Elephants have names — and they use them with each other Vox. Original.
Not All Earthworms Are Cool Ambrook Research
IMF: Dollar’s “stealth erosion” in global reserves by other currencies BNE Intellinews
Weaponisation of the FATF Standards: A Guide for Global Civil Society (PDF) RUSI. FATF = Financial Action Task Force.
Climate
The biggest banks are financing climate chaos Climate and Capitalism. Original.
Fires in Brazil wetlands surge to record start in 2024 Reuters
They Shut Grandma’s Power Off… For Your Safety. The Hotshot Wake Up
How battery-swap networks are preventing emergency blackouts MIT Technology Review
World faces ‘staggering’ oil glut by end of the decade, energy watchdog warns FT
Business owners are buying into a bogus myth about driving Vox
Water
Water inequality on the Colorado River High Country News
Syndemics
USDA reports more H5N1 detections in mice and cats Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
The Dairy Industry Must Act Faster to Keep H5N1 from Starting a Human Epidemic Scientific American
No one wants another pandemic—but bird flu has already flown the coop Fortune. Handy chart:
This is NOT going well:
– More states,
– More affected herds
– More exposed people
– More risk to the food supply#HPAI #H5N1 pic.twitter.com/AHQDxGMx1T— Love thy neighbor: wear an N95😷 (@CCSDMaskUp) June 11, 2024
We Are Not Safe from Bird Flu Until We Protect Farm Workers Time
People Gave Up on Flu Pandemic Measures a Century Ago When They Tired of Them – and Paid a Price Michigan Medicine. From 2021, still germane.
Roche respiratory test receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization (press release) Select Science
China?
China’s Economic Growth Is Good, Actually J.W. Mason
How Economic Talks With China Can Advance U.S. Interests Lawfare
China’s strong iron ore imports contrast with weak steel output Hellenic Shipping News
Was the CIA Director Recently in Phnom Penh? The Diplomat
Syraqistan
Israel and Hamas trade jabs over Gaza ceasefire proposal CNN
Illegal Israeli settlers storm into Al-Aqsa Mosque complex to mark Jewish holiday Anadolu Agency
European Disunion
The great EU top jobs puzzle is nearly solved Politico. The deck: “Too quick to be true? A strangely rapid consensus is emerging around the EU Top 4: Von der Leyen, Costa, Metsola and Kallas.”
France’s Republicans leader wants to form ‘alliance’ with Le Pen’s NR Al Jazeera
France: Back to Dreyfus? Vichy? No Exit From Its Fraught History? The American Prospect
Dear Old Blighty
In charts: the legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule FT
New Not-So-Cold War
Court of Zelensky rocked by aide’s ‘thirst for power’ Times of London. From last week, still germane.
Ukrainian serviceman comes back to dancing stage after losing his leg on front line – photos Ukrainska Pravda
Why Ukraine should open its land market to EU citizens and how it will affect the country European Pravda
Ukraine could launch ‘terror campaign bombing schools’ if Russia wins war Express
G7 to create Ukraine aid fund using income from frozen Russian assets Nikkei Asia
Russian vessels conduct missile drills in Atlantic on way to Cuba Al Jazeera
SITREP 6/11/24: Roundup of Hottest Developments Simplicius the Thinker(s)
Preparing the U.S. Cyber Force for Extended Conflict U.S. Naval Institute
Global Elections
Do scientists make good presidents? How five national leaders performed Nature
Biden Administration
New Biden administration rule would ban medical debt from credit reports 19th Hole
How the IRS went soft on billionaires and corporate tax cheats International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Commentary:
Senior civil officials at the IRS do not want to audit big business. Trump’s Schedule F idea should be adopted by Biden. https://t.co/ghiSWy2zzn
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) June 11, 2024
Digital Watch
Apple rains on the AI hype cycle Politico
Silicon Valley’s False Prophet Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?
Snowflake apparently has a big cybersecurity problem but auditor PwC never warned anyone Francine McKenna
Substack Q&A: Jonathan Haidt’s “Anxious Generation” (interview) Racket News
Antitrust
Healthcare
Implications of food ultra-processing on cardiovascular risk considering plant origin foods: an analysis of the UK Biobank cohort The Lancet. From the Abstract: “The dietary contribution of plant-sourced non-UPF inversely linked to CVD risk, while plant-sourced [Ultra-Processed Food (UPF)] contribution showed a positive association. Recognizing the role of food processing is crucial for favourable CVD outcomes, even in plant-sourced diets.”
Americans Are Hiring People in the Philippines to Help Them Find Adderall 404 Media
Dozens of CVS Generic Drug Recalls Expose Link to Tainted Factories Bloomberg
Four Tops singer’s lawsuit says he visited ER for chest pain, ended up in straitjacket STAT
Zeitgeist Watch
Boeing
Boeing’s Urgent Mission: Training Thousands of Rookies to Safely Build an Airplane Wall Street Journal
Imperial Collapse Watch
US Court Hears Appeal in US Genocide Complicity Case Consortium News
Guillotine Watch
Class Warfare
HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Marx Was Wrong for His Day, But Is He Wrong for Ours? Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality
Notice Of Absence – Update Moon of Alabama
Antidote du jour (Andreas Trepte):
Bonus antidote:
so proud of his stick 😂 pic.twitter.com/iD7BtTIyTz
— K10✨ (@Kristennetten) April 10, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Re Business owners are buying into a bogus myth about driving Vox
The article does not state (or I did not see) what exemptions would be proposed in NYC. In Europe, congestion charges tend not to apply to electric and other ‘green’ vehicles. Teslas and similar are more expensive than fossil fuel vehicles and therefore most such owners are more affluent anyway.
In the case of London, one high profile actress campaigned hard against the congestion charge, arguing that poorly paid theatre back stage personnel could not afford to pay the charge, conveniently ignoring the fact that low paid workers are far more likely to use public transport anyway.
The exemptions are surprisingly minimal. There is (was?) an application for those with low-income (adjusted gross income of less than $50k or enrolled in certain other programs) to apply for reduced rates, and those with certain disabilities. Full details: https://new.mta.info/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-exemptions.
The MTA never really proposed any exemptions, and it seems like a first in NYC governance that all the public proposals were rejected (there were something like 100+ categories of drivers proposed for exemption. As a car owner in the congestion zone, I would have qualified for something like 6 of the proposed categories, yet I’m exactly the sort of person who the pricing is aimed at.)
Of course it doesn’t. Nor does it tell you how the MTA expanded service or would expand service to both meet increased demand or provide service to areas of the outer boroughs to further reduce the need to drive. Nor was there any attempt to deal with the sure to be fall out for areas bordering the congestion area. Because most of the exemptions are stupid (can’t charge Hampton Jitney!), clearly about political influence or regarding the MTA just don’t exist or not in a timely fashion (we plan to have this in 2028 really doesn’t cut it.)
I admit I am a big naysayer in this. I am a public transportation user in the area affected, largely buses and an occasional taxi. (By the way I have already paid the fee allowed to account for the congestion price for yellow taxis before they have been charged once.) And I am not kidding when I say that congestion in Manhattan was intentionally worsened starting with Bloomberg. The fee was originally about the state and city getting to drop off or out of funding the MTA. And none of the people pushing this ever really got into making it work for the public, both drivers and residents.
That is to say watching the decisions that have been made about this have been, well enlightening. You would have to be blind not to notice that none of this is really about making the city better for pedestrians and bikers. Nor is it about bettering our public transportation. I am willing to concede there might be a way to do it that might be fair, equitable and actually take the residents and businesses of the area into consideration. This was not it.
And for the record between increased costs from suppliers (delivery costs) and yes losing customers it won’t just be small businesses hurt. Most businesses below 60th Street will take a hit.
When I briefly lived in Manhattan it was obvious that the wealthy used their chauffeurs and privileges to make life for themselves so much easier. Instead of taking the subway they would simply have Jeeves circle the block or even double park (“standing” not parking) while shopping at Tiffany’s. Here’s suggesting they are the ones Hochul doesn’t want to inconvenience since in addition to being well motorized the rich can be remarkably cheap.
For your elites having a car, paying the huge parking garage fees, hiring a driver are the ultimate status symbol unless it’s having Gulf Stream. At least they don’t have peons carrying them around in sedan chairs like the ancient Romans.
In truth, I think Hochul trashed it because it is a political loser. I don’t know the status of the various law suits but at least a couple of the ones I looked at had some backing documents that would make the city, state and the MTA look very bad. While the poorer NYers got from the beginning it was going to bite them in the keister, the PMC class was suddenly discovering it was going to affect them either directly or indirectly. Uber even more expensive!!!
And believe it or not I figure the wealthy with cars and drivers were fine with it. In fact I think they became some of the forces that helped move it from pipe dream to possible over the last five years (they’ve been trying to get this across the finish line for almost two decades). When I say that three mayors and their administrations have been making traffic worse for that time I am not kidding. They may be cheap but the wealthy also value their own time. Waiting in traffic for an extra half hour just to go twenty blocks cannot sit well with them.
(One of my favorites is construction permits being approved that close a lane of traffic on one side of a street with two working lanes of traffic and the opposite side of the street within two blocks of the first.) It is one place where everyone is pretty equal.
Boeing’s urgent mission also reads or could be considered in parallel to the massive Raytheon plant near Ft Worth, Texas. Safely build products that function correctly. Be it a Boeing commercial plane for United or Delta, or the F-35 for use by our nation’s military…hey let’s fly and do that well!
That’s a great job promotion program. The big signs reading We’re Hiring often grab my attention. To list a local billboard example…”We’re hiring for EMT positions, $22 an hour to start”. Hey I guess it ain’t peanuts, but I’m not EMT material at this stage of life.
there seems to be a delay of those astronauts getting back into the Boeing space vehicle and heading home – apprehensions? – wonder what the odds are that it stays there and they return another way?
Says it all. Boeing himself probably knew a lot about building aircraft. Calhoun? Not so much. “Let’s get rid of the people who know how to make what we sell. We can always sell something other people make,”
“G7 to create Ukraine aid fund using income from frozen Russian assets”
The G-7 have outdone themselves here. So the west has frozen $300 billion of Russia’s money and they have been looking for ways to steal it outright but can’t find any that will stand in a court of law. So what they are doing is that they will put together a $50 billion loan for the Ukraine that the Ukraine will never have to pay back. But to pay down this loan to its backers, they will use the $3 billion in interest from that original $300 billion and simple maths tells me that it will take about 17 years to pay down that loan/gift. But I would not be surprised to see five more such loans made to equal that $300 billion. In short, the G-7 are going to make sure that Russia will never see their money ever again.
And the EU may never see cheap Russian gas again.
Well, the Finance folks have warned against this. Diverting interest on Russian accounts is actually theft. Even the proletariat understand that.
What happens when Russia wins and, along with the Global South, sets up a financial crimes trial? Puts the G7 politicos in the dock?
If Corbyn „hits back“, does that matter? He proved himself as weak not fighting back the anti-semitistattacks on him at the time.
It was sad to see Corbyn undermined by his own party in the election and then witch hunted with many others out of the party.
He had little support from the MPs and exec in Labour and lots from members, he became leader by mistake and was not first choice.
My highly educated friends in their late 50s are mostly continuing voting labour, they have not worked out the connection to Tony Blair yet. We all agree that the Blair government was a disaster. Unfortunately I cant talk politics with them in detail any more as they are anti Putin and have TDS.
Here in the US, most political conversations are not concerned with considering alternatives to present public policy solutions (there really only R & D solutions, aren’t there?), certainly not considering alternatives to areas of agreement between Rs & Ds (we must reduce national debt, mustn’t we?)…
Typically the conversation devolves to virtue signaling, tribal shibboleths, and a rousing game of “Ain’t it awful.” Sad to say this demockracy is doomed.
“Why Ukraine should open its land market to EU citizens and how it will affect the country”
One suspects that there will be Ukrainians who will eagerly sell large blocks of land to greedy EU investors – only for those investors to discover that that land is in central Mariopol or downtown Sevastopol. Hilarity will ensue when they try to get a Russian court to honour those Ukrainian land deeds.
Buried in that article is a statement that as of now, under Ukrainian law, it is illegal to sell land to foreigners.
So that puts to rest a lot of tinfoil speculation that Blackrock and Monsanto were buying up farmland.
As for the future, depending on the location of the future borders, “I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you in Arizona” could be replaced with “I’ve got some Ukrainian Black Sea property to sell.”
Blackrock corp. and others in Amerika are considered citizens and they might also in ukraine.
The point about Ukrainian law forbidding sales of land to foreigners came up before, but the reply was that there are loopholes that enabled int’l corporations to take control regardless. (I think it was here, in fact). No clue how that works, but knowing about Ukraine, that wouldn’t surprise me.
Well, yeah there is the whole “laws are just suggestions” thing that is endemic in corrupt banana republics. Which, at this point, would be a complimentary description of Ukraine.
Yea, lot of tinfoil speculations put to rest by Ukrainska Pravda.
US Government 09/30/2020
https://www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/ukraine-adopts-land-reform
The Ukrainian Government recently adopted a new land reform law effective July 1, 2021, easing the ban on the sale of certain types of agricultural land, although with certain limitations.
While on subject of Ukraine and US documents with interesting dates of publication, here’s one of my favourite ones:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3522/summary/00
S.3522 – Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022
(Introduced 01/19/2022)
This bill temporarily waives certain requirements related to the President’s authority to lend or lease defense articles if the defense articles are intended for Ukraine’s government and necessary to protect civilians in Ukraine from Russian military invasion.
Interesting timing, that. . . .
Water inequality on the Colorado River High Country News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Colorado River water is so oversubscribed, and St. George being the patron saint of knights, soldiers, scouts, parched communities relying on imported Colorado water, and archers is a good thing.
The article is about the entitlement granted to Imperial Valley farmers, foreign fountain loving sheiks and others. One does wonder what will happen to these special pleaders when it finally comes to “water is for fighting.” How many divisions does the Sultan of Brunei have?
Of course this being America it might be how many Brunei-buck. But at some point that which cannot continue will not. Or, alternately, all those parched Westerners will move to South Carolina.
According to the map, St. George is quite the water hog on a personal usage basis, and has grown faster than a swingers group of rabbits. I remember it being a little town once upon a time.
A few weeks ago, my family went camping with some friends in Snow Canyon just outside St. George. The luxury home and resort building in St. George is utterly insane. Very rapid growth. as we were driving through some of it, I was driving in silence. My wife asked me “you’re thinking about water aren’t you“. Yep, I said. There are a lot of future ruins people will shake their heads at being built in St. George.
>We Are Not Safe from Bird Flu Until We Protect Farm Workers – Time
Sorry, but concern for farm workers coming from Time just doesn’t sound genuine. Perhaps it’s high octane speculation but I think there is another agenda here. If I recall Henry Luce, former owner of Time Magazine, had close ties to the CIA according to Carl Bernstein.
First, we must empower farm workers to control the virus.
Second, we must reach out to farm workers.
Lastly, we must prioritize farm workers for vaccination.
Increasing seasonal influenza vaccination rates among farm workers would also start to build a reliable vaccination program that can reach these communities and be scaled rapidly to get H5N1 shots into arms
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAluce.htm
This, and other articles on the subject, tend to say things like “farmers should allow testing of their herds and workers”, which infuriates me and makes me slam my head onto my desk. Should?!? Only a broken country would rely on the good graces of businesses to do the right thing. It is insane that the government has abdicated all its’ power and left it up to the greediest among us to “protect” us from a pandemic everyone can see coming, especially since we are still in the midst of another pandemic! Another data point for my list of ways our betters are actively trying to kill us. Even after mountains of evidence have piled up as to the incredible mendacity of our elites, I am still shocked when confronted with additional details of just how greedy, evil, and stupid they really are.
I’ve commented on the jumping worms before… To recap, the worms eat through leaf litter very quickly, leaving the soil exposed with easily-eroded coffee ground-like castings. This hurts American forests, as they evolved in a environment where the leaf litter sticks around and builds up into thick layers.
https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/invertebrates/asian-jumping-worm
If interested in some citizen science, dig up some worms, use the app to take photos and tag them for iNaturalist.
“France’s Republicans leader wants to form ‘alliance’ with Le Pen’s NR”
When Macron called for an election a coupla days ago, I am pretty sure that he never thought that something like this would happen. On the TV news it seems that there is a bit of an uproar on the French political scene as this would mean that Marine Le Pen gets that much closer to having actual power when the plan was probably to sideline her again from the campaign trail. Hope that those living in France talk about what they are seeing on the local front.
It’s been talked about for years, but has only recently looked like happening. Ciotti, the leader of the (small) Republican parliamentary contingent, has claimed to have “several dozen” deputies signed up to the idea of a “national alliance”, whose precise terms and objectives are not clear. It’s always been obvious for LR that they risked disappearing entirely at the next election, with their right flank defecting to the RN, and their left flank to Macron. So whilst it may be unfair to call this an act of desperation by Ciotti, it’s not far off.
It sounds like the party itself might break apart along those lines, instead of waiting for their voters to defect. Many others in his party seem strongly opposed to the alliance. Not quite a game-changer if so, though it’s still a step closer to power for RN.
MoA is up today!
Sorry that I missed the link you posted, Lambert. Need more coffee.
Good to see he’s back and OK. Hope the commentariat there starts behaving better.
To elaborate on that last sentence, I occasionally participated in MoA’s comment section. Bernardt went with a low-tech approach, which is understandable as it’s a one-man show. However, there is no way to authenticate and stealing other users handles became endemic. There were a few really good commenters, though, and sometimes the discussion got really good despite the high volume of trolls and body-snatchers.
It just made me appreciate NCs moderated approach that much more. What a great job Yves & Co. have done here.
I heartily agree with your appreciation for NCs moderated approach. Yves & Co. have indeed done a most marvelous job here.
It’s funny to see that some in the comments to Bernhard’s post are already offering dietary and pop psychology measures to aid in his recovery. One thing you can count on is that everybody is an expert on diet and nutrition (in their own mind). Even doctors will go way outside their specialty to give you dietary advice. And positive thinking, mindfulness, destressing, and similar concepts have become pillars of the American Religion now.
Weaponisation of the FATF Standards: A Guide for Global Civil Society (PDF) RUSI.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Had me going for a minute, feeling sure that RUSI was a cabal of ex-Soviets making a joke out of money by calling the standards FATF, but alas no, it’s a Brit run Money Obtainer Bureau.
Feeling way tripidatious as that day approaches when I go to FAT (Fresno Air Terminal) to fly east. H5N1 to the right of me, Covid to the left in the guise of a chatty Kathy seated next to me that wants to talk and i’m having issues feigning sleep in an attempt to ward off her breathy advances.
Why they couldn’t have abbreviated it as Fresno Flight Terminal instead, way back in the day, is probably on account of somebody dissing Cali’s 5th largest city.
FAT is really the best part of the methtropolis, the airport reminds me of Long Beach, Ca. airport. Small enough you can park your car within a hundred yards of the terminal, and experts agree that it is by far the fastest way to flee Fresno.
The Titan Submersible Disaster Shocked the World. The Exclusive Inside Story Is More Disturbing Than Anyone Imagined
A metaphor for our times. You’d think the sheer weight of human inequities and the confluence of anthropogenic catastrophic/existential risks (always an overabundance of ‘Links’ material) would have done us in years ago. Which brings me to something that has long puzzled me:
How is it that we are still here?
Just finished reading that long article myself. It looks like those people were always going to die as that Rush character was cutting every corner that he could and making decisions that he was not qualified to make. And substituting computer models for real world testing. On land that Silicon Valley ethos may work but the ocean plays rough and you have to play by its rules. When that accident happened people were asking ‘How could this happen?’ but after reading this article, you learn that it was always going to happen and was only a matter of time till it did.
So it wasn’t an ‘accident’, but it wasn’t deliberate either, it wasn’t an ingeniously elaborate way to commit suicide. It does appear to be the most consummate sort of self-delusion, and infectious, one that somehow wasn’t a pathological psychosis because the guy was otherwise fully functional. The guy lied the greatest whoppers to himself and knew full well he was lying, and still easily managed to fully embrace the lies. The limits of abnormal psychology have yet to be explored and catalogued. What treatment, if any, is possible?
Isn’t that same psychosis the same as that of your two front-runners for President? They start wars, and then run away from them, lying to themselves and their supporters in the process? They are leading the country slowly to suicide.
One of those front-runners is trying to save the country from itself and is failing miserably, with the game long since rigged against him with a corporatist multitude of no-win scenarios, damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
The other front-runner is an End Times cult leader determined to burn the country so he can rule over the ashes (and as the easiest way of staying out of prison), supported by millions of heavily-armed bloody-minded cultists, and he – or his successor – is virtually certain to succeed.
How do you suppose this story ends? One tin soldier rides away?
The second description of an End tlmes cult leader fits both Trump and Biden. I guess thr first one must be RFK.
The second description of an End tlmes cult leader fits both Trump and Biden.
Trump, the ‘religious right’ and white Christian nationalism
Not even a good try.
What treatment?
The rapid application of several hundreds of atmospheres of pressure has shown some promising results for acute cases.
I don’t think most engineers will be shocked, much less find it unusual.
It’s a smaller scale version of what’s going on at Boeing.
Same attitude as a lot of places, really. Maybe we should get more engineers into business management and policymaking, both foreign and domestic?
They won’t do it. They (we) chose engineering and related fields intentionally and with care, avoiding the messy personal stuff that managing and leading people requires. Quite the conundrum we’re faced with, isn’t it? Those who are qualified to manage and lead won’t do it, and those who should not be allowed anywhere near the offices literally kill to get there. I wonder how the ants and the bees manage this.
Sheer luck.
Inertia keeps you going for a while.
Erm, no … that’s momentum. Inertia is what keeps you safe in those ‘fools rush in’ situations … :-)
Momentum is a product of inertia (i.e. mass) and velocity. Inertia impedes gaining momentum, and also losing it.
We only exist at all on the wildest and most extreme of coincidences, in a universe which itself only exists on the wildest and most extreme of coincidences, for which even deGrasse can offer only the most implausible of conjectures. All very unsatisfactory.
Tiger got to hunt.
Bird got to fly.
Man got to sit and wonder why why why?
Tiger got to sleep.
Bird got to land.
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Where’s Bokonon when you need him?
We are constantly told that a nuclear barrage in a war would destroy humanity and frankly I don’t want to find out how it ends, but how were we able to do all those nuclear bomb tests from the 1940’s to 1960’s and nothing much seems to have happened?
The atmospheric tests were mostly in the desert or isolated Pacific islands with relatively limited fallout debris. The massive fallout & stratospheric smoke from burning cities will cause Nuclear Winter & do most of the damage- even a limited war like India/Pakistan.
The atmospheric tests spread radioactive fallout across the Globe. Rosalie Bertell in “No Immediate Danger” estimated tens of millions died as a result of exposure. There’s a new documentary, “Silent Fallout” that addresses this issue.
In addition, there were only about 400 atmospheric tests conducted over the course of 20 years resulting in the dilution of the radioactivity.
To any visiting aliens, this would sound profoundly stupid-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A (30 secs)
The prospect of a nuclear winter is very speculative and quite controversial. For example, the models that predict nuclear winter also predicted that the Kuwaiti oil fires would have similar catastrophic effects on the climate. In reality, the effects were barely noticeable. Same thing with large forest fires. It’s also not a given that nuclear attacks on cities would lead to large fires in the first place. That’s not what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereas large-scale conventional bombings both in Germany and Japan did lead to huge firestorms (which was also the intention).
It’s even been suggested that the Soviets fabricated scientific data pointing to nuclear winter to promote disarmament in the West. I might have if I were them: A lot more people would be amenable even to unilateral disarmament if any use of nuclear weapons would lead to a world-ending scenario. It would be pointless, at least for non-fanatics, to even have the ability to fire nukes back. Now of course it’s equally possible that Western hawks in turn fabricated that Soviet plot as part of efforts to discredit the peace movement.
Regarding whether a nuclear winter would really occur, I think the only way to really find out would be to have an actual nuclear war, and I’m not suggesting we should do that.
Define “large fires”. In Shockwave, the book recounts at length the firestorm that engulfed Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped.
You are correct: At the very least in Hiroshima, many large fires were ignited which merged and did cause a firestorm. I was apparently misinformed.
While the firestorms in Tokyo, Hamburg, Dresden etc. from conventional terror bombings were much larger, that’s also not necessarily an apples to apples comparison (since those operations were much larger in scope and designed specifically to ignite firestorms). So I have to take back that Hiroshima and Nagasaki indicate that atomic bomings don’t necessarily cause large fires.
Read Whole World on Fire ny Lynn Eden and you will know more about nuclear weapon yields, mass fires, and nuclear winter.
That looks like an interesting book. I will check it out. Thank you.
re: John Steinbach
> The atmospheric tests were mostly in the desert or isolated Pacific islands …
Indeed.
Maybe an unusual hobby but over the years I have collected quite a number of yearbooks, annuals, almanacs, etc. for 1951 — the year I was born. Korea and polio are two of the dominant themes in all of these sources. However, one of my favourites is the Britannica ‘Book of the Year’. The goddamned frontispiece of this tome — a famous photo — depicts hundreds (or thousands?) of GIs observing the mushroom cloud of an atmospheric test in Nevada in November of ’51. Later, those guys died from leukemia at … shall we say? … disproportionate rates.
Starfish Prime happened. You don’t even need to do physical damage to things on the ground to shut down civilization permanently. We still have enough books that humanity can (eventually) recover, but consider how much only exists as a digital copy now.
Overshoot.
The coyote does not fall until he looks down.
Does that imply that when Americans realize how bad things are, chaos will follow? The coyote will “fall down”
The beginning of the atomic age and the nuking of H&N in 1945 instilled a certain amount of fear. The arms race in the 1950-60-70 and its sheer scale also instilled some grounding.
With the newer generations of politicians and bureaucrats and military/bureaucrats, the apprehensions seemed to have gone, so we can say that now we are off to the races in earnest for destroying civilization, not humanity…
First you lose a leg, then the land you walk on, then you dance. Own nothing, be happy.
This reminded me of the morale-raising photoshoot:
https://nypost.com/2024/03/18/world-news/ukrainian-porn-star-josephine-jackson-poses-with-soldiers-who-lost-limbs/
“Ukrainian adult film star poses with soldiers who lost limbs in battle for morale-raising photoshoot”
Something got raised there.
so pathetically sad –
RE: IEA forecasts for oil demand
The IEA has outdone itself with fantasy magical thinking. Either that, or “blue meth” is back on the streets.
What about all these power-hungry data centers being built to meet the needs of greasy, fake AI? Even if somehow they use renewables, that leaves the rest of the economy having to fight for the remaining power supply. And a lot of that will need to come from gas powered plants, and plastics will still be manufactured, and fertilizer, and ICE engines aren’t going anywhere, to the chagrin of green fanatics.
Doubling our power needs by 2030 to support the techlords AI plans makes this the sort of laughable “maths-free” trash that belongs on a “Clown world” update from Alex Christoforou.
Perpetual Notion Machine worked wonders at conjuring up money out of thin air on the QWERTY, how dare you impugn the concept of ooh ungowa we have pretty much unlimited power, say it again, ooh ungowa.
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga
Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga
I can’t stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
AI, you just don’t realize
You need energy
When you hold me
In your algorithms so tight
You tell me lies
Bezzle-beast in flight
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on deceiving
From laws of physics, I’m free
Hand AI out like candy
It goes down just like flour
Data centers thirsty
For another Kilowatt hour
Got a bug from Tech lords
AI’s got a cure
Joules conjured from spreadsheets
It’s a scam, for sure
All the hallucinations
When we’re all alone
Keep it up girl
Turn the power on
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on deceiving
From laws of physics, I’m free
All the hallucinations
When we’re all alone
Keep it up girl
Turn the power on
I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on deceiving
From laws of physics, I’m free
AI’s got us hooked on a feeling
It’s high on deceiving
From laws of physics, we’re free!
(Sung to the tune of “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede.)
Under BYOL (bring your own link)–Turley says that Hunter and his counsel’s above the law attitude may have made actual jail time more likely.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/12/did-the-defense-make-jail-more-likely-for-hunter-under-the-sentencing-guidelines/
Plus dad claims to be an advocate of strict gun laws and is in the middle of a campaign. Extending the speculation, could it be Hunter’s felony conviction that actually serves as some kind of turning point? Once the illusion of immunity is broken Joe must be worrying about himself.
As he surely should.
Question for the NC crowd – how worried should I be about bird flu?
I was all over the initial covid reporting, it helped me get out front of preparing for the pandemic, and those initial weeks of shutdown were easy for our family because we were prepared with all the material and food etc we needed, and I was prepared mentally and emotionally to help my wife and kids through it.
I don’t want to alarm anyone in my life about bird flu, nor do I want to be stressing myself out, but is this something I should be gearing up for like I did on Feb 2020?
That’s a great question and I too benefited from the foresight I saw on here in the months long run-up to everything closing down for Covid, but that was then and this is now, and masks weren’t politicized and as a general rule of thumb, only those over a certain age or ethnicity were immediately affected by Covid, most everybody skated on the thin ice and did ok, making us sitting ducks for bird flu which probably has different profiles altogether of whom it takes down.
We’ll get plenty of advance notice if something wicked this way comes, stay vigilant!
I agree this community will likely be ahead of the curve. I have ordered more N95 masks. If bird flu does spillover (likely) and is much more deadly than Covid (maybe) there will be another panicked rush to buy masks, and shortages etc. The same ridiculousness. If people start dropping dead, effective masks will be depoliticized real quick I predict.
If people start dropping dead, effective masks will be depoliticized real quick I predict.
Recent experience suggests otherwise, and the opposite seems most likely. How many rabidly anti-mask anti-vax radio hosts have died lingering horrific covid deaths? Never underestimate the power of human self-delusion and self-deceit. Never.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
– Paradise Lost
The vaccines show many signs of not working at all as well as advertised. Don’t lump anti-mask and anti-covid vaccine people together.
I am exceedingly pro mask but have declined the covid vax. So far I have not caught covid (I test weekly). On the other hand, a guy I know who tried to tell me last year that I was a bad person for not getting vaxxed just dropped dead unexpectedly.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The WHO and the CDC are still going on about droplet spread rather than aerosol spread. If we ended up in a flu pandemic like the one in 1919-20, they will still be denying aerosol spread and claiming once more that wearing masks is dangerous. After the past four years I have zero faith in the integrity of our medical authorities as I watched them stuff up the response to the present pandemic simply so that the economy wouldn’t be inconvenienced. Since a flu pandemic is also a threat to our economy, I expect there to be the same sort of responses – or lack of I should say. And once more we will be on our own and depending on NC for the vital information that we will need.
It is possible you may be right that people will go to their death denying something as simple as wearing an N95. If fatality rate is high that would a pretty rapid selection process. I bet there would still be enough sanity to put stress on our meager production capabilities. I am afraid our predictions might get put to the test. I am still ordering more masks for my family and some to give away.
I am more open now about introducing long covid into casual conversations where illness arises as a topic and I am finding a more receptive discussion than a year ago.
I am still finding absolutely no receptivity at all to my mentions of long covid or any sort of covid aftereffects. Zero. Even while I see lots of people who have ongoing crummy health after getting covid (or the shots; I can’t tell which the problem is since they’ve had both).
Good discussion and I agree with previous posters about preparedness.
Here in Uruguay masks are not politicized, but people only wore them when they were required. It was only this year that they stopped requiring them in medical facilities. Sad face.
I recently bought the last N95 mask available on the local Craigslist. It was a single mask being sold by a musical performer. Now I have to figure out another source so that I can get prepared. And to be honest I wanted these masks for the current flock of viruses.
I wonder that myself. As an immune-compromised old guy, I N95 mask when in public – grocery store, library – otherwise I am retired from civil society – I gave up the choir and now attend the TV mass, not the in-person one.
With regard to bird flu – now also available in cows – I still eat cooked beef and chicken and eggs, and cooked cheese in pizza, and hope that these precautions are enough. Fluid “milk” is now plant-based non dairy beverage, and last night I tried a cashew-based chocolate “ice cream” – pretty good, and there’s another serving left in the container. The Buddhist parable about the strawberry eaten by someone in a life-threatening situation comes to mind – “How sweet it tasted.”
My first alarm re Covid came from a relative who is an ER doctor in Atlanta. Nothing from her on avian flu yet.
My spouse is a hospital doc and all our friends are front line hospital docs, including an ID doc. They’ve heard no more than any of us.
I think so, It seems as if the Davos/WEF crowd is really trying to kill as many of us as possible.
Blue Duck,
Short answer, yes.
I can’t remember if it was in December, 2019 or early January, 2020, when I first read here on NC (Links or 2PMWC, can’t recall) about a coronavirus of concern that had emerged in China with the potential for rapid spread and significant lethality. I recall sharing with a co-op start-up colleague my concern that important events on our calendar could be impacted. As it came to pass, the two or three I was worried about happened without Covid making an appearance, as far as I know. The last event was a national 3-day conference of co-op start-up organizers March 5-7, me getting back to my cave late on March 8th. From what was shared after the conference, no participant had reported a COVID-19 infection since returning home.
Since I’ve been alert to pandemic possibilities for a long time, I had paid close attention to news here. I thought I was as prepared as possible for probable consequences like transportation and supply chain disruption. I did not have very high hopes for US governmental response. The staggering fecklessness and incapacity of organizations and individuals comprising major components of national and state governance is, however, a source of unending horror and rage. There is no reason to believe that said governments, organizations, and individuals will do any better, should H5N1 evolve into a human-compatible, pandemic-capable wee beastie. From the perspective of the virus, it looks like smooth sailing ahead. For us homo saps, it will simply be an continuation of the layered, ‘Swiss cheese’ non-pharmaceutical practices that have served well these past 4 years (and continuing) with SARS CoV 2.
Near as I can tell, the risk is it finds its way into pigs, where it has ample opportunity to mutate to bind to “human” receptors in the respiratory tract, at which point it is apparently an easy lift to get into humans. Maybe this can happen in cows as well, but I think the risk is lower for that.
If it continues to spread unchecked, I think it is inevitable that it eventually spreads to humans, it’s just a question of when? This year? This decade? In a 100 years? Who knows. But given that it is now endemic in the cow population, and it has a penchant for jumping species, I’m not optimistic on this front.
I’m even less optimistic about the public health response, which will be nothing.
We’ll know we have human to human transmission when hospitals in a region collapse, and likely not before.
Maybe Biden’s attempt at starting a nuclear war gets us first, though!
Everybody should optimize their immune systems. It’s useful whether the problem is new or existing viruses, plastics, stress or good old aging. I turned 60 years old last year and I’ve started lifting weights, lost 20 lbs, supplement with vitamins D&C, zinc and protein powder daily. My new mini trampoline was just delivered!!
Of course I’m still going to need masks, but we should do everything we can to improve our basic health and immunity, and encourage the same for our loved ones.
I’m trying to figure out if protein supplementation is safe for the kidneys; I am reading conflicting things. I had thought of suggesting it to my mom but now I am glad I didn’t since her kidney readings just unexpectedly came back worse than expected.
I am pushing her to eat more mushrooms; they seem to be a safe way to boost the immune system (not medical advice).
As a dialysis patient, I have to be careful with the amount of protein I eat, so personally I would not consider protein supplementation.
Maybe ask your/her doctor.
The CDC has, since the outbreak in cattle started in March, tested a total of 45 people for H5N1. With 90 infected herds in 12 states, that works out to two human tests per infected herd. :(
The two most likely transmission routes to humans are detailed in the Scientific American article posted in Links on June 7:
From Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding on X:
https://x.com/DrEricDing/status/1799305790807019746
“For Avian flu, (H5N1) it is a good idea to have enough xofluza, relenza, or tamiflu (in that order) for your family. If you wait until it mutates enough to transmit easily in humans, there won’t be any around, or the government sill seize the supply chain under DPA.”
As it was during the early days of Covid-19, flutrackers.com is an indispensable resource for keeping tabs on the latest H5N1 developments.
> Question for the NC crowd – how worried should I be about bird flu?
I would track H5N1 for the institutional response alone, which is, if anything, even more feckless and reckless than the response to Covid.
H5N1 has evolved for mammal-to-mammal transmission but not for human-to-human transmission, even though we human mammals have given it every opportunity to do so. (H5N1 mutates more rapidly than SARS-CoV-2, so I don’t know what the hold-up is.)
Interestingly, the fictionalized cordyceps fungus in The Last of Us was food-borne (through flour). However, it’s hard for me to believe that a virus that transmits through milk or meat could cause a pandemic. because what’s the R0? (For cordyceps, it was one zombir, many bites.)
The issue is, if H5N1 does mutate for human-to-human, would we know who/what/where/when/why rapidly enough to stop the spread? Doubtful. We aren’t testing. We have no test for H5N1 specifically in any case. We are allowing travel. We have stigmatized all the non-pharmaceutical interventions that might halt the initial spread with immediate effect, and some believe that NPIs infringe their precious liberty to infect their neighbors, family, and community, probably enough to keep the virus in circulation (although over time, of course, this problem is self-limiting).
We might, of course, dodge the bullet. But another one is coming. For a flu, possibly airborne, I think the best answers are to stock up on medications (I think Fiegl-Ding said Tamilflu), to get your layers of protection against airborne sorted, and as a reader on this thread suggested, to strengthen your immune system, and perhaps your epithelium.
Leaving prepper-type considerations aside, get or update your passport. There is no reason not to have that option.
“Four Tops singer’s lawsuit says he visited ER for chest pain, ended up in straitjacket’
This reminds me too much of a case that cropped up in New York about ten years ago. A black woman was driving her BMX when a cop decided to make some trouble. She was a banker which was how she was able to own that car. The cop did not believe her but impounded her car. When she went to retrieve it, she was arrested, put in an ambulance, taken to Harlem Hospital, drugged to the gills and stripped of her clothes-
‘Medical records also show that over the course of her eight-day stay, personnel at the hospital repeatedly tried to get Brock to deny three things before she could be released: that she owned the BMW, that she was a professional banker, and that President Barack Obama followed her on Twitter.’
Nobody thought to check her driver’s record or her social media account to see if these were true – they were – and she spent 8 days at that psych hospital before being bounced with a $13,000 medical bill.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamilah-brock-nypd-bmw_n_55f2c9aae4b063ecbfa3e60d
LOL. At first I thought she was on a BMX bike, and cops thought that she stole it.
Oops! I mistyped while trying to find an article about her. Yeah, BMW not BMX- d’oh!
A few years back on a ski trip to Utah a few weeks after my late mother was ‘Typhoid Mom’ and gave me Covid a second time, I was feeling a tightening of the chest and slight breathing issues, so one of our group suggested I go get some tests done @ the Park City Hospital, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with me, aside from perhaps having a heavy wallet, as it was $1919.84 to have an ‘ED Visit Level 4’ and another $482.04 for ‘EDPHY-ED Evaluation Level 4’ and by the time you added it all up for services rendered, it was a little over $4 grand for 30-45 minutes.
I think I paid around $165 for out of pocket expense and in theory the insurance company absorbed the rest, ouch!
My real cost was about 4% of the total itemized bill, what if real life was like that and a hamburger cost $100, but you could beat them down to $4, or a new car had an MSRP of $500,000 but could be yours out the door for $21,999?
While the article is written as if this is just an act of racism, I don’t think that was solely the reason for the antics. I’d seriously look to see if this isn’t the first time a person has been shipped off to that psych hospital. My gut says those officers were intent on stealing that car from this woman. They had the means to readily confirm that she owned the car… they would have had access to her and the car’s DMV records. It’s also odd that they told her to come back the following day to get the car… conveniently after they can arrange for the ambulance to be there waiting. The car would have gone unclaimed, and they’re plan assumed that before she left the hospital there’d be a record that says she admitted the car wasn’t hers. They also probably assumed that she’d also have been so overwhelmed with the $13k medical bill that she’d too scared and too tired to pursue suing the NYPD or NYC over the car. The car would have gone to auction (an auction these officers would have inside knowledge on when it was going to happen) and sold for pennies on the dollar and would have had a clean title to boot.
Trying to invoke privilege to evade being treated like a normie.
Pretty horrible what happened to that Four Tops singer, but, I understand how somebody can consider him a bit delusional when said he “was a member of The Four Tops and that he had security concerns due to stalkers and fans.” Really? And then a varied bunch in the hospital in Detroit, of all places, home of Motown, think he’s a bit nuts. Hell, he joined that venture in 2018! Everyone but one of the original group is dead. I’d back away a bit. Then it all proceeds to a straightjacket situation! Hmmm …. To be a fly on the wall.
But the most pathetic thing happened as he was being released: “Morris’ lawsuit says he was restrained for about 90 minutes. He was offered a $25 Meijer gift card as an apology, which he declined.” Should have bargained to 100.
A friend of mine was booking and tour managing an oldies show where between the five groups, you might have had four original members. You’d be surprised what kind of weirdos come out of the woodwork for what’s essentially NPR pledge drive entertainment.
My brother in law played base for the Beach Boys for a dozen years, which aside from Mike Love, is a ghost band.
He related that he could be playing with a Hawaiian shirt on with a hat on his head, and half an hour after the show in the casino with fresh clothes on, he might play a little blackjack with people who had just been to the concert and were talking about it, and they had no idea who he was.
Kind of thrived on the anonymity of being a brand name nobody…
There’s a bass player joke somewhere in there.
They are more likely to wear a Hawaiian shirt than a straight jacket. :)
Why didn’t the singer just scream…….. BERNADETTE !!!!!!!!!!
Dr J…. you’re correct Levi Stubbs passed in 2008
The raumen they’re trying to recall is no joke. It’s delicious but it’s also a commitment in that, if you start eating, you’d better keep going until it’s gone. That’s the only way I could finish, and I consider my self a spicy fan. It does have a unique flavor, so it’s not just macho pain tolerance. But it’s not for people who don’t have a tolerance or experience on the higher spicy end of foods.
The Denmark regulators would be amazed that I wasn’t already dead from some of the heat I’ve consumed over the years.
You couldn’t help but notice both Donald & Hunter were wearing old glory lapel pins to court and it didn’t seem to help their causes.
Can we stop this Brezhnev era practice already, its getting as long in the tooth as tattoos, and as tiresome.
Meanwhile, take it as an informative little sign that proclaims the wearer is a self-righteous phony.
Wouldn’t it be neat if some “first movers” went on political or media events without flag pins? And when challenged by a flag pin wearer, had an exchange something like this . . .
” Where’s your flag pin?” or “Why aren’t you wearing a flag pin?” or some variation thereof.
And the flag pin non-wearer replies: ” Any scoundrel can wear a flag pin . . . . I see you’ve got yours on.”
I’d rather our leaders of all stripes festoon their attire much like a Nascar racing team or increasingly on the NBA players during their games in the Finals…and Luka from 3 again wearing his Chime logo on his jersey. Shameless plug and an easy segue to a commercial break!
Maybe Nikki Haley can host guests in her Kiawah Island 2nd home brought to you by Boeing Corp. And the logo for the Trump Organization and his friends in the Energy sector would make Trump present with a special glow. “President Joe Biden, long time sponsored by your friendly credit card lending industry. Visa is everywhere Joe and Jill want to be!”. \sarc
They could wear them upside down. Plus national flag meanings are in the eye of the beholder. Apparently some Irish refer to the Union jack as “the butcher’s apron.”
Seriously though, blame it on Dan Rather and the other newsers who started doing it after 9/11. Guess they didn’t want us to think they were jihadis.
Some folks are born made to wear the flag lapel pin
Hoo, they’re red, white and blue
And when the band plays “Hail to the chief”
Ooh, they point the verdict at you, Lord
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no ex-senator’s son, son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no unfortunate one, no
Some folks are born crack cocaine spoon in hand
Lord, don’t they help themselves, Lord?
But when the Fox man come to the door
Lord, the house lookin’ like a rummage sale, yeah
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no Centimillionaire’s son, no, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no unfortunate one, no
Yeah-yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
Hoo, they send you down to ironclad war, Lord
And when you ask ’em, “How much should we give?”
Hoo, they only answer, “More, more, more, more”
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no unfortunate one, no, no, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
I ain’t no unfortunate son, no, no, no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me
“Ukraine could launch ‘terror campaign bombing schools’ if Russia wins war”
I ask you, how is this any different to what the Ukrainians have been doing for the past ten years and the thousands of deaths? What about the murders & sabotage committed in Russia and that concert bombing which the Russians have linked back to Ukrainian intelligence. What about the bombing of civilians in Belgorod or Ukrainian drones attacking civilian cars and vans. The Russians have been here before with the Chechen campaigns so know what to do. If they really wanted to cripple these attacks on Russia, they should attack the command post for coordinating them. I would suggest bombing NATO headquarters in Brussels then.
The same bloodthirsty soul who wrote that wrote this the other day: https://x.com/nicholadrummond/status/1799830180397195690?t=jzf0VzhfX-jl0e0y48DXqQ&s=19
WTAF is with these people? Do as we say or we’ll start murdering your children in their classrooms.
It’s simply beyond deranged, and I can’t believe that the rest of the world, still in possession of its faculties, won’t see that it’s time to put Old Yeller down…
Hasn’t Z been threatening this for a hot minute now?
What’s especially ridiculous is the assertion that this would pose some grave threat to Putin, since he would be seen as having failed to prevent it. I assume the author of that article missed all the terror attacks we had since the destruction of the Soviet Union, none of which caused anyone to be overthrown. I also don’t remember Bush being overthrown after 9/11 – to give just one foreign example. Actually, I’m not sure if there was any government that fell because of terror attacks. Does anyone here know such a case?
In Spain we had the spectacle of Aznar trying to blame ETA for the Islamist terror attack in 2004, Madrid. His party lost general elections just 3 days after (Aznar himself was no candidate for the PP after two terms). Difficult to say to what extent but Aznar adventurer-ism in Iraq played a role.
RE: New Biden administration rule would ban medical debt from credit reports
Talk about treating the symptoms and not the disease. But I’m sure they will regale us with this over the next few months as an example of how Joe is fightin’ for us. Meanwhile our disastrous wealth extraction system that passes for “healthcare” will continue apace, and people will still owe those exorbitant debts whether anyone sees them on a credit report or not.
Wake me up when we have a real nationalized healthcare system, not just single payer, and people can get care without being charged.
In the meantime, Let’s Go Brandon.
With any luck at all, this will put the final nail in the coffin of the fico system and its stranglehold on the determination of the “creditworthiness” of american citizens.
End stage financialization–when you have to cover up indebtedness in order to keep the system of ever-increasing debt “functioning.”
France’s Republicans leader wants to form ‘alliance’ with Le Pen’s NR Al Jazeera
France: Back to Dreyfus? Vichy? No Exit From Its Fraught History? The American Prospect
——
I still think this FT profile shows a global establishment much more comfortable with any move to the right:
https://www.ft.com/content/e1f433a0-e947-484a-8966-71764921df59/
Jordan Bardella: the far-right TikTok king gunning for France’s premiership
That’s a look at some of the alleged “opposition.”
I could also envision a fawning Vanity Fair profile as I read the article.
According to various sources, the Republicains have booted out their leader, but he refuses to go. Should get interesting.
Bonus antidote:
Be like Diesel.
“They Shut Grandma’s Power Off… For Your Safety.”
It’s strange this. Years ago after a severe flood here, I gave thought to critical failure points of our infrastructure and loss of electricity was one of the things that I thought about. One thing that I never considered was a power company who would refuse to spend money on infrastructure upgrades but was so afraid of lawsuits, that they would simply cut the power to their customers for days at a time. If you lived in an area like this and do not have your own handy-dandy power generator, then you may as well invite your neighbours around for a feast to eat the food in your freezer that would be going off otherwise.
I guess the PUC here (Hawaii) just approved the utility high wind shut off plan. Already there are issues where residential underground circuits have some reliability issues (I think a lot of residential distribution was done “on the cheap”) and because these circuits are fed from above ground circuits the new protocol that requires physical inspection of entire circuit by lineman prior to re-energizing means going without power for several hours minimum (assumes lineman is available in the area or you wait until one does).
We have lots of residential solar and I have never found a good explanation of how residential inverters are managed. Seen the terms “grid following” and “grid forming” used, but it’s unclear to me just what happens to the inverters when the external circuit they are tied to goes down. If I was a lineman, I wouldn’t want to have to worry about an inverter suddenly feeding back into the circuit.
The CT is that the new wild fire power rules are designed to make it hard for Lahaina property owners to rebuild so they end up selling to the state and the state then implements Agenda 2030 ideas.
Unless you have a battery storage system, grid tied solar shuts down during any outage (intentional or otherwise).
https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/why-do-grid-tie-solar-systems-shut-down-during-power-outages/
Yes. UL has always required (via the UL1741 standard for solar inverters) that grid-tied solar shut down whenever there is an outage. This is primarily for reasons of safety (to avoid electrocuting line workers who are handling supposedly de-energized lines), but it also avoids accidentally overloading your inverter when it tries to power your house plus your neighbors’ houses that happen to be fed by the same step-down transformer.
There are more sophisticated systems that will disconnect your entire house from the grid and run it from solar and/or battery until the grid comes back, but these involve more claptrap in the form of high-power switchover circuits, plus the sensing and control systems required to operate them. Overall, such systems have more parts and more failure modes, and they tend to be more expensive and less reliable as a result.
But if your electricity provider might cut power for several days every fire season, it might be worth the trouble and expense.
Edison has been doing this for years here in So Cal. In our local more rural areas, you see many more battery storage systems going in if people have grid tied solar and/or propane generators since most rural residents also use propane.
In addition to regular household appliances, a/c, etc., below are other things that don’t work during our local power shutdowns.
Your well pump if you are on a well. Better hope you get notice or have a system that refills your water tank every day.
Your water pressure in your house if you have any auxiliary pump. Gravity feed might give you water dribbles if your set-up has it.
Your irrigation-same problem.
Your internet/tv/voip phone line unless you have satellite even if you have power. This depends on if the “hubs” are shut down.
Your Cell phones if the towers are shutdown.
Forget charging an electric car.
Phone land lines still work, but AT&T is trying to get from under their obligation to provide them.
In our area they’ve replaced the poles and lines with fire resistant versions and insulated so as to be less likely to start but now the power shut-offs are policy.
And your electric home hospital bed, and your lift chair, and your fan. We have an elderly relative at home and so I have bought a Bluetti with a solar panel (this is not a brand recommendation; I think there are likely good ones that are cheaper but I am a tech moron and it is easy to use). That way perhaps the next major power outage won’t be as miserable as the last one. We are in Northern CA and two years ago we had an outage that lasted for a week.
Plus you may have meds that need refrigerating. It can make sense to have a tiny mini fridge in reserve that can be charged by the Bluetti (or the like).
Water inequality on the Colorado River High Country News
My mother always said you should live your life in such a way that people thought you had less wealth than you did. She thought modesty was a virtue. I still believe that, but I also now think it is wise not to make a target of yourself in a resource constrained world. People are going to become righteously angry, understandably. The rioters will likely go for the flashy stuff first.
~Israel and Hamas trade jabs over Gaza ceasefire proposal
The page has a number of sub headings, the two seemingly on topic are: Blinken: “It’s time for the haggling to stop and a ceasefire to start”, and, Blinken says “Hamas has proposed numerous changes” to ceasefire proposal. But there is no real detail.
My hunch is the ZE will just blame Hamas for a failure to get a deal and the slaughter will continue.
One of Hamas’ responses I caught yesterday stated that they called the Blinkenator an “obstacle” because he was misrepresenting the proposal and on the side of Israel.
Well, yeah … he should recuse himself and stick to Stratocaster noodling.
I’m not so sure if Israelis would say that Blinken was acting on their behalf either (and they’d be right.). How does an alleged mediator manage to alienate both sides? What was it that Obama said about Biden? You can count on Joe to familyblog everything?
“My hunch is the ZE will just blame Hamas…”
Please tell me what ZE is, when possible.
Zionist Entity, in a broad, non-state specific sense. Of course it could be boiled down.
Adding: I also understand the term as being used when not wanting to grant legitimacy to a specific state.
Thank you, Alice. What I needed to understand.
Sports desk entry, sad commentary to attribute a legend of the hardwood and perhaps the greatest of them all, from the overall career combination of elite player and NBA executive. Jerry West has passed away per a flurry of news reports.
I enjoyed those Lakers vs Celtics high flying Finals from the 1980’s.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40333628/nba-all-great-jerry-west-dies-age-86
“Apple rains on the AI hype cycle” Politico
All articles skip around this concern: What are all the ways it can be turned off? How much user control exactly?
Liz Warren takes on private equity in health care
https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/12/warrens-new-bill-makes-private-equitys-death-grip-on-hospitals-a-crime/
But will Congress pass it?
There are so many silly ideas going around now about the upcoming French election and the success of the Rassemblement National (RN) in the Europeans, and the American Prospect article includes so many of them that it might be worth making a few things clear.
What’s going on has nothing to do with the Vichy regime. Vichy was an elitist, establishment, authoritarian, conservative regime, based around the Army, the Church, the wealthy families and the bankers and industrialists. It was reasonably close to Franco’s Spain. It regarded everything that had happened since 1789 as a ghastly mistake, and many of its adherents (essentially the majority of the French establishment) were royalist in theory, at least. Nothing could be more different from the RN. There were actual Fascist parties (ie parties of the radical populist Right) in France at the time, like Doriot’s PPF, but they kept their distance from Vichy and vice versa.
The forces of Vichy were pretty much wiped out after WW2, and the political Right in France was dominated by democratic, republican parties, broadly Christian Democrat in nature, of which the rapidly disintegrating Republicans are the last vestige. Now, these forces are making a come-back and it’s nothing to do with the RN; The surprise result of the Europeans was the success of the new party Reconquête (“Reconquest”) founded by the journalist and TV personality Eric Zemmour. This is the real thing, the closest thing to a neo-Vichy party we have seen. Although it only scored just over 5% (same bracket as the Greens) its vote was heavily concentrated in wealthy middle-class areas and traditional Catholic communities. This has been on the cards for some time, since successive governments started to allow Islamist political movements to re-introduce religion into schools and public life. It was foreseeable, and predicted, that this would embolden the traditional Catholic Right to come out of hiding, and indeed they have.
Likewise, there is nothing “fascist” about the RN’s programme, which is, in fact, a pretty standard mix of popular policies of the 1980s and into the 1990s. The RN is “populist” in the sense that the Communist Party used to be, and has picked up votes in areas where the PCF was once strong. But it’s also picking up votes among the educated middle classes, who have had enough of the way French politics has gone over the last generation. But the RN has committed two unforgivable sins. First, it’s against globalisation, job exporting and giving ever more power to Brussels. This is equated with “nationalism”, “xenophobia” and so forth. Second it wants an end to uncontrolled immigration, like most French people: in effect, a return to the situation of some thirty years ago, and an end to the wholesale dumping of immigrants on the poorest communities and the regions with the fewest resources.
Aurelian, fine comment. Relatedly:
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1800736479574147522
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Some thoughts on why I’d never vote for Le Pen or some of the other French so-called “extreme-right” parties as someone who’s generally very suspicious of liberalism and who can be called a “sovereignist”. Hopefully it can be useful to some who share my thinking.
First of all, a personal experience. I went to high school in Lyon, France in an extremely conservative private catholic school with many sons and daughters of Front National officials (now called Rassemblement National). About half my “friends” back then went to the Front National youth movement (“Front National de la Jeunesse”). So it’s fair to say I was partly raised in that environment. And my big learning from that experience is that the primary ideological driver for these people isn’t a love of France or its culture, but a hatred of “foreign elements”, of course mainly Muslims but also Jews (as in actual antisemitism, not anti-Zionism). To begin with, this vaccinated me for life against their ideology…
Secondly, another personal experience. I left France when I was 18, 22 years ago, and have since lived in 7 different countries: Switzerland, the UK, the US, India, Nepal, China and Malaysia. Which means I myself have lived the majority of my life as a “foreign element” in a wide variety of other countries and as such have been able to understand a) how other countries approach diversity and multiculturalism and b) generally how other countries are managed. The most important thing I’ve come to realize during these experiences is that cultures endure. For instance I truly love China as a country (if you follow me you must have noticed by now), it has a culture that I find fascinating, but there’s no way I would ever become Chinese, nor would China ever ask foreigners to assimilate in a way that they become Chinese, they’d just laugh at the very notion of it. I’m French, raised in France and I’ll never escape this. I can live in other countries, respect and love them and be respected and loved in return, but I’m never going to be “not French”, it’s just impossible to become another people.
Which I think goes at the core of what the so-called “extreme-right” in France gets so wrong. They conflate the requirement for “foreign elements” in France to respect and love the country (a perfectly reasonable demand) with a requirement to give up their own culture and assimilate, which is unreasonable and impossible…
11:46 PM · Jun 11, 2024
I spent a couple of months touring France some years ago. It’s a beautiful and even romantic countryside–much my favorite–but at the same time I felt intense homesickness for my often unbeautiful (and sometimes stunning) America. My theory is that a country is like your parents. You may not approve of them but they will always be a part of you.
That said, I do believe “dual loyalty” can become an issue–particularly when those from country A work to convince their new country B to devastate country C. Those who cry anti-Semitism doth protest too much when what they really mean is anti-Zionism. Sheldon Adelson once said he regretted serving in the US Army and that it should have been the IDF instead. Is that a perfectly understandable sentiment or vaguely sinister given the power his vast fortune has been used to influence people like Trump and his ME policies?
In America all of this used to be finessed by “assimilation” but now that’s treated by some as a dirty word–bigoted even. I don’t think the melting pot was bigoted. Reason must prevail over sentiment and in a democracy the interests of the many over the few.
I don’t think the melting pot was bigoted.
Melting pot? It has always been more of a stew.
Keep in mind that the US was founded on the sacred principles of indigneous genocide, African slavery, subjugation of women, religious extremism, and a Calvinistic worship of wealth. It has been unable to transcend the nature of its origins because wealthy nutjobs never wanted it to and have prevented it. Given the circumstances of the 18th century, the democracy you got, flawed as it was, was better than anyone could have hoped for and a real testament to the nobility of its authors, flawed as they were.
Bigotry in recent decades hasn’t seemed so bad as in years past because that was before its cultivation was industrialized and the gaslighting techniques used were elevated to an art form, decisively by the privileged class, working through their usual antisocial proxies, as malicious political strategy. The idea has been to get do overs of the US civil war and WWII in Europe, and this time the US is going to lose.
Democracy has to win every battle. Fascism only has to win the last one. We expect the collapse of civilization to be largely completed by 2030.
Oh I disagree. That stew enlarged the gene pool and created the “American century” which your framework of the 19th century totally was not. The US has always been an evolving thing and outsider groups brought in new ideas and talents that, at least for awhile, kept the old aristos down culturally and eventually (now) in power terms. Hollywood for example was created by Jewish moguls, by and large, and I’d go so far as to say that their then outsider status is the key to all those Jewish contributions to the 20th–not just in entertainment. To think outside the box you have to be outside the box.
But now our elites are stale and decadent precisely because they do prefer to return to dogma if not outright Puritanism. However I don’t think the Pilgrims defined America or the slavers either. As long as we can change this country might survive.
The US has always been an evolving thing and outsider groups brought in new ideas and talents that, at least for awhile, kept the old aristos down culturally and eventually (now) in power terms.
‘Kept the old aristos down’? The American aristocracy only lost control when they crashed the economy in 1929 and FDR had to save it by throwing the masses some bones, which only sort of worked until the Powell memo came out and never happened before, and never will again.
As long as we can change this country might survive.
Oh my. To paraphrase The Architect, what levels of ‘survival’ are you prepared to accept?
Your arguments are vague. Who are these aristocrats you claim have always been in control of the country? Any chance some may have been recent arrivals?
And I’m not predicting the country will change, absent another disaster like the Depression. Indeed if power corrupts and the history of empires is a guide then things are looking grim at the moment. What I’m saying is that there have been times when things were better.
Who are these aristocrats you claim have always been in control of the country?
Who indeed? Ask your presidents. Before Nixon. After that they shut up.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
– Thomas Jefferson
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency… the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered… The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
– Andrew Jackson
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
– Abraham Lincoln
The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrown of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wide disorder the citadel of misrule.
– Grover Cleveland
The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of working men. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer.
– Rutherford B. Hayes
Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce … and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
– James A. Garfield
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government of the U.S. ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.
– FDR
This does not answer Carolinian. They all describe potential threats, save maybe for FDR. But his statement is not correct. The robber barons (the fur traders like the Astors, the steel magnates like Carnegie, the oil explorers and developers like the Rockefellers) were all more powerful in their heyday than bankers.
Well this “Aristos” conversation reminds me of the classic remark in the The Good Shepherd” (2006), in which the Yale/CIA character explains
privilege to Joe Pesci. Asked “What do you (people) have,” Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) replies: “The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.”
I read a theory long ago that in addition to what you describe, a further reason why Hollywood occurred in the US rather than elsewhere was that the immigrant population had no particular connection with the “organic intellectuals” of the US. In those days, that would have still meant Boston Brahmins. The organic intellectuals for the immigrants were back in their countries of origin and therefore much of a factor. The difference in religion between the Protestant Brahmins and the mostly Catholic immigrants also helped leave the immigrants free to like what they liked rather than liking what their betters told them to like (BBC for example).
In other words, not only the film makers but also the movie-goers were outside certain boxes.
If this theory is true, then Hollywood films should have caught on first in areas with heavy immigrant populations, although those being mostly cities, that might have happened anyway.
Early resistance to Hollywood in the Protestant rural areas would also support this theory.
Adelson’s regrets are understandable for a Jew of his generation, old enough to remember the Arab nations trying to invade Israel.
That his wealth makes his feelings wildly disproportionately influential is evil. That would be true regardless of what his feelings might be.
The biggest banks are financing climate chaos
Relevant image.
Whoever dies with the most money wins. The trick is ending the game while you have the lead.
>Ukrainian serviceman comes back to dancing stage after losing his leg on front line – photos Ukrainska Pravda
leg status?
> Substack Q&A: Jonathan Haidt’s “Anxious Generation” (interview) Racket News
>> the 2015 Halloween Nicholas Ch[r]istakis affair at Yale
I’ve been looking at Christakis work for about a year and a half now. (Both he and Haidt write about cooperation.) Within his frame, his work is good, but his cognitive dissonance about applications in the real world are showing. He had some light TDS in 2017, without reflection on how it was happening. And now, on his twitter feed, he reposts empathic tweets about murdered Palestinian kids on the one hand. But is weighted v anti-semitic on the other, and reposts Applebaum. Still about kids, I guess…
Both he and Haidt don’t seem to get the adjacent applications of their work. They could be used to shut down Tik-Tok, for example, without getting the attack on youth autonomy. Also adjacent to Thaler and Nudge Theory, and means testing, without ever seeming to advocate for concrete material benefits, like the cognitive benefits of feeding children.
I’m willing to see it as a Dunning-Kruger thingee with a dash of Sinclair. Others are not so sanguine.
Taibbi’s latest.
Welcome To The Third World
https://www.racket.news/p/welcome-to-the-third-world-f38
‘Misha Khodorkovsky, oligarchs who got rich in very dubious privatization schemes but were early targets of political prosecutions in the Putin years ‘
If that was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then he deserved it. He was just about to auction off Russia’s oilfields to the west in an auction and in any country, that would be a threat to national security.
IIRC, he first used his bank to take over those oilfields for a pittance. Being a very western minded billionaire he also paid off enough of the Duma to actually control legislation, which was the bigger offense. When the security apparatus took him down, I don’t think many in Russia felt, as you say, that he didn’t deserve it.