Watch a Moose Walk into an Alaskan Movie Theater, Eat Popcorn, and Leave Field and Stream
You’ve Heard About Behavioral Finance. But What About Physical Finance? Institutional Investor
Why Our National Gene Bank System is the Backbone of the Breeding World Seed World
Climate
What Real Meteorologists Wish You Knew About Your Weather App Slate
#COVID19
COVID-19 outbreak hits large Bay Area hospital, prompting new mask rules San Francisco Chronicle. Hospital infection control whacks a few more patients:
Kaiser officials issued a written statement stating that doctors and staff must wear masks while providing direct care to patients in the Santa Rosa hospital and emergency department. There are approximately 3,500 health care workers at the facility. Visitors are also required to wear face coverings [like gaiters? Baggy blues?] inside the hospital.
No. #CovidIsAirborne. Universal inside the entire facility (that is, if protecting patients from infection is the top priority). See Water Cooler here from yesterday for longer form.
POV: The Benevolent Violence of an Unmasked Hospital Long Covid Families. Where are the lawsuits?
* * * Histopathology and SARS-CoV-2 Cellular Localization in Eye Tissues of COVID-19 Autopsies The American Journal of Pathology. “This is the first report to definitively localize SARS-CoV-2 to the retinal inner and outer nuclear cells, retinal ganglion cells, and ocular surface by ISH, validating previous studies that have exclusively used PCR-based methods. These observations highlight the need to better elucidate mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence in the eye…”
China?
China takes the yuan global in a bid to repel a weaponised dollar Business Standard
Many wealthy people are considering leaving China The Economist
US seeks meeting with China Defence Minister after being spurned Straits Times
Why China needs to rein in ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats to reset its global image South China Morning Post
China’s second-richest province goes big into green economy, innovation Straits Times
Is Japan’s military fit for purpose? FT
Myanmar
China’s potential peacemaker role in Myanmar driven by economic, geopolitical interests; no end in sight for crisis Channel News Asia
Global rice shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years CNBC
The Kingdom Of Bhutan Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin For Years Forbes
India
Congress Files Complaint With EC Against PM’s Invocation of Hanuman at Poll Rally The Wire
How U.S. Efforts to Guide Sudan to Democracy Ended in War NYT but see The Mainstream Media’s Admissions That American Meddling Ruined Sudan Are Misleading Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter (MT, MT).
Biden Signs Executive Order to Impose Sanctions on Sudan Antiwar.com (Rev Kev).
European Disunion
French Foreign Ministry remains silent over alleged US interference Anadolu Agency
Dear Old Blighty
RMT members back further strike action in row with train operating companies Sky News
Tories suffer ‘terrible’ night with English local election losses France24
Voters leave in tears as Brits without ID turned away in local elections chaos The Mirror. For example:
#MyMaskMyVote Not allowed to vote once inside, despite bringing ID & video of me putting on mask, as no options for reasonable adjustments for those who are #immunosuppressed. Recorded as turned away with reason: no guidance for those with Disability. pic.twitter.com/R24HgVeeso
— Andrea Barrett (@andreabarrett__) May 4, 2023
New Not-So-Cold War
Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner Group boss says he will pull troops out of Bakhmut BBC. Wut.
* * * Zelensky in the Hague: Ukraine’s President calls for ICC to punish Putin France24
Dutch PM says talks on F-16s for Ukraine progressing Reuters
Zelensky regime’s fate is sealed Indian Punchline
* * * Russian gold in hands of obscure firms as JPMorgan, HSBC exit Bloomberg
Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, UN technical personnel to discuss grain deal Anadolu Agency
Caribbean
Word of the day: “Bwa Kale”:
The word around Port-au-Prince is Bwa Kale, a spontaneous self-defense movement that is taking on many forms. But can People’s machetes compete with an onslaught of the highest caliber U.S. arms that the gangs possess from their trafficking contacts? #BwaKale https://t.co/re5B6uM80Z
— Danny Shaw (@dannyshawcuny) May 4, 2023
Biden Administration
How Biden Lost the Balkans Foreign Policy
The Supremes
Supreme Court will consider major case on power of federal regulatory agencies SCOTUSblog. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ WaPo
B-a-a-a-d Banks
Regional Bank Woes Didn’t End With First Republic Rescue Bloomberg
Pressure grows for regulatory intervention as US bank rout deepens Reuters
Spook Country
Who Helped Overturn the “Pentagon Papers Principle”? The Washington Post and New York Times Matt Taibbi, Racket News. Today’s must read. The ongoing blobbification of the Democrat Party, the spooks, and the national press, which started with the state of exception declared by the PMC in 2016, and whose intensification for 2020 is well-documented in The Twitter Files, reaches “some kinda awful climax” as — entirely a coincidence, I assure you! — top Blob Flexians wargame out a Hunter Biden laptop-like scenario (a “hack-and-dump” exercise), and then replay it in real life just weeks later. A follow-up must-read:
A Good Catch by a Reader, Regarding the Break from the “Pentagon Papers Principle Matt Taibbi, Racket News:
Following the release of today’s article about news organizations junking the “Pentagon Papers Principle,” reader Ben O’Neill made a good observation that should have been in the piece. In the newly-found summary emailed by an Aspen Institute figure in September 2020, “Partnership for a Healthy Digital Public Sphere,” the section about “hack-and-dump” exercises asks [emphasis mine]: “What happens when fabricated documents are released alongside genuine (stolen) content? How can social feeds avoid serving as promoters of foreign or other adversarial entities?”
…[T]hat last line is a great example of what former cybersecurity official and Foundation for Freedom Online head Mike Benz calls the “foreign-domestic switcheroo.”
It’s the basic rhetorical trick of the censorship age: raise a fuss about a foreign threat, using it as a battering ram to get everyone from congress to the tech companies to submit to increased regulation and surveillance. Then, slowly, adjust your aim to domestic targets.
Also pleasing to see Taibbi hoisting a reader comment.
Police State Watch
Activists Face Felonies for Distributing Flyers on “Cop City” Protester Killing The Intercept. Good to see liberal Democrats Ossoff and Warner all over this. Oh, wait…
Assange
Porn industry backers sue Utah over age verification law FOX
Digital Watch
Teens are turning to ‘My AI’ for mental health support — which doctors warn against FOX
The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack Ever Wired
Class Warfare
Why was Labor Productivity Growth So High during the COVID-19 Pandemic? The Role of Labor Composition (PDF) BLS Working Papers
Want More Jobs? Raise the Minimum Wage Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture
U.S. Pilot, Air Traffic Controller Shortage Leading To Fewer Flights Forbes
Miffed Googlers meme on CEO’s $226M pay award amid cost-cutting campaign The Register. Lol. That’s why they were given the award.
Netflix Condemns WGA Strike For Putting Future Show Cancellations Behind Schedule The Onion
The I Ching in America JSTOR Daily
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
128 comments
Comments are closed.
“Not allowed to vote once inside, despite bringing ID & video of me putting on mask, as no options for reasonable adjustments.”
Context might be helpful. Postal votes in the UK are normally super easy to get. I have voted that way for 15 years, owing to travel commitments. Just needs a bit of planning to request it.
I sympathize but there is a way in place that meets her needs.
In the US, at least, vote by mail can be tricky if you have moved within the last six months to a year. Registration is tied to address, which takes 6 weeks plus to change (usually very plus) and the mail-in ballot request deadline is a week or more before the election – and you won’t get the ballot if the address change hasnt been undated correctly in that system or if there has been some kind of “purge”. (We do have a couple of states with automatic vote by mail.)
On top of that, I’ve never done voter registration canvassing without meeting elderly and disabled people who have trouble getting their ballots sent in time for them to vote. Surely has nothing to do with the neighborhoods they live in being undeserved.
There’s no legitimate reason in the US or the UK to require more than the voters registration when someone votes.
It should be mentioned in all honestly that if this had happened in Russia or China or Iran or some other country on the naughty list, that you would have had organizations like the BBC shouting that this was a case of blatant voter suppression at work. And they would be right.
And it should also be mentioned that not a lot of people like postal voting but want to vote in person so that they will know that their vote was actually counted. Mentioned in a previous comment how I saw a case of a women too elderly to leave the car she was driven to the poll station in having a Electoral officer walk out to the car to let her fill her vote in.
Oh if this was Russia then I have no doubt that the BBC would be spending licence fees on propagandising “voter suppression” and the NED would be all over it too. And I would try to drill down on that to understand how true that propaganda really would be.
If this happened in certain parts of United States, they’d be all over place, too.
Just why should I be required to show ID when voting? Why should anyone need to?
I went to not vote yesterday. Told “greeter” (I ask you!) that I had I’d but no intention of using it, marched up to attendants’ desk, asked to be refused my vote for lack of ID and to be recorded, got added to a ticklist in column C. Three ticks on my side at 8pm but that was the back of a page and who knows how many more they had filed.
I will be interested to see what % were refused compared to the winning margins.
‘Watch a Moose Walk into an Alaskan Movie Theater, Eat Popcorn, and Leave’
I’ve watched so many of these moose videos now I get the sense they wander around in Alaskan cities like Brahma cows in India, because dangerous and ‘out of season’.
Didn’t stick around for the movie? Wonder what was playing on the screen that night?
Given the price on snacks at those places, that may well be the most expensive meal the moose has ever had.
Seeing the Antidote, one from the beloved Terry Wogan: What’s a Chicken Tarka Masala? Like a Chicken Tikka Masala, only otter…
(look up Ring of Bright Water if confused)
Look up Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, you mean!
Ring of Bright Water is by Gavin Maxwell and the principal otter is from the Basra marshes and called Midjbil.
Yes…. thanks! Confused was I. An otter’s sinuous movement is a joy. Ferrets similar?
Tarka: Thanks, Never heard that one.
Terry Wogan, born Irish, culturally appropriated by the British.
Pip-pip!
Probably a Keanu Reeves movie – I’d skip it too. Worst. Actor. Ever. While I hear he’s a really nice person, the man can’t act.
>Wonder what was playing on the screen that night?
I don’t know, but I heard it was a “moose-see”.
He only hung around for the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon.
‘What Real Meteorologists Wish You Knew About Your Weather App’
The weather app on my phone is so bad it sometimes won’t tell me its going to rain until it’s raining, like a meteorologist had stuck his/her head out a window and thought to update the forecast. We still check our apps every morning but give them 50/50 odds on accuracy and plan accordingly.
The article gave a good shoutout to the US Weather Service’s site, weather.gov. While I look at an app occasionally, I’ve bookmarked weather.gov’s link for my usual specific locations. Looking at it is no harder than using an app. In the US, you’ve already paid for it via your taxes, so why bother with some other ad serving, self-serving site (many of which source their data from weather.gov)? Since funding can be driven by usage, we should be pushing people to use the service!
Thank you. I am becoming a big advocate of using websites vs. apps for information but had not thought about this.
I will point out that not having an app may free up more memory than what you think. Not speaking of weather apps in particular but apps can, and many do, hog memory by caching everything. Your browser will cache, but most have settings which will clear that automatically.
I always use that site on the theory that’s where the commercial sites get their info anyway. There are also government weather radio broadcasts but I believe you have to have a radio designed to receive them.
These days though I always use the website which has useful radar images.
The wunderground app has better radar images. NWS radar was better until Adobe Flash was killed. Overall, NWS is much better even with poorer radar images.
Best radar images I can find since my favorite satellite went dark is on NOAA:
https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/
Choose your sector on the left, then Geocolor for best results.
The USG sites have largely solved the adobe flash loss with a miniature version of radar that loads fast. However they are dependent on airport towers and sometimes down for whatever reason.
I’m pretty sure the apps get their forecast info from weather.gov so why not go to source material I say.The forecast discussion spells out all the details, updated a few times a day. The gis sites like ventusky which nc readers directed me to are good for local conditions, after I’ve read the discussion…
No, I had Weather Channel (more accurately Landmark Communications) as a client. They do their own forecasting and were EXTREMELY eager to buy Accuweather during that time because their forecasting was better.
I do this also. I just have my town and my son’s college town bookmarked. I’m super careful about apps due to the memory on my inexpensive older phone. I’m going to have to get a new phone soon. :-(
AccuWeather website works very well on the UK but we have vary granular observation data and records. Your mileage may vary in the Big Country….
With respect to TV weather, I think they’re doing something I’ll call “click-bait weather”. Capture the viewers’ attention with extreme longer-term forecasts which then taper to normal weather by the time the weather hits. The 5+ day forecast seems to always overstate what actually happens. Every week this winter, it started with “Oh No! There’s going to be huge winter store this upcoming weekend!!!”. Then as the week progressed, the snow forecast goes from 12+ inches to 6-8 inches to 2-4 inches to “dusting”. Now, with it being spring, it’s major storms in the long-term forecast that rarely live up to their earlier prognostications. In the end, we’re all happy. We, the viewer, didn’t get hit by the big storm, and, if all went well, the news casts got higher ratings.
Late yesterday afternoon:
Husband: ‘The wind is really kicking up, something must be blowing in… I’m getting wet. Any rain in the forecast?
Me: (checks phone app) ‘Nope, not a drop now or at any time in the next 24 hrs.’
Husband: ‘But I’m getting rained on here.
Me: ‘I can see that. Guess the meteorologists are hanging out in a windowless breakroom.’
I’ve noticed the same thing on weather.gov (agree it’s the best!), I assume they’d rather you panic first rather than blame them later for not predicting the weather that ruins your weekend. Instead they ruin your planning. But it’s also true that global weirding makes weather forecasting more and more like playing the ponies.
I’m a big believer in looking out of the window. It’s a chaotic system.
Still if you hear a big storm is on the way, it’s best to be prepared.
Equity shares in many (but not all) US banks continue to wildly gyrate. I guess the phrase these beatings will continue until morale improves works on publicly traded companies too. The one headline in particular, from yesterday about the Western Alliance institution, was pretty telling. I do think short sellers smell blood and are going all in while the getting is good and when they can do so.
This all has the very familiar feel of 2008 deja vu all over again. Which wasn’t good for many reasons and I hate sounding this negative. Yesterday there was a link to a video interview with Michael Miliken, which stated the painfully obvious, the bank failures to date in 2023 are lessons learned some 35 to 45 years ago. Clearly there are lessons that need to be refreshed occasionally.
And still economists scoff at reading the bearded man’s books.
Regarding Western Alliance, it sent a press release categorically denying the Financial Times article. ” Western Alliance Bancorp WAL +49.23% (WAL) fell as much as 70%, before the Phoenix-based lender pulled out of its dive…” It was a combination of the believability of WAL’s denial and a Friday recommendation by JPM. Anyone interested can read it for themselves https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230504005831/en/Western-Alliance-Bancorporation-Issues-Statement-Disputing-Recent-Financial-Times-Article
FWIW, unlike the hardest hit regionals, WAL had modest AOCI losses on its 10K. It started the week @ about $30/share and closed Friday @ around $26.
It was interesting to see the developments, in real time watching CNBC Thursday, happened to catch the official release from the company itself regards to the FT article. I am compelled to wear a tinfoil hat when I say this; wondering if the strong close to the week in Friday trading was propelled by a bit of short covers and short sellers marking their positions ahead of any possible uncertainty. I tend to ignore CNBC during the afternoon work schedule, but for this week had to watch a little closely than usual.
Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline, Zelensky’s fate sealed: Always worth a read. Bhadrakumar certainly knows how to turn a phrase. (By U.S. standards, the last paragraph is rather politically incorrect, but intriguing.)
Note the contrast between Antony “Banality of Evil” Blinken and Ambassador Antonov.
As to the Fates: Zelensky, who has accepted visits from Victoria “Cookies for War Crimes” Nuland, will end up in a gated estate in Florida neighboring that of his facsimile, Jair Bolsonaro, also the recipient of a visit by Nuland.
As to Ukraine, Biden and Co. will make a desert and call it peace.
When the Russians take back all those Oblasts, they should rename the war cemeteries full of dead Ukrainian servicemen. So you would have the Antony Blinken War Cemetery, the Victoria Nuland War Cemetery, the Jake Sullivan War Cemetery with the biggest one being the Joseph Biden jr War Cemetery. Show the world the real results of their handy work. And if those neocons complain, what are they going to do? Sue the Russians for slander in The Hague?
I would add the John McCain War Cemetery and the Lindsay Graham War Cemetery since they were in in Ukraine during The Maidan Massacre.
Leave a place for Boris Johnson, Thatcher, O-effing-bama et al. There’s lots of cemeteries full of dead Ukrainians, so lots of naming rights are available.
MOA says Z has now made himself a target
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/zelenskis-regime-is-finished.html
Zelensky knows that. That is why he ran away to the far end of the continent. Courage is not his hallmark. He originally spent a long time hiding in his bunker and it was only when he got the Israelis to get a promise from Putin to not kill him that he finally emerged. Then he got all defiant on videos.
Continue to fire upon those targets, Matt. Every article he frees, I feel like sending him $100 just to shut up those talking fu**heads in Congress who insulted and derided his journalistic accomplishments and measure of integrity. Congressional Clowns.
The dogs are not enjoying the dog food, it seems to me.
Scary version extension of Taibbi:
Hunter’s laptop, Hunter’s baby-daddy deposition including financial details, and myriad other Biden corruption threads being woven together into quite a hangman’s noose. That noose would be plenty big enough for the Big Guy’s family with room left over for some Dem enablers.
Instigating trouble offshore seems like a temporary distraction until the inevitable plays out for Biden, et al.
Is anyone ready for Kamala, including Kamala?
“Many wealthy people are considering leaving China”
Well of course they are. They reckon that their fellow Chinese just don’t understand modern capitalism. One of them said that he tried to buy President Xi with payments into an off-shore bank account and a position on the Board of Directors when he stands down from being President but Xi just gave him his bland panda bear expression, shook his head and walked away muttering. How are you suppose to buy up and sell out a country when they refuse to follow the rules?
It’s kind of cute. They don’t get how little Xi think of them. Obama worshipped the men in suits, and hes mostly been ignored as there isnt a list of accomplishments to be proud of. Sure he has a tacky house in Martha’s Vineyard, but I’m pretty certain he could have managed this if he wasn’t just godawful for eight years.
Similar to Russian Oligarchs?
I suspect that these clowns will find a warm embrace from the Epstein crowd.
In a way, it’s a tale as old as time. There have always been kings and emperors who recognized they were kings and emperors and ones who wanted the oligarchs to pat them on the head as if the oligarchs wouldn’t kowtow if they were worried. Xi gets this. Sulla is a name known to nerds. Gaius and his nephew have months named after them. They had similar powers. It’s just one was a puppet of the oligarchs, the forgotten one, and I don’t think Augustus missed out on anything because he did things like expand citizenship.
Wealthy people always respond to polls. Especially concerning their wealth. Pleeeeeeze!
One reason they are thinking about it but not doing it in large numbers is Xi has been one step ahead on most of them. They can usually get out, but most of their money and resources have to stay behind. After a while if they don’t manage the assets properly they wind up in receivership and the workers may set up a coop to take over. Mr. Ma of Alibaba fame fame is now teaching in Japan, but his wealth has more or less stayed put.
San Francisco mayor, London Breed, the darling and newest graduate of
“The San Francisco Family”, Feinstein,Willie Brown, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Swalwell, et al, is married to a Chinese American billionaire, Lawrence Lui. His father is the second wealthiest man in Asia.
https://fortune.com/2016/10/06/lui-che-woo-hong-kong/
Not bad for a black girl from the projects and graduate of the notorious Galileo High. She has a political future, more grooming than a race horse.
The I Ching in America, JSTOR. The article just scratches the surface.
However, the Wilhelm translation, Englished in the Bollinger Series, with its foreword by C.G. Jung, is quite brilliant. Wilhelm approaches the hexagrams from more than one way, and the sizable book is a big and delightful buzzing confusion. So much choice.
I’d argue, though, that Jung and others who use the I Ching for character analysis are making the best use of it. The counterpart to the I Ching in the West is the tarot. If one deals with the tarot, one soon realizes that it is a portrait not an oracle.
Character is fate.
Heraclites?
Yep: The great one, who never is acknowledged, Herakleitos:
Translated by William Harris:
“A man’s character is his guardian divinity.”
Greek transliterated: ethos anthropoi daimon
Some problems to contemplate: anthropos is a human being, not “a man.” A daimon was a guardian spirit rather than a fate (which is a Roman concept for something foretold).
So? One’s character is one’s mind. Character is destiny.
It is a deep and inconvenient observation, as was much of Herakleitos.
FWIW, my understanding is that up through the 18th century, “man” meant “human being” (e.g. the Declaration of Independence). I even saw a 17th century writer who explicitly says “all men, male and female”. It acquired the connotation of “male” only later.
Western interest in the I Ching began with the James Legge translation in 1899, although it’s generally accepted that Wilhelm’s is better. The thing about the I Ching, after fifty years of using it, is that it can be whatever you want it to be, and you can interpret it more or less any way you like. I’ve seen Gnostic and Cabalistic translations, for example, among others. With a character-based language, any sentence is really just an association of ideas, and you have to supply the connecting bits. One of the most fascinating translations is that by Ritsema and Karcher, (hard to find now) which provides literal translations of the characters without trying to put the result into grammatical English. The difference with standard translations is quite startling, and you realise how much recent translators have added.
“With a character-based language, any sentence is really just an association of ideas, and you have to supply the connecting bits.”
Exactly. And I like the way Ursula Le Guin associates and connects, which is a big part of why I like her rendition of the Tao te Ching so much. On top of that, she didn’t use the language of the court which is the norm in wisdom literature. It reads more like a prophet like Amos or Micah than Proverbs.
I have that translation by Ritsema and Karcher that I ran across several years ago at Half-Price Books. I also save money by growing my own yarrow stalks along with some other stuff. ;)
Agreed, with the coda that what Lao Tzu, King Wen and those guys all stressed was, Do more not-doing. Don’t be in charge. When I was an organizer this (almost monotonous) theme was very important to me.
Returning from a conversation with Wilhelm’s I Ching my wife would ask its advice and I’d say “The usual: Be a superior man. Do nothing.” Mostly it was good advise.
You can play with the Chinese characters and see for yourself how Wilhelm extended to text using this site: http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Yijing&no=0
It’s easy to cast a request for changes and then dig into the text. The characters appear along the side as they would in a leaved text.
This version limited also to the core translation without Wilhelm’s commentary. Several other classic texts here as well for those who follow the Tao.
There’s quite a growing list of scandals for the University of Alabama athletics department, including its baseball coach seemingly betting on his own team’s game
https://www.al.com/alabama/2023/05/alabama-baseball-betting-scandal-what-is-suspicious-wagering-activity-what-gets-flagged.html
Never understood the ban on betting. Coaches, owners and players should be allowed to bet on their games, but only to win. As a fan I see zero problems and all kinds of incentives.
How do you stop them betting to lose? It’s easy to do this with a proxy and hard to detect.
“You’ve Heard About Behavioral Finance. But What About Physical Finance?” Institutional Investor
Heard all of that before.
I had a more novel idea the other day and that is: the current global economic order and financial system relates more to sadism and masochism than physical science.
As outrageous as that sounds, it’s meant to call attention the main thing the most lauded economists do not discuss: power and conflict.
Ask when reading anything about the economy : how does it address the roles of power and conflict in economic decisions from the individual to the institution?
The Invisible Hand is a jealous and angry god.
UK red wall update. Centre of it here in Nottinghamshire has clearly had a LOT of tactical voting. Two of the Borough councils that are roughly geographically equivalent to the Westminster parliamentary seats that form a ring around central Nottingham and which virtually all fell to the Tories in last general election have seen their local council leaders (Tories) voted out.
One was voted out in a very humiliating way. He tied with an opponent and they drew names out of a hat and it wasn’t his. These seats are rock solid bits of the donut that don’t usually elect non-Tories even under Labour govts.
HOWEVER Labour have been losing to Lib Dems in those parts of my Borough where they haven’t sorted out the dreadful potholes etc and the Tories are winning (back?) seats from independents in posh bits.
You see that deck chair with the red stripes? can you move it closer to the rail?
And that blue one, shove it forward a little, and bring that orange one around.
I don’t care that there’s water up to your ankles, can’t you see we are busy here?
Exactly!
Or, in another metaphor, rearranging the dummies in the shop window….
China? The other side of the same coin?
Anyone else think the power of USA’s “soft
power” is being underestimated and neglected in discussions about the USA / China conflict?
Cheap seat view here.
No.
Much of what backed up the USA’s soft power has been demolished by the policies of the last three decades.
We have destroyed our industrial base which has left us dependent on China and countries allied to China.
Our belligerent and untrustworthy foreign policy has alienated much of the world. And most of the allies we have left are more with us from fear than from true allegiance.
Our financial policies have left our country weakened. And along with our destroyed education system have produced more day traders than inventors and engineers.
And what we do create or invent is usually designed to be a money maker, not something useful that will provide some public good.
Our health policies have made us one of the least healthy countries in the world.
Erratic and belligerent leaders, their policies and our tendency to pick fights and bully both people and countries have all but destroyed our status as the home of the world’s reserve currency.
And none of that is secret.
If I took the view that the current global economic system priortized the well-being of the masses, above all else, I would agree that the things you mention are important – within the context of power relations.
I don’t.
The imperialism is one of ideology.
The primacy of “the market” over all else.
The spread of the corporate monoculture…no matter the differences in language.
The current economic order is more concerned with safety and security of corporations…not citizens and countries.
The current economic order is finding out they have bet on the wrong people and strategies and are seeing their power be stripped away.
Well said, an excellent summary of where we’ve ended up and why.
No. Pat, does a great job listing how actual “soft power” metrics such as economics and diplomacy are at all-time lows. Beyond those, a lot of American’s seem to understand “soft-power” as cultural exports, and here their myopia is so encompassing they don’t realize how flaccid US culture is out side the Anglophone ‘west’. I would contend that China’s true soft-power may be on par with that of the US within America’s own borders, all those consumer goods on our increasingly barren shelves aren’t being made in Peoria.
they don’t realize how flaccid US culture is out side the Anglophone ‘west’.
Nowadays a major part of that culture is audio-visual, and in the West it is generally assumed that the USA is dominant worldwide, since the film and TV production from Hollywood has such an overwhelming presence in the West. People may have heard of Bollywood and Nollywood, but these are dismissed as regional phenomena limited to specific national cultures.
They have no idea how prevalent films from India, flicks from Hong Kong, telenovelas from Brazil and Turkey are around the world.
Do not forget Korea.
I dunno myself. Feasting on South Korean Dramas and movies of all sorts…
Turkish and Brazilian ones are a bit too exaggerated in the emotions sector for me.
We’ve decided that propaganda is the only necessary soft power. And then we refuse to make propaganda for anyone but ourselves.
Pat does sum it up well.
You have to offer something besides a predatory loan with strings attached to call it soft power, unless there is no alternative. At least if you’re dealing with China you’ll get the infrastructure. If you go for US “soft power” you likely end up with only the downsides of the relationship.
Antidote; charismatic midifauna… thank you!
“Is Japan’s military fit for purpose?”
Well that depends. What purpose do they have in mind exactly? Obviously the Japanese military needs reforming in order to defend Japan better. But if the purpose is to send a coupla Japanese brigades to Taiwan for example to fight the Chinese, then that might prove to be problematical. Will Japanese civilians sign up to join the military if this was the purpose? They can’t even get the numbers for their own military now. And it is not like the rest of Asia would be cheering the rise of an expeditionary Japanese military. And of course if a Japanese force was sent out of country, there would be the suspicion of whether Tokyo ordered them or whether it was actually Washington. Nobody wants to be the Ukraine of Asia.
Shortage of workers in Agriculture, which was where Japan got it’s toughest fighters for the Empire, so I guess they might try to recruit from the Vietnamese and Cambodians they import to do the hardest labour? That would be very American of them. Similar issue for factory workers, many small/medium size factories have to import labour because the kid’s won’t do it. An army of Hikikomori would be interesting, give them drones and they might turn them on Japan.
Friday rant:
Today I have an appointment for a sleep study, as my snoring has apparently gotten to the point where it disturbs the miss’s slumber.
Two days in advance, I get the nagging email asking me to do a bunch of paperwork normally done in the office on-line.
I blew it off because this is a pet peeve of mine. Stealing my time to allow you to understaff is not my cup of tea. Plus, every medical office now has its’ own patient portal, with its own poor security, and wants my personal info. And it’s a wild west of identity databases. None of which are likely secure.
Well, I get a very nasty call this morning, “You haven’t filled out your paperwork! ”
Ok, I say, how long will it take?
“20 minutes”
I just started, and they want me to upload personal ID, and copies of my insurance cards. Normally, pre-COVID, this would have been done in the office, with the assistance of a receptionist.
That’s just the beginning, who knows how many questions await me once I get past that stage.
This is all a nasty game. The airlines are doing the same thing. Make your customers do the job of the company. Fewer lower-level jobs = profits. May they rot!
Bill Belichick is acknowledged as a great NFL coach. His motto is “Do your job!”
Can we get him to go after these clowns?
I find that a lot of modern “automation” is just a platform designed to slough off one person’s work onto someone else who isn’t getting paid for doing it.
Somewhere some MBA got a big bonus for making you upload your insurance cards yourself and getting rid of a few receptionists. When you go into the office you should ask how much of a discount you get for doing their work for them.
I’m sure that idea will go over like Brandon meeting a Chinese weather balloon.
But “it is for your convenience!” Whenever I hear that I totally know that I’ll be doing more work at some point.
This month I have to re-licence and insure my vehicle. I will have to take a half-day off work, travel into town, probably stand in a queue outdoors for an hour or more, deal with two bureaucrats, go across town to the insurance office, sit (if I am lucky) for 20 minutes waiting to be served, spend 20 minutes being served, go back across town to pay for my licence, then travel back to work.
This could all be done online in 5 minutes from the comfort of my armchair. In fact it could be done automatically by my bank, it’s just about giving them money after all. Maybe one day.
I’m sure you’re right about saving money on receptionists, but I have another point of view. With Covid still flying around I am glad to fill out forms online ahead of time. Hopefully that shortens the time I have to be in the waiting room and I don’t have to touch their clipboards and pens. I get peeved when they still insist I use their kiosk to sign in on the screen that so many have used before me. I try to get an early morning appointment on a Monday to minimize the amount of germs air around me. I am wearing a mask of course.
Agreed. Less face time is best. Helping a healthcare facility provide you with appropriate healthcare is not a waste of anyone’s time (unless the admissions process is needlessly invasive).
Now if you think your time is more important than that of a probably underpaid frontline worker, well, that’s another way of looking at it.
My favorite way of looking at this is that with Single Payer almost all the non-medical staff could get booted from our hospitals leaving more room for long-COVID patients.
I insist on only filling out paper. I refuse to upload ID, I tell them they can sight it in person.
Having said that, I have a policy where I can see any doctor, so I really can tell them to bugger off and find another provider/facility
The WORST is hospitals have a system where you sign an isolated screen connected to no documents. I nearly hit the roof. I said for all I know you will say I agreed to sign away all my worldly possessions. I made them print pages out. That system is an utter legal outrage and is used in at least 2 major NYC hospitals (Hospital for Special Services and the Weill Cornell complex).
There was another case where (at the door) I had to sign some sort of consent. I made them print it out and I read it. It was set up backward and was asking me to commit to do things as an outpatient that were improper and clearly meant only for inpatients, which were ALSO included in the same from (whoever devised the form flipped which went where). There were financial and insurance ramifications. I could not sign the form as written and the doorkeepers were not allowed to let me in if not.
To their credit, they got a supervisor. I explained the problem. She let me sign the document with my corrections on it.
“Why China needs to rein in ‘wolf warrior’ diplomats to reset its global image”
You could say the same about EU diplomacy under “Jungle” Josep Borrell. He was just saying –
‘The only thing that can be called a peace plan is [Vladimir] Zelensky’s proposal,” he stated, referring to the Ukrainian president. “The Chinese peace plan, well, it’s not a peace plan. It’s a set of wishful considerations, wishful thinking, but it’s not a peace plan.”
“If you want peace, push Russia to withdraw,” Borrell added. “Don’t tell me to stop supporting Ukraine.”
Zelensky’s peace plan demands that Russia withdrawal from all territories that Kiev claims as its own, including Crimea, as well as calling for war reparations and NATO-like security guarantees, among other measures. The government in Kiev has repeatedly said it would not compromise and would continue to fight for as long as it takes.’
https://www.rt.com/news/575829-borrell-ukraine-peace-plan/
In other words, he has no peace plan but wants the Ukraine to keep on fighting.
Borrell just states what goes for diplomacy in The West: it’s our way and that’s not negotiable!
He should have a public chat with a historian like Geoffrey Roberts on how future historians will judge his role in all this.
Although some bubbles you can’t burst even with hypersonic missiles…
Thank you for the excellent link. It’s an interesting idea that Putin was backed into a corner and provoked with the nuclear threat. It explains why Putin would act in a way that is fairly out of character for him over his career. I don’t think I’m the only one who didn’t think Russia would invade because it was out of character. I understood it and dreaded it, partly because it was out of character.
I don’t think I’m the only one who didn’t think Russia would invade because it was out of character.
Same here but I qualified the sentiment: “Russia will not invade unless the people of the Donbass are threatened”.
The Ukrainian troop massing combined with the increased shelling made me think that the chance of an invasion was increasing but I thought that the Russian troops massing just across the border would calm things down.
Then Zelenskyy made the incredibly mad statement about getting nuclear weapons. Ukraine had the technical know-how to build a bomb and a delivery rocket.
The Russian Gov’t could not take the chance that Zelenskyy meant it and might even have begun work on a bomb.
Yeah, it is like nobody in power in the west learned anything from the Cuban Missile Crisis…
The Wired story on the supply chain hack is pretty good, but they just couldn’t help themselves:
“The SVR is a civilian intelligence agency, like the CIA, that conducts espionage outside the Russian Federation. Along with Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, it hacked the US Democratic National Committee in 2015. But where the GRU tends to be noisy and aggressive—it publicly leaked information stolen from the DNC and Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign—SVR hackers are more deft and quiet. Given various names by different security firms (APT29, Cozy Bear, the Dukes), SVR hackers are noted for their ability to remain undetected in networks for months or years. The group was very active between 2014 and 2016, Glyer says, but then seemed to go dark. Now he understood that they’d used that time to restrategize and develop new techniques, some of which they used in the SolarWinds campaign.”
Really? Still claiming the emails were a hack and not given to wikileaks? Russia hated Hilary? Russia worked to get their asset elected in the form of The Donald? Sheesh, makes the article come across as spy fiction/propaganda lionizing greedy executives prioritizing production profit over security. More stories on whistleblowers please.
Agree. At the time, there was no conclusive evidence of the Russia-Wikileaks connection. But I haven’t kept up with it. The Podesta emails were funny, and based on the Pentagon Papers president, I dont see where it matters who released them…they weren’t secure, and they were real.
Meanwhile the SVR hack is interesting, in that they were just carefully nosing around to gather information. I favored the Eisenhower open skies initiative, and would prefer transparency to uninformed decisions. Like those used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.
One thing about large security compromises…as happened in WW 2 when breaking the German Code…to keep the breach secret, the information must be used sparingly and carefully.
In WW2 the Germans found out about a major US military operation and so set up forces to defeat them. The code breakers read the German intelligence and told Eisenhower that they were advancing into a trap. But Eisenhower had to let that defeat come with the ensuing American casualties because if the plans were changed, this would tip off German intelligence that their codes had been broken and they would lose all future intelligence.
Isn’t the bombing of Coventry considered the locus classicus in that regard?
I believe that the classic case of Enigma Sacrifice is when the Allies learned that the Luftwaffe was going to intercept a civilian transport over the Bay of Biscay and shoot it down. Evidently the Germans thought that Churchill would be in the aircraft. He was not. The actor Leslie Howard was onboard. No survivors found.
See: https://lady.co.uk/why-did-nazis-murder-leslie-howard
What I’ve always found the most interesting part regarding the claims about GRU (or GU officially) and DNC emails, is that it’s a military intelligence agency. It is not tasked to spy on politicians, or cause internal turmoil.
It’s job is to know the personal rifle serial number of each man in 101st Airborne Division and who lost (and how much) in 1st Brigade Combat Team’s support battalion’s medic team’s informal poker night. Or, to put it in more generic terms, G[R]U is supposed to know the enemy’s real combat capabilities, positions, strengths, weaknesses, tactics, deployments and then some.
They’d be much, much more likely to hack into 102nd Intelligence Wing’s computers than DNC’s. Shaming Democrats some more (and failing) is not nearly as good a way to promotion as breaking into US intelligence system. Which is why the latter is so much more secure – you need someone to print the stuff to get it out.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/05/biden-to-name-neera-tanden-as-his-domestic-policy-adviser-00095566
Biden to name Neera Tanden as his domestic policy adviser
All this time I thought it was Obama’s hand up the sock puppet. I should have guessed Joe is loose enough to take Hillary’s hand too, looking at the State Department, and it seems she’s gotten better at throwing elbows at Obama.
Related from Biden. Thomas Friedman in the NYT the other day speculated in an article called “Why Kamala Harris Matters So Much in 2024.” Friedman states;
Apparently, Biden listened to Friedman. In a statement released by Harris just yesterday; Statement from Vice President Harris After Meeting with CEOs on Advancing Responsible Artificial Intelligence Innovation
From the Harris release above;
Are the Russian’s in the room with you right now? Are there Russian’s under your bed?
These people are just plain nuts and I wouldn’t trust them any farther than I could throw them. Kamala Harris and the word intelligence shouldn’t even be in the same sentence.
I think you got the order wrong: Apparently, Friedman listened to Biden Whitehouse (probably not Biden). Floating a balloon in State Media to see who shoots at it is par for the Washington course.
Sometimes i wonder if it is a US marketing tactic in general, as i feel various tech company leaks are how they test market reception to products they are considering.
While being forced to wade through bullshit each day, nothing that has floated by worse than this.
The age of pop AI will mirror the age of pop scam currencies.
Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner Group boss says he will pull troops out of Bakhmut BBC. Wut.
Still with the Russian lack of ammunition thing? I mean, it’s true; they will run out someday, at least on a geological timescale. Eventually the headline will be right.
In other blob news, had a video recommendation for Democracy Now! pedalling this very same BBC story.
Saw something on CBS showing a bunch of dead Wagner Group soldiers, maybe connected to the lack of ammo thing. Not clear if this is Ukraine propaganda or some kind of internal Russian beef (Wagner Group trying to extract more money from the Russian government?). Just guessing…
Ramzan Kadyrov already announced that “his” Chechens will take the place of Wagner Group, they’ve fought together already in Popasna and elsewhere.
He also stressed the point that during the Spcial Military Operation the Chechens have also suffered from lack of resources and whatnot (it’s a war, after all) but they never complained publicly, all issues were resolved in direct contacts with the relevant officials.
And that one should never, ever show videos of dead comrades even when trying to make a point.
While he still calls Prigozhin his big brother, he seems to be somewhat dissatisfied with the mans actions of late.
Prigozhin comes across to me as a bit of a performer. This particular rant seems like kayfabe – a bit of misdirection to cover a planned move of the Wagner resources to another sector of the front line. I could be wrong, though – I’m no expert.
He says they are leaving on May 10, if that has any symbolic significance.
It’s the day after their Victory Day on May 9th which is a big one as it celebrates the Russian victory over the Nazis and remembers all their dead.
Considering that the Russians are currently raining incendiaries and artillery shells on the small part of the city still under Ukrainian control, it’s quite likely Wagner Group is planning to push the Ukrainians out by the Victory Day.
Many experts have said there is no shortage of ammo overall but the usual supply issues. You can’t run this sort of thing on a just in time basis but keeping stores near the front line is an invitation to have them blown up or used over liberally.
Ukraine did start pounding Bakhmut harder and it takes a day or two to increase supply, which Prighozin is choosing not to understand, particularly since the fighting is at least as intense in other areas but their commanders don’t hog the limelight.
He’s also a civilian, a businessman, and probably has not gotten that pitched battles are very bloody, messy affairs.
I also suspect he’s been using way way too many stimulants, This sort of outburst is a dare to be assassinated, which someone might take up.
CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a former Boston doctor, announces plan to resign on June 30
Snip: “BOSTON —
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a former infectious disease chief at Massachusetts General Hospital, will resign as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer. She said the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic was a good time to make a transition.
Walensky’s last day will be June 30, CDC officials said, and an interim director wasn’t immediately named. She sent a resignation letter to President Joe Biden and announced the decision at a CDC staff meeting.
Walensky, 54, has been the agency’s director for a little over two years. In her letter to Biden, she expressed “mixed feelings” about the decision and didn’t say exactly why she was stepping down, but said the nation is at a moment of transition as emergency declarations come to an end.
“I have never been prouder of anything I have done in my professional career,” she wrote.”
Well, unless you’re leaving under a cloud it’s sort of pro forma in government resignation letters to talk about how great it was to work there, how much you learned etc. It sounds like she’s expressing more ambiguity than the norm.
Walensky to Resign as C.D.C. Director
Hell yes!
Didn’t murder enough people, I guess?
For her sake, let’s hope it was guilt.
#COVID19
I’m spending part of this morning communicating with one my SF bay area healthcare providers at Stanford.
My first message to them:
“Hi Dr. X,
I have rescheduled appointments with you on several occasions due to my concerns regarding the necessity of removing my mask for the exam that might result in my being exposed to the airborne transmission of the Covid virus. I currently have an appointment with you on May XX, which I am inclined to cancel for the same reason.
I have assumed that my relative risk of skin cancer as compared to Covid to be considerably less. I would very much appreciate it you would review my medical record and provide your input on this.
My situation is now further complicated by having my son, his wife, and my four month old granddaughter living with me, and I am very concerned not only for my welfare but theirs as well. Even if the risk for my developing skin cancer were greater than the risk posed by Covid infection, at least skin cancer is not transmissible between humans.”
Doctor’s office response, from a physician’s assistant:
“Hello,
I do understand your concerns. We will wear a mask and you can also were your mask. We see several patients with the same concerns and as long as the Provider is wear a mask you are as safe and we can be. People are not required to wear mask any longer, but I will make a note in your chart so during the rooming and the MD will wear a mask.”
My response:
“Thank you for your quick response. However, if you look at the record of my visits to the dermatologist you will note that particular areas of concern were growths that were close to my mouth and therefore covered by a mask. The doctor removed these growths for testing and are no longer in evidence on the skin surface.
The widely and officially accepted notion that the pandemic is over and that we can live with Covid while doing away with preventative measures is to my mind criminal on a vast scale. See for example: https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/kaiser-mask-rules-covid-outbreak-17909316.php
So, please review my medical record, considering my age, comorbidities, and familial situation and advise me as to the relative risks between the potential skin cancer and Covid infection to myself and other members of my household.”
I doubt that I’ll be keeping this appointment.
You could ask the doctor to wear an N95 which you will supply and send links on how other masks are not adequate since Omicron.
Having experienced what it means to be immunosuppressed ( 3 days in oncology ICU) I wonder why more attention isn’t being given to the 15,000,000 plus Americans with Long Covid.
I could easily see 20% of those die in one bad ‘Flu season and I suspect that would have a destabilizing effect on what remains of our “Health Care” system.
It wouldn’t have to be as bad as that. Merely having the Covid death numbers reach the highest of the first two years, and then stay there, month after month for years as those with permanent Long Covid die would do it. Would that be something like a million plus deaths a year? In five years, you could easily killed two percent of the American nation.
My understanding is that is the possibility of more lethal strains of either or both Covid and Influenza as those who have difficulty dealing with a disease, even if the disease does not kill them, tend to create more variants. The more really sick people, having a really hard time clearing a disease out, living with other people just like them, the more something like Super Awful, Mega Lethal Covid or the 2024 Influenza Death Strain will occur. Heck, the “goal” of a virus or bacterium is to spread and reproduce, not necessarily become lethal. It could easily just become more infectious and crippling. The Super Covid Dementia Strain anyone?
Gonzalo Lira, who interviewed Yves Smith, was arrested sometime this week by Ukraine’s SBU for the crime of wrong-think.
It is shocking how many people in the “free world” are celebrating on twitter. Whether one likes someone’s views or not, democracy requires the ability to hear all sides of an issue. Since life for those in power is easier with a compliant population, it is the population of a democracy that needs to maintain it, by criticizing, not celebrating, the silencing of others.
After reading Taibbi et als Twtr Files I can imagine who and what agencies are celebrating on twtr. / ;)
The same sort who use to have Twitter as their very own play pen?
What with the UN and the WHO and western oligarchs over reaching in the name of their philanthropic foundations; what with Davos man planning our future to include little food and little travel and no cash; I think now is a good time to rerun this NC Andrew Dittmer series. Here’s Part 1.
Summer Rerun: Journey Into a Libertarian Future: Part I –The Vision
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/08/summer-rerun-journey-into-a-libertarian-future-part-i-the-vision.html
The idea that govt, and especially democratic govt is bad and a block to corporate profits fits in well with the globalist businesses’ ideals.
What with the UN and the WHO and western oligarchs over reaching in the name of their philanthropic foundations, I think now is a good time to rerun this NC Andrew Dittmer series. Here’s Part 1.
Summer Rerun: Journey Into a Libertarian Future: Part I –The Vision
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/08/summer-rerun-journey-into-a-libertarian-future-part-i-the-vision.html
Zelensky regime’s fate is sealed
The shift from the counteroffensive to partisan sabotage/terrorism suggests that the conventional war in Ukraine may be on its last legs, and the desperate hope that a sufficient provocation can trigger an over-reaction and escalation in a hope that NATO gets drawn in and saves the bacon from the fire. It certainly doesn’t bode well for the prospects of the counteroffensive if the Ukrainians are trying to distract from the fighting to focus the world on “raining (drones) on the Victory Day Parade”.
This drone strike sets an awful precedent which no one will like when it inevitably blows West.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
We cannot have anything like this!
Modern life be like-
https://twitter.com/NoContextHumans/status/1654457616876150784