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Links 6/13/2024

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Truckers attest to stress-busting power of pets on the road Freight Waves

Fed officials signal just one interest rate cut before end of 2024 FT

Big Tech Wins Again on Double Whammy Day John Authers, Bloomberg

Private equity firms have amassed $1tn in ‘carry’ fees as taxation debate mounts FT

Climate

Arctic Sea Ice Alert Arctic News

Climate Change-related Disturbances Linked to Worse Cardiovascular Health, Researchers Show (press release) Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Third Form of Life Makes Energy in ‘Remarkable’ Ways, Scientists Discover Science Alert

Water

Rural India runs dry as thirsty megacity Mumbai sucks water Channel News Asia

The Ice Man of Ladakh building artificial glaciers in the Himalayas BBC

Water is bursting from another abandoned West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend Texas Tribune

Syndemics

How Much Worse Would a Bird-Flu Pandemic Be? The Atlantic

Michigan stands out for its aggressive bird flu response. Will other states follow its lead? STAT

Black, Hispanic adults at double the risk of losing Medicaid after COVID emergency ended, study finds Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

A Long COVID Definition National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine

China?

China springs a BRI surprise on US Indian Punchline

‘The whole supply chain is subsidised’: inside the EU’s blockbuster Chinese EV probe South China Morning Post

Chinese universities clamp down on AI-generated content, as record graduation season starts Channel News Asia

Chinese scientists’ gene discovery paves way for machine hybrid rice seed production South China Morning Post

Myanmar

Myanmar Part 1: The Neighbourhood looks in Erin Cook, Dari Mulut ke Mulut (DK).

G7

Ceasefire push, war aid talks on cards as G7 summit begins today in Italy Bloomberg. Commentary:

Biden and Zelenskyy will sign a security deal, as G7 leaders agree to use Russian cash to help Kyiv AP

The G7 Cannot Afford to Ignore Africa Project Syndicate

Syraqistan

Gaza ceasefire plan in balance as US says Hamas proposed ‘changes’ BBC

Israeli forces thrust deeper into Rafah as diplomacy falters Reuters

Israel Has Had a ‘Conscience-ectomy.’ Can a Society Survive Without a Conscience? Haaretz

American Interests in Saudi Arabia Are Being Sabotaged by Israel’s Far-right Messianic Ministers Haaretz

European Disunion

Far right en marche The Racket

On cheese and freedom Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me

Dear Old Blighty

UK’s Starmer says ‘wealth creation’ priority in election pitch to voters Al Jazeera

General election poll: Labour closes in on the SNP Holyrood

Have the Tories squandered their years in power? FT

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine extends blackouts as Russian bombings continue BBC

It Isn’t All Bad News for Ukraine RAND. Commentary:

Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow’s multi-front military posturing | WION Pulse Gilbert Doctorow, Armageddon Newsletter

How to Convince Putin He Will Lose Foreign Affairs

* * *

US lifts ban on Neo-Nazi linked Azov Brigade in Ukraine Responsible Statecraft. Commentary:

See Normalizing Nazis at Vogue, MSNBC, and “America’s Largest Documentary Festival” (but not Catalonia) at NC (2022).

* * *

Zelensky lands in Saudi Arabia for unannounced visit France24

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait set to offer Russians visa-free entry BNE Intellinews

* * *

US ambassador explains Biden’s remarks about “peace in Ukraine without NATO membership” Ukrainska Pravda

ANALYSIS: Slimmed-Down Agenda of Swiss Peace Summit Aims to Secure Consensus Kyiv Post

* * *

The Soviets stifled volunteerism in Russia. Torrential flooding may be reviving it. Christian Science Monitor

South of the Border

Buenos Aires rocked by clashes over Milei reforms BBC

NYT Ramps Up Venezuela Propaganda Ahead of Elections FAIR

2024

Globally, Biden Receives Higher Ratings Than Trump Pew Research Center

Southern Baptist Convention votes to oppose in vitro fertilization WaPo

National Archives Intern Tasked With Singeing Edges Of Constitution To Make It Look Old The Onion

Spook Country

Intelligence Services Have Penetrated and Corrupted Human Rights NGOs, Says Former Senior Lawyer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner Covert Action Magazine

FBI agents say they need more money to stay in the bureau Government Executive

The Supremes

Reconciling Textualism with Agency Prioritization Among Clear Statutory Mandates Harvard Law Review

The Final Frontier

Sask. farmers baffled after finding strange object in prairie field CTV News (DK).

Private Odysseus moon lander reveals which Earth ‘technosignatures’ aliens might see Space.com

Supply Chain

Ed Conway: “Material World: The Key Resources Underpinning Modern Economies” (PDF transcript) Resilience

Class Warfare

Senate Democrats Push For Airline Strike: Will American Flight Attendants Finally Get To Walk Out? View from the Wing

US importers caught in a vicious circle as labor union strike threat raises fears of soaring freight rates and massive disruption at US East and Gulf Coast ports Hellenic Shipping News

Inmates challenge motion to dismiss in Alabama forced labor federal lawsuit Alabama Reflector

Antidote du jour (Stefan Laube):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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162 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Lord Bebo
    @MyLordBebo
    🇸🇦🇮🇹 The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia declined to participate in the G7 summit, which begins today in Italy.
    Mohammed bin Salman sent a telegram to Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, thanking her for the invitation to the summit and apologizing for being unable to take part in the event due to “obligations related to monitoring the organization of the Hajj.
    He pulled out straight after Zelensky’s visit to Riyadh yesterday.’

    Little wonder. MbS has learned that the Zelensky Curse is real and that every leader that hugs him comes a cropper with Macron and Sunak the next likely candidates. Probably didn’t help that Zelensy would have asked MsB ‘Eh, Mr Salman, I see you have lots of money. All that oil is good for you, eh? So maybe you give me a few billion if you could?’

    1. Wukchumni

      ‘Cashabanka’ Movie plot:

      Set in the green felt jungle thanks to shall we call them ‘transit papers’… Volodymyr is Bogarting the joint while helping others in occupied countries to escape to fantasy island called Cyprus. In the eatery within the casino, vichyssoise is a dish best served cold.

  2. flora

    re: “The average age of a Ukrainian soldier is 43 years old. Good. Old men can’t run away quickly, so they stand their ground, fight to the death”

    After which, the organ harvesting vultures can swoop in and disassemble the bodies retrieving the valuable human organs to sell on the black market. A single body’s organs can be worth over $2 million on the black market. Ukr is still the most corrupt country in Europe.

    1. The Rev Kev

      And their deaths are never reported so that their officer can collect those wages on the side while the family is left with zip while waiting to hear news about their loved one.

        1. Hank Linderman

          Love Oingo Bingo and “Dead Man’s Party” especially. I met guitarist Steve Bartek at the NAMM Show in 2020 and asked him about the “wonderfully horrible” guitar sound used on the intro of the song. He said, “Oh we worked on that!” It turned out to be the dreadful distortion built in to the Roland Jazz Chorus amp, most guitarists tried it once and never again.

          43 year old soldiers sounds slightly better than 18 year olds. Ugh.

          Best…H

        2. flora

          The technology has, ahem, “improved”. Mobile crematoria trucks to the battle field to dispose of the ‘evidence’, warm organ storage keeping the organs viable much longer than the old packed in ice technology. Gangs of so-called “black transplantologists” have been doing this at least since the Kosovo war. There’s a high demand. I’d leave a couple of links but they’re too gruesome to read first thing in the morning

          1. Randall Flagg

            Link it. As horrible it may be, we have to wade into it to grasp just what a bunch of savages they are. As if we didn’t know already but still…

            1. flora

              Thank you, RF.
              Based on the number of ‘look away from this topic’ humorous comments, which I fully understand, humor being a necessary mental defense against the unimaginably awful, (said humor often called ‘black humor’), this isn’t the time to leave the gruesome links. Maybe later when readers seem more ready to wade into it, as you say.

              1. skippy

                Its been going on a long time now flora. Good investigative journalism/docos were done on the Eastern European sorts being scammed by fake immigration offers or outright snatched – yonks ago. Big pharma in Western Europe was identified using proxies to supply product which was then marked up hugely and sold to wealth/elite clients.

                Reminds me of the old BBC doco on international modeling agencies, group of men, which ran an international teen comp search. Focused mostly on Milan, girls drawn in and then managed by some mid 30s bloke in a share house [5/6 girls] and at night staffed the VIP areas of clubs. Pressure applied to girls to facilitate VIP needs for a shot at a real modelling job opportunity[tm].

                The journalist posed as a photographer and became friendly with the key men running it all. Sadly after it was aired the BBC was sued, he was fired, and it was all memory holed, same as aforementioned.

    4. Wukchumni

      43 is also around the average age of a Mexican-American (they predominate the field) Ag worker in the Central Valley, and seeing as younger Mexicans seem to have no interest in carrying on in the same capacity, who will be their replacements?

      It’d be interesting if it was recent Venezuelan arrivals to the USA, as a Mexican-American friend related that in the pecking order of things down under, Mexicans rate them near the bottom of the heap.

      It went from Filipino to Japanese to Mexican in terms of who labored under the 100 days of near or above 100 degrees in the summer in the 20th century, or in the cruel winter when Tule fog encases the valley floor, making 48 seem like 38 while working in a fog all day.

      A $20 an hour minimum wage job @ Mickey D’s seems like a no-brainer instead.

      Machinery can do some of the work, but a good amount of it is hands on…

      2. lyman alpha blob

        “…younger Mexicans seem to have no interest in carrying on in the same capacity…”

        C’mon, man – it’s nothing a few well placed sanctions can’t fix.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Oh, I don’t know. There may be snow on the roof but there may be a fire in the cellar too.

        2. Wukchumni

          Had a business friend who was retired US Air Force that had his merchandise in 3 stores on Guam & Tinian, catering to Japanese tourists whom he treasured as they tended to buy a dozen of the same item for friends back in Nippon. His notions were numismatics, fetish wear and phllatelics, not necessarily in that order.

          He seemed to enjoy collecting stamps the most, but was a crafty bastard and could backdoor things into Japan via air force base, and related how much Viagra he smuggled in, and one day he calls me from Yigo and asks if I can get him the Madonna tome called Sex, and I pulled off my best Bones attempt, in that I uttered, Damn it Jim i’m just a country numismatist-not a book peddler’

          So I check into it in the midst of the dark ages or what there used to be before the internet, and it’s a best seller and Crown Books has best sellers for 40% off of list, and my cost with tax is around $34 a copy, and he tells me, get as many as you can!

          So over the course of a long weekend, I canvass every Crown Book Store, buying 23 here, 11 there, etc. on my way to 700 wrapped in mylar books, I never once took a look at.

          Hapless clerks would see me with my pile of 17 and ask why so many, and I gave every answer imaginable other than the truth, that my buddy was gonna backdoor em’ into Japan-the American version of the book that differed from the one available there, ah ha!

          He let me make $5 a book profit, and thus began and ended my career in keeping the books.

          To add insult to injury, new copies of the book, unopened in mylar cover are fetching $400 on the open market, I didn’t even keep one copy.

        3. Emma

          Funny how the only substantiated instance of Viagra distribution is from Americans to Afghan warlords. Every accusation is a confession, going decades back.

      3. chris

        I appreciate the humanity and naivete in you assuming age would reduce that urge. It comes with bloodlust. And it doesn’t require a functioning member to violate another person :(

        1. Mikel

          I’m not saying there wouldn’t be urges. Just maybe different ways of satifying them. But more likely that the rapier among them are the ones that were probably doing it back on their home turf as well. A rapist is gonna stay a rapist.

  4. Ignacio

    RE: Third Form of Life Makes Energy in ‘Remarkable’ Ways, Scientists Discover Science Alert

    The Cell article in which the link is based is indeed a very interesting one from several points of view. The link itself focuses on the potential of such discoveries on possible industrial developments of, for instance, efficient hydrogen catalysis. The Cell article (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.0329) contains for instance a link for a paper on the POTENTIAL use of Cu-oxidoreductases to generate electricity. (These might have several other applications indeed!).

    IMO all this is very exciting theoretically as enzymes prove to be very efficient catalysers of all kinds of reactions and indeed some are available at commercial scale for various purposes. Yet, producing such enzymes in bio-reactors is limiting at industrial scale and it is necessary to develop enzyme mimics that might be scaled-up more easily. This is IMO an enormous challenge but I would appreciate very much if anyone here knows of any successful example of such an enzyme mimic that can be or is being used at industrial scale.

    Once upon a time I was involved in industrial enzymes and I am eager to see any progress on this.

    1. CA

      https://english.news.cn/20230816/7131fcccbfb74386969b4cd2d823da39/c.html

      August 16, 2023

      Chinese scientists achieve de novo artificial synthesis of hexoses from CO2

      TIANJIN — Chinese scientists have developed an artificial method of synthesizing hexoses from carbon dioxide (CO2) in a laboratory environment — a key step in the global development of synthetic sugar.

      The study that resulted in this new method was conducted by the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology and the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, both of which are under the umbrella of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The results * were published on the website of the journal Science Bulletin on Wednesday.

      The team said that developing artificial “CO2-sugar” platforms is meaningful to addressing challenges that land scarcity and climate change pose to the supply of dietary sugar.

      “We present a versatile chemoenzymatic roadmap based on aldol condensation, iso/epimerization, and dephosphorylation reactions for asymmetric CO2 and H2 assembly into sugars with perfect stereocontrol,” the team said in the paper.

      This chemical-biological platform has demonstrated a greater carbon conversion yield than the conventional “CO2-bioresource-sugar” process, and could easily be extended to precisely synthesize other high-order sugars from CO2, it said.

      Two years ago, the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology developed an artificial method of synthesizing starch from CO2. **

      * https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2095927323005510

      ** https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh4049

        1. CA

          http://www.news.cn/english/2021-09/24/c_1310207148.htm

          September 24, 2021

          Chinese scientists for the first time synthesize starch from carbon dioxide

          BEIJING — Chinese scientists have developed an artificial method of synthesizing starch from carbon dioxide, the first of its kind globally.

          The study, * conducted by the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was published in the journal Science on Friday.

          As a major component of food, starch is generally produced by crops through photosynthesis. Starch synthesis in nature needs about 60 metabolic reactions and complex physiological regulation.

          Many studies have been carried out globally on starch synthesis, but little progress had been made before.

          The research team has designed an artificial starch synthesis pathway consisting of only 11 core reactions, achieving complete synthesis from carbon dioxide to starch molecules in the laboratory for the first time, said Ma Yanhe, Director General of the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology.

          The structure of the synthetic starch was proved to be the same as that of natural starch, said Ma, who is also the corresponding author of the study.

          Preliminary tests show that the new method is about 8.5 times more efficient than producing starch by conventional agriculture based on the starch synthesis rate, Ma said.

          According to current results, the annual starch production of a bioreactor with the size of one cubic meter is theoretically as much as that of about 0.3 hectares of cornfields in China without considering the energy input…

          * https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh4049

      3. Jessica

        How much energy and water does it use? Easier to solve a food, water, or energy problem at the expense of one or both of the other two factors, but much harder to solve such a problem without that expense.
        In other words, much easier to convert food or water or energy into one of the others than to do something that increases the total of the three combined.

  5. zagonostra

    >Israel Has Had a ‘Conscience-ectomy.’ Can a Society Survive Without a Conscience? Haaretz

    Nothing interests Israel anymore other than its sacrifice, the punishment it was subjected to, its suffering and courage.

    A society that ignores so blatantly the price paid by tens of thousands of people, with their lives, bodies, souls and property, for the rescue of four of its hostages and for a moment of joy for its members, is a society that is missing something vital. It is a society that has lost its conscience.

    It’s not the absence of “something vital” missing. It’s the presence something and it’s called EVIL. You don’t need to invent new words like “Conscience-ectomy.” That’s just obfuscation and misdirection. There is already a word in English to cover what Israel is doing in Gaza, and it is called EVIL.

    https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-writings/large-works-and-novels/two-hundred-years-together

    The author should read include some history of the Jews, specifically in Russia. I would recommend Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together.

    1. chris

      But you can’t use that word in the context of anything related to Israel and not be thrown in publishing jail.

      Also, I don’t know how many people would agree with that simple statement. They don’t believe Palestinians are human after all. Just like they’re not sure about any war crimes, they can’t be certain the location in Syria really was an Iranian embassy, they haven’t seen sufficient evidence to refute claims of systematic rape on 10/7, and they’re still looking for the people who perpetrated the NordStream attack… with so much uncertainty how could anyone define what is happening as evil? If they do, it’s because they’re antisemitic.

      So, even though there is long history of Israel doing unconscionable things to Palestinians, the authors who want to be published will assume that a conscious has been lost, rather that say in the process of going from abused to abuser, they made a decision to eliminate anything in their way. Including any moral trappings or conscientious behavior.

    3. Antifa

      That’s Gideon Levy, whose articles and interviews will enlighten anyone about Israel as it really is.

      In one interview from about a month ago, he was asked if he feels comfortable walking around in Israel after criticizing Jews and Israelis in his books and editorials. He said he strolls around Tel Aviv with no sense of danger because he writes in English, and no one in Israel will read English papers or books. They stick to Hebrew. “If I wrote such things in Hebrew, it would not be safe to go outside.”

  6. zagonostra

    >It Isn’t All Bad News for Ukraine RAND. Commentary:

    This is delusional, or just plain propaganda, but hey, it’s Rand.

    From what I’ve gathered from listening to Judge Napolitano’s guest is that the U.S. is paying for all Ukraine’s gov’t salaries. How is that “maintaining macroeconomic stability.” I suppose if Ukraine is no more than a U.S.’s client state, then maybe its “prospect” do look better, financially that is. So all those >500K dead soldier’s family and the many more maimed young men can take heart, not everything is bad news.

    So far, Ukraine’s skillful economic policymaking has maintained macroeconomic and financial stability in the country, despite the toll of the war…. Ukraine’s prospects look better now than they have since early 2023—prospects that will likely get a further boost at this week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin.

    2. griffen

      I’ve attempted to trace if there are sources of reasonable truth to the above statement, that the combined support of the West is propping up their entire economy to a large degree. I think there to be a likelihood it is so, but Western leaders just can’t admit that is the case. If say, the US support is beyond military and the funds are also supporting their healthcare and even pensioners then average Americans should be rightly pissed. But I can’t prove any of it, or rather previous research just didn’t get to that conclusion.

      At times I think the Bee is more than just satire…the Ukraine effort just doesn’t seem to be winning…only when there are intervals of new funding available. Feels like we’re in a boat taking on water, but we are rightly prepared with our buckets to remove that water.

    4. Joker

      Overall, Western allies are finally making good on their declaration to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” …

      This RAND guy didn’t get the memo. It’s no longer for “as long as it takes”, but for “as long as we can”.

      1. ChrisFromGA

        These clowns do not seem to understand that confetti money doesn’t change anything on the ground.

        Yes, the West has an unlimited supply of confetti. But that doesn’t create power, as seen in a de-electrified Kiev. What can they do with confetti? You can’t cook with it. Maybe burn it or throw it out the window.

        Everyone is calling Macron cray-cray for wanting to send French troops to die in Ukraine. But, perhaps he is not so crazy. Until the West realizes that you cannot win wars without putting skin in the game, we’ll continue reading dumb pieces like RAND and Russia will laugh its way to victory.

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          The reasoning has a certain elegance, but nukes, the theater, and the importance of the war are huge factors. That DC is involved at all is simply bizarre, wrecking any other position.

          Macron like Biden and so many others is looking for nails when he learned governing is hard. He knows no one is going to send troops, even London has shut up, so he’s free to complain because nothing will come of it. This I just to have something to say on TV. He was ebullient at the DDay festivities. He wants an easy job where soldiers salute him.

          1. ChrisFromGA

            Not defending the man but I think he stumbled into some truthiness.

            Unless Biden, Sunak, and others are willing to let mass numbers of their own young men come back in flag-draped body bags, the best they can do is stall and slow down the inevitable Russian victory.

      2. ex-PFC Chuck

        Actually he did get the memo, and he read it carefully. That’s why he still has a job at Rand.

    5. zagonostra

      >Ukraine must ‘prevail’ to join NATO – Stoltenberg

      I expect that allies will actually make important announcements between now and the summit and also at the summit for more military equipment … which is urgently needed to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign independent nation,” Stoltenberg told

      That’s all that is needed for the good news to bubble to the top, Ukraine needs to be a “sovereign and independent nation”, i.e., a client state, just like Victoria Nuland indicated on her leaked call with United States Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.

      https://www.rt.com/news/599195-ukraine-prevail-join-nato/

      1. hk

        I’m sure a PO Box in Miami suffices to count as a “sovereign and independent nation.” (If that’s good enough for Brainania… Pinky and the Brain was prophetic in many ways!)

  7. Kouros

    How to convince Putin he will loose?

    Show credible evidence that the west, on behalf of Ukraine has solid contracts with the factories on the Kamino planet to produce million of clone soldiers, coming fully kitted, flash trained, speaking Ukrainian and English (and Russian backup) and with an “Order 66” embeded for any eventuality (i.e. if Ukrainians decide to make peace)

    1. eg

      That piece is a long-winded excuse for moar military-industrial-complex bloat (producing the wrong kind of weapons, no less, for those salivating over the prospect of conflict with China) combined with the bizarre notion that some sort of “dominance display” by the sclerotic West will surely convince the Russians to sue for peace.

      Weapons production of the sort he is calling for won’t matter by the time it can be achieved on the scale he envisions — there won’t be sufficient Ukrainians left to man them. His proposal simply ensures a wrecked, likely landlocked, rump Ukraine.

      In short, he is a foolish windbag.

      1. GramSci

        “there won’t be sufficient Ukrainians left to man them.”

        That’s what Europeans are for.

      2. pjay

        For some masochistic reason I actually read this whole piece. I thought the author *must* be some sort of lobbyist or have some revolving door connections to the weapons industry given his emphasis on this strategy for “convincing” Putin. But as far as I could tell he is an actual “academic.” His ideas have apparently been lovingly nurtured at all the right elite institutions: MIT PhD (2015) with postdocs at Harvard (Belfer Center – Kennedy School), Dartmouth (Dickey Center) and Stanford (Center for International Security and Cooperation). He’s published in top journals in his field, and has placed similar articles in Foreign Affairs before. He has a promising career ahead of him; I predict he’ll move on up to a more prestigious post at the proper time.

    2. ilsm

      I thought the “Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University” was a bit windy.

      What he meant was ‘give Putin a Minsk 3, ignore it like the other two. Arm up Ukraine, the few left to fight.

      As if any Russian would fall for it.

      I regret the time I spent skimming that.

    3. Chris Cosmos

      The foreign policy establishment in the West always saw this war (which, after all started in earnest in 2014) as a way to bleed Russia of resources. They saw, and still see, a unipolar world which revolved around Washington and Wall Street. The goal in Ukraine was less to take back the Russian speaking territories for the fascist regime in Kiev and more to unite Europe in a single goal of making the NATO war regime the supreme power in Europe through establishing a repressive regime in both the USA and Europe for the foreseeable future. This is, absolutely, a long-term effort that has a good chance at success.

      What many of us miss is that the main dynamic here is cultural. The modernist project is to turn the whole world into a consumerist, hypermaterialistic, anti-traditional, individualistic, anti-religious culture without moral constraints, and the ultimate goal of shifting the planet into a technological-worshiping society AI becomes the virtual Emperor. So this vision sort-of contrasts with the reality that the project depends on sacrificing the present for an ideal future–for that reason I don’t think it will work despite the Blob’s efforts to create a fully Orwellian political culture and a culture based on Huxley’s vision of a “brave new world.”

      1. vidimi

        the west is retreating behind an iron curtain. it is harder and harder to get news from outside, and soon they will make it hard for us to travel outside.

        If the most basic difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that people are free to think what they want in the former, with the government following their will; and the government being free to think what it wants, with the people following its will in the latter, i’m afraid we are now in the second category.

        1. ДжММ

          They’ve already made it hard to travel outside.
          Russia offers e-visas with only 3 day processing time; Batka even opened up visa-free travel for several months during last year. But the NATO border guards on the way back in are actively punishing their own countrymen who dare to try to return from such a trip. Even openly now there is talk of removing citizenship from any of us who dares visit our thousands-years neighbors…

  8. griffen

    The Onion offers suggestions on how to burnish the legitimate rep of that crinkly document. I am shocked and dismayed, wouldn’t they flip the Constitution over to learn of a secret map to finding the famed if not elusive Knights templar treasure trove!

    Not a great movie, mind you, but I thought National Treasure was a reasonably entertaining film with Nicolas Cage. Better than Con Air at any rate. “Put the bunny back in the box”

    1. Pat

      Both National Security films were fun popcorn movies. Films like that get a bad rap. Lite entertainment has a place in the world.

  9. The Rev Kev

    “Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow’s multi-front military posturing | WION Pulse”

    Gilbert Doctorow could have mentioned something from more recent times. How the US Navy sails into the Black Sea towards Crimea or sails into the Baltic Sea or the Bering sea, all off Russia’s coastline. If the US had the icebreakers, they would be patrolling Russia’s Arctic coastline as well. Russia says that two can play that game and send a tiny task force into the Caribbean and suddenly you start to hear panic breaking out about them. The US Navy lost track of the sub in that task force and when you remember that they are probably carrying Zircon hypersonic missiles, it would act as a cold splash of reality. I wonder what will happen if that task force goes on to visit Venezuela. Still wondering if the Chinese will send a Great Yellow Fleet around the world one day-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet

    1. Wukchumni

      When I first traveled to Aussie in the early 1980’s, I saw lots of circa 1908 Great White Fleet buttons, badges, medals, tokens, postcards, etc, for sale, and never really saw anything like that in that states, but then again we weren’t the desired target audience.

    2. jrkrideau

      Doctorow mentions that for many, perfectly valid, reasons, WION cut his interview a bit. He may well have covered this in other parts of his interview.

  10. Ignacio

    re: It Isn’t All Bad News for Ukraine RAND.

    What an exercise of wishful thinking from about 60.000ft of altitude without any information from the ground!
    1) Ukraine might win because entering the EU gives them a strong incentive. That is why Ukrainian soldiers are keeping the ground fiercely. Dreaming they are about their EU membership.
    2) Ukraine has an extremely skilful policymaking that allowed the country to achieve 5% GDP growth in 2023!- Don’t know what is being accounted here for GDP growth but in 2004 they will have to do the same miracle in the darkness and with most workers being transferred to the army.
    3) More sanctions will do the trick just as before.
    4) the 61K billions allocated to Ukraine plus the ATACMs will do the rest.

    According to Jacques Baud this conflict started following a strategy devised by RAND and they keep trying to keep the Narrative alive no matter facts on the ground signal the opposite.

      1. Ignacio

        Yeah that is, and working so well.. The message is this: read my lips, there won’t be negotiations.

    3. Polar Socialist

      Don’t know what is being accounted here for GDP growth

      Indeed. Without proper edumacation in economics one would be tempted to think that losing half of your heavy industry, third of the population and most of your power generation would affect GDP negatively.

      Maybe EU should try the same method to get it’s growth back on track. If only it wasn’t that namby-pamby Scholtz, Russian missiles would already be raining all over EU for the benefit of the economy.

      1. ChrisPacific

        That’s year on year growth over 2022, which saw a fall of 29.1%. So still down around 25% compared to before the war (or rather, before Russia entered the war directly).

        Someone is looking awfully hard for silver linings.

  11. Zagonostra

    >Van Cliburn, Moscow, 1958 – Paul Craig Roberts

    How far this country has fallen:

    Today we are barbarians compared to the darkest days of the Cold War. We ban Russian musicians, artists, athletes, literature, impose sanctions, insult the President of Russia, and foment war. President Reagan, America’s last president, would never have permitted such barbaric behavior as now characterizes the White House and the American government. But perhaps we no longer have an American government.

    https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/06/12/van-cliburn-moscow-1958/

    1. Chris Cosmos

      We don’t have an “American government” but we do have an Imperial government that sees itself as fated to rule to entire world through using two forces: 1) military, of course, since the vision of Washington is to create a new Roman Empire; and 2) cultural, to make the entire globe one big consumerist/hedonistic culture without spirituality (unless it serves the Empire). These people all share this vision because those who don’t are purged from all parts of government, the MSM, and Hollywood.

    2. Henry Moon Pie

      Can Paul Craig hear Reagan call the USSR “the Evil Empire” through his rose-colored hearing aids?

  12. Wukchumni

    Sask. farmers baffled after finding strange object in prairie field CTV News
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Last time I walked the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia NP with a feast of friends was 6 or 7 years ago, and we were at about the halfway point in our sojourn in the Kern River trench bottoms, when around 9 PM as I slumbered, Kristina watched a show up in the air and couldn’t stop talking about it in the morning, early to bed and early to rise getting no wormhole in the sky for yours truly!

    We had another 4 nights/5 days to go on our trip and kept running into others on the trail who had seen it, including a fellow who got a video of long streaking meteors, how could I miss out on the fun!

    The HST trail ends at Whitney Portal, and a friend picked us up and we described the show on high, and there was rather instant deflation of celestial expectations when he uttered ‘Oh yeah, that was just Chinese space junk coming down’.

  13. Balan ARoxdale2

    Gaza ceasefire plan in balance as US says Hamas proposed ‘changes’ BBC

    The very clear Kafka-esque “Process” around this ceasefire is clear to everyone.

    The US is offering an “ostensible acquittal”, which once granted, will see the Israeli higher Judges will immediately re-open the case. Hamas is playing for an “indefinite postponement”, to keep the case suspended at its present state. The likes of Hezbollah and the settler movement meanwhile push for the legendary “definite acquittal”, where all the slates are wiped clean. Meanwhile the knife is passed back and forth over the post-war international order; we are expected to use it on ourselves before the court does.

      1. Jabura Basaidai

        the old saw about how you can tell when a lawyer is lying – when their lips move – seems apropos when referring to the B-boys – to think otherwise is naive –

  14. Es s Ce Tera

    re: Truckers attest to stress-busting power of pets on the road Freight Waves

    What a horrific life for the pet, though. Especially those with sensitive ears, and animals have more sensitive hearing than we do. Small cramped space, constant motion, constant loud noise, paved and gravel truck stops in bleak industrial landscapes with machinery…

    1. Wukchumni

      Indeed, I leash trained an adorable three toed sloth similar to the one in today’s antidote, but my what long claws you have, and it practically destroyed the upholstery on my rig, not to mention the headliner.

      Those yin & yang flashes on it’s cute little face made it all worthwhile though.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Damn thing looks like it is made of wire – but as you say, with a cute little face on it.

    2. jefemt

      Dogs love to be with their owners, regardless. Some of those sleepers and trucks are darned quiet. I think a dog or cat would be pretty happy being in close quarters with their benefactor and main squeeze.
      I can’t deal with the death of a pet. If I were a trucker- and I have pondered it- I would make a point of playing disc golf along the way….
      Think of all the courses to play?!

  15. panurge

    Arctic Sea Ice Alert Arctic News

    I take it is a pure coincidence that the temperature anomaly above Scandinavia is roughly overlapping with the area where the Nordstream got suicided.

    1. cousinAdam

      I am not a chemist, but it’s beginning to appear that natural gas and methane are quite similar, and in many instances can be substituted for one another. Reading just recently ( in these pages, iirc) that the Nordstream “incident” resulted in a ‘record breaking’ release of methane into the atmosphere. Would such a ‘bubble’ disperse or remain concentrated and linger in the neighborhood? I’ve learned that it decomposes in short order to mostly CO2, but until that happens it’s 20x more potent as a greenhouse gas – so there may be something to this theory….

      1. Ghost in the Machine

        Natural gas is almost entirely methane. The name ‘natural gas’ was a branding exercise by the industry. It sounds better than turning on your methane stove or cooking with methane. That makes you think about pollutants. But cooking with ‘natural gas’ sounds better.

        2. cousinAdam

          Thanks to you, Ghost (and the ‘Captain’). As a son of a “MadMan” I have an innate appreciation of the power of branding- imagine cooking with cow farts!

  16. Steve H.

    > Water is bursting from another abandoned West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend Texas Tribune

    >> “There’s a source of pressure there and it’s shallow,” said Hawk Dunlap
    >> Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking wastewater.
    >> On Wight’s ranch the latest blowout continues to flow. Measurements indicate the water is moderately salty, and Wight can only watch helplessly as it seeps into his land.
    >>>“The salt poisons the ground and nothing will grow after that,” he said. “There’s not a lot you can do to remediate salt contamination.”

    Groundwater modelling works best when the substrate is sand, worst when dealing with fractured bedrock. ‘Fracking’ refers to fracturing the bedrock to increase flow paths. This makes it difficult to locate the source of contamination.

    However, the ‘slightly salty’ water can be tested for type of salts. This will be very different from local concentrations. Like salt-water intrusion at the ocean, the heavier plume will sink and push lighter water up. There will be diffusion from the salt plume upwards, but no turbulent mixing. So the salts pushed out are at a much lower concentration than the injected plume, which will act as a near-permanent source of contamination. Frackwater being so heavy, it’s somewhere between cost-prohibitive and physically-impossible to remediate by pumping it back out.

    Those farmers are so screwed. At the site where most of our food crops are growing, we’re setting up some greenhouses with foamcrete bases. Dumping trash in holes and covering it with soil is a classic Indiana landscaping technique, and we don’t completely trust the soil under the surface. The greenhouse cells may operate more like hydroponics, but they are also protected from airborne contaminants. Soil is fragile.

      1. Steve H.

        Following up on your comment, it looks like salting the earth was more ritualistic than practical. I know the ancients were aware of the long-term effects of irrigation. Alexander the Great‘s route was hard to trace, since the descriptions were lush (well, until the dude dumped them in the desert). Not so lush now. The Flooding of the Nile didn’t just deposit nutrients, it swept the salts away.

        Thanks, that was fun to look into.

    2. cousinAdam

      A ‘few’ years back (during the‘fracking mania’) the state of New York managed to enact a ban on fracking against considerable pressure from the usual suspects. A likely reason which was not publicly discussed was that the Southern Tier (lands bordering PA) and Catskills region were dotted with old gas wells that were never capped – a legally “abandoned” well (as too in TX) requires a substantial cement plug and a filed certificate – bankrupt producers and ‘wildcatters’ just walked away. I’d read that NYS had several thousand wells still on file that were “unresolved” – not to mention uncounted privateer wells that didn’t bother with rules. One shudders to imagine the brine gushers that might have resulted – my sincere condolences to those TX farmers- hope you can “lawyer up good”!

        1. Steve H.

          Thank you, foghorn, this could be a legit source of the salinity. Needs testing. Pressure is coming from somewhere, but water movement could dissolve evaporates.

    3. nyleta

      I wonder if it is a localised parent-child well problem or one of the consequences of the more general gassing out of the Permian basin which many think has started ? I believe Oklahoma used to mandate stainless steel casing but others never did.

  17. Mikel

    “Inmates challenge motion to dismiss in Alabama forced labor federal lawsuit” Alabama Reflector

    If they can win this lawsuit, it will be one step closer to getting slavery out of this country.
    And it will be the biggest kick in the ass to neoliberalism in decades.

  18. Mikel

    “Buenos Aires rocked by clashes over Milei reforms” BBC

    I almost forgot about the US’s boy in Argentina.
    Just one more reminder to laugh when you see the establishment pearl clutching about a rightward drift in Europe. It’s right uo their alley.

  19. FlyoverBoy

    Reply from yesterday:

    Bless you, Amfortas. (And I’m not even a religious person.) Thank you for sharing your undisguised humanity with your beloved, and then with us. All the best to you as you make your way through this very, very hard part of your life.

    1. newcatty

      Yes, blessings Amfortas. Time isn’t the great healer, but it continues to be in our earthly lives as a way to measure our lives. As one, like most grown up humans, who has a beloved one who has passed on before me, the relationship with the grief pain and memories changes. I choose not to have photos displayed, even after a half of a century. At first those who were around me expressed extremely different povs. As I look back every voice reflected their own inner conflicts about death. Also, their inner pov s about me embedded in their minds. The petty ( often goes hand in glove with toxic jealousy) either called me as being so strong a person that I needed no comfort. A lot of whataboutisms, always relating back to their own more tragic losses or , in saddest of all, satisfaction in my pain. Then lets not forget my being on my high horse, and coldness in display! The hypocritical responses to our not having a serious burial for our child. Oh, unfortunate that most of these were close family hard to escape. But,the helpers were there. People who loved me. Compassionate doctor’s. Tears still come, but life called. Another child, like a miracle, was born. Now, a great grandmother. Birds and butterflies speak to us.

  20. The Rev Kev

    “How Much Worse Would a Bird-Flu Pandemic Be?”

    Actually a lot. It would all depend on the mortality rate and I think that the 1919-20 Flu Pandemic had a mortality rate of over 2%. But then there are other factors. Before Covid hit the scene, there was a survey made of which countries were best prepared to deal with a pandemic and those countries in the top spot like the US and the UK turned out to be the ones that made a total hash of their response. How about that. But there is one factor that will make a Bird-Flu Pandemic much worse and that is the question of trust. Due to political and economic considerations, trust in public health and medical authorities has been burned down to the ground, run over by a dumpster, scraped off the ground and thrown into the Mariana Trench. Who would trust the WHO or the CDC next time around?And if Big Pharma comes up with an mRNA vaccine for this new flu, well, I have no idea how well that will be received. But they will do it.

    1. Wukchumni

      Back in those halcyon daze of early Covid, we held family Zoom sessions for an hour just chewing the fat every Friday, and then got our Canadian relatives involved with the computer screen looking like Hollywood Squares, with cousin Gerry from Calgary being Paul Linde.

      What struck me was the way different measures that went on up over in the Gulag Hockeypelago (btw, good luck in getting back your silver thingamajigger) compared to here, and also different in France according to my ex-pat hiking friends.

      One of their measures was only so many could be in a store at one time, so there would be a line of people outside waiting for their chance in the balmy Alberta winter. Never heard of anything similar to that in the USA.

      Did any other country politicize mask wearing?

      Also, in NZ the fatal wave of later Spanish Flu deaths came in 1920-21, its specialty being taking down healthy 25-35 year olds, if memory serves.

      1. The Rev Kev

        ‘its specialty being taking down healthy 25-35 year olds, if memory serves.’

        That was the worse thing about that flu. That it triggered a cytokine storm as they were young and they had strong immune systems. I don’t know about NZ but by the time the flu made its way down to Oz via returning troop transports, it was the milder third wave which meant less deaths. About a quarter to a third of people here caught it and about 15,000 people died while NZ lost over 8,000 people-

        https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/influenza-pandemic

        https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/1918-influenza-pandemic/

      2. Cassandra

        Wuk, there were regularly lines at the Trader Joe’s where I lived at the time. They put up a tent-thing for protection from the elements, and employees took half-hour shifts wrangling would-be customers. Everyone seemed good-humored and patient. Don’t think that could happen nowadays.

        1. kareninca

          Yes, there were store capacity limits; that was a very big thing in CA. I spent lots of time in line outside of Trader Joe’s. Even now the nonprofit that I volunteer for has kept the limits for its sales, due to covid concerns. The limits were based on people per square feet and we had to do loads of calculations.

      3. albrt

        There was a very short period in 2020 when many state governments issued orders to limit the number of people in stores. I know it happened in Ohio and Arizona. But I think it only lasted about 2 weeks before it became clear that nobody was enforcing it and it went away.

    2. aletheia33

      >Who would trust the WHO or the CDC next time around?

      most of the people i know and/or talk with these days are not aware of the facts of COVID and Long Covid–and are not masking, are still getting COVID and are making light of it or accepting it with resignation, even as they partake of the mass sentiment that the pandemic is “over”, while they will still go in docilely for each new vaccine–actually continue to trust the CDC and the (“liberal”?) media who take dictation from it.

      i suspect that such people are still running my state’s government and all its hospitals/medical facilities and local governments, and that these people–with their continuing (non)decisions on how to (not) handle the persistent (ignored) problems of a still-circulating highly destructive pathogen–also continue to trust the edicts of WHO and CDC.

      i believe that the number of people who, like NC readers, are keeping fully informed of the COVID situation, and recognize CDC’s and WHO’s criminal negligence, with all its associated lucrative $$ schemes and eugenicist manifestations, continues to be few and far between. we can only hope for a significant, growing minority to emerge who might somehow gain some power to persuade the ignorant who vastly outnumber them.

      and yes, for many, but i would also note that for those who fought vaccination, i wonder how many are well informed of what a COVID infection actually does to one’s body and future. (in saying this i am not intending to justify the vaccination rollouts or mandates.)

  21. Vicky Cookies

    Re: the piece in Haaretz:

    Even this framing is warped. The article begins by asking whether or not a society can survive without a conscience, as if the survival of such a society is not itself a danger to humanity, and a colossal injustice. I join Chas Freeman in saying that to talk of Israel’s “right to exist” is ridiculous, when the question is rather whether or not it deserves to; and I join him in saying that it decidedly does not.

    3. Es s Ce Tera

      I would take this one step further – never mind a society, I wonder if this whole incident is in danger of eviscerating Judaism as religion.

      The Zionists insist the Tanakh (Old Testament to Christians) is the legal deed for the land of Israel from river to sea including all of ancient Palestine, and parts of Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, showing rightful ownership going back to the second millenium. This naturally leads to questions of provenance, authenticity and legality. And the thing is, the OT biblical texts are pretty much made up, complete fabrications, woven from other peoples stories (e.g. Noah’s flood is stolden from the Epic of Gilgamesh). They literally wrote a book saying hey god gave them this property, promised them, and they are gods fav people in the whole wide world, all of existence. Clearly, if there is a god it most certainly did not give them any such nor would it play favs.

      Academics don’t even believe there was a historic exodus of Hebrews from Egypt, even, the archeological evidence shows they, alongside every other culture and language group in the area, never moved. There’s also the fact that while the literature of various cultures (Mesopotamians, Assyrians, Greeks, Egyptians) have thousands of mentions of the Palestinians in one form or other going back to 1200 BCE (when Palestine was called Philistia), there’s a bit of a dearth of Israel mentions other than the Merneptah Stele (which refers to a people called Israel, not a place) and before the Assyrians start mentioning King Omri around 874 BCE, around the time Judaism was just figuring out what it wants to be about. The 12 Kingdoms, if they were ever real, only lasted about 100 years before the Assyrians took over (and none of them would have reached Gaza). None of the authors of the Old Testament can even make up their minds about any single given event they write about, almost every story is replete with absurd and ridiculous contradictions – there are at least three different versions of Moses receiving the ten commandments, for example, even within the same story. And it’s obvious that many amendments were being constantly made to the various texts centuries after the fact (e.g. some authors hadn’t received the memo that the name of god wasn’t supposed to be revealed until Moses, or weren’t aware that Jews from 900 BCE had started a rulebook around dietary rules).

      My point is, if the Zionists are going to tie modern real world property claims to these books, it might well create a situation where such claims won’t survive critical examination but meanwhile Judaism is rather tethered to these stories for many of its cultural and existential truths. The Zionist insistance that this is the deed in effect puts Judaism on trial. The truth or falsity of the OT didn’t matter until they insisted it was an actual legally binding document.

      And consider also that what the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians directly goes against the teachings of Judaism. Pikuach Nefesh, the core teaching that every life is sacred and belongs to god, is out the window, spat on, shat on, utterly discarded, the so-called “covenent” with god is shredded.

      Nevermind Israel as a society, where does Judaism go from here, with or without a conscience? And, bonus question, how about Christianity and Islam? Can either survive without discarding the OT?

  22. zagonostra

    >Oct 7 background Jimmy Dore live stream Interview on Rumble 6/12

    I haven’t seen this being discussed anywhere else. On the JD live stream yesterday he had a guest from “Truth in Media,” a news outlet I’ve never visted. The interview covered the background lead up to the Oct 7th Hamas attack. Most of the claims were sourced from Israeli news. The gist of the interview was that Israel knew attacks were coming, which has been widely reported. But the interview went much much deeper into the details, it blew my mind. The live stream hasn’t posted, but below is a link to the investigation. I don’t know what to make of it, if true, then the level of Evil is so much deeper than I had imagined.

    https://truthinmedia.com/episode/how-did-october-7th-happen/

    2. Mikel

      As long as blocks for all the incessant advertising and tracking can work on his new phone….all for it.
      People also need to consider the various servers called “clouds” being used for “training.”

  24. Ghost in the Machine

    Regarding The Atlantic flu article,

    “True human-to-human spread of H5N1 is still a distant possibility: For that, the virus would almost certainly need to undergo some major evolutionary alterations to its genome, potentially even transforming into something almost unrecognizable. All of this muddies any predictions about how a future outbreak might unfold.”

    Maybe DARPA is reviewing secret grants as we speak? Get Ecohealth Alliance on the job. We will have those ‘evolutionary alterations’ right quick!

    1. Ghost in the Machine

      Found this review article on cleavage sites of flu viruses.

      Activation of influenza viruses by proteases from host cells and bacteria in the human airway epithelium

      https://academic.oup.com/femspd/article/69/2/87/2399059

      “Human influenza viruses spread via aerosols or respiratory droplets due to sneezing and coughing, but may also spread by contact, and infect the respiratory epithelium of the upper or lower airways.“
      So, aerosol spread

      “Already early studies of natural avian influenza virus isolates indicated that the cleavage site sequence connecting HA1 and HA2 is a key determinant for pathogenicity and organ tropism of the viruses.“

      Uh oh. Certain dangerous people are getting excited. Why use the adjective ‘natural?’ Hhhmmm

      “HA with multibasic cleavage site is cleaved by ubiquitous subtilisin-like endoproteases furin and the proprotein convertase 5/6 (PC5/6), supporting systemic infection“

      Oh boo! A furin cleavage site is already there. So that trick can’t be used again. So maybe that at least can’t be made worse…

  25. Mikel

    “The G7 Cannot Afford to Ignore Africa” Project Syndicate

    If only Africa could be so lucky…

  26. lyman alpha blob

    Picking up my new book on Alexander Hamilton by William Hogeland today – The Hamilton Scheme

    Hogeland also has a couple new substack posts up with no paywall that might help the TDS infected get over their case of the vapors about the “unique” threat Trump poses to “our democracy” –

    https://williamhogeland.substack.com/p/adam-schiff-forgets-hamilton

    https://williamhogeland.substack.com/p/abuse-of-office-dignity-of-office

    As NC readers are aware, many of the founding fathers had quite the authoritarian tendencies and acted on them, Alien and Sedition Acts being just one example. And liberal hero Hamilton, among others, was also known to pay hush money to his paramours to keep them quiet. Point that out to your liberal TDS infected friends if you really want to watch them get their knickers in a knot!

    3. Carolinian

      Thanks.

      And according to the Secret Service tell all by Ron Kessler LBJ liked to have his way with secretaries in a room adjacent to the Oval Office and once Ladybird even walked in on him. FWIW.

      Somewhat better supported are tales of Lyndon conducting conferences while sitting on the toilet with the door open.So much for the dignity of the office.

      I think it’s safe to say that the people who want to be president are the people who often shouldn’t be president, Trump included. But he has lots of company.

      And what we definitely don’t need is a POTUS who heads a crime family.

    1. jrkrideau

      CEPR works closely with a number of public and private sector organisations, including European central banks, corporate bodies and government departments and the European Commission, in staging joint workshops, seminars and other discussion and dissemination-based activities. For example, CEPR manages the Euro Area Business Cycle Network (EABCN), a forum linking academic researchers and researchers in central banks and other policy institutions involved in the empirical analysis of the euro area business cycle.

      Thank heaveans the report is from a completely neutral organization!

  28. Christian Bonanno

    Regarding “A Long COVID Definition”

    That may help some patients get taken seriously and get treatment, which makes me happy, but it is useless for epidemiology. By their definition, I could have been diagnosed with Long COVID in 2003 because I had most of those symptoms back then.

    1. Roger Blakely

      The problem that I have with the definition is that it does not take into account the ongoing presence of SARS-CoV-2. I get told by friends that I have long COVID. It’s not true. Long COVID refers to symptoms still present three months after the acute infection. My symptoms are from today’s infection.

      How do you talk about long COVID without taking into account the fact that SARS-CoV-2 is present in every grocery store? The LA Times has an article today talking about how California is seeing an earlier-than-normal summer surge of COVID-19. Today the San Francisco Bay Area is posting some of the highest SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations of the entire pandemic. The subvariants of JN.1 with their enhanced ability to evade the immune system are taking the country by storm.

      I’m not sick from long COVID. I’m sick from all of the KP.2 in the gym yesterday. And it’s not even from what I inhale. I’m always wearing an industrial respirator. It’s from the virus that lands on my eyeballs and washes down into my eyelids.

      I’ve made a decision that I have been avoiding. I’m going to start wearing chemical splash goggles in addition to my respirator. People already think that I’m a freak for wearing a respirator. However, I am so sick from constant exposure to SARS-CoV-2 that I’m going to have to be a freak if I want to have any quality of life.

      1. antidlc

        ” The LA Times has an article today talking about how California is seeing an earlier-than-normal summer surge of COVID-19.”

        Oh, dear. Bob Wachter may have to stop eating in restaurants.

  29. Tom Stone

    I’ve been thinking about Avian Influenza jumping to Humans and what the best case scenario might be.
    If the CFR drops by 90% to a mere 5% and less than half the US population catches it ( Say 150,000,000 cases) over a six Month period we’re looking at 7,500,000 deaths over six Months.
    While this will help with classroom congestion and the housing shortage there will also be a downside.

  30. disc_writes

    I do not deny the gravity of the situation in the Arctic, but there are probably better sources than the Arctic News blog. For example, the NSIDC: https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/.

    Sam Carana’s predictions of doom are so extreme that they even raise eyebrows in the collapse subculture. He (they?) is not even taken seriously on \s\collapse by doom-addicted NEETs. I know, I was one of them.

    The NSIDC commentary for last month is:

    “Including 2024, the downward linear trend in Arctic sea ice extent for May is 31,000 square kilometers (12,000 square miles) per year, or 2.3 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. Based on the linear trend since 1979, April has lost 1.61 million square kilometers (622,000 square miles) of sea ice, which is roughly equivalent in size to the state of Alaska.

    May has the smallest downward trend of all months, most likely because the month’s larger ice pack is more constrained by land than in other months. In winter and early spring, extent extends beyond the Arctic where it can vary in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk. In summer, the ice melts back from the coast and can vary around much of its perimeter in the Arctic Ocean.”

    Hardly good news, but the world is not ending, yet.

    1. Mikel

      The Arctic is part of the military conflict zone for resources. It’s one of the reasons NATO and associates want to bring Russia to heel.

        1. jrkrideau

          As part of a plan to end overseas oil within 5 years, a Poilievre government will provide fast approvals to allow the Port of Churchill to export responsibly-produced Canadian energy & create more paycheques for our people.

          This seems even more incoherent than Poilievre normally is. I assume he or someone in his entourage may know what that means but I certainly do not. It sounds completely insane.

          And, yes, I am a Canadian and even know where Churchill is on a map. It is not immediately apparent Poilievre could find Churchill on a map.

          1. Stephen T Johnson

            Also a Canadian, I’d guess Churchill might be a significant port for arctic ocean clathrate hydrates – a composite of methane and ice that forms at high pressure and low temperature.
            That’s assuming someone can profitably extract them.
            That or he’s been hitting the psychoactives.

    3. John Steinbach

      The bad news is that the multi-season thicker old ice is at record lows & the new ice is susceptible to quicker melting. Coupled with the record highs in the Arctic & North Atlantic, this spells very bad news indeed.

  31. Skip Intro

    Globally, Biden Receives Higher Ratings Than Trump
    This is the next stage in the process that the Clinton gang used to gaslight themselves and their followers into feeling inevitable. National polling shows Clinton/Biden ahead, there is no Electoral College. But now they can’t even point to higher ratings in the US, so they need to reach out to some ‘global’ population, who also will not vote for electors.

    1. Lefty Godot

      The Electoral College that periodically loses them elections must not exist in the minds of Democrats, because they don’t even pretend to be “fighting for” changes to it when they’ve had Congressional majorities. So there isn’t even a proposed amendment that could be discussed and that the party could try to build a groundswell of public support for. At least they talk about Medicare For All despite never doing anything about it, but the Electoral College doesn’t even rate a mention once we get a week past any given Presidential election.

      I mean, the Constitution is very hard to amend, especially the way the parties have ceased any meaningful cooperation for the good of all, as has been the case since the later 1980s. But when you don’t make the slightest effort when that’s the only way to achieve something, you are basically admitting you’re fine with a bad status quo.

    2. SocalJimObjects

      Wait, I thought there are 2 billion Muslims out there and they all prefer Biden to Trump? I am not suggesting Trump will do better when it comes to Palestinians, but most people have short memories.

Comments are closed.