Endangered Caucasian lynx walks 2200 km in one year, GPS shows Duvar
Ever heard of ‘evil architecture’? 👿 Take for example benches that cannot be slept on, pins to prevent skateboarding or anti-homeless spikes. Here we talk about the avian equivalent: anti-bird spikes. Nasty metal spikes to stop birds from perching or nesting. pic.twitter.com/VfJNXMRTgE
— Auke-Florian (@AukeFlorian) July 11, 2023
Beautiful. Full paper here.
These Signs Could Be An Indication Your Home Is About To Slide Down A Hill LAist
Climate/Environment
Canada’s Political Elites Are Climate Criminals in the Pocket of Big Oil Socialist Project
EU to drop ban of hazardous chemicals after industry pressure The Guardian
World Bank Names CEOs to Help Bring Private Funds to Climate, Development Finance Reuters
***
Summer Heat Waves Killed 61,000 in Europe Last Year, Study Says New York Times
Residents of US south-west swelter under record-breaking heatwave The Guardian
US Has a Power Disconnection Crisis Consortium News
A heat wave will cook your electric car battery, if you let it The Mercury News
#COVID-19
Weekly additions to US kidney transplant waitlist hits all-time high Inside Medicine
Another Hidden Covid Risk: Lingering Kidney Problems New York Times. From Sept. 2021, still germane.
Humoral vaccine response and breakthrough infections in kidney transplant recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide cohort study The Lancet. “Kidney transplant recipients experienced reduced SARS-CoV-2 vaccine response and were at increased risk of severe COVID-19.”
China?
De-Risking as Viewed from China Sinification
In Zambia’s debt deal, what was the point of the Common Framework? Africa Watch
New Not-So-Cold War
We value our allies. We value our shared security. And we always appreciate an open conversation.
Ukraine will be represented at the NATO summit in Vilnius. Because it is about respect.But Ukraine also deserves respect. Now, on the way to Vilnius, we received signals that…
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 11, 2023
***
‼️ Russian MoD reported today that, just since the beginning of the AFU “offensive” (June 4th), Russian air defenses have shot down 176 HIMARS rockets and 27 Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
No other military on the planet has this capability.
No-Fly Zonehttps://t.co/z5zrpaSYUO pic.twitter.com/EgyqSFP84c
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) July 11, 2023
***
📢New Update of our Ukraine Support Tracker. Due to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, I had expected to see a big new wave of support. Once data collection was done, I was surprised how small total new commitments were March-May 👇 Plus: only ~50% of promised weapons have arrived. A 🧵 pic.twitter.com/3WthWVB1Do
— Christoph Trebesch (@Ch_Trebesch) July 6, 2023
***
Biden skips NATO leader dinner as staff cites recent workload — days after president lounged on beach New York Post
No, Ukraine Hawks Aren’t Strengthening America The American Conservative
NATO Isn’t What It Says It Is Grey Anderson and Thomas Meaney, New York Times
NEW: Biden admin is offering to provide Greece some tactical weaponry amid concerns in Congress that Turkey — longtime rival but fellow NATO member — will get too many concessions as U.S. seeks support for Sweden’s bid to join alliance, source tells me. https://t.co/TLHP9CrF0L
— Farnoush Amiri (@FarnoushAmiri) July 11, 2023
Red Army Rising: Kursk and Beyond Big Serge Thought
U.S. sanctions top Serbian security official for actions that support Russia’s ‘malign activities’ Politico
NATO chief ready to meet with Serbian president to defuse tensions in Kosovo Anadolu Agency
Syraqistan
US loots new batch of Syrian oil, reinforces bases in occupied Hasakah The Cradle
MbS to Blinken: ‘No’ to Israeli normalization, ‘yes’ to Syrian reconciliation The Cradle
GCC countries, Russia keen to enhance cooperation Arab News. Russian FM Lavrov: “We have a unified position with the Gulf states towards Syria’s unity and sovereignty over its lands.”
B-a-a-a-a-d Banks
Bank of America agrees to pay $250 mln over junk fees, other violations Reuters
Gallup Poll: Confidence in U.S. Banks Stood at 60 Percent in 1979. Today, It Stands at 26 Percent. Wall Street on Parade
Spook Country
Unpopularity Behind Elite Demands For Spying And Censorship Public
Biden Administration
Judge Rules for Microsoft: Mergers Are Good BIG by Matt Stoller
White House announces new plan to address the growing threat of xylazine in overdose crisis STAT
FBI director to testify as GOP’s skepticism reaches fever pitch The Hill
2024
Trump denounces Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine NBC News
Let us not be deceived: NATO is an expanding instrument of U.S. global power that provoked Russia into a criminal invasion and occupation of Ukraine. This proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation could lead to World War III. We must stop the war and war…
— Cornel West (@CornelWest) July 10, 2023
Realignment and Legitimacy
Historically Low Faith in U.S. Institutions Continues Gallup
Activism, Uncensored: A History of Flag-Burning Matt Taibbi, Racket News
GOP Clown Car
The Supremes
US colleges and universities are ‘selling access’ to supreme court justices AP
Woke Watch
‘Woke or KKK’: NYU Hosts Whites-Only ‘Antiracism’ Workshop for Public School Parents Washington Free Beacon
oh cool they’re doing it to fred hampton now https://t.co/Wk27k5PW83 pic.twitter.com/cTi7oI7moz
— sam (@halaljew) February 6, 2021
Obama Legacy
In defense of Deliverism Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic. The deck: “The radical idea that people vote for politicians who make their lives better.” Would it have been different if the mobilization refused to stand down after Obama’s victory?
Obama and his podcast partner are going to have to do a duet “Nebraska” album:
Nebraska Mom Pleads Guilty to Giving Abortion Pills to Her Teen Daughter Jezebel. “…cops obtained a warrant for Facebook messages between her and her mother. Facebook parent company Meta complied and provided the messages, in which the pair allegedly discussed ending Celeste’s pregnancy with pills.”
Digital Watch
EU tries again with new framework for data flows to US Al Mayadeen
Amazon claims it isn’t a “Very Large Online Platform” to evade EU rules Ars Technica
Supply Chain
Antibiotic Shortage Could Worsen Syphilis Epidemic New York Times
America Has Shortage of Key Lead-Poisoning Drug Wall Street Journal
Shifting trade patterns see Mexico become biggest exporter to US The Loadstar
Sports Desk
MLB working with Dow to develop a baseball with better grip AP
Our Famously Free Press
Vice Execs Were Paid Over $1 Million In Bonuses The Day After ‘Painful’ Layoffs HuffPost
Konrad Wolf Prize 2023 goes to Julian Assange Akademie der Künste
Class Warfare
SoCal Hotel Strike Reaches Its Second Wave LAist
Checked Out: How LA Failed to Stop Landlords From Turning Low-Cost Housing Into Tourist Hotels ProPublica
Hollywood studios could face two strikes for the first time in 63 years. How did we get here? Los Angeles Times
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
152 comments
Comments are closed.
You would think that Zelensky and his crew could dip into the 100 billion we have sent and buy some suits. Or, if they’re going to pull off this military garb schtick, a well tailored dress uniform with some medals. And a cool hat. The t shirt look is getting really old.
MOA is up with some fun pics of Z at NATO looking isolated with a look on his face he is realizing he’s been played…at the cost of hundreds of thousands sacrificed for the West’s hatred of Russia. And maybe just maybe he’s being thrown under the bus.
A few things I have read/heard here and there suggest not only Big Z but Ukrainians might be starting to have a more realistic sense of exactly what you say. Not joining NATO will probably be a big blow for Z internally and things might start to unfold in unpleasant outcomes (for the CW) sooner than expected. Might the Vilnius meeting turn things in unexpected ways?
Will Z ever return to Ukraine from Wilno? If he does, how long will he live?
This is a big sticking point. How much did Kiev regime types really believe NATO was going to rescue them like in movies? Certainly, there is bot traffic, but every 40 or 50 year old wonder weapon generated excitement.
In an old interview of the former Advisor to Z, now resigned/dismissed, he claims the war will go on some years, with stops and starts, until NATO intervenes and Russia gets defeated…
Played? Only if he was deliberately closing his eyes and ears. Nobody in a position to speak for NATO has said anything from the beginning to indicate that there was any chance of admitting Ukraine until after it’s little territorial dispute with Russia was resolved.
Occasional blather otherwise was confined to those with no decision making authority.
He looks furious at being isolated.
Excellent Portal video game reference e.g. the cake is a lie … I wonder where his companion cube is – ????? = military gear – ????
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(series)
Thank you, I thought it was a Nuland thingee…
Duh
The whole unshaven beard, hoarse voice, milspec olive shtick was probably planned to last for a month or two. Then ruble turns into rubble, their economy is in tatters, Putin gets Miloshevich’d to the Hague and all that. Who would have thunk…
What! What are you talking about? .. the wealth he has collected, the real estate, etc, etc…?
Heh. And so it begins: the demands and the schtick finally begin to wear thin —
In the FINANCIAL TIMES —
‘We’re not Amazon’: tensions with Ukraine surface at Nato summit
https://archive.ph/FRVIs
…after Zelenskyy blasted Nato for its “absurd” lack of a clear timeline for Ukraine’s entry, tensions began spilling into the open. Referring to Kyiv’s long military wish list, Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, said on Wednesday: “You know, we’re not Amazon.”
“Whether we like it or not, people want to see gratitude,” Wallace told reporters, echoing a common sentiment among Ukraine’s western backers, who have shelled out a cumulative $170bn of military and financial aid ….
“Yes, the war is a noble war. And yes, you [Ukraine] are fighting not just for yourself but our freedoms. [But] sometimes . . . you have to persuade doubting politicians in other countries that it’s worth it and it’s worthwhile,” Wallace said.
Senior western politicians and officials said the tensions reflected the domestic difficulties that some of Nato’s 31 members have faced in giving Ukraine the continued support it needs ….
The slow progress, so far, of Ukraine’s much-heralded spring counteroffensive has increased the stakes more as Kyiv pushes allies to add to its firepower to break through Russian lines.
Zelenskyy later responded to Wallace, telling reporters in Vilnius that “I didn’t know what he meant and how else we should be grateful . . . We could, you know, get up in the morning and express our gratitude personally to the minister. Really, I don’t understand the essence of the question.”
One problem is that Kyiv’s allies have had to source further supplies of military equipment after, in many cases, exhausting their own stocks. Wallace, for example, said the UK no longer had any mine-clearing vehicles left because it had taken “every single one and given them to Kyiv”.
For the US and UK to ask for gratitude, when they have been the leading cause of this war, is complete hipocrisy. However, this is typical of empires and their servants.
It also gives some indication of how badly this war is going for NATO.
Right, kind of what I thought. For sure, the constant asking for more might wear thin, but it was BoJo & co who told Z/Ukr to keep fighting, promising support for as long as it takes.
And here we are.
He is showing his solidarity with the collective in the tradition of Mao Tse Tung and Fidel Castro.
You might not look like a fashion model when you are LARPing. I definitely do not.
No one probably wants to admit it, but they are trying to leader-wash the vintage Fidel Castro defiant maverick aesthetic. I wonder who at CIA dreamed that one up.
I asked to be in the club in the North Atlantic
Where you think help will come and restore order
O R D E R, order
They walked up to me and said adding the Ukraine was just arithmetic
I asked to be part of the org and be defended by NATO
N A T O, NATO
Well I’m not the world’s most physical guy
But I wear a green shirt that you can buy
Oh my NATO, please don’t negate oh!
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
Why NATO didn’t have me in the plan
Oh my NATO, its never too late, oh
Well we drank in the doom and prayed all night
With all our might
They’ll hopefully pick me up in our hour of need
And say little stand up comic won’t you be with me
Well I’m not the world’s most stand up guy
But i’ve got a couple reasons why to be in
Na-na-na-na NATO, na-na-na-na NATO
NATO na-na-na-na NATO na-na-na-na NATO
I pushed their way
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Then I looked at them and them at me
Well that’s the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my NATO
Na-na-na-na NATO
Capitalists will be commies and commies will be capitalists
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for NATO
Na-na-na-na NATO
Well we kicked ass just awhile before
And I’d never ever tasted victory before
But NATO smiled and took me by the hand
And said dear boy I’m gonna try & include you in the band
Well I’m not the world’s most stand up man
But I know what I am and really have no plan
And so does NATO
Na-na-na-na NATO, na-na-na-na NATO
NATO na-na-na-na NATO na-na-na-na NATO
Lola, by the Kinks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemG0cvc4oU
It’s the tech bro “I’m to busy with important things and too brilliant and sincere to think about shaving or wearing more than a T-shirt and jeans” bit. A lot like SBF.
@Benny Profane, July 12, 2023 at 7:32 am
Hahaha! Hilarious!! But didn’t he have something like 150 PR firms working for him? They must have come up with his look. And it’s a lot more comfy than an effing business suit. I have had to wear them from time to time.
Just imagine he’s singing this and it all works.
A better baseball for a better world. Here is a thought, why don’t wrap the baseball in PFAS and the catcher sport a Haz Mat suit behind the plate? I mean DOW chemical has form after all !! ( \sarc )
Gaylord Perry sees your illicit substance discussion, young lads, and scoffs at you. Pikers!
Better baseball through chemistry. Nothing is sacred.
Beisbol been berry berry good to DOW
Mud from the Delaware River. They’re made in
Turrialba, Costa Rica (perfect climate), a town on the highway
between capital San Jose and the coastal
city of Limón.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/baseball/news-where-are-official-mlb-baseballs-made
Baseball chemistry can make you King! Well, maybe not me, but for Ray Milland . . .
“It Happens Every Spring”
“Not true at all. Vaseline is made right here in the United States.” —- pitcher Don Sutton, when asked if he ever doctored a baseball with a foreign substance.
I used Vaseline on the clubface to get rid of a wicked slice at the golf course, before I decided all golf courses should be turned into community gardens.
Ref – Rolling Hills Estates landslides … its not called the flying triangle for nothing …
The Palos Verdes Peninsula is rife with peacocks who while looking stately Wayne Manor, are strictly a menace to society with their 1950’s schlock horror film-like (think of a small child being whisked away by a 5 legged extraterrestrial) screams & cries, not to mention the runny white residue left all over-have they never heard of Charmin?
Somehow in some way, I suspect fowl play.
I spend a lot of time in Rancho Palos Verdes Estates / Malaga Cove [Spanish roof tile town] and lived in High Riviera for a bit. Stuff was built next to cliffs around the 50s and was going off the cliffs by the early 80s, town supply was above and next too the road as the ground moved about a meter+ a year.
Yes the peacocks, the massive ham radio antenna at the peak, beware the skunks, if abode is on the south facing side of the peninsula you have a beautiful view of the illegal burn off from the petroleum storage area in long beach, pro tip – don’t try surfing at the last cove as its San Pedro Hispanic gang territory, although it is fun going from the Malaga Cove trail down too the bottom of the cliffs and check out the tidal pools at low tide, plus free diving in the kelp beds – about 60 ft to the bottom and good spear fishing can be had and lastly the end scene of the The Big Lebowski was filled at the south end, have stood right there.
Then again heaps and heaps of silly times up at Point Dume, Malibu, and the Cove, all very surreal in retrospect and then Boulder before Oz.
Just before the moved I remember developers doing a massive terraforming project at the worst part no one would build on. If there was a hill they removed it, if flat put a hill there, just epic, its like the Salton Sea all over again …. the intelligent species some say …
Don’t eat at a place called Mom’s, and don’t buy a house at a place called “Rolling Hills”.
I keep seeing new building lots for sale along the shore of Lake Ontario. Nothing really changes.
The worst place for movement is called Portuguese Bend, and there is some discussion of changing the name to Iberian Bend, from agents of woke.
I was reading about that. People are saying you could look at the constant road repairs in the area and know something was wrong before these slides.
Many bold opinions today.
Fortune favors the bold. Bohemian Rhapsody. Ha Ha!
‘Hollywood studios could face two strikes for the first time in 63 years. How did we get here?’
‘Almost as long as there has been an entertainment industry, there has been labor strife. And, more often than not, that conflict has nearly always coincided with new technologies that have disrupted how filmmakers, creatives and other industry employees have been paid and their work distributed.
Since 1936 the industry’s unions — often led by the Writers Guild — have gone on strike some 20 times fighting for fair and adequate compensation in the face of challenges arising out of unregulated technological advancements such as kinescope recordings, television, cable, videocassettes, DVDs — and now the internet.’
So there’s a pattern and the unions weren’t taken by surprise at all? Every time there was a technological advancement that put more money in the pockets of the studios and their investors — which they kept — the people who actually work for that money had to go to war to claw back some of the profits for themselves. It’s as though the studio heads knew that until regulations of those new technologies were written, passed, and included in the language of the contracts everyone has to sign season to season, they could use some of that money to delay those new regulations for as long as possible… and this happens every time? Everywhere, all at once in Laborland? Huh… it’s good to be a capitalist.
I think the shock this time is not that there are strikes, it is that the studios haven’t managed to contain the discontent. The last major strike was also a writers strike. That ended when the studios and the directors guild agreed to some minor adjustments to the issues that were behind the strike (streaming). This was used as pattern for the negotiations with actors. The actors listened to the directors and signed an agreement. The writers had to capitulate. This time SAG has voted overwhelmingly to strike. Not only did they get burned last time (streaming has been devastating to rank and file actors) but AI is a very real threat that actors understand. The DGA AI contract restrictions are clearly extremely weak tea. Actors have rejected the DGA pattern. If an agreement cannot be reached with SAG today or with a stopped clock in the next few days, studios are not seeing the end of the strike. Instead it will probably fuel a long term disruption of production.
But, but they’re libruls.
The movie biz is an extreme example of the reserve army of the unemployed so management is always going to have that on its side. But the labor unions haven’t always been simon-pure either. And technological change has always been a threat to both sides.
Meanwhile attendance down at Disney parks as management tries to milk legacy assets with big price increases rather than seek out the new and creative. Could be the business has an incumbency problem more than anything else.
“….have gone on strike some 20 times fighting for fair and adequate compensation in the face of challenges arising out of unregulated technological advancements such as kinescope recordings, television, cable, videocassettes, DVDs — and now the internet.’
It’s about the cumulative effects of all of that. And it’s the cumulative effects over the decades that make it all start to weigh heavier on the ability to survive. And not only for Hollywood.
It’s not necessarily a series of separate events that have been overcome. Not by far.
In short, what you have described is a process over decades of diminishing returns mainly for “below the line” workers.
Not a situation unique to Hollywood
Despite every battle, each one has diminishing returns.
You picked up on the word ‘Laborland’? Yes, as though there were a pattern that repeats in the favor of the capitalists, and knowing this they make every effort to draw out the process to avoid sharing the profits.
But then the labor leaders should see the same pattern and try to get out in front of it for the sake of their members, and maybe they do but the ‘process of discovery’ favors the owners and they have all the money and what money can buy them.
Unions were always a good idea but something’s up with current leadership and that may be why labor continues to distrust them. In the managed democracy model that Sheldon Wolin writes about, does a union’s membership chose their own leaders or do they find their choices have already been made for them, even before voting much like our two party system? I thought Pat’s comment about the studios ‘usually managing the discontent’ was interesting. What’s different this time?
Inching towards the day there are no Hollywood unions.
It’s the boiling the frog slowly process. The difference is each time being closer to cooked.
https://boingboing.net/2023/07/12/hollywood-will-let-striking-writers-lose-houses.html
pre-link wandering revealed this:
https://www.thepropergander.org/p/the-declaration-of-independence-and
which i think is an entirely reasonable activity…and something i’ve been thinking about….admittedly on a much more local level…for many, many years.
(ie: in gaming out the progression of collapse, i intuited that warlordism/gang rule is the most likely form of stability that we can hope for in far flung places like this…so what to do to mentally prepare for such an eventuality?…how would i defend me and mine from local would be feudal lords?)
as the goose man says, almost all of the revolutionary babble(mostly from the right) is silly, smacks of dishonesty, and often looks more like a honeypot than anything.
the ruminations and whinging from “the left”…lol.
sheepdogs and cuddle puddles.
as for a list of grievances…well…i’d begin by being pretty much totally unrepresented by my various levels of government…like forever…and this fact being glossed over and ignored…if not outright denied…by the vast majority of my countrymen.
i can get an ear…and even results…at the extreme local level by the use of spectacle…or the threat thereof…like alluding that i’ll call down a herd of muckrakers if the grievance du jour is ignored.
..or paying an illegal vehicle tax with a feedsack full of loose pennies…
Something worth a deep and thoughtful contemplation. I’m not in a hasty mode to post a longer comment, given I must be returning to the wonderful TPS reports. I’ll just note, that collectively the “We the People” got a lot of problems and anyone in DC willing to do such and such about is seemingly in the clutches of dark money, donor classes, and day trading for their generational wealth. We’re gonna have to go a little further, possibly, than a draining of the swamp.
Just for starters with our current Executive in White House, Joe Biden’s own progeny now reminds me of Commodus, who “was not a moral man”. Apple not fall far from tree, I am circling around to this idea. They don’t fail so they have no reason to learn of or from their mistakes.
The word “oligarchy” is absent from the gander’s honking…
He talks about Aristotle, but he seems to see only what the overtone window allows: democracy vs. authoritarianism/tyranny, totally forgetting the strongest Aristotelian political pillar: oligarchy…
“A good start is constructing a list of grievances with one’s government, like that found in the Declaration. . .
. . . If there is significant overlap between your list and that of another individual or group, you have just found common cause — and thus your movement may strengthen. You will quickly find out who your opponents are as well.”
I’m turning over rocks to see where me and Gander’s agendas align beyond “enough war already” and “throw the bums out.” They’re coy about their grievances here, but I trust the promise that a full list is on the way. For now, I take “this crisis of fiscal mismanagement, blundering foreign policy, corruption of government officials, intrusion of government into private life, poorly-managed migration, and much more. . .” at face value. These are legit complaints.
What’s missing (presumably filed under “much more”?) betrays their priors: Hunger, an ignored pandemic, climate change, wealth inequality, institutionalized racism, police powers of the not-so-soft variety, accelerating resource depletion and so on. They short-stick human suffering to focus on the unconscionable leadership that enables it. Scrolling back through their feed I see a scree against global debt (both “public and private”) veer into the same sophomoric takedowns of MMT we were seeing in 2008:
Sadly absent from their panicked assessment of the too much gubment borrowing catastrophe is a single mention of the real debt struggles so many of us face — aside from a single word, “private,” in the introduction.
Still, scrolling further, I agree that the Hobbesian dilemma is a decent lens for the present state of affairs (as long it doesn’t devolve into drowning it all in the tub), and who doesn’t get sucked in by “shit is about to get weird”.
So thanks, Amfortas, for turning me on to Gander. I’ll follow them in my sleep — semi-sane is better than nothing. Wake me up when they accept that sovereign actors aren’t limited by lines on a balance sheet, or that the beginnings of working reform might be as easy as providing concrete material benefits.
“These Signs Could Be An Indication Your Home Is About To Slide Down A Hill”
I would have said that the first sign was building next to a cliff face but perhaps that is just me. It may be that this is part of a larger problem where climate change is serving to deform the ground under us for which our buildings are not designed for-
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230711131050.htm
big problem in west Michigan too on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan – but they keep building on sandy elevations above the lake with fingers crossed –
aye.
what is it with rich folks and building on hilltops?
around here, there’s little chance of landslides…altho the limestone cliffs do tend to crumble, sometimes, depending on the age of the limestone(for instance, the mountain(sic) out back is made of older limestone than those further south…this rock will crumble in yer hand)
but still…i think about heating and cooling and having some kind of yard(nothing on top of these hills other than cactus and juniper)…and all exposed to direct sun in summer, and harsh north winds in winter…plus piping water all the way up.
and,lol…every one of the big hills i’ve been on top of in this county has the same hidden feature: the entire top is like a cup of rock, filled with silt and clay from the ancient ocean that used to be here…that cup fills with water when it rains a lot(hence the seeps around the sides of a given hill)…one doesn’t attempt to drive on top after a big rain, b/c the mud will be like Ukraine.
cant be good for putting a slab on.
and all for, i assume, passively lording it over all us little people down below.
>”what is it with rich folks and building on hilltops?”
They’re not stupid, willing to lose millions in a natural disaster. They’re *rich* after all and they got that way by figuring all the angles.
First, they buy a house on a hill and then purchase a truckload of private or government-subsidized insurance while overstating the value of house, vehicles, and contents (real or imagined).
Nothing happens, they win. Something happens, they cash out. And if their claims are questioned their lawyers on retainer sue, knowing that the courts will bend over backwards to help them rip off insurance companies and the government.
Win-win. As I said, they ain’t rich for nothin’.
Maybe it’s some hangover from feudal times, where a hilltop position was often more easily defended.
i have called them Hillforts for many years…first, it was the local dems..now, its neuveau riche…oil money, etc…coming out here and buying distressed legacy ranches and spending millions on fences and clearing mesquite and cactus, and then running too many cows for the place.
(ie: amateurs/hobbyists…they aint trying to make $ from cattle)
these latter also have a fetish for large ostentatious gates and gate displays…lighted giant flags, rockwork and artificial fountains and all…
and when the particular such specimens across the highway were building out their place, i heard great booms/explosions for a couple of months…what i have been told by various contractor buddies were excavations for a wine cellar…with a hidden bunker underneath.
so the same doomerism that drives me, is driving these rich folks to come out here and set themselves up as eventual lords.
ive met a few of them…at weddings, feedstore, etc…
not all that worried, threat wise,lol
they’ll have great difficulty recruiting/retaining bannermen, once the money’s no good.
unpleasant people, one and all.
they expect loyalty, rather than earning it.
Beating the heat requires you to get high or be on the down low, and not everybody has a half-pint Himalaya on their back stoop, nor caves.
It’d be problematic building a 14,000+ foot high mountain, but dead easy in comparison constructing the equivalent of 1950’s fallout shelters, not so much on fear of the Reds pushing the button down, but a sure-fire way to keep cool that requires no electric grid for the Hades and the Hades not living above ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Catch a wave and you’ll be sweltering in this part of the world
Don’t be afraid to try the greatest heat around (Catch a wave, catch a wave)
Everybody who tries it once
Hopes the grid don’t go down a bunch
You turn the a/c on to reduce the daze
And baby that’s all there is to the climate change craze
Catch a wave and you’re sweltering in this part of the world
Not a fact, cause it’s been going on so long (Catch a wave, catch a wave)
All the deniers still going strong
They said it wouldn’t last too long
They’ll eat their words with a fork and spoon
And watch ’em they’ll hit the road and all be sufferin’ soon
And when they catch a wave they’ll be hurtin’ all over the world
Catch a wave and you’re in a SPF-666 world
So take a lesson from a top-notch mountain boy (Catch a wave, catch a wave)
Who knows every escape ploy
But don’t treat it like a toy
Just get away from the exposed turf
And baby avoid some rays on the sunny surf
And when you catch a wave you’ll be sweltering in this part of the world
Catch a wave and you’ll be looking for another part of the world
Catch a Wave, by the Beach Boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLgWbH-qhVo
p.s.
Isn’t it time to treat heatwaves as we do incoming hurricanes by fleeing the scene?
Avila Beach is 3 hours away from hell, er here, when it’ll be 110 for 3 days, whereas the temperature on the coast is in the mid 70’s and partly cloudy.
My excuse in not being there instead of here is that the hair’m doesn’t travel well, and yeah I get it not everybody is retired nor has the means to just get up and go, but the danger of staying for the strictly ‘maybe’ potential of something wicked this way comes that often veers from where we think it’ll go doesn’t deter people fleeing in Florida, does it?
Our foggy little enclave here near the eastern shoreline of San Francisco bay will reach a high of only 75 degrees during this heat wave. Indeed, we have been experiencing cooler than normal temperatures this season with the sun breaking through the high fog for maybe an hour or two in the afternoon and with bracing breezes blowing. In the fall, the prevailing winds shift and begin to blow out to sea holding off the fog. That’s when our heat waves happen. I’m wondering just how hot it will get here then.
Should we find ourselves with a large lump of cash… an inheritance in the near future, maybe?… we’d like to finish the basement and spend the summer months sleeping there… on the down low. It’s naturally 10 degrees cooler than the first floor without using the air conditioning.
But apparently my MIL intends to outlive us and our enthusiasm for tolerating such a major remodeling disruption is waning with every year that passes… thusly do offspring end up spending their inheritance frivolously when it might have gone to home improvements. Eff it, sez we, let’s go walkabout for a year, if these old pins will still carry us by then.
When I was a kid, this fellow had a custom home built with a basement!, one of 27 similar abodes so attired underfoot in Cali perhaps?
Love your parodies, and this is among your very best!
Taibbi’s latest. no paywall
Where Have All the Liberals Gone
Opening comments to the general public to ask a question, in sincerity: what changed the minds of society’s former First Amendment advocates?
https://www.racket.news/p/where-have-all-the-liberals-gone
They start using the SBU as an excuse for their censorship, and as time goes by they like it and get 100% Liberal with this tool at their disposal. Liberal censorship is kosher precisely because the proper political adjective is used beforehand.
Maybe Trump broke their brains. It was supposed to be her turn but instead what they consider to be the hard Right pushed her aside and in came Trump as President. So to make sure that this is never allowed to ever happen again, the ‘right’ people must be given the say on who is allowed to be President and if that means the security state doing so with the media giving them cover and those on the “Right” being censored, well, so be it. After all, the moral right to do so is on their side. Or so they say.
To which the obvious response is that if you could use the FBI to stop Trump/Putin Hitler wouldn’t you do it? Or something.
The reality is that Adolf was an early example of mass communication gone off the rails and now we have another. The Bernaysians have propagandized themselves into believing their own bs with reality lost in the fog. The only way to stay sane may be to avoid mass media altogether and some of us do.
Take more walks–watch less TV. NC is on it.
i only ever see tv news(msdnc) when i’m over at mom’s…like yesterday evening, for dinner(which i ate and ran).
its terrible.
she fills out all that nonsense with daily kos, and reckons she’s well informed…you know, how putin is like pinky and the brain and wants to rule the world, and all…
i get all my news in text form…and from all over the place.
on the daily, from NC and a variety of reporters and analysts and sites that i’ve learned to trust…many, over decades…
but i also peruse the MSM and various Blob Adjacent places…at least every other week.
last night, i roamed around in the Blob Twittersphere…McFaul, CFR,Atlantic Council, and so on…fleshed out with a bevy of mainstream reporters of supposedly varying ideological bents(lol…not so much, it turns out…theres obviously a script)
these people believe…or say they believe…the exact, polar opposite of what i have learned…and examined, and attempted to falsify(Popper)…over 40 years of paying attention to world events.
they know and hate a very different Putin than the one i’ve been paying mind to since the big Munich Speech(05?07?)
every time i do this exercise, i find myself shocked and awed by hw heterodox my views are….and again, as is my long habit, i question myself, and go and examine everything again…its exhausting.
somehow, i dont think these folks ever once even consider examining their assumptions about various facets of the world….and this is rather shocking to me, as well…because they should have much better access to information than i do….and don’t they teach critical thinking at harvard?
but instead of presenting a cogent argument, it’s “Ok, Vlad”.
and all of this is getting worse…every time i go and look again, in order to keep abreast of what the Hive is thinking.
There just is no replacement for a diversity of news outlets, and it never ceases to surprise me that so many limit themselves to sources that have proven themselves to be wrong so many times. One of my new favorites is RBN on YT. They have a podcast on today about the NAFO conference in Vilnius that I am still laughing over. NAFO as a CIA psy-op:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mbx8xcGbcg
This is not actually representative of what they do, but, in keeping with my low brow internet persona, it is a funny one. They have things like interviews with Cornell West, in which it is interesting to watch them pull him to the left and other issues of like import, but as an introduction I don’t think this one could be beaten.
Harvard and other elite institutions teach the conservation of the English System and nothing else. Conservatism can be described as reproductive perfectionism. Critical thinking is anathema to conservatism; to critique the past is to corrupt its trajectory into the future. Such grand weapons must, from the perspective of the order, be heavily tabooed (the real purpose of a taboo is the exception hidden within it) and applied only to specific situations or targets (see also successor ideology).
I liked that last week about “we are all Socrates now”, btw.
More and more i am convinced that MSM these days is more about arousing emotions than delivering factual reports about events.
Ages ago i ran into a small piece of an interview of someone that was around during the rise of Hitler, and present at one of his speeches.
While he was there he was cheering and clapping and being swept away by the energy and emotions. But when he read the speech in print in the next day’s newspaper he was appalled and disgusted by what he was reading.
I listen to Toronto talk radio to get a sense of what the right wing loons are thinking — if one can dignify the squawking of parrots as cognition.
It’s exhausting.
Mass communication is meant to form the mass mind, that is then embodied in the mass. A people too busy screaming passionately about trivia to have unbossed thoughts is the Valhalla of cognitive rapine that infuses the Wilsonist PMC’s hive and individual minds. I suggest that these experiments were successful beyond wildest dreams, and not off the rails at all.
Turn off the MSM, turn off the myth.
See no future, pay no rent.
racket would not print my comment, required an account sign in via e mail link, so I’ll leave it here. The answer is: The Clinton’s happened.
TDS, I have it in my own family.
Aid pledges to Ukraine: the graph is stark but it’s actually worse. Tariffs for everything from communal apartments to utilities are going up to meet IMF demands. Confiscation of bank assets for debts are being instituted. Food prices are rising and this year’s harvest projections are dire. The damaged electrical grid has not been fixed and will not be fixed. New taxes are being implemented on struggling businesses. Everything is bad in Ukraine for almost everyone (except the rich and well-insulated).
To salvage even whatever is left of Ukraine will take a lot more aid than is being given. The alternative is a year from now there being a lot of poor and very angry combat veterans looking for answers and maybe food. I don’t expect that the necessary aid will be forthcoming.
“Biden skips NATO leader dinner as staff cites recent workload — days after president lounged on beach”
When I worked for a large global partnership I used to detest global meetings. Hours spent traveling and being jet lagged for very little outcome. The only truly valuable part was the opportunity for informal chats. These were typically over meals given how packed the formal agendas always were. Or you just skipped the formal events instead to do that if you were “naughty”.
If the Managing Partner failed to show up to dinner though after forcing everyone to go there then I would have been an even more unhappy camper than I was. This feels the same. The minions who lead the vassal states all want their touch of Harry in the night, to use a metaphor from Shakespeare’s Henry V pre Agincourt. If the “boss” cannot be bothered to do that, is too preoccupied with other matters or simply too senile to cope then the whole meeting becomes a waste of time.
Aside from recoiling at the comparison of Biden to Henry V, I couldn’t agree more. I got way more accomplished and learned way when more socializing outside of the formal sessions and meetings at every conference or general meeting I ever attended. And I don’t mean that awful and often phoney ‘networking’ that one is encouraged to do. I mean genuine communication with people one likes and respects over drinks and food. Makes me wonder if Biden really isn’t fit for the informal socializing, without a script or formal remarks to make, perhaps he can’t cope? I look forward with both dread and anticipation to the stories of his addled antics after he is no longer in office.
Joey’s a useful idiot servant.
And the PMC still want him for re-election. This IMO shows exactly how the PMC despises the electorates. Going ahead with historical metaphors Biden starts to look like the carcass of El Cid, supposedly brought to the battles to inspire fear on the enemy. He looks closer to the world of the dead, so to speak.
Poor staff work, if you ask me. Couldn’t come up with a plausible fib.
Or close the wall up with Ukrainian dead, perhaps?
Right. He is definitely not Henry V. Maybe Ethelred The Unready.
Wkipedia suggests that the Unready nickname is not what it seems.
Yep, seems that “ræd” in his nickname is related to the German “Rat”. So he was kinda “ratlos”, that is, clueless or confused.
How about Gorm the Old (d. c. 958), also known as Gorm the Languid, the first recognized King of Denmark.
First time I hear that name for Gorm. I have read plenty of Danish history and the only hits I get are English-language sites. He is believed to have had osteoarthritis, so could that be why?
Will dig out my books, though!
In international meetings of this kind, dinners are usually working dinners, for informal discussion of issues without the need for detailed records to be kept. They are not social gatherings. The difference is that in the Chamber Biden would have twenty people behind him to feed him papers and tell him what to say, and he would largely be speaking from a series of prepared notes. Someone would be literally sitting next to him at the table. You don’t usually get that at dinners, but Biden would, nonetheless, be expected to intervene on all the important issues raised. Not only is he the leader of the single most important country, as a Head of State he outranks everyone but Macron in protocol terms. I suspect his handlers just didn’t trust him to get through the dinner safely. But not turning up for the dinner could easily be perceived as a massive snub.
Yep. They are not really social gatherings in major partnerships of the types I was a member of or at senior levels in corporations either! They just give an appearance of being that. Everyone is politicking something. Or selling something.
Fully agree on the fundamentals though: given what Biden says in other settings when he goes off piste it is in the realm of possibility that NATO would not exist after a dinner that he attended. I know that is an exaggeration! But, more seriously at least a lot of follow up work would be needed by his minders to “clarify” whatever he said to each counterpart leader. I suspect they are trying not to create unnecessary work for themselves as much as anything else. They have other priorities to worry about.
I suspect too that everyone involved knows the real reason. The shocking thing is that no one in the mainstream seems to call it out. You cannot really have an empire with an emperor who cannot be trusted to have conversations. Begs the obvious question of who is in charge.
Blinkin, Nuland & Sullivan on the “Ukraine” dossier?
It’s a charade, a deadly charade and if they weren’t so dangerous these people would be ridiculous. One less of them at dinner, even the most dangerous of them, doesn’t matter.
These people are responsible for millions upon millions of dead who did not deserve that fate. Blood-soaked psychopaths. Scum.
Their existence can not be explained nor defended by a rational mind.
Gilbert Doctorow calls the current crop of Western leaders midgets IIRC. Sounds about right.
I don’t remember a time when the whole crop were incompetent idiots. It is a bit frightening that Orban looks like the most sensible.
U.S. sanctions top Serbian security official for actions that support Russia’s ‘malign activities’
Is it just me or do others have the feeling that sanctioning the director of Serbia’s intelligence agency is not necessarily a great idea? It might give him areal incentive to cooperate with Russian intelligence.
Thanks Aurelian. Regardless of the perception of other leaders, of which I have no concern or respect, this is clearly a huge fail on Biden’s part. The explanation of “too busy” is laughable.
But what are the satraps going to do about it?
—————————–
It has been speculated that this condition is why biden rarely “works” after 4 p.m., and takes weekends off.
And just for fun there’s this from alz.org:
My elderly mother, suffering from Lewy Body Dementia, much preferred frozen yogurt. Don’t know why. She also loved black licorice, After Eight chocolate bars (mint), and lightly-salted potato chips. She never lost her appetite for these things until the very end.
When I asked the dental implant surgeon about th e cost v benefit of dental implants since I was in my 60s with maybe 20 years to go he said :the pleasure of eating is the last to go, even in dementia!
This thread has news you can use. Ice cream for the end of life stage. I’d like to have mushrooms and also some friendly opoids as well, then compost me.
The establishment has been craving another Reagan.
So ice cream is what we’re calling soma these days?
Biden has even fewer obligations to his satraps than Henry V had to his vassals.
He could drop trou at dinner and demand that all present kiss His Imperial Tuchus and every single attendee would dutifully line up, hell they’d bicker about who got the privilege of being the first to pucker up.
‘NEW: Biden admin is offering to provide Greece some tactical weaponry amid concerns in Congress that Turkey — longtime rival but fellow NATO member — will get too many concessions as U.S. seeks support for Sweden’s bid to join alliance, source tells me.’
Erdogan may not be happy about this. After doing Biden a solid by green-lighting Sweden’s entry into NATO and returning those Azov prisoners, a day or two later Biden turns around and gives Greece weaponry that can only be aimed at Turkiya itself. Those F-16s that Erdogan is getting don’t count as it will take up to a decade to integrate them into the Turkish Air Force after they get them and Washington can shut down the servicing on those fighters whenever they want. And maybe Israel may even spike that fighter deal on the grounds of their own security like they did with Egypt.
But did he really do Biden a solid or give him a few more headaches?
IIRC, his offer to vote for Sweden’s NATO bid was predicated upon his getting into the EU. As final accession into the EU would require unanimous consent, something he could easily kill off by asking Orban to not vote for him, what he managed to do was take all the pressure off and throw a hot potato into Biden’s face.
Unless I missed something big, he just roiled NATO/EU internal politics even further.
A major source of dissatisfaction among young people in Turkey is EU accession. They may fancy themselves part of a global culture, but Turkey jumped through hoops for years before realizing Berlin had no interest in a proper rising power in the EU. Turkey is educating its youth at the same rate as Germany.
Borrell doesn’t want any Turks in the garden. Realistically, there are two outcomes:
-EU accession happens, and suddenly, the promised EU army materializes because Turkey is a member.
-or Europe Europes and dismisses Turkey out of hand while extolling the virtues of the white race…i mean Banderas…um…er…”forcing” Erdogan’s hand.
Wasn’t Erdogan promised an easing of restrictions for Turks to travel through the EU? I think that Alex Christforou might have mentioned it in a recent video. And after Sweden is in NATO, I am sure that the EU would honour such a deal and would never renege on doing so.
and i dont remember where i saw it…i didnt pursue it, either…but didnt turkey want some group in Syria either anathemised or given the go ahead?…as a price of their yes vote on sweden?
i meant to go back and look more closely, but went to sleep, instead…and now i cant find it.
I was under the impression that Turks aren’t that impressed with the F16’s now? What really got them riled up was being forced out of the F35 consortium. While F35 might be, eh, a turkey, it remains that it is the new technology while F16 is old.
I believe that the US was refusing to sell Türkiye Patriot batteries just about the time it was becoming apparent that the F-35s were the lemons of the aviation world.
I have suspected Türkiye went with the S-400s both to get an air defence system ant to got out of buying the F-35s without a penalty.
Just more of the usual dances involving Erdogan. Neither the Russians nor the Americans are terribly happy with him nor find him to be exactly a reliable “partner.” But both find him useful and neither desires to have him firmly on the other side.
And the distrust is mutual. Erdogan keeps insisting on the deliverables before final approval on Sweden. Because he has a very good idea of what would happen if he fully delivered his end first. He’s also at pains to avoid becoming inextricably tied to Russia.
My jaw dropped at that headline because I thought: Really? That’s what Greece needs after being practically pauperized by their dealings with the Eurozone?
Mikel: That’s what Greece needs after being practically pauperized by their dealings with the Eurozone?
And what pauperized the Greeks before was excessive defense spending in no small measure.
With all the tanks and military kit they bought, it would have been a hoot in 2015 if Greece had sent their military on the long drive up the road to Germany, and settled the Troika’s and the Eurozone’s hash that way. Greece had twice as many tanks as the UK, and was the third biggest military spender as percentage-of-GDP in NATO, after the US and UK .
https://www.businessinsider.in/heres-why-greeces-military-budget-is-projected-to-grow-in-2015-despite-the-countrys-economic-mayhem/articleshow/47872955.cms
“One could argue that with 1,300 tanks, more than twice the number in the UK, Greece has many more than it needs. But no one forced it to spend so much. It happened because of the threat perception from Turkey and the need to balance Turkey militarily,” Greek defense expert Thanos Dokos* told the Guardian.
“The 2.4% of GDP that Greece is projected to spend on defense in 2015 is actually a sharp decrease from the country’s previous spending habits. Throughout the 1980s, Greece’s average defense budget was 6.2% of its GDP largely due to tensions with its Turkish neighbor.’
* Thanos Dokos?!? If that’s for real, it’s a great name for a military analyst.
“…it would have been a hoot in 2015 if Greece had sent their military on the long drive up the road to Germany…”
I would have had my popcorn out for it.
Ha ha! (Nelson Muntz laugh)
“One Democratic campaign strategist said Biden should include West in conversations about the direction of the party as a way to keep him and fellow progressives on board.
“Get them in a f—ing room and ask what they want and include it in the platform,” the strategist said, adding progressives love West’s run. “I think they’ll be happy if he moves Biden[’s] rhetoric left.”*
Because no one remembers that they did that to Sanders after the Democratic Convention in ’16, and how that ended. These people just never learn. It is a year and a half until the election, and their sheets already need to be changed.
I need to send West some more money.
* https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4091419-democratic-jitters-grow-over-cornel-wests-third-party-bid/
Wasn’t that the Democrat voters strategy two years ago? Do everything to get Biden elected as President, don’t worry about extracting any promises from him as it might put him in a bad light if he refuses, then after he was elected – push him left. And so those people completely ignored his whole history of corruption, sexual molestation, inappropriateness with females and children in public, the early signs of senility, the crime bill and all the rest of it and just figured that old Joe would make a really great President.
Yep.
The DNC playbook is one page long, printed on one side of the page, double spaced and with a very large point size. It reads:
“Bring them to heel and then kick them when they are down.”
But they do allow us to choose the font, so there is that.
The saddest thing is that even though Biden has failed to uphold his campaign promises they now think that he’s the best president of their lifetime. DK would constantly explain how democrats could pass …this, but when they didn’t they experienced no blowback and then they moved on to the next bill democrats were going to pass. Except that the current rotating villain would block it. Funny how they can’t see that democrats have used one during Clinton’s, Obama’s and now Biden’s tenure.
“I think they’ll be happy if he moves Biden[’s] rhetoric left.”
That’s right there in a nutshell: for the Dem poo-bahs it’s about rhetoric, for normal people it’s about real actions to improve their lives. Rhetoric no doubt keeps many a Dem rice bowls overflowing, but it does F-all for the rest of us.
Truly, the Democrat Party must be destroyed. West 2024!
I don’t think they realize yet that we would be much happier to see Biden’s head in a jar.
They might even give it to us if we vote for Kamala. They are classy people.
From the diary of an alien observer sent to determine our suitability for first contact:
“The last thing Western humanity saw before the bright nuclear flash was President Kamala Harris giggling uncontrollably in the Oval Office.”
I think “rhetoric” is an awfully polite term for what Democrats do. It’s no more than this election’s sales pitch, and it will be forgotten the minute they announce the winner.
Cory Doctorow’s piece in today’s Links about “deliverism” is a waste of time. We know all this at NC where we’ve been talking about “concrete material benefits” for years. Both points are important, but when focused on the Democrat Party are a waste of time. How anyone who has been around since 2006 and Pelosi’s “look forward, not back” and all that has transpired since, can think of the Democrat Party as anything but Enemy #1 is beyond me. Maybe they need to seek medical treatment for Red/Blue myopia.
I ran across something I didn’t know existed: the American Solidarity Party. It’s related to Patrick Deneen’s communitarianism, and its “Who We Are” page is largely composed of Catholics with a few Baptists sprinkled in. Not surprisingly, they are absolutely opposed to abortion and even in vitro fertilization, but when it comes to economics, would any of the following ever appear in a Democrat Party platform?
I present this not as a supporter, but as someone who wants to understand how others are responding to the collapse of Red/Blue. These are mostly Republicans who have finally realized that neoliberalism is destroying the things they value, especially the family.
Wasting time trying to reform the unreformable Democrats is pointless. For those who still believe electoral politics might offer a way to deal with our crises, we should be looking for Inside/Outside coalitions. Let the Democrats do themselves in before they finish off the country.
With the rare exception I’m done with the Democrats. The Doctorow article you mention, while nothing suprising to most of here at NC, I found useful to send to some friends that I’ve been trying to lure from the dark side. Maybe eventually they will see the Democrats for what they are.
The angrier the voters get, the more the rulers will dig in. Dig in and become more extreme in their cruelty.
The more military hardware they give the cops.
The more they turn a blind eye to cop violence.
The more they flood the country with drugs.
The more equipment they give to the those who spy on voters.
The more they do everything to impoverish voters, cut down jobs, make them homeless.
The more they allow diseases to run rampant and untreated through the country.
Hitler (yes I know) didn’t lose because the ordinary Germans got sick of him. He lost because his lunacy weakened his regime enough to be invaded and destroyed by other countries. Have the Yellow Vests made any difference? No. Will the riots stop French police racism? No.
The US voting system is just another tool of the totalitarian-minded rulers, a PR figleaf to hide the reality of ordinary powerlessness. Voting allows the existing system to prosper. It don’t matter who you vote for, student debt will not be forgiven, homelessness will not be solved, healthcare will not be affordable, police will continue to kill, more people will be imprisoned.
And all taxpayer money then some will be spent on the military so they, the rulers, can loot any country that they decide, over drinks, have minerals, gas or oil that they want and deserve.
Voting, as part of the system that controls the US and makes it safe for the tyranical, cannot make a difference.
> Amazon claims it isn’t a “Very Large Online Platform” to evade EU rules Ars Technica
No doubt Amazon laid down the rules that it would later cite as unfair.
In other bizzare news : Amazon’s PE > 315 and climbing. The nasty clownface has MR. Market on the ropes.
Amazon’s PR must work overtime all the time.
I’d forgive someone for thinking it was Christmas with all the breathless articles about a f’in shopping sale!
The PR is even letting it fly by also using the negative articles as a tactic. Whatever draws the clicks.
Totally awesome paws on that lynx. Built in snowshoes.
This country is a joke. Get this:
(bold mine)
Wouldn’t it be great to have your own system of justice? This seems kind of like “our democracy”. This ruling doesn’t even pass the smell test. Ruling in your own family’s best interest. What a joke. The elite don’t even feel the need to hide their corruption anymore.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers
Also, she incorrectly stated the actual text of the anti-trust law she was ignoring in her statement.
Seems an obvious place for an appeal. “Uh judge, that isn’t’ what the law says…..”
Re Microsoft and Activision–Stoller’s really in a snit that all his predictions about a new Biden age of antitrust are not working out. One might suggest that since the horse left the barn in the 1980s merely hiring Kahn to close the barn door not quite enough. He admits the pro merger decision was taken by a Biden appointed judge with Silicon Valley connections (go figure). So the one hand giveth, the other taketh character of the big bamboozle ensures that stasis is the more likely outcome. Why it’s almost as if “nothing will fundamentally change.”
However much you have seen the system work for you, and it’s generally worked well for Stoller or he wouldn’t be where doing what he is, you have to see at least that much of it not work persistently for a while to really understand the kayfabe.
Even then its hard to accept the whole thing is a PR front for The Thing, but it is.
Even if you can spot the pressure points in “Our Democracy”, actually fixing things here won’t matter (but would make a good start) until the grip of compound interest and the money/value conflation is broken globally. Maybe it’ll get hot enough in the right places this summer, or “nothing will fundamentally change.”
>No Fly Zone
Wiki says the M142 HIMARS rockets are $3.5 million per unit.
Per the article, Russia has shot down hundreds of them.
The wiki page on the S-400 system doesn’t have a cost per missile.
I would bet it is less than $3.5 million.
Does anyone know?
Well, I found this:
S-400 operates at least four different types of missiles. They are:
40N6. Range, 400~ km. Cost probably between 2–5 million.
48N6E2. Range, 200~ km. Cost probably between 1–2 million.
9M96. Range, 120~ km. Cost probably between 0.5–1 million.
9M96E. Range, 40~ km. Cost probably between 0.2-0.5 million.
How LA Failed to Stop Landlords From Turning Low-Cost Housing Into Tourist Hotels
No reason a skid row resident couldn’t just pay the going hotel rate x 30 days and live there year round. Guaranteed low rents?
Oh, forgot. We’re supposed to subsidize rents on a giant skid row of festering tenements for all the failed “artists”, dope addicts migrants, mentally ill from all over the world who chose of their own volition to travel to L.A.
They are pliable peons that can be used as an excuse to grab tax dollars, social control as well as be ballot harvested to reelect the usuals.
I went driving around the neighborhood with Google street view. The hotel is surrounded by condos and apartments. If I’m understanding Verge, he once hung out at that bar, rubbed elbows with ‘the downtrodden’, all dangerous and seedy, listening to music from the future famous and it gave him such a memorable thrill. A living time capsule of grittier days before the artists moved out. ‘See the starving artists in their natural habitat!’… like a circus that has since closed down, the wildlife gone to pasture, but you can still imagine.
Same thing happened in Santa Fe… where have all the artists gone, long time passing? They have to live somewhere, what’s still affordable? Where can they get a lot of space for low rent?
Espanola?
No homegrown dope addicts or mentally ill caused by rapacious capitalism then – here or there?
The other day Lambert posted a link to an article that talked about a monitor that can detect COVID in the air.
The monitor was developed by Wash U and the local paper had an article on the invention:
https://archive.is/4dr4K
If you don’t have adequate ventilation to begin with, how does this monitor help? What good is knowing there is virus if you can’t really do anything about it?
I can see if it’s a personal device (like an ARANET) where an individual can use it to perform his or her own personal risk assessment, but what, exactly, is a hospital or school going to do if the switch goes from green to red, unless there is a Corsi box or air purification system you can turn on, or a window you can open?
Maybe I am missing something.
Get out of the room. Get patients out of the room. Get the room air system fixed or improved. If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it?
From a technical perspective that’s pretty neat. Though a 1000 LPM is a lot of air if it’s running constantly (a cubic meter of air per minute). It seems like too much pump to wear, not counting the other analytical gear. It must be back pack sized.
>>>oh cool they’re doing it to fred hampton now
Fred Hampton got dead, not because he was a supposed violent, murderous revolutionary, but because he was revolutionary who get people across racial and other lines together. A man, like Malcom X and MLK who could not be bought, could not be silenced, would be listened to, and would get the needed through the combined work of everyone, together, something that could not be stopped; that is what our rulers and their minions are afraid of. Hampton was worse than a mere revolutionary, he was a revolutionary leader. A kind of statesman of the kind that used to exist in these United States whatever their flaws were.
Here’s to hoping that Cornel West does not get lead poisoning, a heart attack, or have child porn “found” on his pc, somehow. These things do happen to troublesome people.
And has anyone noticed that all our “leaders” of the “left” are all advocating for separation into their identities and their designated ones at that?
“advocating for separation into their identities”
And that is what social media excels at.
We named two of our most recent batch of stray kittens after Fred Hampton and Angela Davis because they kept charging the door in search of the means of (kitten chow) production. Angela Davis (who turned out to be a male) and Fred Hampton (who turned out to be a female) are now living in the kitchen with their sister, Buttercup, and are disappointed to find that they have been entrapped by some random bourgeois that produce nothing of consequence.
Now they are just sleeping on their bed, dreaming of the revolution to come. When they get around to it.
The Kursk piece was a bit odd. They did get correctly that the famous tank engagement at Prokhorovka was a more modern version of the Charge of the Light Brigade. But they didn’t note that most of the Soviet units were still not well enough trained to avoid doing this. Lack of pre-engagement reconnaissance was the still the rule.
The Luftwaffe was still around during Kursk and more or less chased the Soviet Air Force off the battlefield. Losses were often in the 6 to 1 to 10 to 1 ratio. What changed this was the Germans pulling most of their air force to the west to deal with the Sicilian/Sardinian invasions and the ramping up of US AAF bombing campaign. In fairness, it should be noted that these Luftwaffe units also extracted a heavy toll on the Allies – the difference was that their own losses were extreme and they could no longer keep up with replacement needs.
The actual turning point of the Eastern Front was Operation Bagration. The battle that actually highlights the Soviets improvements, the lack of Luftwaffe over the battlefield, and the severely diminished quality of the German ranks. Attacking hard and fast over very difficult terrain, Bagration compares extremely well with the allies similar breakthrough efforts in Normandy.
What is the difference in scale btw Bagration and Normandy?
>>>What is the difference in scale btw Bagration and Normandy?
What is the difference between the largest land offensive and the largest amphibious assault ever? Very roughly seven thousand tanks, nine thousand aircraft, 3.5 million men compared to almost seven thousand vessels, eleven thousand aircraft, 150,000 troops plus almost 200,000 sailors. In the number of people, Operation Bagration was the largest in size but in complexity and difficulty, Operation Overlord was the most complex and difficult ever.
Hmm, a bit of apple and oranges.
What about the crossing of the Dnieper by the Soviets against the German heavily fortified Western bank compared to Overlord?
I have no knowledge about the Dnieper aside from that it happened.
John Helmer is entertaining today.
Hey, it’s a miracle! A disaster of decades of easy money was solved in a year and a half.
(If you believe some of the financial headlines today).
“Hollywood studios could face two strikes for the first time in 63 years. How did we get here?” Los Angeles Times
How is it that the Directors Guild always walks away from negotiations smiling? Is that a bit of divide and conquer going on? Especially with some people being writers/actors/directors.
Um… yes? This obsession with Hollywood is rather upsetting to this person. Yes, they treat their workers terribly, but much better than other industries. And they propogate the propaganda that makes Americans love war and hate “Marxism”, with scripts written by 3-letter agencies.
Maybe it would be good if it turned to AI so we could all just learn to ignore it?
Directors being the Managers, and enforcing capitalist class relations and Hollywood capitalist culture, it’s hard to see how they wouldn’t need to be made as happy as any other PMC.
Total BS reasons given as to why my all time favorite brew will be no more. Even though they were swallowed upby Sapporo a few years back, I didn’t notice a difference in quality. I’m sad.
https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/anchor-brewing-company-ceasing-operations-18196509.php
The company was founded in 1897, survived the Great Depression and the inflationary crisis of the 1970s, but today, somehow, it can’t make it now. No, I am thinking that it was not profitable enough and was axed for more profitable brands by Sapporo.
I enjoyed many, many beers from the Anchor brewery when I lived in the Bay Area. Craft Brew, before that ever got to be such a big thing. Nowadays even a state like Iowa has many excellent craft breweries, so I’m guessing that is a factor. Lots of Germans moved to this state and set up breweries. There are beer caves in downtown Iowa City.