You Should Seriously Think About Eating More Python, Scientists Say ScienceAlert (Chuck L). Well, eel is delish….
Girl Scout economics: Thin mints, thick margins alts.co (Micael T)
Iceland volcano in pictures: Eruption spews lava and cuts off road BBC (Kevin W)
Doctors set to lead the way in knee joint repair with nasal cartilage therapy Interesting Engineering (furzy)
In 2015, a woman named Joy Milne claimed she could smell Parkinson's disease. She first noticed the smell after her husband’s musk changed.
After her husband was diagnosed with the disease, the pair attended a support group for individuals with Parkinson’s.
During the first… pic.twitter.com/kW7i2NYfLZ
— Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) March 17, 2024
#COVID-19
While the WHO is busily downgrading Covid and the CDC has checked out altogether, the US never really came out of the recent record winter Covid wave.
The reprieves are growing shorter, & the reinfections are coming more quickly. https://t.co/M5srilyZCB
— Laura Miers (@LauraMiers) March 19, 2024
Climate/Environment
EPA Bans Chrysotile Asbestos Associated Press
China?
Chinese scientists create swarming drones that can rapidly multiply mid-air to create a tactical shock South China Morning Post
Japan
U.S. Steel sale faces another potential headache Politico (Kevin W)
Biden says it’s ‘vital’ US Steel remain American owned and operated CNN. So now we no longer trust Japan, our military protectorate?
Old Blighty
Birmingham’s cuts reveal the ugly truth about Britain in 2024: the state is abandoning its people Guardian (Kevin W)
Africa
Niger Termination of U.S. Military Ties Followed Accusation of Iran Uranium Deal Wall Street Journal (BC)
Gaza
Israel’s war on Gaza live: Children among 14 killed in Israeli attacks Aljazeera
Alarming UN report warns famine is imminent in northern Gaza Arab News
War on Gaza: Israel kills police officer in charge of securing aid convoys Middle East Eye (Kevin W)
* * * Benjamin Netanyahu’s American crisis Financial Times (BC)
They’re Really Going To Try To Lay All The Blame For Gaza On Netanyahu Caitlin Johnstone. Trying to assign fault and making it stick are two different things. This will fall apart as soon as Netanyahu is finally forced to go and the policies persist.
War on Gaza: Torture, executions, babies left to die, sexual abuse… These are Israel’s crimes Middle East Eye (Chuck L). From last week, still germane.
New Not-So-Cold War
Johnson’s Plan B for Ukraine leaves questions unanswered The Hill. Looks like Johnson is temporizing to look cooperative while still holding up the funding.
Diminished Air Defence Stockpiles To Further Tip Strategic Balance Against Ukraine – Officials Warn Military Watch
Sen. Graham Demands Ukrainians Keep Fighting and Pass New Conscription Law Antiwar.com (Kevin W). Wowsers.
NATO Builds Largest Europe Base Near Black Sea Newsweek (Kevin W)
What’s the ‘Buffer Zone’ Putin Proposed in Ukraine? Sputnik
China comments on Swiss-proposed Ukraine peace talks RT (Kevin W). A peace summit? As if everyone has a vote?
* * * Norway expands defense agreement with American troops The Independent Barents Observer (Chuck L)
Norway as an Arctic frontline state?
The US is opening 12 military bases in Norway to confront Russia in the Arctic (https://t.co/aLf7lMzD4f)
– The main objective is to contest Russia's Northern Sea Route and the Russian claims to energy resources in the Russian Arctic
– The US… pic.twitter.com/RpvtGvijCW— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) March 17, 2024
* * * Selling A Predicted Behavior As Protest? Moon of Alabama. The cope, it burns.
GEORGE F KENNAN: DUGIN, PUTIN, CARLSON, NAVALNY AND THE KENNAN OBSERVATION Michael Basta
Putin claims he agreed to prisoner swap involving Navalny before his death Guardian. Note this was reported (the swap, not the later Putin remark) shortly after Navalny dies, but now getting some coverage via Putin having cleared his throat.
Syraqistan
Israeli airstrikes target Damascus: Syrian state news agency Anadolu Agency
Tom Friedman’s strange case for a US military presence in Syria Responsible Statecraft
Imperial Collapse Watch
‼️🚨 The F-35: Biggest Debacle in Pentagon History
US General Account Office report on F-35 combat readiness linked below.
TL;DR: About 85% of the US fleet of F-35s (A/B/C) is incapable of conducting combat missions.https://t.co/US324EJQzr pic.twitter.com/uUwdtUwbO6
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) March 17, 2024
In Navalny and Guaido, Washington Saw Useful Pawns, Not Political Paragons Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
Did the Israel Lobby Push for the TikTok Bill so that its Allies Could Control it? Sam Husseini
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raises eyebrows with comment that First Amendment “hamstrings” government Fox News (Kevin W)
AI
Chinese and Western Scientists Identify ‘Red Lines’ on AI Risks Financial Times
The Bezzle
Hertz CEO Resigns After Blowing Big Gamble On EVs Gateway Pundit
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
Shocked chimp calls all its friends to have a look
pic.twitter.com/2qiJQdryXY— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 15, 2024
A second bonus (Chuck L):
The uncle rescued a fawn that had
been shot by an arrow. Then nursed and released back into the wild.What happens next is beautiful.
— Be Believing (@Be_Believing) March 16, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Efforts to quell online disinformation face free speech challenge at Supreme Court SCOTUSblog
A Conspiracy Theory Goes to the Supreme Court: How Did Murthy v Missouri Get This Far? JustSecurity
Murthy v. Missouri: the most important free speech hearing in decades Unherd
Haiti: How Port-au-Prince’s Warring Neighborhoods United The Internationalist 360°. Big if true.
Haiti’s latest gang violence crisis, and how it forced PM Ariel Henry to resign The Hindu
UAW Files for Union Election at VW in Chattanooga with 70% Signing Union Cards PayDay Report
Climate Change and Contagion: The Circuitous Impacts From Infectious Diseases (corrected proof) Journal of Infectious Diseases
Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners nearing billion-dollar Balkan real estate deals BNE Intellinews
From a Big Lie to the Biggest War? Tarik Cyril Amar
Massive increase in container shipping imports from China into Mexico amid ongoing US trade war: Xeneta analysis Container News
‘Worrisome and even frightening’: Ancient ecosystem of Lake Baikal at risk of regime change from warming Live Science
Craig Murray selected to stand for Workers Party in Blackburn The Skwawkbox
In Havana syndrome patients, NIH scientists find no physical trace of harm NPR. Contrast the immense solicitude for spooks with the virtual abandonment of Long Covid sufferers.
FedEx pilots take harder line as contract dispute drags on Freight Waves
China Ups IPO Rules to Protect Investors With ‘Teeth And Horns’ Asia Financial
Hamas Is Starting to Paint Its Own Strategic Victory Image in the Gaza War, and Israel Is Helping It Haaretz
“Have you all lost your minds?”.
Amazing and terrifying speech by @SWagenknecht on the folly of Germany’s warmongering approach to Russia. pic.twitter.com/wfOV1ebzoO
— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) March 17, 2024
The Gang Crisis in Haiti Is Only Beginning New York Magazine
Haiti is preparing itself for new leadership. Gangs want a seat at the table AP
The Odor of Mendacity: 2024 Could Turn on Smell of Selective Prosecution from Georgia to New York Jonathan Turley
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BIBI NETANYAHU
(melody borrowed from Runaround Sue by Dion)
A gory story that’s shown to you
The Gaza Strip is a human zoo
Tik-Tok and YouTube live, with sound,
Israelis toss our bombs around
He thinks that he’s a modern Bonaparte
He steals his neighbor’s lands a la carte
He’s a supremacist you know it’s true
They’re gonna hang Bibi Netanyahu
Ten thousand children gone without a trace
The smoke is visible from outer space
Two-thirds of Israel backs him, too
They’re gonna hang Bibi Netanyahu
He thought he’d get himself crowned
Instead we’ll see him gagged and bound
The ICJ will put him wise
He’ll hang with a bunch of other guys
When you’re shooting kids the IDF are pros
They treat machine guns like a fire hose
Not just in Gaza but the West Bank, too
They’re gonna hang Bibi Netanyahu
A pariah state in this world
All the lies that they spew
Israel is through
Hamas waits underground
While Bibi knocks the buildings down
Then Hamas sends up some guys
Not much of the IDF survives
When you’re shooting kids the IDF are pros
They treat machine guns like a fire hose
Not just in Gaza but the West Bank, too
They’re gonna hang Bibi Netanyahu
A pariah state in this world
All the lies that they spew, now
Woah
Another fine effort!
I’ll bring the rope .
“Israeli airstrikes target area outside Damascus: Syrian state news agency”
Israel must be swimming with missiles that old Joe sent them if they can bomb Gaza, bomb Lebanon and bomb Syria all at the same time. They seem to be confident that the US will send not only every missile that can be spared, but also the stocks that the US keeps for its own use in case of war – leaving the US with empty armouries.
during my youth, we raised goats…and so were set up for bottle feeding critters like that.
stepdad’s buddy was a lineman with the electric coop…always out in storms at night…would come across orphaned baby deer regularly, and bring them to us.
and we’d raise em up and release them.
they’d exhibit all the behavior in the video…including bringing their eventual kids to look at us.
when i was laid up in the bed after my big wreck, we had an adolescent buck(more than a spike,lol–5 points) who was still hanging around…stepdad(in wheelchair) would be getting firewood from the porch, and leave the back door open…and that dern deer would wander in behind his back…and i’d awake from a painkiller nap to a horned animal eating my cigs out of my shirt pocket.
at other times, this friendship with deer came in…uh…handy.
bring a girl home, late…and take her on a nightime tour of the gardens…and one of our deer would be out there…and id put on a big show of speaking quendi to the deer, and it coming up, horns and all, and nuzzling my neck…and chick would get to pet the deer,lol…
did wonders for my love life.
That’s fantastic AtH!
I’m a bit of a deer-whisperer myself. My wife says something and I whisper back ‘Yes dear.’
Absolutely killer anecdotes as always Amfortas
Outstanding post!
I always look forward to these wisdoms
from Amfortas the Hippie.
RE: Girl Scout Cookies
My mother used to be highly involved with Girl Scouts. She was the leader of my sister’s troop and very active in the town organization even after my sister aged out. She disliked the Council, which was run by paid professionals. The council (as shown in the article) made a lot of money off the cookies and wanted a cut of any other fundraiser that the girls did to the extent that they prohibited other fundraisers for much of the year to avoid competing with the Girl Scout Cookies. In exchange, she thought they got very little back.
My mom is still bitter about this years later. In hindsight, this was my first exposure to the non-profit industrial complex where the Council seemed more interested in feeding itself than helping the girls.
My takeaway from the article: buy the similar cookies from the store and donate the difference to a local troop, who will spend it on activities for the girls.
‘New Not-So-Cold War’
Just came across this story a few minutes ago and still find it hard to believe. All the western nations are having a hissy fit that Putin was re-elected for another 6 years more so the regime change part of Project Ukraine is a dead letter. But Germany decided to really go off the deep end and has said that because they think that the election were neither free nor fair, that they will not refer to Russian President Vladimir Putin by his proper title in government documents so I guess Herr Putin and not President Putin? I really have no words here as it is so petty but how does that work when there are official negotiations between Russia and Germany? Putin Derangement Syndrome much?
https://www.rt.com/russia/594479-medvedev-germany-president-putin/
Eric Feigl Ding shared a tweet of a video clip supposedly showing Russian soldiers going into voting booths and telling people how to vote. The propaganda cope is going to be coming fast and thick.
As soon as that video came out, netizens were able to see that it was a Ukrainian production so maybe even one from the Zelensky Production Unit. Did not stop Putin getting 87% of the vote which is in line with his popularity levels which are also in the mid to high 80s. And those figures are from western-funded polling organizations. What can you say but heees back!
Hasn’t the Russian election system been vetted by independent observers time and time again?
By comparison the US system is so convoluted that observers do not even bother from what i recall.
In 2020 the US only allowed about 40 international observers into the country during the Presidential elections which is a bad joke. In addition, several States enacted laws that would have police arrest any international observers near any voting stations. Nothing to see. Keep on moving.
My response to anyone talking about the lack of choice in Russian elections is, hey, how about the variety of candidates we had to choose from in the Democratic primaries? Then there’s the awesome popularity numbers of that one flawed candidate we are handed, compared to 87%. Hell, the approval rating in general of our elected officials in D.C..
To amplify, am I the only one who finds it amusing that:
President Putin received 87% or so of the vote with three “also ran” opponents receiving a few votes each (since any “real” opponent is not permitted or able to run) and it’s evidence of the farce and corruption of Russian electoral system
whereas
President Biden received 87% or more of the vote in most primaries with two or three “also ran” candidates – Marianne Williamson, Dean Philips and in some states Uncommitted – anybody but Biden – receiving a few percentage points and it’s a ringing endorsement of the transparent, open, and honest US electoral system?
https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/democratic-party/president?election-data-id=2024-PD&election-painting-mode=projection&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false
Exactly. Do the Russians have a super delegates and electoral collages?
Love how Team Blue types ritualistically disparage Putin and Russian not free elections, dismiss them as fake and rigged. I usually sneak in a comment like “Another typical American jealous Russia can vote for a leader w/80% approval, who not only quotes Tolstoy but has read him, and can speak w/out a teleprompter or tripping over flat floors. Meanwhile look at who we have.” (I might have made up the Tolstoy part).
If I have more time, I explain the Iowa Caucus when Team Blue used an app created by a billionaire to count the votes, and the candidate he supported who very few ever head of, won out of the blue against Bernie Sanders….then ask them why they aren’t more concerned bout rigged unfree American elections then what is happening in Russia?
Hush, Timbers. When I made a similar observation about the Iowa caucuses, I was informed sternly that is c*nspiracy the*ry which only a flat-earther would believe.
To be fair, pretty much every Russian person has read and can quote L.N. Tolstoi.
Funny how “we” seem to know more of Japanese cultural outputs than Russian…
Putin also plays classical piano. Saw a clip a few years ago of him playin Moonlight Sonata from memory while he and some others were waiting for a meeting..
Funny thing is that this uneducated clod associate that piece of music with computer games of my youth.
He’s in the school program, so it’s hard to avoid reading at least a little. Not sure how many pupils actually read one of his novels instead of pretending to, though.
A former CIA spook candidate, no less, who only won barely despite this (to the extent that this is still arguable)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/tolstoy/1869/war-and-peace/book-9-chapter-2.html
War and Peace
By Leo Tolstoy
1812
On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was brought to Napoleon….
“What? What did he say?” was heard in the ranks of the Polish Uhlans when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.
The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor’s eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be displeased at this excess of zeal.
As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer, with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted “Vivat!” and, commanding the Uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest part where the current was swift. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the stream, and the Uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses’ manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and, though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment, ventured to draw the Emperor’s attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the drowning Uhlans who distracted his attention.
For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for his horse and rode to his quarters.
Some forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted “Vivat!” and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.
That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter containing information about the orders to the French army had been found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion d’honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.
Quos vult perdere dementat. *
* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.
Its not just that the foregone conclusion got 87% of the vote.
Word is this was the highest ever turnout for a modern Russian presidential election.
So it seems a measurable number of people who didn’t come out to vote for the foregone conclusion last time, came out this time to vote for the foregone conclusion.
Do they do exit polls in Russia ?
Feigl Ding… meh
And there are millions that hang on every word the epidemiologist utters with regards to Covid. Maybe most of his views are incorrect on the subject.
Performative epidemiology theory predicts that a rational, non-ridiculous feigl ding surface should exist.
A bit like the late musician Prince who changed his name to a symbol and was forever labelled formally known as Prince, and X now labelled formally known as Twitter, I guess the Germans will now have to say Putin, formally known as President…
You could not make this pettiness up.
re: Prince, Twitter
formerly
Sorry, but there’s a difference.
Yep, Prince’s name change was a protest against a system and a legal necessity to release music outside of Warner Bros. records.
Twitter was a rebranding.
Sorry, you are quite correct. English is not my first language. But I do know the difference, not sure why I got it wrong there.
Caesar was the root word for Czsar, so I guess that now Russians will have a replacement word for leader of their own making. Too bad for the French: putaine, poutine…
Freedom Fries!
New Not-So-Cold War:
Big US base in Romania: sounds like Camh Ranh Bay (Vietnam) to my ‘old’ 1960’s mind.
Norway has always been a NATO “contact line”, now it is news!
Otherwise, the Maoists running USA should not talk about ballot fraud elsewhere, pot calling……
At least the Maoists keep the same old bogey man named Vladimir Vladimirovich
Thank you, Rev.
That personalisation and juvenile approach to policymaking, not just foreign policy, goes back years. Plastic paddy Biden has been doing it for a long time.
It’s funny that Germany has officialised it. Some years ago, centrist log roller John Kampfner wrote a book comparing adult Germany with juvenile Britain, fodder for and a money spinner from his remoaner camp followers.
Navalny and Guaidó both had a certain “leading man” look. Zelensky actually had starring film roles. I wonder if that is a factor in the Blob’s choices. I mean, if you have little or no understanding of local conditions, are emotionally unintelligent and intellectually lazy, how would you choose?
Aren’t all European Prime Ministers now willowy 30-somethings? Who seem to govern in English?
The Prime Minster of France – Gabriel Attal – is also quite willowy. :)
It does seem to help with certain prerequisites like becoming a WEF “Young Global Leader” or receiving a fellowship from the Kennedy School or working for Tony Blair. Of course for those who obtain positions of real power this is not a requirement – fortunately for Victoria Nuland.
Robert Hahl: We certainly seem to be seeing something like that in Germany and Scandinavia and Estonia. Willowy belligerence.
But the English spoken is the New Globalized Degraded English.
They wouldn’t go anywhere near Arnold’s “Dover Beach” or Lowell’s “For the Union Dead.”
They do all have a similar look to them. Probably came out of the same cloning vat facility.
Someone broke the space-time continuum.
And the way that deer wagged its tail as it came running through the snow was almost like seeing a dog.
The antidote and bonus videos are not at the bottom of the list but in the middle.
Dose was needed early.
Re: Smelling Parkinson’s
Illnesses had distinct smells.
I have been training a service dog the past couple months. This led me to learn more about them. There are service dogs who alert their owners of oncoming seizures, and low blood sugar when the owner’s smell changes. Human noses are not normally sensitive enough to smell these changes. Changes in smell might explain why certain breeds of dogs are so sensitive to their owner’s moods. I’m working with a Malinois mix, and her sensitivity is uncanny.
When you stop to think about it, this could open the way for a whole new class of medical sensors. Both that woman and those service dogs are detecting chemicals in the air as they have a sensitive sense of smell. So imagine a device that could take in an air sample from near a person, analyze it and then give diagnostic readings. That women – Joy Milne – was not only able to determine which 6 of 12 t-shirts belonged to people suffering from Parkinson’s disease but also one that was in very early stages of this disease. But that women’s story was from back in 2015 so I wonder if any work has been done at ill in developing such a sensor which should be a no brainer.
Already in the works, but the problem seems to be the amount of sweat needed to get a good sample for the devices to pick up. In particular as you would want a worn device that can detect change over time.
It was established early on that dogs could smell Covid infections. If TPTB wanted to screen populations, that would have been an obvious and cost-effective tool to develop. However, the dogs work for dried liver, and that would not particularly help Wall Street (and thus K Street). And then it would also be more difficult to pretend that it has all gone away “like magic!” (hat tip to Donald Trump)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03149-9
I was present for the birth of my second son. When he emerged a certain smell came into the room with him. This memory was triggered again several months, perhaps as much as a year later, when I was holding him after a bath and the same smell seemed to linger in the air.
I think of hospital and nursing home smells.
People notice a “sick” smell, but don’t have the ability to pinpoint it like the woman in the story.
Most likely it is the amount of disinfectants etc used.
You don’t ever notice the kind of smell under the smell?
I think if there is enough sickness around more people have the ability to pick up on it, even if they can’t pinpoint each odor..
For instance, while a woman’s menstrual period isn’t a sickness, guards in women’s prisons can smell when it is that time of the month because their cycles sync up.
Or if someone next to you cuts their finger, you won’t necessarily smell the blood. But have the unfortunate chance to walk into an area post-massacre of some kind and you will smell the blood.
I think they can also detect the emotional state by smell. When my wife died, the neighbor’s dog became particularly affectionate towards me, as if he could sense my need for comfort.
Dogs may also be far more sensitive to body language than we are commonly aware of.
I think there was some test done that dogs are the one animal that understands human gesturing. Like if you point at something, best i recall, a dog will switch between looking at your finger and where you are pointing. A cat will just focus on your finger.
Cats can definitely learn it, though… our cats have discovered there is usually something tasty in the area we are pointing.
Cats point with their ears. Ours get our attention by calling but then flick their ear on the side of the target location in the direction our attention is wanted. Usually toward the room with the food bowl but not always. Sometimes towards the tap for a drink or to the door if the cat flap is seemingly out of order.
I smelled my type 2 diabetes years before it was diagnosed (I hadn’t seen a doctor in years.) I couldn’t find any research on the faintly sweet odor emanating from me (no pun intended.) Now I know.
“Niger Termination of U.S. Military Ties Followed Accusation of Iran Uranium Deal”
What is important is remembering that accusations of uranium deals by Niger with Iraq were used to drive America to war against Iraq in 2003:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html
July 6, 2003
What I Didn’t Find in Africa
By JOSEPH C. WILSON 4th
WASHINGTON — Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?
Joe Wilson, 2003:
Didn’t a certain segment understand that to be so at the time, with Iraq, but were severely quashed? And Valerie Plame et al?
The current piece is paywalled so I can’t read it, but government disinformation has been a thing for quite some time. It seems to me.
What I Didn’t Find in Africa article available free at archive.ph, as is the the article “Niger Termination of U.S. Military Ties Followed Accusation of Iran Uranium Deal” .
Thank you!
The story that I heard was that that US delegation turned up in Niger and demanded a meeting. They then read the riot act to the locals and not only demanded that Niger end all contact with the Russians and evict them from the country but that they also demanded that Niger end all contacts with Iran as well as any trade deals. Also, that Niger renew the lease on that drone base. For some reason, this was not a winning strategy as it caused Niger to demand that the US leave their country. Who could have predicted that? /sarc
Look to the remarkably low real per capita GDP and the trade deficit. What Niger has failed to gain economically from having an American military presence in the country is startling to me:
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/October/weo-report?c=692,&s=NGDP_RPCH,PPPGDP,PPPPC,NID_NGDP,NGSD_NGDP,PCPIPCH,GGXWDG_NGDP,BCA_NGDPD,&sy=2017&ey=2023&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
October 15, 2023
Niger, 2017-2023
Real GDP, percent change
Investment, percent of GDP
Savings, percent of GDP
Inflation rate, percent change
General government gross debt, percent of GDP
Current account balance, percent of GDP
Gee, a country that has a history of violently kidnapping Africans, putting them in chains and loading them on ships bound for slave trade ports in Haiti, New Orleans, and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, comes in and lectures an African country?
I mean, what could possibly be offensive about that? /s
Wonder if Victoria Nuland was part of that group. She was there in August 2023 trying to push for the former president to be reinstated without much success, another feather in her cap. Oh well what’s a $100M dollars spent on an air base gone. Most of that money probably went into the pockets of local politicians and US Contractors.
https://apnews.com/article/niger-coup-victoria-nuland-west-africa-jihadis-4f21ee42f7e87b3747a322709d8d1bbc
Girl Scout Cookies – Bought them when a co-worker asked people in the office to help her daughter’s troop.
The worst cookies ever to cross my lips. Never bought more after that one mistake.
Girl scout insider says:
The peanut butter ones used to be very tasty.
I think they call that enshittification :(
We just talked about a few months ago how the chocolate ones aren’t in any way, shape, or form as they used to be a decade ago. I haven’t bought any in ten years, but without a doubt, these are alien to me. The older generation of thin mints were amazing and a treat to look forward to. Whatever they’re selling now ain’t the same by a long shot. Demonstrably smaller, for one.
Bidenomics at work?
I’m just curious who can afford the dang things in this economy? $6-$7 for a small box of factory made cookies? And I’m assuming you’re intended to buy multiples as, at least in my office, there’s a handful of people selling them.
I had the nowadays rare experience of working at the same office for 30+ years. There was a long time period when a bunch of us had school-age kids and were constantly shelling out for each others’ fundraisers. Everyone pretty much went along with it but most of us thought it would have been less hassle to just donate money for our own kids rather than trying to unload the various products on our co-workers.
I gave money directly to whatever organization my kids were involved in to avoid having to hawk stuff. I did get roped into volunteering in a food stand at High School football games because the Marching Band organizer was a friend of ours, a nurse, and she could probably punch my lights out.
“Alarming UN report warns famine is imminent in northern Gaza”
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1769886509036142765
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
How can this be allowed to happen in the 21st century? The cruelty of starving an entire people is just unfathomable.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification ( IPC ), which is the global authoritative institution for hunger assessment, on which governments and multilateral organizations rely, now determines that half the population in the Gaza strip is in IPC Phase 5 ( Catastrophe/Famine ), the worst classification, where “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident”.
Source: https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue-97/en/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GI_mZjybMAAm8EX?format=jpg&name=medium
8:40 PM · Mar 18, 2024
Gaza shows what lies ahead for the surplus population in the capitalist world economy. This is one of the reasons why the capitalist elites either support or tolerate it.
Thank you, CM.
The variation is the poor are a warning to the middle class.
Our No Longer Free Press: The NY Times fails to mention why people in Gaza are starving.
It’s Journalistic Malpractice To Say Gazans Are Starving Without Saying Israel Is Starving Them (Caitlin Johnstone)
I see that on the TV news – an undoubtedly Caitlin sees the same – how they will talk about the Gazans starving and all those plane drops of food but cannot bring themselves to say that the Israelis are committing a massive war crime by deliberately starving over two million people. They could pump trucks full of food and medicine through those border crossings but as Caitlin puts it, we have to pretend that with the border crossing, the floor is lava.
~
Dante Alighieri:
Or something like that.
In Dante’s great poem, the neutrals, those who in this world had never taken a side, occupy the mouth and vestibule of Hell. There they swirl unceasingly in clouds of red sand, their faces bitten by wasps and hornets. They pursue in a blind fatal way a flag which never stays for a moment in one place.
Dante denies them the moral dignity of a place even in hell itself. “Heaven will not have them, and the deep Hell receives them not lest the wicked there should have some glory over them”—lest the wicked, that is, looking at these neutrals, should be able to feel that there were souls worse than themselves.
And what was the sin of these neutrals? Oh, simply this: they had never taken a side. They had spent God’s precious moment, which is our life, they had spent it watching which way the wind was likely to blow.
religious writer Reverend John A. Hutton analysis of Dante’s Inferno
So for Dante, it was a matter of that you were either with us or against us. No recognizing that both sides may be wrong.
bicameral moron – observation correct – doubt you will come back to see this – and wasn’t it past your bedtime RK?
Caity Johnstone: “It’s Journalistic Malpractice To Say Gazans Are Starving Without Saying Israel Is Starving Them”
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/its-journalistic-malpractice-to-say?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142753938&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=1cc3o&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I would say that it is not journalistic malpractice but intentional obfuscation. The use of the passive voice is the give away.
Pass the python, please I wish for seconds? Seems like an interesting meat source to consider farming and raising. Heck why not set up shop where they have proliferated as it is, the Everglades where they have practically become the apex predator I believe.
I would pass (being a child of the 80s, the banquet scene from “Temple of Doom” stays top of mind). Maybe if there is a pig in the python…kind of like the famous Turducken.
…and can someone explain why anyone would eat something that begins with “turd?”
TurkeyDuckChicken does not roll casually in spoken conversation. It’s a hybrid word, much like the famous & so funny South Park episode featuring Al Gore. “ManBearPig” was a fictional beast that only Mr Gore could track and possibly eliminate.
well yeah, I get how it’s derived but “turd” jumps out as most unfortunate. Why not turkducken or duckenkey… anything but “turd”, huh?!…
or is it just me?
The new culinary favourite, the Burmese Turducken.
“Remember citizens, today is Soylent Reticulated Day.”
I’m game, heh heh. Seriously, gator is tasty, why not python.
Gator tastes like chicken the one time I tried it, odd enough or not was a visit to the Everglades in 97 I think with the folks.
Momma ( rest in peace dear mom ) was a lot like Bobby Boucher’s mother come to think of it. My young brain was filled with falsehoods about women and our wicked world …
Well, birds are evolved dinos they claim.
But i do wonder if all “white” meat taste the same, with chicken being the one most are familiar with.
That article raises a big red flag: pythons are invasive species — witness what happened in the Everglades.
And they suggest to set up farms with perhaps hundreds of such beasts, who will wreck ecological havoc should they, by accident, be released in the environment?
As Florida has shown; always assume the eventual escape of a captive population.
Circa 2040:
‘They say chicken tastes like rattlesnake’
ITS BEGINNING TO TASTE A LOT LIKE PYTHON
(melody borrowed from It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas by Meredith Willson as sung by Bing Crosby)
It’s beginning to taste a lot like python
Everywhere I go
Monster snakes that are pure Burmese
That really put on the squeeze
Tighter till your blood no longer flows
I suspect that my soup has python
Protein rich for sure
Yet the scariest sight to see is the python that might be
Waiting at your door
A pair of waders with boots on our usual routes
To the Everglade marshes again!
We’ll set up a farm that does nature less harm
And bake lots of snake au vin
We told the youngsters ‘Do your chores’ they’re never seen again
Have you nibbled on rattlesnake or cobra?
More meat for less dough
At first people raised some hell but a squeeze by the snake cartel
Got folks inclined to change their mind and so . . .
We’re beginning to eat a lot more reptile
Let squeamishness depart
In Tokyo and Beijing they serve crunchy lizard things
Now New York can start
(musical interlude)
We’re beginning to eat a lot more reptile
Bring back dinosaurs!
Then the scariest sight you’ll see are the raptors that will be
Waiting at your door
It’s the future we look for . . .
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1769928764715401715
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Extraordinary video of the Irish Prime Minister lecturing Biden to his face – Biden who loves reminding people he’s Irish! – on why “the Irish people are deeply troubled about Gaza” and why “the Irish have such empathy for the Palestinian people”.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769928764715401715
The Irish PM says: “We see our history in the Palestinians’ eyes, a story of displacement, of dispossession, a national identity questioned and denied, forced immigration, discrimination and now hunger.”
11:27 PM · Mar 18, 2024
Thank you, CA.
Biden’s English ancestors come from Sussex, south coast of England to readers not familiar with Blighty. His middle name, Robinette, is French.
I heard from an Irish diplomat, formerly in Washington, that Biden was told by a grandmother to play up his Irish ancestry for political reasons and he’s as much English and French as Irish.
Robin is a Huguenot French name. I suspect Robinette is too. He nay be neither Irish nor Catholic, just mean and old.
……”when small nations be free…..”
“In Havana syndrome patients, NIH scientists find no physical trace of harm”
Hey, wait a minute. All those victims were paid out for these attacks under the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act of 2021 which was signed by President Biden. Some got up to $187,300 in compensation. So do they have to pay back all that money as it seems that it was only a case of mass hysterics? Unlike people trying to prove Long Covid, the CIA officers were approved for compensation right away-
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/24/us/politics/havana-syndrome-compensation.html
If only the residents of East Palestine and Hawaii had this kind of response…
Asking electeds about this theft seems like it would be fun.
Maybe Long covid sufferers should claim to have Havana syndrome. Just a thought.
Transfer payments courtesy of the American taxpayer. Recipients should thank us in droves! Much like those being forgiven their student loan debt peonage.
Nope, not sarcasm.
“In Havana syndrome patients, NIH scientists find no physical trace of harm”
Why after decades and against many decisive United Nations votes, is America continuing to blockade and cause economic harm to Cuba?
https://english.news.cn/20240318/78b2208d2c0d4b449f08b68a866a2765/c.html
March 18, 2024
China will continue to provide assistance for Cuba to overcome current difficulties
BEIJING — China firmly supports the party and government of Cuba in improving people’s life and will continue to provide assistance for Cuba to overcome the current difficulties, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Monday…
On the off chance you’re not familiar with Florida, its because the plantation owners and mafiosos who Castro kicked out settled in exile in Miami. They run much of South Florida, and have long pretended to reclaim their stolen property if only Castro could be gotten rid of. They would punish any party who made the slightest move towards loosening ties with Cuba.
Kind of the same reason the US bends over backwards supporting Israel – because a hugely important voting block (concentrated in CA and New York / New England) are wealthy Zionists.
Some of the better connected Cuban exiles in South Florida might also have had inside knowledge about the JFK assassination. Knowledge that a Certain Individual Agency wouldn’t want going public.
– ‘A Conspiracy Theory Goes to the Supreme Court: How Did Murthy v Missouri Get This Far?’ – JustSecurity
Forget about all that “Twitter Files” stuff uncovered by Taibbi, Schellenberger, et al. – the authors of this piece certainly did; it was not mentioned. What was mentioned was the conservative bias of Supreme Court judges, support for “content moderation” by some noted “First Amendment scholars,” and the certainly objective opinions of Yoel Roth and Sen. Mark Warner. No, this case is just about protecting a bunch of right-wing COVID denialists. And oh yeah, the dastardly *Russians* of the Internet Research Agency too – apparently *that* “conspiracy” was real!
I don’t know which is worse: whether these “tech journalists” are knowingly lying, or whether they actually believe this bulls**t argument. But as usual, whenever you see something ridiculed as “conspiracy theory,” that is a signal to pay close attention.
I’d be willing to bet that these “tech journalists” never bothered to read any of the case briefs, motions, or interlocutory rulings. They are big tech’s hidebound stooges, too.
“China comments on Swiss-proposed Ukraine peace talks”
The Russian Foreign Ministry a week ago summoned the Swiss ambassador after Parliament and the Council of States (the Swiss Senate) voted in favor of financing reparations payments to Ukraine from frozen Russian funds.
According to the warning, any violation of Russian state property would constitute “state theft” and “retaliatory measures from the Russian side would be unavoidable“, says the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti.
For Russia, this ‘peace summit’ is likely to be DOA. I think it’s mainly a PR event to revive the tarnished reputation of Swiss neutrality and the business associated with it (just as Swiss tourism hired Trevor Noah after Covid to revive the tarnished image of a country that walks over dead bodies to keep business going).
Because of Swiss actions, Russia already regards Switzerland as a hostile nation. Neutrality in Switzerland is dead like it is in Scandinavia and Austria. Anyway, those Swiss-proposed Ukraine peace talks does not even want to invite Russia there and the basis for those peace talks is supposed to be Zelensky’s 10-point plan which has Russia retreat from the Ukraine, arrest Putin and the other top leaders and have Russia pay compensation to the Ukraine. In other words, it is going to be a useless PR gab fest.
And this is probably the reason why China is not simply ignoring this farce:
“Switzerland and China maintain good economic relations, which have steadily intensified since 1948. The two countries have been engaged in constructive economic policy exchanges for a long time. In 2014, Switzerland was one of the first Western countries to conclude a free trade agreement with China. China is already Switzerland’s third most important export country after Germany and the USA. The volume of trade has risen sharply in the last 20 years. In 2020, both exports to China (CHF 14.7 billion, up 10 percent) and imports from China (CHF 16.1 billion, up 8 percent) increased, while other trading partners experienced sharp declines. This long-term relationship should not be jeopardized lightly – it should be seen as an opportunity to further improve trade and the situation on the ground.”
https://www.economiesuisse.ch/de/dossier-politik/wirtschaftsbeziehungen-zwischen-der-schweiz-und-china
According to Economiesuisse, it is “the voice of the Swiss economy and represents its interests at national and international level”.
Thank you, Yves.
Further to the link about Birmingham from the Grauniad, one should remember the immortal words from the author, John Harris, about Corbyn in 2019, yet another episode in the Grauniad’s inglorious campaign of character assassination, “The problem with Corbyn is that he thinks we need and want another 1945 style Labour government.”
Harris lives in Frome, Somerset, and, like many at the Grauniad, does not wish his idyll rudely interrupted by socialists and having to relieve the less fortunate of their tax burden.
Thank you Colonel,
A few years back I started Googling the education of various Guardian columnists. Almost all went to good private schools, then Oxford, Cambridge or maybe Exeter etc
With a couple of exceptions (Aditya Chakrabortty is one) I have zero belief they can understand the lives of the poor majority, much less speak for them.
The odor of mendacity is strong enough to reach all the way to Kalorama.
Or is that from Kalorama?
That’s the smell of Money citizen.
“It’s only the river…” D Byrne
This is from the movie version with Burl Ives, Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. (21 sec)
Going against received opinion but I like Burl Ives better as an actor than as a musician.
And better as either than in his role as a McCarthyite snitch on his fellows.
Mecouris yesterday gets ahead of the matter and asks us to consider western evacuation of Kiev before it’s too late. With no air travel out of the city and vulnerable train lines as the best way out, time to pack bags.
About 1:02 in: https://youtu.be/DErVuxe24KI?si=whzVD0oJ4po3iECZ
Many thanks, Yves Smith, for the smell-themed Links today. (I agree about grilled eel, especially grilled eel sushi, which is tasty and wonderfully oily and has a great smell. But eel is a fish.)
[The great writer about the sense of smell is Colette, who noted that the scent of peonies, which is unforgettable and alluring, is also fetid.]
Which gets us to Turley’s article about two-tiered justice and mendacity.
The full quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (Turley squeamishly left off a sentence):
“What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room? There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity. You can smell it. It smells like death.”
It smells like death. We have had reason to discuss death a great deal here in the comments, what with excess deaths, the planned massacre of Ukrainian soldiers, the starvation in Gaza. It is the politics of death. And here we are.
re: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raises eyebrows with comment that First Amendment “hamstrings” government – Fox News (Kevin W)
She’s not wrong. The entire Bill of Rights is meant to hamstring the govt from overreaching and violations of citizens’ rights. The question is, I suppose, does she think protecting citizens’ rights is bad, does she think the Bill of Rights should be overturned? We’ll find out, I guess.
She is not a fan of checks and balances I guess.
We’ll see.
Hopefully she will not be like Thomas, who is apparently a fan of the checks that inflate his bank balance.
They used to not be so obvious.
As the old Union song says it:
“You’ll either be a Union man,”
“Or a Judge for J H Claire.”
“Which side are you on, boys,”
“Which side are you on?”
wikipedia’s lyrics run “.or a.Judge for.J.H. Claire” but If I remember correctly from a recording of florence reece singing [released on a 1960s-early 70s Folkways lp ]”which side are you on’ she refers to Sheriff J.H. John Henry) Blair. Slight variations in the closing lines, too
“Don’t scab for the bosses
Don’t listen to their lies
the working class ain’t got a chance
Until we organize
I have heard the ‘Blair’ version sung.
This is a classically mutable “anthem.” (Lyrics available for any occasion!)
Excellent observation flora. It would be nice to know her opinion here, and whether or not she has both a “public” and a “private” opinion.
And from the Unherd article in the links:
“If you think about what is the purpose of the Government, why do governments exist, it’s really to protect the health and safety and welfare of its citizens,” former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said during a panel discussion at New York University’s School of Law, according to NPR.
Yes, people have thought about that.
And know what the gov is SUPPOSED to be about. But the gov of the USA are servants to lobbyists and other influence from big money. They’ve priced their elections that way to keep the system in place.
And in this case, people are looking at the influence of lobbyists like big pharma (concerned with their profit) in all this drivel coming out of their moutĥs.
This is all to set up precedent for big money to come in and tell the gov everything they want scrubbed from the internet.
Years ago i ran into the claim that he old republican idea, back when it was a system in opposition to monarchies (or feudalism in all forms perhaps), was as the great leveler.
Meaning that whenever a weaker party was pressured or bulled by a stronger one, the republic would step in on the side of the weak to level the scales.
Keep in mind that this was formed back when the vast majority was subsistence farmers that may get in dispute with some wealthier neighbor or similar.
Maybe. I think all the Justices are mindful of the judgement of history. None of them want to be known in future in the way SC Justice Taney is remember for his Dred Scott decision: property is property (money is money) and slaves are property. Therefore, property/money triumphs over all. That decision did not age well.
Overturning the 1st Amendment, or even trying to split the baby here, because the billionaires or current govt pols wish it will not age well.
See also Turley’s column in today’s links.
From his opening para:
“Below is my column in the Hill on the recent decision in Georgia and the “odor of mendacity” rising out of various courtrooms across the country. It is the smell of not just selective prosecution but political bias in our legal system.”
Chief Justice Roberts seems keen avoid charges of political bias on the SC, imo. Witness the recent 9-0 vote against states disqualifying national office candidates.
After all that has happend over the centuries, it’s going to be a long journey from Supreme Corp to Supreme Court.
KBJ brings out the red guard in liberals.
USA cannot abide people getting facts that do not affirm “our Maoist democracy”.
Six foot dunce cap for me!
Greenwald was on this last night, here. Also with Taibbi.
Thanks for the link.
It’s a good one!
It reminds me Lieberman was the moving force behind creation of Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The same guy who said in 2000, when he was running for VP on Gore’s ticket, that the constitution gives you freedom of religion but not freedom from religion. As long as we can control you it is OK. Ralph Nader ruined it for them. /sarc
“Haiti is preparing itself for new leadership. Gangs want a seat at the table”
The only way forward that I can see is have those gangs incorporated into the local power structure and assign them administrative responsibilities for helping run the country. It’s all fun and games for revolutionaries to run around waving guns but sooner or later they have to sit down and start doing the serious work of administration. Over time and if successful, the guy with the automatic rifle and flack vest evolves into the guy wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase. Those who cannot adapt are pushed out or even imprisoned. But Haiti has always had a bad rep-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvyFhvtUTCk (11 secs)
Has anyone seen Hills lately? / ;)
The Clintonista Wet Dream put to music.
“Anybody here seen my old friend Hillary?
Can you tell me where she’s gone?
I thought I saw her walkin’ up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John.”
Shhhh…don’t conjure…
She’s too busy being an honorary* Broadway producer and appearing in their commercial. Besides her work strip mining Haiti for profit and destabilization is done.
I haven’t found a video of the commercial to torture everyone with so the announcement in The Hollywood Reporter will have to do.
*if she and Malala are actual financial investors OR have done any of the hard work getting a show built and onstage I will eat my tin foil chapeau.
Excellent point. These “revolutionaries” are clearly not Marxists. So the Big Boy Capitalists will have to educate whoever holds power how to exercise it to exploit the citizens of Haiti. I suppose autonomous authoritarian rule is preferential to CIA-backed authoritarian rule. Sorry state of affairs.
Based upon that video of the two leaders they seem to be pretty good at doing a class analysis.
Tucker on what’s happening Haiti. Talking with Haiti’s former president Laurent Lamothe. Rumble, ~17+ minutes.
Here’s What’s Really Going on in Haiti
https://rumble.com/v4k0axe-heres-whats-really-going-on-in-haiti.html
The history sounds like a trial run for the ‘defund the police’ movement in the US.
“NATO Builds Largest Europe Base Near Black Sea” Newsweek
These people have zero intention of any good faith negotiation with a sovereign Russia.
And soon it will be obvious they have zero interest in any sovereign nation. It will be the only growth model for these types of bureaucracies. And they have to grow for their budgets to grow.
Russia is a powerful threat to the safety of Europe. This is why the Polish people are building bomb shelters in anticipation of a Russian attack. This will not be the first time Russia invades Poland.
Usually only when there’s a threat to the safety of Russia. I find it curious that you don’t think Russia is Europe, though.
Correlation is not causation, they say, but may I point out that the longest periods of peace in Europe have been when Poland didn’t exist as an independent entity. Makes one wonder…
If Poland had not been independent in 1939 (or if Hitler had been successful in his attempts to make it a German ally) Britain, France and the U.S. would probably have stayed out of any subsequent conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union. The effects on world history would be incalculable.
For all practical purposed Poland acted like a German ally during the “lets contain the Nazi Germany” phase in the 30’s. Poland actively destroyed every attempt to prevent the coming war – whether it was by Soviet Union, Finland or the Baltic States. Heck, they were happy to take their share of Czechoslovakia with the First Vienna Award.
And until 1944, Britain, France and U.S. pretty much stayed out of the conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union. If my memory serves right, while D-day invasion was going on, the Red Army destroyed 1/4 of the German forces on Eastern Front. That alone is nine times more troops than Germans had in total in Normandy.
My understanding is that everything Germany wanted was to the east, which basically meant fighting the Soviet Union sooner or later. Hitler did not want to fight in the west at all, and reportedly was surprised when Britain and France declared war over Poland. Absent that (and other factors like U.S. aid to the Soviets and eventual declaration of war on Germany) it seems possible to me that Germany might have won the war against the Soviets, at least to the point of forcing an armistice or some kind of peace treaty. What this would have meant longer term is unknowable, maybe a “Fatherland” scenario where Nazi Germany lasts into the 1960s?
No, Germany was unlikely to defeat the Soviet Union. Back in the 19th Century, Czarist Russia established a military system of conscription and reserves. Granted, their training was rudimentary, but there were lots of them to call up.The Germans, on the other hand, had the veterans of World War I and the youth born in the 20th Century. They had no reserve population to call up.Once the mechanized forces of Germany met the lack of highways in the Soviet Union, and the different gauge railways, they had lost. It was amazing how well the German armies did against their enemies. Of course, there are lots of details and possibilities. If only the Greeks had not beaten the Italians like a rug so Hitler diverted his forces there for six weeks.
Poland has the misfortune to be situated between Germany and Russia.
Not a very nice neighborhood …
Regarding US Steel: Adam Tooze and Alan Beatty from FT figured out the obvious: Biden is playing protectionist, because Pennsylvania is a swing state.
The Japanese will be told that they have to tolerate this humiliating maltreatment, lest Trump return.
I can see this song playing on repeat in Biden’s head when looking at the domestic electoral map…
NSFW 18+
Something in the tone of yours and archnj’s comments. I can’t explain why my brain went there but once it did it didn’t return.
And the Japanese government will humbly comply, being the gang of obsequious bootlickers that they are.
Being a supplicant to the Empire and putting your own country’s interest in a subordinate position to that emperor is now a feature of the EU (excepting Hungary), Japan, and certain Gulf States. Argentina is also headed this way under Millei.
And once you’ve gone full bootlicker mode, there is no way back.
Hungary simply requires a more vigorous application of carrot and stick.
From what I can see, Hungary is enjoying a lot of carrots and not a lot of stick.
Robert Kuttner at the American Prospect has this take on Biden’s move:
On U.S. Steel – Biden’s statements are almost certainly puffery to appeal to Pennsylvania and some other swing states for the election. For anyone that remembers the 80’s with the Reagan recession wave of mill closures and the fearmongering around “Japan, Inc.”, selling U.S. Steel to a Japanese company seems incomprehensible. If the U. S. government actually cared about maintaining a strategic steel production base, however, it would have stepped in 40 years ago to halt the free-fall the industry was in rather than leave the Mon and Ohio Valleys to rot.
“Johnson’s Plan B for Ukraine leaves questions unanswered The Hill. Looks like Johnson is temporizing to look cooperative while still holding up the funding.”
The plan is for an embarrassing collapse to happen before Election Day. The europeans are terrified of a Trump return and are desperately trying to prevent this.
Time for a Steele Dossier 2.0? Trump tried to sue them for all the lies in that folder but a UK court chucked his case out and made him pay court costs as well as that for Steele if I recall correctly.
If Ukraine has not collapsed or WWIII started by Election Day, all that will be needed is for The Mighty Wurlitzer to howl in unison the words “Putin Puppet!”
Trump already tried and failed twice to leave Syria. The Wurlitzer halted him. Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
And lacks the institutional support/up against strong institutional opposition. Not a small thing.
This is why Biden was able to leave Afghanistan, while Trump’s efforts in that sphere were met with wild allegations of Russian bounties.
Because everyone knows that Pashtuns never kill foreigners and infidels unless paid to do so. Soon as Biden took office, the whole silly thing was dropped like a hot turd.
They’re Really Going To Try To Lay All The Blame For Gaza On Netanyahu Caitlin Johnstone. Trying to assign fault and making it stick are two different things. This will fall apart as soon as Netanyahu is finally forced to go and the policies persist.”
Was it not written of old, that for liberals, all problems can be solved with better P.R.?
Keeping in mind that the Team D is the party of the PMC, this makes sense, as much of higher education consists of symbol manipulation. Naturally, liberals fall back on the glib word games that got the “A” in a PoliSci seminar or law school exam, especially as liberals are so concerned with approval from authorities.
There’s a “plague on both their houses” sentiment abroad in the commentariat but perhaps we need to consider whether the Dems aren’t even nuttier than the Repubs and therefore the greater threat to our beloved USA. I say they are and that feel good voting becomes an existential luxury under the circumstances.
But in truth there may be no stopping this bobsled to the underworld. PBS last night had a show about Dante’s Inferno but strangely no circle of hell for the neocons and neoliberals, although he surely had a low opinion of hypocrites.
Much as I detest Team R, I may detest Team D even more.
And yes, the whole point of the Deep State, the Blob, the Borg, whatever you want to call it is that it is basically immune to unfavorable election results.
Like Mr Putin says “Presidents come and go. I’ve worked with 5 of them. They come and go but the policies never change.”
Smart man, that.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the supposedly most dangerous philosopher of our time is one sandwich short of a picnic (or, as we use to say in german: nicht mehr alle Tassen im Schrank)
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1769801014356451544
Thanks for that link. It underlines how may supposed ‘leftists’ have actually gone full hard-core far right. I guess that the re-election of Putin really triggered him but for him to suggest that Russian Orthodox Christianity is now the same as fanatical Muslim beliefs shows that a) he has totally lost the plot and b) he seems to hate Arabs as well. Slavoj Žižek’s Wikipedia says that-
‘He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek
Zizek is a Marxist in the Garden west of Suez; but east of Suez, he’s a White Massa.
From his 2016 article
===
…In his analysis of the global situation after the Paris bombings, Alain Badiou discerns three predominant types of subjectivity in today’s global capitalism: the western “civilised” middle-class liberal-democratic subject; those outside the west possessed by the “desire for the west[,] le desir d’Occident,” desperately endeavouring to imitate the “civilised” life-style of the western middle classes; and the fascist nihilists, those whose envy at the west turns into a mortal self-destructive hatred.
{Zizek agrees with this bigoted exceptionalism, and then uses it as a framework for his analysis}
…The clearest expression of the “desire for the west” are immigrant refugees: their desire is not a revolutionary one, it is the desire to leave behind their devastated habitat and rejoin the promised land of the developed west. (Those who remain behind try to create there miserable copies of western prosperity, like the “modernised” parts in every third world metropolis, in Luanda, in Lagos, etc, with cafeterias selling cappuccinos, shopping malls, and so on).
… It is part of a naive humanist metaphysics to presuppose that beneath this vicious cycle of desire, envy and hatred, there is some “deeper” human core of global solidarity. Stories abound about how, among the refugees, many Syrians are an exception: in transition camps they clean the dirt they leave behind, they behave in a polite and respectful way, many of them are well-educated and speak English, they often even pay for what they consume… in short, we feel they are like ourselves, our educated and civilised middle classes.
{…adding his own touch of classism}
…Our media usually draw a distinction between “civilised” middle-class refugees and “barbarian” lower class refugees who [behave badly]. Instead of dismissing all this as racist propaganda, one should gather the courage to discern a moment of truth in it: brutality, up to outright cruelty towards the weak, animals, women, etc, is a traditional feature of the “lower classes”…
{And something like a call to brainwash, sorry, educate ’em to behave properly}
[T]he naive attempts to enlighten immigrants {…} are examples of breath-taking stupidity — they know this and that’s why they are doing it. {…} The difficult lesson of this entire affair is thus that it is not enough to simply give voice to the underdogs the way they are: in order to enact actual emancipation, they have to be educated (by others and by themselves) into their freedom.
===
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/01/slavoj-zizek-cologne-attacks
Zizek these days specializes in creative ways to portray as radically leftist policies preferred by the US State department.
“Putin, a dark conservative religious fanatic, must be stopped ASAP, and the West should even provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons if necessary, believes Slovenian leftist philosopher Slavoj Žižek.”
[ Just idiocy, as has been the case with Zikek for years… ]
Europe would do it in a heartbeat, if that were the price of victory.
The left-right political continuum, which has been on its last legs for a while now, has been irretrievably broken by the SMO. Left is right and right is left. Progressives, which I always associated with the old US Progressive party around the turn of the last century, are now thought to be right-wing rabble rousers. For the bewildered like me, I wish someone like Aurelian would post something that makes sense of all this.
To be fair, the rabble doesn’t seem to be going along. Not that it matters. Elite opinion is what matters, and the elites are all-in for WWIII.
Funny, as they have the most to lose.
Žižek is amusing in his outrageous conceit but nothing more than a clown with good self-promotion. I often wonder if half the time he really believes what he spouts and the other half whether he might reconsider.
I believe this excellent article was linked here a few days ago, which contains a spot on paragraph on Zizek:
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/12/01/imperialist-propaganda-and-the-ideology-of-the-western-left-intelligentsia/
Also from the same source an article about a sorry state of the Polish left:
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/12/01/the-collapse-of-the-new-polish-left/
Gabe Rockhill is well worth reading for understanding the role of the “compatible left” in the Western political landscape. They exist to destroy class based solidarity and understanding, and denigrate actual existing socialism.
I knew exactly nothing about Zizek’s views on the SMO/war thing, so I did a bit of googling. This Zizek is broken, can I get a refund please?
Some of his takes are frankly delusional. To name a few:
– Russia plans to conquer “Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Finland, the Baltic states and ultimately Europe”. [1]
– Another malicious plan: “Russia will dominate so much food production that it will be able to blackmail the whole world.” [1]
– “I am not ready…to blame Russian people as such, to brand them totalitarian, fascist and so on. They are somewhere in between, as most people are, but their tradition, the Orthodox Church, is, I claim, dangerous.”[2]
– Fascism is not that bad than Nazism, and “In Russia, they are dangerously approaching a new version of Nazism.”[2, also in 3]
– “Eurasia is the Russian term for neofascism.”[2]
– “The ideology of people around Putin, and Putin himself, seems quite clear-cut. It’s Neo-Fascism. …Russia is offering the rest of the world a new model: a Neo-Fascist model of false mutual tolerance among authoritarian regimes.”[3]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/pacificsm-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine
[2] https://www.rferl.org/a/zizek-interview-russia-denazification-ukraine-war/32204259.html
[3] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/02/03/what-i-don-t-want-is-western-triumphalism
Interesting Husseini about TikTok. He says the point of the current agitation is less about China and more about forcing a sale to Israel allies led by Mnuchin and that may happen even if the bill doesn’t pass (and it’s shaky in the Senate because of the fine print allowing Biden to ban any website).
So in other words communication control–the MSM and social media–is an important part of the Israeli support system along with those weapons that have no strings attached.
Of course raw media power can only get you so far when the facts on the ground are going the other way. And so the problem with the lobby strategy–and it has always been the problem–is that it buys space for the country to do the wrong thing and dig the hole deeper. Indeed it’s gotten so bad that even Tom Friedman is complaining, while still proclaiming his devotion, and Schumer wants to boot Bibi for the same reason.
I wonder how riled up TikTok users would become if the company just shut down rather than sell, and blamed it on the U.S. government.
US big tech is a cartel. So of course they want to get even more of that TikTok.
What a stupid country. The antidote is very much appreciated.
‘Science girl
@gunsnrosesgirl3
Shocked chimp calls all its friends to have a look’
I read years ago that chimpanzees will attack any of their troop that look too different. Considering the aggressive behaviour of those chimpanzees in response to a human with an unusual leg, I can well believe it.
In the year 2025, if Palestinians are still alive
If Gaza can survive, they may find
In the year 2025
Ain’t gonna need to tell the truth, tell lies
Everything you think, do and say
Will be subject to government sway
In the year 2025
You ain’t gonna need your teeth, won’t need your tongue
You won’t find a thing to chew
Everybody’s gonna look for pythons too
In the year 2025
Your arms hangin’ limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin’ to do
Some AI machine’s doin’ that for you
In the year 2025
You won’t need no husband, won’t need no wife
You’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube (offer void in Alabama)
In the year 2025
I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive
He’s taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain’t put back nothing
Now it’s been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man’s reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday
In the year 2025, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
In the Year 2525, by Zager & Evans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb7poHQuMWg
I had that 45 back in the day …
sidd
Off topic but this may be of interest to some here. The Affordable Connectivity Act was passed to give qualified people a discount on their internet service. I think it was passed a year or so ago. Those who qualify (many seniors who are retired and poor) save $30 a month on their internet bill.
Yesterday, I got an e-mail from my provider, which is Spectrum. I’m in Ohio. Below is what I received (bold mine);
Thanks congress, I really appreciate this. /s
Money for bombs and war, screw you old man. I don’t have enough words for these people, and if I did they couldn’t be printed in public anyway.
How do we vote against all of them.
Regards,
One very POed citizen.
I am losing my internet in April when the ACP runs out. I can’t afford to pay for it without the ACP credit. I am still trying to find an affordable place to live. It’s proving to be very difficult.
Meanwhile, my Team Blue “friends” keep warning me about Trump and the threat to democracy. They show me cartoons of him cavorting naked with Putin.
I tell them about increases in poverty, homelessness and hunger in the US since Biden became president. They tell me to stop whining.
I tell them about genocide taking place in Gaza. They tell me about ‘Christian White Fascists’ who are going to set up concentration camps across the US if Trump becomes president again. According to them, it will be because of people like me, ‘purity progressives’, that this will happen.
I admit when I heard about the concentration camps headed our way, I thought, “I’ll have a place to live!”
Lena,
I am so sorry to hear this. I hope you will be able to land on your feet. Have you investigated options for living abroad? I know it’s really a ridiculous thing to say to someone who is already financially struggling, but the cost of living is so high in this country that moving elsewhere may be a lifeline in terms of getting by on a small income.
Also, can you identify your approximate geographic location? Maybe somebody can have a lead for affordable housing options for your area.
I’m so sorry. It’s so tough out there for so many people, even in the ostensible “first world”. I hope you’ll find comfort and serenity soon.
Lena, I am so very sad.
I ho[pe you find resolution to your problems, best wishes and hopes….You are a worthy addition to the comments here.
Yes, you are an asset. I hope you find a way to stay with us. PS, I no longer have any ‘team Blue’ friends as they take exception to being labeled supporters of Nazism and genocide. It brings peace of mind and works for me.
Thank you all for your kind wishes. I am on waiting lists of more than 20 different affordable apartment complexes in my state and beyond. They all have waiting lists of between 2 to 10 years. I am continuing to look for other places and get on their waiting lists. I’m not giving up. I believe that something good will happen. I have to believe that.
When l lose my ACP internet in April, it is going to be even harder to find apartment information, contact leasing offices and get on their lists. This is the kind of situation that the ACP was meant to help poor people with – getting access to housing, healthcare and other vital resources. Instead our government is funding endless wars, killing, maiming and starving innocents by the thousands. It is pure evil.
Internet access is essential in the US. It needs be a government provided service. The APC needs to be a permanently funded program.
Lena, I’m sure you know the temporary workarounds: free wireless access at public library and community college (usually high speed at a college).
If you use PayPal I can send you a month of ACP as an assist.
So sorry to hear about his, Lena. It is not right. I hope that something turns up for you soon here.
Just another example of Bidenomics working!
$600 per year to Frontier for their “basic” service which is much more than I need! I’ve made my displeasure vehemently known to phone personel (with apologies.) My representatives don’t give a $hit. Where did all that rural broadband money go?
https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDNdLCJkYXRhIjpbWyJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIiwiU3VydmV5Il0sWyJOSVBBX1RhYmxlX0xpc3QiLCI1Il1dfQ==
February 28, 2024
Defense spending was 56.2% of federal government consumption and investment in October through December 2023 *
$1,022.1 / $1,820.1 = 56.2%
[ That is now $1 trillion 22 billion yearly for the military and climbing. ]
ACE was basically an Obamacare-style bandaid for people struggling with a world where everything assumes that you are online, but your local internet company doesn’t care about anything but growing their stock price. The Federal government subsidizes internet access for roughly 1 in 6 of US households, most of them among the 1 in 5 household who cannot otherwise afford online access.
Internet service oligopoly shareholders don’t lose a dime: the US government writes them a check for the difference between what families pay and full retail. Sleazy companies like Spectrum love this program: it costs them nothing, and they get to act like they are doing low income customers a huge favor.
ACE gets funded annually. Biden asked for $6 billion to continue the program past April 2024. It’s a victim of Republican budget gaming.
The serious long term solution is public internet.
from my pre-links wandering:
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/leurope-profonde
another lefty who doesn’t know where his food comes from…and with an echo of the reason i’m sort of cross with the Wobblies(im not allowed, since i own the means of production…no matter how our farm is organised.
idk…a fly by reading on my part…had to run out and bottle feed a lamb, pre-dawn…and haven’t really stopped moving since then….and have been ruminating on that with hoe in hand.
(bagel and coffee break, right now)
Interesting analysis, especially how the author sees traditional groups serving as a kind of societal glue for our neolib masters.
This is a quote from another interesting article about the reaction of Spanish farmers who don’t partake of the government subsidies, the monocropping and the mountains of chemical fertilizers and pesticides:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240319/france-preparing-to-deploy-military-contingent-in-ukraine-russian-foreign-intel-chief-1117427572.html\
Meanwhile, WWIII is coming. Ukraine is but a pretext.
It will be hard for France to hide all those returning body bags as well as pensions for incapacitated and wounded soldiers. The Russians have already told them that any military unit in the Ukraine will be fair game and lately the Russians have been hunting down foreign troops. The presence of a French army unit will for them become a priority target as a message to other NATO nations as what to expect if they send their own troops into the Ukraine. Mind you, the Azov Nazis have lately tried to recruit French Foreign Legion guys-
https://www.bitchute.com/channel/nnwlaOOuDM1W/ (311 seconds)
Interesting article in today’s Le Monde, signed (but obviously not written) by the Chief of the French Army. It’s partly a nostra culpa, the error that was made in assuming that “small wars” would be the rule in the future, whereas current reality (Ukraine is not mentioned) is very different, and changes need to be made. But the interesting thing, and presumably the reason why the article has appeared now, is the advocacy of French leadership in the generation of forces for high-intensity warfare in Europe. France, it’s argued, can put a Division of 20,000 men in the field in 30 days, and has the capacity to act as the “framework nation” for an Army Corps of 60,000 men, operating either in the context of NATO or some unspecified European format.
Now, I suspect the 20,000 figure is a one-off deployment only, and a lot of the forces would be too light for a major armoured battle. But the interesting thing is that no other European nation could make this claim: the Germans, against whom this initiative is very clearly directed, don’t have a national HQ capable of commanding such operations, and don’t have much in the way of an Army any more. The Poles, the only other serious contender, have no experience of such operations, and few nations would prefer them to the French. (The British Army is a wreck, and the US is unlikely ever to base more than a handful of fighting units in Europe.) So it’s not a case of being objectively strong, but of being less weak, and to some extent acceding to the status of leader on defence issues in Europe. So we’re seeing play out the final stages, perhaps, of the thirty-five year old struggle for influence between France and Germany, at a point when the latter’s long economic advantage has pretty much disappeared.
This all confirms what I have been thinking for some time, and am planning to write about in an essay next week. The game has now shifted to post-Ukraine. The Russians will not “be allowed to win” because the victory conditions will be set by the West (overrun the whole of the Ukraine and the Baltics) so a Russian “defeat” is therefore guaranteed. The question is who takes the credit, and clearly the French are already going to present themselves as the nation that, by deploying small blocking forces in front of Kiev, frustrated Moscow’s evil goals. Likewise, saying that there can be no “lasting peace” without the return of Crimea is just a way of saying that the French will continue to sulk and refuse to normalise relations with Moscow. And of course it’s always open to Paris to argue that if only everyone had followed the French lead instead of pouring scorn on Macron’s ideas, then Europe would be more secure, and the Russians would have “lost” even more thoroughly.
Of course, France is making all the noise about the troops they can spare. It looks like they are being booted out of Africa.
I suspect that you are whistling past the graveyard.
French TV is already talking about deployment, the French Army Chief of Staff is already talking about active participation in combat.
Of course, those 2,000 won’t be decisive, but that will not be the end of it.
WWII is coming. I feel like Cassandra.
Don´t these fools know where this war would (hopefully subjunctive) be fought? Its just a video game to them.
I still think Macron just wants out asap, and is setting himself up for a comfortable post political life in foundations and consulting, ala the Clintons and Blair. He may have seen the return of Cameron as a Lord, and thought, hey, I can do that. Easy.
With all due respect, we’ve heard that at every stage of escalation, they’re bluffing, it’s insane, it’s unpopular, it’s ridiculous, it puts all of humanity at risk.
Every escalation is all of those things and more. They did it and escalated anyway. So why do you think that this time is any different?
Simple. They bring nothing in any sort of military strength, we won’t watch their back (even though we don’t bring much these days), and the French people will dust off the guillotines, if this happens.
Macron doesn’t have to campaign again. He’s talking to the PMC and the MIC.
Macron already is wildly unpopular. He doesn’t care, as long as the French army and police will still shoot when ordered.
And The Brave Sacrifices Of Muh French Allies will be ritually invoked to keep the US on-side and escalating. What, you’re chicken?!? Who’s afraid of nuclear war?
No one remembers the “brave Frenchmen” who fought the Russians for freedom(tm) in Berlin in April-May, 1945, fwiw. Except, maybe, in Ukraine.
Let me know when we have a Free French government in Paris competing for legitimacy with the remnants of a collaborationist regime.
Is there still a viable Communist Party apparatus in France today?
Putin can then echo Franco on his approach to the Spanish Capitol; “I have four columns…..”
Thank you, Aurelien (formerly David to readers not aware).
One looks forward to your observations of that denouement and the latest development in the Franco-German struggle for mastery in Europe.
I don’t disagree with you about military capacity, but, as with monetary union, one wonders if states will not want to be left behind, so may rush to the aid of the victor, France this time, like Italy did following the Treaty of London in 1915.
It’s sometimes said that the UK’s nuclear deterrent is for use against France, not other adversaries, i.e. if France has a nuclear deterrent, it would be embarrassing for the UK not to have similar weaponry. Therefore, can the UK afford not to play?
It’s not the votes that count, but who counts the vote. With regard to the war, Ukraine may lose in the field, but it’s the public relations machine in the west that may matter more, at least to the PMC.
With regard to French officers and officials, one notes how neo-con and hawkish they are on French rolling news channels, but far more measured on Al Jazeera. Retired general Dominique Trinquand and diplomat Gerard Araud are typical and, due to speaking good English by French standards, are often on Al Jazeera.
@ Readers: Please do subscribe to Aurelien’s substack. Please read and weep. Why weep? There are few, if any, officials of that calibre and with that insight left or allowed in western institutions. Forget about politics and the MSM. There are no incentives for officials to point out the realities and advise accordingly. The elite technocracy is increasingly bog standard neo-con and neo-liberal and has to be if it wishes to prosper, including feathering the post-retirement nest from public service nest.
For the benighted kingdom, Labour is likely to form the next government. The back seat driver is Blair. His team, relatively young former civil servants peppered with some older heads, are writing the Labour programme, a shopping list from Blair’s donors, not what the United Kingdom’s national interest requires. These youngsters are not fit to clean Aurelien’s shoes.
WWI started over less.
Thus my continued joke/non-joke about how Russia will have to retake Paris to finally “win” this thing. Whatever happens, unless Russia can make the “West” (I guess it’s EuroNATO) pay a sufficiently high price, they can’t “win.”. The funny thing is that a combined European army being crushed at a modern day Poltava (maybe literally) with nothing left in Europe will accomplish that victory for Russia after all.
“the Germans, against whom this initiative is very clearly directed, don’t have a national HQ capable of commanding such operations, and don’t have much in the way of an Army any more”
Well, there is Multinational Corps Northeast in Poland; command rotates between the three signatories Germany, Denmark, and Poland (currently a German 3-star). Forces generally are assigned as eFP within notional Multinational Divisions.
Thanks, Aurelien.
> And of course it’s always open to Paris to argue that if only everyone had followed the French lead instead of pouring scorn on Macron’s ideas, then Europe would be more secure, and the Russians would have “lost” even more thoroughly.
I suspect this is the main purpose of the letter. It’s a last ditch proposal (not intended to be actioned) that having been rejected by Europe, France can honourably walk away from project Ukraine. The bluster that signals capitulation in a deal. The loss of Ukraine will be framed as a win because Russia now faces a united (cope) Europe – Europe is safe! And France comes out as the leader amongst the rabble.
There’s no way putting French troops on the ground as a blocking force in front of Kiev will change things. Putin openly acknowledging that French troops are already in Ukraine and being killed. In practice, France can only hope for a blocking force in Lvov or Odesa with air defence in neighbouring Europe providing cover. Kiev is too far away. But that in itself puts the neighbouring countries at risk. Poland/Lvov likely not an option for French proposal but Romania/Odesa is a possibility.
There is a real risk that West has decided Russia can’t win Odesa and control of the Black Sea at any cost (and also by corollary creates the narrative that Russia has lost the Ukraine war). Which may explain the more recent French obsession with Odesa. Any chance Crimea can be retaken evaporates if Odesa is lost. West may think that a force of 60,000 men in Odesa with air/missile defence support from Romania will block Russian ambitions and give pause to any movement of Russian forces further west. Hoping to bluff Putin from attacking a European force outright. Russians however, will see the European forces as fair game and Europeans as having little appetite for likely severe losses from a concentration of troops. And then following from France/Europe’s failed chess move, Russia gets to capture Romania (politically/militarily) ..
Something that people seem to be forgetting is that as soon as Europe formally puts troops on the ground in Ukraine in open conflict with Russia, it gives Russia an opening to start frying/degrading Europe’s very expensive (& essentially irreplaceable in reasonable timeframes) ISR aircraft/satellites. Particularly satellite killing, which is a capability only US & China have as peers.
That would also have to include all those drones that the US has flying over the Black Sea collecting intelligence and directing attacks against the Russians. They may be US drones but I am sure that the Russians will label them as NATO drones to be shot down.
Russia’s already done one of the US drones. Line crossed.
But they did not actually shoot it down but forced it aerodynamically to lose control and crash. The line remains fuzzy. But if NATO troops enter the Ukraine, all bets are off.
I continue to be astonished at the choices made by the EU elites. Destroy the European Community because America says so? Good luck with all that.
But I guess the EU has decided, like America, that they exist to make the already rich and powerful, much more rich and powerful even if it means the economic destruction of your people.
But please, please, catch a clue, Nuland has bailed on project Ukraine so you KNOW how this is going to turn out.
The Basta article, with the “Kennan Observation” really resonated with me. America sees herself as a melting pot, a place where people left oppression and struggles for a new dream. That may be partly true, but in a seemingly self selecting process, there seems to be an agreement that one must trash talk and despise where you have come from, and trash talk where your new neighbors came from. Having grown up in a small town (and left) I have lived that. Some left and reminisce fondly. Some left and hate and trash talk home. Some stayed and are happy. Our feelings about internal displacement easily transfer to feelings about “external adversary’s”. Creating an easy cognitive pathway to bigotry and “otherism”. Why would we be led to adversarial thinking when we could be led to thoughts of support and solidarity?
For those short on time to click the link- here is the meat of it:
“Commenting on Raymond Robbins, a major American character in Russia during the revolution, Kennan stated: “Robbins was not a party to that deep-seated trait of American psychology which tends to make an inscrutable devil out of any external adversary, to deny him the quality of common humanity, to expect of him the worst, and to question the value and propriety of occupying one’s self seriously with the study of the adversary’s motives, his point of view, and his personality”. I call this THE KENNAN OBSERVATION.”
True within US, too. There are two kinds of Southerners: those who love (or at least appreciate) the South and those who hate every aspect of the South. I never met the former in CA.
Best day of the year on the slopes in Vail, blue skies prevailed overhead and no wind, perfect snow and good times with the east coast Dartful Codgers. Ski Heil!
The HQ of the evil Epic Empire.
Sounds like great conditions, but don’t lose your head over it.
Yow!
Don’t ski alone in the Back Bowl trees, either. They found a missing Chinese tourist’s body back there in the summer (had to DNA it). Unfortunate meeting with a hard object, they were pretty sure.
Worked a season each at Vail and Alpine Meadows in CA. All kinds of stories about people skiing out of bounds and getting caught in an avalanche or falling into a tree well, and not being found until the spring. And then other people who wanted to see the avalanche site that just killed somebody skiing out there and getting wiped out themselves.
Knowing all that ahead of time, one day at Alpine, me and a few others who worked at the miountain got up early to do some out of bounds skiing! This was back in the salad days, when judgement was green. In retrospect, a bright neon flashing green. They had already set off the morning charges that deliberately start avalanches before skiers get there, and these were experienced skiers who knew the terrain well, so we weren’t being totally dumb, but once you got to the top of the hill, it was still a half hour hike across some windblown cornices with rotten snow to get to the good stuff. One guy broke through the cornice while traversing the peak and managed to catch himself by the shoulders before he fell down into an icy ravine that was revealed below. We pulled him out and went on our way, but if he had fallen all the way in, there’s no way we could have pulled him out and he likely would have been seriously injured or died before we could have skied down and gotten help.
Once we got where we wanted to be, that one run was the best one I ever took, and never skied on anything like it before or since. It was like skiing on velvet.
I used to do snow surveys for the state in Mineral King up towards Farewell Gap which involved skinning up 2,000 feet to the survey spot, which took about 30 minutes. We’d eat lunch and then peel off our skins and 12 minutes later be back in MK Valley after what would be a perfect ski resort run with nothing done to improve it, amazing.
One time I had jury duty in Visalia and it was an uncle who had molested his young nephews and I didn’t want any part of it, but had no excuse until I remembered I had a snow survey, and told the judge my excuse, and he asked if somebody else could be found to do it?
I explained how we had to go to the park HQ and pick up a G-Rig (government rig) truck with trailer and NPS snowmobiles on it, and then drive up to around mile 14 where the truck can’t go any further because of snow on the road, and unload the snow-mo’s and ride a dozen miles up to the ranger station for the night and do the survey the next day, and come back down and spend another night in the ranger station before riding back down to the truck the following day.
He looked at me somewhat incredulously, as in ‘who does this sort of stuff?!’ and said:
‘Excused’
Lend me your knees for a day, please.
19 days on skid row so far this winter, looks like around 30 in total when I’m done for the year. Sometimes I wonder how my aged body holds up, but so far-so good.
Once you take up skiing, you can find yourself on a very slippery slope indeed. Especially if it ends up in a George of the Jungle cry of ‘Watch out for that tree!’
There may have been a time when a vast brick and mortar facility chock full of NATO weaponry would have caused concern to Russia. That time is over.
Large, fixed bases now just provide convenient targets that can be surveilled with ease and can be destroyed by hypersonic missiles in the first few hours of a war. And of course they have all been added to Russia’s target packages for the initiation of a nuclear war.
NATO weapons have shown themselves to be a joke almost without exception, even if you can obtain them in sufficient quantity to fight for more than a few days. And NATO troops are diminishing both in number and in quality.
At least they will provide some jobs between now and World War 3, I suppose.
Oh, goody. Joe Lieberman is still out there stirring up tribbles. Tin foil territory or a heads-up? From Sasha Latypova’s substack.
October Surprise: ‘Bioterrorism’?
Should we fear the WHO – or the USA?
https://sashalatypova.substack.com/cp/142668883
I have remarked in the past that the SA80 and similar bullpup military rifles are not fit for purpose.
Why were they adopted by the French, the Brits and OZ?
They look cool.
The Steyr AUG was the first and it looks like something featured in a Star Trek episode.
Very cool.
The SAS and SBS don’t use them and neither do French or Aussie Special Forces because they actually expect to fight.
Drawback 1) try reloading ANY bullpup rifle without looking at it and losing situational awareness and thus your life.
Drawback 2) you can not safely fire a Bullpup from your left shoulder (Red hot brass in your eye is distracting), which means you must expose much more of your body when shooting around a right hand corner.
The ordnance officers of the west who decide on what small arms will be adopted all have advanced degrees and VERY few have any experience at all in combat.
Thank you, Tom.
With regard to the SA80, it was adopted against the wishes of the professionals by the Tory government so that British Aerospace would have an order in advance of privatisation.
British professionals wanted the M16. It was then agreed that special forces would get the M16. It’s the same with the sniper’s rifle. Professionals prefer that to the Heckler & Koch upgrade to the SA80, but it’s provided to the best shots in each company only.
I was a cadet from the mid-1980s and considered a career in the army, probably a local regiment, Light Infantry or Grenadier Guards. The SA80, or Cadet GP rifle, was a pain to use on parade, unlike the SLR. I wondered why the SLR could not be kept for ceremonial use.
Sounds exactly like the story of how the M-16 was initially screwed up when introduced in the Vietnam War. The “experts” at the Army Ordinance Bureau decided that, since Grand-dad got along just fine with Cap and Ball powder rounds, well then, so can this new fangled rifle. Unfortunately, Stoner, the designer of the rifle had designed it to work using Improved Military Round powder, which burns much quicker and hotter. The older powder thus clogged up the works of the M-16 and killed a lot of American GIs in Vietnam.
I like to remind people that the Afghan tribesmen held their own against both the Soviet and later American/NATO armies using bolt action guns. Generally, the degree of training with a weapon, any weapon, is the deciding factor.
I wasn’t even ever in the service and figured this one out.
The scary lesson here is that the decisions of far away fools can get any of us killed.
Stay safe.
While driving about two years ago and listening to National Public Radio on the radio as I went from point A to point B in my car, they explained (Hi Jen! Hi Sasha!) that if the military has an AR pattern rifle it is an M-4 carbine and has full auto and semi auto selection. If the police have an AR pattern rifle it is a Patrol Rifle that is semi-auto. If a civilian has an AR pattern rifle it is an Assault Rifle. It was interesting that they made the distinctions but NPR is smarter than most listeners. /s
It had a Full Metal Jacket refugees vs evacuees tone to it.
Some bullpup rifles allow swapping ejection direction with no extra parts. FAMAS rifles like you see being carried in French cities and airports is an example. Or the Croatian VHS-2.
Tuesday Yahoo finance: What we’re watching
And also
I guess we can import our way out of the COVID labor shortage? For how long?
“Moderate wage growth pressured” ain’t that a nice way to put it.
Japan – well, today they officially left negative rate territory.
Those casino chips called “Yen” cost just a little, itty bit more.
I heard on the news recently that the Gangs were starting to attack ” upscale neighborhoods”. Then I heard that one of those neighborhoods was Petionville. I remember having commented that since Petionville created the Gangs to begin with, I didn’t think they would attack their masters and creators. And lack of any such attacks would prove me right.
I may be proven wrong. While that is embarassing, it is a good thing to be wrong about. If the Gangs decide to call this Haiti’s Second Great Slave Revolt and keep attacking Petionville until it and everyone who lives there have been completely destroyed, then Haiti might at last become free.
Perhaps the Gangs have indeed decided that what Aristide wanted for Haiti was good for Haiti, and since Petionville and its foreign sponsors and comrades would not let Aristide do it the nice way, the Gangs are going to do it the Scanner way. If so, they will have to finish the job before the Western Slavemaster-backers can move massive force into Haiti to defeat the Gangs and protect their chosen Haiti-masters in Petionville.