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.
And for those who are new here, this is not a mere polite request. We have written site Policies and those who comment have accepted those terms. To prevent having to resort to the nuclear option of shutting comments down entirely until more sanity prevails, as we did during the 2015 Greek bailout negotiations and shortly after the 2020 election, we are going to be ruthless about moderating and blacklisting offenders.
–Yves
P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies:
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Buffets for jumbos on Elephant Day Bangkok Post (furzy). They look festive in their holiday gear. I hope they enjoy being dressed up.
It’s Time to Put Daylight Saving Time to Bed Modern Farmer (BG)
one of the most ominous papers i've read, where ppl training AI to discover ways to improve human health instead go "hm, i wonder what happens if we just flip the direction of training from 'help' to 'hurt'"https://t.co/xMgC39VFyX pic.twitter.com/GkOOj6AmRc
— Aella (@Aella_Girl) March 14, 2022
Cornel West Sees a Spiritual Decay in the Culture New Yorker. Resilc: “More like a rotting hollow roadkill shell.”
#COVID-19
Science/Medicine
Fear over ‘new bug strain’ Bangkok Post (furzy)
Sars-Cov-2 Kills T-Cells, Just Like HIV Igor Chudov
TWiV 874: COVID-19 clinical update #105 with Dr. Daniel Griffin TWIV. From Lee:
Infection and changes in brain structure (Nature) 2:22
Dementia among pneumonia survivors (Open Forum Inf Dis) 4:36
Narrative dynamics around COVID-19 vaccines (FSI) 7:16
Children and COVID (AAP) 8:55
Paxlovid in pediatric patients (Pfizer) 10:34
Mask effectiveness in schools (MMWR) 13:08
Host factors and severe disease (Nature) 14:34
Antiviral efficacy against BA.2 (NEJM) 19:48
Post-acute symptoms, Denmark (medRxiv) 27:02
Risk of sequelae after infection (BMJ) 27:23Adverse Reactions to COVID Vaccines I Have Come Across Midwestern Doctor (Li)
Asia
Metropolises take strictest measures in 2 years as China reports more than 10,000 cases since March Global Times
Apple supplier Foxconn shuts plants as Covid outbreak in China grows Financial Times
China locks down province of 24m as new Covid infections rise Guardian (Kevin W)
UK/Europe
New Covid-19 Coronavirus Wave In Europe May Have Already Begun, Data Suggests Forbes (David L)
COVID digest: Germany′s situation ′critical,′ Lauterbach says DW (resilc)
Inzidenzen auf Höchstwert: MV lockert später NDR (guurst). Google translate version.
US
Sewer Data Warns of a New Bump in Covid Cases in U.S.Bloomberg
Climate/Environment
Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming? Huffpost Kevin W: “From a month ago. As a guy on twitter asked, ‘What stage of capitalism is this?'”
Tree planting is booming. Here’s how that could help, or harm, the planet New York Times (Robert M)
Defenders Of The Forest: How Forest Dwelling-Communities Of Gondia Are Regenerating Forests India Spend (J-LS)
Quaise’s ultra-deep geothermal drilling plans: Your questions answered New Atlas. Chuck L: “A big deal if it works as expected/hoped.”
New Not So Cold War
Talks Fail to Make Progress as Russian Offensive Grinds On Wall Street Journal
US warns China will face consequences if it helps Russia evade Ukraine war sanctions ABC (Kevin W). We really have lost our minds.
China Says It Wants to Avoid U.S. Sanctions Over Russia’s War Bloomberg. Note:
“China is not a party to the crisis, nor does it want the sanctions to affect China,” Wang said in a phone call Monday with Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Albares to discuss the war in Ukraine. “China has the right to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”…
China has long opposed any unilateral sanctions imposed outside of the United Nations, a position Wang reiterated Monday. To Beijing, which has recently faced U.S. sanctions over human rights issues in places like Xinjiang and Hong Kong, compliance with American penalties is seen as a violation of its sovereignty. In line with that, China has vowed to continue normal trade relations with Russia.
Safety of The ISS Has Once Again Been Threatened by Roscosmos Chief Science Alert (Chuck L)
India’s top refiner IOC buys 3 mln bbls Russian Urals crude via tender -sources Reuters
As West Shuns Moscow, Officials Say India Eyes More Cheap Russian Oil The Wire (J-LS)
Is Russia facing a 1998-like default? BNE
Russia Dropped From Ship Certification Body as Sanctions Bite US News (Kevin W)
Central Asia frets as Russia suspends grain, sugar exports BNE. As we predicted…
Koch Industries continues doing business in Russia Popular Information (Glenn F)
As West Shuns Moscow, Officials Say India Eyes More Cheap Russian Oil The Wire (J-LS)
EVIDENCE: Media Misleading US Public On Ukraine Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, YouTube (jr)
Tulsi Gabbard Smeared as ‘Treasonous Liar’ By Sen. Mitt Romney Over Ukraine Biolab Concerns Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
.@MittRomney and others say that I'm treasonous because I called for a ceasefire around the 25+ biolabs in Ukraine to prevent the breach of such facilities & escape of pathogens, and prevent more pandemics. Romney should resign. pic.twitter.com/nNhmM74xo1
— Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) March 14, 2022
Twitter just labeled the account of a long dead American newsman who had a hit show at MSNBC – Ed Schultz – “Russian state media.” I’m not kidding. It’s time for everyone to realize just how insane neo-McCarthyism & toxic-nationalism are.
— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) March 15, 2022
Long in the Making: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Arms Control Association
Parallel Worlds or Parabolic Mirror Images: Media Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War Gilbert Doctorow
Lawmaker pressure on Biden hits its limits The Hill
Aftershock. Russian newsfeed-type source suggested by DS. Yandex translate. Has lots of maps.
This Is Important. Andrei Martyanov (Chuck L). On de-dollarization.
From the John Robb interview that many readers have mentioned. One caveat: Putin didn’t raise the nuclear alert for fun. As Scott Ritter explained, it was done in response to NATO making the same sort of approval that they did before sending troops to Afghanistan.
NEW and slightly terrifying.
What does nuclear escalation look like in the context of an open source network swarm?
Russia's nuclear doctrine is different from ours, and the network swarm has no doctrine.
What happens when they collide?
Will Karen cause nuclear war? pic.twitter.com/03XnLBFTtA
— Jack Murphy⚡️ (@jackmurphylive) March 11, 2022
The Crash Of A Ukrainian-Originating Drone In Croatia Exposed NATO’s Vulnerabilities One World (guurst)
Germany to buy US F-35 jets in first big deal since defence budget boost Financial Times (furzy)
Syraqistan
How to avoid police brutality in Israel? Don’t be an Arab. Mondoweiss (guurst)
Assange
Julian Assange denied permission to appeal against US extradition Guardian (Kevin W). The text suggests this may not QUITE be as kangaroo court-like as it sounds, since Assange was appealing to the (a?) UK Supreme Court and it presumably like ours hears only a tiny percentage of cases presented to it. But one has to wonder about the bona fides of this decision. However, in New York State, the Supreme Court confusingly is it lowest level trial court, so perhaps UK readers can clarify.
As the West babbles on about freedom and democracy, a British Court today rejected the appeal of Julian Assange, bringing him one step further to being extradited to the US to stand trial for espionage for the crime of publishing docs about the US Government. https://t.co/l5Yc6ImXnI
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 14, 2022
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Biden
Biden yet to see boost from voters despite favorable reviews on Ukraine The Hill. Um, approval tends to peak early and decline…
California Court Rules Amazon Must Protect Consumers As You Sow
Notices Of Election Released For 3 CalPERS Board Seats Mondovisione (Kevin W)
Ford ships Explorers without chips for rear-seat HVAC controls ars technica (Kevin W)
Idaho Is First State to Pass Abortion Ban Based on Texas’ Law New York Times (Kevin W)
California Wine Ruined by Wildfires Leads Chemists to Analyze Grapes for Smoke CNET (David L)
JPMorgan’s risky client approach: Cut them off before they cut us down Francine McKenna
Class Warfare
Helen Keller’s Legacy Has Been Sanitized Teen Vogue (David L)
‘Completely demoralized’: US railroad workers pushed to the brink Guardian (resilc)
The % of Americans 30 and younger who live with their parents is at the highest since the Great Depression: due to severe wealth inequality, industry losses, lower wages, and the pandemic.
It so happens that @mtracey doesn't, but mocking those who do takes a sickness of soul. pic.twitter.com/6RjevcJm5A
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 14, 2022
Look inside LA’s new steel container apartments for the homeless KTLA (David L)
Antidote du jour (Chet G):
And a bonus, but may strike some as an anti-antidote (John N):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
256 comments
Comments are closed.
I can remember reading a proposal for drilling in this way (i.e. using superheated bits) all the way back to the 1980’s in an old copy of Omni Magazine.
This particular proposal is new, but it should be said that there is a huge surge of interest now in geothermal energy using conventional drilling techniques. Thanks to fracking, costs and productivity in drilling has changed enormously over the past decade. I’ve seen figures indicating a tenfold increase in productivity since around 2010. This has made what was once seen as a very marginal and expensive renewable energy source become potentially viable in many areas.
In a sensible world of course we’d hire all the frack drillers and rigs and see if they could be repurposed for something more productive.
‘In a sensible world of course we’d hire all the frack drillers and rigs and see if they could be repurposed for something more productive.’
I’m sure that what you meant to say was
‘In a sensible world of course we’d hire all the frack drillers and rigs and see if they could be repurposed for something far less destructive.’
America alone will be living with the destructive consequences of fracking wells for generations.
Living with scores-of-thousands of re-re-fracked wells for generations seems kinda specious, if Schlumberger’s projection of failing well bores was accurate? If bailing-out Albright’s fracked LNG/ oil export pyramid scheme by bogging-down Russia, killing Nord Stream 2, with Syria, Venezuela, Iran… ah, er more cooperative. Well, “frack, baby FRACK” obviates any need to worry about how we’re going to save tens-of-millions with PASC-triggered cancers, CHF, stroke, CNS, renal failure and Alzheimer’s victims? Opioids will help us uppity essentials & death o’ disparity deplorables sleep (amidst methane spewing 8-well pads.) We’d joked, sardonically about Trump, setting off a small nuclear exchange between two “Southern Asian” nations, previously. But, I’m guessing we were being facetious… then?
Funny, how THIS video resurfaced, as I’d just posted? Brain fog had me question seeing it, before it was pulled from YouTube, Twitter… Thanks for reposting the side-effects article.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/french-infectious-disease-specialist
I wonder how smart this is really. If you let the heat out from the center of the earth, the earth cool off. If the earth cool off, then ice-age come and… well. Or?
The earth has so much molten core that a little bit of venting at the surface won’t make any difference.
You know that the problem really is about CO2 trapping heat from sunlight and acidifying the oceans, don’t you? By now?
No need to panic. We have been working on improving the insulation to prevent earth cool off.
Yeah. One thing we’ve learned about modern industry is that it scales much bigger than we ever thought it would. Who knew that we would change the climate of the earth by driving cars and trucks and trains and boats and airplanes around, and heating chemicals and metals and such?
At the far end of this road we can cool the molten core of the earth, shut down the magnetic field, and be crisped by the solar wind.
Gotta think of it if we’re gonna avoid it.
Lord Kelvin studied this quite some time ago when he wanted to estimate the age of the Earth. ( about 30kY, off by a factor of 100000 – http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/cootime2.html). The thing is, Kelvin did not know at the time about radioactive decay – the source of heat within the Earth’s core. Hence, cooling off the Earth’s core is not at all likely with our miniscule geothermal wells. We would be tapping what is essentially a nuclear reactor under our feet!
The closest to hell you can come to in terms of natural hot springs in Cali is Sespe hot spring, which comes out of a hill @ 190 degrees, ouch-e-wawa!
You can finally get in the outlet stream maybe 1/3rd of a mile down from the source, where it has simmered down to 107.
I think this source is so reliable that the major trouble would be to store hot water to supply a demand that is far from constant.
The boilers of existing coal plants would be ideal.
One question in the thread was, Can Quaise drill into volcanoes? And the answer was yes (no special modifications) but not many people have volcanoes. But everybody has heat at 12 miles down. So, I’m assuming that Quaise isn’t considering water to be essential – that the heat is sufficient – which would be nice for all points inland. But still not understanding; sounds like some energy alchemy like solar panels. Thanks to Chuck L. for sending in this info. Must google.
You heat water and vapour would move turbines to produce electricity. There are also thermoelectric processes but I don’t know if these can be scaled up easily.
Pure convection works as well, and at those depths you’ll have quite a gas exchange going on perpetually.
Even if just put wind turbines at the top, you could generate endless energy, and that would probably be the least efficient use.
See Kim Stanley Robinsons RGB series for Moholes detail.
+1 for Omni Magazine reference!
Wildly undercapitalised at $40M
Needs sustained access to $ billions for deep drilling. Projects like this are difficult to fund as it’s an inexact science (depth to drill, rock-composition) and in certain places the vast budget attracts undue attention from “influence peddlers” (am an investor in similar tech startup which is similarly undercapitalised and has been a victim of “influence peddlers” )
“We are communicating directly, privately to Beijing, that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them,” (Jake Sullivan) said.
“We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country, anywhere in the world.”
The Chinese seem like a very polite people – meeting with Sullivan for hours, face-to-face – when their response was simply, “LOL. FU.”
Reminds me of the Monty Python skit with the limbless knight who thinks he only has a flesh wound.
The US is the limbless knight and still insists on peeing at anyone and everyone.
The American people are in the world’s first financial world war. No one in DC has bothered to tell anyone yet.
Maybe DC hasn’t figured out what they have done.
Some reports suggesting that Sullivan thought the whole meeting would be the US listing its threats while the Chinese listened in order to take said threats back to Beijing. It lasting 7 hours with the Chinese delegation ready to push back on the spot was “unexpected”. US leadership lives entirely in a world of its own creation that no longer bares even a passing resemblance to reality.
Wait a minute. Are you sure that you are not talking about that meeting between the US and China and that was held in Alaska not that long ago? From what you say, absolutely nothing was learned by Washington after that little episode and they repeated the same approach all over again. Maybe they can make a movie about all this one day. I even have the title – “Fifty First Meetings.”
Some related hilarity – from the NYT, Zelensky calls on Russian troops to surrender.
For added hilarity, there is a paywall if, like me, you can’t bear to spend even pennies for a subscription. The Onion provides the same caliber of coverage for free.
No one should ever pay for crapified news.
Try this, it’s worked well for me – https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
Well, it is all very interesting is it not?
I found this link very interesting – hope the subtitles into English work
.https://t.co/xs6chN5Tvj
Story in short – man supposed to be adviser to Ukrainian President giving interview in 2019 saying that war with Russia 99% probable within next three years.
Has Russia dropped the biolab story? It was big last week and a few days later it seems to have vanished. Where is all that proof the Russians say they have? Now we have competing talk of who will do a false flag.
I have read Aaron Mate so I am open to the idea the West lies about false flag operations and chemical weapons but neither side of the biolab story made much sense to me. It doesn’t make sense that the US would build biological weapons research facilities so close to Russia, but Nuland’s statement was weird.
The story has been dropped down a memory hole so never existed. Only a few days ago the story in the media was a display in Doublethink in that on one hand, there was only ordinary medical research being conducted in those 35 medical labs but on the other hand, if the Russians breached them there could be catastrophic consequences that could lead to plagues breaking out on the European continent. The Blue Check Brigade could accept both these facts at the same time but most people began to wonder so now you won’t see that story again in our media. And if you did talk about it on Facebook or Twitter, you would probably have your account closed for spreading ‘medical misinformation.’
Was surprised to see this, but glad it hasn’t been taken down yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qEeRmiJhkY
But Russia seems to have dropped it too. I agree that the Western narrative was incoherent.
And speaking of the media, here is the NYT taking advantage of the situation to tell its readers that every dissident opinion regarding the Syrian War was Russian disinformation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/world/middleeast/syria-ukraine-invasion-russia.html
This is pure 100 percent editorializing, not analysis at all. I think the Syrian War was probably the most propagandized event in my lifetime, though Ukraine is catching up. Syria had a bad human rights record before 2013 and that always gets worse in a civil war. But with rare exceptions, the Western narrative was completely one- sided.
I’m not sure that Russia has. The coverage of the Russian complaint to the UN was highly biased in media reporting so I ask you. Where will you read about this story in the west right now. CNN? MSNBC? Maybe Tucker Carlson of all people but I guarantee you that nobody in the main stream media wants to touch this story as it is “radioactive”. But I bet that they are still talking about it in the Russian media.
I’m not sure how you define “main stream media”, but Tucker Carlson’s audience is about 250% of his main competitor’s (Anderson Cooper) for the 8 pm time slot – and the bio labs was segment #1 last night, again with Tulsi Gabbard, for about 30 minutes. So it’s getting some eyeballs….
8p
TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT: 3,213,000 ANDERSON COOPER 360: 1,402,000
Source: Mediaite
By main stream media I mean mobs like CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, etc. and for them, Tucker Carlson is persona non grata right now as is Joe Rogan. They don’t follow ‘the narrative’ – the same one which is leading to the main stream media’s ratings dropping off a cliff. To see an example of this hatred of Carlson, go to this typical US News article and scroll down. You will see a cartoon of a bare-chested, smiling Putin using a bull-horn with Tucker Carlson head on the end with his name written on the side-
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-14/ukraines-zelenskiy-submits-bill-extending-martial-law-until-late-april
Warning. It says that there are another 139 images and they are, errrr, something if you go to see them.
Nope. Both China and Russia are now pushing strongly for USA to stop blocking the suggested verification mechanism for biolabs under the Biological Weapons Convention.
Even WHO asked Ukraine to responsible dispose of all dangerous biomaterial so nothing can escape during possible bombing or shelling.
So this is now largely a foreign story about bringing all the abstainers in the Global South on board with “rule of law” as written in the UN Charter rather by the “rules based orderlies”.
Rules based orderlies: Williams, Warren, Geever & Washington (DC).
I wouldn’t expect Moscow or Beijing to simply replicate the behavior of known liars.
I am now admitting that I was lazy on the Syrian War propaganda from the West. I have always “Questioned authority” (remember that bummer sticker from the 70’s?).
If anyone has a link to the highlights of said war, please share them. I need to be schooled. Thanks
Colonel ( Retired) Lang had a blog called Sic Semper Tyrannis, now retired in favor of his newer blog, Turcopolier blog. But he has left the Sic Semper Tyrannis archives up for a while for people to read.
The Sic Semper Tyrannis blogposts were/are categorized into different categories findable by title. All the Syria-related posts are grouped under the title Syria. Here is the link.
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/syria/
even the comments are still up and readable.
Thank you, drumlin. I recall Sic Tyrannis being mentioned on NC.
I saw a couple clips of a Chinese spokesperson last night being very firm and direct about two things – stay out of Taiwan and we need to look into this biolab thing, get the US in the tent on examinations by an international body. To me this looked like a step up in Chinese tone and discourse, almost out of character, leading me to wonder just how embedded China and Russia have become, but mostly suggesting to me that it just may be that the China-Russia-India grouping has moved to making the serious play to de-dollarize the world. The biolab thing is amazing – the evidence is clear to ANYONE who looks that labs were funded and built by US defense dept. dollars, in Ukraine, and were messing with nasty stuff – yet the Narrative is this is all disinformation. Amazing. Somehow this information and the well documented history of what happened in 2014 and in years since in Donbass has been nearly totally shoved down the memory hole.
I have this near certainty Zelinsky will speak to Congress tomorrow and then in a fever of blood lust and patriotism and jingoism Congress will declare war on Russia right then, with Zelinsky on the screen, fully aware, even embracing, the certainty of a nuclear war. I mean, based on another thread on this site, now we have certain climate experts arguing a small nuclear would create enough of a nuclear winter to defeat global warming! Can they be serious? The sad thing is, yes they can.
Not only Ukraine.
Such labs exist in Kazakhstan, (former Soviet republic) Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, and one is being set up in Bulgaria as of March 1st, public information exists about the Bulgarian lab from US govt sources, of course not from MSM.
United States and its Biological Laboratories in Ukraine
If you scroll to the bottom it includes the video of the Russian officer making the accusations, presumably on state TV.
I was not reassured by Victoria Nuland’s statement.
NBC nightly news yesterday evening (I am subject to the whims of family) had a short segment about it; they phrased it as ‘the Russians made conspiracy theory claims about biolabs at the UN that were repeated by right wing figures like Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard’. What was ‘funny’ about it was they claimed it had been a ‘right wing conspiracy theory online starting about a week before the invasion’. I guess their thinking is that the Russian UN diplomat got the idea from the racists online or something
You may want to check out Dilyana.bg, the site of the Bulgarian reporter who has a lot on the labs.
Based on the documents she has, they were using volunteer military personnel for tests, and wanted any volunteer deaths reported within 24 hours.
Both Russia and China are downwind from the lab sites in Ukraine and Georgia, and it’s possible we all are downwind from one or more of them.
Ahem, did you miss that what Russia has to say does not get reported here? You seem to be operating from pretty bizarre premises.
Russia reported that they found documents ordering all of the material to be destroyed when the war broke out and itemizing what they had. They went through this in some detail in one presentation I saw, showing image of records and then presenting slides which purported to be summaries. China still wants a UN investigation.
Pure speculation here, but China was quick to become the fall guy in December 2019. Covid, we now know, had been around for almost a year by then – it was discovered in Italy in sewage samples from the Spring of 2019. So the Chinese never made any fuss about that news. But they might have a special interest in an investigation of the biolabs in Ukraine to see if SARs CoV2 was being studied. One report I read had something on “bat viruses” in the Ukr. labs. And Ukraine isn’t all that far away from Italy – for accidental transmission. Just thinkin’. Those Ukranian viruses might have a traceable pedigree.
Maybe it is a product of where I am looking but it feels like the hot war is taking all the attention, particularly, the use of cluster munitions against civilians in Donbass. I guess I should add ‘alleged’ given the sources.
Nothing alleged about it. I’ve never seen a more public use of cluster munitions before. Broad daylight, multiple witnesses immediately taking out their cell phones, filming, and posting to the internet. Civilian dead, in front of a building pockmarked as if a thousand little ball bearings were thrown at it. Of course, the Ukrainians claim that it’s a false flag attack by the Russians against their own allies, the DPR.
Apparently the original missile was intercepted and “maimed” and only one of the 100 clusters was activated…
Sputnik had a story about it just today. Their stories are more of the Headline News variety so not much detail but still–not off the radar screen.
I have this debate with my brother and tell him TV news is useless for anything other than pictures and those–in situations like this–are often fake or misrepresented. But he likes Rachel Maddow and has been infotainment captured. Networks like NBC see infotainment as a good strategy to keep ratings up and those millions of dollars in salaries rolling in. But the American public are very ill served and seem to know it, judging by the low poll ratings for our journalism and the lively web and radio subculture of dissent.
Which is to say there is dissent on the right these days–more than the left–which is a big switch from the old days. We used to call this the counter culture and thinking outside the box. These days many self described lefties are totally inside the box. The capitalists and militarists must be patting themselves on the back.
“Nuland’s statement was weird.” It is one thing to be caught lying to Congress under oath after a few years, but, apparently, quite another when it might be revealed in just a few days or weeks. It would certainly make her look stupid, with no “noble lie” exception to fall back on, and would create a real weakness that her rivals could use to make a quick take-down. Perjury is very serious (except most of the time). She was thinking on her feet. It’s not weird that you can see the wheels turning while she did, kind of normal really. It just goes to show that they don’t all feel indestructible like Trump, yet.
Moreover, as undersecretary of state for European affairs, one would expect that she would only have passing knowledge of labs established by DoD contractors and what they do. She had all the plausible deniability necessary to not answer that question directly. Even a simple, non-committal answer referencing briefings she may have received would have worked. Instead she opened herself up to further questions and can’t now fall back on that plausible deniability without admitting to perjury. Then again, I recently heard her mispronounce “Ukrainian” so it may be an issue of falling through the cracks of the meritocracy.
“Moreover, as undersecretary of state for European affairs, one would expect that she would only have passing knowledge of labs established by DoD contractors and what they do.”
You don’t seem to understand how involved Victoria Nuland has been in the Ukraine since 2014. And from what i’ve seen these labs go back all the way to 2005 and then Senator Obama having his hand in it.
Source for the Obama connection?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/08/30/us-to-aid-ukraine-in-countering-bioweapons/72059ed1-90ca-4381-ac6f-10f4e205f09e/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=497&v=1nwC3aMfC0Q&feature=emb_title
6 minutes into it. Obama talking about visiting Ukraine and joking about getting to see vials of anthrax and plague.
It goes back at least to 2003 when “Nuland served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney” (Wikipedia).
She’ll be treated the same as James Clapper. Her superiors (ha!) believe it’s her duty to lie to Congress, if necessary, to support their agenda.
I did read some dry Russian account of the labs. Like watching a Drag Net episode (“Just the facts, Ma’am”. The Russian’s are so very bad at “pych-ops” compared to USA (thank goodness for that). For example if US got hold of similar, the MSN would be shouting “WMD found in fill-in-the-blank” and the PMC would be primed to support the next war.
Parallel Worlds or Parabolic Mirror Images: Media Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War Gilbert Doctorow
The U.S. response to this event de facto was an urgent warning coming from the White House that Russia was about to implement a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine. The Ukrainian response came yesterday when a large missile packed with a hundred ‘cartridges’ of explosives was fired at the city center of Donetsk. The missile was partly destroyed by Donetsk air defenses, but one cartridge landed in a downtown street where it instantly killed 20 civilians including children and pensioners waiting outside an ATM to withdraw funds; dozens more were injured. Had all 100 cartridges exploded over Donetsk as had been planned from Kiev, the fatalities would have been 100 times greater. The Russians denounced this missile firing as a war crime.
Since approval for such a missile strike could only have come from the highest levels of the professional Ukrainian army, not by or from the irregular militias, Russia is now reevaluating how it should deal with the Ukrainian forces, in the sense of no longer distinguishing between regulars and militias and “neutralizing” both with equal measure of devastation.
Did you read or see anything about this missile attack on Donetsk yesterday in your daily newspaper or television news? I believe not.
==============================================
We might as well be in WWII with Russia equated with Germany. But the fact remains that this propaganda has pervaded the US media for 30, 40, 50 years? Or maybe longer. We had a brief interlude with Vietnam where the media followed the public and refused to accept the Patriotic narrative and the threat of communism. When is the last time you saw any mainstream discussion of lack of health care or inequality…
And the maternity hospital bombing that Doctorow mentions is now received truth in our media, despite being likely a fake operation.
Last night on The News Hour the PBS-revered reporter Jane Ferguson repeated this story from far off Key-F.
Apparently Russia has gone gloves off in response to the attack on Donetsk, and flattened a town near the Donbass contact line and the Ukrainian brigade that was garrisoned there. There won’t be any further artillery strikes from there at least.
Vietnam was special as the draft put the “chattering class” in danger of being sent to die in some jungle.
This is why Afghanistan could drag on for 20 years with barely some protests when it started, because pentagon went out of their way to avoid implementing a draft.
If one want to be sadistic one may ponder if the 2008 crash was engineered, in order to leave enough of the public desperate to sign up “willingly”.
Biden yet to see boost from voters despite favorable reviews on Ukraine The Hill. Um, approval tends to peak early and decline…
It is amazing to me that it hasn’t been 20 years since the authorization to
invadeliberate Iraq and here we are with our illustrious media buying everything the CIA, Pentagon, and White House says…of course, a good number of “journalists” still believe the Steele dossier…and despite all the Rah Rah USA USA, they have this inconsistent notion that the wonderful US can’t can’t convict or impeach the worst president in history…I believe the phrase is “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”
What’s more amazing to me is the larger number of non-journalists who lived through all that, some of whom protested that war and the Bush administration, who are buying all this hook, line and sinker. The journo are paid to go along. The people should know better.
“California Wine Ruined by Wildfires Leads Chemists to Analyze Grapes for Smoke”
I’ve got an idea. Right now those tainted wines are being added to blends which are fetching only $5 a gallon. How about instead bottling them pure and slap on a label saying “Tastes Like Fresno”-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1A-H5ZcP-4 (1:13 mins)
The hope is that my 30 day sentence in Fresno will get me on a case promptly, and that it’ll be an open and shut trial regarding some criminal who reused a canceled stamp (a Federal crime!) or other such gross malfeasance of the law requiring my assistance in the manner.
On Serf!
They can send that tainted wine to me. I love fume blanc.
… I think it’s being bottled as Pinyon noir.
That sounds more appropriate for a New Mexico wine. Don’t know if it’s still available, but there was a Pinon nut infused brand of coffee popular with the New Mexico foodie crowd. We love New Mexico Mexican food.
RK
never one to pass up a chance to second an opinion on how
miserableunique Fresno can be, I actually spent this last weekend visiting 4 wineries (2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday – heaven forfend that anyone think I’m a wino) in the vicinity of Fresno. Two of the wineries had drinkable wines, and two actually had wines at least on par with Paso Robles.I had them paired with fava beans, and a muskrat carcass I found in the road in front of my house – a meal we in Fresno call Haute Cuisine
It’s easy to sell Fresno short and it’s more Lodi-adjacent than Paso Robles-so there’s that, and I look forward to visiting Forestiere Underground Gardens, which kinda has a creepy feel in that it looks like the structures in the original Planet of the Apes and you’re expecting some simian to be around the corner, but eventually you let your guard down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens
p.s.
Have you made a trip to Cat Haven in Dunlap (just past Squaw Valley) yet?
About an hour drive from Fresno on Hwy 180.
A feast of felines!
Wuk
not yet. Definitly something worth while to do.
I can never understand why undersground living never caught on in the years before air conditioning. Now, it does cool off considerably at night, but still…
Unfortunately, the Forestiere gardens are a shadow of what they once were.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens
I am at the point where I am so frustrated with Ukraine coverage that I actually wish Trump’s social media network had some followers so that there could be some publically spoken contrary view of the US Ukraine policy (sure, Trump may not be factually accurate, but how much coming from the Biden administration, and I include the NYT and WP in that cabel, is true?) I thoroughly despise Trump, but it is quite remarkable that a former president can be so effectively silenced.
While I also despise Trump and am ok with him expressing his noxious views if he can get anyone to listen ,he is not merely a government- issue “former president”. I do not know of any other former president who has so throughly tested the limits of speech. Silencing him is perhaps not the way to go but he has made far more completely bonkers, off-the-wall, outrageous, and incendiary statements than any other former president in memory.In some respects he has become an old crank -you know the type ( oh don’t get grandpa off on THAT ) since we are all sick of hearing about the 2020 election. Also I walk out of the room when the various plucky Ukrainian stories come on so I agree there as well. These days I cannot really watch what they say the “news’ is.
I agree on both counts.
I have one leftist friend who thought it was good that Trump occasionally said things that drove liberals crazy, like saying that we weren’t so pure when Putin came up. But I don’t think it helped much. It just gave liberals another excuse to ignore genuine leftist critiques. And Trump was very militaristic towards Iran and Yemen and the bombing of Mosul and Raqqa occurred under him, so he was a rather implausible peace advocate.
On the news, I read just enough to keep somewhat aware of what we are supposed to think, but I can’t bear very much of the extreme hypocrisy on display. I see this in people I used to respect, people who are criticizing Putin’s war as monstrous who haven’t had one word to say about our current atrocities in Yemen and Afghanistan. I agree the invasion is a crime. But the hypocrisy is nauseating.
Jack Murphy⚡️
@jackmurphylive
Mar 7
What happens when you speak out against network consensus?
– deplatforming
– disconnection from financial service
– exclusion from restaurants and stores and necessities of life
– public shaming + banishment
that’s the consequences of opposing the consensus.
who can do that?
===========================================
I bet we actually agree on most things. But I think about consequential decisions of former Presidents and how in retrospect they were bonkers, off the wall, and outrageous, e.g, Bush and weapons of mass destruction and Clinton and NAFTA as well as the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The fact that there is a concerted media monopoly that puts such significant and dismal policies down the memory hole (always forward looking AKA ignoring past crimes) doesn’t mean they weren’t bonkers – only that there are people with vast resources who benefit from such policies, (that by the way immiserate everyone else) who want to keep it that way.
And I am sure the commentariat could give many examples of policies under both parties that were far worse than anything Trump actually did.
A reminder about the bonkers, off the wall, outrageous and incendiary statements made by other presidents – how would you feel if your kid died in Iraq and then you saw W yukking it up about the missing WMDs he had blatantly lied about to get the shock and awe started?
How about having your kid poisoned by lead in the water in Flint and then having the President whose minimal response allowed it to go on for years than pretend to drink the water at a very late visit. Oh and let’s not mention the diseases in the water…
“How about having your kid poisoned by lead in the water in Flint and then having the President whose minimal response allowed it to go on for years than pretend to drink the water at a very late visit.”
You guys are all making great points, esp the Flint MI debacle. Remember how long those people had to scream and how nobody paid attention until they had to? That is how .gov always acts and if they’re proactive (cough it which shall not be named) you should be very suspicious. How many people lost their homes in 08 and how responsive was .gov again? Its strange how people can watch the same clowns screw them for decades but can be convinced on the drop of the dime in the current that this time, .gov really wants to help.
A tiger can’t change his stripes.
If a color revolution happened in the United States, what would it look like and how would the “media” report it?
Well they all voted for Trump
All????
Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes, out of a total of 4,788,000.
In Oz, our politicians would call that a mandate to rule.
I don’t have the numbers for Flint, but I do have to appreciate that Solar Hero believes that Obama was right to ignore a public health crisis and then rub salt in the wound because of a “crime” the people would commit several years after he did that. Forget that they had been “hopeful” enough to vote for Obama himself.
I realize that I am late to the party in understanding that the worship of Obama and/or Clinton that powers so much of TDS may be the most frightening aspect of it.
I’m sitting out the war, haven’t really tried to pay attention as I have too much on my plate to digest without being led down the primrose path of a foggy race to the bottom.
You may not be interested in the ramifications, but the ramifications are interested in you.
My frustration has lead me to some incredible people on Twitter, like Patrick Lancaster in Donetsk who has now had to evacuate his family. I don’t have a Twitter account but I’m grateful for the info from people like Lancaster.
Patrick Lancaster also has a YouTube channel which has not yet been taken down and is at-
https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos
Patrick Lanchaster is an innocent among the carnage. I trust his honesty but he reports from the Russian side, last week from Volnovaka where he attributed the damage to the town recently occupied by the Russians to Ukrainian shelling. He has a two-person team which is unusual for a non-professional in these places. It looks like IPhone footage to me.
The rocket this time was a 27 ft OTR 21, a 1980s Soviet theater tactical missile which uses 100+ lbs of exploding fragmentation balls to hit area targets using an air burst. The rocket’s markings and the balls are shown in the video. Go to Wikipedia for a description. The Russians have 200 launchers; the Ukrainians 70.
The range is 15-75 miles with a circular probable error (half hit inside the circle) of 250 feet to 500 feet, depending on the model. So it was not aimed at a particular small target.
Who launched it? I doubt this is a Russian false flag; they couldn’t know Patrick would show up to video the results. So my guess it was the Ukrainians, but that doesn’t mean the high command ordered it. Until it hit, the city looked “business as usual”; no damage elsewhere, no piles of sandbags. I’ve seen no reports so far of the Russians using these missiles in this campaign.
But the 20 dead are still dead. I think a bit of graphic footage like this serves to let the American public know what is going on there… and in the places we bomb. The bad news is that the Ukrainians in Kiev can blame the foreigners, the Russians, for the damage in Kiev; the people in Donesk will blame the Ukrainians in Kiev, which will not make peace any easier.
The link “TWiV 874….” point to comments to a water cooler post. Seems not what is intented?
Here is the intended link….
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-874/
You might also find the following of interest. Ed Yong is one of the few voices in the mainstream media that consistently and effectively speaks out against the dominant Covid narratives.
Two years into the pandemic ‘COVID is not done with us’ PBS Newshour
Et tu, Brute?
https://www.ashmolean.org/article/an-ides-of-march-coin
Yikes! I can bet that those coins are incredibly rare. They would probably merit an automatic death sentence if you were arrested by one of Octavian’s soldiers and had that in your possession as Caesar was Octavian’s uncle. You would ditch them at first opportunity into the nearest river when nobody was looking.
If you had a Muera Huerta (Death to Huerta) Peso on your person and got caught by Huerta’s faction in the Mexican Revolution, you’d be enjoying that last smoke after digging your grave…
https://coins.ha.com/itm/mexico/durango/mexico-durango-revolutionary-muera-huerta-peso-1914-ms65-ngc-/a/3064-31385.s
The gold Aureus of the Ides of March is the most valuable of ancient coins, and one of 3 known just sold for $4.2 million.
One thing that strikes me in regards to the portrait of Brutus on the coin, is there is an awful of detail of his hair in the design, more than you usually see on other emperors coin of the realm. Maybe a message of vitality?
https://instoremag.com/julius-caesar-assassination-coin-sells-for-record-4-2m/
Looks like someone stepped on my scary bug picture!
An appropriate reflex.
I think fixed, sorry!
Look inside LA’s new steel container apartments for the homeless KTLA (David L)
Disposable people living in dumpsters – And we consider this a win? USA! USA!!
I guess once the area gentrifies, you just send in a fleet of trash trucks and – viola – a new hipster neighborhood..
You are truly thinking outside the box.
From the pictures in the article, I thought the apartments looked really nice, and it’s good to see something being done to help people out. Until something changes that will halt the skyrocketing cost of housing, it would be pretty awesome if these types of dwellings were constructed and made available in every major city.
I looked at the pictures and read the article. I found it very interesting. My takeaways:
1. The modular method of construction—working on the containers while the frame is being built and then installing them—seemed to me an efficient and cost-saving innovation.
2. For a single person living simply, the 320- or 480-square feet apartments would be comfortable (I’ve done it), especially if they are close to grocery stores and public transportation.
3. I did not like the architect using real-estate buzzwords like “high-end condo aesthetic”, “amenities”, and “floor-to-ceiling glass”. The latter is not exactly energy-efficient, especially if the apartment is south-facing (could get hot and require AC) and all three are only a developer’s standard tricks to raise the rental prices.
4. And finally, speaking of rental prices, what will they be? No mention in the article.
It is way cheaper to supplement rent in existing housing than it is to build these little houses that are becoming a temporary solution for the homeless. This is especially true for people who are homeless for purely financial reasons. Those who are addicted or mentally ill need institutional support first. That too is cheaper than building tiny homes.
Jack Murphy⚡️
@jackmurphylive
NEW and slightly terrifying.
What does nuclear escalation look like in the context of an open source network swarm?
Russia’s nuclear doctrine is different from ours, and the network swarm has no doctrine.
What happens when they collide?
Will Karen cause nuclear war?
———————————————————————–
Thread comment:
Kevin Sorbo
@ksorbs
I’m going to need everybody to stop driving for the next 2 weeks, it’s to flatten the raising gas prices, don’t be selfish.
================================================
I’m gonna need everybody to stop using private jets for the next 20 years
and aren’t most Karen’s employeed in the MSM? I think back on the hundreds, if not thousands of times it was reported that the walls were closing in on Trump but they never did! I don’t think the Karenization of the media bodes well for public discussion of nuclear war….
Per the Guardian article,I wonder what the deal is with China apparently still having drones and/or people “spraying disinfectant” outdoors.
It seems to me that this would be only marginally helpful, if that. And I assume China isn’t as interested in hygiene theatre as the West is.
But I really have no idea.
The headline is an understatement as to what this little bit of history entails:
https://www.dailyposter.com/russian-oligarchs-find-ally-in-americas-small-business-lobby/
Here is a taste:
U.S.-based shell companies, or companies that only exist on paper, have become some of the money laundering and tax evasion vehicles of choice for oligarchs around the globe. Right now, criminals and sanctioned individuals attempting to launder money in the United States can do so fairly easily by forming an anonymous company and using it to open a bank account or store assets, because ownership information is secret. More than 80 percent of money laundering cases in the U.S. between 2015 and 2020 involved the use of a shell company.
When eight, ten years back I had an LLC formed with my ex-wife, we began getting the money laundering fraudster email pitches and invites by the half dozen after years of nada. Unlikely our filters failed together and all of a sudden. If email trolls were using LLC lists, bigger businessmen/crooks would undoubtedly mine them and other listings in more subtle, cross-indexed ways. e.g., the proposed Chapter 13 bankrupt can voluntarily withdraw its petition – and creditors can always withdraw their claims. Not necessarily in that sequence, if you see what I’m getting at.
We’ve seen the self-licking ice cream cone of the news media talking about the news media. (^-F MSNBC ‘Carlson’ = 2, for example.)
In ‘HyperNormalisation’, Curtis describes the Russian version of the firehose of information, which was to support rather than suppress, and let the cacophony drown dissent.
We’re at a similar point with communicating the suppression of information. There’s so much going on that the network is spasming like a brain in seizure. Meanwhile the apparently incompetent administration has launched at least two precision strikes:
> “NOTIFICATION OF REMOVAL FROM LISTING AND/OR REGISTRATION UNDER SECTION 12(b) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934. Commission File Number 001-03619. Issuer: PFIZER INC.”
I file this under administration, because SEC, CDC, ETC.
> Rat Out Your Doctor: Biden’s Surgeon General Calls on Informants to Report Use of Generic Drugs Michael Capuzzo, Rescue (via NC)
Recall that going into the pandemic, there were staffing shortages in nursing, and that information was being suppressed. Two years in, the substrate under the doctors feet, the nursing corps, has turned to sand. ‘They’ now feel in position to go after doctors, who by one measure are quite powerful:
May 2020 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates
Occupation title (click on the occupation title to view its profile); Annual mean wage
Anesthesiologists; 271440
Surgeons, Except Ophthalmologists; 251650
Obstetricians and Gynecologists; 239120
Orthodontists; 237990
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons; 234990
Physicians, All Other; and Ophthalmologists, Except Pediatric; 218850
Psychiatrists; 217100
Prosthodontists; 214870
Family Medicine Physicians; 214370
General Internal Medicine Physicians; 210960
Chief Executives; 197840
Doctors are top-tier of the lower classes that still have to work for a living. They conform to elite aspirants in Turchin’s scheme of intra-elite competition. Some may be.
This could just be a hollowing-out precedent to Medicare-For-All. Or it could be hammer time for ‘harvesting the wealth of the lower classes.’
Or..?
Maybe more mundane.
But what do I know?
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Edit: However, linking to a site that concludes with “Are you stupid?” after touting how highly regulated vaccines are, is close to insulting. I’ll take it as the result of a quicklink this time.
Having traced the original claim, it was to Jessica Rose, who has since retracted the statement.
Dang it, I got caught.
Yves Smith: Love, love LOVE your links selection, as always. Many thanks.
Thank the great readers! Most were provided by them.
We Are the World – the 2022 version. Eat brunch. Save democracy.
https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-misc/a-concert-for-ukraine/?gclid=CjwKCAjw8sCRBhA6EiwA6_IF4SqvtxADNmfbRhgKThOFbo_LVtRpp_tyLUJLJtjty7QpUVNOoeB99BoClkAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
China, US keep dialogue, but ‘no respect, no cooperation’
I’m not a China watcher so I’m not sure how to interpret this but I was intruigued by the fact there was 7 hours of ‘intense discussion’ yesterday between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at state and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi but no summary given beyond that yesterday evening on NBC Nightly News (again, subject to whims of family and performing current events homework). So I went looking for some more info about it and found this which has some juicy details but, you know, salt given my lack of understanding on provenance. Some interesting quotes:
– “Chinese analysts said the US wants to use the Rome meeting to further pressure China to serve its sanctions against Russia, but China won’t be misguided, and they slammed Washington for its arrogance in bossing other countries to unconditionally follow its strategy while showing no respect to the core interests of others. ”
– “Chinese experts said the most important consensus reached by the two leaders in November 2021 is to reconfirm the US stance on supporting the one-China principle and opposing Taiwan secessionism, as this is the foundation of bilateral ties. But what the US has done indicates it will continue to be duplicitous, so based on this fact, it’s unlikely that there will be a major breakthrough to bring ties back on normal track despite the two sides maintaining dialogue.”
– “With a potentially tense conflict between Russia and the US, it is critical for the US to understand China’s position, and China also wants to know how the US will play the game under the current situation, Lü noted. The US might expect China to be a mediator with Russia, but the US should not try to create discord between China and Russia even if it is not capable of doing so, the expert said.”
Also, for those who may not have been paying attention during 2014, Jake Sullivan was namechecked on the famous Nuland ‘F*ck the EU’ call. “Funny” how all the same scoundrels are back in their old roles after the Trump Interregnum.
I had to hunt down a full transcript of the Nuland call and re-read it in light of current events. Here is a transcript, not the video, from the BBC. I’d forgotten the detail at the very end, that Biden was the one who seemingly approved whatever they were getting up to then at the time of Maidan.
Sullivan has also come up in the Durham Russiagate investigation:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10515089/Durham-probe-Republicans-Bidens-NSA-Jake-Sullivan-hot-seat-Hillary-spying-claims.html
Thank you for this link! This is fascinating timing in the context of what happened in 2014, the election upset in 2016 and all the Trump-Russia bs I’d forgotten about in the lead up to the election that was transformed into Russiagate afterwards:
It sure does, especially in the context of the Nuland call! This link is from about ten days before the Russian military operation began.
“…they slammed Washington for its arrogance in bossing other countries to unconditionally follow its strategy while showing no respect to the core interests of others. ”
That arrogance is not going to change, it has to be defeated.
So things are where they are…
Apologies for this long essay without links. If the moderators toss it out I understand.
Yesterday Biden made his third mistake:
Mistake 1: refusal to address Russia’s legitimate security concerns forcing Putin to initiate a Preventive War (Just War Theory) against Ukraine and by extension NATO.
Mistake 2: seizure of Russia’s Central Bank assets bringing into question (1) what is money; and (2) what is the US dollar.
Mistake 3: threatening China to take the US side against Russia.
In the next months the CCP will be conducting a number of important events culminating with the re-confirmation of Xi as President.
If Xi accedes to Biden’s threats, China will start down the slippery slope of vassalization to the US. Its stored wheat will be given to MENA, US troops will occupy Taiwan, etc etc. Another century of humiliation.
Time to pull out the map.
China has a militarily-secure, economically-transparent 2,600 mile border with Russia.
Together with Russia via the CSTO, SCO, etc, China has moderately stable borders with Central Asia.
Its border with India and southern Asia is becoming uncomfortable as Himalayan water is affected by rapid climate change and dam building. But this issue can be (and must be) resolved with multi-national agreements. India must step forward to initiate this process by asking for border resolution negotiations similar to China with Russia two decades ago. China’s door is open.
To the east are South Korea and Taiwan. Intel and others produce the sapphires, rubies, etc of semiconductors but Samsung and TSMC produce the diamonds.
Seoul is within artillery range of North Korea and Taipei is within cruise missile range of China.
I believe Xi must make increasingly explicit gestures supporting Putin’s Preventive War.
Perhaps starting with an airlift of medical supplies. Then next an airlift of medical personnel with field hospitals. And continuing to military items.
At some point Biden will make his fourth mistake.
“At some point Biden will make his fourth mistake.”
Yeah, great… nukes.
You mean the puppet masters pulling Biden’s strings are making the mistakes?
I want to see Biden, with no asistance, point to all these places on a map.
Not specific to any link but likely of general interest. I just installed the latest “upgrade” of Firefox and as I sometimes do I clicked on the “What’s New” link. Here is the full extent of the “problems” it fixes:
How nice. They don’t just feed you propaganda, they just prevent you from seeing anything else, but the pre-approved bs that they are spoon feeding you. This is like all those videos that BoobTube removed the other day, for example, all of Abby Martin’s videos from the past nine years, because reasons.
You will be embubbled comrade. Whether you want it or not. We were making jokes about the Soviet Union during the Cold War about their censorship. Funny, the joke’s on us. Maybe we will be reduced to our own American samizdat soon.
Abby Martin’s videos for her Empire Files are still up-
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG29FnXZm4F5U8xpqs1cs1Q/videos
Whoa. That’s good to know. Thanks.
I just wonder why I could not access any of her videos despite trying repeatedly and changing my VPN as well. I would click on a video and get the it’s not available in your area message. I’m confused.
Thanks for the heads up. I ditched DDG the other day, so now I guess it’s time I ditch Firefox. The walls are closing in.
Mozilla has been circling the drain, largely kept around as a fig leaf for antitrust by Google similar to what Microsoft did with Apple until Jobs pivoted into consumer electronics, ever since they ousted a technically competent CEO over his personal opinions on a California political issue.
Basic thing is that through the 80s and 90s the “left and right” of tech was largely joined in fighting the cold war old guard regarding things like free speech and cryptography. But come the 2000s they turned on each other as the overton window of what was “acceptable” shifted, and many of the strongest leaders were deemed unsavory.
Effectively tech has been going through something akin to a cultural revolution, and it is far from over.
I was subscribed to RT America in Utubz, and it’s now marked as “This channel is not available in your country.” It’s funny, the “activity” indicator still seems to work showing that there is a live stream currently happening on the channel.
Honestly, I always figured (even forty+ years ago) that the only way to figure out what’s going on in the world is read all available news sources and understand that new source’s bias. Why do that? Well, because I learned that all news sources are biased, and one needs to learn read all sources and apply some critical thinking skills IN MY HIGH SCHOOL.
I wonder what is taught there today?
Vivaldi still allows yandex as a savable search engine. I highly recommend the browser in general. It’s sturdy and endlessly customizable. I’ve been using it as my main browser since 2016. It runs on chromium and you can use the Chrome add-on store, although there is less of a need for add-ons because the browser is so flexible.
Brave vs. Vivaldi… any opinion?
Could you specify the version please.
I am running 96.0.1 issued Jan 14, 2022.
There is also a restart to update button in my “About FF” screen, so I must be behind…
Thanks!
Lesson: don’t update.
I hope the responses to greenwald are just Twitter bots. What human scum.
“Look inside L.A.’s new steel container apartments for the homeless”
They certainly look good on the inside and I am assuming that they have been properly decontaminated. One thing that I wonder about and that is if they are still structurally semi-independent units. I mean, L.A is renown for it’s earthquakes so in case they is a major earthquake in this city in the coming years, perhaps because of it’s steel modularity that it might help to protect the people inside better. Maybe they even used the same interlocks to hold that structure together like they use to lock regular containers together on ships at sea.
Compare and contrast: (You must show your work.)
Hero
An anti-war protester has interrupted the main news program on Russia’s state TV Channel One, holding up a sign behind the studio presenter with slogans denouncing the war in Ukraine. There was actually a dude on TV who called on the American government to “protect her right to free speech.” LOL
Traitorous Witch
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, on Sunday accused former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of echoing Kremlin talking points after clips of her interview with Fox News were broadcast on Russian state TV. “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives,”
Notice that the very first & largest words on that ‘Hero’s’ sign were in English – “NO WAR” – where you would expect them to be in Russian. So who was her protest actually aimed at?
I’m sorry. This is a college-level course. No questions are allowed.
However, you can get bonus points for answering Question Number Two:
The Russian babe is hot. If Julian Assange gets a sex change, will the US government drop all charges? (Trick question – be careful.)
She is clearly angling for a lucrative NGO funding and speaking gigs in the West, assuming she survives her opening gambit.
Here’s what happens when as US person tries doing the same thing – https://www.codepink.org/codepink_co_founder_medea_benjamin_assaulted_by_right_wing_venezuelan_opposition
“Sars-Cov-2 Kills T-Cells, Just Like HIV” Igor Chudov
This part:
“I would like to remind you that HIV’s gp120 protein also was mysteriously transplanted into Sars-Cov-2…”
Of course, after reading that, I followed the link included to that article.
——————
All of it reminded me of when I lived with a relative who had HIV and died of AIDS and worked for about a boss for about a year who suffered the same.
I used to keep up more with developments in that area, but one of the main things that struck me were findings about HIV/AIDS and previous venereal infections in specific.
HIV/AIDS was most opportunistic when it met with a host with a previous veneral disease history.
Now I think of Covid and its severity in people with certain conditions like disbetes, etc.
Is anybody else thinking that this type of thing makes it different enough from Sars-1 that it should be in another category of its own?
This is the problem with layperson articles that take hard looks at research. Too often they reveal they have a bad axe to grind. I should have been warned when he singled out that one of many many authors was from the infamous Wuhan lab.
But the point that the virus “deranges” as we have said or even kills Tcells is a reason not to want to get Covid, big time, and is a pro-vaccine argument…when the cranks are nearly always anti-vax. Hence I didn’t give it as close a reading as I should have.
Igor Chudov = an idiot on virology.
Regarding your question: virus aren’t classified by pathogenesis, virulence or clinical outcomes but phylogenetically. In any case, apart from phylogeny, accounting for all its biological properties and characteristics (including host range, pathogenesis, virulence and transmission) is much more similar to SARS CoV1 than to HIV. Don’t be fooled by Chudov’s idiocy.
Yeah, it seemed that if it was that different it would have been called by a different name at the start.
Ignacio–
Excuse my ignorance, but is recombination of HIV with Covid during co-infection a possiblity?
Much of Igor’s post, especially some comments, sure triggered my “Q-detector”.
Not a real possibility that. Genetic exchanges between distant virus cannot be deemed as an impossible but a camel would indeed go easier through the needle’s eye.
You can for instance find similar protein motifs in unrelated virus but this doesn’t mean recombination at all between those but independent acquisition and some evolutionary convergence as best explanation. Such as the infamous furin-like cleavage site supposedly a ‘smoking gun’ according to all conspiratorial-like minded but present in lots of virus including several CoVs
Thanks for clarifying. Your posts are always valuable.
With due respect – what warrants calling Chudov an idiot? I’ve followed his substack and it is pretty calm and measured. While one can debate the swine flu & HIV motifs in the covid genome as chance/coincidental, the 19nucleotide “modernagate” sequence mentioned in the Frontiers of Virology paper does pose questions that I haven’t seen explained away. On that note -Until few weeks back it was possible to verify that on BLAST(finding the 19base sequence in both covid genomr & the pre-pandemic Moderna patents), but now BLAST times out the search when that sequence is entered. Tried several times back in late Jan, no prob, but now no luck.
You are mistaking affect for substance. Someone can be have a great manner and still be substantively full of garbage. Look at the Biden Administration flack Ned Price a couple of weeks ago who was challenged by the AP reporter Matt Lee. If you had gone on their manner, versus the substance of the discussion, you would have gone with Ned Price despite what he was saying was intelligence-insulting. See the clip embedded in this story:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/04/i-remember-wmds-iraq-reporter-calls-out-us-official-russian-intel-claims
In the “it’s an ill wind which blows no good at all” department, it seems the world will be spared a Netflix production of Anna Karenina.
“Netflix is going so far as to shelve a production of Anna Karenina.”
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/orwell-was-right?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODUxMjc5OSwiXyI6InR1U1pyIiwiaWF0IjoxNjQ3MTkzMzU1LCJleHAiOjE2NDcxOTY5NTUsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.oclSppJuChm9f8drCGuW1jxVANBtEisTGUMjMVLy3Wc&s=r
No worries. If anyone wants to see an adulterous woman die in a recent production, watch Drive My Car. (HBOmax, or something like that.)
Drive My Car not cancelled yet? (Because Chekhov).
I am feeling sorry for my ex-wife who happened to be named Natasha. Her mother was German living in Franconia . Even stranger knowing what happened to 30% (reportedly in sections of Russian occupied Germany).
Forget Tostoy and all those other Russian apologists: I’m waiting for the biopic glorifying Stepan Bandera!
And like with the White Helmets, Hollywood will give it an Oscar!
I meant that I’m glad poor Anna won’t have to suffer interpretation by NF.
Nor do we. Not even sorry for all those fur hats, balalaikas and bears NF has procured to make sure we understand the story happens in Russia.
I am sorry if they pour all the vodka down the drain, though.
You’re posting some of the funniest sarcastic comments here of late, thank you for the delight!
Thank you for the compliment! Much appreciated.
I’m disposing as much vodka as I can down the drain. Of course, I filter it through my liver first!
smarter boozehounds will dispose of their vodka several times through a brita filter, ridding it of impurities and making it more suitable for the master race…(ducks, runs hull down on a beam reach to open water…)
You mean the Vodka made in Latvia?
Or the potato vodka made everywhere in Poland?
“Greetings comrade. Do you have any “Tractor Fuel” for sale?”
Glory To The Heroes of Hollywood!
Slava Mulholland!
Amazon selling neo-Nazi coffee mugs.
Hmm, you’re correct comrade. Azov Battalion shirts and patches as well.
Can’t say if I’m to laugh or cry, but it is interesting.
no doubt bezos has a similar outfit in his party costume and etc… repertoire
I can’t imagine the big b is a furry…
Oh, I could definitely see Big B strutting around the promenade in his ‘furry’ outfit. If I had to guess, I’d say he dresses up as Sylvester the Cat.
I’m waiting for SyFy to greenlight a steampunk version of ‘Anna Karenina.’ Maybe Studio Ghibli would be interested.
Re “Russia’s nuclear doctrine is different from ours” & the John Robb interview.
While a sociologically explanatory theory is welcome to understand – and the gods willing, to help with – why the worlds’ powers to be having gone collectively mental, the predictive power is what makes a theory useful. The Desmet Mass Formation is a bit so-so in that regard (speak the truth to break the spell & hopefully you shall re-rationalise the middle ground 40%), but the swarm theory by Robb is a bit “all mental, nothing you can do, good luck”. Prayer seems to have at least a feel-good benefit over this analysis.
The first hour of the interview with Robb was ok, but he lost me at the above quote (“Russia’s nuclear doctrine is different from ours”). Having listened to all of Paul Jay’s Wilkerson & Ellsberg interviews, I can’t square that. I feel it’s also over-estimating the power of the online asocial-media vs. real world guns/steel/butter effects on people’s and countries’ fates.
That said, the one thing where the predictive powers of the swarm beat that of the mass formation is the attack on contradicting views. In Denmark & Germany family/friends circles the Putin-Hitler/evil/soviet-union-resurraction/gone-godSquad + noNazisHere + an offence war is always evil (but we ignore Lybia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc.) is in pre WW1 “we’ll beat the French in a couple of weeks” levels of fervor. Mind you, in the PMC’s-ish demographic. Friends and family members who previously couldn’t spell human rights in countries abroad, get into hysterics when prompted with anything Azov battalion or human rights in allied countries (Saudis, Turkey).
The gods help us.
Robb sells subscriptions. He’s an interesting thinker but prone to hyperbole.
The issue with the AI component of Social Media, where hysteria the is ideal response for profitability, does present a problem for social control. Chaos is a business model, not to different from US policy in our efforts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq where chaos creates a cover for various forms of profiteering, MIC to various Milo Minderbender efforts on the ground.
I have this creepy feeling, between the profound and obvious lack of competence of our ostensible leadership and the profitability of Social Media hysteria, that someone like Robb is accidentally normalizing a psychotic trend in our “elite” by attributing it to the Ruskies: tactical viability of nukes.
If I may, in a self-reflective manner, intercede.
The quote is not from Robb, it’s from Murphy. Murphy has looked into nuclear doctine, but I’m just separating who said what. It was also Murphy who was talking about Karen.
Robb does have a concern that the network/swarm operates in an open-source fashion, which can’t be shut down, and which aggressively amplifies signals into the emotional realm. Empathy is triggered by matching tribal patterns, for which the opposite is hate.
The self-reflective bit: Elsewhere here, I presented a link with incorrect information, and jsn gave a link with corrected information. Okay so far on the critical thinking thingee. But the link concludes with an emotional trigger. The source took a fact as a hook, and yanked the empathy line. I felt that. But I’m pretty sure jsn and I are on the same side of the barricades.
The problem with this cthulu hentai thing going on is that you don’t know which one is going to screw you first, and the outcome is time-dependent. This leads to open-source Divida Et Impera. So let me take this opportunity to counter the hate with love, and let you, jsn, know that I appreciate you.
Love you, man.
Thanks!
I think we are on the same side. I read Robb regularly when he wasn’t paywalled and he’s a provocative thinker. But he’s also selling what he thinks to the Blob, so I try to keep that filter on.
David, elsewhere in comments this morning, has a great comment on doctrine.
I guess my real concern is, as Sullivan and Blinkin are both high on their own product, how “high” does that go up the chain of command. So far, Biden seems to want to go on living, but the machine around him is indifferent on that point. And if the order comes down the chain of command, doctrine becomes moot!
“Strategic Ambiguity” is not much different from “tactical viability”… as if the destruction were not mutual. The threat of their use is implicit in their possession. That Putin stated as much is hardly groundbreaking, and to choose that as a basis for critique is pedantic. That is to say, Robb is not “normalizing” psychotic behavior, because it has long been the status quo, albeit the methods were not so high-tech.
Robb seems intelligent enough to know this… yet puts forward a few naive perspectives worthy of the network he is describing… also seems to choose his words carefully… perhaps he is attempting to avoid the ire of the very thing he is studying?
He strikes me as fearful, in a ‘don’t look up!’ and also an “I need access so…” kind of way.
I listened to the Robb interview and to all of Jay’s Elsberg interviews. [Is there any word about the documentary Jay said he and Elsberg were working on?] I think Robb’s ideas about spontaneous orders — like a a self-guided network Swarm — can be traced to Hayek. The more I think about it, the less I am inclined to believe network Swarms or Woke-Cancelling mobs are any more spontaneous than Astroturf grass-root initiatives, or demagogue lead mobs. The more I think about it, the more Robb’s views on Russia’s inclinations to use ‘tactical’ nucs seems suspicious. It sounds like a projection of the u.s. MIC’s views on ‘tactical’ nucs. And regardless how Russia views tactical nucs — does it make any sense they would use them on their own doorstep? Nucs are a very dirty weapon with long-term impacts the Russians know all too well from their experiences with Chernobyl.
I haven’t had time to watch the interview, so I may have misunderstood, but the world has many different nuclear doctrines: the Russian is not the same as that of the US, nor is the Chinese, the Indian, the French, the Israeli etc. Ellsberg isn’t a reliable guide to anything in the last fifty years.
The problem is that, whilst all these different doctrines exist, both as public statements and as classified procedures, nobody has the faintest idea how nuclear weapons would actually figure in a crisis. An example of the problem is the Falklands War in 1982, where the British didn’t consider making nuclear threats even for a moment: it simply wasn’t conceptually part of the problem. There’s a lot of speculation about which countries might actually use nuclear weapons in anger, and a lot of people believe, for example, that Pakistan or Israel might actually launch them at an enemy’s city under certain circumstances. It’s also been argued that N Korea might use one or more nuclear weapons against invading forces. Even that is speculation, and frankly such is the level of uncertainty and the dependence upon scenarios, that for most of the nuclear powers the question simply isn’t worth posing.
But I don’t think it’s relevant here. No, Karens are not going to start a nuclear war. Nuclear release procedures are the most carefully guarded and security-laden decisions in any nuclear state, kept in the vice-like grip of the civil power, and within an extremely restricted circle of advisers. In that sense, Biden deserves praise for obviously taking notice of what the military commanders are telling him: basically, we’re stuffed. The US can’t influence what’ going on in Ukraine militarily at any level, conventional or otherwise.
> “Russia’s nuclear doctrine is different from ours” […] I can’t square that
I haven’t watched the interview yet either, but thought Russia has a policy against first use while the US has refused to adopt that policy.
If correct, that would seem a pretty major difference right there.
Saudis consider accepting Yuan for purchases
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-instead-of-dollars-for-chinese-oil-sales-11647351541?
Ahhh, maybe it’s time to bring democracy to Saudi Arabia? /s
The USSR Ruble was in theory worth $1.50 or so exchange value, but like all of the bloc party currencies, worth a pittance in the west for hard money.
You could buy Rubles for 50-75 Cents in the west, and then what do you do with them?
Their currency really meant nothing when collapse came calling as it played little worldwide role, whereas we are the whole enchilada as our role is being challenged, another one of them there Bizarro World differences between the USSR & USA end games.
Russians can start asking for payment of their oil and gas in rubles…?
I saw this too, and the day after our brilliant public-servant (/sarc) Jake Sullivan spent 7 hours telling China what we would & wouldn’t “allow” them to do.
Coincidence? I’m thinking nah.
Reminiscences of the Future. Andrei Martyanov. Resource based currencies. “Not credit based currencies” like the US dollar. For the future of international trading, they (long list) are creating an international currency based on national currencies which are based on national resources. Instead of calling our dollar a credit-based currency, they should refer to it as an “interest rate” currency – that blunt instrument whereby we maintain a high purchasing power at the expense of labor and social well-being. The article was too short. To my thinking a resource based currency would have to include how healthy and progressive the society is on each side of the trade. Not just lithium for diesel.
This decade truly is cursed in the most interesting ways.
Damn it, i hoped i would be a few decades older before it all went to hell.
I was looking at that Rick Wilson tweet where he says ‘Wait. Michael Tracy lives with his Mom? Deceased.’ and you think what a, errr, doofas. But Glenn Greenwald let’s us know exactly who this Rick Wilson is. Hint – he is a Lincoln Project co-founder. But in Glenn’s own words-
‘Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
Speaking of @TheRickWilson’s sick soul: beyond all the other sleazy, scumbag, rotted DC schemes for which he’s notorious, remember he raised $65k from gullible liberals on GoFundMe for an anti-Trump film he never made. Fraud enables one to leave home:’
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1503514590654697476
‘Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.’
For a bit of levity: “Hey Putin we’re sending you a bill.”
The guy in the video (or is it a meme?) looks familiar, like a comedian I’ve seen before. Does anyone else think that?
Not really a comedian, but he reminds me of Stanley Tucci.
I think it is him, or a twin no one knew he had.
I think it’s Karen’s dad.
Poor Karen, passed away too soon before Karen’s were a thing.
This Masquerade, by the Carpenters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAVUaL5OPu4
Thanks for that, Wuk. I had forgotten how good their music could be.
It shows a 60 cent spread between premium and regular gas so probably not a sign of economic distress. Watch out when it gets below 20 cents, and nobody has any money to burn.
Have Putin & Prokofiev ever been seen together?, they sure look alike…
Ought to be enough to double incriminate his music with the double ban hammer for resemblance, listen while you can.
The Best of Prokofiev
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E9tN3vnyf4
Chomsky: Peace Talks in Ukraine “Will Get Nowhere” If US Keeps Refusing to Join
https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-peace-talks-in-ukraine-will-get-nowhere-if-us-keeps-refusing-to-join/
Thank you for the article by Midwestern Doctor about adverse reactions to Covid vaccines.
I developed GBS last Spring after receiving the J&J vaccine. The GBS was so severe that my body was paralyzed from the waist down. I could not walk or urinate (sorry if TMI). When I was hospitalized, the paralysis was starting to move into my chest and throat. A year later, I am almost back to (somewhat) normal. It has been a hellish experience, made worse by doctors who refuse to admit that the vaccines have some, um, problems associated with them. My best wishes and sympathy to anyone who has experienced adverse reactions to the vaccines. Perhaps, someday, we will be told the truth about them.
Sorry to hear about this, Anon. As for me, I will remain in the control group.
My daughter 8 got very sick after first shot. Worse after 2nd. 6 weeks later, her GI is still not back to normal. She won’t be getting any boosters that’s for sure.
The ISS link is emblematic of the haphazard US response to Russia. Did anyone think about these first order effects? It’s become painfully obvious that the Biden admin foreign policy / national security team lead by Sullivan, Blinken and Nuland are not doing their jobs. Massive financial sanctions without discussion with the Fed; technological sanctions without consultation with NASA; and some of the military “suggestions” like no-fly zones and aircraft transfers without consulting either DoD or our allies. If there are any adults left in the USG, it’s past time for them to step up and get the incompetent ideologues sidelined. These people are quickly getting us into a situation where the best case scenario is a failed state and the worst is nuclear war.
There is a video floating Twitterland today of our number 3, Nancy Pelosi, talking about war, and planes, and MIGs. Our number 2, Kamala Harris, was in Poland (I think) to help with the war effort, somehow, and there is a few clips of her talking about that. Then our number 1, Joe Biden, with various clips talking about the war. In one particular video he says something along the lines of “if Russia does X to a NATO member, it will be WWIII.” Great!
The one thing in common of all these videos; they are hard to watch, for one reason or another. Three sounds confused, and half drunk. Two sounds like, well, clueless, which seems to be her default self. And we all know how Biden sounds, but the way he said WWIII was in a way I think he means it. It was nerve rattling IMO.
Add in the likes of Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland (and the complicit media)…. There are no adults left in the room, only psychopaths, with a willing media behind them. My only hope is they don’t get the nukes flying and get half or more of our country killed. Even if we are lucky enough that doesn’t happen – this country is in a very bad place. It’s going to be a bumpy ride this summer.
RE Bio Labs:
Dan Cohen of MintPressNews interviewed Bulgarian investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva at length. DG has been aggressively investigating these labs for several years (mostly in Ukraine, but also in Georgia). The interview includes segments of a documentary film that she made that explores Pentagon funding, human experimentation (and alleged deaths), transfer of materials under diplomatic cover, and techniques for the disbursement of pathogens. It includes on-site interviews and U.S. government documents (and deleted documents).
The video is just over an hour long, but well worth your time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8VIp1tbzWw
More detail and documents can be viewed on DG’s website, Dilyana.bg and see:
http://dilyana.bg/documents-expose-us…
http://dilyana.bg/us-diplomats-involv…
https://youtu.be/_8hQi2Zv1L0
Is it to the level of proof? Not sure. But there certainly is a large volume of evidence.
Many thanks for the link to the article on vaccine responses by the midwestern doctor. I had a 95% blockage in the right coronary artery exactly two weeks after my second Moderna shot. Luckily I made it to the ER and received a stent. None of my medical team has made any connection to the vaccine. I was an unlikely candidate: no family history of heart conditions, long time runner, low saturated fat diet. Of course, I will never know conclusively but at least now I think there might be a connection. It’s now been a year. I did not get a booster.
The dogs aren’t eating the dog food – ‘A spokesman for the British PM urged Chelsea fans to avoid any shows of support for the Russian billionaire’-
https://www.rt.com/sport/551933-boris-johnson-abramovich-chelsea-tuchel/
All comments on The Daily Mail are “fully monitored” now. I wonder which points of view are finding difficulty getting aired?
(bold mine)
Well, there is the “tell” that The Hill column is full of *it.
Honestly, does that not sound like the W. Bush administration?
At least Biden isn’t completely insane, even if liberal Democrats and the PMC as a class are.
Blood thirsty insanity.
Let’s hope Zelensky decides to change out of his brown sweatsuit. Dude has been wearing that outfit since 3 weeks ago. Will he borrow Netanyahu’s graphics of a big cartoon bomb going off. Congress generally needs pictures do they not?
re: Coffee spewer of the day
“ The cons seem to outweigh the pros in the event of global cooling caused by even a small nuclear war.”
I didn’t need the director of TikTok at HuffPo to lay this out. That very fact that this is a point of discussion beggars words. Combined with the embedded video about how networks act like clique-y teenage girls attacking an overweight nerd vis a vis geopolitics makes for a grim
morning. Planet of the Apes. I really hope the Galactic Overlords don’t write us off.
The 13 week treasury yield up 7 basis points this morning (quite the jump) to 0.445%.
But even ignoring that, the 13 week yield has a definite trajectory it’s been on since the beginning of this year. Roughly increasing 28 basis points every two months.
Assuming the Fed Reserve matches that, the Fed Reserve is on path to doing a 25 basis point increase every two months.
“Assuming the Fed Reserve matches that, the Fed Reserve is on path to doing a 25 basis point increase until the next crisis.”
Just a little fix….
Re: Aftershock/Yandex
I use Yandex on both laptop and mobile (Android app), and I really do appreciate the translate feature, although it took me some time to find it.
In Android, in the lower RH corner of the page you’ll find 3 dots( … )or an ellipsis aligned vertically which will take you to a “Translate” icon, from there you may control the translation from the upper-left hand corner of the screen.
It seems to work well for a number of languages, but Japanese to English yields both confounding and often hilarious mistranslations.
Her husband is a”new type of Corona does not exist””vaccination in mortality is that”discourse to believe. “The so-called”conspiracy theorists”is. The mask also not wear it”
“The vaccine was not unwell I…… Divorce the song you are listening to.”
“Divorce the song you are listening to” so well-describes what I’d like to say to so many who are enthralled with MSM, Facelook and such…
I am told by Russian speakers that Yandex is the best Russian>English translator.
Japanese is a very context dependent language (much of the meaning of any given sentence is implied), which makes it a very tough language for translation software. Google translate for example is excellent for English-Korean, but hilariously bad for English-Japanese. But oddly enough (according to a Japanese friend), it works very well in Japanese to Korean.
https://redstate.com/leslie-mcadoo-gordon/2022/03/15/federal-judge-thwarts-checkmate-move-of-illegally-detained-january-6-defendant-n536123
Rather than proceed with his arraignment Monday, Denney could have moved to dismiss the indictment because it violates his Speedy Trial Act rights. The Government would have agreed to the dismissal but would have also asked Judge Moss to order that it be “without prejudice,” which would let the Government re-charge Denney later. While his defense counsel could request that the dismissal be “with prejudice” (meaning the Government could not re-file the charges), the overwhelming odds (under governing law) were that Judge Moss would have granted dismissal without prejudice. While the dismissal would have secured Denney’s release, he would soon be re-arrested when the Government obtains a new indictment against him (on 12 charges instead of one)….
By instead pleading guilty to the existing one-count Indictment and waiving the Speedy Trial Act violation, Denney obtains permanent benefits….
It is entirely unacceptable that Denney’s ability to exercise his rights is apparently dependent on whether the Government will agree that he may do so. The Court failed in its duty today to safeguard the rights of the Defendant. That the decision to enter a guilty plea at arraignment was unexpected is not a basis for denying the Defendant the right to enter the plea of his choice to a criminal charge. The Court’s inability (or refusal) to apply basic rules of criminal procedure in this situation was a shocking display.
==================================================
Only interesting to me as an example of all our vaunted legal rights that only exist when the government allows them to. Is this an independent judge? Screw up after screw up, but nobody convicted of abusing rights, nobody charged with abusing rights, no one fired for abusing rights. And we wonder why rights are not enforced…
IBM signs deal to relocate thousands of employees to one location.
The deal includes ventilation system
https://nypost.com/2022/03/14/ibm-relocates-thousands-of-employees-to-one-madison-ave/
IBM signs lease on One Madison Ave
The building engineer cries out, “Give me 55-degrees air.” A 100-percent fresh air HVAC system is all fun and games when it’s 55 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Any deviation from that costs big money in energy costs. It was the energy crunch during the Carter administration that brought on the reduction in fresh air introduced into HVAC systems.
Will it have Foxcon style nets below that tenth floor terrace?
>Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming? Huffpost Kevin W
Heh. The well-argued conclusion from, I kid not, a former Onion intern (but no indication that this is satire)? “The cons seem to outweigh the pros in the event of global cooling caused by even a small nuclear war.”
So to answer the Twitter fellow’s question, what stage of capitalism is this? The answer is tartar sauce.
One of the wonders of living in the Modern Age is that, given time, problems are always solved by Science/Technology. Just wait a bit. In this case, Global Warming is solved, presto, by a small nuclear war. And so convenient since we have a lot of nukes just sitting around doing nothing. Cheap to do. Like Finance, we can now have the Goldilocks Globe, “not too hot, not too cold, just right”.
So similar to that other great example of the unending benefits bestowed on us by our great and dedicated Medical Scientists who have given us these wondrous injections. Pandemic, presto, solved!
As we move into the Golden Age of Science may God Bless our dedicated and selfless Scientists working tirelessly for the future of Humanity.
I can’t see your handle without thinking “upon Setebos”…
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43748/caliban-upon-setebos
Re: SARs Kills t-cells just like HIV
The paper cited posits ACE-2 independent infection of t-cells. However, it looks like earlier investigators have found ACE-2 receptors on t-lymphocytes, in fact using the same cell line (jurkat). See link below. Above my pay grade to comment on the different blocking reagents &c used in the more recent paper, but I imagine the science is not quite settled here.
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/225/5/810/6464005?login=false
Ultimate Financial Championship
English speaking countries & Europe… versus …the rest of the World
The old world order and new world disorder go into the Octagon, needless to say what comes out the other side.
PPV
Rubles, Rupees or Yuan only accepted.
“Fox News Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski Killed In Ukraine” Huffington Post…breaking news.
I haven’t been following casualties everyday, but is this the first American killed there?
Probably mercs from a few days ago at the “training center.” It takes time to get forensics in with baggies, tweezers and spoons, and more time still for DNA analysis after gathering charred remains not carried off by rats and crows.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=johnny.boys.bones&t=brave&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D0PI0nqE5j6w
– ‘Ukrainian leftist criticizes Western war drive with Russia: US is using Ukraine as ‘cannon fodder’’
https://multipolarista.com/2022/03/14/ukrainian-leftist-war-russia-us/
This is a very clear overview history of the Ukrainian situation posted on Ben Norton’s website. Very good for sending to friends who are not yet completely brainwashed. Also, a nice antidote to the crap (in my opinion, of course) from Jacobin by “A Ukrainian Socialist” that was posted in yesterday’s Links.
This one if quite long if you want long:
https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2022/03/02/the-history-behind-the-russia-ukraine-war/
From Scott Horton
Yes. I had seen this earlier. Long, as you say, but if I could send only one article to someone this would probably be the one. An excellent in-depth history. Thanks.
This has been a bad week for me in terms of reading so-called “leftist” statements on Ukraine, so I feel I should add this.
Scott Horton is a “libertarian.” I spent much of my adult life critiquing libertarians (though mainly for their economic beliefs) from what I considered to be an “authentic” left/socialist perspective. Read Horton’s piece, and compare it to the empire-enabling contortions of the Counterpunch regulars or many of the Jacobin contributors, all of whom consider themselves “socialist” or “Marxist” or “leftist” or something. Ideological labels truly mean nothing these days. Or maybe I’ve just been misapplying them all these years.
Ideological labels truly mean nothing these days.
Dunno. I think “fascist” works pretty-well to cover much of the D&R spectrum.
You haven’t been misapplying labels. Counterpunch, Jacobin and their ilk have become unreadable, with a few outlying exceptions.
Here’s a little item I could satirically call ” generation gap” or ” what’s wrong with kids today?”
https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/telahm/our_economy_is_devastated/
So I went to a local hardware store to purchase fuel for my handy new personal flamethrower. The 1lb. canisters of propane were not in their usual spot. I asked the kid if they were out and he said no, they are now kept behind the counter ever since a couple of NYPD detectives came in asking if anyone has been purchasing large quantities of nails and/or fuel canisters. Good times.
On a more positive note, the SearPro flamethrower kicks a$$ on wheels. Two foot flame and it roars like a dragon. I’m naming it “Glaurung”. It has a major safety flaw: once the starter wire gets red hot, just turning on the fuel knob will ignite it without hitting the button. No mention of this in the literature or videos. This actually lends itself to it’s use in self defense, as it becomes a single-action “fire” weapon after it’s been heated for a few seconds. Honestly, I don’t think you would have to even use it, as the noise and flame would send anyone scrambling…
as the noise and flame would send anyone scrambling…
as they try to escape your burning house
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYANsN7EfmQ
geat for getting rid of weeds in the gravel pathways, driveway…keep it away from anything you want to live…
Russian social media …..salt….. says that Russian troops killed a Canadian who the media called the world’s deadliest sniper in Mariupol.
To learn more about the sniper >>> https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/canadian-sniper-ukraine-wali/
Judging by his wife’s comment in your link saying that keeping him home would be like putting him in jail, it sounds like this guy just really enjoys killing people more than having any sympathy for Ukraine.
If any of it is true, all I can say is “Live by the sword…”, etc.
In the early years of the Donbass wars, there was this woman Polish sniper that was causing a lot of damage to the militia. So they baited her. They waited until she had revealed her rough location, which was on a hillside, and then let loose with with an artillery barrage on the entire hill.
RE: Worldwide Social Credit Industry Infrastructure to Support Social Credit Systems Represents a $16.1 Billion Opportunity by 2026 ResearchAndMarkets.com Yahoo (Li)
This reminds me of life in The Village (the setting of the 1960’s TV series “The Prisoner” that starred Patrick McGoohan)–only worse. [1]
So every little thing we do will be graded as if we were school children where Teacher bestows or withholds gold stars that determine our access to real and digital goods. I suppose that not donating to an approved charity to show that you “stand with the Ukrainian people” (as the media encourages) or failing to denounce Tulsi Gabbard as a Right Wing, Woman Hating, Racist, Transphobic Russian Asset would garner demerits if the social credit system were in place today.
Oh, we’ll also own nothing and be happy while we get our daily protein allotment by eating insects instead of meat.
It’s not a world I would want to live in.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner#Plot
With regards to the war in Ukraine nothing is at it may seem. All sides have something to hide, and all sides are maneuvering for greatest advantage. The war has become a propaganda war as well. For this facet of the conflict Russia clearly is losing. And losing badly. It remains to be seen if Russia will stick to their plan (if they even have a well thought out plan) regardless of the propaganda onslaught they are facing. The West is utterly ruthless. If Russia can’t match the ruthlessness they will lose everything, and a great tragedy will befall the Russian people.
A quibble if I may. This “little” war might be an educational tool to show the limits of propaganda in determining the fates of nations. If the Russians “lose” the propaganda war, and don’t give a d—, and procede to impose their will on the Ukraine, then do they really lose?
What scares me is that I would not put it past the ‘elites’ presently in power in the West to “kick the table over” if they see their much vaunted propaganda war failing to affect anything on the ground in the Ukraine.
The first I read about a tactical nuke being used, I will make my peace with G–.
Trade union members in Italy declined to load weapons destined for Ukraine disguised as humanitarian flights at Pisa Airport: https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.ligurianotizie.it/aeroporto-di-pisa-armi-e-munizioni-al-posto-di-aiuti-umanitari/2022/03/15/489528/amp/
It seems there are still some “unaligned” news sources.
American mercenary (part of the “Georgian National Legion of the 102nd Ukrainian Territorial Defence”) says mercs who are trying to leave Ukraine after experiencing the full force of Russian modern conventional warfare without any artillery or air defensive support, having their entire base blown away, the base next door blown away, and many of their British and American colleagues die, are not being allowed to leave and go home by the Ukrainians and that they are being sent back to the front lines with minimal or no ammo or kit.
And having their passports cut up and being threatened with being shot in the back if they refuse. He says do not try to get of Ukraine on foot if you are a ‘volunteer’ they cannot get out by foot, you will get caught.
“people need to stop coming here, its a trap and they are not letting you f*cken leave… no one is talking about this”
Sounds like it wasn’t quite what he was expecting. If the mercs are turning and running…
Link to ASB Military News Telegram post with video – he seems still in a state of shock, its all in the eyes
https://t.me/asbmil/687
Just found twitter clip of the same video, might be easier to access for some
https://twitter.com/UrOrientalist/status/1503790042216599565
Just found out he is a volunteer, part of the Boogaloo Bois in Ohio
Yikes.
Must watch video.
The very definition of ‘cannon fodder.’
The scary part is that I can see the very same situation happening here in America with the Social Safety Net. “It’s a trap. They let you in and not out. Then they send you to Pain City.”
We’ll see just how low our standard of living will go for those of us on fixed incomes. Then we’ll see what next.
history rhymes again…
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/battle-of-crecy/genoese-crossbowmen-at-crecy/34B83B798FAAB82AE6F69FB89F626086
Recently a Ukrainian TV host was using an Adolf Eichman quote when he said ‘that in order to destroy a nation, you must destroy, first of all, its children. Because if you kill their parents, the children will grow up and take revenge. By killing children – they will never grow up and the nation will disappear’ and then he proceeded to double down with all the while having an image of Adolf Eichman in the background-
https://www.rt.com/russia/552019-ukraine-presenter-nazi-genocide/
What’s that spider-bug called?
I have zero idea. Neither did Chet G.
I don’t know either, but it is an insect, since the front “legs” look to be feelers. So, like in Aminal Farmville; “Four legs good, six legs better!”
[I have seen small spiders with that shape and colour of abdomen.]
Sir/Madam
https://theprint.in/economy/russia-ukraine-conflict-set-to-upset-indias-budget-math/849387/
It looks like Indias budget is based on oil hovering around 70-80$ per barrel. Needless to say, they must be relieved to be getting a discount and grateful for the drop below 100$ today. I cant help but wonder what the talks behind closed doors must have been between Russia and India. I imagine the Indians likely made it clear they cant take the pain too long and would like to see the conflict resolved asap and a deep discount to make prices bearable.
How would India import Russian oil? Pipeline, tanker, rail, road, all the above? Russia can make a “friend for life” out of India with the diversion of the oil originally destined for America to the sub-continent. Russia and India have traditionally been, if not close, at least friendly to each other. If Russia doesn’t get greedy in this, it could be a win-win situation.
Most of Indian weaponry is Russian and so they need them to help service those weapons. In addition, they are getting the S-400 missile defence system to protect themselves against Chinese missiles and they won’t want to give that up, not matter how many times Washington threatens to sanction them.
There would have to be quite major changes for India to take in lots of Russian oil. At the moment, most of its oil comes from Iraq and the US, almost none from Russia. A lot depends on oil grades as to whether they can simply take diverted tankers from elsewhere – although much (I think about a quarter) of Russian oil is exported as refined product, not crude (this makes it more fungible, as diesel or gasoline can be used anywhere, some grades of crude require specific refineries).
Its possible they could do a ‘displacement’ type deal, whereby the oil would be from the Middle East, but as part of a more complex deal with, for example, somewhere like Indonesia or South America.