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Links 10/21/2023

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Joyful birth of rare giant anteater at Khao Kheow Zoo Pattaya Mail (furzy)

Melting glaciers reveal Viking pass hidden for centuries BBC (furzy)

The Quest to Quantify Quantumness Quanta (David L)

Scientists explain how the brain encodes lottery values ScienceBlog (Dr. Kevin). The conventional view is that lottery tickets are a tax on people who are bad at math. However, a second view is that a lottery ticket is buying the fantasy of winning, and therefore akin to a middle class person buying, say, Architectural Digest or other shelter porn publications, looking at houses they could never afford to buy or build.

#COVID-19

Climate/Environment

Startup turns trash into construction-grade building blocks: ‘We don’t burn it, we don’t melt it, we don’t liquify it’ The Cool Down (David L)

Hot air: five climate myths pushed by the US beef industry Guardian (Dr. Kevin)

UN countries agreed to support climate reparations. Now they’re deadlocked on the details. Grist

Glenn Youngkin’s Plan to Save Gas Cars Wall Street Journal

State Parks ‘reintroducing fire’ with prescribed burns at Wilder Ranch State Park Santa Cruz Sentinel (David L)

China?

China imposes export curbs on graphite Financial Times (BC) and China ups export curbs on key EV battery component, safeguarding graphite amid US tensions South China Morning Post (Kevin W)

US Chip Curbs Give Huawei a Chance To Fill the Nvidia Void In China Reuters

The Multimillion-Dollar Machines at the Center of the U.S.-China Rivalry New York Times (Kevin W)

European Disunion

Now the Left Party has to look for a new scapegoat Nachdenkseiten via machine transaltion. Micael T:

Sahra Wagenknecht is forming a new left party in Germany. Now we will see if she is for real or just another Bernie Sanders and if she manages to keep the house clean of idpols.

Gas Deals Beyond 2050 Show Reality Gap on Europe Climate Goals Bloomberg

Gaza

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 14: 13 killed in raid on West Bank refugee camp, Gaza still awaits aid Mondoweiss (guurst)

Now apparently trucks finally entering:

‘Drop in the ocean’: Aid trucks begin crossing into Gaza from Egypt Aljazeera

Triage is not remotely the right ratio even if I were proven wrong and all the 100 trucks that were waiting went in:

White House says Biden did not hear question about Israel delaying ground invasion of Gaza Reuters. Muddy headline. See Almayadeen: White House backtracks on Biden’s postponing of Gaza ground invasion

Hamas releases video of American hostages released for ‘humanitarian reasons’ 9News (Kevin W)

GCC, ASEAN call for permanent ceasefire in Gaza, condemn attacks against civilians Arab News

Arab “we need an incident” bullshytters FAIL AGAIN as gold-standard Russian open-source intel channel “Rybar” (cited 100+ times by Mercouris) politely calls BS on claims that Israel hit Gaza Greek Orthodox church, says footage shows damage to a neighboring building, with church unharmed. DREIZIN EXCLUSIVE SCOOP: Not discouraged, bullshytters will try again. (That’s the scoop!) We’ve got likely MONTHS of this, to go. What’s telling, West no longer cares about total body count; Arabs know they need some “incident(s)” (hospital, church, perhaps a gay bathhouse?) for Israel to be restrained. Jacob Dreizin

EU capitals fume at ‘Queen’ von der Leyen Politico

Israel-Hamas War: Piers Morgan vs Bassem Youssef On Palestine’s Treatment | The Full Interview YouTube. Erasmus:

I am not even sure if Piers Morgan really understands how he is being insulted. As many people as possible should watch it. Monty Python would be proud. Biting satire indeed.

For anyone who might not know, Bassem Youssef is a renowned Egyptian comedian and television personality who had trained as a heart surgeon. He became known in the US when Jon Stewart had him come on the Daily Show in 2012. His wife is half Palestinian.

The unrealized potential of Palestinian oil and gas reserves UNCTAD (Erasmus)

New Not-So-Cold War

NATO state threatens to close Baltic Sea to Russian ships RT (Kevin W)

Syraqistan

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Global: ‘Predator Files’ investigation reveals catastrophic failure to regulate surveillance trade Amnesty International (David L)

Trips to Europe Will Require a New Step for American Travelers Wall Street Journal (BC). Wellie, I am never going to Europe again, not that that was in my plans.

Breyer on chat control investigative research: EU Commissioner as double agent of foreign interference Patrick Breyer (Paul R). From last month, still germane.

Imperial Collapse Watch

US Declares ‘War’ Consortium News. Today’s must read.

F-35’s New Developmental Issues Leaves Lockheed Far Off Delivery Targets: Pentagon Will Only Receive 17 More Fighters This year Military Watch

Trump

Judge fines Donald Trump for ‘blatant’ gag order violation BBC (furzy)

Biden

Joe Biden asks divided Congress to pass $106bn in aid for Israel and Ukraine Financial Times

GOP Clown Car

Speaker hopefuls, assemble! Here are the Republicans launching bids Politico (Kevin W)

Matt Gaetz Tore the House GOP Apart. He Isn’t Sorry. Wall Street Journal

Net neutrality is back in the Land of the Free – for now The Register

Police State Watch

For just $450, you and Jeff Sessions can honor one of the worst sheriffs in the country Radley Balko (Randy K)

Our No Longer Free Press

Supreme Court blocks restrictions on Biden administration efforts to get platforms to remove social media posts NBC

Silicon Valley Ditches News, Shaking an Unstable Industry New York Times (David L)

Dismantle The Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Westminster Declaration Matt Taibbi

Israel moves closer to blocking Al Jazeera RT (Robin K)

‘No credibility’: Critics cry foul as colleges press for free speech amid Israel-Hamas conflict The Hill

CVS pulls popular cold medicines from store shelves New York Post. BC: “After a glacial investigation by FDA.”

AI

AI could help unearth a trove of lost classical texts Economist (David L)

Eric Adams Uses A.I. to Robocall New Yorkers in Languages He Doesn’t Speak New York Times (Dr. Kevin)

‘AI Godfather’ Yoshua Bengio: We need a humanity defense organization The Bulletin (David L)

Is AI about to transform the legal profession? BBC (David L)

The last holdout in housing data has turned; ‘recession watch’ for next 12 months remains Angry Bear

Existing Home Sales Drop Another Two Percent to a 13-Year Low Michael Shedlock

Federal Reserve warns of growing geopolitical risks to global financial system Financial Times

Class Warfare

Amazon Deploys Humanoid Robots in U.S. Warehouse Trial IGN (Kevin W)

Antidote du jour:

And a bonus (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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183 comments

  1. digi_owl

    “Scientists explain how the brain encodes lottery values ScienceBlog (Dr. Kevin).”

    Basically they are finding hope in a lottery ticket rather than in a bottle or religion.

    1. Insouciant Iowan

      “Scientists” had to be employed to conclude that lottery ticket buyers are into fantasy?

      2. griffen

        Instead of the article including a depiction of a lab mouse at the table, they could have conjured up the “Dogs playing Poker” work of art…to paraphrase the Accountant scene where Affleck’s math wizard / assassin is feigning interest with the Kendrick female accountant.

        “Art history doesn’t pay the mortgage, young lady..” Interest in the US lottery, be it Powerball or the Mega Millions increases when the jackpot grows over a course of weeks. Shocking to learn.

    2. Revenant

      If you are subsistence-level poor, the marginal utility of the price of a ticket (say it is $1) is minimal. Saving that dollar will not pay for Harvard Tuition or private healthcare (indeed, any decent savings will be means-tested away), it won’t make the down payment on a house in a world of accelerating property prices and you are unlikely to use it to found Microsoft (most entrepreneurs come from asset-rich backgrounds with family safety nets that enable risk taking).

      So, if you’ve bought eats and smokes and beers and made the rent, then why not buy a ticket? There is more relative likehood of your ship coming in from buying the ticket than from thrift, even if the absolute expectation value of both actions is negative. The lottery ticket is the cleanest dirty shirt in the pleasure basket of the poor.

      And for the moralising Fabians who would still decry it, surely the propensity of the poor to spend money on alcohol and nicotine should be tackled first? Given these are pure consumption with lower cash returns (zero) than a lottery ticket?!

      It seems perfectly rational to me.

      1. LifelongLib

        Well, I’m more or less middle class, but if for some reason I wanted a billion dollars my chance of getting it in the normal course of life would be zero. Playing the lottery would make the chance very slightly greater than zero. If I can do that for the kind of money I (say) spend on beer, why not?

        1. John Merryman

          I grew up in horse racing, so the reality of what 5 to 1 means is too well ingrained to get any pleasure out of 50 million to 1.

      2. albrt

        Agreed. Those who make fun of the only available and solvent retirement plan for most Americans should probably get busy proposing a better one.

    3. playon

      You have a better statistical odds of being struck by lightning than you do of winning the lottery.

      2. NYMutza

        There was a wag who pointed out that the odds of winning the lottery are nearly exactly the same, whether you purchase or ticket or don’t purchase a ticket.

      3. Don

        What’s your point, that standing on a fairway in a thunderstorm with a 2 iron held aloft is an unreliable approach to committing suicide?

  2. Quentin

    ‘Queen Ursula von der Leyen’ makes her way to Israel to ask forgiveness and express atonement for the indescribable crimes her ancestors, the German Nazis, visited upon the Jews of all Europe, every EU country. And this pilgrimage of repentance she performs over the innumerable corpses of Gazans, while her permanent ecstatic expression of propriety and class-consciousness stays glued to her face. As Clare Daly shouted in the European Parliament the other day: ’This woman has to go!’

    1. The Rev Kev

      Irish MEP Clare Daly was seriously unimpressed with Queen Ursula von der Leyen hijacking EU foreign policy in regards to Gaza and gave her both barrels and then drove a bus over her-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta17KRKy8NI (1:23 mins)

      And this time around there would be a lot of other MEPs who would be agreeing with her.

      1. digi_owl

        So from what i am reading, the EU parliament technically can vote to remove vdL and her commission. But it would need a 2/3 yes vote. And given that the same parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of Israel recently, i suspect that would be a hard sell.

        EU is weird in that regard, as the president of the commission is suggested by the council, that in turn is made up of the elected heads of state of the member nations. But once confirmed by the EU parliament, members being directly elected by the people of said member nations, there seem to be scant little either can do to curtail the ambitions of the commission in overruling member nations.

        1. caucus99percenter

          It seems the whole purpose of the EU is to take all vital sovereign decisions out of the hands of national electorates and place them in the hands of an unelected technocratic elite.

          By design, that elite is then free to confront the working and voting people of the individual countries with a continual stream of new faits accomplis. Any attempts from below to regain a binding say over what people want and what they don’t want, are to be denounced as “populism” and summarily stifled, pre-empted, ignored, and overridden.

          It’s both a racket and a ratchet in the direction of ever-increasing centralization and local, regional, and national disempowerment.

          1. John k

            So
 they’re just as Democratic as the us?
            When they say ‘our democracy’ they mean exactly that, no more and no less. It’s a private club, and you’re not in it.

          2. Anonymous 2

            That is an important oversimplification of how the EU works. The Council of Ministers, formed of ministers from every member state, is in many ways the real power within the structure. The Commission can take only a limited number of decisions without the agreement of the Council.

            But VdL has been taking liberties recently. She will most likely pay a price for that.

            1. The Rev Kev

              Based on her entire career history, it would be in the form of a promotion. So, perhaps the next UN Secretary General?

        2. square coats

          EU is weird is an understatement :) I once was tasked with trying to chart the path of climate related efforts through the legislative process and comitology and unfortunately can’t report having had any success.

    2. Feral Finster

      Since people of influence and authority in Europe are perfectly happy with von der Leyden, she isn’t going anywhere.

  3. The Rev Kev

    “Melting glaciers reveal Viking pass hidden for centuries ‘

    That video was fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. In a way it is a form of rescue archaeology and those finds were magnificent and give quite a good look at how those people in the past led their lives. Thanks for that one.

    1. Vandemonian

      STARTUP TURNS TRASH INTO CONSTRUCTION-GRADE BUILDING BLOCKS

      Years ago we started to sponsor a boy from a poor family in Bali so that he could go to elementary school. The sponsorship has continued over the years. He is now working on his final project before he graduates with an engineering degree: testing the use of rice straw to replace aggregate in concrete.

      1. Vandemonian

        Apologies for the oddly placed comment. it seemed to be in the right place when I posted


        1. TimH

          I watched bricks being made in northern Thailand, by the street. Clay, water, and rice husks. Machine like a large meat grinder driven by an old straight-8 Buick engine at tickover speed.

      2. digi_owl

        I get the impression that we will be rediscovering/reinventing many old techniques that has been waylaid thanks to the cheap energy from fossil fuels.

        A while back i saw a tv program where someone was building the outer walls of their house using hay bales bound together by metal rods. once in place they coated the exposed sides with plaster or some such.

        2. Amfortas the Hippie

          there are several straw bale houses in my neck of the woods.
          ive only been in one, as they were finishing it(roof and plaster was done, just doing touchups and incidentals)…and that in july.
          no AC, and it was at least 15 degrees cooler inside…and with the windows and doors open.
          straw bales is the limiting factor….one must pay the grain farmer to square bale the straw after the grain is combined(and grain in the bales will attract mice, which will damage the walls)…out here at least, its almost impossible to find a working square baler…since everyone who makes hay went to the big round bales, 20 years ago.
          and remember, “straw” is not “hay”.

          i’m planning a similar thing with all these old tires.(well, similar to rammed earth houses, i guess,lol)
          out here, one must pay to get rid of them.
          and i will need a couple of windbreaks for the big greenhouse.
          so, stack tires 8 foot high, with a steel pipe in the middle(free from dump)…fill with dirt…(fabricate a ring shaped tamper thing from free steel to ram it down)…
          coat with lathe and plaster, and plant some kind of vine in the top tire.
          ive got enough tires to do 2–8′ high, 20′ long– walls.

          1. Jabura Basaidai

            what is used as foundation on a straw house? – as wide as a bale and down below frost line? – just curious –

            1. Amfortas the Hippie

              concrete…either a slab, a pier, or giant blocks.
              also, the roof overhang is almost 3 times what it is on a normal house, and care must be taken(like with adobe) that water runs away from the foundation.
              the one i actually went in to had a slab…to be tiled later…and a perimeter foundation for the walls made of these enormous blocks that the concrete plant makes from the slurry from when they wash out the trucks and apparatus.(with some kind of fiberous structural filler added)…800# and about 3’x2’x2′.
              ($26 each, last i asked)

          2. rob

            I suppose if I were to use tires to build a wall,
            I’ve seen those tire walls being built by starting below the frost line, each course packed with dirt in place. Each course stacked in a running bond. The weight crunches the rubber (a little but enough) to tie it together. The bond, ties the wall together. Like basic stonework. “one over two” . Biggest tires at the bottom. And that is all the basic walls are.
            I wouldn’t know if weeps need to be laid in…. Everything needs weeps…. but… really? not for the tires… but for the stucco.
            For the commercial version If the walls were of the precast concrete type, tie-backs into the hill ,horizontal, perpendicular to the back of the wall. the prevailing call is for “geo-textile”… something that doesn’t rot, and is strong… laid into the bed joint of the wall. Simple and works pretty good.. for decades from now if that hill ever wanted to lean forward.

            packing a column of anything is a tough job. They would likely liquify the grout/dirt/sand… and “pour it in”.

            –

    2. digi_owl

      One problem is that many of those glaciers are tourist attractions, so there is a risk that someone may pick up an object and take it with them. Thus robbing the archaeologists of both the object itself and its context.

    3. flora

      Yes it was a facinating video. Oddly enough, my first thought was if this was such a well used mountain path that it left deep tracks from 1500-2000 years ago, then that pathway must/most likely have been free of glacier ice back then in the long summertime of Norway. As the current glacier’s extent now melts back the path resurfaces and is discovered. Which makes me think the climate was warmer back then than it is now.

        1. The Rev Kev

          One of the most creepiest things that I ever read was an account of a group of Vikings travelers making landfall in Greenland and finding the whole colony dead. The climate had turned cold once again and in the end the Viking colony was not able to adapt to the changes. Can you imagine what it must have been like for those men exploring the settlement and trying to find the people?

          1. The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit

            Jared Diamond, in his book Collapse, covers many of the problems that the Vikings had in Greenland as temperatures cooled.

            He also discusses the contribution-to-colony-failure of their refusal to eat seal, because it’s nasty.

            1. enough already

              Jared Diamond’s ideas on the world align well with an imperialistic mindset. Diamond tends to obscure the role of colonialism and imperialism in shaping the global distribution of wealth and power. His approach tends heavily towards presenting a deterministic view of history that ignores the agency of individuals and communities.

              Michael Wilcox, among others, wrote an excellent piece unveiling the narrow criteria Diamond uses in arriving at his sweeping generalizations about life and history. From the abstract:

              In recent years, Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies’ (1996) and ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’ (2005) have come to represent the widely read and discussed secular narratives of human social and cultural evolution in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

              Disguised as an attack on racial determinism, Guns suggests that colonization and conquest were largely ‘accidents’ of history and that modern collapses can be avoided by careful study of Indigenous environmental mismanagement.

              Much of Diamond’s data is drawn from archaeological literature largely written in isolation from Native American descendent communities.

              This essay responds to Diamond’s works, questions their veracity and assumptions and suggests that narratives such as Diamond’s are the most potent instruments of conquest.

              https://www.academia.edu/7684528/2010_Marketing_Conquest_and_the_Vanishing_Indian_An_Indigenous_Response_to_Jared_Diamond_s_Guns_Germs_and_Steel_and_Collapse_Journal_of_Social_Archaeology_Volume_10_Number_1_93_117

        2. Wukchumni

          Cool video with the finds unearthed…

          It only took the atmosphere being a few degrees cooler during the Little Ice Age to form the present glaciers in the Sierra Nevada (like all glaciers-going away quickly) and imagine whats in store for us with the temp going the other direction in the Long Hot Age?

          The only similar scavenger hunt I can relate would be in the aftermath of the Day Fire in 2006, the trail to Willett & Sespe hot springs had previously been a dirt road until about 1970 and you could drive all the way to both hot springs.

          The fire was intense and burned off all the understory and we were greeted with oodles of pre 1970 trash consisting of glass & metal items thrown out of windows into the bush. We picked up about a full backpack worth to throw in the rubbish bin @ the trailhead. Lotsa pull tabs, ha!

          1. digi_owl

            There is also the ongoing worry of the gulf stream, that carry hot water from the gulf of mexico to Europe. Hard to tell how the Nordics and the British isles will look if it stops, given that by latitude it is all in line with say Canada.

            1. Polar Socialist

              As long as the Earth rotates, the Gulf Stream will exist. It’s a wind driven current, and the Westerlies are caused by the coriolis effect of the planet rotating.

              It will likely slow down, which will lead to all kinds of changes (winds, precipitation, sea level) along the way. The warming effect in the Nordics should remain mostly the same, but the rain patterns in Europe will change. And there will be even more intensive storms in the North Atlantic.

  4. Daryl

    I’m having my own novavax (+ flu) vaccine experience this morning… woke up with a headache, muscle aches and temperature dysregulation at 2:30 AM after a few hours of poor sleep. About the same effect as the moderna boosters had on me.

    Personally I was more interested in the higher efficacy than side effects, so I’m not overly bothered. I’m still pessimistic about the whole thing; I don’t trust the novavax enough to let it change my day to day behavior.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      You should NEVER get 2 vaccines at once. This is a big IM Doc no no. It’s all to boost drug store profits by reducing staff time at your expense.

      So you cannot conclude anything re Novavax by you having put yourself at risk.

      1. The Rev Kev

        You should NEVER get 2 vaccines at once? You’re going to love this piece of advice from the Australian Department of Health and Aged care then-

        ‘COVID-19 vaccines can be co-administered (that is, given on the same day) with an influenza vaccine.

        Studies show that co-administration of COVID-19 and influenza vaccines is safe and produces a good immune response.’

        https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/covid-19-vaccines/is-it-true/is-it-true-do-i-have-to-wait-between-getting-the-influenza-flu-and-covid-19-vaccine

        I’m beginning to hate our medical establishment.

        1. flora

          I predict future drug advertisements a few years from now will not use the phrase “safe and effective.” That phrase is becoming a red flag. / ;)

        2. britzklieg

          In a recent interview with Katie Halper, the splendid Norman Finkelstein revealed that he never goes to doctors. “They’ll always find something, and then the tests begin.” He seems in fine shape (he’s a vegetarian and doesn’t eat crap food) and says his determination stems from family poverty and his mother’s insistence that the body heals itself (for most things) better than professional care.

          I gave up on most doctors a while ago… the last 3 I’ve seen (ENT’s to help figure out a strange onset of disequilibrium) were utterly useless… didn’t even scope me, sent me right to an MRI looking for a brain tumor. It was migraine (MAV) and the profession still doesn’t understand that problem well. Magnesium and Vitamin B work well for me, along with a capsaicin sinus spray. Typically SSRI’s are prescribed and I won’t go there.

          No disrespect for IM Doc, quite the contrary… if I lived in his practice area, he’d be on my go-to list for sure!

      2. Daryl

        > You should NEVER get 2 vaccines at once. This is a big IM Doc no no. It’s all to boost drug store profits by reducing staff time at your expense.

        Interesting, I wasn’t aware of that :)

      3. Katniss Everdeen

        Mister Taylor Swift, aka Travis Kelce (a pro football player), is all over the T and V pushing “two things at once”–covid shot + flu. Even Kelce’s mother, “famously” filmed with Swift at a game, gets in on the act.

        Could it be that another “confusing” correlation / causation conundrum is brewing, in which sports fans–baseball playoffs and pro football–begin to suffer a “baffling” syndrome of “unknown” origin?

          1. bassmule

            Maybe I’m an outlier, but I got simultaneous COVID booster and flu shot at the same time (one in each arm). I was a bit light-headed for five minutes.

      4. cfraenkel

        You should NEVER get 2 vaccines at once. ….. Someone should tell that to the military docs… I lost count after 3 or 4.

      5. Socal Rhino

        I have used the vaccine specialist in our area (same one my firm referred us to for foreign business travel) and his view was different: Some vaccines should never be taken in combination with others, but for some it is fine.

        I think the distinction was live vs dead viruses but I can’t swear to it. Certainly no harm in taking in isolation.

        1. vao

          Specifically regarding the Covid-19 vaccines, the practice where I live is as follows:

          a) One can take the Covid-19 vaccine simultaneously with the flu vaccine.
          b) Otherwise, one should wait at least 2 weeks between taking the Covid-19 vaccine and the other inoculation (whatever the order in which they are injected).

      6. ex-PFC Chuck

        When I was inducted into the Army 60 years ago I and all the other recruits and inductees about 6 or 8 at once. It’s probably the same today I guess.

      7. Laura in So Cal

        A friend of ours was given a flu shot, the shingles vaccine, and one of the pneumonia vaccines all at once in a doctor’s office. He developed Guillian- Barre syndrome within a few days. Obviously, this was related to vaccination, but which one or was it the combo? He doesn’t know and can’t avoid the specific one that caused the problem.

        Luckily, he did mostly recover (He says 90%) over a 6 month period, but he said he thought he was going to be bed ridden the rest of his days.

        Scary.

        1. Harold

          The other day I had flu and Covid booster. Am fine except for sore arms. But 3 weeks ago i was sick for a week after Shingles vac. It was worth it i guess to avoid shingles but i would never take it with another vax. They say the military gives 18 shots.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          That is false in practice. From IM Doc earlier this month:

          Many patients getting all three at the same time flu, Covid and RSV. They are getting really sick with flu like illness. And the story is always the same. Medicare patients going to the pharmacy to get a flu shot and ending up with all 3 at the strong encouragement of the pharmacist. Why not? Patients are now considered “profit centers”. They turn that 85 dollar flu shot “sale” into a 400 something dollar sale with the other two shots
..

          IM Doc has also recommended against getting the shingles vaccine in combination with any other vaccine:

          I would tell you that any of the shingles vaxx should be taken by themselves in isolation for a month or so before or after any other vaccines. They can often be very harsh.

      9. playon

        I had the Novavax too, but no flu shot, and if they had bundled them I would have refused it. From what I understand it is not good to get the flu vax every year, supposedly it is more effective to get that every 3-4 years. I think getting the flu shot every year may be hard on the immune system?

  5. timbers

    Smart Investment

    Not up on the history of Presidential TV addresses but do recall some of the various slogans used to rally support for our many wars. But….is this the FIRST time a US President on TV has inadvertently told us the truth by using the slogan/phrase what ever to justify war/wars as a “smart investment” as in its good for profits? To my sketchy memory it is but no expert.

    Wonder how many of over worked Americans and PMC types will notice how far American’s public morality has fallen into the cease pool. I ask because this realization hit me gradually then all at once.

    1. Randall Flagg

      I heard that line I don’t know how many times yesterday on the various PMC radio shows. Thinking yea, all those investments yielding dividends for years to come… For shareholders of Defense stocks. Consulting Firms. Retired Generals moving into private sector boardroom positions.
      To the rest of you, Lambert’s rules #2…

      1. Tom Stone

        America’s task is to “Provide for the Welfare of Generals”, it’s in the Constitution or the Bible or something.

    2. Louis Fyne

      I’ve been saying for the longest time…Biden has the worst presidential speechwriters ever.

      don’t say the quiet-part out loud! lol.

      but I guess that the speechwriters reflect the rot of the political class.

      1. Benny Profane

        “I’ve been saying for the longest time
Biden has the worst presidential speechwriters ever.”

        He could have the best, and still couldn’t deliver. It’s sad to watch. He doesn’t have the energy to raise his voice anymore. I always wonder what drug regimen he’s on for all this, especially this middle east trip.

        1. Not Qualified to Comment

          And coming immediately after his reduction of the Middle East bloodbath to a team sport…

        2. Andrew

          or our dear leader of the free and innovative world stuck for nine hours on a train to Kiiiiv a few weeks back. I know Joe is a train guy but perhaps Mr. Putin could have extended some protection for Air Force One out of empathy for the aged. Maybe he did.. ya never know; we would never find out.

    3. Benny Profane

      The now oft used good investment argument still applies to no body bags coming home this time, I’m pretty sure. It’s also why the F16 (certainly the F35) and the Abrams will hardly be used and allowed to be destroyed/captured, because that won’t play well on the evening news. They’ll just be used as trillion dollar threats.

    4. Will

      Not as a defence in any way for Biden and his speechwriters, but the use of business/finance jargon is so prevalent in everyday speech I’m not sure many will think its use in the speech as unusual. For example, I hear and see acronyms like ROI used regularly on sports radio and writing and it feels like it’s only increased with the introduction of sports betting.

      In general, after so many years of being told that government should be managed like a business, I think speechwriters are just adapting to the society that’s resulted.

    5. Vicky Cookies

      Today’s Times had a run-down of the proposed funding package for WW3, broken down by countries to recieve funds (Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel), and in one of the sections (I forget which), it was stated, as if a justification, or something which would lessen the blow, that such-and-such a percentage of this would go to American military contractors.
      In bygone years, this would seem like more of a fact which would be noted in a critical, dissident or left-wing paper, and obscured in establishment presses; here it was as if readers were being told “I know it’s a lot of money, but don’t worry, we’re corrupt, and feeding war pigs at the public trough!”.
      Public-facing morality, we hardly knew ye.

    2. Random

      Honestly I don’t think the truth even matters at this point.
      Just like with the whole beheaded babies story it’s already out and the people who believe it won’t change their minds.
      The result is that this is highly damaging to US-Arab relations at a time when the US is struggling for allies.

  7. griffen

    Existing home sales in the US met the cliff and went over. Yikes that is some nasty looking trends over the last 18 to 24 months. The article posits that the median home price is over valued, and would need to fall precipitously (nearly by 1/3) to be more aligned with historical levels. All real estate is local, so merit your own situation as you see fit.

    Yesterday’s WC merited a few mentions about the bond market and the shedding of fixed income duration. The higher interest rates are definitely putting a jinx on the mortgage rates, intertwined as they are. Higher interest rates on consumer loans as well, by example your average 72 to 84 month car loan. Happy times in America.

    1. Screwball

      It depends who you are I guess. For savers, these interest rates are a good thing. I have been buying short term bonds through Treasury Direct and my bank account loves me for it. Sure beats the .01 percent my bank pays me on the balance.

      1. Benny Profane

        Yeah, for years many have complained that the zero interest rates were harming savers, especially oldsters seeking safety. Well now, finally, you can buy some very safe instruments that actually pay something. If I can get 5%, backed by full faith and all that, fine.
        I have benefitted from this bizzaro world of RE right now, because I’m about to sell my condo at a very nice price that seems to go up every month due to scarcity. I live at a really nice WFH distance from NYC.

      2. lyman alpha blob

        I’ve been doing the same. First time Uncle Sugar has done me a solid in a long time. I expect it will be taken away again once the little piggies start squealing too loudly but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

    2. RookieEMT

      I’ve been waiting seven years for a housing market crash, obviously mistiming. There’s no joy in anticipating low cost property post correction anymore, just embitterment.

      A great depression may result and so many neighborhoods are permanently unaffordable thanks to the march of the McMansions and their speculators.

      To try to go in and build walkable urbanism feels like cleaning up a house after a bunch of drunk teenagers broke in and trashed the place.

      1. chris

        It really is a bizarre world out there, isn’t it?

        I recall from prior home purchases that my RE agent would tell us how the monthly payment would work out and how when selling properties we needed to consider affordability in the market. Not anymore I guess?

        It’s bizarre to see people insisting on a sale price when so few can afford to pay. It’s bizarre to get calls for selling my current residence because there is still demand at these insane prices. It’s bizarre to think that our entire economy has no answer to the market failure of young people not being able to afford a place to live. Part of me thinks that the driving factor for the US being an agent of international chaos is because if we stopped running other places we’d have to start dealing with the problems at home. But after watching how the various war efforts are being managed, I know that’s not the case. Our warmongering leaders don’t have the intelligence to understand what’s happening at home. They most likely don’t even see it. If they had the capacity to do that then they’d be doing a much better job at managing the wars abroad.

        1. albrt

          The calls for selling your current residence are not a sign that demand exists at insane prices. The calls are based on two things: (1) the bottom feeders are hoping to catch a bewildered senior citizen at a weak moment, and (2) the bottom feeders do not have any other business model to fall back on. They are purely predatory and not a sign of a healthy market.

          1. Hickory

            I suspect it’s also a sign that the home-buying-and-renting corporations still have lots of
            Money.

      2. Benny Profane

        I wouldn’t hold my breath. You missed the last one, and all the deals for awhile after. Banks won’t allow shaky mortgages to exist for a few decades, which brought down the last bubble. Boomers are dying in place, so that market of homes, I think the biggest, will just continue trickling out, a lot passing to a son or daughter or now grandkids. Jobs are plentiful, although not high paying, but, still.
        As I mentioned in a post above, I’m a bit shocked what people are paying in my condo complex, after years of stagnation. But, that’s entry level, and there seems to be a lot of people who just want to get into the game in a town with good schools. In the end, though, it’s not far above 2006 prices. Took a long time. Strange world.

      3. playon

        We bought our place in July of this year, and pieces like this make me worry about being underwater on the house in a year or two. On the other hand, we are in an area (western WA) where people want to live so maybe we’ll be OK…

        1. LifelongLib

          FWIW where I live the housing market crashed a year after I bought and I was underwater for about 6 years. It turned out not to matter because I didn’t need to sell. Western Washington’s a good place to be. I still have family there and always wish I’d stayed there myself.

    3. britzklieg

      I got very lucky 2 weeks ago when I closed on both the sale of my home and the purchase of a sweet little condo nearby. There had been a lot of oohs and ahs for the house (a mid century modern gem designed and built by my uncle in 1960), tons of foot traffic to see it… and no offers, until the right buyer showed up. I took a 10% haircut on the asking price but it still sold for 5 times what I paid my mom for it in 1999 and afforded me a cash buy on the condo which was 70 grand less than anything else I was looking at.

      It was time to downsize and although I waited about 3 years too long to sell (when the market was completely nuts with price wars jacking up the prices) I feel like I just got in under the wire… no mortgage and a surprisingly nice profit may have helped a lot to secure my retirement in unexpected ways.

      Meanwhile, other properties in the neighborhood are sitting empty and unsold, looking for prices that are unreasonable. Home prices must come down or there’s major trouble ahead for RE.

      2. LifelongLib

        My parents had their house built in 1960 and lived there for the rest of their lives. We ended up selling it to a developer because nobody in the family wanted to live there or rent it out, and it needed extensive repairs before it was marketable. The developer gutted it, renovated, and sold it for twice what he paid us. I’m surprised you were able to sell your place with what sounds like relatively little hassle.

    4. Jason Boxman

      Saw a Twitter thread this AM about auto auctions finally having a sad, and everyone chimed in about how insane auto insurance rates have become. Make of that what you will. Mine went up in 2022, I switched, and it’s been okay so far this year. But I live in a particularly rural area to reduce COVID risk, so a bonus might be lower auto rates.

        1. Benny Profane

          I’ve been stuck in an awful Purgatory for a few months plus, with no real end in sight.My Honda HRV had a large branch fly though the windshield and destroy the dashboard and all instruments in it, and denting the roof. Unfortunately it was NOT totalled, because it’s worth so much, so I have been waiting for parts for some time. The supply chain is still massively screwed up. So, I may be looking at thousands of rental cars costs, in the end, although my insurance company gets me a discount. I can’t figure out how to fix this other than buying a new car and selling the old one whenever.

      2. Carla

        I used to be able to switch insurers for my homeowners/auto coverage and save on annual premiums. No longer. After doing a thorough search this year, I’m convinced that like virtually every other industry in this “free country” the insurance industry is fixing prices. And why not? After all, it’s not as if there’s a functioning government to stop them.

        Matt Stoller has been exposing price-fixing lately. Wish he would look at homeowners and car insurance.

  8. dougie

    Trips to Europe Will Require a New Step for American Travelers

    Well, so much for any plans to spend time in Italy or Switzerland again(shrugs). I have avoided being fingerprinted for nearly 70 years, and have no intention of voluntarily giving up that policy. It all depended on development of a Covid killer nasal vaccine, non mRNA based, to begin with, so there is that consideration as well. I suppose I can shout at the clouds and order people off my lawn from the good ole USA. Oh, well.

    1. Bugs

      These already exist at the US border in airports and passports are all biometric now so I don’t see how it changes much. It’s just more in your face than the cameras already scanning your face from behind two way mirrors or in the ceiling. When you go to India, for example, the process is really intrusive and the border police have equipment that only works every once in a while so the back up is pretty hilarious. The only country I’ve visited over the past say, seven years or so to not have an intrusive border control process was Japan. G-d bless em.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        No, you can refuse any additional photographing beyond the photo in your passport and having them look at your face at possport control. And the EU would not be asking for passengers to submit biometric photos if the US were willing to share the ones it has. And the US does not take fingerprints.

        I wear a mask at all times when traveling because Covid so I am not having usable photographs being taken. Why aren’t you?

        1. danpaco

          I have had to put my hand on a reader to pass US customs pre-clearance at Toronto Pearson Airport. Could be because I was once a US visa holder could be something else.

          1. Revenant

            Being fingerprinted and providing detailed answers to intrusive questions has been the non-US resident’s indignity since 9/11 and the introduction of the ESTA. If you had made more fuss about the furriners’ treatment, the EU may not have felt emboldened to pull this stunt.

            I too have no desire to be fingerprinted etc but where am I to go from the UK? I can roam the common travel area (UK, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey) or select longhaul destinations. But no more ferries to France or Spain etc.

          1. barefoot charley

            The Real ID, our new federal identification program, which will make upstanding citizens distinguishable from terrorists and thus speed up airport security by securitizing my drivers license, takes my thumb-print and a photo. I gave my thumb for Europe!

          2. Grebo

            They took my fingerprints when I had to transit in 2020 (after years of avoiding the US). The next time I went through I offered up my soul hand to the machine and the guy said “It’s alright, we’ve already got them.”

              1. Grebo

                Yes, that’s one reason I was avoiding it. I was somewhat surprised that they didn’t want them for checking your ID when you entered but for… some other reason.

        3. Bugs

          I do wear a mask and have to pull it down every time I go through immigration. Don’t they ask you to do the same?

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            Yes, but you were describing cameras in the airport generally as taking your photo (for instance, Laguardia has them all over the baggage security area to prevent thefts). Any utility for gathering IDs is impeded by wearing a mask. And I doubt those other cameras take photos to a biometric ID standard. They are all from high angles, among other issues.

    2. Joe Well

      Immigrants have been subjected to this kind of thing for a long time, and since realistically any tourist is a potential undocumented immigrant, why should tourists be treated differently?

      At least once I (US citizen) needed a full FBI background check to get a resident visa (not in Europe but I am imagining their requirements are pretty intrusive, some places require registration with the police, which can get a lot more invasive than finger printing).

      As for the US, ESTA is so awful it should have been protested into oblivion a long time ago. For instance, you don’t qualify for ESTA if you have traveled to certain Middle Eastern and North African countries at any time since 2011. And yes, ESTA requires fingerprints and photographing.

  9. notabanker

    Bassem Youssef, wow, he absolutely destroys Morgan and all Morgan can do is meekly retreat into tired narratives. This is must see TV. Thanks for that link.

  10. GramSci

    Re: Predator Files

    For those who like me missed the ‘Predator Files Report’, here’s the(?) introductory link to the report itself.

    https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act10/7245/2023/en/

    «This report lays out the human rights implications of the Predator Files disclosures, which show how a suite of highly invasive surveillance technologies supplied by the Intellexa alliance is being sold and transferred around the world with impunity.»

    1. GramSci

      The link in Links, above, is the 5 October pre-publication announcement of the 9 October Report, itself.

  11. The Rev Kev

    “Joe Biden asks divided Congress to pass $106bn in aid for Israel and Ukraine”

    Alex Christoforou brought up a very interesting point in the latest video that he dropped. He said that $60 billion of that was for the Ukraine which is widely known. But then he pointed out that this was the exact same figure that Lindsey Graham was demanding about a fortnight ago which seemed bizarre at the time. Without doing the research, I am pretty sure that Biden and Graham are not in the same political party so what is the deal here? Is Lindsey Graham just another RINO that that works in lockstep with Biden and the Democrats? Is this sort of thing the cause of so much discontent in the Republicans?

    2. Samuel Conner

      It may be that Graham’s floating of a number signaled to the Administration the thinking of the Senate minority. There needn’t have been back door communication, though there could have been.

      I don’t think there’s anything nefarious or politically questionable in view. It is, after all, just two factions of a “uniparty.”

    3. Roger

      The ex-President of Tanzania, Nyerere, put it succinctly ““The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”

      1. Jabura Basaidai

        “The two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority, or method.”
        Quigley saw it in 1966
        https://ccwritersite.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/quigley-on-the-two-party-system/

    4. Mikel

      FFS…yesterday it had gone from $100 billion to $105 billion. Now $106 billion.
      It’s like some mafioso “request” for payment. Everyday that passes without payment, the amount increases.

        1. Mikel

          It has to be tough for The Onion and The Babylonbee these days.
          We live in “you can’t make this $h — up” times.

    2. digi_owl

      Dunno about AI, but Apple has always been skittish about China.

      After all their major manufacturing facilities, via Foxconn, is there, and it has grown into a major market for them thanks to North America and Europe becoming largely saturated.

      And this is hardly the first. Apple claims to be all about privacy, and have hampered many an investigation in USA over the years. But when China demanded access, or they would ban Apple from China, Apple quickly set up a back door.

  14. The Rev Kev

    “AI could help unearth a trove of lost classical texts”

    Man, a whole library of 500 scrolls just waiting to be deciphered. And all high-end stuff too so no old copies of “Gladiators Weekly” or “Aqueducts for Dummies.” Here is a list of ancient lost works that might possibly be among those scrolls and personally I am hoping for the lost works of Claudius-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_literary_work#Classical_world

    Of course you will still needs scholars to read those words as an AI will only take you so far.

    2. Don

      Yes, one of Canada’s great contributions to film, funny and profound; we can’t do that anymore — except unintentionally.

  16. Reply

    Consortium News article – at least there are some journalists still practicing a craft that remains recognizable.

    The US policy apparatus seems geared toward, or driven by, short term goals or optics. There is a heavy element of incentives built in, where subsidy of a sort brings desired affirmation. Contrast that with actual strategic thinking, or any kind of thinking things through. There is a delusion that permeates the policy class. In their rarified atmosphere, where only the select are allowed, no substantive debate or thorough review seems possible. That would take away focus from the mission. The incentives are working, for some. Too bad the world just hasn’t caught up with their brilliance. There is a lethal combination of sociopathy and kakistocracy, or mini-ochlocracy, at play. The latter is comprised of made members of the new insider mob club.

    Recent examples provide ample evidence.

    Did those Maidan coup plotters stop to consider their playing field? Or likely responses? Or those pesky Nazis that keep cropping up? Who expected to hear anyone saying that there were any good Nazis.

    1. ex-PFC Chuck

      Michael Brenner is not a journalist. He’s an emeritus professor of International Relations and History at the University of Pittsburgh.

    2. hk

      We did have a preview in 1990s, when we were cultivating Catholic Croatians against Orthodox Serbs: many of Croatian national heroes were Nazi-allied Ustashe for whom Western MSM were making excuses on rare occasions somebody made noise.

      Of course, in an odd way, both Croatia and Western Ukraine are Crusader states, bulwarks of Catholicism against Eastern Orthodoxy…

  17. The Rev Kev

    “Amazon Deploys Humanoid Robots in U.S. Warehouse Trial’

    This will prove to be very frustrating for all those Amazon line managers. Shouting at those robots to work faster will accomplish nothing nor will threatening them with job loss either. Timing them would be even more pointless and threatening them with loss of pay or strikes against their record won’t work either. They could try cutting back on their maintenance period – a sort of robot rest period – but that would prove problematical long term.

    1. chris

      The frustration to the line managers will come when the robot oriented work flow is perfected and the need for most human management is eliminated. Slowly but surely the work tasks that can be automated will be automated and they will be automated to a degree where humans don’t fit in anymore. Not sure who’s going to buy what Amazon is selling when that happens. Perhaps because we’ve decided China is the enemy there will be much less stuff to sell at the same time when there are fewer people with jobs who can afford to buy items from Amazon.

      1. Late Introvert

        I keep telling my family the war on China will last 1 week because Amazon and Wal-Mart will be empty. Stupid Americans.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      Thanks for that. Chapelle is a stand up human being.

      About this collective punishment so many Zionist apologists try to justify by asking some form of “What else are we supposed to do against terrorists like this?”, while I have not personally read the entire interwebs on the subject, I find it odd that nobody sees fit to mention what the United States of America itself did at one point well within the memory of billions of living human beings.

      When the World Trade Center was first bombed in 1993, the authorities investigated, determined it was a terrorist attack, tracked down and arrested the perpetrators, put them on trial found them guilty, and sentenced them to an extremely long time in prison. This was done without carpet bombing back to the stone age several Middle eastern nations who may or may not have had anything to do with the bombing in the first place. Imagine that.

      Granted, the US foreign policy establishment completely lost its mind shortly after this and has been on an international rampage ever since, but that one time at least it showed restraint and delivered what most would consider an appropriate response and real justice.

  19. JTMcPhee

    Trash into building blocks — what the inventive minds of Pixar came up with for the darling little autonomous robot WALL-E to spend millennia doing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHH3iSeDBLo

    Not exactly cleaning up, but certainly rendering more orderly the effluvia left behind by the rump bunch of humans who abandoned their wasteland for a consumer paradise in orbit.

  20. Lex

    I’m not arguing the church bombing, it wasn’t the main church but an attached structure (or at least operated by the church). However, Rybar is hardly a gold standard for anything. Their Ukraine maps are terrible if for no other reason than they lack scales. Their Ukraine information is hit or miss. What Rybar is good at is having realized early on that it should produce in English.

    1. Robert Gray

      Dreizin: ‘… gold-standard Russian open-source intel channel “Rybar” (cited 100+ times by Mercouris) …’

      Lex: ‘… Rybar is hardly a gold standard for anything.’

      Thank you, Lex.

      A month or two ago, Andrei Martyanov was on the Duran and warned Mercouris that Rybar was no good. Apparently, that lesson has now been forgotten / ignored. Granted, A.M. is hardly a gold-standard himself (‘Putin and Prigozhin didn’t really know each other; they met once, years ago, when Prigozhin catered a dinner that Putin attended.’) but I like him. It also goes to show that caution is always better than blanket acceptance.

  21. The Rev Kev

    ‘Al Mayadeen English
    @MayadeenEnglish
    The #Palestinian Red Crescent announced that they received a warning from Israeli forces to ‘immediately evacuate’ #Gaza’s Al-Quds hospital, which currently houses over 400 patients and 12,000 refugees.’

    Can you imagine if a large hospital in the US was told to immediately evacuate all their patients? Where would they be sent? What about the maternity ward patients? Those in intensive care or the neonatal ward? Those receiving dialysis? How long would it take to actually evacuate all the people in an American hospital safely? How many would die in the attempt? Those Israelis are such a bunch of jokers-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVz0k5AzM6A (1:18 mins)

    1. digi_owl

      That announcement is on par with “stop hitting yourself” given that the only real evacuation route is being used as target practice by the Israeli air force.

  22. nippersdad

    How many gay bathhouses are there likely to be in the Gaza strip? This is why I simply cannot watch or read Jacob Dreizin. He is such an incredible blowhard that it is hard for me to sift the gold from the dreck.

    I am glad that others can do that so that I do not have to.

  23. Maxwell Johnston

    US Declares “War”–

    Excellent summary of where we are and how we arrived here. Just one quibble: “The United States finds it far easier to deal with manifest enemies, e.g. the U.S.S.R…..”

    USA and USSR were rivals more than enemies. Both emerged as superpowers after WW2 and both had an interest in preserving their roles in the newly created international system; most key decisions during 1945-1991 took place in Moscow or Washington, hence direct conflicts were scrupulously avoided and the world (speaking broadly) enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity. The collapse of the USSR, ironically enough and contrary to Fukuyama and the neocons, marked the beginning of the decline of the Pax Americana. In its post-1991 adrenalin rush, the USA has increasingly gotten way out over its skis (imperial overstretch on steroids) with over-use of its military and sanctions. Yet at the same time, the USA has seen its power (let alone its moral authority) decline in relative terms compared to China/India/Russia et al.

    In a sense, today’s Russia is indeed a threat to the USA because (unlike the USSR during the Cold War) it no longer has an interest in propping up the existing USA-centric international system. China, having seen what the USA is getting up to with extreme sanctions (e.g., the theft of Russia’s central bank reserves and the ongoing anti-China tech restrictions), also is losing its interest in propping up the existing system (though China’s trade links with the collective west will complicate its future moves in a way that Russia does not have to worry about). So from Washington’s point of view, China is also an enemy. Plus of course Iran and various sanctioned others who are quite keen on revamping the existing global structures, with many countries in the global south watching from the sidelines and trying to avoid picking sides.

    As the 21st century began, many pundits speculated that the key geopolitical challenge of this century would be managing the rise of China and the decline of Russia. But I think the biggest challenge will be managing the decline of the USA, because the PMC in the USA lacks any sense of self-introspection or ability to see the world from any other point of view. At some point in the future, the USA will suffer a catastrophic military defeat; this event might (or might not) prompt a careful re-think of its role in the world. How its governing elites react to this defeat will be of the utmost importance.

    I am not optimistic.

    1. Mikel

      “How its governing elites react to this defeat will be of the utmost importance.”

      You already know that the first instinct will be massive PR and propaganda campaigns.
      This will be followed by or in conjunction with divide and conquer strategies.
      Denial and shifting blame.
      What else do they have?

    2. Wukchumni

      As always in Bizarro World collapse rules-everything had to be completely opposite, and hardly anybody was armed & dangerous in the USSR when it’s iron curtain call came, while we are happily armed individually to the teeth in the USA.

      What comes of our debris field after the USA goes the way of the Dodo?

      In the aftermath of the USSR, there was obviously some trade in flesh (Soviet women went from having a minimum of 3 chins to being ravishingly hot Russian mail order brides-we are of course going the other way with lotsa 3 chinned women presently) and from my vantage point I saw lotsa USSR militaria (want to be a General? the whole uniform might have fetched a hundred bucks at a gun show) along with near give away priced small arms ammo, and some coins and banknotes, but the sad fact was there wasn’t much that the west had an interest in.

      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        my cousin, the manwhore(wife’s name for him, that he embraced)…witnessing my failure at the online dating thing, as well as the trouble meeting single non-crazy/non-meth wimmens out here who also might like radical farm life….suggested that ukrainian mail order women were likely at a discount right about now.
        (too bad i’m broke,lol)
        but now you’re saying i can just wait a bit, and mail order american brides my be at an even better discount?(assuming mail, of course)
        that would certainly help with the shipping costs(assuming shipping).
        how many sheep will it take, do you think?
        with the amount of work i have out here, i think at least two such brides, if the bride price isn’t too steep.

        1. Wukchumni

          Sheep thrills of course, come with the territory, and I believe 6 will be the going rate for matrimony of a ‘merican mail order bride.

      2. Daniil Adamov

        “hardly anybody was armed & dangerous in the USSR”

        Broadly speaking true (but bear in mind the healthy shadow economy and criminal underworld that never stopped existing under the Soviets). However, even those who were not criminals before sure got armed and dangerous fast when the Union went away. One of the proudest pages in the history of my city was when the regional government building was attacked with a grenade launcher in response to an overly obnoxious law-and-order interview from the governor. I believe Americans can match that when the time comes, but I wonder if they will be able to top that.

    3. JTMcPhee

      The death cult that heads the PMC has its collective finger on the nuclear trigger. Always that concern that like the Berlin bunker denizens, if they are losing they will make sure the winners also die. Like the plot of the second “Planet of the Apes” movie. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Planet_of_the_Apes

      There’s enough Rapturists and zero sum gamers in the power structure and chain of command to gleefully assure incineration.

      Sad that collective human hopes may depend on the ability of Russia to anticipate and intercept the first strike that is front and center in the US/UK strategic planning. (Moving NATO boundary and missile launch sites ever eastward closer to Moscow and St. Petersburg is still the strategy, Finland is now the next spot for decapitation launch sites.)

      It was a nice planet


      1. Daniil Adamov

        What baffles me is why they would need Finland. If it’s about getting the missiles close to Moscow and St. Petersburg, surely they can just put them in Estonia?

    4. Cat Burglar

      US elites may try a direct demonstration of power in the near term if they really believe they are still the strongest. Neocon imperialist Michael Ledeen said, at the beginning of the Terror War, that the US had to throw a crappy little country against the wall every ten years or so, just to show it meant business. That has worked out for TPTB — think of all the contracts! — but has given decreasing returns as a power manifestation. The Ukraine proxy war has been touted as an indirect way to fight, but that won’t work with China.

      A return to military Keynesianism in the medium term seems like a rational way to build power, so I keep looking for signs. They look pretty weak so far. The F-35 debacle shows that the Large Donor Veto can essentially block the construction of an effective fighter, and as the airfleet in the US and its allies ages, nothing can replace it. The important constituencies get served, but virtually nothing is produced. That’s likely how it will go.

      A failure in a military crisis definitely could be coming down the pike. During the Iraq War some observers thought the occupation supply line could be cut off long enough to stop US military operations, but that did not happen. But the possibility is still hanging out there. Propaganda could be used to obscure some of kind of failures, but not an aircraft carrier sunk by someone with nothing left to lose.

      1. Michaelmas

        Cat Burglar A failure in a military crisis definitely could be coming down the pike … Propaganda could be used to obscure some of kind of failures, but not an aircraft carrier sunk by someone with nothing left to lose.

        But how about an aircraft carrier crew infected with some biological agent, reliable attribution of source being impossible? Who can the US attack?

        How about the continual introduction of biological agents into the continental US population, reliable attribution again not possible?

        The US is 4 percent of the world’s population, but was 16 percent of the Covid deaths, and its ‘healthcare system’ is a rotten nightmare. It’s very vulnerable.

        That sort of thing is what I’d be thinking about — along with the US’s self-generated managerial incompetence and grift — if I was a strategist in Russia, China, or certain other states wishing to hasten the decline of the US into fairly harmless (except to itself) irrelevance.

        1. JTMcPhee

          Given the US has poisoned and irradiated and drugged US servicemen repeatedly over the years, for whoops and giggles and various idiotic “tactical and strategic reasons,” I can easily see “our” govt sickening the crew and calling it a provocation. Navy crews have suffered disease, recently Covid, forced inoculations and other proofs of the depravity of the US ruling elites. Burn pits and poisoned drinking water at Marine bases, on and on
 We mopes don’t matter.

        2. Morincotto

          The Russians aren’t even using cluster munitions against the ukro nazis despite that being by far the most effective weapon against infantry.

          They aren’t ruthless enough for something like that.

          They will never do any kind of first strike on the US, even though they probably should.

        3. Amfortas the Hippie

          remember, we dont make anything in america, any more.
          from where i sit right now, i can’t see anything “Made In America” that’s less than 50 years old.
          (includes my 04 dodge pickup…parts and pieces made elsewhere…maybe assembled here)
          were i the chinese bossman, just cut us off….and try to get everyone else in the “second and third” worlds to do the same.
          that aint a hostile act, after all…”we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” hangs on plenty of bidnesses all over my part of the usa.

  24. Mikel

    “Silicon Valley Ditches News, Shaking an Unstable Industry” New York Times

    Maybe this could mean an increase in readership for news aggregating sites/blogs like NC?
    Old-fashioned word of mouth is nothing to sneeze at.

    At the end of the article:
    “Direct connections to your readership are obviously important,” Ms. LaFrance said. “We as humans and readers should not be going only to three all-powerful, attention-consuming megaplatforms to make us curious and informed.”
    She added: “In a way, this decline of the social web — it’s extraordinarily liberating.”

    No way should a person trust AI generated articles.

    1. playon

      Sites like twitter removing headlines, facebook et al removing news links – this happened in a close time frame so very hard to believe it’s not a coordinated, pre-planned thing. I will be switching my search engines to yandex and Qwant.

  25. Wukchumni

    In an unprecedented move, the Freedom Caucus has put forth the F-35 as a candidate to be Speaker of the House, in that it’s awfully loud, and loud lords over a meek voice, so there’s that.

    This will satisfy many of those afraid to cross the Jordan rubicon, and show the flag at the same time.

    Sure, the lectern will take a little work getting into place, but lets worry about after we’ve voted a Speaker in, all were in agreement.

      1. DJG, Reality Czar

        caucus99percenter: I think Buffalo Guy shows just a tad too much dĂ©colletage to be Speaker of the House. First, you’d have Speaker Shaman dressed like that and then Lindsey Graham would decide that he had to show off his accoutrements, too.

  26. Wukchumni

    State Parks ‘reintroducing fire’ with prescribed burns at Wilder Ranch State Park Santa Cruz Sentinel
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The Superintendent here @ Sequoia NP has been not hesitant to do prescribed burns, last summer just a few weeks after the prescribed burn in NM went spectacularly out of control, he gave the go ahead to do a 750 acre burn in the Giant Forest, as not only were conditions perfect, but the KNP Fire a year before had established a sure-fire perimeter zone on half of the prescribed burn.

    I asked him afterwards if he’d thought about the end of his job if the conflagration went out of control, and he told me that he never thought about it like that, only in that you have to take advantage of windows of opportunity, and this summer a lightning strike fire of 15 acres initially in the vicinity of the Redwood Meadow grove of Giant Sequoias was turned into a prescribed burn of just under 2,000 acres-the 2nd largest ‘wildfire’ in the Sierra Nevada this year.

    There are 405,000 acres in Sequoia NP and those 2 prescribed burns alone equal almost 1% of total acreage in the park.

    https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident-information/caknp-redwood-fire

    1. i just don't like the gravy

      Have you heard about the Canadians? They have a nationwide prescribed burn this year

  27. Mikel

    CVS pulling cold medicines.

    Looked at some of the brand names and wondered what will be Procter and Gamble’s response.

  28. Jason Boxman

    So Twitter punishes me with accounts of influencers that are serial founders or whatever, and one of these accounts, the woman mention’s that she’s suddenly allergic to shell fish. She just got back from a trip to Japan. A ton of comments (dozens) of people claiming they’ve lately found an allergy to something; only one person mentions long-COVID or COVID at all. One or two “vax” mentions.

    Her dad had a billion dollar exit; So not exactly without resources for serial founding, lol.

    We’re all doomed. I’m not sure it’s because of COVID or “influencers”, though.

  29. Glen

    The funeral for my nephew was Thursday. He was a veteran of multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He never really came home from war. His family was told multiple times by different VA docs that he had one of the worst cases of PTSD they had ever seen. When you heard some of what he went through, you understood why. It’s fair to say we are all shocked, but not surprised.

    We all have flaws we work to better everyday. Nick, given what he had been through, had to work hard,too hard. He will be deeply missed.

    2. DJG, Reality Czar

      Solidarity, Glen. Being old enough to have received a (high) draft number as the Vietnam War was unraveling, I have had to consider the meaning of war since I was a high-school kid. War is worthless. Only cowards want war. Only cowards want to bring the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse out to trample the innocent–and the guilty for that matter, as if war made a difference.

      From someone who knew war much better than I do–
      American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman said:

      “I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”

      May your nephew rest in peace, a peace that he hasn’t had for years become of the criminal decisions of our “betters.”

  30. Wukchumni

    Matt Gaetz Tore the House GOP Apart. He Isn’t Sorry. Wall Street Journal
    ~~~~~~~~~~
    Won’t be too long before ‘Gaetzgate’ is a thing, and while nominally appreciative of his performance in ousting My Kevin (since ’07), the Freedom Caucus is going to be the ones everybody is pointing their finger at as government can’t function, and you wouldn’t want to be consigliare for the Red Scare at that point.

  32. chris

    Tying together several themes regularly discussed on NC, the Gannett newspaper chain decided in September to end publication of syndicated comics for all but 34 titles. Those changes are starting to roll out to newspapers throughout the country now. The 34 titles are largely legacy titles, so, no cultural change or growth allowed in the US, I guess. Comics depended on newspapers as a platform for a long time, and now? Fortunately webcomics are fantastic but so many artists wanted to be syndicated so that they didn’t have to be business people in addition to artists. Strange to think of newspapers without new comics anymore :/

  33. Tom Stone

    If I really wanted to embarass the USA I’d use drones against the Ford class carriers and target the rudder, the elevators and the bridge.
    You could build a low profile mine keyed to the acoustic signature of the ship you wish to target, one that launched 20 drones with a 2 KG shaped charge for the rudder and elevators and a 2 KG directional mine ( Like a “Claymore” mine ) for all the pretty electronics on the bridge.
    No need to sink it or kill any sailors, let it spin in circles or run aground and enjoy the shitshow.

    Half a dozen such drone delivery systems should be enough to cripple any surface ship on the planet.
    Give it a solar panel clamshell roof and waterjets for propulsion, perhaps air deliverable?

  34. flora

    ‘re: US Declares ‘War’

    Hence, the growing tendency to characterize China as not just a rival for global influence but as a menace. That results in a caricature of China’s ambitions and a downplaying of prospects for fostering a working relationship among rough equals.

    An enormous amount of energy is being put into this delusional enterprise. The target is America itself. The project is a bizarre form of conversion therapy designed to substitute a confected version of reality for the irksome real thing.

    The US neoliberals and their economic theories have only themselves to blame for this turn of events. Their economic project has failed, so they blame other countrys that profited from neoliberal foolish short sightedness. / my 2 cents

    1. Amfortas the Hippie

      yeah. that was one of the best things ive read in a long time.
      ties it all up with the sinews of a deplorable, as it were.
      and, re: our “leadership”…every time i think about how they’ve mucked it up so consistently…for all my life…while i yelled at them not to for more than half that time, no less….
      i remember Nietszche’s Last Men…who hop about…and blink(pp).
      (and remember the triumphal court philosopher, Fukyama, who took that idea and tried to make it something wonderful?!)

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