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Links 11/28/2022

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Poe vs. Property: A detective story of shifting rationalizations. Cory Doctorow

This is the first house 3D-printed from bio-based materials ZME Science

Two people left dangling from power lines are rescued after their small plane crashed into a tower in Maryland: 80,000 homes and business go without power Daily Mail (Brian C)

The Hibernator’s Guide to the Galaxy Wired

Climate/Environment

In Sharm El-Sheikh LRB

It’s a colorless, toxic gas. A US woman won $363m after years of exposure Guardian

Water

Houston issues boil water notice for 2.2 million residents The Texas Tribune

#COVID-19

It’s not just Covid. Flu and RSV means masks need to come back. Nbc News

Anti-Covid lockdown protests flare across China after deadly Urumqi fire SCMP

Beijing bans barricading gates for COVID-19 control Xinhua

Modeling transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron in China. Nature. From May

 

Bird flu prompts slaughter of 1.8M chickens in Nebraska AP

 

Syraqistan

US deploys heavy reinforcements to northern Syria from Iraq: SOHR The Cradle

Erdogan’s Ready to Invade Syria – and There’s No One to Stop Him Haaretz

Al-Shabab rebels attack Mogadishu hotel used by Somali officials Al Jazeera

Old Blighty

‘There’s no money’: UK transport minister on funding worker’s wages Al Mayadeen

Brexit made UK’s shortage of doctors worse, study says Le Monde

China?

US Military to Provide Funding for Canadian Mining Projects to Decouple From China Epoch Times

U.S. Effort to Arm Taiwan Faces New Challenge With Ukraine Conflict WSJ

New Not-So-Cold War

British C-17s supplying Brimstone 2 missiles to Ukraine UK Defence Journal

100-mile strike weapon weighed for Ukraine as arms makers wrestle with demand Reuters

Chinese intervention halts supply of Polish MiG-29 to Ukraine Al Mayadeen

Saab Signs Contract For Two SIGINT Ships For Poland Naval News

***

Top House Republicans Call for Biden to Send Longer Range Weapons to Ukraine to Strike Crimea Antiwar

Top House Republicans support more aid for Ukraine but want ‘accountability’ ABC News

China, India squeeze big oil discounts out of Russia, hitting Vladimir Putin’s war chest Economic Times

German lawmakers feel chill at work RT

Cheap natural gas is a thing of the past Commonwealth Magazine

 

Biden Administration

2024

Robert Reich: Joe, Please Don’t Run Again Eurasia Review (David L)

Democrats aim to keep spotlight on abortion as focus shifts to 2024 The Hill

 

In Texas, members of LGBTQ community arm themselves to fight right-wing extremists The Globe and Mail (Kevin S)

 

Groves of Academe

In Wisconsin, a Merger Can’t Save a Community College Chronicle of Higher Education

Supply Chain/Inflation

Record blankings as freight rates threaten a hard landing for box lines The Loadstar

How the Jones Act exacerbates the US Diesel shortage Hellenic Shipping News

Our No Longer Free Press

‘Publishing isn’t a crime’: Media outlets call to end Julian Assange prosecution for disclosing secrets Le Monde

The Media’s Deranged Hysteria Over Elon Musk’s Promised Restoration of Free Speech Glenn Greenwald

Guillotine Watch

Why do people hate billionaires? The Week

Class Warfare

Teachers Are Burned Out. Unions Can Help Them Understand Why — And That They’re Not Alone Portside

The Bezzle

Zeitgeist Watch

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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156 comments

  1. Antifa

    LEAVING KIEV
    (melody borrowed from Cream In My Coffee by Nat King Cole)

    It’s a long way to Poland
    Then to Europe beyond
    We have to flee
    This insanity
    The hour has come to be gone

    Ukraine’s descended to squalor
    Escape is long overdue
    Nowhere to pee
    No electricity
    There is no way to make do

    No trains on dead rails
    Cars move like slow snails
    We might need a horse and sleigh
    A bag of oats and a bale of hay

    Our son died in the fighting
    Now Ukraine is dead too
    We can’t stick around with
    Kiev shutting down
    It’s time to save me and you

    (musical interlude)

    No fear and despair
    We’ll find petrol somewhere
    From some roadside racketeer
    We won’t make it if we stay here dear

    Three or four days of driving
    We can sleep in the car
    It’s a short holiday
    Yes we’re both old and grey
    Heavy snow’s on the way
    We cannot delay
    Let’s go join the queue!
    And pray to God we get through!

      1. Jeff W

        I’m glad someone said it. “You’re the Cream in My Coffee” was kind of an old standard by the time Nat King Cole got around to recording it. For the record (no pun intended), here’s Jack Hylton & His Orchestra with “You’re the Cream in My Coffee” from 1928, one of several recordings of the song from that year.

  2. Toshiro_Mifune

    Mesmerizing inside look at the very secretive Trilateral Commission

    I’m going to assume no one asked any of the Commission members what Jeff Epstein’s role there was?
    Fun Fact: He was also a member of the Council On Foreign Relations…. because, of course he was.

    1. hunkerdown

      No state objects to the neoliberal world order, not China, not Russia. For the Westphalian state, self-actualization is to pervasively impose on and through the entire lives of its subject-inmates.

      We are taught that ambition is a virtue, and that proper social-creative behavior pays mind to it. Japan is in no way trying to break the capitalist world-empire, merely find a rational, reproducible position within its rational, reproducible order.

      1. Mikel

        “No state objects to the neoliberal world order, not China, not Russia.” And from the USA to the EU, to the Mid-East, etc…..

        All of it often seems like “The Battle of the Authoritarians”.

    3. Acacia

      With Rahm Emanuel there, lecturing everyone on “democracy” and China, no wonder three journos from Nikkei Asia were invited. Although it was “on the condition that the discussants would not be quoted by name”, Ikeda Masahisa is quoted by name, stating: “We feel that the U.S. policy toward Asia, especially toward China, has been narrow-minded and unyielding. We want the people in the U.S. to recognize the various Asian perspectives.”

      And Nikkei notes:

      The effort by the Asia Pacific Group to disclose the discussions is not necessarily aimed at demystifying it to critics, however. Instead, the press has been invited to highlight a rift that may be emerging between Asia and the other wings of the organization.

      Rather sounds like a number of the Asian participants are getting fed up with USian posturing.

    4. Mikel

      I watched the newNetflix documentary: “Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich”

      First impression takes:
      Not much time spent on how she was independently “filthy rich.” It was mentioned that her fortune changed after the death of her father, Robert Maxwell. And she left the UK at the time because the scandal around his pension theft and other financial chicanery.

      It does show that it was GM with the social connections. JE is portrayed as lacking in the high society social manners. She was key for JE to get the prominent men into the web.

      Not enough time spent on the mysterious funding of JE”s enterprises and the web of pedos. Just a bit of time spent on the Prince Andrew angle.

      JE went to his grave trying to minimize Maxwell’s involvement. All too interesting in itself.

      2. Roger

        Robert Maxwell was greatly praised for his “contributions” by the Israeli security state after his death, which puts a very different spin on GMs connections. Was GM the handler and JE the instrument? Of course, nothing about that raised in the documentary. I am personally shocked that she is still breathing.

    1. jefemt

      thank you for the Dean Baker Counterpunch link. Today’s must-read! It will be shared broadly…

      Ouch!

      2. jefemt

        I was just thinking that the $11,400/ not inuring per family would just about cover a typical annual out of pocket medical expenses spent to reach ‘deductible’ threshold for most junk/crap Bronze ACA plans.

        If it’s not F I R E, its Big Med. The gaping maws seeking every loose penny

    2. scott s.

      The 3d printed construction entry was a good intro for me to get beyond the “gee-wizz” hype in conventional media.

  4. Lexx

    ‘Schrodinger’s Plates’

    This isn’t a no-win scenario. Leave the door closed, use a cheap glass cutter and gently tap out two panes of single pane glass. Reach in to support the bowls against the door and re-stack the bowls before they can fall, starting at the back. None of the bowls break but the panes have to be replaced.

    Which is worth more? If the bowls, cut out the glass. If the panes, open the door.

    1. The Rev Kev

      You read my mind. I was thinking to cut a wide hole below those plates in each panel to reach through and stabilize them enough to open the doors.

      Either that or sell the whole thing as a work of art for $10,000 and to be called ‘Antici…….pation.’

      1. Lexx

        I was thinking one hand below to stabilize the bowls against the door, and one above to start picking off the weight… but then I’m tall, so I didn’t consider the height of the cabinet or the space between the holes a problem. The edge of the glass after cutting it might be. Also didn’t consider working with someone else to save the bowls. Easier with two people.

        I liked Mark’s cushioning idea, in case a bowl or two sneaked through.

    2. Lupana

      I wonder could you not just pull the whole thing away from the wall and tip it backwards so the plates slide back on the shelf? Or maybe the plates are too fragile and would chip. I get the ones made in West Virginia – Fiestaware? – which are pretty unbreakable. Anything else has a chip from my husband’s enthusiastic washing techniques..

      1. Art_DogCT

        To my eye the cabinets look built-in. If they are free standing, I’ll wager it would take three or four people to manage the task gently enough to carry it all off with little to no damage to cabinet or tableware. The pottery looks to me like mass produced restaurant ware, relatively cheap to replace. I think I’d just open the cabinet and consider the plates an offering to Eris. There is a certain beauty in entropy, if one wishes to see it.

      2. Lexx

        Occasionally I have to run interference between the vulnerable shiny plastic surface of any new appliance in the kitchen, and my husband with a wild look in his eye and the scratchy pad side of the sponge in his hand heading east of the kitchen sink. ‘Run! He’s going to try to muscle out that “stain” on the coffee maker… again!’ ‘Just put down the scratchy pad, honey, and I’ll give you a nice soft dishcloth instead… there you go!’

    3. Mark Gisleson

      1) Seems to be a sliding door (?). Open slightly (actually, it may be slightly open already), insert a stiff wire with a right angle bend and use it to lift up the bowls back onto the shelf or at least hold them in place until the door is open sufficiently to reach in.

      2) Force a pillow through the sliding door crack (or packing pellets) to permit a soft landing. I’d also have someone else standing close by in case other bowls (in back) fall forward.

      3) If you are skilled enough to replace some glass, cutting a hole in one pane would also work.

      4) A ceramics magnet would also work, but they are currently unavailable in this part of the multiverse.

      5) Talk to the bldg maintenance crew, those folks have seen everything and know all the workarounds.

      1. Mildred Montana

        >”Seems to be a sliding door (?).”

        That’s the problem with the conundrum of “Schrodinger’s Cabinet”. Not enough information.

        1. Distance from top of cabinet to ceiling?
        2. Distance from top of cabinet to lowest plate?
        3. Distance from back to front?
        4. Weight and strength of cabinet and how easily can it be moved or shifted?

        And I am sure there are many other variables not clear to the eye. Like a good economist I will assume that there is plenty of working room between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling and that the lowest plates are within arm’s length (I’ll also assume the help of a very tall basketball player if necessary). Okay, here we go:

        1. Get drill, jigsaw, and ladder and mount cabinet.
        2. Cut out small piece of top, insert hand(s) and arm(s), and rescue endangered plates.
        3. Attach flanges to removed piece of top and reposition in hole.

        Voila! And ain’t nobody’s gonna notice except maybe the maid doing her weekly dusting!

    4. hemeantwell

      Crack open the door and slide quarter inch plywood up to hold the bowls, open door, reach in etc.

    5. Vandemonian

      Slide a couple of strips of plywood up between the door and the shelves to hold the bowls in place when you open the door. Definitely a two person job.

      [edit] hemeantwell just beat me to it…

    6. Posaunist

      One of my pet peeves is people who ruin a good joke. Yes, Lexx, that’s practical, but not funny. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a Schrödinger joke. Cheers!

        1. JP

          I think the problem is about a wave form collapsing. Everyone here is trying to keep the bowls from breaking but they are only in superposition of breaking. They are pictured as potential not history. That is wave not particle. When the problem is “solved” in the instant of reality the bowls, or some of them, will be either be whole or broken. In the picture we have not yet looked behind the double slit.

      3. Lexx

        I just turned 65. The whole Schrodinger thing… whoosh. More of a dog person really.

        OTOH, lately I can solve Wordle in three tries. It’s not practical either, but still fun. (crickets)

        Hello? Is this thing on?!

    7. Jeff W

      I thought it was an image of some very clever, devilishly contrived art piece—I hoped it was, in fact—but it’s actually a photo originally posted by Atsunori Kishida, the owner of a Japanese ryokan hotel, Suigo, in Tottori, after an earthquake on 21 October 2016, according to this CNN piece, which reported

      …somewhat anticlimactically, Kishida told CNN he just carefully opened the door, slipped his arm through and moved the bowls until they were stable.

  5. The Rev Kev

    “Erdogan’s ready to invade Syria – and there’s no one to stop him”

    The boys at the Duran give a more nuanced view of what is happening with this. It’s the Kurds. They are now seen as a US proxy force and the arrogance of their own leaders have made them no friends in this part of the world at all. I guess that they are depending on US promises to never desert them again (‘This time for sure!’). So this time you have a very loose alliance of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq all determined to put a lid on them and this time they have the support of not only Russia but also China now. The danger for the Kurds is that if the US goes in all heavy and basically orders all those countries to back off and let the Kurds continue strip-mining Syria of its wheat and oil, that this loose alliance may actually solidify into something else-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VV8IMk4nLE (14:14 mins)

    1. Wukchumni

      The danger for the Kurds is that if the US goes in all heavy and basically orders all those countries to back off and let the Kurds continue strip-mining Syria of its wheat and oil, that this loose alliance may actually solidify into something else-

      …the Kurds always get their whey?

      1. ambrit

        Ask any Turk, the Kurds have always gone against the grain.
        Side note: The Kurds sometimes were used as stock Middle Eastern villains in early pulp fiction.

    2. Karl

      Interesting the Haaretz article saying “No one can stop them [Turkey]” came out on Nov. 25. Tip from Israeli intelligence, or Bibi over his skis? Then the SOHR article comes out yesterday (Nov. 27) with a report of “100 U.S. Trucks” on their way. Connection? Let’s not forget that Israel is militarily involved there with occasional air strikes (I’ve always assumed with U.S. blessing). So, if Erdogan doesn’t get the hint, maybe Israel will have to send in more jets. Or maybe Israel is worried that US is getting too distracted by Ukraine?

      Interesting to speculate what’s in those trucks since so much of useful fighting value from inventory has been going to Ukraine. Maybe US was trying to dip into Iraqi stores and this is Israel’s way of saying “don’t you dare.”

      Interesting no reports on this in the WAPO or NY Times as of yet.

  6. zagonostra

    >Robert Reich: Joe, Please Don’t Run Again Eurasia Review (David L)

    But the question “should Joe Biden run again?” is really four different questions:

    (1) Has he done a good job so far? (Answer: By-and-large, yes.)

    Stopped at (1). Really no point reading more. If you start with faulty premises your conclusions are worthless. Gawd, how low Reich has fallen? Someone who I used to admire has now lost his ability to think clearly.

    I think it is time to recognize that “reason” is inadequate to steer humanity to a sane world, that some sort of ethical/moral/religious, right hemisphere, “risorgimento” is needed. Maybe it’s because I was listening to The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist on a long drive over the holiday that Reich’s views makes me feel that public discourse is somehow hopeless, that the current configuration of political power is condemning us to a civilization of ruin/thralldom for the majority.

    1. Carolinian

      Forget it Jake, it’s China…,er, RobertReichtown. The perfesser has always been, along with Liz Warren, a leading purveyor of TDS and off the wall political theories.

      1. Michael Fiorillo

        Reich in 1993: “Unions are just plain wrong in opposing NAFTA.”

        While Reich comes off as a decent human being, I guess, my response is “Who cares?” His propagandizing for the primacy of “Knowledge work” and “symbolic analysts” (i.e. bullshit, or worse, FIRE jobs) over the decades has done a lot of damage.

    2. The Rev Kev

      Read the whole thing and you did not miss anything. I mean, old Joe has turned 80 years old a few days ago. Come the 2024 Presidential Elections, he will be 82 years old and if he gets re-elected, he will leave the White House at the age of 86 years old – or feet first. Be nice if more of America’s leaders could be born in the second half of the 20 century. That way at most they would be in their 70s. But in all that waffle in that article, there was nothing about old Joe’s character or what he is like as a person. And from some of the videos that I have seen online, it would not have been safe to elect him as a dog-catcher.

      1. ambrit

        Re., “..it would not have been safe to elect him as a dog-catcher.” Not unless you want your dogs to end up preggers.
        How about a reboot of the film “Alien versus Predator?” Guess which one “Creepy” Joe will play.

        1. Wukchumni

          UFC* 86

          Joe (the father of Beau, you should know-who fairly recently passed away by the way) versus Konstantin (the octogenarian) Chernenko.

          2 old shits go into the octagon, and neither emerge resulting in ‘Harristroika’.

          PPV $49.95
          PPV HD $59.95

          * Ultimate Fogey Championship

    3. hunkerdown

      To blame reason for emotional paralogic is bizarre, at least. Right-brain feelings are the very stuff of charisma and political discourse, and it is only the nature of charisma that hoodwinks people into believing that something other than charisma is in control. (The discourse’s relation to logic rarely goes further than brandishment of blandishment, the weaponization of preciousness.)

      Almost all problems people ascribe to a failure of Reason are entirely due to the mystical belief, and not just on one side of the case, that there are interests superior to reason that objectively “exist” and to which reason “owes” service. And that’s how leisure classes riding on forced labor came to be.

      I’m afraid more mysticism isn’t going to demystify anything. Much less so this ideological object of Freedom, whose mere “existence” ensures the very ruin/thralldom for most. There is no mystery here, only a matter of perceiving importance through vicarious contrast. What will demystify things is the deprecation and ultimate terminus of History.

      (A side note on the TV archaeologist: his purpose could be to poison the well for non-statist deep history in the Graeber and Wengrow vein, using facile mythology to engender false mythical certainty.)

      1. zagonostra

        I think the desire for “demystification”, or in Max Weber’s term the “disenchantment” of life, is part of the problem. It is not “reason” per se but the integration of reason with other functions of the mind that is what I’m alluding to.

        Iain McGilchrist discusses the subject in a lecture on William Blake using his understanding of the left/right brain chemistry.

        https://youtu.be/ijg3HTpEKMI

      2. Henry Moon Pie

        I think your Reason, being a mere human invention, is a bit more limited than you describe.

        Aside from that, I agree with zagonostra’s point and what I took it to imply: that “reason” is incapable of persuading and aligning enough people quickly enough to make desperately needed changes. I don’t think that’s anything new. What role in revolutionary fervor was played by Marx’s view that the shift from capitalism to communism was inevitable? Did that belief–and it can be no more than a belief–that one was part of history’s progression to a higher level have been an important part of the motivation of Marxists? What role did an emotional revulsion at the misery wrought by capitalism play in revolutionaries’ motivations?

        We’re not Dawkins Robots. We move on many different planes, but more importantly, we live in a universe that is not limited by what our little minds consider “reason.” Our evolved ability to mythologize is, in effect, a humble admission of the limits of human ability to comprehend the universe fully. Myth is little more than a creative attempt to provide answers to questions for which we are unable to provide answers using reason. The first Genesis myth (Seven Days) tries to answer the question, “How did all this stuff get here?” The Big Bang is a newer myth directed at the same question, but one built upon much more sophisticated observations and theories than the Iron Age Hebrew Bible. Since our physics seems to be dealing with several challenges at several different levels, that newer myth may need to be revised at some point.

        And that process, with mythologizing and theorizing intertwined, can produce a society that is neither condemned to zealously guard “truths” based on ancient myths nor become the sort of humans–scientists–who have the hubris to advocate shooting sulfur in the sky every two years as a “solution” to human overconsumption and waste.

    4. mistah charley, ph.d.

      My bachelor’s degree was in political science, and I agree that our world needs not just “reason”, but what might be called “reasonableness”, including a sense of “enlightened self-interest” that includes the wellbeing of those different from ourselves, and those who are not here yet – “unto the seventh generation” as the Iroquois put it –

      Relevant quotes from songs that have been popular during my lifetime – “Material world” and “What a wonderful world”

      There is no political solution
      to our troubled evolution

      and

      I see friends shaking hands
      Saying, “How do you do?”
      They’re really saying
      “I love you”

      I wouldn’t say I’m optimistic, but I can repeat a Yogi Berra-ism – “You never know when something surprising might happen.”

    5. earthling

      For a minute, I had high hopes that Reich was going to call Biden out on his senility, and ‘regulatory capture’ approach to policy. But no, he offers a ha-ha Andy Rooney piece on getting old, concludes with sheepdogging the faithful back into the blue line. Pathetic.

      1. flora

        Bob Reich is past his time. Happens to all of us eventually I guess. Tragedy really, to not realize one’s major time of influence has passed. Too bad, but that’s life.

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          Bill Clinton’s labor secretary. The only reason we think he might not be awful is how awful everyone else is. Two months ago, he was leading the Cheney fan club. He knows her voting record.

          He told a story about the greatness of Bill Clinton once. All the story was that Bill checked on him during a party when Reich fell ill. I think there is a weird self loathing going on where he seems shocked a friend might check on him. Call the Vatican. Like Cheney, that moment of affirmation that he exists is enough to make him lose all reason.

  7. semper loquitur

    I have no opinion on Graham Hancock either way but I found one of the tweets underneath the one linked to be disturbing. Apparently, he’s a racist because he doesn’t discuss race. The lack of evidence is evidence itself.

    1. IM Doc

      I caught one of the kids watching an episode of Ancient Apocalypse this last few days.

      I had the same feeling watching it as watching an Ancient Aliens episode. Lots of laughs and some very “interesting” takes. It is kid’s level thinking and helps them understand the concepts of questioning and exposing fallacies.

      And then all this brouhaha in the press this past few days. I was thinking lots of things while watching. Racism was not one of those things. Nor was destroying children’s minds.

      Where was all the outrage this series is getting when “Cuties” premiered on Netflix last year? That was a show that really damaged kids and as usual crickets.

        1. caucus99percenter

          Balenciaga now says photographer Gabriele Galimberti isn’t to blame and has reportedly filed suit against the creatives who produced both the bondage bear-bag ads and a different ad — one that shows a copy of a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, concerning “virtual” child pornography, as well as a book by artist Michael Borremans whose controversial work is said to include nude children and occult rituals.

          https://www.newswars.com/balenciaga-sues-producers-of-bdsm-teddy-bear-pedophilic-ad-campaign/

          Caveat lector: can’t vouch for reliability of source; just reporting what is out there.

      2. semper loquitur

        The selective outrage of the Wokel is stunning to see in (in)action. Women and children are victims suitable for public adulation until they ain’t. The bifurcation brings to mind a samurai sword splitting a cantaloupe.

      3. Raymond Sim

        Lol, I got started poking into this stuff after you made reference to ‘Reptilians’ once, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.

        Since Covid-related paranoia abounded at the time, and since such paranoia often involves magical thinking I decided to look into the paranormal subject I find most naturally believeable, i.e. Bigfoot. Somewhat to my suprise I found that the explanation of Bigfoot as Mud People (Not that anyone is so crass as to use that term.) is extremely popular, with white people mostly. Bigfoot belief and psuedo-millenarian anti-establishment paranoia appear to correlate much more closely than I would have anticipated.

        This led me to look into various other alternative views of history and reality more generally. There’s a lot of interesting stuff. The standard versions of the prehistory of the Americas and of Hominin evolution are based on pretty thin evidence, and likely to see serious revision if civilization persists on our planet. However, interest in these topics is disproportionate among racists, and they are a noxious infestation of my YouTube recommendations. I don’t follow Hancock particularly, but I’m aware that his theories appeal to various latter-day Madame Blavatsky types. If he’s never addressed this then calling him on that at least would be legit.

        As for the ‘Cuties’ thing. In my recollection the many Woke Girls of the internet fought pretty ferociously over that show, whatever the MSM may have been up to.

    3. ambrit

      I, being a dyed in the wool CTnaut, have been reading and arguing about people like Hancock, Carlson, the Cometary Impact Group, et. al. for years.
      Despite all the “brouhaha,’ the plain fact is that we, as fallible beings, will never ‘know’ the “Truth” with absolute certainty.
      Hancock, et. al. are proposing a revisionist history of Terran human history, with various levels of evidence. Since academic careers are dependent on not changing the present iteration of “The Narrative,” the blowback from the airing of these ‘new’ theories is and will be intense.
      The charges of “racism” are plain propaganda tools.
      I am old enough to remember segregated public busses in Miami, Florida. Now that was racism.
      More importantly, the charge of ‘racism’ is generally a smoke screen for some more sinister ‘agenda; in play; such as classism, or, in this case, credentialism.
      I’m convinced that the Terran human race’s favourite game is “ismism.”
      YMMV (Notice that there are no vowels in that acronym. Could YMMV be one of the holy and unutterable “Names of G–?”)

        1. ambrit

          You have caught me out flora.
          Ever since I was forced to read the socio-political essays of Sam Clemens back in high school, I have been fascinated by his insistence on the existence of the “mythical” realm of Connecticut. Could this be where Borges found his inspiration to search the secret libraries of South America for the clues that eventually led him to ‘discover’ The Encyclopedia of Tlon?
          Borges’ recounting of the ‘Discovery’: https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-Tl%C3%B6n-Uqbar-Orbius-Tertius.pdf
          Clemens’ experimental case notes, simply and deceptively called “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” raise many more questions than they resolve. Let one instance suffice as an example; the very title not only introduces us to the mythical realm of Connecticut, but also introduces the concept of a ‘Yankee.’ A ‘Yankee? Yanks on what? To what purpose? On this, Clemens is silent.
          Secondly, Clemens seems to place this proto-paradise in what is now New Vinlandia. I am certain Clemens knew how much this would vex the Jarls in New Haven, much less the sachems of the Iroquois Confederacy in Onondaga.
          Stay safe up there and may the fires in your longhouse never go out.

    5. bdy

      The elephants in the room are underwater: big stacks of huge stones, statuary, architecture and infrastructure from S-E Asia to the Indian Ocean to Osaka to the Bahamas to arguably the Mediterranean — most of it found in the last couple decades from the shallows to 150 ft down. The takedowns above make no mention of the evidence beneath the waves. That stuff strongly suggests that a whole lot people were around before the water rose, and that they were better than we are at stacking big rocks. The second most plausible explanation is ET, third place paranormal. I’ll accept people until Close Encounters or Houdini proves otherwise.

      That concession leads to some heterodox thinking, and heterodox (like the comedy it often resembles) is hard.

      Hats off to Hancock for trying. That wack Ancient Civs stuff wants decent vetting to separate the chaff. It’s hardly surprising that current academia can only offer blanket dismissiveness.

      1. flora

        Thanks. In another instance of below the surface evidence of something massive happening, 40 years ago the theory that a giant asteroid strike in the Yucatan caused a mass extinction event was scoffed at as nonsensical fringe thinking at best. Now, thank to a geologic thin layer found around the world and previously disregarded as a fluke or localized or uninteresting, the theory is taken seriously as a plausible explanation. (Noting that plausible theories are always subject to revision given new data.)

        https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asteroid-killed-dinosaurs/

    6. Objective Ace

      For all the talk about setting the record straight there is an awful lot of red herrings and attacking the messenger rather then the facts in that thread. Sure, Hancock may not be the most upstanding individual who may be quick to resort to fanciful ideas. (my wife thought the map example was ridiculous–map creators included all sorts of made up things on old maps.) But even if many are wrong, that doesnt invalidate the central premise–an ancient relatively advanced civilization existed at least 12,000 years ago.

      Many points are hardly relevent and may even be in Hancock’s favor. The evidence of “Millions of stone tools and bones. Beautiful sculptures and paintings. Evidence for families, migrations, and feasts” could just as easily be evidence of this ancient civilization. Especially some of the grander sites like Goblecki Tebe or the sphinx. These are evidence against the archeologists event line.

      One of the concluding results is telling:

      “Look around you. Look at the streets, cars, skyscrapers, bottles, and cans. We’re a global, advanced civilization and there’s no way future archaeologists will miss us”

      The implication is an “advanced civilization” must resemble ours. With that defintion of advanced civilization Hancock is undoubtable wrong, but I’d encourage Flint Dibble to be a little more open to what else an “advanced civilization” may resemble. When doing that Hancock’s positions become a lot more interesting and there are questions that remain unanswered

    7. JV

      Yes, I was also not impressed by the casual assertion of ‘white supremacy’. I watched the series myself and I would basically agree with IM’s assessment: it’s Ancient Aliens without the aliens. There is absolutely no mention of race whatsoever in the program that I can recall. The idea that Hancock believes those monuments could only be created by white people is not supported by anything he said in the program (or on Rogan, the only other place I’ve seen him expound on his theories).

      I found the archaeologist’s entire thread to read more like a cheap smear then enlightened discourse. Calling someone a racist is an easy shortcut to cancel them among the woke. Hancock’s theories are probably all wrong but they certainly are not a front for far right ideology. Shame on that guy for stooping so low, he could have debated the issue without reaching into the muck but he chose the low road.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        The problem is the premise is how did the dum dums build the pyramids without being in the Church of England. The “documentary” was an ad for rense.

        They have no different than Khristians asking about the next missing link. They play innocuous, but the answers to the “tough” questions are obvious.

  8. Alice X

    Why do people hate billionaires?

    Well:

    Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.

    —Honoré de Balzac

    That is the popular rendering, but what he wrote was:

    Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait.

    Which is translated more broadly as:

    The secret of a great fortune made without apparent cause is soon forgotten, if the crime is committed in a respectable way.

    Thanks to the Quote Investigator, but I’ll stick with the simplified version, vis-à-vis Lizzie Holmes et al.

    1. hunkerdown

      The real quote is less fatuous and draws more attention to the middle-class punctilios who would have been and are regularly just fine with capitalist exploitation, but for some style point.

      1. Alice X

        Thanks hunkerdown, you can always be counted on. :-)

        I need to think this through more, but first, I have to go eat breakfast.

    2. Alice X

      Should billionaires even exist? I say no, and furthermore, neither should multi-millionaires. I’d have a wealth cap of say, five million with progressively stricter rationing of resources, but not to impact the bottom incomes.

      1. Procopius

        I’d restore Eisenhower Era tax rates and add a couple more at the top end. Have to adjust for inflation, of course, make it so lower income levels pay no more than they do now, but start increasing seriously at, say, $100,000/yr. Increase to 99% at $5 million. It’s counterintuitive, but confiscatory tax rates are an incentive to work harder at that level.

        1. ACPAL

          This progressive tax on income would slow down their increase in wealth but wouldn’t necessarily reverse it. On the other hand a stiff luxury tax would whittle away at their fortunes, especially if such a tax included stiff annual property taxes on their estates, yachts, jets, and etc.

  9. The Rev Kev

    ‘Flint Dibble 🍖🏺
    @FlintDibble
    In his new Netflix “documentary” #AncientApocalypse, @Graham__Hancock
    has declared war on archaeologists
    His rhetoric sows distrust in experts, and #Atlantis conspiracy theories promote white supremacy’

    You know, that Graham Hancock ranting at archaeologists may have a point. I mean, when you look at a map of Europe, you can see how the survivors from Atlantis would have fled there to be the ancestors of the ancient tribes that we see remnants of nowadays in the Picts, Asgard, Amazons, etc. The reason that we don’t know about them is that the glaciers of the very last ice age swept away all traces of them leaving nothing to be found. No, wait. That is the Hyborian Age from Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian” that I was just describing.

    Well maybe it is more a matter that extraterrestrial beings influenced ancient technology so that our ancestors learned the necessary knowledge from extraterrestrials to create sophisticated structures and artifacts that otherwise they would never have been smart enough to work out. Oh, wait. That was Erich von Däniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” I was just describing. Look, how about we just forget the whole thing, OK? And maybe Graham Hancock could use his talents elsewhere – say in politics? Maybe he could re-found the Know Nothing party. Or go back to journalism and talk about Putin’s 20th heart attack, the Russian army is about to surrender while Russia’s economy is in tatters. Tatters I tell you.

    1. Worf's Prune Juice

      I haven’t watched the Graham Hancock doc but that Tweet thread got me thinking about one of Däniken’s main points in “Chariots of the Gods” – namely, that the explanations given for many of these ancient phenomena (e.g. the building of the pyramids in Giza) by mainstream archeologists have massive holes in them, and that they often seem to care more about protecting these hold-ridden theories against any alternative theories than in actually doing the hard work of refining these theories. This of course doesn’t mean that aliens necessarily built the pyramids, but I always thought that that critique by Däniken was a worthwhile takeaway from that book.

    2. flora

      an aside: The lost city of Troy was thought a myth, something Homer made up for his great work The Illiad & The Odyssey. Until…. (There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, …. )

      The Discovery of Troy

      https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/discovery-troy

      I like this stuff because it gets young minds curious and asking questions and thinking for themselves about what are called unsolved mysteries. Even if most of the mysteries never have a satisfactory answer, the exersize of questioning and analyzing data and known facts is a valuable skill to learn.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Personally I love stories about past places being rediscovered, especially when it is an archaeologist sussing out the clues in old texts like Heinrich Schliemann doing so for the city of Troy or Carter finding the intact tomb of Tutankhamun. But a recent epic story was how a retired British officer in Germany – Tony Clunn – using a metal detector finally found the battle-site for Teutoburg Forest. Now that was epic that. And it was only back in the 80s.

        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-72636736/

          1. flora

            adding: This line that –

            “The German frontier held a deep allure for Augustus, who regarded the warring tribes east of the Rhine as little more than savages ripe for conquest.” –

            – made me think that that history may not repeat but it rhymes, or some such. Or maybe civilizations are fractals of expansion, like water crystals of expansions. (Don’t know why I think that in this instance.) / ;)

            https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-43an8owj2sE/T0e7oTRxIEI/AAAAAAAALBY/TDJ2yyM8o7E/s550/Ice%2Bchrystal%2Bflowers-frost%2Bpattern.jpg

        2. Wukchumni

          It’ll be puzzling when historians in 3123 debate whether Flatlantis ever existed and if the Mariel Boatlift was even possible for there wasn’t any place for the Cuban refugees to have gone.

      2. caucus99percenter

        We kids had to read this thing about Schliemann finding and excavating Troy as part of an assignment for German language class, back in high school almost 60 years ago.

        I bet German isn’t even taught in U.S. high schools anymore. Back then, though, they were still saying it would be needed if you were considering a scientific field as a career. Nowadays most specialist literature in STEM seems to be published in English.

        For some reason I thought it was cool that in German all nouns are capitalized. Something which, as far as I knew then, wasn’t true of any other language.

    3. Pat

      I have a feeling that you would really enjoy the Mormon take on the beginnings of Native Americans. It would be a fine addition to your collection of archeology lore and legends.

    4. danpaco

      been partial to the Algonquin Tribes flood myth.
      https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheGreatFlood-Algonquin.html
      This is a story from the Georgian Bay/ Lake Huron area of the Great Lakes.
      I like Hancock for at least posing the question on who was before us. There is a great similarity in great flood myths. Its not hard to fathom a civilization before us.
      Hancock seems to get lost in the weeds (THC/minutia) but he usually comes back to that basic premis.

      2. Wukchumni

        The 1861-62 flood of California is well known because we were here to witness it, and although the 1605 Cali flood was of a magnitude much bigger, but Native American records are skimpy and it would have been just another gigantic flood that hit California every few hundred years and they’d been here for many thousands of years and were used to the idea.

      3. MichaelC

        Agree about liking Hancock for posing the question.

        Until I hit your comment I thought I’d landed in an alternative universe version of NC where reliably sensible folks ( I’m looking at you Rev, joking of extraterrestrials) used their snark skills to have a bit of fun.

        Apologies to you Rev if I misread your snark but:

        Is there archaeological evidence being discovered (yes see my comment below re Gobekli Tepe) from the end of the last ice age that might explain the common great flood myths of global civilizations and religious mythologies?

        If the answer to that is yes, then Hancock is not someone to mock or dismiss out of hand for asking the question, to bring it to our attention.

        And since the answer is yes, it doesn’t follow that he is the man who knows anything more than that there were people w tech skills at the end of the ice age.

        1. The Rev Kev

          I’ll entertain any theory so long as it has facts behind it. But Erich von Däniken was I think just a conman who was taking away the credit for what our ancestors accomplished by their own efforts. I’m surprised that he did not claim that the Antikythera mechanism was proof of alien contact because our own ancestors were too dumb to have come up with such a design on their own. I am quite ready to acknowledge alien contact but like the Man from Missouri, I want to be show proof first.

          1. MichaelC

            .???
            Eric van who?
            I’m not quite ready to acknowledge alien contact.
            Perhaps you’re responding to another comment?

            1. The Rev Kev

              Sorry about that, Chief. Growing up in the 70s you constantly saw Erich von Däniken and his theories of extraterrestrial contact in the media. It was a constant fixture on TV back then causing me to be suspicious of any claims to do with the word extraterrestrials to this day-

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVA_0cetHM (58 secs)

  11. Acacia

    Re: An Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariant BA.2.76 in anOutdoor Park — Chongqing Municipality, China, August 2022

    The path width of jogging was about 4 meters. The wind speed was 0.5–3.0 m/s, the temperatures were 33.0°C–42°C and the air humidity was 44%–48% when Patient Zero was jogging

    Patient Zero was jogging in 33.0°C–42°C heat? [91.4 – 107.6°F]

    1. Objective Ace

      For someone fit and active, its not a big deal to work out in 90-100 degree weather, especially if there’s shade. I wouldnt want to be out there all day, but in my 20s I’d play basketball, football etc. in heat like that all the time

      1. Wukchumni

        Couldn’t imagine being at a walking pace @ 90 degrees with 48% humidity, forget about running.

        I wilt like lettuce @ high temps and in the summer when its a hundred and hell down in Godzone you’d never catch me out and about, but up in Earth’s version of what passes for heaven it’ll be 72 degrees and perfect, flip it over for the winter and the higher climes are too cold and what was folly a few months prior in the foothills, is now quite nice.

    1. Mikel

      Saw this in yesterday’s NC links.

      Some good points in the article, but he’s behind on the latest news on some points. For instance, the Alexa program has troubles that show it’s not ready for primetime…so to speak.

  13. Wukchumni

    I hear the agent for the seven deadly sins
    And a NATO arming binge came to call on you
    The bigger they are babe
    The harder they fall on you
    And we’re always the same we persevere
    On the same old pleasure ground
    Oh and it never rains around here
    The money comes pouring down

    You had no more volunteers
    So you got war profiteers for to help you out
    With friends like that babe
    Good friends you had to do without
    And now Putin’s taken out the chains and the gears
    From off your grid merry-go-round
    Oh and it never rains around here
    The money comes pouring down

    And our new romeo
    Wasn’t a stand up comedian when he let us down
    See the faster they are babe
    The faster they get manna out of DC town
    Leaving made up claims and the tears
    Of a clown
    Yes and it never rains around here
    The money comes pouring down

    Oh you were just a roller coaster memory
    I don’t know why we were even passing through
    We saw you making a date with destiny
    When we came around here asking after you
    In the shadow of the wheel of fortune
    You’re busy trying to build your fame
    You say ‘I may be guilty yeah that may be true
    But I’d be lying if I said I was to blame
    See we could have been a major contender
    We got mo money mo breaks’
    You’ve got a list of all the major offenses
    You got a list of all their major mistakes
    And he’s just standing on the shadows
    Yes and you smile that come-on smile
    Oh I can still hear you say as clear as the day
    ‘I’d like to make it worth your while’

    Ah but it’s a sad reminder
    When your proxy has blown through all the money sent
    And all you’ve got to give him
    Is the use of your propaganda tent
    Yes and that’s all that remains of the year’s money
    Spent on artillery rounds
    And it never rains around here
    Well the money comes pouring down

    Now you know what they say about beggars
    You can’t complain about the rules
    You know what they say about beggars
    You know who’s the first to blame his tools
    We never gave a damn about who we (family blogged) up
    And leave lying bleeding on the ground
    You screw people over to your way of tinkering
    Because we thought that we were never coming down
    And he takes you out in vaudeville valley
    With his green shirt smothering your screens
    And he takes you down a 1-way alley
    In the capital city of broken dreams

    It Never Rains, by Dire Straits

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2RM2Yvjd9U

  14. The Rev Kev

    ’Bob Morris, MD, PhD @rdmorris@med-mastodon.com
    @rdmorris
    Overwhelming evidence of outdoor transmission of Omicron. At least 32 unmasked people were infected by a man jogging through a park without a mask. Nothing beats a surveillance state for contact tracing. Details in the thread.’

    Elegant proof if it was needed how this virus is spread. I can just imagine those breathed out virus particles hanging in the air and then having an unsuspecting person walk right through them. You know what could be done with this info? They could have a video recreating how this all went down and showing the people being infected as they came into near contact with this person one after another. The Saudis did a video back in 2020 when it was thought that this virus was spread by fomite contact. It showed a hospital and they showed the virus going from one place to another on such things as medical files. But showing one for that park might drive the point home how it is really all about aerosols. Unfortunately, if the Chinese did such a video, the WHO and the CDC would probably label it as medical misinformation if not Commie propaganda and social media would censor it to oblivion.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Not a bad video but I was thinking of a drone camera following a jogger from the air as he runs through the park. Then, at each point where he infects somebody, a ground shot cuts in showing this happening with the virus particles made visible in real time. I think that people get the message more when they see this happening with people rather than computer simulations which they cannot relate to.

        1. Acacia

          Yeah, there was another, more disturbing (i.e., effective) video I saw that showed actual students socializing and then another layer was added to the moving image that revealed the aerosol spread enveloping the space. Alas, can’t find the link now.

    2. semper loquitur

      This is confirmation that my practice of holding my breath when walking past people on a busy sidewalk is the right call.

  15. Carla

    Re: US Military to Provide Funding for Canadian Mining Projects to Decouple From China

    I am surprised to see a link to The Epoch Times featured on Naked Capitalism.

    Media Bias/Fact Check rates The Epoch Times as “Right Biased and Questionable based on the publication of pseudoscience and the promotion of propaganda and conspiracy theories, as well as numerous failed fact checks.”

    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-epoch-times/

    2. Carolinian

      You Streisanded me into reading the story which is little more than a frame for this story which they link.

      https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-military-mining-projects-canada-1.6649522

      CBC establishment enough for you?

      As for Epoch Times, Wikipedia informs us that it is affiliated with the Falun Gong religious movement that opposes the Chinese government so as far as that goes it may also be affiliated with the CIA like the NY Times. Seems all of our well funded media these days are a “mouthpiece” for somebody.

    3. Mark Gisleson

      The Epoch Times is not a reliable source, but sometimes accurate. For example their Russiagate content would probably rank as about 100x more reliable than the coverage from the NYTimes or Washington Post. On other topics, the establishment media aggressively erases the news.

      But in this case Yandex pulls up the same information from the CBC, Sputnik News, Epoch Times (3d listing), Yahoo Finance, and then it drifts into similar stories.

      Media Bias Factcheck on Naked Capitalism (linked to by NC earlier)

      Or we could just look to see what they say about the New York Times (in their strangely ALL-CAPS search engine):

      [The New York Times is] considered one of the most reliable sources for news information due to proper sourcing and well-respected journalists/editors. The failed fact checks were on Op-Eds and not straight news reporting.

      1. Katniss Everdeen

        …Op-Eds and not straight news reporting.

        I hadn’t realized that judith miller was an op-ed writer. I thought she claimed to be one of those “well-respected journalists.” The ones with the “most reliable sources for news information.”

        My mistake.

        Now back to dumping on the Epoch Times for shoddy “journalism.”

  16. The Rev Kev

    “‘There’s no money’: UK transport minister on funding worker’s wages”

    Of course not. Every spare bit of money is being sent to the Ukraine whether the UK can afford it or not. Nothing else matters. Just earlier saw a video saying that for all the money that the US has sent to the Ukraine this year alone, that they could have solved homelessness in America five times over. This is late stage empire stuff this.

        1. Wukchumni

          I’d never really given the thought of a walk in the City of Angles as suburbia hasn’t been my bag since I slipped under the wire & guard towers and made good my escape and never felt trapezoided.

          I walk almost exclusively on dirt with some uneven rocky bits occasionally to keep my feet honest, and I haven’t put one foot in front of the other and alternated often for any stretch of bit-fit land where 12,000 step program members hang out, and the concrete jungle has no give on your lower chassis really, I was crying uncle after a 5 mile walk essentially around Disneyland, the hap-hap-happiest place on Earth.

          The amount of homeless is obvious when you’re driving, but there’s so many hidey holes where many more are eking out a 3rd world living that you’d only notice if you were on foot.

          And like all real estate its location-location-location!

          I felt sorry for the little jungle (30’s word for a homeless camp) adjacent to both the 5 Freeway & the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, they were camped only 100 feet away from the slow lane but across the street from a gas station with mini mart which comes in handy for 5 finger discounts.

          The best hiding place I saw was a beaut on Ball Road where this walkway was mostly hidden by a wall that sloped upwards and 50 feet back it dead ended. You’d not want to be there when it rains as the water didn’t look to drain out all that easily and your stuff would get wet, but luckily it never rains in Southern California, although some is forecast later this week.

          1. Amfortas the hippie

            “…that you’d only notice if you were on foot.”

            i noticed the same thing…30 years ago in south austin…and 4 years ago in and around the medical center in san antonio.
            when i lived in the van, during the Wild Years, we learned real quick to seek out out of the way and hidden places.
            i think about this every time i see reference made to some homeless census.

            1. JBird4049

              And the reason why the homeless count in San Francisco and the rest of the Bay is always an under-count.

              Having an accurate count of the homeless would be bad for tourism business and might lead to less graft to exploit as money would actually, hopefully be spent on the homeless instead of salaries, office furniture, and office space.

              1. JBird4049

                Fifty-two billion dollars divided among the one million homeless. Just how much housing could we get for that with an effective inspector general to check the rampant corruption seems to parasitize any modern American construction project?

                The city of Vienna has had a housing program since the 1920s, where they build apartment housing that combines poor, working, middle, and upper classes. Since it has it be attractive to the upper classes, it is good housing for everyone and I believe there is some caps tied to income on rent payments as well. The whole program seems to start by giving out bids for private contracts with government oversight. I have read of some problems, but it seems to have done well for a century now.

                Lets aim for high quality housing for everyone, excepting the billionaires of course, and make each apartment unit cost a hundred thousand to build. That would make enough bedrooms for five hundred thousand people.

                Of course, I am a Californian, and live where a gun shack or just a dilapidated garage can actually cost you a million dollars. Maybe, if using economies of scale could be used, fifty thousand a unit especially for areas like the South? Just use the same crews over and over again with standardized plans adjusted for the environment. Earthquakes for California, hurricanes for the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, snow in the Northeast, the Plains, and the Rockies. Switch out for pools or gardens according to location.

                Then roll back rental prices to say the year 2010, cap future increases to inflation plus three percent, limit the number of empty investment or money bank homes, and you could probably end homelessness. If rent control is too much, just keep building apartments until the problem goes away, although it might take a few hundred billion dollars instead.

                All of this is doable, but since even the child tax credits are controversial, unlike the billions sent to Ukraine, it will be call communist or something. And the developers’ lobby in places like California is like the Mafia, only more ruthless and with more money than the Mob ever was or had.

      2. Polar Socialist

        The weapons sent to Ukraine seem to be available on the streets of Europe already, so it would be unfair to deny them back at home.

  17. Mildred Montana

    >The Media’s Deranged Hysteria Over Elon Musk’s Promised Restoration of Free Speech Glenn Greenwald

    In his article Greenwald briefly takes to task the Washington Post’s execrable Taylor Lorenz. For those who don’t know, she calls herself an “influencer” and has the usual MSM CV. She seems to advocate censorship of online “misinformation”.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Lorenz

    Well, here’s a telling thing that points out her hypocrisy: She can’t even be honest on one simple factual matter, the date of her birth. Apparently she regularly lies about her age for attention.

    https://freebeacon.com/media/happy-birthday-taylor-lorenz/

    One can only ask, What else would she be willing to lie about for “attention”?

    There ya go. Taylor Lorenz, attention-seeking pathological liar. I can only hope she doesn’t “influence” too many.

    1. TheScourge of Denver

      Once I thought Greenwald was a journalist. His hysterical “prose” is making me feel otherwise, whether or not he is correct.

        1. OliverN

          It’s extraordinary, every time there is a post from Greenwalds’ substack in Links, there is invariably a comment in the comments part trashtalking him (never any substance to it, just cookie-cutter ad hominem).

          Also note that Denver says “whether or not he is correct”. Denver actually doesn’t care whether there’s any merit in what Greenwald says; he just hates Greenwald

      2. Basil Pesto

        Can’t remember if it was Mark Ames or Yasha Levine or someone else who said that “Greenwald is a lawyer with one client: himself”. Checks out.

        and “Elon Musk’s promised restoration of free speech” jesus christ, give me a break.

  18. TomFinn

    Re: Hankock, Recently read that the Great Pyramid at Giza has 2,300,000 blocks weighing 2-80 tons! Imagine the scale of that project with today’s technologies…

  19. Tom Stone

    K. Harris has been awfully quiet lately, I wonder if that has anything to do with the effects of Covid?

    1. JBird4049

      And are we complaining here? The less of chance to hear her hyena like laugh the better. I still get unhappy recalling her gleeful retelling of her jailing parents of truants while DA. That cheerful smile was just revolting.

      Anyways, I am sure that she is getting the best care possible. Probably with the horse drug that can’t be named.

    2. NotTimothyGeithner

      She’s a dolt. People caught on. That’s all. Newsome said he wouldn’t challenge Biden. The sitting vp is from California, a state that would be huge overnight if they seceded. She’s nothing.

      No one wants to be near a sinking ship.

  21. LGF

    Archeology tells us the relative location of
    Atlantis and the rock substrate. The only info
    About Atlantis comes from Plato’s account
    InCritias. This info was given by Ancient
    Egyptians some 5000 yrs ago and passed on
    To Plato. No way to validate the authenticity
    It is though a very rich mythic account,
    The realm of Atlantis is alive in “memory traces”
    Of the realm of Hurquala. The realm of the
    Imagination in Arabic mysticism This is my
    Theory of the living traces of Atlantis
    Fascinating mythic archeology.

    1. anahuna

      I like your mention of memory traces. Possibly pre-birth memories, or retained in the repository of the collective. Hurqalya, as I’m sure you know, exists in the imaginal realm, not in the imagination. Meaning, that it is what we might call inter or extra-dimensional. The boundary world known to Sufi mystics and not in our geographies but rather in what are known as “climes.” Access is limited.

  22. Val

    The factual nature of disinformation has been its most consistently charming aspect of late, particularly when one has to deal with the “Nothing beats a surveillance state for contact tracing” crowd. Luckily this only applies to phenomena observed in the realms of climate, evolution, molecular biology, politics, economics, archaeology, epidemiology, pharmacology, etc

    Golfers play through. Scrutiny is a micro-aggression. The endowed chair does not warm itself.

  23. Mikel

    Covid: on a meeting call. Co-worker after co-worker sick now. A couple of them have had more than one go round with Covid. All vaxxed, all getting sick over twice a year now.
    One is anxious to travel again in a couple days. (face palm).

  24. Lex

    Re: Hancock, I haven’t and probably won’t watch the documentary though I’ll happily admit to enjoying his books. I don’t think he’s right in most cases but they serve the function of reading fiction for me and they do force thought from a different perspective. So if that thread is accurately portraying Hancock’s netflix series I’m wondering why he went away from a much better theory in his books: cataclysmic sea level rises at the “end” of the last ice age and the swallowing of much shoreline civilizational artifacts. That does appear to be backed up by solid paleoclimatology modeling, it does fit standard human behavior of generally settling near water and it does offer answers to some questions that puzzle archeologists about the sudden rise of a lot of civilization markers. It sounds like Hancock modified his thesis and perhaps even the results of the flooding in a much less supportable way.

    On the flip side, archeology is kind of a shit science. There are far too many assumptions that archeologists know they shouldn’t make but either do or present. For example, “oldest” finds are regularly portrayed as “firsts” when the odds of that being true are vanishingly small. We probably haven’t found the first examples of domestication of plants or animals, farming, religion, etc. It’s also a very siloed discipline that mostly works hard to continue the narrative it began under. Archeologists can find evidence of something that should overturn a lot of the published research but doesn’t, mostly because archeology as a whole seems to be intent on underestimating our ancestors.

    Hancock is no archeologist. It sounds like he’s going progressively further out over his skis too. But that’s not enough reason to defend archeology in the “I believe in science” manner. Making archeology a “science” is probably a big part of the problem, but that’s a different rant.

    1. Objective Ace

      The Netflix series does cover that [cataclysmic sea level rises at the “end” of the last ice age and the swallowing of much shoreline civilizational artifacts]

      The archeaologist twitter thread was painful to read. He cast doubt wherever possible (ambiguity of ground penetrating radar) while completely ignoring Hancock’s points he has no answer for. This isnt to say Hancock is correct, but a fair assesment of his positions would at least achnowledge that there are many of things we still dont fully underdstand

      1. MichaelC

        I thought the archaeological discovery of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey would have at least disrupted the narrative the mainstream archaeologists are using to attack Hancocks thesis.

        https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210815-an-immense-mystery-older-than-stonehenge

        Apparently the archeological evidence supports the idea that there was a level of technological sophistication in at least one pre Ice Age society that remains unexplained.

        It’s telling that none of the attacks on him by the mainstream arch’s make mention of this well known (to archaeologists) and not so recent discovery.

        Hancock may indeed be a flake, but the Gobekli discovery forces a reset to the chronology of the ‘Mesopotamian cradle of civilization genesis myth’, by more than a few thousand years.

        1. MichaelC

          And also lends credence to the commonality of ,Great Flood myths in many cultures.

          There were great floods at the end of the ice age (Doggerlend for example) that destroyed human societies living in the floodplains.

          Oral histories preceded documented ones, so it’s not irrational to believe they were not completely accurate, but in the later telling they held a germ of truth.

          Until some archaeological evidence emerges to validate the myths,
          Like the consensus ? re the evidence of the dinosaur extinction meteor in Yucatán.

          The attack on Hancock and Netflix is of a piece in the current environment of narrative management we’re living in now. The Guardian piece, that highlighted the ‘dangerousness’ of the Netflix show struck me as satirically absurd, from my 60+ aged perspective, then as terrifying when I realized it was my kids generation they are focused on mangling and aggressively lying to.

    2. Amfortas the hippie

      last ime we went on a real vacation, mom got a house on the beach on bolivar penninsula
      i was reading abt the history of the place, and came across underwater archaeology studies using robots(like oilrig drones) to map the floor of the gulf of mexico.
      this aftewr finding mammoth bones and such on the beach.
      offshore, there was a rich woodland with hills.
      people almost certainly lived there.
      similarly, see Doggerland, and that underwater city as old as Harrappa, off the west coast of India.
      we’ll only know if we go and take a good look.
      we know more about the moon than we do about what’s under the ocean.

      all this also reminds me of Marija Gimbutas.
      Joseph Campbell turned me on to her about 40 years ago.
      Kurgan Hypothesis, and stuff about an “Old Europe”, prior to the arrival of the steppe people.
      she was all but chased out of “official” archaeology…until they started finding artifacts and doing DNA stuff better.
      there’s also the hyperconservatism of mainstream archeo’s insistence on the Clovis Hypothesis…waving away finds that were impossible under that schema.
      closer to home, the Llano River is named such due to a smudge on a spanish manuscript, naming the People who lived here when the spanish explorers first came here…their name was “Sana”…but someone spilt wine on the page at some point…so we have llano in a bunch of toponyms around here, even tho it dont fit the topography(“Plain”, while we’re the Hill country)
      we don’t know what we dont know, and that should engender both a little humility, as well as perhaps a desire to find out.

    3. lyman alpha blob

      On the excavation I worked on, the professional archaeologist’s theory of an ancient Bronze Age trade route was overturned by the local fisherman who’d take us to the dig site in his boat. Archaeology isn’t physics.

      Hancock likely isn’t correct, but to try to paint his ideas as “dangerous” is absurd.

  25. flora

    re: Houston boil water notice after power outage dropped line pressure.

    If the unfailing “The Market” wanted you to have safe and reliable bridges and water treatment plants and power generation and other infrastructures then “The Market” would have already made those things happen. All hail “The Market.” / sheesh

  26. Wukchumni

    We were reminiscing over Thanksgiving about our first rock concerts we’d seen, and mine was Queen @ the Fabulous Forum in LA in 1977, but my brother-in-law seriously one upped me when he related that he was an usher about 100 feet away from the stage @ the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds in 1964 when the Beatles performed there. Lucky bastard.

    The Bealtes Live At The State Fair Coliseum, Indianapolis, USA (Thursday 3rd September 1964)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JWLr54EXA0

    1. caucus99percenter

      Teen years, unsophisticated ears, rock concerts in Honolulu — well, the Beatles never made it to Hawai‘i. But the Rolling Stones did. And of course the Beach Boys. Saw and heard the latter two bands perform live in what is known today as the Blaisdell Center Arena.

      Also saw Pete Seeger perform live in the (Theodore) Roosevelt High School auditorium. He did this bit where he swung at a real hardwood log with a real long-handled axe. Talking about how some folk songs originated as vocal accompaniment to group manual labor.

      He struck that log a tremendous blow and a chip of wood flew into my lap. So for years, one of my most cherished souvenirs was that hardwood chip. Another was a piece of broken drumstick lobbed into the crowd by Beach Boys drummer Denny Wilson.

    2. B24S

      The intertubes are awful/amazing.

      I was able to look up the date of the first rock concert I went to, Feb. 17, 1968, at the Anderson Theater, NYC (this was before the Fillmore East). I was 14, and a friend called to ask if I wanted to go to a concert with him. I turned to my older brother and asked if I should go see BB King and Janis Joplin? He gave me a look, and almost smacked upside my head.

      The show was opened by a band I’d never heard of, before or since; Aluminum Dream. Through the blessings of the web I now know that they were the house band at Millbrook (unfortunately, I think there’s a reason they disappeared).

      But, Lord, I sure saw the light!!! Talk about finding religion!

      The next concert I went to was a few months later: Sly and the Family Stone opening for Jimi and the Experience. (This time, at least, I had a clue, as the summer before I’d been introduced to Jimis’ music by a family friends’ daughter, who initiated me into the Holy Trinity: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.)

  27. Michael McK

    Yesterday’s Bird Flu epidemic article in Links ends with the chilling note that a “prisoner” working in a poultry “farm” in Colorado caught the new Bird Flu. While he was largely asymptomatic and did not infect any one else, that Flu strain would have had the opportunity to swap genes with any Human Flu he might have been unfortunate enough to catch at the same time leading to a novel strain that could spread easily among Humans.
    How many close calls are we going have before the nexus of oppressed labor and industrial meat production is the end of a great many of us?

  28. Karl

    RE: It [Trilateral Commission meeting] reveals incredible anger at the US regarding its approach to China.

    Couldn’t get past the Nikkei paywall but found this report. Apparently the entire Chinese delegation declined to attend. I thought this was a very interesting quote:

    “We feel that the U.S. policy toward Asia, especially toward China, has been narrow-minded and unyielding. We want the people of the U.S. to recognize the various Asian perspectives,” said a Japanese leader of the organization.

    My impression of the Trilateral Commission, from its website, is still promoting economic integration as the best path to peace and prosperity. At least these leaders cannot comprehend the logic of U.S. policy toward China. Neither can I.

    Here’s another good quote:

    A South Korean economist said that his country would be forced to choose between the U.S. and China in the technology world: “You have to choose which tech ecosystem you want to belong to.”

    Why is the US putting countries into this either/or dilemma?

    Some may say “Hauwei 5G spyware!!”. Well, if we had the goods on Hauwei, we may have a point. But we don’t. National security just seems like a pretext to isolate China–e.g. we aren’t targeting non-China vendors of 5G. What idiocy.

  29. ArvidMartensen

    I was listening to a program last week where the guests were an archaeologist, an archaeological historian, and an anthropologist. (and they weren’t walking into a Bar).
    Lovely people, all with interesting stories about Egypt, and how helpful the locals are.
    And then I got to wondering how the British would react if a team of say, Egyptian archaeologists, arrived near Stonehenge to do an archaeological dig, and being sensitive to the local economy, made sure to employ local Brits to man the wheelbarrows, provide the food etc.
    And then the Egyptians wrote scholarly papers explaining the history and meaning of the items they had found at Stonehenge, to much world acclaim.
    Would the Brits feel honoured, I wonder ?

  30. SD

    Always a tell when rich people make campaign donations to “both sides.” The idea is to show up in database searches when key Senate and House staff members look up a given supplicant’s donation history.

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