Black dots on white fronts of African penguins may help them tell one another apart Phys.org
Wasabi effective in improving memory of elderly: study Kyodo News
Bacteria can store ‘memories’ and even pass them on to future generations ZME Science
Plant Fungus Has Been Caught in an Evolutionary Leap Science Alert
Microbial miners take on rare-earth metals Nature
Dwarf galaxies use 10-million-year quiet period to churn out stars University of Michigan (news release)
The cocktail party effect — our stunning ability to filter out words and sounds ZME Science
Baby beaver makes unlikely journey to High Desert Museum in Bend OPB (LS)
Climate/Environment
The Doom Loop Phenomenal World. Insurance markets and climate risk.
Environment: 1.5 degrees of warming in 10 years Pearls and Irritations
#COVID-19
Must be a typo or misreported?
“Beijing has told the World Health Organisation (WHO) that the increase in cases of people with flu like symptoms is down to a new winter bug that has taken over due to Covid lowering immunity to common viruses.”https://t.co/deZZ2poNDC
— T. Ryan Gregory (@TRyanGregory) November 26, 2023
Widespread illness closes Southern Alberta schools Mountain View Today
It’s not just that, it’s the fact that the govt refuses to have ANY mitigation strategies in the province. Multiple units on outbreak and staff out sick. The Premier has silenced any scientific thought. #abpoli #ableg https://t.co/nlOf7ExRnh
— Katie O’Byrne (@KatuniaOB) November 26, 2023
A short thread on the contents of this article:
“Kids cared for in hallways as viral illness overflows ER at McMaster Children’s Hospital” 1/4https://t.co/kGAEcaOpTm— 𝙹𝚘𝚎 𝚅𝚒𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚍 joseph.vipond@ucalgary.ca (@jvipondmd) November 26, 2023
Stretched NHS even less ready to cope with a new pandemic, scientists warn The Guardian
Old Blighty
UK foreign office accused of hindering investigation into proposed UAE takeover of publications Middle East Eye
The Emerald Isle
The Rage Behind the Dublin Riots Compact Mag
Africa
UN Security Council to lift arms embargo on Somalia next month: President Anadolu Agency
Capitalism, war and plunder in the Horn of Africa Review of African Political Economy
India
Digging to rescue 41 workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel in India halted after machine breaks AP
A 70-hour working week has nothing to do with ‘productivity’ and ‘development’ The Leaflet
After 26/11 Mumbai Attacks, India Has Weaponised Economic Transactions for Mass Surveillance The Wire
China?
Top diplomats of South Korea, Japan and China meet to restart trilateral summit, revive cooperation The Asahi Shimbun
US-China thaw means Beijing can focus on development, not security South China Morning Post
China backs ‘around 170 measures’ to open up services sector in Beijing as capital outflows, sluggish recovery bite South China Morning Post
European Disunion
Precarious finances: 38% of Europeans no longer eat three meals a day Euronews
Sergio Cesaratto – The cat-and-mouse reform of the Stability Pact Brave New Europe
Syraqistan
A fraught battlespace awaits Israel after the pause David Ignatius, Washington Post. The CIA house organ searches for answers to Israel’s “agonizing” dilemma: After pausing the genocide, how will the IDF start it up again?
A brutal battle for southern Gaza beckons after the truce ends The Economist
Israeli settlers steal Palestinian farmers’ land in occupied West Bank Al Jazeera. “At least 237 Palestinians have been killed and about 2,850 others injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 7.”
Israel’s Insidious Narrative About Palestinian Prisoners The Intercept. “More than two-thirds of the Palestinians proposed for release by Israel under the truce have not been convicted of any crimes. Most were arrested as children.”
The Shock and Awe of Genocide and Lies Tarik Cyril Amar’s Substack. “Making an Example of Gaza for the Non-West World?”
Int’l committee must investigate Israel’s holding of dead bodies in Gaza Euro-Med Monitor
Israeli no-show at EU-Med meet deepens divisions Euractiv
Israel’s Sharpeville moment Africa Is A Country
***
Israeli-linked chemical tanker seized in Gulf of Aden, US official, vessel company say Reuters
Reports of captured Israeli ship near Yemen suspicious: Sources Al Mayadeen
USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke Class destroyer, tracked the ballistic missiles as they approached but both missiles fell short splashing into the Gulf of Aden. This is viewed as significant escalation in Houthi threats to U.S. Navy vessels, according to multiple well placed sources.
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) November 27, 2023
MISSILES AND DRONES AMONG WEAPONS STOLEN FROM U.S. IN IRAQ AND SYRIA Nick Turse, The Intercept
New Not-So-Cold War
The Myth that Putin Was Bent on Conquering Ukraine and Creating a Greater Russia John Mearsheimer
Russia says it thwarts 20 Ukrainian drones, Moscow attacked Euractiv
Russian Navy Deploys Su-30SM Fighters to Neutralise Ukrainian Drone Boats Military Watch Magazine
Some EU Nations Push to Weaken Russia Sanctions Enforcement Plan Bloomberg
EU nation resumes purchases of Russian gas RT. Czechia.
Greek shippers exit Russian oil trade as U.S. tightens price cap scrutiny Reuters. But from September: Greece Is Making a Killing Selling Ships to Russia Foreign Policy
Caspian fleet grows to accommodate Russia’s growing North-South transport corridor trade Lloyd’s List
Imperial Collapse Watch
U.S. Troops Still Train on Weapons With Known Risk of Brain Injury New York Times
South of the Border
Exxon Seeks to Prevent Essequibo Referendum: President Maduro TeleSur
With looming elections and geopolitical risks, concerns grow over fiscal discipline in emerging markets The Business Times
The West Is Suffocating the Global South With Debt Common Dreams
B-a-a-a-a-d Banks
First Republic Crashed and Burned. This Bank Wants to Copy Its Business. WSJ
Did the OCC hire a con artist to oversee fintech? American Banker
In case you missed it: Vix – Wall Street’s ‘fear gauge’ – fell to its lowest since January 2020 as investors flocked into equities at the fastest pace in almost two years. That’s a reason to be worried! (via BBG) pic.twitter.com/b9t5TgAHnv
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) November 26, 2023
2024
Here’s what happens if Donald Trump dies while running in the 2024 presidential election Business Insider
Our Famously Free Press
UK’s Rwanda Deportation Ruling Offers Assange Hope Consortium News
Politicians Urge Censorship Of The Disasters They Create Public
Gunz
Three Palestinian American students injured in Burlington shooting WCAX
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Biometrics May Be Online Retail’s Ticket to More Sales PYMNTS
AI
Pentagon’s AI initiatives accelerate hard decisions on lethal autonomous weapons. AP
Healthcare?
No one’s promising you can keep your doctor anymore Politico
Supply Chain
‘Chicken Run’ Studio Aardman Animation Was Forced to Reassure Fans That It’s Not Running Out of Clay IndieWire
Tech
33 states accuse Meta of having a big ‘open secret’ — millions of underage users Business Insider
Class Warfare
‘Zoom fatigue’ may take toll on the brain and the heart, researchers say Washington Post
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
133 comments
Comments are closed.
FLYOVER COUNTRY
(melody borrowed from The Sidewalks of New York)
In flyover country
Far from either coast
No one’s eating lobster
Or avocado toast
They eat corn and cattle
Plus a slice of pork
They sip wine from bottles
That have never seen a cork
East Coast West Coast
Cultured and urbane
Wall Street and Silicon Valley
Are the nation’s gravy train
Still these Midwest voters
Must be patronised
Politicians in pickup trucks
With guns are idolized
You can’t say you deplore ’em
Or pretend they aren’t there
They like candidates on the stump
Who start things with a prayer
They like jobs and unions
Inflation drives them wild
They like budgets that balance
And accounting reconciled
East Coast West Coast
Smart and worldly wise
The few who made the Rust Belt
Deindustrialize
We shall stand together
Through this campaign year
But once the votes are counted
You won’t see us way out here
Our nation is divided
Passions running high
People mostly vote these days
To stop the other guy
Each side cries disaster
If their guy doesn’t win
But no one trusts the votes we count
So we begin again
East Coast West Coast
People near the sea
We manage the campaigns for
Our deformed democracy
There’s a lot of talk of
Our country’s purple plains
Coastal creatures view them
Through the windows of their planes
Brilliant ! On this Full Moonday.
Yes, Antifa on the T-Day moon makes me swoon. Talent is as talent does.
Field report from the heartland: I-80 traffic on T-Day was very chill, but looking skyward, upwards of 25 contrails (my 18-year-old insisted it was “chemtrail”). That is the most I have ever seen at one time. Heckuva job, fellow Americans!
Good news about wasabi but something to keep in mind: https://www.japancentric.com/real-wasabi-why-most-wasabi-is-actually-fake/
Garden tip. Plant some horseradish. It’s very easy to grow, one eats the root and the leaves are flame shaped and can get huge – about 3′ long and dark green. It’s quite beautiful and has small flowers when it blooms (not every year). After a good freeze the flavor is enhanced. Dig up a chunk of the root and its not bothered. Grate the root into a tub of non flavored yougurt, wait only one day, and you have incredible horseradish – perfect for Thanksgiving and into the Hanukkah and Christmas season.
Love horseradish. Thanks!
Horseradish has a plan to take over the universe. Do not plant! It took me forever to get rid of it. We did sell that house so I’m not sure that I really did.
Concur, do not plant except where you can control with deep root barriers. Almost as bad as some bamboos.
A friend of mine had horseradish in his, rather large, yard. We were digging it up and eating it for three years straight before it was gone.
sidd
I tried finding out whether horseradish has this chemical “hexaraphane” the way the article said wasabi does. The only thing I could find which even might provide some sort of answer is this link.
https://www.kinjirushi.co.jp/english/wasabi/seibun/
If wasabi is the only brassica-family root crop which contains the particular chemical called “hexaraphane”, then the chemicals in horseradish will have to be studied to see if they have the same effect. Till we know the answer to that, those hoping to get the benefits of wasabi’s “hexaraphane” in particular may well have to plant and grow their own wasabi plants.
I would think wasabi would be very effective in helping you to remember “Don’t eat that big green blob next to the sushi all at once.”
It’s a difficult plant to grow – the head chef at my local sushi joint told me about his difficulties sourcing it. It does best near running water – simply keeping it wet isn’t enough, you need good drainage as it gradually releases toxins that need to be washed away (or something, I wasn’t completely clear on this part). Also picky about light, temperature and probably other things.
We all know what will happen if Joe Biden dies while running for his second term or even before: Kamala Harris, short and succinct.
Excuse me…excuse me! I will have you know that that will be Madame President Kamala Harris that you are talking about. Can’t wait to hear her first State Of The Union speech. It’ll be the best thing since Pontius Pilate gave his annual speech in Jerusalem-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lc86JUAwwg (5:17 mins)
Well that is if he doesn’t drop dead or out before or at the Convention. At that point it will be a cage match between Harris, Newsom and Clinton. My bet is that Clinton takes out Harris thinking she has an agreement with VP to be Newsom but misses the shiv he is carrying. (Pritzker will be waiting in the wings hoping they manage to all destroy each other and he can just take over without raising a sweat.)
Total crazy imagination, all of which is far more amusing than the actual backroom shenanigans that are taking place even now.
It would have to be Clinton. Newsom is a nothing. He’s unpopular in California. Pritzker is a nothing like Clinton. He will do better than Newsom but has nothing to separate himself from Newsom. Obama voted for against non binding resolution as against state senator opposing the Iraq War. They have some boiler plate stuff, but they are nothings compared to Obama. What if Kamala Harris wasn’t entirely unlikeable isn’t much of a selling point.
Though I’m not sure how actual state party delegations feel about the Clinton campaign. They were all in and then we’re fleeced by Mother. They might be shopping without telling the local team blue elites who don’t go to the convention.
Who cares what the voters think? The voters will be told what to think, and barring that, the DNC has reserved for itself the right to rig the nomination process.
And if anyone pipes up to complain, they will be sternly reminded that we don’t have time for that now. Because Trump, ZOMG!
Just like in Chicago back in 1968! [Don’t count out some “dark horse” candidates like the Dreaded Emmanuel, or one of the CIA Political Operatives.]
Democrats don’t seem to be operating from the principal of putting up the candidate most likely to win. If they were, Joe Biden would have multiple challengers and Obama would be doing more to stab him in the back.
If Herbert Hoover had known what was coming, would he have run in ’28? The Democrats know how screwed up things are.
Yeah. The major “candidate” who’s closest to knockin’ on death’s door is most certainly the democrat one.
So WTAF is with this creepy, dark headline about Trump “dying”???
There are plenty of people trying plenty of things to keep Trump from running and getting elected again, so I guess an article on what would happen if they succeed would be of some interest. But dying???
Sounds like some desperate somebody is trying to give somebody else some ideas. Just sayin’.
In a crazy way, the best thing that could happen at this stage, is kamala or clinton running the ship aground before it can torpedo anybody rlse.
They’re both wildy unpopular and a more incompetent pair you could not find.
Either that or a meteor.
Can anyone else envision the possibility of a Harris/Clinton ticket . . . . with Clinton hoping and planning to play “Cheney” to Harris’s “Bush”? ( if elected . . . )
And with Trump (probably) or someone else (maybe) running on the Heritage Foundation Plan to make every sort of pollution, contamination, drill-baby-drill, and everything else utterly totally all-the-way legal; Harris/Clinton could win.
Not based on moralistic poses of voting against the Greater Evil, but survivalist desperation to avoid the Greater Awful.
Harris’s “Bush”??? Sly dog! Isn’t that how she originally got into politics? [Why is Willie Brown so silent on this subject since he said this back in 2020?]
See: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/511277-willie-brown-kamala-harris-should-politely-decline-any-offer-to-be-bidens/
“Sounds like some desperate somebody is trying to give somebody else some ideas. Just sayin’.”
Quite possible. Or media types are at the “bargaining” stage of Dealing With Trump.
Seriously? Biden eats well, bicycles often, gets regular sleep. Trump is obese, eats fries and cheeseburgers, relies too much on adderall, never exercises and stays up all night rage-posting on his iPhone. The signs of his mental and physical decline have been obvious lately. Love him or hate him it sure seems like Trump is closer to death’s door.
You keep telling yourself that. Trump has managed to get through long and stressful situations without falling apart. He appears in public in far less controlled situations than Biden does. Trump also moves better than Biden does. Just watch Biden try to walk normally, he can’t.
And for the record, I don’t think the public has a clue how much Biden is really sleeping or exercising, much less what drug cocktail he is on this week.
Neither one should be running, but Biden is not well. His pallor alone should tell you that. People make jokes about Trump and makeup, but they are obviously piling on more and more foundation on Biden and he still looks like death warmed over most of the time.
He probably uses a tricycle.
> Here’s what happens if Donald Trump dies while running in the 2024 presidential election.
Somehow I think electoral mechanics won’t be the main worry. Trump dying in an election year would be cataclysmic & lead to massive unrest.
The manner of his death will be crucial too. The old “small airplane fall down and go boom” won’t cut it in this situation. Go long stealth “official taster” here.
“The cocktail party effect — our stunning ability to filter out words and sounds”
The author seems very impressed with these human abilities but they shouldn’t. Humans spent hundreds of thousands of years as hunters – which was well before the time of cocktail parties. And these eons of hunting honed a distinct human ability – pattern recognition which extended to sounds as well. A hunter would slowly stalk through an area and their senses would be fully active. They would be filtering out the sounds in the background noise while listening to sounds that might indicate game. It could be a call, a flap of wings, a snap of twigs or any other sound that was not part of the normal background noise pattern. And just to make it spicy, they would also be listening to sounds that might indicate another predator in the area.
My favorite from cognition studies at uni: the acute ability to hear someone smile in the dark.
Totally, Rev, these abilities are certainly long- and well-known; and yet they are so poorly understood. It amazes me that despite how advanced cognitive/neuro research have become in the past two decades our understanding of a simple tune like “Row, row, row your boat” is still quite the mystery.
Actually cognitive-neuro research has not become hugely advanced in the last two decades, though it has improved. What has become hugely advanced is cognitive-neuro hype. In biochemistry, it used to take a decade for a gifted investigator to figure out the structure of a relatively simple protein. Then Sanger invented Sanger filter paper in the 1940’s (which made a protein travel up the paper leaving behind the chunks of itself), and now ordinary investigators could analyze a complex protein in a few weeks. (That was a “huge advance.”) The field of neurochemistry, like psychology in general, has not yet had a “Sanger moment.”
So true! I was a bit too emphatic above. But we are able to ask many new questions because of improvements to imaging techniques and various advances in other fields. So that’s fun, as Mikel points out below.
It’s probably from our time as prey, fight or flight. We need to know if the roar is close and to estimate the size of the critter which we are good at.
I for one find such parties to be simply a sea of noise.
Hoarseness is another party effect that comes from trying to speak over the din, followed by the headache.
A while ago I went to my doctor because I believed my hearing was declining. I was tested by an audiologist and my hearing turned out to be normal for my age. The audiologist said that what is declining is my ability to pick voices or music out of background noise, apparently a neurological thing rather than a sensory one. Haven’t got hearing aids yet but will if things get worse.
A lot of writings around how humans process music have been much more in-depth and fun.
True dat. And one discovery is that musicians do much better late in life because they are trained to focus on a given sound. As a musician in an orchestra for example, one learns to hear the 2nd viola above all the other sounds (brass, percussion, oboes, etc.). This practice in focussed hearing helps when going to a resto late in life and being able to block out the din of the kitchen and other people. It helps to ward off dementia as well because the person is less afraid to leave the couch and go to a busy place and possibly be unable to hear/distinguish what’s going on. Just don’t turn your amp to 11 when you are young :-
Or mixing a track or learning a song by ear…it’s fascinating.
Soloing an instrument vs the instrument playing with other instruments can make it sound very different. Some frequencies mask a sound, then a slight tweak (or a change in the stereo field) can make it punch through.
I rarely can pick out the violas in an orchestral piece until I read the viola part along with a recording. Then it is perfectly clear. I no longer have a viola so I don’t do that anymore.
I have tinnitus and can hear very low sounds. I hear sounds that other people around me can’t. I notice it(tin) for about 30 seconds after I lie down to sleep. Then it slowly drifts away over about 5 minutes. Damn headphones from my hard rock listening days!
I’m not sure why the framing is like that. Talks about people literally closing their eyes to concentrate on sounds, and also sound and gaze.
Obviously, to me anyway, one cannot attend to everything all the time and using senses in combination is the default. And it seems equally obvious that the body often needs to react immediately.
And on the stalking analogy, you need to keep eyes forward and hearing on a swivel.
Comparing general science writing from 20-30 years ago to general science writing today is sad. OTOH, no shortage of YouTubers and so forth willing to assume an intelligent audience.
Re today’s Antidote du jour. Had to go digging into what I was looking at and found it to be the much younger version of a King Penguin. Their appearance from adults is so different that apparently it was assumed for a long time that they were actually two different species-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_penguin
I guess i have watched one to many nature documentaries, as penguin chick was the first thing that came to mind.
It’s actually more insidious than this; the quote from China that SARS2 led to immune damage was scrubbed from The Sun. You can no longer find it.
https://twitter.com/danaparish/status/1728984417228754960
https://x.com/Amal4Solutions/status/1728965366406398059?s=20
That’s evil that. Curse that Chinese Great Wall of Censorship doing this. Oh wait, this was the World Health Organization and the UK doing it. My mistake.
And why would WHO be doing this . . . still?
1: Because Jackpot.
2: Because go kill.
The first half of this substack is a good writeup of the China pneumonia situation imo , the second half is a sales pitch you can skip over. From John Leake on MeCullough’s substack. No paywall.
China Pneumonia Update
Macrolide-Resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae in
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/china-pneumonia-update
This class of antibiotics is nasty, nasty, nasty.
FDA adds “black box” warning label to fluoroquinolone antibiotics
Thanks for the warning about the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics. From personal experience I’ll second the comment that these are nasty antibiotics.
yeah, cipro can be rough.
I’ve a close friend who recently went through a bout of cellulitis, treated with an antibiotic (I don’t know which) . He got through the infection, but a tendon in his elbow ruptured and he’s now in physical therapy hoping to mend it w/o surgery. His doctor told him it was definitely the antibiotic that caused the tear. Yikes.
Let’s see if the Forbes article from yesterday’s links gets updated:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2023/11/25/mycoplasma-likely-main-culprit-of-outbreak-of-pediatric-cases-of-pneumonia-worldwide/?sh=31f3eff31176
I expect the evidence of widespread Immune Dysregulation to be undeniable well before the next US Presidential Election.
It’s pretty hard to argue that there’s not a problem when you have a few million dead children, and I don’t think blaming it on flouride will work.
Often the right word for something can focus otherwise unfocused minds, and attract otherwise unattracted attention.
So I offer the following suggestion for embodying the immunolytic or even immunocidal effect of covid on people in a new informal name for covid . . . . something like covAIDSl or covidAIDS or some other thing equally easy to say.
Along with covidementia for covid’s cerebrolytic and/or cerebrocidal effects.
Re lowering people’s immune defenses. Just saw an article about a brutal cold making the rounds in the UK that lasts for weeks. This would be the sort of thing that you would expect if people immune defenses were down-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/brutal-cold-virus-lasts-weeks-31534316
> tsunami of respiratory illness
One hopes that a cognitive “sunk cost fallacy” will not induce people who have experienced immune suppression due to COVID that they acquired because they refused the minor inconvenience of NPIs to continue to refuse to implement NPIs, which could reduce their risk of contracting some other respiratory infection.
yes one hopes.
but if you weren’t willing to put on a mask for COVID-19,
not even to get on an airplane,
or to protect your children,
than what will you ever be willing to put on a mask for?
maybe we who mask just have to patiently wait for those who don’t to gradually come to their senses. or. . . i’m not going to say–the alternative. just fade away?
though lambert is now cautiously optimistic, i think, based on the recent poll showing more than 50% in actually are masking and/or taking other proactive measures.
I believe Fauci used the phrase “fall by the wayside”…
From Why Isn’t Landfill Mining More Popular?
Out here, people still throw their recycles away in plastic bags, even with a somewhat not visible, but huge poster at the far end of the site saying not to do so. But that’s it. No signs right on the huge rectangular compactors the size of oversized portable construction dumpsters. No other indication not to do this. And this is simple education.
Maybe the education elsewhere is better and this rural county just doesn’t have it?
Landfill mining brings to mind that old Keynes idea to keep the economy churning.
Was that the digging and filling holes thing? I’ve read snippets of Keynes but never a complete book. When you walk down any street though you see so much real work that needs doing that for some reason doesn’t get done…
Indeed. The passage was meant in jest but was about putting banknotes in bottles, putting the bottles in disused coal mines, filling the mines up with rubbish, and allowing companies to bid on the rights to dig up said buried money.
He would much rather see the government do something more sensible, like say paying to build houses or some such, but at least the buried money scheme would keep people employed, and thus money circulating in the economy.
Murikans pretty much everywhere cherish their Imperial Freedum to conveniently consume and pollute the environment. Juana and I recycle carefully as an exercise in mock virtue signaling, having long realized that recycling at government scale never really happens because recycling was never anything but a corporate greenwashing scam to boost sales.
I find it sadly amusing that many of our better-informed acquaintances accept that both Dems and Repubs have been lying to them on this issue, but on no other.
I got blasted out of my mind and starting throwing things when I read that recycling is all a scam, when China stopped accepting plastic waste and it was reported in various places. I hadn’t realized this was all a long con, having been fed reduce-reuse-recycle as early as middle school. Even then, I thought maybe we could mine trash heaps for valuables; I also realized that, it didn’t make any sense that you can just pile up stuff and bury it forever. Strange a child can have such an idea, but we keep piling and burying stuff like this is a sane solution to waste creation. What a joke.
The trashman cometh here and picks up the regular trash and recyclables and it all goes to the same place…
I wonder how a video of that would go over, and how common is it?
Trashmen? Word?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gc4QTqslN4
Or
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNrx2jq184
I think people are misusing the word ” virtue signaling”. Separating out your recyclables isn’t “virtue signalling”. It could be called “virtue practicing” or “virtue displaying” or some such.
But “virtue signalling” would be your telling other people that they should recycle, or signing a petition calling on other people to recycle. That way you have signalled your virtue.
Referring to one or another “conservation-living” action as “virtue signalling” is designed to discourage people from any conservation-living activity by sneering and humiliating them into giving up the effort. Someone has been working very hard to confuse the meanings of virtue signalling versus virtue practicing/ displaying/whatevering.
our city/county PTB did an excellent job of such education.
took ’em 20 years, but still…and this in a do-it-the-way-great-grandad-did-it place.
of course, by the time they had might near full compliance without coercion, trump vs china, and china not wanting our trash, etc….but by that time, the habits were set.
now, the rcycling center in town still does large bidness with paper, cardboard and aliminum and copper…but i glean that it aint the cash cow it may have been initially.
cant stop, because of the moral argument that was part and parcel of getting these backwards folks to adopt new habits.
they downplayed the part about the city/county making a few extra bucks.
and, related…the metal pile at the dump: they’re apparently selling all that again,lol…because the county crews come in once or twice a week and tangle all the good metal trash with the wire and such…to discourage people like me from robbing the pile.(of course , i have several inside men and women…and since i pioneered extreme recycling out here, i’m allowed,lol…and my peeps save the most interesting stuff for me…just in the last 2 weeks, eldest’s buddies brought a nice folding table and a bunch of near pristine tposts.
” Americans have been separating valuable plastic and metals from the waste stream poorly for decades, despite long-running education efforts.”
What!
The question should be why do we allow corporations to feed their bottom line by packaging or manufacturing products that are low value for recycling. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m tired of doing the work for corporations for free. Corporate automated phone services that take forever to get answers from, self check-outs, separating garbage because of shi%% y packaging that increases profits.
I’m tired of hearing how its the customer that is responsible for doing the work to save the environment due to corporate profit enhancing decisions.
NPR and PBS Frontline had an investigative article on how the plastics industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn’t work — that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled — all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.
How about corporations taking some responsibility for their decisions?
Corporations won’t take any responsibility for their decisions which they cannot be tortured and terrorised into taking.
I had highlighted the same section to comment on.
Shameful what we do dispose of-er-get out of sight and mind.
With 540 lbs of Pine straw to dump two weeks ago, I was directed to the Construction and Demolition(C&D) Cell of our County’s Landfill. While unloading it, a 14′ Dump trailer sidled in next to me.
They had some sort of office gut out as a load–Dry wall, Ceiling Tiles and metal grid, studs, Carpet, Desk, Chairs, Bookshelves, and 4 new looking (shiny in the sun) 15-gallon trash cans nestled together. Slid out right next to my truck so I could have a good look.
My grown kid started fuming about Idiocy and the Desk/Shelves/Chairs and wanted to get the trash cans at least. I reminded her that they may be awkward to Check In on her return plane trip.
The Cell itself was the second such reaching its capacity this year–observed from my Spring dumps. Another Cell was under preparation to take its place soon.
Each Cell has thousands of Cubic Yards capacity.
Most everything I saw could be sorted if there was a system of pre-dump intervention in place. Cumbersome as it would be, and certainly too cumbersome to describe in this comment.
Use your own imagination.
If we valued that C&D space for what it provides County residents, our County Waste Manager would be figuring out how asap. The cost of preparing that new Cell is over $500,000.00, I was told.
I have spoken with him, he is a busy man.
In ‘Rod’s World’ that ‘Figuring it Out’ would start with time spent at the dump on the pile and talking to users.
‘Rod’s World’ would also include a mandatory Field Trip to the County Land Fill for all Elementary, Middle, and High School Students and if there was a University in the County, then they would have too also.
Crowd Sourced Solutions would emerge sure enough.
The problem is nationwide. Solutions are also–for the bold and brave and vocal.
It can be tough to get a county or city to want to dive into these waste piles; There was a in depth story last year about some guy in the UK that thinks he threw away a hard drive with BTC that was worth a billion dollars by then; after years of efforts, still could not convince the city to dig up the dump in search of that BTC cash.
If that won’t motivate trash mining, what will?
Where I live the trash collecting company gets paid by the ton. The more trash put in the recycle bins the more they get paid sorting the recyclables from the non-recyclables. The only things they don’t like in the recycle bins are plastic bags because they jam their sorting machines.
“US-China thaw means Beijing can focus on development, not security” South China Morning Post
That was a whole lot of NOTHING.
The headline, the article, and, ultimately, even the meeting.
The end of the article:
“As the systemic divisions underlying US-China relations remain unresolved, people have reason to wonder. For example, Biden stressed that both countries should manage their competition responsibly to prevent it from veering into conflict while Xi wondered aloud “are we adversaries or partners?”
It almost seems like it was a much longer piece that covered more of the unresolved issues. Then those parts were chopped off, a few parts were fluffed up for the “confidence fairy,” and a ridiculous headline slapped on for casual news readers to think TPTB are accomplishing something other than military build-up.
‘The cocktail party effect — our stunning ability to filter out words and sounds’
‘We don’t live in rooms of pin-drop silence. How often have you actually been in a situation devoid of any auditory stimulus? Not too often I’d bet. Rather, we live in a noisy world full of stimuli.’
This week I was sorting through and reorganizing several boxes of sewing supplies won at auction and I’d set beside me on a table two fine needles and two straight pins. I forgot they were still there and swept them off the table picking up something else, heard them hit the floor, and then couldn’t find them to pick them back up. I found them yesterday while vacuuming. I rarely think about it, but noise-wise this house is a purposely controlled environment. Our favorite thing about the two people who live next to us is that we can’t hear them. They’re quiet neighbors and we hope they never move away. I suspect they value us for the same reason.
‘Cocktail party’ listening is a skill developed of necessity, made more difficult by all the ‘drunks’. Some define ‘fun’ by how loud their environment is and how much they contributed. They get high on all the auditory stimulus. Sports arenas, bars and large packed restaurants, bowling alleys, movie theaters showing action films, construction sites, rush hour traffic and downtown congestion, almost any live music concert, airports, fireworks displays, video games, any reason two or more children gather… and old people. We’re living longer and louder and there’s more of us, for whom the default setting seems to be ‘ just yell’. Two couples met by accident at the coffee shop behind me. The two women spoke to each other in regular conversational tones then quickly ran out of small talk; the two men continued to roar at each other like bull elephant seals. Clearly audible all over Barnes and Noble, further fueled by high octane caffeine. It really only takes a couple of those ‘Old Yeller’ fellas and the noise volume cranks up across the whole room.
If you only hear part of what’s being said, most of the time you can just nod your head in agreement, raise an eyebrow and mumble something. The speaker will be so busy thinking of what to say, they won’t notice.
Most of what Old Yellers have to say is just sports statistic bullshit anyway.
It’s a useful skill in politics.
https://t.me/bye_biden/19823
“Bosses thought they won the return-to-office wars by imposing rigid policies. Now they’re facing a wave of legal battles”
Now I am not lawyer but consider this scenario. So this corporate boss orders an underling to report back to the office in spite of the guy having a few health issues. The guy takes precautions to and from work but at work is ordered to remove his N95 mask so that people can see his smile. Pretty soon the guy gets infected at work which turns into long Covid. Now here is where the fun begins. They guy has a lawyer and has those official orders to report back to an office and not to wear a mask at work. He sues that corporation for putting him in a position where he got sick and neglected all measures to prevent the workforce getting sick. I would say that they guy has a case as he has those corporate documents and somebody has to pay his ongoing health bills. The guy can also swear under oath that the only time that he did not wear a mask was at work where he was forced not to. That might get interesting.
Chances are his claim will be limited to workmen’s comp. The workmen’s comp laws were designed to preempt tort claims. There are exceptions, but they’re limited, usually with a heavy burden of proof.
Get his or her employer to sign a form acknowleging that their vaccine policy is covered by worker’s comp. That’s when the fun starts!
Employer Disclosure Form for COVID-19 Injections
https://home.solari.com/forms/
“This is a form every employee who is faced with this situation needs to submit to the authorized officer of their company. It is requires them to respond to your questions (already on the form for you), provides you with requirements by the FDA, makes them review the ways they are breaking the law or ethical principles related to human experimentation and choice, and holds them 100% financially responsible, requiring a signature.”
So Somalia is soon to be filled with armed mutton-eers?
Do wonder if DC wants to use the place as a staging ground for hitting those pesky Houthis across the waters.
This may be of interest. They have a link to the actual scan in 2D and some samples of the 3D scan too. The level of detail in both is staggering.
108-Gigapixel 3D Microscope Scan of Vermeer Masterpiece is Largest Ever
Can we now quantify how overrated this painting is?
“U.S. Troops Still Train on Weapons With Known Risk of Brain Injury”
None of this is surprising. You just have to remember that for the Pentagon, soldiers, sailors and marines are just disposable assets. As long as the Pentagon gets full use out of them before their term of service expires, then all is well. And problems that crop up afterwards is for the VA to deal with whether it be brain injury or PTSD. Only thing is that model is breaking down now as recruitment numbers are way down and I think that only the marines met their quota. Remember those service personnel that the military threw out of the service because they refused to take the vaxx? Seems that they are now knocking on their door and asking them to come back again as all is forgiven.
“Israeli no-show at EU-Med meet deepens divisions”
The problem for Israel is that they are demanding that every nation skew to their viewpoint and their talking points and no other is permitted. The Irish Ambassador sent out a tweet celebrating the release of a 9-year-old girl from captivity but that wasn’t good enough for the Israelis who summoned that Irish Ambassador to complain that he did not condemn Hamas in that tweet-
https://apnews.com/article/israel-ireland-hamas-varadkar-hostage-released-tweet-9939ed547b9e41b5b727433a48552767
I really do think that the Israelis are isolating themselves not only in the middle east but from the whole world. If they cannot dig Hamas out of Gaza city, then there will be zero sympathy for their plight on the international stage.
Bullying is never again going to work for Israel like it used to. Everything from the next Eurovision to the next Olympics in Paris is going to be severely impacted by the damage Israel itself is doing to its reputation. Boycotting Russia and Belorussia was a cinch. -a.v.
the Antidote du jour penguin looks very cozy –
Vermont Public Radio has reported that the Burlington PD has arrested Jason Eaton, 48, for the shooting of 3 students. He was detained around 3:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon. https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2023-11-26/arab-anti-discrimination-org-ids-burlington-shooting-victims-as-palestinian-american-asks-for-hate-crime-investigation
I have a beautiful black and white Palestinian shawl. I’m afraid to wear it outside now in case someone decides to be rude to me about it. My neighbor says I should actually make a point of wearing it to the supermarket so the TickTok cohort can see that some of the gray-haired boomers support Palestine like they do.
back when, when Lil George et alia was engaged in torture, censureship and other various unamerican things, i painted…in blood red, with drips…”Impeach!” on my tailgate(part of the wall of the bar, now).
wasn’t very popular,lol.
when all this Gaza mess started…and all the vids of shaking, shocked toddlers started appearing, i considered paining a Palestinian flag on the tailgate.
but perhaps i’m older and wiser…or perhaps i’m just tired…but i am in no mood to fight off the local christofascists for bucking their armageddon fantasies.
and such a display would change no minds out this way, anyway.
but when folks ask…i tell them i am against genocide and empire, no matter who is doing it…and that if we were still a vaunted democratic beacon on a hill, the bastids should have asked before committing us to WW3.
1.5 degrees arriving sooner–
One thing that is now more apparent is that we are caught in yet another Catch 22. Burning fossil fuels has two important products: CO2 and particulates. The CO2 causes the atmosphere to retain heat. The particulates aid in cloud formation which shields the surface from sunlight and reduces heating. Moreover, the CO2 remains in the atmosphere for decades, even centuries, while the particulates are removed fairly quickly by rain. This means that while our heightened level of CO2 would remain long after even if we cut emissions to zero, the Earth can experience rapid heating because of the more or less sudden reduction of particulates.
This argument has been made by James Hansen to explain the rapid heating we are currently experiencing, but Hansen believes that changes in fuel requirements for ocean-going transports and China’s pollution reduction efforts account for the spike that began in mid-summer. Dr. Ye Tao, a physicist who had been working on MRI technology until he read Jem Bendell’s Deep Adaptation paper, argues in this video that 2020 Covid lockdowns are a significant contributor. We’ve know that 2020 saw a 7% reduction in carbon emissions from 2019, but Dr. Tao points out that particulate emissions were similarly reduced. The reduction in CO2 was not even enough to show up in measurements of “forcing,” the way climate scientists measure energy in/energy out in the Earth system. The significant reduction in atmospheric particulates, however, is enough to produce the temperature rise we’re seeing along with the factors pinpointed by Hansen.
So the short term effect of reducing the burning of fossil fuels will actually be warming, not cooling. It will take decades for the benefits of reductions in carbon emissions to show up.
Ye offers a relatively low tech solution for this interim period: surface mirrors. Unlike shooting sulfur in the sky, surface mirrors do not threaten the ozone layer or inundate us with acid rain. They’re not as susceptible to billionaire capture and profiteering because they can be implemented fairly cheaply at the local level, and Ye claims they could even have beneficial local effects like decreasing heat levels and and increasing rainfall in desert areas.
Bendell conducts the interview. He worked for years promoting and advising corporate “green” efforts (he’s a WEF Young Leader product), but became disillusioned as he learned more about the severity of our situation. He’s dropped out of the PMC and now is an organic farmer in Indonesia, using the farm and a research and teaching post.
The extrapolations always seem to be linear, though we know that such things tend to be exponential. I expect further nasty surprises.
Clouds can be cooling or warming depending on their altitude and composition.
Rather than mirrors I have high hopes that the latest coatings that emit heat at a wavelength that passes unabsorbed through the atmosphere into space will do an even better job.
“The extrapolations always seem to be linear, though we know that such things tend to be exponential.”
While I’m far from a climate expert it’s been said ‘that you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.’ Looking at the weather patterns in the northern hemisphere (where I live) the resemblance to chaos patterns is unmistakable. So much of nature follows chaos theory rather that arithmetic or algebraic patterns that it’s no wonder it’s hard for supercomputers to predict the weather a week in advance let alone decades in advance as some people claim to be able to do based on precisions of global temperatures measured in decimal places.
Even more quaint is their notion that bringing the global temperature back down to their idea of “normal” will return the weather patterns to what they were “back then.” The phrase “Theater of the Absurd” comes to mind and, while I’m not amused, it does fit in with so much of what else is going on in this world.
The T. Ryan Gregory tweet refers to this article:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/24871338/china-masks-social-distancing-mystery-outbreak-covid-lockdown/
Which has 2nd para: “Alarming footage has emerged of mask-wearing crowds inside Chinese hospitals as fears of a new pandemic sweep across the globe.” Oh no! Masks in hospitals! God bless USA that we don’t have anything like that here.
However, farther down, the article states: “But China continues to insist that flu and the usual winter bugs are to blame for the latest outbreak, rather than a new virus, and can cope with the spike in sickness.” and “The WHO said no unusual or novel pathogens had been detected in data provided by China, however.” So… consistent with articles here on Links in the last few days. Although, “At the moment, though, WHO says there is too little information to properly assess the risk of these reported cases of respiratory illness in children.”
Well, it could be flu and winter bugs. If these children have compromised immunity due to having had covid, then flue and winter bugs would affect them worse than flu and winter bugs would have affected them before they got immunocompromising covid.
So if these Chinese children are indeed all getting this sick from flu and winter bugs, and these particular children had covid before now, then that would be an ominous warning about the unrolling future effects of covid-immunocompromise right there.
Re: European food insecurity:
Start liking it, for it is only going to get worse. Europeans, your leaders care nothing about you, and everything for pleasing their American Master.
You know that, even I know that. So what are you going to do about it?
The sad part is that right after WW2 the core idea was for each nation to maintain some semblance of food security, and being a farmer was a reasonable living. But since the 90s that went out the window.
“More than two-thirds of the Palestinians proposed for release by Israel under the truce have not been convicted of any crimes. Most were arrested as children.”
You would never know that from listening to NPR’s coverage, which highlights those arrested for some sort of violent crime (they don’t specify if it’s rock-throwing). Then there’s a pause, and the announcer informs us that the news is sponsored by a Jewish organization that provides aid to israel.
Re. 1.5 degrees in 10 years: Based on what I’ve read and heard, I suspect we’ll hit 1.5 degrees this decade. I listened to some of the panels of the ESPAS (European Strategy and Policy Analysis System) Annual Conference a few weeks ago and one of the panelists on the climate panel flat out said 1.5 degrees is gone. Surfing around on YT for something else I came across this interview with Steven Chu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4LE-SGLAMU (around the 37 minute mark IIRC). He thinks we’ll hit 2.5 degrees by 2050 (warning: a fair bit of Obama hagiography and optimism about carbon capture, also some self-congratulatory remarks on the BP oil spill).
I’m beginning to think that the global warming fear mongers are being exposed as frauds. For the past 20+ years there have been loud shrieks about how climate doom and gloom is just around the corner. 1.5C should have been passed long ago and yet now we are told it may take another ten years to reach. The entire thing reminds me of the seismologists in California announcing that there is a high probability of the Big One occurring over the next 30 years. The problem is they have been saying this for the past 30 years and still no Big One. Most people have now begun tuning out these shrill cries.
That you focus on 1.5C just shows how uninformed you are. Temp in a crude scale does not even begin to describe what is going on, dumbed down by MSM and so the unwashed might grok it.
The scale of energy that is increasing is manifold what was on offer during most of humanities existence, speed of change out paces evolutionary adaption, migration of lots of nasty stuff outside historical boundaries, etc.
That some stare at their local temp gauge is like the kiss of death …
Israel’s Sharpeville Moment:
The difference is that the United States is far more powerful than it was then, as it didn’t have to sell itself as being more moral than the Soviet system and therefore was concerned with bad optics.
As a result, the United States is far more willing and able to use naked force to silence dissent on behalf of Israel than it ever was for apartheid South Africa. Interestingly, Israeli apologists recapitulate precisely the same arguments that apologists for apartheid South Africa made. This is not surprising, as South Africa was Israel’s Special Buddy.
From: No one’s promising you can keep your doctor anymore
What a sick country; The health insurance parasite killed independent primary care. With algorithms auto-rejecting claims, I can’t imagine how much extra staff is required to handle authorization rejections and billing (re)submissions. This country is so screwed up, our elite lack the capacity to fix or even to acknowledge obvious problems. Too much grift to go around.
No problem is so small that a fix can’t be thwarted by some parasite making money off it.
And the whole article just tiptoes around the real problems, and talks about how to prepare Americans for the brave new world of no primary care physicians. Non-affluent ones, at least.
Hospitals will likely be next.
re Alberta government’s Covid inaction
I don’t think their Covid management is that big an outlier relative to the rest of Canada, but Danielle Smith, the latest right wing loon to lead the province, recently made major changes to the governance of the Alberta Health Service. Meaning, she destroyed any semblance of independence from the ruling conservatives. It’s generally believed she brought the system under tight political control because the doctors in charge were able to impose mask mandates etc earlier in the pandemic.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-is-danielle-smiths-overhaul-of-alberta-health-care-restructuring-or/
For those who can’t get enough about the nutters in charge, here are a couple of podcast episodes on Danielle Smith and her vision for Alberta.
(1) A run down on the career of Danielle Smith.
https://www.theprogressreport.ca/pod_trash_can_dani
(2) Discussing Danielle Smith’s then proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act, which allows Alberta to override any federal laws it doesn’t like. It became law late last year.
https://www.theprogressreport.ca/pod_danielle_smith_wannabe_tyrant
Another derailment of toxic cargo (molten sulfur burning) resulting in an evacuation. CSX this time. Failed wheel bearing, like East Palestine! I must say even with Thanksgiving, CSX PR has kept a lid on this one.
Livingston, Kentucky Derailment Update – 11:30 a.m.
Meanwhile the Rail Safety Act of 2023 is dead in the water. Will Mayo Pete disappear and visit Israel to discuss logistics?
“molten sulfur burning”
Now that sounds downright nasty. Like something that would be a war crime if dropped on soldiers.
Statista seems to show the murder rate in Ireland has been going down substantially since 2003 – https://www.statista.com/statistics/945262/homicides-in-ireland/#:~:text=There%20were%2069%20homicide%20offecnces,compared%20with%2053%20in%202021.
Is the fuss about the recent killings just more anti-migrant media garbage?
A brilliant headline courtesy of the Orange County Register…
The CANZ (Canada-Australia-New Zealand) housing bubble was something to behold, with plucky little NZ overachieving as always by being the world’s most overvalued market~
I don’t think there are many variable mortgages or 5 year-fixed mortgages that get rolled over in the USA, but they were downright common in the CANZ…
It will have the effect of an extreme time-delay bomb, ka-boom!
BTW, not sure if this was mentioned or noticed yet, but Ron Unz’s latest article mentions NC and Lambert in the discussion about antisemitism.
Completely validating my policy of never, ever linking to that site. And it’s nice to be innoculated against charges of anti-Semitism.
Without a doubt he publishes some unsavory stuff and I find Unz own rambling essays, including the one just mentioned, to be a bit tedious. Brevity is the soul of wit!
But his point that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same is valid if not exactly stop the presses. Re NC and MOA he seems to think the left blogs have been pulling their punches whereas I’d say the opposite is true. As I’ve already opined I believe this whole discussion would have been quite different five or ten years ago.
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking but this time it may really be different.
I’ve seen articles where he spins elaborate theories designed to lead the reader to believe that the holocaust was a hoax and never really happened. That sort of thing is not anti-“zionism”.
Not true. You are at the very least conflating Ron Unz himself with other authors. What is true is that Unz, himself of Jewish background, makes a point of providing a platform to writers who have been banned nearly everywhere else. Antisemitism and holocaust revisionism are just two of a variety of reasons a writer may have been deemed “untouchable” and ubiquitously deplatformed.
> You are at the very least conflating Ron Unz himself with other authors
Who’s running his archives? Little elves?
> a writer may have been deemed “untouchable”
Kind of like, oh, giant loogies of a Level 3 Biohazard are “untouchable.” Some things ought not to be touched. Holocaust denial being one such. If somebody wants to archive that material, they can have at it. When the aliens finally arrive, it will be illuminating for them. So Mr. Elaborate Theorist can knock themselves out. That doesn’t mean NC needs to link to them, read them, or amplify them in any way.
I’m not going to give a link, but such “unsavory” material is not hard to find in the extensive archives of the site:
Any comment that links to or mentions that site makes NC look bad.
Unz is Jewish. Doesn’t mean I agree with him or his contributors. Just saying. Lends him some credence.
Oh, so now a new form of bigotry, that ethnicity = expertise?
No it does not. As a Holocaust denier, he has zero credence.
> Lends him some credence
I hadn’t ever seen an argument from authority based on ethnoreligious affiliation before, and now I’ve spotted one in the wild! Truly, the Naked Capitalism commentariat is the best commentariat.
That said [dusts hands], the material speaks for itself, no matter the author’s name on the book jacket, the (putative) last name on the post, or the identity of the archivist. We’re not having it.
Thanks for the tip. I went over and read it, about Gaza in general and the reporting by the alternative media on same. I won’t post a link, but it’s easy to find if you’re interested.
Unz makes the mistake of focusing only on one group of wealthy bankers and industrialists in 1910 and 1919, ignoring all the others like Morgan and Rockefeller in the US and English financiers who all saw economic opportunities in overthrowing govts from Latin America to Asian countries to the old Russia. ‘Revolution’ funded from abroad is an old old trick for opening other countries’ wealth for exploitation. / my 2 cents.
Precisely my point. Except there are forms of denial that are not “mistakes”; see above screen shot.
Don’t go near it, my advice. And certainly don’t recommend it to readers; that makes the site look bad.
I knew that was your point. I read the whole thing to see where he would go. He starts out well enough on a few points. I even agreed in general with his early points. (An old rhetorical trick if one is claiming A while aiming for B.) He then ‘drifts’ into ‘doze guys are da bad guys’ (if you ignore all the other ‘bad guys’). Then if your read the whole thing you discover he heaps praise on Henry Ford (!) who was a fan of Germany’s 1930’s Herr Mustache because of Germany’s 1930’s business ‘miracle.’ Unz undermines himself at that point. Henry Ford was infamous wrt the ‘question’. Scapegoating is an old old tactic. Call it the oldest idpol, imo.
adding: I enjoyed reading the article for exactly the same reason I enjoy reading George Will columns: they start out with general things and assertions I may agree, probably do agree with, and then swerve with a non sequitur assertion to arrive at a “spin” conclusion with which I do not agree. It’s great fun for me to spot the “swerve.” (I thank my high school English teachers for teaching rhetoric and advertising argument (eg. ‘keeping up with the Jones’ as an advertising pull) as part of the general English class curriculum. And this in a small school in a small, flyover state.)
The doom loop article isn’t good
First they note how state governments pressure insurers to cover high-risk areas, thus encouraging more people to move to or stay there, and then they say the capital markets are inefficient and propose even more investment in those high-risk communities
This sort of approach is the best way to insure that when the crash comes, it will be harder and deeper than if we had admitted some places are going to be unlivable and plan as best of possible to absorb those people in more livable areas.
“Reports of captured Israeli ship near Yemen suspicious”
What isn’t commented on is the role of CTF 151 in this action. CTF 151 was created in 2009 under UN security council resolution for prevention of piracy, then mainly from Somalia. Currently seems to be commanded by Philippine Navy Capt. Mateo Carido. A couple of Japanese ships assigned to TF 151 assisted MV Central Park. Apparently the civ crew of Central Park retreated to the citadel (created as part of the counter-piracy response) and the pirates were unable to breach it, so they attempted to leave via small boat that was intercepted by MASON, (not part of TF 151, rather Ike CSG operating under 5th Fleet OPCON.
Good info on that specifically, and problems with shipping world wide. This one was pirates from Somalia, not Yemen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MklsE_iWSrY
The Shock and Awe of Genocide and Lies Tarik Cyril Amar’s Substack. “Making an Example of Gaza for the Non-West World?”
” Is it also about sending a signal to the non-Western majority of humanity?”
It’s a message to ANYONE that calls them on their sh –. Even in their own countries.