China: Police rescue 1,000 cats, bust illicit trade of feline meat BBC
Explore a bioluminescent world of cellular life via cutting-edge microscopy aeon (Dr. Kevin)
Ancient face carvings exposed as Amazon water level drops to record lows CNN (Kevin W)
Mars Has a Surprise Layer of Molten Rock Inside Nature
Wild New Physics Theory Explains Why Time Travel Is Impossible ScienceAlert (Chuck L). Aaaw, takes the fun out of a lot of science fiction stories.
ime to get serious about the dangers of quantum computing Financial Times (David L)
This new genome map tries to capture all human genetic variation MIT Technology Review (David L)
US student, 14, wins award for developing soap to treat skin cancer Guardian (Kevin W)
A Rose for Gramsci Andy Merrifield
#COVID-19
Better late than never:
When COVID-19 surfaced in 2020, the medical field missed something, and it cost lives.
Airborne viruses can travel much further than originally thought. To curb infection, we should have focused on indoor air systems. @DrLaPook reports, Sunday. https://t.co/mEN4CWeXMW pic.twitter.com/SKmMZ6EBM2
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 26, 2023
When passing face-to-face, risk of COVID infection peaks within 5 seconds: Japan study https://t.co/u25Yerixsu
— Jess (@MeetJess) October 25, 2023
Climate/Environment
How Might California’s New Climate Disclosure Law Impact Federal Rulemaking? Public Citizen
Democrats unveil ‘most comprehensive plan ever’ to address plastics problem Grist (David L)
‘It’s Like Our Country Exploded’: Canada’s Year of Fire New York Times (David L)
China?
China Does It Again: A NAND Memory Market First Tech Insights (guurst)
Nvidia is now an uninvestable semiconductor company as it’s advanced AI chips have so many export restrictions that nobody knows how it is going to generate the earnings to recover all the R&D invested so far!https://t.co/V9TXgeZ561
— Ignis Rex (@Ignis_Rex) October 25, 2023
‘Like it was with Jack Ma’: China puts world’s biggest Apple supplier in its crosshairs Financial Times
Video shows a Chinese fighter jet buzzing B-52 bomber that came as close as 10 feet, US says Business Insider
European Disunion
Denmark Aims a Wrecking Ball at ‘Non-Western’ Neighborhoods New York Times. BC: “‘You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.'”
The region at the heart of Germany’s economic stagnation Financial Times (Kevin W)
Old Blighty
Range Rovers virtually impossible to insure in crime-ridden London Telegraph (BC)
Rishi Sunak faces prospect of fresh by-election after Tory MP suspended Financial Times
Gaza
The true face of Israel. https://t.co/vvwl8eBfHD
— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) October 26, 2023
Founding father of the exterminationist Kahanist wing of Israel’s ruling Likud party, Moshe Feiglin, rose to the post of Deputy Speaker of the parliament, and helped pull the right-wing party towards its current position of enthusiastic support for burning non-Jewish babies alive https://t.co/wWxowkZcxm
— David Sheen (@davidsheen) October 27, 2023
Channel 13 journalist Zvi Yehezkeli admits Israel purposefully and premeditatedly murdered the family of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh: “Generally we know the target. For example, today there was a target: the family of an Al Jazeera reporter. In general, we know.” https://t.co/sOJk8uNMMc
— David Sheen (@davidsheen) October 26, 2023
Want to talk about hostages?
Israel has taken 1,360 political prisoners from the West Bank since 7 October, the vast majority of whom have no connection to Hamas.
3 female political activists taken from the university overnight.— Craig Murray – (@CraigMurrayOrg) October 26, 2023
* * * Televangelists Invoke Holy War to Push for Weapons for Israel, Strikes on Iran Lee Fang (Glenn F)U.S. military strikes Iranian targets in Syria Washington Post (furzy)
Biden admin has bombed Syria in response, it says, to attacks on US forces.
What Biden or US media won’t explain is why US forces are really in Syria — even though a senior US official has done so very clearly.
According to the Pentagon’s Dana Stroul, the US military is… pic.twitter.com/3DkPUFxuUT
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 27, 2023
US will ‘not be spared’ if Israel-Hamas war escalates – Iran RT
* * * Many Israelis are furious at their government’s chaotic recovery efforts after Hamas attack Associated Press (Kevin W)Surveillance soldiers warned of Hamas activity on Gaza border for months before Oct. 7 Times of Israel (Kevin W)
* * * Col. Douglas Macgregor: How ill-equipped is the US for two wars? YouTube. See clip of Erdogan speech at 2:20. Hoo boy.* * * This is not the behavior of a confident country:This is abhorrent. https://t.co/HD3FPA8lCM
— Katie Halper (@kthalps) October 27, 2023
Longtime Merkel adviser faces uproar over Israel-Hamas comments Politico (Kevin W)
* * * Russia, China veto US push for UN action on Israel, Gaza Reuters (Kevin W)Israel and United States Are Taking a Diplomatic Pounding Larry Johnson. Also covered by Alexander Mercouris
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia says it rehearsed ‘massive’ nuclear strike BBC (David L)
Ukraine offers to store EU gas RT (Kevin W)
The Russians returning home from self-imposed exile Financial Times (Kevin W)
White House: Russia is executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders Reuters (furzy). Looks pretty desperate. Biden also amplified bogus beheading babies story.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Joe Biden’s Armageddon, from Gaza to Ukraine Aaron Mate
Patrick Lawrence: Full-Dress Irrationality Scheerpost
The Peace of Westphalia as a Lesson in Solving Religious Wars Past Present or Future. Matt Ehret (Chuck L)
Boris Johnson gets job with arms industry-funded pro-NATO lobbyists RT (Kevin W). The US grift of ex senior officials getting uneconomically large book advances is so much more discreet.
Georgia’s Voting Maps Are Struck Down New York Times (Kevin W)
2024
Could Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker, Undermine the 2024 Election? New York Times (Kevin W). How about getting a decent bench, rather than freaking out over possible process issues?
Border alert goes up in Canada for fugitive Maine killer Robert Card – as it’s revealed he left behind a cell phone to throw cops ‘off his scent’ after killing 18: Had become obsessed with stock market crashes and Biden before massacre Daily Mail. I know Bowdoin well :-(
Our No Longer Free Press
Why only 1% of the Snowden Archive will ever be published Computer Weekly
Free speech concerns arise in wake of journal editor Eisen’s firing STAT
Crapification
United passengers predict brawls, threaten boycott as new boarding system takes effect New York Post. Need more overhead bin space for this system to be viable.
Strong GDP growth and consumer spending Menzie Chinn
AI
The Computing Pioneer Helping AI See Quanta Magazine (David L)
The Bezzle
Sam Bankman-Fried Says FTX Actions Were Guided by Lawyers Wall Street Journal
GM’s Cruise driverless vehicles banned from California roads Financial Times (David L)
GM Offers Chevy Bolt Owners $1,400 For Dealing With Software-Limited, Fire-Prone Batteries Electrek
JPMorgan Says JPM Coin Now Handles $1 Billion Transactions Daily Bloomberg
Class Warfare
Restaurant now charging customers a fee for ‘bad parenting,’ usually around $50 ABC7 (Kevin W). While I approve of the sentiment, the terminology chosen is cringe-making.
Aid for Israel and Ukraine is not an American jobs program Responsible Statecraft
Antidote du jour (Tracie H):
And a a bonus (guurst). Aaaaw, so cute, but little guy must be hungry:
A little young arctic fox approached a fisherman while he was ice fishing in Labytnangi, Siberia, to steal a fish from the hole.pic.twitter.com/f9Yh6q1qO2
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 25, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
185 comments
Comments are closed.
“Wild New Physics Theory Explains Why Time Travel Is Impossible”
I love this scene from The Big Bang Theory where the guys are not only trying to sort out time travel and alternative timelines, but more hilariously, trying to get the grammar of it correct:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbYwdsCguEA
Dang, wrong link – that one cut off the ending. This is better –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbYwdsCguEA
Aaaw, takes the fun out of a lot of science fiction stories. Takes the fun out of my escape from this timeline strategy.
Mine to that’s why I’m not going to read it:-(
Time travel is an attitude.
I was a time traveler when I was a numismatist, sometimes i’d be in Ancient Rome in the morning and the French Revolution in the afternoon vis a vis aged round metal discs, but now as a nemophilist my time travel is relegated to trees that were alive when those 2 epochs happened.
If time travel were possible, why has nobody visited us from the future, or past?
Well actually my future self did visit me back in 2018. He tried to warn me that a worldwide deadly pandemic was about to break out but that governments around the world would ignore it to make sure that the economy did not suffer; that the US would elect a geriatric Joe Biden as President with the incomprehensible Kamala Harris as his VP, and that the US would think that it would be a great idea to have a war with Russia in the Ukraine, a potential war with China over Taiwan in the Pacific as well as going to war with Iran in the Middle east all at the same time. Naturally I sent away this future self with a flea in his ear about him trying to prank me.
By the way, everybody can relax about that article. I checked the original paper and I see that they made an error in their 12th step.
Well, Idiocracy is a documentary about the future, unless Don’t Look Up! beats us to it.
Mebbe ‘cause they’re dis- embodied? Also, don’t assume time is simply linear- I’ve come to understand it as more spherical in ‘nature’ 🤓
No one has visited from the past, because time travel was not possible in the past. Visitors from the future are limited to communicating with their past, which is our present, by way of Simpson’s episodes.
On the contrary, everyone is visiting from the past. We time-travel at a steady 1second per second according to our own personal, relativity-adjusted clocks.
Correct link for Georgia’s voting maps are struck down:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/politics/georgia-voting-maps.html
fixed it. Thanks!
RE: New boarding system
Why is this so hard to figure out? It seems to me the most efficient way to board would be to have the back rows board first and the front rows board last. Sorry first class!
Instead, it’s done the opposite, and I’ve never understood why. Perhaps some it’s some misguided sense of privilege that those who paid more are entitled to board first so they get that extra fifteen minutes sitting on a cramped plane waiting for it to takeoff. What a perk.
This isn’t rocket science, people, it’s airplane common sense.
Admittedly it has been over a decade since I have been on a plane but in the decade before that I flew far more than I liked. One time for a longer flight after a hard week I used points for an upgrade to business class. On that flight it was essentially a first class ticket (same cabin and from observation same treatment). What I discovered was the two reasons for early boarding. You got in with minimal crowding and shoving and were settled in with you’re belongings stored (with assistance from airline personnel if necessary) and then you were treated to a complimentary beverage. This means you could drink in relative comfort as you watched the hordes struggle to get in, find a space for their stuff and grab whatever meager amenities there were.
People haul too much stuff onto planes, period. And I can’t say it’s a big trend, but I see a lot of back of plane putting their gear into as forward bins as possible so they can just grab it on their way out. But ofc that means forward bins in coach run out of space first. So the bins you use won’t necessarily be located where you sit, it might be behind you. Again, not saying it’s a big trend but it happens often. If there’s enough time, I prefer driving.
Don’t fly much myself, but I have seen people trying to carry on too much stuff be asked to check it right before they enter the plane. And it shouldn’t be that hard to make sure people don’t take on too much, and they stow it where they sit. If the greedy airlines stopped trying to charge people for every little thing they check, that would probably help significantly too.
I prefer driving to flying any time I can – not amused by being treated like a potential criminal for one thing, and I’ve never been a fan of standing in queues shuffling along like a herd to the slaughter. The whole experience is now completely dehumanizing. If I do have to fly, I just wait until everyone else has boarded and get on last regardless of what part of the plane I’m in to avoid milling around with the rest of the herd as much as possible.
When I flew Jet Blue out of Long Beach years ago, the planes boarded from front and rear at the same time. Fastest loads I’ve seen.
Last coupla plane trips I made here in Oz it was the same. You went down a corridor to the plane and those that had tickets for the rear of the plane continued down it to the plane’s rear door. Those for the front of the plane were diverted to the right, down a flight of stairs to the tarmac, and then walked to the staircase to board the plane at the front. Seemed to work pretty fast. Then you just waited until they chased the kangaroos off the runway before takeoff.
Boarding FC first does make sense. In general people in front are high mileage road warriors. They know the drill well and stow their stuff quickly and get seated quickly.
Unfortunately many people in steerage have no idea what to do or how to stow carry ons to maximize bin space.
It should be mandatory to have one free checked bag. That would improve things considerably.
IIRC there was a study done many years ago – and linked here, but can’t find it – concluding that boarding in random order was the most efficient.
The air ventilation/filtration doesn’t turn on until the plane takes off.
Even when I fly first class, I try to be among the very last to board.
@Mikel, 10:33
I do some flying every couple of months (between Ottawa ON and various destinations: Halifax, Holguin Cuba, London England) and share your concern re ventilation and get on last as well. Despite that precaution, and being masked 90% of the time, my wife contracted Covid a month ago on a flight between Halifax, NS and London, England.
Between Ottawa and Halifax the plane is the only real option as that takes 2 hours whereas driving takes 14.5 hours and 25 hours by train.
Indeed. The flight to London was long. So you can only do so much.
I was masked, boarded last and off quickly on a flight home that was about 3 hours a few weeks ago and still came down with a bug afterwards. Covid? I don’t know. I kicked it in a couple of days. It’s been said how much virus inhaled makes a difference.
It was my first time sick in over 3 years.
For what its worth, I use these.
They have an adhesive seal to your skin so there’s no leakage.
So far COVID free despite work requirements for travel.
So this boarding scheme would create problems for my husband and I. I’m barely 5 feet tall and have one weak shoulder. It is super difficult for me to get my carry-on into the overhead bin. Currently, I board first, reach our row, turn around and hand my luggage to my husband who hoists it into the overhead bin while I take my seat, then he puts his luggage in the bin and takes his aisle seat. Quick and easy. Now I guess I’ll just stand there looking helpless and blocking the aisle until someone decides to help me.
This also sounds like a nightmare for anyone traveling with kids, who are so frequently under five feet tall. Presumably they would allow parents to board with children, but the article doesn’t specify.
Yeah they usually let parents with “small” children board early which everyone takes to mean infants and toddlers. However, people often let their school age kids..say 9 years old…have the window seat so they can look out and see the view. How is that going to work?
Peter Daou has resigned from Cornel West campaign.
What an absolute clown West has made of himself. He really should quit and slink away
What Cornell West campaign? So far it’s been a contender for non-event of the year.
He really does seem to have prima donnaed himself into oblivion. I had been watching and reading everything about him that I could, but his inability to take advice from well wishers, and more importantly his reactions when what they warned of became a reality, has made me avoid anything about him.
Such a pity. He had great possibilities.
Sad indeed. I wagered more than a little optimism on him. Lost again, really should avoid this table….
“This new genome map tries to capture all human genetic variation”
Here is a thought. Scientist have worked out that twice in the past there have been catastrophes which reduced the human population to very small numbers in a form of a population bottleneck. Supposing that these had never happened, what would that chart look like now and what would modern humans even look with a greater genetic variation.
I have heard about one human near-extinction where in Africa apparently it was down to around 1200 people – but I haven’t heard about another event, what was it?
Here are the two human extinction events I was talking about-
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/august/human-ancestors-may-have-almost-died-out-ancient-population-crash.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c
We almost went out – twice.
The World Syrias kicked off with a couple of runs in the first by the visiting team, which is favored although no betting is allowed on this contest.
The visiting team actually thinks it’s the home team.
I see what you did there.
Surely you can’t be Syrias.
Bu there is. And don’t call him Shirley.
Root, root for the homeland team, if they can’t win it’s a shame…for it’s $1 billion, $2 billion, $3 billion you’re not out at the oldest Middle East games…
Go long for the Texas Rangers, once upon a time it was my home (Plano, Texas to be exact). I’ve no clue what they have anymore, and might watch a little more because of it.
I can’t root for the Rangers given that Shrub was once the “owner” of the team – I wish for nothing that would ever make that war criminal happy. I am a big fan of Adolis Garcia though, who led my fake baseball team to fantasy glory and a little something extra in my wallet this year.
Texas vs Arizona? My east coast bias is showing, but who cares who wins this one? MLB will be lucky if anyone watches this year. Reruns of 2 1/2 Men might get better ratings. I think I might just treat this one like the 2024 election and sit it out.
I get that yeah, not actively pulling for the Rangers….grew up an Atlanta Braves fan and enjoyed their run in the 1990s with that awesome group of pitchers. I watched a bit more in 2021 when the Braves conquered the Dodgers and finally won a WS yet again. Maybe the first pitch starting before 8pm would attract some eyeballs, all I know for sure is game 1 is set for tonight.
Side comment. A worthy watch earlier this year, if it still is available on Netflix, about the life of Nolan Ryan. Nolan didn’t do pitch counts !
Thanks for the recommendation! Ryan has always been one of my favorites, and I was at the game in Seattle when he threw his last major league pitch – rather ignominiously he gave up a grand slam in the 1st inning and got the hook.
“grew up an Atlanta Braves fan”
Old fossil speaking here – grew up a Milwaukee Braves fan, and a fan of Hank Aaron.
Same here. The most well-worn grooves in my mind baseball-wise will always be childhood memories of the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Milwaukee Braves. Even that perennial cellar-dweller, the Washington Senators!
Diamondbacks in 6.
In case you are unfamiliar with Kirk Gibson’s 1988 at bat. Scully’s call:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N4nwMDZYXTI
>Boris Johnson gets job with arms industry-funded pro-NATO lobbyists – RT (Kevin W)
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I’ll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand over your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead
[from, Dylan “Masters of War”]
You can actually kind of sing that to the tune of “one” by U2 as well, oddly enough (or evenly, since it’s U2)
“Israel and United States Are Taking a Diplomatic Pounding’
On that page is a video clip of Erdogan talking to the Turkish Parliament but The Telegraph did some heavy editing of that video clip so here is a video with what he was saying before and the reactions of the Parliamentarians themselves-
https://www.bitchute.com/video/7z7LVuwLvveq/ (1:43 mins)
Thanks. The same clip is shown in this latest Judge Napolitano and Alastair Crooke interview.
Alastair Crooke: The Dangers of Military Escalation in the Middle East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDzPIitIqM
The latest Alastair Crooke column.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/26/escalations-cannot-be-stopped-the-white-house-is-rattled-escalations-might-all-fuse-into-one/
aye! alistaire has been in my stable for a long time, even if i dont agree with him on some things.
this:”That the White House should be floating kites about ‘moderate’ Arab leaders pressing ‘moderate’ Palestinians to form an Israeli-friendly government in Gaza that would displace Hamas and impose security and order shows just how severed is the West from reality. Recall that Mahmoud Abbas, General Sisi and the King of Jordan (some of the region’s most pliable leaders) pointedly refused even to meet with Biden after the latter’s Israel trip.”
something’s different, this time.
I heard about that one and it is nuts. They want the Arab governments to help Israel win and to pull the US chestnuts out of the fire. An addition to the plan was that all the Gazans would be moved out and put into a huge tent city in the middle of the Sinai desert. And then – get this – Israel would take a huge chunk of Egyptian land on the Israel-Egypt border to turn into a huge security zone to protect them from the Palestinians. This plan must have come out of Likud Party HQ. It’s that deluded.
When Erdogan throws the USAF out of the big Adana base…..
And the Al Qaeda in Idlib decide to stop attacking Syria
Al Qaeda would never attack Israel in any case. This Muslim guy was saying that they attack every Arab in this region such as those in Iraq and Syria and Yemen – but never Israel. He said furthermore that Al Qaeda would attack Muslims in Antarctica before they would consider attacking Israel.
What happened to all those Wahabbist?
They finally seem to be getting together against Hunter and Elmer Biden.
“It’s Sunni Season!”
“It’s Shia Season!”
“Sunni Season!”
“Shia Season!”
“Shia Season!”
“Yes! Yes! Shia Season! Drone me!”
*kaboom!*
Adjusts smoking keffiyeh. “Hmmm… Pronoun problems.”
I can just see Yosemite Joe muttering under his breath: “Ah hates Wahabbists!” All the while ‘Bugs’ bin Salman stands calmly by turning the handle of a big oil valve.
On the subject of diplomacy, Larry mentions the offensive and alienating Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan. I couldn’t help but notice this passage in Lee Fang’s piece on Hagee and Christian Zionism:
“Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, took the stage at the San Antonio, Texas church later that day, citing the prophet Isaiah, a nod to End Times theology, to call for Americans to support Israel’s war.”
“We need to be partners with God,” said Erdan. “For those of us in Israel, we are battling on the frontlines, for you my friends, we need you on the frontlines as well,” he said.”
Sounds a lot like the diplomatic philosophy practiced by our own former UN ambassador Nikki “finish them now” Haley.
I just can’t understand why all those little non-essential nations at the UN have such a hard time supporting our efforts to bring Truth and Righteousness to the world.
Here’s Chris Hedges latest with “Jeff Sharlet [who] has spent two decades covering the intersection of extreme Christian nationalism and the far-right. In his new book, Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, he gives us snapshots of a country rapidly devolving into a Christian fascism state. He captures the rage, the despair, the dislocation, the alienation, the aesthetic of violence and the magical thinking that are the foundations of all fascist movements, one that have coallesed around the Trump-led Republican Party. The bizarre conspiracy theories and buffoonish quality of many who lead and embrace this movement, such as Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, make the use American fascists easy to ridicule and dismiss. But Sharlet implores us to take them seriously as an existential threat to what is left of our anemic democracy. ”
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-show-with-444
The Trump hysteria in the press is a perfect example of ‘look over there’.
As far as I can tell, the country is being governed by a Democrat regime, and so it must be the Democrat regime that is running the neverending funnel of weapons to bomb, smash, annihilate, burn, gas and irradiate civilians in other countries.
While all the time shouting Look At Trump, Look At Trump.
So I would say that the fascist movement has certainly coalesced around the Democrat machine, which is supporting genocide in a number of countries, including Israel and Ukraine. And yes I know, mentioning only two is selling the US efforts way short.
The trouble is that “anti-Fascists” are increasingly embracing fascism in practice to counter “fascism.”. I don’t dispute that there are serious issues with Trumpers, but what was it that Huey Long said about Fascism again?
And Long paid for it with his life.
Don’t put anything past this bunch. They are the personification of Banal Evil.
Nikki Haley has an ad running here in Iowa where she says “finish them” at the end. I don’t have a link but I’m sure it’s out there if you care to see a war criminal in action
Can’t work out if Neocon Nikki is that full of hatred or is just plain crazy.
I can’t pick just one, she is a twenty five pound bag filled with fifty pounds of crazy AND hatred.
The Lee Fang piece is enlightening about one subtext in US politics almost never discussed in the media.
Netanyahu also made a public statement with the Isaiah prophecy. It appears to be a coordinated Israeli government position.
Strong GDP growth–
Checking in on Morning Joe this morning, the 4.9% GDP growth rate was a topic of discussion. More glorious than anything Trump ever achieved, they exclaimed. Reminiscent of the good old days of the 60s, they said.
They were most perturbed that American voters were so ungrateful about this wonderful gift from Bidenomics. Why do nearly 60% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy with a GDP growth rate of 4.9%? Of course, the Morning Joe crew attributed this seeming inconsistency to voter ignorance and lack of gratitude.
The real reason is the GDP sucks as a measure of anything other than how the billionaires’ return on capital is performing. Working Americans are suffering from expensive transportation to and from work, absurd jumps in food and energy costs, lack of available child care and pointless pressure to “return to the office.” Dominating over all of this is widespread precarity that leaves most people fretting at 2 AM over all the ways that their fragile worlds could come apart with an illness or job loss that would put them on the street within a few weeks.
Bury the damn GDP measurement. Let’s focus of provisioning for all the citizenry within the ecological boundaries as far as we know them, in other words, let’s do Doughnut Economics.
You have a better inner strength than myself, I couldn’t last 5 minutes watching Joe and Mika pontificate on the wonders of the current Bidenonomics plan in action. I tend to agree, on the GDP is pretty lousy for a broader index of economic “happiness and pleasantries” but it’s the one we got. I am also a bit skeptical of the rose colored glasses from the report, the report of 4.9% annualized is pretty hefty. First fiscal quarter for state and local governments leading to new budget year windfalls for spending and investment? I saw that category was outperforming, ie government spending. The US Treasury printing press is really cranked up to 11 these days.
Consumer spending and travel has been a topic du jour on CNBC for months on end. Visa, as one example, reported their quarterly numbers this week ( I have no clue what they said ), but they show “few signs of consumer distress…in their core data…” to paraphrase. Subprime auto delinquencies, however, paint a different picture for the economic precarity of a different subset of economic data. Quandaries and mind altering thoughts ensue.
I think the growing number of tent cities, people living in cars, overburdened food banks etc also paint a different picture.
Regarding the rosy picture from Visa I have two thoughts. First is the observation that we have been in Black Friday mode in America since July. There has been a seemingly endless pile on of sales. Something I think will find means that the usual end of the year retail bump is going to be almost nonexistent. The second is sheer speculation, but I would bet there has been a large number of accounts either written down as bad or closed and sold to debt collectors in previous quarters to help achieve those rosy numbers. Data manipulation is becoming less and less subtle.
i bet much of that is arpa funds that are still neing spent by small munis
From an article on the “strong” GDP number over at Z. Hedge quoting bloomberg:
(Emphasis in the original.)
Taylor Swift and the Barbie movie. Certainly sounds like a “robust,” world-class economic powerhouse to me.
And let’s not forget the recent article on how the govmit transferred Healthcare insurance inflation out of the inflation bucket, and into the GDP bucket so aggressively that our health insurance went down…was it 30%?
Thanks, HMP. Your comment is right on the money, as I now expect of you.
I cannot watch this at the moment, but just found this free 30-min. documentary on youtube.
Code Red: An Exploration of Degrowth Economics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z83rqSPq39A
I just opened the link. Uploaded nine months ago, 900 views. Houston, we have several problems…
Thank you for the link- turning off the insipid MSM morning show and tucking in to something of substance.
Economics isn’t my thing, but isn’t the Fed trying to trigger a recession because inflation? Robust (lol) growth means continued hikes?
Somewhat in line with my statement yesterday that the Fed is committed to reducing labor bargaining power.
And I’d be wary of narratives about the Fed “holding” or “pivoting” that come out of the financial press.
Another thing that hasn’t been talked about, and which could say alot about direction, is the latest a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) that started after the SVB and other bank collapses.
The BTFP is intended as a temporary emergency measure and is set to wind down on March 11, 2024, unless renewed by the Federal Reserve.
Does renewal clear the way for more hikes or no?
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312a.htm/
I have seen clips of ‘Morning Joe’ from time to time here in Oz and if I had to describe them, would say that this is the TV program that PMCs watch. So maybe they are telling the truth here. That for most of the Professional Managerial Class with their portfolios, things are going gangbusters. For the other 80-90%, maybe not so well. But for people like Joe Scarborough, they do not matter as they are not millionaires – like he is.
Because I had a job with benefits and my union was run by people smarter than I am, I have an annuity. In the first two decades I have had that annuity, it never lost money. Sure there were a few years where it made no money except the contributions, but it didn’t lose any principal, including both the tech crash and the housing crash. The last ten years it has lost a significant amount of money twice. We still hadn’t entirely recouped from the first loss last year when we took another hit. I attribute this to two things. Our trustees for years were older and old school finance, the employer side were experienced and principled investors and union side smart and self taught. As they have retired we have more MBA/Chicago school investment types and the self taught all of which only know the self interest Wild West investment environment we now have. It may be harder to read but we no longer have people making these decisions who can look around and say pull back and get protective – it is better to make nothing than lose 10 or more percent. And I truly believe that financial information and reporting is worse than it has ever been.
This is a long way of saying the PMC may be cheering this news, but they may also be being screwed because it doesn’t tell the real story and they haven’t figured that out yet.
Do interest rate increases — or their increased interest payments count toward GDP?
Funny you should ask, of course interest income for financial parasites counts towards GDP, so do insurance, pharma and landlord profits!
All topping the charts. Every kind of rent you can imagine is up!
I just can’t figure out why everyone’s not excited about this!
GDP = Gross Demonic Production
$1.7 trillion deficit in FY2023!
Inventory accumulation, and government writing big pay outs….
Savings down, and wages for most stagnant.
The fed paying banks 5.3% overnight at up to $2 trillion nominal the past couple years. Declined to $1.1 trillion this week, and the fed has tighten $.8 trillion off $9 trillion in printing….
Some kind of “happy days”
Piper is due his pay
Gdp is 21T, deficit now 8%, really high for peacetime, granted this isn’t that.
Your 1.7T is nearly 150b/month, that’s a lot of pump priming. Massive gov war spending is boosting coastal and wealthy income both directly and thru high rates that favor those that have even as it ctyshes debtors needing to buy or with variable rate debt. Poor get poorer, rich get richer. Rich can’t understand what poor are carping about when everything is coming up roses.
Fed objective is to crush low wage earners, it’s working… but it will elect trump cause he’s gonna ask, are you better off now than 4 years ago? Biden is gonna lean on fed soon.
I have long said that I can take any wino off the street and make that wino look like a financial genius, a wizard, even, as long as said wino can borrow and refinance.
In this case, the wino can basically print money and get people to accept it, which is even better. Call it a bastardized form of MMT.
My favourite takedown of GDP is courtesy of Mark Blyth who recounts the reaction of an auto worker in Northern England to a presentation by a local politician supporting the Remain campaign — when the speaker told them they ought to vote Remain to support GDP growth, he yelled back, “Whose GDP? YOUR GDP! It’s not OUR GDP!”
In a related article-
“This week in Bidenomics: More good news for voters to dismiss” at
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/this-week-in-bidenomics-more-good-news-for-voters-to-dismiss-192427863.html
Apparently everything is great so why aren’t people happy with Biden?
Correct link for Democrats’ plan for plastics problem:
https://grist.org/politics/democrats-unveil-most-comprehensive-plan-ever-to-address-plastics-problem/
“U.S. strikes Iran-linked sites in Syria after attacks on American troops”
Hilariously, the US stated that ‘These narrowly tailored strikes in self-defense were intended solely to protect and defend US personnel in Iraq and Syria.’ In other words, they stole a page from the Israelis and said that they did so ‘in self-defense.’
That is the trouble with forward bases. Yes, you are closer if you want to attack someone but at the same time you are closer if they want to do a counter attack. if the US attacks Iran, then all those bases that has US troops – which they are right now reinforcing – would be automatic targets. I hope that Bahrain is paying attention.
With all those drones Russia is cranking out and apparently many are cutting edge, you’d think by now some would have gone misplaced and ended up working their charms on US bases in occupied Syria or Iraq. Sometimes Russians are too cautious.
Well they do have another war on their hands.
That is precisely what those forward bases are there for, as a tripwire in case the United States is looking for an excuse to attack.
I’m starting to wonder if the summer-long string of announcements that the US is out of bullets, out of missiles, out of hardware for Ukr was a feign designed for some purpose or other. / ;)
Come on, they’re defensive occupations of foreign territory.
Language isn’t what it used to be.
Yeah, but int court of justice says occupiers don’t have a right of self defense… course, it’s not just those bases, it’s also israel. Self defense is just an excuse to start a war of aggression.
Robert Card had a cochlear implant Implanted right before he started having hallucinations this summer. The family, and I, believe that this is the cause of his sudden onset of auditory hallucinations and what triggered the whole event.
I could have sworn it was the bullets semi-ejaculating out of the end of the barrel that was the trigger.
Maine resident here, and heard an interview with a family member on the way to work today who said something similar. They said he was from a fairly large and well known family in Bowdoin, which is the type of town where everyone pretty much knows each other. Tragic every way you look at it.
If there is any silver lining to the whole thing, it’s that Jared Golden, the Congressional rep for the area, has finally come around to an assault weapons ban. Too bad it took someone shooting up his hometown to get him to understand the necessity of it.
I am hearing people say the ban should be for the public, but of course the police should still have these weapons. I strongly disagree. Not really sure where the need is for one policeman to gun down a crowd of perps using an assault weapon, and nothing ever good comes from a whole bunch of cops opening fire at once. Nobody should have them, police included. Melt them all down and make their manufacture illegal.
That’s interesting. It’s been suggested that Robert Falk’s – Columbo TV detective, sudden onset of dementia began shortly after very invasive dental work. The thought is that brain inflammation related to a medical procedure might have been the underlying reason for his sudden personality and behavior changes. Seems like one possibility that could be investigated.
RobertFalk —> Peter Falk </copyedit>Robert Falk was an avant-garde Russian painter (1886–1958).
Yes. You are right. Peter Falk. Thank you again. (Note to self: double-check names before posting.) / ;)
Er, ” the medical field missed something?”
Lambert will have an organism.
You never expect a mass murderer armed with an assault rifle to get away, it’d be akin to an LA freeway chase where the perp outdistances the 14 cop cars in hot pursuit, it just never happens.
Until it does.
The longer it goes on when “the end” comes the less it will be trusted. Not saying the shooter will be a folk hero, but that people now do not always take law enforcement at its word, and not finding him is embarrassing.
Referring to the LA freeway antics of summer 1994…Is that you driving a white Bronco, or just an impersonator portrayal of driver Al. Don’t do it, don’t do it Juice, don’t kill thyself. The real killer can be found and he isn’t in the mirror ( Not Sarcasm. A reprehensible act on two innocents. ). And now we can enjoy all the influencing of the Kardashians.
That chase pretty much delayed major sporting events in the US…Arnold Palmer was finishing up his last official round as a competitor in the 1994 US Open…the Rockets were on their way to defeating the Knicks…and a baseball player otherwise known as global icon Michael Jordan was playing the game in Birmingham.
“Video shows a Chinese fighter jet buzzing B-52 bomber that came as close as 10 feet, US says”
Whenever a Chinese or Russian fighter gets near a US plane in the eastern Pacific or the Black Sea, the Pentagon will have a hissy fit and automatically label it as ‘unsafe and unprofessional manner’ and saying they ‘demonstrated poor airmanship.’ But these are just fighter jocks showing off their skills and it does not matter if you are talking about US, Chinese, Russian, British, Spanish or wherever, they all think that they are Tom Cruise. Here is a video of a Russian Su-30 getting up and personal with a Russian cargo plane over Syria as an example of this-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vhadBvZ4g (1:46 min)
And I have also seen a video of a British fighter nearly getting inside the cargo bay when a camera crew asked him if they could ‘get closer’. Fighter jocks gotta be fighter jocks.
They also like to do the Tom Cruise thing in Death Valley.
Our SC fighter jocks are more cautious and tend to eject and leave their planes running, perhaps on “autopilot.”
Our favorite drive to hot springs comes with an air show, it isn’t uncommon to gave 20-25 really low flyovers @ Saline hot springs over the course of say 3 days in Death Valley NP.
A couple years ago a F-18 was literally about 100 feet over our heads @ 500 mph and it set off the car alarm on a truck a few hundred feet away as it flew by.
Yes, BTDT! The same fighter pilot “cowboy” action takes place on the west side of Walker Lake in the Mt. Grant mountain range (9000′). The NAS Fallon, NV (Top Gun) is just to the north and there is plenty of “close air action” from the newbie and vet pilots alike. There is a “bombing run” for training that sits just off of the Loneliest Road in America (US 50) that provides regular strafing experience for motorists.
We get the whole F-series gamut of fighter jets along with 4 engine KC-46’s overhead* @ Saline, but nobody is going there anytime soon as hurricane Hillary walloped Death Valley NP roads and I read that South Pass road is extensively damaged and North Pass is not as bad, but both ways in are closed for awhile.
We were planning to go there for Thanksgiving and the wondrous potluck in the lower springs, road willing.
* I feel as if i’m getting my tax $ bang for buck with these oh so costly flyovers.
That bank and roll at the end…
It was beautiful to watch, wasn’t it?
‘Restaurant now charging customers a fee for ‘bad parentinClapclapg,’ usually around $50’
And the parents are threatening to not return? Clapclapclap!!! Really hope this catches on. Kids have no business in a fine dining restaurant. (The dogs are “adults” and better behaved. See: ‘Pooch Patio’). Demanding that kids act like adults isn’t fair. Parents need to take their children to eateries that are age appropriate… and that’s where the whining and immaturity really begins, it’s mom and dad expecting the rest of the restaurant to be their ‘village’ so they don’t miss out ‘while parenting’. Aww.
On the other hand, overbearing parents in a constant state of chastisement and sarcasm of their children through a meal makes my blood boil. It was a pizza joint! I kinda wanted to stab mom in one of her eyes with my fork. Another meal ruined by a family acting just like they do at home. Pretty sure her constant verbal abuse fell under ‘bad parenting’.
https://www.toccoariversiderestaurant.com/
On the other hand, about thirty years ago I took my wife and son to this town and you would not believe the difficultly there was in getting a place in a restaurant with a small kid. It was like we had a billy-goat in tow. I have seen this anti-kid prejudice from time to time. About this era there was a large retirement village built in my State which had the firm rule of no kids allowed at all. If grandpa & grandma wanted to play with their grand-kids, they were welcome to do so – someplace else. This was also the era where you saw fellow baby-boomers proudly have a sticker on their expensive cars announcing that they were part of the SKI club with SKI standing for Spending the Kids Inheritance. A society which hates kids is not a healthy one.
I like barnyard animals, they’re cheaper than kids, useful, and sometimes they let you pet them.
You seem to making my point that the kids aren’t the problem in fine restaurants (or bars, casinos, and theaters). We haven’t become anti-kid, that’s just silly. We’re just a lot less wild about moms and dads who think that everywhere they go their children should be welcome, no matter how badly that family behaves. I don’t want to spend $100 – $200 on a meal defending that rented table’s space from goats, with no sense of boundaries. Instead we stay home and tell those venue owners why we don’t come in anymore. It’s taken a long time but those owners are starting to listen to us.
‘I have more money and I’m better insured.’ Thank you, Kathy… money talks.
Strangest phenomenon I encounter is young parents bringing very young kids, sometimes still in the car seat thing, into breweries with tasting rooms and unleashing them upon the other customers as they drink pints of IPA and such. And then, they gather up the little monsters and drive home! Probably over the limit.
What a bunch of tossers! In the good old days, the folks would take the toddlers etc. down to the local with them. The preferred method of “pacifying” the tykes was a shandy for the little-un. I still prefer a ginger beer and ale mix in the summertime.
Classic shandy: https://www.acouplecooks.com/shandy/
Told Husband that ‘wankers’ is ‘low class’ and that he might up his expletive to ‘tosser’. Still waiting for someone to cut him off in traffic to see what happens. We’re thinking about going to a joint this afternoon that specializes in hard cider, to order some food and play gin. I’ll ask if they can make a shandy (or even know what one it).
I reckon that he will do a double-take if you tell him what a shandy is. Tell him that it is good on a hot summer’s day.
Then shouldn’t Husband’s “non de blog” be Lexy?
For the cider shandy, just the facts ma’am, just the facts: https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/apple-cider-shandy
Several years ago now a local diner right across the street from my work got its 15 minutes of fame when they kicked out out a couple with a screaming kid who refused to do anything about it. The mother complained on social media about getting 86’ed, and the result was a line around the block for the restaurant for a few weeks of customers wanting to show the owner their appreciation.
We took babies in bucket seats to pizza joints for the early shift around 5:00-5:30 pm, and were joined by other exhausted parents looking for a big night out before collapsing. The background ambience was conducive to relaxation. The babies slept through the meal every time and soon the table was ready for the next round of diners. That was before any babies on board stickers or other performative parenting.
you know…no matter where we went, we never had this problem with our boys…once they could talk.
and we werent rod wielding psychopaths, either…spankings were very rare, even at the beginning.
lie? soap in mouth=never lied again.
bit me? i bit them back=never bit anybody again.
the latter was pre-verbal,btw.
post-verbal…we’d tell them what we expected, re: their behavior at an eatery, wedding, funeral, etc…and they went along.
i suspise, because we never talked down to them…never did baby talk…always leveled with them….and so on.
of course, we also were not narcissists,lol.
My kids only ever got an open hand across the butt for one of two transgressions — either disrespecting their mother or for endangering themselves (electrical sockets, stove burners or running into the street).
My Dad gave me the belt when I was a kid. I’ve never resented it, because I never felt that it was undeserved nor conducted arbitrarily. It was a different time.
“Range Rovers virtually impossible to insure in crime-ridden London”
Don’t know if it is true or not but heard years ago that most high-end cars in London are actually rented due to the number of people who will ‘key’ them as they walk by. This may sound unfair but I do recall watching videos of people walking and protesting about economic conditions a coupla years ago in the City and people in the buildings there were waving twenty and fifty pound notes at them.
Don’t Range Rovers have an exceedingly poor reputation regarding quality? That could explain why they are uninsurable :-)
It seems that Jeeps can be a pretty low quality build these days too. This guy in Australia trashed and torched his lemon of a Jeep after the local distributor repeatedly failed to fix the many flaws:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-27/sc-jeep-man/103024156
And – wonder of wonders – the government actually made the distributor behave!
Lots of high end cars are leased, but not rented in the UK – its related to tax, not vandalism. Minor vandalism in London usually had more to do with people being disgruntled by cars parked in ‘their’ street space more than any class based thing. Most owners of really expensive cars have their own secure spaces so its not a problem for them.
Range Rovers are particularly popular right now as older models are quite easy for professionals to steal and they have a reputation as being quite easy to modify and resell. Jaguars used to have that reputation. I suspect its related to the popularity of certain cars among the type of person who isn’t afraid of buying an expensive car from a dubious source, and by reputation Range Rover owners tend to be even less likeable than Audi drivers (“whats the difference between a hedgehog and an Audi? Hedgehogs have pr*cks on the outside….”). Evidence for this is that black Range Rovers are the most likely to be stolen.
Incidentally, the Land Rover is only the second most popular car among car thieves in the UK. The most popular is… the Ford Fiesta.
Porcupines and Porsches, or insert local favorite.
Anecdata around the area shows that large German vehicles are most likely to be driven aggressively, to the point of ignoring traffic laws. Right-of-way is a relative concept to some, as you have no right to impede their more important journey. Rover drivers of various stripes are slightly less obnoxious, and the above may treat others as inferior to the point of invisibility.
Jaguars at least provided some visual appeal during their rare forays on the road before breaking down. The advice to owners was reported to include keeping a spare car handy for the inevitable shop time.
Happens in Germany, but whatever else you do in Germany, do NOT key an older Mercedes, BMW etc., especially an older model with a body kit.
That car is owned by a Turk, Serb, Russian, whatever and the owner will beat you in the street if he catches you messing with his ride.
Re televangelists
Makes you nostalgic for the days when TV preachers were just scamming for money rather than WW3. I wonder if his congregants have any little American flags to wave. You also wonder how comfortable our sophisticated political establishment are with their mirror image in San Antonio. Are the Masters of the U now the ones clinging to “guns and religion”?
I used to listen to shortwave when we USians could get the BBC World Service (Florida transmitter has shut down) and other foreign stations. Now all you seem to find are shortwave preachers coming overwhelmingly from Texas.
Enjoyed that BBC World Service along with Deutsche Welle, Radio Television Luxembourg and others back in the day, er, night. Those outlets provide welcome counterpoints to the commercial radio stateside.
Now you can have internet access to shortwave radio and to plain old radio, too.
Ah but then you need internet which may not be easy when camping without cell service. Radio Canada was good back then too and may still be findable but I’m not sure I’d still like the programming.
I could go to Central America or Africa just to get the Beeb on my radio.
– “Makes you nostalgic for the days when TV preachers were just scamming for money rather than WW3.”
I had the opposite reaction. It reminded me of seeing the likes of Billy James Hargis and various other Patriotic flag-waving Christians on TV when I was a young kid growing up in the Midwestern Bible Belt. The “Holy Land” was a sacred place, Israel had a sacred role to play in human history, and Christians had a sacred bond with the Zionists and their project. Of course Magog, otherwise known as the USSR, played a huge role in the End Times narrative back then as well.
History repeats itself, but not necessarily as farce if this Armageddon mindset becomes self-fulfilling prophecy this time.
Of course, Hagee is only interested in a conflagration in the Middle East in order to hasten the return of a certain carpenter from Nazareth. I suppose he must need some new cabinets or something. He’s previously expressed the opinion that Hitler was actually doing God’s work because the Holocaust was necessary for the founding of the State of Israel (again to hasten the return of that much-needed carpenter) and that antisemitism is a consequence of Jewish “idol worship”. In a 2005 sermon, he expressed the opinion that, unlike other people, Jews don’t have souls so I guess we’re not really alive.
With a friend like Hagee, who needs an enemy?
Loosely connected to today’s “New not-so-cold-war”: What has happened to Patrick Lancaster? I have not seen any updates on his Utoob channel lately. Hopefully he is OK.
Not to mention Gonzalo Lira
He was recently in Armenia reporting.
Thanks for the fox video!
Come on, just one fish, come on, just one, I just need one, I tell ya… ok I’ll help you dig…. There, happy? so long and thanks for all the fish!
It was a cute fox. But looking in the background, there did not look like much to eat and he must have been really hungry to come so close to a teasing human.
That was great. I don’t know what language the man was speaking, yet I heard him yell “shoo!” at the fox. “Shoo!” must be a universal word for “go away!”. / :)
Re: Denmark
I wrote an article about less crass, but similar in intention, policies in Rotterdam, the Netherlands:
https://journal-buildingscities.org/articles/10.5334/bc.305
‘US student, 14, wins award for developing soap to treat skin cancer’
Soap. Why did it have to be soap?! I avoid the stuff, it further dries out my skin, especially my hands. When I can buy a bottle of those compounds at CVS and mix it into my moisturizers, this old white lady will be interested. Until then, dermatologist-level sunblock.
Perhaps he was inspired by old-fashioned soaps with sulfur — they were used a lot against scabies in the past, and are still used nowadays against acne. These kinds of soap are to be used cautiously, as they dry out the skin quite a lot.
When I look at the bond market all I see are “spending cuts” for the next several years.
Given that, I don’t see how a multi-front long war is sustained without massive cuts to other government programs. Cuts that would have a destabilizing affect inside the U.S. and result in public support for a long war eroding.
I think each conflict will have the U.S. looking for exits in ever shorter time intervals.
The US has never had trouble paying for a war, all the way back to the American Civil War.
We will certainly be able to afford it in terms of money. The problem is we no longer have the people or productive capacity for the Government to requisition from.
Did you notice any problems financing anything for the Pentagon in the last 40 years or so? More likely war’ll be used as Military Keynsianism if we don’t self extinguish as a species first.
We haven’t had a bond market this bad in the past 40 years.
I might actually have to go as far back as the civil war to find bond demand this low and yields this high.
So I don’t think military Keynsianism will work this time.
China: Police rescue 1,000 cats, bust illicit trade of feline meat BBC
~~~~~~~~~~~
Note to self: …avoid Meow Goo Gai Pan.
It is odd: those cats were to be fraudulently “sold as pork or mutton”. However, at least in Europe, cats are reputedly best disguised as rabbit meat — this even appears quite explicitly in the French nursery rhyme “C’est la mère Michèle qui a perdu son chat”.
In Ukrainian markets, they used to sell trimmed rabbit carcasses, with the fur left on one paw so that the buyer could verify that it was not cat.
I heard the same or similar stories about a number of countries during WW2: Germany, Sweden, and UK, I think?
Well, the French nursery rhyme alluded to above is known to date at least from the early 18th century…
By the way: there is an old Spanish saying that goes “dar gato por liebre”, literally “to give cat instead of hare” — meaning to rip off somebody.
So passing cat as rabbit seems to be a very old practice indeed. Don’t the Chinese eat rabbit? Cat meat and mutton/pork must be really different.
Germans have the word Dachhase and Dutch the word dakhaas, both (literally, “roof hare = rabbit”) meaning “(domestic) cat.”
Although used jocularly now, both bear testimony to earlier times of dire distress when famine stalked the land.
And if you like little dogs, avoid the Chow Chow Mein.
there was a chinese buffet place in san angelo, when wife was in college there.
i noted the absence of cats and dogs behind buildings in the area, and stuck to vegetarian fare.
wife and boys didnt want to believe that my observations, and the actions they led me to, could be real…and tucked in to all the pork and chicken, etc.
a year later, and that place was shut down, because of cat and dog meat harvesting from back alleys.
giant scandal in san angelo for a whole day…and then nothing…like everybody had serious reasons to just move on….
i remain real picky about what asian places i’ll eat at.
When in China I asked what cat tasted like and was told, like pork only better.
When passing face-to-face, risk of COVID infection peaks within 5 seconds:
Maybe I’m weird, but long before covid I developed the habit of holding my breath when walking by strangers in close quarters, and then forcefully blowing out as I emerge into untainted air. The habit was only reinforced (even while wearing a mask) by covid. Maybe it’s a weird rural thing since I’m not constantly surrounded by throngs of people, and have a built in “ick” response to being in throngs of strangers.
OMGs, I instinctively have been doing that all along! Especially when hiking maskless at the local state park and I cross paths with a runner. Weird we may be maybe but I still haven’t had any upper respiratory problems since before 2020.
I do it, too.
The study is worth reading. What you find is that they were unable to measure any particle smaller than 10 microns. Since the virus and many respiratory particles are smaller, then the risk of exposure is probably higher for longer. The peak risk of exposure shown in the study seems to be the time of exposure to the highest number of particles, but if you don’t want to get sick, your priority is not to get exposed to an infectious dose, which is different from a peak exposure.
“US will ‘not be spared’ if Israel-Hamas war escalates – Iran” RT
At the end:
“If the US and the Israel regime do not stop their crimes against humanity immediately, there will be a possibility of anything at any moment and the region may spin out of control,” he (Amir-Abdollahian) added.
Does he mean spin more out of control to the point of dizziness? The region hasn’t been a model of control in any way for a long time. So essentially he’s talking about finally engaging in “many other fronts” that have been cracking open for a long time.
Re: Ukraine as a jobs program
This is both cynical and asinine, even by Biden standards.
If only it were possible to invest in something that did not generate a negative net ROI, things like “infrastructure” or “healthcare” or “education”.
Eisenhower’s military industry complex speech is truth, and so is memory holed.
The appointed economists aka experts deny that defense spending has at best benefit to shareholders.
In America, those things are unaffordable. On the other hand there are always limitless funds for wars, no matter how meaningless or inconsequential for the citizenry.
That’s the tell.
‘David Sheen
@davidsheen
Founding father of the exterminationist Kahanist wing of Israel’s ruling Likud party, Moshe Feiglin, rose to the post of Deputy Speaker of the parliament, and helped pull the right-wing party towards its current position of enthusiastic support for burning non-Jewish babies alive’
The problem here is that it is not people like Feiglin or the ultra-Orthodox that will be doing any of the fighting – or the dying – but ordinary Israelis. And when the war is over, Feiglin and the ultra-Orthodox plan on going in and being given Gazan land for free by the Netanyahu government. Well, that is what they want at least.
well Bernie has finally scraped bottom and is digging a hole to even get beneath that – “The Senate just UNANIMOUSLY adopted a resolution condemning pro-Palestine student protesters as “in solidarity with Hamas” and anti-Semitic. The resolution calls to “fully and completely support Israel” in its war on Gaza”
guess easy to understand why he wouldn’t sign the cease-fire – he is beyond worthless now – shame on the Senate endorsing censorship and abandoning the first amendment – and Assange will continue to be jailed and threatened for reporting war crimes…. – we have moved beyond the crazy to a merging of 1984 and a Brave New World and have entered the Twilight Zone – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2MFNbNzNsE –
Watch the Sanders cult continue to gin up excuse after excuse.
Oh well, Sanders would possibly act with greater principle if Team R were in the White House.
I normally cut Bernie a break, but not on this. I think the Jewish Congressional contingent is almost as delusional as the conservative Christian one is. That they can go old school smite them all and anyone who points out inconvenient facts as well, civil rights be damned is no excuse. And yes I do believe this will come back to bite them in the nether regions, particularly the supposed leftist liberal Senators.
My congressional rep is also all in on SUPPORT and these idiots are pretending that meaningless admonitions and backhanded support for humanitarian aid hides the genocidal intentions on full display. And he is also busy pointing out how the city’s various Jewish representatives have banded together to make sure help will arrive (to Israel not Gaza). I am tempted to contact his office and ask if he will be “fighting” for the people of Gaza’s “access” to “water” and “aid”. Before pointing out that without electricity Israel is still denying them water as water must be pumped and that the one truck that has been allowed in IS NOT allowing aid.
I have long said that Zionist insistence on special pleading has done more to foment antisemitism than all the drivel ever posted by the morons on the internet.
This is akin to what encouraged me in my life of anti-war protests. May 4, 1970. Never Forget.
Kent State was one of the defining moments for my generation, but so many that marched have forgotten or just easier to go along to get along – as AX mentioned yesterday we’re told not to obsess – don’t climb down the rabbit hole – you’re over-thinking it – what can you do – or some similar crap reason to ignore the obvious and give it a pass – stay informed and challenge BS –
Not being a finance maven, I don’t know how alarmed to be about this. Sweden’s central bank is in trouble: https://nitter.net/jvtklooster/status/1717415925614256316#m
Pretty busy Friday on the left coast:
https://nitter.net/gosthdarkconrad/status/1717788000250204307#m
McKinsey: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiOUojVd6xQ&t=5s
RE: “Explore a bioluminescent world of cellular life via cutting-edge microscopy”
The “Cell world” video held me mesmerized, completely awed by the beauty of images, the music, and the sound of the commentary. This was my antidote for today and much longer.
I have not watched it yet … there was a second Cell Worlds video: Cell Worlds II accessible through the documentaries section of the webpage
https://www.explorersfr.com/cell-worlds
I learn something Gnu every day, the Palestinians aren’t a Semitic people, so it’s OK to murder them and steal their land.
Or perhaps they aren’t “Real” Semites, which means killing them and stealing their land is God’s Will and a Moral Duty.
Sometimes I get confused about why murdering the innocent and stealing their land is a good thing, but CNN always clears that up, thank goodness for a Free Press!
Who said Palestinians weren’t “Semitic”? They speak a Semitic language (Arabic), after all.
Unless, of course, you’re using “Semitic” (incorrectly, I might add) as a synonym for “Jewish” – a usage that originated among German anti-Jewish agitators in the late 1870s in an effort to make themselves sound more sophisticated and intellectual than they actually were and to distinguish their fictitious “Aryan” race from the equally fictitious “Semitic” and “Hamitic” races. I’m assuming you don’t fall into that category.
However:
The genetic studies that have been done of Middle Eastern populations show that Palestinians as a population are much closer genetically to Jews (even Azhkenazim) than they are to Saudi Arabians, for example. The first and best (in my view) paper about this was published in the June 6, 2000 issue of PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.100115997.
To my mind, the “money quote” from the paper is:
If you look at the scatter plot of gene distribution, it’s pretty clear that Palestinians and Jews are very closely related and were probably at some point in the not too distant past a single population. Even now, if you looked at that scatter plot without the labels you’d be unable to distinguish between Palestinians and Jews (excluding converts from different populations, of course). This isn’t too surprising. They’re both indigenous inhabitants of the region (and the bigots on both sides are dead wrong).
I used to be pro-Bernie primarily because I thought, once voted into office, he’d solve the Israel-Palestine issue once and for all, an issue which needs a Jewish prez with kibbutz bona fides.
Now I see I was very much mistaken. There goes that idea.
Bernie would solve the Israel-Palestine issue – by getting rid of the Palestinians. Maybe they could send those Palestinians to a place he can keep watch on them. How about his old stomping grounds of the Bronx?
Further to the google antitrust trial… Wired editorial that got deep-sixed for supposedly not meeting their editorial standards. This copy is on the Internet Archive:
How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet
https://web.archive.org/web/20231002123158/https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/
Thanks for the links today. This Scheerpost title sounds about right, imo.
“Patrick Lawrence: Full-Dress Irrationality”
Full-Dress Irrationality. … / oy
Libya could be a real wildcard. Rogue missile threat could push aircraft carriers to the Palermo side of Sicily making them ineffective in the Middle East conflict.
So the world will not know directly of the carnage, from the Guardian:
Gaza in communications blackout as Israel intensifies siege
If Feiglin is the “true face of Israel”, how come he lost his Knesset seat and couldn’t even garner enough support within Likud to get a party leadership position? There are, unfortunately, murderous, bigoted demagogues in pretty much every country.