Euclid’s first images: the dazzling edge of darkness European Space Agency. Image:
What You Need to Know About Winter Solstice 2023 Time
The coming dystopia will be a robust public-private partnership WaPo
Programmable or ‘purpose-bound’ money is coming, probably as a feature in central bank digital currencies The Register. Like gift cards?!
Dog-themed memecoins are pawing their way back into investors’ hearts TechCrunch
Happy Christmas (Covid’s Over) Bloomberg. For Mr. Market, at least.
Sniffing women’s tears reduces aggressive behavior in men (press release) PLOS
Climate
Rolls-Royce begins tests on using hydrogen for commercial airlines Business Standard
Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds Science
Composting in the Winter: 7 Tips to Ensure Rich Compost Come Spring Gardenista (christofay).
#COVID19
An overview on viral interference during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic Frontiers in Pediatrics
A Systematic Review Of COVID-19 Misinformation Interventions: Lessons Learned Health Affairs
COVID test supplier received billions in pandemic contracts after submitting edited results Global News
China?
China’s imports of Dutch chip-making equipment surged tenfold in November after Washington tightened restrictions South China Morning Post
US, China top military officials hold first talks in more than a year Al Jazeera
Hong Kong court rejects publisher Jimmy Lai’s bid to toss sedition charge Al Jazeera
China tries to ‘bury the memory’ and trauma of zero-COVID era Al Jazeera. No trauma from the two million deaths since Xi, like Biden, “let ‘er rip”!
Japan to sell missiles to US in ‘really welcome’ easing of arms export rules South China Morning Post
Japan is a cuddlier friend to South-East Asia than America or China The Economist
Commentary: No, seriously, this is one Japan scandal that’s important Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
The Red Sea Crisis, Explained Foreign Policy
Yemen Houthi leader warns ‘any American targeting of our country will be targeted by us’ FOXd
Beijing shrugs at U.S. call for help protecting Red Sea shipping Politico
Red Sea coalition: Why have major Arab nations opted out? Anadolu Agency
Coalition deploys US Navy’s lethal Swiss Army Knife to send a message to Iran and China FOIX
Vessels still heading into Red Sea war zone SeaTrade Maritime News
Beyond Gaza: How Yemen’s Houthis gain from attacking Red Sea ships Al Jazeera
* * * CIA’s chief spy William Burns emerges as key figure in Hamas hostage crisis Straits Times
* * * The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital WaPo. “The evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center.”
US Is Reportedly Working to Prevent Conference on Geneva Convention Violations Truthout
This is How We Fought in Gaza Soldiers׳ testimonies and photographs from Operation Protective Edge˝ (2014) (PDF) Breaking the SIlence
How the Israeli military is bombing ‘safe’ areas in southern Gaza France24
* * * One-State Solution Harpers
I can’t write about Gaza Crooked Timber
European Disunion
Sovereign Virtues? New Left Review
New Not-So-Cold War
Putin scents historic victory amid growing signs of Western weakness The Atlantic Council
West is thinking of scenarios where Putin wins in Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda
Elements of an Eventual Russia-Ukraine Armistice and the Prospect for Regional Stability in Europe RAND
It’s Time to Negotiate With Russia The Nation. Let me know how that turns out….
* * * Ukraine war latest: Defense minister says he wants to mobilize Ukrainian men living abroad Kyiv Independent. Stalemate, totally.
Ukraine’s Front-Line Troops Are Getting Older: ‘Physically, I Can’t Handle This’ WSJ. Ditto.
* * * Bandera mythologies and their traps for Ukraine Andrii Portnov, OpenDemocarcy. From 2016, still germane.
South of the Border
Anarcho-Capitalism Phenomenal World. Argentina.
López Obrador and Biden discuss border ‘enforcement actions’ Mexico News Daily
Biden Administration
Senate returns dozens of nominations to Biden to restart process in 2024, including Julie Su Politico
U.S. Steel’s acquisition will end a difficult marriage that forged — and constrained — Pittsburgh’s identity Public Source
Why the U.S. steel industry is dying Noah Smith, Noahpinion
Digital Watch
Artificial intelligence is a liability The Register
HHS finalizes ‘first of its kind’ AI transparency rule for health care tech firms Benefits Pro
Technology Is Secretly Stealing Your Time. Here’s How to Get It Back Scientific American
Healthcare
ADHD drug prices rise as Adderall shortage leaves patients scrimping to fill prescriptions USA Today
Imperial Collapse Watch
Professor John Mearsheimer: 2023: Lessons for Biden, Zelenskyy, and Netanyahu (video) Judge Napolitano, YouTube
Impolite Society The Baffler. On the State Department.
Guillotine Watch
Billionaires Turn to Legal Bribery in Quest to Build Utopia The Daily Beast
Class Warfare
Let Them Deliver Cake? The Supreme Court, Bakery Drivers, and the Federal Arbitration Act On Labor
The Rich Have all the “Excess” Cash Now (excerpt) The Overshoot
Hubble Telescope captures a galaxy’s ‘forbidden’ light in stunning new image Space.com. Image:
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
210 comments
Comments are closed.
ZUCKERBERG BUILT A BUNKER
(melody borrowed from Rikki Don’t Lose That Number by Steely Dan)
Our world will collapse soon, so they say
There’s gonna be some wild times for everyone
There won’t be any safe place, nowhere to run
And who knows when it’s gonna start?
Zuckerberg built a bunker
Lots of guards with guns and ammo belts
Spent a quarter billion of his gelts
Zuckerberg built a bunker
With a blast door of its own
He’ll be living down there forever
But not alone
He really has some human friends, or so he claims
Also all the lizard creatures he loves so
All of them will hide inside there when things blow
Selecting from the pastry cart
Zuckerberg built a bunker
Fourteen hundred acres on Kauai
Food and power and an H2O supply
Zuckerberg built a bunker
For atom bombs and asteroids
We’ll die of cold and slow starvation
Which he avoids
(musical interlude)
He’s quits and done with humankind
They’ve put some chips into his mind
His soul is now the missing part
Zuckerberg built a bunker
He seeks immortal perfect health
You don’t have to die if you have wealth
Zuckerberg built a bunker
It’s got an operating room
He’s an oligarch and trend-setter
Down in his tomb
Zuckerberg built a bunker (Zuckerberg built a )
Zuckerberg built a bunker
Brilliant … fits the original melody perfectly. AI will never be able to do that. Thanks for using your gift at wordsmithing to roast such a worthy target.
Nice work. I’ll have to get out my Steely Dan songbook and give it a go.
The chords are all wrong in that book!
Many times songbooks change the tonal key to make playing the tunes easier. Steely Dan, the group, was notable for using jazz-like arrangements. The guitarist (now deceased) was quite skilled.
Taters the Cat may be good, but there was this one time when a cat thought that he had caught the red laser dot-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZt0qjTWNhw (1:27 mins)
Technology is stealing more of your time. Yeah on that subject, quite topical and a first world issue yesterday on the work laptop the Microsoft Teams function to like, you know, actually call someone and speak to them just ceases to function. I’m encouraged to download this as an App to my personal phone (Hell and No). Losing time to dial a few people, and it doesn’t bleeping work.
Further time sink. Open a danged help ticket, which gets a priority level of 0 on a scale of 1 to 10 ( 10 being high priority). They’ll probably suggest a restart, best guess. Argh, modern tech is quite frequently a PITA. Pain in the tail.
I thought the article was annoyingly focused on the wrong angle, that is, the cultural. It’s obvious that the enshittification process has made much over-engineered software that is cumbersome, clunky and doesn’t do its job, and *that’s* the biggest time suck.
And that’s before we ever get into the BS caused by enshittified software (e.g. Sibelius, a music notation software program that Avid bought over a decade ago). Ever two years they’ve issued an “update” (a new version of the software that does less, and worse, than the old one). They make the updates incompatible with legacy systems. They force you to pay each time. About two years ago they went to a subscription model. Two days ago (right before Xmas, one of the busiest time of year for arrangers) they blocked my software and said I had to “check it in” again. I did, and of course that feature does not function, natch, so I’ve got a software program that won’t work, and which I’ve already paid for.
I’m switching to Dorico in January, after Mercury returns direct. The Iowa Caucus app from 2020 would do a better job.
Is it possible to find a old version on the internet and install it on an old operating system. That could be a way around your problem.
No, Avid is very aggressive about bricking all its old versions. I held onto my last MacBookPro for 8 years to avoid an upgrade of that one program.
There is a site that archives old versions, they have Sibelius 1.3 http://www.oldversion.com/search?query=sibelius –
A long time ago I read an article comparing the value of the paid Microsoft help service vs the Psychic Hotline. The upshot was that neither service could solve the problem but the Psychic Hotline was much cheaper. Using them you could save a lot of money.
Or my Airpods saga. Spent at least 40 hours debugging locally and with Apple L2 support, sent in logs, videos of pairing and immediately disconnecting. Week later heard back from related engineering team, they’ll investigate and have no ETA. That was 4 months ago. Never heard back. Did hear back from my email and FedEx to Cook’s office. I was told to pound sand, every associate is empowered to help customers blah blah you have no further escalations, blah blah. It was curt and condescending. A mere mortal sending a polite request for help via FedEx to a C-execute is clearly frowned upon, someone might think it is actually important mail!
Also, Teams is garbage of the worst kind.
VPN, Protonmail for desktop, Faraday wallet for phone, paid for in cash, prepaid cash bought credit cards pay cell service. Zero apps bought. Registered in pet’s name.
Next.
Impressive, congratulations on all those items above. Not sure how applicable today, speaking for myself, but those are good considerations for future outcomes.
An added thought, now I am reminded of the latest Terminator film, where Sarah Connor kept her phone in empty bags of Ruffles.
What gets me going is the endless voicemail that almost every place uses now – the clinic, the cable company, the bank etc etc. Hiring actual humans is just too hard on the bottom line.
>I can’t write about Gaza – Crooked Timber
Ah, but you did and you must, and the voices must speak, no shout, and not remain silent. You can worry about the “fine and careful distinctions” after the mass slaughter of the innocent stops.
zagonostra: Further, just substitute the country of Ukraine (or Syria or Iraq or Libya):
But stop. How to stop a war? One must do something.
Only negotiations matter, and the inability of the West to negotiate shows the level of corruption of the Western elites, as if one requires reminding how corrupt Washington and London are.
But, of course, Israel is not defending itself. It is an occupying power. There is no defense, only excuses.
Yes, indeed. I don’t know about the Timber but the Crooked is spot on.
Bertram is one of the main reasons I gave up reading and occasionally contributing (under another name) to Crooked Timber. He was, and I suspect still is, an identikit PMC Law Professor, whose specialist subject was the unrestricted moral right of immigration from any country to any other country at all times, because anything else would be playing the game of the Extreme Right. He had all the right opinions on Brexit, Le Pen, Trump and everything else. Now he’s found that if he starts saying what he really thinks, people will criticise him, if only he could work out what he really thinks. Poor man.
Indeed. I once mentioned there that Trump was the symptom rather than the cause of our distemper and was flamed to a crisp, had I been inclined to take it that way. So much for serious argument at Crooked Timber. Haven’t really been back to their pristine Isaiah Berlin Bubble since. I still get the occasional Bertram photoblog email. He has taken some good pictures.
“He was, and I suspect still is, an identikit PMC Law Professor, whose specialist subject was the unrestricted moral right of immigration from any country to any other country at all times, because anything else would be playing the game of the Extreme Right.”
If and to the extent that is accurate, it seems that he’s letting The Extreme Right make is opinions for him.
If all roads lead to Rome, you’re still on the Roman road if you walk away from Rome.
It seems to be a tendency these days that every geopolitical event or tragedy always has to be about ‘me’.
I get the impression that is the operating rule for Crooked Timber (my first contribution – a link to a Bernard Williams in interview on the topic Corey Robbin was discussing saw him flame me. For what I could never discover, but boy was he mad).
I also want to work in RAND, write funny papers and pocket $20k a month. The paper is *** as it doesn’t take into account collapse of UKR which is now very likely. One month later many units of UKR army will run out of ammunition, food on frontlines and maybe fuel too. Mobilized men do not want to fight, not even to get mobilized. Economy and social services will dissolve unless there is a major cash injection from US/EU and many UKR citizens may push for capitulation and deal with Moscow just to stop the senseless killing and poverty. Didn’t Putin say that he was naive in dealing with the West? Throwing away naivety means that he can’t agree to anything which is suggested in that RAND paper because RUS can force UKR to capitulate. A year ago UKR might have gotten a reasonable deal, but not in spring 2024. That was the time to write such papers (and they did in RAND but no one in Beltway wanted to read them). By the way will Janet Yellen say that the US can fight three wars (RUS, Gaza, Yemen) at the same time?
> By the way will Janet Yellen say that the US can fight three wars (RUS, Gaza, Yemen) at the same time?
From the perspective of sovereign fiscal and monetary operations, US can certainly afford to “fund” three simultaneous wars. Real resource limitations suggest that we may not be able to win any of them, though if Gaza is made into a desert and called “peace”, that might be spun as a victory.
It seems to me that Yellen is, willfully or not, forgetting a fourth war that her country is fighting, the war(s) within the US? But who’s counting?
In other words, the USA is able to throw money endlessly at an increasing number of wars, but is incapable of actually waging them because if lacks the capacity to produce enough shells, or enough ships, or enough missiles, and does not have enough soldiers.
Excellent illustration of the fundamental principle of MMT.
Somewhere in the early days of my acquaintance with MMT, I encountered the phrase, more or less, “a government that issues its own currency can always afford to purchase whatever is available for sale in that currency.” The “available for sale” is the hard constraint of real resource limitations. There aren’t that many 155mm howitzer shells available for sale, due to limits on US armaments industry ability to produce them; ditto for many classes of hardware and consumables.
US was once very nearly an autarky. These days, the Russian Federation is closer to that than US is.
I just skimmed over it.
First impression is that it’s all about actually addressing Ukraine’s “security concerns” and then managing Russia’s “threat perceptions.”
So if that’s the overall approach, the ideas are non-starters.
Right, but the admission that Russia might also have reasonable security interests is a new development. Only months ago, a statement like this would have made the article unpublishable. It seems to be indicative of a return of at least some realism in some quarters of the West’s elite.
Beijing shrugs at U.S. call for help protecting Red Sea shipping. You’ve got to be joking. What’s next? Moscow shrugs at U.S. call for help protecting Red Sea shipping.
They don’t need to. Yemen is giving Russian oil tankers safe passage through the Red Sea.
“Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake” would have made a better headline. I honestly do believe that you could pick up any random person off the street and they would make better diplomats than we have at State.
The Washington Con-Census, a handy guide to PMC grifters.
In the investment world there are some tells, starting with overlapping directorships. Expand that to see the groupthink, then add in a measure of portfolio trends to capture the insider trading. How many of those Conners ever held a real job that did not involve a silver spoon?
We’re so sorry, Uncle Jinping,
We’re so sorry if we ever called you names …
We’re so sorry, Uncle Jinping
But the Gulf’s gone straight to Hades
And we can’t move stuff for gains
We’re so sorry that you got called dictator by Pudding-for-brains
We’re so sorry, Uncle Jinping
But if anything should happen to our trade routes, Europe’s circling down the drain
We’re so sorry (ah ah ah ah Jinping) Uncle Jinping but we haven’t done a bloody thing to repay
We’re so sorry (ah ah ah ah all day) Uncle Jinping
But the Gulf of Aden’s on the boil, and our vessels lack the sway!
Quds across the water, water
Drones across the sky!
Quds across the water, water
Drones across the sky
Admiral Raytheon notified me
He had to have more missiles to reload in the Red Sea
I had another look, and I had a cup of tea, and ate humble pie
Humble pie, the printer’s on the fritz and the Houthis are so sly
Quds, across the water, water
Drones across the sky!
Quds across the water, water
Drones across the water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y8fDsU0hX8
Oh dear, that is !fine work!
The Ike CBG and many, many other Western warships are practically parked right off Yemen right now. The Ford CBG is still in the Med. What’s happening there (a whole lotta not much right now) is a mess, and supposedly it’s being (according to this report) directly controlled by the White House:
France Undertakes Convoys Separate from Operation Prosperity Guardian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c2E2qIgqN4
Which means it’s most likely ties into what’s happening in Gaza, and judging by the the article, Biden is not going to get any help from the BRICS. Just wait til the EU figures out how this is going to play out – their shipping costs have just jumped up maybe 10-20%. I’ll admit, between how Ukraine and now this are playing out, the EU has had a very bad year. More of that old being a friend of America thingy I guess.
What could be more amusing than watching non-Western shipping sail through past the Houthis unmolested while European and American ships have to take the long way around South Africa?
I think the Houthi’s are acting as the perfect “proxy warrior”. They are extending the US miltary expediture way beyond the cost of it’s own attacks, while promoting the general intents of Iran (without exposing Iran as a prime mover). Just like the US/NATO has used Ukraine to attack Russia.
Asynchronous warfare at its latest emulation.
>U.S. Steel’s acquisition will end a difficult marriage that forged — and constrained — Pittsburgh’s identity Public Source
Successful regions in the future will have to adapt and change much faster than before, and be willing to move beyond their pasts before reality undercuts identity.
Yes to move “beyond their pasts” where a man could support his whole family on one income, where rising healthcare cost didn’t eat away at his hard won wage gains, where the industry anchored the community and fostered face-to-face interaction among its population where there was a place of worship at every major street corner. Now, when I go to Pittsburgh and wander just outside the center, I see blighted and decaying places of worship and community halls, as in many small PA towns.
Maybe an “identity” that creates citizens and not consumers needs to trump the kind of “reality” emerging, one that seems dim, depressing and dystopic.
Well, at least they figured out how to replace steel a few decades ago. Drive down the road to Gary to see a real wasteland.
Well, I recall in Gary the steelworkers used their once-in-seven-years extended vacation to organize a progressive coalition across mills for union and political power in the city and elected a black mayor in the 1970s.
maybe change the steelers to the stealers? Or the Doordashers?
‘Pittsburgh Ironies’
The Steelers are not really dashing this season. More like here a dash, there an almost dash and you reach 200 yards of total offense.
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1738111832622256559
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Wow, this is probably the New York Times’ biggest story of the war so far:
“During the first six weeks of the war in Gaza, Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html
Just so you’re clear on the sheer insanity of this story: Israel was ordering civilians to move to places “for their safety” and then proceeded to drop its biggest and most destructive 2,000-pound bombs right there. And it did so routinely (the New York Times investigation found 208 instances (!) of it)
3:18 AM · Dec 22, 2023
I wonder what would happen if you tried to share that new York Times article on Facebook or Instagram? Right now Zuckerberg is censoring all pro-Palestinian voices as fast as he can and basically erase them. So would that New York Times also get deep-sixed?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/21/meta-stifling-pro-palestine-voices-on-social-media-hrw
Philosophically the question is this. If the Israelis drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a Palestinian refuge camp and Facebook & Instagram will not show it, did it happen?
Imagine how pissed elites are that musk bought twit.
I didn’t see this in la times, wonder if they pick this up. Nyt breaking stories like this might be a dam buster.
This is the beginning of a modern Thirty Years War. Israel will not survive. The demographics guarantee it.
I’ll take the under on 30 years.
Gutless Arab countries.
Why don’t they just stop exporting oil to U.S. until Gaza has a peace plan or there’s a two state solution with the 1967 israel borders as a condition?
I was a newly minted hellion on wheels when the gas lines of ’79 hit…
My longest wait was around 1/2 a mile to get go-juice
It might send Genocide Joe’s approval numbers into the lower double digits, were it to occur again.
Arab governments don’t give a hoot about Palestinians. They are all utterly corrupt and decadent, and so will do nothing that might interrupt their oil revenues. Israel can run wild because Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates won’t lift a finger to prevent it. Instead, they make nice with the Zionists who openly hate them. Pathetic.
Just wait until Israel destroys the al-Aqsa mosque to build its “Third Temple” where they plan to sacrifice 19,000 animals per day.
Then we might see some action.
??? 19k animals/day?
Is there some documentation for this new-to-me claim?
There’s nothing gutless about it. America produces so much oil nowadays it’s even exporting the stuff. Now I don’t know much about the processing of oil into diesel etc, but if we are just talking about the raw stuff, then yeah, America has plenty of it from fracking, which will supposedly peak sometime in 2028.
One might wonder why the NYT, which cheerleads for the Deep State and Netanyahu regimes and dutifully and daily shovels out the dead~end Narrative, even gives mention of these murders. To give a tiny basis to claims of “fairness and honesty” in its “reporting?” Maybe it’s just to titillate the Zionists who read it, and are so gleeful at every new sign that Project Eretz Israel will be fully actualized? I doubt the owners/editors of NYT are starting to have pangs of conscience at this point in the genocide.
So the Times can publish war porn, with a faux “tsk, tsk” flavor. While the murdering, even of their own co-religionists (and how many of the Israeli hostages killed so far by the IDF were ardent Zionists, surprised that they were being shot and bombed by their beloved fellow Likudniks) proceeds with full West/US supply and support.
Perhaps it has to do with the reported conflict between the Times’ old line bomber boys and the younger woke staff who favor BLM and its offshoots. The legacy Sulzberger publisher seems concerned about the paper’s survival above all and the Israelis are losing the young. Or to put it another way, at some point Zionism’s American supporters are going to have to decide whether they want to go down with the ship. Recall even Tom Friedman called the current attack on Gaza a mistake.
As with open borders and privacy, the dc consensus is clearly we’ll do (fill in the blank) until you can make us stop
The IDF say they’ve performed 22,000 strikes on Gaza in the last week. That’s more than 3,000 a day or 2 per minute 24/7.
Confirmed Palestinian deaths per day are around 300 so it’s taking them ten bombs, shells or mortars to kill each Gazan.
Put another way, 9 out of 10 strikes kill no one, actually far more than that because many have tens of victims.
What they do do though, every single one of them, is destroy buildings, primarily homes but also hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, libraries, shops and government offices, all requirements for civilised life.
By the 4th of December they had destroyed 68% of all buildings in northern Gaza. If the same pace has continued since then that’s now over 90%. Apparently they’re about to proclaim mission accomplished there despite the fact that Hamas remains active.
It’s clear that their primary mission is to make Gaza incapable of supporting life.
Happy Winter Solstice 2023. And also…a happy birthday to anyone who celebrates their day of emerging to life at this time of year whether prior to or after Christmas Day. You are not forgotten, I hope and it’s easy to be forgotten !
I get a two fer being a Winter Solstice boy. Ha Ha. I did not visit Stonehenge but instead the South Carolina DMV office, yeah that was exciting.
Happy Birthday, griffen, from one who will renew driver license, too;)
And may I wish you a happy Summer Solstice from down under?
But of course. This being a broad and indeed global forum, I must attach the below video in reply; just one of a few favorite songs / videos from the early to mid 1980s.
Never visited Australia nor have I tried a vegemite sandwich. Perhaps, one day!
https://youtu.be/XfR9iY5y94s?si=-Q5sbd24c9xDdxYM
I had to smile at the Vegemite reference. Years ago I had cousins from Australia visit our family in the States. They brought large jars of Vegemite with them, concerned they would run out and not have access here.
It was about when this song was still played regularly and I had no clue what the Vegemite reference was about, so naturally I tried it.
Different is putting it mildly, but I’ve been a regular “user” ever since :-)
Heard about this girl who gave this Japanese guy a jar of Vegemite who thought it was shoe polish and used it as such.
If it worked, it would make a nice environmentally friendly substitute for whatever petroleum derivatives are used in shoe polish!
Always gotta be a contrarian, huh? :-)
AU contraire! :)
That, RK, is the best groaner I’ve encountered in quite some time! Fair play to ye!
Happy Birthday Griffen, from an early January birthday person who was juuuust far enough away to not get my birthday for Christmas.
” I did not visit Stonehenge but instead the South Carolina DMV office…”
Happy birthday, and remember that both of the above are monuments to Ye Ancient Mysteries..
Hey now. My last trip to the DMV was very efficient.
They built Stonehenge 5,000 years ago and it’s still working and accurate..
Thanks…my office visit was magically uneventful, a short wait and then pay a small pittance, relatively, I have a sparkling, new license. The place was quite steadily moving people through.
Happy birthday and on account of all here on NC, I apologize for you getting stiffed on gifts, thanks to your parents peccable timing, sorry.
Thanks, and to be fair I expected nothing from family members other than text messages so I’d expect the equivalent nature of messaging among the fine people herein. And the occasional meme from Sling Blade about biscuits and mustard.
If gifts are ever in order in a future Jackpot state, I can and do place orders by packs of 6 or packs of 12…the seltzer offerings from White Claw are smooth to consume. Not a paid endorsement!
I too renewed my driver’s license at the DMV recently. I was surprised about several things. First, there are hundreds of maskless people indoors, seated close together. Second, the PA system that announces, “Now serving B one one eight,” is obnoxiously loud. I waited outside because it was too loud and also to lower my risk of infection. Third, everybody inside, employees and drivers, was bitter and unpleasant. Fourth, the photographer responsible for taking the driver’s license photo was grotesquely unattractive.
Why are the DMV employees so unpleasant? Can’t they pay the employees more and train them to be more pleasant? Give the employees more breaks or more vacation. Something so that they are not so bitter.
I am the least superficial person you know, but I will be stuck with that photo on my driver’s license for years. I had the foresight to bring a comb because I knew my respirator would mess up my hair. I did not anticipate the ugly photographer to rush me, not giving me any time to put down my stuff and comb my hair. Why did they have to hire a grotesquely unattractive man to take photos? Surely somebody who looks like that doesn’t care in the least bit about a nice photo.
Perhaps the DMV draws from a crowd similar to the Dept. of Labor (state, local), mostly political hacks.
The DMV here in Outer Pentagoonia [I think I’ll keep that typo] was a breeze. Like the Xmas present you’ve always wanted but never expected. Happy B’day, griffen!
“Red Sea coalition: Why have major Arab nations opted out?”
‘Arab states are ‘not as keen to get into a fight with the Houthis as perhaps the Western nations,’ says Joost Hiltermann, MENA program director at the International Crisis Group’
Seriously can’t tell if this guy is obfuscating or is merely stupid. For a start he talks about ships from UK, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Seychelles along with Bahrain. In case of bad trouble, every single one of those western ships can just sail away and leave any mess behind. Not Bahrain of course but I suspect that the US leaned heavily on them to join as the US 5th Fleet is based there. And the Arab States? They live there. They can’t sail their countries away but have to deal with whatever happens. So for them, they are playing it smart and sitting this one out. That is why Saudi, Qatar and even Russian oil tankers can still sail through the Red Sea with safe passage from Yemen. Which reminds me.
Saw something today that was absolutely insane. Why yes, it did involve the Biden White House. So after a decade of war, Saudi Arabia and Yemen are on the verge of signing a peace deal which will stabilize this part of the world. But the White House is trying to force the Saudis to delay signing that treaty and to join that task force to confront Yemen in support of Israel instead. Of course that would mean that every Saudi oil tanker would be a target alongside all the oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia so I think that they will give that one a bit of a miss and sign that peace treaty instead-
https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/15815
“And the Arab States? They live there. They can’t sail their countries away but have to deal with whatever happens.”
That guy lacks the ability and/or willingness to see things from the perspective of people he has most likely “othered” in his mind.
Caitlin nails it–“When you see how effective the Houthis have been at using Yemen’s critical location to shut down Red Sea traffic, you understand why the US spent years backing a horrific genocidal military campaign trying to get rid of them.”
It looks to me that missiles and drones are making air and navel warfare redundant. These are the two pillars of US force projection.
They are also making guerilla warfare viable again, since drones and missiles are cheap and easy to manufacture compared with ships, planes, and anti missile and drone defences (which are ineffective in any case). Maybe the age of empires is coming to an end.
I think the Houthi’s are acting as the perfect “proxy warrior”. They are extending the US miltary expediture way beyond the cost of it’s own attacks, while promoting the general intents of Iran (without exposing Iran as a prime mover). Just like the US/NATO has used Ukraine to attack Russia.
Asynchronous warfare at its latest emulation.
For a start he talks about ships from UK, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Seychelles along with Bahrain.
Canada is sending three people–and no ships. Spain has outright stated that they want nothing to do with this. France is now backing out. Seychelles is not sending naval ships but rather coast guard ships.
And Yemen has made it very clear that they are happy to blow up Saudi and UAE oil fields if these countries get involved. I think both countries are happy with the threat, though, because of the potential domestic unrest they would face if they overtly supported this laughably idiotic and utterly unenforceable policy to begin with.
Also, according to Helmer, who’s sourcing Russian MinDef, there’s a static Iranian elint vessel just north of the Bab al-Mandab strait. Apparently tracking the positions and movement of all vessels in the straits and relying them to Iran – and very likely to the Houthis, too.
Not just Helmer. Even the WSJ is saying the same:
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iranian-spy-ship-helps-houthis-direct-attacks-on-red-sea-vessels-d6f7fd40
Of course this is exactly how NATO is helping UKR with its targeting of RU assets, so I suppose what goes around comes around. Karma.
For one thing, the optics of joining the US and its vassals, puppets, lackeys and fellatrixes in a war on behalf of Israel would be awful.
Re: Sniffing Women’s Tears …
Didn’t work on James T. Kirk.
Everybody knows about James T. Kirk-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP00OzdgCKI (38 secs)
“Let Spock handle it! I’m busy.”
“To determine whether tears have the same affect in people, the researchers exposed a group of men to either women’s emotional tears or saline while they played a two-person game…”
So, they make a gendered claim and didn’t expose the group of men to men’s tears as well??
Real men don’t cry!
The same quip crossed my mind.
Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?
I think it’s the kind of social grooming that contributes to so much dysphoria.
You have to bring President Biden into this??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh0PBr6ZUN0&pp=ygUTQmlkZW4gc25pZmZpbmcgaGFpcg%3D%3D
Does it work if men sniff womens’ hair?
A pack of gray wolves discovered in the Tulare County mountains last summer has been named — and is larger than scientists originally believed.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Thursday reported that the wolf pack will now be called the Yowlumni Pack. In a news release, the state agency said it was honored to partner with the Tule River Tribe to name the pack formally.
The pack was found in the Sequoia National Forest near the tribe’s reservation and ancestral lands. Forest Supervisor Teresa Benson said in September that the pack had been sited mostly in Giant Sequoia National Monument. The monument is located northeast of Bakersfield and surrounded by the Tule River Reservation on three sides. Reports that the wolves had been sighted on the reservation followed the CDFW announcement in August.
The tribe shared that the name comes from the Yowlumni band of the Tule River Yokuts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the course of a week this summer, I found out there was a Chinese bio-lab 35 miles away as the crow flies, and a pack of gray wolves 35 miles away in the other direction.
Problem with the headline date?
Every blog has its groundhog day…
Fixed!! Thanks
“Ukraine war latest: Defense minister says he wants to mobilize Ukrainian men living abroad”
Ooh! Ooh! I know where he can find some. Right now there are a whole bunch of Ukrainian mercs serving with the Israelis in Gaza. But they had better hurry though. The Qassam Brigades have their number-
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/qassam-brigades-kill-ukrainian-mercenaries-in-gaza
That article also mentions that ‘hundreds of Mercenaries arrived in Israel last week, mostly French, German and Italian. This week many were given honorary citizenships and have been attached to different battalions; assigned to secure troops movements deployed on forward lines.’ Maybe those mercs figured that, unlike the Russians, Hamas has no artillery. They may find that Hamas has plenty of RPGs and snipers though.
I am surprised there is no mention of that private army from Carolina.
Lindsay might get the vapors, were he to become an army of one.
”Sanctions from hell” against China, ignorance or malice? – Global Times editorial
A hilarious take down of LG. It really seems like they (and thus the Chinese govt) are trying to bait him.
Get up in the morning, looking for the dead, sir
So that every revenge factor can be fed
Poor me Israelites, ah
Get up in the morning, looking for the dead, sir
So that every revenge factor can be fed
Poor me Israelite
My wife and my kids, they packed up and left the commotion
Darling, she said, all we have left is to swim in the ocean
Poor me Israelites
Buildings them a-tear up, home is gone
I don’t want to end up pushing daisies on the other side
Poor me Israelites
After a storm of missiles there must be a calm
They catch many who bought the farm
You sound your alarm
Poor me Israelites
Get up in the morning, looking for the dead, sir
So that every revenge factor can be fed
Poor me Israelites
Buildings them a-tear up, home is gone
I don’t want to end up pushing daisies on the other side
Poor me Israelites
After a storm of missiles there must be a calm
They catch many who bought the farm
You sound your alarm
Poor me Israelites
Poor me Israelites, poor me Israelites, poor me Israelites
Israelites, by Desmond Dekker & the Aces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxtfdH3-TQ4
You’ve done it again, dredged up a deep cut and made it relevant again. Bravo!
(A reprise of Lucifer Sam is in order … for next year’s sentencing)
“The pitfalls of seizing Russian assets to fund Ukraine”
‘Moscow must be made to pay, but without risking harm to global financial stability’
Sounds like the FT wants it both ways. They want to steal all that money but they don’t want the catastrophic effects of it. What that article does not say is that Washington is getting very aggressive about that money and that-
‘Talks among officials, bankers, and lawyers are said to have gathered steam in recent weeks, with Washington reportedly pressing several of its allies to come up with a strategy by February 24 to mark the second anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict.’
The White House will sidestep Congressional approval and just go for it and having everybody do it at once will dilute the blame from Washington-
https://www.rt.com/news/589502-us-allies-seize-russia-assets/
Some places in Germany are making a move which cause this reaction by Lavrov-
‘German officials in Karlsruhe announced plans this week to seize almost $800 million in assets from a Russian bank’s account in Frankfurt, due to alleged violations of EU sanctions. Lavrov reacted to the news by calling the German authorities kleptomaniacs.
“They are thievish, we realized this a long time ago. They have been treacherous all along in political terms, you know: in the sense of reneging on agreements and trying to deceive someone. Now they have turned out to be thieves in the literal sense,” Lavrov told journalists following his visit to Tunisia.
The top Russian diplomat said the West is “laser-focused on the idea of finding some legal way to confiscate Russia’s assets,” starting with redirecting the interest from the currently frozen funds to Ukraine.
“The Europeans still have some rudimentary respect for their own laws, so they are delaying these decisions. But according to our sources, behind the scenes the Americans are advising them on how to change these laws to steal everything,” he explained.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/589485-germany-russian-assets-thieves/
I wonder how many US and EU assets there are still in Russia? But if I had money in the US or the EU, I would be getting it out quick while I could.
It’s all about West wanting to be seen as doing something, especially now when the whole Ukraine Operation is slowly unraveling. Freezing money in one account and creating/printing the same amount in another is in practical terms equivalent of seizing them and then moving them. But when you do the first thing, it apparently doesn’t have the PR effect of being able to say they made Putin to pay for something.
According to Lloyds Bank, foreign direct investment stock in Russia was $380 Billion last year, after many big western corporations had already left. Of course not all of that is US & EU money, but I’d say there’s enough for Russia to reciprocate properly.
Imo this is all part of an accelerating process that divides the world between the west and rest. Trade, investments and prosperity looks to decline between the two sides, but substantially worse imo for the older, higher cost west that is already seeing serious societal issues. Plus the west is imo more dependent on imports, so trade declines look to affect them more.
When this happens – it will be an own goal as every other country and person will now look at this and say – ” the west – USA, EU and all their friends” cannot be trusted with our money (no law of of the land),
Capital flows from the global south to the tax havens of USA, UK and other squirrely islands of EU will see the spigots of cash inflows slow down and then stop entirely. Then they will have to find other places and ways to store their ill gotten gains.
“Billionaires Turn to Legal Bribery in Quest to Build Utopia”
I have no idea why they did not go to Sacramento and have them declare eminent domain over that region on their behalf. It would have been simpler and cheaper and I’m sure that Gavin Newsom would have been in on it.
“The Rich Have all the “Excess” Cash Now” (excerpt) The Overshoot
After the damage is done, then they admit what was obvious.
It has always been trickle up.
Go take a hike dept: the hoodoos that you do
Always wanted to go to Chiricahua National Monument, but waited 62 years…
Walked the Echo trail one-way from the top down to the visitor center, a little over 4 miles traipse through hoodoos and more.
This was Geronimo’s holdout from the U.S. Army in the 1880’s and I get it, a better labyrinth probably couldn’t be found, and in his honor we yelled ‘Geronimo!’ as we started the trek…
Damned cool hike, and can’t wait to do more in an utterly spectacular setting, here: have a glimpse…
https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/news/chiricahua-national-monument-national-park/
I’ve been there–one of the little known gems of the NPS.
Cochise’s Stronghold is pretty cool too. Legend has it that Cochise and his horse were lowered down among the maze of rocks (after Cochise died, not sure if the horse was also dead when lowered down). The location has been kept a state secret.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/regions/southwestern/CochiseStronghold/index.shtml
Re: ‘Sovereign Virtues?’ – New Left Review
The commentary – or lack thereof – from German notables regarding their recent geopolitical history and relationship with the US/NATO project has been quite depressing from my distant perspective. One of the few rational voices from what I would consider an authentic Left perspective has been that of Sarah Wagenknecht. So of course we have here, once again, a smeary criticism of Wagenknecht as a right-wing enabler by a “Marxist” academic. As is often the case, the author, Oliver Nachtwey, is capable of writing decent analysis of working class fragmentation and rapid expansion of the precariat from afar in books and articles in Jacobin. But when contemplating political response outside the Ivory Tower, any “leftist” must be pure, free of any regressive “nationalism” or criticism of Immigrants or immigration policy or any hint of tolerance toward the conservative cultural views of the masses.
I’ll bet the elite decision-makers driving global capitalism spend many sleepless nights worrying about the Revolution that will be led by these politically correct “leftist” academics and their mass of followers.
pjay: I think that your criticism shows that Nachtwey is an intellectual who wants to write about the Left, so long as the Left never gets to do anything.
I’m going to add a qualifier to your observation: “But when contemplating political response outside the Ivory Tower, any “leftist” must be pure, free of any regressive “nationalism” or criticism of Immigrants or immigration policy or any hint of tolerance toward the conservative cultural views of the masses.”
I had an enlightening moment here in Italy in understanding the lay of the land. There is organized opposition and a significant parliamentary opposition to Project Ukraine, to abetting Israel, and to “Atlanticist” adventures (you know, Ursula and BoJo’s Excellent Adventures).
The two political parties that have come out strongly against the Nato / EU projects are the Five Star Movement and Sinistra Italiana (Italian Left). They have been building a coalition with Catholic peace activists, of which there are many. The Catholics are quite well organized. And as one of the antiwar / left-leaning politicians said (to paraphrase a bit):
The Catholics? They are to the left of us.
[Pope Francis as a commie, eh]
So one must consider that “conservative” cultural views that mean peace and prosperity have to be factored in.
re CIA chief emerges as key figure
A few weeks ago, the Intercepted podcast had an episode with a Middle East analyst who said that he believes the change in messaging from the White House (need for Israeli restraint) reflected the rise of the CIA/military faction concerned about regional escalation that could drag the US into another war. He claimed that:
the real diplomacy here is being conducted not by Blinken, but by [CIA Director] Burns, who’s been in Doha for the past several days, along with a director of the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, in Qatar, of course. Oh, and the head of Egyptian intelligence. So, I think that’s where the real discussions are taking place. And Blinken is being allowed to play diplomat, here and there.
Link to episode with transcript.
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/02/intercepted-gaza-war-israel-hamas/
I don’t know if I should be treating the linked article in the Straits Times as independent confirmation but I guess I’m cheering for the CIA? Interesting times indeed.
An American Yuri Andropov to an American Brezhnev (Biden)?
When you’re backing behavior so insane that the CIA is the peace faction…
I doubt CIA is the peace faction, they just prefer their wars sequentially not in parallel. Or maybe they just detest a war they have not caused?
And regarding the article: Blinken wouldn’t recognize diplomacy if it was humping his leg, so how could he be expected to play a diplomat?
I think you got this one wrong. Rather, the head of the CIA in this instance happens to really be a diplomat at heart, whereas the head of State happens to be a psychopath whose true IQ is at least twenty points lower than he thinks it is.
In other words, this juxtaposition has to do with specific personalities and does not really reflect the underlying institutions.
Why I subscribe (for years) to Harper’s. The magazine has been good at showing moral difficulties. For years, it has not avoided simple solutions to moral problems (I suspect that is why Rebecca Solnit got booted from writing the opening Easy Chair columns).
John MacArthur’s One-State Solution is worth your while, because of the moral ambiguity, the admission of moral ambiguity, and the dilemma of remaining human in the current mess.
I noted a piece on Russia in the side bar. It seems to be the lead article of the January 2024 issue. Many ambiguities:
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/01/behind-the-new-iron-curtain/
I am currently reading the November issue, which took its time to reach the Chocolate City. William Vollmann is at the top of his power as a writer. An elegy on moral ambiguity, on our human failure, on sorrow:
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/11/four-men/
Seems to me like Harpers went down hill after Lewis Lapham left, I’ve not read them in many years.
It has gone downhill but still many good articles like the one about Why We Are In Ukraine. I keep hoping my spouse will read it.
One does have to wade through the coastal academic elite PMC garbage.
There is Lapham Quarterly, which is quite good.
Re: Impolite Society: Great article about our anti-Arabic/Muslim cultural government institutional frame. Brings to my mind that this exact same frame applies to our anti-Russian/Slavic cultural government institutional frame, now over a century old (we even sent US Army soldiers to Russia to fight alongside the White army after WW1). Staffing our diplomatic and intelligence bureaucracy with over two, maybe even three, generations of, first, anti Soviet and then anti-Russian exiles and then children and grandchildren of these exiles, as evidenced by the many foreign affairs experts in the United States and Canada – the Vindmans, Victoria Nuland, Christina Freeland, all with a nearly visceral hatred of all things Slavic and Russian that most of us cannot even see.
I studied Russian at Yale University in the mid sixties, took an intensive course meeting nine times a week, six morning classes of speaking only and then three of reading and writing, taught by a Russian who had come to the US after WW2. He came out to New Haven from his home in Brooklyn every single day to make an 8am class. During that year we learned a bit of his history – he was Russian, yes, but from Ukraine. He was a Cossack. He joined the Germans side in WW2 to fight against the Russians, as a cavalry member. His proudly told us he had ridden in the last cavalry charge of the War, against the Russians. He was part of the diaspora that came from western Soviet Russia after the War to the US and Canada. It seems to be their children and grandchildren who today staff the offices of the foreign affairs and intelligence departments, all viscerally and culturally born and bred with a deep memory of perceived and real injustice and hatred for all things Russian. I would argue that this anti-Russian frame is just as deep and abiding at the anti Arab/Muslim frame
You might even make the case that these deeply cultural frames have been with us since our founding, with, before the anti-Arab/Muslim and Anti Russian/ Slavic frames, similar anti-Native American and anti-African/Slave frames, which still lie within us, deeper still, almost like an ancestral memory.
These are frames we cannot or choose not to see, and accept, as they make us uncomfortable, they contradict our chosen narrative as a City Shining on a Hill, they force us into a sense of hypocrisy, and shame.
Not all of us, though. There has always been an acceptance that a small number among us have held views not of shame but rather belief, pride, and triumph because of these frames.
What is happening today may be the revelation that, among us as a people, this “small number” is in fact much larger than previously thought, revealing us for the savage nation we are.
It’s why letting anyone get away with the most high-profile genocide in recent decades doesn’t bode well for the future.
Thanks for these observations. The first thing that came to mind when I started reading this article was the “Soviet/Russia Studies” assembly line by which “promising” students are selected, recruited, and trained in government-adjacent academic programs as you describe here. Those who were not of East European diaspora origin themselves – say, a Fiona Hill – could still come out the other end sufficiently indoctrinated by, say, a Richard Pipes. Well-credentialed and referenced, they were set on their way to a State Department career where their “expertise” could help carry out our diplomatic policy.
Boomheist: Thanks for your comment. I came away from the article by Burton, which is remarkably detailed, with two other (added?) ideas:
To quote Burton: “We enjoy the comforting conceit that racists are simply ignorant, but in this case, they are very, very knowledgeable.”
Lately, I have been contemplating just how much stupidity is a choice. Sometimes, the commenters here will wonder about what is a blunder, what can be interpreted as stupidity, and what can be seen as incompetence.
Lately, though, I have been thinking that stupidity is the path of least resistance. One goes along to get along. Eventually, one is malfunctioning as a human being, but one has triumphed. See: Hillary Clinton. See: Lindsay Graham. See (I’m originally from Illinois): Tammy Duckworth. Liz Cheney as hero of democracy.
Adding to stupidity, I note that Syring and Sedlowitz are the banality of evil. They are technocrats, like Eichmann, who visited horrors on other people, like Eichmann. Just in case anyone is wondering (at this late date) if Hannah Arendt wasn’t aware of what she was asserting. Just in case people still want to believe that the U.S. elites aren’t both spoiled and malign.
Thank you, Boomheist, for your perceptive rumination on these cultural frames. That the children and grandchildren of immigrants forced from their homes by State violence, would hold onto a visceral hatred of the perpetrators of that violence, even at a subconscious level, is understandable. But, why does it apply only to some groups and not to others?
Native Americans and the Blacks descended from slaves, are so often told to ‘get over it.’ The reasoning goes something like this: I do not own slaves, nor did I personally slaughter the inhabitants of a tract of land in the northeast US so I could take over their land. That was all in the past, done by people and governments long dead and gone. I am, therefore, guiltless and free of blame.
Additionally, there are differences in how the less polite acts of past countries and governments are framed. Russia, as you point out, both the Imperialist, the USSR, and now the Russian Federation, are seemingly held to a much higher standard than, say, Belgium or Britain.
My mother’s family fled the Great Hunger in Ireland, but I was not taught to hate the British, either by my parents or by the society I inhabited. Well, my grandfather referred often to the ‘bl**dy English’ but he was equally disparaging of Italians, Poles, and Jews. The family regarded him as as ‘grouchy.’ To the contrary, we adored the Queen and all things English, from tea to bicycles to sports cars. We spoke of the IRA, and the Fenians, as violent terrorist organizations, to be abhorred by all. It was not until 2011, Occupy, when I attended a series of lectures by an Indigenous professor, that I learned the history of the English Occupation of Ireland, and its long struggle to regain its language, culture and sovereignty. Woah! The Brits as Bad Guys! I had spent decades identifying with The Oppressor. That required some reframing on my part! I am still not down with overthrowing their government, however.
I’m surprised that your family wasn’t more hostile to the English, Eclair. Mine escaped occupied Ireland to New Brunswick BEFORE the famine, yet my father passed on a healthy disdain of the Empire: he was fond of saying, “you can always tell an Englishman — but not much …”
An expose on the English that might be of interest to you…
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/07/the-war-nerd-amateurs-talk-cancel-pros-talk-silence.html
I always wondered about the Russian emigres and their children who continued to identify as “Russian,” though (as opposed to, say, Ukrainian, Tartar, etc). The Saker is one of these people, someone who even served in Western intelligence agencies/militaries/whatever. But he became almost cartoonishly pro-Russian/pro-Orthodox when the world started changing.
Loathing, dread and hatred of Russia in the Anglosphere is at least as old as the British Empire’s fear that the Czar would find an overland route to threaten the jewel in the crown that was India. Hence the “great game” and the Crimean War.
Thank you for the fine insights. Stephen Cohen was a different sort of Russian scholar:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/opinion/a-russia-scholars-views.html
A Russia Scholar’s Views
To the Editor:
“Russia Experts See Ranks Thin, and an Effect on U.S. Policy”: * I protest the way my views and I were characterized in your article. I am called the “dissenting villain” in today’s media commentary on Ukraine who presents a “perspective closer to that of Mr. Putin.” This may have the effect (intended or not) of stigmatizing me and discrediting my views.
For more than 40 years, I have taught thousands of undergraduates and trained scores of future Russia specialists at Princeton University and New York University. My many scholarly books, articles and media commentaries have been published in diverse mainstream places, including The New York Times many years ago. And my views are based on my years of study, not on what President Vladimir V. Putin or anyone else thinks.
Indeed, my current perspective is similar to what Henry A. Kissinger wrote ** in The Washington Post this month: “The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.”
I would go farther: The Ukrainian crisis, the worst and most fateful of the 21st century, is the outcome of Washington’s 20-year bipartisan policy toward post-Soviet Russia, spearheaded by NATO’s eastward expansion. I have been arguing this since the early 1990s, long before Mr. Putin appeared on the scene.
In this regard, I am a true patriot of American national security — perhaps a heretic, but certainly not the “villain.”
* https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/world/europe/american-experts-on-russia.html
** http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html
STEPHEN F. COHEN
New York, March 7, 2014
About rare-earths and China…
This September, the Chinese accomplished a comprehensive breakthrough in rare-earth mining and processing.
The breakthrough coming from He Hongping’s team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and discussed in a series of 11 internationally published papers, including publication in Nature Sustainability.
The breakthrough involving 7 patents, with theory presented and processes demonstrated at a special scientific evaluation meeting in Guangdong province:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/12/china-bans-exports-of-rare-earth-tech-as-critical-minerals-race-heats-up.html
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202309/1298364.shtml
September 17, 2023
Chinese scientists make key breakthroughs in rare earth mining
A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed major breakthroughs in rare earth mining at a meeting on Sunday. The discoveries will help shorten mining time by about 70 percent, reduce the impurity content by 70 percent and increase the recovery rate of rare earths by about 30 percent….
Do you believe the U.S. will honour these patents?
Re Harpers’ MacArthur on Edward Said–Said and the great Daniel Barenboim created the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra that brought young Israeli and Arab musicians into a renowned orchestra that some of us have seen via BBC Proms. These are probably on Youtube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West–Eastern_Divan_Orchestra
When it comes to Israel things seem to be rapidly going backwards because, as claimed in the linked article, Oslo betrayed not reinforced the peace process. But here’s opining that Zionism was always more about power than refuge and it’s essence was the creation of a place where Jews, always a minority, could themselves be the dominant majority–turning the tables. The result simply show how non-different they are from the former oppressors that they were fleeing from.
Not that there weren’t of course many idealistic Israelis in the beginning. And “peace through strength”–onetime motto of the Strategic Air Command–is hardly an attitude that is confined to them. But perhaps it needs to be turned around to strength through peace. The first version isn’t working.
Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds Science
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s pretty cool on the coastal Redwoods, although not happening on Giant Sequoias, which responded to fire by having vast oodles of seedlings sprout underneath the expired Brobdingnagians….
This article appeared previously in Links. It does not clearly indicate (with photos) where on the fire-scorched trees the “ancient” buds are sprouting. The one photo in the in the article shows new growth at the base of the tree. This is typical for dicot trees (evergreen or deciduous). The article needs more ‘splainin.
in the JudgeNap + Mearsheimer video
mearshiemer says – “people in the west hate Putin because he is against gays and trans people” (maybe it’s my parapharsing)
IMO – this is boll0x – people in the west “hate” Russia/Putin because the media has been beating the anti-Russia drum for years. I remember the first time in the 2000s when I heard/read an Anti-Russia story in the US media for the first time, and my first thought was – “that’s a weird story – why was this implausible anti-Russia story written”. Of course I didn’t know the US had decided it was time to make Russia the enemy again.
The other thing Mearsy says – “Putin has animosity towards Europeans, less towards US”
Again this IMO is wrong. I think Putin is upset with European leaders for their actions and the fact that they are US poodles. He and Russia would probably negotiate in good-faith with Europe if they were sure that Eurozone was not enslaved to the US.
Putin in the last year – even after 3 of 4 Nordstorm pipes were blown up said – “We are willing to provide gas to Germany/Europe if they certify the constructed (not blown up) pipe”.
This shows that the US talking point – “Russia uses it’s energy as a weapon” is utter nonsense.
A lot of the US talking points about Nuclear weapons, Energy etc are a projection of what the US would do in a similar situation.
Mearsheimer is a hawk, just a realist one, rather than the fantasists that are currently running the US.
I am unsurprised he is making tendentious statements about Putin other other people’s motives, since that is what hawks do – ascribe the worst motives to the opponents of their country.
I notice he doesn’t seem to criticise the idea of an American Empire. He certainly isn’t a Nativist.
Tendentious or realist statements?
Does he favor a particular home world point of view that is not realistic, aka not realpolitik? Is favoring a realistic, realpolitik point of view tendentious? / ;)
I agree. Moreover, the same crowd which allegedly supports gay and trans rights yet hates on Russians as a group has clearly not figured out this prejudice and bias thing, are NOT the champions of inclusion and diversity. They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves without their latest hate du jour, so how does Mearsheimer think he can point to that as the reason westerners hate Russians?
During my lifetime (80+ years,) at least to a casual observer, reading and listening to only the MSM, the US relationship with Russia, usually referred to by the name of its current leader, has ranged from disregard, to scorn, to a frenzied hatred.
America, along with England, defeated the Germans and Japanese in WW 2. No mention of the USSR’s 27 million deaths or of their role in defeating the ‘eastern front.’ Stalin, of course, was evil and I remember the joy when we heard the announcement of his death. Then the Evil Communists and the McCarthy hearings, held the following year in 1954. My mother and I watched them after school each day. In 1959, we smirked over the Khrushchev- Nixon ‘Kitchen Debates,’ in which the glories of our consumer goods trumped the socialist ideology of the Communists. They didn’t have automatic defrost refrigerators and their women were frumpy.
Underneath, throughout the 50’s and 60’s, ran the basso profundo of the Korean and Viet Nam wars, to save the world from the falling dominos of Communism, both Russian and Chinese. We read daily reports of the discontents and the uprisings in the USSR republics: Hungary, in 1956, was HUGE. Plus, constant reports on The Berlin Wall, and how East Germans were killed daily trying to escape.
The 1990’s brought the dissolution of the USSR, along with its utter capitulation to the privatization and austerity hyenas sent by the US. Phew, the Unipolar Moment had arrived! After 9/11, the threat turned from Godless Communism to Muslim Terrorism, and Bush the Younger, looked into Putin’s eyes and fell in love. Which lasted until Wikileaks and Edward Snowden’s frantic flight and his acceptance of refuge in Russia in 2012. (Which looked like a big “F U” to the US.)
To bring us up to date, we are all familiar with the 2016 Russia!Russia!Russia! mania. Eight years and it seems like yesterday. In 2023, the US governing class announced its plans to strangle the Russian economy through sanctions, to break up the Federation into smaller entities, to make Russia a pariah in the eyes of the world. Because Putin is Evil and he wants to recreate the Russian Empire and take over the world. We will have to wait until the end of the chapter to see how this turns out.
The fact that Putin supports laws that discriminate against queer people is part of the propaganda campaign, but it doesn’t make it untrue. It’s a legitimate reason to dislike him!
A larger part of the propaganda push is to equate Russia with Putin. Getting people in the US to openly declare hate on a majority white nation is hard. Getting them to hate the nation by Putin proxy is much easier.
Putin expresses the predominate perspective of the broader Russian social milieu: a culture that is conservative, Orthodox, and forged from a recent history (WWII) of defeating the German army at the cost of 30% of its population.
Russia’s history is not similar to the brief story of USA.
It started when Putin started depriving the west of its lucrative businesess in Russia (i.e. resource companies paying absolutely no royalties and in fact getting subsidies for years from the empoverished Russian state, on top of all the extracted wealth). In 10 years, the west has extracted many trillions of dollars worth of wealth out of Russia. Scott Ritter puts it at around 20T.
Xi’s demonisation started when he started his campaign against corruption, which also, in the end affected the west’s wealth extraction from China.
Requiem for a heavy wait…
https://newrepublic.com/article/177566/kevin-mccarthy-pathetic-republican-leader-year
Lucifer Sam update:
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/12/20/judge-denies-sam-bankman-fried-request-for-a-longer-sentencing-process/
Since this seems to be the NC Songday before Xmas, here’s a dissenting view which btw took very little in the way of editorial updating courtesy of The Sex Pistols’ classic “God Save the Queen!”
I like it! best sung with a snarling Sid Vicious tone.
John Lydon was the singer, not Sid Vicious.
Oops. Showing my age and lack of attention to detail to 70s punk.
Long ago I watched the movie Sid and Nancy. Maybe time for a rerun if it is on the usual streamers.
Nobody found the Easter egg (not entirely appropriate for the Christmas season, but still…).
Via ovicipitum dura est.
> Nobody found the Easter egg
The Easter egg was in the first, second, and last links (as well as the click through for the antidote).
The first post had “dark” in the headline, the second had “Winter Solstice,” and the last had “light.” The progression from dark to light was reinforced by the Antidote, here reproduced in context:
Moral: You’ve got to pay attention and read carefully!
I know you guys go absolutely crazy whenever people make site suggestions, but it would be great to see an astronomy pic of the day to go with the plants and animals. Provides some perspective as to how significant all the worldly politics and topics du jour really are, I think
Something like this? (On my daily goto list)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Happy Solstice!
Can’t pass up this opportunity to shame the ‘writers’ at Time.
WTF?!?! no, no, no. On top of being grammatically meaningless (in that sentence, what is “furthest”?), that’s the opposite of what these articles are supposed to be ‘teaching’.
So my guess is this is an example out in the wild of AI poisoning (ie bad training data).
Time really made a confusing mess on this one. The earth has a slightly elliptical orbit: the sun is closest to the earth in early January (perihelion) and is at its most distant in early July (aphelion). This has nothing whatsoever to do with the summer and winter solstices (which result from our planet’s tilt as it revolves around the sun). And yes, it’s counterintuitive, because it would seem logical that the earth would be coldest at aphelion and hottest at perihelion. But things are more complicated than that, and scientific reality is often counterintuitive.
I’m guessing this article was produced by AI and slipped past an editor with zero knowledge of basic astronomy.
…but it is the axis tilt that leaves the sun in the sky longer and thus the days warmer.
Exactly. But the Time article implies that distance from the sun is the key factor (as per the boldface in cfraenkel’s comment), which is incorrect.
Truly, the NC commentariat is the best commentariat.
I mean, I get that The Economist is written by ahistorical morons, but Japan as “cuddly” to Southeast Asians? Really?
Has the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere been so effectively memory holed such that this drivel can pass unremarked?
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1734867677515321715
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Today is the 86th anniversary of the Nanjing massacre, probably the most depraved massacre of civilians in human history: the Japanese army killed 300,000 civilians in the space of 6 weeks and raped an estimated 20,000-80,000 women.
I recommend you read this book about it, by American journalist Iris Chang. After writing the book, Chang suffered from major depressive disorder and committed suicide at the age of 36, making her in some way the last victim of the rape of Nanking. The Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre (in Nanjing) added a wing dedicated to her in 2005, one year after her death.
This year, remembering this massacre is of course particularly relevant as another immensely depraved massacre of civilians is occurring in Gaza. When will we learn as a species not to commit the most barbarous acts on each other?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GBN5U4ebQAAbEAV?format=png&name=small
4:27 AM · Dec 13, 2023
There are places in SE Asia–Indonesia certainly, Myanmar up to a point, and (while not part of SE Asia), India to a degree, where the Japanese are considered to be a sort of liberator from the Western colonial rule. Japanese trained Indonesian militias (joined in some cases by deserting Japanese and Indian soldiers who signed on with local independence activists) were the integral part of the fight against the Dutch (and British) attempt at re-imposing the empire (the latter, ironically, recruited the surrendered Japanese soldiers to support their forces battling the Indonesian independence activists.)
> Japan as “cuddly”
Perhaps the clever Brits at the Economist were thinking of Kawaii, the softest power of all. Japan really does do cute better than anyone else!
Perhaps they should put anime figureheads on their warships….
The Wildly Popular Police Scanner Goes Silent for Many
Yes, it has been happening more and more the last few years. I was a scanner, CBer and then ham operator since I was 13. I have listened to some amazing events, like the LA riots, flooding of NY, the large fire in CA and PNW. The access is to live feeds is sadly a reality.
“Sovereign Virtues?” New Left Review
The writer equates internationalism with cooperation.
Yeah, cooperation on sticking it workers. At least that’s what I’ve seen as its main priority. That’s why people are looking for alternatives.
When I was a kid, solidarity was the thing. “We have it good, so let’s make sure they’ll have it good, too”, I was taught. Today, the whole idea has been transferred into having a tiny Ukrainian flag next to your alias in X.
Online to be topped by a certain Globe and Mail columnist whose X alias is adorned with the requisite Ukrainian AND Israeli flags …
https://twitter.com/acoyne
> having a tiny Ukrainian flag next to your alias in X
Yes, “stand with” politics? How does one stand with? Well, by emitting a tiny store of symbolic capital, like posting digital flag, planting “In This House” sign, or wearing scarf or other article of clothing (cf. “raise awareness”).
Something i once saw referred to as slacktivism.
Biden Administration bans Russian fish from entering USA:
US sanctions Russian fish
The US Treasury Department has imposed a ban on imports of Russian salmon, cod, pollock, and crab…
https://www.rt.com/business/589537-us-sanctions-russian-fish/
Give a man a fishy story and you’ll feed him lies for a day, which is usually sufficient.
The Babylon Bee’s headline sartire is outdone by the B admin’s straight headline reports. / ;)
The article does not mention sturgeons and caviar — apparently, there are some paramount and untouchable priorities…
The US steel industry is stronger collectively than it has been for decades. The industry has consolidated to 4 firms that are both profitable and financially stable. The steel unions have lost members to non union firms, Nucor and Steel Dynamics, which pay workers more than union steelworkers.
First of all, steel is a commodity and in the aggregate, its use in the US hasn’t grown much in decades.
Secondly, the US industry is the world’s leader in carbon emissions per ton. 60%+ of its production uses electric arc furnaces, recycles scrap steel, and uses no coal. The US is also a world leader in DRI (direct reduction of iron) technologies) which use no coal and reduce iron by heating ore rather than melting it. https://www.voestalpine.com/blog/en/innovation-en/the-hbi-direct-reduction-process/#:~:text=HBI%20is%20created%20by%20reducing,furnaces%20it%20replaces%20scrap%20metal.
When US Steel was created a century ago, it was the largest corporation in the world. 100 years later its market cap is less than 1% the size of current market leaders. Constituting one of the worst investments that could have been made.
So, responding to Noah Smith, the US steel industry is thriving rather than dying. It is a world leader in terms of emission reduction, using Electric Arc Furnaces and Direct Reduction of Iron. It has become highly efficient, producing its tonnage with a small fraction of the manpower used historically, with remaining workers earning a reasonable wage imo ($100,00)+) It costs is still less than $1 pound (FWIW). Of course, there isn’t a lot of interest in publicizing any of these points.
It remains baffling to me why this site ever links to Noah smith, the man is dumber than Dan Quayle and less entertaining to boot
Noah Smith is a rank apologist for the neoliberal orthodoxy and I am delighted to have been banned from commenting on his drivel.
Alert reader eg, immediately above, has answered your question.
“The US steel industry is stronger collectively than it has been for decades…”
Thank you for the comment.
Since 1992, production has grown slightly, employment has fallen by a little more than 50%, showing a marked gain in productivity especially until 2011. Also, after 2001 and 2008. the industry was protected by tariffs:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1d3JL
January 30, 2018
Iron and Steel goods Production and Employment, 1992-2023
(Indexed to 1992)
> Coalition deploys US Navy’s lethal Swiss Army Knife to send a message to Iran and China
Spending $500k missiles hitting $1k drones. Makes sense to protect a US$2B ship but attribution dynamics in Houthi’s favour. How long can USS Carney keep shooting down drones before missile stocks become critical and become vulnerable to more serious anti-ship missile swarms? Shooting down 14 drones may have reduced onboard anti-missile missile stocks by 20%. How low will Carney go before they have to redraw?
Helmer’s latest says China, India and Iranian warships are now in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Is this a normal shipping traffic in the area or something new. Hope none of the ships are named “The Archduke.” (or archduck) / ;)
Napolitano and Crooke. utube.
SPECIAL: Alastair Crooke: The US an outcast at the UN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTyYMIZ1dJM
I wonder if the article on US Steel would have read the same if Cleveland Cliffs or Esmark rather than Nippon Steel had won the bidding war. Anyway, Esmark is a Pittsburg company, so some steel production remains there along with continuing production by US Steel.
To me it’s a good case for the one state solution, and not Netanyahu’s mutant version. It’s really not that morally ambiguous. One nation under Yahwhe, God and Allaah, all equal under the law.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all religions of the same book, sibling religions, if you will. There’s nothing fiercer than sibling rivalry, or so I’m told. Even the world important Christian RC Pope has weighed in on the recent Gaza turmoil. Go figure. (And I say this as a Christian Protestant.)
I don’t know if it is true or not but I heard once that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all arose about 70 miles from each other. Must be something in the water. :)
Or lack of water. Sorry, I can’t make light of these disputes whatever their cause. Too many have died. Beginning with the late medieval era European Crusades to ‘recapture’ the Holy Land for God .
The lack of water certainly seems to have an effect on these people and their religions. Like the use of water for baptisms for Christianity as a way to wash away sins. Or how the Muslims became renowned hydraulics engineers as show in their guiding of fountains in so many countries like in the Alhambra palace in Spain. Come to think of it, there would be a good book in talking about the place of water in these three religions.
Good points.
adding: Me thinks Craig Paul Roberts makes some good points here.
“Liberty is a human achievement. We have it, or had it, because those who believed in it fought to achieve it and to preserve it. As I explain in my Christmas column, people were able to fight for liberty because Christianity empowered the individual.”
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/12/21/the-greatest-gift-of-all/
Oh goodness, how retro. Just call me retro. / ;)
See, Paul of Tarsus was really a libertarian.
say what?
I can’t speak for the others, but Christianity is a desert weed.
Ever had lambs quarters for a cooked steamed green in place of spinach? / ;)
One man’s weed is another man’s food. As they say. / ;)
Indeed — I intended my comment as a description of how it flourishes best in harsh conditions rather than as an aesthetic criticism.
“It’s time to negotiate with Russia”. Would have been a timely headline in late 2021.
Hi : Relieved to hear the problem with Crooked Timber isn’t me. -a.v.