Links 10/11/2022

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1. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 7:16 am

   A UV Lamp That’s Bad for COVID but Not for You The Atlantic

   The article implies that the notion of UV killing microbes is new, but the use of UV has long been used in wastewater treatment, particularly for killing viruses. Its highly effective, so long as the water is suitably clear (this isn’t always the case).

   A few caveats – Naomi Gu on twitter is excellent on the details – UV can be toxic so it must be used with great care in open environments. There are proven designs predating Covid (combining enclosed UV lights with air circulation) that can be integrated into most existing public buildings. Also, a lot of UV products on the market are fake – nothing more than purple light. These are all over Amazon and other sources.
   1. Grumpy Engineer October 11, 2022 at 8:29 am

      One thing that was not well explained in the Atlantic article is why “far UVC” is safe when UVA, UVB, and UVC are not. Far UVC has the shortest wavelengths, which means it has the greatest per-photon energies and the greatest ionization capability. And indeed, this ionization capability is what make it good at degrading the organic materials that comprise virus particles. It will be similarly good at degrading the organic materials of the human body.

      I did a little bit of quick research on this, and it appears that the theory is that ALL of the far UVC energy will be absorbed in the thin layer of dead cells on the skin or tears on the eyes: https://iuva.org/resources/covid-19/Far%20UV-C%20in%20the%20200%20_%20225%20nm%20range,%20and%20its%20potential%20for%20disinfection%20applications.pdf. Alas, this isn’t proven, and to quote the end of the article (emphasis mine):

      There is a burden of proof for overwhelming positive evidence when proposing the introduction of widespread exposure of humans to radiation categorised by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP 2016) as “Reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen”. Far UV-C is a promising technology which demands further investigation, though it is the opinion of the IUVA that this burden of proof has not yet been met.

      I’d recommend sticking with the proven enclosed UV lights you mention. Or plain-jane MERV 14+ filters.
      1. Ignacio October 11, 2022 at 12:00 pm

         The damage on virus and bacteria, this sterilization property of UV, is done mainly on their DNA/RNA creating new links within the molecules that disrupt replication. Even if the article claim it is safe indoor with humans I feel somehow weary about potential mutagenic effects, particularly if there is direct exposure to the eyes. The article doesn’t say anything about this and I wonder if people are wearing protective glasses in the experiments.
         1. Dean October 11, 2022 at 1:29 pm

            UVC disinfectant activity is due to abosrbance of peptide bonds in proteins.
            “Far-UVC light (222 nm) efficiently and safely inactivates airborne human coronaviruses”
            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7314750/

            Safety claim of this article:
            “By contrast far-UVC light (207 to 222 nm) has been shown to be as efficient as conventional germicidal UV light in killing microorganisms11, but studies to date12–15 suggest that these wavelengths do not cause the human health issues associated with direct exposure to conventional germicidal UV light. In short (see below) the reason is that far-UVC light has a range in biological materials of less than a few micrometers, and thus it cannot reach living human cells in the skin or eyes, being absorbed in the skin stratum corneum or the ocular tear layer.”
            1. Ignacio October 11, 2022 at 3:21 pm

               OK, ok, absorbed too fast or too short on bio material. Yet I believe that whereas the skin is protected (by at least an article studying effects on human skin) there is still some uncertainty regarding eyes and the tear layer.
            2. Ignacio October 11, 2022 at 4:14 pm

               Then there is this little problem that you might be killing skin microflora. Much of it is protective, some pathogenic. I sense we are running too fast to conclusions. Again.
               1. Greg October 11, 2022 at 5:06 pm

                  Agreed, running straight to bathing humans in mutagens is out of line.

                  I don’t see any reason that the enclosed systems in public buildings aren’t more widely used, and the studies using them showed dramatic reductions in airborne pathogens of all types. There’s no need for open air mutagenesis damnit.
                  1. Ignacio October 11, 2022 at 7:18 pm

                     Exposing humans to some kind of high energy radiation we are usually not exposed to is not a joke. All things have to be considered before, even if it doesn’t go beyond a few micrometers. The search for sterilizing conditions is somehow insane. Our body contains a lot of germs, microflora, relevant in many senses and our skin suffers with excess cleaning. This goes one step beyond. Dermatologists might have other considerations to do. What about the hair? How would be affected by repeated exposure?
                     1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:09 am

                        > Exposing humans to some kind of high energy radiation we are usually not exposed to is not a joke.

                        Anything to avoid thinking about ventilation. This being the stupidest timeline, we’ll install a promising and sexy solution, untested at scale but requiring no engineering other than retrofitting existing facilities, everywhere, only to find out in a decade or two that in fact it causes retinal damage over an extended period of exposure, or some such. I remember when supermarkets had UV light for shopping carts. Died out, for some reason.

                        Ventilation, being proven, dull, requiring engineering, and with no risk of health damage, is an obvious non-starter.

                        That said, I’ll have to look at the studies….
      2. Mikel October 11, 2022 at 12:08 pm

         Any specific brand names to mention that are effective and safe?
   2. Lex October 11, 2022 at 8:43 am

      The primary problem with UV in these applications is distance from light source and target contact time. Different biological forms have different requirements for these two parameters. For example, most mold spores will need to be within a few inches of the light source for up to 15 minutes to be killed by UVB. So even when the light source is a good UVB/C emitter, the real world effectiveness is determined by other factors. UV does a very good job in applications such as condenser trays of AC units and dehumidifiers where it can kill microbes that grow in these locations. It can do an excellent job of killing microbes on air filters, even those that may only slow down the passage of microbes (for example, a UVB/C lamp between two <HEPA filters.

      UV has much less effectiveness in open spaces (unless the emitter is powerful enough to push the light waves out into a room at distance, but then you're going to start giving people skin cancer) or in fairly high volume, high flow air streams.
      1. Acacia October 11, 2022 at 10:05 pm

         Yeah, for these reasons it seems like adding UVC to HVAC designs (like the Daikin Streamer tech) is a more promising approach. Instead of trying to irradiate an entire indoor space at a level strong enough to be effective, the air is processed through the HVAC and subjected to UVC inside the unit.

         In that way, there’s no direct exposure to humans, and the UVC treatment can be applied to a known volume of air.

         Of course, the problem remains: even though this tech is already on the market, who’s going to pay for all this? Just because there is available tech that can improve air quality, doesn’t mean it will be put to use, as Lambert has shown by digging into the #CovidIsAirborne denial due to maybe having to pony up some $$$ to upgrade infrastructure.
         1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:13 am

            > Instead of trying to irradiate an entire indoor space at a level strong enough to be effective

            Since that is the stupidest outcome, I’d go long.

            We already have schools falling for fake air purifiers, so I can see the same scam being run with this technology as well.
      2. thoughtful person October 11, 2022 at 10:11 pm

         Maybe a UV light inside a Corsoi Rosenthal Box would do the trick. Avoids UV exposure to people and animals as well?
   3. Acacia October 11, 2022 at 11:09 am

      As I have mentioned previously, the Japanese manufacturer Daikin already has this tech on the market:

      https://daikinairpurifier.com

      The UV is at a slightly longer frequency (265 nm) that might be less harmful to skin and eyes, but in any case the UV source is sealed inside the unit so there is no direct exposure to eyes, skin, etc., and there’s an interlock switch to shut off the light if you open the unit to clean/change filters.

      Daikin mentions research conducted with University of Tokyo and Okayama University of Science on eliminating Covid-19 with this tech, claiming 99.9% effectiveness over a period of 3 hours.
      1. Revenant October 11, 2022 at 5:54 pm

         I bought a remote control UV sterilising lamp for sterilising our VRBO propertiss’ bedrooms in the pandemic. Theory was a 30 min blast to the mattress and headboard etc. Cleaners never used it more then once or twice so I have three going cheap (sterilisers, not cleaners!). Chinese no name mnfr sufficiently cautious of UV to provide cute remote control to activate / deactivate from outside the room though!
      2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:14 am

         I think it makes more sense to run air through a UV unit than to irradiate an entire room with a comic-book death ray.
         1. Revenant October 12, 2022 at 5:27 pm

            The comic book deathray, I always wanted one!

            It was for sterilising the surfaces, back when we worried about viral survival on soft furnishings rather than aerosols….

            The air was disinfected with an iodinates water humidifier. Plus windows open.
2. voteforno6 October 11, 2022 at 7:24 am

   Re: Pipeline attacks

   Attributing responsibility for the attacks on Ukraine (if that was Putin’s intention) could be a way of him sending a message to NATO, if they’re willing to listen. He might be indicating that he doesn’t intend to escalate as a result of those attacks; rather, Ukraine will be punished for them.

   Just spitballing, but it seems to me that authorities on all sides are saying some things for public consumption, and something completely different behind closed doors. At least, that’s my hope.
   1. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 8:34 am

      Matt Taibbi’s article about the NY Times report on the Dugin assassination was interesting. The article was clearly a ‘message’ from Washington insiders to someone – but its entirely opaque as to its target or intention. The most likely explanation would seem that it was a message to Russia that the Ukrainians are a bit of a loose cannon, and maybe punishing them (rather than Europeans or Americans) would be a bit more effective.
      1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 8:49 am

         Can you imagine American’s reactions if somebody killed Noam Chomsky in a car bomb so that his violent death could be a message from Moscow’s insiders to Washington’s insides?
         1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 9:12 am

            We better well hope that there are some back channels between DC and Moscow going, similar to the Cuban crisis.

            What is curious this time round is that it is the uniforms that are holding back, while back then JFK was furious about them trying to escalate things.
            1. voteforno6 October 11, 2022 at 9:21 am

               There are direct comms links between the U.S. and Russia – there have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think. Whether they’re talking or not, who knows? I’m guessing that it’s happening at lower levels, well within the realm of deniability.
               1. Polar Socialist October 11, 2022 at 9:32 am

                  There was a lot of noise at the beginning of the Special Military Operation how Shoigu was not picking up the phone when Austin tried to call.

                  On the other hand, on the operational level I do think that the communications still work in the northern Syria, where the patrol routes and flight paths are cleared between the parties.

                  And there are rumors that behind the scenes USA and Russia are negotiating about restarting the on-site observations of each others nuclear arsenal. Sorry for not having the source at hand.
                  1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 9:38 am

                     In a good news story from Syria, an American and Russian patrol stopped to have a chat, grab some selfies and swap unit patches instead of trying to run each other off the roads as has been done previously-

                     https://www.timesofisrael.com/russian-us-troops-in-syria-hold-their-fire-in-rare-moment-of-congeniality/

                     But I did note that at least one Russian vehicle had a huge “Z” on the back of it.
                     1. Lex October 11, 2022 at 2:14 pm

                        I saw video of this, as the Americans were driving away a Russian said, “… you’re [family blogged] anyway.”
               2. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 9:32 am

                  Good point. They are being used – or were. After that mass shooting in Russia, somebody high in the Pentagon (I forget who) rang their Russian counterpart and offered commiserations over that attack and then both went on to more general talk. Of course this was before the US blew up those pipelines and the Crimean bridge was attacked so maybe nobody is picking up that phone in Moscow anymore.
            2. NotTimothyGeithner October 11, 2022 at 11:19 am

               As someone who believes the primary reason for the Iraq invasion was the perception it would be easy, we shouldn’t forget the Cold War era army and the position of bases. Invading Cuba was something that could be done. Nukes aside, the Russians gave a taste of what would happen if we tried to bring air support. Enough people at the Pentagon understand this. This isn’t a place far away from Russian or Chinese bases, but on THEIR borders.
         2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:22 am

            > Noam Chomsky

            More to the points, one of the Kagans
      2. David October 11, 2022 at 1:11 pm

         I suspect they could have passed that message (and probably have) by existing back-channels. If it’s anything, it’s a message to the Ukrainians that the US knows, or thinks it knows, what’s going own, and they should stop it. It has the subsidiary purpose of reassuring those who think, quite reasonably, that the Ukrainians are out of control and the US is losing sight of what they are doing.
         1. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 3:03 pm

            That makes sense. I would guess that even if they delivered that message directly to Zelensky, they couldn’t necessarily rely on it being disseminated to all the right people inside and outside Ukraine.
            1. Revenant October 11, 2022 at 6:00 pm

               I think it is a hedge against having to cut Zelensky and Ukraine loose. My friend’s doctor father said he was taught to always write an “m” in the notes and circle it. On the witness stand, it will be clear what you meant….

               This is a little the same. Looking back, this was when Z went too far and we recommend suing for peace.

               Of course, it nay also be a warning, to the crazy gang who keep toying with false flag atrocities, from tactical nukes downwards.

               Nobody puts such a deliberate signal out for editorial balance!
3. LawnDart October 11, 2022 at 7:28 am

   What is happening is France is a scene that seems to be repeating itself throughout a growing portion of the world. Aside from the free and democratic Haiti where blackmarket gas is $30-50 gal., another former French colony is getting hammered by gas shortages too:

   https://e.vnexpress.net/photo/economy/fences-set-up-for-crowd-control-at-hcmc-gas-stations-4522025.html

   Electric vehicles are already going gangbusters in Asia, so for where and when practical, this may add fuel to the fire to convert from gas-powered transport to electric… …which we know, that limited by present tech and rare-earths availibility, won’t do much to postpone the inevitable transportation “crisis” that will render the current social and economic structures of modern society in-op.

   And so I’m leaving for my morning walk– if not for health, for practice.
   1. bidule October 11, 2022 at 7:56 am

      An anecdote (I am in France): yesterday evening, I had to spent, more or less, three hours going from one gas station to an other, looking for gas. Not so long ago, during the COVID times, some gas stations required you to pay in advance (before filling) and only for a limited amount (20 euros). Yesterday also, my wife told me that one of her collegues had to stay at home, because she had not enough gas to to work or to a station (my wife could provide her with a 5 liters gallon). Actually I had no clue of what was going on: I am teleworking and, when I don’t, I can reach my desktop using train, bus or tramway.

      Yesterday evening was full panic everywhere: my sons, also, had a lot of difficulties to fill up their tanks. This is going to be catastrophic if it lasts. You don’t know how much petroleum (or at another scale: Russian gas) is necessary in every day’s life, until there is none.
      1. Bugs October 11, 2022 at 8:15 am

         Right, but let’s be clear, the shortage is because of the refinery workers strike, and is unrelated to Ukraine vs Russia situation. There is fuel available, but it’s not leaving the refinery. Where I am in the northwest, there is absolutely no diesel to be found but they are delivering heating oil, which in a pinch can be used in a diesel engine…and vice versa.
         1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 9:21 am

            Diesels are very accommodating in that regard. Rudolf Diesel himself claimed they could run on coal dust if need be. And i think for a time it was popular to convert larger diesel cars to run on LNG. Never mind war time stories of buses being converted to run on wood gas.
            1. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 9:40 am

               I knew someone who worked in a fish n chip shop who used to pour the waste cooking oil into his small diesel van. He used to joke about being followed around everywhere by cats and hungry drunks. His van did indeed have a distinct chip shop aroma.
               1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 9:50 am

                  Yep, you can process said oil into diesel fuel via additives. Seen the odd tv program about doing that, but never looked into the actual requirements.
                  1. Thistlebreath October 11, 2022 at 10:34 am

                     Requirements: http://www.greasel.com

                     A freegan krewe I knew had a circuit of Chinese restaurants, burger joints, etc. for collecting spent fryer oil. Everyone was covered in oil, all the time.
               2. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 9:51 am

                  There was a section at the beginning of John Michael Greer’s novel “Retrotopia” where the main character was getting a train to the Lakeland Republic. He was first surprised to see the train resemble a 1950s era diesel-electric machine but was further surprised by the smell of french fries given off by it-

                  https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-08-27/retrotopia-dawn-train-from-pittsburgh/
               3. BillS October 11, 2022 at 10:24 am

                  The technique is called Transesterification, involving the substitution of a methyl or ethyl group for the glycerol at the end of the fatty acid chain in the veggie oil, usually involving the use of strongly basic catalysts like sodium or potassium hydroxide. Since the resulting ester is slightly oxygenated, the energy density is somewhat less than pure petroleum diesel.
                  1. Grumpy Engineer October 11, 2022 at 2:35 pm

                     There’s also an alternate process based on hydrogenation instead of transesterification, producing a product typically called “renewable diesel” instead of “biodiesel”: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biofuels/biodiesel-rd-other-basics.php.

                     I’ve read some websites out there that make renewable diesel sound radically better than biodiesel, but as best I can tell, it uses the exact same amount of feedstock to produce a gallon of fuel. It is more similar to petroleum-based diesel and can be blended at higher concentrations and used in colder weather, but it’s really just a process improvement instead of a whole new product. We won’t be able to fuel more vehicles this way.
   2. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 9:07 am

      LD
      When I was a child, our family did not have a car. Bear in mind, in car centric CA this was quite a hardship as the bus system was inconvenient at best. Looking up on google maps, I discovered the grocery store I walked to was only about a mile away – I was amazed that it was only a mile. One had to make the trip early or late to avoid the scorching Fresno sun most of the year.
      So I was surprised to find out that there is a grocery store (Aldi) about 1.1 miles away from where I now live. Of course, it is going to be more difficult on 66 year old legs versus 9 year old legs… Still, the exercise will be good for me, but at the rate I’m declining I can see there will come a time I won’t be able to walk the trip. I imagine there are many in this country that a 2 mile walk is beyond them. (not to mention, how many people live within a mile of a grocery store?)
      I also note the post on liquidity:
      There’s Lots of “Liquidity” in the Treasury Market, but at Higher Yields, in this Raging Inflation Wolf Richter
      The lack of oil and natural gas is something that can’t be cured by central banks – central banks can supply all the liguidity they want, but not liquid oil or liquified natural gas either. And as energy is such an important component of prices, there will probably be inflation around until Russian oil and natural gas can be laundered and supplied by the energy equivalent of Pablo Escobar. But I think it does give a preview of when the real price of energy starts rising.
      1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 9:23 am

         An electric cargo bike may be a compromise.
         1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 11:19 am

            i’m impressed with the capability of electric bikes-trikes and a cargo bike would be perfect for grocery shopping even if you were say 7 miles away.

            They don’t strike me as being all that difficult to steal is the issue i’d have, we’re I a Fresnan.
      2. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 9:36 am

         whoops – I missed the grocery store within half a mile of where I live. Whoo Wu!
         1. juno mas October 11, 2022 at 1:08 pm

            That’s a good walk. Do it!

            E-bikes are usefull for toting stuff, but you won’t get any real exercise. Keep your legs strong with a good walk. Safer than being on the roadway.
      3. kareninca October 11, 2022 at 4:25 pm

         If things are so bad that you have to walk to Aldi, they may be so bad that you will be mugged for your groceries on the walk back.
      4. LawnDart October 12, 2022 at 5:07 am

         I am back from the Northwoods into the Rustbelt. I have an Aldi 1.8 miles away, but the last few hundred yards is a “no walk zone” for pedestrians as you need to negotiate past two traffic circles– kinda like sticking your hand into a whirling mixmaster to fish something out.

         The quality and price of produce at that store is hard to match, and they don’t make me feel like a thief when I walk in carrying a backpack.

         In the Northwoods, there was an Aldi in a town 15-miles away, but also a gas station/convenience store about 5-miles from where I was staying that was good on “loss-leaders” and doesn’t rape their customers too badly on most other items, neither really walkable though.
4. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 7:56 am

   “Journalists who challenge NATO narratives are now ‘information terrorists’ ”

   Vanessa Beeley would be more than qualified to talk about this subject. She has done reporting from Palestine and especially in Syria during the intense fighting. In the old days she would have been called a War Correspondent but has now has been maligned herself as an ‘information terrorist’ by the powers that be. She was doing work showing that the White Helmets were actually an Al-Qaeda PR outfit who set up shop right next to the Jihadists HQ and how the Douma gas attack was no such thing. If you want to know how much she is hated by the establishment, you only have to read her Wikipedia page which reads as nothing more than a hit piece. Here is her twitter account so that you can decide for yourself what she is all about-

   https://twitter.com/VanessaBeeley
   1. Alice X October 11, 2022 at 8:35 am

      Thanks for her link, I’ve followed her.
   2. Mike October 11, 2022 at 1:03 pm

      Thanks for the link.

      Corbett report has had plenty of coverage of white helmets connection to the CIA. Was several years back wish I could find the link. Funny that Vanessa is calling them Al Queda, which I think points the obvious link of who has for a long time propped up Al Queda…
5. zagonostra October 11, 2022 at 7:59 am

   >Terror on Crimea Bridge forces Russia to unleash Shock’n Awe – Pepe Escobar

   So we had, in sequence, Ukrainian terrorists blowing up Darya Dugina’s car in a Moscow suburb (they admitted it); US/UK special forces (partially) blowing Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 (they admitted and then retracted); and the terror attack on Krymsky Most (once again: admitted then retracted).

   https://thecradle.co/Article/Columns/16704

   John F Kennedy Speech at American University June 10, 1963

   The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough – more than enough – of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it.

   https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/JFK061063.html
   1. Acacia October 11, 2022 at 12:04 pm

      It seems the Ukraine has already issued a postage stamp to celebrate the bombing of the bridge and, by extension, the death of the driver who apparently didn’t know his truck was carrying a bomb. There are pictures on the Interwebs of smiling people taking selfies with a large mock-up of the postage stamp.

      After the Ukraine power grid gets taken out, and email, SMS, etc., no longer function, I guess postage stamps could come in handy for communicating with friends and family. Perhaps that the ‘thinking’ here.
      1. zagonostra October 11, 2022 at 12:56 pm

         We have spent trillions on fighting “terrorism” in the past 20 or so years only to wake up and find we are the terrorist.
6. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 8:13 am

   Mismanagement and ‘Monster Trains’ Have Wrecked American Rail New York Times

   and

   How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails New York Times Kevin W: “The French company gave up on California as it was so dysfunctional. So they went to Morocco instead.”

   Nearly all national rail networks are to an extent a hostage to the whims of 19th Century industrialists. The US has a network that is the envy of many countries – the problem is that it’s mostly about moving goods, not people. The mirror image is the Japanese system, which moves little to no goods, but is outstanding for moving people around. Canada suffered from having a boringly sensible financial management system which led to them not building very much. Europe is mostly kind of stuck with a hybrid system where the same lines are used for both people and goods, with all the compromises this involves. China has the late mover advantage but is potentially blowing this by massive overinvestment in HSR while leaving its older (mostly mid-20th century) network underinvested.

   A big country needs a whole range of railways – high-capacity high speed links between its biggest cities, high-capacity goods links between its industrial heartlands and ports, and an overlapping layer of local services for goods and people. Very few countries seem to get this right. The UK is now investing in a cripplingly expensive HSR while its local services are crumbling. The Spanish are focused on ‘national’ HSR links for political reasons (undermining the traditional regional networks). The Germans are too busy getting all the various interest groups to agree to do anything (they were leaders in maglev 50 years ago and still haven’t managed to actually build one). Many Asian countries are blinded by the bling of HSR while ignoring the benefits of metro lines.

   If there is some good to come from the chaos in the US private rail sector and the stupidity of Californian HSR it might – might – lead to Washington cracking heads together and coming up with a half decent national strategy, focused on a sensible hierarchy of super high speed rail (conventional HSR is probably too slow for many of the most valuable US corridors), metros, local services and goods transport. Maybe.
   1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 9:09 am

      In my neck of the woods in the Central Valley, you’d have almost no idea that any work is being done on the HSR, not that i’ve been paying much attention to it.

      The only thing one sees on Hwy 5 & Hwy 99 are the never ending road signs that all look the same, imploring ‘Dams not Trains!’ or something to that effect. Its aimed right at the repetition wing of the GOP, those potential voters swayed by seeing the same message over and over again.

      The idea that the 1,521st dam built in the state will somehow alleviate the drought-in a location that’s strictly sloppy seventeenths as far as storage possibilities, is sadly par for the course in Godzone.
      1. Modesto Man October 11, 2022 at 1:15 pm

         The biggest landowner in California is the biggest donor to the state Democratic Party and their candidates. “The governor has also pulled in large donations from other individual donors including $250,000 from agriculture billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick.”
         https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/06/groups-supporting-newsom-winning-recall-money-fight/
         The Resnicks control monstrous amounts of federal and state taxpayer provided water for their almond orchards for export to China.
         Far more profitable than ag is the possibility of building subdivisions on their land. That is why high speed fail started where it did, to connect their taxpayer watered lands to nearby cities.
         Pure payback and corruption. 2011 is the last time California had a Republican governor.

         https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2021/09/20/amid-drought-billionaires-control-a-critical-california-water-bank/
   2. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 9:38 am

      In the end rail, to be optimal, has to be built much like roads. dedicated track pr direction. Anything else and you end up with limitations on capacity based on how frequent and long the passings are.
   3. thump October 11, 2022 at 12:33 pm

      For a debunking of the NYT article, How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails

      Please see this thread:
      https://twitter.com/cruickshank/status/1579183443224989696

      Found in the Twitter feed of @ddayen
      1. GC54 October 11, 2022 at 4:42 pm

         Thank you, most interesting counter-points.
      2. Alex Cox October 11, 2022 at 9:32 pm

         That’s a decent debunking, but it doesn’t address the failure of the HSR project to acquire in-house expertise and persist with it, rather than flirt with numerous consultants, including SNCF, and then let them drift away. Jay Gould or Leland Stanford would have hired the engineers and built the thing (just like LBJ built the useless Moon mission).
         1. PlutoniumKun October 12, 2022 at 2:44 am

            Thats always the key question. In the early stages of a project like this, consultants make out like bandits.

            There is no secret to building railway systems cheap(ish). You build a core team on permanent wages and a trusted group of contractors and you commit to a long term project over more than a decade. You let them build up skills gradually (the original French TGV’s took the easiest routes) and encourage contractors to invest in standardised designs and plant. Over a few years the cost curve starts to turn downwards sharply. Simply putting in place long term contracts over a few years can cut the cost of rolling stock by 20-30% (the figures I recall were from light rail, but it probably applies to all trains). The Madrid metro is a well studied example of doing this right.
         2. orlbucfan October 12, 2022 at 1:50 pm

            Useless moon mission, huh? What planet do you live on? The US Space Program back then was one of the rare times American taxpayers reaped rewards for each dollar NASA spent. Do the research and math.
   4. JWP October 11, 2022 at 12:33 pm

      At this point we should stick out California HSR even if it continues to be a financial issue. Japan’s Shinkansen was way over budget and no one complains, granted contractors and outsourcing here are so much worse. Once it’s done the rest of the country will follow suit. The guy who wrote the NYT article is pretty much fully paid off to write anti-HSR pieces and has been doing so his whole career. Here’s one of the best train/planning YouTubers explaining a more hopeful and well-researched look at the project:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcjr4jbGuJg
   5. upstater October 11, 2022 at 12:37 pm

      Here in upstate NY, the New York Central had a 4 track mainline, 2 passenger, 2 freight. Pennsylvania Railroad was similar. When traffic control was centralized and both freight and passenger traffic declined in the 1960s, 2 tracks were removed. However, there were ample passing sidings and crossovers which allowed for far more trains to operate, at higher speed speeds (up to 90 mph passenger, 70 freight), than is possible now.

      What happened with PSR and deregulation started massive asset stripping. The 3 mile long trains are run in same direction “fleets” running at much lower speed (using “trip optimizer” computer control for fuel consumption, usually 40-50 mph). The presence of such huge trains essentially precludes having frequent passenger trains. Note that JIT, high value, short distance freight no longer moves by rail, it all goes by truck now.

      Remember PK that the US rail infrastructure is private. The railroads operate solely in a manner to juice share price; even with volumes down YOY, profits are records. There is no practical barrier to having fast, frequent passenger trains running on the same plant as heavy freights. It was done 50-75 years ago and there is NO reason it couldn’t be done today. Capacity is intentionally constrained with redundancy removed.

      The problem is regulatory capture and government allowing railroads to avoid their common carrier obligations which exist in their charters.

      Consider the sorry example to add 2 Amtrak passenger trains per day between New Orleans and Mobile, less than 200 miles. IIRC, there are 3 or 4 freight trains per day on this route. Freights are 3 miles long, but passing sidings have been removed or are 10,000 feet. CSX has tied that effort up in litigation for something like 5 years. And they are getting away with it. CSX wants $400M public money in infrastructure upgrades, and even then refuse passenger trains top priority.

      Railroads in the US have intentionally reduced capacity and focus on bulk commodities or container trains moving imported goods. Domestic non-commodity freight moves mostly in containers. Envy of the world? Huh? Australia, Canada, South Africa and China all move massive commodity trains. The US model of railroading is neoliberalism on steroids and harkens bacteria to the “public be damned” attitude of the gilded age’s William Vanderbilt. At least the sociopathic monsters of that era were honest!
7. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 8:16 am

   Amazon To Invest Over 1 Billion Euros in European Electric Van, Truck Fleet Reuters

   I passed an Amazon EV van last week. It was parked right slap over a segregated cyclepath, forcing school kids onto the main carraigeway.
   1. semper loquitur October 11, 2022 at 12:13 pm

      Here in NYC, the delivery vans of all stripes, from local food suppliers up to FEDEX, UPS, and Amazon, are constantly parked in illegal spaces, blocking pedestrian walkways, or just double parked. More than once I’ve been taking a car up a Manhattan avenue that is choked with vehicles. Suddenly it will open up because it turns out the jam was caused by a single delivery truck taking up one of the lanes. I’d love to see someone do an analysis of the waste of time and fuel, it has to add up to something significant over a year’s time.
      1. juno mas October 11, 2022 at 1:21 pm

         I’d love to see the mobile meter maids in my town give them all citations. I’m contemplating using a spray can to “tag” these vehicles as I ride around them.
         1. semper loquitur October 11, 2022 at 1:49 pm

            Turns out NYC did something about it. They lowered the fines for the big delivery service trucks:

            Delivery companies like Amazon, UPS to pay less for NYC parking fines, blocking bus lanes

            Major delivery companies like Amazon and UPS that clog New York’s streets with trucks will pay less for parking in bus lanes and “no standing” zones under new rules that go into effect in May, according to a new policy announced Monday by the city Finance Department.

            The changes come by way of an update to the city’s Stipulated Parking Fine Program, which since 2001 has granted major deliverers big discounts to parking tickets in exchange for an agreement that the companies do not contest the violations in court.

            https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-stipulated-parking-fine-program-changes-amazon-ups-20220307-swusyuwdzbecxf3ptyhzf3cogu-story.html

            So public safety and convenience be damned, it’s all about a steady revenue stream for the city at a price the corporations find reasonable. Here’s an article from 2019 that details the problems:

            1.5 Million Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to N.Y. Streets

            The immense changes in New York have been driven by tech giants, other private businesses and, increasingly, by independent couriers, often without the city’s involvement, oversight or even its awareness, The New York Times found.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-delivery.html

            I cannot imagine what those numbers look like now.
      2. scott s. October 11, 2022 at 2:48 pm

         I doubt the city would work without delivery vehicles.
         1. semper loquitur October 11, 2022 at 4:04 pm

            Right, revealing, one would hope that the people who run the City would be working on ways to mitigate their impact. But then that implies a working society and we don’t have one of those by a country mile. Instead, City Hall plays ball with Bezos and Co. and they all together take a giant (crap all over the residents.
            1. jsn October 11, 2022 at 5:46 pm

               A public utility that did all the shipping logistics could cut the number of vehicles in the city by half or more.

               It could also deliver the same material with even greater reduction in fuel use and thus emissions.

               Instead, what we have is private companies optimizing the public road network for profits.
               1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:39 am

                  > A public utility that did all the shipping logistics

                  We could call it something catchy. Like “The Post….” “The Post….” “The Post Office”?
         2. Yves Smith Post authorOctober 12, 2022 at 1:32 am

            It did just fine before Amazon. Enabling Amazon was a choice. In a high density city, picking up stuff on your rounds or having the local store deliver is not hard and normally does not tie up roads (delivery guys walk and use push carts).
8. timbers October 11, 2022 at 8:23 am

   Not So Cold War….Russia had a good day yesterday, and Military Summary noted it thinks some UAF in affected locations will have their mobility taken away for about 10 or so days until repairs can be completed on affected grids. Unfortunately Putin says this is only in response to specific actions by Ukraine, meaning not a change in the prosecution of the war. So IMO Russian public may still have concerns the war is not being properly conducted. Time will tell.
   1. Polar Socialist October 11, 2022 at 8:39 am

      The missile strikes have continued today, at least according to Russian MoD. There are much less videos and images available because many parts of Ukraine don’t have electricity or internet available. And allegedly SBU has banned posting results of the Russian strikes – which would make much sense in many levels.
   2. Yves Smith Post authorOctober 11, 2022 at 8:46 am

      Problem is Putin is now having to manage two audiences with very different tolerances for violence: Russian citizens v. Global South leaders. See Western attempts to depict hostility at the UN, which I can’t verify as on target or exaggerated.

      Another problem is Western press is screaming war crimes and claiming Russia committed war crimes and targeted civilian buildings, when I would assume any “civilian” buildings hit housed dual use infrastructure, like communications, or offices of legit targets like SBU. It’s not a war crime to hit civilians as collateral damage, but to target them. That is why the West is also trying to depict the purpose of the attacks as to terrorize civilians.

      If it is still true that all these hits killed only 10 and wounded IIRC 60 (some of whom will likely die in the end) the #s belie the claim, but no one in the West care about accuracy.
      1. nippersdad October 11, 2022 at 12:04 pm

         I was surprised by the numbers reported dead or wounded. If they shot off between sixty and three hundred missiles* and only ended up with ten or eleven dead, that is a pretty impressive show of restraint. It also says a lot about their intelligence services that they can hit offices when there is no one there.

         *Ritter had a run-down of the cities/regions targeted and how many missiles they were hit with yesterday, but I cannot find it now.
         1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 12:43 pm

            And the accuracy of their missiles.

            US drones regularly kill more people, quite often kids, just to off some lone “terrorist”…
            1. nippersdad October 11, 2022 at 12:57 pm

               Someone here yesterday said “Wake me when they start to target wedding parties.”

               Truer words….It is wild to me how those who downplayed double tapping funerals are now losing their sh*t over eleven people across the entire country. Why anyone takes American media seriously is just beyond me. One needn’t even really have a very good memory anymore to spot the huge, honking holes in the rationales presented to us.
               1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 3:16 pm

                  > Why anyone takes American media seriously is just beyond me.

                  My particular annoyance is when European media houses just repeat US claims like some divine truth.
               2. Aumua October 12, 2022 at 12:51 am

                  Well, they’re not really the same kind of people are they? One might even say that the people killed by the US are not really even people. Make no mistake, white supremacy is behind a lot of the ‘blind spots’ that are evident here, whether we’re conscious of it or not.
                  1. Basil Pesto October 12, 2022 at 1:11 am

                     Like, it seems vaguely possible that a few civilians who have bemoaned coalition/US drone strikes in the past are also bemoaning these missile strikes (from the point of view of civilian casualties). Doesn’t it? I’m not really sure one can handwave away the whole spectrum of public opinion as “they didn’t care then, they only care now”. True for lots of people but also… not true for lots of people?
                     1. Acacia October 12, 2022 at 5:43 am

                        Well, if they really cared back then, why doesn’t the US have a serious anti-war movement? Why didn’t they care when Obama said “we tortured some folks”? Why didn’t they care when the US sponsored a coup in the Ukraine? Why do people vote for Democrats who are just as pro-war as the worst of the GOP? Etc. FWIW, these are not rhetorical questions. I honestly don’t understand why any of this sh*t is tolerated.
            2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:44 am

               > US drones regularly kill more people

               Remember when [genuflects] Obama whacked a hospital, killing 42? Good times…

               I don’t like it when civilians get killed in war. But it happens on all sides, and our one-sided coverage, plus images — Editor: “Don’t forget to include the dead child!” — is worse than pornographic.
         2. nippersdad October 11, 2022 at 12:51 pm

            Found it:

            “Scott Ritter News
            1 day ago
            The number of missiles strikes according to Ukrops

            47 in the Nikolaev region
            60 were counted in Kiev
            15 in Lvov
            27 in the Vinnitsa region
            20 in Kharkov
            15 in the Odessa region”

            If one is to believe the propaganda here about Russia targeting civilians then the only conclusion would have to be that they seriously suck at it.
9. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 8:31 am

   EXPOSED: Before Ukraine blew up Kerch Bridge, British spies plotted it The Grayzone (Kevin W)

   Hardly a surprise that they were looking at ways to blow the bridge, but its interesting that the Ukies chose the brute force option over something more high tech or subtle.

   What is interesting about a potential UK security services link is that the British Army used to know a lot about this type of bomb thanks to its regular experience with these in Northern Ireland. There used to be a facility on small peninsula called Magillagin Point in Northern Ireland where they built ‘targets’ and set off replicas of IRA bombs to test designs for police stations and barracks back in the 1980’s. Magillagin Point is just across a bay from a village called Greencastle in County Donegal (in the Republic) and roofs were regularly blown off during the tests – the British Army usually neglected to notify Irish police or army about the timings. The owner of a pub there once told me that they were quietly compensated by the Irish government – they didn’t want to make a fuss over it, but the dangers to everyone was obvious.

   A Finnish expert yesterday used the well studied example of one IRA bomb (in Manchester in 1996) to assess whether the Crimea bomb was of the same type. He gave a pretty good argument that it was a similar mix of conventional explosives and ammonium nitrate fertilizer packed onto a truck – the same stuff that flattened half Beirut last year – but maybe twice to three times the size of the Manchester device. It also seemed to have a lot of added incendiary material, possibly thermite – easily scavenged from Russian materials.

   It’s hardly proof, but based on the 1980’s tests in Magilligan the UK establishment probably has more basic information on the use of this type of fertilizer based bomb on physical infrastructure than anyone else.
   1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 8:57 am

      Buried in that article was the following bit-

      ‘More recently, Butkevičius co-owned Bulcommerce KS, a company that served as “the main intermediary in the supply of Bulgarian weapons and ammunition to Ukraine through third countries,” for use in the civil war in Donbas.’

      So this Lithuanian guy seems to work with British intelligence. Point is, that Crimean bridge truck bomb driven by they unknowing driver had its journey start in Bulgaria and the Bulgaria’s counter-intelligence service SANS is now investigating this-

      https://www.euractiv.com/section/all/short_news/bulgarian-special-services-investigate-truck-explosion-at-crimean-bridge/
   2. Carolinian October 11, 2022 at 10:14 am

      Just to repeat this Escobar link from yesterday’s Cooler.

      https://thecradle.co/Article/Columns/16704

      He says according to his sources MI-6 plotted the attack. It sounds like others are voicing similar suspicions.
      1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 3:23 pm

         UK do seem oddly eager about this conflict. Trying to settle some old “great game” scores?
         1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:48 am

            > Trying to settle some old “great game” scores?

            Our poodle tries to ingratiate itself. In any case, this never would have happened unless we gave the OK.
   3. David October 11, 2022 at 2:09 pm

      It’s a nice example of bricks with imaginary straw, and quite clever in its way. You’ll have noticed that all the slides are unclassified, and that the methods of attack have no connection with the way it was actually carried out. But at least the name of the bridge is the same. Donnelly, by the way, is basically an academic and was a distinguished expert on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Like a number of others he had a reserve commission in the Territorial Army, to enable him to take part in classified meetings, but left, as I recall, around thirty years ago.
      1. Alex Cox October 11, 2022 at 9:51 pm

         So are you saying we should ignore the Grayzone reporting? Have you a more reliable alternative source?
      2. PlutoniumKun October 12, 2022 at 2:49 am

         Unfortunately the Greyzone has taken to ‘gotcha’ type scoops which (in the case of Europe) don’t really stand up. As you say, the obvious issue with that story is that the actual attack was entirely different from the ones from the leak. Its one thing to demonstrate that there are people employed to spend their days dreaming up ways to make life hard for the Russians, another to demonstrate a clear link. I do find it curious though that this sort of plan was not considered top secret. I suppose it shows that they can’t even be bothered anymore to hide the sort of thing they do. Perhaps they think that people who grew up watching James Bond movies assume this happens anyway.
   4. lyman alpha blob October 11, 2022 at 3:43 pm

      That Business Insider article in today’s links is awfully light on details, so I’m left wondering who applauded the Ukrainians and gave the Russians the silent treatment. I’ve seen a few reports now discussing the casualties of Russia’s missile strikes and so far the number of civilian deaths have been reported as between 5 and 20 so clearly these strikes were targeted to keep civilian casualties at a minimum.

      As opposed to blowing up a bridge full of civilian traffic at the time. From the video I saw, it looked like probably about the same number of people were vaporized on that one bridge as in all of the Russian missile strikes.
      1. hk October 11, 2022 at 4:07 pm

         Yes, what passes as “atrocities against civilians” in Western msm has gotten past the point of silliness. One might also add that some of the Ukrainian civilian casualties are likely to be military/Intel adjacent, so to speak, such as civilian staff at the Ukrainian intelligence agency and the like.
10. PlutoniumKun October 11, 2022 at 8:46 am

    Massive new UK NHS study shows huge increases in blood clots that cause heart attacks, strokes, and other severe clotting events after Covid lasting up to at least 49 weeks… pic.twitter.com/qOVytPssck

    — Chris Turnbull (@EnemyInAState) October 10, 2022

    COVID is blamed for spike in potentially deadly pregnancy complications and stillbirths Daily Mail

    Lots of anecdotes out there about deaths and illnesses in people months after getting Covid, but seemingly nothing definitive in the overall population data (although there are some tantalizing and disturbing hints in some studies I’ve seen). I wonder how many countries are actually collating the data in a systematic manner to give us any real insight into what is happening.

    The problem of course is that by time there is a definitive answer from long term population scaled studies it will be too late; the damage will have been done. Then we’ll be told ‘nobody could have anticipated this’.

    I really do fear for our medical services in 5, 10, 20 years time if the worst case scenario rolls out.
    1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:50 pm

       My fear is that, in the near future the definition of “our” will be radically revised.
    2. Glen October 11, 2022 at 3:57 pm

       Anecdotal, we have seen many strokes and micro strokes after CV with at least one death from a stroke after CV in our extended family.
       1. kareninca October 11, 2022 at 6:20 pm

          That is awful. I am sorry about your relatives, and worried for everyone I know.
    3. TimH October 11, 2022 at 5:23 pm

       Searched for “substantial increases in the relative incidence” in ddg: no results. None.

       In google: 1st hit is the home page for the article, 2nd hit is the PDF: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.060785?download=true
11. Alice X October 11, 2022 at 8:50 am

    As if there weren’t more than enough links, here at two more:

    Vijay Prashad via Consortium News:

    Humanity’s Most Dangerous Situation – Calls for peace must be as powerful as calls to save the planet from the climate catastrophe…

    Peace is not just the absence of war; it is real security. The security of knowing you will be able to eat, your children will be educated and cared for, and a health service will be there when you need it. For millions, that is not a reality now; the aftereffects of the war in Ukraine will take that away from millions more.

    Chris Hedges via Common Dreams on Julian Assange:

    The Puppets and the Puppet Masters

    …When the government watches you 24-hours a day, you cannot use the word liberty. This is the relationship between a master and a slave. Julian was long a target, of course, but when WikiLeaks published the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the hacking tools the CIA uses to monitor our phones, televisions, and even cars, he — and journalism itself — was condemned to crucifixion. The object is to shut down any investigations into the inner workings of power that might hold the ruling class accountable for its crimes, eradicate public opinion, and replace it with the cant fed to the mob.
12. DJG, Reality Czar October 11, 2022 at 9:09 am

    The estimable Jonathan Cook. This is a good summary of where we are–in particular, with the attacks on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2.

    This article, in a real way, explains / dovetails with Nick Corbishley’s posting about protests in Europe. The U S of A elites thought that they’d just go in and bust up a few things and learn ever’body who’s the boss. The miscalculation is that Europeans are loyal to their own traditions and countries–and would like to survive the “eternal U.S. high school” machinations emanating from Washington and Wall Street.

    https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2022-10-06/europe-us-role-pipeline-blasts/

    Meanwhile, in the U S of A, Donald Trump, the ironic champion of civil liberties (freedom from search and seizure) and peace (which he frames as a matter of liberal incompetence) is provoking the usual reaction from liberals: They are braying for more war.
    1. Screwball October 11, 2022 at 9:58 am

       They sure are. If only the Donald really cared. If he would come out and say we should blow Russia to hell and back the liberals would demand peace, so he’s not making things any better.

       But those liberals will be happy today. Tulsi Gabbard has Tweeted she left the democratic party because reasons. This will give the PMC dems hate fuel to fill their day as they despise her 18 ways to Sunday (along with many others).
       1. scott s. October 11, 2022 at 2:58 pm

          Well, her father left the Republican party, so I guess it runs in the family.
       2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:01 am

          > hate fuel

          Gabbard/Sarandon 2024!

          “Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” –Henry Adams

          I, er, hate to believe that hatred is the whole of political practice, but the Democrats, the Republicans, and the various inner and outer party factions they support are certainly giving us reasons to agree with Adams.
          1. orlbucfan October 12, 2022 at 2:03 pm

             Tulsi Gabbard is a Fundie Hindu ahole. That was obvious back in 2016, and, lo and behold, she’s cashing in on it with POX Network.
             1. Akash October 12, 2022 at 3:12 pm

                That’s an absolutely cracker of a comment, replete with insight to sway any doubter who might see some semblance of decency in Tulsi.
    2. Irrational October 11, 2022 at 11:36 am

       Very interesting read, thank you. I wonder if and when the penny drops. So far I put it down to incompetence based on my experience with EU bodies. In the same vein, the Alexes of the Duran comment on all of our “leaders” laughing happily at their various parties, I mean summits. Doesn’t matter much if it is incompetence or evil which destroys the European economy, though.
    3. Stephen October 11, 2022 at 12:06 pm

       It’s a good article. Thanks.

       Can see why Jonathan Cook stopped being an employee of corporate media in 2001. I see he was once on the staff of The Guardian. This is not the type of article they publish today!
       1. pjay October 11, 2022 at 1:13 pm

          Regarding the type of article they *do* publish today, Cook just posted an excellent take-down of George Monbiot (and by extension the Guardian). A very timely piece, as it is a critique of a fake “leftist” journalist who serves Power – a species that seems to be everywhere these days.

          https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2022-10-11/assange-corbyn-monbiot-left/
          1. Alex Cox October 11, 2022 at 10:03 pm

             Good takedown of Monbiot. But I’m not sure he has many genuine followers. He is the Guardian’s tame pro-nuclear ‘environmentalist’.
    4. Revenant October 11, 2022 at 6:45 pm

       The inestimable in pursuit of the inesteemable?
13. DJG, Reality Czar October 11, 2022 at 9:13 am

    Is anyone else contemplating the irony that the Swedes, who were in charge of framing Julian Assange for the national-security state, are now in charge, I gather, of the investigation of who (hey, take a guess) blew up three of the pipes in Nord Stream?

    Various Baltic countries are not going to get out of the current situation with their sterling reputations intact. A place like Latvia has been a swamp for years, but the Swedes had a certain cachet–big economic prizes and all.
    1. Polar Socialist October 11, 2022 at 9:21 am

       Well, the Swedes did manage to find Novichok from the samples OPCW did not, and then refused to publish the original results because it might have affected relations to another state.
       So, yeah, I trust them to be honest and transparent.
       1. digi_owl October 11, 2022 at 3:26 pm

          It really do seem like “söta bror” has completely lost in recent times…
    2. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 9:21 am

       DJG
       I think the bigger irony is related to your previous post – that Europe’s role in committing or allowing the commission of the Nord stream attack will end not only its union, and unity, but its own prosperity. And come to think of it, likewise for the US of A.
    3. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 9:58 am

       Speaking to journalists on Monday, Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson explained that “In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case.” And that they do not intend to share their findings with Russia, even though it was the Russians that built the pipelines. ‘She noted, however, that Russia can conduct its own probe at the site if it so wishes, as Stockholm has removed cordons from the area’ but if a Russian ship actually turned up, it would be accused of trying to hide or destroy any evidence-

       https://www.rt.com/news/564441-sweden-russia-nord-stream-probe/
       1. Sibiryak October 11, 2022 at 11:58 am

          Russia can conduct its own probe at the site if it so wishes

          = The site has been “cleaned”. Russia can have at it now.
       2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:52 am

          > the Russians that built the pipelines

          More to the point, the Russians own them.
14. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 9:27 am

    “Russian Foreign Ministry says US calls for peace talks on Ukraine are hypocritical”

    By now Putin has realized that there will be no negotiations as there are no calls for them from the US or the EU. When Biden talked about finding an off-ramp for Putin, what he really meant was that Putin had to because he has no off-ramp for himself. There might be calls for a cease-fire but that won’t happen as it will leave Russian forces at a disadvantage while the Ukraine builds up its forces. This happened twice already with first the Minsk 1 and then the Minsk 2 agreements. In any case, everybody can see that the US/EU will never have any intention of carrying out any peace agreement unless forced to. There is no credibility here as both have now proven themselves to be agreement-incapable. So what this means is that when the great Russian counter-offenses begin, they will keep on going until they have achieved whatever aims that they have set themselves. Kiev of course is panicking and has already blown the bridges and mined the roads going to Belarus as a joint Russin-Belarus force get set up. I heard recently that the Ukraine has at most about 400 tanks left – maybe – but they are losing them and armoured vehicles by the dozen daily. By the time the Russians start, they will have nothing left to fight with as that cupboard will be bare.
    1. KD October 11, 2022 at 9:40 am

       The problem with these nationalistic wars is no one can ever step away from the brink, and every-time one side has a reversal, the other side ups their demands. The problem for Russia is that even if they occupy all of Ukraine, what do they do with it, how much will it cost, and how will they deal with insurgency? Further, it doesn’t stop the problem of NATO expansion, issues with access to the Balkan Sea, or increased NATO presence on the borders. A full military solution won’t solve Russia’s security problems, and they are stuck in a quasi-alliance with China, which limits their sphere of action. My guess in his heart of hearts, Putin would rather play the game that India and Turkey are playing in the Sino-American conflict (at least until there is a clear victor), i.) because if China loses, Russia will lose, and ii.) they are in danger of ending up a puppet like Myanmar or N. Korea.
       1. KD October 11, 2022 at 11:24 am

          Baltic Sea, not Balkan Sea.
          1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:54 am

             > Baltic Sea, not Balkan Sea

             We’re lucky there is no Balkan Sea. Things are complicated enough already.
       2. Stephen October 11, 2022 at 11:57 am

          Exactly. The war is not just about Ukraine. Russia’s security also needs topics such as US stationing of missiles in Eastern Europe to be addressed.

          That needs meaningful negotiations with the US not just grabbing territory in Ukraine.

          “Meaningful” is doing a lot of work here, of course, given how agreement incapable the US and broader west seems to be.
       3. Kouros October 11, 2022 at 3:35 pm

          Russia disbanding Ukrainian army and taking control of the western crossing points will be different than US occupying Iraq. they don’t need translators.

          Also, it is likely that even Ukrainians will be happy to get rid of the ultra-nationalist thugs from Azov, etc. There will be enough politicians in Ukraine coming from the woodwork standing for Ukraine neutrality. As for Ukrainian oligarchs, Russia can get in the good graces of Ukrainians by expropriating them…
    2. Sibiryak October 11, 2022 at 10:25 am

       There might be calls for a cease-fire…

       Indeed. Cease-fire negotiations leading to a “frozen conflict” — that can’t be ruled out as a way this war might end. That’s is already being mooted:

       Romanian National Defence Minister Vasile Dincu has said that the negotiation represents the only chance for Russia to make peace with Ukraine.

       “The war will continue, the only chance for peace may be the negotiation with Russia. Of course, it is a complex negotiation. The great powers, NATO, the United States should negotiate for Ukraine security guarantees and a peace with Russia. Ukraine alone will not be able to negotiate with Russia, because the political class in Ukraine at this moment cannot afford, assume the loss of territories, an unjust loss of territories, after all. It would be too big a defeat for politics,” Romanian national press agency agerpres.ro reports citing Dincu.

       He noted that Russia has the resources to prolong the war.

       “It would be ideal to reach a situation of negotiation, even if it were to reach a frozen conflict, the negotiation would still do more good than what is happening now, the destruction of human lives, property,” Dincu said.
       1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 10:57 am

          That Romanian National Defence Minister is wrong. Russia tried twice already with a frozen conflict in the Ukraine and all that happened – as confirmed by ex-Ukrainian President Poroshenko – was that the west used the time to build up a massive NATO-trained army in the Ukraine. And that means that this war is a fight to the finish to stop the Ukraine ever again being used as a NATO base to attack Russia with.
          1. Sibiryak October 11, 2022 at 11:44 am

             The Russians are losing! The Russians are losing!

             
             Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machines spouted, it is clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefields and in cyberspace is turning the tide.

             Having failed in two major military strategies already. Putin’s plan has hit the courageous reality of Ukrainian defence. With little effective internal challenge, Putin’s decision making has proved flawed.

             Yesterday’s attacks in Kyiv and across Ukraine are another example. It is a high stakes strategy that is leading to strategic errors in judgement. Their gains are being reversed, and the costs to Russia in people and equipment are staggering.

             We know – and Russian military commanders know – that their supplies and ammunition are running out. Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilisation of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a really desperate situation.

             And the Russian people have started to understand all of that, too.

             They’re seeing just how badly Putin has misjudge the situation. They’re fleeing the draft, realising they can no longer travel, and they know their access to modern technologies and external influences will be drastically restricted.

             And they’re feeling the extent of the dreadful human cost of his war of choice.

             —Sir Jeremy Fleming, the Director of the Government Communications Headquarters, the UK’s intelligence, cyber and security agency.
             1. Stephen October 11, 2022 at 12:15 pm

                Always good to post some ironic British humour. It certainly cannot be described as “intelligence”!

                Of course, the 70,000 volunteers as part of the partial mobilization get 100% ignored in this type of zero evidence copium claiming that the Russian people have had enough.

                My prime concern is that if you say something enough, you start to believe it. I think these alleged “intelligence experts” may even now believe their own propaganda. That is a truly scary thought.
    3. Tom Stone October 11, 2022 at 11:28 am

       No,no, no.
       Zelensky will be occupying the Kremlin and Rahm will be Ambassador to the new Uke Empire which will stretch from Raytheon to Monsanto in a glorious return to Freedom for the oppressed Corporate Citizens of the World!
    4. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 4:57 am

       We’ve probably already prepared the rat lines for the Azovs. Just what the United States needs: More fascists, more gusanos.
15. KD October 11, 2022 at 9:32 am

    Fumio Kishida backs Bank of Japan’s ultra-loose policy despite yen plunge. . .

    Hello Germany, how is your export balance doing?
    1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 9:38 am

       ‘Hari-Kari Trade’
       1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:11 pm

          Any way you slice it, you come to the rancid underbelly of Asian Anime Angst and spill your guts to the Grand Inquisitor De Jour.
          Stay safe up there in the defensible position!
          1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 12:17 pm

             Going out on a date with a 3,123 year old in a bit, it’s the ultimate May to December romance, and as usual it will go no further than heavy petting… and I have to go to her place
             1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:46 pm

                Have fun for all of us!
16. Yves Smith Post authorOctober 11, 2022 at 9:36 am

    I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are… pic.twitter.com/oAuTnxZldf

    — Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022
    1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 9:43 am

       I don’t think that she actually left the Democrat party. I think that it was more a case where the Democrat party she knew left her.
       1. KD October 11, 2022 at 9:53 am

          Its all great now, but just wait for the cringe when she comes out against single-payor because it stifles religious freedom and pushes more privatization schemes.
       2. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 10:08 am

          RK
          I agree.
          When will there be a democrat Trump?*
          Someone to say those unspeakable things – that in fact the democratic leadership is only concerned about the wealthy and that any thing that appears otherwise is only an elaborate ruse, abetted by a press that is in the conspiracy, and that concocts elaborate woke theories to hide their schemes.
          * The fact that Sanders so dismally failed tells you something about the real control of the democrats.
          1. marym October 11, 2022 at 10:25 am

             I admit to not paying much attention to her, but as far as I know she’s against some US foreign/military policy. I’ve checked her website from time to time and there were no positions on either establishment Dem domestic policy, or any Sanders, squad, etc. proposals, just generalities. Now it only has links to a substack and podcasts. I don’t know that she’s endorsed any movements, candidates, or activism on any issues. Good for her or anyone who finds a platform and uses it to speak out on what’s important to them, but I’m not sure what it means that she’s not a Dem anymore

             I guess we’ll see if she supports any positions or allies that don’t racialize issues, stoke divisiveness, or undermine “our” freedom. Maybe she and Trump can reach out to Code Pink to jointly lead the next anti-war movement.
             1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 5:00 am

                Gabbard made her first splash in 2016, 2022 – 2016 = 6 years ago. Good for her on what she just said about the idiocy of the war, but can somebody remind me of what she has actually done in those six years? She strikes me more as a celebrity than a politician, let alone a policy maker.
       3. timbers October 11, 2022 at 12:10 pm

          Ronald Reagan (don’t shoot me) often said “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.”
          1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:43 pm

             After that he uttered his famous line from the film “King’s Row,” “Where’s the rest of me?”
    2. Lexx October 11, 2022 at 10:49 am

       Yuck.
       1. hunkerdown October 11, 2022 at 12:15 pm

          Yay, a WEF-approved sermonizer. Good thing she found her niche and her audience. /s
          1. pjay October 11, 2022 at 2:23 pm

             Ok, I’ll try again.

             Gabbard is one of a tiny number of notables who have a media presence and are also critical of our warmongering foreign policy. For that reason she must be discredited and destroyed. The way to do this for “liberal” and “progressive” audiences is to accuse her of being a secret semi-fascist Modi-lover, cult-follower, and Putin-puppet. This has been done to her ever since she resigned from the DNC in protest of the Hillary establishment and its sabotage of Bernie’s 2016 campaign. She also had the audacity to visit Syria and criticize our proxy war there (she’s also an Assad puppet).

             Gabbard was once a WEF “Young Global Leader” (in 2015). She was also a sponsored temporary member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she was appointed to a top post at the DNC. These were all signs that the Establishment saw her as a promising up-and-comer. Because of her strong positions on third-rail foreign policy issues, she has blown-up all of these connections to power. But perhaps she is really a deep-cover WEF double-agent! And perhaps Putin – who was also once a WEF Global Leader – is too! I’ve actually seen this argued. It is possible to rationalize any belief.

             But in reality, Gabbard is dead to the Democrat/WEF/CFR Establishment. She does have growing appeal to some Republicans and conservatives. After all, she was skeptical of Russiagate earlier, and has become increasingly critical of the extremes of “wokism.” So for *this* audience, who may see her on Tucker Carlson, the “WEF” smear is used. I’ve been seeing it all over the place. Unless you believe that she is actually a deep-cover WEF agent, then I suggest such a label is just part of the ongoing smear-job. Different propaganda for different audiences.

             As I said before, I don’t know how I feel about Gabbard. But if she uses her media access to tell the truth about Russia, Ukraine, or anything else I’ll applaud her when she does, because there is *no one* among liberals or Democrats who are doing this – at all – not AOC, not Bernie, *no one*. Criticize her if you want, but don’t use this bogus WEF crap.
             1. Lexx October 11, 2022 at 4:25 pm

                Naw, man, I just don’t like the wandering gray streak. It’s here, it’s there, there’s a little, there’s a lot, there’s multiples. WTF?

                And she’s prettier than I am and looks gobs better in a bikini than I did on my best day a long, long time ago. Whereas I’m confident I had Bernie beat on that score… except cup size… okay, just better legs.
             2. Basil Pesto October 12, 2022 at 1:25 am

                Gabbard is one of a tiny number of notables who have a media presence and are also critical of our warmongering foreign policy.

                Is she not a willing and proud participant of the War on Terror?

                More than a WEF double agent, I suspect she’s basically
                more or less just an idiot. Albeit one with some political acumen.

                It seems to me that falling for her blather is akin to falling for 2008 Campaign Obama’s sweet nothings (“right on!, “calling it like it is!”, “standing up for the working class!”), and she would have no hesitation to knife the working class in the back, or strengthen the MIC, at the first available opportunity.
                1. Basil Pesto October 12, 2022 at 1:48 am

                   I would add that when the rhetoric on the topic of “wokeness” doesn’t go beyond, say, Peterson’s infamous quotation , as Gabbard’s invariably doesn’t, then that person is probably a) materially unserious, and b) pretty much an asshole. Politicians like Gabbard understand there is a wave of dissenting cynicism culminating in backlash to be mined against the rhetorical excesses of wokeness, that doesn’t make them a diligent student of Adolph Reed Jr. At this level of generic conservative bastardry, anti-woke becomes an identity sphere in itself and part of the whole miserable divide and conquer complex that it would purport to be railing against. It’s arrant nonsense to assume that everyone who buys into one aspect of identitarian fads or the other is also automatically disinterested in universal concrete material benefits, or wants to stick it to the working class. Nathan Tankus, formerly of this parish, is an obvious example that comes to mind. I suspect there are many flavours of woke tragic, maybe you have more in common with some of them than you might expect, however they may feel about bathroom rules.
                2. Yves Smith Post authorOctober 12, 2022 at 2:46 am

                   This is ridiculous. You need to deliver some goods rather than engage in cheap slurs.

                   The legitimate criticism of Gabbard is that she’s been a very loud and consistent critic of our warmaking, to the degree that that’s all she wants to talk about and that allows her to talk a good game the few times progressive issued come up but not do much since they aren’t a meaningful part of her brand.

                   On the war front, she does try to have it both ways by regularly carrying on about the dangers of “radical Islam” but I see nothing even in this negative Jacobin piece to say that she’s ever suggested the US arm up over it. And recall it was the US who funded and armed Islamic fundamentalists to try to unseat Assad.

                   https://jacobin.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party

                   The fact that the WEF named HER does not amount to evidence that she’s a WEF groupie any more than Putin is. I see no evidence, based on a search, that she ever attended Davos, fer Chrissakes.

                   The thing to be worried about is her love of Modi and her flip flops over time on social issues.
                   1. PlutoniumKun October 12, 2022 at 2:58 am

                      She was on Joe Rogan yesterday. I just saw this clip, and she is very forthright and direct.

                      I agree that she has some fairly iffy views, although she reminds me of people I know who were brought up in very conservative households/environments and then adopted a lot of progressive views, without going the whole hog (or buying into the ‘cultural’ aspects of being progressive/left/liberal).

                      I think her going onto Rogan suggests that she is not finished with politics. If there were just a handful of others like her, there would the the makings of a genuine third party challenger for key seats, or even the presidency.
                   2. Basil Pesto October 12, 2022 at 3:39 am

                      Yeah the WEF thing doesn’t register for me. I don’t care about it. I was referring to pjay and hunkerdown’s dialogue above.

                      The thing to be worried about is her love of Modi and her flip flops over time on social issues.

                      Yes, hence my suspicion that

                      she would have no hesitation to knife the working class in the back, or strengthen the MIC, at the first available opportunity.

                      it is only a suspicion mind you, but what can I say? I simply don’t trust her and see no reason why I should. I remain unimpressed by the basic act of merely pointing out US policy hypocrisy even if I largely agree with the points being made. It’s not difficult and, in and of itself, it doesn’t strike me as terribly meaningful as a political act. Her domestic policy prescriptions suggest fairly generic American political thought, with a sprinkling of digressions on ‘woke’, that I address above – in essence I find such digressions cynical.

                      Calling her an idiot was perhaps uncharitable on my part. PK’s analysis above is probably fairer and more thorough. Perhaps in the fullness of time she’ll make a fool out of me.
                      1. Yves Smith Post authorOctober 12, 2022 at 7:28 am

                         Sorry, it IS difficult to say what Gabbard is saying on her pet topic. She’s alone because it’s close to verboten to go there. The ONLY reason she gets away with it is she served in the Middle East, she talks like a military person, and she’s extremely photogenic. If an ordinary pol tried this, they’d be flayed alive and then pointedly ignored.
                   3. Lexx October 12, 2022 at 7:39 am

                      ‘her flip flops over time’

                      There it is. You see I want to know candidates on the ‘secret squirrel’ level, the very human one before I vote for this person who will be living in a perpetual pressure cooker of a job and buttons to nuclear Armageddon. I want to know what their spouses know, their best friends and/or bartenders/drug dealers, their children, their campaign manager, therapist, priest, and security detail. If she’s going to jump the wheel and go wandering around with the power of high office at her command, I’d like a head’s up. Is she dangerous? I’m fine with self-destructive as long as she leaves the rest of the world out of it.

                      But of course we the people, mere voters, won’t be getting access to anything like that level of knowledge. At least not intentionally. So all we have to go on is image and what the media tells us about the candidate and all of that is a construct of imagery and projection. We see what we want to see. We go to the polls fairly clueless over and over again, wear our ‘I Voted’ sticker and call it good for another four years, and in short order begin to complain about the “winner”.

                      Tulsi is an image, one that keeps changing. Does she know who she is? Perhaps she’s whoever she needs to be to gain power… see the wandering gray streak. Playful or capricious? A handsome man can hold high office, but a pretty woman rarely can.

                      We don’t trust pretty women. As a gender we’ve sought and been granted power through men for too long not to be automatically suspect of having alternative motives. Pretty is a tool, a trump card, leverage; we expect women to use it. Washington remains what it has always been: a good old boys club. She has to choose between being pretty and being taken seriously. It’s sexist, I know, but that’s where we’re at and Tulsi either can’t make up her mind, or she wants it both ways, and she’s unlikely to succeed.

                      I was once sitting with a group of women knitting and said something about Madeleine Albright being ugly as sin and that’s why she was trusted to be Secretary of State and you could have heard a pin drop. Well educated Puget Sound neo-liberals all. Never mind whether it was true, it was sexist and unfair and from their own gender… traitor! Difficult to address that reality when we keep denying it’s there.
                      1. Akash October 12, 2022 at 3:33 pm

                         I wonder can a person not evolve and change their views over time? Or is any change of view considered flip flopping? Moreover what issue exactly has she flip-flopped on? For example, she was quite culturally conservative in her early years, and in her 2020 campaign she issued an honest, heartfelt video regarding how her views on homosexuality had evolved and changed, and I don’t see her flip flopping on that changed perspective now. Though she may not tow the Democrat-Liberal line with regards to the trans, non-binary zeitgeist. Tulsi certainly says things currently that I don’t quite agree with, and for which I hope, over time, she adopts a modified viewpoint. And the fact that she is willing to evolve/change her viewpoints makes me encouraged she may do so again positively (as I understand one can change negatively) in future.
                         And as other commentators (pjay) have mentioned, if she really wanted power she would have been a good Democrat since she was so feted by the party bosses early in her career.
             3. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 5:04 am

                > the “WEF” smear

                This is not prima facie cray cray, if anybody read the thread I posted yesterday on feminist icon Gloria Steinem being a CIA asset.

                But I’m sure not seeing a lot of evidence for it. There’s no reason to think that every “young leader” (gaaaaaah, what a horrible phrase, who thought of it) being groomed by the WEF is a keeper.
          2. Jonathan Holland Becnel October 11, 2022 at 2:34 pm

             Tulsi may not have an audience with super educated intellectuals here at NC, but she’s got one hell of a message to the Working Class in America whom are tired of being gaslit and starved and divide n conqured.

             BuT MaH WeF HiNdI NaTiOnAlIsM 🤮

             FFS, you go with the candidates you have and ever since she pummeled Kamala Harris she’s got my trust.
             1. anon in so cal October 11, 2022 at 4:42 pm

                After Dem-exiting, I rejoined the Dem Party just briefly in order to vote for Tulsi Gabbard in the 2020 California primary. I’m a procrastinator. I waited so long to briefly rejoin that I could not vote with an absentee ballot but had to go in-person to a polling location. I will always remember that scene on Super Tuesday. The polling location was crowded and I begged the volunteers at the tables to open the doors on both sides of the giant room. I think back on it as risking my life to vote for Tulsi.
             2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 5:08 am

                > MaH WeF HiNdI NaTiOnAlIsM

                Modi is a real piece of work, who started his rise to national prominence with a pogrom. That worries me a lot more than the WEF.

                I’d like to see some evidence that Gabbard’s policies are designed to appeal to the working class, and do actually appeal to the working class. I agree that an anti-war message could be said to do those things, but that’s not the same claim. Words are wind, as they say in another badlands.

                Incidentally, there are plenty of working class people who are self-educated (and more to the point, not “diseducated” by the university system) and very smart. I met some fighting the landfill.
                1. Michaelmas October 12, 2022 at 5:33 am

                   Lambert S,can somebody remind me of what she has actually done in those six years?

                   Swimsuit workout videos.

                   It’s nice that she speaks out against the evil empire and all, but it’s hard to take her too seriously.
                   1. pjay October 12, 2022 at 9:04 am

                      Well, at a time when nearly anyone with a media presence spouts empire talking points, I will take seriously anyone who challenges them publicly. And unlike Trump’s goofy comments about getting along with Putin or his going to war because we weren’t nice to him, Gabbard is capable of making serious points on the issue.

                      As PK says above, Gabbard seems to have political ambition of some kind. But if it were *just* pure ambition, then burning her nice WEF/CFR/DNC bridges was not a great move. She actually turned her back on quite a bit. Your “swimsuit video” comment is pretty demeaning in that context. Her trip to Syria alone was worth more than anything Hillary did during her time in the Senate.

                      I admit that watching the entire video of her first show does make me uncomfortable. While much of what she says is valid, it also covers most of the major conservative talking points. So while there are valid criticisms of extreme “wokism,” those points will be used by right-wingers to stifle *any* critical history of race relations in schools, etc. What bothers me the most, as others have pointed out, is that in focusing (rightly) on the Democrats as “elite warmongers,” she completely omits the fact that the Republicans are almost all just as bad. If she just becomes a partisan figure in our two-party charade, then the hell with her.

                      But right now, as I keep saying, she is almost alone in calling-out our warmongering. So, as with Tucker Carlson, I will applaud her for doing so, because (1) it is definitely *not* self-serving in a purely political sense, and (2) she has an audience, so perhaps more people will begin to question the narrative.

                      Yeah, we can’t know what’s *really* “in her mind.” But at the moment I’ll support any break in the clouds.
                      1. Akash October 12, 2022 at 3:46 pm

                         Good points pjay! The critiques against the excesses of ‘wokism’ without first acknowledging the legitimacy of a much needed (but balanced) reform effort against white supremacy fall flat. And moreover I think it important to highlight the historical facts that make such a reform effort so necessary while at the same time shed light on the vital successes that that reform movement has already gained.
                         Though I do think that for those successes, such as the Civil Rights Act, to really become conspicuous, class conflict (economic inequality) needs to be addressed in earnest.
    3. Lou Anton October 11, 2022 at 11:19 am

       Halloween’s #1 selling costume, The Woke Bogeyman.

       Maybe this is one of those deepfakes?
    4. pjay October 11, 2022 at 12:29 pm

       Greg Sargent of the Washington Post:

       “I’d argue against taking the Tulsi bait by quote-tweeting her video. One of her obvious goals here is to inject Russian propaganda into the media ecosystem…”

       That didn’t take long, as Greenwald points out:

       https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1579849592992329728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
       1. semper loquitur October 11, 2022 at 2:07 pm

          A few years back, I had a conversation with a woman I worked with who opined that Tulsi was a Russian asset. I asked her how she knew this. Of course, it was Team Hillary behind it.

          I said that that was quite interesting because, as a field grade Army officer serving in Afghanistan, if Tulsi was a Russian asset actively working against American interests she was on traitorous ground. I explained that I had at one time held a fairly high level security clearance in the military and I know for a fact that Tulsi must have had a compartmentalized clearance of some degree. I added that those officials and ex-officials who were making such claims were duty bound to immediately report everything they knew to the appropriate authorities. Tulsi was an imminent threat to the security of our forces and their mission. She had to be removed from her position. She could conceivably face the death penalty for her actions. I asked her if the people making those claims had made the appropriate reports.

          What I witnessed next was real, pure, bifurcated thinking in action. A scene of utter confusion came over the woman’s face. She was looking at me with comprehension in her eyes but simultaneously she muttered something to the effect “But they said…” Her face was literally doing two things at once. We worked together for the rest of the week but she never said another word to me, not even regarding the job.

          All this being said, I have no time for Tulsi. She offers a lot of wonderful platitudes. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say anything concrete.
          1. Jonathan Holland Becnel October 11, 2022 at 2:45 pm

             Like when she called out Kamala Harris to her face in the Presidential debates for imprisoning poor people for smoking weed as a California Politician?

             And did you even listen to her speech? Uniting against the Libs for shoving idpol down our throats while they get rich?

             I’m sorry, but who else is saying this? What other politicians have the guts to speak for peace and ordinary workers and reject those dividing us?

             Someone’s finally standing up to the Dem Establishment/Pelosi/Schumer, which I assume is something most of us NCrs want?

             Apparently Yves has time for Tulsi. Maybe yall should give her another look?
             1. semper loquitur October 11, 2022 at 3:45 pm

                Wow, that’s a high bar, a pointed exchange in a Presidential debate. It was a great moment, to be sure, but that’s all it was. The mainstream media immediately slammed the door in her face, as I recall, and that was that. The Democratic machine then moved Harris, a patent imbecile who was wildly unpopular with the electorate, into the V.P. slot.

                I did watch the speech, she says a lot of things I agree with. She often says a lot of things I agree with. It’s easy to do. But what else has she done? Has she, say, organized a march on D.C.? Blockaded the steps of Congress with a mob of her supporters? Get arrested? Has she ever done anything that’s actually threatened her place at the table?

                But maybe that’s unrealistic of me to ask, it could be a lot more complicated than that. Maybe it’s better to ask what else can she do? I suspect not much other than call out the crimes of the establishment. Which has earned her the mantle of Putin Puppet in the minds of the trousered apes who compose so much of the liberal voting public.

                Either way, nothing will fundamentally change. Even if Tulsi were to be made Queen of the United States tomorrow, there is an entire establishment that would resist everything she attempted to do. I don’t think there is any hope in the electoral process. I think something big needs to break before anything will actually change, for better or for worse.

                At least she didn’t go to the Met Gala.
                1. Jonathan Holland Becnel October 12, 2022 at 2:44 am

                   Tulsi does need to organize and get a brain trust going. I suppose I see most of what she does as political theater but i love that she’s in the military and against our foreign wars.

                   I think Tulsi should get together with Jimmy Dore, Joe Rogan, and Russell Brand and barnstorm across the country spreading the Populist Gospel!

                   I figure we go for the ballot box before we break out the guillotine, right?

                   So many citizens disillusioned with our society and government! Power is just laying there in the streets! The emperor has no cloths! It’s up to the revolutionaries to sow the seeds of a better, peaceful tomm!

                   No more war!
                   1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 5:18 am

                      > Tulsi does need to organize and get a brain trust going.

                      She’s had six years (and a lot of good will to leverage, too).

                      If that were going to happen, it would already have happened.
             2. KD October 11, 2022 at 4:00 pm

                Tulsi is calling it like it is. I like the “elite cabal of warmongers”–that should get people even more worked up than attacking the wokesters.

                The issue is that she seems to be a political animal, and so if she is going GOP, she is going to pick up all their economic monetarist limited government anti-union free trade b.s. which is almost as bad as the Democrats.

                If she doesn’t go GOP, then what? Reform Party? Green Party? Where does she go, and then she is just another Nader figure, persona non grata. . . I’m trying to see the end game.
                1. John k October 11, 2022 at 10:35 pm

                   Trumps veep.
       2. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 5:11 am

          > I’d argue against taking the Tulsi bait by quote-tweeting her video. One of her obvious goals here is to inject Russian propaganda into the media ecosystem

          These clowns have the yarn in their yarn diagrams pulled just as tight as the QAnon people do in theirs (and those folks set a very high bar).

          It’s like everything that gives them the merest tweak of discomfort is caused by actions taken deliberately by their demon figure. It’s absolutely bizarre.
    5. Alice X October 11, 2022 at 2:32 pm

       As a spin off from the Hill piece:

       
       US faces increased pressure to help Ukraine with air defense

       Also from the Hill:

       Trump pushes for Russia-Ukraine talks, complicating GOP politics

       I replied here because the piece had Briahna Joy Gray with co-host discussing Tulsi’s announcement.

       Briahna made a point of the Corporate Duopoly and Tulsi’s failure to criticize the Republicans as well as the Democrats.

       So, that seems to be common in some parts. Maybe it is just thought of as a given that the Rs are beyond the Pale. As are the Ds.
    6. spud October 11, 2022 at 2:34 pm

       her statements were spot on!
17. dftbs October 11, 2022 at 9:52 am

    I don’t know if it’s been explicitly stated in any commentary I’ve missed, but the US’ handling of Saudi Arabia’s new production targets answers the age old question: are American elites more evil or more stupid?

    The threat to “stop defending” SA betrays a superficial manichaeanism that I’m sure elicits sad scorn form more serious global players. You mean to tell me the US will relinquish a military occupation in SA because it isn’t presently coercive enough to get their cooperation, so it hurts Chuck Schumer’s feelings.

    By CNNs telling SA is in trouble as it’ll lack the Biden Administration’s support in its reignited hostilities in Yemen. Seems like that’s a good a place as any for MBS to send the Mercs and elements of his armed forces that may have more loyalty to Northern Virginia than Riyadh.

    That a US threatened SA should fear a US threatened Iran more than the threatening super power itself ignores the diplomatic efforts made by those two nations, as well as their Russian and Chinese interlocutors, over the last decade. And the removal of our “defensive forces” from SA would remove our most effective lever of coercion over them.

    The defeat of “Saudi” proxy forces in Yemen, and the superficial TikTok success but political failure of the color revolution in Iran read to me as olive branches by the Saudis to the Iranians at the expense of the Americans. The former, helps the Saudis clean their house. What better purge than that in which you don’t pay the hangman’s wages. The latter a collaborative pimple popping. Both Saudi and Iran know full well that as BLM and Jan6 proved two years ago protest do nothing. You can burn down just about any metro area, even “storm” the US capital, but it’s all for naught if there is no political project.

    So as an American in these dark days, oh that we were blessed with an evil elite. Because these fools will ride us on the road to nowhere until our shoes fall off.
    1. zagonostra October 11, 2022 at 11:00 am

       I think it becomes moot whether elites are stupid or evil when the results are same, the demise of humanity both spiritually and potentially physically.
       1. Irrational October 11, 2022 at 11:38 am

          You said it so much better than me above at 11:36 ;-)
       2. Dftbs October 11, 2022 at 5:01 pm

          I think the results are not the same.
    2. psv October 11, 2022 at 12:26 pm

       Thanks dftbs, agree largely with this, and just have an aside on a tangent. While the events in Iran clearly have the look of the color revolution playbook, my sense at the moment from Persian twitter and telegram is that within the country other factors are driving this, as summed up in Shervin Hajipour’s song Baraye that’s very much resonated there. Support from abroad is obvious, but the motivations for that support also run a wide range, and I believe most people in Iran are aware of that.

       There is a great amount of state violence there currently, and the killings in particular of young women have galvanized people. There are currently reports of strikes at industrial facilities too, a phenomenon neither BLM nor Jan6 brought in the US. I think it’s too early yet to see where this is going but I sense this is a much bigger movement than 2009 and that it’s gaining force if anything.
       1. Lambert Strether October 12, 2022 at 5:19 am

          > currently reports of strikes at industrial facilities

          Big if true. Links?
          1. psv October 12, 2022 at 8:40 am

             This is a Monday Oct. 10 link from Iran International, a London-based Persian-language TV broadcaster. The report claims actions in Bushehr province and Abadan, which are on the Persian Gulf.
             Iran’s Oil, Petrochemical Workers Begin Strikes, Protests
    3. Mike October 11, 2022 at 1:38 pm

       If the US wanted to step back from SA for bit, who can they pin on SA to remind them they “need” the US? What would be the US’s angle here? If guess that’s why you are asking maybe the elites are just stupid…

       What do our arms dealers think of this? Maybe they are happy enough with the Ukraine deal they can take a step away from SA for a bit.
       1. Polar Socialist October 11, 2022 at 5:12 pm

          In his latest Berletic mentioned that when Saudis asked/needed a fast replanishment of their Patriot missiles, USA actually had to scrape them from neighboring Arab countries.

          It seems that the arms dealers are running out of arms to deal. Saudis could ask China about missiles for oil deal. I think Saudi Arabia already has some Chinese missiles.
    4. hk October 12, 2022 at 2:56 am

       Or, SA could seek detente with iran and seek their (and Russia’s cooperation) in winding down the conflict. While I’ve found the actual cause of the Saudi intervention in Yemen to be at least a bit more complex than just regional rivalry with Iran, I seem to recall that that was a major contributor (and why so many in Washington were eager to push it further.) Saudi-Iranian detente would change a lot of these.
18. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 10:01 am

    Liberalism vs democracy Steve Waldman
    It’s a habit, almost a tic, for many of us to put liberalism and democracy together. We live, or like to think we live, in a “liberal democracy”. This combination has seemed so natural that Francis Fukuyama famously argued it might be “the end of history”, the telos towards which human affairs are inevitably drawn. In our current politics, it is people who think of ourselves as liberals in a broad sense of the term who feel like democracy is under attack by a motley mix of populists, reactionaries, post-liberals, integralists, and fascists. We are the democrats. They are threats to democracy.
    ….
    Many Americans, I think, perceive liberals as the enemies of democracy, and quite plausibly, because liberalism can yield plainly antidemocratic outcomes! Who voted for shutting down the mills and factories of the midwest and sending that work to China? I didn’t. Did you?
    Liberalism, or at least the version of liberalism to which we’ve subjected ourselves over the last few decades, stands in real tension with democracy. In both economic and social affairs, it valorizes and places above interference by the demos certain freedoms that have profound effects beyond the individuals who consent and choose. The state could not pick winners and losers, with respect to the location of industry. That was for business leaders and shareholders to decide. Then they were the winners, and the rest of us losers.
    …
    Liberals say they — we — are the democrats, on procedural grounds. Yes, we had the elections and wanted everybody to vote. But we constructed a system that took much of what the demos might care about out of reach. Vote for whom you like, it’s a free country! But whomever a majority chooses, government has no right or capacity to deliver the society that a majority actually wants. In both the economic and social sphere, every liberalism (many are possible) carves out particular, critical domains and makes them exempt from deference to the public. Liberalism emasculates democracy even while it sanctimoniously attends to the bureaucracy of it. Should this really count as democracy, or just a fig leaf for its opposite? The system is rigged. Perhaps Viktor Orban’s “illiberal democracy” is the more natural conjunction after all, and “liberal democracy” an oxymoron?
    ======================================
    I have posted any number of links that demostrate any number of “left” programs, like national health insurance, have overwhelming public support. As well as any number of other policies – but somehow they never happen. What a mystery sarc
    Waldman does not address the issue – we have the best government that money can buy. Supported by a media of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. It is a well designed, flexible system to make the rich richer.
    And of course, are the liberal democracy defenders for freedom (Ukraine) or are they US imperilists that want to extend US neoliberalism – I think the answer is obvious.
    1. marku52 October 11, 2022 at 3:49 pm

       You would enjoy the book “How will capitalism end” by Wolfang Streeck. He makes exactly this point, and many others, that capitalism is at odds with democracy, and only in the past have they had a workable compromise relationship (New Deal saved capitalism from itself”

       Oddly, now that capitalism has vanquished all enemies, Streeck thinks it will collapse of its own excesses.
       1. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 9:18 pm

          maku52
          One of the things about capitalism is that it is suppose to be rational. Yet think about all the billionaires worth far more than 1 billion dollars. Why exactly do they continue to work so hard (why does anyone with that kind of money work at all) to amass more money? Unlike the old days of kings, no one today is gonna take away your money. You can buy an island and relax, which what most people who came into such money would do.
          So the very premise that capitalism is the epitomy of human logic doesn’t make sense. This love of more money shows that the capitalists just aren’t wired normally…
          And as far as the argument that the most successful of these guys have improved the world more than otherwise would have happened, I think that is a dubious proposition.
          Microsoft??? I remember that Word Perfect was far, far, FAR better than Microsoft Office.
          How about Jeff Bezos? Really, mail order makes the world that much better? Its OK, but its not a cure for cancer.
          Self driving cars? How about all the NEW food delivery services – seems about the same as pizza delivery, except the menu has expanded. And so on.
19. erichwwk October 11, 2022 at 10:11 am

    Re Gilbert Doctorow. I follow him somewhat closely, and am puzzled by the assertion after the link to the article : “ Wow, has Doctorow turned hawkish. “ ( with a period rather than a question mark, I interpret that statement as a pov assertion. What are the lines Gilbert writes that support that assertion?

    Is that assertion being confused with the more hawkish view of the Russian public on which Gilbert reports?
    1. Otis B Driftwood October 11, 2022 at 2:08 pm

       I had same response after reading article. Doctorow himself doesn’t express any change in his pov, only that the hawks in Russia have become noisier.
       1. Kouros October 11, 2022 at 6:27 pm

          My feeling from what I am reading from Doctorow is that he himself is fed up with the SMO and would prefer the Russians to get serious and just finish with the Ukrainian Army once and for all.
    2. Yves Smith Post authorOctober 12, 2022 at 1:54 am

       I’ve been reading Doctorow regularly,. He’s always been very measured. Here he was not and was expressing contempt for the prosecution of the SMO in his own voice.
20. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 10:13 am

    “Ukraine halting exports of electricity to Europe – Energy Ministry”

    After the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear power plant had to be shut down because of all that shelling, I figured that there was no excess to sell to the EU but it looks like there was. Well no longer. Those Russian strikes must have really done a number on Kiev’s power grid alone-

    ‘Residents of the Ukrainian capital and Kiev Region will experience power outages of up to four hours under a new schedule of rolling blackouts introduced by the grid operator.

    The measure was introduced on Tuesday and is aimed at “balancing the power system and avoiding large-scale blackouts,” privately-owned energy company DTEK announced on Tuesday. It cited instructions it received from the national transmission system operator, Ukrenergo.

    The rotating outages will affect both industrial consumers and regular citizens, and was introduced after a massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure on Monday. Ukrenergo called on people to dial down their use of electricity to decrease the load on the grid. On Monday evening, it claimed there was a 26.5% drop in consumption in the capital and surrounding region, compared to an average autumn day.’

    https://www.rt.com/russia/564463-kiev-rolling-blackouts-russia/
    1. notabanker October 11, 2022 at 12:30 pm

       You mean the 100 Megawatts they started sending to Romania in July? For reference, NYC uses 11000 megawatt hours per day.

       https://www.energy.gov/articles/ukraine-launches-electricity-exports-european-union-support-us-department-energy
    2. Lex October 11, 2022 at 2:37 pm

       Unconfirmed, but apparently the Poles are mad and demand that Ukraine fulfill its obligations to supply electricity. It’s moments like this that convince me the appropriate Russian endgame is to leave the far west of Ukraine for its other neighbors. Let the Poles have Galitzia, because I’m quite certain that it will go just as well as it did the last time.

       One has to assume now that agreements to support Ukraine came with a lot of strings like grain for Europe and electricity for neighbors that at some point Ukraine is going to have a very difficult time fulfilling. The Odessa deal ends pretty soon, whether Russia intends to take the city or not and I’ll be pretty surprised if Russia reups it. I don’t believe the picture floating around of equipment smuggling through Odessa, but since Russia hasn’t actually been able to export agricultural products due to secondary sanctions and the shipping to Europe rather than the global south, I can’t see an extension.
21. fresno dan October 11, 2022 at 10:27 am

    Russia, Having ‘Run Out Of Missiles’, Launches Barrage On Ukraine Moon of Alabama

    OK, but after that barrage, I’m sure they are out of missiles now.

    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-kyiv-business-76dba1ecb9c1d3ff04ec4609740c2283?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_02
    Russian forces strafed Ukraine with a fresh barrage of missiles and munition-carrying drones Tuesday, a day after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in what the U.N. human rights office described as a “particularly shocking” attack that could amount to war crimes.
    ================
    OK, OK wrong about Russia being out of missiles. NOW they are out of missiles….
    1. Robert Hahl October 11, 2022 at 10:33 am

       I can’t find any new news about Starlink. Is it working normally outside of Ukraine?
       1. cfraenkel October 11, 2022 at 12:57 pm

          There’s two ways to disable satellite communications. You disable the satellites, or suppress the radio link between the satellite and ground. Disabling the satellites would be noticed outside the theater, permanent, very difficult, and huge escalation of hostilities. Jamming the radio link is a lot easier, so more probable, and is a local effect. Outside of the range of the jamming, the system will work as normal.
          I haven’t seen any news on Starlink either. Since they have so many retail customers, lack of news likely means it’s working as usual everywhere else.
          1. Tom Bradford October 11, 2022 at 7:40 pm

             Jamming the radio link is a lot easier,

             This puzzles me about the story for if it’s true, relying on a system like Starlink as much as the Ukrainians apparently did doesn’t seem to have been good policy.

             Having dabbled in wi-fi I was surprised at how resilient the 2.4Ghz and 5GHz spectrums with the various 802.11 protocols were in dealing with crowded channels. Even in busy, overcrowded places you could often get enough packets through for a useful connection even if it wasn’t up to streaming Netflix. Often this was down to antennas with narrow focus – down to 3′. I don’t know too much about satellite communications but I’d assume these used dishes which are very narrow focus, and so very difficult to ‘jam’, and probably used frequency hopping with algorithms designed specifically to find the least noisy channels.

             I would speculate that the only practical way to ‘jam’ satellite communications would be to place a satellite of your own in proximity to the satellite you want to jam, which I presume the Russians could do – and which only the US could undo by ‘shooting it down’. Which might be a use for the US’s new ‘Space Force’.

             I have heard other speculation – from the Duran, which I think does get a bit out in front of its skis now and then – that in fact Ukraine’s problems with Starlink are due to Elon Musk deciding to get involved and turning it off for some reason. Which raises interesting questions about the wisdom of a sovereign nation placing control over a major military asset into the hands of a commercial entity over which it has no control. (“Interesting battlefield coms system you have there. Shame if something happened to it.”)
             1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 8:04 pm

                There is a report that Musk denied a Ukrainian request to activate Starlink services over Crimea. Musk may be a lot of things but he is not a fool. If Starlink was used to launch a major hit in Crimea that killed civilians, that would give the Russians the license to trash his network entirely as they would be active participants in a terrorist attack
                1. Tom Bradford October 11, 2022 at 11:29 pm

                   I’ve heard nothing more on this since the original reports that the ZSU was having problems, and (I think it was Brian Berletic) said it was in areas the Ukrainians had taken back from the Russians which suggests to me that Starlink had been switched off over areas the Russians had occupied and not been switched back on – tho’ I doubt that inconvenienced the Russians to any great extent.

                   I’d speculate that if the Russians had found a way to jam Starlink they wouldn’t use it until their own offensive kicked off, but I’m just an armchair warrior.

                   “Starlink is meant for peaceful use only.” – Elon Musk, Twitter, 17 September 2022.

                   https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1570952805833379840
       2. ThirtyOne October 11, 2022 at 1:34 pm

          Interesting related reading:
          https://lieber.westpoint.edu/can-starlink-satellites-be-lawfully-targeted/
    2. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 10:50 am

       I was watching the news tonight but more as an exercise in propaganda disassembly and it was quite remarkable. You had all these demonstrations by Ukrainians in Oz about this attack but even in Sydney, you could see that it was only a few dozen people at most there. You had one young girl who was a spokesperson for something that sounded like the Australian Federation of Ukrainian immigrants (I only caught part of it) but what I heard was that this girl had an American accident. Wait, what? Really?

       And then you had the usual suspects from other countries saying that it was an international crime with video clips showing a young, blonde girl running in panic and another where you could hear constant screaming. But then I remembered that this is what the people in Donetsk city are used to nearly every damn day of the week and I am pretty sure that the Russians weren’t dropping petal mines in those cities. Do those Ukrainians have an idea of what their soldiers even do in the east to other civilians?

       Those people that spoke out on the international stage seemed to have also forgotten the 14,000 people killed in such attacks over the past 8 years but they were only Novorussians so were not worth worrying about. The long and the short of it is that the propaganda I am seeing in Oz is insidious as it is obviously part of an organized effort. Most people do not have a clue about what caused this war and just demonize Putin as everybody knows that two legs bad.
       1. KD October 11, 2022 at 10:58 am

          Speaking of propaganda, wonderful military analysis from Salon:

          https://www.salon.com/2022/10/11/ukraines-victory-almost-a-done-deal-military-expert-on-how-invasion-imploded/

          “Retired Military Expert” retreads the great French elan theory of trench warfare–and Ukraine has elan baby! Nothing wrong with killing 5K of your best troops to take a couple of villages and a few hundred klicks of steppe. Its too bad the Italians didn’t have this genius in 1917, he seems worthy of Cardorna.
22. Exiled_in_Boston October 11, 2022 at 10:44 am

    ‘bring along Russia’s main allies…?
    Belarus, Moldova, Chechnya and…Quite a deep bench there.
    1. The Rev Kev October 11, 2022 at 10:52 am

       To paraphrase a line out of a novel based on a Roman line, God is not always on the side of the big battalions but is often to be found among the small platoons.
    2. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:33 pm

       Don’t forget North Korea, and other shadowy spectres from Asia.
       What are the odds on the Russians ‘sponsoring’ a “colour revolution” in Chisinau, deeding the chunk of ex-Ukraine to it’s south to the emergent “People’s Republic of Moldova” to give them a legitimate port on the Black Sea, and then agreeing to a mutual defense treaty? The last I knew, Moldova was not a member state of either the European Union nor NATO.
       1. Exiled_in_Boston October 11, 2022 at 1:28 pm

          Agreed. It is an imperialist war.
       2. hk October 11, 2022 at 4:24 pm

          Like Bulgaria in 1876?
23. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 11:02 am

    $4.01k update:

    Amazingly with all the turmoil in things cryptocurrency, my small but useful investment in Bitcoin ($19k presently) has been relatively stable for months, as the value of traditional investments are all on the skids.
    1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:23 pm

       Be careful Wuk. There is ample precedent for “Investment Yield Contagion.” Just think back a few years to when the European Central Bank showed all and sundry how to “Greece the Skids.” That was an example of the “Slippery Slope” leading, in short order, to a Financial Cliff. A ride at the Fun Park it was not.
       1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 12:31 pm

          Σasy come-Σasy go.
          1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:38 pm

             Yes, I agree, we are in Two Sigma Event territory.
             Next….
             Stay safe and solvent!
             1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 12:48 pm

                My initial investment is down to a buck-buck fidy, but to go back to Coinstar and cash out, would imply i’ve given up on my dreams, although it would buy me a bag of sunflower seeds with the proceeds, so there’s that.
24. Airgap October 11, 2022 at 11:58 am

    Re: California Bullet Train

    The boondoggling and sheer ongoing incompetence of local government occurring with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) light rail project offers competition to Cali’s bullet train. Residents of Honolulu have pretty much given up on ever seeing it as more than an endless scam for keeping union contractors/consultants employed.

    Honolulu Mayor Blangiardi said the shorter line might be completed in May 2029 instead of the current 2031 estimate, but that plan needs approval from the Federal Transit Administration.

    “There is no question that the Honolulu rail project is the most expensive per capita of any publicly funded rail project in the modern age,” said Randal O’Toole, a transportation expert and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a policy think tank based in Washington, D.C
    https://projectcostsolutions.com/lessons-from-honolulu-rail-project/

    A 2012 estimate was about $5 billion. In 2021, it was expected to cost as much as $12.4 billion.
    https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local-news/2022-03-15/honolulu-mayor-says-he-wants-the-rail-project-to-stop-before-ala-moana.
25. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 12:19 pm

    How much of that American supplied “…astounding $1.5 billion in humanitarian assistance in Syria in 2022…” went to the State of Syria and how much was funneled to NGOs, which category covers a multitude of sins. I’ll bet that a fair bit of that “humanitarian assistance” ended up in some deep and shady pockets, and other such monies ended up financing Alphabet Agencys’ adventurist policies.
    Fun with numbers!
26. rookieEMT October 11, 2022 at 12:28 pm

    “The Russian missile attacks that killed at least 19 people across Ukraine on Monday were wide-ranging, but they were not as deadly as they could of have been. That has renewed questions over the quality of Russia’s weapons.” – NYT Tweet

    Watching the tweet get slapped around by the comments restores some of my hope for humanity.
    1. Dave in Austin October 11, 2022 at 6:09 pm

       Previously it was thought that the New York Times was running short of non sequitors. But today a fresh volley…
27. Matthew G. Saroff October 11, 2022 at 12:41 pm

    The entire algae is 6 pounds of **familyblog** in a 5 pound bag.

    The issue is not the O2/CO2 levels, it is that pollutants and disease proliferate in enclosed spaces.

    CO2 levels are a PROXY for air health. If you are oxygenating the same old recycled air, it does nothing.
    1. Lex October 11, 2022 at 2:42 pm

       CO2 levels are a proxy for ventilation. You could have a sealed cabin (like an airplane) with very high CO2 but no contaminants, assuming it was filtered air. The ASHRAE recommendations using CO2 levels as a proxy for ventilation efficiency are based on human comfort and odor control, they have nothing to do with health.
28. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 12:42 pm

    I’ve waited 18 years for the bullet
    Got me nowhere, wonder when they’re gonna pull it
    I’m tickled to drive now
    I’m a road trip son-of-a-gun

    So hold it right there little choo-choo
    We’re gonna have big fun when it goes to Malibu
    Might be an outlier-the inland route
    It may take forever to complete it, but oh, yes I will

    I’ve waited 18 years for the bullet
    Got me nowhere, wonder when they’re gonna pull it

    It’s a super fast, sure shot, yeah
    It’s a national breakout
    So how come it’s gone nowhere
    Huh, c’mon let’s figure it out

    It’s high on the debt chart
    It’s close to the tip of the top
    But you can’t stop something you start
    It ain’t never gonna stop, never, never entertain that thought

    We got a smash north-south double-header
    If we can only keep it together
    Talkin’ ’bout you Tehachapi
    Talkin’ ’bout you Pixley

    I’ve waited 18 years for the bullet
    Got me nowhere, wonder when they’re gonna pull it

    Pete Wingfield: 18 With A Bullet

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiXIUxhPxcs
29. Carolinian October 11, 2022 at 12:52 pm

    Re deterioration of the railroads–sounds like Warren Buffet has some ‘splaining to do. Our local line is not BNSF but Norfolk-Southern and from my very limited perspective they do seem to keep up with maintenance. Only a few months ago their crews were replacing all the ties on the local rails.
    1. Mike October 11, 2022 at 1:47 pm

       Generally speaking 20% of revenue is used on maintenance for the class I rail roads. Trucking is getting cheap again so they can sit in the back seat for a bit. Rail roads are extremely patient and will take multi year approaches to problems unlike other industries. Working with a class I rail salesman is a very different experience, they know you generally need them more than they need you.

       https://www.aar.org/facts-figures#!
30. Michael Ismoe October 11, 2022 at 1:00 pm

    I remember all you Doubting Thomas’ who mocked Brandon when they called him the “new FDR.” But he did bring you a Depression AND a world war. And it only took two years!
    1. Wukchumni October 11, 2022 at 1:32 pm

       I figured Joey would be the new R.U.R., and so far so good…
       1. ambrit October 11, 2022 at 8:17 pm

          Well, considering the curious case of the “missing” $600 USD, I’d say his czechs are bouncing all over. Though, it is interesting that “Creepy” Joe is looking more and more like another fine product of Disney Animatronics. That makes me wonder, what exactly would the capek on an Animatronic Joe be, anyway?
          “As for living. We have servants to do that for us.”
31. Matthew G. Saroff October 11, 2022 at 1:51 pm

    The technology in question is UVC, which is not naturally seen on earth because it is attenuated by the atmosphere.

    UVC has a wavelength of 100-280nm. And is more energetic than UVB (280–315nm), which is associated with skin cancer. (UVA, 315–400nm, is associated with cancer as well, but less so)

    UVC can cause “Welder’s Eye”. In fact, the most common source of UVC is welding, and welders have an increased risk of skin cancer.

    The Skin Cancer Foundation lists UVC as very carcinogenic, so while it might be appropriated for unoccupied space, or temporarily unoccupied space, or perhaps an air duct it may have issues with regard to use in inhabited spaces.
    1. hunkerdown October 11, 2022 at 2:27 pm

       One study (preprint? no-print?) I found of unknown quality suggests that “upper-room” UVC germicidal fixtures could provide anti-coronavirus protection in rooms with poor air replacement equivalent to some 108 air changes per hour, if the air within the room is well-stirred along its entire height.

       Not enough for most DMV offices, but possibly enough for factories or supermarkets.
32. anon in so cal October 11, 2022 at 4:48 pm

    Liberty Project wants to use the Logan Act against Elon Musk?

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/ake44z/elon-musk-vladimir-putin-ukraine
33. ArvidMartensen October 11, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    Watched some of the footage of the Assange support demo in London, and heard Corbyn’s short but sound speech – https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/10/watch-cn-lives-video-report-from-london/
    Then read about the intellligence operation in the UK to derail Corbyn when he was Labour Leader.
    https://thegrayzone.com/2022/09/24/intellligence-brexit-referendum-corbyn/
    I would imagine this effort was one of many run against Corbyn during that time, the Israel campaign being another.
    An intelligence operation is easy to see. First it springs up from nowhere fully formed. Second, it gets lots of good press coverage (approval for positive campaigns, outrage and fury for negative campaigns). Third, the same stories, words and phrases appear in lockstep in the MSM. Fourth, just as one issue is solved or discounted, another equally awesome or shocking revelation takes its place. Bang. Bang. Bang. A steady drumbeat of news.
    I lived through this many years ago, the result being our national leader was ousted in a coup. To everybody who has looked at Corbyn’s faults, his main fault was wanting a more equal, fair and transparent society. Assange also has this fault.
    In our society, it is the one fault that is the greatest major crime that can never be forgiven.
34. Revenant October 11, 2022 at 6:25 pm

    I believe the textbook was updated for the US edition by McVeigh et al.

    Wife’s family’s friends have a house at Magilligan. Nobody told me about the bomb testing (I would be interested to see it, I took a tour of Orford Ness once). They did tell me about the hoard closer to Limavady as we drove by.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broighter_Gold

    Also, one must make the obligatory nod to that other village across the water further up the Foyle and its subaqua club, presumably not specialising in underwater demolition: that’ll be Muff and its Muff Diving Club.
    https://www.muffdivingclub.ie/product/membership/

    Finally, PK (and others who don’t mind a bit if googling the translations), have you had a wee gander at this before?
    http://Www.nornirontees.com
    1. PlutoniumKun October 12, 2022 at 3:05 am

       Ah, the glorious village of Muff, always good for a giggle.

       The bomb testing at magilligan was in the mid 1980’s. If I recall it was around 1986 when I was in Greencastle as a student. Magilligan would not have been affected – the problem for Greencastle is that it was in a line of sight right across the sound, with nothing to mitigate shock waves. Having said that, I didn’t witness it myself and locals up there are always prone to exaggeration, especially if they sniff the chance of compensation. There are times I’ve suspected that the entire economy of Donegal is based on extracting government grants or tax arbitrage (Muff used to be petrol/diesel arbitrage centre for the people in Derry).

       Love those Tees.
       1. Revenant October 12, 2022 at 5:32 pm

          Glad you liked the t-shirts. :-)

          Have you see the news about Creeslough and the gas explosion? Without turning this corner of NC into macabre Father Ted, we holiday there most summers (it’s the joint-nearest place to Marble Hill along with Dunfanaghy) – I cannot imagine a more unlikely place for such devastation. A proverbial thunderbolt.
35. anon in so cal October 11, 2022 at 7:13 pm

    Awful Avalanche links to an article suggesting Russia did not realize the extent of Ukraine’s transformation into a fascist state.

    The leadership of Russia’s foreign intelligence services have declared that Ukraine completed its path of transformation into a fascist state, in just one generation. It is paradoxical, but all this time Russia’s special services did not have the opportunity to observe what was occurring in a neighboring state that is of such crucial importance for our own country. How did this happen?

    https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/ukraine-war-day-230-more-fireworks-plus-bad-intel/
36. SET October 12, 2022 at 12:56 am

    There were those helicopters flying patterns right over that exact spot, along with the USS Kearsarge being in the immediate area and leaving right before the fireworks, as pointed out by Bernhard.

    “Kremlin. Only Putin’s introductory remarks. Calls out terrorism by Ukraine, and includes Nord Stream pipeline attacks (house former merc skippy says he’s planted mines at this depth, was very insistent that this could have been set up with fewer resources than many surmised). Note also that Putin maintains Russia hit military and dual-use targets.”
    1. skippy October 12, 2022 at 1:41 am

       The problem is eyeballs and ears are everywhere, higher the tech the smaller the pond of suspects, so if one wants to be discrete or not its a factor to consider. My contention is such an operation does not need to be Mission Impossible to put a leak in it that depth nor does it take a viable sea force within the area.

       For instance oil rig divers would be great for such a job due to countless hours dive time working in less than sparkling Caribbean waters and working at depth with structural builds.

       The complexity issues play a big fact because you have more stuff to go wrong on a tight time window and once you get behind it can go pear shaped quite fast.
37. Ignacio October 12, 2022 at 3:55 am

    Mr. Borrell had yesterday a field day in Madrid. According to El Pais (in Spanish), the High Representative, who is changing rhetorics drastically. The narrative is reshaping:

    Now he says that the EU had dissociated or decoupled in the past prosperity and security. Part of that prosperity was built on cheap energy from Russia. Europe relied on Russia and China for welfare and on the US for security he said. Now he says that it is trendy today in Brussels to say “we are in the geostrategic awakening of Europe”. “We cannot be herbivores in a carnivore world” he added in a call to increase EU defence capabilities. Is this the new rhetoric of the highest representative of European diplomacy? A lot has changed.

    So the EU is completing its transition to something it wasn’t before (that I personally dislike a lot) with this “geo-strategic” awakening. No matter if there is still one Nordstream pipeline left, we are no longer relying on Russia and China for welfare? Are we really wanting to be a geostrategic military power leaving previous pretences as peacemaker, diplomacy etc…?

    Could please someone explain to me where is Indonesia in the map? I might be considering new options. Though in my case Uruguay, language matters, is much more attractive.

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