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Links 1/27/2023

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What time is it on the Moon? Nature

Decriminalize Moonshine! Reason

Potemkin Village Heisenberg Report. On housing.

Climate

Natural disasters caused $313 bln economic loss in 2022 – Aon Reuters

An EV in Every Driveway Is an Environmental Disaster New York Magazine

One Hundred Years of Certitude Slate

#COVID19

Live blog: Tracking the meeting of the FDA advisory panel on Covid vaccines STAT “It’s just the flu” propagates to the policy level:

Drunks looking for their keys under the lamppost…. And at the same FDA meeting:

Covid Vaccines — Playing the Long Game (transcript) NEJM. Paul Offitt, FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee member:

The goal is prevent serious illness. The goal is keep people out of the hospital. I don’t see how you can reasonably try and prevent against mild disease for any length of time for a short-incubation-period disease knowing that neutralizing antibodies are not going to be long-lived. And I can’t think of a strategy that would allow that to happen.

So, mass infection without mitigation is the strategy going forward, and the only important metric is that hospitals not be overloaded. Good to have that clarified!

* * *

‘Extremely disconcerting’: NIH didn’t track U.S. funds going to Chinese virus research, watchdog finds Yahoo News and Federal watchdog finds problems with NIH oversight of grant funding bat virus research in China Science. Context: Regardless of the implications, EcoHealth Alliance, the link between NIH and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is, institutionally, an absolute cesspit, as Vanity Fair, of all people, shows vividly. The quintessential NGO.

Virology under the Microscope—a Call for Rational Discourse American Society for Microbiology

* * *

Fatal heart attacks have surged in Australia. Here’s why The Age

COVID-19 deaths in the US continue to be undercounted, research shows, despite claims of ‘overcounts’ The Conversation

* * *

The next generation of evidence-based medicine Nature. The last sentence: “Methodological advances and future AI-based analyses of all data will provide deep evidence to realize the goal of personalized medicine— that is, to offer the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.” On evidence-based medicine, see KLG’s comprehensive post here. Figure 4, “Evidence-based deep medicine iceberg”:

I think this diagram is fundamentally flawed, in that it posits a future where the visible part of the EBM “iceberg” is driven by human judgment, and the invisible part, below the water, is “AI-based.” In reality, everything important about both parts of the “iceberg” is driven by human judgment, with AI entirely dependent on humans for data sets, algorithms, training, and most importantly, judgments of truth value (which AI cannot do). The only real difference is that, embedded in code, paradigm shifts will be even harder than they already are in existing institutions. Imagine “deep precision medicine” programmed by droplet dogmatists! So here, “AI” functions rather like a fetish object; an idol supposedly of divine origins, but instead subject to the invisible ministrations of priests. Of course, priests are all in favor of this…

* * *

FDA withdraws Covid antibody treatment Evusheld because it’s not effective against 93% of subvariants CNBC. Surely a mere fluke.

Six years after untimely end, Trans-Pacific Partnership’s legacy lives on Globe_

China?

Chinese migrant workers face crackdown for ‘malicious’ protests over unpaid wages FT. The deck: “Officials side with employers against labourers seeking overdue new year pay amid economic malaise.” Now do NHS nurses and railroad workers.

Young Chinese say real estate isn’t the nest egg it was once all cracked up to be South China Morning Post

Chinese hospital staff report severe disease linked to reinfections with Omicron Radio Free Asia

Here’s where mainland Chinese traveled overseas for the Lunar New Year CNBC

Adani sell-off hits $50bn after short seller targets group FT

The Koreas

The Old School Dreams of Young Men Outside of Seoul The Blue Roof

Syraqistan

Lebanon’s top prosecutor charges Beirut blast Judge Tarek Bitar Al Jazeera

European Disunion

Babiš plays on fears of war with Russia in long-shot Czech presidency bid Politico

Hundreds of high-ranking military officers sacked in Hungary Daily News Hungary

Independence is both inevitable and impossible. A possible pathway to Interdependence Bella Catalonia. I have to say that Ukraine has made me just a little sour on nationalism just now, but the ideas about citizen assemblies are interesting.

Dear Old Blighty

NHS latest: Heartbreaking stories from live audience as experts answer questions on future of service Sky News. The deck: “Sky News launches a year-long project looking at the state of the health service.” Oh good.

Rolls-Royce’s new chief warns company is a ‘burning platform’ FT

Richard Sharp: BBC chair was shareholder in firm awarded £600k while he was a No 10 adviser Guardian

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s Makeshift Army Is Getting More Misfit Toys Foreign Policy. Frum explains what’s really going on:

Musical interlude.

* * *

‘Start Over’: Ukraine’s Bakhmut Evacuates As Russia Claims To Be Nearing Agence France Presse. An aggregation of heart-rending “human interest” vignettes with no discussion of strategic significance whatever.

Bakhmut defence is “strategically sound” effort ISW Ukrayinska Pravda. Only five days ago…

Zaporizhzhia Official Lashes Out At IAEA Over Its Claims About Explosion In Nuclear Plant Republic World. Surely it’s not hard to use technical means to detect the origin of the shelling. Since this has not been done, it’s quite clear which side is doing it.

* * *

Avoiding a Long War (PDF) RAND Corporation. Interesting caveat:

An important caveat: This Perspective focuses on U.S. interests, which often align with but are not synonymous with Ukrainian interests. We acknowledge that Ukrainians have been the ones fighting and dying to protect their country against an unprovoked, illegal, and morally repugnant Russian invasion. Their cities have been flattened; their economy has been decimated; they have been the victims of the Russian army’s war crimes. However, the U.S. government nevertheless has an obligation to its citizens to determine how different war trajectories would affect U.S. interests and explore options for influencing the course of the war to promote those interests.

To be a friend is fatal….

German Foreign Minister declares country is at WAR with Russia Gulf Insider (German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock: “We are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other”) but France, Allies “Not At War With Russia”: Foreign Minister Agence France Presse. Baerbock is, of course, a Green [shaking my head].

Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine Anders Aslund, The Hill. Former Atlantic Council, long-time contributor to the Kyiv Post. Classic war aim for a great power, eh?

Ukraine War Accelerates Shift of Power in Europe to the East NYT

Lockheed Martin demos 50kW anti-aircraft frickin’ laser beam Tne Register. To be mounted on Strykers, apparently.

South of the Border

Peru’s president calls for ‘truce’ after weeks of unrest Channel News Asia. Sign of weakness.

Peru unrest: Police to dismantle roadblocks set by protesters BBC

Biden Administration

US blocks mining in parts of Minnesota, dealing blow to Antofagasta’s Twin Metals copper project Mining.com

RussiaGate

Secret Agent Man: The Mysterious Charlie McGonigal SpyTalk

Our Famously Free Press

Spain Debunks Russiagate like New York Times Letter Bomb Story Moon of Alabama

Assange

Donziger: Assange Case a Fraud From A to Z Consortium News

The Bezzle

ChatGPT is everything you wanted Bitcoin to be The Reformed Broker. A hegemonic fraud?

AI wrote a bill to regulate AI. Now Rep. Ted Lieu wants Congress to pass it. NBC

BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150% CNN. “BuzzFeed, for now, will not use artificial intelligence to help write news stories, a spokesperson told CNN.”

* * *

Hopes stir for FTX creditors — but recovery could take 2 years, sources say New York Post

Realignment and Legitimacy

Opium of the Elite London Review of Books (AL). Hayek.

Class Warfare

Good news:

Turning 50: A Black woman’s thoughts Black Girl in Maine

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on by .

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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184 comments

  1. Antifa

    ZELENSKY’S LAMENT
    (meoldy borrowed from Wandrin’ Star as sung by Lee Marvin)

    I was born under a wandrin’ star
    God knows how I ever got this far
    Ihor Kolomoisky
    Made me Ukraine’s Czar
    But things are getting dicey now so it’s time to au revoir

    I was born under a wandrin’ star
    I’ve stashed about a Billion in some banks in Panama
    I saw it and I took it so it’s mine by Pirate Law
    I’ve got a body double in my private retinue
    When Azov comes to shoot me — we’ll switcheroo!
    I’ve been warned not to start my own car
    I was born under a wandrin’ star

    Do I know where Hell is?
    Hell is in Ukraine!
    Heaven is a tropical island with buckets of cocaine
    I was born under a wandrin’ star
    A wandrin’ wandrin’ star

    I’ve got stacks of blackmail papers, I don’t trust the CIA
    Like Azov and the British they want me to go away
    I dread that Nuland woman she’s my own Morgan le Fay
    I’m sure that Satan himself is her protege
    I was born under a wandrin’ star
    I was born under a wandrin’ star

    When I reach Miami tie me to a tree
    Or else I’ll get to wandrin’ and I’ll end up in DC
    I was born under a wandrin’ star
    A wandrin’ wandrin’ star

    2. Alex Cox

      Thank you, Antifa, for this tremendous, pertinent anthem. As a student of the Lee Marvin school of song, I would be honoured to sing/croak your wonderful lyrics if another commentator can AI Lee’s lips!

  2. zagonostra

    >Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine Anders Aslund, -The Hill

    …the ideal outcome is that Russia is defeated and has to capitulate, as Germany did in 1945. The problem with the 1991 collapse of the USSR was that it was too peaceful; Russians did not feel defeated.

    These people are psychopaths. There is no other way to describe them.

    I am having a hard time figuring out if those like Paul Craig Roberts think that Putin is leading us to nuclear war by not conducting a blitzkrieg to take out the Ukraine gov’t and those like Ritter and Douglas McGregor who state that Russia’s slow pace is achieving desired outcome with minimal death and destruction. PCR thinks that by avoiding/delaying a massive full blown offensive by Russia, the West will continue to ratchet up with more weapons and eventual troops on the ground and that Putin’s avoidance/delay is sheer folly.

    I’m not sure who is right. All I know is that people inside the dark recesses of U.S. policy making circles there are demonic psychopaths bent and creating havoc and destruction in that part of the world and that they have been at since 1917 if not earlier.

    1. Louis Fyne

      in my opinion, Russia’s conservative-lethargic prosecution of the war is only emboldening the West (particularly German Greens), and making the western governments believe their own propaganda that Russia is a paper tiger.

      This is a road potentially leading to very bad places. The West is on the exact same path as the US escalation in Vietnam. A slow boil of incremental steps, each time deepening western sunk costs.

      This is not 4-D chess by Putin. It is good intentions (being conservative with force) paving the road to he___ll (overt western intervention in Ukraine)

      1. Stephen

        I am not sure.

        The western crazies would use a Russian reaction as a causus belli to send in ground troops. Russia also seeks to keep the Global South on side and that is succeeding.

        When it comes to real power, NATO is a paper tiger or paper leopard (a more topical cat). It is all about posturing. If war were won by who creates the most PR images then this would have been over months ago. The posturing and sending penny packets of tanks reflects weakness. If the west had true power and wanted to wield it then a simple instruction telling Russia to exit Ukraine or else face the consequences would be the logical step. But NATO lacks any ability or will to do that.

        My sense is that Putin is playing this smartly. If he were as crazy as these very bad western politicians then we would already be in WW3.

        1. Laughingsong

          I agree, in that no matter how Russia prosecutes the SMO, the West will always find a way to make things worse.

          I believe, after over 60 years of watching this kind of stupid stuff, that this is what has formulated my strong belief that war is never won, not even by the ostensible “winners”…… this particular conflict has really reinforced that for me, because even the more knowledgeable people are characterizing this as a re-litigation of previous conflicts.

          To me, that means that the previous wars never stopped. Even the previous “winners “ obviously no longer think they “won”.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Russia is drawing some pretty thick red lines though. They have told NATO that if they use depleted-uranium munitions in the Ukraine, that that will be regarded as using dirty bombs due to the spread of radiation-

            https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23729095/

            And I don’t blame them. I think that the Serbs are still cleaning up that stuff in their country from the 1990s.

            1. jhallc

              There was a company, “Nuclear Metals”, that made that stuff just down the road from me. It’s a Superfund site. We’re still cleaning up that stuff too:(

          3. tegnost

            I think they’re doing well and that at least some of the wests actions are probing, they want to see russias defense systems which seem better than ours and the hotter war would reveal those things. We have all our old stuff blown up and then make new and improved! and wall st makes a killing (pardon the pun). In the mean time, everything from washington is a scam, see nicks great post today.
            I try to remember that these are the people who thought they were going to be calling their car to come pick them up, the mrna tech will cure cancer, robots would eliminate the need for workers, and bitcoins are real money, and you can make a jet plane that flies itself eliminating the need to train and pay pilots and that they could colonize mars.

      2. digi_owl

        Meaning that these people have kept repeating the propaganda so much that they now believe it themselves.

        Because from the start the message was that Russia will keep going all the way to the Atlantic unless stopped, like some neo-soviet tidal wave.

        Only the Russian stated goal was to secure the Donbass region and “de-fang” Ukraine.

        But no, had to brush off that red scare message. Time for NATO to finally do its thing (record scratch).

        So now they have spent a year screaming about how the Russians are coming, naked emperor style.

      3. timbers

        100%. And might I add being a gay male, having a Jewish ex husband, I never thought I’d see the day that America led the fight to have German (and American) tanks once again sport Third Reich insignia. Please end this, Russia. Just do it.

    2. Lupana

      I couldn’t agree more. Interesting that this article appears today as just yesterday my husband and I agreed that the US needs to be brought to its knees and beg forgiveness from Russia and the rest of the world. The alternative is war after war after war. The US won’t stop until it faces a defeat it can’t deny or spin. It will be painful for all of us here and most don’t deserve it but there’s no other way off the path we’ve been on without a major “shock”. My unrealistic hope is that trials will be held and all these people who’ve created this madness will face some sort of justice.

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        aye.
        i said essentially the same thing my senior year in high school, during the first iraq war.
        and again during kosovo and again during the cheney/bush2 wars.
        never a popular stance, given all the flag waving lunacy we are instilled with from birth.
        but i gleaned during the reagan era….my geopolitical coming of age…that it was us who were(and remain) the evil empire.
        ive had my ass kicked twice over this stance…and come near to it many times….but nobody has been able to actually refute it with actual documented facts.
        tough love, man…i consider it a patriotic argument…if we really truly believe in all the founding father freedom shit…”…a Republic, if you can keep it…”
        Empire….especially this whole “weell, we’re not an empire” nonsense…is anathema to actual republicanism.

        1. GramSci

          When I achieved the age of reason, back before ’65, real Republicans, a la Goldwater, proudly and even publicly held that democracy, per the Founding Fathers, was anathema to republicanism.

      2. earthling

        Wow. Substituting ‘US’ for ‘Russia’ really illustrates how insane and pointless and idiotic this idea is.

      4. digi_owl

        The only way for that to happen is for a combined Russian and Chinese force landing in Mexico and marching across the Rio Grande. Trying to land anywhere along the US or Canadian coastlines will be pure insanity.

        And when that happens, you can be sure DC will happily glass the border region. as only white trash and other sub humans live there in their eyes.

      5. Daryl

        Unipolarity is harmful for everyone including the US, where it breeds some of the stupidest politicians imaginable.

    3. JTMcPhee

      And those demons are directly connected to the people who can activate the US nuclear weapons that said demons are “modernizing” and “dialing in” to be “usable” in some “tactical scenario” that would likely include the attempted decapitation of Russia. That decapitation threat and hoped-for reality has been an obvious goal of the demons in the operation of the US/UK/NATO, to move launch sites for first-strike weapons to within a few minutes of Moscow and St. Petersburg and other “decision centers.” Russians are well aware of this intent and threat, hence the SMO. And the demons believe Russia will continue to back down from real red lines when challenged. But the Russians have told us they have gone to a launch-on-warning condition where preparations for a first strike, if detected by increasingly effective surveillance, will trigger at least a massive conventional-explosive response with hypersonic missiles, and nuclear weapons if the perception of threat to the homeland warrants. All backed up with the Perimeter deadman switch, the system that constantly polls the Russian command structure and weapons systems for evidence that a first strike has occurred and then launches every remaining nuclear and conventional weapon at the “Combined West.”

      As various commenters have pointed out, these people are in no way intelligent, and have achieved their positions of power simply by dedication and monomaniacal pursuit. They’ll keep ratcheting up the risk of end game insanity until stopped. And there’s hardly anyone in position to stop them. I’m hoping that the Russians have accurately gamed out the process of demilitarizing of the Combined West such that this ratcheting up runs out of gas before the Fokkers launch Armageddon. Not sure if that’s the case, though much of the world, Russia especially, has come to the realization that in fact the “West” is ruled by insatiable demons that are totally untrustworthy and with whom there can never be a negotiated peace.

      The effing demons apparently believe that megadeaths, including among the Golden Billion and Mud People Billions, “are worth it.”

      And seem to think they can squat in bunkers until the rubble and ashes settle down. Or maybe they believe they are doing G_d’s work, bringing on the latter chapters of the Revelation of St. John, and don’t care if they die trying.

      F__k them all.

    4. Aeolus

      > …the ideal outcome is that Russia is defeated and has to capitulate, as Germany did in 1945. The problem with the 1991 collapse of the USSR was that it was too peaceful; Russians did not feel defeated.

      What’s especially crazy about this, to me, is that the Russian people did feel humiliated – and that’s what made (and makes) Putin popular. When I studied in Russia, I had instructors say directly that people liked Putin because he made Russia feel important again after the collapse of the USSR.

      Granted, that was about 15 years ago, so besides being anecdotal it’s also out of date. Hard to imagine that basic story has changed, though…

      1. digi_owl

        Similarly, Hitler rose in part because so much of the German military, including generals, felt humiliated after the WW1 surrender.

        That was the genius of the Marshall plan, to restore some semblance of dignity to the German part under US control. That, and allowing card carrying Nazis to stay on in administrative positions…

        1. tevhatch

          … and allow those Nazis to continue their war, if on the sly with the CIA, against the Bolsheviks and Untermensch, even to the extent of awarding them high posts in Washington (ala Kagans) and Ottawa (Freeland), or perhaps even whole countries like Peru, Chile, and Ukraine.

    6. Boomheist

      It should be mandatory reading for everyone to study “Endless Enemies” by Jonathan Kwitney, published during Reagan’s first term (the early 80s), that is if they can find a copy as it is I believe long out of print, as this book discusses the long and sadly consistent and unrelenting progression of US interventions abroad, beginning shortly after the US was founded. What is uncanny about this book is that it was written and published before Iran-Contra, Grenada, Panama, Iraq Number One, Kosovo, Iraq Number Two, Afghanistan, and, now, Ukraine (and I am sure I missed a few along the way which readers can add to). We are a truly savage nation. I am afraid I have to agree with the reader who says we must suffer a resounding defeat, clear and obvious to all, to redirect our bearings and direction. One might have thought Vietnam did that, it sure seemed so when that sorry spectacle wound down, but, no. We instead decided to refurbish our military glory and make sure we never again dissed soldiers (which was a worthwhile goal by the way, and necessary) but along the way we somehow refurbished expression of force and continued worldwide activities.

      I found this article about the number of US bases abroad, which surprised me a bit, as it turns out we have been at this for a long long LONG time…..https://www.cairn.info/revue-journal-of-innovation-economics-2013-2-page-127.htm

      2. digi_owl

        Or how Smedley Butler put it, War Is a Racket:

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

        And the guy knew, having climbed the ranks of the USMC between the Spanish-American war and WW1.

        Basic thing is that USA is a fortress nation. Thanks to having Canada to the north, the only sore spot is the land border with Mexico to the south. The rest is all coastlines to the Atlantic and Pacific. And if UK managed to turn their Island status into a world empire, what can a nation the size of a continent do?

        Sell off all its industrial capacity to China, that’s what…

    7. fresno dan

      zag
      https://www.theamericanconservative.com/this-time-its-different/
      Until it decided to confront Moscow with an existential military threat in Ukraine, Washington confined the use of American military power to conflicts that Americans could afford to lose, wars with weak opponents in the developing world from Saigon to Baghdad that did not present an existential threat to U.S. forces or American territory. This time—a proxy war with Russia—is different.
      Contrary to early Beltway hopes and expectations, Russia neither collapsed internally nor capitulated to the collective West’s demands for regime change in Moscow. Washington underestimated Russia’s societal cohesion, its latent military potential, and its relative immunity to Western economic sanctions.
      ….
      Washington emotes. Washington does not think, and it is also overtly hostile to empiricism and truth. Neither we nor our allies are prepared to fight all-out war with Russia, regionally or globally. The point is, if war breaks out between Russia and the United States, Americans should not be surprised. The Biden administration and its bipartisan supporters in Washington are doing all they possibly can to make it happen.
      =============================
      I think war with Russia is something that the average American doesn’t contemplate seriously – why should they? If one looks at the mainstream media, Russia is on the verge of defeat from Ukraine, and Putin is about to be overthrown. If we went to war with Russia, it would be a simple and quick operation, or so is implied. No substantive discussion of the thousands if not tens of thousands of American casualties is ever discussed, and there are even ridiculous proponents of nuclear war, as if that is something that we could endure and be victorious at.
      The lack of seriousness and truthfulness of politics in the US may soon have some catastrophic repercussions

      1. digi_owl

        Also, even if Russia march to the Atlantic, like the talking heads suggests could be the outcome without more money and weapons to Ukraine, Russia would still have to cross it to threaten Americans directly. Or so they think, Alaska be damned etc.

      1. Michael Hudson

        Not really sidekicks. Quite different. Aslund was pushing Russian stocks and part of the asset-stripping process. Sachs was just bamboozled.
        Ann W. was a friend of mine, and I can guarantee that that’s how she viewed matters also. We often talked about the various parties involved, and I’ve met Aslund a number of times in different venues, including meetings of financial carnivores.

        1. Susan the other

          My take on Sachs has always been that he is a genuinely good guy. Just his body language and sincerity if nothing else.

          1. chuck roast

            Seems to me like Sachs belatedly realized that he fell in with a bad crowd and has been seeking redemption ever since…kind of a rare bird.

    9. agent ranger smith

      If Russia’s slow pace encourages UkraNATO to keep ratcheting up, and Russia keeps attriting every up-ratchet, then eventually UkraNATO will run out of any more gears on its ratchet.

      If the UkraNATOnians turn the ratchet volume up to eleven and tear off the knob, and Russia is still attriting the men and machines that UkraNATO sends to the front, eventually UkraNATO will have zero men and machines left to fight with at all.

      Is this what the RussiaGov expects to happen by its go-slow approach? If so, would they be right to expect it?

  3. griffen

    Did a quick search about the author behind the “Russia needs to be humiliated” article linked above. Reading through his byline, I noticed a stint at the Petersen Institute for International Economics from 2006 to 2015 ( which even drew some praise from none other than David Frum ). Birds of a feather. Keep sending arms and gobs of money to Mr. Zelenskyy !

    Putin is Hitler! Does that make Biden FDR or dare I even write it, Churchill ? FFS.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Anders Aslund’s name has come up over a dozen times here on NC – and never in a good way. Whenever I see his name I do an involuntary eye roll now and wonder what rubbish he will spout this time. Just put his name in the Search Box near the top to find the articles from other mentions of his name.

      1. Stephen

        What amazes me is how many people like him seem to make careers as effectively full time war propagandists.

        Had no idea how many people “work” in that “profession” until this Ukraine war broke out.

        We are definitely a civilisation in serious trouble.

        1. GramSci

          As I feel compelled to repeatedly comment, the military-first estate complex (the former including sundry ‘security(ies) officers’ and the latter including Hollywood, Sillicon Valley, the Fiefdom of the Press, and sundry other pastors; more acronymically, the Military Indoctrination Complex) is the US Government’s Job Guarantee Program, a la MMT.

          1. Susan the other

            Yes. And that is a good way to justify giving the military a new mandate. We no longer live in a chauvinistic world. We are reaching the limit of earth’s resources which means that competition really is a zero sum game now. There is only win-win if we all cooperate, but misery if we do not. the military could be put to very good civilian services, peaceful services.

        2. Thomas Wallace

          The entire think tank industry is bizarre. They pose as constructive NGO’s. But they are funded by commercial/political interest groups. As objective advocates of something that sounds harmless. The Atlantic Council?
          Its more useful to see them like The Tobacco Institute Research Committee.
          “The Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) was established in 1953 by members of the tobacco industry to fund scientific research that the industry felt would address concerns raised about tobacco and its relationship to health.
          The Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) was established in 1953 by members of the tobacco industry to fund scientific research that the industry felt would address concerns raised about tobacco and its relationship to health.”
          Essentially it is a group of war lobbyists.
          It is a personal theory of mine that the problem isn’t the inherent influence of these groups, but the lack of natural predators.
          For US Trade issues, we have Boeing (exports) vs Walmart (imports)…for example. Not that it is an especially good ways to set US policy. But they are evenly matched. There are no competing interests with funding/power.

          Recommend the movie, Thank You for Smoking.

      2. Sibiryak

        Aslund developed a ferocious hatred for Russia ever since it failed to live up to his neoliberal fantasy,

        Shock Therapy: The Art of Ruining a Country (With some professional help from Sweden) 1999

        […]After 1994, Anders Åslund quit his job as adviser to Yeltsin and moved to the US. Since then, he has been the most stubborn defender of every single part of the grandiose shock therapy project, no matter what the current situation in Russia might have been at the time. Already in 1995, he wrote a book with the astonishing title “How Russia Became a Market Economy” (Brookings, 1995). He was so sure of his success that he claimed victory in advance.

        As the years went by, fewer and fewer people remained who unconditionally applauded the shock therapy advocated by Åslund.

        Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who led the team that included Åslund, has begun to change tack. These days, he suggests increased regulations in order to reduce worldwide speculation. In a debating article, Anders Åslund dismissed this point of view uttered by Jeffrey Sachs – Harvard professor and the creator of shock therapy – as “leftist criticism”.
        In the same article, Joseph Stiglitz, chief economist of the World Bank, was also deported to the leftist camp, as well as MIT professor Alice Amsden and financier George Soros.

        ÅSLUND CONFESSES

        In September 1998, Anders Åslund finally admitted for the first time in Swedish media that Russia isn’t heading for a glorious future. In an interview he said that Russia is on it’s way toward “the biggest single national bankruptcy the world has seen”.

        However, he refuses to acknowledge that any responsibility for the current situation lies with him and the other shock therapists who steered Russia towards the abyss. When the conservative Swedish morning paper Svenska Dagbladet’s reporter asked him why everything had gone to pot in Russia, he answered instead as follows:

        “Corruption, corruption and corruption (…) in the vast State bureaucracy under (former prime minister) Chernomyrdin, among local governors, in parliament and among businessmen. All these four groups lack the instinct of self-preservation. They only look after their own interests. No one in Russia is strong enough to look after the interests of society as a whole.” (Svenska Dagbladet 1998-09-27)

        Let’s hear the last part once more:

        “They only look after their own interests. No one in Russia is strong enough to look after the interests of society as a whole.”

        That answer is a revelatory one. But also very sad.

        Before us, we see one of the most convinced partisans of neoliberalism. His macro-economic theories have never been tested on real people before in the history of the world. Until now. In Russia, Anders Åslund got his chance to bring about a society that according to the neoliberal course literature would be the perfect one. A society where self-interest “conquers just about anything”. A society where starving pensioners “are not a political problem”.

        A society where a new “class of owners” was encouraged to help themselves to what before was owned collectively.

        He was allowed to bring it all about, and then, when it all became a disaster, he sat there whining that nobody “looks after the interests of society”.

        That’s how shallow the neoliberal analysis was.

        1. Sibiryak

          Aslund’s unmitigated hatred of Russia appears to follow a sick logic described by Eric Hoffer in his book, “The True Believer”:

          The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination.

          We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.

        2. Irrational

          I dimly remembered his name in this context, so thank you for digging this out. He advised both the Yeltsin and Kuchma governments, so has seen both sides in this current conflict from the inside – except I’d wager Russia has changed more and for the better than Ukraine.

      3. rob

        he is a current member of the council on foreign relations
        propagandists….everywhere.
        You seem to have to have “the kool-aid” in your veins to be invited to join this club. has been that way for 100 years. And your career and opinions will be spread far and wide.

      4. Carolinian

        So it’s not an incognito Tom Friedman saying every now and then you have to throw Arnold Schwarzenegger, er, Russia against the wall and tell them to “suck on this”? Shorter Friedman/Aslund: “hold me back, hold me back.”

    2. JohnnyGL

      According to elites in DC we’re stuck in a version of that movie ‘Groundhog Day’ where we wake up every morning and it’s 1938. War is always the correct option, anything else is shameful and cowardly.

      2. Mbartv

        And that’s leaving out the probability that Chamberlain did the unavoidable thing. Britain needed that extra year to prepare and even then it was a near thing.

        1. GramSci

          Half of Britain thought Chamberlain was doing the right thing: Hitler appeared dedicated to erasing communism from the face of the Earth. It was only after Hitler invaded Poland signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin that the British knotsies imperialists turned against Hitler. <sarc>Then the Anglo-American Free World(TM) liberated Auschwitz.</sarc>

          1. Polar Socialist

            Around 1936 the UK chairman of the chiefs of staff, admiral Ernle Chatfield proposed to direct German aggression towards the eastern European nations (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania) in the hope of weakening (or at least slowing down the rate of rearmament of) Germany before the war with UK – in the worst case scenario in 1939.

            There was a reason that many in eastern Europe in 1945 turned their backs to western Europe willingly. Not to the extent of dividing Europe – that was all NATO – but embracing other ideas than those that had failed them so miserably in the 30’s.

            1. hk

              That’s, of course, the dimension of history that people in the West had conveniently forgotten. I remember being pretty surprised at how much local support the Czech and even Polish communists had while studying their modern histories. These were pretty deeply divided countries in 1945.

              1. GM

                Communism had huge support in Eastern Europe. And not just Eastern Europe — had the Red Army marched to the Atlantic, it might well have established a much more stable communist control over the continent, not having corrosive influence right next to its border (similar to how the US is isolated from both kinetic and ideological threats by oceans).

                France and especially Italy had very strong communist movements.

                But in Eastern Europe it was particularly strong.

                And support was strong for a very long time after that.

                The tall tales about what hell life was are told by the urban elites, whose status in society did suffer under communism. But for the peasants and the working class, it was a major improvement.

                That is also why there is a direct inverse correlation between how urbanized the various places were before WWII and how much support communism had. Central Europe had been part of the capitalist core for quite some time and the size of the bourgeoise class was much larger than it was in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, which were the original Third world (and have been reverting to it after communism collapsed).

                The problem is, peasants and workers don’t write history and don’t control media. Urban elites do.

                And if you tell a lie sufficiently many times, it becomes the “truth”.

          2. The Rev Kev

            ‘Then the Anglo-American Free World(TM) liberated Auschwitz’

            Meanwhile, in the world we live in-

            ‘So, the Russians, the actual liberators of Auschwitz, are banned by Poland to be part of the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp while the Ukrainian fascists, Banderites, who were directly aiding the Nazis with the Holocaust and the camps are guests of honor.’

            https://twitter.com/SuchanVladimir/status/1618651304636874753

          3. GM

            WWII in brief (and the basic outline of much of geopolitics in the last 4-500 years really):

            1. Conflict #1 — communism had to be eradicated
            2. Conflict #2 — within the capitalist world, Germany wanted to be on equal footing with the Anglo-Saxons (continuation of WWI).

            You solve both problems by instigating yet another continental war, this time pitting the Germans vs. the Soviets, while siding with the latter, but not putting in a real major effort to help them win quickly and decisively — they exhaust themselves in the most vicious war ever, then you walk in and pick up the pieces.

            Which is what indeed happened. There was never a Western front aside from air bombing until the Soviets seriously threatened to take over everything to the Atlantic, and there is a reason for that.

            The Soviets were greatly weakened, though not quite sufficiently, but eventually they did collapse as a long-delayed aftereffect of the damage they incurred (how and why is a long and complex topic on its own)

            And Germany has been under US and British occupation ever since.

            P.S. You can add a third objective though one that only the US had — put an end to European colonial empires, including the British one, and take over all of it. That was accomplished too.

      3. Stephen

        Right. The standard narrative of 1938 always get trotted out.

        Although people forget that there was actually no way to help Czechoslovakia practically and that the later guarantee to Poland in 1939 did not help either. Britain and France simply went to war and Poland (which even participated in the carve up of Czechoslovakia) ended up occupied by the USSR and Germany anyway. They also forget that neither Britain nor France wanted the war they actually got (although British politicians clearly did seek war) but thought they could defeat Germany through blockade and economic superiority. British Cabinet minutes of the time even indicated a fear that Poland might negotiate with Germany! British politicians did everything they could to stop that. The Polish guarantee of May 1939 was designed to ensure that Poland did not do a deal. War was desired. When the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 was signed, it was clear that blockade would not work but hysteria took over and Britain went to war anyway: it was by now impossible to back down.

        Also clear that anti Nazism and stopping the evil Hitler was not the driver for the elites. Britain did not even protest Kristallnacht in November 1938, for example.

        Yep, there are similarities with the outbreak of WW2 but not the ones that the popular western narrative likes to use! Peter Hitchens (possibly the only mainstream U.K. journalist who is advocating peace today) wrote a very good book “The Phoney Victory” utilizing recent historiography that lays bear much of the received view. I suspect that he sees the parallels in today’s behaviour.

        AJP Taylor asked the question whether it was better to be a betrayed Czech or a saved Pole. We could ask the same today of Ukrainians. Although Taylor famously disliked the idea of seeking to learn from the past in the way my comment seeks to do. He wrote I believe that men always draw the wrong lessons from history…….

        1. Kouros

          The slandering seeps so deep that people don’t notice it. Ribbentrop-Molotov was not a Pact but a treaty: Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

          Same way Russian, Syrian, Iranian, etc administrations are not “regimes”…

          The weird war stopped only after Germany invaded Denmark, which was the actual red line for Britain and France, not the invasion of Poland…

        2. Wukchumni

          My dad’s generation of Czechs never forgave England & France for what they did in essentially removing all of the border defensive positions along the Sudetenland, allowing the goosesteppers to enter Prague without even knocking some months later, but Prague was largely untouched after the war, while Warsaw was blown to smithereens.

    3. Sibiryak

      Anders Åslund was one of the most important Western proponents of neoliberal “shock therapy” in post-Communist Russia, guiding the de facto genocidal “reform” process as an advisor to the Russian government from November 1991 to January 1994.

      He has been a prominent, relentless Putin critic/hater ever since Putin took power.

      1. GM

        de facto genocidal “reform” process

        Genocidal indeed.

        Excess death estimates for the post-Soviet space in the 1990s are around 6 million.

        Yeah, that’s “only “a fifth of the WWII toll, but that is the worst war ever, it should not be the standard.

        While there was no actual war fought in the 1990s, and yet the actual results on the ground were as if there had been one. And indeed there was one, though covert, as now at least some people are starting to appreciate (what a small number of observers have been preaching for a while).

    4. digi_owl

      At times i wonder if some part of the Swedish right still wants to take revenge for the Great Northern War.

  4. Mikel

    “An EV in Every Driveway Is an Environmental Disaster” New York Magazine

    Only touches the tip of the iceberg of the environmental disaster, especially considering the mining.
    However, I can’t be enthused about the public transportation option.
    Following this article is Covid coverage with reminders that “mass infection without mitigation is the strategy going forward.”

    The prescriptions for public health care, all the private equity cost cutting, inaurance mazes, etc, show zero concern for the well-being of most people. Profit is first priority.

    Then the same masses of people are supposed to believe that all the talk about zero carbon has anything to do with concern for them.

    1. Carla

      Public transit can and should be built with ventilation and air filtration built in. But you hit on it: capitalism is the problem, as Jason Hickel so convincingly demonstrates in “Less Is More.”

    2. juno mas

      If the proposed open pit Lithium mine in northwest Nevada is approved the regular/stiff winds will make the Black Rock playa (Burning Man) to the east uninhabitable.

    3. Michael.j

      As a life long cyclist and ebike commuter am very pumped by the article.

      Infrastructure modifications for bicyclist combined with mass transit are relatively inexpensive in comparison to continuing the self destruction of auto transit.

      Just the energy required to accelerate the useless weight of an automobile is reason to abandon such abominations.

      Lightweight folding e-bikes or ebike luggage cars on trains/buses would provide seamless transportation. More immediate rebates for buying e-bikes for commuting and safe bike storage make perfect sense.

      It’s nice to have some of the numbers!

      1. juno mas

        While e-bikes can be essential elements of personal transportation in a city, as they proliferate in my coastal city, personal transportation has become a free-for-all. The mix of autos, bikes, e-bikes, (e)skateboards, e-scooters, and e-mono-wheels, has made life treacherous for the pedestrian.

        Previously, the cyclist on the roadway was the most vulnerable user. Now, it is the pedestrian that is in the most danger at the crosswalk AND along the sidewalk. The occasional kid with training wheels has been replaced with the regular e-motorized vehicle traveling at 12 to 20+ MPH; without liability insurance when serious impact occurs.

        The California legislation that was intended to get drivers out of their cars, has actually encouraged non-car drivers (10-17 year olds) with little awareness of traffic (flow) rules to venture very far from the neighborhood, without ever pedaling the bike, slow down for pedestrians, STOP at road signs, or wear required helmets. (The increase in serious head injuries at e-bike speeds (20+mph) is substantial.)

        And it’s not just kids. Parents with toddlers on their e-bike regularly dart dangerously through parking lots without considering the dangers. The e-bike has allowed many to endanger others without physical effort. Speed kills.

        1. Wukchumni

          Hear, here.

          I don’t get out much to the Big Smokes these days and was pulling an overnighter @ mom’s, and was kind of unnerved last week by the parade of e-bikes, e-skateboards and stand on e-scooters plying that invisible lane on Whittier Boulevard.

          It struck me as really dangerous-the traffic mix where the e-‘s can or can’t keep up with car traffic depending on how congested it is. and zipping by where bicyclists would normally be…

          One of the dartful codgers from San Diego (i’m the token non-San Diegan, ha) rides 50 miles on the road 2-3x a week and got hit by a surfer chick on an e-bike who wasn’t paying attention right by Trestles just a little north of the Dolly Parton’s and the force bent his shocks in a way like you wouldn’t believe along with wrecking a few other things with the impact, and he got banged up plenty with lots of cuts and abrasions.

          …too much closing speed

  5. The Rev Kev

    ‘FDA VRBPAC Member Cody Meissner Says Asymptomatic Infections Are Now Desirable
    “Do we really want to stop asymptomatic infections?
    An asymptomatic infection is de    sirable because it will stimulate both cellular and humoral immunity. It will kind of act like it’s own boost.”‘

    We’ve been reading for years now studies revealing that people who have been infected but were asymptomatic nevertheless still suffer the same level of damage – such as glassed lungs – as those that got a full-blown infection. And this guy thinks that this is a good thing? I checked and found that Dr Cody Meissner is chief of pediatrics at Tufts Children’s Hospital in Boston so maybe, just maybe, he is out of his lane here.

    1. bdy

      I agree that “asymptomatic infection is desirable” is a foolish thing to say, for so many reasons. Even if it were true that asymptomatic infections don’t carry vascular, immunilogical, respiratory or neurological risks, how do you know whether you’re asymptomatic or not before the fact?

      Seeing that rot in print worries me. I can still talk myself down as the only masked guy in Target, that by and large any animosity I might read as directed towards me is just something I made up — that twitter trolls aren’t so representative. But how long until public perception shifts to the point where the multiple-exposed immunocompromised masses start really blaming their misery on those of us who have protected ourselves?

      Anyway to my other point, which is that, respectfully, I have seen too little data on the long term side-effects of asymptomatic COVID. It’s clear that many of the bad things that happen don’t differentiate much between “mild” and “severe” cases. But I’m still looking for a decent study that looks at asymptomatic cases, and would love to see links to the ones “we’ve been reading for years.” Somehow they passed under my radar.

    1. Louis Fyne

      ever since lazy (or vindictive) history book authors lumped Kentucky with Tennessee, then toss-in lazy northeast sneering that lumps everything on the other side of the Appalachian mountains into stereotypes.

      KY should change its state motto to “honestly, we didn’t join the Confederacy, go google it”

    2. Louis Fyne

      if it makes you feel any better, if you’re from Chicago or Michigan, the South starts in the middle of Indiana

      2. The Rev Kev

        Didn’t the South reach as far north as southern Pennsylvania once? Somewhere north of Emmitsburg I believe.

          1. CallMeTeach

            He’s not wrong. Though it remained in the Union, it was a slave state, and if you spend any time in red Southern Delaware outside of the blue bastion of Rehoboth, you’ll see Confederate flags on the coal rolling trucks of Good Ol’ boys.

            1. Carolinian

              Right. And don’t forget Maryland had slavery along with DC itself. As a Southerner I’ve always thought of Kentucky as “the South.”

            2. Amur

              See Civil War and border states like Kentucky and Maryland. Didn’t secede, but needed Union occupation.

              Ohio river is an important north /south border.

              I would also point to Kentucky Derby. Go to that event and see what side of the civil war is reflected in that annual ritual.

              I have relatives in both Baltimore and Louisville. Complicated histories in both.

        2. B24S

          When we’re visiting east (lower NY state), we go to see an old friend who lives near York, Pa, which was very briefly the capitol of the young USA. We usually take 78W, stopping to see folk near Bethlehem, and continuing west to Harrisburg before turning left.

          Though technically in the Union, when you cross the Susquehanna you have entered the south, or at least the border lands. I have to admit it was a surprise the first time we were there, but we’ve never felt unwelcome. From Dover/York, Baltimore is about 50 miles to the south, and Gettysburg 30 to the west. And it sounds like it; the locals, including our friend and his family, all have a distinct drawl. York county had mixed affiliations, and still seems to (though not our friends).

      3. pjay

        When I moved to NY state from Kansas years ago, I was quite surprised to find many New Yorkers considered Kansas in “the South.” I always felt obligated to explain the Missouri Compromise, “Bleeding Kansas,” the Border Wars, Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence (a town I lived in for many years, founded by Massachusetts abolitionists; this event was part of its history and folklore), etc.

        As Thomas Frank (among others) has pointed out, Kansas would have its own problems. But in my view, this history had something to do with the fact that its right-wing extremists were never quite as plentiful or dangerous as they were in Missouri or Oklahoma. Of course I might be biased.

    3. griffen

      Mentions of Kentucky make me think of the TV series “Justified”, for what that is worth. US deputy marshal Givens, Boyd Crowder, the Bennett clan and a steady dose of quite attractive females. Plus I do suppose the Dixie Mafia is probably a thing.

      And to add Louisville is the celebrated home of “I’m pretty I must be the greatest” Cassius Clay or more accurately, Muhammad Ali.

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        Justified is my fave american cop show of the last 15 or so years(i much prefer the brits and scandinavians for this genre these days).

        and yes, Dixie Mafia is a real thing….as are various and sundry Redneck Mafias, all over the place…everywhere i’ve ever lived…or parked my van.
        its how the local Landed Gentry maintain power and control.
        inevitably, with connections to real mafias, like the Mexican Mafia, etc.
        from land speculation, weaponisation of zoning and business formation to the drug trade…if you poke around enough(at your peril), they are there.

    4. Hank Linderman

      I grew up in Louisville, moved there as a junior in high school. I had lived in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, after being born in Florida. Dad was a traveling salesman and his territory changed every few years for awhile.

      Anyway, Louisville is often called “the gateway to the South”. It’s also a river city, similar-ish to Cincinnati and St. Louis in feel and look. Is it the South? Well, close enough for me to be accepted by *real* southerners from Texas for example.

      At the 2018 NAACP dinner in Bowling Green, I spoke with a retired professor of history at my table, saying I had a hard time explaining Kentucky to folks who hadn’t been there. I said I thought it had to do with Kentucky never really settling the Civil War. The professor looked at me and said dryly: “Our term of art is that Kentucky joined the Confederacy AFTER the Civil War.”

      Best…H

      1. Janie

        We spent a month or so in the Louisville area. WW I training was located there because of the advanced sanitary system. The best part was Kentucky Music Week at nearby Bardstown. It’s five days of lessons in all sorts of instruments, taught by the best, with concerts and jam sessions. I’d go every year if I could. Thanks, Hal, for your reminders of good times in your state.

        1. Nikkikat

          They have great music in louisville and all over the state. I left louisville when I was a child and moved to California. Loved it there until about 10 years ago. Left last year and returned to Ky. Great place to live. Although I had some racist relatives out in the country, non of my family were like that nor were we raised that way. My family considered Mohammed Ali to be a great man and a hero.
          I find this state to have the nicest people I’ve ever met. The church people and public steps up in a disaster and helps everyone. There are still pockets of the state where people may be racist. But, in my travels around the country, Mississippi and Georgia were the most backward. The youth of today seems the same as far as acceptance of people regardless of color or religion we have green space, incredible parks. I love it here. They sing my old Kentucky home at the Derby. It is a tradition and the words were changed some time ago.Not reflecting on slavery but the special love that people here have for the state itself. Some of the most beautiful horse farms. Mammoth cave and lovely places to camp and enjoy nature. I haven’t been so happy in years. People can say what they will but there are many good people here. I live in louisville.

    6. wol

      According to some reports Lexington had the largest slave market excepting New Orleans. The structure was still standing in the early 1950’s and I saw it with my own eyes. To my father’s credit, I wasn’t raised racist. There weren’t many white people like us.

  7. Jake

    OMG, the California DMV got suckered by a blockchain scam. https://slashdot.org/story/23/01/26/226244/california-announces-dmv-run-blockchain-through-partnership-with-tezos

    Reminds me of when the former Austin Mayor got scammed by people who claimed they were going to track homeless people with blockchain.

    From the link “The DMV’s perception of lagging behind should definitely change,” which I don’t think they realize the perception isn’t going to change in a positive way.

  8. Rod

    Wow—let me be the first to declare that I like that Rand declared The USG has an obligation to its citizens
    And can agree—with my eyes and ears over a long time —with Henry Kissinger that:
    It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

    1. Amfortas the hippie

      skimming it, now(too much to do, today)…because it seems remarkable that Rand, of all people(sic), would be arguing against total war in such a manner as the title implies.

      and to add to your list of “things crazy people have said that i agree with:
      Scalia:”the most fundamental Right is the Right to be left alone”
      (…and something about Orgies being necessary for the functioning of civilisation…)

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        …but, oh, well…a few paragraphs in and they’re all:”putin’s losing”, “putin threatened to use nukes”, etc.
        so, koolade drinkers, one and all.
        cant do analysis worth its salt if you start from victoria nuland’s assessment of reality.

        1. Karl

          All the “evil Putin” talk in the Rand report might be rhetorical boilerplate to sweeten a bitter message (summarized in the abstract):

          [This Report] highlights four policy instruments the United States could use to mitigate these impediments [to negotiation]: clarifying plans for future support to Ukraine, making commitments to Ukraine’s security, issuing assurances regarding the country’s neutrality, and setting conditions for sanctions relief for Russia.

          IMHO, Rand is signalling to all who will hear: the jig is up for Ukraine.

          Too bad the West is not agreement capable. The Rand report does address this rather obliguely (below with some emphasis of mine):

          Indeed, Kyiv’s independent, sovereign decision to formalize its neutrality would be a necessary prerequisite for Washington to contemplate providing a commitment to that status. And even then, some U.S. allies might resist any hint of a change in NATO’s open-door policy, particularly one made under Russian pressure. Further, a combined [multi-nation] commitment to Ukraine’s security and neutrality would be a novel construct for the United States; traditionally, firm security commitments have only been issued to allies. Making Ukraine more secure without undermining its neutrality would be a difficult balance to maintain.

        2. Lambert Strether Post author

          > ”putin’s losing”, “putin threatened to use nukes”, etc.

          Well, I hate “they have to say that” but given the level of delusion and hatred in the Beltway, they have to say that.

          However, the passage I quoted shows a clear willingness to throw Ukraine under the bus (with the added string that opponents of doing is are not necessarily patriots). That’s an interesting development.

    2. Martin Oline

      “I have always relied on the kindness of commentators,” breathed Vivien Leigh, (who have read it for me).

    3. Mikel

      Type the exact title into search and see if the the article is readable without any blocks from elsewhere.
      A fairly high success rate with this quick method.
      Or maybe the same subject matter has been covered elsewhere, especially in the case of breaking news

    4. Richard

      Using Firefox, fairly often “View”, “Enter Reader View” (which enables voice readers) provides a print copy. Not always.

  10. DJG, Reality Czar

    I recommend Black Girl in Maine’s blogpost on attaining fifty.

    Too often, I detect that very American edge, which turns up all over the place: Well, just what are *they* complaining about? This blogpost sets a few things straight.

    Happy Birthday, SS-B.

  11. Samuel Conner

    > the only important metric is that hospitals not be overloaded.

    one wonders whether the elites will be able to balance the decline in hospital capacity, through debilitation of the hospital workforce with Long COVID, to the decline in demand for hospital services that will occur as the wider workforce becomes too debilitated to afford “access” to health care, or progressively … um … “expires.”

    1. cnchal

      Cemetery overload is a metric of no concern to the elite, as long as it’s not them doing the overloading.

      I have concluded that the medical establishment is working diligently to spread covid to as many people as possible to enhance their glorious profits. That is the only metric that matters.

      However, your last paragraph sums up the dilemma. Once the funeral home has the final lunge for your wallet, the copious profits to the medical establishment vanishes. This is a balancing act, extracting as much money out of your body as possible, till death do us part. Medical AI is working on that equation.

      Being a covid refusenik is a revolutionary act. The dull brained maskless are the cannon fodder to short term profits.

      1. Mildred Montana

        >”Once the funeral home has the final lunge for your wallet, the copious profits to the medical establishment vanishes. This is a balancing act, extracting as much money out of your body as possible, till death do us part. Medical AI is working on that equation.”

        It’s similar to plucking a goose, obtaining the most feathers with the least amount of hissing.

        Off-topic PS: As if there’s not enough to be concerned about in this world, here’s something else. Until making this comment, I had never realized or thought about what a cruel practice the live-plucking of geese and ducks is.

        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-foul-truth-behind-the-down-in-pillows-and-comforters/

        1. Wukchumni

          You pluck the feathers after the bird is dead, not before.

          My mom told me you had to boil the carcass in water to soften up the feathers for plucking and it took forever, with the net result being after a dozen geese, you’d have enough for a pillow to fill and sell it in Calgary for 25¢, circa 1936.

          1. Mildred Montana

            Well, apparently live-plucking is a common practice. From the link: “Live-plucked geese are typically kept alive longer so they can be plucked several times, which allows their down clusters to get larger and thus have a higher fill power, meaning better insulation and less weight.”

            Also, check the photo from the link.

            1. Wukchumni

              Keep in mind that my mom didn’t have running water or electricity on the farm, back in the day.

              She was also in charge of dispatching chickens and related the longest one ran around with it’s head cut off, was nearly a minute.

            2. Janie

              In The Irish RM on masterpiece theater, a woman is charged with plucking a live goose. Again. Apparently it was common enough in Ireland that there was a specific law against it. Time frame probably 1890s.

              Also, my mother said the chicken always chooses to run under the rose bush to die, andthe small child is sent to fetch it. She thought they did it on purpose lol.

              1. Amfortas the hippie

                idk how other goose people diy.
                as im the only goose person that i know of within an hundred miles..
                it would be a PITA from hell to pluck a live goose.
                its PITA to pluck a dead one, by hand.
                more anecdata that we are a stupid spcecies that likely deserves its eventual, collective, darwin awards.

      2. GramSci

        «This is a balancing act, extracting as much money out of your body as possible, till death do us part. »

        The definition of a successful parasite. Invasion of the doctor snatchers.

  12. Wukchumni

    The claim is Bakersfield only exists so Fresno won’t have an inferiority complex or was it the other way around?

    Not today, bay-bee!

    Stand tall Fresno during FGFW, in that you beat out Bakersfield in the dirtiest city in the country contest, coming in @ #8 versus the latter’s #6, woo-hoo!

    And Houston, i’ve long known about your penchant for crazy humidity, but who knew you were so filthy McNasty, nabbing the title against all comers~

    Heaven, Hell or Houston, by ZZ Top

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuvlVo1QdLU

    2. Carolinian

      I hear San Francisco is less than idyllic these days. Tony Bennett might want to take his heart back, give it to Fresno. Might need a different song or a town with more syllables.

  13. The Rev Kev

    “German Foreign Minister declares country is at WAR with Russia”

    Croatian President Zoran Milanovic was saying that was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII-

    ‘“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that,” Milanovic said. “Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”

    The Croatian president was baffled to hear such a claim from the leader of the German Greens, which he said used to be a pacifist party equally against the US and the USSR, and not from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

    “If we are at war with Russia, then let’s see what we need to do. But we won’t ask Germany for its opinion,” Milanovic added. “Let them figure out who is the actual chancellor over there. I’ve been in politics for a long time, and our country has been through a lot, but I’ve never seen this kind of madness before.”’

    https://www.rt.com/news/570537-croatia-ukraine-war-russia-president/

    1. pjay

      Excellent response to Baerbock’s reckless comment. Of course if I remember correctly he’s a bit of an exception among Croatian politicos, thus a “Putin puppet.” But I like the WWII references in the rhetoric wars – hopefully they will shake some people into a degree of sanity.

    2. Stephen

      Nothing changes in German politics perhaps.

      In 1914 the Austrian Chancellor Berchtold famously asked: “Who Rules in Berlin: Moltke or Bethmann?”

      Today a Croatian Prime Minister (then part of Austria, of course) asks the same thing.

      I hope we get a better outcome.

    3. fresno dan

      RK
      The Croatian president was baffled to hear such a claim from the leader of the German Greens, which he said used to be a pacifist party equally against the US and the USSR, and not from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
      ===========
      Are there any pacifist parties anywhere (in the West) anymore??? One of the many, many, MANY things that give me conniptions is the idea that things are getting better and improving. Are people really not as interested in peace as they used to be? Or do we live in a complete and total propaganda sphere (at least in the west)

        1. wendigo

          Armed diplomacy.

          ” With the violation of human rights ( in Ukraine) we support the decision to send the necessary tools”.

          Jagmeet Singh in response to a French language question about sending artillery to Ukraine.

          This is after the NDP backed a budget including 500 million for arms in Ukraine.

    4. Carolinian

      Baerbock sounds like Germany’s answer to Nikki Haley. Will she next be threatening Putin with her spike high heels? The above might be considered sexist if the it wasn’t an actual threat made by Nikki an AIPAC conference. I forget who she was threatening.

  14. Mikel

    “BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150%” CNN.
    “BuzzFeed, for now, will not use artificial intelligence to help write news stories, a spokesperson told CNN.”

    An algorithm responds to a headline about an algorithm.

    I needed a laugh to start the day.

    Also, remember when putting “.com” at the end of biz name or sticking the word “blockchain” somewhere in financial statements was good for some stock pumps?

  15. IMOR

    re: Hungary armed forces firings.
    They have 22,000 – 25,000 (or 32,000- reports vary) active military, and they found “hundreds of high-ranking officers” to dismiss? U.S. model for sure.

  17. The Rev Kev

    ‘David Frum
    @davidfrum
    Time for NATO countries that have emptied out their Cold War arsenals for Ukraine to make some decisions about their next-generation replacement purchases’

    And there it is. Try to have as many Leopard 2s sent to the Ukraine as possible and when the Russians burn them, claim that they are rubbish and that the Europeans should buy American tanks instead. But Rev, you say, isn’t the US sending their M1 Abrams to the Ukraine as well where they too may get turned to scrap. That was just a Biden bait-and-switch. What is going to happen is that the US will special build those Abrams tanks rather than transfer them from other stocks. So how long will it take the US to build 31 Abrams tanks for the Ukraine. The Ukrainians will be lucky to get them by 2024. But wait, there’s more. Before that facility in Lima, Ohio can build those tanks, they first have to finish the back-orders for tanks to Poland and Taiwan. So when they build those 250 Abrams for Poland and those 108 Abrams for Taiwan, then they will have the time to build those 31 Abrams for the Ukraine. Did I say that the Ukraine might get them by 2024? Make that 2034 instead-

    https://www.rt.com/news/570546-ukraine-us-abrams-tanks/

    1. cnchal

      I suspect the tanks to Ukraine will be stripper versions. The good stuff will be left on the cutting room floor.

    2. fresno dan

      RK
      so google tells me we (the US) has 8,000 Abrams tanks and they cost about 10 million dollars…a piece.
      Kinda of chintzy that we can’t just spare 31? Its like the dad who won’t let the newly minted 16 year old driver take his vintage (what kinda car to use in this analogy??? Cadillac…Lincoln… ’63 Impala…) ’67 corvette out for a spin…

      1. Rob

        Fresno_dan if I may be so bold, I would suggest the ‘vette’, definitely a vette. Might be red, and have been purchased by a certain Dr. Jill’s first husband….. lol…

    3. anon

      leopard 2 and abrams m-1a-2X are 1970’s specifications! both were designed in parallel and the germans kept going bc the world cannot survive w/o a konig-tiger offspring.

      both tanks are >60 ton, both been constantly upgraded like they were b-52’s and both have been sold overseas.

      turkey lost a numberof leopards to kurds in syria,

      the iraqis abandoned m-1 to isis who could not use them….

      the norm for us foreign sales is to ‘dumb’ them down to not give away any secrets…..

      and zelenshi has signed his military up to nato tactics which aside from the tanks is not equipped in ukraine.

      1. c_heale

        I’m wondering with the advances in missiles and drones, whether tanks are going to be that useful in future conflicts.

  18. Lexx

    ‘The next generation of evidence-based medicine’

    Uh-huh, cool… and insurance is going to pay once these new technologies are available? They won’t pay for me to use a CMG* now. Nope, I got to poke a hole in my fingers four times a day, when I could have just looked at my phone screen to see what was going on. I can see shrinking the Vast Gray Zone where patients spend a large portion of their lives coming from these technologies, but mostly and for a long time after they’ve entered the market, they’ll benefit the rich alone. (Thanks for the musical interlude, Lambert)

    *continuous glucose monitor
    https://www.cnet.com/health/medical/best-continuous-glucose-monitors/

    1. earthling

      Had no idea Big Insurance wouldn’t cover these. Holy crap. You would have better data, stop spending money on test strips, and cut down on the pain and anxiety. Geez Louise, these people are stupid and cruel!

    2. Bjarne

      Thankfully they’ll only “benefit” the rich. I for one do not like the idea of a black box “treating” medical conditions. This AI stuff is being ramped up and pushed on us for dollars and has simply had too much money thrown at it by too many big players to “fail”. Too big to fail all over again and the first round hasn’t even played out yet. Neoliberalism is the perfection of profit over reality and will not end well.

  19. Mark Gisleson

    SpyTalk piece on McGonigle is pretty much all hearsay and speculation most of which seems to fall under the heading of trash talk. McGonigle sounds like a real piece of work but that’s not uncommon among conspirators who get flipped by a prosecutor.

    I have a gut feeling that when Durham unloads, his report will shock anyone who’s allowed to read it. Almost no leaks from his investigation but there have been many reports that his investigators interviewed a lot of cooperating FBI agents one of whom easily could have been McGonigle.

    2. Michael Fiorillo

      Durham is going to do with his Russiagate report what he did with his investigation of the coverup of CIA torture: provide cover for the Institution. In the recent case, he essentially told us that the poor FBI was lied to by a few bad apples, just as he let slide the destruction of tapes documenting torture by the CIA ten years ago.

      Russiagate was the result of an unholy alliance between the Clinton apparat and powerful factions in the media and national security state, to neutralize or hopefully eliminate Trump. That collective irrationality and venality with has helped lead us directly to the current situation in Ukraine.

      I initially had some hopes that Durham would uncover the truly dangerous, egregious and incestuous behavior that Russiagate represented, but in retrospect, that was naïveté.

  20. Wukchumni

    If you search for legal tenderness
    It isn’t hard to find
    You can have the lucre you need to live
    But if you look for truthfulness
    You might just as well be blind
    It always seems to be so hard to give

    Hegemony is such a lonely word
    Everyone is so untrue
    Honesty is hardly ever heard
    And mostly what we need or it’s through

    I can always find someone
    To say they Dollar sympathize
    If I wear my reserve currency status out on my sleeve
    But I don’t want some dismal scientist
    To tell me pretty lies
    All I want is everyone to believe

    Hegemony is such a lonely word
    Everyone is so untrue
    Honesty is hardly ever heard
    And mostly what we need or it’s through

    I can find a lever
    I can find NATO friends
    I can have security until the bitter end
    Anyone can comfort me
    With promises again
    I know, I know

    When we’re deep inside of the Ukraine war
    Don’t be too concerned
    We won’t ask for nothin’ while it’s game on
    But when we want security
    Tell me where else can we turn
    ‘Cause war is what we depend upon

    Hegemony is such a lonely word
    Everyone is so untrue
    Honesty is hardly ever heard
    And mostly what we need or it’s through

    Honesty, by Billy Joel

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4gOIt-M02A

    1. Henry Moon Pie

      Your refrain reminded me of a song from a similar perspective: Randy Newman’s “Political Science.”

      No one likes us.
      I don’t know why.
      We may not be perfect
      But heaven knows we try.
      But all around,
      Even our old friends put us down.
      Let’s drop the big one
      And see what happens.

      Fifty years old, not long after we were all crawling under desks, and it’s frighteningly more current than ever.

  21. SocalJimObjects

    Not sure if NC has linked to this, but India might be staring at the beginning of a big economic crisis. Hindenburg Research, a US short seller released a report just this Tuesday accusing the Adani Group of financial malfeasance. Over two trading sessions, the Adani group has seen over 50 billion dollars of market capitalization evaporate, so the market apparently thinks that the report is credible. The title of the report: “Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History”.

    1. PlutoniumKun

      Yes, it looks like it could be very big indeed – a new Enron. And Adani is very closely connected with Modi.

    2. skippy

      I’ve submitted it a few days ago, flagged it again a few times again.

      This is classic Richard Smith territory from his old NC posts [do look them up] on international flow of funds, idiotic controls {what controls} in so many nations which enable it, and then a epic Bill Black Control Fraud tour de force.

      I was personally involved back in the day here in Queensland due to the mine he was looking to set up, big issue for the Labour party after getting spanked during a national election due the anti coal/FF agenda and all the Labour sorts in mining towns voting naw after the City sorts of Labour threatened their livelihood – totally blindsided them which then allowed the nutter NLP sorts an upgrade for their platform of looting the commons and endemic corruption. That has really reshaped the political foundations moving forward and if this does not end well might have significant ramifications for locals future prospects, but political too. The mine is just at the point of shipping and lots of government funding involvement which might go splat.

      Even informed the young Oz kid friendlyjordies that does a YT thing, bit popular, been through a bit of dramas about it, pretty gob smacking stuff IMO, because he thought Adani was a banking concern and not a consortium. A consortium is a totally different animal in the market world and if run nefariously can have a huge impact on not just local/state/national politics, but the market at large. I mean like endemic mortgage fraud that proceeded the GFC and the currant debacles with crypto [fiat miss-allocated].

      Not to shame anyone but the idea that col smithers won’t touch it is a huge tell … hope your OK col smithers …

  22. fresno dan

    https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/01/27/treasury-blocks-house-oversight-committee-from-hunter-biden-records-n526710
    The US Treasury Department refused Wednesday to provide House Republicans any suspicious activity reports it may have on foreign banking and other business transactions by Hunter Biden and other members of President Joe Biden’s family.
    Jonathan Davidson, Treasury’s legislative affairs chief, told House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer in a letter that he needs more details about why the panel is seeking such “highly sensitive” information.
    …..
    I’m sorry, but… what? What are they talking about? The records in question involve Hunter Biden. He holds no elected office and has no responsibilities involving law enforcement, the intelligence community, or anything to do with national security. (Aside from possibly having undermined national security with some of his shady deals.)
    Or at least his records shouldn’t involve anything like that unless some of the transactions showed significant payments to his father. Is that what Yellen is sitting on? If any potential records include all of the data related to suspiciously large transactions, it might potentially involve that joint bank account that Hunter and Joe Biden shared, as testified to by one of Hunter’s business partners.
    =============================================
    News to me that Joe and Hunter shared a bank account. Now, I guess it could be a joint Christmas club account…
    And when do executive offices get to question the reasons or motives of congressional committees? Of course, isn’t the truth NOT a nation of laws, not men BUT if you are running the DoJ you damn well investigate and NOT investigate whoever you damn well please…

    1. Stephen V

      FD, of course in a formal sense HB has no Intelligence role. But given the fact that we have a mucked up election and now a war connected to his influence- peddling bizness…it matters not. In my limited experience “National Security ” and accompanying redactions are all about WHO.
      See this piece for the evil rhyming of history with Ukie $$ and Russkie sanctions:
      https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/01/25/tucker-says-email-from-laptop-shows-hunter-had-access-to-classified-docs-1327472/

    2. Mildred Montana

      >”…if you are running the DoJ you damn well investigate and NOT investigate whoever you damn well please…”

      The DOJ? The DOJ headed by Merrick Garland? You’re expecting too much. Poor Merrick’s a 70-year-old man on the glide-slope to retirement. He understandably prefers easy, politically popular (or at least not controversial) prosecutions. Note how quickly his DOJ laid charges against Sam Bankman-Fried. It pleased Merrick to file them and so he did. How long did that take—a week?

      Note also (if you Google his name today) the current investigations he claims to be pursuing, with his reassuring presence at the press conferences. They are a ransomware “case” and an Iran-backed effort to assassinate a journalist. That’s it, the latest from the office of Merrick Garland, AG.

      When it comes to more serious consequential matters, he chooses to sit in his office, doing nothing except praying that any unpleasantness he doesn’t want to deal with will pass and therefore not disturb his superannuation.

    3. chuck roast

      There may be something to your joint Christmas club account theory…do you suppose they were doing lay-away?

  23. Wukchumni

    A sequence of nine atmospheric rivers hammered California during a three-week period in January 2023, bringing over 700 landslides, power outages affecting more than 500,000 people, and heavy rains that triggered flooding and levee breaches. On a statewide basis, about 11 inches of rain fell; 20 deaths were blamed on the weather, with damages estimated at over $1 billion.

    But the storm damages were a pale shadow of the havoc a true California megaflood would wreak.

    The Golden State has a long history of cataclysmic floods, which have occurred about every 200 to 400 years — most recently in the Great Flood of 1861-62. And a future warmer climate will likely significantly increase the risk of even more extreme floods. In particular, a 2022 study found that, relative to a century ago, climate change has already doubled the risk of a present-day megastorm, and more than tripled the risk of a trillion-dollar megaflood of the type that could swamp the Central Valley.

    https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/01/climate-change-is-increasing-the-risk-of-a-california-megaflood/
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Its all about anticipating inflows for the dam master, and while it looks like another dry February-similar to last year, the real whammy would be a warm storm that rains up to say 12,000 feet.

    There is a veritable shitlode of snow up in the Sierra now, in some places around 20 feet worth, and if a pineapple express comes that translates into 20 inches of rain barreling down the mountain, and could said dam masters get rid of enough stored water to avert a catastrophe?

    1. JBird4049

      Are you saying I should buy a canoe? It has been a few decades since I was in one, and when I was so much skinnier, but while I really doubt I would be flooded out, there are rivers and freeways that certainly can be. Not to mention the possibility of an avalanche of mud and rocks on the road. So, maybe I should say that I could be flooded in?

      “Hey, what’s that on your car’s roof rack? A canoe?”

      :-)

  25. Wukchumni

    Big rains in Auckland, like around 10 inches in a day kind of action, the airport is flooded and no word yet on any American Illionaires who were flooded out in their bunkers, but there’s hope.

  26. PlutoniumKun

    Decriminalize Moonshine! Reason

    One of the main reasons why home distilling was banned was because the taxes on ‘legitimate’ alcohol was so important. There were of course social reasons too – home made gin was the crystal meth of 18th Century Britain and Ireland. Beer was promoted as a healthier alternative.

    There is an island off the west coast of Ireland called Inishmurray, now a very beautiful and inaccessible place with just seabirds and the remains of a village and early medieval monastery. It used to have a thriving poteen industry. The villagers could see the customs men coming from long away so all the apparatus could be hidden in the many island sea caves. In the late 19th Century the government decided to build a quay – ostensibly for the aid of islanders, but they suspected that it was to make government raids easier. So they pointed the engineers to the best location for one, which turned out to be precisely where winter storms hit hardest, so the quay didn’t last more than one year.

    Sadly for local consumers, WWII did for the island. Sugar rationing meant that they couldn’t make enough poteen, and there was no alternative income, so everyone left for the mainland in the 1940’s. Nobody has returned, and a tradition of high class alcohol was lost.

    Some locals maintained the tradition, aided by the availability of propane outdoor cookers – it meant it could be distilled without the tell-tale column of turf smoke on a mountain side that would give the distiller away to eagle eyed police and customs men. One old man of my fathers acquaintance was known for quadruple distilling his brew, and it was allegedly smoother than even the finest ‘legitimate’ whiskey. Much of it was exported to Dublin, where pubs would mix it in with tea (for the colour) and adulterate major brands with it, tax free. Apparently nobody noticed. Or maybe they did, they just preferred the flavour. It was joked by the pub owners that to adulterate expensive Scotch they had to dunk in some turf and dog poo along with the poteen so nobody could tell the difference.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      The reason booze was taxed in the early US was because the dollar was most definitely not the dominant world currency at the time and whiskey was a better store of value and essentially used as currency in rural areas. That could not be allowed to stand. Great book on the topic by William Hogeland – The Whiskey Rebellion. From the blurb –

      “In 1791, on the frontier of western Pennsylvania, local gangs of insurgents with blackened faces began to attack federal officials, beating and torturing the tax collectors who attempted to collect the first federal tax ever laid on an American product—whiskey. To the hard-bitten people of the depressed and violent West, the whiskey tax paralyzed their rural economies, putting money in the coffers of already wealthy creditors and industrialists. To Alexander Hamilton, the tax was the key to industrial growth. To President Washington, it was the catalyst for the first-ever deployment of a federal army, a military action that would suppress an insurgency against the American government.”

      1. chuck roast

        They needed all the dough to pay off Robert Morris and his buds who held most of the federalized colonial public debt…bought for pennies on the dollar. Oh, Hamilton my Hamilton!

      2. Wukchumni

        There was no money in circulation aside from Continental Currency* which nobody wanted-they didn’t say ‘Not Worth A Continental!’ without cause as it was our first attempt at making money and i’m sure the Chinese had hyperinflation well before us as they had paper money in circulation during the Song Dynasty, but we were the very first western country to experience hyperinflation with the little issue that the first American coins weren’t issued until 1793, leaving a barter economy in place in 1791.

        * $1,000 in Continental Currency could be traded in for $1 in specie after 1793.

    2. Lexx

      You called them ‘customs men’? (Weren’t they called ‘revenuers’ here?) I had poteen in Ireland and so someone is still making it, and they harvested the peat there as well. We were assured it was real poteen. Tasted like Everclear to me.

  27. Jon Cloke

    I don’t know if you’ll print this, but here goes…

    EMPIRES OF WASTE
    For anyone who’s interested in the metaphysics of garbage, waste, toxicity and pollution, there’s a new resource online!

    The blog is located at EmpiresofWaste.co.uk where the first post, ‘WHAT DOES WASTE MEAN? WHAT DOES IT DO?’, awaits your pleasure.. the blog will take a serious look at the economic, cultural and social importance of waste

    There’s also a Twitter feed – @EmpiresofWaste which is based loosely on waste, but comments on anything that requires commentary…

    Empires of Waste is a new source of thinking about waste, garbage and pollution, which looks at how waste has become a fundamentally important driver of globalizing capitalism. The subject range moves from space-waste, to Chinese housing, to sell-by dates.

    Finally, there’s a fundraiser on GoFundMe to help the organization raise money for further work and research – https://www.gofundme.com/f/empires-of-waste?utm_medium=email&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=p_email%2B2300-co-team-welcome

  28. pjay

    New Taibbi Twitter Files release on Hamilton 68:

    https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    It’s a good one. Once again a number of Twitter administrators were supposedly shocked and even outraged at the McCarthyite blacklist used by Hamilton 68 to identify “Russian” disinformation agents which they knew were nothing of the sort. So glad they fought so hard to expose this smear… oh, wait. They didn’t. They buckled instead, of course, fearful of the power of the so-called Alliance for Securing Democracy.

  29. will rodgers horse

    so farewell Evusheild. But can anyone answer this: why don’t we see new Monoclonals coming online?

  30. agent ranger smith

    Here is an article about the imminent release of bodycam video of the 6 Black police in Memphis beating an unarmed Black arrestee in Memphis. Since the police are as Black as the arrestee, it will be difficult for clever intellectuals to try invoking White Privilege in this case. They will try to do so, of course.

    But once they ( hopefully ) fail in the attempt, perhaps thought might turn in the direction of analyzing the problem of Blue Privilege in the wider scope, and solving that.

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/us/tyre-nichols-memphis-friday/index.html

    1. agent ranger smith

      ( Now, having said that, someone on twitter has raised an interesting question which kind of points to ” White within Blue” Sub-Privilege as something to be looked at by honest people as against clever intellectuals. )

      https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/10ndmlo/we_all_feel_it_right/

      It is worth pondering. Especially the last sentence of the ” comment upon the embedded tweet” .

      The sentence which says . . . ” People noticing how quickly these black cops were charged ( as opposed to their murderous white fellows in other situations ) should also pay attention to how *silent*
      the police union has been on there (sic) behalf.”

      Indeed. Should the Memphis police union be abolished, broken up and stamped out?

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