Wild Goffin’s cockatoos flexibly manufacture and use tool sets Cell
Cleaner fish recognize self in a mirror via self-face recognition like humans PNAS
Coyotes, Charlotte’s loudest newcomers, are here to stay Axios Charlotte
Climate
Sea-ice extent in the Antarctic headed for a record minimum Sea Ice Portal
Millions of satellite images reveal how beaches around the Pacific vanish or replenish in El Niño and La Niña years The Conversation
Those Balloons, or Whatever the Heck They Are
U.S. Military Shoots Down Fourth High-Altitude Object Over North America WSJ. Commentary:
[Meanwhile, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.)
"You're *absolutely sure* that *everyone* can read the 'Goodyear' on the side of my blimp, right? Absolutely *100%* certain? From far away?"— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) February 12, 2023
Everything we know about the mysterious ‘objects’ shot down by US warplanes Independent. It would be really hilarious of they were Ekumen envoys. But probably not:
Anyone notice how UFOs seem to appear whenever America is in need of an enemy? For example, the first surge in popularity was from 1947 to around 1960, coinciding with the rise of post-WW2 Cold War paranoia. The Soviet Union soon emerged as America's chief rival. pic.twitter.com/UImv81CqXJ
— Robert Skvarla (@RobertSkvarla) February 11, 2023
New unidentified ‘cylindrical’ object shot down over Canada WaPo. From two days ago, but important for this passage:
The incursions in the past week have changed how analysts receive and interpret information from radars and sensors, a U.S. official said Saturday, partly addressing a key question of why so many objects have recently surfaced.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that sensory equipment absorbs a lot of raw data, and filters are used so humans and machines can make sense of what is collected. But that process always runs the risk of leaving out something important, the official said.
“We basically opened the filters,” the official added, much like a car buyer unchecking boxes on a website to broaden the parameters of what can be searched. That change does not yet fully answer what is going on, the official cautioned, and whether stepping back to look at more data is yielding more hits — or if these latest incursions are part of a more deliberate action by an unknown country or adversary.
Not paywalled, at least for me, so I guess this is what they really want us to pay attention to.
Adversary Drones Are Spying On The U.S. And The Pentagon Acts Like They’re UFOs The Drive. From 2021, possibly germane.
China?
China and America are locked in destructive codependence FT
U.S.-China Trade Grows as Spy Balloon Raises Tensions WSJ
What does coronavirus have in store for China after massive wave of infection following end of zero-Covid strategy? South China Morning Post
What Do Louis Vuitton’s Record-Breaking Sales In Hefei Reveal About China’s Luxury Rebound? Jing Daily
China tightens requirements on classifying banks’ asset risks Reuters
Myanmar
Commentary: Drones are changing the state of play for Myanmar resistance forces Channel News Asia
Singapore commuters keep masks on despite discarded COVID-19 public transport rule Channel News Asia
Japan’s next central bank chief may rue promotion Reuters
India
Adani slashes growth targets amid rout sparked by Hindenburg Reuters
India’s Caste Obsession Is Hindering Socio-Economic Progress: Here’s Why Madras Courier
Syraqistan
Pakistan on the Brink: What the Collapse of the Nuclear-Armed Regional Power Could Mean for the World The Intercept
European Disunion
France braces for standstill on March 7 over pension reform protests The Connexion. Commentary:
Every single French union (including the CFDT and the other more conservative federations) signed this statement promising to “bring France to a halt” in all sectors on March 7th if the government doesn’t abandon its pension reform bill pic.twitter.com/yUdCSnduHp
— Jonah Birch (@jmb650) February 12, 2023
At least 250,000 protestors take to streets of Madrid over state of public healthcare Andalou Agency
German Deindustrialization Is Still Looming Project Syndicate
New Not-So-Cold War
The adult in the room, frighteningly:
You’re smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs.
Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed.
But we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2023
Why Ukraine should end war by political or physical assassination of Putin – political scientist New Voice of Ukraine
The Minsk Agreements Tried to Create Peace Between Ukraine and Russia. Zelensky Said He Never Planned to Honor Them. Pedro Gonzalez, Contra
It is time to cut Russia out of the global financial system FT. Let me know how that works out.
* * * Ukraine war: Russians slowly take ground around Bakhmut BBC
‘Like Verdun’: bloody fight for Ukraine’s Bakhmut compared to infamous WWI battle South China Morning Post
* * * JP Morgan reaches agreement with Ukraine’s Zelensky on rebuilding infrastructure NY Post. Jamie Dimon, large as life, still on the street!
Are U.S. Sanctions on Russia Working? Foreign Policy
* * * Ukrainian Women’s Looks Are None of Your Business Foreign Policy. Somehow, I don’t think FP meant this woman, prominent in Ukrainian propaganda:
A Ukrainian woman being taught how to fire a machine gun. #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/5tc6B3VDjD
— Ukraine Updates (@WW3updated) February 25, 2022
Because being trained by Nazis is a bad “look” indeed (though not to everyone, I grant).
Ukraine tells EU leaders to avoid ‘negative’ accession messaging FT. “Tells”?
South of the Border
Peru crisis deepens as agreement on early polls eludes lawmakers FT
Canada’s regime props up Peru’s and helps Canadian mining companies exploit crisis The Canada Files
Brazil Moves to Oust Miners from Indigenous Lands, Shore Up Support for Amazon Protection Yale Environment360
Supply Chain
Welcome to the dark side: The rise of tanker shipping’s ‘shadow fleet’ Freight Waves
The Bezzle
Big Pharma’s Patent Monopolies and Corruption Are Costing Americans Big Dollars Dean Baker, DC Report
The Next Generation Of Large Language Models Forbes. “1) Models that can generate their own training data to improve themselves.” For some definition of “improve.”
Our Famously Free Press
Radio War Nerd EP #366 — Seymour Hersh on US Bombing Nord Stream Pipelines (postcast; unlocked) Radio War Nerd. Nice get! Commentary:
Pretty strongly suggests that Hersh in fact has multiple sources for this story (and others), but given the extreme sensitivity of what's being reported, he's keeping mum about that. Something to consider in the discourse around this piece.
— Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) February 12, 2023
Well worth a listen. Hersh is quite a character!
Sports Desk
Super Bowl MVP Mahomes rallies Chiefs to win on hurt ankle AP. At half-time, kill them with fire:
Oh god they’re normalizing robot dogs in the super bowl pre-show thing pic.twitter.com/BwqVJoefoK
— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) February 12, 2023
Data from New Jersey is a warning sign for young sports bettors The Conversation (Re Silc).
Imperial Collapse Watch
Army sees safety, not ‘wokeness,’ as top recruiting obstacle LA Times
Class Warfare
Eight States Have Joined Forces to Raise Taxes on America’s Wealthiest Stephanie Kelton, The Lens
What Can Be the Impact on Shipping From Fallout in the US West Coast Labour Talks? Hellenic Shipping News
Tech job bonfire rages on as Microsoft, GitLab and others join in The Register
At This Jersey Factory, Pension-Backed Private Equity Takes On Union Workers The Lever
American Dream For Rent: Investors elbow out individual home buyers Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Yale Professor Suggested Mass Suicide for Old People in Japan. What Did He Mean? NYT. What Andrew “Ratface Andy” actually did?
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
184 comments
Comments are closed.
https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/local-news/woman-recounts-living-in-fresno-internment-camp-81-years-ago/
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – A Tulare woman is saying she will never forget her experience at the Fresno Fairgrounds in 1942.
One week from Sunday will mark 81 years since President Frank Roosevelt signed Executive order 9066 forcing hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps during WWII.
When people walk into the Fresno Fairgrounds they think of the food, the rides the entertainment but, for thousands of Japanese-Americans in the Central Valley, this is the place they were forced to live after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
========================================
Unfortunately, the article came after Fresno week.
I’ll admit the 51 week post partum from FGFW is rough and you have to get back to reality.
Upon being allowed to depart from the Manzanar concentration camp, an American boy was asked if he would miss anything from his time there.
“The hawks and the mountains.”
Olivier Knox
@OKnox
[Meanwhile, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.)
“You’re *absolutely sure* that *everyone* can read the ‘Goodyear’ on the side of my blimp, right? Absolutely *100%* certain? From far away?”
================================================
Well, whoever is flying those objects is gonna put up a false blimp
We’re entering newer, impossibly stranger yet territory. Nuke that thing from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
To paraphrase a scene from Aliens. Who knows, maybe these floating and various shaped airborne items are also manufactured by a Raytheon or affiliated military contractor? They win twice! \sarc
Maxim made a proverbial killing selling guns to all sides during WW1.
Maybe what this is about is a bunch of high-school kids in China going out on Taobao and buying cheap weather balloons, filling them with helium, attaching random objects to them and letting them drift on air currents to North America. Those whose balloon gets the most outlandish reception get the most up-votes on their social media profiles. I could see high-school kids and college kids in America doing the same thing if they could.
I noticed that the maps of the trajectory of the ‘original’ “weather balloon” began in central China, perhaps from the atomic test facilities in Lop Nor. Looking at a map I see that Vladivostok is at about the same parallel as that part of China. So, why has this not been blamed on Russia yet? I mean, come on now, the Ukraine Adventure is not over. Pivot too soon to the China Adventure and you run the risk if being engaged in a two front war. Never a good idea at the best of times.
Its the global trade swing in the last 20 years. With US wunder weapons not working as advertised (they are serviceable for what they are), China is simply going to win more friends doing nothing. Other than crooked rent collection, does a US base offer anything?
DC may have brought Europe to its knees today, but how Europeans feel in a couple of years when they are buying Abrams and F35 Hangar Queens instead of having pensions will be another matter. Without the threat of “Montezuma’s Revenge”, Europe will be harder to keep in line.
Montezuma’s revenge? Diarrhoea?
>”We’re entering newer, impossibly stranger yet territory.”
I really don’t understand what’s going on and it seems no one else does either. But authorities are not going to learn much by shooting them from the sky and then searching for—and perhaps not finding—the wreckage or much of it. For example, it is entirely possible that the object shot down over Yukon Territory in Canada will never be found. The Yukon is vast, and it’s a lot harder to find crash sites than most people realize.
All of which leads to my completely uninformed question: The military is capable of refueling planes in the air, quite a technological achievement. So why can’t those jet-fighter cowboys find a way to lasso one of those slow-moving dogeys and drag it back to the nearest military corral for vetting?
Seems pretty simple to me. Or could it be that the military—whose ways are always mysterious—doesn’t want us to know the truth, preferring instead to blast them to smithereens and be done with it? To paraphrase Stalin: A balloon can be a problem. No balloon, no problem.
Love this. Reminds me of what my Bitterroot valley ranch-owner pal (sixth gen heir to original Patentee) said when I asked him if they had seen wolves yet:
“None to speak of… ” clever economy of words, Hemingwayesque!
Mildred – I’m pretty sure they could capture those balloons. Years ago I saw an Air Force plane with a device on the front that was able to grab the cables holding the payload and bring a balloon back to land. I see no reason why that couldn’t do that now.
Those were very light payloads (film canisters, actually), descending on parachutes, attached with shrouds engineered to be strong enough to absorb the impact and acceleration up to the airplane’s speed. They were captured by a specially configured C-130 (propeller engine) over the Pacific. The very slow airspeeds the C-130 could fly at were part of what made it feasible. The C-130 has a service ceiling between 23k and 28k ft, no where near the altitude these balloons have been shot down from. This was in the 60’s (half a century ago, anyone with experience would be in their 80’s ). The interception was possible only because the aircraft knew ahead of time precisely where and when the parachute would be coming down.
Attempting this today, in a rush, with an completely unknown target (you have no idea how much mass is involved), with an aircraft that can’t fly safely at those altitudes would be …. not a good idea.
True, hence, try the idea with unmanned drones. Some of our drones are quite large. The altitude problem is purely technical in nature. Better drones, for a price of course!
I’m hoping that American cliche of shooting first and asking questions later doesn’t end up bringing us a death star from a planet circling Alpha Centauri.
If these aliens are really “intelligent entities” they would have nothing to do with us.
They don’t. I’m sure they know better than that. They do fly-overs and fly-bys and that’s about it. It’s possible they are only using Earth as a “re-fueling” station on their way to much more interesting and important galactic stuff.
Maybe it is just a form of intergalactic cow tipping.
Let’s go mess with monkey planet…
(Which is nicer than saying let’s go play with meat beings.)
The reality is countries used to fly over each other all the time and have satilites anyways. We even had a treaty until recently that let Russia and US do it openly just for giggles. That neither party nor any military leaders controlled the bratty knee jerk reaction of “hit Biden with it” was an unforced error. And he’s so binary and panicky in thinking trying to please everyone he took the bait.
By shooting that balloon down… as this goes on… DC is now pretty Self-Owned.
Those ballons cost what? $1000?
Now you can just send up one balloon after another and they ‘have too’ shoot them down too. China is also being silly following suit but they only need 1 to show their people “Americans do it too.”
But if I were a foreign power wanting to just embarrass the US, I would send a couple guys with a whole bag of ballons and money to buy some car batteries and jumpers to make untracable hydrogen.
You could slow trickle this drain on military credibility with just a bag of ballons. When do they stop shooting? At 50? 100?
Its just rubber and tin foil, so expect a LOT. The US is also spending some good money each shot down and we’ve learned they have bad supply lines. When do the f22s run out of missiles?
And all the people freaking out will just get worse and worse, and us who don’t care will just get more and more incredulous.
For once, I actually would suspect Russian spies on this because it’s a really good way to make the U.S. population tired of the hawks. And not just the DC hawks but your scaredy cat neighbor who supports Ukraine/ Militarist generally.
But this is at the same time truly such a good prank now, that I wouldn’t be amazed if a Chinese, Russian, and Iranian guy all run into each other in the woods and share a good laugh. All while some kids from Wyoming are watching with their own balloons.
Heck, I would expect friendly nations to jump onboard if the joke gets around diplomatic circles. All the ministers at the UN chuckling at ours because they know Zimbabwe sent the last balloon to troll them.
Along those lines, perhaps it’s a way to deplete US air-to-air missile supplies in advance of decisions to provide airborne launch platforms to Ukraine.
Balloon hostilities can get outta hand…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_propaganda_campaigns_in_Korea
I remember back in the Vietnam War days North Vietnam would call Americans “capitalist running dogs” (at least that was the newspaper translation), and Koreans apparently have a similar saying. Is calling someone a “dog” a generic Asian insult? Reminds me that “dog” or “cur” used to be insults in English too, but seem to have fallen out of use. I guess the “b” word (female dog) could be a survival.
The North Koreans and the Chinese always had the best revolutionary rhetoric!
Mao more than ever, baby!
Mao & then a little less food makes the rhetoric go down, the rhetoric go down…
OK guys. No need to be Xi about it.
“running dog shoe company “ in The Big Chill
American Dream For Rent: Investors elbow out individual home buyers Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“They go after every listing under $500,000 … it’s like clockwork,” said Maura Neill, a realtor in Alpharetta. “The property gets listed and, sight unseen, they make offers within an hour.”
In Springfield, Massachusetts there is an old grand hotel called The Kimball that was converted to condos. It has I think about 132 units. I noticed it years ago because they sold for around $40k. Drawback is the condo fees are quite high but do include heat and ac. Doubtless to fund upkeep of the hotel. These units would sit on the market for some time before being bought.
However, lately have noticed they can go under agreement more quickly and are selling higher these days – around $80k. And closer to home, even the low end of the real estate in my town seems to go under agreement almost immediately.
Am seeing articles that several states like Texas and Florida are considering banning Chinese from buying home property in the US. While this is more to do with hysteria over China not housing affordability, it would be nice it they would expand that to include all non citizens and institutional investors.
That is a well written article, worth a read. That isn’t capitalism or free markets, that is parasitic behavior that is not going to be reigned in by conventional methods. If something breaks as a landlord owner, there ought to be more severe consequences for the lack of corrective action. Added thought, the renter is left chasing their tail as in the example shown from the article.
I recognize one of the areas discussed, McDonough is south of downtown about 40 minutes or so. The area is flourishing with development. I’ve got a lifelong friend from high school who owns a basic 2 story home, and while his family could likely sell they would be priced out of moving into a new home. He told me as such a few years back, prior to the pandemic.
We’re readily preparing for the next, newer phase of capitalism. Not only will you own nothing, but as a renter you can save until the cows come home but your pockets will never match the deepest pockets imaginable.
Yes, it IS capitalism, and it IS exactly what free markets are about: the separation of labor from its conditions, namely the conditions of its own reproduction. This crackpot religious agnotology that capitalism is an emotional disposition is ahistorical, illogical, counterfactual, and frankly embarrassing. Please don’t.
hunkerdown, 100%
I could have chosen my words a little better at specifying, I do suppose, as in how the little people are not only priced out of purchasing a single family dwelling but increasingly they keep competing against the Goliath in doing so. And the sole purpose of the Goliath is to have hundreds of these dwellings.
Added. By little people, I mean mopes like myself who used to cling to this fantasy notion of markets not being closed, or captured to the extent that they are.
You must be thinking of Distributism. Capitalism was thorougly analyzed and critiqued by Marx and others, who found no such diffusive tendencies in the real rules of the game.
“This isn’t capitalism” he says as capitalism once again ruins everything.
“That isn’t capitalism or free markets”
Michael Hudson points out that we once had capitalism that produced things (and jobs), but we now have rentier capitalism, or financial capitalism. I prefer rentier capitalism, which reflects the truly parasitic nature. Adam Smith hated rentiers, and this is why.
When my Mother passed away this year, I started getting calls from investors within a week. I got multiple calls and letters in the mail. There were flyers placed in my mailbox trying to buy the house. All of these people were investor groups. When I started looking at clearing out her furniture and belongings, I discovered that all of the estate sale companies were also involved with investors. None of them were interested in selling the items in the home. They all wanted to sell the house. They all had their own real estate people and if I would sign up with them they would get the house ready to sell, sell it and then remove the household items and sell them. Clearly, they had a pipeline for homes. A ready market. I turned them down and was able to sell the home for much more than they were offering to a family that qualified for the 30 year fixed mortgage. It seems that the high interest rates are also working in the investors favor. They all claimed I would not find anyone that qualified for a mortgage.
It sounds like you made the moral choice. You had a type of buyer in mind, waited to find that family, and sold the house to them yourself.
It’s what I was thinking about while I read the article. The houses were owned by someone(s) before they went up for sale. They hired a real estate agent, who will sell to whoever offers the most money, especially if the offer is all cash. That just gets them to their commission faster. Greasing everyone’s palm who ‘has a piece of the action’ is how cash becomes king. They are all once or twice removed from making a moral choice, their hands are clean and greed reigns. The contract describes in legalese ‘the right thing to do’. If the SHTF, with so many parties involved, so many fingers pointing at someone else, it gets complicated and attorneys and the courts are needed to sort it out… if it comes to that, and gosh that gets expense. Deep pockets wins again.
Or the home owner could do what you did and sell it themselves and keep most of the equity and the satisfaction of helping a family. Deep pockets must hate sellers like you. When we sell this house, we intend to be in that hated club.
It can get more complicated than that though. When my parents passed away a few years ago they were still living in the house they had built in 1960, which we kids grew up in. They’d put in the money needed to keep the place habitable, but there was some deterioration and many things that weren’t up to current codes. We wanted to keep it in the family but it wasn’t suitable for anyone. We ended up selling it to a developer who did a complete remodel and sold it for twice what he paid us. Under the circumstances I don’t know if there was an alternative.
No offense meant, LL. Even as I typed I was thinking about the how complicated it is.
I think it’s becoming increasingly difficult to act to the benefit of the ‘common good’. We are removed or distanced from direct actions… we’re losing ‘agency’. Financialization includes too many interested parties, too many agendas to where what good may be found there is lost in the transaction and all that can be exchanged between people is money. A home should mean more, much more than that.
From what i’ve read its really hard to get money out of China now, so as a result it isn’t as if PRC Chinese are buyers all that much anymore.
Super Bowl results. You know for basically 57+ minutes most US professional football fans receive entertainment value between two championship level teams. Aside from the weird optics of football players sliding on grass. Yes, I do not conceive that sliding on actual grass is meant to be that way. And then a bit of yellow colors the playing field and that’s that.
Then I also find this link below and I dare to ask the question, what were the Eagles fans doing after the ending of the Super Bowl event yesterday? I venture to guess they found this car, flipped it right side up and then beat the thing with all manner of axes and sledgehammers. Out of frustration and not out of happiness.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/philadelphia-eagles-fans-super-bowl-b2280930.html
Goes to show that by deliberately not making the big score, the game can still be won. Puts the lie to the fatuous commercial about fighting for every inch, as a bonus.
Also shows the tremendous respect Andy Reid has for the Eagles and I am happy to see every expert pundit with a giant egg on their face.
“Fighting for every inch” is not tantamount to glory or the big score. Glory is the easy way forward–it’s what soft men pursue. It takes a real man to fight against that inclination: to forgoe the glory–the big touchdown. He cares about his team mates, he has his eyes set on the true prize–winning–and is smart enough to realize that by forgoing his chance to be part of the highlight reel he increases his team’s chance to win.
Yo!
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was the shitty of brotherly love for the Eagles who so dominated their adversary who looked rode hard and put away wet, limping into the locker room.
If it was me and not Patrick, I would have requested-no demanded strong pain killers and hopefully drifted off into slumber-based on the epiphany of his anguished look, but not with our latter-day Achilles making a last stand!
We former Atlantans would say it was the borrowed Tomahawk Chop that won it for the Chiefs–has incantatory powers.
R.I.P. Chief Knockahoma
I’ve often thought with American football that they should change the rules for making a touchdown to make it more like rugby. So instead of merely running across the touchdown line and doing a happy dance, you have to have the ball touch the ground while you are holding it. I have seen games where the other team’s players manage to keep that player off the ground so that he cannot ‘ground’ the ball. If you watch the following clip, you will see examples of what I am talking about-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJRY0u9jG1k (10:29 mins)
You can’t tell me that that would not make American football more exciting.
Rev Kev,
Well, it is called a touchdown, so yeah lets give it a whirl and while we’re at it, can NFL refs borrow outfits from Aussie Rules football refs, as in the old white lab coats?
Just add a stethoscope dangling around your neck, to look experter.
C’mon, Wuk. Where is your sense of adventurism? Football has changed and evolved over time. You wanna have the players go back to leather helmets again?
https://www.pasttimesports.biz/football.html
And why not make the kicker take the ‘conversion’ kick for the extra point in line with where the touchdown was made, as is the case in rugby? As it is, the extra point is usually easily scored from right in front of the posts.
There’s a reason American football is the most popular sport in America. The rules of the game have been designed to maximize drama, and are yearly tweaked toward that end. The NFL, to its credit, is willing to evolve and as far as I know all the rule changes have met with fan approval.
On another related subject, a joshing question for The Rev Kev: Why can’t Australian horse-racing come into the 21st-century era of horse-race simulcasting and adopt colored saddle-clothes on the horses to make it easier for TV viewers to follow the race?
America has wisely had colored saddle-clothes for many years but Australia (and many other foreign jurisdictions)…no. What’s that about? Tradition? Or simple hide-bound refusal to yield to change, especially if it means adopting something American?
The rules of the game have been designed to maximize time outs, stoppages, flags, huddles, replays, advertisements, military flyovers, and the taking of knees.
Regretfully Mildred, I cannot answer your question as I am not into horse racing. Watching a herd of horses run around a big circle to me is as boring as watching a bunch of cars drive around a big circle.
Sorry, I assumed you were an Aussie. ;)
Alas Mildred I am one of those people that are bored by gambling. Standing in front of a poker machine feels like I am throwing away chunks of my life that I will never get back. Buying lotto tickets I find pointless. I am a modern times wrongthinker.
Risk on the other hand is a different proposition. And there is a difference. If you take a chance on something and lose but can get back your position, it is taking a risk. If you take a chance but lose and cannot get your position back again, then you are gambling.
Wow!
Those guys are tough buggers!
And no body armour!
Philadelphia sports fans have reason to be frustrated. Their Phillies lost to the Houston Astros in the baseball World Series. Their MLS team called the Union lost to the LA Football Club in the soccer championship game and now the Eagles get punked in the Super Bowl. Plenty of pain for all type of sport fan.
So they reached the final stage in 3 different competitions. If tat’s frustrating, what do we say about all the cities whose franchises didn’t come near the final stages in a single one?
Well that certainly narrows it down a bit.
As the russians, chinese and islamic terrorists are already known knowns, my bet is on the vril.
…or ursula van der leyden’s social media groups.
Thank you, Paul.
I was hoping you would comment again and wanted to ask you about the SNP MP’s e-mails and poll showing 40 odd % of Scots want Sturgeon to go.
Oh boy! If only it were as simple as being the actions of groups like the “Vienna Circle” or “Thule.”
Maybe Trump is behind them /s
‘Superbowl’
Gotta ask the question. So where was Zelensky? How come he did not give a trademark appeal for more money and weapons in a video at halftime? He does it everywhere else. I’m sure that they could have knocked of five minute from Rihanna’s half-time show act. Definitely a non-barking dog here.
The recent Euro politician love fest was the result of competition. They saw Sunak slobbering, followed by Starmer, and the rest had to follow suit before being called traitors.
In the US, the Super Bowl isn’t competing with anything and usually demands money. Zelensky was knocked off the press by Will Smith last March. The Ukraine flags have disappeared. Western politicians care because in simpler narrative terms it’s the first time they aren’t invading and murdering locals. Only Hollywood for ugly People and their Euro counterparts would consider Zelensky an asset.
After the late start, Biden might have had to coup Zelensky if he delayed the game.
He could’ve done his piano routine.
Would that make him a “short something vulgarian?”
Maybe he could do a few borrowed lines of Bohemian Rhapsody.
“I’m just a poor boy nobody loves me…spare him his life from his monstrosity…easy come easy go will you let me go…”
Beelzebub has a place for me. It’s a mansion in Miami!
They wouldn’t show it on TV, anyway. Those zoom lenses are classified.
As militarized as NFL productions are now – and FOX is the worst – I fully expected one or more Ukrainian references during the interminable pregame festivities. I was quite relieved not to see them – though that didn’t make the pregame any less interminable. And there was plenty of “USA, USA” cheer leading, of course.
He appeared via video at the NFL awards ceremony earlier in the week as seems obligatory, perhaps by quiet fiat, at American awards ceremony. It looked like him at least, but I didn’t hear him demand bombs and money, so I’m not absolutely sure.
Super Bowl watchers got nearly a half hour of multiple national anthems, jets flying overhead and tributes to Pat Tlllman. It reveals our media’s confidence that Americans do not even remember historical events within their adult lifetimes. Colin Kaepernick helped spare us from the orgy of jingoism that seemed to accompany any gathering of eyeballs, but that seems to be very much over. Maybe the players should revive it. Give the Republicans something to run against.
(Funny that Biden bailed. An audience of 200 million? Maybe he didn’t want to be compared to Ri.)
True football fans barely put up with junk culture like Ri’s H/T show. Ze’s would be a bridge too far.
Thank you, Lambert.
Further to the Ukraine and dear old Blighty links, I can report some tidbits from Whitehall.
Last week, the Royal Air Force provided a briefing about the supply of aircraft to Ukraine. This time, there was no mention that sending the RAF’s only operational aircraft.
The RAF and Fleet Air Arm reckon it will take at least two years to train Ukrainian pilots and their support. No time was estimated for how long it will take to build the infrastructure to support jets like the RAF’s Typhoons. It was suggested that land based equipment was more appropriate at the moment, something that won’t go down well with the army as they may lose their only operational main battle tanks.
The analogy with motor racing was used. The focus is on the driver and car, but the team in the pit lane and at the factory are just as important. This analogy was deliberate. Why? The defence secretary, a former Scots Guards (infantry regiment) captain, is a “petrol head”, a motor racing enthusiast.
The RAF also pointed out that if the infrastructure can’t be readied in time or under the circumstances, the aircraft will have to fly from airfields on NATO’s eastern flank, which brings NATO into the war, and travel hundreds of miles east to the front, risking Russian anti-aircraft defences.
Sunak is not that invested in this war and knows he has fish to fry at home. In mid-December, he asked for an assessment of Ukraine’s position, warts and all. That raised eye brows in case that Sunak wanted to scale back the war effort. Sunak’s wife and her family have investments in Russia and are well connected to the Indian establishment, so they have alternative sources of information and perspectives.
Sunak realises his position is weak and Johnson and Starmer can pounce on any back sliding, whether over Ukraine or Brexit. He’s not worried about Truss, especially as Truss’s brand needs rebuilding and she has indicated she’s interested in running for the leadership in opposition.
Sunak is also trying to build bridges with the EU and thinks that is pressing, but fears being outflanked by Johnson and Starmer. Sunak supported Brexit, and Johnson, as he felt someone with his immigrant and bankster background would not go far backing remain. He wants cross party support to ease trade friction, hence getting officials, but not ministers, to meet Barnier unofficially early this month and having Brexit addressed at the non partisan Ditchley foundation in Oxfordshire last week. That non partisan gathering provides Sunak with cover. The appointment of Lee Anderson as party deputy chairman is also to provide cover and throw a bone to the Tory right, who want their own candidate, possibly Suella Braverman, to stand after the likely election defeat.
That meeting in Oxfordshire was unlikely to get far as the likes of Atlanticist and Henry Jackson Society member Gisela Stuart and Labour’s grandstanding, but lazy hound David Lammy were there.
One wonders what NC’s former military professionals and diplomat David / Aurelien make of that?
The focus is on the driver and car, but the team in the pit lane and at the factory are just as important. This analogy was deliberate. Why? The defence secretary, a former Scots Guards (infantry regiment) captain, is a “petrol head”, a motor racing enthusiast.
Good to know it’s all very serious.
Motor sport is not a game. It is a cogent analogy.
In karting, every minute of track time is preceded by an hour of preparation if one is serious.
I agree but sad that it needs to be reduced to a motor sport analogy to make sure that Ben Wallace gets it. One would have thought that the point might be obvious sans analogy. I am biased about the UK’s political class but it seems to sum up their general lack of ability.
Simultaneously, Elon is the adult in the room for trying to avert WW3 by backtracking on his support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion, and the further promotion of Hersh’s poorly sourced, factually inaccurate, and speculative story about how the US actually committed a clandestine act of war on Russian infrastructure.
Really, what are we trying to prove here?
That your epistemic value is zero, and your vain, drive-by emotivism is a waste of everyone’s time and should be laughed at and dismissed like all other virtue signaling.
Thank you and well said, H.
Further to my tidbits from London above, I forgot to add that Sunak fears this emotional response, especially in the MSM, about scaling back UK involvement. He’s a dispassionate bankster and deracinated citizen of nowhere.
The UK top brass is being urged by former senior personnel to step back from NATO and other duties for some years and rebuild, but that is more of a political decision. Again, the fear that emotion is driving policy as much as anything else and public support could be lost by failing to show up / willing.
One hopes former UK official David / Aurelien chimes in as he’s more appropriate to comment than me.
Perhaps Sunak and Zelensky can drive the Russians out by laughing maniacally and charging at them head long, while wearing those stupid giant helmets they were modelling during his visit to the UK?
That photo was the essence of pathetic. They look like two schoolboys off to play soldiers. Z with his “really serious face”. Sunak grinning like a giddy child whose father bought him a motorized scooter. Clowns.
I agree. It was pathetic. Why do grown men (and nowadays women) see the need to dress up as soldiers? Especially ones with zero military pedigree. Johnson did the same last year and looked even more pathetic.
Zing!!!!
“Wild Goffin’s cockatoos flexibly manufacture and use tool sets”
You underestimate Cockatoos at your own peril. They are smart, smart, smart-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YyTHyaNpo (8:32 mins)
In a forthcoming statewide gambling prevalence study, we found that those wagering on sports in New Jersey were more likely than others who gamble to have high rates of problem gambling and problems with drugs or alcohol, and to experience mental health problems like anxiety and depression. Most alarming, findings suggest that about 14% of sports bettors reported thoughts of suicide, and 10% said they had made a suicide attempt.
Data from New Jersey is a warning sign for young sports bettors The Conversation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It all started for me circa 1973 @ the LA County Fair when mom bought me a $2 paramutual on the ponies in Pomona for $2 to show (come in 3rd place or better) on a nag named Quite A Day which went off @ 27-1 and won, my $2 transformed into $13.60, quite a day indeed.
It didn’t help that the numismatist who was my mentor when he hired me @ 15, had his office a couple miles from Santa Anita-a racetrack with no peer in the USA, set @ the base of the San Gabriel mountains, they use to call it ‘The Great Race Place’, and it was, because gambling possibilities were limited to horse racing, dog racing & jai alai, aside from the only casino action being in Nevada. There were also some cities that allowed poker, in LA it was Gardena.
No lotteries pretty much, bookies were certainly doing business in what would’ve been considered an illegal activity where the goods were odd but odds were good you’d make money, that is if you didn’t get arrested.
I’d play hooky from high school to combine the sport of kings along with the hobby of kings by going to Santa Anita before going to work, and a funny thing about both is that they were dominated by men, there were only a few women coin dealers in the entire world-maybe a handful, and the gender mix @ the races was 90% men.
I never once was questioned about my age when buying or cashing in a wager, in my mind I was in the milieu of grown ups.
I could only lose money so quickly on thoroughbreds @ Santa Anita-you could do it a lot quicker @ Los Alamitos on quarter horses in 350 yard sprints, but everything ran @ a glacial pace in between races as it took around 30-35 minutes, so you had time to kill in analyzing races and horses past form in making a decision.
The quicker way to lose your money though was casino gambling, with blackjack & craps calling my name, and once again it didn’t matter that I wasn’t of legal gambling age (18 or the ponies, 21 in casinos) nobody never said nothing or did a cocktail waitress card me when I requested proof, er 80 proof.
By my mid 20’s i’d blown through $150k maybe and realized that maybe I wasn’t very good at this, with my epiphany dealt to me @ a cheezy casino in Beatty Nv where the blackjack dealer beat me 19 out of 20 hands, which is statistically almost impossible.
I was lucky in that I replaced a bad addiction with a good addiction, and never lose money on anything in the wilderness when seeking the treasure…
But like any ex-gambler I probably have a jaundiced view of what i’m seeing develop with the utter ease of wagering possibilities and onslaught of tv commercials hyping it.
Baseball in particular glommed onto gambling as MLB realized that similar to the horse races, it was too slow of a game for young adults who are used to things happening now, if not sooner.
Not only did they embrace to usual kind of sports wagering, but went whole hog by having the umpires wear not 1, but 2 FTX patches on their uniforms, play ball.
When I wagered, the winning days @ Santa Anita were satisfying-but the losing days were just crushing, and the thing is you’d never know I had an addiction to look at me, away from the ‘oval office’.
There’s a rap star named Drake who bets millions on sporting events-does he have any idea the damage he’s doing, or does Adin Ross-locally born ‘twitch streamer’ with 10x the audience of CNN, who also is a gambling addict.
Just be grateful that you were not born into this era where you can have access to both your bank account as well as betting apps on your mobile. I know people that will never get ahead because as soon as they get their pay, they start making bets on their mobile and cannot stop.
Yesterday before the “big game”, my son and I were listening to his Spotify when an ad for Draft Kings came on saying, “place a $5 bet, and we’ll give you $200 in additional sports bets.” I told my son that’s like if an ad came on saying buy 1 pack of cigarettes, and we’ll give you an additional 40 packs for free.
They are selling addiction, and MLB, NFL, and ESPN are all happy to pimp the whole process.
I’m split on this. Yes – an addict is the absolute best for a casinos bottom line. But the casual who gambles for entertainment just like a movie goer spends money at a movie theater is also good. Should we really be telling grown adults what they can or cannot be doing? We see how that works out in the drug trade.
I can see the case for it: tax it, regulate it, and offer help for those who have a problem. And, yes, the advertisments for it are a case where better regulation is probably called for. Although, it did serve as a good learning experience for you to introduce him to it rather then him being forced to learn on his own
That’s a very neoliberal outlook on it. Those are our value tokens they’re playing with, and they can be used to command us, so yes, we have an absolute collective right to determine what can and can’t be done with them.
Should we really be telling grown adults what they can or cannot be doing?
Has this ever really been a problem? Bookies were a thing. No one went to jail except when the bookies broke some legs. We just made it easier. Then everyone is peddling it all the time.
The bookies weren’t playing to a population of 300 million, so they didn’t offer nonsense prop bets on whether a player would take a dump on the 50 yard line between the 3rd and 4th quarters.
They’re also selling the idea of competition as a source of Truth, to an audience self-selected to vicariously enjoy it.
They had the video poker machines in these strange “casinos” in south Carolina in the early-mid 1990s. People would literally camp out there playing the machines.
I remember meeting someone who manufactured the machines. He hated the casinos because they made the gambling to open and obvious. Essentially they poisoned the well as the problems became more public.
One can only hope that is what happens here.
FWIW, I find this to be almost as frightening as what is going on in Pakistan. Every time I read something granular on the area, it looks even worse.
There was a place across the lake from us that we frequented from time to time for their dock services. It was the kind of place that had live music and dancing on the weekends that we could see and hear from home. The owner could be found at the video poke machine that he must have installed with the hope of higher profits. Instead, he lost the place in less that a year after being in business for years. It was an evil thing.
A family member who was an alcoholic had to give up drinking because of health issues. Their solution was to walk into a casino and spend hours playing the slots. They easily went through almost half a million in less than five years, retirement savings, mortgaged their house and maxing out their high limit credit cards. Oh and not paying taxes. They had to go back to work, the IRS garnished wages, and that just slowed them down. It stopped when their health problems won.
I hadn’t been back to the city I spent most of my youth in for a decade when I went to the funeral. There are three Indian casinos within 45 minutes of downtown. There were also pawn shops and payroll cash centers on almost every other corner amid numerous closed businesses. Oh and numerous bill boards and countless tv ads advertising help for those with gambling problems. Poverty has always been part of the area, but I am sure gambling has added a whole lot of people to the ranks.
Online betting is going to rival oxy and meth in devastation, mark my words.
Native American revenge? There have been some around here who defend the Indian casinos but I’d say, as with a certain Middle East country, two wrongs don’t make a right. But then we have a really big casino in lower Manhattan and that serves as a poor example.
A family member who was an alcoholic had to give up drinking because of health issues. Their solution was to walk into a casino and spend hours playing the slots. They easily went through almost half a million in less than five years, retirement savings, mortgaged their house and maxing out their high limit credit cards. Oh and not paying taxes. They had to go back to work, the IRS garnished wages, and that just slowed them down. It stopped when their health problems won.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
‘Broken-Widows-Economy’
I’m surrounded by Native American casinos and have yet to set foot in any of them, and only know them through their advertising, you’ll see billboards in Godzone such as this one with a black gent smiling like a Cheshire cat with clenched fist and the wording on either side of him saying Table Mountain Casino & ‘This Is Winning’.
https://teamcatalyst.com/project/tablemountaincasinorebrand/
Back in the day, as you mention, there was horse-racing for gamblers and nothing else (except for the few who knew a bookie). Like you say, a half-hour between races, time for some analysis of the next race, a drink, and some conversation. A relaxed pleasant afternoon for most.
Today’s online gambling opportunities are another beast entirely. If you have a computer or a phone, a wagering account, and a credit card—you’re all set! You can now start betting virtually every minute for 24 hours a day!
I feel sorry for young vulnerable people living in this brave new world. They’ve never known anything different and the chances for big wins seem so limitless. The reality is, however, that the chances for financial ruin are greater. And that without even the compensation of many enjoyable afternoons at the track, looking at and smelling the horses.
I don’t propose by any means a ban on gambling. But I would advise caution on the part of players and responsibility on the part of purveyors.
I wish dog racing would come back. The bettor has a better chance of winning than with the ponies because there’s no jockey to consider. It was small stakes compared with horse racing. Dog racing was a working class thing. I don’t think it was as bad for the dogs as for horses. I never heard of a dog having to be put down after being injured in a race. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw a dog injured in a race.
The thing about horse racing was it really employed all sorts of people and spread manna all over locally.
A dying thing, I think there are no harness races anymore, and aside from the Kentucky Derby nobody really pays attention. I’ll give you an idea of how it used to go circa 1979:
There were 9 races each racing day, and on either LA newsradio station, they would announce the results of each race as they came in, and newspapers would devote a whole page to it, and now nobody reports nothing, as if it doesn’t exist.
I am so old I remember innocence and the blue laws. The triumph of new liberalism and the crowning of money as the sole definition of value has let loose global mobsters upon Americans. Anything that makes money is now legal no matter the adverse consequences and costs to society; extortion, blackmail, pestilence, confiscation, profiteering, pornography, sports betting, casinos, alcohol, opioids and marijuana. Western government is corrupt and deregulated. The people are no longer served or protected.
I do sports-betting – ( today’s NHL games I’m betting the spread on Arizona Coyotes ( +1.5 ) v Predators. But that’s because they are offering American odds of -130 ( 0.56 prob) and I calculate ( AI, natch! ) them to be -190 ( 0.65 prob). The size of the bet ? The Kelly criterion gives me the amount of the pot to bet on.
I detail that to demonstrate how for all the sinfulness of gambling, sports betting and the geegees are the least sinful. It requires some thought, the chance to acquire some expertise and improve your odds at it, and the chance of winning isn’t too bad and the dream of something for nothing lasts a while ( unlike slot machine style games and some types of online poker).
The shittiest is of course the state-run lotteries, scratch-cards, then the online slot machines.
That article really didn’t put sports betting in context – just used the SuperBowl to beat up on the least sinful of the activities.
If someone wants to discredit Sy Hersh, they could point out all the times he’s been wrong. As they say on the Twitter, I’ll wait.
The list is extensive:
https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/blowing-holes-in-seymour-hershs-pipe
Which doesn’t mean that the US isn’t involved, it just means that his story is BS. Having had the wonderful experience of dealing with various conspiracy minded individuals in my life (anyone remember the UN Black Helicopters?), it read very much like that. The shift in scope (Presidential decision making down to granular details of the op) was a big tell.
TBH, I am not convinced by this guy’s so-called take down of Hersh. His main arguments is that he finds these claims unlikely. In one specific case, about Stoltenberg being a young CIA asset, this is entirely possible. As a teenager Stoltenberg was involved in anti-vietnam demos in Norway, but unlike many of his fellow demonstrators, he was never hauled in for questioning. That can, of course, be entirely coincidental, but it does offer food for thought.
I personnally have questions about the Hersh story, but what really made me think this guy was an establishment ‘debunker’ was the following statement:
“In regards to Seymour Hersh’s past, both his time as a Pulitzer Price winning journalist in the 1970s and his recent factually incorrect takes on the Syria gas attacks and Skripal poisoning, I will let people like Eliot Higgins who worked on these cases give their opinion.”
Firstly anyone who thinks Higgins and Bellingcat are any kind of credible organisation worth listening to is not worth a second glance. Secondly, Hersh is on the money when it comes to the phony Syria gas attacks and ludicrous Skripal poisoning story.
Yes. Oliver Alexander uses “open source intelligence” to debunk “Russian disinformation.” Take a look at his twitter account and you will get an idea of his point of view. As you point out, some of these criticisms of the Hersh article have already been addressed by others. A lot of the rest of the piece is very Bellingcat-like, in that it spends much time on technically-sounding analysis of something tangential or irrelevant to the actual story – like his long discourse on the mine sweeper that the author determined had to be the ship in question, or the air mix for deep sea diviing. Just as Higgins’ various “technical” analyses of Hersh’s “factually incorrect” statements on Syrian gas attacks have themselves been shown to be BS by real experts like Theodore Postal, I’m pretty sure this would apply to Alexander’s “take down” as well. The author also often reads into the story the assumptions he wants to see, such as Hersh’s statements about secrecy contradicting this statements about various intelligence agencies knowing about it. They don’t. (John Helmer kept doing this in a different way in his strange critique of Hersh the other day).
But I don’t think a real debate about the Hersh article is the intent here. If russell1200 wanted me to take this comment seriously, then comparing Hersh to “various conspiracy minded individuals” he/she has had to deal with is a trigger best avoided; sorta like starting with a hat-tip to Elliot Higgins.
His point is exactly that Hersh is the one who put all those details into the story. If he had kept it at a more basic level, it would be very hard to catch all the problems with it. The clearest was the mention of an airplane that the Norwegians have bought, but not yet put into service.
And really, when you get right down to it, you don’t need all that cloak and dagger to put holes in long, unguarded pipelines.
You are implying that Hersh is a charlatan. Where are you from? Hersh has as distinguished a history as any US journalist alive.
His critique of the Douma investigation is very credible. The main whistleblower on the official story is the original lead investigator from OPCW who led the team on the ground in Syria.
The US has a long discreditable history of applying enormous pressure to sway international investigative bodies. The head of OPCW during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, Jose Bustani, was forced out by US pressure. Afterwards he said that our UN ambassador at the time, John Bolton, had told him “we know where your kids live”.
At the moment, the US covertly sponsors lies and suppresses the truth on the internet.
As someone who started paying attention to the news around the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, I know who I tend to believe on stories like this.
If some other nation did it, the US has the surveillance data to show its own innocence. They can show it to us.
American Dream For Rent: Investors elbow out individual home buyers
I would still love to see an actual investigative journalist look into the pattern of cities getting flooded, first by activists and ‘progressive’ politicians, then the first flood wave brings the second, the huge meth camps setup by the drug addicts that the activists and politicians brought to town by screaming ‘housing is a human right,’ or ‘you can’t criminalize homelessness.’ Once the camps are setup, they change the housing codes to bring in massive development, drives up taxes, and forces the everyone who used to enjoy the city to leave, because the city is no longer a safe place to live. Gentrification via raising the cost of living and destroying the quality of life. You can recognize this pattern by watching how rabidly the activists demand to allow ‘camping’ (that’s too generous a word, if you saw one of these camps you would want to come up with a different word, I’ve settled on meth camps but wish I could do better) without actually trying to create any actual housing at a rate that would make a difference in the population at meth camps. In Austin, Texas, they buy hotels hoping to some day house a couple hundred people at each one, meanwhile there’s probably 10,000 campers in town with more arriving each day. For the longest time I couldn’t understand how the city council could be so incompetent, then I realized this was what was going on. It’s all about investors getting houses in bulk.
Location-Location-Location
In Los Angeles you’ll see homeless tents sometimes within sight of million $ homes, the latter having a zenith view of nadir.
Seeing the LA sidewalks totally covered with tents and with luxury apartments above them it really reminds me of the streets of inner-metro Mumbai.
Bidonville in French means a shantytown or slum. We call them ‘Bidenvilles’.
Homeless are truly our untouchables, in that law enforcement really wants nothing to do with them, as they are a burden in that no money can be excised from their likes.
>>>American Dream For Rent: Investors elbow out individual home buyers
San Francisco would agree with you, I believe. The thing is that the housing “crisis,” more like a catastrophe, has been ongoing and growing for forty years. And it is not just location anymore. The homeless have gone from just Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose to everywhere, because somewhere is to where all the affordable housing has disappeared.
I guess there is no where for me to move as it looks like the property developers and investors are gentrifying the whole country, not that I want leave. Still, if most people cannot afford a home, what happens? Yes, the politicians, investors, and lobbyists are making, and will continue to make, beaucoup bucks, and there are apparently many homes available, but just a few people can afford them.
Somedays, I almost wish someone would start the révolution.
‘Elon Musk
@elonmusk
You’re smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs.
Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed. But we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.’
Not sure but what I think that this is about is that Musk is not letting Starlink be used for launching attacks on Crimea. The Russians have said that that is a bright red line though a US official came out with a statement a few days ago saying that they saw no problem with any attacks on Crimea as it is Ukrainian territory. By now Musk has realized what he is dealing with in the Ukraine so I bet that we will not see him making any trips there. He must also realize that the Ukrainians are itching to attack Crimea and not necessarily the military facilities there. If Starlink was used in an attack on Crimea, then that would be a major escalation ending who knows where. And when it was all over, Musk may see that he could be used as a scapegoat by politicians as it would have been all ‘his fault.’ Maybe too he is worried that the Russians may develop something to do a number on the Starlink system everywhere and doesn’t want to find out.
Maybe Elon just wants the USA to pay him for the Starlink access. Uncle Sugar has a ton of money, isn’t shy about throwing it around and Elon loves taking government money.
Case solved.
I think they already negotiated that stuff behind closed doors, and in any case the Takings Clause and DFARS are on Musk’s side.
Or maybe his foray into the government cesspool controlling information on Twitter has made him realize that the US government can and will happily start wars with little or no thought of the consequences. And they will blame everyone else when it goes wrong as it inevitably does.
Looking at the massive lie campaign regarding Covid, Trump, Russia run by the government might do that to any human with a modicum of intelligence. Not to mention how worrying it is when our officials, who constantly accuse others of doing things they have done, talk blithely of nuclear attack.
Andrei Martyanov wrote something last week about some Russian to detect Starlink terminals:
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-minute-of-military-porn-for-musk-and.html
Let alone regular punters like me.
The aggressive infantalionalism of politics into office politics, at every tier, is a little dispiriting.
I remember a young canadian canvassing for the green party in scotland at my door.She, quite oblivious to her party’s positions and votes of the time,wss unable to answer.
I hope I did not upset her, but I fear I did.
She is now in the scottish cabinet (the scot is silent in their conversations) and the proud architect of a green policy (subcontracted) that will wipe out small brewers and do astonishingly little to restore nature’s balance.
You can browse this particular shitshow here
I like the bit that the canadian volunteered:
My eyes! my eyes!
More joy for today:
UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.
To describe any of this as shocking seems like hyperbole, given how routine it is, but nonetheless.
Nonetheless, this is a manifest evil.
(bold mine)
This woman is supposedly a nurse at United, and plays stupid during depositions. Can’t a medical board take away this person’s license or something? This is beyond shameful.
America is a shared suicide pact.
So, you are saying you have something against industry best practice? /s
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/unitedhealth-continues-lead-way-insurer-profits-q3-heres-how-it-competitors-fared
Linda Peeno’s congressional testimony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGKtROmiJL8
Former medical reviewer at Humana. Mentioned in Michael Moore’s “Sicko”.
From 2007:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqSshZZMHGA
Linda Peeno, MD, former medical reviewer for Humana, speaks at an informational briefing entitled, “SiCKO” What Has Happened to Health Care?
Why Ukraine should end war by political or physical assassination of Putin – political scientist New Voice of Ukraine
And this is what replaces him?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-ally-london-bomb-world-war-3-b2108980.html
Has anyone ever played chess before?
Triggering
Who had that on their Army recruiting bingo card?
“Are U.S. Sanctions on Russia and China Working?”
I really do not know where Foreign Policy finds these people. Like that ‘expert’ Agathe Demarais. Here are some of her statements-
‘Absolutely. Sanctions on Russia are working,’
The Russian economy is growing while those in the west are starting to swirl around the gurgler. Life in Russia is normal while more and more you are seeing protests in Europe as well as unemployment.
‘The sanctions were never about Russia’s economic collapse.’
Where do you start? Of course the sanctions were all about Russia’s economic collapse as that is how you get regime change. Old Joe came right out and said that that was his aim in a speech that he made in Europe. You can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.
‘For instance, Russian propaganda is making the claim that sanctions are fueling food insecurity in developing countries. This is technically not true.’
Now she is trying to make up her own facts. Those developing countries aren’t stupid. They keep track of cargo flows and cargo restrictions and can see which garden countries are fueling food insecurity in the developing jungle countries – at their expense.
I’m in Moscow this week, and (as per my previous reports in September and December) I cannot over-emphasize how normal and prosperous life here seems. Will send a more detailed report next weekend when I’m back in the land of Meloni, but my spot report is that the sanctions are (as my offspring like to say) “a major fail.”
On a related note, “Welcome to the Dark Side” was unintentionally hilarious; at least it had me laughing so hard my tummy hurt. Did western policy makers really truly think that the rest of the planet would stop buying RU oil products, just ‘cuz they said so? Money quote: “Frankly, it is becoming a big deal.” You don’t say?
Fools. Idiots. Pinheads.
I suspect that if they insist on maintaining this level of “vigilance” about balloons of all sorts they’ll find themselves doing a permanent shooting gallery up north to no particular purpose.
Most likely explanation: this detritus has been there all along and is only now being bothered with or even seen as worthy of attention. Ungodly numbers of balloons go up for various reasons from governments, corporations and a host of research organizations, and tracking of them after launch is not particularly strict or regulated.
The administration has put itself in this arguably silly position with its hysterical response to the big one, followed by the predictable and inevitable outflanking by the GOP in the direction of still greater hysteria, followed by the currently perceived need to operate at max hysteria to foreclose the possibility of further outflanking.
Love that metrosexual Trudeau is claiming chops as a “war PM” by saying he ordered the US to “shoot down” a “something or other” over the Yukon. Pretending he actually has testosterone in his veins. While he ramps up the looting in Peru, in vague mimicry of US imperialism.
We mopes are so completely f—-ed…
‘Ukraine Updates
@WW3updated
A Ukrainian woman being taught how to fire a machine gun.’
The Ukrainians are running short of ammo so I hope that those grannies kept all those Molotov cocktails that they were making a year ago.
I’d like to point out that the weapon in the picture, so tenderly caressed by the old lady, is not a machine gun but an infamous assault weapon, which every civilized person would like to ban. See, for example, president Joe Biden in 2021 and 2022.
A chicken in every house and an AR in every gun closet.
And if you’ve seen the price of eggs lately…..
Ban and confiscate in America, ship to Ukraine or Taiwan? :P
The banning part could be done, easily. The problem, as is the case with all ‘laws,’ is in the enforcement. Confiscating all those firearms would be well nigh impossible. I read somewhere that Australia’s example of wholesale confiscation was possible because of the level of cooperation shown by the Australian public in said confiscation. That level of trust in the Government does not exist here in America any more, if it ever did.
Given the state of knowledge about firearms among that crowd, they are liable to think that flintlock muskets are “assault weapons.”
That picture is from early last year (March), shot for propaganda purposes.
Agree. If this was a ‘real’ training example, the babushka would be wearing both eye and ear protection. And is that a silk coat she is wearing?
I think that image was taken at a real training event video which was conducted by Azov guys and which Lambert referenced and linked with the following story-
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dpdd/why-is-this-ak-47-toting-ukrainian-grandma-being-trained-by-neo-nazis
Needless to say, if it came to it those Azov guys would literally push her into battle in front of them and threaten to shoot her if she did not. It was also what SS Nazis did with regular troops and civilians at the end of WW2.
Just a random observation.
As a part of my “morning infodump” I check on the opening figures for the stock exchanges. I have long left that gambling arena, but what it shows about the degree of disconnect between the classes is “educational.” This morning, for the first time, Google presented as the first ‘link’ an ad for e-trading. Prior to this time, Google had begun the links list with straight up information sources. This feels like classic late bubble behaviour. Do anything to keep funds flowing into the black hole that enables “sophisticated accumulation” in the financial markets. To achieve this now, one must inveigle progressively lower and lower income cohorts into “investing” their money.
The ‘blow off’ for this one will be massive. What goes up must come down.
I’m surprised the market has held up as well as it has, considering, rate hikes, not so good economic numbers, jobs, the war, etc. But it is what it is. On that same note, I checked the price of NSC (Norfolk Southern) and it’s down less than half a percent today, and not more than a few percent over the last week.
A catastrophic toxic failure and their stock price holds up like this? Amazing, IMO.
Machine trading and alternatives.
The US “left” features people like Tim Kaine who, as governor, made the argument that eliminating the estate tax would attract billionaires to Virginia who would then pay use taxes or some nonsense. Old McKinsey Buttigieg is still the Transportation Secretary despite ample opportunities to spend more time with the family. We are talking about a person who serves at the pleasure of the President who went on parental leave (he simply didn’t show up for work) during the transportation negotiations.
Wealth inequality just breaks everything. One they have so much, but what they spend even the drunken spenders pales in comparison to actual wealth that they can simply park the money. Besides if you were wealthy grifter, would you feel more comfortable with “Bankruptcy Biden/Credit Card Joe” or Xi?
Even now Europe has problems, greater than the worst days of the PIIGS. Emerging economies are just that emerging economies.
Worth a major look. Come on NC!!
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-minute-of-military-porn-for-musk-and.html
Oh Canada, has learned to coup abroad, by polishing its skills when steering the Lima Group, designed to regime change Caracas, by no other than the darling of globalists, Chrystia Freeland, who recognizes only one nationality/ethnicity, the Ukrainian one…
This goes along with the article on the train derailment posted the other day. From what I can gather, the little town in Ohio is a mess. They had the “controlled” burn, and allowed people back to town, as I understand it. I read reports of farm animals dying, along with pets. I’m sure it will take quite some time to clean the wreckage, and what about air quality? What about that burn off and all the toxic chemicals in the air, and what fell on the ground? Sounds like the aftermath of Chernobyl. Where do the townspeople go for information, what about restitution, help, lodging, food, money? How are these people suppose to deal with this mess?
Crickets from the media it appears. I checked last night, and again today, and CNN has nothing on their front page. I found little in the Cleveland, Ohio news, or Akron. Maybe this has changed today, but I haven’t read it.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, this sleepy little town in Eastern Ohio is just the deplorable Trumpers, the stupid red neck hicks so many like to call them. Forget them, they can eat toxic PVC.
Adding: The Youngstown paper has a small article that says the town of East Palestine will have a town hall meeting on Wednesday at the local high school. I’m not sure exactly where the flaming tank cars were in comparison to the school, but it can’t be more than a few miles away if my map skills are intact.
Yeah, about that “controlled” burn. Good explainer in this twtr short video.
Probably the best video about what happened in Pennsylvania/Ohio and it’s pretty mind blowing.
https://twitter.com/unhealthytruth/status/1624938064207290368
Thank you Flora for this link. This is a tragedy that is being ignored. Hydrochloric acid in the ground for miles around and in the Ohio River is going to have serious repercussions on the health of millions.
Bingo. I said in a comment in the post about Ohio that I had seen a video from a guy who actually knew what he was talking about but could not find it again but that is the one. Thanks for linking to it.
Thanks for this flora – you are always on top of things. Good stuff. Thank you.
I watched that video too. There is also another one floating around in Twitter world of a person who seems to live close to that area, and they had their own narrative about this tragedy. Not fitted for work, but told it like it is (if they can be believed – there is always that) – at least I think so given what happened. In a nutshell, they said this little town in Eastern Ohio is not uninhabitable due to this mess – and I don’t think that is some crazy person going off on Twitter just to get likes.
This is a town of 5000 people out in the sticks who have just had their lives turned upside down. The pictures of mushroom clouds of the “controlled” burn, the fires from the train itself, and where does all the smoke, chemical residue, and who knows what, go? In the local streams, the Ohio river, which isn’t far away (saw pictures of people taking water samples from the Ohio river today), and in their air.
This is one of the most significant toxic accidents in recent memory. I’m about three hours away, so I kind of take it personally – this could be here – Cornhole, Ohio (I’m glad the wind is blowing away from me). Cornhole is just a little bigger version of East Palestine.
Not much from the press – our government – or state (DeWine).. I was evacuated years ago due to a spill of toluene because a pipeline broke (going through Ohio). That was small compared to this – and we could smell it for miles and weeks. The fluid went through a creek in the middle of farm country where our sugar beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, wheat, to name a few are grown. The creek might have only fed our main river, but it was full of chemicals.
I hope the people of East Palestine sue the living snot out of the people who are responsible for this, and win. But I won’t hold my breath. Nobody cares. A town of 5000 people living in the sticks – a long gone cog in the system that’s been sent overseas – and now just a shell of a town that has no use for the next Wall Street earnings report.
If this would have happened in the right place (Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard, etc.) it would be wall to wall coverage on all the propaganda networks. But it would never happen there to begin with – we all know that. Ask Flint Michigan.
I wish I owned a drone. I would be there taking pictures and video so I could broadcast it to the masses in hope people get mad enough to demand some change. Silly me. I would never get close, they would censor the video (where you going to post it?), and I would probably end up in jail.
What a world we live in.
We have no laws, and we have no truth. I’m glad I’m old. I do worry for my kids.
https://straightarrownews.com/cc/survival-in-nuclear-apocalypse-australia-new-zealand/
The Doomsday Clock, which symbolizes the likelihood of a global catastrophe, is ticking closer to disaster. In light of this, researchers from the Risk Analysis Journal have published a study comparing 38 island countries on 13 factors that could predict success as a post-nuclear apocalypse survival state.
Researchers wrote there would “likely be pockets of survivors around the planet in even the most severe” scenario…..
Australia emerged as the top pick, with the study citing its relatively strong infrastructure, energy surplus and massive food supply as potential factors for feeding tens of millions of extra people. However, researchers did note that Australia’s close military ties with the West could make the country a potential target in a nuclear war.
Nuclear-free New Zealand was also a top pick due to its remote location and oceanic surroundings, which could protect it from extreme temperatures. Other countries highlighted as safe options to reboot civilization in the aftermath of a global collapse include Iceland, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
============================================
News you can use. What with the screwy leadership of the west, you never know when doomsday will actually happen…
Alas, any country that would accept me as a citizen is a country I wouldn’t want to belong to…
Down Under sounds safe, but I feel safer here in that what adversary would waste a perfectly good nuclear weapon on Fresno?
Wuk
My thought has always been, why would our enemies end our suffering???
I realize it’s a fortnight late for FGFW, but being Fresno-adjacent does have it’s half-life advantage.
By 4:26, New Zealand is dark. “On the Beach” was a good film but no longer applies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=haab11D7ECs
in the fifties friends of family moved to Cape Canaveral because it was safest feom newcleer attack, shortly before the space race rose in the east…
I am surprised that Latin America and Africa, the two other biggest islands that would not be in fact involved in a nuclear conflict and as such will be less affected, where not included in the analysis.
Sadly, the keepers of the Doomsday Clock accept the same nonsense about our proxy war in Ukraine as the rest of our state-dominated media. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is but a shadow of its former self, as anyone who’s tried to comment there, but goes against the conventional wisdom–Putin/Russia bad, NATO/Ukraine good–can attest. They’re justified in moving the arms of the clock, but for the wrong reasons.
KT
One word explains how everybody who used to be left is no longer left: pods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLsjlmrQ6Mw
Oh sure, they are part of what used to be a leftish organisation, they look and speak like they used to, but any ideology of human empathy, integrity, truth that they used to have has been completely absorbed and replaced.
You have to admit – they have a sense of irony. Kevin McCarthy…
re: It is time to cut Russia out of the global financial system -FT. Let me know how that works out.
“Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off.” / ;)
Re: Coyotes in Charlotte
This will date me, I fear, but I worked on a research project in 1970 when in Graduate School at UMass trying to determine the origin of the then-called “coydog” or “eastern coyote.” This canid was not a true western coyote, which was smaller, and leaner; neither was it a wolf (not large enough), but it was a wild dog and then appearing in the midwest and east. In New Hampshire these animals were thought to be taking some livestock, sheep mostly, and one thesis held that Corbin;’ Game Farm in southern New Hampshire, which contained wolves among many other animals, including boar, when destroyed in the 1938 hurricane saw those animals go wild. This was surely true for boar, which now roam New Hampshire, and one thought was the wolves interbred with domestic dogs and produced the eastern coyotes. Or, maybe, the eastern coyotes were domestic dogs gone wild. You can create a new “breed” of a dog, or canid, with a small number of generations, maybe as few as seven, meaning, if domestic dogs went wild and interbred they would breed “true:” shortly thereafter.
A professor at Hampshire College, Ray Coppinger, a well known expert on dogs, sled dog racer, and sheep dogs especially, wondered whether it might be possible to prove whether these coyotes were domestic gone wild or wild if we could capture one. Apparently, domestic dogs have a pineal gland at the base of their tail which wild canids do not. If a captured wild canid had such a gland, then it would be clear they were a new breed derived from domestic dogs; if no gland, they were a mixture of perhaps the Corbins Game Farm wolves and domestic dogs.
I worked with Ray that winter, we designed a program whereby I took Hampshire students north in January to frozen swamps and we camped up there for weeks at a time and sought and tracked and tried to trap the coydogs, of which were were signs of many in the snow. They were wiley and our trapping efforts failed. We eventually found one, dead, which had been shot and run off to die, but something had found it first and eaten the hind end – so no way to check to see if there was a gland.
This was a long time ago, and surely since then more has been learned, but if you were to ask me I would guess the eastern coyote is a mixture of western coyote and domestic dog which moved east into habitat formerly occupied by wolves which, upon being exterminated, left open habitat these animals would occupy, and so they did, especially as the New England forests, cleared for generations for farming, returned to forest all the years of the 20th century.
Fascinating, thank you. I suppose it figures dog “breeds” would be relatively easy to create since the results are all around us, though I never really thought about how it worked before.
Two years ago Vancouver had a problem with coyotes in its large (1000-acre) urban park. They were becoming aggressive and occasionally attacking picnickers, walkers, runners, and their pets. Minor injuries were incurred. The easy solution of course was a cull, which was duly carried out, when the permanent answer was for idiot humans to stop feeding—and therefore “domesticating” and “befriending”—them.
Which got me thinking about Central Park in New York. According to the link below, it has exactly one coyote. Yes, one. Coyotes don’t seem to be a problem there. Why? I have no idea.
https://abc7ny.com/coyote-central-park-coyotes-in-nyc-new-york-city/10342738/#:~:text=Coyotes%20have%20been%20reported%20to,to%20live%20in%20Central%20Park.
Coyotes–if that’s what we have in my county–are super shy and also nocturnal. It’s really not that surprising that one (or more?) could get by in Central Park.
Around here I’ve seen them less than half a dozen times during the day and they are always gone in a flash.
I’ve seen coyotes frequently here in FL, always late at night (or the wee hours of morn), traipsing down the middle of the street in my very densely built neighborhood, usually in pairs. The one time they saw me looking, they too were “gone in a flash.”
I’m far more geeked out by the tree rats and wish they’d be more daunted by my presence. Still, the coyotes have been known to attack domesticated pets which does not inspire much sympathy for them. They are legally protected, I believe.
Would that we could protect ourselves from the vilest of creatures here, Ron DeSantis.
Walking to a climb in Yosemite Valley, I waited at a crosswalk for a while for traffic to pass, dimly aware of two French women and their dog next to me.. We all walked across the road and into the Yosemite Falls parking lot, and their dog stuck off away from them at a trot. “Excuse me,” one of the women asked me, “Is that a coyote?” It was! And it knew that the safest way to cross a busy street was to wait at a crosswalk!
As a personal observation, coyotes in the Boston
area are MUCH larger than the ones in Kentucky.
I recall reading story from a years ago regarding
DNA testing of coyotes from the New England area,
indicating that they were mostly coyotes. But they
were hybridized with wovles, and two specific dog
breeds. (German Shepherd and Doberman, maybe)
J.
Out here in the northern Bay Area we have gobs of coyotes now. For quite a while there were few, if any, but some years back all the outside kitties started to disappear. At this point they’re becoming flat out indifferent to humans, and now are a threat to children. But the paring down of the outside-cat population has allowed the quail to recover.
Last year, in the middle of the day, I saw one cross the (suburban) street in front of our house, without even looking for traffic. No fear. We listen to them at night, and sometimes they’re in the hills. and sometimes just on the other side of the fence. Speaking of which, I’ve seen videos of them walking on the tops of fences between yards.
As for the eastern coyote, my understanding is that they interbred with wolves as they migrated across Canadia above the Great Lakes. We still have our families NY stone house in the woods, 30 miles north of the GWB, and they are full of Lyme infected hoofed marauders, not at all kept in check by predators. But that may be changing, as the relatively recently arrived coyotes are much bigger and aggressive than their western ancestors. My bow-hunting friend who attempts to keep said woods free of the hoofed vermin has even told us of being stalked by one particularly large coyote. The sound of drawing an arrow back was enough to spook it. Now he keeps an eye out for it, and though not legal, if he sees it, well….
That is an interesting story. I have read that around the early 1800s schools in eastern Ohio were divided into morning and afternoon classes, breaking for lunch. Children who lived farther from schools could not attend the afternoon classes safely. In the late afternoon wolves were prowling the woods looking for supper.
RE: Beach erosion/replenishment
Good article, but incomplete. Satellites can show the extent of beach erosion/replenishment, but the mechanism (why) for doing so requires more info and judgement.
Interventions (human intervention–rip-rap), can change the intensity of littoral drift (sand movement along a coastline). Restricting sediment (sand) flow from rivers/streams to the coast restricts the amount of sand available for beach nourishment. The open source website does not account for these changes–unless you are an expert on a particular section of that coastline.
Dr.Gary Griggs (Professor Emeritas, UC Santa Cruz) is a renown coastal geomorphologist and considered the godfather of California coastal erosion/replenishment and has written books on the topic. The angle of wave approach, sediment sources and size, interventions, and slope of the beach offshore are all important considerations, as well.
Here in Santa Barbara the broad beach was rapidly eroded to nothing by 12 to 14 foot atmospheric storm waves. But since much of the littoral sand drift gets deposited just offshore, the now milder wave action is steadily replenishing the beach area. Since moving sand to the back-beach area takes wind action to blow the sand there, the beach will take several years to broaden.
Betting. Some people can’t control themselves, others can. I can walk through a casino and not drop a quarter in the slots, no problem. My mother? She can’t. I don’t buy lottery tickets, she does. Not her, but I’ve been with friends engaging in a friendly wager on which direction (N, S, E, or W) the dog will face before it squats and poops . . . . with a double sawbuck on the line!
The real problem isn’t the wagering, which the article Lambert linked and which posits a societal problem with those who can’t control themselves. Nope, the real problem lies in the fixing. Nobody worries about this but it’s blatant; witness NY overturning the game decision of Adams’ catch on the drive that would have put Philly up two touchdowns.
Me? Don’t believe I say this because I have skin in the game because I don’t. Proof? First, I don’t bet, and second, I follow Alabama in college football and Miami in the pros. So as a disinterested observer, other than enjoying the best in the business doing what they do for the championship (same way I’ll stop and sidewalk supervise a crew pouring and finishing a driveway – and for the same reason – to observe excellence), that’s when I knew for sure in which way the fix was in. To me, that’s when it became obvious KC would win with the help of officiating if necessary (and it was, they played miserably for long stretches of the game).
My advice? Don’t bet.
Bookies take bets on the outcomes of kayfabe wrestling matches, which I guess means liberals have removed all jeopardy from life: you will lose, but at least you can claim you’re having fun!
My wife and I can walk through an Ikea without buying anything, no problem.
That’s it!, both of ya scallywags walk the pressboard plank
Cap’n … we haven’t assembled it yet. :-(
“Pakistan on the Brink: …”
This link is worth visiting if only to look at the stunning photo of the vegetable vendor selling produce by battery powered light.
I believe the collapse of Pakistan could pale the danger and tragedy of the myriad other disasters looming and brewing in the world. I also believe the u.s. government has played an unclean part in the gathering economic and political crises. I cannot imagine how horribly Pakistan’s collapse could spiral tragic events and new conflicts and crises.
Reuters – United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately
https://www.reuters.com/video/
I guess the balloon story ran out of gas. Buckle up. Biden’s poll numbers suck, so we are in for all kinds of nonsense being thrown at the wall.
Gee, that is gunna be a hard question for those Americans in Russia to work out. Stay in Russia in a growing economy with life going on as normal or return to America where DC is going nuts over balloons and the economy remains neglected. What to do, what to do….
Hersh’s most interesting comment in the Radio War Nerd interview was about his sources. It was not a direct statement, but he in effect says he found sources in the pipeline construction industry who told him how the Nordstream attack was done and who did it. He said, they know. He mentioned divers, among others. It sounded as if the groups with expertise to build or destroy a pipeline are very small, know each other, and talk to each other. Read his account in Reporter of finding Lt. Calley at Fort Benning, and you can imagine how he developed his sources.
I can’t tell if that fish is an aquarium or wild, but lovely photo with beautiful colors!
biden names one of bill clintons economic advisors, to be his top economic advisor. this ought to go well:)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-name-feds-lael-brainard-022240782.html
“Brainard is a Harvard-educated Democrat who has been at the Fed for nearly a decade and served as Treasury’s top international affairs expert under President Barack Obama. She was an economic adviser to then-President Bill Clinton.”