The surprising link between drug trafficking and bird conservation Sequencer
Study challenges popular idea that Easter islanders committed ‘ecocide’ Phys.org
Why Mount Rainier is the US volcano keeping scientists up at night CNN
Climate/Environment
California wildfires have already burned 90,000 acres, and summer is just beginning Los Angeles Times
OOPS! GEOENGINEERING TRICK TO COOL BRUTAL HEAT COULD SPIKE TEMPERATURE ELSEWHERE, SCIENTISTS SAY Futurism
Pandemics
Why is The New York Times now promoting an anti-science agenda? Science-Based Medicine
COVID summer wave grows, especially in West, with new variant LB.1 on the rise CBS News
UK Covid hospitalisations increase following emergence of new variant The Independent
Years into a Pandemic, We’re Stuck in Long Denial OK Doomer
***
USDA finds unusual twist: Bird flu moved from dairy cows to poultry in Michigan Toledo Blade
La belle France
Fresh unrest in New Caledonia after independence activists flown to France for detention The Guardian
Old Blighty
What Really Happens in Blackburn Craig Murray
India
In a Delhi heat ward, a lonely battle for life The Migration Story. “Migrant workers are the biggest casualty of India’s worst heatwave.”
The Koreas
S. Korea says parasites detected in trash-filled balloons from N. Korea Yonhap
China?
Why Washington’s Plans to Turn Taiwan Strait into “Hellscape” are Fundamentally Flawed New Eastern Outlook
***
China’s Fiscal Income Drops at Quickest Pace in More Than a Year Bloomberg
China running short of lottery tickets as youth try their luck amid shaky economy South China Morning Post
China’s ByteDance working with Broadcom on advanced AI chip- Reuters Yahoo! Finance
Nvidia to sell its advanced AI processors to Middle East countries, despite sanctions Tom’s Hardware
Syraqistan
Hezbollah stores missiles and explosives at Lebanon’s main airport, whistleblowers claim The Telegraph. Commentary:
Israeli war propaganda through @TheTelegraph__ has started to counter #Hezbollah‘s drone and try to scare the Lebanese. It shows that #Israel is afraid of what to expect in case of war and is trying in vain to turn a small part of the hostile Lebanese against the resistance. pic.twitter.com/XD6EvvaQI2
— Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) June 23, 2024
June 12: Israel must target civilian infrastructure in Lebanon
June 23: Here’s some pretense to target civilian infrastructure in Lebanon pic.twitter.com/fsTeuPJfVY
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) June 23, 2024
Thousands of Iran-backed fighters offer to join Hezbollah in its fight against Israel AP
Israel offensive in Lebanon could increase risk of broader war – US general Middle East Eye
US Air Force general: US will not assist Israel in war with Hezbollah as it had with Iran Jerusalem Post
‘Intense phase of war with Hamas about to end,’ focus to shift to Lebanon border, Netanyahu says CNN
Gaza’s missing children: Over 20,000 children estimated to be lost, disappeared, detained, buried under the rubble or in mass graves Save the Children (Press Release)
European Disunion
Plan to announce new far-right group “The Sovereignists” imminent Euractiv. Led by Alternative for Germany.
EU Finds Legal Loophole to Bypass Hungary’s Veto on Arms Purchase for Ukraine – Report Sputnik
New Not-So-Cold War
SITREP 6/23/24: Coordinated Terror Attacks by Ukraine and Friends Seek to Sow Instability Simplicius the Thinker
Terrorists attack multiple sites in Russia’s Dagestan, killing six police officers, priest Anadolu Agency
Moscow blames Washington for deadly Crimea strike RT
U.S. CROSSES REDLINE AND RUSSIA IS NOW READY TO RESPOND WITH FORCE Larry Johnson, A Son of the New American Revolution
Watching Kiseliov commenting the ATACMS attack on Vesti Nedeli now. He promises a Russian response but “of course, asymmetrical” and “at the front” (including explicitly Ukrainian energy infrastructure and “decision-making centers” as “next step), “plus providing missiles to…
— Tarik Cyril Amar (@TarikCyrilAmar) June 23, 2024
🇺🇦🇷🇺🚨‼️ Russia hit the warehouses of the Tavria-V hypermarket in Odessa.
Judging by the secondary detonation from video 1, they hit an ammunition storage.
According to Russian sources, there was a warehouse of NATO missiles there.
Ukrainian sources say it’s “a civilian… pic.twitter.com/sgiqN14ojV
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) June 24, 2024
As U.S.-supplied weapons show impact inside Russia, Ukrainian soldiers hope for deeper strikes AP
Jake Sullivan and the ‘softening up operation’ Gilbert Doctorow
THE U.S. SAYS A FAR-RIGHT UKRAINIAN ARMY UNIT CAN NOW GET AID. A PHOTO SHOWS TRAINING WAS ALREADY HAPPENING. The Intercept. The neo-Nazi Azov Brigade.
South of the Border
The Dream of a Thing: Refounding the Economy of a Venezuelan Commune Venezuelanalysis
The Caribbean
Kenyan police force to leave for UN-backed Haiti mission on Tuesday France 24
Kenya’s President Ruto Defies His Own Country’s Constitution and High Court to Invade Haiti Black Agenda Report. From May 29, still germane.
Spook Country
When Did Everything Become “Disinformation”? Ken Klippenstein
Biden
BREAKING: The White House now has extensive video footage on its channel that every human rights organization in the world, including Israeli, as well as the UN, have said was extracted under torture. I repeat: The White House is laundering torture on its public media channel pic.twitter.com/E0YxdOof3G
— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) June 23, 2024
Trump
Ex-Trump security adviser backtracks on proposal to send all Marines to Asia The Guardian
The ‘Israel model’ for US China policy would be folly Responsible Statecraft
Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, finally reveals some details on how Trump will allegedly end the Ukraine war. He’ll impose “massive sanctions” on the Russian Central Bank and try to cripple Russian oil sales. No more of the Biden Admin’s “half-measures” pic.twitter.com/JJ09kBrbMm
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 23, 2024
Democrats en déshabillé
Ro Khanna Says Progressives Must ‘Pull Biden Across Finish Line—and Then Organize’ Common Dreams
GOP Clown Car
Louisiana kicks off national fight with Ten Commandments mandate The Hill
2024
Disappointment and ‘depression’: Biden’s biggest fundraisers watch their advantage vanish Politico
In the Market: French bond vigilantes have lessons for the US Reuters
Imperial Collapse Watch
Pentagon Increases Price Cap For B-21 Stealth Bomber Acquisitions Military Watch
Boeing
Federal prosecutors recommend to Justice Department that Boeing be criminally prosecuted CBS News
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: Are Conservatives Moving On From Robert Bork? BIG by Matt Stoller
AI
Arch-rivals Apple and Meta reportedly discuss AI partnership for iOS 18 9to5 Mac
Human Brains Can Tell Deepfake Voices from Real Ones University of Zurich
Groves of Academe
The TikTokification of Mental Health on Campus Mad in America
Our Famously Free Press
Corporate Media in the Age of Fascist Politics: Firewalls of Ignorance and Disappearance LA Progressive
Class Warfare
Tech Firms Prey on Poor Under Guise of Expanding Access to Financial Services Truthout
Amazon retaliated after employee walkout over the return-to-office policy, NLRB lawyers say The Verge
The NLRB Is Testing Out a New Tool to Stop Union Busting Jacobin
High Expectations The Baffler. “Budding labor tensions in the cannabis industry.”
Sports Desk
‘Blue screen of death’ at the ballpark: How the Mariners tapped a tech nerve in viral rally video Geek Wire
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
GENOCIDE
(melody borrowed from Keep On The Sunny Side by Ada Blenkhorn and J. Howard Entwisle, 1899, as performed by The Carter Family)
When your scriptures loom larger than your life
And your neighbors are different than you
Then you strap on your pistol and your knife
Cause they think things you don’t think are true
Israel has justified eighty years of genocide
Claiming their mission is divine
They kill Arabs every day and they steal their land away
But this whole world is backing Palestine
First the British and then the USA
Backed your slaughters for all these many years
But the whole world is watching you today
And demanding you live beside your peers
Israel has justified eighty years of genocide
Claiming their mission is divine
They kill Arabs every day and they take their land away
But this whole world is backing Palestine
You kill Arabs or lock them in a cage
Give them no rights at all but you don’t care
Then you live in the fear of Arab rage
When all you ever had to do is share
Israel has justified eighty years of genocide
Claiming their mission is divine
They kill Arabs every day and they take their land away
But this whole world is backing Palestine
“Federal prosecutors recommend to Justice Department that Boeing be criminally prosecuted”
I expected that to come from The Onion.
Corporations are people…so perhaps Boeing the company will avail itself of the 5th amendment…so as to preclude or prevent self inflicted statements of suggested guilt…
Not a lawyer…I suppose a criminal offense carries the potential of a super large fine and fees. You know, just use the DOJ playbook under AG Holder for all the banks & mostly for the US or Global “SIFI” or TBTF if you would, being fined after the GFC 2008, for bad securitization practices..or the LIBOR scandal…or the money laundering scandal..those institutions had to be spared and so must Boeing likewise be spared.
The way to get real results is to prosecute a bunch of executives. Personally. The mere threat of being frogmarched in orange jumpsuits is enough to make them beg for a consent decree.
It only takes one or two examples of that before everyone gets the message.
Like Enron or World Com. Wait a minute… that was in W Bush’s term as pres. What the heck?!
A least a few have to go to jail before these crooks get the message.
Recalling Arthur Andersen. Not gonna happen.
“Fresh unrest in New Caledonia after independence activists flown to France for detention”
This was so ham-fisted that I wonder if it was not Macron’s idea. In a form of reverse-transportation, they have flown those suspects 17,000 klm away from their friends, their families, their own lawyers and community help and put them in what amounts to an alien landscape where they are alone which is a form of punishment itself. This will probably convince a lot of activists that there is no point negotiating with the French authorities as they are dealing with a Colonial mindset that will refuse to be kicked out of their people’s country.
France is in many ways just UK 40 years ago.
Result will be no different and possibly worse since they checked into the Hotel they can’t ever leave (aka the Euro).
France has tried to punch above its weight for generations, and has not wanted to acknowledge that condition to its own citizenry. Said citizens, and newcomers, don’t think or react the same way as they did once upon a time, say, in 1945 or 1968. Macron is the latest technocrat to try to ignore reality that is impacting life all around the Hexagon, even close to the Elysée digs.
He has an unenviable task domestically and compounds the difficulties with his Ukraine forays. That is before even attempting to deal with the post-colonial issues and unwinding in Africa.
Plus they’re in Mulhouse, the ugliest town in France. This is the work of Darmanin, the Interior Minister. He’s probably the sickest one we’ve had yet, in the long line of monsters who’ve occupied Place Beauvau.
That said, I’m sure MLP can do a one-up on even this knucklehead. The RN is revanchist on the enforcement of colonial rule and that’s one area where you can expect the worst and probably won’t hear much about it because these poor natives are essentially powerless, with nothing shiny to attract the attention of the usual woke do-gooders.
“Beirut airport bosses deny it is being used to store Hezbollah weapons”
This all came about because of supposed whistleblowers at Beirut’s airport. Israel has already confirmed that they are telling the truth because those whistleblowers have been of the Israeli payrolls for years now. But why would Hezbollah store weapons and ammo at an international airport when they have a network of bomb-proof tunnels to store them in instead? Hezbollah must have noted Israel’s constant bombing of Syrian airports so why would they do it? This is just a way to threaten Hezbollah from bringing in gear from Iran but more to the point, when they bomb Beirut’s airport like they did in 2006, they can say that it was because of all the stored Hezbollah weapons. So what happens when Hezbollah hits Ben Gurion International Airport using the same reasoning?
I was going to comment that “whistleblower” seems to be doing a lot of work here. I guess “anonymous source” is suffering from overuse.
“But why would Hezbollah store weapons and ammo at an international airport when they have a network of bomb-proof tunnels to store them in instead?”
Unlike all of the other outgroups that have the phrase “straight out of _____’s playbook” plastered over the front pages, Israel does actually have a playbook. They will claim a James Bond villain headquarters under the
hospitalairport, blow it to smithereens when it is full of civilians and then say “oopsie” when the claims do not pan out. Wash, rinse, repeat. Mindless violence in pursuit of deterrence is their go-to plan. All of that stuff could just as easily be shipped in from Turkey or Syria in trucks, which is how I would suspect it all gets there anyway, but the bombing of random trucks does not have the high profile destruction value that they need for deterrence.Pointless killing of civilians is the plan, and it looks like the RoW has finally noticed.
The link to “US Air Force general: US will not assist Israel in war with Hezbollah as it had with Iran ” from the Jerusalem Post seems to be broken.
Was the article removed?
It seems like U.S. Air Force support would be vital to Israel’s conduct of a war on Lebanon, so that’s a key bit of information.
If anyone has links to further such policy announcements, please post them.
It may have been renamed to “Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman: US likely unable to assist Israel in war with Hezbollah” under pressure from Israeli censors-
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-807449
Slightly different title
https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-807449
“Ro Khanna Says Progressives Must ‘Pull Biden Across Finish Line—and Then Organize’”
Deja vu all over again. Sure Ro, pull the other one. It’s got bells on.
Thought the same. Like how in 2020 it was vital for progressives to elect old Joe without bothering to get any commitments from him as in at all. The idea was to get him elected – and then turn him left. Yes, they actually said this. Judas goats the lot of them.
” Nothing will fundamentally change”
Joe Biden, 2020 campaign assurance to wealthy donors…
Hey we were blamed for Barack Obama being a corporate shill. I still have ptsd from being told about three dimensional chess and yes that I and others like me had to hold his feet to the fire, for his re-election.
My answer to Ro is that until I can legally and easily literally hang the president over a roaring fire and lower them at will his advice is useless. The Democrats have clearly done a ROI of how utterly useless they can be before losing too many voters and nothing legal will force them to do better than that. And that is for all their offices, not just President.
Traditionally when one party has screwed up this bad they can’t wait to hand power over to the other side so their opponents can take the heat from having to be the adults in the room.
The trouble is that this time, assuming Trump comes in with a team and not a collection of barnacles, the best fix to most of our problems would be to try, convict and imprison those responsible.
MAGA had its time, the banner that would sweep Trump to a landslide would say:
HOLD THOSE RESPONSIBLE ACCOUNTABLE
HTRA if you have to do acronyms. And yes, we have more than enough prison space once we let out the victims of the War on Drug Users.
so, I should buy a MAGA Hatra?
I suppose ROI means return on investment. Why not say ‘return on investment’ instead of perpetuating the cool kids if-I-use-an-acronym-everyone-will-know-I’m-a-cool-kid thing? I admit to being old an out of touch on many trends. I find the hurling of acronyms like man-hole covers at an unsuspecting world especially aggravating.
Unfortunate language in that headline.
Heh. They aren’t even trying to hide it. / satire, utube, 40 seconds.
WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S with Joe Biden ~ TRY NOT TO LAUGH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm22izvrrhk
My, that is one VERY heavy ship anchor to be dragging.
I’m picturing the ultimate Weekend at Bernie’s reenactment for the victory speech.
zomg, Ro Khanna rationale is as nonsensically bad as Sirota’s rationales.
Due Dissidence, utube, ~16+ minutes.
Sirota Says Voting ‘AGAINST TRUMP’ Actually HURTS Democrats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEpjt4bshTQ
As nothing will fundamentally change no matter who wins, so what? Well the Trump revenge tour might be unpleasant, but if the Democrats could stop whining and win one or the other house of congress, that would put a reef in Donnie’s sail.
Er, who wins? Or, er, so what? I don’t know. I do somehow think it matters. The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, with all its noodley appendages, and all that.
The great Pastafarianisms. heh. Guess I’m old school. / ;)
By all means, let’s “pull biden over the finish line” and then “we” can “hold his feet to the fire.”
Lots of “americana” invoked in that article–5 paragraphs on how the plucky son of “middle-class” immigrants from the rust belt is passionate about his hometown baseball team–just in time for July 4. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about how his guilty pleasures are hot dogs and apple pie, and his favorite colors are red, white and blue.
Blah, blah, blah.
“…immigrants from the rust belt…..”
Said rust belt created by the neolib Dems starting with B. Clinton pushing through NAFTA. Never mind ‘working class Joe’ ™ undermining the railroad workers. / ;)
A Wintery Inauguration Day 2025:
Joey, flat on his back, being dragged down Pennsylvania Avenue on a sled, pulled by the Biden dogs in full military gear (who needs the Secret Service?) with pictures of Beau hanging from their collars. Dr Jill, in snow boot stilettos, unsteady but soldiering on for the cause (saving democracy one gam at a time!). Dear Hunter, sniffling a bit (it’s cold!), coat pockets appearing full (with gloves! it’s cold!).
Such a beautiful thing.
They are just getting the “blame the left” story some background.
“We told you that you needed to drag him to the finish line, and you didn’t. It’s your fault.”
Just waiting for the blame the left chants to start at the convention this year.
Reminds me of dead goat polo…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-EFSOnoW44
…only with a brainless old goat. I’d tell Ro that as it is the sport of kings let the kings play it. We’ll watch.
Charlie Brown is definitely going to kick that ball this time. Lucy is holding it perfectly for him!
Ro forgot this part – “…Organize, so the Democrat party then can then ignore you for four years all over again, do whatever it takes to enrich their corporate donors, and then blame Trump.”
Ro is another dirt bag from CA. Nancy’s sidekick.
“Why is The New York Times now promoting an anti-science agenda?” Science-Based Medicine
Just like I thought: if the article has “anti-science” in the headline, my off-the-cuff, back of the paper napkin calculation is that there’s a 98% chance of BS (or ass covering of some kind).
I stopped after the first few paragraphs.
It’s describing a debate about science as anti-science.
Why?- The article in itself has some potential mistakes but the critic on the NYT is fine. I for instance have this critique: instead of talking about European countries the article says “European democracies” as if… something.
“The article in itself has some potential mistakes but the critic on the NYT is fine.”
The New York Times columns were not science, but speculative writings that needed to be described as such. The criticism of the NYT was proper and necessary.
https://x.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1804880481265099062
Dr. Angela Rasmussen @angie_rasmussen
Gonsalves and Moore again incisively demolish the @nytimes’ decision to platform the misinformed opinions of pandemic pundits with no relevant subject matter expertise in public health, medicine, virology, epidemiology, phylogenetics, or vaccinology.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/why-is-the-new-york-times-now-promoting-an-anti-science-agenda/
Why is The New York Times now promoting an anti-science agenda?
This essay stems from concerns about two editorials published in The New York Times recently. We felt that they were problematic in that the past is viewed through a blurred prism to produce revisionist history.
By John P. Moore and Gregg Gonsalves.
10:13 AM · Jun 23, 2024
I was wanted to remark on this as well. I’m always a little suspicious of overly referenced essays. They have a shriek tone to them that suggests narrative building. Clicking through the link under the sentence “The Times has made it clear to colleagues that it is not interested in considering articles that rebut these two essays.” one finds a rant on some meta chat. That’s not “making it clear”, at least to me. Could not finish the article after reading this canard, “But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“. No, actually they don’t.
So, if references to the existing evidence are given by refenrnce … time to dismiss?
For me one of the worst evidences of US decay has been how it has fallen under politically driven conspiracy theories. Because the Spike protein has “motifs” these have almost certainly been introduced by “gain of function” (GOF) research. Given that most virus have “motifs” they must all be the product of GOF. Absolutely.
So, if references to the existing evidence are given by refenrnce … time to dismiss?
For me one of the worst evidences of US decay has been how it has fallen under politically driven conspiracy theories….
[ Perfect. ]
time to dismiss is triggered by an accumulation of red flags including the “reference” I singled out. Let’s start with the opening sentence, The New York Times’ science reporters have provided outstanding coverage of Covid-19 since the earliest days in 2020, including how the pandemic started. . Hmmm, not how I’m remembering it. The next sentence, Unfortunately, the paper’s opinion desk has had a far more checkered record, culminating in two highly controversial essays that were released online last week and co-published in a two-page spread in the print edition on Sunday, June 9. “Checkered past” certainly works from many perspectives. “highly” as in highly controversial creates a subtle “obviously” indicating an opinion that regards itself as the authority. The third and last sentence is the one I quoted above about “making it clear”.
These are extraordinary claims: Science, and US tax dollars, are being blamed for a pandemic that has killed over 1.1 million Americans, and perhaps as many as 20 million people worldwide. Are they? I know more than a couple epidemiologists who are quite convinced that Covid could only have been produced in a lab. Plus we have evidence that the US is funding gain of function research on the H5N1 bird flu.
So yes, perhaps I am easily triggered, but dismiss it is.
I know a couple of epidemiologists…
That is evidence of nothing. Do they belong to the deluded camp of epidemiologists?
There is absolutely no scientific proof of lab origin. None at all. Fantasies on GOF research very much like with the H5N1
No, and you might apologize if I named them, and it’s more than a couple. They are known to me personally, not random commenters off the internet. They are quite sane.
I would finish with this. Consider the ever firming pattern of malfeasance from institutions and state. Consider white phosphorus, radioactive artillery shells, or the without a second thought killing of thousands of innocents in Gaza. Which is more likely, a random and breathtaking feat of natural evolution, or an act of scientific experimentation conducted at the behest of the MIC. Seems like the latter to me.
I understand the yearning for proof positive, but that kind of proof is hard to come by. We are left to our own devices, our own brand of analysis. I am most grateful that we have a place to discuss them.
It’s not epidemiologists who would know. It’s the microbiologists who actually do GOF research who would know how to identify such products.
Ann
(the first Ann, not the one who showed up yesterday)
Do you want an informed discussion in the matter? Here you go:
A Critical Analysis of the Evidence for the SARS-CoV-2 Origin Hypotheses
I will have a listen when the chores are done, thanks.
That was an informative paper, thanks. I still favor lab leak, but I did get to thinking about winners and losers in all four possible scenarios.
I wanted to add that here in the US$Academics the atmosphere is rather toxic. There’s a persecution going on. That’s still happening, it’s just not on tv any more. People are keeping their heads down.
Framing everything as winners and losers is very American but not useful IMO in this case. It is very likely that, as you say, the atmosphere is quite toxic in the scientific and medical domains in the US. I sense that from comments I have been sent and read here. Not the best environment for calm and good analysis. Everything politicised in the worst way is the feeling I have. Not a recipe to find best outcomes.
I’m not wedded to my opinion here, less so certainly after reading the paper you kindly provided. I’ve a high regard for your opinion things Covid as you’ve been on it here from the getgo.
Winners an losers are always relevant, particularly looking forward. Covid is with us now regardless of who dunnit. Who’s to gain by this debate?
Does the fog of war extend to the war on science?
“But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“
I’m a bit confused, are you taking the position this is a false statement??
If so, it goes against a core tenant of critical thinking. The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan covers this topic far better than I ever could.
They are no longer extraordinary claims. They are merely claims.
How does one measure extraordinariness? It’s a cute slogan, but not a viable scientific methodology.
Exactly. I can’t judge the science behind the origin theories— Way outside my expertise. But the 6 foot rule was dubious from the start, as pointed out at this blog numerous times, and one of my bosses took it literally. He thought that so long as people in a room were seated more than 6 feet apart, they didn’t need to wear masks. Fortunately he lost that argument, but I can’t blame him much. The CDC was incompetent.
“Once a conspiracy theory, now plausible.“
https://www.okdoomer.io/covid-probably-started-in-a-lab-yes-that-matters/
Yes, that article (originally in The Nation) basically says that only scientists in specific fields should talk about Covid. It puts down Alina Chen’s op-ed on Covid lab leak and then Zenyep Tufekci’s op-ed on the public’s trust of public health measures.
Sorry, but the rest of us can and should discuss and talk about Covid. It affects us, and we all have gut instincts, too, which are usually pretty reliable. So when a pandemic starts in a city with an Institute of Virology that studies coronaviruses in low-safety labs that are likely doing gain of function/FCS research, then we have a right to discuss that and say, uh, sounds like a lab leak is possible.
Tufekci’s op-ed was the weaker of the two (she’s never one not to toot her own horn), but she as a sociologist can talk about how public trust affects our attitudes toward public health.
I am four square that it came from somewhere somehow. It would be interesting to know from just where and just how, but would that knowledge lead to either a preventative or a cure? If not, it is of academic and historical interest only?
I’d suggest it is of more than just academic and historical interest. There are labs around the world working with pathogens that are a damn sight more dangerous than what became Covid – bubonic plague anyone? – so if it was a lapse or hole in security or precautions, or their enforcement, that let Covid escape from a lab there’s a need for them to be reviewed under a microscope.
Ten Commandments…aren’t we fortunate old Moses didn’t bring down more stone tablets with maybe 20 or more commandments!?!
I am not opposed to the biblical Commandments* but state legislatures mandating these to be posted in large print anywhere they somehow deem necessary or required, it feels like a stretch. This is for parents to instruct their children as they see fit to do so, and also it ain’t just right wing Christians attending these schools. No real shock that the ACLU and others have already lined up, in opposition to this bill.
What’s the corollary in other authoritative religious texts? I’m most familiar with the Moses version from Exodus.
‘Ten Commandments…aren’t we fortunate old Moses didn’t bring down more stone tablets with maybe 20 or more commandments!?!’
Would you believe fifteen Commandments-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXeTsWGPT0w (24 secs)
LOL. That is the first thing I thought of when I heard about this law. They should be posted in Hebrew. That should satisfy SCOTUS’s fascination with originalism.
Why not code of Hammurabi?
I read the Code last summer. Lot of throwing folks in the river.
Sink or swim? Take me to the river, wash me in the water…
Cleanse and heal? Re-birth? The Human Condition seems to transcend space and time.
Hope the Oilers take away time and space tonight!
Not the code of Zamboni?
Ooooh. That’s a ‘clean sweep’ of the “Good Punmanship Competition” for you.
That wouldn’t refer to the “Tale of Zamboni” and his trusty sidekick Ikidu, would it?
(So much ‘fun’ could be wrung from an application of “The Tale of Gilgamesh” to modern America.)
When I took Akkadian in grad school, our professor reminded us that it was unlikely that more than a few awilu (citizens) and any of the wardu (slaves) knew how to swim, so it was basically a death sentence.
Also, the proportionality idea was taken to the extreme:
The Book of the Covenant that follows the Ten Commandments seems to reject this idea of proportionality in Exodus 21:28-30.
These Bronze Age laws seem crude and harsh to us, but it’s important to remember that they are largely an attempt to restrict violence. Otherwise, the victims of a poorly constructed house might go and kill the builder AND his family in retribution. An ” eye for an eye” aims to keep me from killing you if you accidentally cause me to lose an eye. And prisons were not a business in Old Babylon. Justice had to be applied quickly because there wasn’t the governmental infrastructure for criminal justice that we have.
What strikes me about all this excitement over the Ten Commandments is how little attention is paid to the substance of these laws. Remember that good Christian and Lieutenant Governor of Texas who exhorted us oldsters to risk death from Covid:
What about:
How about:
“Thou shall not kill”
I’m not afraid of a good guideline or 10.
I used to teach that Hammurabi 229 as the first ‘Building Code’ to my Carpentry students.
Good to see you participating so much and praying it’s a reflection of well being for you.
In modern Hebrew it becomes,”thou shall not commit murder”. Evidence from Numbers 35 suggests that it really means “thou shall not commit manslaughter” (I’m not sure that Hebrew even has the You/Thou distinction anyway)
What strikes me about all this excitement over the Ten Commandments is how little attention is paid to the substance of these laws.
I’m a tad surprised about Lousiana, but in general, my view is the “Protestant” (I feel I need to be very loose with this adjective) Evangelicals they have descended into what is labeled idolatry. Content is largely irrelevant. Its just a power structure. Worship the unopened book with no creases or be excised. Make sure to sign up for a monthly commitment.
Going back to my loose use of the word “Protestant”, they can’t entirely switch to statues and theme parks because the start of these sects is fairly well known, but the Gemstones have replaced small churches, slapping a t on a monster truck makes something holy, and disgraced celebs can buy forgiveness from audiences. Bibles are waived about as “Christian” media is pushed. Christian adult contemporary, the apocalyptic rapture books where saved Khristians definitely won’t suffer, and the various nutso movies that get pushed. They are all ways to avoid the content.
Then of course, even outside the problems with being rich in the New Testament, the Old Testament is full of enough wackiness its always a threat to make people go, “really? Why am I here?”
I’ve noticed lately how many quite visible crosses on necklaces are to be seen on evangs-or those courting them, kinda de-horned swastikas of a sort that exclaim…
‘I’m one of them!’
‘Lot of throwing folks in the river.’
And if they did not sink but floated, it proved that they were a witch-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rMsgmaBV8g (1:38 mins)
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6431457
Oiler fans.
That was great! Thank you! Crazy Canucks …. er
Was that Jeezus with an Oilers logo?
Is Trump,with Orange whatever, an Oilers fan?
Excuse my simplemindedness but there were no Christians in the Old Testament. Christians came out of the New Testament in which case shouldn’t the Beatitudes be posted and not the Ten commandments.
In keeping with there being nothing new under the sun, the evangelicals are engaging in icon worship, in this case, stone tablets.
Using the logic of their scripture ignores what is occurring, old fashioned idolatry.
Great thought. Instead of suing to install Satanic images in our statehouses, nonbelievers should find all the 10 Commandment style monuments and begin holding regular religious worship sessions at those sites.
I think many Christians would rethink this if they saw regular clips of people gathering at their monuments, dropping to their knees and repeatedly prostating themselves before the graven image. Self-flagellation could be encouraged, maybe some vendors to sell cilices, burlap undergarments and other not-so-subtle reminders that Christianity wasn’t always about consumerism.
OK, I think this idea just did a loop the loop on itself but all the great ideas usually do at some point. A life’s lesson you could carve in stone if you were so minded.
or sacred orgies, for good measure?
“protected Speech?”
i’m certain antonin scalia would approve.
ive made it my business to be able to quote their sacred text right back at them…having lived among these assholes all my life.
quoting the Beatitudes or Matt 25 at them when they get all lathered about the 10 commandments usually at least shuts them up for a minute or two.
the really shocking thing is learning just how many of them have actually read the bible,lol…not very many, it turns out…they read selected bits…usually the parts about smiting….and totally ignore the stuff supposedly from the mouth of Jesus.
(and!…during my long virtual field study of the american right…including local yokels…i got sunday sermons from all the local churches emailed to me.
they almost never mentioned the Gospels…it was all Timothy and Paul and Revelations(catholics and lutherans did better, especially around easter)
When I was in college, I got into it at one of the more prominent Labor Day parades in Virginia of all places with an old Christian and a young Khristian (still older than me demonstrating their cowardice), but oh man, the young one knew nothing. At one point, he claimed the parable about the two men in the temple praying was “that’s OLD TESTAMENT.” The old guy started to realize something was wrong with his companion at that point.
aye.
the older ones mostly yell old testament smiting stuff…but they at least know new testament when they hear it,lol.
im specifically referring to those specimens of christlike behaviour that park themselves outside of liberalish bookstores, hindu temples and swingers clubs…and yell.
Real Christians are too busy building housing for the poor.
Much of the Old Testament wasn’t even Jewish in the sense that Moses and the Hebrews before Moses didn’t understand themselves to be Jewish. The formation of the Jewish identity as an identity, culture, religion, started around 900 BCE and even by the time of Christ was still a work in progress. The OT books were still being written and rewritten by scribes even until after Christ – Daniel, Psalms, Proverbs, Esther and Ecclesiestes are dated during and after (although much of the material for these is taken from many different cultures and time periods before, many of the Psalms closely resemble Egyption texts for example).
Moreover, the early Christians were a Jewish sect, Christ was a Jewish rabbi preaching adherence to orthodox traditions but with a radically different understanding than the prevalent Sadducee or Pharisee sects. So Christianity was essentially Judaism for the first 300 years, the apostles and disciples, bishops and laiety understood themsleves to be Jewish, but even in Paul’s time (30 CE) a schism was already manifesting insofar as many didn’t want to dine and worship alongside the goy. Eventually, Christ’s doctrine of inclusion of goy won out and the Christians started to become something other than Jewish, then became predominantly goy.
I’m not very familiar with the Bible (decided when I was about seven that it made no sense). Can you give me a reference to anywhere Jesus talks about including the goys? I’ve always thought that was Paul’s doctrine, not Jesus’s.
There’s very many instances, it was his key difference, his was a sect which was open to non-Jews. And by the way Paul’s doctrine was informed by the apostles specifically on the question of inclusion of non-Jewish followers, and note Paul himself was Jewish, so he was dealing, as a Jew, with the question of eating alongside gentiles. As for examples of Christ including gentiles, see Mathew 8:5-13/Luke 7:1-10, Mathew 15:21-28/Mark 7:24-30, John 4:1-42, Luke 17:11-19, Mathew 28:16-20, John 12:20-26, and there’s many more. And always he taught to anyone who would listen, welcomed all, had gentile followers, his mission was to travel to gentile areas to teach and attract followers, plus he agreed with John the Baptist that attesting belief in god via symbolic baptism was a necessary precondition (quite unlike what the Sadducees and Pharisees were teaching and why they killed John).
But Jesus was always there:
“Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum,
Filium Dei unigenitum,
et ex Patre natum, ante omnia saecula, ”
This also contradicts the claims that Jesus was a Jew.
That’s an interesting argument, that who claims to have always existed cannot be Jewish. Someone tell the Zionists!
What’s the problem with the golden rule?
+100
+.99999
(five nines fine, to the uninitiated)
How soon will the law suit(s) be filed and how long before one or all (bundled or whatever the legal word of art is) reach the Supremes?Louisiana strives to get on the separatist bandwagon with Texas. Abbott will like have disciples.
I just returned yesterday from a business trip to Israel. Some anecdata to share:
– the flight there was three-quarters full; the return was entirely full. Lots of families on both. At passport control on the US side of the return most of the people on the flight went through the Israeli passport line, not the US passport line. So it was mostly Israelis leaving, not tourists.
– news in Tel Aviv does not show much about what is going on in Gaza. The nightly news was more focused on the fires at the Lebanon border and the death of multiple IDF soldier in a Rafah attack. Nothing really about the counter-attacks and communal responses.
– there are protests almost nightly in front of the IDF headquarters and many nights in front of Netanyahu’s personal residence in Jerusalem. The protesters are mostly the secular types (or “State of Israel” types as defined in the Pappe piece linked here yesterday).
– even the secular types are rabidly racist against anyone deemed ‘arab’. Was subjected to a six-hour tour of Jerusalem organized by work where the tour guide ranted about ‘the arab mindset’ and went to great pains to point out how Israel was not an apartheid state because a single muslim woman was working as a tour bus driver. Israeli execs at company dinner made multiple casually racist comments about employees at a vendor with Persian surnames being arab terrorists (the vendor and employees are canadian, didn’t matter).
– People in Tel Aviv are partying and behaving like nothing bad is going on. If you had been there since last October and were only exposed to local news I doubt you’d have any idea of how bad the situation in Gaza really was. And this feeds into the paranoid/delusional mindset around ‘the arabs’ and ‘antisemitism’.
– the touristic industries have completely collapsed. There were no lines in Jerusalem for the big religious sites, we walked right into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and there were maybe 30 people inside the entire complex and no real lines on the tomb and site of the crucifixion. The tour guide said it had been like this since the war started and many in his line of work had gone bankrupt.
– most of the big tourist hotels are being propped up by direct payments from the government in exchange for housing settlers from the north who were evacuated. Our hotel, right on the Tel Aviv beach, was at least half full of these people who had been living there full time for months. On the weekends Israelis from outside of Tel Aviv would fill up the hotel for beach going but during the week it was empty except for the housing. We only realized this because there were tons of children during the week who were being shuttled to and from schools and it didn’t make sense that would be happening for tourists.
– as an American what stood out to me was the lack of homeless people in Israel because this is utterly inescapable in the US. I guess I’m glad my taxes are ensuring people somewhere are staying off the streets but it made me angry that my taxes are being used to prop up a foreign social safety net at the expense of mine here. The housing market in Tel Aviv is grossly overpriced relative to wages. Most of the people I talked to wanted to immigrate to the US for the higher salaries.
Thanks so much for such a detailed report. Very helpful.
Yes, thanks for this on-site reporting… very informative.
You may also feel additional pride, as I do, as a US taxpayer propping up the Ukrainian health care system (such as it must be), since Ukrainians have universal health care that’s US-ians lack.
I never, ever, miss an opportunity to tell anyone near me how lucky we are that the Democrats won in 2020. After all, had Orange Man won, we might have proxy war with Russia, genocide in Gaza, attacks against the First Amendment here in the US… let alone what he did to poor Hillary Clinton after 2016!!!!!
Thanks for the on-the-ground report. I am curious about what airline you flew. I heard that all the big US airlines halted flights into Israel last fall and have not returned service. Of course, Israeli airlines are another matter, as they still fly into Tel-Aviv, and you can connect through Europe.
Et Al?
I flew United direct from Newark, and United has been flying direct from Newark since at least March (when I began working with this company) because a US colleague has been flying them monthly to Tel Aviv since then. He was there during the Iranian attack and his wife was scheduled to fly United there then but that flight was canceled, and he and his wife ended up taking El Al there and back over the next week. Aside from that United has continued with the flights. I was hoping my trip would be delayed another couple of months until the war situation calmed down but the company decided a few weeks back this past week was probably the last best chance before war with Lebanon started. We were actually on the first overnight direct flight from TLV-EWR on United since it had been canceled after October last year. So I presume the rate of Israelis leaving is rising since they added it back.
Thanks. I’m surprised that United would risk customers lives flying in there, but then again, it’s a big corporate airline and if there is money to be made they probably don’t want to cede that route to a European airline. AFAIK, Delta ended direct flights into Tel-Aviv last fall and has not resumed those (I checked Delta’s site and you can however connect through Heathrow via a plane operated by El-Al.)
I’m strictly a Delta man as United, Southwest, and American all fly the death-trap Boeing Max.
Delta has no MAX planes in its current fleet. There is an order in for some but they cannot be delivered until 2026 at the earliest due to all of Boeing’s manufacturing, regulatory, and legal problems. I am hoping that order gets cancelled or Boeing implodes by then in blaze of lawsuits.
Thank providence I had my lucky rabbit’s foot, 4 leaf clover and horseshoe on board the 737 Max I flew to Fresno yesterday on United, otherwise the outcome might have been in doubt.
You’re a braver soul than I am. I would not step on a Max if you paid me $1M in BTC.
Frontier is another airline that is MAX free, but I would still bring the rabbit’s paw. There are apps that show what model plane you’re flying on other airlines but you’re still subject to the old switcheroo if the original plane gets mechanical problems.
I wasn’t too worried as the fellow in the seat next to me was a chimney sweep, said to bring good luck when being touched, especially on New Year and on weddings.
I’m well aware of the math and statistics that say I’d be safer on a MAX than driving on I85 here in Atlanta, but the empath in me would struggle thinking about those 350+ souls who perished in the two crashes back in 2018-19, along with the Southwest passengers who got to experience the greatest rollercoaster ride on earth as the pilot screwed up a landing approach and gave some flying fish a haircut, before pulling up and saving the day.
This was only my 4th roundtrip domestic flight since 9/11 and i’m lucky to have survived the ordeal, but you go with the talisman you have-not the sudden thudding into the ground at a high rate of speed you don’t want.
P.S. Denver airport is apparently a training ground for aspiring Olympic athletes, as they make you walk all over tarnation to get anywhere and they aren’t believers in signage. How could a modern airport be so sucky?
Practice. Sheer, unrelenting practice.
The Denver airport has been like that for decades, it’s unbelievable.
Best thing about Denver airport is the New Belgium brewery outlet.
People in Tel Aviv are partying and behaving like nothing bad is going on
Yes, and here in my neck of the woods in rural Central PA, people behaving normally, going about their business, not knowing or caring that their country is provoking WW3 and supporting genocide while two cartoon characters audition for for top political job …all quiet on the Western front.
More thanks. And
Of course you aren’t the only one to say this if it wasn’t already obvious on the basis of behavior. Presumably those who don’t feel the same–and of course there always have been some or even many–are on those departing flights.
I’m a fan of the great Argentine/Israeli maestro Daniel Barenboim who has always actively tried to heal the rift. But I believe he spends most of his time these days in Spain or Germany.
Has anyone yet accused ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ of being an anti-semitic work yet?
I’ve assumed the seculars, particularly female, are/will be the first to leave, and might see it as permanent given the current and likely future environment. This means the remainers will be far right, so ultra orthodox will dominate. But those drafted info idf and their families seem to more and more resent that the orthodox refuse to serve… wonder if these draftees might think exodus looks good. Haven’t heard of border checks looking for emigrating service members a la Ukraine.
Very interesting, thanks.
I’d like to think there’s an ongoing Israeli exodus, but seems odd house prices remain high… maybe those leaving aren’t home owners, or maybe they’re northerners tired of living in hotels.
I sure agree we should be addressing our own domestic issues like homelessness, really sad and annoying we’re spending so much on our unending foreign adventures.
> At passport control on the US side of the return most of the people on the flight went through the Israeli passport line, not the US passport line
How do you know they were Israelis and not other aliens?
In my case, at DUS, they managed to mix the lines, but then let the few of us with biometric EU passports go straight to the control. I travelled on Saturday, so I’ve no idea how many were religious people escaping conscription.
At dinners, there is a complete lack of talk about the “situation” apart from the occasional complaints about “Bibi”. Lots of complaints about antisemitism in Europe, which I would confirm with details about Reese-Moog and the 1947 pogroms in the UK (i.e, a supporter of Israel, and riots provoked by an Israeli atrocity).
Homeless: Are you sure they are not better hidden? In Rome you usually don’t see them, but the east side of Termini is lined by them, and I only discovered them in my home town in a park which was the best place for WiFi when my home internet stopped working.
To answer somebody below, I flew Eurowings. All Airbuses (If it’s Boeing, I’m not going).
“as an American what stood out to me was the lack of homeless people in Israel because this is utterly inescapable in the US.”
I find it striking that Americans keep mentioning that, whether they are in Israel or in Russia. Come to think of it, I don’t know when was the last time I saw a homeless person here in Yekaterinburg, though they used to be pretty common. They are doubtless still around (especially farther away from the city centre I’d guess), but it appears that various social programs have been steadily chipping away at their numbers for the last two decades. It’s very strange to me that homelessness, or at least readily visible homelessness, is apparently an American thing now.
Visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg just before the pandemic, I was struck by the complete absence of any homeless. So, count me as another one of those USians mentioning this.
After my return, I happened to speak with a colleague who had emigrated from the Eastern bloc in the 90s. When I invariably mentioned “and nary a homeless person in sight the whole trip,” she got kind of fired up and started telling me there are special govt squads in Russia that whisk the homeless off the streets in the middle of the night, sending them all to special camps deep in the countryside.
I was unpersuaded (tho who am I to argue over this?), and made some joke about Russian FEMA camps — if they exist — at least probably having non-GMO food… lol
In Eastern Europe, traditional/family values are still not completly destroyed. In USA, it is considered normal to throw family members out on the street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=276RZVt-SDk
Imagine really believing out of all of human s]history[tm] that you are the chosen ones and there is no hell awaiting you …. regardless of deeds …
To quote St Carlin –
Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People in Large Groups
Thanks for your report. I agree that our taxes should help our people not some genocide country.
Let’s go Brandon!
Why did Ukraine bomb civilians on a beach? I mean, for what purpose? It’s not obvious to me.
It is their nature. Actually I think that they are hoping for a massive Russian overreaction so that the Biden White House can make them look bad for a few days or weeks. Military affairs don’t matter but what is important in the west is The Narrative.
To create propaganda headlines in that they are doing something to attack Russia. The Kerch bridge, Russian military bases and airports are heavily protected by air defence systems. Beaches and remote oil depots less so.
Ukraine has been shelling civilian areas in Donbass since 2014 because they were easy targets. But in terms of military value, Ukraine is wasting these western weapons.
I have heard/read some opinion along the lines of Ukraine is trying to drag all NATO into a full on war with Russia. Idk how true that is but let’s assume so. Now, Russia recently made some big public statements about what it will do if Ukraine starts shooting NATO weapons into Russia. So one possibility is that Ukraine is doing this to provoke a Russian retaliation on NATO.
Another thing I’m unsure about: do we assume that the attack reflects Biden’s intent? i.e. that the USA intends Russia to understand that it participated in this attack on a popular public beach with cluster bombs delivered by Atacms?
There was a report I read somewhere yesterday that said the ATCAMS missile was hit by anti-aircraft fire and deviated from its real target, a military one. Then it exploded over the beach, with cluster munitions.
There was a similar issue in Kharkiv over the weekend where a glide bomb either malfunctioned or was shot down and then crashed into an apartment building killing 3 civilians. The reality is that all these high tech weapons systems don’t always perform as designed and are subject to malfunctioning or being shot down but hitting civilians. It happens a lot in war.
All these things are known knowns. If Biden doesn’t care about Israel slaughtering and maiming innocent children, he certainly doesn’t care about civilians in Russia.
I’m not buying that story. Crimea is about 10,000 square miles (27,000 km2) in size and that missile just happens to fall on a narrow beach area full of vacationing locals and tourists when it is fully crowded. Didn’t fall more out to sea or more inland where it is less crowded, it just happen to hit that beach full of civilians.
I’m just going off of reports seen on Telegram and such, so I could easily be wrong.
It is suspicious that it just happened to disintegrate over a beach full of tourists, but bad things happen when you fire missiles into populated areas.
A cluster bomb dispensing its bomblets might look like disintegration to a casual observer: video
Does B care about us not-rich civilians in the US? That’s a question.
Just take a walk around any downtown of any major US city, and you will get your answer.
We were in Fort Collins for a wedding, and what a beautiful city full of non-native trees providing much shade and ambiance, and not 1 homeless person seen in our 4 days there. The downtown is vibrant and happening as its a university town where a decent amount of the population is never more than 20 years old.
There certainly are unhoused in college towns.
Ft. Collins is probably like the DSA controlled Ithaca, home of Cornell and Ithaca College. Homeless are well hidden behind Wegmans and other big boxes and across the railroad tracks. Out of sight, out of mind. Makes everyone feel better.
Colorado is young and skinny.
True. But over the last 30 years many of Colorado’s formerly young and skinny cohort have chosen to age in place.
“The 65+ age cohort (in Colorado) has now surpassed 928,000 in the state, representing the fastest and largest-growing segment with an increase of almost 29,000 and a growth rate of 3.2%.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c81462dd7bc44924b4876a4d016c1194
You must have missed the north end of town along highway 287 heading towards LaPorte. The non-recreational campers are there and they are there in significant numbers. At least the weather in Fort Collins is nice most of the year.
Dispensing CBU’s is a controlled (position, altitude, attitude, velocity), delicate process that is not started by intercepting the missile!
CBU’s are area munitions designed to kill, maim humans and damage light equipment.
The US provided the target a beach!
Who wants WW III!
I’m seeing conflicting reports: some say that the missile was intercepted over the beach, rather than actually targeting it, and the missile debris – with lots of cluster-bombs – was what hit the beach and killed and maimed all those kids.
There were 5 missiles in the salvo, at least 4 destroyed before hitting targets. The fifth one’s target, and status (hit or not, actually targeting the beach or not) is the question.
Whether the beach was the target or not, whether the missile was hit or not, the strategy of the Ukrainians is clear: they’re trying to provoke Russia into doing something Russia doesn’t want to do.
This is a game of nerves and resolve. Russia is winning decisively in Ukraine, it’s holding back plenty of reserves to address any broader NATO attacks, and it’s marshaling the non-West against the West politically, economically, and militarily.
The well-discussed menu of retaliatory options includes more electrical-system degradation and knock-down of U.S. and NATO ISR assets over the Black Sea, and continued provision of the West’s adversaries with long-range, highly accurate missile and missile-defense technology.
Putin has to “break the law” in order to destroy Western ISR assets. Much of the airspace above the Black Sea is International Airspace, open to all:
There was a discussion here @ NC about a week ago, with some saying Putin will continue to hew to the letter of the law, and some, including me, suggesting that it’s time to break the law in pursuit of national interest.
Putin has lots of good military reasons to stay the course, abide by the law, and conduct the warfare and statecraft as he has. Russia is winning those aspects of the war.
I think it comes down to how successful these continuing provocations are, and how much longer Ukraine can stand the beating it’s taking.
This latest attack is applying a great deal of political pressure on Putin. I estimate his chances of “breaking the law” to be quite high. Who is he appealing to by continuing to “follow the law” and allow that ISR to target Russia?
Who is left to convince?
The problem is that a Black Sea no drone zone would not affect orbital ISR and the attacks would continue – The escalatory escalator is not at that level yet (debris cascade removes all country’s ISR).
Still, if I was the decider, the Black Sea would be a no-fly zone.
There must be a significant qualitative difference between airborne and space-based ISR, or there would be no motivation to operate airborne ISR. And there seems to be a lot of motivation to do so, right?
Do you (or any other readers) have any feel for the qualitative diffs between airborne- and space-based ISR?
Upon reflection, I wondered if/when Russia knocks out Black Sea airborne ISR, what are the implications for, and future responses by the West?
Seems like hunting ISR equipment would become a popular sport, in many places around the world. It’s a hot ticket near the Red Sea as we speak. Syria, Lebanon, the Eastern Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, all around the China Sea … seems like that would become very popular very quickly. Who would be the net losers of that trend?
Which would make the question above – the relative value of space- .vs. airborne-based ISR a rather pertinent question.
The difference, as my simple brain sees it, is the number of atmospheric molecules between the sensor/camera and the objective. A space-based sensor is pointed down/vertically while an airborne sensor is pointed across/horizontally. As the atmosphere thins at higher altitude, there is a calculable distance at which an airborne sensor must peer through more molecules than a space-based sensor viewing the same objective. Given standoff requirements, I think it probable that a space-based sensor would have a clearer image. The NSA probably agrees (but I don’t speak for them!). Rumor has it that the Hubble Space Telescope was leftover/borderline obsolete NSA equipment, just aimed out with a different mirror.
However, satellites are predictable targets; easy to disable/destroy by those with the launch capability. Airborne sensor platforms are moveable. So, there is that.
I did a little research on the airborne .vs. space based ISR game. The main points of the discussion run like this:
a. These ISR systems process signals – e.g. electro-magnetic radiation including light, infrared (heat), radio communications, radar (more radio waves) and so forth. ISR sensors only see what’s traveling toward them … like a flashlight. So space-based sensors see radiation (imagery, transmissions, etc.) that is radiating toward the satellite. Airborne sensor can see radiation that’s not traveling (more or less) vertically – those sensors can see radiation that’s traveling along the (relatively speaking) surface of the planet. So space-based and airborne systems see different things. An airborne ISR system can see enemy radar installations scanning some section of the atmosphere, while a space-based system would not be able to sense that radar installation so readily.
b. Space-based systems have to deal with more of the atmospheric interference of those signals than airborne systems do
c. Space-based systems are typically “parked” at a location in space, and are moving predictably with respect to a point on the Earth. People know where the satellite is, and what it can see, and when it can see it. Airborne systems can move around – see different things, at different times, on-command. Satellites have a lot less flexibility – they can still move, but the movement takes time and costs longevity – moving a satellite takes propellant (thruster fuel), and there’s only so much aboard a satellite.
d. The sensors all of these systems use are improving rapidly. They can handle wider ranges of the electro-magnetic spectrum, do more on-board processing, including sensing motion from very, very far away, or sensing unusual juxtapositions of chemical compounds via spectral analysis. The “on-board processing” makes this possible, and shortens response-time to triggering actions.
It’s getting rapidly much more difficult to hide anything! And to make things even more fun, the platforms and sensors these systems use are shrinking rapidly in size and cost, and how much energy it takes to keep them aloft, either in space or the atmosphere.
e. Following on point D, what used to be the province of the Rich Countries is now more or less available to everyone that can muster a few hundred thousand dollars.
Looks like Russia has decided to start taking out Black Sea ISR drones.
Per Russian Embassy in the UK (twitter)
> […] #Washington is mostly responsible for the deliberate missile strike at peaceful residents of Sevastopol by delivering this weaponry to Ukraine, as well as the Kiev regime, from the territory of which the strike was launched.
> ❗Such actions are not going to be left unanswered.
Re Article 87 of the Law of the Sea, it is followed by Article 88, vis:
“The high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes.”
I’d suggest Putin could argue that the US and NATO are in breach of Article 88 and thus lose the ‘protection’ of Article 87.
Nazis gonna Nazi, simple as that…
They used targeting data from the US!
ATACMS/cluster munitions execute successfully as programmed. The US programmed for those targets, best Ukraine did was drive the launcher, set the GPS processor and pushed the button when the green light illuminated.
The Crimea attack is US terrorism!
Actually, per the USA, terrorism is done by non-state actors.
“[T]he term ‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”
While this definition implies that Ukraine is a state sponsor of terrorism (including in the USA, through Azov ‘s support of the Rise Above Movement), by Ukraine firing the missile, it pretty much makes it simple war crimes.
The lawyers, Blinken and Sullivan, certainly assume the Russians will stick to the legal niceties. The trouble with those boys is that they assume all manner of their notions are as they believe. Had either of them any experience outside of the DC Bubble and the other Bubbles they have lived in their entire lives, they might not be so arrogantly confident. It actually helps to talk to people who do not share all your ideas, attitudes, etc. You can actually learn something even from us deplorables.
The same purpose as the other concidental terrorist attacks. They want to provoke internal instability in Russia.
To show that they still can, I think. They certainly don’t seem to mind civilian casualties in what they consider their own territory, whether or not those are the goal.
According to Mihailo Podolyak, Zelensky’s advisor, these were “occupying civilians” that Russia cynically uses as human shields.
Jimmy Dore. utube, ~16+ minutes. Robert Redfield,former CDC director, “GoF is ongoing.” / ;)
Establishment Ramps Up Bird Flu Hysteria!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBC2y_N_pi0
Can you imagine the level of ‘concern’ that would be expressed if the rooskies started doing this sort of thing?
“Ro Khanna Says Progressives Must ‘Pull Biden Across Finish Line—and Then Organize”
Translation: re-elect Biden you dog-faced pony soldier, and then get nothing as usual
My only response is to wish Khanna well and to tell him its time the “moderate Republicans” vote. It’s their turn.
“This is the ‘special sauce’ behind American exceptionalism—and why the U.S. stock market could continue dominating” Fortune
Stock market folklore may look at articles like this as a sign the top has been reached.
Ha, funny, I just mentioned that article as a sign of the top, too.
Re; Antidote
Are those not the eyes of a killer?
I love the shot, and it certainly is an antidote to Disney’s portrayal of “friendly” lions– this one leaves little doubt that he’d tear-off your head and eat your remains if given the chance.
This is what happens when you are on the African Savannah and find some lion cubs in the wild and start playing with them when you know that you shouldn’t. Only to hear a noise behind you and when you turn around, this is the last thing that you will ever see.
Sharks, on the other hand…
Yep. This is why I keep my citified arse at home! Reminds me of what Werner Herzog said regarding his movie Grizzly Man, about Timothy Treadwell:
“And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature….And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food.”
The scariest thing about bears is that they have brains which are the same size as domestic cats’ brains. Controlling all that lethal machinery. There’s no room for mercy in a brain that size.
Funny scene from the often hilarious movie, Zombieland. Tallahassee ( Woody Harrelson ) has picked up a rider, Columbus ( Jesse Eisenberg ) amid a doomscape scenario of abandoned cars on a major highway.
Tallahassee is determined to find the last Twinkies ever made.
Columbus. “We should limber up before heading down that hill.”
Tallahassee. “I don’t believe in it. You ever see a lion stretch before tackling a gazelle?”
You’re quite right. Never forget Rule #18: Limber Up-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmXmdKF65Bg (42 secs)
A Lion roar is quite amazing, it almost shakes the ground for miles around
I live across from our city zoo. In the morning when I’m having coffee at the little shop on the corner, you can hear the big cats having breakfast, even though there is a good bit of distance between us.
Remarkable determination. And corporate impunity.
https://x.com/ashleygjovik/status/1805006150410162322?s=46
For those without the Twitter, the perp is Apple, with an unauthorized fab and tons of hazardous chemicals just sitting around, some unlabeled, some open for venting. And the facility is setup for this illegally. The EPA inspection wasn’t a surprise because a local official tipped Apple off about the inspection.
This is why corporate executives should be prosecuted. If we got rid of limited liability, I think a lot of things would kind of resolve themselves. Companies don’t break laws, executives do.
Perp walks, orange jump suits, prison terms and not in Club Fed. Wouldn’t take but a few to shape ’em up. #1 goal for the lobbyist. Keep the C-suite out of jail … no matter the cost.
The excellent Michael Clayton as an instruction guide, or a how-to for corporate executives and their gaggle of lawyers or in-house counsel to silence opposing views and actual facts.
Or more recently, Dark Waters. The cynical Dupont corporation just transitioned the operations south, moving from WV to just like outside of Fayetteville, NC…where 20 years later now those citizens have to live with the consequence of contamination and PFAS poisoned drinking water.
Per some comments yesterday about Tesla and automobile safety, American consumers really are just test guinea pigs.
I liked both films, but they were basically public health information films.
Speak out and your f-d, as the press or the lifestyle HRights will walk on by
I liked ‘foxcatcher’ better as it attempted to address the degeneracy of a family business that did not care if its by-products lodge in my testes
California wildfires have already burned 90,000 acres, and summer is just beginning Los Angeles Times
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve never seen wild grasses grow as high as they did this winter, with 7 foot high ones fairly commonplace around these parts, and many of them were still green in May, although they’ve all now died back with their roots on.
Fire goes about 2.5x the height of the highest consumable, so momentary 17 foot flames can lick at lower dead limbs on trees, not to mention the usual ready to burn debris on the ground.
I’m not sure why this clown Hanson* is so attractive to the mainstream media, he’s a lawyer who specializes in gumming up the works of National Parks in particular, with a lawsuit filed against Sequoia-Kings NP that effectively stopped the cutting of some 15,000 dead trees from the KNP Fire in 2021 along the roads and in campgrounds and trails, these are very much widowmakers with no aesthetic appeal.
Every summer in Mineral King on the road flanked by dead upright trees, 4 to 6 of them fall and so far none have hit a car driving up or down the road, but should one nail 4 wheels good, it would have a tragic outcome, as in likely fatalities and eventual lawsuit (all the expired trees meant for cutting are marked with a blue line-it isn’t as if NPS doesn’t know which ones need to go) of why they were allowed to remain a clear and present danger.
* He’s a member of Earth Island Institute whose main claim to fame is dolphin-safe tuna labeling on cans
OK, I’ll bite. What possible reason could that Hanson character have for stopping all those dead trees being removed? I mean, it’s not like they are going to do a Lazurus and spring back to life. Unless his belief is that they should fall and rot on the ground in accordance with nature’s wishes to have lots of fire-loading on the ground.
He and his minions can only pull this stunt in the National Parks, as everything is protected there, but who needs a bunch of dead trees that could come a cropper?
To put things in perspective, a few months after the SQF Castle Fire in 2020 on Hwy 190 outside of the NP, I watched crews cutting down every dead tree along the periphery that could strike the highway and passing vehicles, it made sense.
Removing dead trees that are hazardous to homes, hikers or vehicles is one thing, but it is important to recognize that dead trees provide habitat for a variety of wildlife species. For example, dead trees provide habitat for woodpeckers and other bird species that eat beetles and other insects. As forest ecologist Chris Maser once stated, when a tree dies its life is only half over.
There’s over 400,000 acres in Sequoia NP, of about 399,000 has never been touched as far as removing dead trees and never will be.
Sometimes in non-burned sections in the back of beyond I’ll run across the ‘floor’ which is 10 feet tall of dead trees and assorted duff, not the hoped for lone tree slowly decomposing on its terms.
Multiple fires in AZ as well–all human caused. Oh and AGW….we did that one too.
‘Blue screen of death’ at the ballpark: How the Mariners tapped a tech nerve in viral rally video Geek Wire
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Emerald City nine that day:
The score stood four to four, with but one inning more to play,
And then when the big screen died at first, with Windows to blame,
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, “If only Bill Gates could but get a whack at that—
We’d put up even money now, with Gates at the bat.”
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The organist is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Emerald City—mighty Windows has struck out.
(Trump will impose) “massive sanctions” on the Russian Central Bank and try to cripple Russian oil sales. No more of the Biden Admin’s “half-measures”…..So the Uni-Party has killed American standard of living by inflating housing, education, healthcare, motor vehicles. Why not food yet? That’s the next logical target. Make food a luxury.
I’m imagining “safe zones” as the next hot commodity of what used to be free, sort of a natural evolution to gated communities. SafeTzones! have oxygen stations for that old time deep breath of fresh air feeling, along with potable water and no homeless riffraff trying to guilt you out of a couple of bucks. Additionally there will be public indoor spaces with bathrooms, air-conditioning, free high speed wifi, and some interesting books around if you feel like reading, heh heh.
Sounds like my retirement village.
Trump’s former adviser is not Trump. We really don’t know what Trump would do.
It’s useful for Tracey to point such statements out as long as he doesn’t get over his skis.
And in practice very little about foreign policy changes no matter who the President is. The President is just the front man that gets to sell the public on whatever the permanent decision-making authority has set policy to be. Putin alluded to this in his interview with Tucker Carlson, saying that it really doesn’t make much difference who wins the next election.
In terms of domestic policy, there are some differences. But they are mostly about how to continue screwing the 99% for the benefit of the 1% without causing too much of a kerfuffle. There is no disagreement about the what, merely the how.
Go watch any video of Mikaela Shiffrin in action and she’s way over her skis, and some claim she’s pretty competent at what she does.
I’ve seldom heard of anybody that fell down because they were too far over their skis, by the way.
“Years into a Pandemic, We’re Stuck in Long Denial”
So the authoress is going to lay all the blame on Long Deniers? Seriously? Is she really going to go there? Has she forgotten when Biden announced that the pandemic was over so it was back to business. The arguments that the Long Deniers use are those that come from the government, the medical establishment, the media, the CDC and especially the White House. This whole thing about Long Deniers was only possible when the leadership and the elites decided that this was the way that they wanted it to be. And so it has come to pass.
Besides, I don’t know anyone who is listening to either side anymore. People have chosen their paths and moved on with their lives.
Working link for “Why Washington’s Plans to Turn Taiwan Strait into “Hellscape” are Fundamentally Flawed” article at-
https://journal-neo.su/2024/06/24/why-washingtons-plans-to-turn-taiwan-strait-into-hellscape-are-fundamentally-flawed/
And it is by Brian Berletic.
This is hilarious. “Gravity” bombs are regular bombs. They can indeed be delivered by those planes, as long as the victim does not have proper airforce and air defences. Bombing Chinese embassy in Belgrade is not the same as bombing China proper.
Gravity bomb is a new term of art and yet another example of adding a word you do not need. I cite the Orwell Rule: If you can cutout a word, cut it out.
“Kenyan police force to leave for UN-backed Haiti mission on Tuesday” France 24
I guess that bad idea didn’t go down hellfire.
Sending a thousand cops to a place where they will be badly outnumbered, likely outgunned and they do not even speak the language? What could possibly go wrong? They originally wanted to send in the US military but they refused. Will those Kenyans even have legal authority on the ground once they hit Haiti? In Kenya they are reckoned to be heavy-handed but they won’t want to try that in Haiti.
Could we institute a Democrat Clown Car and put Ro Khanna in the driver’s seat? What a tool.
How about AOC and Jaamal Bowman instead-
https://www.bitchute.com/video/QSgfFdI6UbzN/ (2:57 mins)
Ro Khanna has a tendency to either introduce legislation or be a co-sponsor on renaming post offices or other Federal buildings, and never saw a Congressional gold medal awarding legislation he didn’t like, along with commemorative coins legislation.
Go through a few pages of his record, and you’ll see the only bipartisan things that get done in Congress are things that don’t matter.
https://www.congress.gov/member/ro-khanna/K000389
‘Oops! Geoengineering Trick to Cool Brutal Heat Could Spike Temperature Elsewhere, Scientists Say’
Nature’s books have to balance. You change one part and it has to balance out somewhere else. You have some people wanting to change the local weather with no idea what the long term consequences. It’s kinda like modern finance.
– ‘When Did Everything Become “Disinformation”?’ – Ken Klippenstein
Ok. I imagine most NC readers would agree with almost all of this essay on “disinformation,” as I do. So why do I get incensed at one part of one sentence in this piece? It is because that part is this:
“There is, after all, abundant evidence of government-backed influence operations targeting the American public, like the kind Russia undertook in 2016, or…”
Could Ken, or anyone, please show me the “abundant evidence” for a Russian “disinformation” campaign in 2016? Is he referring to the relative handful of IRA posts by “Russian” sources? If so, then that pitiful argument has been debunked as… let’s see… *disinformation* Ken. Is he referring to the “Russian hacking” of e-mails and sending their content to Wikileaks? Because if he is he is ignoring the considerable evidence to the contrary, and the admission by Crowdstrike behind closed Congressional doors that there *was no evidence* for an actual Russian hack.Or is Klipperstein referring to the output of RT? Perhaps, since that was the major focus of the infamous warning about Russian disinformation by our “17 intelligence agencies” that turned out to be from a handful of Brennan-selected propagandists from a few of them. I would love it if Ken could show me the disinformation here.
My point is that if Ken can’t acknowledge one of the most significant examples of disinformation in our recent history – Russiagate – then he can’t discuss “disinformation” effectively for me, even if everything else he says is correct.
My PMC friends quote him all the time, so I assumed he was FOS because my PMC friends are FOS.
I use them as my “fact checkers” because whatever they believe, the exact opposite is likely true. I consider the NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, and most of the media the same. Of course you then do your own research. Many times…hey, guess what, these people are FOS.
It’s the new crossword puzzle. :-)
That won’t lead to a spike in gasoline prices in the US? More inflation? I guess it won’t really matter since Trump can’t run for a third term if he wins a second. Still, not exactly making America great again. Or reclaiming/keep Congress depending on how the election goes for Team R.
How do you “sanction” a foreign bank that holds no dollars or euros as reserves?
Does this person not understand how banking works, or is their paycheck contingent on the fact that they don’t understand?
If this is the personnel that Orangeman puts in his hypothetical next administration we’re in for more clown world.
Well no, he will lower energy costs by expanding US energy production.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UubXBKeee28
I saw my first yard sign yesterday, RFK.
It’s now two Biden/Harris Bumperstickers, one RFK Bumpersticker and one RFK lawn sign.
This is in Sonoma County, California.
I don’t like Cenk Uygur but his recent interview of RFK is revealing, it would give anyone pause on supporting RFK for President.
RFK’s Zionist apologia is truly disgusting.
https://www.youtube.com/live/mNufzehaaL 0?si=k8Fv5_Zxa-VUKSdl
I did not watch the interview, but your comment allows me to give my opinion of R.F.K’s campaign.
I was a strong supporter of Bobby kennedy but he really almost lost me with his pick for the vice presidency who I felt had a lot of money and that was her only qualification for the job. But the final straw was his absolute support of Israel, no matter what they did and really no condemnation of what’s going on in Gaza.
So it looks like The Donald for me.
Trump will be so much better on Israel and Palestine:
https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024
Better than that horrible Stein woman at any rate, she just wants actual diplomacy and peace.
/sarc
In blue WA I haven’t seen a single political sign in this neighborhood. Out in the county it’s a different story, there are plenty of Republican candidate’s signs (but I don’t see many for Trump).
Saw my first political signage on Hwy 99 in Godzone yesterday, an electronic billboard flashed a Trump missive in between another plea from a mattress store to have you shop there, and a Native American casino pushing the idea of you going there ‘where winning is fun!’.
I was at a pretty red bar yesterday and saw a Trump 2024 shirt and overheard the guy getting a compliment on it. Still, this is an area that was full of Trump flags and signs in elections prior. This was about as much as I’ve seen out here this time. (Though I did notice my mom’s neighbor out here had a Trump 2024 flag in his backyard, for some reason.)
I’ll say though, I’ve seen zero Biden signs out in the PMC parts, where they still have “In this house, we believe..” and other such virtue signaling detritus. I saw one generic pro-voting sign which leaned into the “this is the most important election…” garbage, but even then, no candidate was listed.
Our neighborhood in somewhat blue Medford OR
3 Trump flags. No Bidens
After seeing the Andrew Cuomo clip I might reluctantly accept Cuomo as a last-minute sub in for Biden. Not because I like him or agree with him on much, but he seems to be disgusted in just the right way and that could produce some needed reforms and/or prosecutions.
– ‘Corporate Media in the Age of Fascist Politics: Firewalls of Ignorance and Disappearance’ – LA Progressive
In a telling paragraph in this typical Giroux jeremiad, he starts off saying this:
“The punishing state now wraps itself in censorship, propaganda, and cruel invective parading as a mix between political theater and both sides journalism…”
Not a bad start, though the “both sides journalism” hints at what is to come. Here’s the rest of the paragraph:
“…Americans are bombarded with the babble of liberals who are too cowardly to name Trump as a budding fascist or as a racist, treating him as either a normal candidate or a bullying clown rather than as a symptom of a deeper malaise of fascism, echoing a pernicious and frightening past. Corporate media normalcy bias treats Trump as simply another choice in the run for the presidency. Under the false insistence on balance, Trump and Biden are treated as two candidates with simply different views, rather than treating Trump as a dangerous and unbalanced threat to democracy itself.”
See, liberals are just too fair and balanced! They refuse to warn us that Trump is a “budding fascist” or “racist.” THAT is the problem with “corporate media,” dammit! They insist on too much “balance”! Gee, I wish just once I could read a liberal media pundit refer to Trump as “racist” or “fascist”!
I gave up on Giroux, just as I have countless others on the compatible “left,” after some of his early long, rambling, and deranged examples of Trump derangement. Anyone who can say this about the liberal media with a straight face is too deluded to take seriously. It’s not that most of the behaviors he describes for Trump aren’t true. But he completely misses the larger picture while breathlessly regurgitating Blue Team talking points. Anyone who ignores the *real* dangers of censorship and propaganda from our corporate media as a central element in our National Security State is a huge part of the problem. Like a lot of liberals, Giroux can see this in the case of Israel. But he is oblivious to the larger institutional problems to which he is actually contributing.
It really is amazing at this point how all these TDS-infected people can still jump to the defense of a political party in the middle of actively assisting a genocide, and yet Trump is the fascist.
Something a Jewish carpenter once said about motes and beams comes to mind. But 2000 years later and the lesson is still lost on most.
A hiking friend had a 105 degree temp and x-rays showed masses in her lungs which turned out to be pneumonia and she was in the hospital for 3 days…
A mutual friend was able to pick her up at the hospital and she’s slowly on the mend, and was given this news today
Yikes. Best healthcare ever and ever, exceptional country on a hill. I’ll suggest a vigorous push back on the insurance a**holery as much as reasonable and acceptable. Without resorting to legal action I suppose.
Their first response is of course to deny something if “out of network” or care providers were on a competing plan or group plan sorta BS.
My late brother had brain cancer and was zapped with chemo and radiation, leaving him alive for awhile but in a vastly diminished version of what he was before.
Got turned down for SS disability payments twice and had to hire a lawyer to get ‘R done.
She needs to appeal. It seems that the last few years that a first denial is super common if the least little thing doesn’t fit inside their “approved” parameters. My Grandmother on a medicare advantage plan thru United Health had to appeal part of the cost of hospitalization for a broken back. She was in the hospital for 6 days and they said the last 3 days were unnecessary. She was 101 at the time, the rehab facility didn’t have a bed available, and she couldn’t go back to her assisted without the rehab evaluation, instructions, and support. It eventually got covered, but it took the hospital, the doctors, and my aunt all appealing to get it paid for.
I read the Long Denial article. It is not only the Long Deniers who are stuck. They have the rest of us stuck in the mud flow of their Long Denial.
I can only hope that the Long Deniers all collect their Darwin Awards and go to meet their Herman Cain.
( And that goes double for all the professionals and leaders who have deliberately seeded and fostered Long Denialism throughout society as part of their deliberate agenda to keep the Long Jackpot going and going and going . . . . just like the Energizer Bunny.)
Russia seems to made the decision to start taking out West’s Black Sea drones. How quickly can US replace them?
Russian media– Russia is PISSED:
Russian Foreign Ministry promised US Ambassador retaliatory measures due to missile strike on Sevastopol
US Ambassador Lynn Tracy summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the missile attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Sevastopol.
According to the press service of the ministry, the diplomat was demarcheed in connection with the “blood crime of the Kiev regime, which is patronized and armed with Washington”.
The Foreign Ministry said that the United States bears “equal responsibility with the Kiev regime for the terrorist attack in Crimea”. Moscow will take retaliatory measures due to US encouragement of Kiev’s attacks on Russian territory.
Recall that on the afternoon of June 23, the Armed Forces attacked ATACMS long-range missiles with cluster munitions in the resort areas of Sevastopol — Uchkevka and Lyubimovka. The number of victims of the attack of the Armed Forces on Sevastopol was 153, four more died. The Kremlin said that the direct involvement of the United States in hostilities that lead to the deaths of peaceful Russians would entail consequences.
https://www.nakanune.ru/news/2024/06/24/22776419/
I don’t think they’re joking.
Julian Assange heading back to Australia! Finally free –
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/25/julian-assange-is-free-wikileaks-founder-freed-in-deal-with-us
yes, some good news at last. He’s free in exchange for pleading guilty to one charge of espionage for which he will serve no additional time.
The extradition couldn’t be dragged on much longer and the americans didn’t want him there as it would force them to hold a high profile trial against journalism, ahead of the presidential elections no less. He probably would have been acquitted anyway but he already went through so much.
Sadly, I don’t think he will focus much on publishing scoops any more as he lost so much of his life and has two boys he needs to dedicate himself to now and who can blame him.
There’s no likelihood he would have been exempted from extradition. He wouldn’t have been acquitted, because he wasn’t being tried for any crime in Great Britain, The early court hearings were blatantly illegal, and the judges were smirking about it. This is very welcome news, and comes as a complete surprise. I guess Biden must be getting desperate over his low approval rating. He’s reaching to the bottom of the barrel, and he still owes me $600.00.
Finally! Hope he doesn’t get double crossed in Saipan.
re: Biden campaign panic over Trump’s fundraising
If we’ve learned anything from 2016, it’s that $120K (maybe $500K this year, because inflation) given to a Russian internet agency to produce not very much of substance – some of it after the fact — is all it takes to swing an election. /s