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Links 6/14/2024

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Undemocratic, anachronistic, fantastic. How the City survives FT

Economics 101 Aeon

Climate

Are markets the right tool for decarbonizing electricity? (transcript) Volts

The ‘One simple trick’ Paris used to reduce air pollution 40% ahead of Olympics Elektrek

Water

Riots erupt in drought-stricken central Algeria over months of water shortages AP

Syndemics

In dribs and drabs, USDA reports suggest containing bird flu outbreak in dairy cows will be challenging and Global health leader critiques ‘ineptitude’ of U.S. response to bird flu outbreak among cows STAT. Commentary:

* * *

More COVID-19 patients died in understaffed hospitals, new data show Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

China?

China has become a scientific superpower The Economist. Commentary:

China Exports Deflation But US Isn’t Benefiting as Ties Weaken Bloomberg

China’s Middle Class Fears for Its Economic Future Bloomberg

Malaysia handed back $156m in stolen 1MDB funds, US embassy says Al Jazeera

Philippines To Restore Subic Bay Airfield For South China Sea Ops Naval News

India

Indian Startup 3D Prints Rocket Engine in Just 72 Hours IEEE Spectrum

Myanmar

Myanmar Junta Boss Orders Another Purge of Military Top Brass The Irrawaddy

Syraqistan

Fires caused by Hezbollah rockets threaten ‘strategic sites’ in Israel: Official Anadolu Agency

How ‘Israel’ Has Lost The North indi.ca

Israel must target civilian infrastructure in Lebanon to pressure Hezbollah, IDSF head says Jerusalem Post. IDSF = Israel Defense And Security Forum.

Street battles rage in Rafah as Biden accuses Hamas of delaying ceasefire deal France24

* * *

Gaza resistance sources say fear is rising U.S. pier will be used for forced displacement of Palestinians Mondoweiss

US military considers temporarily dismantling pier off coast of Gaza for second time due to rough sea conditions CNN (ChrisFromGA).

* * *

Who Is Barak Hiram, the IDF General Who Ordered Tank Fire on a Kibbutz Home With 13 Hostages Inside? Haaretz

Hamas’s Sinwar said to laud high civilian death toll in Gaza as ‘necessary sacrifice’ Times of Israel (Furzy Mouse).

The Olive Trees of Palestine JSTOR Daily

European Disunion

Fighting on two fronts, France’s Macron flags ‘extremist fever’ on right and left France24. Commentary:

Macron’s party at risk of wipeout, say election projections FT. The deck: “Left unity pact means president’s alliance could be squeezed out in run-offs with the far-right.”

Fight breaks out in Italian Parliament after lawmaker makes move on government official CBS

After Euroscepticism New Left Review

Dear Old Blighty

Rishi Sunak aide placed bet on election date days before announcement Guardian

Super-rich may quit UK over Labour plans for inheritance taxes on trusts Reuters

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s security agreement with US to be submitted to Congress, it will be legally binding Ukraiska Pravda

Biden strikes security deal with Zelenskyy — but its future is in doubt Politico. “The deal is only between the current administrations of the U.S. and Ukraine and won’t be ratified by Congress.”

Zelenskiy asks G7 leaders to approve ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine reconstruction Reuters

* * *

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says China’s Xi told him he will not sell any weapons to Russia Reuters. But:

* * *

Ukraine Detains Socialist Writer, Bans World Socialist Web Site Matt Taibbi, Racket News

Pressure and threats aimed at Texty.org.ua reported after publication of study on opponents of Ukraine aid in US Urkainska Pravda

* * *

Ukraine’s draft woes leave the West facing pressure to make up for the troop shortfall The Conversation

From prison to the trenches: Inside Ukraine’s attempt to turn inmates into soldiers CNN

* * *

Ukraine extends blackouts as Russian bombings continue BBC

Ukraine says without more air cover there won’t be enough power for winter Reuters

* * *

Reverberations From Ukraine Council on Foreign Relations

How the Shift of Power Dynamics Eastward Impacts the Evolution of the Ukrainian Crisis Valdai Discussion Club

The Supremes

Supreme Court backs Starbucks over Biden labor board in ‘Memphis 7’ union case USA Today

Unanimous Supreme Court preserves access to widely used abortion medication AP

Second Time as Farce: the Absurdity of the New Anti-CFPB Arguments Adam Levitin, Credit Slips

Spook Country

OpenAI adds former NSA chief to its board Axios. Commentary:

The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled The Platformer

Digital Watch

Payoff from AI projects is ‘dismal’, biz leaders complain The Register. Commentary:

WWDC, Apple Intelligence, Apple Aggregates AI (not paywalled) Stratechery

Guillotine Watch

‘I love you guys!’: Elon Musk lands $44.9bn pay deal after Tesla vote Al Jazeera

McKinsey Boss’s Next Big Consulting Project: His Own Firm WSJ

Imperial Collapse Watch

American Messianism Paul R. Grenier, Landmarks. The deck: “Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity or even a duty.”

For King and country? Europe’s young may not be willing to fight Politico

Class Warfare

Big Union Win in Virginia Schools where Bargaining Suddenly Legal Labor Notes

Wells Fargo fires workers for ‘simulating’ being at their keyboards FT

The health industry’s invisible hand is a fist Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic

Centuries of Childhood Res Obscura

Antidote du jour (Forest & Kim Starr):

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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180 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Fires caused by Hezbollah rockets threaten ‘strategic sites’ in Israel: Official”

    Ummm. Wasn’t that the whole point of those Hezbollah Rocket attacks?

    1. Samuel Conner

      It looks like the fires broke out in locations where incoming Hezbollah attacks were intercepted, as a result of hot/burning debris that resulted from the interceptions. It sounds like “collateral damage” like when interception debris lands at random places in Kiev. That suggests that the fires are not intentional (though I suppose the attack paths might be chosen in such as was as to maximize the likelihood of collateral damage from successful interceptions).

      The article doesn’t specific the nature of the threat to the “strategic sites”; perhaps there are power grids supplying sensitive sites in the north that pass through wooded regions, though one would think that proper maintenance would minimize the risk of wildfire to such infrastructure.

  2. Ignacio

    Macron’s party at risk of wipeout, say election projections FT. The deck: “Left unity pact means president’s alliance could be squeezed out in run-offs with the far-right.”

    The snap elections might turn to be a very interesting experiment in which the fascist-like an fascist-liking (Azovs…) “centre” (if you allow me some liberty with adjectives) will face the accumulated anger of the French.

    1. Aurelien

      Or the reverse. The likely disintegration of the traditional Right could bring many of their supporters to vote for Macron, thus increasing his strength in the National Assembly. The point is that nobody knows, and almost any outcome is possible.

      Meanwhile, Raphael Glucksman, the current media darling of the Left, whose party polled 14% in Sunday’s elections, has said that two of his four “non-negotiable” demands are unquestioning support for Ukraine, and unquestioning support for “the struggle against anti-semitism”, which in this context means unquestioning support for Israel in Gaza.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Down below, Emma links to a series of tweets one of which says-

        ‘Hilariously, Raphael Glucksmann, the head candidate of the Socialist Party for the EU elections, tried to prevent the alliance by going on TV to list some ridiculous pre-conditions for it, but literally no-one listened to him and they went forward with it.’

        An example of the imitation Left whose purpose is to wreck the real Left and which explains why so many voters choose candidates from the Right.

        1. Aurelien

          I’ve been trying to get hold of the text of the common programme on these points, and so far as I can establish, on Ukraine, it would commit a Popular Front government to “defend unfailingly the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people as well as the integrity of its borders,” notably through “the delivery of the necessary weapons,” which is a pretty maximalist position and close to what Glucksman wanted.

          On Gaza it’s quite nuanced. First, it commits an FP government to “work towards the liberation of the hostages taken since the terrorist massacres by Hamas whose theocratic policies they reject” as well as “the freeing of Palestinian political prisoners.”
          But it also demands the immediate recognition of a Palestinian state “side by side with Israel” and a “break with the culpable support of the French government for the extreme right-wing supremacist government of Netanyahu, to impose an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and ensure respect for the ICJ order which unambiguously mentions the risk of genocide.”

          All of which suggests some very tough bargaining.

          I agree about Glucksman overall: it’s his hour of glory and I think he badly overestimates his actual power. On the other hand, keeping the new FP together is going to be the absolute priority for the next few weeks, and they’ve clearly had to give him something on Ukraine.

          1. Emma

            He has no right to condemn Hamas and all others to join him. Calling for a two state solution and ejecting Netanyahu is identical to Biden’s public position. Immediate recognition just hands off a few pawns to the corrupt Palestinian Authority for a still not viable state.

            The other stuff sounds better but what sort of enforcement mechanism is there when Germany and the US is supplying the bulk of the weapons. Without proper enforcement mechanisms this is all just Oslo 2.0 with the corpses and maimed bodies of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, killed with American and German bombs and with American diplomatic cover.

            The Palestinian right to self defense against an invader is enshrined under international law. He has no right to condemn and he has no standing to compell anyone else on the “left” to commit to his bad position.

            On Ukraine, he’s complete trash. So combined with the above, he’s garbage and I hope he and anyone agreeing with him gets thrashed painfully in a couple weeks.

  3. John9

    I bet David Graeber from the great beyond is laughing his *ss off about Wells Fargo discovering that some employees were using devices to simulate keyboard activity when they were really goofing off from their
    Bullshit Jobs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
    AI has such a great future! Feed the surveillance state the reality it wants while every one does what they want. Definitely Phillip K. Rick territory.

  4. zagonostra

    Economics 101 Aeon

    So the recommendation for the abysmal “empirical science” of economics is to see both the rational and irrational behind the “decision makers” as opposed to analyzing it from the perspective of class interest. The article didn’t mention Marx once.

    I recall hearing Richard Wolff, who has been an economist all his professional life, saying that when he graduated with a PH.d in Economics, he never once was required to take a course on Marxist economic theory. I have no idea where the profession of Economics is these days, it does seem, that like other “social sciences,” it has become nothing more that a cover for the “decision makers” to rationalize where they a priori want the economy to go.

    Carlin’s answer is that ‘the workhorse [of Econ 101] is that actors make decisions.’ Modelling those decisions remains a central part of economics. What’s changed is the way decision-makers are represented: they can be selfish, but they can also be altruistic.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      The wish for “empiricism” in economics is better than the old “assume a can opener” models, but still highlights the physics envy so many economists have who really want to believe that their profession is a hard science. It’s not and never will be for the simple reason that people can be given the same exact choices on multiple occasions and still come to different decisions. In physics, when you roll a ball down an inclined plane and take into account the appropriate variables, the results don’t vary.

      The article does touch on class interests, but not as explicitly as one might like and if they used the word “class”, I missed it. While the article did note that consumers aren’t the rational actors traditional Econ101 assumed them to be, they didn’t really get into depth about how suppliers aren’t either. Not only do they never mention Marx, but they also don’t mention Adam Smith’s observation that businesspeople rarely meet for long without coming up with some scheme regarding how to collude (and not compete) to extract more money from the public.

      From the article –

      “For example, in the CORE textbook, firms are introduced as having the power to set prices. That might sound obvious but it’s not how things work in the typical introductory model of a perfectly competitive market. In that model, there are lots of identical sellers and the market sets a price. Firms can choose to either sell at that market price or not sell at all. Imagine a street with several very similar pizza parlours: if one tries to charge a much higher price than the others, customers will notice and stop shopping there, and that parlour will have to lower its price.

      At least that’s the old Econ 101 logic. CORE puts that at the back of its approach to signify that it’s the special case rather than the norm, says Bowles. Instead, the CORE pedagogy teaches a model where firms sell different goods, and each has at least some power to dictate prices and wages. This choice has implications for more than prices. By eschewing the perfect competition model, CORE introduces the idea that power is a central aspect of market interactions.”

      In other words, if companies get enough power, they will start price gouging because they can.

  5. griffen

    So does Zelensky check his bed shortly or in the coming weeks, after what he suggests about President Xi? Don’t bite the hand when it’s feeding you your country’s lifeline! Come on, pal.

    Be a shame to find a severed horse’s head,when waking in ones comfortable bed ala that classic scene from the Godfather…

  6. ChrisFromGA

    Re: OpenAI adds former NSA chief to its board

    Personnel is policy.

    I am with Elon Musk on this one, AI is a complete and total disaster for any private company that wants to innovate and maintain its competitive edge. Imagine that you’re a scientist working for company X and developing a novel technology. AI enters the chat, and you naively ask it some questions that allow it to suss out what you’re working on. Then it reports your research to competitor Y.

    Hiring ex-NSA folks just makes it look worse. OpenAI is going to report all your queries to Big Brother.

    Running your own local LLMs in a “clean room” disconnected from the Internet and maybe inside a Faraday cage or tinfoil-lined dome is perhaps the only option.

    (Well, better yet, deep-six AI and do your research the old-fashioned way, you know, the one that worked for 2000 years of mankind’s progress.)

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Yeah, Musk is fine with his own company-developed AI, I was referring to his remarks about the new iPhone with “AI” that is really just an API call to ChatGPT or OpenAI. Those would be banned from Musks’ company premises or have to be surrendered in the lobby and put in a Faraday bag.

        1. mrsyk

          From your description it appears that Musk is trying to protect his intellectual property. Go figure.

          1. ChrisFromGA

            Correct, but what does that imply for smaller companies that cannot afford to develop their own LLMs?

            1. mrsyk

              The implication runs center to the pattern.. The small are eaten by the large.
              The more interesting implication is the emerging and firming pattern of persons/entities who have gotten bigger/stronger/more influential than State.
              Snow Crash is a good read and possible glimpse of where we’r headed.

              1. ChrisFromGA

                I was thinking more along the lines of an episode of season 6 of “The Black Mirror” where everyone has to run on a treadmill to generate points to buy basic necessities. And they are forced to watch porn and other humiliating shows that mock fat people; if they look away a loud shrieking sound is emitted.

                I will check out “Snow Crash”, though!

                1. mrsyk

                  I remember liking Black Mirror, although I didn’t watch all the episodes. I’m going to go back to that if it hasn’t been locked away in a corporate archive somewhere.

                2. Tom B.

                  That was Black Mirror season 1 episode 2, “Fifteen Million Merits” – one of my favorites, along with S2E3, “The Waldo Moment”.

              2. lyman alpha blob

                In many ways – living in shipping containers/storage units, gig delivery work, etc – we are already living in the Snow Crash world. Minus the interest in ancient Sumeria ;)

        2. urdsama

          More likely he is throwing a temper tantrum because he is so far behind in this technology. A familiar pattern with him.

          Unless he allows such phones on the company network, the threat of Apple AI to his workplace is all in his head.

        3. Mary Kuvelas

          “X” was the most innovative and greatest thing to come along online since Internet I itself.
          Completely open and free, connecting people, allowing one to express ideas, see and react to them; at least it was until recently, when like all good things, they fucked it up.

          Now these mysterious red flags pop up labeling one as shadowbanned because of some mysterious sin you committed, there’s no way to figure out what bad thing you did, no way to appeal their, or A.I.’s decision to to back bench you. Completely frustrating.

          X was great while it lasted. Maybe they’ll rectify it by just going back to the way it was before.

        4. pjay

          Speaking of “personnel is policy,” didn’t Musk just hire the Israeli company CHEQ, run by “ex” Israeli intelligence folks, to police bots and fake accounts on his platform after his trip to Israel? And hasn’t there already been considerable censorship of “antisemitic” commentary on ‘X’?

          I would say holding Musk up as some sort of libertarian champion of free speech and transparency is even more delusional than holding Trump up as a “peace” candidate. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend, though he might occasionally do something good.

    2. ambrit

      “(Well, better yet, deep-six AI and do your research the old-fashioned way, you know, the one that worked for 2000 years of mankind’s progress.)”
      Agreed fully. Best to tell that sly, quick thinking Greek slave to get cracking. Then patent the results.

      1. Bsn

        Well, we’re becoming tempted to get off the internet nearly completely. Depends on your priorities of course. We have (at least until now) a good public library. Take your thumb drive and use the library computes a few days a week for .. whatever.
        At home, avoid it completely. Still thinking and trying out the kinks. Stay safe out there.

    3. Martin Oline

      This makes me suspect they believe there are benefits to be gained by eliminating humans from the system. You just can’t trust them. The development of CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) machines in the late fifties got a great boost from an investment by the spooks. You can’t have people making those parts for our hi-tech gee wiz gollie-ometers! They might be union members. Commies who will spy for the Ruskies. Better to entrust our secrets to Master Cylinder. He has no sympathy for biological systems and can always be unplugged.

  7. timbers

    Ukraine says without more air cover there won’t be enough power for winter Reuters

    * * *

    They better get ready, pack up, and leave Ukraine. Initially people fleeing Ukraine probably mostly went to Russia (not that you’d know that from the MSM which only recognized Ukrainians fleeing to Europe because nobody could want to live in a gas station with nukes). If given a choice, many maybe a majority might still chose Russia over The West as their preferred destination. Lots of jobs, rising income plus lower cost of living, similar language and culture. The Kremlin might benefit highlighting its friendliness towards Ukrainians who make this choice.

  8. none

    Nice antidote. By coincidence I just finished reading a story called Harry Potter and the Malleus Mallardeficarum, so the picture made me smile.

    1. Martin Oline

      By Abracabadger? Just Horsing Around? J. K. Rowling? Robert Galbraith? Maybe a magazine story?

  9. zagonostra

    >Hamas’s Sinwar said to laud high civilian death toll in Gaza as ‘necessary sacrifice’ Times of Israel (Furzy Mouse).

    The brutal 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence saw atrocities committed on both sides with Algerian historians putting the death toll at 1.5 million Algerian victims while French historians say around 400,000 people from both sides were killed.

    RFK Jr. was on Piers Morgan’s show the other day arguing that when the U.S. “liberated” Germany from the Nazi’s it too had to make the calculus of sacrificing innocent civilians, ergo, what Israel is doing is “moral” and necessary. Pointing out the brutality of France in Algeria is basically implying the same. The U.S. and its allies, “we,” are the good guys, the bad guys are responsible for forcing our hand, there is no other choice, the dictates of war will always lead to the slaughter of innocents.

    It all boils down to the ends justifying the means, you have to break some eggs to make an omelets, a peaceful Middle East requires a genocide and terror.

    1. Aurelien

      Um, surely Sinwar’s point is nothing to do with western actions. He’s reported as saying that the massacres in Gaza should continue, because the more dead Palestinians, the greater the support for Palestine and “the growing civilian death toll would serve to benefit Hamas more than a cessation of fighting would” in the achievement of its political objectives.

      He cites the Algerian example, and it’s true that the official discourse in Algeria remains that the terrible suffering from 1954-62 was an acceptable price to pay for the coming to power of the FLN and driving out the French. You’d be well advised, even today, not to question that judgement in Algeria, nor to ask about the fratricidal among within the anti-French groups, or the executions of “traitors” and “collaborators” before and after the FLN took power. In effect, Hamas is using the oldest argument in the world: the ends justify the means.

      1. NN Cassandra

        Problem with this alleged comment is that clearly it’s Israel who is driving this war while Hamas is willing to agree to reasonable peace compromise. After all there was ceasefire and hostage exchange back in November, then Israel broke it and went with ground invasion. Their current best offer is to pause the bombing for couple of weeks just so Hamas can give all the hostages/POWs back, after which they will restart the bombing and ethnic cleansing.

        1. Emma

          When Israel clearly indicated and acted with genocidal intent over many months, from top to bottom, then I would say any actions to resist them is morally justified. There’s a question of tactics for the Palestinians bearing the brunt of suffering to decide.

          Palestinians gave peace and non violent actions many many chances. They chose violent resistance because they didn’t have any other choice. I find Western liberal “I want peace but condemn Hamas” utterly disgusting, especially when their wish for peace meant zero actual support for Palestinians as settlements keep in getting built and Palestinian lawn keeps getting mowed by genocidal Tiktoking freaks. That language is saying that Palestinians have no right to resist.

        2. Aurelien

          My point was that, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the situation, the chief of Hamas is quoted as telling other parts of the organisation that he had no interest in a ceasefire, because increased Palestinian casualties meant increased political benefits for Hamas; I have no idea whether he said that or not, or whether that is a majority view within Hamas. But the article is talking about Hamas, and not, as some commenters appear to think, about the US/Israel.

          1. NN Cassandra

            Yes, and my point is that while we have third hand account of some anonymous officials, we also have public and official position of Hamas that is in direct contradiction to that. So while on the surface the article talks about Hamas, it’s obviously part of the recent Biden’s effort to make it appear like USA/Israel want peace and Hamas is blocking it, when the reality is exact opposite.

          2. Kouros

            I rather think that the guy is trying to make the point that they are fighting for some political gains here and in order to achieve those gains there will be sacrifices. What is the point of a ceasfire if Israel doesn’t leave for good and doesn’t remove the blockade, and can swoop in any time to continue the destruction. Wat is the point of enduring all this nightmare and death and destruction if everything reverts back to being in prison?!

      2. Emma

        That’s a problem for the Algerians to disentangle for themselves. Certainly not one that should be asked from the direction of the country that did the bulk of that killing.

        1. Emma

          The right of the oppressed to resist is completely different from the right of the oppressors to oppress. The former must fight for their own survival. The later should never be there to begin with and can exit at any point or be less garbage people.

    2. jefemt

      I am still waiting for a response from the RFK Jr. campaign to inquiries I made months ago re: Israel’s non proportionate response and their decades of appropriation. Crickets.

      Assimilate. Resistance is futile. The Borg. The Matrix. Cowboys and Indians. The Japanese taking over Pacific North-east salmon-based indigenous culture. Houthis and Hutu. Yada bada bo-bada.

      We are one f’ugly critter.

    3. Benny Profane

      https://medium.com/retro-report/the-u-s-general-who-called-himself-a-war-criminal-8789703305f5#id_token=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6ImMzYWJlNDEzYjIyNjhhZTk3NjQ1OGM4MmMxNTE3OTU0N2U5NzUyN2UiLCJ0eXAiOiJKV1QifQ.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.jjGPTyb9tkbAOMakaryk8kUhqbUklHYqK_wmXBhD5P7yHGSQWOzRNAAUvGJWNWNHimlgYM_wJtBYBpajZdhWwrpgkiDZn28NNCn9zrOJsKLY_Ku8C5KfDM1yDyPAtYLe0sKec0oA7lvt6VeCQ1UwBFSFy78kUsWqPGI7DH0_CxKR23OxPgHzqkWIrd5BBebUaMBdwRIGd8CwBFC37QH_9LcfxqD-G1Eke0xYM6u_JVHpWBjCM-ktrUbozyTnvdWUCKiXO4dMCT7y-7wnzJoLmAT-2lJIUjOM0kduQpGYKlXsttl-qwVap7EAvTbH1nipNHWea7j8pFDolr4CgCoXRw

      “When asked later about his role in the air raids, LeMay said:

      There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

    4. Aurelien

      A much longer comment I tried to post was eaten by the system without even falling into moderation. I won’t try again because that might antagonise the system. Briefly, I said that this was nothing to do with the West, but with the alleged statements of the Hamas leader that Hamas had more to gain if the war went on than if it stopped, since the more Palestinian dead, the more sympathy for the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian dead are thus a necessary sacrifice. As you say, eggs and omelettes.

      Sinwar’s analogy is quite precise: the FLN made the same argument, that the enormous suffering of the Algerian war was necessary to bring the FLN to power and expel the French. Eggs and omelettes again.

      2. Don

        A single, dead Palestinian child is a setback for Hamas; a single child saved is a victory.

    5. The Rev Kev

      RFK Jr.’s moral compass is so screwed up that it is a wonder that he found his way to the car park. If he became President, he would destroy what influence that the US has left through his support of genocide and mass murder. He would be like a slightly younger version of old Joe.

      1. mrsyk

        Casino – The US
        Gamblin’ Man – Me
        Favorite table – Elections!
        Hand dealt: Biden, Trump, RFK jr, Stein, Williamson, West
        “You got to know when to hold ’em,
        know when to fold ’em,
        Know when to walk away
        and know when to run.

      2. Dr. John Carpenter

        “He would be like a slightly younger version of old Joe.”

        Well put. I understand the impulse for any alternative to what we are being offered. But it seems to me like the RFKJ backers are missing that he’s really just another flavor of vanilla, not some system disruptor, regardless of TPTB’s attempts to sandbag his campaign.

      3. Emma

        I actually believe that he’s messed up and deluded, but still considerably better and more human than Trump or Biden.

        If you listened to RFKJr before he started his campaign, there was no indication that he was a rabid Zionist at all, in fact he made the impossible for Zionists mistake of hiring Dennis Kucinch and initially agreeing to debate Max Blumenthal. But he’s clearly deeply compromised at this point and really should have just dropped out. I suspect that the deep state is keeping him in the green room for the moment to have a controllable pawn to plug in, in case Biden or Trump keels over.

        1. Mary Kuvelas

          His Vice President pick, his main donation source, is a disaster that will assure he cannot win.

          She is the Manchurahan Candidate, with a weirdly Asian flavored bio that is fertile ground for the Republicans to attack her. There’s just something weird about her.

          Many women detest her. Unlikely the voters would vote for their ticket because of her, fairly or unfairly:

          Worked in China.
          Speaks Chinese.
          Sued by first husband for fraud.
          Married to the world’s biggest censor, Sergei Brin,
          took him for billions in divorce settlement.

          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13263851/rfk-jr-vp-nicole-shanahan-marriage-history-sergey-brin-fraud.html

          1. Yves Smith

            She did not take Brin for billions. She had a pre-nup which limited her to $50 million. That would anchor the negotiations when she sued to break it. I was told there was a LA Times story that pegged her take at $800 million, still not shabby. She probably got mainly Google stock. If she did not sell it (and tax considerations would argue v. that) it could easily have appreciated so her total net worth now is over $1 billion.

    6. Emma

      Yeah, RFKJr is imperialist garbage. Can’t believe I sort of fell for his campaign for about a minute.

      The violence is the resistance is based on the choice of the oppressors. If they choose brutality and genocide, then the oppressed will rise up and respond. This is the case from slave revolts onward.
      The oppressors always focus on the purported or actual brutality of the resistance to deflect their own crimes. But unless and until a reasonable justice prevails or the oppressed is fully and effectively genocided, the struggle will always continue.

  10. ChrisFromGA

    Re: firing workers using mouse simulators

    I suppose we’ve gotten to the point where the fake jobs are so soul-deadening that AI can have them.

    “Hey Alexa – help me think up new ways of cheating customers and breaking Office of Thrift Supervision rules.”

    1. griffen

      Puts in to contrast the trend of Loud Quitting* which became a sorta trend during 2023, I think. Corporations in 2024, well they’ve got ways to track and monitor your busy body nature for working remote positions, for goodness sake. Also as well a sorta “meh” thought, since it’s Wells Fargo.

      As opposed to Loud Quilting! I quilt louder than any you blue hairs. \sarc

    2. JustTheFacts

      I have no sympathy at all for Wells Fargo. In my job, I need to read documentation and I plan things on paper / by thinking. Tools that say you’re not at work, or not working, just because you didn’t touch the computer for the last 5 minutes disrupt any concentration one has. It’s as if they want us to have the attention span of a goldfish. How a person does his job is not relevant. What he ends up delivering is.

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Mindlessly surfing blogs generates mouse movement (at least occasionally, if you’re a quick reader as I am.)

        Just sayin’ … maybe the worker bees at WFC just need to hire a pet chimp or a teen to work that mouse.

    3. Roger Blakely

      Uproarious comedy for the day:

      A spokesperson for Wells Fargo told Bloomberg, “Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior.”

  11. The Rev Kev

    “Super-rich may quit UK over Labour plans for inheritance taxes on trusts”

    One of these departing super rich might be none other than Rishi Sunak. Rumour has it that when – not if – he loses the election, that he intends to quite the UK and go overseas which might mean the US. Maybe he can go work with Obama or maybe try to make nice with the Republicans. For people like him, there will always be a place for him and his wealth.

    1. ChrisFromGA

      The notion of so-called “leaders” with no allegiance or loyalty to their own country fits the West quite well.

      We all know they represent the large multinationals, not the people who “elected” them. Joe Biden the Senator from MBNA approved this comment.

      (Maybe Sunak can relocate to Kiev, that seems to be the country that he actually represents.)

      1. Revenant

        UK tax is getting very interesting. No, really! The Tories have already announced the abolition of domicile for inheritance tax. They propose it follows residence with a ten year tail. We now also have a statutory residence test with objective counts of days spent in the UK.

        Therefore it will soon be possible to move somewhere sunny and drop your assets off in Jersey ten years later and then go and visit them en route to London 90/days per year. It’s like the government chose to block up a window by taking the front door off and nailing it over it!

        The non-UK born superrich have always had this option. Come to UK, drop assets into Jersey trust, shelter all non-UK wealth, live full time in London and draw pocket money from trust. The UK born have never had this option: UK wealth is subject to inheritance tax, wherever you live (unless you own a business or farmland) if you have UK domicile, which is incredibly hard to shift and subject to exit taxes. Now, though, anybody with traceable skills and upper middle class wealth can plan a route out and plenty of sunny places will take you (Portugal, Italy etc) or just move straight to Guernsey (not Jersey, it has a closed property market), without needing to pay offshore trustees to arrange everything. And you can still come back 90 days a year.

        I realised this last week and have started planning.

      2. Emma

        No way. He’s probably moving to Malibu or La Jolla. Sunak has multiple houses in California, he met his billionaire heiress wife at Stanford business school. I see them writing off the UK as a “character building” experience and then start a new life chapter running a think tank or a venture capital fund.

      3. Lysias

        Delaware once sent to the Senate the “conscience of the Senate,” John J. Williams. What changed?

  12. Ignacio

    “To say we are “Playing with fire” w/ H5N1 bird flu is an understatement”

    It is according to epidemiologists a game of numbers. And the numbers point in the wrong direction.The more mammalian infections the higher the probability of this becoming a pandemic. In Galicia (Spain) a mink farm got H5N1 and all the animals had to be sacrificed.Sacrificing cows is a choice not to be ruled out. My guess is that some may just be thinking “too late, let’s hope this is mild”

    1. The Rev Kev

      Considering that nothing seems to be happening with stopping this developing bird flu pandemic, I suspect that they are using the Yes Minister procedure-

      Bernard Woolley: ‘What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?’

      Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘Then we follow the four-stage strategy.’

      Bernard Woolley: ‘What’s that?’

      Sir Richard Wharton: ‘Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.’

      Sir Richard Wharton: ‘In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.’

      Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.’

      Sir Richard Wharton: ‘In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do.’

      Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.’

    2. PlutoniumKun

      I can’t help thinking that a factor in this is a fear of pushing rural/agricultural communities too far. Unrest over controls on nitrogen and water pollution seems to have paralysed most EU governments over doing anything to interfere with farming voters. Not to mention of course, food inflation.

      At this stage, massive animal culls may well be justified, but its highly unlikely that action will be taken until its far too late.

      1. mrsyk

        That seems accurate for the EU. Here in the US I would wager the motive are;
        Don’t upset big ag.
        Don’t contradict our current do-nothing policy regarding pandemics (business as usual at all costs).

    3. CA

      Ignacio; thinking of your background and interest:

      https://english.news.cn/20240126/e9ba4b73fefd4cfa8a670c83b4690d8e/c.html

      January 26, 2024

      Chinese scientists achieve breakthrough in biosynthesis of anticancer drug paclitaxel

      BEIJING — Chinese scientists have broken through the critical technological bottleneck in the biosynthesis of the anticancer drug paclitaxel, paving the way for sustainable biomanufacturing of this medicine.

      The study, * led by Yan Jianbin, a researcher at the Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen (AGIS) under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), was published in the latest issue of the academic journal Science.

      Paclitaxel, a natural anti-tumor product with an exceptionally complex and unique molecular structure, is widely used in the clinical treatment of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, lung cancer, and other cancers. It is the world’s best-selling plant-based anticancer drug and one of the few plant-based drugs capable of controlling the growth of cancer cells, said Yan.

      In nature, paclitaxel can only be extracted from the rare and endangered gymnosperm of the Taxus genus of plants. A Taxus plant grows very slowly, usually taking decades or even hundreds of years to become a big tree. In addition, the content levels of paclitaxel-like substances in Taxus plants are extremely low. All these factors posed great difficulties for the further utilization of paclitaxel, Yan said…

      * https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj3484

      1. Stev_Rev

        Not sure what the breakthrough is. Paclitaxel has been made by plant cell fermentation for some time. The method in the paper only leads to an intermediate compound, from which paclitaxel can chemically synthesized.

        1. c_heale

          Making a precursor that couldn’t prevously be synthesized is a breakthrough if you are an organic chemist.

    4. Giovanni Barca

      Weren’t all the poor minks going to be sacrificed to the Great God Furcoat anyway?

  13. zagonostra

    >The health industry’s invisible hand is a fist Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic

    Canadians, Britons, Australians, Germans, Finns, etc do not have to price-shop for their care. They don’t have to hawkishly monitor their admission paperwork for sneaky upcodes. They don’t have to spend ten hours on the phone arguing about esoteric billing practices.

    In a rational world, we’d compare the American system to the rest of the world and say, “Well, they’ve figured it out, we should do what they’re doing.” But in good old U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!, the answer to this is more prices, more commercialization, more market forces. Just rub some capitalism on it!…

    The answers to this are obvious: get markets out of health care. Unionize health workers. Give regulators the budgets and power to hold health corporations to account

    Unfortunately, what I’m hearing from family and friends that live in Canada and Italy, is that recent encounters with their healthcare system shows a marked deterioration in both timeliness of seeing a doctor, scheduling operations, and overall care. They still would never contemplate going to a healthcare system like in the U.S., but it does indicate that “the rest of the world” has some serious problems and their current trajectory is not good.

    1. Es s Ce Tera

      COVID has had an impact on the health profession worldwide, health professionals have died or left the profession, that’s going to have an impact on the entire healthcare dellivery chain regardless of model.

      As a Canadian I would still rather have the Canadian model than the nightmare that is the American model even if there were delays in surgeries and seeing the doctor. It’s still a good deal. Those delays are only for elective surgeries, I had no problem getting critical surgery more or less immediately. I only have to email my family doctor to see him the next day. Things would have to become 1000x worse before I ever consider the American model.

      1. GC54

        This assumes that someone who moves even from elsewhere in the country can get a GP who takes new patients, a problem both in Canada and even upscale suburbs in the US. In Quebec at least you will likely end up at a Clinique de sante often with questionable care.

        However, I agree that critical issues do go right to the front of the line if you are in a major city (Montreal in my mother’s case with broken hip at age 80, successful surgery the next day albeit a decade ago).

      2. Don

        I agree, for all its flaws, the health care system here responds almost immediately, with solid resources and without cost when an urgent need for a critical procedure arises. The potential for a decline is definitely there, but it’s still a whole different world than the USA.

        If one is shot in a holdup in Moose Jaw, GoFundMe is not required.

    2. Carolinian

      Perhaps it has to do with the decline of the socialist idea in general and the “end of history.” Greed won–and not just here in America?

      The prob for the Randians is that selfishness doesn’t make for functional societies. So that victory may yet be Pyrrhic.

      1. The Rev Kev

        You may be onto something there. I have always thought that in any society, that it is ‘trust’ that is the glue that holds that society together. But can you have selfishness and trust living together in the same society?

    3. Pat

      We know that the parasitical US companies have made inroads into Britain. How much of this can be attributed to globalization, which almost always is about enriching a small group of people by devaluing workers and placing multiple places of profitable grift throughout the system with the US as it’s enforcer.

      So I guess my question is how much of this is the result of system corruption and how much natural stress? Which might be made even harder to answer as bureaucratic corruption could hide a multitude of meddling and intentional creation of stress points.

  14. Ron Singer

    I was expecting to find this article listed. Maybe I missed it. Maybe later.

    Why this AI researcher thinks there’s a 99.9% chance AI wipes us out

    Any technology can be used for malicious purposes, and accidents always seem to happen anyway. Murphy’s Law rules, if only because there are so many ways for things to go wrong. The nature of AI makes it easy to expotentiate the ways things can go wrong.

    Oh, what do I know? I’m just a begonia.

    1. NN Cassandra

      Looks like AI is new God for (some of) the atheists/rationalists and now they are retracing thousands years of theological debates and logical fallacies that follow when you start with the assumption there is omniscient and omnipotent entity that can do literally whatever it wants.

      1. Ron Singer

        God got kicked off Twitter:
        https://x.com/TheTweetOfGod

        Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
        Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
        Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
        Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
        – Epicurus

        I only wish there was a God. It might be nice, and it could solve a lot of problems. Unfortunately I lack the power, which so many others seem to have, to wish an almighty being into existence. Like I said, I’m just a begonia, and I would like somebody to attend to my root structure please.

        1. Alice X

          All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant
          Useful to the politician
          And ridiculous to the philosopher

          Titus Lucretius Carus

        2. juliania

          Those are all the wrong questions. The answer lies in the following statement by Goethe’s Mephistophelese:

          When Faust asks him “Who are you then?”, Mephistophelese responds “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”

          This was used by Mikhail Bulkakov as the epigraph to his novel, “The Master and Margarita”, which was never published but hidden in a drawer until after his death, for fear of the Soviet authorities . Hidden not necessarily for its own sake during his lifetime, since he had memorized all of it, but for those of us who come after.

          One day, as I have related before, I was on my way to town by bus to purchase the novel. There is a freebie shelf at our mailboxes area of our town hall – a battered copy awaited me there. By chance? So many will say. I do not say it. This was long after the novel had been popularized in this country. I had read it back then. This was very recent, and it was the exact translation I was currently looking for. I treasure it still, in its battered condition.

          There is a God, Who is eternal and focussed on eternity. I who am a mere mortal say it, with my limited, mortal intellect.

        3. juliania

          Those are all the wrong questions. The answer lies in the following statement by Goethe’s Mephistophelese:

          When Faust asks him “Who are you then?”, Mephistophelese responds “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”

          This was used by Mikhail Bulkakov as the epigraph to his novel, “The Master and Margarita”, which was never published but hidden in a drawer until after his death, for fear of the Soviet authorities . Hidden not necessarily for its own sake during his lifetime, since he had memorized all of it, but for those of us who come after.

          One day, as I have related before, I was on my way to town by bus to purchase the novel. There is a freebie shelf at our mailboxes area of our town hall – a battered copy awaited me there. By chance? So many will say. I do not say it. This was long after the novel had been popularized in this country. I had read it back then. This was very recent, and it was the exact translation I was currently looking for. I treasure it still, in its battered condition.

          There is a God, Who is eternal and focussed on eternity. I who am a mere mortal say it, with my limited, mortal intellect.

          [Apologies if this eventually appears- I will repost as no statement ‘in moderation’ has showed. Please do eliminate any unnecessary duplicate.”]

      2. Wukchumni

        pAntheIst here…

        I require no invisible means of support

        My world at hand is still largely as it is and shall be in its natural state, everything going according to planet.

    2. Dr. John Carpenter

      Along those lines, I’ve been thinking about the Battlestar Galactia remake from a few years ago. I only ever watched the beginning but (to paraphrase) the idea that robots of human’s creation decided humans are unnecessary and have to eliminate them seems more and more relevant these days. May be time to actually finish the series.

    3. JustTheFacts

      Technology = more power.

      You and I live a life that would have required thousands of slaves to enjoy before the industrial revolution. (see Jean-Marc Jancovici’s work on energy slaves if you don’t believe this statement).

      Wielding more power requires more wisdom, but humans today aren’t any wiser. If we were, we’d have stopped having conflicts, we wouldn’t be doing gain of function experiments, and we wouldn’t be playing Russian Roulette with World War 3 in Ukraine, and probably if we survive that WW-3 with China.

      As it is, one can learn to destroy all of humanity in many ways. For example, a gene printer is not that expensive. The hope has been that having the kind of mind that can learn this ensures one can think a little deeper and perhaps not wish to unleash Armageddon, although those who work in bio-“defense” put a lie to that hope. However, if one can outsource this work to an AI, it won’t have any qualms. That is the sort of thing fanatics in and out of government might be happy to do.

      Therefore, actual AI (not large language models) may not kill us out of spite, but may kill us because it gives too much power to unwise people. This might turn out to be the great filter.

      That doesn’t mean regulation is going to work. Countries all have an incentive to become the first to develop true super-human intelligence. Historically, only a few very bright people really moved the whole of society forwards. If you could have 100s of them, you’d be moving up the well-being gradient at a phenomenal speed versus everyone else. Since, as far as I can see, most people use rationalizations such as “If I don’t do it, someone else will” to disguise the fact that they prefer moving up the well-being gradient to following their own morality/wisdom, it seems pretty clear to me that international regulation on this topic will be ineffective.

      In fact, that OpenAI, which was created to prevent this very kind of scenario is now employing a “retired” NSA/Cyber/Army general, most likely in order to get military contacts, tells you all you need to know.

    4. Es S Ce Tera

      At my work we were asked what AI can do to help us in our roles, the answers were wild because absolutely none of it was anything AI can currently do and rather betrayed that a large number of us are clueless about AI. So we’re at a junction in the road. If our leadership pushes forth with AI despite reality I expect we’re seriously done for. If, on the other hand, leadership does initial discovery and heeds testing results, we’ll probably be using AI correctly in very limited instances and it could, in fact, bolster the business.

      For example, it IS possible to use AI to generate code provided a human coder reviews and approves, this WOULD save time, would alleviate dev workload, but you cannot ever get rid of that coder and you must continue to grow and invest in your coder ranks. Our leadership have traditionally tended to be cautious and careful not to buy into hype, so I’m not going anywhere, but if I were at certain other companies I’d be seriously thinking about ramifications.

      The other thing, though, is that OpenAI/ChatGPT are just scams, frauds. The business model is to entice you to pay for the additional functionalities and GPTs and then at some point simply cut you off without explanation or refunding you or stopping the recurring billing. And customer support is….you guessed it, AI, so non-existent. Your only hope is to get your bank or credit card company to block payments. The interwebs has hundreds and thousands of people complaining and seeking explanation. At some point we’ll reach a critical mass where the rest of the population becomes aware this is happening, we haven’t reached it yet.

      1. JustTheFacts

        Re code: It may be possible, but it’s rarely a good idea. You’re asking people to see bugs without fully understanding the problem. People are bad at that. If they weren’t they wouldn’t create them when they do fully understand the problem (quoting Feynstein: “what I cannot create, I do not understand”). I expect a lot of long term bad tech debt from this fad.

        Also, in today’s “AI” dystopia: Softbank’s “Softvoice” makes angry customers sound calm on telephone, and a startup automatically converts Indian voices to American sounding voices. These days, we clearly seem to believe we can lie ourselves into “utopia”, rather than fixing the problems that prevent us from living in it. It’s all rather insane.

  15. The Rev Kev

    “Ukraine’s draft woes leave the West facing pressure to make up for the troop shortfall”

    I’ve got an idea. The Ukraine is running out of troops, right? And they are stretched thin manning the front lines. So how about this. An invitation could be sent to all those people who put a Ukrainian flag in their social media account over the past two years to enlist in the Ukrainian armed forces and if they refuse, they could be publicly shamed on their social media accounts with a white feather placed into it. And if they still did not want to go fight but wanted to have that white feather removed from their account, they can either find a substitute person go fight in their place (like in the US Civil war) or donate $1,000 to be sent to the President’s Office of the Ukraine. Sounds like a plan to me.

    1. Pat

      I want forced conscription of every politician and government bureaucrat who pushed, funded, or proclaimed this a defense of democracy. And since the age limit has essentially been eliminated, they can start with Biden, Blinken, Nuland, and for s***and giggles HRC, Pelosi and McConnell. I mean we’ve spent so much on them the least they can do is take our trash and lower our pension obligations. And that’s just a small portion of the Americans, throw in the flotsam from the UK, EU, Canada and Australia there should be enough cannon fodder for the summer.

  16. Carolinian

    Re American Messianism

    A Lindsay [sic] Graham, a Joe Biden, a Victoria Nuland, and, indeed, most of the liberal foreign policy establishment – an establishment which extends also to Europe – strike me as analogues of the Man with Thistledown Hair. As Paul Robinson said in respect to their efforts in such places as Vietnam, or Central America, or Libya, or Syria, or Ukraine, and now Georgia, in all such cases, they believe that they are doing good, that their help is actively desired. That they are saving the world.

    Wasn’t there some other nation that believed it had a “white man’s burden” to civilize the “heart of darkness” with good Victorian morals? It’s true there’s a large dose of hypocrisy in American foreign policy and Graham Greene even wrote a book about it called The Quiet American.

    But here’s suggesting rationalization is a universal practice even if some Americans have taken it to fanatical extremes. In Old World societies they liked to cite “breediing” as their ticket to domination whereas USians (the dumber ones) say “they hate us for our freedom.” And not just the dumber as those Ivy League trained sophisticates at the NYT were more than happy to go along with Dubya’s invasions.

    In the end it’s really all about power. Excuses vary.

    1. chris#5

      Great essay by Paul Grenier. This quote struck me, partly because i had just been thinking about the idea that power might morph into morality in the context of Israel:

      “When we do evil,” noted the Christian Platonist Simone Weil, “we do not know it, because evil flies from the light.” The avoidance of thought is the typical form taken by this ‘fleeing from the light.’ Continuing on this same theme, Weil adds: “When we are the victims of an illusion, we do not feel it to be an illusion but a reality. It is the same perhaps with evil. Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty.” 

      (Weil: Gravity and Grace, P71)
      Grenier provides as context Ukraine and the protestant USian need to save the world under the “catchwords” of democracy and freedom.
      But I wondered if it also helps explain the extraordinary views of many non-messianic Israeli Jews, as described in the first 15’ of this excellent interview with political economist Shir Hever by Electronic Intifada
      https://youtu.be/ly7qO9fGYZA?si=zravCfTHj4gMB5xh
      (How the Gaza genocide will lead to Israel’s collapse)
      Hever talks about the current political generation’s sense of entitlement. I suppose a racist sense of power could lead to a moral duty to exterminate. (he says a lot more about their despair and lack of belief in Project Israel. He goes on to describe the economic collapse).

  17. CA

    https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all

    The Nature Index

    1 March 2023 – 29 February 2024 *

    Rank Institution ( Count) ( Share)

    1 Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 7881) ( 2320)
    2 Harvard University ( 3691) ( 1115)
    3 Max Planck Society ( 2640) ( 665)
    4 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 33871) ( 659)
    5 University of Science and Technology of China ( 1970) ( 654)

    6 Peking University ( 2463) ( 643)
    7 Nanjing University ( 1548) ( 641)
    8 Zhejiang University ( 1627) ( 620)
    9 Tsinghua University ( 2073) ( 616)
    10 French National Centre for Scientific Research ( 4381) ( 597)

    11 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres ( 2809) ( 532)
    12 Sun Yat-sen University ( 1360) ( 524)
    13 Shanghai Jiao Tong University ( 1535) ( 505)
    14 Fudan University ( 1415) ( 486)
    15 Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( 2005) ( 481)

    * Annual Tables highlight the most prolific institutions and countries in high-quality research publishing for the year

      1. CA

        https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/18/books/the-china-the-west-knew-nothing-about.html

        April 18, 1982

        The China The West Knew Nothing About
        By Jonathan Spence

        SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINA: A Comparative Perspective.
        By Joseph Needham.

        JOSEPH NEEDHAM’S immense work, ”Science and Civilization in China,” which will probably total some 20 separate volumes when completed, * is the most ambitious undertaking in Chinese studies during this century. Ranging across the fields of chemistry and mathematics, navigation and medicine, botany and mechanics among many others, the work covers each scientific discipline from the earliest periods of Chinese history up until the middle of the 17th century, when China joined in the general dialogue of world science.

        So huge is the work, and so complex and varied the topics, that few except specialists can have read through all that has appeared to date. And though an abbreviated version of the whole is currently being produced by Colin Ronan, that too remains technical in focus and intent. For those who want a taste of Mr. Needham without too much effort, this short volume entitled ”Science in Traditional China,” which is drawn from his recent Ch’ien Mu lectures in Hong Kong, will prove the perfect introduction…

        * Twenty-seven volumes (1954-2008)

        Jonathan Spence teaches modern Chinese history at Yale.

  18. CA

    Research of high-quality is being done in China, which is just what Chinese investment spending was supposed to allow for. The new Nature.com Index of high-quality research publications for March 1, 2023 through February 29, 2024 is out * and China accounts for 3 of the top 5 science publishing institutions. Seven of the top 10 science publishing institutions are Chinese and 10 of the top 15…

    * https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all

    1. CA

      https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-06-14/Chinese-scientists-discover-new-pattern-of-solar-rotation-1uq3fZBzKI8/p.html

      June 14, 2024

      Chinese scientists discover new pattern of solar rotation

      Chinese scientists have made a significant breakthrough in solar research through the use of their solar exploration satellite, the Chinese H-alpha Solar Explorer (CHASE), which has led to the discovery of a new pattern of solar atmospheric rotation.

      The team successfully generated a precise three-dimensional representation of solar atmospheric rotation for the first time ever, the findings of which * were published in the renowned international journal Nature Astronomy on Thursday.

      The data was obtained by the CHASE satellite, China’s first solar scientific and technological experimental satellite which was launched in 2021.

      Following an extensive study, researchers said they have obtained the world’s first three-dimensional image of solar atmospheric rotation, unlocking more secrets about our sun.

      Traditionally, as a sphere rotates, the higher the atmospheric altitude, the slower it moves. However, the research team discovered that as the solar atmospheric altitude increases, the sun’s rotational speed also increases.

      “Since the rotational changes caused by viscous effects should gradually decrease from the bottom to the top, there must be a force driving the rotation of the upper atmospheric layers. Therefore, this finding will have significant scientific implications for solar activity and the evolution of the sun,” said Ding Mingde, principal investigator of the project and a professor at Nanjing University…

      * https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02299-4

      1. Ignacio

        That was indeed interesting. The compound is a terpenoid of which many thousands of natural chemicals are known to be produced in plants, and many other types of organisms as well, but their synthetic metabolism and the function(s) of many of these are yet unknown. There are to basic terpenoid biosynthesis routes that lead to this huge panoply of compounds: one from archaea cells and a second from eubacteria cells. You find both routes in plants, the cytoplasmic (archaea origin) and the chloroplast route (eubacteria origin).

        (This was a reply to a comment you posted before but somehow appeared misplaced)

    2. Benny Profane

      Love to see the academic background of a lot of those researchers. I suspect many Stanford and MIT grads.

      1. CA

        “I suspect many Stanford and MIT grads.”

        I “know” many Chinese university grads and many more to come.

        1. hk

          I think the implication is somewhat different from what you seem to be thinking: it used to be that international students graduating from US universities stayed in States, adding to the US brain pool. If they are going back to their home countries, and China particularly has had many (although my sense is that the trend is accelerating for many countries), that’s a big and fundamental change.

          1. CA

            “I think the implication is somewhat different…”

            Interesting and helpful explanation. Besides, education exchanges strike me as most beneficial and hopeful when they are both ways at effective institutions. Same for cultural exchanges in general.

        2. debug

          Of the authors who have ORCID ID information available (12 of 18) The institution with the most PhDs contributing is:

          Nanjing University: Nanjing, Jiangsu, CN.

          Other institutions who have contributed to the education of authors include:

          Université Paris-Sud: Orsay, FR;
          University College London: London, GB;
          Universitetet i Oslo: Oslo, NO;
          and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen: Gottingen, Niedersachsen, DE

          I found neither Stanford nor MIT among the educational backgrounds of the authors.

          The other six authors who have no ORCID ID may or may not have associations with U.S. institutions; however, not having an ORCID ID would indicate they either have never published or do not publish much. Sometimes, these types of authors are the instrumentalists/observationists – i.e. satellite instrument builders, perhaps, in this case, or data scientists participating in managing and analyzing the data produced by the instruments.

      2. cfraenkel

        Passing the torch?

        I wonder if you’d be tempted to make that comment in 20 yrs time.

        100 yrs ago, that comment would have been ‘I suspect many graduated in Paris & Berlin.’

    3. LY

      Anyone who was at a top engineering research university in the last few decades should not be surprised by this result.

      In the late nineties, I was a student at one of the top electrical/computer engineering schools in the world (Harvard and Cambridge don’t rate). The students were among the best and brightest from around the world. And even among them, the best and brightest from Tsinghua, etc. were also among the best and brightest there.

      The decline also mirrors the decline of Bell Labs and other industrial research labs. Which brings us to Ian Welsh’s observation that as manufacturing moves, so does the innovation.

      1. Revenant

        Which electrical engineering institution were you at against which Cambridge is unranked? That seems a high call, given Cambridge’s vice chancellor at the time was one of the inventors of VLSI, several of the engineering and Computer Science department were busy inventing ARM, ultra-wideband networking, a lot of stastical queuing theory behind ethernet, semiconductor layout software etc.

    4. matt

      at my american large public uni, all the best stem professors are chinese. all our research that makes money is done by foreign professors.
      ive been reconciling the fact that if i want to do more advanced research, i should move to china. doing a phd in the united states just seems terrible. worse, the industries i am poised to go into are terrible in the united states. the us needs to switch to infant industry policy like theyre doing for semiconductors, but of course theyre too involved in the cold war to do so. and i personally am extremely bothered by this. i dont know how many of my peers feel the same way, but more and more i think about jumping ship to asia.

  19. PlutoniumKun

    Are markets the right tool for decarbonizing electricity? (transcript) Volts

    I know, like most transcripts of conversations this is long and hard to read, but it is one of the best overviews I’ve come across of the very arcane and complex, but very important issue of electricity pricing mechanisms. We tend to focus on arguments about renewables or nuclear, etc., but so often the driver of decision-making is the pricing mechanism in the particular market.

    I don’t agree with the interviewee on a number of topics – he seems to think, for example, that land pricing is an important element of renewable investment decisions (its not), and he doesn’t seem to realise that most renewable operators are very active in using battery storage (often surreptitiously) to arbitrage markets in their favour. Another issue overlooked is the key matter of financing grid operations – certainly in markets I’m aware of this is a key determinant in decisions on permitting operator access.

    But otherwise, a good overall introduction. Plus a rare argument that just maybe, old style command and control and co-ordinated state policy may well be more efficient than contrived markets.

    1. Ignacio

      This week i was attending a meeting in which one guy was arguing about electricity pricing and incentives for investments in renewable (particularly self consumption projects by industries). The talk was very interesting and he made a point that I found odd but interesting looking at the situation in Spain where electricity demand has remained stable, even diminishing in the last years (the push for electrification in Spain goes very slow). He said that investments in renewable requires increases in power demand to make room for profitability because, if not, price gauges go in the opposite direction. He is right but he is also wrong depending on the perspective.

  20. Alice X

    The Guardian:

    French leftwing parties form ‘Popular Front’ to contest snap election

    Socialists, Greens, Communists and France Unbowed [LFI] to have joint platform with a candidate in every constituency

    snip

    The LFI MP François Ruffin said the left could now “start our campaign – with the aim of winning!”. Raphaël Glucksmann, who led a successful Socialist-backed list in the European elections, said he would also back the alliance.

    snip

    It was unclear who would lead the NPF and be its candidate for the post of prime minister. Glucksmann ruled out the bombastic and divisive Mélenchon, saying: “We need someone who can achieve consensus.”

    snip

    Polls suggest that the NPF, a repeat of the Nupes left-green alliance formed for France’s 2022 parliamentary elections, is unlikely to beat Le Pen’s RN, which is polling at about 33% of the national vote.

    But it could capture more than 25%, giving it more than enough deputies in the national assembly to prevent Macron’s centrist coalition, forecast to lose half its MPs, and RN, which could double its tally, from forming a stable majority.

    As Nupes, the same left-green alliance worked together in 2022 and 2023, before a leadership struggle, Mélenchon’s polarising tactics and policy differences, notably over the conflict in the Middle East, triggered its de facto collapse.

    *****

    I like Mélenchon, especially for his contrarian stated position on Palestine. My grandfather was French, but that doesn’t get me a vote so…

    1. Daryl

      Read a little bit last night; this is encouraging. A search for Mélenchon in English pulls up a couple hit pieces, which is probably a good sign that they’re onto something.

  21. Alice X

    NYT:

    F.A.A. Investigating How Counterfeit Titanium Got Into Boeing and Airbus Jets

    The material, which was purchased from a little-known Chinese company, was sold with falsified documents and used in parts that went into jets from both manufacturers.

    I recall a piece from nearly thirty years ago discussing fake Chinese bolts being used in airplane construction. I remember bringing it up to a friend as I drove him to the airport in an emergency trip to visit his ailing father. His flights were safe, I believe he thought I was a bit of a kook. He was probably right, but I won’t fly.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I remember that. It was not just fake bolts but fake parts as well and when the airlines checked, they found them throughout their supply chain though I would not be surprised to learn that they knew all along. The fun part came when they found some of these fake parts installed on Air Force One.

        1. Carolinian

          Oh I doubt that. However there have been past reports of major airlines outsourcing maintenance overhauls to possibly shady outfits in Central America and elsewhere.

          That said, now that airlines are making money again and after all the hue and cry about Boeing they’d be foolish–and probably aren’t–to knowingly skimp on certified parts.

          There’s probably a better safety case to be made that they are skimping on pilots and their training.

          In AZ outside of Tuscon there’s a kind of airliner graveyard that you can visit or at least look through the fence. Unclear exactly what goes on there but it is a going concern. I have a picture of a giant turbofan engine sitting out on blocks.

          There is a whole side industry of charter flights and cargo planes that may not be held to the same high standards as passenger jets.

      2. vao

        Interestingly, sourcing falsified aircraft parts from dubious suppliers, possibly via supposedly reputable intermediaries, was already such an established and sufficiently well-known practice some 30 years ago that a famous German writer of light fiction, Heinz G. Konsalik, could make it the core scenaristic argument of one of his novels — which was later filmed as “Mayday — Flug in den Tod” in 1997. Popular fiction as an indicator of social undercurrents…

        The rot we are now experiencing in various industrial sectors must have been sitting at the heart of the “supply chain” for quite a long time. I am for instance reminded that Daihatsu had been falsifying certificates for its airbags and safety tests since 1989.

        1. debug

          Reminds of the Arthur Miller play made into a movie, also, All My Sons.

          The plot revolves around a fictitious(?) manufacturer of known defective airplane parts.

          The lesson is obviously forgotten.

    3. ChrisFromGA

      You shout aloud
      But please don’t call the FAA
      They’re talking loud
      Not sayin’ much
      Don’t criticize
      The inspectors, they all went away
      We shot them down
      (They won’t get up)

      I’m sanctions-proof
      Nothing to lose
      Fire away, fire away
      FAA, take your aim
      Fire away, fire away
      Built by clowns
      The plane might fall
      It’s fake titanium
      Built by clowns, this plane might fall
      It’s fake titanium

      Cut me down
      But it’s you who’ll have further to fall
      Regulatory ghost town, haunted love
      Raise your voice,
      But sticks and stones may break my bones
      Mayor Pete’s not sayin’ much

      I’m sanctions-proof
      Nothing to lose
      Fire away, fire away
      FAA, take your aim
      Fire away, fire away
      Built by clowns
      The plane might fall
      It’s fake titanium
      Built by clowns, this plane might fall
      It’s fake titanium

      TItanium by David Guetta featuring Sia

  23. The Rev Kev

    “For King and country? Europe’s young may not be willing to fight”

    This article actually gives me hope. It shows that the younger generation are not stupid. That they are not willing to die for the benefit of Zelensky or even their own pathetic leaders and are not willing to throw everything that they have away. Reminds me of that old thing about ‘suppose they held a war and nobody came’. And it is not like that you will see anybody from Politico willing to join up. They are too precious than to risk in battle. But they will try to tell young people ‘Go on. Join up. It will be fun. It will be like a day at the beach.’–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XijMMhs55oc (9:23 mins)

    1. Chris Cosmos

      This war, particularly at this point, is ONLY a war to further Washington’s objective of which number one is to make money for the oligarchs in the US and, to a lesser degree, Europe. If ou analyze all the US wars that is the common denominator. Lose wars, make money–simple.

  24. Enter Laughing

    RE: US military considers temporarily dismantling pier off coast of Gaza for second time due to rough sea conditions

    What are these “rough seas” they are talking about?

    According to one forecast, the wave heights off of Gaza are expected to peak at around 2′ 11″ late Sunday and early Monday. Another site forecasts maximum wave heights of 3′ 6″ for the same period.

  26. magpie

    The Stanford Internet Observatory may be “shutting down”, but I’m glad the Platformer helpfully framed it for me by explaining that it’s only because of malicious conservatives in Congress who keep attacking the university and its student body, in spite of all the vital work they do.

    I look forward to Diresta et al getting back to work soon, alongside the intelligence services and big tech, to keep me safe.

    1. lyman alpha blob

      Except it isn’t really shutting it down, so your scare quotes are very appropriate. When I saw the headline, my immediate thought was they were just going to do the same thing that happened to the Total Information Awareness program. They ran that up the flagpole during the 2nd Bush administration, and then claimed they’d shut it down after the extremely negative public response, but in reality just kept spying on everybody anyway.

      Today’s article itself indicated that my suspicions were true. From the article –

      “The remnants of SIO will be reconstituted under Jeff Hancock, the lab’s faculty sponsor. Hancock, a professor of communication, runs a separate program known as the Stanford Social Media Lab. SIO’s work on child safety will continue there, sources said.

      ~snip~

      In a statement emailed after publication, Stanford strongly disputed the fact that SIO is being dismantled. “The important work of SIO continues under new leadership, including its critical work on child safety and other online harms, its publication of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, the Trust and Safety Research Conference, and the Trust and Safety Teaching Consortium,” a spokesperson wrote.”

      When they start claiming it’s all for “child safety”, you know we’re really [family blog]ed.

  27. The Rev Kev

    “Israel must target civilian infrastructure in Lebanon to pressure Hezbollah, IDSF head says’

    This is nothing new for Israel. They call it the the Dahiya doctrine, named after a neighbourhood that the Israelis destroyed during the 2006 war. It endorses the employment of “disproportionate force” which I believe is not allowed under the rules of war. So if Hezbollah resists Israeli forces, the Israelis will bomb and kill civilians as punishment. But things have changed since 2006. If Israel does the same, then I have no doubt that Hezbollah will return the compliment and start destroying Israeli neighbourhoods, perhaps in Tel Aviv. The fact that Hezbollah has precision missiles means that they can hit any target that they like which is driving the Israelis to distraction.

    1. Chris Cosmos

      Rules of war? Perhaps there were at one time, i.e., the Geneva Conventions etc., but they are no longer in effect. Israel and the US completely voided those rules so perhaps we ought to stop mentioning them.

  28. Katniss Everdeen

    RE: Biden strikes security deal with Zelenskyy — but its future is in doubt Politico.

    Biden’s aim in Europe is to portray himself as the unquestioned leader of the West, corralling world powers to Ukraine’s side and boosting his global image ahead of the November election.

    This, courtesy of Glenn Greenwald, who routinely refers to biden’s brain melting before our very eyes, just might undermine biden’s attempted “unquestioned leadership” self portrait.

    https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1801352433106395149 (only 14 excruciating seconds)

    (Does anyone know who the lady in all pink is? She seems to have been assigned nursemaid duties in dr. jill’s hunter-supporting absence.)

    On the other hand, the european “leadership” braintrust is undoubtedly more than happy to cede the “leadership” role to biden since he’s already been declared incompetent to stand trial by his very own country.

    1. Katniss Everdeen

      Oops. Just read that the lady in pink is Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. My Duh…

      1. Alice X

        Giorgia gently herds the bewildered Biden back in the correct group orientation. She is sharp as a tack, but we could not be further apart politically.

        I’m somehow reminded of the aged Philippe Pétain heading the French army in 1940.

    2. lyman alpha blob

      Heh. Maybe a new line of children’s books will come out of his unscheduled perambulations. Where’s JauntyJoe?

      1. ambrit

        A big illustration of crowds of people writhing in agony in the pits of H—. Call it “Where’s Biden?”

    3. griffen

      Four more weeks, Four more weeks….\sarc

      yes, Trump is only slightly younger. I heard on CNBC this morning that the Cleveland Federal Reserve bank President, Leighton Meester, is retiring at the spry age of 65 due to how the Federal Reserve has directed a mandatory age for retirement no matter who I suppose. Just for a comparison in a highly visible position but a non political setting. And…so we go in 2024. Yeah America.

      1. John k

        We have a minimum age for pres, why not a max, say 2x min, or 70? Maybe because when the rules were written very few made it to that age, and they didn’t think there was a need. So you couldn’t be more than 66 (full ss) when taking office sounds reasonable to me. Would have ruled me out long ago.

        1. Pat

          I want mandatory retirement for everyone in government at 70 especially judges. Think the Supremes, Ginsburg was 83. Currently Thomas and Alito would be out while Roberts and Sotomayer would be in their final year. Yes they would probably time their retirements based on the President (Sotomayer would have announced her retirement fall of last year and Roberts would be waiting out the election.)
          But there should be an end without waiting for the grim reaper.

    1. The Rev Kev

      ‘Why would anyone with a couple of working brain cells attack Russia.? The answer you need the Russian resources as collateral for your derivitative bets among yourself(bankers, hedge funds, Davos Gang)’

      Hah! Said the same in a comment near the start of this war. Last I heard, global debt is around $315 trillion dollars and the wealth of Russia’s resources could be used to make that all go away. Same with America’s debt too. Knocking over a bank or an armoured car is mundane. Knocking over the biggest country in the world requires a certain boldness – or insanity.

  30. The Rev Kev

    “From prison to the trenches: Inside Ukraine’s attempt to turn inmates into soldiers”

    Obviously CNN has forgotten how the Ukrainians went into their prisons about a year or more ago and recruited a whole bunch of them to serve, including murderers. I guess that those guys are no longer around for the better part. You would think that recruiting prisoners would be simple process as the Russians did it so successfully with the Wagner Group. But this is the Ukraine where corruption inevitably raises it’s ugly head-

    ‘Prison management considers a prisoner’s application for mobilization before handing it over to a commission. If it refuses to take the petition, the prisoner has no other way to enroll,” the activist explained.

    The NGO has already received complaints that some inmates are being extorted by officials, he said.

    ”An inmate who has no money may be invited to pay it off as soon as he gets his first paycheck from the military. Sometimes they are told to testify against other convicts before getting a chance to mobilize. One has to be ‘useful’ to the prison staff,’

    https://www.rt.com/russia/598852-ukrainian-inmates-extorted-mobilization/

  32. LawnDart

    “It’s not harmless. It’s not “just an innocent thing” to be fooled by AI. You NEED to be able to discern and differentiate reality. You NEED to know how the world works on a basic level.”

    Dr. Walters, I couldn’t agree more.

    I don’t see AI as an “alternative-reality” or even fiction– when what AI generates falsehoods proclaimed as reality it is a fraud.

    The acts that attempt to manipulate public opinion or “shared reality” seem totally unrestrained by ethical bounds. Visual presentations portrayed as “news” are often made deceptive, dishonest, through selective editing yet accepted by many as “fact” and acted upon as such.

    The inability to discern fact from fiction is insanity… and here we are, surrounded by lunatics (mis)led by liars and manipulators. Bullshit is great for plants but not at all healthy for humans to be immersed in.

    1. Daniil Adamov

      People have been lying to each other since they have been people, often with success. LLMs are more efficient lie producers, maybe, but a man who was fooled by gossip or a book is just as impaired in his interactions with the world around him as a man who has been fooled with the latest and fastest fooling technology. Possibly the sheer efficiency of it will yet produce some greater effect than the liars of yesteryear have been able to achieve, but for now I don’t see it as groundbreaking.

  33. antidlc

    https://gothamist.com/news/gov-hochul-considering-banning-people-from-wearing-masks-on-nyc-subways
    Gov. Hochul considering banning people from wearing masks on NYC subways

    Gov. Kathy Hochul says she is exploring at least a partial ban on masks in the New York City subway system after images and videos of masked anti-Israel protesters on a train ricocheted around social media earlier this week.

    In a news conference at the state Capitol on Thursday, Hochul said she has started discussions with Mayor Eric Adams and state lawmakers about what a mask crackdown would look like and how to craft exemptions for health and religious reasons. The mayor’s office confirmed it was looking into the issue.

  34. Wukchumni

    What becomes of the various small & big fishwraps, all floundering on the shores of further large losses pretty much baked in as the tide rolls against their model of business, which was yesterday’s news today, combined with younger adults not really having learned to read vis a vis newspapers as many of us did, winding our way through a phalanx of propositions in the guise of advertising in their salad days when newspapers owned pro sports teams, such as the Chicago Tribune buying the Cubs in 1981 for $21 million.

  35. DJG, Reality Czar

    Fight breaks out in Italian Parliament. Claptrap. I hope that others residing in Italy will comment with their points of view.

    CBS’s mealymouthed claptrappery: “The fight broke out Wednesday evening when Five Star Movement deputy Leonardo Donno unfurled an Italian flag in front of regional affairs minister Roberto Calderoli of the pro-autonomy Northern League and closed in on him. Donno’s stunt was intended to denounce plans to grant more autonomy from Rome to those regions that want it. Critics argue that it undermines Italy’s unity.”

    Differentiated autonomy, as it is called in Italian, means that one region may have notably different internal powers than another. Many commentators, left, center, and conservative, have come out against it. Some people call it the “secession of the rich regions,” although such secession is likely to backfire.

    Donno was part of a large group of parliamentarians holding up Italian flags. Hardly an individual “stunt.”

    He approached right/Lega/“regionalists,” some of who had been quoted saying things like, “I wipe my ass with the Tricolore.”

    Think of it this way: A U.S. congresscritter holds up the Stars and Stripes and a bunch of other congresscritters jump him for doing so.

    Hmmmm.

  36. DJG, Reality Czar

    The Olive Trees of Palestine. This strong association with the olive tree is a constant in the Mediterranean world. A friend of mine here in Italy described us as People of the Olive Tree. Which is why she felt comfortable in Beirut. I had the same feeling of comfort in Istanbul and Athens,

    The article has many lovely details about the affection of farmers for their trees. Mort Rosenblum, who has a small farm in southeastern France, wrote a memoir about olives. On his farm, he named the trees and felt that they had almost human qualities.

    Here, there was a large installation by a Palestinian artist. In one big hall, he had a stand of about a dozen olive trees in planters. One can feel the presence of olive trees on entering such a room.

    [Now I imagine having as one’s political project the killing off of sacred trees…]

    Worth a read.

    1. hk

      I remember ads from a Palestinian Catholic organization selling rosaries made from olive trees bulldozed by Israelis in various US Catholic publications when I was younger. I don’t know if these orgs even exist nowadays….

    2. ambrit

      One of the tactics employed by the ancient Israelites in their conquering and settling of the “Holy Land,” was to cut down the sacred groves on the tops of ‘Pagan’ “High Places.” In that way they claimed the supremacy of their Ba’al, and the socio-political overlordship of the remnants of the original populations.
      It’s the same old story. The Settler Colonists have form in this.
      Cf: Deuteronomy 7:5
      See also, for a full list: https://forwhatsaiththescriptures.org/2020/08/22/groves/

  37. Wukchumni

    Cold War on Skates update:

    Lord Stanley looks to remain in denial of making its way back to the Gulag Hockeypelago for safe keeping once again as the Edmonton synchronized sinking squad is on their heels in what has the look of a Salchow into a Camel Spin and then a Death Spiral, if I didn’t know better.

    (4.3, 4.1, 3.7, 4.0, 3.0)

    1. ChrisFromGA

      Meh. IMO, the real golden age of hockey was pre 1980’s before helmets were mandatory. I still remember a young Jim Shoenfeld stopping slapshots with his legs, sans helmet and face shield. And a Buffalo Sabres fan dumping a beer on Dave Shultz from the Flyers at the old Aud. Players going into the stands to fight the fans. Dad took me to see the Oilers play during Gretzky’s rookie season, and many players didn’t wear helmets. Boo-yah!

      Go back further in time and maskless goalies were a thing.

      Now those we’re real men!

      1. Wukchumni

        Yeah, you could tell individual players by their lanky hair and toothsome smile, what was left of it. Bobby Clarke comes to mind.

        My dad was into hockey and I probably went to around 100 Kings games in the 1970’s to 1990’s, with a lot of them coming when I was a kid and the Kings couldn’t draw fans.

        My dad would sit in his assigned $3.50 seat somewhere and I’d go drift to better digs down below, which was always a given as so few Angelenos seemed to care. The Fabulous Forum held 16,005, and they’d announce tonight’s attendance @ 7,425, and being a wiseacre 12 year old, you’d look around at all the empty and it was closer to 5,247.

        No advertising on the boards, play would stop about 10 times a game when opposing players ‘iced’ the puck against the boards, and no 2 line pass, made it a very different game, a lot less fluid.

        I can’t imagine how tired you’d get as a player with endless ups and downs whilst balanced on a thin line.

        1. Wukchumni

          p.s.

          My favorite player on the Kings was Butch Goring, and when he got traded to the Islanders, so began their run of 4 Stanley Cups~

          Loved to watch him play, an early helmet wearer back in the day.

          1. ChrisFromGA

            I recall tickets sold for around $5 at the Memorial Auditorium, aka the Aud. The best part was the hecklers. I still remember one drunk heckler who had particularly good comedic timing. Every time there was a timeout for a face-off, he would yell out a good one at the opposing players.

            “Hey Barber – get a haircut!” (Target – Flyers winger Bill Barber.)

            1. Wukchumni

              There was a player who had been balding for some time, named Harold Snepsts, and when his team played in LA and he was on the ice, the Forum crowd would start chanting ‘Harold, Harold’ over and over again, poor fellow… why couldn’t his parents have named him Bill or Jerry, or what have you?

            2. Wukchumni

              Fabulous Forum employees wore these toga-like shirts and such, the look being mock Roman, almost Star Trekian in appearance.

              Every band played there, was a newly minted hellion on wheels when I saw Queen there in late 1977… sitting in Uecker seats.

  38. DJG, Reality Czar

    That darn Indi is at it again.

    How Israel Has Lost the North.

    The essay seems closely argued and well observed to me. Spicy, too. With photos to bolster his argument.

    The situation is the proverbial powderkeg.

    Others who have followed events in Galilee in more detail may want to comment.

  39. ChrisFromGA

    Meanwhile, back on the Genocide ranch, the Houthis continue to score points vs. Team Genocide. Today, they attacked a Ukrainian-owned ship and it’s still on fire:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/missile-strike-yemens-houthi-rebels-sets-cargo-ship-fire-injures-sailo-rcna157139

    Shipping rates are taking another leg upwards and hitting pandemic levels. The Houthis are also talking about attacking ships going the longer route along the Cape of Good Hope (those ships still have to approach the Indian Ocean where the Houthis now have the range to hit.)

    Operation Preposterous Fail-ium!

  40. Wukchumni

    Regarding the photo of the mouse with a cat’s mouth on it…

    I’m about even in cat years with Einstein (the brains of the outfit) now, maybe he’s a couple years older than me in human years.

    Still a stone cold killer of smaller prey and eats what he kills, but cautiously coexists with the cacophony of wild turkeys who roam around occasionally in an ersatz conga line on their way to something important, i’m sure.

    1. mrsyk

      We had a cat that took great joy stalking the turkeys coming through the yard. In this particular case he was hunting for pleasure.

  41. Carolinian

    Some inside dope on Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill.

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/trump-mends-fences-on-capitol-hill/

    Even without the cameras in the room, Trump was reportedly true to form, delivering a winding exhortation that alternated between stories and second-term agenda items. He fulminated about the left’s effort to imprison him and allegedly called Biden’s Department of Justice “dirty, no-good bastards.” He told House Republicans that Ukraine is “never going to be there for us,” according to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who described the meeting with Trump as a bit of a pep rally. Trump floated replacing all income taxes with tariffs, claimed that one of Nancy Pelosi’s daughters once told him that he and Pelosi would have been a perfect couple, and bantered about Taylor Swift’s support for the current president.

    Maybe Don could offer Taylor the VP slot with resultant landslide. She’s probably at least as qualified for executive service as Michelle.

    1. inchbyinch

      Or at least as qualified as Nicki Haley. She thinks that getting the VP gig, among the gaggle of contestants , is a fight to finish them off.

  42. Kontrary Kansan

    I wish Bickerson in his assessment of the EU parliament voting had taken up the impact of Europe’s increased vassalage to the US. That seems to diminish the importance of EU elective offices across the board, and likewise in each country.
    Cheap Russian gas was keeping the EU relevant.

  43. matt

    re: Economics 101

    what bothers me about economics is the complete lack of mathematical rigor. steve keen has a chapter in his book on how economists model time as discrete instead of continuous- they dont use differential equations! this has been driving me nuts for months. i tell all my friends about it and they go equally insane. at my uni (and we have an above average econ department) econ majors are only required to take one semester of the easy version of calculus. they dont even have to learn integration! for a discipline based upon mathematical models, that disgusts me. economists aren’t even required to take a math modeling class. how are you supposed to build mathematical models without ever learning how?????
    adam smith and karl marx get a pass for lack of mathematical rigor because mathematics wasnt as developed then. but it’s 2024. teaching those ideas is like teaching freud instead of neuroscience. it might be okay for nonmajors who dont need to learn the basics, but for people supposed to be professional economists??? i am actually enraged.

    1. skippy

      It is quite something to observe the changes in Economics in just the last 200 years, always subject to the machinations of the powerful and influential, old as the hills … post the wild 1800s, due to industrialization in the West, all sorts of Mfg ideas were applied to society at large. Metrics were set up to evaluate the T/F of the direction society was moving, oblivious to the natural world and the yet undecided nature of humanity and its relationship with it.

      Newtonian ideas with notions of Herbert Spencer et al underpinning them and then given atomistic Brownian motion treatment as if humans are driven in all things by Homo economicus dicta. All of which is purely deductively rationalized by the the economists on someones pay roll …

      The winnars[tm] of this moral template endlessly remind the unwashed losers its all self inflicted, mentally ill, naturally defective, unwilling to subjugate themselves to an imaginary creators plan of reward or sacrifice.

      BTW how does one actually reduce humanity/natural world to maths and then model it when we don’t yet understand most of it, let alone the Universe.

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