Bears were mysteriously missing toes. These scientists cracked the case. WaPo
Water
As the Colorado River Shrinks, Washington Prepares to Spread the Pain NYT. “The crisis over the Colorado River is the latest example of how climate change is overwhelming the foundations of American life — not only physical infrastructure, like dams and reservoirs, but also the legal underpinnings that have made those systems work.”
#COVID19
Pfizer Responds to Research Claims (press release) Pfizer
Who is “Jordon Trishton Walker”? Investigate Everything with Brian O’Shea. This is as close as I can come to actual reporting on Walker, the Pfizer executive recorded by Project Veritas. It looks thin to me, but Google has become so bad.
* * * Why The White House Shouldn’t Privatize COVID Vaccines Teen Vogue. By the authors of Health Communism.
SARS-CoV-2 variant biology: immune escape, transmission and fitness Nature. From the Abstract: “SARS-CoV-2 shows a complicated relationship among virus antigenicity, transmission and virulence, which has unpredictable implications for the future trajectory and disease burden of COVID-19.” So much for the yearly shot!
What’s CH.1.1? Meet ‘Orthrus,’ a new wildcard Omicron strain with a concerning Delta mutation Fortune. Good, level-headed round-up.
Weak immune system? Government offers advice to help at-risk people avoid COVID-19 infections USA Today. Now that Evusheld is defunct:
I just clarified some of the points here… it just doesn't seem very helpful! https://t.co/IQIIiMh920 pic.twitter.com/0NF2lPh4KZ
— Amanda Hu (@amandalhu) January 28, 2023
Oh, and “at risk” in the headline is obvious question begging.
Japan gunning for strategic independence from US Asia Times (Rev Kev).
China?
China’s COVID response withstands test for Spring Festival holidays Global Times
COVID is running rampant in China – but herd immunity remains elusive The Conversation. Fantasies will do that.
China mulls solar export ban as trade tensions grow Australian Financial Review
PM terminates MOU The Fiji Times
Myanmar
Myanmar army set to cement rule with tough new election rules Channel News Asia
Myanmar opium cultivation surging under military rule – UN report Reuters
Flying high in Siem Reap: Man builds ‘Airplane House’ Khmer Times (ER).
Syraqistan
World reacts to rising violence in Israel-Palestine conflict Al Jazeera
European Disunion
French Union Cuts Power to Pressure Macron on Pensions WSJ
Inside the ‘Qatargate’ graft scandal rocking the EU FT
Former NATO general Petr Pavel wins Czech presidential election Al Jazeera
Dear Old Blighty
NHS to treat 50,000 elderly and vulnerable patients in ‘virtual wards’ at home Sky News (Rev Kev).
Above Public Opinion London Review of Books
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine needs long-range missiles: Volodymr Zelenskyy Andalou Agency. Oh? What kind of warhead? In the meantime, how to shoot Leopard 2 tanks:
Instructions where to shoot Leopards 2 pic.twitter.com/cldKA1HD7r
— ZOKA (@200_zoka) January 28, 2023
* * * Russian Foreign Ministry Rejects Blinken and Nuland Proposals, Condemns Scholz for Reviving Hitler’s Plan to Destroy Russia John Helmer, Dances with Bears
* * * Concerning the arguments for ‘total defeat’ of Russia Responsible Statecraft
Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine Foreign Affairs. Nobody could have predicted….
Patrick Lawrence: The Shadows Descend in Ukraine Scheer Post
Observer to a Failed Uprising Covert Action Magazine. Belarus.
South of the Border
Why Is Venezuela’s Gold Still Frozen in The Bank Of England? Declassified UK
Biden Administration
The Week CNBC Started to Panic Matt Stoller, BIG. The deck: “The government filed an antitrust case to break up Google, and the Senate held a brutal hearing on Ticketmaster’s monopoly. Wall Street opinion leader Jim Cramer is officially freaking out.”
2024
Dude, you owe me $2: ‘Venmo Vultures’ scrape for small debts in a tight economy The Inquirer
13 Investigates: What’s really driving up catalytic converter theft in Las Vegas? KTNV
Police State Watch
White House says ‘violence is unacceptable’ amid expected protests over Tyre Nichols bodycam video FOX and White House officials speak with mayors ahead of possible protests over Tyre Nichols footage The Hill. “Preparations to give federal support.”
When the officers are Black: Tyre Nichols’ death raises tough questions about race in policing Commercial Appeal
Police Urge Calm In Light Of Unspeakable Evil They Committed The Onion
* * * Cop City Is A Step Toward Cop Nation Defector. Worth a read.
RussiaGate
How Barr’s Quest to Find Flaws in the Russia Inquiry Unraveled NYT
Our Famously Free Press
Responding to Hamilton 68 (excerpt) Matt Taibbi, Racket. On Hamilton 68, see NC here (2018).
The Bezzle
DOJ requests Bankman-Fried’s bail conditions be revised over possible witness tampering The Hill. SBF: “I would love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship.” Oh.
U.S. securities regulator probes investment advisers over crypto custody -sources Reuters
The PCAOB, and the SEC, can do so much more to rein in auditors giving false assurance about crypto Francine McKenna, The Dig
Tech
Twitter’s Infrastructure Continues to Crumble, Silently Daring Fireball. Useful.
Supply Chain
‘Flying with one engine’: why global food supplies are at risk despite falling crop prices FT
Healthcare
How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System NYT
Class Warfare
The Union Membership Rate Has Dropped to a Historic Low. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. In These Times
Millions are missing from the workforce due to COVID-19. Dr. Eric Ding’s Journal
‘Americans Are Gobbling Up Takeout Food. Restaurants Bet That Won’t Change. WSJ. The American solution to the 3Cs problem: Drive-thrus.
Antidote du jour (JB):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
198 comments
Comments are closed.
Covid mitigation–
George Monbiot had an op-ed in the Guardian a couple of days ago:
“We are all playing Covid roulette. Without clean air, the next infection could permanently disable you”
Excerpt:
“Get over it” is what Scalia said after the court’s Florida 2000 theft of the presidency.
Also: “Get over it” — Pfizer to the world when its crimes against humanity are finally revealed to all.
As for Monbiot: I was a huge fan of his back in the ’90s before he and the Grauniad became shills for the neoliberal classes with their warmongering and economic destruction of the middle class.
Do I sound bitter?
Didn’t Obama say something similar about the torture program? That yeah, some folks got tortured but people should look on to the future?
I was a huge fan of Monbiot as I started getting into environmental during my college years in the early 2010’s. Once he turned into a high tech ag evangelist I soured on him. Eco-fascist is a term that applies
Of course, Monbiot, being the Guardian’s pet environmentalist/leftist, was/is a staunch supporter of Nato wars, including Iraq, Syria, Ukraine etc., and happily wants everyone to ‘move on’ from Nato war crimes.
It’s not as a great wise man that I’m citing him but as another crack in the edifice.
Monbiot’s ideas about how humans should live on the Earth are not to my liking along with his Russophobia.
My understanding is he wants the non-UpperClass majority to be packed into cities and as much land as possible to be depopulated and re-wilded for elite recreationists like himself to play and recreate in.
Would I be wrong?
That’s the thrust of it. Dining on insects supplemented by Soylent Green.
It’s an attempt to sever the connection between human beings and the Earth. The thing is that human beings are creatures of the Earth, evolved here, shaped by this place. And in return, human beings have sometimes acted as stewards and gardeners of the planet. There is nothing harmful in this if practiced with humility. The problem comes when our only interactions with the planet are driving huge pick-ups across sparsely populated areas.
Agree to agree on issues you agree on.
Agree to disagree where you don’t.
Make coalitions as large as possible for positive change of the things needing change.
Yes, he sucks on NATO.
Yes, this is what to do, the opposite of what we are being driven to do by the giant sticky web of media, politics, business and military.
The atomisation of our relationships is just what big power and big money want. Individuals in rooms by themselves don’t threaten the sticky web of power and influence that literally thinks it owns the world.
jsn and Arvid. Great comments, IMO.
Well, yes, and you could add his disavowal of Assange.
But the important take away from the piece is that the British Parliament and government offices have elaborate air filtration systems to conbat the virus, yet there is no mandate or standard for the rest of the country. And so it goes with Monbiot.
I try to keep a running tally of the plus and minuses of various sources. There are very few sources with no minuses.
I look at the Guardian and NYT everyday which both have long lists of minuses, but they’re not useless. And so it goes with Monbiot.
And the NYT is still reporting more than 500 daily covid deaths.
Heh. Imagine if the political class had been honest from the outset:
So, we might not agree with Republicans on some things, but in this, we’re united. Capitalism must persist at the expense of the lives of you, your children, your parents, your grandparents. Look around. Many of your fellow citizens that you see will be permanently disabled within the decade. Some, particularly our eldest citizens, must make the ultimate sacrifice. This is the price we pay for capitalism. It is for the ultimate good.
I can only imagine that would go over like a lead balloon.
Working link for “Russian Foreign Ministry Rejects Blinken and Nuland Proposals, Condemns Scholz for Reviving Hitler’s Plan to Destroy Russia” article at-
http://johnhelmer.net/russian-foreign-ministry-rejects-blinken-and-nuland-proposals-condemns-scholz-for-reviving-hitlers-plan-to-destroy-russia/
As for that ‘Instructions where to shoot Leopards 2’ tweet, elsewhere those soldiers were labelled as Russian paratroopers so they would be pretty hard-core soldiers and maybe part of an ATGM team.
I suspect the old men running the Kremlin are quite fond of Maria Zakharova. She’s the closest I’ve seen in Russian officials using a hint of glam and headline grabbing phrases and sentence, and while getting a bit out front of the usual stolid phrasing the Kremlin uses she probably captures how they themselves feel.
Russia pops up here and there. From the Foreign Affairs article:
Later in that article comes Strobe Talbott. His type makes one wish that there hadn’t been a Strobe Talbott, or a Victoria Nuland or their ilk. That wasn’t who got handed the brass rings to tarnish in those days, was it?
Kennan, however, played a significant role in the establishment of the Super Imperialism regime about which Michael Hudson and others have written:
Doing away with sentimentality and altruism is not the road to be taken.
Kennan was a realist who was at the disadvantage of his own vision. He could not see what it would take to maintain all this adamant inequality in a world of overpopulation and shrinking resources, let alone the environmental catastrophe maintaining it would create. But he was right when it came to good diplomacy. I don’t think he would have opposed socialist democracies or a multipolar world. I think he might have opposed finance capitalism, profits without production, just because his thinking was so conservative. In any case he was a peaceful person who made more sense than almost everyone else. Todays post from Sheer Post by Patrick Lawrence on the Ukraine mess was easily as eloquent as Kennan. It’s time to accept certain facts. Either we get real or we spin reality NPR style with happy nonsense like “greed is green”- their latest oxymoron. We really do need to find a coherent policy.
SBF is a sleaze, and a dirtbag without shame. Sure this is still USA USA and innocence until proven otherwise. Here is my hypothetical intro to email. “Hi there and what’s happening where you are lately? I’ve been busy !! Ha Ha, yeah getting used to home life and living with the ‘rents, this vegan lifestyle is suiting me very well.
Seriously just saying hello. Oh maybe we can talk a little light shop on that which must go untitled, just to converse. Ciao, Sam”
Seriously, DOJ officials please do take off the gloves.
When I bother to think about SBF at all, I puzzle a bit. Is he the naif he presents when it suits, the calculating financial wizard when money is on the line, or the innocent, quite surprised to think anyone would think ill of him … or all three?
SBF makes me think of a latter-day Barry Minkow, he of the ZZZZ Best Ponzi carpet cleaning scheme. Youthful exuberance and all.
So much creativity, or something, that could’ve been applied more, say, productively.
That was eons ago during the late stages of the second Reagan admin. Ahh, good times.
While not precisely on the topic of SBF, I will suggest that Bill Maher in the video clip below is describing newly elected Representative George Santos one can easily substitute Crypto Boy Wonder. Liars that are not only believing their own special brand of shiny clean bullcrap, but can package and sell it as completely something useful to the unwitting or perhaps overtly trusting.
https://youtu.be/uQLExNOaNy0
Some combination of all three. I have to spend a certain amount of my professional time thinking about SBF, and I think he’s quite smart, but in very niche and limited ways (arbitrage trading), and he’s also ignorant about much of the plumbing that facilitates trading, and certainly the regulatory frameworks (and he had the advantage of working in an area without solid regulations).
He also seems to have been surrounded by people who worked hard to support his personality (overzealous parental support) and business specialty (shops like Jane St. where he started are set up to let traders trade, without them needing to worry much about the plumbing). Between being a smart but limited trader, an erroneous belief that ‘it will all work out’ (he was only going to ‘borrow’ customer funds), no independent supervision or guardrails (an independent risk department, a regulatory framework) and a little group of playmates who were equally ignorant of the hard bits of finance and ethics, they got themselves in trouble. He is also very skilled at obfuscation – which makes him look like both a naif and a crook.
So . . . an idiot-savant? Or at least a moron-genius?
‘Wall Street opinion leader Jim Cramer is officially freaking out.’
Yeah, about Jim Cramer. Recently I came across a video showing how he was telling people to not pull their money out of Bear Stearns in 2008 and another one where he was spruiking FTX last year. The few times that I have seen this guy he always struck me as a huckster. So out of curiosity I looked into his background to try to see how he got where he is as a sort of financial Mustache of Understanding. His early years make interesting reading, especially how at one point he was living out of his car for 9 months and then not long after he was graduating from Harvard Law School. Had the impression though that there are some holes in his Wikipedia bio-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Cramer
RK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9tclPuq6TY
the infamous Jon Stewart take down of Cramer. The thing of it is, Cramer isn’t 100% wrong, so you can’t even use him as a contrary indicator – the guy is absolutely useless.
There is also the Cramer apology about Meta
I work remotely and on most mornings I have the CNBC station turned on at low volume. Mr. Cramer is in rare and ultimate blowhard mode about these looming “antitrust threats” against Google. I mean that is the 800 pound gorilla in my opinion, when it comes to mobile search and adverts. I do wish a former engineer at HP or at Boeing, by example, would dial in to give him a dose of reality about layoffs, corporate rot and corporate executives who always, always seem to win.
There is a site for sports announcers called Awful Announcing, and maybe they should expand their reach. This is hardly Standard Oil territory, despite what Cramer thinks.
Thanks for looking that up. I watch the guy frequently in the morning, but had never checked that out.
A few interesting things I saw:
1) His dad owned a successful company in Philly;
2) He was editor-in-chief of The Crimson and his first job was working for a Florida newspaper;
3) When he started his hedge fund after working for Goldman, initial investors included:
a) Marty Peretz, infamous purchaser of the New Republic. When Cramer was at Harvard, Peretz and his Singer sewing machine heiress wife, were Masters of Currier House. They parked their 30s vintage Rolls at the edge of the Radcliffe quadrangle.
b) Michael Kinsley; and
c) Elliot Spitzer, who was a classmate and bud of Cramer. (Personal note: being a couple of years senior to Cramer, I dated Elliot’s big sister a couple of times ;) )
While at Harvard Law, Cramer worked for Dershowitz.
Cramer would have been in the same undergrad class as Gates and two years behind my Winthrop House classmates: Bernanke and Blankfein. (I thought it was curious that those two were in Winthrop House together considering Bernanke’s role is saving Blankfein’s ass.)
Well-connected fellow.
It is a pretty big club, and it was apparent to me at the time that I was not and would never be a member.
Running down all those names and connections was entertaining. For a few seconds I hoped you meant Daisy Fellowes, but heavens, you’re not that old!
A few lefties (at least publicly) in that group.
Someone gave us his autobiography book long ago. He was on TV at that time as the “Democrat” to “Republican” Larry Kudlow in a TV show we watch back when we still had TV ( pre-2000). After reading that book….never trusted Wall Street again. If I remember right, he credited his wife with doing all the successful trading.
Having Kudlow & Cramer as one of the headline shows of CNBC should tell us all we need to know about CNBC, and probably television in general.
Putting those two in front of a camera on a daily basis should make Goebbels proud.
So I saw the movie The Russia House Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer) for the first time last night. So the term “rice bowl” being broken is used to describe anything that would reduce US defense spending (I learned the term rice bowl here at NC). In addition, the firm is practically a travelog of Moscow and Leningrad and shows some wonderful scenary and architexture.
Yeah, it’s a very good movie, although I hear the book is even better. It was the first major American film shot largely in the USSR, showcasing the locations well, as you note. Wonderful score by Jerry Goldsmith. I suppose the happy ending is justified given that, in real life, the Cold War was ending.
I watched the film last night prompted by your post and the sights are indeed fantastic. Highly recommended. It is worth noting that the film was made in the last months of the SU.
NO, you ain’t taking my water!
C’mon man. Those swimming pools in Los Angeles aren’t going to fill themselves.
“Soon enough, the region’s Congressional leaders, led by Washington state’s popular U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, sidetracked Brown’s designs on the Columbia: in 1968, they scored a 10-year moratorium on even studying the diversion of water from the Columbia River to the Southwest.” https://www.oregonlive.com/movies/2015/04/william_shatners_water_grab_wh.html
“…if they didn’t move water to California, then folks would move from there to Oregon, a mortal threat to most Oregonians.”
When I visited Oregon, in the day, there was a welcoming sing on the southern border reading “Welcome to Oregon, Enjoy your VISIT”. Funny as a screen door in a submarine.
There was a t-shirt with Oregon cut away from Washington, Idaho, and California with the logo “Governor Tom McCall of Oregon invites you to visit Washington, Idaho, or California.” It didn’t work. As I recall they blocked the idea of CA taking water from the Columbia because in the low-rainfall years it would have taken so much water out that the bigger ships couldn’t make it up to the Portland docks. The Columbia often requires dredging. As an engineering student I got to tour one of the big dredges, fascinating.
I think we’re out of the drought woods now if only for a respite of a few years and we’ll take it!
Heard rumors that if the drought had intensified, LA had a deal in the works to buy one of the Great Lakes, and naturally they chose Lake Superior as it sounded a lot classier than the others… but as far as I know, the deal is off and the City of Angles got a refund because of a rain-out.
I heard that it was Lake Michigan; not only because it is the birthplace of America’s favourite singing frog, but also because it is the only one of the Great Lakes with no Canadian “presence.” So, no “Water Export Duties” to hand over to Ottawa.
Follow the money. It flows just like The Spice.
Stay safe and wet!
Water
As US Southwestern cities dry up they can envy Chinese cities Becoming a ‘Sponge City’ at Shenzhen Speed Shenzhen is a prime example of China’s Sponge City Program, which aims to both prevent flooding and increase water supply in urban areas.
Phoenix and other cities are pursuing similar measures but not to China’s scale.
The Shadows Descend in Ukraine
“They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS [advanced rocket] systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get.”
At present it is not nuclear weapons Ukraine is badgering the US for but I’m sure that’s next or near next on the list – it’s F-16.
And that raises an issue. If Ukraine has no airfields that have not been destroyed by Russian, from where (as in which NATO member) will they launched? Or can those plucky perky NATO moles….err…Ukrainians build a serviceable runway on the fly that last long enough to launch F-16 before Russia destroys that, too?
Point being, for now it seems F-16 will likely need to launch from a NATO nation, and it will be hard even for the extraordinary patient and gun shy constrained Kremlin to NOT target that NATO launching point.
The Russian public will demand it, as might sound military doctrine.
I don’t think that the Russians will worry too much about NATO, errr, Ukrainian planes taking off from places like Poland to undertake a mission over the Ukraine for two reasons. The first is that the Russians have the best anti-air in the world at the moment with just their missiles. And these of course will be backed by warplanes from the Russian Aerospace Forces. The second reason is that the Russians have done this themselves so will put on their big boy pants and just deal with it. Here is the testimony of a Russian ace that flew missions against American jets over Korea back in the Korean war-
https://sputniknews.com/20200216/last-surviving-soviet-ace-of-korean-war-opens-up-on-clandestine-ops-against-us-air-force-1078330230.html
Don’t agree.
I suspect the Russians are concerned of NATO military bases being used to stage attacks on Russian forces and her homeland…F-16 or what else may come next. And based on Zelensky’s address to Ukraine, the next being demanded is long range missiles.
Drop tanks can extend the range of an F-16 but they will face the same problem that the Luftwaffe did in the Battle of Britain – that they will be operating at maximum range and will not have much loiter time in the east, especially if they start to turn and burn. And of course the Russian fighters are now armed with the new long-range R-37M missile which I believe set a new record for a kill at a new maximum range-
https://eurasiantimes.com/first-kill-russian-su-57-stealth-fighter-downs-ukrainian-su-27-jet/
You raise good points about the fighters’ range limitations. The usual workaround for the US is to have air refueling tankers flying racetracks (as they call them) nearby to shorten the round trip of the fighters’ sorties. Those big slow tankers loitering in the air also present a potential target should the Russians decide to target them. Like so much our military does now, continuing to rely on 1960’s era technology against a modern peer power might not work out so well. (The refueling tanker fleet is dominated by modified Boeing 707s from the late 1950’s)
Checking certain air traffic maps shows such planes already having been in the air over Poland since the start of the SMO.
All day they take off from Ramstein, fly to Poland, do laps for hours, and then return to Ramstein as another rise to take its place.
Sadly the main site i used for this seems to have been sold by the founder to some private equity entity.
Maybe they can beach one of our aircraft carriers? And thrn we can give them a submarine. Col. McGregor says: there are 2kinds of ships. Submarines and everything else.
Submarines? Submarines you say? Ukraine’s former ambassador to Germany – Andrey Melnik – has suggested that Berlin should hand over one of its submarines for use against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet-
Andrij Melnyk
@MelnykAndrij
Hi guys, I know I’m gonna get a new s*** storm, but I have another creative idea. Germany (ThyssenKrupp) produces one of the world’s best submarines HDW Class 212A. The Bundeswehr has 6 such U-boats. Why not to send one to Ukraine? Then we’ll kick 🇷🇺fleet out of the Black Sea💪
https://twitter.com/MelnykAndrij/status/1619386522868006912
When it was pointed out to him that the Dardanelles are closed to military traffic right now, he said ‘no problemo’ and that they would just transport the 1,500 ton submarine overland (eye roll).
In making their way from Scandinavia to Turkey and the Mediterranean, the Vikings sailed along rivers in the now Russia/Ukraine etc., as far as navigable. Then lifted the boats out of the water and carried them upside down over their heads until they reached the next navigable river and continued. A tactic the Ukrainians might revive? Though obviously, they would expect/demand the Germans do the heavy lifting.
Drachinifel has a video about WW2 German u-boats in the Black Sea. They were transported over land to get there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFCtIgUQl1w
Another alternative used was to drag them on rolling logs.
All of this worked because the boats were shallow and wide.
That’s quite a portage.
Maybe he knows history.
This is what Mehmet the Conquerer did 570 years ago to finish off the Eastern Roman Empire.
As the sorely missed Pierre Sprey put it shortly before his death in 202, “The Navy has two kinds of ships; submarines and targets.”
Hmmm…. A barbarian with two names! He must have learned it from the Greeks. Perhaps one of those fabled artifices of Archimedes. [The archives of Syracuse have some ‘curious’ contents.]
“I see what you did there”
Through “A Scanner Darkly” no doubt.
It’s 1000 km from Lviv to Donetsk so unless the fighting moves a lot further west the battlefield is well outside the combat range of an F16 flying from Poland or Romania. I think all the talk about restraint and not wanting to escalate is media spin. They haven’t given the Ukrainians fighter jets or long-range missiles not because they think it’s too provocative but because they’re worried they’ll be embarrassingly ineffective.
This (together with the Leopards) is what’s starting to make me think that the NATO emphasis is shifting to the construction of a future UAF, when the present war is over. That’s to say, it makes much more sense to base both the aircraft and the tanks in the West of the country, where they can be presented as a deterrent force, which “stopped Putin” from taking Kiev.
Remember also, that the F-15/-16/-18 generation of aircraft was designed primarily for a war in and around Europe, where losses were expected to be extremely high: most people in the Cold War thought that the war would last about a week, because by then NATO would be out of aircraft, tanks and ammunition. But that was OK, because it was, after all, the final apocalyptic battle, after which nothing would matter very much. I don’t think the strategic mind, let alone the public, has actually thought through the consequences of having a small, fragile air force that would be used up in a couple of weeks of medium-intensity conflict. What do you use then? Gliders?
Except Russia has reportedly destroyed all the airfields.
Airfields are difficult things to destroy completely, although you can make them unusable for periods. It depends what weapons the Russians have been using. The Russians themselves are claiming to be shooting down Ukrainian aircraft, so obviously some flying is still going on: you can in any case operate military aircraft from civil airports at a pinch, or even sufficiently long and straight stretches of motorway if needs be.
But I was thinking rather that it would make sense to keep the F-16s in the West of the country and not commit the to combat. They could fly symbolic Combat Air Patrols over Kiev from time to time, but otherwise be the nucleus of the future UAF that some NATO members are desperate to create.
As David suggests above, you need but tow the “gliders” up to the western border of the Ukraine and untether them. Thus, only the “Ukrainian” winged vehicle enters the Ukrainian airspace. “Plausible Deniability” at it’s best.
As to what exactly said “glider” really is, think perhaps some resurrected late WW-2 Luftwaffe design. Cheap, simple, and sometimes effective.
Considering the concentration of ‘Sons of the Nasties’ in the Kiev government, such an idea is “a natural.”
See: https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/secret-weapons-of-the-luftwaffe.php
Stay safe, wherever you are.
Airfields are notoriously easy to fix. A bomb crater can be filled quickly and paved over by various means. Even seeding the area with cluster munitions designed to act as antipersonnel mines to deter the construction crews just makes the problem a little more annoying. The thing about the F-16 f-15 F-18 is that they are not fit for less than really good runways due to the little tiny high pressure tires on their landing gear. Some “western” attack aircraft are better suited, but that’s not what’s on offer at the moment. Russian aircraft are much better designed for not-perfect runways.
I’m beginning to wish the “combined west coalition of the willing” a$$holes in charge would just go ahead and jump straight to what they really lust to do, a full decapitation attempt with nuclear weapons. I’d guess that there is enough darkness left in the Russian soul that their leaders would fully oblige with accommodating the death wish the Nuland/Kaganites and the Israel ites now fully manifest. And would it not be interesting if the Russian systems do such a good job of picking off the incoming nukes that it’s only the US mainland and of course the UK that get the worst of it. Not that surviving the frappe and then living in the aftermath anywhere in the northern hemisphere and who knows how much of the rest of the planet would be much of a good deal.
The waiting, in waning hope that some wisdom and charity might prevail, is almost worse than the event…
I hope Yves has picked a new place that is out of the Ring of Fire.
Only a few days ago Ukrainian Su-25 was shot down by “friendly fire” near Kramatorsk killing the pilot*.
Su-25 can operate from pretty much any suitably flat field, this is true, but given the relative ease an airfield can be repaired, we could assume there are still/again some operational Ukrainian airfields. Probably not in the condition to serve F-16, though.
* Commander of the 299th Tactical Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Force Major Daniil Murashko
…to base both the aircraft and the tanks in the West of the country, where they can be presented as a deterrent force…
Pedro Escobar at the following link asserts that the Neocons could stomach a peer Russia, even a Russia/China alliance but not a triple; one that included Germany.
(from 2:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_54C2HkE3d4
In a perfect world, from both Germany and Russia’s economic point of view, the two would share a common land border across which oil and resources could flow freely, without fear of interdiction by outsiders. A Silesian corridor if you will.
Unfortunately for both, Poland lies in the way.
If a NATO forward base were to be permanently established in Ukraine, on the Polish border then that would foreclose upon, and physically block any possible direct alignment between Russia & Germany, regardless of whether the larger Ukraine venture folded, or not.
And perhaps, that was always the goal.
They could send the F-16s, only stuff empty plastic milk bottles in the fuel tanks in order to decrease the range.
The story I saw said the real problem is that the Ukrainians have no pilots left to fly those planes and therefore NATO pilots would enter the conflict just as Russian pilots were flying the MIGs over Korea. In other words it’s the return of the “no fly zone” and more paper airplanes launched from the Guggenheim Museum agitprop folks.
There’s a “Cop City” story above in Links. Here’s suggesting that those seeking to protest something could much more productively spend their time protesting this insane intervention in Ukraine that threatens all Americans (with nuclear war) and not just African Americans. If our country really is under fascist threat then that particular fish rots at the head–Washington, DC–rather than from local government bullies and thugs.
It’s one thing to put “retired” special-forces in Ukraine. At the end of the day they’re just one amongst thousands on the battlefield – no more likely to die than any other guy – and probably substantially less likely given their superior training and equipment and ability to turn down suicidal missions. Fighter pilots on the other hand operating deniably from inside Ukraine will have only the slenderest chance of ever going home. I think there’ll be few volunteers and no amount of money enough to hire mercenaries.
I agree. The casualty rates (albeit not absolute numbers) were very high in Rolling Thunder in Vietnam I seem to recall from history.
Fighter pilots are also officers and are closer to being part of the so called elite in society. More likely to have well connected relations who will not allow deaths to be covered up so easily as might be achievable for others.
Additionally, you only need a couple of pilots to eject over Russian held territory to give them very high profile prisoners whose nationality will be as clear as daylight.
Rage Against the War Machine March – 2/19/23
https://www.lp.org/rage-against-the-war-machine/
As Col. MacGregor has stated, “Ukraine is now our 51st state.” In addition to military “assistance,” there is no ukrainian government expense that the u.s. taxpayer does not pay, including salaries and pensions. Plenty of opportunity for grift with so many billions being poured into that sorry “country,” with any demand for even minimal oversight shouted down with “slava ukraini.”
Considering the years of biden family shakedowns in ukraine, the rumors of a crypto-SBF-DNC kickback scam, and the actual impeachment of a sitting u.s. president for trying to get to the bottom of it, it’s impossible not to believe that ukrainian “management” has got the goods on sleazy dementia joe and is squeezing him for all the american people are “worth.” Payback is a bitch.
I think Sleepy Joe’s best shot at clemency is Ukraine reduced to rubble. He’s getting it there.
Will zelensky evah make it to Miami?
He’ll probably be put ashore in the middle of a moonless night from a surplus U-boat off Key Biscayne. [The gold is already in numbered accounts in the Treasure Islands.]
From near the end of the piece:
To what degree is the failed stateness and failed peopleness of Ukraine due to the fact the USSR was deprived of the opportunity to de-Nazify Ukraine by the Allen Dulles gang’s shielding Bandera et al from war crimes arrest, and almost seamlessly transitioning their terrorist operation against the USSR from German to USA control?
What a surprise that according to Westerners it’s the Soviet legacy not 30 years of gangster capitalism that broke Ukrainian society.
ntherlands air force is itching to give their f-16’s to zelenski, they graduated their last group of pilots from the international/nato f-16 school at an air base in arizona. maybe they get less lawn dartie f-35’s faster!
complex systems such as abrams tanks and f-16/lawn darts are a lot more than x crewpersons for z headline number of tanks/lawn darts.
in us army terms a tank has crew maintenance, direct support maintenance (by the 14 challenger or 2 by 15 tank abrams unit) and two at least levels of general support, and depot repair of expensive parts and the tank itself.
the ukers tank crews showing up in uk this past week proly need to read english bc the tech data is not yet in ukraine, the russians proly already translated them in case the ukers abandon any and the tanks are less useless than abrams to isis.
the support for the lawn dart is x pilots z lawn darts, and x crew chiefs, ‘life support ‘toads to fit gas masks and helmets and check out the less than adequate ejection seat. all these need tech manuals in uker tongue.
but the f-16 needs a lot more direct unit maintenance than the heavy bunch needed to keep a tank going. several plane loads of tools and servicing equipment, a couple more planes for highly expensive and hard to repair spare parts, each lawn dart carries 6000 pounds of jp8 (the lawn dart needs the additives). then there is all the bombs etc.
to establish f-16 on ukerland we are talking hundereds of skilled trained technicians, huge amount of us mil spec fuel, and all those armaments!
and if they set up on a polish air base, they would need refueled to get the 1000+ km to anywhere they could do a target.
it won’t be se asia where the kc 135 orbited over thailand and laos!
None of the vehicles breathlessly discussed in the popular press are going to amount to anything but target practice for missiles and artillery — warfare is always evolving, and planes like the F-16 are expensive dinosaurs.
super troll:https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1619406536677416960
“Head of “Wagner” Yevgeny Pigozhin sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asking for approval to open a branch of the “Wagner” in the US to “improve cooperation with US Treasury Department””
and, i’ve been reading a bunch of background(incl. wiki) on Kagan and Nuland, this am….my dog….they’ve been wrong about just about everydamnedthing, for decades…and yet there they remain, installed in the middle ear of the Powers…the geopolitical usian version of syphilis, or something.
Amforrtas – You have such a wonderful way with words, “the geopolitical usian version of syphilis, or something”
While failing upwards they have infected everything they’ve touched. That, plus the fact that they show up in both Republican and Democrat administrations, leads me to believe that they are supported by some person or entity more powerful than Congress or the President, which would make them no more than useful idiots.
This is obvious to me also and I’m sure many others find it obvious also, though precious few seem willing to state it so clearly. Many have touched on it in a variety of ways using a variety of different words to describe the “person or entity” or group as opposed to coming out and stating “there’s an elephant in the room.” I just can’t explain the hesitancy in being blunt.
“Once there was a little ‘ol ant
Thought he’d move a rubber tree plant —
EVERYone knows an ant can’t
Move a rubber tree plant!
But he had HIGH hopes
He had HI-I-IGH hopes
He had high, apple pie in the SKY_Y_Y hopes…”
…And then that silly old ant,
He moved a rubber tree plant!”
Just got to apply oneself to succeed…
Am I the only one who thinks Ms. Nuland looks a lot like Nurse Ratched?
More like Nurse Wretched!
More like Billy Bunter I’d say.
[Yes, I know the above is “transgressive.”]
Hermann Wilhelm Göring? With her family history, maybe she’s a morganatic granddaughter?
From the “House of Morgan?” Boy, is she connected!
Louise Fletcher, the actress in that movie, was actually an attractive woman. That’s part of what made her so sinister.
They are somebody’s useful idiots.
I remember reading once about the origins of the phrase ” post turtle”. When you see a turtle perched on the flat top of a fence post, you know it didn’t get there by itself. Somebody put it there. Who and why?
Are KagaNuland and etc. somebody’s “post turtle”?
Yes.
And we can guess whose.
Wasn’t it Pat Buchanan who all those years ago extended the definition of “Israeli-occupied territory” to include Capitol Hill? Substantiated by Mearsheimer and Walt in “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy” (London Review of Books 2006).
“Concerning the arguments for ‘total defeat’ of Russia”
The article itself needs serious fact-checking but let us put that aside for the moment and see what is really going on. Recently I linked a tweet saying ‘The 2nd Forum of the Free Nations of Russia has concluded in Czechia. Representatives of nations held captive by Russia issued a declaration calling for Russia to be “decolonized, deimperialized, and deputinized” after the war. They propose a break-up of Russia into 34 states.’ So a neocon event and probably financed by the National Endowment for Democracy among others.
Well from January 30th to February 3rd there will be a conference hosted by two Polish European Parliamentarians called ‘Imperial Russia: Conquest, Genocide and Colonisation. Prospects for Deimperialisation and Decolonisation’-
https://ecrgroup.eu/event/the_imperial_russia_conquer_genocide_colonisation
So another conference to talk about breaking up the Russian Federation and balkanize it into dozens of different countries ripe for economic exploitation. The conference itself and the people running it are the usual bunch of boofheads but where it is being held is not. It is being hosted in the European Parliament in Brussels. So the European Parliament is now out in the open helping plan the dismemberment of the Russian Federation for fun and profit. Can you imagine if there was a conference held in the Russian Duma to discuss the breaking up of the United States? That would be regarded as good as a declaration of war. Just when you think that Russian and EU relations cannot possible get worse, then some new depth is found.
What’s the 1st forum? The one Nazis organized back in 1943?
Perhaps the Forum of the “Free Peoples of Russia” held in Prague last year?
https://srbin.info/svet/u-pragu-odrzan-forum-na-kojem-je-tema-dekolonizacija-ruske-federacije/
But there also seems to have been one by the “Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe” (CSCE, not to be confused by the OSCE (which used to be called the CSCE):
https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/events/decolonizing-russia
Seems to be big business
It was the Wannsee in 1942
Perfect time for China to ask for decolonization of Hawaii, Guam and Midway Atoll. Placing Chinese military bases there would be a logical next step, because decolonization rhymes with military bases.
The whole story is IMO approaching der Stürmer’s levels of insanity. Anna Fotyga, one of the MEPs hosting that conference (link):
===
Whether it was Tsarist, Soviet or led by Putin, Russia has not changed over the centuries. It is driven by the same imperial instincts, repeating the same scheme: conquest, genocide, colonisation, and then seeking a silent acceptance of the status quo, bribing the international community through a mirage of economic cooperation or the illusion of a vast Russian market. We cannot be misled into thinking that Moscow is a part of the solution to any global problems. {…} We should be aware that Putin and his gang of war criminals are not the cause, but the consequence of the problem, the root of which is the authoritarian and imperial essence of Moscow and the phobias of the Okhrana, KGB or FSB, which captured the Russian state long ago. Russian imperialism has very deep roots. However, today we find ourselves not in the 16th century of Ivan the Terrible or the 18th of Catherine II, but in the 21st century of international law, common organisations and shared values. The European Parliament and many other parliaments around the globe have labelled the Russian Federation a terrorist state. Such an acknowledgment has certain consequences. This terrorist organisation, even if it is seen by many as an empire, should be dismantled.
===
So, it’s not “Putin bad”, or even “Soviet bad”, or whatever. It’s “Rooski bad”. Has been bad since the 16th century, it seems.
She says we’re in the 21st century. But she’s in fact rehashing the talking points of Duchinski, Delamarre and other crazies, straight from the 1860s. So much for the progress.
Patrick Lawrence: The Shadows Descend in Ukraine Scheer Post
Two of my favorite New York Times words are “shadowy” and “murky.” They are brilliantly suited to the Manichean version of our world the Times inflicts daily upon its unsuspecting readers. When The Times terms someone or some society or some chain of events shadowy or murky it scarcely has to do any reporting. Two words more or less without meaning point readers’ minds in precisely the desired direction.
I do not mean to single out The Times in this, except that I do. None of the other major dailies and none of the network broadcasters comes close to the once-but-no-longer newspaper of record in the matter of shadows and murk.
….
There are lots of shadowy people in Russia, The Times will have us know, or think we know. Lots of murky things happen there. Donald Trump’s dealings with the Kremlin were very shadowy, and never mind it turned out there was nothing in them to cast any shadows. Shadows linger long after the lights go on, another of their useful features.
….
It follows that there are never any shadows and nothing is ever murky among those people or nations the government-supervised Times counts among the “good guys” as opposed to the “bad guys,” and the most powerful paper in America does indulge in such language, if you have not noticed.
We come now to Ukraine. The shadows may be many and the murk very thick, but you will never read of either in The Times.
============================================
Just like there was a skepticism and cynicism deficit at the Times with regard to Russiagate, so also with Ukraine. Inconvenient truths…democracy dies in darkness…
Reading Lawrence caused me to wonder if Zelensky will get a balcony seat at the State of the Union address on 7 February.
Only if he is assured of receiving several spontaneous standing ovations!
Failure to hit his desired number target will result in added funding at $20B per oversight.
Make it a balcony seat in Ford’s theatre. You know the one. How do you say “Sic semper tyrannis” in Russian?
The addition of superfluous adjectives to headlines and articles turns what would otherwise be straight-forward reporting into editorializing. A century ago it was decried as “yellow journalism” but today it is regularly printed and accepted without question.
Just a couple of hypothetical headlines off the top of my head:
1. Evil Murderer Sentenced to Death
2. Sinister Plot to Assassinate Politician
Anyone can see how those two un-necessary adjectives “evil” and “sinister” color the headlines and drive the reader to the publication’s desired conclusion. Murderer bad, plot bad. No need for him or her to read further.
I don’t always agree with Patrick Lawrence, but he does a good job of pointing out some things that should be obvious here:
That was my immediate reaction when I saw the story as well. An appropriated SUV? Really?
On the shadows point, I just read a long article syndicated from the Washington Post detailing the measures Ukraine is taking to identify and prosecute war crimes (in Ukrainian courts, naturally). I read all the way to the end and found no mention of even the possibility that war crimes might have been committed by non-Russians, or suggestion that any such crimes might be investigated. This is, needless to say, not how you do war crimes investigation. The whole thing is very clearly vengeance presented as justice (it concludes by describing the invasion itself as a war crime and reflecting on how a framework might be constructed that could prosecute Putin).
It’s a sign of how far the quality of media coverage in the US has fallen that the Post didn’t point this out (I’m not naive enough to believe that they didn’t notice it).
I haven’t read the article, but off the top of my head war crimes by your own military are supposed to be handled through the military justice system. IIRC during WW2 the German army executed quite a number of its own soldiers for crimes against civilians (I assume this was mostly in western Europe). Of course you may well be right that the Ukrainians (and/or the Washington Post) aren’t interested in talking about crimes committed by “the good guys”.
The US Air Force general sends memo to all Air Mobility personnel, making preparations for war in 2025. Even down to the absolute and personal details; visit the legal office to be sure your personal affairs are in order. Fire a few rounds at a target from a steady 7 meter distance.
We are marching to Armageddon? And not real sure who is leading this parade.
I’m wondering who’s going to fly the jets being sent to Ukr? / ;)
Shhhh! You’re not suppose to talk about that!
Only 10 short months ago Bidet said no tanks to Ukraine as that would lead to WWIII.
Only three long days ago he reversed course and said yes tanks.
Wonder what will he send to Taiwan?
Now he seems to be immanentizing somebody’s eschaton.
When he plays with house money, he means your house, my house and everybody’s house, and apartment, and car, and tent, park bench and doorway.
Except for those exclusion zones around Wilmington, Rehoboth Beach and maybe Martha’s Vineyard.
Gotta ask – is Bidet a typo or a Freudian slip? Seems like a good twist on a guy who is a genuine douche bag.
Taiwan still has intact in Taichong the bunkers where the USA stored nuclear bombs back when it was an official USN aircraft carrier. I’m sure they have already been dusted out and spruced up. Funny thing, the DPP ordered shutting down of Taiwan’s nuclear power stations (during a drought which starved it’s 3rd largest power supply, hydro) because of concerns over radiation leakage. Next think I expect is A10 with their spent uranium ammo to begin practicing there.
10 short months ago the Abrams was “too expensive,” had extreme maintenance requirements, a long operational learning curve and was a gas hog. What’s changed? Was biden lying then or is he lying now?
Of course if memory serves, he’s made promises before that don’t exactly come to pass. $600 anyone?
My most recent opinion is it’s not about tanks but keeping units on the front. It’s been 4 months since the glorious victory where electricity has been on short supply and Ukrainian forces have been slaughtered. 60 tanks and a smattering of destroyed planes won’t make a difference, but they might to people holding on.
The West’s plan was that Russia would collapse.
Those tanks will maybe, maybe get to Ukraine in 2024. It seems that it was a fake promise to move Germany into sending German made European Leos to Ukraine.
It’s OK, the German tanks won’t be ready until 2024 either.
an aside: the Hamilton68 name itself is interesting because of the many coincidental things associated with the name Hamilton starting around 2007.
First, there’s The Hamilton Project.
https://www.hamiltonproject.org/about
Then there was, (and I can’t find an image of it in the WayBack machine but it did exist on The Hamilton Project’s website briefly just before and just after the 2016 pres election), a home page that was background charcoal grey with a light purple line drawing of Alexander Hamilton’s portrait. I thought that an odd choice. I thought the coincidence of then seeing Hillary and Bill in matching charcoal grey suits with purple accents – lapel trim and necktie – during her concession speech was odd. Hamilton colors? Who knows?
And then the play “Hamilton” was a big hit. So big that Pelosi ran a scene from it on a screen in the Congressional hearing room at the start of the Jan 6th hearing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQNp7wWeuOA
and
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lin-manuel-miranda-hamilton-members-performance-january-6
Maybe the best read on what the Dem estab is thinking is what’s published on The Hamilton Project’s website and what their noted speakers say.
I never did catch the national bug for watching anything related to the above play, but when I click through the about page for the Hamilton project I notice a few familiar names.
Peter Orzag. Jason Furman. Someone I don’t immediately recognize, who is presently an instructor for the U of Chicago. All intertwined with the 44th Presidential administrations. Birds of a feather. They have the right answers for every single problem we face! \sarc
I never did catch the national bug for watching anything related to the above play, but when I click through the about page for the Hamilton project I notice a few familiar names.
Nor did I, but many did. I heard about it from my partner, who heard about it from her daughter – both PMC cult members. The daughter and her husband flew from Ohio to Chicago to see the play, which was the greatest thing EVER. Can only imagine what that cost. Then some TV channel announced they were going to broadcast it, so they had a big party so everyone could watch. It was a huge deal to them. Made her daughter cry because of all the great things this “immigrant” Hamilton did.
That’s when I got in trouble, thanks to Naked Capitalism no less. I’m pretty sure at the time the below link was posted here (from 2017);
The Hamilton Hustle – by Matt Stoller
Matt explains why the PMC class shouldn’t make Hamilton a cult member just yet, as history proved he wasn’t quite on the same page as they are, and maybe they should read a history book as well. I e-mailed the link to some – which was a really bad idea. They didn’t want to hear any truth about the real Hamilton, which coincides with not hearing any truth about the plays famous endorser, St. Obama.
They were into censorship back then too – nothing bad about the dems or Big O shall pass through their ears. After that incident, and the trouble I got into, I just shut up.
It’s truly hard to express just what a true liberal-gasm Hamilton is. I still don’t comprehend it. For liberal Democrats, it’s a seminal moment in history like few others. I guess like Clinton winning the presidency would have been, like Obama’s election night was.
For sure. The same daughter I spoke of above was a huge Hillary fan. On the night of the election they had a huge party for this “historic” event, as she called it. She had her 1 1/2 year old daughter dressed in a Hillary logo outfit, which she was so proud of. Because Hillary so deserved this.
Then she lost. I’m guessing they didn’t have as much fun as they expected. Other than getting Trump, I’m glad. Now if we can just get Hills and Bills to go away.
Back,when I was in grad school 50 years ago, in poli sci, the Democrat professors — that’s all but one of them — revered Jefferson, not Hamilton. Hamilton was the Federalist Republican precursor, favored sound money not Keynesian borrowing, promoted internal improvements and believed in government encouragement of private business activity. The profs are long gone, but I’m sure my former fellows in the seminar rooms have mostly made the transition from old hero to new one, without the slightest self-awareness.
Hamilton (the musical) is, by orders of magnitude, the official cultural product of the #McResistance, with its polishing of US history with a contemporary Diversity, Equity and Inclusion gloss.
It goes down nicely with a main course of propaganda, repression and war.
Before the Show there was the Hamilton Celebration at the NY Historical Society in 2004-2005 which, at the time, had many detractors. Now the NYHS has Hamilton spot-lighted every day and I doubt there’s anyone left to protest.
http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/overview.html
https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/summer-hamilton
there’s even a traveling show: https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/alexander-hamilton-panel-exhibition
>IM Doc NakedCapitlism’s Cannery Row Doc
When I retire and write my first novel it’s going to have a character that’s a blend of Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts who was described as a “lover of the sciences, nature, art music and the shortcomings of humanity” and the person that comes to my mind/imagination when I read I “IM Doc.”
From yesterday’s IM links/post:
It was my duty to give what I could back to the taxpayers all the years I practice. In that regard, the nuns were amazing role models. That thread has long been lost in our current world.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/01/links-1-28-2023.html#comment-3842617
Thanks for the link! And for IM Doc.
If IM Doc ever writes his autobiography, I am onboard with ordering a copy.
Terazono’s article in the FT is a good rundown of the precarious-ness of in particular wheat. Wheat is the canary in the coalmine. 4 years of declining stocks worldwide with the exportable supplies ex-China at a 58 day supply. That doesn’t sound like much, but with Aussie and Russian crops looking huge, offset by US and Argie drought, it’s likely to be ok. Nobody’s got a reasonable handle on Russian crop size with guesses from USDA of 91mmt to Rosstat(official Russina gov’t) of 104.4 mmt. That’s a huge range and traders and analysts are looking for confirmation. But grain markets have gone to sleep, option pricing asleep, so any kind of shock will light grain markets on fire like they were after Russia invaded Ukraine, making wheat a lot more expensive along with other grains and commodities. A summer drought in the western US cornbelt will certainly put grain markets on notice.
In 1972, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R were deep in the middle of the Cold War, but that did not stop the daily business of trade among nations. In fact, given the dicey agricultural policies and poor weather of the Soviet breadbasket, crop failure was not unusual. Soviet agricultural trade representatives often turned to the foreign commodity markets to make up the difference.
In July of 1972, the Russians began buying up foreign wheat, purchasing 10 million tons from U.S. brokers by August. Richard E. Mooney’s economic analysis in a 1975 issue of The New York Times states that despite receiving reports of crop failures in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, the U.S. government failed to appreciate the significance of the global grain shortage and the effect it might have on the U.S. economy. As federal grain subsidies continued to favor bargains for the Soviets buying American wheat, the price of domestic grain rose sharply, causing a food price crisis back home. According to John A. Schnittker in a 1973 paper for the Brookings Institution, the U.S. government wasted $300 million in public funds and lost the same amount in potential revenue by unwittingly subsidizing the Russian wheat purchases.
As it turned out, the shortage in Russia was part of a worldwide shortage in grain production that almost wiped out international stockpiles. Clifton Luttrell wrote in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review in 1973 that the U.S. government did not recognize this as it was happening because the government did not have a big-picture view of agricultural output worldwide.
At that point, sophisticated agricultural monitoring was only in its infancy. According to Gary Weir of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, despite using satellites to photograph grain-growing areas, the resolution was not clear enough to reveal much information on the health of crops, leaving the probable outcomes of Russian harvests opaque to U.S. intelligence. Afterwards, the debacle was nicknamed the “Great Grain Robbery.” To prevent another such calamity, U.S. intelligence began looking at earlier technological research.
https://earthzine.org/the-great-grain-robbery-of-1972/
The WEF has another cracked-brain (literally) idea this year: Brain Transparency. utube, ~20 minutes
This WEF plan is the most INSANE one yet | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez7Z7sfoMRg
Gives new meaning to the phrase “just a cog in the machine.” / ;)
iran bombed
Such a mystery that. So strange. I guess that like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombings, that we will never learn who carried it out.
Estonia’sFredonia’s saber rattling is a big worry. / ;) absurdistan.typo:
FredoniaFreedonia. / ;)Freedumbia???
Freedonia/Freedumbia is Going to War! (Duck Soup) utube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyeKYQdYISg
flora
if only our current politicians and press of today could conduct themselves with the solemn, serious demeanor of the leaders of Freedonia ….
“Observer to a Failed Uprising”
This is a strange read. This author, who has ties with the Swedish Security Police, actually got see see how the coup he helped with in Belarus failed and then and only then asked the question ‘Are we the baddies?’ Supposing, just supposing, this foreign coup had actually succeeded. There is not a doubt in my mind that NATO would have then had the armed forces of Belarus threaten Russia so right now instead of a fight between Russia and the Ukraine, it would be a fight between Russia and the Ukraine/Belarus. And that would have meant a whole new more dangerous war. Having Lukashenko stick around was a small price to avoid that.
“Ukraine needs long-range missiles: Volodymr Zelenskyy’
No, they don’t. The trouble with the Ukraine is that every time they get upgraded weapons, they use them against civilians. They have done this with the M-777 howitzers and they have done this with those HIMARS rockets. They would rather waste valuable and scarce ammunition be used to kill civilians rather than stick to military targets which would improve their position. Just yesterday they hit a hospital in the Lugansk People’s Republic which killed 14 people and injured 24. This was not an accident but deliberate as they used HIMARS to hit that hospital with and the HIMARS rockets are precision rockets. The Ukrainians tried to make out that they thought it was a barracks but nobody who is familiar with the past 8 years in this region is buying that story. And that is the problem with any long-range missiles. You just know that they will be also used to kill civilians in Crimea and Russia itself as they can’t help themselves. It’s what Nazis do-
https://www.rt.com/russia/570626-ukraine-mssile-strike-hospital-crime/
Ukraine is following US DOW(DOD) policy on targeting civilians, which is do it as much as you like, just make sure you have a gun or a pile of money pointed at the mass media’s head.
For example, the M-777 was specifically created as a terror weapon for use against the tribal people of Afghanistan, it’s completely unsuitable for combined arms war. The gun on the A-10 is nearly useless against armored vehicles, but it’s great for tearing up civilian convoys fleeing, and of course the spent uranium dust it leaves behind is the gift that keeps on giving, which is why the Russians ban it’s use, but America loves it. Perhaps the DOW will find a reason to bring back Agent Orange.
>>>The gun on the A-10 is nearly useless against armored vehicles
What? IIRC, the A-10 is mainly 1960s tech. However its gun was designed to be used as a tank killer during a World War III, and was able to kill any tank manufactured during the Cold War; it has been decades since and there are newer tanks, but I would think that anything, but those very latest tanks, would be easily destroyed. Just look at the invasion of Iraq.
The problems with the depleted uranium are quite real as is the plane’s use on civilians, but let’s not exaggerate its problems.
This is according to the DOD’s own tests on firing ranges as well as combat reports (which triggered the test range study). I believe Brian Berletic covered this topic on one of his posts at New Atlas. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA085713.pdf The Gulf War was a turkey shoot, trying to line up is just a death wish in real combat.
I just read the linked report, which showed that the plane was effective except with attacking the very front of the main battle tank. That was only slightly effective, but we are talking about the most heavily armored part of the most heavily armored kind of vehicle used in combat.
The plane is a fifty year old design, which probably means it is not that survivable in modern warfare, but it seems to quite capable of killing anything moving on the ground except for shooting at the front of a main battle tank. This is what everyone tries to avoid doing including those in other tanks regardless of the weapon being used. That is why I question the accuracy of saying that it is useless for attacking armored vehicles.
Weapon Effects: The A-IO/GAU-8 weapon systems achieved 93
impacts on six of the seven individual tanks which they attacked (one
firing pass resulted in a miss of the target). The ratio of impacts to
rounds fired was 0.10. The weapon system achieved 17 perforations of the
armored envelopes of the tanks with a ratio of perforations to impacts of
0.18.
I guess we interpret things differently, such as the number of kills claimed in an article for missiles vs. gun in the article, and note the word claimed. Viva la difference, it’s what make the money machine at the DOW work so well.
Well, if the enemy uses 60’s tanks that don’t move, hide or shoot back, A-10 does seem to have a fair chance with several passes of scoring a kill.
Seems like a modern battlefield to me /s
What is the point of the snark? I mean really. If it gets past moderation gets past moderation, please read my overlong response to tevhatch.
(This should be my last comment on this as it is silly to get too worked up over this. You can have the last word.)
I still do not see what you are seeing. It is a giant gatling gun, which fires thousands of rounds per minute with the expectation, like with a machine gun, most are going to miss. The airplane carries over a thousand round. What matters is just effective it is, not how economically it is with the rounds.
Further, this an official military report describing the testing of just the gatling gun’s effectiveness in destroying tanks and none of the many variety of bombs, rockets, and missiles it carried then and carries now to kill people and things.
At the risk of quoting far, far too much, here is what I think is the gist of the concluding pages A-69 and A-70.
They were happy with the tests’ results and recommended even more tests. Also, while reading during the Cold War, I found out that they expected to lose hundreds of these plane in a few weeks, despite it being a flying tank as the then Soviets/Russians had strong defenses against air attack.
In a war against Russia, with effective air defence these questions are respectfully academic. The life expectancy of any A10 trying to fly against a Russian formation would be measured in minutes. We are simply debating whether the A10 would manage to fire at something before being shot down.
To be fair, the USAF understands that the aircraft is not suitable against first rate enemies and has been “retiring” it for years. But it has a lobby that supports it and it is useful in colonial warfare. Bit like the British use of their lancers to charge at Omdurman. Very suitable there but would have been suicidal in the Boer War only a couple of years later.
A few barely informed comments about Doctor Jordan Trishton Lee Walker based on the “thin” link above. Caveat emptor, YMMV!
He definitely has a pedigree. UT-Southwestern is one of our very best research medical schools. He “matched” into a surgery residency, which entails five (5) years of training post-medical school. He graduated from UTSW in 2018. Apparently he spent two years in a urology/surgery residency at Mass General (IIRC the primary teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School). Urology is a 5-year residency, too, based on a close friend who also graduated in 2018 and is finishing a urology residency in June 2023. Apparently Doctor Walker has been very busy in the past few years doing other things. He may have a license to practice medicine in New York as of 2021, but practice what? Family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, which have 3-year residencies? No evidence for those. Seems doubtful he is board-certified in anything, which would tend to make it difficult for him to gain privileges in any hospital? Those with the means need to dig deeper. Not holding my breath on that one.
Reporter George Webb is all over this story. I’ll leave his twtr link for your browsing enjoyment. / ;) ymmv.
https://twitter.com/RealGeorgeWebb1
Thanks Flora!
Lots of rambling videos on Webb’s feed. I think this is the best in re Jordan Walker. 9m
Here we have his name on a piece by the Boston Consulting Group.
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/outlook-for-covid-19-therapeutic-treatments
Is it not interesting in this credentialed neoliberal hive that we somehow do not have MD after his name. And yet there are other authors who do???
Unless there is another Jordon Walker in their employ…….
And this paper came out just around the time Fauci blurted out the name Remdesevir in acute Covid treatment in Congress. Despite the fact that this drug has been a true failure in every previous attempt with other viruses and the research used for its EUA with Covid is at best “optimistic”. Sure is very expensive though.
So, we have at least some idea what butters Dr. Jordon’s bread.
It was one thing to have a CATCH THE PREDATOR approach to this interview. Very not cool. Even more not cool though is that none of our media are lifting a finger to investigate despite all the cards on the table for all to see now.
The interview is gonzo. The second interview is a case study in what happens when a person afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder is cornered. Real ugly real quick. Even more gonzo. Is there no concern in the country that stories of this import are left to gonzo journalists? Do we even have real journalists left? Is there no concern in our federal agencies that this reporting is rapidly hardening into truth among most of the people and yet no one deigns to discuss the issues at hand? I must have seen this video a dozen times in my office or had patients asking me about it……these are not q-anon people and yet I can tell the contents had entered the CPUs of their soul.
What is not gonzo is Pfizer’s response. In essence, admitting that yes, we are indeed creating bio active Godzillas on purpose. We do this so we can make antidotes to said bio active Godzillas. We have lucre and shareholders to think about. Trust us, we have it all under control. Just keep the cash flowing in.
There is a reason that Obama banned this type of thing in 2014. There is a reason that this has been a concern of bioethics folks for a generation. There may be a real reason to do this research. But it would be nice to know that all care was being taken in oversight and safety by outside parties like used to be done a generation ago. Somehow, having a multinational corporation overseeing itself in this regard does not really seem to be adequate. I know, I am old-fashioned……
What could possibly go wrong?
“What is not gonzo is Pfizer’s response. In essence, admitting that yes, we are indeed creating bio active Godzillas on purpose…”
They’ve redefined “vaccine.” Why not “gain of function” and other medical/research terms?
Having a multinational corporation overseeing itself certainly does seem inadequate.
Unfortunately, its erstwhile regulators have succumbed to capture. As have their “regulators”: Congress; the press; and (as a consequence) the general public. Multiple cascading systemic failures.
There appears precious little doubt about lucre as incentive for Pfizer here — it’s their legal obligation to pursue maximal profits, fer crissakes. But what remains unclear to me — plausible, but neither definitively proven nor dispelled — are questions around the incentives of the post-moratorium continued gain of function research. Was it simply hubris on the part of the NIH, Fauci and the NIAID? Not hard to fathom. More disturbing is the potential bioweapons research angle. Which raises the further question, given Obama’s moratorium, about who really holds the whip hand in the Executive branch. The White House or the military & intelligence services? Or was the moratorium cynically issued as mere window dressing with the intent that the research continue, off-shored and payed for with funds laundered through some theretofore obscure private group (EcoHealth Alliance).
‘credentialed neoliberal hive?’
It seems that any credentials will do-
‘Steve Kirsch
@stkirsch
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is a veterinarian. Albert Bourla’s PhD thesis is about the control of fertility in sheep and goats.
I’m serious. You can’t make this stuff up. You really can’t.’
https://twitter.com/stkirsch/status/1619719430161993730
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bourla
I’ve watched both videos, available only via Twitter since youtube deleted them – the first covert one where he’s boasting about directed evolution, about ‘the revolving door between pharma and regulators and how good this is for pharma”. Absolutely no moral compass.
The second one – where the sting operation is revealed and he’s openly questioned is a hoot. Its like one of those Catfished denouement vids – where really WE are the victims of the pharma within which he is but a tiny cog. But his sense of entitlement after being busted is noteworthy.
That its totally ignored by the MSM, apart from Tucker, no longer shocks me in the slightest. A corrupt lot, the lot of them..
I must check out how the lack of reporting by the MSM affects CHAT-GPT, a large language model, when one asks it about this video – it after all just reflects its training data and if the twitter firehose isn’t part of its training data then its training data won’t have much about it.. But OTOH, what if the twitter comments ARE in the training data….
He is certainly not an infectious disease specialist, much less an epidemiologist.
His linkedin profile used to say: “Director, Worldwide R&D Strategic Operations and mRNA Scientific Planning. Pfizer.” Other places has his seniority as 2 levels down from the C-level.
Hopefully Veritas has already sent a complaint to the Office of the Professions in NY.
Should be enough evidence on the video for at least a suspension of his license.
More from Jimmy Dore in case this all gets “hard to find”:
Pfizer Exec ADMITS Company’s Evil Intentions For COVID Vaxx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO86vEGsOB0&t=10s
Pfizer Exec TURNS VIOLENT After Being Exposed In Undercover Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAW_zRoO5bM
NSFW!
Hey, it’s Jimmy Dore – so you’re warned.
As the Colorado River Shrinks, Washington Prepares to Spread the Pain NYT. “The crisis over the Colorado River is the latest example of how climate change is overwhelming the foundations of American life — not only physical infrastructure, like dams and reservoirs, but also the legal underpinnings that have made those systems work.”
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Requiem for a heavy wait comes to an end with none of the players wanting to give up their gotten gains in the golden goose that is the lifeline of the Southwest.
Drove by St. George Utah a few weeks ago and its even more grandiose and far flung that I remembered, their water coming from the Colorado River, how’s that gonna work?
Husband and a couple of pals are parked on the banks of the Columbia every summer to watch the Columbia Cup/Tri-City Follies race. ‘Honey… are you seeing more river bank lately… is the race occurring further away from your campsite?’ ‘No. It’s hotter but the waterline is pretty much the same given the number of dams on the river.’ So many vested interests on the Columbia. If we think the battle over the Colorado is gonna be a doozy… just wait.
https://waterfollies.com/
The flow on the rivers was the highest by a few feet in the height of the storm 3 weeks ago versus anything i’d seen heretofore, and the ‘crash scene’ high water clearly marked by collection points in low branches of trees with the perfect cranny to take hold of the first fast and furious driftwood, enticing other pieces to form a DIY wall of sorts.
I filled up a wheelbarrow with the largess from one tree, to give you an idea…
I’ve also saw new boulders & larger rocks placement in the river, lotsa action underwater-granite getting it on.
Sorry, Wuk, I think the Fresno Bee article above was still on my mind.
Waiting for Pfizer to issue media release stating that Walker is not, nor ever has been, employed there.
“Americans Are Gobbling Up Takeout Food. Restaurants Bet That Won’t Change” WSJ
Big bets on the drive-thru.
The drive-thru is convenient for people because it only takes a few minutes to pump some gasoline.
Re:NHS/Virtual treatment/elderly
My mother is doing more routine check-ups virtually.
This reduces the number of visits not only to ease staffing issues, but I’d also think this is preventing a fair number of deaths. It reduces the chance of elderly patients, lying about or ewaiting in hospitals/clinics getting a case of numerous viruses and bacteria.
When f’ers won’t wear masks around sick people or take air filtration seriously…it comes to this.
Alternative link:
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/plan-nhs-treat-50000-elderly-26101687
It seems that the RAND types are starting to sing a different tune, though not quite in the key of an apology. Note such language as “alternative war trajectories.” Moon of Alabama has a writeup about it as do some others.
Avoiding a Long War, RAND: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PEA2500/PEA2510-1/RAND_PEA2510-1.pdf
MoA: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/ukraine-rand-study-sees-risks-in-prolonged-war.html#more
And I saw a reference to a Stratfor study which counted 302k AFU dead. That is not inconceivable, but higher than most estimates I have seen. The shocking part is the source.
I always find it hard to fathom why a newspaper purporting to present facts would resort to such obvious weasel language while ‘splaining the current scandal.
What a curious caveat! This piece asserts a lot without anything remotely resembling an inside source. This excerpt is mild, the rest of this “op-ed” gets rather pejorative and seeks to frame the Durham Report as vindictive and biased which as always is best understood as the NY Times projecting their sins on Durham.
My dislike for a certain egregiously vain candidate was becoming Nixon-like in its intensity but of late I find my disgust is more with our gatekeepers of knowledge who play their readers for fools on a daily basis.
I think this article at The Lever was linked to earlier, here is more on it via YT:
Billionaire SUES To SILENCE Discussion Of US Corruption | Breaking Points
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ITXaRrQ7U
Great morning this news that the trumpster is running for potus again. Let fun, lies begin.
I need to bring in more firewood so I can watch the 9er game in warmth.
i do not think that Kennan ever thought a bill clinton would be possible. bill clinton destroyed the upper midwests industrial might, dooming america into pauperism, and he managed to run NATO right up to russias doorstep.
bill clinton used John Kenneth Galbraith with his phony adoration of him, good for Kennan for seeing that he might be used also.
Our simulation cup overfloweth: https://ia.net/topics/the-end-of-writing-ia-on-ai “Screenwork has been hit by a Weimar scale inflation”.
Brie and Robby on the Hill’s Rising. utube, 8+ minutes.
Bill Gates MRNA Grift EXPOSED? Billionaire TRASHES Jab Despite Reaping MASSIVE Profits: Brie & Robby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGctGh3vvJg
Very interesting in coordination with the George Webb investigation you linked above. Webb asserts (if I heard him correctly) that Harvard Med Prof. Michael Callahan returned from Wuhan (where he had also held a chair since 2009) in October of 2019, carrying with him 6,000 blood samples (plus N urine and tissue samples??). On October 10, BioNTech announced its IPO. And, per Briahna and Robbie, Bill Gates bought $55 million of BioNTech pre-IPO, dumping it at a 10x profit last year.
<sarc>Bill’s so smart.</sarc>
COVID-19 Variant Dashboard – USA shows XBB1.5 at 40%, with huge balloons visualizing it per state. Much smaller is BQ1.1 at 17.39% receding as smaller balls inside, and the center filled with the usual set of various variants. CH1.1 is only at 1.66% so far. We’ll see. The whole thing looks like a confused fractal of doom.
So because the CDC and WHO are garbage, actively killing, it’s useful to see that we have other sources of information. This came up in the CH1.1 post, and it’s work linking to specifically because it’s a deep dive into variants, rather than garbage pronouncements from CDC:
Variant report 2023-01-19: https://github.com/neherlab/SARS-CoV-2_variant-reports/blob/main/reports/variant_report_latest_draft.md
And there are a lot of these reports there, so this is highly active as a source of information on variants. It’s also a nice break for the Twitter, where it’s hard to actually see what’s going on given how little text fits in a tweet, sigh.
Don’t know why I even bother reading Jacobin any longer. A recent article spells out how financial parasites such as Blackrock are licking their chops at the prospect of a Ukrainian resource and asset free-for-all. All the right things were illustrated for the publication’s slightly left of center audience but then it strayed into Russia phobia with this sentence at the end of the article.
Ukrainians’ freedom to determine their own fate has been under assault from Moscow’s colonial-style land grab.
This is totally buying into the unprovoked invasion narrative as promoted by the War dept. I guess I’ll stay with those that maintain consistency in their reporting or outlook–e.g. Jonathon C, Caitlin J, Aaron M, etc…
Biden gets set to lean into economy in 2024 (And leaning into mass murder as well!)
And Biden and liberal Democrats bought this economy with the lives of 700,000 dead American citizens, plus numerous undercounted COVID deaths, not to mention the long term disabling of perhaps a few million American citizens. The ultimate long term cost of this will reverberate through American society for a generation. And liberal Democrats are nonetheless content to keep digging this hole. And putting bodies into it. And just get boosted and you’ll be okay, of course!
What a manifest evil.
There is the distinct possibility that this Pandemic will result in the “long term disabling” of a hundred million Americans. (Who will then be left to make their own “risk assessments” and survival measures, because, you know, overwhelmed and degraded health “care” infrastructure and personnel.)
Think big, think Jackpot.
I can’t get that Nazi poster comparing the cost of an ill person versus a healthy family out of my mind.
Yeah, it evoked a kind of immediate visceral reaction, and I can’t read or speak German. Perhaps because I’m getting older, and I’m alone, and I will die alone. Although at least I’m healthy enough for now. But by then, perhaps not?
Very sorry to have to post this as I have never served in MIL/LEO, but the Air Force general should know the thing what holds the bullets is a “magazine,” not a “clip.” (Apologies if this has already been commented upon)
Edward’s Two Americas in action:
The Corporate Cafeteria Is Broken. So How to Feed Workers?
Yes, people do need to eat, but most working Americans are likely paying for it out of pocket, and clocking out to do so. To have lunch provided on site, for free, or discounted, and not having to even clock out to do it, that’s a whole ‘nother world right there.
When I was at Google briefly, in Cambridge, there was so much food waste, all of it free, that they’d taken to tracking the pounds wasted on a big digital sign that employees saw when leaving the huge cafeteria. We’re talking hundreds of pounds of wasted food. It was appalling. And I’d never seen so much food, with a new complete menu every day for lunch and breakfast. Quite amazing. That’s what monopoly money buys you.
Taibbi’s latest on Hamilton 68.
Hamilton 68: Brief Addendum
Comparing their response Friday to the site’s original mission statement
https://www.racket.news/p/hamilton-68-brief-addendum
13 Investigates: What’s really driving up catalytic converter theft in Las Vegas? KTNV
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Pavlovegas is all about reinforcement with a capitalist bent, and for a couple hundred clams you can be in business in sin city.
All you need is a floor jack and battery powered reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight, and after the 2nd purloined cat you’re in the black.
Horrible deal for car insurance companies-they pay $5k for something the thief gets a hundred, it’d be better just to tape a Benjamin to a catalytic converter!
I am so old that I remember when electric vehicles were green.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11690327/California-fire-crews-use-SIX-THOUSAND-gallons-water-extinguish-burning-Tesla-Model-S.html
Firefighters Continue to Assess Damage After Large Fire at Bozrah Egg Farm
Published January 28, 2023 • Updated on January 29, 2023 at 9:27 am
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/multiple-crews-respond-to-large-fire-at-egg-farm-in-bozrah/2964121/
Hillandale Farms is one of the top 5 commercial egg producers in the country.
https://www.hillandalefarms.com/about-1
Didn’t something like that happen with another industry last year? Maybe the meat industry where there were shortages but then a fire or two made things worse causing prices to skyrocket?
fertilizer
https://response.epa.gov/site/site_profile.aspx?site_id=15489
Because someone has to support the people knocked out of the workforce by long-covid…
Raise the Social Security Age to (at Least) 75
https://mises.org/wire/raise-social-security-age-least-75
In a country where life-expectancy has been falling, raising the age of SS eligibility another means of accomplishing this (trip down Memory Lane):
How to Eliminate Social Security and Medicare
https://mises.org/library/how-eliminate-social-security-and-medicare
The other day you had this idiot burning a Koran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Sweden which blew up Turkish-Swedish relations. He then went to Denmark to burn three more Korans – one in front of a Mosque, one in front of the Turkish Embassy and the third outside the Russian Consulate. I wondered what sort of self-entitled idiot would do something like that. Now I know-
https://www.bitchute.com/video/f3xREseaYmd0/ (22 secs)