The Craton Enigma: Scientists Propose a New Continental Formation Theory SciTech Daily
The Fire Beneath Our Feet Belt Magazine
Earth’s ‘Gateway to Hell’ is growing by 35 million cubic feet each year New Atlas
Climate/Environment
First major wildfires of Canada’s season hit northern U.S. air quality Axios
The AI data center revolution is happening right in your backyard Fortune
A SKEPTIC’S TAKE ON BEAMING POWER TO EARTH FROM SPACE IEEE Spectrum
Report: Soaring methane exports ‘liquidate’ Gulf Coast future Louisiana Illuminator
Behind the ‘butter board’: How the dairy industry took over your feed Grist
Pandemics
Lack of bird flu testing may be hiding true spread of virus on US farms The Guardian. Commentary:
The wounds are always self-inflicted. https://t.co/w95xWM8zUl
— Laura Miers (@LauraMiers) May 12, 2024
With #H5N1 #birdflu spreading amongst dairy cows, one of the most important things to think about right now is what would need to happen for this virus to actually start a pandemic.
I’m on a train, so a brief thread…— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) May 12, 2024
China?
New Biden tariffs on China’s EVs, solar, medical supplies due Tuesday – sources Reuters. Commentary:
It’s funny that when China doesn’t merely compete on price through low wages but actually pushes the technological frontier out — as with EVs and 5G — the US becomes happily protectionist.
— Matt Bruenig (@MattBruenig) May 12, 2024
Xi’s visit builds a crucial bridgehead into Europe Asia Times
Chinese Investments in Serbia and Hungary – Filling the Void Left by the US? Hungarian Conservative
European Disunion
Spanish PM’s party wins big, separatist movement loses in Catalonia Al Mayadeen
North Macedonia’s new president reignites a spat with Greece at her inauguration Ekathimerini
Syraqistan
As Gaza Assault Intensifies, Egypt Joins ICJ Case Accusing Israel of Genocide Common Dreams
Blinken says more civilians in Gaza have been killed than terrorists The Hill
Senator Lindsey Graham just suggested nuking Gaza on national TV. pic.twitter.com/IL3g7N346v
— Read Let This Radicalize You (@JoshuaPHilll) May 12, 2024
This weekend, the Commander of @CENTCOM , General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, arrived in Israel as the official guest of the Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi.
The commanders held an operational situational assessment and discussed operational developments including the… pic.twitter.com/fSH69QxV9i
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 12, 2024
***
UN seemingly halves estimate of Gazan women, children killed Jerusalem Post. Commentary:
Host of Morning Joe casually spreading genocide denial.
The UN didn’t half the estimates of women and children killed in Gaza – read the charts in the article. One shows reported killed and the other *identified* killed. These people tell on themselves, every time. https://t.co/ZuJsDQOLAL pic.twitter.com/chH22vuSll
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) May 13, 2024
***
Cbus reviews investments after union pressure to ‘urgently divest’ from firms supplying arms to Israel The Guardian
Barclays ‘substantially increased’ financing of arms companies supplying Israel The New Arab
Wall Street ignores own rules while investing in arms bound for Israel Responsible Statecraft
These monsters manufacture the Quadcopter drone with a sniper gun. One night we had 30 injuries when they were sent to shoot at people trying to get to Ahli hospital. One was a 9 year boy shot in the neck. He bled-out in the ER.
Germany hasn’t banned them from Europe pic.twitter.com/Yv4xlQw6Cd— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) May 9, 2024
***
Asia-Europe ocean trades a nightmare scenario – ‘unless you’re a carrier’ The Loadstar
New Not-So-Cold War
Putin’s Cabinet Shakeup Stumps Western Intelligentsia Simplicius the Thinker
Ukraine’s strategy of hitting Russian oil refineries is working bne Intellinews
Kiev Panics, Sacks General, Rushes Troops, Kharkov Border Disaster, Rus Troops Enter Volchansk Alexander Mercouris (video)
The survivability of nuclear conflict is a meme that has emerged in the wake of Ukraine. Clearly some liberals and conservatives want to nuke Russia, and the implication is that they realize they will be nuked in return, but they resort to fantasy that it won’t matter for them. https://t.co/DUbRJjC5ty
— ecosocialist musician (@EcosocialistM) May 12, 2024
The Caucasus
Armenia Detains 151 Protesters Opposed To Land Deal With Azerbaijan: Police AFP
Old Blighty
UK government must address domestic institutional disinvestment Euromoney
Imperial Collapse Watch
U.S. Air Force Loses Second B-2 Bomber After Accident: Fleet Down to Just 19 Aircraft Military Watch Magazine
We cannot re-industrialize under neoliberalism. It cannot be done.
— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) May 12, 2024
Boeing
NASA wants a cheaper Mars Sample Return—Boeing proposes most expensive rocket Ars Technica
South of the Border
The Secret History of Israel’s Role in Genocide in Colombia Consortium News
O Canada
In blow to Canadian mining companies, Ecuador rejects international arbitration Canadian Dimension
Canada’s Secret Is Out: Growth Is Dead The Deep Dive
B-a-a-a-a-d Banks
There will be blood: Lenders warn of bank failures at TRD forum The Real Deal
GOP Clown Car
More Republicans Betray Causes They Supported Ten Minutes Ago Matt Taibbi, Racket News
Democrats en déshabillé
National Dem strategy worries state abortion-rights leaders Politico
2024
Biden taps Obama, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and the Clintons for mega fundraisers NBC News
Trump
This may be the week Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump falls apart Jonathan Turley, New York Post
Realignment and Legitimacy
Winston Marshall: Populism Is The Voice Of The Voiceless, The Real Threat To Democracy Is From The ElitesOxford Union
When Your Rulers Ignore Voters But Are Terrified Of Protesters, That Tells You Something Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin’s Newsletter
Groves of Academe
Billionaire investor Ken Griffin calls on Harvard to embrace ‘Western values’ Reuters. Embrace genocide? No, meritocracy, according to Griffin, grandson of a heiress to a large oil company who paid for him to attend Harvard and provided the $100,000 seed money for his first brokerage account.
Hundreds of faculty, staff pledge to strike from activities that ‘directly serve the administration’ until NYPD is removed from campus Columbia Spectator
Exclusive: Cambridge’s wealthiest college to divest from arms companies Middle East Eye
Workers show solidarity with UPenn Palestine encampment Workers World
Duke:
No. They walked out on him because he is a staunch zionist who likes to cosplay brutalizing Palestinians as part of his vacation. https://t.co/wj9aiUBfQI pic.twitter.com/oLihSH6Eu5
— Esha K (@eshaLegal) May 12, 2024
Columbia:
I don’t think you can realistically do shit like this to your own students and faculty and be a college president. So I think either she or Columbia needs to cease activities.https://t.co/Lhs4ABvOtd pic.twitter.com/J9haay9sNL
— Crispin Sartwell (@CrispinSartwell) May 13, 2024
📍New York
A graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work rips up their diploma on stage in protest of Columbia University’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Last week, the administration announced its decision to move the ceremony off of the main campus. pic.twitter.com/lwrytv921C
— National Students for Justice in Palestine (@NationalSJP) May 13, 2024
Campus Gaza rallies may subside, but experts see possible ‘hot summer of protest’ Al Arabiya
AI
In DC, a new wave of AI lobbyists gains the upper hand Politico
Schools turn to artificial intelligence to spot guns as companies press lawmakers for state funds ABC News
Healthcare?
Supply-Side Healthcare? Phenomenal World
Diagnosis: Burnout The Baffler
UN’s Mental Health Goals Off Track as Social Factors Remain Unaddressed, Study Shows Mad in America
Antitrust
Antitrust Enforcement Matters, Hospital Edition Boondoggle
Monopoly Round-Up: Apple Spanked in Antitrust Suit BIG by Matt Stoller
Class Warfare
Gen Z is struggling financially more than Millennials did at their age: Study The Hill
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
132 comments
Comments are closed.
ANTISEMITISM AWARENESS BILL
(melody borrowed from A Day In The Life by The Beatles)
What can the students say but ‘Oy!’
‘Our First Amendment caught a failing grade!’
Can’t say ‘apartheid’ – ‘They Get Mad!’
So that’s their epitaph:
‘Censor each paragraph’ . . .
Their flag has got a six-point star
They don’t like Arabs on their pilfered range
They’re stealing homes without a care
They covet land next door
Devotees of ethnic war and racist laws who break accords . . .
‘They passed that bill O yay O joy!’
This House and Senate are chock full of whores
They take the cash and say, ‘OK’
It’s gobbledy and gook
But cash is all it took . . .
And AIPAC pours it on . . .
Spoke up – cop cracked my head
I’m in a jail cell with no bed
All the guns are theirs – they’re acting tough
They line us up – we’re laughing at their hate
Out in the streets is where it’s at
You know the Blob will not like that
We will be everywhere and we’ll provoke
We’re gentle folk – it’s the cops who are extreme . . .
What can the students say but ‘Oy!’
‘Our First Amendment will not die this year!
This bill’s completely off the wall
Free speech is for us all:
Bombing Moms and babies are the actions of Neanderthals . . .’
Yo, Biden bring it on . . .
‘ecosocialist musician
@EcosocialistM
The survivability of nuclear conflict is a meme that has emerged in the wake of Ukraine. Clearly some liberals and conservatives want to nuke Russia, and the implication is that they realize they will be nuked in return, but they resort to fantasy that it won’t matter for them.’
Looks like everything old is new again. Back when Ronnie was first elected President in 1980, he brought along a cabal of ‘keyboard warriors’ who would mutter about how the world could survive a “limited nuclear war.” In the years following, three things were discovered. The first was that all these keyboard warriors avoided the draft when younger seeking deferment after deferment as they thought that were too important to die. The second thing was Reagan watched the TV film “The Day After” and discovered what WW3 would actually look like which did not suit him at all. The third was the discovery of the K2 Boundary which led to the discovery that it was a nuclear winter after an asteroid hit that killed off the dinosaurs – the sort of nuclear winter that would follow even a small nuclear exchange. The talk about surviving limited nuclear wars died off then but it sounds like the latest bunch of morons want to put it too a test.
I truly don’t understand why people like Graham are so eager to risk annihilation. To ask the question, “why was it ok for the US to drop two bombs…” and then come back with the answer, all out allies should be allowed to do that too, is amazingly monstrous.
Graham Cracker acts as if Israel has no nukes, why’s that?
How is the United States going to demonstrate its slavish loyalty if it doesn’t drop The Bomb itself?
Uhm, because he’s old and doesn’t give a sh*t? I am learning to never underestimate the selfishness of human beings.
Because they never saw a war that they did not like.
how about they never saw a war up close and personal – the usual chickenhawk BS – never bathed in the blood of combat –
Some did see war up close and personal, like Lindsey’s late boyfriend. Here’s an old video of them, that has aged like a fine wine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XEluXvdEI
yep, McCain definitely put through the wringer and baptized – perhaps he saw it as a way to profit – don’t know much about why he became corrupted and involved in the Keating Five –
Isn’t it funny how CIA kills politicians who want peace in the USA and abroad but let these neocon lunatics roam free?
been the modus operandi since before Dulles – look at what they did to JFK –
These people seem determined to bring about the “Flame Deluge” of nuclear destruction as alluded to in the science fiction classic A Canticle for Leibowitz.
It’s enough to make one believe in Satanic possession.
https://fantasyliterature.com/reviews/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/
Our Senate has gone full on Cosa Nostra. This crazed nuke mania, the disregard of the First amendment, and then threatening, in writing, not only the officers of the ICC with sanctions and arrest, but their family members, is just something.
As for Mr. Graham, well, bless his heart. I guess he slipped a little something into his morning tea to get riled up like that on a Sunday morning.
Kosher Nostra, that is.
Oof
always provide a snicker for me, thx –
Thanks for posting the Esha tweet. She’s a consistently great polemicist and one of the reasons I still have an account on that platform. I have trouble hating on Jerry Seinfeld because of the sentimental connection with that show and my college and law school years. It was very good at the time. Separate the artist from the work, I guess. My spouse and I once saw him alone with his wife at Café de Flore late in the evening and he was making her crack up with jokes. It was utterly charming to witness. Sad.
It was just as well that it was not his wife Jessica Seinfeld at that graduation ceremony-
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jessica-seinfeld-and-bill-ackman-fund-pro-israel-counterprotests-at-ucla
Literally funding the people who are beating up other graduates. They would have booed her down.
Yeah. No excuses for rich people pulling this kind of stuff. One can’t have any illusions about them. A lot of my artistic heroes turn out to be execrable people (at least Picasso was a commie) but hey, that’s life.
As they say-
‘Never meet your heroes.’
chacun à son goût
The pictures of Seinfeld at the IDF “fantasy camp” really affected me when they came out several years ago. For one thing, part of the “fantasy” was being a skilled sniper picking off Palestinians (I mean “terrorists”), which of course mirrored reality. But there was something about Seinfeld’s goofy smile while posing with that intimidating looking soldier. The picture spoke volumes about the larger reality of why Israel is able to exist as it does. It is certainly support by the US government that keeps the apartheid regime going, but also support by people like Seinfeld who are either oblivious to the Palestinian realities or who just don’t care. Being a comedian famous for his observational humor about little daily inanities and a TV show “about nothing” seemed to make it that much worse.
Remember the ‘Seinfeld’ episode where Jerry proved shallow enough to make out through the whole of Schindler’s List? Also a mirror of reality in a pretty ironic way.
Genocide Jerry has a much better ring to it than Genocide Joe. Could almost be a character from the same old show.
I suppose it has to remembered that for those uni kids, that the last Seinfeld episode aired years before they were even born. They have only know Seinfeld from re-runs and he was their parent’s favoured comedian – not theirs. So they see him as the Zionist that he is and a has-been comedian. Personally I see him as a Zionist and a never-was comedian but that is just me. So I show a lot of respect to those kids who got up and walked out on him to let him know that they know exactly who he is.
Jerry and Lindsay sitting in a tree, B-O-M-B-I-N-G
The show is all Larry David and Seinfeld is by far the worst actor in the cast. I’m pretty sure David is still a Zionist, but at least he’s not openly funding goons to beat up peaceful college kids.
i love the implication that no one would walk out on Jerry Seinfeld. Remember the guy from that show from before you were born and nothing else worth mentioning since?? How can you not love that guy!
I can’t help feel we are stuck in a cultural time loop. Nothing produced since 2000 rolled over seems to have left a cultural footprint, while the same old shows and movies gets reruns and remakes.
Maybe it is the effect of streaming and social media, resulting in self-published short blips, often with a overt marketing angle, having replaced carefully written and choreographed productions.
For all intents those TV shows were stage shows with a camera present. In a sense there has been a clear continuum of development from the stage to the TV. But the net seem to have broken that.
Streaming has killed the music industry. Starting a band today is inviting lifelong poverty. I live near a few good music venues, but never see a new, young band come through. It’s just Bommer geezers, or worse, tribute bands. I just don’t get spending money for a tribute band.
Movies? Comic book superhero movies are finally dying off, thank gawd, but who knows what will replace them. There have been some very good series produced on the streaming platforms. Ripley was the last I saw, a visual feast
Roger Corman just died. He was such a a mentor to many young directors, teaching them how to get it done on a small budget. We need more of that.
Video game, anime and manga adaptions are on the rise and appear to be the answer to “what will replace superhero movies.”
For the most part, they are awful.
Because the people pushing them are not fans, but trying to wrap a political message in their flayed skin.
It’s much harder to make it as a full time musician but there are pretty vibrant DIY music scenes in many places. The bands rarely get big enough to get booked into ‘professional’ venues, but I enjoy their outputs every bit as much as music from past decades. I feel like with some tweaks to the streaming/Bandcamp/Patreon business models, it could be possible to construct an ecosystem that can fairly promote and compensate the musicians.
It’s deeper than any one practice… conglomerates have muscled to the top of the food chain, consolidating their content and associated ‘rights’, and they sit on those piles of gold like dragons. If one owns ‘Spider-Man’, they are not motivated to invent Spider-Man as Stan Lee did; they make a Spider-Dog/Cat/They/Them Part 6.
Yeah that is another thing, infinity minus one day copyright duration etc has a massive chilling effect on creativity.
Supposedly there are songs from the 80-90s that can’t be recreated today as they rely on mass sampling of past recorded music.
In the end we are apes, and as the saying goes ape see, ape do. The fundamental learning process is to copy/sample others.
Comedians in Cars getting Coffee is pretty good. His pop tarts movie is bombing. Ha, get it? Bombing.
Re: Canadian economy
Canada produces lots of energy and raw materials needed for the real economy including exports to the US. So if it’s shrinking that makes me suspect that the IS economy is shrinking as well. The difference is probably accounting fraud.
Lots of fake, greasy AI and a pumped up bubble aren’t real.
Interesting thought that. I suppose that some of those raw materials would include Canadian lumber which would be a sign of construction in the US – or non construction as the case may be.
If they’re going to lie, lie, lie like Nixon about the Rafah invasion (Bibi rolling in the tanks and killing civilians isn’t a “major” operation) why wouldn’t they lie about GDP?
Or inflation. Or job growth. Or Unemployment. Or roundup not being carcinogenic. “The US govt lies about everything. Everything. It lies about absolutely everything.” – Jeffrey Sachs guest appearances on Duran, Judge Napitano, elsewhere.
Housing starts are down to April 2020 levels. The recent economic miracle was “AI.”
We aren’t producing integrated industries for moar gunz, so besides the guns vs butter problem, we are likely to get even less multipliers than if we were introducing a product like helicopters.
People with no money can’t take advantage of tax incentives.
The article is talking about falling GDP per capita in Canada; GROAF is still happening officially, as they keep telling us, GDP is still going up. But we are all getting poorer. Amusingly the article doesn’t even mention the biggest reason this is so, which is unprecedented levels of immigration into the country. The Canadian government has decided to up their war against the Canadian working class by essentially importing their cheaper replacements. Record immigration, record ‘temporary’ foreign workers, record foreign ‘students’, etc. When the pie is barely budging, but you cram a million more people a year into the economy, everyone gets poorer. Truly, Who Coulda Node!!!?????
This has been an entirely self-created disaster by ‘our’ government (but amazing for the f****** in business). I’m still waiting to see which narrative they end up picking to explain this away to an irate population.
Seems like Russia and USA are losing strategic bombers at similar rate.
Maybe the USAF needed that B-2 bomber to be a source of spare parts more to keep the other 19 flying rather than just one more bomber. As there were only 21 in service, just how may spare parts would have been ever manufactured anyway?
They are busy “working” on a replacement, the B-21 Raider.
>Senator Lindsey Graham just suggested nuking Gaza on national TV.
And Michael Johnson claimed that Hamas baked babies in the oven. Curiously when I went to google this story none of the MSM sources came up at the top of search, tough TwitterX did.
These lies and outrageous statements by elected official all play into our modern propaganda milieu. You would think that their outrageous nature would back fire. At least Col. Powell’s UN testimony of Iraq’s WMD had some semblance to reality even though it was a calculated lie. But no, with the near full control of MSM it is part and parcel of the current twisted political landscape we live in.
Hitler…himself apparently confirmed this point of view when he said that the bigger the lie the more its chance of being believed* This concept leads to two altitudes among the public* The first is: “Of course we shall not be victims of propaganda because we are capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood”…The second attitude is: “We believe nothing…because everything he says is necessarily untrue.”
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda pg 52
Israel will never nuke Gaza. If they did, then how are they going to sell those beachfront properties if people know that they are contaminated with radioactivity? The place would simply become another Fukushima.
Graham doesn’t care: to him and his like, they are all Semites, with all that implies like his ilk
I wonder if the ‘nuke’ Israel actually has is dirty laundry on every major Western politician and public figure. If Israel goes down, all the dirt laundry gets aired. Surely at least some of these people are not doing it out of Pavlovian response or crazy eyed desire to get to the end of days, right?
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. After all, look at their response to the Russian Ukraine war…
They could lie wildly about Russia with no reputation costs. But lying about the Gaza genocide and about peaceful Jewish student protestors is too obvious and has exacted a reputation cost for Biden and the Dims already.
The Republican Zealots for Genocide want to round up the protesters and ship them to Gaza. My fondest wish is that we do the same for these gallant defenders of Israel. Give them rifles and ship ’em out. Make Lindsey a tunnel rat in Gaza so he can back up his super-macho bulls**t with some real anti-Hamas Rambo action. Do the same with the desk-jockey defenders of “democracy” in Ukraine. Between those two wars there would be about five members of Congress left to pass sanctions on China.
Have you heard this story of the hot war phase
When killin’ by numbers was settin’ the pace
That story is true
I’m here to say
My taxes were paying the way
We’ve got an envoy named Blinken
and he’s really on the up & up
Being intelligent yet idiot makes him look like a pup
He’s got 86 billion brain cells, uses them all
He’s got manic drive, negotiations just won’t stall
With 2,000 pound bombs, damn the cost
With new coastal developments coming
You can really get Gazans lost
It’s got the students enraged, but Bibi ain’t scared
He can have Seinfeld pay to crack heads there
IDF pulled into Rafah late one night
The moon and the stars was shinin’ bright
They were drivin’ up the numbers killed
Made the place look like Forest Hills
Passing the dead now standing still
All of a
Sudden in a wink of an eye
A missile casting aspersions passed them by
They said, “goys,
A Patriot no longer works for me!”
By then the rocket’s red glare was all you could see
Now Netanyahu was ribbin’ him for bein’ a horse’s behind
So he thought he’d make life for Blinken unkind
Took his foot off his arse and man alive
He shoved it on down into his nether regions for a deep dive
Wound it up to 35k dead
But authorities now claimed less instead
Bibi’s actions had led to a genocidal war
That’s all there is and there ain’t no more
Now the other countries all thought the USraelis had lost sense
And looked askance like we were dense
They said, “Slow down! we see splots!
The Palestinians lying on the road just look like dots”
Now all of a sudden he talked ammo export blocking
But down in Gaza they’re still taking a knocking
He looked in the mirror; his influence was shrinkin’
Karma was after our Hot Rod Blinken!
This arrested him but after reflection, he bailed
And called Joe Biden to say that ship had sailed
And he said, “Bibi, you’re gonna’ drive me to drinkin’
If you don’t stop fake negotiating with that Hot… Rod… Antony Blinken!”
Hot Rod Lincoln, performed by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBUfNxfc2w4
Students walked out of Duke University commencement today because the speaker was Jewish. They walked out to confirm that they are antisemitic and that this is about hatred of Jewish people
I like Katie Halper’s tweets on this. She said that it is like saying if you don’t like Clarence Thomas’s politics it’s because you don’t like his race, or that if you don’t like what Epstein did it’s because you just don’t like Jews.
Katie is another example of the kids are alright.
Hardly a kid anymore.
Kid at heart.
‘Holding Biden Accountable
@PushBidenLeft
Biden hired a dairy lobbyist to run the USDA, and it turns out they’ve been covering up widespread bird flu presence in our milk for months, going so far as exempting some farms from testing and concealing the data that is collected.’
I’m going to take a guess. That this was discovered some time ago and discussed at the Biden White House. And then a political calculation was made to try to keep a lid on this as it might affect the Democrat’s political campaign for this November. But after the November election, they would announce the existence of this problem and throw a coupla billion dollars at it to make it go away. And if that did not work, then to copy their Covid strategy and announce that it was all over now and then proceed to ignore the whole thing. It worked the first time round. /sarc
H5N1 Flu Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Biden appointed tge AG secretary, Vilsack, despite criticism that Vilsack was anti-small farmer and too pro corporate. Vilsack was Obama’s only SecAg. Naturally, they are going to hide this. Anything undercuts the narrative that “Biden knows stuff about government.”
They can’t blame the Trump interregnum.
‘Now is the time of monsters.’
“Populism Is the Voice of the Voiceless”, and “When Rulers Ignore Voters But” — both excellent. Thank you, Conor, for very good Links today!
Especially liked her comment “If i were Jewish…” I have faith in non elite Jews. I was married to one for 9 yrs. And we need them especially now because they may have some degree of shield against the toxic establishment attacks thrown against opponents of Isreali actions. Mearsheimer recently said the student protesters at University of Chicago were overwhelming Jewish.
I think you’re touching on something even deeper, timbers, than I’ve seen discussed anywhere yet.
Zionism doesn’t equal Judaism, the overwhelming Jewish presence in the protests, that Israel relies more on elite (many of them Jewish) and Fundamentalist Christian support. These are all true and productive within the normal ground rules of US & European politics. But those still miss what’s going on beyond optics and point-scoring.
Something very wild (revolutionary? evolutionary?) is happening within Jewry, its relationship to Israel, and the wider societies Jewish people belong to. I think it’s hard to get a perspective on though without having one foot within Jewishness and one foot out.
>Former Mumford & Sons guitarist criticizes BDS in new op-ed – the Jerusalem Post
>Mumford & Sons guitarist: Palestinians are the real losers in BDS war on Israel
I wonder what his views are on the Genocide in Gaza. I couldn’t find any recent comments but I did find this on Twitter. It doesn’t seem to me that Marshall is consistent.
Too many pro-Palestinians are not anti-Hamas. They are anti-Israel and antisemitic
https://twitter.com/MrWinMarshall/status/1725584290396663861
https://www.jpost.com/j-spot/article-709982
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/mumford-sons-guitarist-palestinians-are-the-real-losers-in-bds-war-on-israel-etcpcq10
Mumford and Sons are awful. I mean, is that a joke, former guitarist? You mean bashing a chord over and over and singing louder and louder until you run out of breath?
A few websites are publishing what is apparently supposed to be a report apparently issued on Israel’s use of US weapons. It is difficult to find any official links to the report itself, or verify that it exists. Example claiming to be the published report. As can be seen, there is not department heading, or signatures or ownership of any kind. The document is evasive even in its own origins.
The National Memorandum on Safeguards and Accountability requires the Secretaries of both State and Defense to report to several Congressional committees. But I am damned if I can find a verifiable link to any such report on any official site, despite (evasive) claims by the media that such a report has been issued.
I know search engines have gone to shit in recent years, but I whiff a big fat rat here. I don’t think the real report has been either published or given to the media. Let the googler beware.
i agree with Welsh, i have said it for years, we can never recover till bill clintons disastrous policies of free trade, gutting the new deal and Gatt, are reversed. not gonna happen under conventional methods.
how do you get back over 200 years of skills, technology and wealth?
surely its not a smoot-hawley only scenario. smoot would have never worked very well without the new deal, and the new deal would not have worked well at all without smoot.
trying some half wit gig at a factory policy, is something a dim wit like bill clinton would embrace.
factory workers have to be trained, training requires intelligence, once the intelligent figure out they have power, they will never settle for part time gig work in a factory.
working four hours low pay shifts, staggering the shifts for workers so that they never are together very long and isolated, means you end up like G.E., boeing, and other free market miracles.
and of course banning unions, or making it almost impossible to unionize, will ensure more boeing type of airplane debacles in the news.
the media will be stymied, confused and befuddle to what is happening, and the clintons will tour the country insulting the deplorable, and the rich will simply get richer.
we won’t be much of a competitor to the russians and chinese.
I’m surprised that more students aren’t ripping up diplomas from schools that just put them in six figure debt for degrees in “social work”.
They should all agree not to pay back their loans. I’m sure that would also attract students that have already graduated and the millions who can’t even pay back on the interest let alone principle of the loans.
There will be much grumpiness among your Democratic leaning acquaintances today after they read that Biden is sinking like a stone. And the DNC reaction is, hey, let’s do a Zoom convention! That’ll hide the wounds!
Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/us/politics/biden-trump-battleground-poll.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
No worries. They’re calling in the Big Guns now: Hollywood royalty and Clintonworld are going to lead major new fundraising efforts. Because (1) it must just be a money problem – more donations please; and (2) everyone loves Hollywood liberals and the Clintons; their “aura” alone should push Biden over the top.
It’s getting almost impossible to satirize this stuff anymore. Political reality *is* satire.
If the loss is baked in, even Robbie Mook level mathologists can read polls, I would imagine the politicos are trying to figure out how to raise as much money as possible to “hire their firm” to make conceptual political ads.
“What if we just had Biden in front of a white…no egg shell wall talk about, now get this, decency.”
“How much will that cost”
“For product design and markets, twenty million…”
More like even Mook level hacks cannot ignore polls that bad.
I hate to cut the incompetent fools a break but IIRC, Clinton was not so obviously losing in the rust belt while they were busy celebrating her win early and campaigning in all the better Northern California restaurants in September and October of 2016. With numbers this bad I suspect that it wouldn’t just have been the local campaign managers screaming the campaign needed to get to the deplorable states. Mook and pals would have faced HRC’s wrath, told her and Kaine to get their butts on the uncomfortable buses and campaign where they needed the votes. The delusion was vast in that campaign, but this is flashing neon sign not to be missed danger sign level numbers.
That said I am sure what the Biden campaign can do. Biden sure as hell can’t sell himself and neither can Kamala. The Clintons might lose them more votes than they gain, and who knows with Clooney and Roberts.
With that lineup, talk about preaching to the choir. Meanwhile, Trump will be filling small stadiums with actual voters.
“Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/us/politics/biden-trump-battleground-poll.html?smid=nytcore-android-share”
I suppose that if Trump wins, it will be a good thing for Gaza, because all the goodthink types that bit their tongues rather than criticize Biden will feel no such compunctions if Trump were in charge.
Trump could cure cancer while helping Barron with his science fair project and they’d whine about how he put so many doctors out of work.
As long as you’re dealing with a fantasy Trump, make him pro-union and 300-feet tall. (Barron graduated so his science fair days are over.)
The goodthink types might, but what of the real people in power, the true Zionist believers? Is their hatred of Trump stronger than their Zionist desires? By all indications, Trump will continue things as they are. It will be interesting to see the cognitive dissonance on this one.
A good question. I suspect that the various reactions to the COVID vaccine/Operation Warp Speed will prove instructive.
Trump is playing to the Republican theocrats, who are Zionists with ulterior motives.
Des Moines has a black-run radio station at 89.3 FM, KJMC. I listened as a teenager in the late 70s because they played a lot of reggae. I re-discovered it on some recent trips back to visit my ailing father (RIP) and on two different occasions the on-air discussion was making fun of Trump, both his trials, and also his bible. They were saying he should read it, and that it was “all sticky”. LOL! Today the D.L. Hughley show had a parody song about him having “impunity” and for falling asleep at his trial.
Reporting this because it feels like there’s been a shift maybe, in the view of DT out there in the black community?
“North Macedonia’s new president reignites a spat with Greece at her inauguration”
You would think that age 71 with a career as a law professor and being the author of about 200 scientific papers on constitutional law and the political system would suggest a stable influence for North Macedonia. Yeah, nah! She has already picked fights with three of her country’s neighbours-
‘From 2017–2018, as a public figure, she opposed the adoption of the Albanian language extension law. She considers the Prespa agreement signed between Greece and North Macedonia to resolve the Macedonia naming dispute a “violation of national law” and a “serious violation of the collective and individual human rights of the citizens of Macedonia.” She is against the Good Neighborhood Agreement signed with Bulgaria which Davkova considers non-reciprocal, and is against the recognition of the Bulgarians in North Macedonia as an official ethnic minority, which is an requirement set by the EU for the country to become a member of the bloc.’
And on day one she picks a fight with Greece again. Looking at a map, the only two neighbouring countries she has not yet picked a fight with are Kosovo and Serbia. Still, she has just started her term of office so give her time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordana_Siljanovska-Davkova
There’s no fool like an old fool.
Feels like the phrase “cancel culture” disappeared from the media since the encampments started?
AI Deceiver
(Sung to the tune of, “I’m a believer” by the Monkees)
Wall Street needs to tell us high tech fairy tales
Meant to sell more stuff ’til it’s piled up high
It’s just another ripoff
That’s the way it seems
They sold us SkyNet but we got Ask Jeeves …
Now it’s’ fake AI
It’s meant to deceive ya
There’s not a trace
Of intent or a mind
It’s a scam … ooh
They’re out to fleece ya
AI deceives and crapifies
I see now it’s more or less a marketing thing
Turbo fraud powered by brute force, oh yeah
What’s the use in fighting?
The herd is in for pain
When the truth wipes out unrealized gains
Cause it’s fake AI
It’s meant to deceive ya
There’s not a trace
Of intent or a mind
It’s a scam … ooh
They’re out to fleece ya
AI deceives and crapifies
[Musical interlude]
What’s the use in fighting?
The herd is in for pain
When the truth wipes out unrealized gains
Cause it’s fake AI
It’s meant to deceive ya
There’s not a trace
Of intent or a mind
It’s outright fraud … ooh
They’re out to fleece ya
AI deceives and crapifies
Smash Mouth Version
#TheBezzle
Thank you, Conor.
Further to the Winston Marshall, https://www.mwam.com/ is his father’s hedge fund, now part owned by KKR. The Marshalls love playing at anti-establishment.
Thanks for explaining how such an aggressively milquetoast band managed to be popular.
Thank you, Emma.
It won’t surprise you to hear that the band are regulars at the Dunrobin castle music festival. Have a look at Dunrobin and its history.
Young Marshall often appears on his father’s tv channel.
Ah thank you! I maintain some interest in English country estates (coming from a youthful infatuation with Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, and Vita Sackville-West) and that’s quite the ungainly ‘castle’. A reminder that it wasn’t just Mad King Ludwig who went mad for kitschy Gothic Revival fantasies! Still…it is miles ahead of what American oligarchs build for themselves and proudly profiles in Architecture Digest!
About the only positive that I can say for Mumford and Sons is that their aggressive mediocrity encouraged a lot of young musicians to start bands thinking they could be the next Mumford and Sons. A few of them evolved into something much better.
Many thanks, Emma.
I am, too, but more for interest in history (robber barons) and architecture.
The French style chateau encases an austere fortress.
A hundred years ago, the family owned 1.3m acres in the Highlands and (English) West Midlands. They have a tenth of that now.
I have heard of friction between the Mumfords and musicians without their family money. About 15 years ago, in one week’s compilation of the UK music charts, all of the performers in the top ten were privately educated, including James Blunt, ne Blount, whose family own eponymous estates in neighbouring Oxfordshire.
Fun fact for you: Cavalry officer James Blunt was ordered by Michael Jackson, our general, not your artist, to stop Wesley Clark from starting WW3 in Kosovo.
Re the bear in today’s Antidote du jour. To my eye, it looks like the bear was climbing that wrecked tree when a section of the wood started to give way on him. And…
‘It was at this moment that he knew he effed up.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfXTcrxgNxY
I wonder if these were on their way to telsa.
https://sfstandard.com/2024/05/12/shipping-container-fire-oakland-port/
Ukraine’s strategy of hitting Russian oil refineries is working ???
Interesting article. Mostly because the data at the end doesn’t strongly support the headline. Overall, the US has failed to significantly reduce Russia’s oil export revenue. And Russia has retaliated once, further damaging Ukraine’s electrical grid. The US was initially able to increase the discount Russia was forced to accept for oil exports, but it has eroded over time (from $40 to under $20). But these are global markets and Russia doesn’t need US banks, tankers, nor insurers to sell oil. Refined product is also a commodity with global markets…and there isn’t a lot of excess refining capacity.
Ironic that only the ex communists seem to believe in markets.
I think the hope is that with consumer fuel prices up 1.5% since January (a surge of €0.01/liter), the Russian population will tire of the dictator and finally replace him somebody who surrenders to NATO immediately.
No wonder Andrey Belousov will replace Sergei Shoigu later in the week with the task of cleaning up the remaining grifters from the military industry and integrate it better with the national economy. Russian “war economy” is about to go on to the third gear…
Sure enough, we find this gem in the article:
The funny thing is the moronic Western planners don’t seem to realize that Russia doesn’t need any oil exports to ‘fund the war’. Attacks on refineries will only hurt the war effort insofar as it diminishes Russia’s ability to fuel the armed forces, which these strikes categorically will not do as they can’t even hit most of Russia’s oil refineries because they are out of range. Ukraine is better off hitting the factories that make Kinzhals, or supply depots, or literally anything else instead of wasting ammo on the refineries.
This is the kind of thinking you get when the understanding of everything becomes financialized. It’s the same story with the hoopla over Russia’s central bank reserves, this infantile idea that if they just somehow zero out Putin’s accounts they magically shut off the Russian economy.
Because a zero in one cell will propagate across the whole spreadsheet, thanks to their “model” being a long chain of multipliers…
It’s odd. Ben Arris has been more factual than most sources since the SMO began. The headline itself is weird for BNE: what does “is working” mean?
“…these [oil etc] are global markets…”
Precisely why the whole thing about the U.S. allegedly needing Israel to secure our Mid-East oil supply doesn’t make any sense. There may be other reasons but it’s not that.
“The survivability of nuclear conflict is a meme that has emerged in the wake of Ukraine. Clearly some liberals and conservatives want to nuke Russia, and the implication is that they realize they will be nuked in return, but they resort to fantasy that it won’t matter for them.”
No, the sociopaths who rule over us would sooner annihilate us all if that is what it takes for them to not lose their perch to someone else.
Something similar, but less alarming, can be seen in tariffs on Chinese goods. Coolie labor is all well and good, but as soon as China gets too high on the value chain then “Muh Free Trade and Free Markets!” is dropped like a hot turd.
In both cases, they care only about winning. Or even not losing. We are just props in their play, and they have about as much concern for us as they have for the chickens that they turn into McNuggets.
They really are unserious goons.
Power mad freaks.
Doesn’t matter. Their orders are followed just the same.
The second the order goes out they will be heading for their bunkers in NZ and similar, Fallout style.
“Putin’s Cabinet Shakeup Stumps Western Intelligentsia.” Time to get the Russian MIC running on all cylinders. Bury the West. Requires some economic/business expertise.
What’s burying the West is economic/business expertise of the West.
When actual physical manufacturing was redefined as non-economic compared to financial business, the end was in sight.
Biden taps Obama, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and the Clintons for mega fundraisers NBC News
Why are social media users blocking celebrities and influencers on TikTok? A look at the #Blockout movement Yahoo News
~~~~~~~~~~~
Nice juxtaposition of stories there, Conor~
81 year old man yells at the cloud to get off his lawn, dept.
Baby boomers were raised on celebrity worship, younger adults could care less.
Hollywood is a fading star, you can sense it’s influence peaked a long time ago…
ok, ok,…so kunstler…but
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/monster-mash-up/
it’s like a pair of cabinet doors where one door has some loosey goosey hinges, but on the other one the hinges work fine, an extension of the broken clock meme but where the hour hand is working but the minute hand is not…anyway, my point in bringing it up is the sage from seneca has floated hills coming forth in purple garb to rise. phoenixlike, to bestow upon mob boss america the rightful guidance to continue on here in the best of all possible worlds which merges nicely with my own unhinged gambit that it’ll be the hillary/haley unity ticket coming out of the chicago zoom conference later this summer.
YMMV, ;)
Funny thing is that you could make a hour only lock work, as long as you do not care about accuracy beyond the quarter.
Hillary/Haley…..that’s quite a ticket. But I like your prediction. Back in September 2022, offspring no.2 (who is a history buff and news addict, and who I suspect might be smarter than I am…..) and yours truly got into a heated discussion re Uncle Joe. He is convinced that the Dems and the Deep State will pull out all the stops to get Uncle Joe re-elected. I disagreed. And so we printed out a contract (signed in two originals and witnessed in signature by offspring no.3) with a payoff of 10,000 rubles (about $100) to the winner, based on whether or not Uncle Joe serves in office until January 2025. We even inserted a force majeure clause in the event of nuclear war or a total breakdown of the global financial system that renders payments impossible.
I continue to think that I’ll win the bet, but some days, I gotta say, I got me doubts….. I just don’t see the Democrats making any serious moves to unseat Uncle Joe, and time is running out. Geopolitical implications aside, I will be thoroughly humiliated if offspring no.2 (who is a bit of a smarty pants and needs to be cut down to size from time to time) wins a money bet off his ever-so-credentialed-and-smart dad. His gloating will be unbearable.
I am curious how long offspring #2 thinks the deep state will keep “Joe” around. Do they have a Dave version in the wings, or will Kamala be allowed to take over once the office is secured? I believe I somewhat understand his premise (they run things and that cannot be disrupted) but Joe is clearly deteriorating so there has to be some kind of plan for the continuation of the figurehead presidency. So what happens if he croaks or his failure simply cannot be disguised post inauguration?
Oh, I agree totally; which is why I think (or thought?) the Dems would come to their senses and dump Uncle Joe. But that’s not happening so far, and little time remains. Plan A is to get Uncle Joe re-elected. It seems there is no Plan B, and no plan to clean up the mess resulting from Plan A. Neither I nor offspring no.2 have thought deeply about what happens in 2025. As Yoda would say: ‘Impossible to see…..the future is.”
In all seriousness, I find the full-blown MSM support of Uncle Joe to be deeply disturbing. The USA seems to be going totally off the rails.
But I want to win my bet. It’s not the money; it’s the principle.
I get that. Unless it is something I really really hope doesn’t happen despite all signs, I want to win as well.
As for the insanity of the Dems and the MSM, I never got the fear of Bernie Sanders. He would have been ham strung from the election on. My more cynical self says they cannot even allow more populist ideas and programs to be mentioned seriously in DC for fear that people might recognize how little fighting for popular items really goes on, which would mean they fear the voters. But their lack of interest belies that. And their bubble has gotten worse, the press doesn’t look beyond the press release anymore, and unless things start blowing up the politicians rely on mini summaries from that press. It appears They really believe the propaganda, because things are good for them.
This is a 10-year-old science documentary about an intriguing idea and possibilities. utube. ~50 minutes.
Water Memory (2014 Documentary about Nobel Prize laureate Luc Montagnier)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8VyUsVOic0
Maybe the Duke students have realized unlike generations before that Seinfeld simply isn’t funny. Even before becoming a shill for genocide.
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1789683632728371610
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Incredible chart. The growth in global electricity demand is almost single-handedly driven by China.
They are shifting everything to electrical, transport first and foremost.
I was listening to Macron saying it was a priority for Europe too: look at where the EU stands on the chart… If anything they’re de-electrifying (and the US too).
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1789683632728371610/photo/1
11:46 AM · May 12, 2024
Things that make you go, hmm.
US electricity demand went negative in 2023. I suppose the difference could be made up with gas-powered (NG) plants, but certainly, this data belies the supposed “exceptionalism” of the US economy. Behind every unit of real GDP is a unit of energy.
Could the entire alleged GDP “groaf” in the US be just financial swindles, bezzles, and fraud in the inducement?
(Unless, it’s fraud in the factum and the bastards at the BLS are just lying, again.)
US electricity demand went negative in 2023. I suppose the difference could be made up with gas-powered (NG) plants, but certainly, this data belies the supposed “exceptionalism” of the US economy. Behind every unit of real GDP is a unit of energy.
[ US energy demand increased in 2023, but not electricity demand. US oil and natural gas production and use, however, increased significantly in 2023. ]
Yes, in my own confused way, I was trying to say the same thing. Less electricity demand, but more oil and gas powered activities.
Very climate unfriendly, BTW.
An aspect about electricity usage that is remarkably neglected in the US, is the importance of ultra-high voltage transmission lines that allow electricity to be transmitted long distances with little loss of power. So that renewable energy sources can be readily transmitted, say solar from desert to cities.
Since I am in a contrary mood I am going to remind people that the Seinfeld finale was hated by fans of the show. Mostly because something Julia Louis Dreyfus said in an interview years after the fact tickled me, and now it is more apt than ever. The gist was that the ending was appropriate because these were all horrible people.
So decades after earning millions in residuals for a television series modeled on his stand up about the adventures of a stand up comedian and his horrible friends we have it confirmed that the actual comedian is so self centered he is an actual horrible person.
Watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. They’re all horrible, miserable, angry, and extremely petty people despite their great wealth and privilege.
Emma has been interested in ecologically sound fish farming:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202405/08/WS663b2e7fa31082fc043c5ee5_1.html
May 8, 2024
Deep-sea farms an eco-friendly way to expand food sources
By Li Lei and Hu Meidong
https://english.news.cn/20240404/58735aa6b1fa46b6a7769d16520e87b6/c.html
April 4, 2024
Tanzania’s first fishing harbor to be completed in 2025: minister
DAR ES SALAAM — The construction of Tanzania’s first-ever fishing harbor will be completed in 2025, boosting the country’s fish catches in deep seas, a senior official said Wednesday.
Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa told parliament in the capital of Dodoma that the construction of the fishing harbor in Kilwa Masoko on the Indian Ocean coastline in the Lindi region has reached 42 percent.
The project is being built by China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC), a leading Chinese construction company, and has helped more than 400 local people get jobs, according to Tanzania Ports Authority…
If there fishing boats are trowelling or indiscriminately netting, it really doesn’t matter where they fish. Pelagic fish farming is quite dubious considering the problems caused by Atlantic Salmon farming. All things considered, fresh water fish farming that China practices on a mass scale is probably the most eco-friendly, especially for herbivorous fishes like tilapia.
There are 8 billion of us on this planet. We should all eat less animal products and more plants.
“There are 8 billion of us on this planet. We should all eat less animal products and more plants.”
Excellent.
https://www.forever-wars.com/heres-how-u-s-intelligence-will-buy-and-use-your-data/
Privacy? Who needs it?
These two tweets are related
China doesn’t compete on low wages. China competes on a cheap currency – a currency that is kept perpetually cheaper compared to the US dollar. If that ever changed, then the whole business model for outsourcing to China goes up in smoke.
Of course, that business model also goes up in smoke if China takes business away from the players in the US that were outsourcing to China. Why did China have to go and ruin a good thing, lol? So US has to slap China around some to get them back in the box. Anything to avoid giving up on the original business model of outsourcing to China.
Anyways, think of China as printing goods that they use to buy the US dollar. And then when China’s domestic exporters want to convert their “imported” dollars to yaun, making sure there’s a strong enough domestic demand for the US dollar that the yuan remains weak. It used to be that China’s central bank the PBoC would provide this demand, by printing yuan in exchange for dollars. Now it’s more subtle, with the private sector stepping in to pick up the slack, e.g. chinese banks and SOEs stepping in to buy those dollars. Albeit without the private sector able to print yuan like the PBoC was doing.
https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3262051/cold-war-20-would-exact-much-higher-economic-price
“For China and China-leaning countries, IMF research shows the dollar’s share of trade finance payments has dropped since early 2022 while the yuan’s share has more than doubled to 8 per cent.
Likewise, the yuan’s share in the cross-border transactions of Chinese nonbank entities with foreign counterparts was close to zero 15 years ago but has risen to around half since late last year while the dollar’s share has fallen from around 80 per cent in 2010 to 50 per cent… said Gopinath.”
“The nine interim measures requested by South Africa included
an immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza,
preventing forcible displacement of Palestinians,
ceasing any restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the enclave,
refraining from committing genocide and inciting it, and
preventing the destruction of evidence of alleged crimes in Gaza.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/south-africa-asks-israel-withdraw-rafah-icj-case
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/05/13/a-modest-proposal-the-un-general-assembly-and-palestinian-recognition/
MAY 13, 2024
A Modest Proposal: The UN General Assembly and Palestinian Recognition
BY BINOY KAMPMARK
“The May 10 resolution is seen, according to a summary from the UN, as an improvement, an “upgrade” to “the rights of the State of Palestine within the world body, but not the right to vote or put forward its candidature to such organs as the Security Council or the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).” The Assembly found Palestine a suitable candidate for full membership, recommending the Security Council “reconsider the matter favourably”.
A reminder that socialist governments can generate budget surpluses..
Australia: ‘$9.3 billion: Jim Chalmers lands the surplus double in third budget’
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/9-3-billion-chalmers-lands-the-surplus-double-in-third-budget-20240513-p5jd6e.html
Willow, hate to break it, but the ALP is not – in any meaningful sense of the word – a socialist party. (Something the ‘surplus’ thing reflects.)