Links 8/3/2023

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1. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 7:15 am

   Sorry to hear that you burned your hand. For what it is worth, when I have done that I hold the whole hand in a container of water for half an hour and it seems to work better than just using ice. Just change the water if you think that it is getting too warm.
   1. Yves Smith Post authorAugust 3, 2023 at 7:37 am

      Thanks. Once I get the last post up I will try that. It makes sense the hand might need to be really chilled and I have not done that. I could run to the nearby mall and get some aloe but that will add up to a half hour errand. But I should have some at hand (pun not intended) and will snag it on my next errand there.
      1. John August 3, 2023 at 8:14 am

         I found using anti-biotic helps; when I go to urgent care for burns (unfortunately often), they use disposable ice packs so cold isn’t directly on the burn, Then antibiotic, wrap and then ice. Aloe is useful as skin heals. Try minute clinic, urgent care, and good pharmacy if it looks like swelling is starting.
         Best wishes and take care.
      2. Joe August 3, 2023 at 8:55 am

         The People’s Pharmacy has for years recommended gently applying soy sauce to help take away the pain of minor burns and help them heal better. The sooner applied the better. Sounds crazy but I’ve tried it many times and it does work. Nobody knows why.
         1. Vandemonian August 3, 2023 at 9:33 am

            It could be an osmotic effect, with the salty brown goodness drawing fluid out of the burn, and reducing swelling.

            It could also be that I have no idea what I’m talking about…
      3. John Zelnicker August 3, 2023 at 12:04 pm

         Yves – When you burn yourself, immediately put the area under running cold water for few minutes, if possible. Once the heat source has been removed, the cells in your skin continue to boil and the cold water helps stop that process and reduce further damage. Ice packs probably work just as well, but I haven’t used them.

         Aloe should be applied after the water or ice pack has cooled down the burned area. Aloe plants are very easy to grow and need very little care except for watering every 7-10 days, although IIRC you have said that you and plants don’t seem get along very well. :-)

         For store-bought aloe, I recommend that you look for a 100% aloe product. I’m skeptical of formulations with other ingredients. YMMV.
         1. Revenant August 3, 2023 at 6:58 pm

            Yves – THIS! It is vital to keep a burn or scald under steady running cold water (not fast but not a trickle). You want to maximise laminar flow and hence contact time of the cold water as it passes over the skin. You need to extract as much of the heat that the scald has introduced but unfortunately the process is not symmetric and while a small amount of very hot liquid can impart a great impulse of heat, this heat is then diffusing radially into your tissues and can only be “called back” by cooling a much larger area for longer (if you tried radically cooling with dry ice or liquid nitrogen, you would have other problems!). Static cooling with ice blocks etc. is inferior to the power of slow running cold water because the stagnant layer of melt-water between the block and the hand acts as barrier to further heat removal.

            Also, a family remedy that works so well it seems like witchcraft: my grandmother swore by the application of neat Dettol to a closed burn / blister (if you have an open skin burn, you need medical attention and applying neat anything is bad idea). Not sure which countries Dettol is available in outside the UK but it is an antiseptic that contains chlorhexidine and is used for surface disinfection so there may be something similar under a different name. It takes the sting out of the burn immediately, the burns resolve in double quick time and leave no scar. I don’t know if it is the disinfection at work or, I suspect, that a Dettol ingredient interferes with the pain response and the recruitment of new skin cells and promotes healing, but it really does work.

            Hope the scald gets better soon.
      4. Antagonist Muscles August 3, 2023 at 12:14 pm

         I doubt you need more unsolicited advice. Nevertheless, I discovered after numerous trials that store bought aloe vera is never good enough. Even the bottles that say 99.8% aloe vera (presumably .2% preservatives) are not as good as the real thing. (Cue U2’s Even Better than the Real Thing.) Of course, harvesting aloe vera from a plant requires cultivating it indoors or in your garden. I use my harvested aloe vera for my post-shave routine, which is not quite a burn injury, but razor burn feels similar to minor burns.

         To completely obviate the problem, just give up coffee altogether. Quitting caffeine was one of the best things I ever did for my health. I was unable to realize how insidiously destructive caffeine is until several years after I stopped drinking it.
         1. Posaunist August 3, 2023 at 1:19 pm

            We have a potted aloe plant on a window sill over the kitchen sink. If a burn occurs, it’s easy to cut a slit in the edge of a leaf and squeeze some magic goo directly onto the burn, *after* a cold water bath or ice application. Of course, not burning yourself is a better plan.
   2. Roger Blakely August 3, 2023 at 12:51 pm

      I have spent my life without enough fear of hot water. It occurred to me the other day while I was carrying the spaghetti pot to pour it into the colander that I would be in big trouble if I dumped the water on my foot.
2. Old Sarum August 3, 2023 at 8:07 am

   Aurelien on Substack:

   It’s limited-liability all the way down. If corporate types can just walk away with the dosh leaving failure and destruction in their wake with impunity, why can’t everybody else?

   Pip-pip!

   ps Is anyone maintaining a collection of the mission statements of the bankrupt and fraudulent?
   1. Adam August 3, 2023 at 12:03 pm

      The words that ring most true for me are this:

      “ they’ve grown up with the idea that control of discourse means control of reality.”

      This exactly describes the Democratic party and their PMC supporters.
      1. JBird4049 August 3, 2023 at 2:31 pm

         Then this is describing their mental illness actually. As the cliché says, the pen really is mightier than the sword, but even the average child knows that reality steers where it wills, and at best, you can only nudge its elbow.
      2. hunkerdown August 3, 2023 at 3:11 pm

         It is more true than anyone cares to admit.
3. Wæsfjord August 3, 2023 at 8:29 am

   Reality Would Like A Word Aurelien.

   What a masterful article. It expresses so much of what I’ve felt,seen and suffered as result of these demented creatures (PMC) and their idiocies. I could go on and on with anecdotes but I’ll just throw out a few. Regarding the decay of France, my French aunt said that one good thing about entering her 70s was that she wasn’t sexually assaulted by arabs as much as when she was younger. Passing through France recently, it felt and looked like a country at war.

   The idiocy has reached dangerous proportions. A violent rapist and attempted murderer in Ireland is housed in the women’s prison in Limerick because he calls himself “Barbie Kardashian” and identifies as female. He has vowed to kill any woman he comes into contact with. And yet there is outcry that he must so inhumanely be kept segregated from the women.

   I worked in an inner-city school in Germany where no pork was served at school barbecues even though Germans love their bratwurst. None of the kids were very observant muslims, that I could see. It might seem like a trivial thing but life is made up of such trivialities. I was abused daily by these kids, assaulted regularly and even stabbed in the hand with a compass. One day, I literally had human feces thrown at me. I got zero support but there’s an unending list of excuses for why these kids should not be expected to act like civilized humans.

   I recently met a philosophy lecturer who exciteldly explained to me how computers were now actually intelligent because “AI”. I could go on but you get the picture. So, how is life through the looking glass where you are?
   1. Mikel August 3, 2023 at 11:30 am

      “I recently met a philosophy lecturer who exciteldly explained to me how computers were now actually intelligent because “AI.”

      “AI” is another name for the buffer they are setting up for blame for all the destructions due to their policies. It’s right up there with the “meta-enshittification of things”.

      This article reminded me of another I ran across the other day. It also focuses on the infantilism of the PMC via tech.

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-ugly-honesty-of-elon-musk-s-twitter-rebrand/ar-AA1eBEqz/
      (from The Atlantic)

      “….In all these ways, online life today descends from where it started, as a safe harbor for the computer nerds who made it. They were socially awkward, concerned with machines instead of people, and devoted to the fantasy of converting their impotence into power. When that conversion was achieved, and the nerds took over the world, they adopted the bravado of the jocks they once despised. (Zuck-Musk cage match, anyone?) But they didn’t stop being nerds. We, the public, never agreed to adopt their worldview as the basis for political, social, or aesthetic life. We got it nevertheless…”
      1. semper loquitur August 3, 2023 at 2:16 pm

         That last line reminds me of the article the other day about the guardians of toxicity in LLM’s. The ones who used the NYT’s comment sections as their seed library for their database. The photo of some socially inept $hit-lib techno-mannequin staring off into her techno utopian future dream world…
   2. Susan the other August 3, 2023 at 4:51 pm

      Thanks for posting “Reality Would Like a Word”. A very satisfying essay without a single wasted word. Spit my coffee three times. I’m gonna hafta get myself a bib.
4. Kevin Smith August 3, 2023 at 8:33 am

   “… Lauro plans to serve as a major spokescritter”

   spokesliar might be more apt …
   1. TimH August 3, 2023 at 10:55 am

      SpokeFactsAlternalator? Too many syllables :(
5. Benny Profane August 3, 2023 at 8:38 am

   I went to sleep last night with that NYT article Tracey hilites on top of the website, with that bold headline. The New York Times. I know, I know, but, still, a major news outlet cant help but show it’s disdain for the First amendment, and shouts it to the world. Incredible.

   In the same vein, isnt it pretty awesome what Tucker is doing these days? Our elected representatives hide and coverup Arvcher’s testimony so they could use it as raw meat for their “lies” on either side, and there he is, a few days later, in the Maine house, just chatting away about the whole thing like two old frat buddies that went their different ways after school. Love it. I’ve never heard words coming out of Archer’s mouth up to this point. He seems like a decent enough scoundrel I could share a few beers with after some fishing.
6. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 8:41 am

   “NYC Confronts Homelessness Crisis as Shelters are Overwhelmed”

   I can no longer find the story but I read that one way that NYC was ‘confronting’ homelessness was packing them aboard buses and dumping them on towns around the State, even though those towns did not have the resources to take care of them.
   1. timbers August 3, 2023 at 8:59 am

      Solution: Gather them up, drop them south of the border, with instructions to go to drug cartel centers who will per yesterday’s video, direct them for border crossing and assign them to indentured jobs somewhere in the US. Border patrol will pay for their trip anywhere in US.

      If they come back to NYC w/o indentured job, rinse wash repeat.

      If that doesn’t work then:

      1). Send more aid to Ukraine
      2). Indict Trump again.
7. DJG, Reality Czar August 3, 2023 at 8:48 am

   Aurelien (who is also one of the groundlings here in the commentariat) has indeed written an insightful essay: Reality Would Like a Word.

   Much to contemplate. I agree that the managerial class thrives on memes and hierarchy and manipulation of the law, but I’d like to know better how to pull the structure down. I understand Aurelien’s diagnosis and why said diagnosis means that Jake Sullivan belongs in some kind of jail. I want to know how to get Sullivan and Victoria Nuland into jails.

   I have a few quibbles, although they are about books that I’d like to boost. I’m a tad skeptical of Fitzgerald’s output, given that he was a bourgeois whose characters have many bourgeois tics. Fitzgerald has a strong tendency toward melodrama, which is evinced in the execrable Tender Is the Night. Fitzgerald fits into Sinclair Lewis’s world, more than a little unwillingly, making me wonder how much of Great Gatsby remains after Dodsworth and other novels by Lewis.

   Contrariwise, the book to read in this clueless time is also mentioned: Dangerous Liaisons. The criticism is always shocked (!). Sui generis. No other like it. Written in venom. Written with a pen dipped in ice. How can one resist?

   Obviously, this is no place for the anodyne and flabby John Malkovich to have turned up. As Valmont? Valmont?

   It isn’t a world of bourgeois impunity, though, that Choderlos de Laclos describes. No one in Dangerous Liaisons is “self-made.” None of the characters have to work–and the PMC loves to extol itself as industrious. It is just that U.S. managerial practices destroy work.

   In any case, I recommend that you read Aurelien’s latest essay.
   1. mrsyk August 3, 2023 at 9:24 am

      Fascinated and amused am I. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the softly spoken observation of university settings being the perfect microsystem to analyze the development and processes of the PMC. It occurs to me that the answer to your query, “..I’d like to know better how to pull the structure down” might be strong unions with un-captured leadership (as in regulatory capture).
      Disclaimer: My quality of life is negatively affected by university administrators on a daily basis, often in absurd and irrational ways that I associate with the cartoon “Dilbert”.
   2. Lex August 3, 2023 at 9:34 am

      I second the recommendation. I’d also like to know how to pull the edifice down, though I suspect the only way is to withdraw consent to and participation in the system as a whole … and that’s probably too big a job. Likely the essay is correct in its conclusions that it will have to collapse in upon itself.

      More and more I find myself mumbling, “This is all so late Soviet…” And that worries me because the contours of that collapse with it’s disconnected nomenklatura and loyal apparatchiks eroding the state for their personal career advancement and wealth meant that there was nothing to put back together when it fell apart. What was left was picked apart by oligarchs and not even begun to be rebuilt for a decade and only by Putin’s force of will.

      When I think back to Russia in the 90’s and try to picture the average American in a similar situation I get more worried. I don’t think we have the temperament or will to manage, although when there’s no other choice than to get on with it, most will probably get on with surviving and life.
   3. GramSci August 3, 2023 at 9:37 am

      Yes, one of Aurelian’s better essays. Here’s a link for those who aren’t subscribed:

      https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/reality-would-like-a-word?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

      I could, however, have done without the hippy-punching:

      «So the PMC is still mesmerised by the flicker of the dying embers of the de-schooling ideology of the 1960s. You know, education as repression, setting children free to learn, breaking down the teacher-pupil hierarchy into a co-learning experience where there are no wrong answers. (When people in the 1970s tried to convince me that education was a form of violence, I used to ask them what they thought ignorance was.)»

      For the common man that Traditional Western Education which has given us the Wonders of Science(TM), is now and has ever been a violent, infantilising catechism that kills with the kindness of fairy tales.
      1. Reply August 3, 2023 at 10:09 am

         Natural aristocracy for me, not sanguine about anyone else.

         That PMC mantra, whether Jeffersonian or Platonic, has a dark undertone of hollowness, ultimately of fraud. Sometimes the graveyard whistles back, mustn’t allow that, need new batteries for the remote.
   4. Wæsfjord August 3, 2023 at 9:42 am

      Fitzgerald could write a beautiful sentence. We need more beauty in this PMC-infested through the looking glass world.

      “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
   5. nippersdad August 3, 2023 at 9:57 am

      “I want to know how to get Sullivan and Victoria Nuland into jails.”

      I do too, and the depressing reality is that, as per usual, to the winner go the spoils. They are the ones who will probably figure that out for us. The problem that probably motivates such as Sullivan and Nuland to new heights of stupidity is that they know this. After forty years of failing flights of fancy on the part of our neoconservative foreign policy establishment, they have finally found something existential to themselves. What if Russia makes reintegration of energy systems in Europe contingent upon war crimes trials, trials that would most likely feature people like Sullivan and Nuland?

      At some point the “Rules Based Order” is going to have to come into some kind of relationship with international law as most of the world understands it. They may be a small price to pay in order to achieve such an equilibrium.
      1. spud August 3, 2023 at 10:03 pm

         you have to go back to the clinton administration. biden is a clintonite, bills right hand man and most of his cabinet either served in higher ups in the clinton administration, or get their start there.

         the policies and their outcomes all came out of the clinton administration. people keep leaving the main perps of this mess, out of the sun light. don’t!
         1. Jorge August 5, 2023 at 7:16 am

            Henry the K is 100 years old and still gadding about the world.
   6. Bruno August 3, 2023 at 10:40 am

      About “Les Liasons Dangereuses”: You are right about that great book. But Aurelien is also misleading when he writes “Yet Laclos himself doesn’t seem to have anticipated the Revolution.” In fact, Laclos as a leading political advisor to that blacksheep of the dynasty Philippe Egalité (who began the Revolution by forcing the états generaux to vote as a whole instead of by “orders,” thus transforming it into the National Assembly) played a major role in the revolution: he organized the mass demonstration against Louis XVI that resulted in the “Champs de Mars massacre” which caused the fall of Louis XVI’s main minister, the marquis de la Feyette, opening the way for radical “Jacobins” like Brissot, Danton, and ultimately Robespierre.
      1. Revenant August 3, 2023 at 7:47 pm

         Homer nods, in Aurelien’s essay. The Marquise de Merteuil would be a Marchioness (f), not a Marquess (m). Unless she is a Trans-Marchioness, perhaps? Which was not a record by Kraftwerk but should have been. :-)
   7. Carolinian August 3, 2023 at 10:54 am

      Shorter Aurelian–born on third base and thought we hit a triple. This was surely true of the Brit elite in the high empire era and of the American elite in the late 20th. We even declared that last to be the “American century.” Unfortunately the 21st looks to be the nemesis that follows the hubris.
   8. JP August 3, 2023 at 11:20 am

      I have always looked a little askance at the term PMC. I don’t see it as a caste. I think it is an attitude of entitlement. It is power over others and power corrupts. The weak are ineffective but give them power and their actions suddenly become overt and destructive. We all got it in us.

      So I see the PMC all around me in the “educated” and the simple, rule based not reality based. A distorted or absent moral compass but a sense of entitlement. The attitude is evident in the workplace. The potential PMC do not see their job as a learning opportunity except as a stepping stone. There seems to be a general lack of the pursuit of excellence in skill or craftsmanship or knowledge for the shear joy of it. IMHO I don’t think a revolution will fix any of it. That will just be the innocent and the guilty making targets of one another. The real problem might be too much belief and religious conviction and a general lack of spiritual wealth in our society.
      1. Harold August 3, 2023 at 3:19 pm

         I agree. You can’t stereotype a diverse group like that.
         1. LifelongLib August 3, 2023 at 4:10 pm

            Well, they sure try. Some of the comments above flat-out say that this stuff about the e-e-evil PMC is really just nerd bashing. Speaking as a nerd that doesn’t surprise me. I am surprised that they admit it.
   9. jsn August 3, 2023 at 11:58 am

      I agree with you about Fitzgerald, coming down on the Hemingway side of that exchange, ‘You know, the rich are different from you and me.’ Hemingway replied, ‘Yes. They’ve got more money.’

      On the other hand, having worked with a bunch of billionaires, Stalin was right, at a certain point “Quantity has a quality all its own.”

      With money, it’s not a good quality, but a quality none the less.
      1. LifelongLib August 3, 2023 at 6:37 pm

         I think a lot depends on whether you were born rich or acquired it later. If you grew up being able to have anything you wanted and never having to worry about money, your attitude may be quite different from that of someone who had to chase every penny and is always afraid they could lose everything, even if you both ended up with the same amounts.
   10. Posaunist August 3, 2023 at 1:21 pm

       We have a potted aloe plant on a window sill over the kitchen sink. If a burn occurs, it’s easy to cut a slit in the edge of a leaf and squeeze some magic goo directly onto the burn, *after* a cold water bath or ice application. Of course, not burning yourself is a better plan.
   11. Kouros August 3, 2023 at 3:40 pm

       Donald j Savoie has written extensively about PMC, especially within governments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Savoie

       However, he doesn’t really provide a solution.

       From my travailles and tribulations, I put it on lack of ethics and professionalism as well as nonmeritocratic (including ethics) and thus unlawful promotions. In my neck of the woods, 75% of managers and executives are promoted without competition by employing and exception sction of the public service act. So it is all going down, down, down…

       The fish starts to rot from the head – The corolary of the Iron Law of Oligarchy/Bureaucracy.
8. John Beech August 3, 2023 at 8:50 am

   Thousands of men and women with nowhere to live, and there sits Creedmore, empty and abandoned. Mayor Adams lacks the leadership to scrounge within petty cash to buy a pallet of paint scrapers, plus a few pallets of paint, rollers, brushes, and drop cloths (and respirators).

   Heck, he won’t so much as pick up the phone and call American Standard to ask for a quote on porcelain fixtures – plus as many dumpsters as it takes to clear the place out. Thus, rejuvenating whilst making a place to catch up with their lives and buy time to find a better circumstance (and leave a better place for future immigrants washing up on the shores of the city). He’d but need to point out the route to those living on the streets. Believe me, they will gladly take up tools and turn a hand to improving their lot.

   Why not? I don’t know. Nor do I care what reasons are enumerated (a long list, no doubt) for why this is a bad idea because this surely beats an f-ing tent city!
9. antidlc August 3, 2023 at 8:56 am

   The pandemic isn’t over, according to Leana Wen:

   https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/02/health/coronavirus-summer-surge-booster-vaccine-wellness/index.html

   CNN: Why might there be an uptick in coronavirus infections at this time?

   Dr. Leana Wen:

   We are now in the fourth summer of the coronavirus pandemic.

   Every summer thus far, the United States has seen an increase in Covid-19 cases. Some of this may be due to the cyclical nature of the coronavirus — we’ve seen an increase in cases, followed by a relatively quieter period, followed by another increase. This may well be the pattern going forward, with two or more of these waves of infections every year.

   Later in the interview:

   People who are at especially high risk of infection and those who prioritize avoiding Covid-19 altogether should also consider wearing a well-fitting, high-quality mask (ideally an N95, KN95, or KF94 mask) while in crowded indoor spaces.

   Also,
   https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/msnbc-medical-contributor-tells-americans-to-start-wearing-masks-again-after-uptick-in-covid-hospitalizations/ar-AA1eGwyj

   MSNBC medical contributor tells Americans to start wearing masks again after uptick in COVID hospitalizations

   Hmmm…
10. GramSci August 3, 2023 at 9:04 am

    Since being exiled from Florida to Outer Pentagonia, I’d almost lost track of Rebekah Jones, the anti-DeSantis Florida Covid whistleblower. I’d even begun to doubt her a bit as she got smeared in the Florida press that still crossed my screen.

    But I respect Josh Fox, who really stepped up when we were fighting the motherfrackers in the Everglades, so I want to give Josh’s upcoming documentary about Rebekah a shout-out:

    https://rebekahjones.substack.com/p/our-best-chance-to-tell-this-story?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    [Reposting from late Water Cooler]
11. tardigrade August 3, 2023 at 9:20 am

    “Y’all”

    David Hackett Fisher in his book “Albion’s Seed” discusses the four major pathways to immigration into North America, broken down as New England, Middle Atlantic, South and Appalachian regions. Virginia and parts South were settled principally by Cavaliers, many fleeing the English Civil War. Brought their language, culture (gentlemen don’t work) and cooking style along with them. He noted that English travellers to the South in the late 1600’s would write home shocked that the people still spoke in that old southern England dialect.
    1. Chas August 3, 2023 at 10:01 am

       I’ll put “Albion’s Seed” on my list. Now I’m reading another book by Fischer; “Champlain’s Dream.” Champlain was fascinated with native americans and that made New France a much better place for the natives than New England or New Spain. Fischer is a way underrated historian.
    2. Bsn August 3, 2023 at 10:31 am

       The Acadien people who settled in Nova Scotia in the 1500s from France, were first deported from those lands in the mid 1700s and sent to Louisiana. After that there were various waves of them leaving Canada and migrating all along the east coast. The ones that settled in Louisiana kept their language, vieux français spoken in France in the 1500s (and before) and so have that unique version of French known as cajun.
       Here’s a cool map: https://umaine.edu/canam/wp-content/uploads/sites/149/2009/10/map-1775.jpg
       1. harrybothered August 3, 2023 at 1:35 pm

          Cajun, aka Redneck French.

          My in-laws lived in Lafayette, LA and we would spend our Christmas holidays there. One time we drove down to the gulf to an area of shrimping boats and houses on stilts. There was one man there and I asked him if it would be okay if we looked around.

          I have no idea what he said to me as I couldn’t understand a word of it – it seemed to be a ‘yes.’ He had an utterly beautiful accent though and I could have listened to it all day.
    3. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 10:59 am

       More and more it seems like USA is a cultural zoo, where activities and norms that are long extinct in the “old country” continue on.

       As in USA is (or at least was, thanks to WW2) technically advanced, but culturally obsolete.

       Yet for some blasted reason, increasingly the political and media “elite” of Europe etc see USA and THE nation to emulate culturally. Almost as if they hope that by cargo culting USA, Europe will see the same kind of tech and finance boom.
    4. Jason Boxman August 3, 2023 at 12:04 pm

       Still on my list from its last recommendation here at least 10 years ago… oops.
    5. Mark Gisleson August 3, 2023 at 12:13 pm

       “four major pathways to immigration into North America, broken down as New England, Middle Atlantic, South and Appalachian regions”

       Which makes the subsequent immigration waves so interesting. Didn’t most of them just pass through the eastern US to settle in the Midwest and West? Seems like there’s more to the geography of US politics than just who was on which side in the Civil War.

       [Also makes me wonder how the Midwest ended up being used as TV News American English.]
       1. JBird4049 August 3, 2023 at 3:55 pm

          American TV News is a smooth conglomeration of all the American accents slightly pitched towards New England and California (Hollywood). It is something that any American would have understood easily even in the early twentieth century when the regional accents, some closer to dialects, would have been stronger.
    6. Big River Bandido August 3, 2023 at 3:17 pm

       Fischer’s book Washington’s Crossing is one of the best books of history that I’ve ever read. Solid and thorough research, seamlessly assembled and masterfully written.
    7. Kouros August 3, 2023 at 3:50 pm

       WhiteTrash is an excellent book as well…
    8. Daniil Adamov August 3, 2023 at 7:05 pm

       I really ought to finish that. It is a fascinating book that has a lot of interesting insights into why America turned out the way it did, in many aspects. I strongly recommend it.

       Incidentally, from what I recall it also discusses that the African-American vernacular had many similarities to the speech of white Southerners in the colonial era (which in turn was derived from the now-extinct Sussex dialect).
12. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 9:30 am

    “Nigeria Cuts Electricity Supply To Niger”

    Be tough luck if because of depressed economic conditions caused by denying Niger electricity, that Nigeria found itself being swamped by Niger refugees.
    1. Bsn August 3, 2023 at 10:40 am

       My impression is that in Nigeria, people have been abused and ripped off so bad by western corporations (esp. oil) that after turning to their governments – and being ignored – are at whit’s end. Ego the development of Boko Haram and other resistance groups, and coups at various levels. Western corporations polluting and overfishing along the coast and cutting out local fishermen also lead to a limited food supply turning people to look to the woods/forest/jungle for protein – eating money’s bats, etc. Lots of horrible problems that has caused: Ebola and others. But hey, whitey made some money and we have cheap oil/gas.
       1. Bsn August 3, 2023 at 10:42 am

          To edit…. “ergo” and “monkeys”. Oy! Funny mistakes however (eating money?)
       2. Bruno August 3, 2023 at 10:59 am

          The Biafra genocide, supported uncritically by the stalinist states Russia and China (peaceful coexistence in action), had more than a little to do with that ripoff by western corporations.
          1. c_heale August 3, 2023 at 7:26 pm

             Supported by the UK too, wasn’t it?
13. Daryl August 3, 2023 at 9:41 am

    > South America is topping 100 degrees, even though it’s winter

    Very mysterious, that. Hope they don’t get this unidentified summer cold that’s running around!
    1. griffen August 3, 2023 at 11:20 am

       That is some serious crazy happenings. Skimmed the article, it’s like one of those goofball subplots to an M. Night Shyamalan film like “Signs”.
14. nippersdad August 3, 2023 at 9:43 am

    Re: notes on stormtrooper syndrome. A very interesting article, and very like the one above it by Aurelius, but I couldn’t help but take exception to this:

    “The fact remains that when the Ukrainians monkeywrenched the Russian version of blitzkrieg, the Russians did exactly what I suggested an army in that situation had to do: they fell back on an older form of warfighting that wasn’t vulnerable to the monkeywrenching tactics.

    That was why the Russians abandoned their deep thrusts into Ukrainian territory, retreated from vulnerable areas around Kharkov and Kherson, launched a mass mobilization of troops and a major expansion of their already large munitions industry, and got to work building entrenched defensive lines to guard the territory they’d seized.”

    Correct me if I am wrong, but it has been pretty well established that the Russian “big arrow” focused on Kiev was nothing like a Blitzkrieg, but more like an effort to focus minds. That forty mile column of tanks never let loose on Kiev, and the forty thousand troops that went with them were never considered a serious threat to the city. And all of that quickly evaporated when Ukraine came to the negotiating table in March of ’22, the result that was intended by the Russian show of force.

    It wasn’t until after Boris Johnson deep sixed the resulting signed agreement in Istanbul that the Russians changed their tactics and resigned themselves to a longer term project later in the summer, with the Karkhov (and later Kherson) retreats to more easily defensible positions.

    Somehow there is about six months that got lost in those two paragraphs.
    1. Random August 3, 2023 at 12:15 pm

       I think that’s the correct interpretation, but the basic logic that if your tactics/strategy failed to achieve desired results you fall back onto the basics that your trained for is right.
       Same logic could be applied to some degree to the Winter War for example.
       Soviets wanted a treaty to trade some land with Finland because they were preparing for war.
       Finland refused because the trade wasn’t all that great for them and they had assurances of help from the UK and other western powers.
       Soviets went in attempting some fancy tactics that resulted in failure.
       Went back to their standard tactics and won.
15. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 9:44 am

    Flipper One, scary? Groan. The only thing about it is that it can fit in a pocket. Everything else can be done using software defined radio, and more.

    As for the vulnerability of western infra, it likely comes down to adhoc “upgrading” with zero though towards how networks work.

    Things like first upgrading a manual process to computer control using SCADA, and then installing VNC or similar on the computer acting as the SCADA control panel for remote operation at a later date. Likely originally reached via a direct dial modem so no password configured. Then later still everything is plugged into a router and suddenly the wide open VNC is on SHODAN.
16. The List August 3, 2023 at 9:52 am

    Trudeau’s wife leaving. Is the wifey doing an ex-billgateswife? Is Trudeau soon coming up on the Epstein-list?
    1. Nikkikat August 3, 2023 at 2:27 pm

       Numerous photos came out early this week in people magazine of trudeau at the NATO summit. In each photo he was having a grand time with Ms. Meloni of Italy. They looked so cozy, friendly, sitting together. I told my husband that if I ever saw photos of him like that with another woman, he would be persona non grata at this address. They looked exactly like people having a hot affair look. So I laughed when I read that they were separated. He does NOT act like a married man.
    2. Michael King August 3, 2023 at 9:08 pm

       This is NC after all and I was surprised to see this story linked. That said, there have been rumours here in Canada since the new year about Trudeau and Melanie Joly. She is Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Readers are referred to Frank magazine’s Low Definition TV section (paywalled). As a long time subscriber I can attest to their accuracy in such matters. Enough gossip for now and apologies for lowering the tone. ;-)
17. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 9:56 am

    “Photos: Take A Walk Through The Abandoned Psychiatric Ward At Creedmoor Hospital”

    There is something very sad about seeing abandoned places. It is not so much the debris left behind but the knowledge that people once spent their lives living and working there. People who could very easily be still alive and have their own memories of these places. Though with that ward there would certainly be a lot of unhappy if not miserable memories. I guess that you can say that it is people that really make a place alive. But it is always disturbing to visit a place that has been abandoned-

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJg9aa0TqOfUkMPLHIBCFtA/videos
18. flora August 3, 2023 at 10:03 am

    Jimmy Dore and RFK Jr. utube, ~20 minutes.

    U.S. War Machine Is KILLING The U.S. Middle Class – RFK Jr.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TlFFKpjYv0
    1. pjay August 3, 2023 at 10:52 am

       I have not yet watched this, but I read that Dore was pretty blown away – and not in a good way – by Kennedy’s views on Israel and the Palestinians. I also read that they were trying to set up a debate on the issue between RFK Jr. and Max Blumenthal. I hope that occurs, because Kennedy’s position on Israel is quite striking. So is his emotional response. I have seen him respond calmly and rationally to some pretty vicious smears on other issues. But on Israel he often loses it in an angry defense of a completely one-sided “history,” so much so that something seems “off” to me about it.
       1. flora August 3, 2023 at 11:11 am

          That’s a different clip. This clip talks about the declining middle class and rising poverty in the US.

          As far as I know, all the leading candidates have the same position on Israel. I have to distinguish among them by their views on other issues..
          1. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 11:20 am

             Israel and Cuba are political lighting rods. If one do not have the correct stance one can kiss large voting blocks (and/or entire states) goodbye.
             1. flora August 3, 2023 at 12:45 pm

                Right. Remember a couple weeks ago the MSM was howling that RFK jr is an anti-s ? Claims they made by misrepresenting, (or just lying), about what he said in a Q&A session of a fund raising event. They gave him the “Corbyn treatment.” There was actual video of the Q&A exchange that showed the MSM was making stuff up. (shockers!) They’re still on high alert for any snippet of something he says that they can use to start up the howl, to end his campaign. / my 2 cents
                1. flora August 3, 2023 at 1:05 pm

                   The Guardian’s headline was a real pip. July 19th. (didn’t link because the words in the link will not get past skynet. heh.) Every bad thing someone could be. It’s almost like the MSM is now the yellow press. How far they’ve fallen.
                   1. Henry Moon Pie August 3, 2023 at 6:01 pm

                      One thing I’ve noticed is the proliferation of adjectives. Nearly every noun needs an adjective to signal us what we’re supposed to believe: “unprovoked invasion;” “disgraced former President;” etc. Didn’t that use to be anathema in journalism?
             2. pjay August 3, 2023 at 2:50 pm

                I understand the political calculation. I don’t expect Kennedy to waive any Palestinian flags, or even support BDS. But I would hope that he could at least acknowledge the Palestinian perspective to the extent that even Biden has done on occasion. Instead, he goes above and beyond the required deference to Israel to assert what is basically a right-wing Zionist position – quite strongly.

                I certainly don’t expect, or require, candidates to agree with me on everything. And I’m not a one-issue voter – if I was, that issue would be Ukraine, on which I agree with RFK Jr. But as I say, his position on Israel seems oddly out-of-wack with his other positions. And it does not seem like something he is forced to mouth to retain financial support; he seems to really believe it.
       2. nippersdad August 3, 2023 at 11:13 am

          Last I heard Max Blumenthal has said that any debate is unlikely. Apparently he knows someone in the Kennedy camp who has told him that the communications director is nixing any possibility of a debate.

          But maybe Kennedy will go through with it. The way Dore confronted him with the Hotez parallel may shame him into doing it. That said, Dore is getting a lot of flack for not questioning him on the Israel/Palestine issue himself. He just went off on West for not being confrontational enough in his interview with Anderson Cooper, and then promptly failed to press Kennedy. That was not a good look.
       3. Daniil Adamov August 3, 2023 at 6:25 pm

          He is still a member of the US elite by birth, I assume some views are just very deeply-rooted within it and so resistant to critical examination.
19. GramSci August 3, 2023 at 10:07 am

    Re: Most cars still cost more to charge than to fill up with gas

    This all seems counter-intuitive: an EV truck is more fuel-efficient than a little Honda EV???

    But I apparently am not authorized to click through to the underlying study.

    How can this be?
    1. Carolinian August 3, 2023 at 10:38 am

       The cost of filling up at a gas station versus plugging in — and whether those two match up — largely depends on the segment and price, a study from Anderson Economic Group suggests, published Tuesday.

       Trucks cost about the same to fuel and charge, while entry and midlevel cars and SUVs cost more to charge at home and in public than they do to fuel at a gas station, the group found. Luxury cars and SUVs fall somewhere in the middle.

       The study was based on the latest information on gas and residential electricity prices, commercial charging prices, tax rates on fuel and electric cars, fuel economy details, and more to compare the cost of fueling versus charging for 100 miles of driving

       Details for various vehicle models follow. If on Firefox try View/Page Style/No style..
       1. LilD August 3, 2023 at 12:21 pm

          Or, some of us paid the capital cost for 8 kW of solar and charge our cars for zero marginal cost

          Amortized over the expected 20-30 year useful life, still cheap
    2. flora August 3, 2023 at 10:40 am

       an aside: from that Australian guy. utube, ~22 minutes

       The truth about EVs and fire risk in our cities | Auto Expert John Cadogan

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBpcyJeHmww
       1. cnchal August 3, 2023 at 5:42 pm

          Thanks for that.

          His talk about liability after an EV is crashed, and why they are scrapped instead of repaired was informative. No insurance company wants to be liable for putting a crashed EV back on the road that may become a funeral pyre just sitting there.

          The EV fires were incredible. One electric bus catches fire and burns the mini fleet down.

          I expect the next generation of Mcmansion will have detached garages far enough away from the house so when one of these blow torch cars fails, it won’t burn the house down.

          As for EVs in underground garages, disasters are inevitable.
       2. vao August 3, 2023 at 5:51 pm

          That is interesting, and this makes me think that the current arrangements for parking cars — typically: underground garage for a multistorey building; adjacent garage for a single-family house; common parking shelter for detached houses — are wholly inappropriate in the case of fires involving the large batteries of vehicles.

          Internal combustion engines are fairly safe when at standstill (no sparks because of short circuits, nor heat because of a running motor). Batteries, on the other hand, are prone to self-combustion even when the motor is not working.
    3. Bsn August 3, 2023 at 11:07 am

       Essentially, there’s lots of motivation for downplaying the effectiveness of EVs. Think oil companies, and more. We have had 2 Evs over the last 10 years or so and they have not caught fire, have saved lots of gas, reduced pollution and have never needed a “tune up”. No points, condensor, fuel injection, radiator coolant, TDC adjustment …… niente. In addition, with solar panels feeding them from the Sun, the energy is free. Obviously, as I anticipate the “what abouts”, they must be built and solar panels must be manufactured, but I’d much rather commit suicide with a combustion engine in the garage with the door closed. Hmmm actually that sounds a bit like the basis of global warming. Try that with an EV.
       1. nippersdad August 3, 2023 at 11:23 am

          Two EVs in ten years and a solar farm to hook them up to implies an income that is not enjoyed by the vast majority of the population, though. Somehow the price of such virtue signaling is going to have to come down dramatically before it will be met with willing ears.

          The better comparison would be to a thirty year old truck that has had routine maintenance.
    4. Adam Eran August 3, 2023 at 12:51 pm

       Sorry, this story is completely different from our experience. My wife’s commute (~50 miles) cost us ~$70/month in gasoline. We got her a Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid, and the commute is short enough to use electricity exclusively. My monthly electric bill increased ~$4/month. Never mind the far-less-frequent maintenance (particularly oil changes).

       An internal combustion engine has ~2,000 parts. An electric motor has seven. Guess which has lower maintenance costs?
       1. Carolinian August 3, 2023 at 1:05 pm

          Seems cost per KW varies a good deal around the country. But if most people do switch to EV then via supply and demand the cost of electricity will go up. Meanwhile by the same economics the lower demand will make the cost of gasoline go down.

          Of course if it’s all about AGW rather than cost then the question is really whether the EVs offer an environmental advantage. And with current batteries that too is open to question.

          Undoubtedly the technology will improve and the oil will run out and the EV will have unquestioned advantage. But seems you can question it right now.
          1. Henry Moon Pie August 3, 2023 at 3:02 pm

             One problem with a switchover is what will they do with the gasoline. Diesel will still be needed for transport because long haul 18-wheeler EVs would require such a heavy mass of batteries that it would significantly reduce the freight they could carry. We’ll still need ammonia from the Haber-Bosch process for nitrogen fertilizer. We’ll still “need” lots of plastic. nylon, etc.

             So the oil will still be refined, and gasoline will still be produced. What will we do with it?

             The argument could be made that our society’s economic structure is determined in large part by the structure of the oil molecule. The goal has been to use up all that molecule and sell off the pieces one way or another. The idea of ending the demand for a major part of that molecule is very problematic from the standpoint of our standard economics.
          2. Not Qualified to Comment August 3, 2023 at 6:29 pm

             With absolutely no figures to back this up my instincts are that your two claims are wrong: as most people will charge their EVs overnight when there’s otherwise a surplus of generation capacity, power companies offer lower rates per unit in order to get folk to use heavier demand appliances thus smoothing out the 24-hour graph, while lower demand for a good (gasoline) can drive a lot of suppliers out of business leaving the survivors forced but able to charge higher prices for it just to stay in business.
    5. neutrino23 August 3, 2023 at 5:47 pm

       My experience is quite different. I drive a Plug-in Prius in California. I estimate roughly $2.50 to drive 50 miles on electricity vs just under $5 for a gallon of gas which gets me roughly 50 miles. Solar power is now being installed so we will no longer be paying PG&E to drive.
    6. Odysseus August 6, 2023 at 9:09 am

       My 2022 Nissan Leaf S Plus costs less to drive on electricity than my 2016 Prius C did on gasoline.

       I have no capability to charge at home (apartment) and am entirely dependent on the public charging network, so I am fully exposed to the cost of electricity.
20. Wukchumni August 3, 2023 at 10:09 am

    The High Sierra Trail in Sequoia NP just got hacked and i’m heading off on foot to see what the demands of the wi-jackers are, although authorities assure me that at no point will the trail just disappear if a tidy ransom isn’t paid, they think.
    1. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 10:39 am

       For those people that follow something like Google maps or whatever, that could be a new scam. When you get to your destination, your path would disappear along with all the names of all the streets, roads, features, etc. Then a message appears that if you want to find your way back, to make a cryptocurrency deposit into a certain account with instructions how to do so. Something tells me that that would not work with you Wuk as you would simply pull out a paper map and a compass and off you would go. ;)
21. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 10:10 am

    “Senate Democrats Blocked Watchdog for Ukraine Aid — Ignoring Lessons From Afghanistan”

    ‘The U.S. special inspector who monitored billions of dollars in U.S. waste in Afghanistan cautions about repeating the same mistakes in Ukraine.’

    I would suggest that they are not ignoring lessons but putting them into practice. Afghanistan was not much more than a money-laundering operation and who knows where all that money really went. Same here in the Ukraine as those Senators definitely do not want people to know where all that money is going. One minor example that we did learn about was the role that SBF played in money laundering taxpayer money from the US into the Ukraine and back into the coffers of the Democrats. The Republicans would be no different.
22. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 10:27 am

    “Ukraine’s plan if Russia assassinates Zelenskyy”

    Zelensky is in more danger of those neo-Nazis killing him rather than Russia. For Russia, it is better that he stays alive. He has a unique talent in annoying people and insulting them, even if they are helping him. But if he is not careful, maybe the west will decide that he has passed his use-by date and that he is ready for his next role – as a martyr to the cause. I am sure that the Ukrainian orthodox church will have no problem putting him on the road to official Sainthood. And of course it will be Russia that will be blamed for it. The guy has a nerve accusing Putin living in a bunker though. It was Zelensky that was living in his bunker until he got a commitment from the Russians via the Israelis not to kill him if he left his bunker.
    1. GramSci August 3, 2023 at 10:36 am

       «“Assassination has never changed the history of the world,” British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli confidently pronounced weeks after President Abraham Lincoln was shot dead while watching a play at Washington D.C.’s Ford’s Theater. The assassination indeed had little effect in reversing the reforms of his administration.»

       I guess the author thinks Andrew Johnson and Jim Crow were what Lincoln intended all along.
       1. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 10:44 am

          ‘Assassination has never changed the history of the world?’

          Really? I am reminded of something but can’t quite pin it down. It was something-something-Sarajevo.
       2. Bruno August 3, 2023 at 11:09 am

          My impression is that history might have been radically changed, had Jaures not been assassinated. But there is no doubt that the JFK assassination was the intended, and necessary, precondition for the US’s Vietnam madness.
       3. Mikel August 3, 2023 at 1:01 pm

          If they thought it made no difference, governments and corporations wouldn’t have intelligence agencies dealing in assisination.
          1. Daniil Adamov August 3, 2023 at 6:24 pm

             Any examples of a corporate assassination intelligence agency? Sincerely curious. They surely do deal in assassinations in at least some countries, but is it that organised on their part?
       4. Daniil Adamov August 3, 2023 at 6:22 pm

          Curious, the Bolsheviks thought so too – it was why they denounced the method of individual terror, as opposed to class terror. I suppose it depends on one’s objectives, though. Lincoln is a good example – killing him definitely threw a spanner in the works, which is what assassinations can do.

          On the other hand, killing Zelensky would only change things if he were willing and able to make peace otherwise.
    2. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 10:46 am

       Didn’t Putin declare Zelensky of no value to Russia recently?
       1. Polar Socialist August 3, 2023 at 11:25 am

          The official Russian position since the failed negotiations has been that Ukraine is not a sovereign state and Zelensky is not the one who makes decisions – be it war, peace or what color t-shirt he wears.
          1. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 11:54 am

             True. But Putin’s latest statement, if Helmer’s translation is accurate, directly advice the banderites etc to get rid of Zelensky if they valued the future of Ukraine as a nation.
    3. Cristobal August 3, 2023 at 1:13 pm

       I think that a possible Zelinsky assassination is most likely to be a US/NATO false flag, blamed on Russia. After all we now have Elliott Abrams on the job.
23. Carolinian August 3, 2023 at 10:32 am

    Patrick Lawrence.

    Look at this mess. A senile president—the physicians call Biden’s condition “neurocognitive disorder,” but “senile” or “demented” is what they mean—is standing for reelection with a wasteful proxy war failing, nothing much to show for himself at home, mounting evidence of epic-scale personal corruption, institutional failure of the same magnitude: There is only one way to explain this shambles: Every one of these crises traces back to the Democratic Party’s obsession with taking and holding power more or less indefinitely to suit its hubristic, end-of-history “narrative” of righteous liberal triumph.

    The rest is a must read IMHO
    1. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 10:49 am

       The only way that Biden can avoid a debacle in the Ukraine is to keep the war going until December of 2024 and the Presidential elections are behind him. You think that the Russians will cooperate?
       1. Carolinian August 3, 2023 at 11:00 am

          I just can’t believe that’s going to happen–Biden being re-elected. Cock-eyed optimist?

          And Ukraine seems to be over now with only stages of grief left for the advocates. That may be optimistic too.
       2. griffen August 3, 2023 at 1:30 pm

          Why should he wish to keep the war going? My recent recall from NATO summit meetings, was his proclamation that “Putin has lost the war”. Baghdad Bob, please make room in the world of bizarro world announcements!

          The article was an excellent read. I would share it with Dems and Repubs alike (I probably won’t make time to do so), and beg the question – where is the author of the article wrong? Biden is a corrupt leader, and it’s getting really really hard to deflect.
    2. pjay August 3, 2023 at 11:02 am

       I agree on the must read. Patrick Lawrence has been an eloquent critic of the increasing insanity of the Blob, particularly its Democrat wing. This is especially good at capturing the outrage many of us feel at the blatant corruption and hypocrisy on display.
24. griffen August 3, 2023 at 10:47 am

    That timeline tweet is comedy gold. Where’s a George Carlin around when we need him, or a satirical genius at the level of Twain or more modern era Mel Brooks? I’m sure they’re around, and no someone of the ilk of Colbert is not what I’m asking for. I used to find Jon Stewart’s take on the Irag war era quite humorous, with the “Mess O’patmia” takes.

    America in 2023. Exceptional at the bull$hittery!
25. The Rev Kev August 3, 2023 at 10:59 am

    “On the Russian home front do you feel that the country is at war?”

    A coupla days ago I was watching a brief video by this young German guy touring in a Russian supermarket. As he was making his way around he was shocked to see all the regualr brands from the west on the shelves and in some cases cheaper than where he could buy it at home. It actually kinda freaked him out so I guess that he was expecting empty shelves or something.
    1. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 11:09 am

       Almost as if western thinking is stuck in the late 90s, where the popular depiction of Russia was empty ex-soviet shelves next to neon lit oligarch night clubs.
       1. NotTimothyGeithner August 3, 2023 at 11:41 am

          I fervently believe the primary cause of the Iraq War, Libya, and attempts in other places was largely a result of “because we can”. If the hegemon isn’t breaking stuff, what is the point?

          What if they didn’t pick on a scrawny kid? To be blunt, everyone who called for a no-fly zone is incredible liar or not fit for their job given the limits of planes and bases. I feel like this shoe is always out there especially when the “OMG Russia” types learn of the loss which is probably why the Administration is pushing that “Russia has already lost” line.
          1. some guy August 3, 2023 at 8:13 pm

             Certainly Gulf War One could be that in part. Elder Bush told us all about how America had finally gotten over ” the Vietnam Syndrome” after winning that splendid little war.

             https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2786&context=td
26. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 11:07 am

    Yeah, the more i see of how popular culture depict (US) university life the more it seem like a kindergarten with drugs and booze.

    And increasingly i see talk in the local press about “campus” this and that, suggesting that the local universities are working to emulate that in order to attract foreign interest. Including expanding the one university name that has international recognition to other, formerly independent, locations.
27. gail August 3, 2023 at 11:26 am

    There is a Chinese burn cream called Ching Wan Hung (aka Jing Wan Hong) that works very well.
    Stops pain and speeds healing. Should be in everyone’s medicine chest in my opinion.
    Have used it myself and on my patients for years. I had an acupuncture and Chinese herbal practice for over 25 years. Should be easy to find there. Good luck.
28. Eclair August 3, 2023 at 11:58 am

    Re: Tent shelter for 1,000 migrant men ….. and NYC homeless shelters are overwhelmed (are we seeing here some of the initial rivulets preceding the now inevitable tsunami of projected climate refugees?) …. meets Aurelian’s hapless PMC, aka John Michael Greer’s Stormtroopers who can’t Shoot Straight, and the result is Stage Two: Disillusion and Desperation (the Das Energy Destinies post,) soon to be followed by Stage Three: Disorder and Divides.
    1. digi_owl August 3, 2023 at 5:16 pm

       Tent cities do seem to be how USA “fix” its social problems across history.
    2. ArvidMartensen August 3, 2023 at 9:11 pm

       Yes hapless is the right word. Having been brought up on a farm, I have observed now for a couple of decades about how hapless modern adults are.
       My father as a pre-teen child could fell a tree successfuly, split posts, build a fence, grow up animals and sell them at market, all on his own initiative. Also milk the cows from dawn every day, go to school, milk them again when he got home etc. As an adult he could also fix the tractor when needed, build solid, good quality, large sheds and run a business.

       I am uni educated and can’t fell trees (without mortal danger), but do seem to have that practical ‘fencing wire and string’ approach to fixing problems. My son did engineering so he has practical smarts.

       But by and large the uni-educated kids I see are useless in terms of practical skills. They call someone in when they need something done, because they have money. The tradies have practical skills, and somehow to me seem to be adult while the rest are coddled kids.

       So, who is going to fair the best out of the uni-educated vs the tradie-practical adults when society really starts to fall apart? And the signs are now that we are starting that process, and I don’t mean Trump (ubiquitous panto and cartoon villain).

       This is when the PMC are going to hit the wall of reality, smack, bang, kapow! Nobody with practical skills will be rushing around to fix the PMC plumbing or fix the PMC aircon, when their own families are struggling to survive.

       In fact, there could very well develop local underground networks of people with practical skills trading one sort of help for another. Money might become irrelevant.
       1. skippy August 4, 2023 at 1:03 am

          Concur.

          Now at almost 62 yrs old and having spent lots of summers and a few years of HS on their farm, plus the way boys monkey wrenched on bikes and other stuff in the 60s/70s, a good amount of late teens and 20 somethings have little or no hands on manual arts experience these days. Let alone the problem solving aspect of it.

          I say this having two degrees and more time than I like to remember working in big Corp. Even then when I would pull the pin after about 4 yrs in Corp I would be able to get a job working as a framing/finish carpenter, tiler, or protective coatings guy, plus have a working knowledge of electrical systems up to 480V 3 phase 100 amp service stuff.

          Having retired in 08 so the ex wife could peruse her career as a clinical paramedic and educator I only returned to work after all the kids were done with school and doing their own thing and came back to work in the manual arts about 5 yrs ago.

          BANG …. holymoley … how things had changed …

          After sussing out a few mobs to work with I found this young guy that had started his own business about 4 yrs before I started working with him. Completely raw but, a nice bloke and had a young family to support. Anyway, wow at the dramas with sourcing young people let alone start up apprentices, mostly government funded now. Even seemingly physically OK they have no idea of how to use their bodies when working, limited range of movement, poor endurance, not keen on breaking a sweat, have to be re-informed time and time again how to used even basic tools correctly and it only gets worse with more complicated power tools.

          I hear the same from other blokes I know that have manual arts businesses from landscaping too just about anything else and yet these kids expect high pay and never be pulled up on anything. Gezz I remember when it was a sign of respect for an old boy to pass down skill and knowledge to one when they were young. Would not bother with you otherwise, waste of their time ….
29. Mikel August 3, 2023 at 1:12 pm

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/greedflation-is-not-letting-up-heres-what-companies-are-saying-about-it-e793bc3a?mod=home-page/

    Here in bizzarro world, it’s election time so the metrics put forth show inflation coming down, but companies keep raising prices.
30. some guy August 3, 2023 at 4:14 pm

    So, the WawPoo admits that Biden has been lying about Hunter accepting Chinese money? In my purely amateur opinion, the WawPoo is a major CIA talking-points outlet, and this is part of a drip drip drip release of compromising information about the Bidens which is meant to pressure the Inner DemParty into forcibly easing Biden out of the re-nomination picture in order to inject somebody else onto the Prez line of the ticket.

    Probably Kamalabama Harris, because Wall Street can count on a President Harris to immunise and impunify all its crimes if they can delay their next Big Collapse until after she is President.
    1. Henry Moon Pie August 3, 2023 at 5:47 pm

       But is she electable? To riff off Stalin, if you have a back door to the electronic voting machines, she is.
       1. Acacia August 4, 2023 at 2:04 am

          Harris is prolly not electable, but TDS is rampant and the Democrat machine probably assumes they only have to keep Joe on his meds until the election. After that, he blows a gasket and Harris becomes POTUS.

          Patrick Lawrence says:

          At this point in the American story, the Deep State or whatever you wish to call it seems to prefer semi-competent or incompetent White House occupants who stay out of the way while they run the imperium. But Kamala Harris … well, once again there are limits.

          Limits, sure, but would they choose Harris or Trump? If there’s any lesson to be drawn from this out of control clusterf*ck spectacle it’s that the bar may be a lot lower than we expect.
       2. Daniil Adamov August 4, 2023 at 6:23 am

          If the Democratic party establishment rallies around her, then she is. She might just squeeze by on pure partisanship. I think, however, that it would be extremely close, and Trump winning would be more likely.
31. Arron August 3, 2023 at 4:21 pm

    In regards to carbon capture and storage (CCS) this amusing video on the subject was made by juice media

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8
    1. Henry Moon Pie August 3, 2023 at 5:55 pm

       That was hilarious. And it was telling the truth about using this “captured carbon” for tertiary oil recovery, thus adding more carbon.

       More like this.
32. JBird4049 August 3, 2023 at 4:31 pm

    >>>There is no “clash” between “Lies” and “Free Speech.” The First Amendment has no sub-clause requiring a fact-check to determine if speech is permissible. Funny that they’re trying to suggest politicians who make false statements are now in breach of the Constitution, though

    I grew up hearing from the Lefties about the sanctity of free speech and the importance of a good education, college preferred, but educated by any means possible, even if just by reading. This also included a knowledge of history. It was also pounded into my brain by my family as well; it’s funny how the New Left of the 1960s was all about Free Speech, while the Democratic Party’s New Left of today is all about Right Speech, while getting an education seems more about being credentialed, not learned or wise. I am starting to think that being credentialed requires being ignorant, which makes such silliness of attacking the Orange Menace’s right of free speech seem reasonable. If nothing else, once you suppress someone’s rights when in power, what prevents them from suppressing your rights when they get into power?
33. square coats August 3, 2023 at 5:48 pm

    Yves, I strongly encourage you to put honey on your burn! In the past when I’ve gotten burns, I’ve put raw honey on them and by the next day they were more or less completely better. I don’t actually know what the “raw” of raw honey distinguishes, it’s just the kind my mom keeps around, but I imagine any old honey could do.
34. Daniil Adamov August 3, 2023 at 6:18 pm

    Can confirm Gilbert Doctorow’s post. Though to me it feels much more like peace than war. Different, I imagine, for anyone in or near the theatre of war, as well as their relatives. Everyday civilian life remains uninterrupted, sanctions and the like remain a nuisance.
35. ArvidMartensen August 3, 2023 at 7:50 pm

    When I was a kid, my parents used to take us to pantomimes round Christmastime. Bobby LeBrun the mean & nasty, sneaking up behind the heroine. And we would all be screaming look behind you, look behind you!!! With much stomping of feet. Awesome pandemonium.

    Looking at US politics in particular, (UK politics being a pale imitation), I think somebody should start a Christmas Panto. Good and innocent little girl, AOC. Big bad bogeyman, some really big dude with flaming orange hair, perhaps dressed in a skirt. It would be a hoot. The kids would love it.

    And cartoons. There could be so much more fun! It’s time to bring back Roger Ramjet and Rocky & Bullwinkel, updated. Snidely Whiplash could be given a makeover with a huge head of flaming orange
    hair.

    As a t-shirt that we bought our son says on the front, printed over a big drawing of Shakespeare’s head “This Sh*t writes itself”.
36. some guy August 3, 2023 at 8:11 pm

    When I look at the bear’s open mouth, if it is the same bear, it sure looks like a bear face and a bear mouth to me. Same bear? Well then, it is a real bear.

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