losing its leaves, these European trees in forest formation were still green . . . but a drab gray fading sort of green. It was a very gloomy forest.
Interesting work could also be done just throwing all different species together in a planned neo-forest to see what they do together. A version of that happened on Ascension Island.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11137903
Here is a truly strange hypotheoretical science article, called . . . ” Experimental protocol for testing the mass–energy–information equivalence principle ”
It would be truly interesting if they found out that this is just maybe-true-enough that further research is deserved and called for.
Perhaps it will lead to a new theory of things and stuff called something like . . . . Quantum Mechanical Metaphysics. What should we call the basic particle of thought? The mentron?
Here is the link.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0087175