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Semiotics of dogs Aeon
Climate
Climate activists fill golf holes with cement after water ban exemption BBC
Drought sows doubts over future of traditional English gardens Agence France Presse
#COVID19
Operational Guidance for K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs to Support Safe In-Person Learning CDC. Another masterpiece of scientific communication from CDC. Commentary:
It says something that IMO is completely backwards “Schools and ECE programs should consider flexible, non-punitive policies and practices to support individuals who choose to wear masks regardless of the COVID-19 Community Level.”
— Patrick Hickey, MD (@pwhickey) August 12, 2022
Correction, weak form: “Schools and ECE programs should consider flexible, non-punitive policies and practices to support individuals who choose not to wear masks.” Correction, strong form: “Schools and ECE programs should consider
flexible, non-punitive policies and practices to support individuals who choose not to wear masks.” And:
We can have “more normal” lives but pretending the virus isn’t there is called wish fulfillment, pandering and acceptance of a level of death, sickness, disability and disruption that we would have considered unacceptable once. 3/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) August 13, 2022
The C.D.C. Continues to Lead From Behind Ross Douthat, NYT (Re Silc).
Return to Normalcy Makes Pittsfield COVID Rates Rise iBerkshires (Re Silc). Everything’s going according to plan.
“Stochastic eugenics”:
Japan in yellow, along with the other nations that try to limit Covid.
The other group is essentially doing eugenics without a mandate. pic.twitter.com/RJF9GIOpQL
— Jeff G. Brown, BEng, MBA, PhD’23 (@GutsBerserk23) August 14, 2022
* * * Cardiovascular Effects of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine in Adolescents (preprint) Preprints.org. n = 301. Pfizer. From the Abstract: “Cardiovascular effects were found in 29.24% of patients, ranging from tachycardia, palpitation, and myopericarditis…. The clinical presentation of myopericarditis after vaccination was usually mild, with all cases fully recovering within 14 days. Hence, adolescents receiving mRNA vaccines should be monitored for side effects.”Considering Race and Ethnicity in Covid Risk Assessments — Legal Concerns and Possible Solutions Timothy Jost, NEJM (KS). “The question of how data about racial and ethnic disparities in the risk of severe Covid-19 should be translated into prevention and treatment policy is likely to persist.”
The Normalization of Covid: Another example of how America is perversely pro-risk Up@Night
China?
Fifty million empty flats threaten to plunge China’s troubled property market further into crisis, warns think tank South China Morning Post
China has encroached on Canada’s critical minerals industry, with almost no obstruction from Ottawa Globe and Mail
Myanmar
‘The Sacrifice Zone’: Myanmar bears cost of green energy ABC
NGOs gotta NGO:
There should be no excuses for such betrayal to the people of Myanmar. These INGOs have lost their integrity. This is a revolution for the people of Myanmar but not your project. We wouldn’t know if this letter didn’t leak out. pic.twitter.com/g5U9seOQgY
— Kyaw Win (@kyawwin78) August 12, 2022
India
India needs China for critical medicine ingredients, but an ambitious initiative aims to correct that South China Morning Post
Syraqistan
Man suspected of attacking Salman Rushdie charged with attempted murder, assault Reuters. Useful thread on “the Satanic Verses”:
The Satanic Verses controversy has a long and recent past. The incident reached global fame after the 1988 publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel. Long before, however, the topic was fiercely debate in medieval Muslim scholarship. A general 🧵 for non-specialists. 1/ pic.twitter.com/DkdwhJNEXy
— Ahab Bdaiwi איהאבּ ܐܝܗܐܒ (@abhistoria) August 13, 2022
UK/EU
British minister accused of trying to hide reports on impact of Tory welfare reforms Guardian (Rev Kev).
Top European Airlines Have Spent £4bn on Russian Jet Fuel Since Crimea Invasion DeSmog
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia Buys 1,000 Drones From Iran and Expands the Level of Strategic Cooperation Elijah J. Magnier. Moon of Alabama has a good discussion (EM). Shorter: It’s not because Russia is “running out”; it’s because Iran has good tech.
On the Kherson front lines, little sign of a Ukrainian offensive WaPo. The deck: “Waiting on weapons deliveries, Ukrainian gains on the ground have stalled.”
Russia reiterates demand for Nord Stream gas turbine sanctions assurances S&P Global
U.S. tells India that Indian ship was used to reroute Russian-linked fuel to New York Reuters
2024
The Espionage Act Gets An Instant Makeover Matt Taibbi, TK News. The deck: “A law reviled by liberalism ten minutes ago is now Savior to All.” Excellent.
‘Sounds about Right’: Ex-CIA Chief Michael Hayden Implies Trump Should Be Executed for Taking Classified Docs National Review
Exclusive: Trump Raid Documents Could Reveal Informants on U.S. Payroll Newsweek. A new theory from “two federal government sources.”
Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned NYT. Sources: “Four people.” Reading all the way to the end: “No one has been charged in the case, and the search warrant on its own does not mean anyone will be.” I don’t understand the material realities of the box handling. The only precedents I have are moving (boxes labeled, with contents and location listed on the outside by the customer, plus a packing list from the mover) and estate inventories (a list from a third party) The key point is that all parties involved have good reason to have at least gestured toward a mutual agreement about what’s in each box. Neither process seems to have been followed in this case. Did Justice really say “Oh, OK” when told what was in the boxes? Is that normal? Lawyers in the readership please weigh in.
Mar-a-Lago search warrant’s clues Axios
Trump pushes back on report FBI sought nuclear weapons documents The Hill
* * * Tucker Carlson’s summer replacement:
Tulsi: It’s never been about morality. It’s not about the people of Ukraine or protecting democracy. This is about regime change in Russia and exploiting this war to expand NATO.. pic.twitter.com/iIve3QROuD
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 13, 2022
Democrats en déshabillé
Sinema took Wall Street money while killing tax on investors AP. Because of course she did. Perhaps she wants to buy a new, or larger, ice cream freezer, as who among us does not.
Cartel threatens weekend of mass violence in all of Northern Baja Border Report
Police State Watch
The DARE Program Is Back in Some School Districts — Here’s What to Know Teen Vogue. And speaking of the schools:
My daughter’s school released a new cell phone policy that includes, “School officials can read any text messages between students, even if the texts occurred outside of school hours.”
Nopity nope nope.
— Rachael French (@DrRachaelF) August 13, 2022
The teen daughter is right:
My teen daughter was asked by her doctor when was her last menstrual period. She said “it’s regular, no need for dates”. When I asked her why the reply, she told me that doctors can no longer be trusted and they should become accustomed to not knowing. Welcome to the new America.
— MommaT (@tweetmommybop) August 13, 2022
New documents reveal ‘huge’ scale of US government’s cell phone location data tracking TechCrunch
FBI Attack on the Uhuru Movement is a Warning Black Agenda Report (RK).
Zeitgeist Watch
Imperial Collapse Watch
Modern US Warmongering Is Scaring Henry Kissinger Caitlin Johnstone
The Bezzle
Does Crypto Have Any Good Use Cases? Nat’s Crypto Newsletter. Case for the defense.
Amazon is getting into mental health care with a Ginger partnership The Verge (Rev Kev).
Abortion
Kansas to recount abortion vote by hand, despite big margin The Hill
Guillotine Watch
How effective altruism went from a niche movement to a billion-dollar force Vox. More squillionaires with bright ideas. Please make it stop.
Class Warfare
How Marxism solves today’s greatest mystery in the WWE Carl Beijer. Kayfabe!
The organized labor movement has a new ally: venture capitalists LA Times
Paranoia and Pastels at Bama Rush NYT (Re Silc). Predatory precarity.
Canonical grain weights as a key to ancient systems of weights and measures Jon Bosak. From 2014, but interesting for historians and standards mavens (who should grab a cup of coffee).
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote (Re Silc):
Re Silc writes: “My herd.”
Anti-antidote:
Fascinating drone footage looking down into a volcanic eruption from above.
Credit: Bjorn Steinbekkpic.twitter.com/u6MGtONNax
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) August 1, 2022
Seems a propos, somehow.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
255 comments
Comments are closed.
Just read the NY Times story. This sentence seems to have disappeared: “No one has been charged in the case, and the search warrant on its own does not mean anyone will be.”
Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned
‘My teen daughter was asked by her doctor when was her last menstrual period. She said “it’s regular, no need for dates”. When I asked her why the reply, she told me that doctors can no longer be trusted and they should become accustomed to not knowing. Welcome to the new America.’
Every now and then NC will run a story or a link that will absolutely floor me. This is one. The past two years has really strained the bonds between doctors/nurses and their patients. And now through that Supreme Court ruling, it has helped snapped the bonds of trust left. That teenage girl is right and is very smart. The mother went on to say that she lives in a blue state but so what. Things can change. And then that young girl’s medical records could potentially be used against her by some ambitious DA who wants to score points for themselves with conservative voters. Always said that trust is the glue that holds a society together and when you destroy it, that there will be consequences.
I agree with your overall observation but I wonder at whether the girl is truly right or smart. Does it really make sense to hide a potential pregnancy from a doctor when there are medications and procedures that are not appropriate for someone who is pregnant? I’m not sure this is a wise path to go down where we turn medical professionals into the enemy. As you say, trust is what holds a society together and nowhere is that more important than where our health is involved. I often feel like both sides of every debate use individual cases or potential cases to make us hate and suspect the other rather than to try and understand and reach compromise which is the only way we can function as a society.
The girl hasn’t done this. It’s the Supremes and GOP legislatures. The girl is simply adapting to reality. It’s not the girls obligation to save society when society has turned against her. Anything she says is going to the MIB.
Claims will be reported that is.
Facespook is front running surveillance capitalism. A cite from Consortium News:
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/12/facebook-shares-abortion-related-chats-with-police/
So much for privileged anything.
My point is that there seem to be at least five sides to the issue of abortion rights – Anti abortion in all cases… … Anti abortion with exceptions …. …. Pro abortion in all cases …. … Pro abortion with exceptions and people like me who think it shouldn’t even be up for public debate – it’s a completely personal and medical decision just like any other decision involving your own and your family’s health. What I don’t understand is why the assumption that doctors are in one camp or the other? Isn’t it going to vary by individual and don’t we need some element of trust there in order to have a viable medical system? At least part of the reason we’re in this situation in the first place is because of a dysfunctional political system where both sides have been fighting this and fund raising off of it for what feels like forever. It was never, imo, anyone’s business in the first place – it’s a personal decision that should not have been up for discussion. Now we have a mess but on a practical level, it doesn’t make sense in my mind to turn doctors into enemies – It’s a losing proposition. On the other hand, we need medical professionals to clearly step into the side of supporting their patients and their rights to the best care. These new laws are going to put them in a difficult position too. I’m assuming this is all going to create such a medical, social and legal tangle, practicality will win out in the end. If it doesn’t then it’s just another sign of a bigger picture of decline of the whole country and we have, to put it mildly, a very big problem.
Is it an assumption that the doctor is on a side or an assumption that the doctor records personal information in their notes and those records may or may not be private? She did answer the question in a manner that would allow the doctor to make judgements about medication. She just didn’t provide specific details. True, this is a sad state of affairs but we all must live in the world as it is rather than as it should be.
Of course the records are not private. The for-profit (or nominally “non-profit” but still evil) insurance company sees them all. Very smart girl. She may read Teen Vogue. And/or Naked Capitalism.
>practicality will win out in the end.
Absolutely nothing but wishful thinking.
The new legal environment makes doctors and nurses part of law enforcement — it has destroyed doctor/patient confidentiality. The girl in question (as I understood the tweet) was not pregnant; simply unwilling to share her menstrual details out of fear they might someday be used against her.
This is sad. And highly destructive of society. But the young woman is simply responding to the environment.
Exactly. The girl isn’t suspicious of her doctor but rather of medical ‘privacy protections,’ which provide no protection from medical leeches upstream, ie corporations.
It’s got nothing to do with trusting the doctor. It’s got nothing to do with any assumptions about the doctor at all. It’s got everything to do with the persons looking over the doctor’s shoulder, metaphorically speaking.
If I show up at the ER with a gunshot wound, the doctor is required by law to report that wound to the police. In anti-abortion states, similar mandatory reporting of signs of pregnancy will be forced on physicians (if it isn’t being done already). It’s not difficult to construct a scenario where the young woman is traveling to such a state, has a medical emergency and gets caught up in some local DA’s campaign to make examples of “suspect” women, which includes subpoenaing her medical records from back home – medical records maintained by her completely honest and trustworthy physician.
I appreciate your sentiments, I really do. But we’re past that point, at least where abortion and women’s health is concerned.
At the last in-person visit I had with my GP (a few years ago) he asked me if a “scribe” could be present to take down what was discussed. It is their new system. How can you say no? Well, I could have said no, but then I would have been “uncooperative.”
I would say that that affected what I told the doctor, but that is not true. It was already the case that I would never reveal anything to a doctor that I thought could be used against me if it were scooped up by the surveillance state. I do trust the doctor as a person, but he has no control over where the data goes.
So, good for that girl; she’s learning early what we all need to consider.
I would have told the MD I was not informed in advance and I would have to cancel the appt and expected not to be charged. He would have backed down.
I am willing to be “uncooperative”. But in NYC, abrasive personalities are more common.
I’m in an HMO. I’ve been in HMOs my entire adult life. I am in my 50s and I have never (since childhood) until this doctor had my “own” doctor. I just saw whoever was available when I went in. Because of the shortage of GPs I was in this HMO for three years before I was assigned a doctor, and that was only by chance: the “take-whatever doctor is available” program I was in was cancelled, and we patients were divided up and given actual GPs as a sort of consolation prize.
So if I offended this GP I would just be back to having whatever HMO doctor was available for any given appointment.
At this point none of this is truly relevant since the soonest GP appointment opening with any GP isn’t until December, and “my” GP has no openings at all at any point. Urgent care is the only option. The doctor shortage used to be severe but now it is dire. But, who knows, maybe I’ll get to see that GP of mine again someday?
At open enrollment we could – for a lot more money – switch to a Blue Cross type of plan. However, an extremely costly treatment that my husband needs periodically has been reliably covered by the HMO and I have reason to think it would be a major battle with Blue Cross, so we’re not switching. We are very fortunate that this has been covered by the HMO without a problem.
Sure. The religious irritants can be forced to take all the flipper babies for themselves. Giving the useless moralists something to dissipate their time and energy is all the better to sandbag their ideloloogical reproduction.
That is such a sweet idea, about how “we” can just “try and understand and reach compromise which is the only way we can function as a society.” First thought for me is Margaret Thatcher’s “There is no such thing as ‘society’” remark. It’s nice to want to see society function, but that presupposes that people generally and in sufficient percentages are acting and will continue to act in good faith. By my lights, that is the saddest kind of wishful thinking.
The people behind and part of and riding the anti-abortion salient and other “anti-social actions,” who also are so into book burning and creating a rat-on-your-neighbor culture, as well as almost all political actors and corporate creatures, are not acting in good faith at all, though they seem to sort of feel good about being part of the mob (or cynically are surfing the front of the wave.)
And I don’t see how large numbers can be brought around, in the context of “America” and the “Combined West” and sadly most of the rest of the planet poisoned by capitalism-globalism, to any kind of comity and commensalism.
I wonder where the people here at NC who have voiced interest or intent to abandon the sinking ship of “the West” will actually end up — if they will find some place to live out their days, of lives likely shortened by the diseases and “alarums of War” and global ecosystem collapse. Some might find this useful: https://www.babbel.com/course-description/learn-russian-online A lot easier than Mandarin…
The suggestion has been made elsewhere-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8enLwEflQ (53 secs)
I don’t consider being “sweet” as a negative – so, thank you. I do think we have to compromise and figure ways to get along because we are living the alternative and it’s not that great. The people in power, like Margaret Thatcher, in my view live on a totally different planet and have much to gain – such as keeping that power – by keeping us fighting against each other and debating things like abortion that have no real solution because they are personal decisions that have no one point of agreement rather than turning our attention to them.
You are correct, some people don’t want to get along or change their ingrained views but I really think that isn’t the majority. People often build their perception of others based on what they are told and what they learn from those who control the media then they go from there building on what is often a false narrative. If the narrative is changed, will those views also change? Maybe? I don’t know exactly where I’m heading with this because it is complicated because people are complicated but we have to try and build understanding and society even if on small local scales because there simply isn’t a viable alternative.
And on your other comment – Duolingo is also pretty good for Russian and it’s free.
@Lupana
I agree with with you observations.Eventually we have to work together if there will be a future. Right now institutions seems to be failing many societies. I have thought moving to Russia. Political refugee?
Russia does look very appealing.
“Public health” authorities and “doctors” just spent 2 years pushing a completely UNTESTED, experimental “vaccine” on pregnant women and women of childbearing age with the claim that it was “completely safe.” Uber-vaccinator fauci referred to the issue as “the menstrual thing,” a “thing” he only acknowledged after months if not years of denial.
There certainly are “medications and procedures that are not appropriate for someone who is pregnant,” but it would appear that you can’t depend on your “doctor” to protect you from them.
This kid has exactly the right idea. Keep your own counsel and get a paper calendar. Women have been doing it successfully for eons. It’s not like anyone was concerned with irregular periods when the “vaccine” was the issue.
Talking openly with your doctor doesn’t mean you don’t do your own research, stop using common sense and/or ultimately make your own decisions. What I wonder at in the original post is the conclusion that you can no longer trust doctors. With the provision that you never take anything without doing your own study, what is the point to going to a medical provider that you’ve already decided you can’t trust?
As far as the vaccines, I personally think there’s a lot to distrust there.
My thought when reading the original article was: Is the doctor simply asking if the girl’s periods are regular? If so, he/she could have simply asked that question. But the doctor, asking the question in the manner stated, could have been probing for possible pregnancy, and was appropriately rebuffed by the young woman.
She said she’s regular. She’s not missed a period, so why are you second guessing her? Most patients who are paying attention know their bodies way better than any doctor.
And I find the request for dates bizarre. I never never never had any doctor ask me for that.
Isn’t that question asked when a determination for a due date is in order?
When I applied for a job in the 70s there was a question on the application that asked for the date of your last menstrual period. I remember WTH is this. I left it blank. No one ever challenged it. Employers didn’t want to hire possibly pregnant women. It was very intrusive.
Employers still don’t want pregnant women. A friend of mine was fired for being pregnant.
It looks like I wasn’t clear. That question about the last period is surely always asked when a birth due date is being conveyed to the mother to be.
Until I went thru menopause, my PCP always asked for last menstrual date when I had a physical…I guess to see if you might be pregnant?
I didn’t get asked when I went on for an illness or injury tho…
None of my PCPs ever asked for that, an internist in NYC, a female MD in Oz, the specialists I was using as PCPs after I returned from Oz (main one was female), and the female PCP I have now. And yes I got physicals every year.
I was always asked when the date of my last period was. I assumed it was a standard question. Of course, having no sense of time, I never exactly remembered, so my answer ended up being “It’s regular.”
Solipsism Singularity: when nobody trusts anybody
Who, or whom, or what will ride in, or be imposed as the default savior?
Assumes facts not in evidence; given the givens, that there will be humans and a habitable planet in the future.
Given our rate of species loss alone, I don’t see how you can assume a habitable planet.
And IPCC reports are starting to talk about parts of the planet becoming separately uninhabitable due to climate change: https://whyy.org/articles/un-ipcc-climate-change-report-uninhabitable-planet-code-red/
See also this study: https://earthsky.org/earth/global-warming-areas-of-earth-too-hot-for-people/
The IPCC has tended to be behind the curve on the acceleration of climate change.
an aside about trust in medical research:
Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?
July 5, 2021
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/05/time-to-assume-that-health-research-is-fraudulent-until-proved-otherwise/
when nobody trusts anybody
part of the apparent end-goal of the neofeudalist Right of taking Hobbes as a manual, not a warning…engineering his State of Nature, as policy.
from the Bidness Coup to Reagan, that’s been the goal…because the various Commy/Socialist Revolutions…and FDR…scared the hell out of them, and they grokked immediately that they would , at best, no longer be special anymore under such systems.
after Reagan, of course, that faction bought up the erstwhile opposition, and here we are…well on the way to “nasty , brutish and short”.
well done all.
In this day and age it is reasonable to assume that nobody can be trusted, unless and until they prove otherwise. Or to put things another way, you are guilty until proven innocent.
… and just because someone “proves they can be trusted TODAY,” given how the culture has soured, there’s zero assurance they can be trusted tomorrow…how much of literature is based on tales of desertion and breaking faith? In the state of nature, by and large, I believe critters do kind of follow along their programming, and thus while by human lights “nasty,” are “trustworthy” and predictable, maybe until you get to the chimps.
Usually when a woman goes to the doctor and complains of any ailment of uncertain origin, they run a pregnancy test.
And I agree with those who say telling the doctor “the period is regular” as a sufficient answer.
I’ve never had that and I’ve complained of fatigue since 2001. They instead think I’m asking in code for SSRIs or Adderall. Really annoying.
Assume you have had thyroid levels tested? Fatigue was my pointer to autoimmune thyroid disease.
It may be this that finally makes the youngest of the younger generation understand that surveillance capitalism is NOT their friend or “inevitable.” So much of the enticement is getting them to think they need things or events that they really do not need and their privacy is more important than that event at an arena or store. Shrugging the shoulders and blindly cooperating is no longer an option. Question EVERYTHING.
That’s one way to weigh down the increasingly managed social media environment, by posing legal threats to the young women most likely to be neoliberally radicalized by it. It’s a blunt and gross instrument, but there it is.
This is relevant to the subject and may have been missed (important– someone needs this info):
DIY Collective Embeds Abortion Pill Onto Business Cards, Distributes Them At Hacker Conference
An anarchist biohacker collective has developed a DIY kit to make and discreetly mail abortion medication at home.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmn35/diy-collective-embeds-abortion-pill-onto-business-cards-distributes-them-at-hacker-conference
I find myself wondering how many have actually gone beyond the title on Rushdie’s book…
I’ve read a few of his novels and enjoyed Midnight’s Children the most. The Moor’s Last Sigh is fantastic and I couldn’t put it down – the weird love story in there threw me for a loop. The Ground Beneath Her Feet was a tough slog for me – he melds rock music into this soup of his previous books and characters in an alternate universe that ends up being pretty much the same as the timeline we’re on. Fury is one that seems the most ordinary of his books – sort of like he wanted to try on America as a setting and it led him to a sort of dead end.
The theme in his work is interconnectedness – but it seems to have betrayed him :(
The one that I haven’t wanted to finish is Satanic Verses…I started it and got quickly bored with it. I learned more from that tweet about the novel than I ever knew before.
SHAME, his third novel (in 1983, right after MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN)–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_(Rushdie_novel)
— is a very impressive piece of writing, just in terms of a very rare ability to write sentences that contain gorgeous rhetorical and metaphorical constructions.
Rushdie doesn’t use that style all the time. I bounced off MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN after the first few pages, forex, because it seemed to me mostly just verbose.
I haven’t and don’t plan to. A quick search reveals that it sold over a million copies when released and sales are now “sky rocketing.¨ Of course, sales don’t necessarily mean read, as I can attest after many bum buys.
The reaction was mostly a post colonial Era reaction with officials of sorts using it to distract angrier elements. They are less secure in their positions than their khristian counterparts in the west. They can’t get Queen Victoria, so they settle for a bookish sort. Though there are 5 “banned” episodes of South Park, but that could be because they can’t put their hands on Shrub.
Billary and Obamba’s books have supposedly sold a million copies (maybe a lot of them bought back by the publishers). It means nothing. Trash is trash.
As bad as that attack was on Rushdie, I could not stop but reflect that if that guy had not used a knife but was instead directing a Reaper drone firing a Hellfire missile causing only minimal collateral casualties, that somebody would have given him a medal instead of arresting him.
And inflicted a lot of “collateral damage.” Imagine the celebrating in certain quarters if an auditorium’s worth of Chataquaites met their Provisional Co-inceptor all at once.
I go back to the (in)famous quote from The Goldwater Girl’s idol: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
You’re either with us or against us.
That way, madness lies.
A friend, who I trust in these things, has been encouraging me to read the book since the original controversy. One of these days, I will.
Rushdie is one of my favourite authors, and this attack is very sad. I hope he recovers and keeps writing.
I’ve read and re-read The Ground Beneath her Feet, in good times and bad. It’s a beautiful story, about (among other things) belonging, about people who don’t belong, how not belonging can set you free but how it also comes with a price.
I also recommend The Jaguar Smile, a nonfiction journalistic book from the eighties, on Nicaragua and its Sandinista revolution which the US was destroying in the now-forgotten first war on terror. He is skeptical of the revolution, compares it with a jaguar that devours whoever tries to ride it. I don’t agree with Rushdie that the revolution failed from its own internal contradictions alone, but it’s a good book for anyone interested in Latin American history.
—
From The Ground Beneath Her Feet:
“For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity.
And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval.
But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.
What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time”.
The Jaguar Smile is worth a read. Although I disagree with its premise that the revolution failed. Given its faced a near permanent attempt by large scale capital and the US to destroy the country’s economy.
Its done fine on many metrics.
it sticks out like an oasis of peace and security in the region. Compare the murder rates between Nicaragua and it’s neighbours.
Even the WEF’s gender-gap index, which examines disparities between men and women in terms of political empowerment, economic opportunity, health and education ranked Nicaragua sixth in 2015. The only countries ahead of it were the Scandinavian countries.
Granted its not perfect but then no country is.
that is an excellent quote, Biologist.
ive been a weirdo as long as i can remember…day care people at the baptist church(only daycare around) getting all over my 3 y old ass for gravitating to the little bookshelf:”you cant read!”(i could, somehow,which i then proved, making them shamefaced and angrier)…and downhill from there.
hot shrinklady from over yonder hill is currently encouraging my dredging and mining of such things, in order to push them out of the way, to make room for all the wife stuff.
in relating the fullness of my crazy life to my boys in this transitional time, i tell them…i’m the guy who said “hey, lets get out of these trees and eat that dead animal over there…”
its a hard row…but people in cubicles aint gonna save some meaningful remnant, i reckon.
another along those lines that ive been carrying around with me for 35 years:
“They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3831-the-only-people-for-me-are-the-mad-ones-the
and turns out, there’s a Daily Kerouac,lol:
https://twitter.com/DailyKerouac
“U.S. tells India that Indian ship was used to reroute Russian-linked fuel to New York”
India tells the US that there is a simple solution. India will send that ship back to that port where they will load aboard an equivalent amount of that Russian crude oil and will then arrange a refund – just before India sells that crude to another nearby country. See? Problem solved.
Can’t pull anything over on the US. Sharp ones they are. Did the US say “thank you, BTW” or the Indians say “and your point is”?
Been trying to find stuff on Blinken’s “tour” to “counter Russia” in Africa. Mostly MSN quoting Blinken saying what must be a lot of humble pie for someone as arrogant and used to issuing orders and barking ultimatums. Did find one article at the Executive Intelligence Review that offered some independent minded quotes from Naledi Pandor about apartheid in the holiest of holy nations located in Middle East and South Africa is sovereign and will do things it’s own way….but noticed EIR is a Lyndon LaRouche creation and don’t know how reliable it is. Anyways he didn’t seem to get as warm a reception as did Lavrov earlier.
Naledi Pandor = South Africa Foreign Minister
Similar take from Alex Christaforu. He read her statement, which was a real putdown.
Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsfOMATsoCA (39:15 mins)
Starts at the 29:00 minute mark and is part of his Clown World segment.
“Orientalism” for lack of not knowing a better more inclusive word is the guiding light of US foreign policy. “America is back” was Biden’s foreign policy. Simply not being Orange Man would restore America to some kind of JFK we choose to go to the moon fantasy role. The idea the “little peoples” of the world might expect material recompense in exchange for following orders is total anathema to US elites.
Blinken after his November anti-China tour said all the African countries he spoke to asked for stuff and has promised nothing would be offered. The US empire won’t even pretend to pay vassals anymore.
Seems like the current thinking is that vassals should pay to be vassals.
Or maybe it’s just old skool tribute.
After that major distraction of last week, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I can’t keep up with what the latest distraction was supposed to me distract from and watching for which new distraction is supposed to distract me from the current distraction. Just to be safe, I assume it’s all horse pucky until proven otherwise.
Still can’t get over how they went in. Assault rifles?? I mean, it’s not like Trump is an eighty year black socialist! That was enough for me.
“Climate activists fill golf holes with cement after water ban exemption”
As I started to read that article, I thought what a d*** move. But then I read the bit how golf courses were exempted from water bans and I understood. Nice to know where the red lines are drawn so then I wondered just how much water can a golf course use and I found this-
‘A typical 150-acre golf course uses approximately 200 million gallons of water a year, enough to supply 1,800 residences with 300 GPD of water.’
https://www.fluencecorp.com/golf-course-water-use/
Yeah, they may have to rethink this.
Or better yet,
‘A typical 150-acre golf course uses approximately 200 million gallons of water a year, enough to offset water reduction of 10% in 18,000 residences….’
Most homes standing today aren’t plumbed to take a separate grey water feed, so perhaps that is not so true generally.
Besides, all water used to reproduce elite society is wasted. Think of the public parks, biking trails, food forests, etc. 750k tons of water could green instead.
“all water used to reproduce elite society is wasted”
thank you hunkerdown. i am stealing this. you rang my head like a bell.
in the Hudson/Graeber context, I guess the trick would be to get the grain surplus but avoid the elite metastases.
Anyhow, started converting a bankrupt golf course back to habitat some years ago. Uses only rainfall now, super birdy, adjacent to a big chunk of very proper habitat, NWR fed and state. The turkeys seems particularly pleased with our work. Wanted to keep the accessibility for people with low-mobility and people with terminal illness (there is a hospital complex nearby), so they could get their nature on, peace and healing with accessible blinds for wildlife viewing, etc. The reliable conservation folks (mainly fat white truck-having deer eaters) were totally onboard and ready to volunteer as usual, but the bumper sticker pseudo-greenies were scared of sick people and found the idea of terminally ill people looking at dusting turkeys and indigo buntings depressing. Still a win though, as 130 acres was moved out of the stupid column. Coming along nicely, just can’t wheel grandma out there to see the fawns.
Shorter version–every golf course is a conservation/human habitat opportunity. Just don’t let the city get it because they will immediately sell to condo developers.
that’s awesome, Val.
i wish i could buy this whole valley and do that…watersheds are the ideal scale for remediation…but there aint any money in it…and i only have so much $ at hand.
i’ll hafta settle on doing it on my 5 acres(25 years in, so far), then the rest of the 20 when mom shuffles off, and try and set an example.
the problem, of course…as with all such essentially evangelical, one on one , methods, is time…as in we dont have any, any more.
at least not for such patient strategies and tactics.
When driving from the Texas panhandle up through Guymon to I-70w in CO, passing through many tiny towns in the dry time of year, ALL of these small towns had very Green Golf Courses!!
It does seem crazy, but if you had the amount of land they have to spare, and as little other amusements as they have, and as much oil royalties coming in to the upper crust, one can see how it might have made sense at one time. Perhaps the new generations will transition back to horseshoes or forward to disc golf. I saw some young couples there double-dating over horseshoes last year.
I fail to understand why golf can’t be played on a clay court. Dead grass will make the ball roll faster. Adjust your game accordingly.
Go and do a search on “golf courses” around Thousand Palms in California. Then go and see the state of lake Mead.
Does this make any sense?
Those golf Courses near Thousand Palms make a great deal of sense.
They are a visual symbol of America’s class divide, a demonstration of who matters and who does not.
to continue in my not so veiled theme of utter contempt and hatred of our ruling class and their lackeys, golf courses are indicators of rich hunting grounds.
the rich and powerful, and their minions, really, really need an FDR type to come and speak to them about not becoming food.
i mean, it aint hard,lol.
bezos alone could build how many houses and just frelling give them away to people who need them?
and not even notice the difference in his personal life?
if i happened on a pile of garbage bags containing a billion dollars, that’s just the kind of thing i would do.
without even thinking too hard.
i think about all the talk from the lackeys, for all these decades, about “disciplining” the poor and the worker…and figger: maybe it aint us that needs a trip behind the woodshed.
maybe it never has been.
This. And not just here in usausausa. When I lived in Japan, women with small scissors would form up into a line and on hands and knees trim the grass.
Ana in Sacramento
I was thinking about what Brandon could do to unify the party and quash any Dem upstarts that might challenge him for the Nomination.
He should simply announce that she is now a Woman and thus the first female President.
And since she’s still married to Jill, the first Gay President as well!
Anyone challenging that could be dismissed as a misogynist Bigot.
There is a large aquifer beneath the Coachella Valley. As far as anyone knows it hasn’t been over-drawn. The Resnicks may be eyeing it, however.
convince the resnicks that it has radon in it.
that’s the multiyear whisper campaign my local ptb engineered to keep the big cities hereabouts from pursuing test wells into our aquifer.
their respective publics nixed it.
The climate activists may not that familiar with golf, but may be busy.
Golf courses routinely move the hole around by plugging the old and plunging the new, as may be learned on television. That movement prevents excess wear on the green, just like the tee box markers get moved up or back to allow reseeded tee-off points to regenerate.
A new aerobic sport?
Really aerobic to hit a ball with a stick, chase it around on a golf cart the whole day!
Grown men whacking off repeatedly in pursuit of placement in diminutive holes is about par for the course.
like my grandad always said, “put a lil hair around it”.
i loathe golf.
i was an ezgo mechanic for a year and a half, long ago…traveling around doing warranty work.
public golf courses, they were all happy we were there, fixin things.
privates…old men in baby aspirin shorts drinking scotch at 9 am and pontificating about our sweaty and battery acid covered laziness…and then deliberately hitting high speed projectiles into our work area.
class consciousness, right there…achieved!
foreman didn’t like braving the gauntlet to go to the clubhouse to call for parts(pre-cell fone), so i did it…because i didn’t give a damn at the time.
and i’d listen to them…being themselves, and ..besides from the above mentioned pontifications…ignoring the Help.
very enlightening what they talked about.
never could hear the word “entitlement” in the way the talking heads intended, after all that.
i think its a testament to the skill and acumen of the operators of the mindfuckery machinery that you hear about schools being shot up, as well as gay-freindly nightclubs…and womyn’s health places being bombed…but nobody ever strikes the root.
has a private golf club ever been subject to such “discipline”?
remarkable.
I’ve come across a few Ugly Golfers in my time, mostly American Gentry or worse types (although I usually just go to a course to play and leave without any of the social fripperies – that said, the proportion of ultra-elite exclusive and conspicuously snobby clubs in Australia is relatively low I think. Particularly in the country, golf and other sporting clubs serve as community centres/focal points). That said, this entire thread is surely proof positive that lazy and second-rate thinking and mindless regurgitation of received wisdom is hardly exclusive to that class of prize wankers.
And look, when there’s an occasional golf mention here I sometimes feel obliged to come to its defence and point out when some generality about the activity is misguided or uninformed, but now I wonder: what’s the point, really? It seems to be the topic on which people are more prejudicially inclined than any other. It’s genuinely quite surreal.
Suffice it to say that nothing precludes golf courses from incorporating walking/bike trails, food growing and other such swell and socially beneficial resources besides the activity itself, and of course many do.
As for ideas about “the reproduction of elite spaces”, it’s funny. There’s been a “grassroots” campaign for a municipal golf course local to me to be reclaimed as a public park. It would have to be about the most proletarian sporting facility in Melbourne. Unlimited golf after 1pm costs about $15AUD, modest pro shop and conditions, footgolf (tee-to-cup with a soccer ball) for those who struggle with the full-form game. Golfers are mostly keen to share the facility in some way (the model often cited is St Andrews Links being a public park on Sundays). But what the move to take the golf course away from the golfers who use it is is not some broad-minded populist triumph sticking it to the elites, but a group of guardianista liberals selfishly trying to have it all for themselves, and falsely painting this ridiculous picture of the course as some elitist enclave, like they’re relying upon movie stereotypes to make their argument, alongside spurious environmental/ecological arguments to make the point when there’s plenty of local research (and the localness is important: golf courses in Melbourne will of course be different from those in, say, the Coachella valley in terms of their environmental and ecological profile) attesting to the superior ecological performance of urban golf courses relative to parks in various respects. In reality the course not only complements the local Merri Creek ecosystem in a harmonious way, supporting a lot of wildlife in the heart of the city, but is one of a decreasing number of affordable golf opportunities in the city’s inner suburbs. I’ve lost count of the number of kids and tradies in their work uniforms I’ve seen playing there in the afternoon. Such decidedly non-elite sporting facilities, open to everyone, are ubiquitous throughout the anglophone world (less common in nouveau-riche golf “markets” – think the middle east for example). And it’s the golfers who are out of touch?
So this (surprisingly common) idea that the abolition of golf is some kind of sine qua non for a happy, ecologically perfect and socially harmonious utopia is just impossible to take seriously. And pointing this out is not because I have any latent fear of golf being banned any time soon, which is very far down on my list of ambient concerns (I’m more concerned at some future long covid precluding my ability to play it!) but because the number of people I know who’ve tried it and have thought “well that was shit and all-round bad for my physical and mental health and I didn’t even see a single bird and I never want to do it again, and also why do I now have a sudden taste for smoking cigars and spitting on poor people?” is vanishingly small. In fact the destruction of neoliberal scourges (bullshit jobs, taxes on time, work to survive) would give more people
more opportunities to discover and enjoy this thing that is really very pleasant and beneficial both individually and, depending on the circumstances, communally and environmentally as well.
That said, and I’ve made this point before, many courses need to wise up about water usage, particularly in America and Europe. Australia generally uses less (with the country often having to deal with drought conditions), non-potable water and often achieves better playing conditions. Courses should learn to do more with less (the foolish demand for pristine green playing services will have to fall by the wayside as well). Many golfing purists consider lush green desert golf a wasteful vulgarity for obvious reasons. And I suspect that the biggest environmental impact of golf is the energy cost of getting to/from courses, and that’s something golf tourism especially will have to reckon with (and draws attention to the importance of local and accessible local golf in the UK style where, particularly in coastal towns, the courses are extensions of the towns themselves and seamlessly integrated into the community).
Aerobic to keep filling all those new holes on 18 greens per course, surreptitiously.
My avg heart rate on my last round (walking, because I’m not a rich American or otherwise handicapped) was apparently 123bpm, with a 159bpm max, which is not bad. 3 hrs walking (1.5 for 9 holes) interspersed with a few dozen fairly athletic swings is obviously a pretty healthful thing to do.
We live in a golf course community. It started out privately owned, but now it’s owned by the city. They used potable water for years, now they use water that is non-potable, with warning signs posted. The grass comes out of dormancy in April and watering begins in June, always after the sun goes down. I can’t imagine the city is making any money though, even as cheap as water is here and plentiful for now.
For all that bounty, it isn’t hard to see a future when the course is sold and that once fantastic view sold off to real estate developers to build houses, where the new residents will demand that their houses have water and given the price per gallon, probably swimming pools. The local paper recently asked their readers at the south end of town where and how they’d like to see some spare city cash spent on recreation, and the vote was overwhelmingly for a large indoor pool. It’s just a matter of time before home owners decide they don’t want the hassle of (sharing) using a city pool, and start putting in their own. And then I wonder if the golf course’s water usage still looks like a waste? The costs and liability will have been shifted elsewhere though, from the city to the HOA’s. ‘Round here HOA’s are long on attorney retainers and short on spending on the neighborhoods themselves, except the most basic services.
Meanwhile, just north of the city, the largest new reservoir in the state is being built, to be fed by the headwaters of the Colorado River. Colorado has not been keeping its fair share and has sent the water down river. That is likely to change as the drought deepens.
Yesterday we watched a storm front build over the Front Range. It didn’t move in and begin raining until almost 8 p.m., then it poured for a good ten minutes. August has usually been a dry month and we didn’t see rain again until October, when it was just as likely to be snow. None of this is true now; there is no usual weather pattern except in the broadest sense. Summer hot, winter cold, spring and fall… who knows? I can say without looking that the rainbarrel is full again, though the garden won’t want any for a few days. This at least has been holding true all summer, for which I’m uncommonly grateful. I spent my first 40 years complaining that it rained too much!
…if glf died ff wuld anybdy ntice?
“O” I see what you did. A very subtle dig at the Melanoderm X-President.
Golf courses versus condominiums. Which use more water? When golf courses are closed they tend to be replaced by condominiums.
Destroying golf courses is always objectively correct. Operating a golf course is the richard’s move
Golf courses: the Lawns of the Gods
In a related vein, here’s a piece about some vegan “activists” dumping milk at Harrods:
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2022/08/harrods-vegan-activists/
This brings to mind the kids blocking highways in the UK and US. Including some poor schmoe who would have broken parole had he missed work. The only people affected by this are the low paid cleaning crew, although the article’s concerns for them naturally fail to address why they are so poorly paid.
I think stunts like this are more about in-group posturing than anything else. No one will remember it in a few days, no awareness has been generated except for some back-slapping amongst the members of the group. Nothing is going to stop what’s coming, not even Pelosi’s bizarre speech about Mother Earth and how the recent bill will “fix all that”. If anyone really did start to gum up the works, they’d find themselves in an orange jumper at best…
As Questa Nota points out above, plugging today’s hole locations is silly – GC staff just pull the plug-plus-cup out and put fresh cup in, and/or use a new hole location.
If the activists really wanted to do something significant, they’d sabotage the watering *system* – but not in a way that causes water to just gush out. Maybe find a creative use of hydraulic cement somewhere upstream? I defer to those with expertise in such matters.
there’ll be a cleanout valve of some sort, just downstream of the well, or whatever.
just sayin’.
your idea has merit.
the cement in 9 holes is amateur hour.
purely performative.
In my fantasy world not only would Kansas’ hand count find that many more people rejected clearing the way for an abortion ban than the original count, it would also bring into deep question the accuracy of the programming and results of the electronic ballot readers.
I’ll be happy if everything is just confirmed, but it would be lovely if this kicked two erroneous and dangerous things to the curb, not just one.
Yves remarked in a rather offhand way yesterday that the US Military had disobeyed the lawful orders of their Commander in chief to remove US Troops from both Syria and Afghanistan.
And of course there were no consequences for doing so.
I don’t recall any discussion of this in the MSM and not much here at NC.
While Civilian control of the Military has been a more or less polite fiction for decades,that pretense established an important norm of behavior.
And disobeying the lawful orders of a Military superior is a very serious offense, you are talking years of time at Leavenworth.
An interesting precedent, the Military has demonstrated that they only have to obey the orders of the President when they agree with them.
And it’s no big deal.
Nothing to see here,Move along.
Military leaders probably read/listen to the MSM news, just like almost everyone else, which makes this GrayZone report interesting, imo. Note this report came out after the 2020 election, so I’m not suggesting this is the reason the military refused an order from T when he was pres.
Behind NATO’s ‘cognitive warfare’: ‘Battle for your brain’ waged by Western militaries
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/10/08/nato-cognitive-warfare-brain/
The guy who drafted the order, Colonel MacGregor, explained what happened in a recent interview on YouTube with that law talking guy from Fox News: Trump was argued into a compromise.
See here at 21:45: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZIQEu_tZ1g.
Yves
thanks for the link. I started watching at 21:45 and the thing I got out of it, is that Trump backed down. So for all the strum und drang, Trump listened to all the senators and generals and offered a COMPROMISE of withdrawing just half. So at least in this case (and who knows how many others) I agree with Trump’s authoritarian desires (get the US military out of many foreign lands) more than I do with “compromise” (with our MIC, deep state, or Federal bureacracy, call it what you will). Of course, this nuance is NEVER reported, because facts that undermine the narrative can never be acknowledged…as well as the fact that facts are secondary to the narrative…
And another thing – contrary to the narrative, Trump followed the rules of generating the paperwork (and there is quite a bit) to issue a lawful order, so it makes me think that most of this stuff about Trump breaking “norms” is total malarkey…
Moreover, he only said he heard that the order for withdrawal had been signed which seems odd. You’d think that an order like that would have widespread circulation. Biden didn’t cave to the pressure regardless and the US left Afghanistan which is what people are ignoring. I’m guessing it’s because it doesn’t fit either the “the deep state controls everything” or the “Trump is a strong leader” narrative.
That video was instructive for other reasons though. It demonstrates the lack of imagination by America’s military officers. It doesn’t seem to occur to Macgregor that ISIS-K already had a presence in Kabul and would’ve been ready to attack retreating forces. An American general expressed his surprise at how quickly they mobilized their forces to stage attacks in the after action report. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise though.
A retreating enemy is always going to be too good of a target to pass up. I doubt the time of the withdrawal would’ve mattered and that retreat could’ve been far worse.
I have a different take.
The PTB didn’t want trump to get another win like the TPP.
The dems needed to get credit for pulling out of Afghanistan in order to go after Ukraine. The pullout was such an outlier event that eleventy dimensionality and wagging the dog are likely. We don’t do policy, we push people around. We kick sand in people’s faces…you get the picture…. pulling out of Afghanistan was dazzle.
Eh, not really a win for Biden. The media was in a frenzy and the think tanks were ruminating about the loss of international credibility.
Not really even meant to be a win for biden, just part of the overall sham, and a nice fake progressive increment.
We needed to be out because moving on to the new thing but can’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t let trump do it.
The imperial Brits did a retreat in this very same terrain in 1842 no less, and their army was pretty much exterminated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retreat_from_Kabul
So it proves that US generals, as Andrew Martyanov points out, are stupid and do not know anything about history.
“ When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!”
From “The Young British Soldier,” by Rudyard Kipling
Not sure when exactly, maybe during the Trump years, maybe before, but i have come to regards the whole US presidential election to something akin to the Wizard of Oz.
A massive smoke and mirrors distraction for the US people to pin their hopes and dreams on, because in the long run it is congress that really decides.
After all, they have to ratify any decisions if they are to last long term. And can override any presidential veto if need be.
And when it comes down to it, the whole arrangement is set up to deadlock unless the bag men wants otherwise.
In the end the nation has kept going largely thanks to expansionary economy. Until it hit the west coast it kept things going by continually providing new land for people to sustain themselves from. And then later the world wars broke the old empires, allowing USA to become the world factory. But now it has seceded that position to China.
USA really do ape UK in all things…
Recall Obama’s gesture at detente in Syria came to a bloody end with an ‘autonomous’ US attack on Deir Ezzor.
If one wants an unwilling professional soldier to obey orders, one gives those orders to him in writing, in front of witnesses. If he doesn’t obey, one then busts him to second lieutenant and transfers him to Adak. Mr Trump’s bone spurs are still hurting him. Had he served, he’d know this, it’s taught in Basic Training.
As Putin’s war spreads panic across Europe, Ukrainians must fear a stab in the back –Simon Tisdall, The Guardian
A dark, bitter, angry Tisdall describes Ukraine’s and the West’s desperate predicament, yet manages to identify the only realistic way out of it:
Lordie. As I am sure you know, Putin is the most dovish of the leadership group in Russia. Tisdall needs to bone up on what Medvedev has been saying…
Yeah, like we do not already have a list of examples of the dangers of “de-capping” nations with strong long term leaders.
How well is Iraq doing? Or Libya?
That said, it may well be that Medvedev is playing “bad cop” of the pair.
I’m more curious about who will replace Lavrov when the old dog finally retires.
How about Maria Zakharova? She has a razor sharp wit, is the daughter of a diplomat herself and could easily handle herself on the international stage-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Zakharova
Yeah that lady reads like a suitable option.
She do seem to have a sharper edge than the deadpan Lavrov though, but even he has proven to be quite prickly recently (like that interview with the BBC correspondent).
Well, she is not as diplomatic in her speech as Lavrov :) but she might be a good bet.
Lavrov also has two deputies fluent in Chinese, especially Igor Morgulov as responsible for multilateral cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region should be suitable considering Russia’s current re-alignment.
“With him (Putin) gone, the crisis he single-handedly engineered would not disappear – but would be more easily resolved…”
Yep, more magical thinking.
“Single-handedly” was a reach too.
Tisdall, like Taylor Norton, Monbiot, and the other Guarniad heavyweights, is simply a fool. He had been calling for a full on NATO war against Russia for weeks now. I do hope he volunteers.
I believe that there was a proposed Constitution Amendment proposed back in 1916. If you had a vote to go to war, that those who voted ‘Yes’ would be the first to have to go sign up for induction into the armed forces. Seems fair to me. Robert Heinlein featured that happening in one of his books.
The southern Baptist church should issue a fatwa.
LOL
LOL. Putin is a foreign policy realist and imperfect but reasonable national leader. The Russian people are cynical and have very little trust in government generally, yet trust Putin even when they disagree with him. They vote for him even when they disagree with him. The “west” has gone off the deep end and only tragedy can follow.
Well, the British initially made the mistake of thinking Hitler was just a souped-up German nationalist, so maybe they’re paranoid about making the same mistake twice? And of course the U.S. portrays every leader we have a beef with as the next Hitler too. Nothing is ever “just business” or a rational foreign policy move. It’s always a big moral outrage (of course, any war is, but the U.S. at least is hardly in a position to argue that)…
Wonderful terminology that, “Stab in the Back.”
Where have we heard that before? Hmmm…..
I assume you are referring to the good old “Dolchstosslegende” about why Germany lost WW1. Propagated by the little guy with the mustache.
From de-facto UK state media no less.
It seems we must solve ‘The Putin Problem’ once and for all, decisively, ruthlessly, and rid Europe of this monstrous throwback, this foul ogre, the one and only source of our crisis.
Has anyone seen Tisdal and Neera Tanden in the same room at the same time?
Re: “Russia Buys 1,000 Drones From Iran and Expands the Level of Strategic Cooperation”
Iran probably does have good tech. The corollary is that Russia dropped the ball, leaving a big hole in its military strategy, and now has to depend upon Iran. Will this subject Iran to claims that it is sacrificing Ukrainians as fodder in its proxy war against the US?
I thought that Iran had captured/hijacked US drones and reverse engineered them, so Russia is buying what was originally US technology. I bet they pay a fraction of the US acquisition costs. If so, I expect Iranian engineers have improved on the design, being motivated by different performance criteria than Lockheed Martin with a cost+ contract.
There was a fair amount of drone capturing/hijacking going on – both legal and questionable. From an engineering perspective, knowing what can be done is a big part of the battle. So from a electronics perspective, they could have garnered a lot on the hardware requirements – de-cap any custom ICs, visually recognizing the subsystems by their layouts, then can understand the compute requirements. Control system software, a whole other matter as it would require rebuilding. But again – figuring out what is done, what can be done, basically writes your spec and can save big on engineering resources as you can avoid a lot of wrong turns. Not sure about any improvements, but reverse engineering is a huge boost up the learning curve.
Why does legal or questionable come into it. These countries are involved in a conflict with each other.
Until Magnier spills the beans we can’t really know, but my first though reading this was that if it’s true, it’s more about a) Iran-Russia bilateral bartering b) testing Iranian tech in war conditions.
While Russians are keeping their cards close to the chest, there has been plenty of comments from the Donetsk combatants that they lack specially the light, short range drones that can tell them in which house (and floor) the Ukrainians are.
Seriously speaking, 1000 sounds a lot, even if the purchase is spread over a decade. USA build only +300 of the MQ-1 which the Iranians copied. Since Russians don’t even know yet how to fit these drones into their doctrine (or doctrine to these drones), one would assume something between 10 and 100 would be a start with perhaps an option for more (or a license) later.
I do think the optics and commercial end of the deal are probably more significant than the military. One advantage that Iranian drones would have for Russia would be that their capture wouldn’t reveal any of their drone secrets. I suspect this is also a great way of trolling the neocons, whose hysteria amplifies Iran’s drone sales pitch better than a full-page ad. I bet their drone export team is writing contracts like crazy.
If the Iranians had to pay the Russians to live-fire field test their weapons in mass use, they should do it.
Iran’s war with the US isn’t by proxy, it’s by proximity. The same could be said of Russia. We, for now, are playing with puppets. They’re combatting an existential threat.
> The corollary is that Russia dropped the ball, leaving a big hole in its military strategy, and now has to depend upon Iran.
Resources are not infinite, except for Pentagon funding. The trade-off was between the strategic (hypersonic) and the tactical (drones). Russia made the right choice.
I remember, i hope correctly, alexander Mercouris mentioned in a video that Russia had decided to source all the components for its drone program domestically causing them to fall behind. But are well on their way.
Importantly as you mentioned , priorities.
This is interesting, as it follows hard upon the heels of the recently-announced Russia-Iran trade-agreement including auto parts and turbines, and the news of Russia launching an Iranian satellite.
The Iranians look to have made good use of the several U.S. drones they’ve captured over the years, e.g. the RQ-170 in 2011 and this one in 2012. The Wikipedia article on the RQ-170 capture contains this gem: “The United States government initially denied the claims but later President Obama acknowledged that the downed aircraft was a US drone. Iran filed a complaint to the UN over the airspace violation. Obama asked Iran to return the drone.“
To use a Hebrew term – appropriately enough due to the crucial 3rd country in this strategic contest – Obama asking for the return of the drone, now that takes chutzpah. I’m picturing the Iranians replying something to effect of “would you like us to FedEx it or fly it directly back to you, Mr. President?”
It is fascinating to watch the rapid emergence of what is shaping up to be a very powerful Asia-spanning dedollarized trade and strategic-tech bloc in real time; the implications are enormous. I’m sure much of the global south is keenly watching – imagine the prospects of being able to obtain non-dollar development financing from China and Russia on fair terms in place of predatory IMF loans structured to asset-strip their recipient nations. And with the aforementioned major powers in their corner, the US-led “rules based order” will no longer be able to simply dictate terms under threat of regime-change. So, 30 years after the West “vanquished the evil Soviet regime” and the whole Cold War domino theory dogma was exposed as a genocidal fraud (with its main perps richly rewarded, naturally), and Western-touted “liberal-democratic free-market capitalism” having revealed itself as a similar self-mockery, now the dominos really *may* be starting to fall in the non-NATO-client-state rest-of-the-world, not based on being overrun by evil commie hordes but rather on the basis of free trade on fair terms and mutual respect for national sovereignty. ‘Twould be one of the great ironies of recent world history.
I imagine some of the countries in the ‘global south’ might look at their IMF debt and stripped assets, and consider going for a clean slate on a team where NY courts have no power to enforce claims on their natural resources. Repudiate your debt, join team ‘International Pariah’, and shake off the old colonial parasites at last – SCO/BRICS Call now, operators standing by!
“It is fascinating to watch the rapid emergence of what is shaping up to be a very powerful Asia-spanning dedollarized trade and strategic-tech bloc in real time; the implications are enormous”
this, all day long, man.
i haven’t felt this Catbird Seat since the USSR/Berlin Wall Fell.
big things afoot.
and, regarding the Berlin Wall.
my exwife(long ago) was there, and stuffed a chunk in her pocket.
gave it to me when she left.
it sits in my library, next to the chunk of the alfred p murrah fedbuilding.
both chunks of rock/cement vibrate in yer hand.
…although not everyone notices this phenomenon.
“Top European Airlines Have Spent £4bn on Russian Jet Fuel Since Crimea Invasion”
I’m still waiting for when people will get sick and tired of listening to Ukrainian activists say stupid things. Here they want the big airlines like British Airways, Scandinavian airline SAS, EasyJet, Iberia, Aer Lingus, etc. to stop using Russian fuel and also wants Europeans to boycott those airlines that don’t stop. Of course that might send some of those airlines into bankruptcy causing chaos but that is a risk that they are willing to take.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International is rolling on their backs and begging for mercy after daring to criticize the Ukraine and are revising that report that they released-
‘In a statement released by its German section on Friday, the human rights watchdog said that the study of the document was “initiated at the international level,” and will examine the process by which the material was prepared and how the report was analyzed from the legal and political standpoints.
“We want to understand what exactly went wrong and why, in order to learn a lesson and improve our work in the field of human rights,” the organization said.’
https://www.rt.com/news/560792-amnesty-ukraine-violations-review-report/
The people may already be, but the journalists need their outrage bait to keep their salaries.
I saw the headline The Semiotics of Dogs and thought to myself, “Dogs are using signs?”
Of course they are. My dog uses signs several times a day. And when those aren’t available, there are always bushes, light poles and that old standby, the hydrant. /s
Bet this debate won’t get half as heated as the one between North Americans and Europeans once this article on keeping cats indoors gets traction!
In Italy (and other spots) the bird population’s greatest danger is hunters.
“Italy is one of the worst offenders on the great migration flyway between Africa and Eurasia. But worst of all is Egypt, where 5.7 million birds are illegally killed each year.”
Daily Mail-style headline:
SKINNED and ready to EAT: British Robins among 25m birds SLAUGHTERED in southern Europe
That is classic Daily Heil! I for one did admire the Guardian for putting things in context for once, namely that the RSPB itself (although obviously not keen on cats killing birds) pointed out the much bigger threats to address first.
Our cat is 16 and killed her first bird ever last month. Pretty sure she was stressed at how much we’d kept her INDOORS and hadn’t been able to engage with her recently (extraneous factors).
Gotta admit that whilst (of course) some cats thrive indoors I really am uncomfortable applying the principle wholesale. Plus I and others will swear on any holy book that if you claim your residence has “no smell of cat” when you have indoor cat that you’re wrong and have simply adjusted to it. My dad enters zillions of properties in his job and instantly knows if a customer has an indoor cat (and we are not talking allergens etc).
Gestures are signs and anybody that has ever watched dogs should realize those gestures/signs are… well … telling. Aren’t they?
‘Japan in yellow, along with the other nations that try to limit Covid.
The other group is essentially doing eugenics without a mandate.’
Anybody else notice that all those nations ‘doing eugenics without a mandate’ at the top are all nations that are in the vaunted West? Strange that.
I really, really do have to wonder about the use of the word “yellow” in connection with Japan. Is this unconscious racism, as in “The Yellow Peril” of years gone by? Or is it utter cluelessness on the part of those writing and editing the piece? There is also the “unconscious” meaning of “yellow” as denoting cowardice and pusillanimity. “Forget all about reasoned argumentation; we’ll shame them into following our lead.”
Q: How do you say “Stay safe.” in Japanese?
A: “Ignore the West’s pronouncements.”
Rule #2 applies in all of the “vaulted West”, so what is strange?
ROW doesn’t need to live by Rule #2, except when the “international community” applies the hammer to those societies.
‘Sounds about Right’…wrong!! This totally un-American. This not the way we do things here, and this guy should know that. Ask Clapper and Brennan. I’m sure they would tell you that first you torture the guy…oops, I mean do “enhanced interrogation” only then do you send the guy to the gallows. Kind of like Assange who is currently undergoing pre-enhanced interrogation at the hands of the poodles before he is delivered to our shores for the real thing. Donny, practice holding your breath.
That story about Ginger healthcare should lead to some subsequent slithering suspicious* items discussing new and improved End User License Agreements. Those EULAs are expected, no, demanded, to probe, dissect and otherwise attempt to spindle and mutilate what can be found in the margins and penumbrae of HIIPA.
Awaiting news from the automatic vacuum that appointments are adjustable but not adjudicable.**
* Sibilance signifying snakes
**Ack Ack about automatic assault armaments
And here I was thinking that Ginger was a reference to Ginger Lynn, a practitioner of “Healthcare” of another sort.
In a past life I worked on the high end privacy business with very sensitive healthcare data in my polity (drugs).
I was attending one year the annual international privacy conference organized by the privacy commissioner (skirted work because they wouldn’t approve me attending a professional conference, especially me being a troublemaker).
I had the chance to hear the founder of Ginger talk (he was shadowed by his VP, a suit dipped in all the snake oils out there, definitely a product of Big Pharma.
Didn’t address publicly about my concerns, the fact that all the information Ginger collected was not private or anonymized and evidently didn’t even follow some basic indications from the latest DSM but seem to serve only as a conduit for inducing people to more medication.
The founder was genuinely surprised but the reaction of the VP was more interesting, steely and rushed to get the founder out, busy….
“Antlers Do What No Other Bones Can”
Strange about those antlers. I have seen in videos bucks fighting with each other and thought them solid. But a coupla days ago I came across a video showing that when it is time for them to go, it is so easy to get rid of them-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YsUimgDxyc (15 secs)
I suppose if you walked those woods that you would find those antlers scattered here and there.
I would have thought that the article would have provided some insight as to why up until recently and for the previous 500,000 years we have been using antlers as our main digging tool.
The shed antlers don’t usually last long, at least not in Pennsylvania, they’re an important nutrient source to pretty much everything in the woods that has the teeth to tackle them.
Last I knew, which was a long time ago, there was discussion of regulating the gathering of sheds, to preserve the resource for wildlife.
Re: On the Kherson front lines, little sign of a Ukrainian offensive WaPo
There’s a lot that could be said about this article (see the latest at The New Atlas ), but this section certainly caught my attention:
It’s of course absurd to suggest that the airport attack/accident in Crimea could have such a huge impact on the Russian position in Kherson, but did you notice the source of that brilliant analysis? Yes, the one and only Dmitri Alperovitch, Co-Founder and former CTO of the infamous cyber-firm CrowdStrike Inc., “one of Russiagate’s biggest culprits. ”
Then there’s this absolute gem:
Nothing like getting your projection in early and often!
Sibiryak
Yes, the one and only Dmitri Alperovitch, Co-Founder and former CTO of the infamous cyber-firm CrowdStrike Inc., “one of Russiagate’s biggest culprits. ”
Modified quote from Captain Louis Renault:
Round upQuote the usualsuspectssourcesAlperovitch’s great success with CrowdStrike no doubt qualified him to be a WaPo military analyst.
I’ve lost count of the Youtube videos and links prognosticating the imminent collapse of the Russian offensive. Apparently Russia has lost around 210% of it’s tanks, none of it’s hardware works, and there aren’t any map reading skills in the Russian high command. Then there are the CG simulations of Russian assets being destroyed. Along with supposedly real footage but who knows? It’s really a kind of pornography. As one nit Tweeted in response to the discovery that the Ghost of Keeev was in fact a phantom, more or less, “What do I care if it’s fake? It made me feel good.” I think that statement right there explains a heck of a lot about the situation the West is in. It’s all narrative.
Well, until you turn on your faucet for a glass of water and nothing comes out.
> The Ukraine army will never do anything stupid, like Russia, throwing people like cannon fodder into battle to satisfy the ambitions of their leaders
Oh, hell no.
To reinforce that. A coupla days ago the Ukrainians launched an attack in this region. An infantry attack. No support tanks or other armour or much artillery. You can imagine what the Russian artillery did to this attack. It was so idiotic and reckless that the order for it must have come out of Kiev.
“Modern US Warmongering Is Scaring Henry Kissinger Caitlin Johnstone”
So CJ is writing for the Onion now? But seriously, her point is well taken. If U.S. belligerence is freaking out war criminal hawk Kissinger, you might be in danger of making a misstep into the abyss.
I feel like we have Kissinger and Brezhnev’s dimwitted kids running forigin policy. As bad as thone two were, their followers see the empire as ordained from on high, not the by products various deals, planned aggression, and happenchance. The Russian Federation was manageable with reasonable deals. To a large extent, Brezhnev accomplished his goals, but his idiot offspring can’t conceive of how a reduced Russia was achieved.
Brezhnev? If we are talking about the Biden gang, much better analogue would be Yeltsin, except Yeltsin had help selling out his country.
I think NotTimothyGeithner means Brzezinski, not Brezhnev. Though one was born in Poland and the other in Ukraine, it’s still hard to say which one of them did more to bring Soviet Union down.
I think Brzezinski, too, was sort of born in what is Ukraine (or, at least his ancestors are from there), unless Brezhnev was born in Poland. Brzezinski’s ancestral estates, as I understand it, are not far from Lwow, now in Western Ukraine, and possibly, back in Poland again
So the Banderists would have killed the Brzezinskis out of hand?
I do mean Brzezinski. I just always have to focus when spelling both their names and slipped.
Re: Today’s Antidote. Lovely cows!
Went to the country fair yesterday, the one in the next county over the PA/NY state line. It’s still non-commercial (outside of the Tupperware and tractor merchants), full of 4-H kids and my spouse’s relatives, who have lived and farmed around here for over a century. We hung out in one of the cow barns for a while, catching up with the cousin who runs a small diary operation (70 head milking.)
I had a long conversation with the farmer across the aisle, who warmed to me after I praised his beautiful, prize-winning Brown Swiss. I did admit to him that my first love was the American Milking Devon breed, in the next barn over, (they produce a high quality milk as well as beef, and the males can be, umm, converted into draft oxen, and …. they are smaller and have adorable furry ears,) but allowed that the Brown Swiss were next on my list. Because their smooth tan to milk chocolate coats just invite one to run one’s hands over their sides.
His money-making job is with a larger dairy that runs a robotic operation. No human hands ever have to touch the cows, or their excretions. There are computerized, multi-million dollar systems and are workable only with larger and larger herds. Think 1000 + milking head. He said the quality of the milk is excellent, due to the all the quality control checks built into the system.
We talked about the debt burden incurred by the dairyman in purchasing these systems. He said the only way to make money (and the debt payments) was to continue to grow: the banks were happy to lend to add two more huge cow sheds to his employer’s operation. These cows never see a pasture. Their lives are spent inside. They are, in effect, milk-producing machines.
Then, the kicker. His employer recently was informed by the maker of the computerized systems, that they would no longer ‘support’ the current version of the system. The farmer would have to install a new system (kind of like what Microsoft and Apple do, but we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here.) More debt. Or one day, the system malfunctions, the robotic milking machines won’t milk and a thousand cows are bellowing in distress. And worse, the robotic poop sweepers get erratic, and you’re knee high in cow dung by noon.
I thanked him for ruining my day. But he left me on a high note: the price of milk has never been higher and the small, niche dairy farms and beef (and pig and sheep) operations have been doing well in the past five years. Local food producers are experiencing a revival.
I’ve never met a Brown Swiss I didn’t like. Even the one bull I encountered seemed easygoing.
Thank you for this, stories like these as well as the Antidotes have made me a utilitarian vegetarian. I’ll eat meat if it is placed in front of me but I don’t buy it, not even from the relatively humane sources around here. Cheese and eggs I will buy but only from local, non-industrial sources I feel I can trust.
Were the milking Devon’s of your dreams horned or polled? I would love to buy some and start a herd but the horns alarm me and, as I understand it, they are part of the breed standard. Here in the UK, the home of the Red Devon (we sent them everywhere we planted the flag, from the US to Argentina, Africa and Australia), we abandoned it for milk in favour of Friesians and we ruined its beef carcass by adopting EU standardised carcass grading and then breeding it for a bigger Sunday joint, with the result that they cannot be left to calve unaided like ranch cattle can do. The US Milking Devon retains all of its characteristics…..
Revenant, the American Milking Devons here are horned. But small horns, unlike the spreads of the Texas Longhorns. They are generally gentle and maternal. But, like people, cows have personalities and I am sure there are grumpy Devons. I would like a cow with the looks and personality of a Devon, but about the size of a goat! But we watched our cousin’s 5 year old grandson haul a big cow back from the milking parkour to the barn with no problem, so I guess it’s all about showing who’s boss.
RE: Exclusive: Trump Raid Documents Could Reveal Informants on U.S. Payroll Newsweek.
Not that it’s any great revelation, but that’s how it’s gonna go. “Difficult.” “Sensitive.”
We can’t tell you what he did or prove that he did it. The information is so very important you’ll just have to take our word for it.
We could give you the details, but then we’d have to kill you.
The Dems do love their “lawfare.” It’s so darned rules based. Dershowitz was an expert at it.
That last line has been revised.
We don’t have to tell you anything, and we’ll kill you anyway.
KE
back when I was in the Air Farce, I had Top Secret Codeword clearance. Yes, the word for the type of top secret clearance I had was….top secret. Now, to be fair, the rationale is that if the Russians knew the kind of intelligence I had access to (and I understand that US intelligence is an oxymoron) they would determine if sending a (or ideally, several) nubile young Russian honeypots was worth while to get the information out of me. This why I later became a Putin agent…Actually, no. Sadly, no beautiful Russian agents were ever sent to get US top secrets from me…thing of it is, I would have settled for ANY woman…
You should have worked on the top floors of the New Orleans International Trade Mart, situated at the foot of Canal Street. (Some of the top floors of that 33 storey building were supposedly ‘Spook Central’ for the Central Americas.) There, nubile, young, covers any and all genders. Some of the “appetizers” available at the ‘Top of the Mart’ were simply divine.
In the French Quarter today, the proper answer to the question, ‘What is your preferred pronoun?’ is still, Dollars.
The Trade Mart in NO. Didn’t a feller named Clem Bertrand, I mean Clay Shaw, used to work there?
The gossip reporting is pretty getting thick: ‘could’, ‘likely’, ‘might’, ‘possibility’, etc / ;
Doesn’t the FISA court operate this way? Trump can be tried and convicted without any evidence whatsoever being put forth.
“Why So Many Cars Have Rats in Them Now”
TLDR: they feel emboldened now that Buttigieg is Secretary of Transportation.
So, if Buttigieg is Secretary of Transportation, are we now in the midst of a Department Of Transportation (DOT)con bubble? Where’s the off ramp?
Off ramp? This is an expressway!
Don’t ask to where, you’ll know when you get there.
Next thing we know, the “authorities” will be herding us onto the “Last Exit to Brooklyn.”
Are there gerbils in cars now, too?
Look in the tailpipes.
That is a very clever and very obscure reference. I just wanted you to know that I’m so old…I understand it.
The first time my brother-in-law and I heard it back in the 90s, we collapsed in laughter. He is a big, gruff fellow but he had tears on his face as did I and we kept cracking jokes about it to each other till we could not stand it anymore.
The last off ramp’s about 20 years back. You can’t get there from here.
We’ll end up doing the “Time Warp” with President Frank N Furter.
Precarity: “a “carefully curated integration, the kind that allows many white parents to boast that their children’s public schools look like the United Nations.” It is extraordinarily expensive to be both comfortable and some facsimile of virtuous. You’ll never see as many rainbow flags as you see in Marin County.”
We brought a minibus of African American youth from Oakland housing projects to a stop over in Marin on the way to a summer camp. They wandered around Mill Valley, and per our instructions, sought out shops with Black Lives Matter signs to go into and handle merchandise. The police were called and mass consternation, as we expected.
Such hypocrisy among the tight lipped Ukranian flag waving, NPR tote baggers.
I wish I could have been there to see it, except I might have cringed to death.
When we first came to California in the eighties we happened to stop to eat in Mill Valley. What a bizarre experience! Fancy recipes, unskilfully prepared, served by fawning staff. I’m from the Philadelphia area. I was used to plain food well made, and rude people. Also, I was accustomed to encountering black people day-to-day.
The degree to which ordinary African-Americans simply vanished from my life when I moved to Davis amazed me. We sit right on I-80 between Sacramento and Oakland, and weeks could go by without me interacting with a black person who wasn’t from Africa or the Caribbean.
Michael Moore made the same point in one of his books. He suddenly noticed that when he went to California to do his deals, the only black people he encountered were those doing stuff like serving his coffee. He marveled led at the amount of social engineering that made all that possible.
I once heard somebody from Marin county explain that this is why they didn’t want BART trains to connect them to the rest of the Bay Area.
Kudos for the subversion of the Facsimile and the teachable moment.
The article on Effective Altruism (EA) was in Links on Aug10. It appears again today. It discusses in part EA’s turn to “longtermism”. For example:
This reminded me of some stuff I’d come across recently on longtermism, which I thought worthy of NC’s attention. Unfortunately, it took me a few days to track it down and share. And in sharing, I became overexcited and excerpted too much, which is likely why my comment didn’t survive moderation.
But seeing as how the original EA article is linked again today, I’ll try again to share the essay on longtermism.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo
My summary, without excerpts, is that longtermists are less concerned with the threat of, for example, climate change, than say artificial intelligence, because only the latter is an extinction risk. Extinction is the only concern because the loss of 8 billion souls currently on this rock (less the survivors of climate change or other catastrophe) pales in comparison to the loss of trillions of human lives over the course of the billions of years before the heat death of the universe. Of course, to boost those future numbers, we’ll have to branch out a bit. First Mars, and then…
Sound kinda nuts? Well, strap in, cause it gets weirder.
Longtermists are not only concerned with total numbers but also maximizing the longterm potential of humanity. This means, for example, projects like neural implants, consuming morality-boosting chemicals, and genetic engineering, to realize modes of being that are better than our current meat bags.
And just in case you worried longtermists were so focused on distant horizons that they’ve lost sight of the more mundane present, fear not! They’re focus on the total value of humanity’s potential doesn’t blind them to the present distribution of value, i.e., the extreme levels of inequality. They’re aware and hope we don’t do anything about it because the rich are more likely to develop the innovations necessary to realize humanity’s long term potential. Diverting resources away from the rich to help the poor would harm such innovative potential. The poor are but an unfortunate sacrifice, albeit a miniscule one in the grand scheme of things, to realize our glorious future.
And if some of the above reminds you of the techno-utopian fever dreams of various tech billionaires, well, you’d be right. On a recent episode of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, the author of the above essay on longtermism went into the details of the connections.
https://techwontsave.us/episode/116_the_dangerous_ideology_of_the_tech_elite_w_phil_torres
The UK’s march towards ever greater authoritarianism continues. With the press largely under the control of the oligarchs, freedom of speech becomes ever more challenged.
https://www.ft.com/content/ef6ad727-bf8b-42c0-976d-19eacbaf4115
Now for something completely different from Bike Snob NYC.
The More Things Change The More They Become Different
https://bikesnobnyc.com/2022/08/12/the-more-things-change-the-more-they-become-different/#more-11704
Re: The Normalization of Covid: Another example of how America is perversely pro-risk
I very much admire the citizens of the U.S. who do not fear criticizing their own government and its laws, as this site often does. I want the U.S. to be the country that it thinks it is, not what it really is as the above article describes. We Canadians have learned as much about American culture and history (from movies, books, stores, records, newspapers, etc.) as we do about our own country, or maybe even more. I used to be furious that Canadian films could not be shown in our movie houses. I used to be angry about Canadian books that did not get sold everywhere (although this is changing thanks to Margaret Atwood). I don’t like Canada to be held up as exemplary for the Americans because we have a lot of things wrong with our culture that needs to be repaired (i.e., our treatment of aboriginal and black people) besides it is not good to feel superior over any other country but rather to learn from the mistakes and successes of others. {Too Pollyannish, that!}
Our health care system is on very rocky ground right now; our leaders are not measuring up to our standards (leaders should not make deals to lengthen their stay in power but get elected properly!); we need to look after our own resources and not rent them out to the highest bidder (see The Tar Sands that made billionaires of the Koch brothers) and so on.
I chose to take an American History course in university on purpose and have never regretted taking it; daily I am adding to what I learned then.
Thank you, NC.
‘The Sacrifice Zone’: Myanmar bears cost of green energy”
“The birds no longer sing, and the herbs no longer grow. The fish no longer swim in rivers that have turned a murky brown. The animals do not roam, and the cows are sometimes found dead…”
Hey, that’s called “saving the planet” these days…
“This forest is the source of several key metallic elements known as rare earths, often called the vitamins of the modern world…”
“This rapid push to build out mining capacity is being justified in the name of climate change,” said Julie Michelle Klinger, author of the book “Rare Earths Frontiers,” who is leading a federal project to trace illicit energy minerals. “There’s still this push to find the right place to mine them, which is a place that is out of sight and out of mind.”
The AP investigation drew on dozens of interviews, customs data, corporate records and Chinese academic papers, along with satellite imagery and geological analysis gathered by the environmental non-profit Global Witness, to tie rare earths from Myanmar to the supply chains of 78 companies….”
But focusing on what these companies are doing doesn’t entice people to take out loans for over $30,000 for an EV.
So if you read the NY Times, well, ever, you’d think liberal Democrats saved the world. Based on the poison pill sourcing provision for EVs, it’s likely that there is no such tax credit in practice. But you wouldn’t know that from this story.
(bold mine)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/business/electric-vehicles-battery-factory-georgia.html
There was another piece linked on NC (yesterday?) about how the EV part of the bill was so poorly written that no company will be able to take advantage of the benefits.
This is what the US Government wants toward its citizens. That this is happening now (albeit by accident) to favored industry is an illustration of how inept and incompetent our elites have become. They can’t even do right by their own, now.
Five U.S. Lawmakers Arrive in Taiwan Amid Tensions With China
The delegation, led by Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, is visiting less than two weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit set off tensions with China.
Nicely done! And by environmental hero Markey, no less! Although Pelosi tried to toast him in the primary a few years ago, because why not interfere in other state’s Democrat primaries, eh? So I guess this belligerence extends to all factions in the Democrat party.
LOL, oh.
From The C.D.C. Continues to Lead From Behind:
(bold mine)
Lambert, take a bow, you called this two years ago (wow has it been that long?) as it was happening.
NC has called just about everything on COVID these past 2.5 years. Next year’s news, today.
Ugh the NY Times top comments on that all lionize the CDC as an epic, highly functionality, public health focused organization trying to operate in an impossible environment. LOL. Delusional.
This story getting big ink in the rightistsphere.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11102491/Nancy-Pelosis-son-investor-Chinese-telecoms-company.html
Pelosi’s son was on her trip. And the net worth of Casa Pelosi is 250 million. Speakership been very very good to her and hers.
As Shrek said, “That explains a lot.”
It wasn’t so much the fact that he was on the trip with her, but that all mention of his presence was deliberately scrubbed from the records. I think that he was mentioned as an unlisted “escort.” RT says-
‘House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul Pelosi Jr. is the second-largest investor in Chinese telecom firm Borqs Technologies, a recent Daily Mail report has revealed. The younger Pelosi did not publicly disclose his stake in the $22 billion firm before accompanying his mother on the taxpayer-funded trip to Taiwan.’
https://www.rt.com/news/560787-pelosi-son-chinese-investments-taiwan/
I guess that those private business deals aren’t going to sign themselves.
…the middleman kingdom?
Hunter Biden without the hookers and blow? The plot thickens.
Questions about declassification/classification:
What individuals/institutions are really in charge of classification/declassification?
If the office of the President or the President himself asks for a document to enter into the declassification review process is it the normal case that, for example, that certain institutions and certain individuals within the FBI/CIA/NSA or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have the ultimate power to approve or disapprove the initiation of such a process?
Does the compartmentalization of information within each of these intelligence organizations often contribute to them having a vested interest is not declassifying many documents? (i.e. protecting some specific intelligence interest or operation).
Is it unreasonable to argue that our modern surveillance state appears to have the real power to classify or declassify?
Here’s a good, 40 minute utube video, about Boeing’s history and its more recent 737 problems. NC covered this earlier in real time. This is a good recap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDEkH0zd3F8
To find the biggest tree…
Went on a hike to the Empire Mine in Mineral King with the NPS archaeologist and another friend, with also a side visit to the largest and 2nd largest Foxtail Pines which hang out on the ridge above Timber Gap. The Empire Mine is the only mine with a vertical shaft in MK, and really the last attempt to glean silver & gold from the underground here in the early 1880’s, which ended in failure like all other mining efforts-the chief problem being what was termed ‘rebellious ore’ in which lead, zinc and other base metals couldn’t be separated from precious metals, rendering them worthless.
Foxtail Pines are the last vestige of forest before timberline, and are most impressive hardy survivors of both long winters with ample snowpack surrounding them, as well as sticking their assorted necks out for lightning bolts to visit in the summer.
https://www.conifers.org/pi/pi/bal/07.jpg
https://www.conifers.org/pi/Pinus_balfouriana.php
Just got back from the southern park and national forest boundary area. Looking at the two year old aftermath of the SQF complex fire. Relatively few thoroughly cooked areas with sustained crown runs. Really cleaned up the understory. Aside from the standing charcoal, you wouldn’t know there was a fire because the ash is covered by two years of leaf, needle fall. Many places look unburned because there is no tree damage but this is belied by the ash and burned out stump holes. I was able to walk unimpeded through places that were impassable a few years ago. All and all I think the fire was healthy for the areas I was in. but it will be interesting in the next 20 years to see how the forest absorbs all that standing charcoal as it falls down. Mostly branches are falling off so far and I kept looking up and listening for the warning crack of a falling limb. That was a little spooky.
Especially impressive was the Dillonwood area. The place was clearcut 120 years ago so most of the sequoias are just that old. There are no super tall trees. As far as I could tell none of those 120 year old trees were lost. one of the worst damaged sequoias was right next to a pretty good sized ponderosa that completely torched. It was burned away at the base about 25 percent and scorched black to about 50 feet but green and bushy at the top. The base away from the ponderosa was blackened but obviously the cambria was unharmed under the thick fire resistant bark. But by far the most heartening thing was finding a completely fried section of fir and cedar that had obviously gotten really hot that is now full of 8 to 16 inch high sequoia seedlings coming up thick like a lawn
Chris Smalls on TYT calling for a general strike at 2:01.36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i5FqvFwzGc
Last day of the Sturgis rally and herds of motorcycles are headed home. Last year the Covid rate went up all across the states. It will be interesting to see if it happens again…
Oh … it’s gonna happen. But Wallensky’s COVID Community Levels BS is going to keep her deceitful little graph “green”.
The new normal is continually high transmission, constant re-infection, and without free testing, hugely underreported case numbers.
Wot. A. Family-blog. Travesty.
Back in 2020 there were widely published maps showing concentrations of cellphones that were present at the rally spreading out all across the US. I wonder if people will be so quick to point out how easy it is to track them now.
We’re having the Gravenstein Apple Fair this weekend, from driving by the satellite parking lot it looks like pre Covid attendance levels.
Ukraine Fighting Championship
Joe (aka the slow boil) versus Vladimir (…the judo you do)
A slave to the system and a Slav to the system go into the Octagon, but what emerges?
PPV
$39.95/2,485 Rubles
$49.95/3,100 Rubles (HD)
Since this is a Death Match, what’s the ‘Mourning Line’ on the contest?
As a lifelong professional wrestling mark (I’m 69), may I thank you for the article about Vince McMahon. I believe this analysis is very likely correct. I gave up on the WWE years ago for the same reasons as the author lists. Still, their TV ratings continue to be double those of their nearest competition: AEW. The latter company will likely be absorbed into the WWE before too long and this would be an instance of another repeating storyline as the WCW and ECW promotions met the same fate. Monopoly capitalism as Marx would say. I would like to recommend a wonderful book about the art form: Blood and Fire, Brian R. Solomon’s biography of The Sheik aka Ed Farhat of Lansing, Michigan, my all-time favourite wrestler. How can you not love a performer who won’t speak English and throws fireballs? Published this year, it is well written and thoroughly researched. The reader is taken on a journey from the Golden Age of 1950s TV wrestling shows to The Sheik’s death in 2003. Bobo Brazil, The Funk Brothers, Dick The Bruiser and many more all make appearances. Vince McMahon’s consolidation of the old-time territories is chronicled. The man is a sadistic psycho but a business genius IMHO. The Sheik’s life story reads at times like Nightmare Alley, which is fitting as professional wrestling has its roots in carney culture.
Thanks for the insightful post. I was late to wrasslin-fandom – discovered it as a really useful way to annoy the hell out of my oh-so-smart college mates via the “keeping a straight face while pretending the violence is real and oohing and aahing over the fake brutality” technique. I was especially a fan of the Honky Tonk Man (a flamboyant Elvis-impersonating heel and George “the Animal” Steele, he of the hopeless Quasimodean crush on The Beautiful Elizabeth, who IRL was a mild-mannered high school sports coach. Good times. Is still consider wrasslin – which of course has anecedents in Europe and the masked-man analog in Mexico – to be the only truly American theater form.
Oh, The Sheik! I will reserve his bio at the library. My BFF’s mother was a St John’s Ambulance (ie, very well-trained volunteer first aiders) medico for the Hamilton Ontario wrestling matches, met many of the guys of the ’60’s. She once stitched up The Beast, who thanked her in broken English (he was Sicilian, IIRC). “He was very nice”, she reported. Dick the Bruiser once fell into my (then future) mother-in-law’s lap at a match in Detroit. Anyone remember Leaping Larry Shane? Percival Pringle? Andre the Giant?
We kids knew that wrestling was ‘betend’ even then, like cartoons. My friend’s mom later confirmed, it couldn’t be TOO bad since they all went on to do it all again the next day in another town.
A near neighbour in my ‘hood when I moved in was Ricky “Steamboat”, who had a fitness gym a few blocks away. I read in a local paper’s interview with him ‘way back then that he was not Hawaiian, as billed, but what we now call First Nations. Cannot find any confirmation on line, so it’s just my lyin’ memory.
When I was little we got some TV exposure to what I assume must have been Québécois wrestling — figures of note as I recall were Eduard Carpentier, the Leduc Brothers, the Indians (a tag-team featuring feathered head-dress) and, of course, Andre the Giant.
somehow I missed this
“PHOENIX (AP) — Police arrested three Arizona parents, shocking two of them with stun guns, as they tried to force their way into a school that police locked down Friday after an armed man was seen trying to get on campus, authorities said.
The parents were arrested as they tried to get to their children to protect them, authorities said. Officers in the Phoenix suburb of El Mirage used a Taser to stop two of them as they tried to help a man whose own handgun fell to the ground while he was being taken into custody, authorities said.
https://ksltv.com/502551/arizona-parents-arrested-trying-to-get-to-locked-down-school/
We are very close to a situation where angry and frightened parents turn their guns on the police when those stalwart defenders of the status quo try and stop them from disrupting the narrative.
Those Civilians were dissing the Cops, trying to make them look bad
some one has woken up.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/unions-must-stop-preserving-corrupt-120038538.html
“I have been closely engaged in politics for decades. I’m convinced that the out-of-touch privileged union leadership who are managing the political arms of their unions will not reform their corrupt endorsing and funding systems until large numbers of members opt-out or threaten to opt-out of paying dues. Reform would not be difficult. If unions want to continue to endorse and fund political candidates, they can create systems that are completely transparent and give every member a voice.
Unions are not just made up of Democratic Party loyalists. They are made up of Socialists, Progressives, Libertarians, Republicans, Conservatives, Greens and more. By creating political endorsing and funding systems that rubber-stamp corrupt Democratic Party insiders, unions are preserving a corrupt system, risking losing the gains workers have made, damaging unions and hurting workers.”
I opted out of my union dues (AFT affiliate) a few years ago when a newly elected treasurer of our local wrongly barred me from an emergency meeting, claiming that I hadn’t paid dues. It was a lie, and after being a member for well over a decade I sent an angry email opting out.
In all my years in that union, I never once had an opportunity to vote for a state or national officer. What the author of this piece claims about the NEA is absolutely true for the AFT as well. Corrupt to the core.
On Wednesday, I was invited by a resident of the Missoula Authorized campsite to observe a compliance check within the camp. I did not expect to see seven armed men from Rogers International with face coverings patrolling the homeless camp.
https://twitter.com/Griffen8Smith/status/1558441908657016832
These Rogers International – ????? –
“According to public records, Rogers International was formed on 18 March 2020 and were contracted by the City in the autumn of 2021 for $670,000 to conduct their patented “risk-based security solutions” at a growing list of Missoula locations, starting with our most prominent homeless facilities.
According to NBC Montana, “The Rogers contract with Missoula is capped this year at $670,000, the money from federal COVID-19 relief funds.” As the dust of the Corona Crisis hysteria settles, it seems the federal funds allocated for replenishing an economy damaged by lockdowns have been spent on a private police force. But even though Rogers is paid by public institutions with funds from the American Rescue Plan, this arrangement somehow got framed as “privately funded” last month on KGVO:
“KGVO News reached out to Jesse Jeager, Director of Development and Advocacy for the Poverello Center for an update on the two facilities as the weather takes a turn for the worse this week. … Jeager did not comment on the security at the Johnson Street facility due to the fact that security is privately funded by the City of Missoula.”
A cynical observer could be forgiven for thinking that the City of Missoula and their new private police force have perhaps seen too many superhero movies.” – snip
https://outerlimitsradioshow.com/2022/03/07/why-is-mayor-engen-replacing-missoula-police-with-private-security/
WOWZERS ….
Covid relief funds on this …
i am so glad others are speaking out that free trade is white supremacy.
https://popularresistance.org/nancy-pelosi-white-supremacy-and-china/
“Her insulting words should be scorned but not before they are examined for their true meaning. Pelosi’s honesty is a reflection of the entire country’s leadership. They have deemed China an adversary in large part because it is not a white nation. It was fine for China to open itself to capitalist trade and become a World Trade Organization (WTO) member that would supply Walmart with cheap products for American consumers. That role fit the supremacist narrative perfectly. Of course China took that ball and ran with it and now has an economy of comparable size and strength to that of the U.S.
This prowess is not acceptable to a country which exudes white supremacy with its every domestic and foreign policy decision. The U.S. insists upon being a hegemon and a white one at that. This identification as the leader of the entire planet makes concessions difficult. Every other country is seen as either a willing vassal or an enemy to be destroyed. If the enemy is from the global south its position is automatically considered to be the inferior one and even a nation as prosperous as China is given the bum’s rush treatment.”
…
This framing is not correct. It’s colonialism. Spain was the first large-scale colonizer among European countries and Hispanics are not considered whites in the US, they are people of color. The Han Chinese were early colonizers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonies_in_antiquity#Chinese_colonies. I’m sure there are many other examples.
aye.
almost a category error.
china was expected , by our best and brightest masters of the universe(tm) , to remain a peasant state in perpetuity.
at least until such time as we, ourselves, became a peasant state, and thus allowed “production” to return.
some milton friedman analog read winstanley by mistake and totally misunderstood it, prolly.
thinking it a category error.
i will not quibble with the author of the article at all. regardless if you view this as colonization or white supremacy.
its obvious that any country that conquers another through force or economic force, views itself as superior, regardless of skin color, ethnic back round, etc.
i think she is a minority, and that is how she views our current MO since 1993.
after all, bill clintons people including him viewed us as the exceptional people who will design the consumer goods of the future from afar in nice air conditioned offices, and let asia’s people sweat making the stuff.
they pretty much said so in so many carefully coded words.
I agree with that. The attitude is insulting. I just believe in precision of language.
“Fifty million empty flats threaten to plunge China’s troubled property market further into crisis, warns think tank”
Got an idea. (Sarcasm Mode on) America could send all their homeless to China. The Chinese would house them in some of those flats and give them jobs as part of their own workforce which would let them pay rent and help the Chinese property market. Given decent food and healthcare, pretty soon most of them would be able to stand on their own feet and go on to lead productive lives. What about their civil rights you ask? Like the ones that they enjoy living on the streets with? We could have a win-win here people.
#Exactly … but I’m taking this beyond the homeless, Rev … ;-)
Sounds like a good basis upon which many of us could plot our exit strategy from western hegemony!
Its difficult to say whether the weather is the new normal, but we’ve gotten about 3 inches of rain out of the monsoonal action in Mineral King the past 3 weeks, with a couple more days of rain on Tuesday-Wednesday which will up the total to 4 inches of precip. This is really unusual as monsoons never last as long as this in the Sierra Nevada, and the moisture is certainly appreciated in the midst of our dire drought.
Could we end up getting more rain in the summer months than in the winter in the future in the Sierra as climate change kicks in?
Yikes. Poor dog. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/14/dog-catches-monkeypox-sharing-owners-bed/
This might be the first(?) medically documented incident of a human to animal transmission of Monkeypox.
The present situation re abortion – and any other thing that people care about a great deal that the state wants to control – will teach young people of the value of cash. Cash money is what people who are spied on use.
Krystal and Saagar:
Is The GOP ALL TALK On Going After FBI? | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Cq4EKwD_Y
A brief article that addresses how USAians get their news, showing…
Why Cable News Still Has a More Polarizing Effect Than Social Media
…I and a group of researchers from Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and Microsoft Research tracked the TV news consumption habits of tens of thousands of American adults each month from 2016 through 2019. We discovered four aspects of news consumption that, when taken together, paint an unsettling picture of the TV news ecosystem.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/12/why-cable-news-still-has-a-more-polarizing-effect-than-social-media/
I appreciate the author’s writing, his use of language.
This kinda drops the hammer on eugenics and the “useless eaters” worldview:
The importance of elders:
Researchers argue that the long human lifespan is due in part to the contributions of older adults
“Once you take into account that elders are also actively involved in helping others forage, then it adds even more fitness value to their activity and to them being alive,” Gurven said. “Not only do elders contribute to the group, but their usefulness helps ensure that they also receive from the surpluses, protections and care from their group. In other words, interdependence runs both ways, from old to young, and young to old.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220707141755.htm
Any wonder why Western culture is rapidly becoming impoverished?
Hey Resilc: I think we’re both in the North Berkshire/Southern Vermont area and was wondering if you’d be up for a local meetup sometime, assuming there are other NC readers around here. stevedew77 at gmail dot com