We’re Bringing the Woolly Mammoth Back to Life Newsweek (Furzy Mouse).
‘Frog saunas’ could save species from deadly fungal disease, study finds Guardian
Private equity has become hazardous terrain for investors and Private equity firms slash use of risky debt tactic to fund payouts FT
Goodell: Private equity would be limited to 10 percent, could increase Yahoo Finance
Climate
Capitalism’s New Age of Plagues. Part 7: Wildlife farms and wet markets Climate & Capitalism
* * * The World’s Power Grids Are Failing as the Planet Warms Bloomberg
Almost 1 million East Texas power customers still in dark since Beryl hit July 8 S&P Global. Commentary:
If you don't have power in Houston, here's why. pic.twitter.com/elZbSfQbYS
— Machine Pun Kelly 🇺🇦 (@KellyScaletta) July 13, 2024
Hurricane Beryl Was a Warning Shot for Houston Texas Observer
* * * Is Earth’s weather getting weirder? Space.com
Runway melts at Hungary’s number two airport hub due to scorching heat BNE Intellinews
* * *
Water
Commentary: Clean water can be profitable Orlando Sentinel
Along shifting coastlines, scientists bring the future into focus Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Syndemics
Health chiefs offer concert and festival Covid advice amid fears of ‘Swiftie Flu’ Irish Mirror
High Alert! Disney World Vacations in Jeopardy as Disease Spreads Across Florida Inside the Magic
* * * A Woman’s Covid Cough Caused Her Guts to Spill Out Gizmodo
Tongue symptom could be red flag for Covid as new variant causes concern Liverpool Echo
* * * Oklahoma Board of Animal Health: HPAI H5 Belatedly Reported in An Oklahoma Diary Herd Avian Flu Diary
Development of a simple and highly sensitive virion concentration method to detect SARS-CoV-2 in saliva Cell. From the Abstract: “The developed method can improve the analytical sensitivity of the SARS-CoV-2 test using saliva and speed up and save labor in screening tests by pooling many samples. Furthermore, the developed method has the potential to contribute to the highly sensitive detection of various human and animal viral pathogens from the saliva and various clinical samples.”
China?
China’s third plenum: tight security surrounds crucial meeting amid big policy questions South China Morning Post
China’s economy falters, raises pressure for more stimulus Channel News Asia
China’s newest military base abroad is up and running, and there are more on the horizon Breaking Defense
Back to the Basics: How Many People Are in the People’s Liberation Army? RAND
China coal generation share at record low in May as renewables hit new highs, analysis shows Hellenic Shipping News
Geely Geespace update — global centimeter-level positioning services CIS 417
China, Russia conduct joint maritime patrol in Pacific Ocean Anadolu Agency
The Folly of Interlinking NATO and US Asian Alliances The Diplomat
Malaysia is building malls like crazy – but shoppers aren’t coming Al Jazeera
Leader of Nepal’s largest communist party named new prime minister Al Jazeera
Syraqistan
Netanyahu’s Whiny Theatrics Leverage Trump’s Assassination Attempt to Axe Israel’s AG Haaretz
Attacks on Red Sea shipping bankrupt Israeli port Seatrade Maritime
Dear Old Blighty
What’s a majority for? London Review of Books
GDP records everything but the things that really matter Funding the Future
New Not-So-Cold War
Russians ban entry to 15-kilometre zone along Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast Ukrainska Pravda
Russian Iskander ‘Double Strike’ Takes Out Ukrainian Rail and Infrastructure – Then Kills Valued Personnel Military Wach
44% of Ukrainians believe time for negotiations has come, but majority disagree with Putin’s terms Ukrainska Pravda
Ukraine’s population will crash to a mere 15mn people by 2100 – UN BNE Intellinews
2024
Shooter’s perch at Trump rally an ‘obvious threat,’ rooftop was a ‘no-brainer’ to secure: expert FOX
How federal agencies are responding to the Trump assassination attempt Government Executive
Fire Kimberly Cheatle Spy Talk
Suspect Behind Trump Assassination Attempt Had A Discord Account But ‘Rarely’ Used It, Company Says Kotaku
Isn’t this what 2nd Amendment guys want? Carl Beijer
Biden Administration
‘This is break glass in case of emergency stuff’: Analysts alarmed by threats to US data gathering AP
Digital Watch
Sex, lies and Videotape Crooked Timber
AI Has Become a Technology of Faith The Atlantic
Screen Media Use and Mental Health of Children and Adolescents JAMA. From the Abstract: “This secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial found that a short-term reduction in leisure-time screen media use within families positively affected psychological symptoms of children and adolescents, particularly by mitigating internalizing behavioral issues and enhancing prosocial behavior. “
Sports Watch
Spain wins record fourth European Championship title by inflicting another painful loss on England AP
Supply Chain
Risks in global food markets in six charts World Bank
A 40% price hike for badminton shuttlecocks in China is linked to the lower cost of pork. What’s the deal? Channel News Asia
Imperial Collapse Watch
America is staring into the abyss Edward Luce, FT
How can America be stabilized? (excerpt) Noah Smith, Noahpinion
Class Warfare
What the New Left Needs Dani Rodrik, Project Syndicate
IMF: Three quarters of the world’s wealth is owned by 10% of its people, who account for half of the CO2 emissions BNE Intellinews. Plus ça change….
29. This is a 3200-year old attendance sheet found in Deir el-Medina, Egypt.
Reasons for workers being absent include "brewing beer", "embalming brother", "drinking with Khonsu" and "bitten by a scorpion". pic.twitter.com/pPHl3o7qs3
— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) July 12, 2024
* * * Understanding Bodily Autonomy Through Triple Oppression Hood Communist
Foucault Fridays Closed Form
Antidote du jour (Ram-Man):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
188 comments
Comments are closed.
WE HAVE GOTTA HAVE THE PRIZE
(melody borrowed from Bette Davis Eyes by Jackie De Shannon and Donna Weiss, as performed by Kim Carnes)
“They’re sitting on $10 to $12 trillion dollars of critical minerals in Ukraine; they could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don’t wanna give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China . . . they’re sitting on a gold mine. To give ten or twelve trillion dollars of assets to Putin to share with China is ridiculous.”
~ Senator Lindsey Graham
Our empire’s creaky old
Still tryin’ to colonize
This Ukraine war is bold
We have gotta have the prize
We didn’t choose the venue
Ukraine has the Spice
There’s no place else to go
We have gotta have the prize
There’s no review
It’s been thought through
There is nothing else we can do
Our prognosis
Is collapse from all our debts and that’s atrocious
What we need belongs to Slavic guys
We’ve got—gotta have the prize
How could we have known
Those Russians lads can fight
We stand to lose our throne
We have gotta have the prize
Plan A has gone askew
Plan B would be so nice
Is this our Waterloo?
We have gotta have the prize
Where’s the EU?
They should pay, too
It’s a war we’ve got to go through
We’re a four flush
But this could well be a prize like our last gold rush
Anyway we have to try
We’ve got—gotta have the prize
It’s the key to
All that we do
And the conquest we must see to
Hyperfocused
Double down don’t hit the brakes we’re in a real rush
At some point soon we’ll do or die
We’ve got—gotta have the prize
We will lead you
Where we need to
We will bleed you
We have gotta have the prize
We’ll depose you
Cuz we chose you
Then we’ll hose you
We have gotta have the prize
Re Hurricane Beryl and Houston/East Texas, a colleague is from Jamaica, where her father still lives. He has a small business. Power, water, and phone were restored in about 24 hours and he was back at work. I do not know about the entire island of Jamaica, but so much for the exceptional nature of Texas. It’s not like Beryl was their first rodeo, and she was not the storm in Texas that hit Jamaica with full force.
I noticed since the last major hurricane/disaster that hit Houston (Harvey in 2017), Centerpoint (basically the monopoly supplier here) has spent over $600MM on stock buybacks, and pays pretty healthy dividends… presumably in lieu of investing in hardening the grid. And there’s been a lot of new sprawl and construction since then. UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE on one hand that a public utility is blowing their money on that stuff, but on the other hand, this is typical 21st century America
Supposedly, yeah, Centerpoint management is still nickel and diming all the repair workers and out of state linesmen that came in to help. They never did stuff like that before. Scumbags.
They also got caught brazenly lying about their preparations here or lack thereof.
The hurricane forecast did shift north a lot in the last couple days before it hit, and the weather forecaster guys did note that because or the shape of the Texas coast, a shift of a couple miles east meant dramatically different results in terms of landfall. No one really expected it to be a bad hit 3 days before landfall.
Gov. Abbott and some of the Centerpoint execs went to a “trade conference” in Asia, presumably resulting in a lack of leadership here, key to preparing a response to the impact.
Texas is a piece of $h!t state with politics that directly play a role in a lack of preparedness so the wealthy here can maximize their consumption in the present.
Also, even though it was only a Cat 1, Beryl was strengthening rapidly as it hit the coast, and this meant that it didn’t lose strength very much after landfall.
I’m ~50 miles from the coast. The eyewall passed over my house basically and we endured TS force winds for hours, along with gusts up to 90 MPH. It was rough.
one of the local weather bloggers noted there’s more nuance to predicting hurricane impacts than just looking at the category.
aye. my little brothers in kingwood, and has a tree in his kitchen.
cousin is on it(he does that sort of thing for a living)/
and regarding the electricity situation in texas…its wild west since Lil George was goobernator and privatised the whole grid.
cousin said pretty much everywhere east of I45 is like the 3rd world…to say nothing of the various Wards around downtown(historically ghettos…but i havent been back in many, many years)
stay safe, John…and consider moving to higher ground,lol.
“44% of Ukrainians believe time for negotiations has come, but majority disagree with Putin’s terms”
‘In particular, 83% of respondents do not agree with the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territory of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts within their administrative borders.’
Hey, maybe they haven’t been keeping up on current events, but they are getting their a**** kicked, pal! The terms that Putin gave are the best – I repeat – the best that they can get from the Russian Federation right now. The terms can only get worse as this war goes on. If they do not see and understand that, then they must be drinking the Zelensky kool-aid something chronic. What is the next headline going to be from Ukrainska Pravda?
“44% of Ukrainians believe that winter is coming, but majority disagree with winter’s cold temperatures”
Notice that between 1988 and 2023, the Ukraine economy had lost 31.5% of per capita value, even though population had been decreasing (- 28.2%):.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qbQd
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Georgia and Ukraine, 1988-2023
(Indexed to 1988)
From having 52m people with a space and computer industry in 1991 to 10m peasants, Banderites and adult entertainers in a little over a generation is a hell of an achievement that needs to be recognised. Clearly NATO and EU is the path to the promised land.
There are some indicators that the 24/7 Telethon in Ukrainian media may not be completely honest about how the war is progressing. Even if the battles are moving from East to West, Ukrainians are winning them. When visiting those huge graveyards Ukrainian people can find some comfort from the knowledge that Russia has suffered much bigger losses. That’s what they say in the news.
All these stupid claims of Russian troops stealing toilets, washing machines and microwaves stem from the decade long propaganda that Russia is doing worse than Ukraine; it’s more corrupt, the oligarchs steal more, bridges collapse, lawlessness rules, poor die in the gutters…
Because otherwise people might have found it in their souls to migrate to Russia, and leave that corrupted, crumbling hellhole behind. When EU opened it’s doors in March 2022, the people did not escape the war that was falling upon them, they escaped the country that was falling upon them.
The “people” who might migrate to Russia: how many are the self-entitled looters and Nazi-absorbed which the NATO countries have discovered are not-citizenship-capable? I don’t believe the Russian still think of 404s as universal brethren any more. And having had a more open door and been stung by the scorpions that came in with the Russian-speakers who were more actually Russian in their souls, they have gotten a little more selective and careful at vetting the exfiltration from the cesspit.
Of course the PTB in dying Europe and NATO, having a large ration of ex- and -adjacent NAZIs in power positions, seem all too happy to add to their plurality.
Leaving the desperate and the dung beetles to finish the dying and the sale of the corpse.
They are moving on, ever so slowly, along the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). It’s bargaining time.
Speaking of winter, this one is going to be bad. No power, no heat. And living high in an old Soviet bloc apartment building is a lot of stair climbing.
No power means no water, can’t flush etc.
Country will empty out in months, won’t take until 2100.
Working power plants/diesel generators put out lots of heat, easy to see in winter.
Indeed. At some point, they’ll reach the “Game over, man! Game over!” stage.
Hurricane Beryl Was a Warning Shot for Houston
““This repeated disaster impacts on the communities over decades, it creates a theft of wealth accumulation,” said Bullard, who lost his car to Hurricane Alicia in Houston in 1983. “It’s stealing their inheritance, and it means that the amount of equity funding for the next generation is diminished.””
It’s ‘funny’ to hear someone talk about theft of wealth accumulation from climate change related storms. I remember after Harvey there was a huge influx of people living under the highways in Austin. Many of those people still live under those highways, especially the overpasses near the Sunrise Church. That area of Austin will never recover. Talk about theft of wealth. When people own homes in a half decent area and someone comes in and starts giving handouts to methheads and junkies, but doesn’t give them somewhere to stay, the local community suffers greatly, housed and unhoused. When your home becomes a house that you have to get out of because the neighborhood has become a meth camp, but you can’t sell the house because it’s in the middle of a meth camp. Theft of wealth is a great way to describe it. I’m going to start using that.
Tangentially-related, where I am in NW Wisconsin, the lakes are turning green and stinky from the algae-blooms and die-offs caused by agricultural-runoff from corporate-owned tenant-farms and farmers who don’t give a shit, and a problem that has grown worse with the years. It’s hurting the tourism which this area still is very reliant upon, hurting the local economy, and this happens even though it would take very little to prevent or mitigate this: set-backs along drainage, more careful application of fertilizer… But they’ve got to squeeze the land for all that it’s worth, damn the rest.
I suppose that this too is a theft of wealth.
I remember reading somewhere/somewhen that many farmers who are deeply in debt are “forced” to fertilize, apply pesticides, etc. on schedules decreed by bank personnel or else they will be forclosed on by their bank.
Can anyone here say how true that is and how often? And how that might be driving rates of excess fertilization, etc.?
RE: Isn’t this what 2nd Amendment guys want?
I do detect a bit of a bias in Beijer’s piece. It’s not just the “”2nd Amendment guys” who are being hypocritical (and I can’t help but notice that he lumps Brother Cornel in with the Republicans – anyone who’s not a card carrying Democrat is suspect I guess). Biden can condemn political violence all he wants, but when he essentially turns around and says “now hold my beer while I finish off this genocide”, well, it’s pretty hard to take his “concern” seriously. I could list the wars the others on that listed started and supported, but I’m sure NC readers are familiar already.
The fish rots from the head. Try to solve all the world’s problems with war instead of diplomacy, and don’t be surprised when you are staring down the barrel of a gun too.
“Live by the sword…..”
Is the adoration of aggressive war cabal, NATO a reflection of disdain for inconvenient human life and yes I include inconvenient humans designate fetus.
We must respect all human life even deplorables.
Given LE ineffective I will keep my long guns
Re Fire Kiberly Cheatle–seems in the Twittersphere and elsewhere rightwingers have been mocking the “thank goodness Hitler survived” messaging from Biden and the others. They were all just kidding about taking him out (and Biden with his “bullseye”). Hillary was just kidding too with her “can’t we just drone him” even though later under Trump and Pompeo an Assange assassination was in the works.
Oopsie is the watchword for our deep state and let’s not play the blame game when it all goes wrong. Democracy and the fate of nations are after all at stake. If one points out that hyperbole and fearmongering were among Goebbels primary tools (“make the lie big enough”) that is clearly fake news and must be squashed. Smiley face totalitarianism only allows safe spaces and badthinking has no place in it.
The current fad is to pretend that nationalism is the enemy which may be why the Trumpies are always poking their opponents in the eye with all those flags. But it seems the Marxists got it right by saying it’s really about class conflict with more psychological roots than those represented by a piece of cloth. To solve the real problems facing us the world needs a shrink.
Ibogaine. A full dose. All 8 billion of us at the same time.
It’s the closest we can do to “switch it off and on again”
Ibogaine when it works for Muskie
DC right hand: US nationalism (exceptionalism) is the enemy;
DC left hand: why won’t the plebs die for our wars in the sandbox and for future wars in Ukraine, China?!?!
Worth a read.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/15/elon-musk-is-right-end-the-online-censorship-racket/
Of course Fox contributor Turley is less upset when students protesting Gaza are silenced but that doesn’t mean his overall point is wrong. In his book he talks about how the reasoning by analogy of “shouting fire in a crowded theater” has been vastly exaggerated beyond Oliver Wendell Holmes original meaning. After all the theater may in fact be on fire. But for the censors truth is not a defense against libel. Public order must prevail even if it means you burn up.
I’d like to think the braying jackasses on the cable news outlets will take a step back… but I doubt they will. The cable news Lord and Lady Hee Haws will continue their braying. Not that I watch any of them anymore. / ;)
Yeah, about the media. USA Today said ‘Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles former president, crowd’ while NBC News said ‘Secret Service rushes Trump offstage after popping noises heard at his Pennsylvania rally.’ AP News said ‘BREAKING: Donald Trump has been escorted off the stage by Secret Service during a rally after loud noises ring out in the crowd’ but CNN outdid them all by saying ‘Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at a rally.’
So why all this BS? There is a report of a memo that went to reporters to underplay what happened, don’t call it an assassination attempt or a shooting targeted Trump and no need for guests to comment plus more. Is that memo genuine? Going by those headlines I am forced to conclude that it is. Don’t know why but the phrase went through my mind – ‘the hateful media’. Story at-
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/special-bulletin-america-teeters
About a third of the way down.
It seems that the rap right now is everyone calling for “unity” and to calm down the “hateful rhetoric”, which the cynic in me is the media just neutralizing the ability for the Republicans to capitalize on all this this week.
What’s really Funny is Wishing the “Next Hitler” a Speedy Recovery! Too funny! Peace.
wow. Thanks for the link. The MSM is working overtime to not rebuild its image after being caught out dissembling for years about B’s mental health. Now they pretend what just happened didn’t happen? ooh kayyyy. / ;)
Disgusting! Excuse me, but two people died at that rally, and not from being startled into myocardial infarction by “popping noises” — nor from Trump falling on them.
FFS
They silenced MSDNC Joe this AM to give the official democrat party hate speak a rest of a few days.
Barring some miracle, on Nov. 5 us USians will exercise our precious right to vote so we can elect a loudmouth convicted felon or a doddering old fool. Is this a great country or what?
“Suspect Behind Trump Assassination Attempt Had A Discord Account But ‘Rarely’ Used It, Company Says”
He also once was seen in an ad for BlackRock. No, seriously. The commercial was filmed at Bethel Park High School and in the background was this kid with several other students. BlackRock has now yanked that ad-
https://www.rt.com/news/601094-blackrock-ad-trump-shooter/
Bit late in realizing this but the penny just dropped a few minutes ago. So Trump was under a pile of Secret Service personnel, right? That was why the blood was streaked across his face as he would have had his head down right then. Remember that all those Secret Service personnel all have radio communication with each other. What is the bet that that group received word that the shooter was dead which was why they moved Trump to the van. Trump would have heard this which explains that fist pump. He was celebrating the fact that he had not been killed or crippled but was still alive – and let his fans know that he was still in the game.
The NYT description said that “shooter down” was yelled by somebody before they moved Trump off the stage. Most versions say the SS snipers killed the would be assassin within seconds of the start of shooting. Some like Eric Prince ask why they didn’t shoot him before he opened fire since they were seemingly already targeted in that direction. But then hindsight is 20/20.
The entire event could be viewed as a not uncommon approach to the famous by a nut with a gun where security mistakes–not necessarily deliberate–allowed the shooter to get through in this instance. Musk says he twice has had would be malefactors approach his Texas headquarters with guns, calling these his own assassination attempts.
I am reminded of the murder of Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin back in ’95. Somebody showed a video of what happened. You could see the member’s of his security detail split open while they were moving which left a clear path for that religious nut job to just walk up and shoot him.
There is an article about that on the old Rigorous Intuition 2.0 blogsite, called The Violent Bear It Away.
https://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/07/violent-bear-it-away.html
I’m entertaining myself with the idea that the shooter was targeting the fireman. And if there was another, more obvious and distracting threat, we would never know.
In my personal experience with secret service – being a woman who works near a plaza frequently used for major events – there’s no apparent rhyme or reason to the prep and level of security for events and these guys are most concerned with securing female companionship.
>shooter targeting the fireman
That’s an interesting thought! First time, to see anyone mention that.
Just speculating here…
So, is it protocol to wait for an assassin to shoot first before taking him out? Otherwise, why not do it before perp gets a head start? Just thinking back… some say a conspiracy killed jfk, and ruby taking out Oswald was part of it. If this is a repeat you’d want to take out the perp as soon as possible after he’d done the deed.
Kennedy didn’t want to expand the potentially very profitable Vietnam war. Trump wants to end an incredibly profitable Ukraine and maybe (gasp) nato, too. Motive, opportunity… Just sayin’…
MoA commenter (#506) said waiting is protocal. Defensive shooter was quoted in comment as saying he waited 3 minutes before perp began shooting, then took him out immediately. Anyway, why didn’t they whisk trump off the stage during those 3 minutes? Or throw some ss bodies in front of trump?
Power out a week for many in Nation’s energy capitol…
The resource curse is the gift that keeps giving, coming to an atmosphere near you!
Houston is very much the poster child as far as climate change and big cities are concerned in the USA, you wonder just how many more 1 in 500 year storms are on the horizon, and at what point do you just give up and leave it for the as I remember them, quite large cockroaches-oh the humidity!
Houston is a poster child for overdevelopment in flood prone places, and minimal investment in electric infrastructure.
“Greater Houston started out as a smattering of settlements between swamps and bayous on the edge of a prairie. Until the mid-20th Century, there was “more appreciation for the vulnerability of the city” and “greater recognition of the city’s ecological and environmental infrastructure,” said Jonathan Levy, a professor of U.S. history at the University of Chicago who grew up in Houston’s flood-prone Meyerland neighborhood.
But that changed after World War II, when a period of rapid expansion brought an “an increasing ignorance of these realities,” said Levy, who has written about Houston’s environmental struggle. The oil and gas industry was revolutionizing the world, headquartered largely in Houston, where it powered the massive expansion of concrete freeways, whole landscapes of suburban sprawl, and an enormous, low-density city premised on private automobiles. At the same time, the growing global oil industry was increasing the greenhouse gas emissions that intensify tropical storms. ”
This is what happens when massive growth is allowed without any oversight. Nobody lived in many of these communities just 60-70 years ago.
I have said it before, but it’s timely to reiterate : everyone owes themselves a read of Alan Weisman’s
The World Without Us.
One of the most interesting chapters is on Houston and the oily-gassy gulf port petrochemical industrial base in the vicinity. Great breezy summer read… gave me a surprising sense of calm regarding the impending events.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248787.The_World_Without_Us
In line with that, there are a whole series of videos on YouTube Called “Life After People” which was originally on the History Channel. I believe these clips are from one episode called ‘The Great Collapses’-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfpQq3f4-Ng (2:08 mins)
Thanks for the tip. My library system is down to one copy but my world is not without it. Living in SW Florida I am looking forward to the read.
The thing is, there really wont be too much evidence that we were here aside from our enormous dumps which will be gone over nine ways to Sunday the next few thousand years, all the houses and the shoddy insta-construction buildings have no chance in the distant future of seeing them as I did vis a vis numerous 2,000+ year old Greek temples in Sicily
Funny that. I remember a feature article in the Sunday Chronicle several decades ago speculating that if the dinosaurs had an advanced technology how would we know? The conclusion was the only evidence would be heavy metal deposits in the ancient deltas of extinct rivers. Other than that, nothing. The article ends with the tidbit that there are metal deposits in ancient river deltas. . . .
As an aside: I saw a cartoon once of how the dinosaurs died off. It was of several T-Rexes with their attention glued to their I phones held in their tiny arms. Or maybe it was Why the T Rex had short arms. I’m not sure but doing a search with various words has never turned up the cartoon for me.
This paper from 2018 is a classic and talks about that same issue… not specifically about dinosaurs with advanced technology, but how to detect the remnants of an industrial civilization within the geologic record…
Thanks for the link to the paper. I was struck by the number of ‘Eocene Layers of Mysterious Origin’ but liked the footnote: “. . . it should be remembered that most things that happened 50 million years ago will forever remain somewhat mysterious.”
Back in the day when the US was electrified power lines were placed on wooden poles. Phone wires were also on poles. In the ’60s and ’70s the phone companies were tired of wind damage to their plant so they started burying everything. The phone companies wanted the power companies to go “joint trench” with them thus splitting costs. The power companies refused.
These aerial power lines, over the course of their lifetime must have been replaced many, many times. After one of our numerous power outages from a wind storm I spoke with a power company lineman. I said that those lines should have been buried years ago. His reply was, “That costs money”. My reply was, “Everybody around here has a generator because of your company’s unreliable service, generators cost money”.
People say the US is turning into a third world ____hole. I say we are already there.
Re: Leader of Nepal’s largest communist party named new prime minister
I fail to see how this is news. Oli is one of the small handful of octogenarian politicians who take turns being the chief bribe-taker in government – Oli, Deuba, and Dahal. Two of the three are avowed communsists, Dahal being a Maoist. It makes little to no difference who’s officially in charge. Only someone totally unaccquainted with the country’s political history would think Oli becoming PM was a big deal, or that his party’s ostensible communism is anything more than PR for a political machine that works just like every other, and for the same purposes.
Also, the story contains a factual error (which may just be a typo). The CPN(Maoist) Party didn’t come to power a decade after the end of the civil war and the fall of the monarchy, they came to power after a decade-long civil war that resulted in the abdication of the king.
Anyway, it’s funny that Al Jazeera is reporting this at all. Talk about a nothing-burger.
“Attacks on Red Sea shipping bankrupt Israeli port’
‘The economic effects of the Houthi strikes against Red Sea shipping became evident with the Port of Eilat’s request for financial assistance from the Israeli government following an 85% decline in volumes.’
Who knew that Ansar Allah were such an effective 21st century military force? Seems that gunboat policy only works when the locals have to just sit there and take it. Missiles and drones have now put an end to that and maybe the western habit of parking a combined fleet off a coastline and lobbing over a hundred missiles at a country on bogus charges like they did with Syria are about over.
Imposing trade sanctions is the modern, civilized way to exert international influence. If Israel and the companies supporting them simply comply, they will be free to return to business.
I have read that the Ansar Allah ( Houthis) say they will stop attacking ships if/when there is a total ceasefire in Gaza.
Such a total ceasefire would be desirable in itself. But it would also offer an interesting experiment.
If such a ceasefire were achieved, would the Houthis stop attacking shipping? Or would they keep right on doing it anyway? Have they become so enamored of being world-famous that they would keep attacking ships anyway so as to stay in the news and stay world famous?
There would be no benefit to them continuing. Wanting to be famous and staying in the news is fatuous in this context.
They have many other problems caused by the war with Saudi Arabia which need attention.
Only egoists want to be famous.
I think
And if locals fight back they are, by definition, terrorists. We don’t want our opponents fighting back. We want them to sit there with both hands tied behind their backs so our military can demonstrate its technological superiority and patriotic fighting spirit by pulverizing them. The Houthis are actually traumatizing our troops, according to personnel who have recently returned from Operation Protect Genocide. It’s just so unsporting of Ansar Allah to fight back!
An observation……
I live and work in a small town that is Blue America.
Suddenly and in massive obvious force as of yesterday, the zeitgeist has totally changed.
Before, we had several very well reported incidents of people being kicked out of restaurants/bars etc for even daring to trigger the other patrons with a MAGA cap or some such.
It was considered profoundly socially awkward to even bring up the name Trump in public.
The only signs in yards and businesses were the HATE has no place here variety. Even though for the most part, those who engaged in this kind of sign are some of the most hateful people I have ever encountered
There are now MAGA hats being worn everywhere. By people I know. Everyone knows them. No shame. MAGA banners are now appearing everywhere.
We overheard contentious talk in public twice about the “talk nice” Biden speech hypocrisy. People loudly stating “what a gas bag, he and his people have started this”……this would have been unthinkable to do in public before.
My guess is the dimwits have finally done it. The beast has awoken. I wonder if they are so ignorant that they do not even know what has happened out here in the hinterlands……
Do the proles see it as?
NFL receiver makes 1-eared catch and scores game winning touchdown in Super Bowl…
Because after garnering a championship, many more people want to be associated with a winner, so you tend to see more t-shirts, hats, etc. worn of that team in the immediate aftermath, even if they aren’t fans of the team.
They see bread and circuses, sans bread. Slava Trump!
To get all artsy-farsy…
in a time of nihilism, apathy, HR-rightspeak, people saw a primal act of defiance and courage—harking back to that mythical “Golden Age” that all countries fawn over.
Ex-Caliber?
Wukkles, you are a gem, and often make my mornings!🥹
Don’t go changing now!
Thanks for the kudos d’gras!
Thank you. Yesterday on my way to Sunday morning breakfast at a local cafe I noticed more cars than usual in several church parking lots. At the cafe everyone seemed subdued. Friendly as usual but quieter. This is a super-blue uni town.
Your reference about ‘the beast’ awakening reminds me of Admiral Yamamoto’s quote about awakening a sleeping giant.
Yamamoto:
He knew America very, very well back then-
‘He also opposed war against the United States, partly because of his studies at Harvard University (1919–1921) and his two postings as a naval attaché in Washington, D.C., where he learned to speak fluent English. Yamamoto traveled extensively in the United States during his tour of duty there, where he studied American customs and business practices.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto#1920s_and_1930s
And apparently he was a pretty good poker player too.
>>>>My guess is the dimwits have finally done it. The beast has awoken. I wonder if they are so ignorant that they do not even know what has happened
the big untapped cohort are the inconsistent/apathetic/marginal voters who are the largest plurality in many areas….who are too busy dealing with de-industrialization, aquaintence suicides, making ends meet
Just moving that needle by 2 perecentage points means one side swèeps the battleground states.
And yes, the DC-Panem Capitol dimwits did it, are blind to the lightning, but will feel the thunder soon.
“The dimwits have finally done it” applies only if the shooter can be shown to have responded to the deluge of anti-Trump propaganda. Instead, as several others have suggested, it looks more and more as if he was isolated and entranced by the idea of shooting and blowing things (and people) up. Much more may emerge, of course, but for the moment it’s at least possible that the demonization of Trump hasn’t yet produced an actual attack.
Supreme irony, if so.
Yes, there is a chance the opinions will be formed nationally after a careful analysis of the motivations of this troubled youth, and the calls for/warnings of assassination will return to de rigeur pundit emissions until such time as an actual, pedigreed, stochastic terrorist emerges.
ha ha
Sorry –
I am talking about the years of the DNC types telling my family members they were deplorables. Telling them to suck it up and learn how to code. And then telling them for the past 8 years that their president was a treasonous spy, and so were they for even considering to put on a MAGA hat. And then holding rallies that would make Goebbels proud with red lighting, etc – telling them that their half of America was a terrorist cult. All the while making sure that all know how righteous you were.
I may not be in the same political group as my family members but that may not be lasting much longer. I am very quickly learning to listen to their wisdom. So, yes, those are the dimwits I am talking about.
Neither side are dimwits in my opinion.
Our political parties have been dividing us up for many years now. It is to their advantage.
As long as we direct our hate and vitriol against “other side” (and not at them) – the longer they continue to do nothing and rake in big bucks. Remember our “do-nothing Congress?
It’s the old “divide and conquer” approach. Both political parties have stirred the pot. Both parties are as corrupt as the day is long.
Ah, B’s red and black lit speech outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Who can forget? (It’s on utube for those who have forgotten.) / ;)
It was a suicide mission. Clearly. Dylan Kleibold mark II.
A lonely youngster is an easy pick for a smooth talking FBI agent. “You could become famous”! Remember the Christmas Tree bomber up in Oregon, the first Trade Center bombing, The Michigan governor’s kidnap crew? I see a pattern here. I still want to put a serious stink bomb in my shoes when I take flights at US airports, just to piss off the “agents”.
The actual failure to adequately protect from a shooter in range with clear line of fire falls to the Secret Service, an arm of the US Government and the responsibility, ultimately, of Mr. Biden and his appointees and designees. No matter how you cut it it was a dereliction of duty whether you want to believe it was an assasination or a stunt. Two dead. This was totally avoidable.
The Dem PCM’s are dimwits politically (if the intention is actually to get elected, which is sometimes dubious) and evil-wits as far as policy, but negative stereotyping, name-calling, and identity politics; violent rhetoric and imagery; and using “lawfare” against political opponents has been part of elite and non-elite Republican, Conservative, MAGA’s from long before there was MAGA. If some Blue Hats are or should be facing their role in creating the mess, maybe some Red Hats should consider doing a little of the same.
thanks for supplying a little wisdom to temper the partisan sound and fury…your measured voice has always been one of the treasures of the NC commentariat.
Thank you for the kind words.
Tbh a lot of politicians use violent rhetoric normally. It’s often couched and hidden in polite language though.
>The only signs in yards and businesses were the HATE has no place here variety. Even though for the most part, those who engaged in this kind of sign are some of the most hateful people I have ever encountered
So true and one of the great ironies up here in the Green Mountain State (depending on your location, still a few Red areas)in my personal experience. Celebrating diversity, opinions and all that, unless of course it’s diverse to the reigning groupthink. With zero clue to how the donkeydupes have been more than encouraging and participating in hateful speech.
Kind of tired of both sides anyway.
Thanks for the report Mr. Doc
I live about a mile from where trump was shot. It is a redder than red hegemon. Butler has been republican longer than my 72 years. I’m surprised by the few trump yard- signs I’ve noticed this year, since trump is running a perpetual campaign. I learned that a truck was observed close to the farm show arena featuring a sign claimingthat democrats shot trump. Too bad, and so terribly sad, 😢, that people can’t learn that the problem is an economic system, capitalism, that feeds on greed, and grinds just about all of us down.
Hmmmm
Maybe some of the dimwits have seen what I am seeing. The memos must be really good reading.
Morning Joe has been pulled down. Who knows for how long. Would not want anyone to accidentally say things that are inconvenient.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/14/media/msnbc-morning-joe-pulled-trump-assassination/index.html
Thanks for your observations. It could be that some are starting to ask themselves do we really want to re-live the sixties complete with missile crisis, war, assassinations, racial strife. Of course that last never ended but it’s not like it once was despite the attempts to say it is. Some of us are old enough to know the difference.
Give peace a chance for pity’s sake. Our leaders–older than me–can’t seem to let the past go.
60’s: Hippies
20’s: I.P.’s
I’m biased being a child of the 60’s, but it was pretty groovy being a kid in such a tumultuous time~
I think the Dems want to “give peace a chance” after they kill everyone. DNC motto could be “First things First”.
I’m waiting to see if Maddox is muzzled as well.
I’m going to be borderline offensive here, but it isn’t just that people not deep in the throes of Trump derangement syndrome making the connection between the hateful rhetoric that Democrats and their favorite media outlets have been using and this terrible event (and many are) it is the result and the actions. The iconic photo, the video, the failure of the SS, an innocent bystander dying at the event protecting his children all are in the zeitgeist. Now contrast that with January 6, which was brought up stupidly by many dimwit supporters. It honestly doesn’t contrast well.
Part of the reason I say that is that the pettiness and yes whining of those who have been the loudest and accusatory of damaging Democracy live in glass houses. I spent some time explaining to someone how they have managed to get the Greens off the ballot in NY and how they actively sue to keep third parties off the ballot all over the country. But the icing on the cake was casually mentioning the refusal to provide Secret Service protection to RFK Jr. They were shocked. It just doesn’t play well even here in deep blue NY. Especially in the wake of this latest obvious security failure.
Dams breaking bring lots of damage that aren’t directly related to the first flood of water.
Told a TDS infected friend yesterday about Kennedy’s lack of protection. Didn’t care one bit – Kennedy’s not a legitimate candidate according to him, etc.
This from someone who is a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights and who will flat out say creating the state of Israel was a mistake. It wasn’t due to Kennedy’s support of Israel though – he has no problem voting for GenocideJoe. Made all kinds of excuses for the ‘bullseye’ comment from Biden when he would have been apoplectic had a similar comment come from Trump. When Trump said to protest peacefully and respectfully, well that was clearly a dogwhistle to his crazy MAGA supporters to do the opposite. Still amazes me how Trump has so addled otherwise intelligent people’s brains.
They were “apoplectic” when a similar comment came from sarah palin.
Yea, I remember that. You are being kind – they flipped the (family blog) out. Funny how this all works.
Is it T doing the addling, or is it the Maddows and the MSM Dem-centric shows doing the addling? MSDNC? I bet if they decided to depict my postman as de deble pretty soon half the country could think my postman is de deble. The O admin changed the Smith Mundt Act so that it no longer forbids using direct govt propaganda on the US public. Congress passed it and O signed it, did not veto the changes.
Apple Pie Propaganda? The Smith–Mundt Act Before and After the Repeal of the Domestic Dissemination Ban
https://northwesternlawreview.org/issues/apple-pie-propaganda-the-smith-mundt-act-before-and-after-the-repeal-of-the-domestic-dissemination-ban/
I have pointed out Obama’s directive making it OK to spread propaganda to the US public. Apparently that has no effect on CNN’s viewers who are somehow immune to it. And the Biden administration pressuring the social media companies to remove posts it doesn’t like somehow isn’t censorship either because it was a private company that did the silencing.
Nope, it’s only the other side who are the “authoritarians”.
They took Donahue out for a lot less (and he was on the right side of history, as it turns out.)
There were other factors involved with the Donahue cancellation. But the main one was that at that point NBC and by extension MSNBC was owned by GE. And GE had devolved from a major manufacturing company into a minor manufacturer of everything but military products. That was the big bread and butter for GE and they needed Iraq. Not only was Donahue good at bursting the trial balloons meant to convince people of the righteousness of invading he was getting more popular doing it week after week. So they cancelled the most popular show on the network.
Went to msnbs first thing this a.m. to see what the dynamic duo had to say and…Surprise! No mika and joe.
Boo hoo. Seems like an admission of guilt to me.
I’d imagine the rest of the lineup is being evaluated right now–maddow, joy reid, nicole wallace and lawrence o’donnell most notably.
As Matt Taibbi wrote over the weekend:
Thanks for clearing that up. I tuned in at 6 this morning hoping to be entertained with their backtracking and saw that MSDNC had substituted different programming. I’m worried for Mike Barnicle. Where else could he find such easy money?
Maybe he’ll shift to the late evening hours,with the likes of Lawrence O’Donnell or I suppose Brian ” under fire ” Williams…no idea if Williams is still on the channel. Haven’t watched it for years.
They always find a new spot it seems, or on a podcast. Net positive perhaps, if they also boot off some former intelligence experts and / or CIA spooks.
Thanks for the link. This was something that I thought might happen and tried to watch it this weekend just to see the response to the shooting. Nothing, but I thought perhaps they had the weekend off. This morning a substitute but I didn’t lurk so didn’t know if it was truncated. Now I know that the front office can’t keep loud mouth joe under control. Will the same happen to Madcow? Is it going to be the end of an era at MCDNC? I will stay tuned vicariously.
hey Doc here’s one for the
“Would not want anyone to accidentally say things that are inconvenient.” department
a tone deaf and blind Yellen failing to see what even the Who’s Tommy could understand –
from the article:
“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dismissed any notions of sticker shock in U.S. grocery stores — despite prices soaring by 25% in over four years.
“Have you been to the grocery store lately?” Yahoo Finance senior reporter Jennifer Schonberger asked the Treasury Secretary during an interview in June.
“I sure have, I go every week,” Yellen replied.
“It’s sticker shock isn’t it?” Schonberger prompted — at which point, Yellen can be heard muttering “No” — while the Yahoo reporter continued: “When you look at shipping costs, those have come down, global food commodity prices have also come down, but food prices still remain high.”
Here’s the link to what the Treasury Secretary had to say about food price inflation, while millions of Americans are struggling to fund their weekly grocery bills and feed their families – if interested –
put on your waders –
https://moneywise.com/news/economy/treasury-secretary-janet-yellen-sticker-shock
first saw the article on Yahoo landing page and she was roasted thoroughly in the comments –
I saw this yesterday so just getting back to a follow up to read the article . Holy heck, they can’t admit it, can they. The gall of a senior Cabinet leader, especially in her role at Treasury…
The dogs are turning up their noses at this brand of dog food.
Personally, I went from lean stay home to lean Trump over the weekend. The fist pump indicates authenticity and genuine spirit, qualities sorely lacking in our professional political class. It showed that he cares. If it was staged, then it was one of the most brilliantly staged things there has ever been.
Perhaps more than most pols, Trump is an actor. He’s staged this event in his mind many times. The most that can be said for him is that when he didn’t lose his head, he didn’t lose his head and played the script well.
Biden can no longer act. Trump bounces up after getting winged, Biden is like an overturned turtle.
Mind reading ? / ;)
Well, IM Doc, ‘we’ see our choice, today, as between the guy with the vacant, open-mouthed stare, shuffling gait and embarrassing memory lapses who keeps sending 2000 pound bombs to genocide Palestinians, and the guy who, with blood running down his face, bullets whistling by his ear, and security detail pulling him to the ground, refuses to cower but, instead, raise his fist to the heavens (didn’t Mel Gibson do this in “Braveheart?”) and cries to his followers: Fight, Fight, Fight! (or is that apocryphal?) and will probably continue sending bombs to genocide Palestinians, if there are any still alive by January 2025. So, where do I buy my red cap?
Geez, if that paragraph really encapsulates the current state of our ‘democracy,’ I am not setting foot outside my garden for the next …. ummm … ten years?
I’ll be hiding in my garden (with my green cap) for, well, whatever time I have left.
Alice X, I myself wear a straw hat in the garden, proclaiming my distance from all the ‘color revolutions.’ However, my overalls are green. And, I usually wear my ‘muck boots,’ an increasingly essential fashion accessory in our current political climate.
hee hee, my cap is green (not having meant to infer a political persuasion), but unfortunately, my thumb is not. :-)
Yeah, I’m afraid it does encapsulate our “democracy” for many people. We are sheep-herded by emotional manipulation so damn easily. And much to the chagrin of the Establishment, Trump is very good at such manipulation, as his instinctual fist-pump under fire demonstrated. For many people, the demand for some sort of “humanitarian” or “patriotic unity” will short-circuit any rational discussion. It will also hamstring the Establishment “Hitler” rhetoric for a while as well. It will be interesting to see what they come up with now to stop the Orange Machine. I’m also waiting to see what effects it will have on the tactics of Trump and the Republicans. If Trump is smart he’ll play the Noble Statesman calling for Unity after facing down Death. He’ll win in a landslide. Then, as you say, nothing fundamental will change. “Our” democracy.
Lots of people and pundits think Trump will win, but the Dems own the Diebold voting machines. A few votes here a few there……..
from march til october, i wear nuthin but shoes with all my farmin activities(just about all the laundry i do is from the boys)…and yeah…im stayin put…i rarely leave the farm anyways, save for a once a month run for stuff i cant yet produce(cigs and beer, olive oil, flour and such).
and as i related yesterday…i was sort of shocked that mom went all batshit and literal spittle flying on me after i said “he’s already won”, in response to The Photo being on msdnc…and with 2 people right there in the living room.
im just glad i wasnt drunk at the time,lol.
something has changed in PMCworld…maybe some inchoate realisation that they have been wrong about just about everything(shocker!)
don’s cousin interjected that …well but russians are starving…and i said, no they aint,lol, and neither are the chinese….mom retorts, did you get that from pravda?
and i say, no…Financial Times, Economist,IMF etc lol.
similarly, cousin…the other blacksheep freethinker in the family…reports that the Aunts(who all grew up with mom) are freaking out in the same manner…like a rug has been pulled, and they’re doing the wil e coyote thing, slowly turning their gaze downwards into thin air.
next few months are gonna be a hoot.
(and, to be clear…i do wear textiles when i leave my side of the place.)
My experience is different. Yesterday was distressing for the conversations wishing the aim had been better and the assassination had succeeded. Last I checked murder was not only wrong, but illegal. Generally speaking, political assassination is a bad idea and does not lead to good outcomes.
Or worse, they do know it and this is more of the same: divide and conquer. Give pretense for more authoritarian crackdown. See https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/07/15/theres-an-important-lesson-in-all-these-democrats-wishing-trump-a-speedy-recovery/
“How can America be stabilized?” (excerpt) Noah Smith, Noahpinion
“…In 1975, within the span of less than three weeks, two different people tried and failed to assassinate President Gerald Ford…”
“…The assassination attempts vanished quickly into memory as the country continued its slow process of calming down from the turbulent years of the late 60s and early 70s….”
And in 1976, a little film called Network was released that showed the world what happened.
Seemed to be a lot of cope in that Noahpinion excerpt.
Even worse — it shows a complete lack of self-awareness: “And this is coming at a time when the country faces its greatest external threat in at least half a century — or possibly ever.” That “greatest external threat” (presumably Russia+China) was deliberately created over at least 3 decades by US choosing to treat as “threats” sovereign nations that wanted mutually beneficial economic and political relations, but without swallowing our “rules-based” order hook, line, and sinker (a metaphor that seems especially apt).
China and Russia could scarcely threaten Biden’s puppeteers’ empire.
Neither are dangerous, nor any more totalitarian than the democrats’ DC blob.
Smith, angry bear, econbowser,, etc are filled with imperialist snobs who proclaim themselves liberals and censor truth.
Occasionally good for a chuckle
Russia and China aren’t external threats to the US. Both have repeatedly stated that they want to trade rather than fight.
The article was garbage.
I stop reading any article at the first mention of Trump as violent insurrectionist. It’s a sign of delusion.
I can’t erase what my own eyes have seen. Charlottesville. January 6. Attempt on Trump’s life.
Thing is, trump IS rousing a rabble, as is and has Biden and/or the MSM.
Why is it—it seems folks are hunkering down to a Binary, Trump Bad or Biden Bad, instead of a, ‘Boy do they and the entire sh*terree need to be changed out!’ ?
I’m hardening into the Jill Stein camp. But, it is only July 15. Cannot imagine what the dog days of August and the autumn Mud season will bring.
Jill is the way to go for me now – against zionists and proxy war is all i need – despite Treasury cheating her out of matching funds – hopefully more people raise her numbers by voting for her and creating a bigger war chest – she may not win but the uniparty needs a strong competitor evidenced by a substantial increase in percentage of the popular vote for her party – and an abolishment of the electoral college (i can dream can’t i?) –
Network is one of my favorite movies.
I have my own little story about the attempts on Ford. My first year in law school, my new bride and I rented half a duplex in the country outside Charlottesville. Our landlords were nice folks and invited us to attend the Forest Festival in Elkins, WV, a few hours drive away through the fall colors of the Blue Ridge and Appalachians.
We arrived, enjoyed dinner with landlords in their travel trailer, then went off to sleep in the back of our Ford Pinto station wagon. Sometime after midnight, we were awakened by flashlights in our faces. We heard a voice say, “They’re OK. See the UVa Law School sticker? [that we’d plastered in the back window of the station wagon]” So we went back to sleep.
The next day, we attended the chopping, log rolling, pole climbing and other contests before lining up along the route for the parade that was part of the festival. As news filtered through the crowd that President Ford would be in the parade, making his first public appearance since Sarah Jane Moore shot at him, we began to see the men in gray suits with earphones. Oddly, a fellow dressed in shorts and flipflops, with hair to the middle of his back, also had a earphone and seemed to be in charge in our vicinity. At one point, a helicopter swooped down a ways up the route from us. Apparently, Ford got out of the limo, which had its bubble top firmly in place. By the time the motorcade reached us, he was back in the car.
As we left to ehad back to Charlottesville, we spotted the Presidential limo sitting next to an airport runway ready to be taken back to DC. We couldn’t resist. We drove in and walked to the limo so I could take a picture of my spouse doing a Bonnie and Clyde pose next to the car that was still a mid-60s Lincoln like the one JFK was in when he was shot. The SS shooed us away, but we did get the picture which we still have.
Weird times, then and now.
Loved that movie as well. The world is a business scene was one of the best scenes ever IMO.
The world is a business
Actually, no. At least not from many world countries’ citizens perspectives. It is the US that is a business, trying to straightjaket the rest of the world in the same mold…
“Killing them softly” – America is a just a business speach…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ4iKfj2eeY
“High Alert! Disney World Vacations in Jeopardy as Disease Spreads Across Florida”
Aron Hall, deputy director for science in the CDC’s Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, sounds like he subscribes to the Great Barrington model.
“The newest variant, KP.3, accounts for more than a third of the new infections across the United States. Hall said that it is the most contagious of the variants, as Americans have yet to build up immunity to it.”
So I guess I’m going to have to head down to Florida to get my immunity:(
A deputy director of Science, (don’t forget the capital ‘S’,) seriously talks in public about developing an immunity to a coronavirus??? Have the ‘rules’ of science been changed? Did a major discovery in virology happen while my back was turned?
Someone better informed please correct me if I err.
It’s possible the author misquoted him as it’s not a direct quote in the article, but still…
Also, the Deputy Director position sounds like a typical government title.
Copied the phrase as well. Good to know we can all rest easy when we build up that immunity! What the actual family blog.
“Ukraine’s population will crash to a mere 15mn people by 2100 – UN”
Would you believe 2030? Because if the Ukraine loses a few more Russian-speaking Oblasts to Russia, it could very easily happen. And I bet that when the war ends, that a lot of people in the Ukraine will call it quits and head off to start a new life in another country. You can be sure that the Banderites will be blaming the survivors for not fighting hard enough, even though they hang back from the fighting themselves, and taking it out on them. That country had the potential to be a prosperous interface between the east and the west but instead they were suckered into being the west’s cats paw against Russia and now that country is going to be a train wreck. And the west will then drop them like a dirty rag and go on to another country.
Will “Ukraine” even exist in 2100? 2050?
Between 1988 and 2023, Ukraine lost 28.2% of its population:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qbRe
January 30, 2018
Total population of Ukraine and Georgia, 1988-2023
(Indexed to 1988)
2025?
Imo Russia wants to de-populate western Ukraine. Palestinians can’t avoid the lack of power/water/food by walking across the border to eu, but Ukrainians can. Plus Ukraine sees harsh winters. Imo Ukrainians will vote with their feet.
After the war Russia will quickly restore power/services to the various oblasts they absorb, won’t be so quick to do the same in the west bits. And eu/us can’t fix transformers etc. imo pop won’t return for a long time.
Promised Cures, Tainted Cells: How Cord Blood Banks Mislead Parents
Another grift in America? I’m shocked!
Capitalists should just divvy up everyone’s calculated lifetime earnings at birth; at least we’d be being honest about American society, and you’d always know your place.
I am a lineman in L.A. county
And I drive the main road
Flyin’ to Houston to make a gang load
I hear you aren’t doing per diems
I can hear you through the whine
And the SoCal lineman is still off line
I know I needed a small vacation
But it don’t look like they will pay
And if the power outage keeps going
That stretch down south won’t ever stand the strain
And I need you to pay for food & lodging
And I want you to do that all time
And the SoCal lineman is still off line
And I need you to pay for food & lodging
And I want you to do that all time
And the SoCal lineman is still off line
Ha!
Going to bet that none of the executives are without power or afraid they are going to lose their bonuses. The cheap pettiness of the majority of American corporate executives finds new lows all the time.
You should cross-post this gem to the local Reddit. It’s pretty wild. Many credible posts indicate the official estimates for power are BS.
Speaking of soccer/football/futball:
Maybe it’s part of the decline and zeitgeist, but the European Championships have been plagued by consistent throwing of stuff onto the field by fans, most notably cups, but other things including a pair of sneakers. And I can’t remember so many pitch invaders compared to other tournaments, most interested in getting selfies.
And the Copa America has had serious organization issues. The field quality has been poor at multiple venues (on top of the fact that the organizers mandated narrower fields because not all the stadiums are wide enough to handle the preferred width). Ticketing and pricing has not been conducive to fan atmosphere (thanks, Ticketmaster). Then the various security issues. There was the Uruguay players going to the stands to protect their families. Then there is the final (https://www.foxsports.com/stories/soccer/fans-breach-security-gates-at-hard-rock-stadium-ahead-of-copa-final-between-argentina-and-colombia), where the kickoff was delayed over an hour with security breaches and fan crushes at the entrances, preventing valid ticket holders, including media from even getting into the game. Combine that with the crowd crush with the heat, I haven’t heard of fatalities…
Perhaps Colombia fans contained particular bad offenders, but I see it as part of trend. We saw problems in Europe at finals in London and Paris.
The Paris Olympics are going to be such fun… /s
…to watch from a safe distance.
A young loner named Thomas Crooks grew restless playing many a video game
A boy filled with cyberlust who really meant no harm, had no aim
He changed his clothes and shined his boots
And combed his dark hair down
And his mother cried as he walked out
“Don’t take dad’s gun to town, son
Leave dad’s gun at home, Tom
Don’t take dad’s gun to town”
He laughed and kissed his mom and said, “Your Tommy is a man
I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can
But I wouldn’t shoot without a cause, I’d gun nobody down”
But she cried again as he rode away
“Don’t take dad’s gun to town, son
Leave dad’s gun at home, Tom
Don’t take dad’s gun to town”
He sang a song as on he rode, his gun hung over near his hip
He drove into a Trump rally, a smile upon his lips
He stopped and walked onto the roof and laid his assault rifle down
But his mother’s words echoed again
“Don’t take dad’s gun to town, son
Leave dad’s gun at home, Tom
Don’t take dad’s gun to town”
Filled with rage, then Tommy reached for his gun to draw
Drew his AR-15 and fired 5 times before they even saw
As Tommy fell dead to the roof, the crowd all gathered ’round
And wondered at his final words
“Don’t take dad’s gun to town, son
Leave dad’s gun at home, Tom
Don’t take dad’s gun to town”
Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, by Johnny Cash
“America is staring into the abyss” Edward Luce, FT
I thought that when it was powerless school kids being gunned down in classrooms.
Thank you. I gave up on this country after Sandy Hook. I am so angry about all the talk about “more security” because of this Trump attempted assassination but “thoughts and prayers” when 6 year olds are executed.
Hunter S. Thompson
Yes, this is who we are. It ain’t going to change.
I don’t think it’s who we are. I’d say we are what our controlled (by the CIA/FBI) press wants us to be.
If we are what our controlled press wants us to be, and * most * American people are weak enough to be controlled by the press… then, that’s who we are, right? The logic is confounding LOL.
In “The Selfish Gene” Dawkins describes modelling simulations in little constructed universes (it was the 70s after all) with the cells (individuals) exhibiting selfish attributes or communitarian attributes. Simulations with stable and majority selfish cells were very common results…
Without looking at the data and how he ‘constructed these societies’, it is impossible to say how accurate or misleading these results are. I’m pretty certain commutarian societies would be equally successful. I am am skeptical of these results.
I’m of the opinion that Dawkins has extrapolated way too much from his original ideas.
And even in the Selfish gene he uses the example of fig wasp pollination. This is co-operative behaviour between two species which negates his arguments.
“China’s newest military base abroad is up and running, and there are more on the horizon”
Hmm. This sounds serious, especially when this is in a magazine sponsored by Northrop Grumman. So just how many overseas bases does China have anyway? I’ll just bring up my calculator on screen. So let’s see – carry the five, move the decimal places two over, divide by Pi…got it. They now have two. Are US officials sure that they can track that many?
Florida judge Aileen Cannon has DISMISSED the Trump classified documents case.
Hoo Boy!
More popcorn, please. Was the MTD granted with prejudice?
Dunno. Situation is developing…
From her decision:
“Up Chuck” Schumer is already caterwauling about an appeal, so presumably her ruling is appealable. Of course, given the timeline until the election is short, you can forget about that until sometime in 2025, when Trump may be President and can simply fire the Special Counsel (or instruct his DOJ to.)
She could have really twisted in the knife by ruling in a way that prevented prosecutors from ever bringing the charges again. I think that would have been technically possible but would have had to happen later in the procedural timeline.
Says manner of appointment of the special prosecutor bringing the case was unlawful.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=judge+Aileen+Cannon+dismissed+Trump+classified+documents+case&ia=web
Yes. Lots of legal analysis to come no doubt. I’ll try this one again
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/15/us/trump-documents-case-dismissed/trump-document-case-dismissed
And if her ruling stands doesn’t that affect the DC case too?
The PMC class are having quite the weeks. I am getting quite the kick out of it. I feel kind of bad about that, but not too much.
I wonder when it will sink in? If this new agenda of being civil catches on (I have my doubts) – they figure out if they can’t call Trump Hitler – they don’t really have anything. Well, maybe more of their endless stream of BS, but most people with two brain cells to rub together have long tuned out anyway.
I haven’t been able to watch Rachel Maddow for a very long time. But I’d love to see her reaction to this after the weekend she must have had. If anyone comes across a clip of her reaction please let us know. I’ll download it and put it on repeat.
I guess this will be three strikes and you’re out. When this is overturned the higher court may remove her from the case and we’ll get back to normal justice.
I’m disappointed that Steve Keen was disinvited to present at the MMT Leeds Conference. Apparently Warren Mosler disagrees with Keen on imports/exports.
This is a sad occurrence within the MMT community from my perspective. I guess Warren is god of MMT.
Saw that on Twitter.
The clips to the amphitheatre scenes in Monty Python’s Life of Brian inevitably followed. So apt.
Why do Progressives love circular firing squads so much?
An explanation from Prof Steve Keen himself:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-is-steve-not-107942051
Funniest thing I’ve seen today so far – Biden has “a commander in chief moment”: https://www.yahoo.com/news/commander-chief-moment-inside-biden-014312761.html
Nice try SlowJoe, but penning a letter (and in reality, having staff pen it for you) rather pales in comparison to the guy who just got shot, got up bloodied and pumped his fist to chants of “USA”.
Maybe next he can show his presidential bona fides by walking to the bathroom unassisted.
Let’s go Brandon!
I’d get that bite checked for rabies…
Biden’s handlers are testing out a new campaign slogan:
“Four more months! Four more months!”
Biden could have grabbed political currency by simply taking ownership and responsibility (“the buck stops with me”), calling for the immediate dismissal of all Secret Service personnel, up to and including the director he appointed, involved in decisions behind why the Secret Service were so poorly deployed — after all, it’s the department that protects him. And acknowledging in own wee role in fanning fires of political hatred and division: “I’m running the world … Trump/Putin/Xi/Hitler”.
My disorganized thoughts after learning initial details and watching that BBC interview: HTF did someone with a rifle climb up to a roof, that he then finds completely unguarded (how was he able to do sufficient recon to know this roof was the one to scale), with a clear shot at Trump. In popular depictions of Secret Service protective scenarios, the instant a weapon is even spotted or suspected (“Gun!”), there is an immediate response. I don’t think this administration and the party itself is capable of much more than CYA narcissism, but the attempt by to present this as a Commander-in-Chief moment is risible.
Thanks for the laugh. / ;)
Now that he has experienced an attack himself I wonder if Trump will apologize to Nancy Pelosi for making fun of her and her husband after he was attacked by a MAGA supporter? Will Don Jr. take down his tweet of the photo of a hammer? (Crickets so far.)
First it was Japan — now the German navy is also stamping out floppy disks for good
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/first-japan-now-german-navy-203013112.html
Am I misremembering or out of date? Don’t US missle silos rely on 5-inch floppy discs?
Actually, last I heard they were 8″ drives. I remember pulling a phone system in the late 90’s that used one. I’m still kicking myself for not keeping it. It would be worth gold on ebay.
We have an 8” floppy tacked up on the wall in our garage. It used to be the boot disk for an old IBM multiplexor.
Wish I’d kept the old acoustic coupler though.
So many historically important documents are going to be lost in the next centuries (assuming we live that long). Lots of paper tape is gone already, card decks have been shredded, most plastic tape from the 70s-90s is now unreadable, optical storage media have a shelf life of around ten years, and in a couple of years nobody will have the software to read floppy disks. There are reasons archivists like parchment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8OOp5_G-R4
An update: In June 2019, the U.S. Defense Department transitioned away from a nuclear command and control system that relied on floppy discs.
“Russian Iskander ‘Double Strike’ Takes Out Ukrainian Rail and Infrastructure – Then Kills Valued Personnel”
I might have read about this attack a day or two ago. If so, that train was transporting tanks and armoured vehicles. After the first strike the Russians may have waited for the trained Ukrainian tankers to go in and try to retrieve what could be salvaged when they did their ‘double tap’ with the second missile.
Natasha Lennard (who I like):
The Only Kind of “Political Violence” All U.S. Politicians Oppose
snip
Monopoly on military and violence, and the loss thereof, is one of the few criteria for a Failed or Failing State:
From wiki:
“According to the political theories of Max Weber, a state is defined as maintaining a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders. When this is broken (e.g., through the dominant presence of warlords, paramilitary groups, corrupt policing, armed gangs, or terrorism), the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and the state becomes a failed state. The difficulty of determining whether a government maintains “a monopoly on the legitimate use of force”, which includes the problems of the definition of “legitimate”, means it is not clear precisely when a state can be said to have “failed”. The problem of legitimacy can be solved by understanding what Weber intended by it. Weber explains that only the state has the means of production necessary for physical violence. This means that the state does not require legitimacy for achieving a monopoly on having the means of violence (de facto), but will need one if it needs to use it (de jure).”
Failed State (from wiki)
According to the political theories of Max Weber, a state is defined as maintaining a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders. When this is broken (e.g., through the dominant presence of warlords, paramilitary groups, corrupt policing, armed gangs, or terrorism), the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and the state becomes a failed state. The difficulty of determining whether a government maintains “a monopoly on the legitimate use of force”, which includes the problems of the definition of “legitimate”, means it is not clear precisely when a state can be said to have “failed”. The problem of legitimacy can be solved by understanding what Weber intended by it. Weber explains that only the state has the means of production necessary for physical violence. This means that the state does not require legitimacy for achieving a monopoly on having the means of violence (de facto), but will need one if it needs to use it (de jure).
Hmm. It is almost like they are afraid of something for some reason. Thanks for link.
NYT:
Live Updates: Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump
US Navy pilots come home after months of shooting down Houthi missiles and drones
https://apnews.com/article/navy-eisenhower-strike-group-houthis-462c5543304a17bfad7df9eab55ff63f
Cmdr. Benjamin Orloff, a Navy pilot, told reporters in Virginia Beach on Friday that most of the sailors, including him, weren’t used to being fired on given the nation’s previous military engagements in recent decades.
Trump classified documents case dismissed.
I’m no fan of Trump, but after all those boring court cases and endless day-to-day minutiae obsessed over by the PMC, after Russia-Russia-Russia and “walls closing in” for years and years while the media ignored real problems in society and the Dems did absolutely nothing for people. (Stumblin’ Joe couldn’t even replace the guy Trump put in charge of the post office, btw!)
…at the end of it all, what does it add up to? Trump as president again LOL! I don’t like the guy, but I can’t help feeling giddy at the sheer just deserts being served here.
I guess they’ll just leave Joe in, since it doesn’t matter now. Kind of a sacrificial lamb.
There’s another angle to the shooting that I haven’t seen covered. There has been some twitter thread talk of “hey how is this different or more important than school shootings in America?”
Maybe this really is just another school shooting, with all the same lead-up of bullying, guns, culture, etc., where the shooter has simply changed the venue, changed the target, but not the purpose or the motivation.
Or the challenge is:
If shooting other kids doesn’t change gun laws, how about if we shoot a presidential candidate? Ortu!
Changing gun laws has a very limited scope before it abrogates rights guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. To be serious about subtantive changes, you would need to amend the Constitution to reword or repeal the 2nd Amendment. So most of the talk is just talk, which we have in great supply in this country, like gorillas beating their chests and screeching at each other. Performance.
With all the guns already in circulation, it’s impossible for any law to prevent someone trying to murder others when that person has already accepted that they will die in the attempt.
I find it suspect when Dani Rodrik’s prescription for a “New Left” links to visions like this: https://www.noemamag.com/how-ai-could-help-rebuild-the-middle-class/
That link about the empty Malaysian malls tickled a memory of a friend in that country griping about how much he paid in income tax, with the anecdote that less than 20% of the population made enough to even pay taxes. That shows up in the data. Who did they build those malls for?
The US is a sh*tshow and worsening by the minute.
On the other hand, it won’t be long now. Assuming we’re still around for it, we can denote the period. There’s Paleolithic known for primitive stone implements, Mesolithic marked by hunter-gatherer culture, Neolithic gave us agriculture and permanent villages, and now we can add Americolithic, cults of upright and walking elderly juveniles who never made it past adolescence in terms of mental age and maturity.
I would suggest looking at some of the woolly mammoth skulls in some of the pictures in this set of woolly mammoth skull images. Note especially the huge sweeping curve of the older male set of tusks. Why such a curve?
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrFeNJJdJVmaJISWx9XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=woolly+mammoth+male+skull+image&fr=sfp
I have read the speculative theory that woolly mammoth family groups contained a male old enough to have tusks like this and that when the male put his head down, the sweeping center-curve of the tusks would be over part of its length “flat” against the ground. In this hypothesis, the male would use his tusks as snow-sweepers to get deep snow off of low growing forage in winter so that the rest of the family group could eat it.
Regardless, these efforts to woollify the Indian Elephant may give us a Woolly Elephant able to live in temperate ecologies, which would be a neat thing. But it would not be a Woolly Mammoth. It would be the start of a whole new species which we could call the Woolly Elephant.
Trump picks JD Vance for reptile veep.
former “never Trumper”
aggressively opposed to money and arms for Ukraine
fan of Lina Khan
genuine child of poverty
good looking as far as politicians go, quite beautiful wife (hindu/Indian)
I do not mean to suggest I would vote for Trump (not that it matters who else I’ll vote for since I live in Florida) but seems to me a rather savvy choice, not an obvious vote getter since Ohio will likely already go for Trump, and a much stronger future candidate for POTUS than anyone else. That the hard core GOP’ers are not happy with him and consider him a “scary” choice for the future of the party might be considered a plus.
I could be wrong…
Thank you! Trump may have reached outside of himself.
I’m not one to be drawn into the duopoly fray, but he is an interesting distinction.