Dragonflies swarm beachgoers at Rhode Island’s Misquamicut Beach WCBB. It’s an annual event.
Macro problems on the horizon Splash 247
US consumers show signs of flagging, companies and analysts warn FT
Big Law Confronts Tail Risk Threat to Private Equity Bankruptcy Bloomberg
Odd Lots Newsletter: Maybe the Fed Is Too Data Dependent? Bloomberg
Climate
Huge California wildfire tears through 5,000 acres every hour BBC
Syndemics
Coronavirus: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach ‘has failed’ BBC
Tourists warned of Covid surge in Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Malta The Mirror
China?
China’s population facing ‘largest absolute population loss’, UN says South China Morning Post
ASEAN top diplomats discuss South China Sea disputes, Myanmar fighting Al Jazeera
Posing as ‘Alicia,’ This Man Scammed Hundreds Online. He Was Also a Victim. WSJ
Pakistan under pressure to renegotiate hefty Chinese power deals Nikkei Asia. Commentary:
There’s a whole genre of videos on TikTok showing off the expensive homes and lifestyles of the super-rich in Pakistan. This is in context of a country where most people are poor to the point of food insecurity. You can imagine the warped political economy that allows this. pic.twitter.com/M5JuHOje87
— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) July 27, 2024
The Koreas
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is driving South Korea arms industry boom South China Morning Post
K-Pop Reimagined Bloomberg
Indonesia moves to reduce Chinese ownership of nickel projects FT
Syraqistan
‘They were just kids. What did they do wrong?’: In Majdal Shams, a town caught between Israel and Hezbollah mourns its young CNN. Commentary:
“You murderer, get out of here!”
Syrian Druze residents of the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights expel Israeli Finance Minister and other members of the Likud (Netanyahu’s party) from the funeral of the 12 youths who were killed after a missile fell on a… pic.twitter.com/UeQ4AXj6Zb
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) July 28, 2024
Ministers authorize Netanyahu, Gallant to order retaliation for deadly Golan strike Times of Israel
All-out War in the North? Israel’s Reaction to Majdal Shams Attack Will Be the Deciding Factor Haaretxz
Forecasting the Probability of War Between Israel and Hezbollah RAND
* * * Erdogan says Turkey might enter Israel to help Palestinians Reuters
* * * Which countries have sanctioned Israeli settlers – and does it mean much? Al Jazeera
Colonialist pr0n:
Good morning from Beautiful Gaza pic.twitter.com/zjQMC0M1Px
— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) July 28, 2024
* * * US medics who volunteered in Gaza demand arms embargo over ‘unbearable cruelty’ inflicted by Israel Guardian
European Disunion
EU firms resist European Commission plan to screen private investment in China South China Morning Post
GDP per capita in the five largest European economies FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Dear Old Blighty
Nation ‘broke & broken’, says new UK govt as it plans to repair economy Business Standard
Rachel Reeves is going for broke Funding the Future. Commentary:
Fallen into a timewarp and ended up back in 2010. Government spending is a household budget once more pic.twitter.com/CSTp5TFW9M
— Duncan Robinson (@duncanrobinson) July 29, 2024
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia Punches Through Weakened Lines in Eastern Ukraine NYT
Only ‘brute force’ can compel draft-age Ukrainians in Europe to go home and fight: ‘Sputnik Globe’ interview Gilbert Doctorow
Only six Ukrainian pilots trained to fly new F-16 fighter jets The Telegraph
* * * Ukraine Would Lose a Quarter of its Territory if Ceasefire Called Now Kyiv Post
UBN: Ukrainian business confidence falling as war pressures mount BNE Intellinews
Putin Warns of New Cold War Triggered by US Missiles in Germany Bloomberg
Subscriber Mailbag – Answers (7/28/24) Simplicius the Thinker(s)
South of the Border
Latin American leaders react with mixed responses to Venezuela election results Anadolu Agency
2024
The Bezzle
Inside the Harvard Business School Ponzi Scheme NYT
Why many nonprofit (wink, wink) hospitals are rolling in money WaPo
Digital Watch
Dear Google, who wants an AI-written fan letter? TechCrunch
Secure Boot is completely broken on 200+ models from 5 big device makers Ars Technica
It’s not just Boeing. Challenges mount for Airbus and aviation industry Seattle Times
Supply Chain
Dark fleet additions see Cook Islands become a top 30 flag Splash 247
Indian oil importers’ thirst for Russian crude drives dark fleet demand Seatrade Maritime News
Imperial Collapse Watch
“Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires” by David Chaffetz Asian Review of Books
Class Warfare
Where are the world’s millionaires and how is wealth divided globally? Al Jazeera
Bosses regain the upper hand in hiring FT
Top pilots’ union sounds alarm as regulators consider smaller crew sizes Guardian
The spectacular rise and surprising staying power of the George Foreman Grill The Hustle
Antidote du jour (Derek Keats):”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
204 comments
Comments are closed.
ARAB RIGHTS
(melody borrowed from Southern Nights by Allen Toussaint, as performed by Glen Campbell)
Arab Rights?
Whatchoo talking about? Arab rights!
Down on your knees
While we burn olive trees
You have all got to go—don’t you know?
Apartheid
A world of misery a world of lies
You’re demoralized
Some Brooklyn settlers came to play
Your house goes up in smoke today
Paradise
We’re here to build a Jewish Paradise (a Paradise)
If your family dies
It’s no loss in our eyes
You know
We are in control
Like three thousand years ago
This land
Was given to us straight from God’s hand
Our Israeli Reich must expand
Says our God in the sky
So get out now or you’ll die, boy! Boy!
If we could
We’d call down Heaven’s lightning
Neighborhood
Could use a little brightening
Miseries
From us will keep you living on your knees
It is our right
To redeem our prize
Israelites
We see new prospects ripening
Our state should (Israelites)
Keep stealing and inciting
Old man
He and his dog they walked this old land
As he slowly walked by
The weeping willow would cry
For you.
Re Coronavirus: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach ‘has failed’ BBC
Slow news day? That article dates from 2020.
Something newer, a Swedish docu w/ English subtitles. utube, 1hr 40- minutes.
Safe & effective – The side effects that disappeared – Swedish docu about the covid scandal ENG SUB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJDaH5NV-HA
Old news!
There is a reasonable probability that the liberal swedish approach relative to other countries in the west has gained relative immunity to Sweden measured by excess-deaths levels since 2021 compared to most other countries.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is driving South Korea arms industry boom
Did he mean North Korea instead of South Korea?
“As Russia has grown increasingly isolated from the international community, it has elevated its ties with North Korea to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership, including mutual defence assistance.”
Did he mean United States and Europe have grown increasingly instead of Russia?
“This has emboldened North Korea’s provocative actions…” and “Since the Korean war, South Korea has been under constant threat from North Korea.”
Did he mean South Korea instead of North Korea in the first quote, and North Korea under constant threat by the United States in the second?
This just demonstrates how kayfabe reporting of internstional geopolitics is.
Why choose? Could be both!
South Korea is supplying weapons to Ukraine.
I have one question no one seems to want to answer, when demand exceeds supply for electricity who gets the power? The datacenters or citizens?
In the medium term the maximum amount of generating capacity is basically fixed and inelastic. It is well documented that it takes years, at best, to add any meaningful amount of new capacity and we also have to replace capacity that is aging out. And, the grid is in a sense capacity limited.
Datacenters must have uninterrupted power. Not only to run the algorithms but for their cooling systems.
So again, in a pinch who gets the power? I know what my bet is.
they will be fed by backup generators, for not just brownouts…ice storms, etc. EV chargers will be taken out before datacenters.
In most of the country site-ing near natural gas pipes is taken for granted. I dunno about parts of the Northeast….I imagine it’san annoyance but not a problem.
your point still stands…lots of superfluous demand in the system now….don’t get me started on video adverts on webpages. I imagine that demands a non-trivial amount of power.
Certainly more than mere text, but bandwidth is trivially cheap compared to slinging matrices on a GPU.
true that….. the more interesting question is how much energy is being wasted in creating all those video ads? Not the trivial electricity consumed by CPUs, the very much non-trivial energy embodied in creative agencies, marketing departments, ad-tech ecosystems to track and report every click and query them against who knows how many petabyte consumer databases, etc etc. All to generate unnecessary consumer demand so the GDP number goes up.
> The datacenters or citizens?
I had the same question when I saw separate NC post on the topic this morning. In the USA I think the answer is fairly clear. Corporations are people and money is political speech hence the wealthiest corporations have more say than the citizens in who governs. Separately, because markets, the AI consumers can out bid us for each MWh so they win on that front too.
You have to think of the grid more broadly. Data centers or any large/huge electrical load have options. They can connect to the grid.
Or they can be the grid. Many of the newly planned projects are also planning their own power plants. Someone mentioned many are near gas pipelines, and they will be building their own power plant using the gas as the fuel. This gets around lots of regulations and is actually cheaper.
Some are planning nuclear as well.
Energy use continues to go up not down.
It’s not just energy, it’s water too. I’ve been the consultant working against several of these power generation proposals. They use water, which is problem #1, and then discharge hot water which is problem #2. At least in MN the proposals seem to be in places where there are water limitations for either or both of these problems: either not enough water or nowhere to put it.
Non-eating persons, of course.
I do not know!
However, in New England natural gas is used to generate electricity.
During a cold snap, natural gas goes to home heating and the generators switch over to distillate oil which they all keep tanks for such events.
AI might be more important than frozen pipes in Bangor?
The working strategy would seem to be that the datacenters will get the power and the rank and file ratepayers will get the bill.
And maybe this is a stupid question, but have concrete future “benefits” been demonstrated or enumerated yet for AI, or are we still in gee-whizz-technologically-fabulous-solution-in-search-of-a-problem territory?
In a pinch, you could waive most regulations and slap down a bunch of coal plants. The US still has a huge amount of coal, even though the coal mining industry has been getting phased out, equipment could be purchased from China, and “borrowed” from Australia. The turbines are gonna be the limiting factor, manufacture of modern turbines probably can’t be surged or ramped up easily. Simpler, early turbine types might be able to produced by heavy machinery manufacturers, of which the US has a few left, and Germany is, well, not in a good place. The problem with less efficient turbines is it will require more power plants, which require more turbines, etc..
This is just throwing an idea out, I’m not a secret coal baron.
AI vs Air Conditioning?
Seeing as the future promises the not so Little Heat Age, when the power goes out and tempers flare, will the hoi polloi know who to blame, some artificial art official type?
Oooh, electricity markets. My favourite theme. Or one of.
Simplifying greatly, because deregulation threw quite a few spanners into the works. Generally, depending on where you live, you have one of two scenarios:
1. A utility dispatches its own or purchased power to customers, i.e. individuals and businesses, in its service area.
2. An Independent System Operator (ISO) operates the local wholesale power market, matches power supply to power demand, and dispatches to distribution companies, who then dispatch to customers. In principle, an ISO can also directly dispatch to individuals and businesses, but whether it wants to depends on the specific market region.
Supply and demand are not matched instantaneously – well, from a Physics standpoint, they kind of are, but even in the most deregulated place like Texas (ERCOT market region), a utility or an ISO matches supply and demand on a forward basis. For example, in ERCOT, every day is divided into 15 minute blocks, and every 15 minutes the ISO (called…ERCOT…I wasn’t the one who named them) figures out, I need this much supply to satisfy this much demand, then compiles the bids from power producers, then comes up with a price, then dispatches. That’s probably the most “real-time” example, other regions are…tamer.
An important note – “demand” means actual grid demand for a particular time block plus a reserve margin, typically around 12%. So from a Physics standpoint you should always have enough power to match whatever the actual demand for electrons happens to be at a point in time. At least, in theory.
Finally, note that demand varies hour by hour – for example, at night, most people sleep. Sometimes. Also, most shops are closed. Pumped storage plants literally base their business model on selling power into peak demand hours, and buying power during off-peak hours, hoping to get some sort of a spread between the two.
What you’re really asking is – what if a) there is no natural disaster that interrupts transmission somewhere; b) however, there is a mismatch in supply where you cannot meet the demand; and c) this mismatch cannot be seen or remedied ahead of time, which it usually can be. So let’s do a hypothetical – half the power plants supplying New York City are spontaneously pulled into another dimension by a group of alien industrial fetishists, and so disappear from our reality in literally the blink of an eye.
In this case, the answer is simple – the utility, say, Con Ed, or the ISO, will decide to do some kind of a rolling blackout, brownout, whatever strategy. Switch off a section of the grid for an hour – or 20 hours, if you are in Kiev – so that they can match the supply they actually have left to the demand. In fact, this is exactly what is happening in Ukraine right now, or, at least, that would be my guess – their ISO says, we can only dispatch this much power during each block hour to each of our service areas, so, boom, you’re switched off for 10 hours, you’re for 20, and you’re only out for 2 hours a day. And yes, this means they can, say, switch off residential buildings but keep the parliament’s lights on. Same here – Con Ed can keep Manhattan on during the day, and the outer boroughs down, and then at night switch it to the other way around or some such. Obviously they have to do it in a manner that would not provoke too much political outcry, so the concept of keeping the data centre on but switching off granny’s oxygen machine is a bit outre, at least for now.
But yeah, because outside of Ukraine this kind of scenario hasn’t really happened – usually, you “see” a demand driver coming, and work to get more power into the grid ahead of time – we do not know for dead cert what Con Ed or ERCOT would do exactly. [And again, I’m not counting the “power lines down because of ice storm” scenario, that’s different, that’s a physical outage in a specific geographic area.] I mean, you could look at PG&E during the California Energy Crisis of 2001, when they were doing rolling blackouts because they couldn’t buy enough power at market prices (this is why the state stepped in with $15 billion in power purchases) – but that was 2001. I was much younger and cuter then.
Whoever can pay the most for it on whatever second-to-second spot markets emerge to bid for it on . . . is the people who will get it.
Now . . . if hundreds or thousands of Texans die of heat-stroke in a long-blackout during a heat-death summer some years from now, and a nearby AI center is keeping all its lights on and machines going at the very same time, will thousands or hundreds of thousands of unhappy Texans show up to bomb, bulldoze, burn down and level that AI center? Time will tell.
“Top pilots’ union sounds alarm as regulators consider smaller crew sizes”
Yeah, nah! Only a single pilot? What could possibly go wrong? An Airbus CEO said that ‘Technologically, it is feasible’ but he is wrong. Suppose that there is an emergency. Right now one pilot flies the plane while the second looks through the checklists to find solutions to the problems that they are experiencing. What are they going to do? Replace that second pilot with a ChatGPT? Ask Siri for help? I’m sure that Sully could have used that trying to land his plane on the Hudson. Imagine a single pilot having to pull this off-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ5ZLdJDBrg (3:07 mins)
The Boeing 737 MAX tragedy [accident investigation outcomes] resulted in demands for automated [SW} response to the stall situation which was originally allocated by the engineers to the pilots [before two not so qualified crews augured in 737 MAX’s].
Is the software dumbing down crews and can it justify fewer crew slots? I doubt…..
Maybe AI will put another 10% of intuition in the autopilot!
It wasn’t the two pilots that augured in their jet into the ground but the software addition that hardly any pilots knew was even installed there – mostly because Boeing fought to ensure that it was not mentioned in the manual. You have had similar things happen with some modern cars where drivers are unable to slow or even stop their cars until they crash because of dodgy software. Modern corporations want to replace pilots with software a much as possible because markets but from time to time you need a man or woman in the cockpit when emergencies arise to fly by ‘stick & rudder’ when the software lets you down.
I do not make excuses for Boeing!
Conclusions of accident investigations are like testing for covid vaccines, there are both risks to accepting and rejecting the conclusions. Why the conclusions go through “expert” panels.
The MAX (Airbus NEO as well) in certain air conditions: temp/humidity, mean sea level altitude can tend to nose up, if no response could enter stall. The flight manuals must/should have had ‘charts’ for this. How that got into simulators and airline training may be an issue. Manuals are source data!
Now after a couple of years they did SW fix!
My wonderment is “why the “climb out” were in autopilot assist”?
What if the airplanes are too complex for humans? Can AI be trained?
AI (LLM’s) is just a pattern matching operation and inherently produces errors.
It is not suiable for safety critical operations.
Boeing can no longer make safe planes or spacecraft.
Elon Musk promised self-flying planes to along with self-driving cars.
Doesn’t the UAE, or Bahrain or one of those countries already have a automated Quad-copter taxi?
I saw some little news item about a year or so ago, and immediately said “No way in hell am I ever getting on one of those.”
Don’t worry! According to the AI-driven copilot algorithm your concerns are way over blown. /s
Who knew “Airplane” was prescient…blow-up pilots anyone?
Ah, couldn’t resist – not safe for work, or politically correct:
Blowing the Autopilot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOSfFQW2FLo
To quote Ozzy Osbourne: I love you all. I love you more than life itself but you’re all f***in’ mad.
Otto the Pilot Inflatable $69.99
Son of a librarian, I can find that for you.
“Only a single pilot? What could possibly go wrong?”
Amazing this is even a discussion. Suppose that emergency is the (now single) **PILOT** being incapacitated? Heart attack, seizure, accidentally slicing his hand open on a sharp bit of gear, who knows. If no copilot, who lands the plane?
The Lac Megantic Railway disaster happened when consist of locomotives and 72 tanker cars ran off. It had a 1-person crew.
I am sure the airlines are more careful. /sarc.
A few days ago Links had an article by Fabian Scheidler that I thought very good “Europe’s Path to War and Self-Destruction”.
I see he wrote a book that was published by zer0 and has a lot of translations: The End of the Megamachine – A Brief History of a Failing Civilization. Has anyone here read it? Worth the effort?
“Has anyone here read it?”
*Spoiler-Alert*, if applicable to a non-fiction book?
I did (German original), one of the last books I (ever) read. Very depressing, if you don’t fall for the last chapter(s), where he celebrates a serious case of thumbscrew-optimism¹, based on miserably failed movements like Occupy Wallaby Street or the Arabian Spring², long consigned to the dustbins³ of history.
There are no solutions; Downfall is inescapable; Only avoiding a (global) nuclear war might be possible with rather slim chances of success (if one insists on calling the certainly very sorry state after downfall ‘success’)
¹Aggravation of the German words Zweckoptimismus~ calculated optimism or Zwangsoptimismus~forced optimism, especially by oneself (indirectly) -> Daumenschrauben-Optimismus ~ tortured (by thumbscrew) optimism
²not 100% sure about that detail
³If humankind and TV still exist 30 years onwards, you might win a prize on some quiz show with a little superficial knowledge of them
Thank you, Cetzer. It sounds like you found the depressing parts before the last chapter(s) plausible :<
They should use that Last Supper image from the opening ceremony on the next edition’s cover.
Excellent book. Herr Scheidler posits that from the earliest days of what we now call civilization there were creditors lending to kings who could then make war on their neighbors to rake in loot to pay back the creditors. Everyone else worked for creditors or royalty in some fashion. The invention of writing let the learned invent religions and other mythic ideologies to spread a uniform Narrative to the hoi polloi about how God invented kings, slavery is cool with God, obey your betters, and etcetera.
Nation-states replaced kings in later history, but the creditors lending to (elected) royalty to make war for profits goes on. And on. It sure describes European history, and America’s endless wars.
I always felt his publisher made him put in the final chapters about how we the hoi polloi can change all this around, if we truly try. That does not seem likely, given human nature.
Sounds compatible with Graeber Debt and Graeber & Wengrow Dawn of Everything.
The term ***Natural Order*** does all the heavy lifting throughout history …
Unlearning that is one of the biggest lessons, isn’t it? And a hard one. I’ve considered writing a memoir that threads the stories of my life’s escapades around the story of my disillusionment as a central theme.
>Generative AI requires massive amounts of power and water, and the aging U.S. grid can’t handle
Now concerns are mounting about whether the U.S. can generate enough electricity for the widespread adoption of AI, and whether our aging grid will be able to handle the load.
How about just fixing potholes the potholes on the road, making my water clean enough to drink so I don’t have to keep buying plastic bottles, or keeping the air I breath and the sky clean of man-made pollutants, how about adding supporting rail travel so I can leave my car at home. No, none of that is important. But if the billionaire’s need dependable, scalable electricity, so lets get right on it, let’s make sure their needs are taken care of first so I can leave my encyclopedia on the book shelf and instead ask ChatGPT.
Nah. You need AI to find the best solution to pothole problem.
The source for “Inside the Harvard Business School Ponzi Scheme” is New York Magazine, not NYT. I had my doubts that the NYT would run such a headline. Alternative working link : https://archive.ph/ALCef
>Erdogan says Turkey might enter Israel to help Palestinians – Reuters
I like this headline from RT better, it gives you the punch line right in the lede.
Erdogan could end up like Saddam – Israel
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has warned that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could end up like former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was toppled and executed by a US-backed coalition, if he attempts to intervene in the Gaza war.
The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.
If Turkish troops cross the border, does Israel expect the US to help attack them? Turkiye is in NATO while Israelis not and if this happened, Turkiye would leave NATO which would be catastrophic for that organization. Certainly if would be the end of that US nuke base in Turkiye.
Rev Kev: If Turkish troops cross the border, does Israel expect the US to help attack them?
Yes.
See my related post under the Ukraine post. Or better yet, look at Alastair Crooke’s latest. We are living in interesting times.
Israel says it’s a sovereign state. Let it act like one. You step in it. You wipe your own shoe.
No land border with Israel. They’d have to march through Syria or do an amphibious (!).
Turkey and Syria have been getting fairly friendly recently.
If Turkiye is attacked by the US, does the rest of NATO come to its rescue? Just asking..
Not long ago, I heard the Turks were doing a lot of business with Israel, only some of it hidden beneath a very thin veil, almost a Negligee. Perhaps they have learned from NATO, that sanctions don’t work, and thus prefer a real war…
Erdogan could end up like Saddam – Israel
&
tel aviv could end up looking like Gaza – Fact .
‘Duncan Robinson
@duncanrobinson
Fallen into a timewarp and ended up back in 2010. Government spending is a household budget once more’
Nobody believes it any more. This is just another way of saying that they will impose austerity which actually helps kill your economy. Labour seems determined to turn the United Kingdom into Fire-Sale Britain to finish off what the Tories started back in 2010. If they are serious in that the national budget is just like a kitchen budget, then cuts could be made. How about giving Trident the chop? Billions saved right there. And selling off one of those two carriers and using the money to buy smaller ships instead. And no more billions to the Ukraine. But of course the government – Labour & Tory – will cry out that these are vital necessities and cannot be touched.
Who would buy those vessels that repeatedly had to be towed back to port shortly after departing from it because their propulsion system keeps breaking down, and therefore have spent more time in the repair dock than sailing?
Australia
/s
Or Canada – like with the submarines that keep catching fire
I hope we learned something there. Buying submarines at a garage sale is not a good idea. OTOH, Dept of National Defence Procurement makes the Keystone Cops look good.
Absolutely no need for the “/s” tag, bwilli123.
Our loyal* Prime Minister Albanese would be fighting tooth and nail to be at the head of the queue of customers for those relics of a bygone era.
*to his AUKUS masters
…and purely by chance, look what pops up in my morning news feed:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-30/royal-navy-chief-confident-of-australian-warship-program-success/104155910
“ Analysts have recently argued Australia’s Hunter-class program is likely to cost $45 billion, up from the original forecast of $30 billion, despite the fact the fleet is expected to comprise six warships rather than nine.”
“Back in April, BAE Systems warned it was struggling to fill job vacancies in UK shipyards as it looked to complete eight Type 26 frigates for the Royal Navy. Its related Canadian Surface Combatant project has reportedly doubled in cost and delivery time.”
Bidding war.
Chinese would, for US bonds.
Well, I don’t buy the household budget shtick either, but the underlying reality – that the UK economy is a hot mess – is sadly only too true. I expect it will be quite soon now that the PR campaign will start up : ‘We told you Brexit would make you poorer, but you did not listen’.
Good. I can think of few better things for the world than selling out and dismantling the United Kingdom, better yet salting the earth with nuclear waste so that it can never return as a viable state.
Thatcher was a forerunner in this (deindustrializing and financializing Britain, killing its future), and the world owes her a huge debt of gratitude. Why she did what she did is is another matter. I find it hard to imagine she shared my hatred of the UK.
The BNE article is worth perusing:
“Some 70% reported having trouble finding staff. Almost half (47%) noted that the lack of staff is forcing them to discontinue some of their offering. .. . .The unemployment rate for those aged 15-70 will be 18.2% against the previously forecasted 18.7%.”
Obviously a massive skills mismatch. I wonder how much if this is due to Ukrainians fleeing to Europe (I assume the survey results do not reflect territories where people would flee to Russia) or if due to conscription. If the former, those workers do not seem particularly likely to return even if the war ends tomorrow. A third possibility is people hiding in neighbors’ basements to avoid conscription.
How about dead and buried, or MIA, from battle?
>Latin American leaders react with mixed responses to Venezuela election results
snip
Does earlier mean before the election? Stop the insidious sanctions against Venezuela and see what happens. (hint: they’ll be a functioning country). Crikey!
Blinken’s only concern for the Venezuela election is did the US backed candidate win or can we find a way to push him past the post and oust Maduro. You are not getting Venezuela’s oil Tony.
>Apple falls: iPhone maker out of China’s top 5 as Huawei ascends
I think most Americans are oblivious to just how much China has leaped ahead in technology. Apple is iconic in terms of introducing a product that you could say significantly changed human behavior and one’s Umwelt. All that we are given are stories about problems in Chinese real estates, debt, population, and political orientation viz U.S. foreign policy. Imagine instead if we were offered a steady diet of stories on how China is successfully transitioning to EV, how their product development, and yes innovation, is leaving the U.S. in the technological dust bin of history. Maybe instead of submitting to the MIC propping up our industrial base, we would demand a different allocation of resources to serve humanity better, I know, a wild dream.
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3271994/apple-falls-iphone-maker-out-chinas-top-5-huawei-ascends?module=top_story&pgtype=section
https://youtu.be/xEixW-H1_WE?si=1zD-FtUNbNicttlj
not just that…..China has lifted hundreds of millions out of subsistence poverty…..makes the New Deal and TVA look like chump change.
that said….I do not want the PRC government system in the US. Not because of ideology, but because US elites are not to be trusted with any equivlanet amount of power.
Graft in China might get you a dwath penalt bullet…in the US, it’s standard operating procedure.
“I think most Americans are oblivious to just how much China has leaped ahead in technology…”
The new Nature.com Index of high-quality research publishing (May 1, 2023 – April 30, 2024), shows 4 of the top 5 publishing institutions are Chinese, 7 of the top 10 institutions are Chinese and 10 of the top 15.
Harvard is number 2 and MIT is 15. German institutions are at numbers 6 and 11. A French institution is 10:
https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all
zagonostra: I think most Americans are oblivious
You could have stopped right there.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/11/ukraine-russia-war-news-latest-zelensky-pope-white-flag/
“Twelve Ukrainian pilots are expected to be ready to fly F-16s in combat by this summer,”
In a couple of months the will write: “And then there were none”.
Couple months?
I think by the second flight there will none if make to base on flight in.
How many jets do these six have to use up?
as far as the french catholic church having a tizzy, that anyone dare “mock” them….. isn’t that rich?
When the catholics(and all the protestants who use the bible they made up ) , come up with any evidence that they haven’t been making stuff up for @ 1,700 years now, and show any reality to their superstitions and fairy tales. THEN, they can walk around all indignant.
There are too many abominations of the collective christian churches and their leaders for the 1700 years since constantine adopted an existing myth, and began the fleshing out of a purely disingenuous undertaking.
I offer up,
If there were any truth to the stories, If people even thought they were true,
Would the leaders of the world for the last two thousand years have acted the way they have?
If they really believed.
Or, is the edifice the point?
No, the christians deserve to be mocked.
the ones in the know, because they are debauchers
and to the followers, because after two thousand years, you still can’t tell someone is lying to you.
the same applies to judaism…. where are we now?
Can anyone say the leaders of isreal actually believe in any god that could be called “good”
If in their minds eye a “god” exists, that would be pleased by their actions… then that god should be punched in the nose, were he to ever show his face.
“Judge the tree by it’s fruits”
Thank you.
There is no similar issues with Orthodoxy. At least the history of the christianity in Romania, from what I know, hs no horrific stories. Heck, I heard stories of priests taking money for puting curses on people…
i am not really talking about the thousands/millions of people who have tried and reconcile being “good”, with prescriptions of any faith. Except they have been misinformed. good for them.
It is akin to thomas Jeffersons distinction of “the message of christ” vs. “the divinity of christ”
I wouldn’t argue against the message,
What I’m saying… nothing points to divinity. and the message wouldn’t stomp on and worry about controlling people. The divinity groups do.
People 1000 years ago really are allowed a big doubt, since there was really no way for the common man to KNOW, religion has been a scam. People of modern times can look for themselves. Which is why I am less, sympathetic. Though, I am not unaware of the blow to peoples perceptions of the world, this means. But we can’t really wait for people to “get real”. IMO
There is no actual proof, of any iteration of christianity; despite thousands of years of prophets, writing… stuff.
So every human who has ever existed that believes in a greater power than themselves, is wrong? And that egotism and narcissism is right?
There have been three mass extinctions on this planet and we are heading for a fourth.
If religion gives us a sense of humility that is important.
Because it is the arrogance of powerful humans that has lead us to this situation. Some have been religious, some not. But all of them believed themselves gods.
There is a British philosopher, Clifford, who argues persuasively, that it is a sin to believe in something without evidence…
Rob,
What if it is the case that without a higher sacred order, any culture tends to fall into relativism and disintegration?
What if part of what is going on is a profound spiritual crisis in the West?
What if your apparent belief in the power of reason, itself, is also a fiction?
what if it is?
fairy tales should only be thought of as metaphorical guides. Not truth.
i don’t really get the question. Why should we embrace fictions. even the ones which “bring us up”.
is the truth, really an enemy?
Rob,
How about considering God as a possibility that can neither be conclusively validated nor conclusively rebutted–a kind of negative theology?
What if the unbridgeable distance between God’s infinity and our finite status means that we can only relate to God metaphorically?
yes, I have no issue with many possibilities. That is why I am agnostic as to where we as humans fit into nature. and what nature is……. but, the stories of the dogmatic religions happened during the period we have written history. And with that there is no record of divinity. divine action. anything. even in the pudding. personal miraculous events, demons,the unexplained…you can be open to the possibilities of all sorts of things, without resorting to stories that aren’t really that old, and really don’t offer coherence.
I wonder why if god created said universe, did it deem to create a system that is predicated on life eating life. Who would choose that me and mine, should eat you and yours(if you were some other life form), to survive. and /or suffer the same fate at another time.
Why would we call an entity that “made this the way it is”; good? as is the gist of those pushing a deistic form of god.
It really just doesn’t cut the sniff test.IMO…
But still, we are all allowed to have opinions.
But now is a good a time as any to start parsing what facts we are allowed to make up and force on future generations.
A
“How about considering God as a possibility that can neither be conclusively validated nor conclusively rebutted–a kind of negative theology?”
OK, sure, whatever…
I am not religious, and the last supper tableau did not offend me, but it did, and was intended to, gratuitously, offend millions.
What offended me was the absurd claim by those who produced this smirky, adolescent, self-indulgent, at times shambolic, cheesy mess, that their intention was not to insult, but to be inclusive.
The existence of “god” is an axiom. It must be accepted or rejected, it cannot be proven (through reason). The nature of that “god,” if you accept his existence, is determined by whichever cult leaders you choose to follow. When I was a kid, I went to Sunday School every Sunday, but when I was about seven I decided the “god” they described had too many internal contradictions and could not possible be worthy of worship. Eventually, I decided that, although I don’t know, I don’t believe. I find Buddhist cosmology more satisfying — the physical universe has no beginning, so no creator god is necessary and following the Eightfold Path is the best thing to do.
I think you give us a cartoon vision of Christianity. We are deeply enmeshed within Christian moral values like loving your enemies or at least having compassion for them. We are, for better or worse, at least partial Christians if we have civilized values. What is the alternative? We thrive when there is meaning to life and connection with a larger holistic frame of reference.
so, you are saying only christians, have a reason to live? and only christians are moral? are you saying there is no other alternative to christian dogma, IN existence. Right now?…. HMMM?
that sounds like a cartoon version of something to me.
China has civilized values. India has civilized values. etc. etc.
China censored the bad bits. Iran summoned the French ambassador to protest the treatment of the Prophet Isa (aka Jesus). Only Western Wokesters thought it great. The Olympics are about bringing everyone together, not insulting them. Their charter says no mockery of others’ religion. This really missed that mark, and disgusted all but maybe one or two percent of the world’s population — “drag queens”, displaying your balls to all including a child near you, and so on, are hardly displays of universal values.
Even if one assumes this was a recreation of Le Festin des Dieux, Dionysius is not supposed to be Smurf colored but Wine colored. The Greeks used the same word for blue and purple, as in “the wine colored sea”. So Thomas Jolly can’t hid behind that excuse.
But I don’t believe it was a recreation of the Festin des Dieux since the main participant claimed it was about recreating the Last Supper… as did France Television — the French TV channel on which the Olympics were shown. Even Jean Luc Mélenchon, hardly a raging Catholic, recognized it as the Last Supper and condemned it.
We drove past a billboard yesterday with an image of a large black book with “Holy Bible” embossed on the cover in gold leaf. Its caption read “Who decides what is good and what is evil?”
The implication, like your post, is profoundly ignorant, colonialist, and dangerous. WTF, unless we are Christians, or “partial Christians” we can have no moral compass, “no civilized values”?
That’s akin to declaring that unless we are trans, we can’t embrace inclusion.
That is religious propaganda just as the Olympics Last Supper was colonialist secular propaganda.
Marxism, socialism, fascism, secularism, liberaliism are all Western colonialist ideologies.
It isn’t just the French Catholic church in a “tizzy”. That presentation was seen by maybe a billion worldwide? The entire world Catholic population was offended, and certainly other Cristian denominations. And people wonder why the “far right” political parties of Europe and here in America are winning elections. You don’t mock religious beliefs like that and expect the world to laugh with you. What the hell were they thinking with that one? Are the French elites running around thinking they are so morally and culturally superior to the rest of the world they thought that was cool and funny to have, basically, the whole world watch that?
Hey, haven’t been to a proper mass in years, but I respect others spiritual beliefs. That was a sad farce.
We replaced bible fables with monetary fables, utilizing wholly innocent numbers manipulated into becoming verbatim number by number, no different really than what dogma has done with humans.
Pick an evil, any evil…
I have no problem respecting the religious opinions of others. To an extent.
Some limits MUST be imposed now. After all
some people’s spiritual beliefs are going to force kids to learn history that never happened. to ignore actual factual history, and pretend it never happened. And some peoples spiritual beliefs are in the process of killing people with other spiritual beliefs. Still other peoples spiritual beliefs will prevent women from deciding what decisions they will have when it comes to choosing the path of their lives. Some peoples spiritual beliefs interfere with other peoples medical options. Some peoples spiritual beliefs are funded by taxpayers, even who don’t agree with those beliefs.
There is no time left for “getting real” IMO
You have to see this as something like a bright comet with a trailing sign to the everyday world saying, F,U, Deplorables. It’s why Trump will be President again. This event probably bought him thousands of votes. Robert Frank told us about this over and over. (Where is that guy?) You see and hear it in the Snark that Lambert wrote a great piece about yesterday.
You never win people to your side by insulting them. Duh.
Luckily for me, I am not here to win any votes. so there is no need to mince words.
And I’m pretty sure the democrats would never dream of trying to point out reality.
So, people with fragile beliefs are safe from me.
If this were political ploy hour…… I would agree with you.
And I do think that sensitive subjects, are not rational, and are real barriers in peoples minds. and are to be danced around, and never confronted; if your goals are short term.
Do you not see any irony in that what you characterize so damningly as “some peoples spiritual beliefs” is for much of the world, a dead-on description of Christianity?
sorry, but you missed my point.
I was mainly alluding TO christianity. though , it also fits for judaism and other religions who make it personal.
so, no I didn’t miss it.
I wonder what you thought I was talking about…. now would be a good time to see what your “projection” is showing.
Catholics having a tizzy about Last Supper, when the painting the Olympics was portraying was Feast of the Gods sums the level of intelligence of the bible thumpers perfectly.
Yeah, no.
Why did the IOC apologise then?
Not only that-
‘The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has deleted a video of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Games in Paris from its YouTube channel. Committee officials faced massive global public backlash over an alleged LGBTQ-themed parody of ‘The Last Supper’ at the event, which was widely seen by Christians as blasphemous.
As of Sunday, the 26-minute video on the Olympics YouTube channel titled ‘LET THE GAMES BEGIN! | #Paris2024 Opening Ceremony Highlights’ is unavailable, with comments under the link closed. The same goes for a similar video on the YouTube channel of NBC Sports, the official broadcaster of the Games in the US. The IOC did not explain the reason for the move.’
https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/601770-ioc-video-olympics-removed/
Re Daily Mail–Jolly, the Olympic opener honcho, now says the controversial segment was not meant to parody Leonardo’s painting at all but art experts aren’t buying it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/sports/olympics-opening-ceremony-last-supper-paris.html
Maybe Macron can blame it all on the Russians.
Russians did predict it.
https://x.com/want25891/status/1817166627332374690
Isn’t it meant to be a parody of Viridiana?
kudos to our intrepid host for selecting, of all places, the Daily Mail for an article complaining about a lack of decorum.
Re Venezuela–So the just finished election is only “controversial” because Maduro won?
Pretty much. The West can’t handle a country where leaders give people things like bricks and bread.
It’s only “controversial” when the regime-change operation does not work.
Recall in Citizen Kane how’s Kane’s newspaper had two election night headlines preset–“Kane Wins Big!” or “Fraud At the Polls.” Doubtless the State Department has similar pre written responses on their computer with a fill in the blank for the disfavored country.
Meanwhile the Lee Fang story reports the optional uni-think tactic of defining words “to mean exactly what we want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.”
“Cohen further stated that: ‘The next clear move is to call on all social media platforms to actually recognize what is true, which is that ‘Zionist’ is being used as a codeword to spread antisemitism to speak about Jews in hostile and violent ways, and we expect the digital policies that are in place to be applied equally to this form of hate too.'”
Or in other words once you turn the definition of hate speech over to those claiming to be offended then almost anything can be defined as hate speech with appropriate censorship weaponized. The Fang story says this agreement with TikTok had to be made in secret since censoring one’s customers may cause them to launch a hate boycott. Hate is an ugly word. So is the false accusation.
I was watching the local news last night on our NBC affiliate when I was startled by a rather long segment on the Venezuelan election. It was a canned NBC piece clearly meant to be a “Fraud At the Polls” message. It kept repeating phrases about the people’s “hope for change,” their economic suffering under Maduro (no mention of the US role in strangling the economy, of course), doubts about the voting process, etc. They interviewed expatriates in Florida loudly complaining about the government and not being able to vote. It literally depicted the Venezuelan election as being a Stalin-like sham – IF Maduro wins. Again, this was a long segment on our *local* news cast, though sent down from the network. It clearly signaled the propaganda line for the day after.
I saw a tweet (can’t find it) where it was reported that polling surveys had the opposition winning in a landslide. Talk about trying to set the narrative.
There is a lot of aggresivity in checking political correctness. See the aftermath of the Mali vs Israel soccer game: https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1817596788615901367
In an abundance of caution, should we criminalize the use of the term ‘German’?
There are just so many ways in which the regime has abused its power to twist this election that it is hard to decide where to begin. Maybe read about why wasn’t Maria Corina Machado on the ballot, why where independent observers denied access to the election, why was the opposition allowed to oversee only 30% of all voting sites, why the results where announced several hours late, how exit polls where overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition, how Venezuelan embassies prevented their citizens abroad casting their vote, how the ballots are not being made available for a recount, etc.
Even left leaning president Boric in Chile has casted doubt over the election results.
Maria Corina Machado to me is problematical-
‘Machado has supported the international sanctions during the Venezuelan crisis,and has advocated for foreign intervention inside Venezuela, believing that Nicolás Maduro could not be removed democratically.’
When you support sanctions that kill thousands of your own people and want to see countries like the US invade your country which might lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more, then you are no better than those Iraqi hustlers back in 2000 who wanted more sanctions on their country and for the US to invade Iraq so that they personally would be rewarded with power any money. To me, she is potentially guilty of treason against her own country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Corina_Machado#Political_views
The election results just proved what she says about how Nicolás Maduro could not be removed democratically, so it’s hardly a “belief” any more. I heard she’s taking ideas on how to remove a dictator peacefully, so maybe give her a call?
– I understand your point. I would hate to support anything that would hurt my own people, but it’s rather disingenous to believe that a moderate will congregate the necessary support to beat Maduro. Besides, you left out this part of the Wikipedia article:
In 2023, she changed her stance, participating as a candidate in the opposition presidential primaries and asking Venezuelans to participate “overwhelming” in the elections.
Do not trust wikipedia in such matters.
Ah, Machado, the alphabet agency candidate. If only the notoriously neutral OAS were allowed to oversee the entire election and vote tally. It seems to me there were plenty of observers from various parts of the globe.
It is not a coincidence that an overwhelming majority of western news outlets fail to mention sanctions, and western meddling in Venezuelan affairs, when raising economic instability as a reason for regime change.
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/news-world/south-african-observers-venezuela-elections-fair/
https://www.mintpressnews.com/venezuela-elections-us-renews-regime-change-efforts/287696/
>>>It seems to me there were plenty of observers from various parts of the globe.
Yeah, no. Rather, Venezuela blocked observers from various parts of the globe. EU election observers were rejected, even Argentina’s ex-president Alberto Fernández was rejected too, and many others.
But per your links the South African Communist Party observed the election, so I guess we should all rest assured there was no monkey business involved.
Lol
meh…
Venezuela decides: Anya Parampil on pivotal election:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz4E6KmBrUc
“exit polls where [sp] overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition”
You just said independent observers were denied access. Who was taking these exit polls?
And should we recite the bullet points on the other side–that those exiles in Miami are the aristocratic opposition that Chavez and now Maduro have been fighting from the beginning? If they can afford to fly off to the US can’t they fly back to vote?
Or should we mention that the CIA and both Trump and Obama and now Blinken have been trying to overthrow the government for some time? Why should we give the benefit of a doubt to this crushing foreign interference which is all about the oil and the wealth and not at all about the country’s poor majority?
I don’t pretend to know what is going on in Venezuela’s regime defense playbook but the details of the US regime overthrow playbook are well known and have been carried on for years. Your talking points depend on a certain amnesia.
I have a pet theory that the US has a back door to the voting machines and they programmed them to produce results close to what the “exit polls” said. The Venezuelan gov, along with help from Russia/China, etc, was able to counter this hack and get straight results from the election. Keeping independent observers, and opposition observers away from the voting sites was possibly to keep them from using covert electronic means to influence the machines.
Who was taking these exit polls? Mostly people who are opposites to the regime, go figure. Want to discredit them because of their preferences? I guess that can be easily done, and it is why it would have been good to have independent observers but the regime didn’t allow it.
Make no mistake, there will be another wave of migrants leaving Venezuela after this. People who where holding on just in case the election casted out Maduro, but who will now opt to leave instead. I wouldn’t call them aristocratic though.
And I don’t pretend to disregard US influence, I’m from Chile so I know a thing or two about it. But bearing all the blame on the US misses the impact of over 20 years of Chavismo. Maybe here in Chile we get a different perspective by having ~500.000 Venezuelan immigrants.
The US deep state thanks you for your efforts to destabilize Venezuela.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818050593468072023
Polls are pretty much inaccurate at the best of times and mostly worthless. Exit polling can be accurate but who is doing the counting? Robert Barnes has talked in the past why polling is no longer reliable. Times have changed greatly since 1897. Today I saw a segment on Youtube of Barnes and Baris ‘What Are The Odds?’ where he again goes over the history of polling. This is quite a long broadcast and I copied the URL at about a half hour in so perhaps it will get to the polling information right away. Unfortunately the graphs the host (Baris?) showed in the program are too small to read on my computer. The polling information starts at about 30 minutes in. What Are The Odds?
Boric the fake “leftist” who hasn’t done anything for Palestinians despite having one of the largest Palestinian diaspora population outside of MENA. Boric who never misses an opportunity to diss actual LatAm socialists and leftists?
This Boric? https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1817976751747907919
Independent observers were not denied access.
Press Release: National Lawyers Guild electoral observers praise fairness, transparency of Venezuelan election process; condemn the U.S. backed opposition’s refusal to accept the outcome of democratic election
If Maduro lost they would be gaslighting Maduro’s claims!
Wait for the US to run a Jan 6th style insurrection in Caracas!
I think Maduro watched how the democrats counted ballots for three days after election day 2020!
> Macro problems on the horizon Splash 247
>> The graph above (made with data from the FDIC) shows the level of unrealised profits or losses of US banks, in billions of dollars. It shows a massive increase of unrealised losses compared to 2008: 550 versus 50 or 11 times more.
Exsqueeze me, I’m a widdle mouse when it comes to this stuff, does this mean that the last two years losses are ten times 2008 but are just sitting on the books, ‘just paper losses’?
Should we be nervous?
Let’s go ZIRP!
Powell will rescue them!
Go ZIRP and all of a sudden those paper losses become paper gains!
With Biden out maybe ZIRP before Nov will be seen as b=neutral to the elections????
WTF are they spending all this money on? I mean they get the US gov to print money for all the big stuff and then launder it through MIC/NGO’s so they can spend it clandestinely.
Dark fleet additions see Cook Islands become a top 30 flag Splash 247
Indian oil importers’ thirst for Russian crude drives dark fleet demand Seatrade Maritime News
Does the “dark fleet” means that it only sails at night, or that the ships are painted in black, or that it’s owned by Sauron himself, or it’s just one of the racial slurs that US culture is brimful of? Is the Navy of Light going to send the Dark Fleet straight to the Davy Jones’s locker in the next Pirates of the Caribbean sequel?
Maybe the fleet is sweating the crude it’s carrying, so it would look dark to the bright journalist?
In any case, the subtitle should read “Western thirst for Russian crude and simultaneous moronic sanctions drives dark fleet”. Provided we’re even attempting some sense of truthy here, that is.
Location transponders turned off.
Legal Ninja Ships?
It is dark because it is carrying Russian Crude. Relabel the oil and it is no longer dark.
“More than three years ago, the term ‘dark fleet’ emerged when tankers started turning off their vessel-tracking transponders to conceal the origin and destination of US-sanctioned oil.” *
* https://maritime-professionals.com/the-dark-fleet-explained/#:~:text=More%20than%20three%20years%20ago,destination%20of%20US%2Dsanctioned%20oil.
OK, is it just me, or does that RAND piece read like they’re admitting to be the twitter-addicted PMC vultures we know them to be, but in academic language to sound more serious? We can see the individual “forecasters” online activity; this shouldn’t be surprising.
A more interesting piece might analyze the correlation between “crowdsourced forecasting” (prevailing PMC social media zeitgeist) and policy decisions.
That the ruling class is on LinkedIn is absurd enough; that they’re pretending to be serious while doomscrolling is Kafaka-esque.
Re Secure Boot–the fourth page of the article contains a list of the compromised motherboards. Most seem to belong to a company called Gigabyte.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/07/secure-boot-is-completely-compromised-on-200-models-from-5-big-device-makers/4/
It is a popular brand when custom-building one’s PC.
There are chips in every computer that can’t be accessed without a lot of difficulty.
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/12/disabling-intels-backdoors-on-modern-laptops/
“Only ‘brute force’ can compel draft-age Ukrainians in Europe to go home and fight: ‘Sputnik Globe’ interview”
I’ve got an idea. Right now you have these snatch squads roaming around the Ukraine in vans kidnapping men off the street to be sent to the eastern front. So maybe Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski could authorize those very same vans to cross the border into Poland and snatch Ukrainians off the streets in places like Warsaw. Of course as they cross back over the border, Polish Customs will have to check that they have not accidentally snatched some Poles as well. But at the very least it will give the Polish people an idea of what is in store for them if their governments gets the country into a shooting war with Russia because, you know, European values.
I believe defending our values requires the Polish Customs to not be too strict about the nationality of the volunteers. We’re united in the cause, right?
Poland will then get the mention “worth a wide detour” in touristic guides.
Since the customs will probably let “mistakenly” impressed Hungarians, Germans, or Slovaks visitors pass through more easily while objecting when the hapless “recruits” are Poles, the Polish tourism sector is probably going to protest vocally.
Brute force as opposed to what, propaganda, financial incentives, or maybe indirect coercion? Maybe they should reach out to Hollywood to do some better promotional videos with hot women in fatigues. I’ve seen tantalizing IDF Twitter clips with Russian female models. Maybe those orthodox Jewish antiwar men need to be subjected to a “clockwork orange” video presentation.
⚡️🇺🇦Hurrah – Photos from the training of the female mobile air defense battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kiev region.
Also, the first female prisoners recently joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
https://x.com/simpatico771/status/1817708017741144399/photo/4
https://x.com/simpatico771/status/1817708020211576927/photo/4
One of those Ukranian (Neo-)Nazis might remember a wisdom from the Führer himself:
The soldier may die, the deserter must die.
Perhaps some NATO experts might help to arrange dead deserters in Old Western style, like the Daltons:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Dalton_Gang_memento_mori_1892.jpg
NATO experts have already arranged for deserters to be sold for parts. No photograps allowed.
What if they snatch a Pole or two instead? Will they be deemed to have volunteered?
Huge California wildfire tears through 5,000 acres every hour BBC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To put things in perspective, so far the Park Fire alone has burned more acres than all of the wildfires combined in Cali in 2023!
On the drive south from the Gem Lakes on Hwy 395 yesterday, the smoke from the Trout, Long & Borel wildfires made for impenetrable ocher skies in the Owens Valley, not quite apocalyptic-but getting there.
1968-69 was the previous winter of record in the southern Sierra, and similar to last years winter of record, 1969 wasn’t much of a wildfire year as everything was so wet, but 1970 exploded with wildfires.
About half of the leaves on many blue oak trees here have dropped as a defense mechanism against the prolonged heat during our recent time in something approximating hell on earth-leaves that really ought to fall in the fall-say October, and everything is bone dry, baked to a crisp as if kiln dried-only awaiting a tendril of flame, to engulf the forest for the trees.
We feel for you. You of course have heard how the Park fire was started by a guy setting his mother’s car on fire and pushing it over the side into a ravine. He was spotted and arrested and has a criminal record.
Will nature be able to survive us–the collective and the individuals?
Being California, maybe one day that guy will work in a prison gang fighting fires.
Nobody ever put out an APB on Thor’s whereabouts and more specifically his hammer, but what can you do about silly human beans, the blundering herd.
Fingers crossed there won’t be any Gender-Reveal parties with pink or blue fireworks.
Paradise CA, where > 80 people were killed in the 2018 Camp Fire, is now evacuated due to the Park fire. Yikes.
Here’s to hoping my Mom will not have to be evacuated for a fourth time from a fire. The area around her has been heavily burned out previously, but last years rains will have fixed that.
When I read about climate in California, while the studies are not sure, the predictions tend towards both more rain and more drought. Restated, periods of more torrential rainfall followed by periods of longer, drier weather. That means years of explosive growth followed by years of explosive fire. This will make California even more Californian. Nice, isn’t?
That Leopard in today’s Antidote du jour looks mean and they can be. When they become man-eaters they are extremly lethal. There was the Leopard of Rudraprayag which killed over 125 people but the known record was the Leopard of Panar which killed over 400 people. People would have to barricade there doors and windows each night and could hear it outside trying to get in or maybe on their roofs as well-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_attack#Notable_man-eaters
Electric School Bus mandate in NY State
NY’s school bus dilemma: Some voters tap brakes on switch to electric vehicles syracuse.com
One district’s superintendent:
And the cost, not including charging infrastructure, heating in sub-zero weather to charge and new bus garages with heavier lifts:
But… but it’s for the children’s health! Kids apparently are huffing diesel exhaust.
I have a better idea… before dumping costs on taxpayers (our district is looking at $10-15 million over conventional buses), how about mandating UPS, USPS, FedEx and Amazon go full electric. Let these outfits get on the bleeding edge.
I want some data from Hochul, not just shaky studies. And I want it not just on the buses but on the gas ranges that are now outlawed. Supposedly it is for health, but whenever I start asking for numbers…
Plus I want to see real money put towards expanding and securing out grid and action taken to lessen the fees involved with electricity. I don’t know about you, but when I see that my electrical bill is less than 1/3 electrical supply and over 2/3 taxes and delivery fees, but don’t see any improvement in anything attached to the utility companies I have a very big issue with giving them a big boost by requiring me to use more electricity.
Ugh. To state the obvious, if Hochul were actually concerned to “protect the children”, she would ventilate the buses so the kiddies don’t keep passing Covid around on the ride home. Covid has and will do vastly more damage to the children than an occasional whiff of diesel exhaust.
More good news.
“Turns out SARS-CoV-2 RAPIDLY infects the NERVOUS SYSTEM long BEFORE it even enters the bloodstream…
This paper, however, is pretty damn solid! It really ties a LOT of different lines of research together.”
https://x.com/NickAnderegg/status/1817761576411189406
Published today (July 28, 2024) in IJMS, open access:
https://mdpi.com/1422-0067/25/15/8245
And:
So COVID is a neurological disease, first and foremost. So this is about the worst possible discovery, worse than outright death, since at least with widespread death across age groups, there’d be some kind of response, however incoherent. With this, nada.
Fun. Times. Ahead!
zombies
It seems that mega corporations of every industry have been hacked. Even the pentagon. We’ve been hearing about it for years. Except one….. banks. You never hear about banks getting hacked. Why is that? Do banks have some super secret anti hacking software that isn’t available to anyone else? Or do they just keep it secret when they get hacked? And replace the stolen “money” with new money created by the click of a mouse?
pssst, don’t tell anyone, but these AI chat things scoop up everything as a training set, everything. Even ALEXA’s overheard conversations. (Data is the new oil and gold, right?) Given the right instruction(s) you could download a whole bunch of stuff – real or AI invented -you’re not supposed to know or see. That’s not exactly a hack. / ;)
Just guessing, but they are likely keeping it secret. Banks are extremely reluctant to let the public know how vulnerable they are. For example, banks get robbed all the time. I worked as a teller for about a year, and we were robbed twice. You will never see any news about all these robberies as they do not want to encourage copycats. Banks are where the money is after all.
Remember when the mouse clique made all of those Silicon Valley Bank depositors whole again, despite only being covered for $250k, as per FDIC regs?
dragonflies are fascinating to watch – dragonflies and damselflies feast on mosquitos – would have enjoyed being on that Rhode Island beach – always liked the opening line to “Spanish Castle Magic” which is about a club south of Seattle that closed in 1968 – guess Jimi went there
It’s very far away
It takes about a half a day to get there
If we travel by dragonfly
No it’s not in Spain
But all the same you know, it’s a groovy name
And the wind’s just right
prolly my favorite bug.
i maintain habitat for them…various pools, including the goose pools…just stick a suitable branch in the latter, for the dragonflies to lay their eggs on.
the rest, its the cattails or grass of whatever that grows around them, and droop into the water.
in late spring, one can sit out here at the bar, and when a rain shower happens, watch a billion tiny dragonfly nyphs take flight from the bushes…its a sight to see.
later on, the adults will be racing around overhead in the evening…just zipping and diving…looks like great fun.
ive even seen dragonflies…and some of the larger wasp species…carrying dead grasshoppers around…presumably to eat them.
Once watched what I thought was a dragonfly pick up a pebble and drop it in the pit trap of antlion (aka doodlebug). It then landed on the ground nearby. Unfortunately, I had more pressing things to attend to so I moved on. Upon a bit of research, I learned that the ant lion’s adult stage resembles a dragonfly so it might have been that. I still have no idea why either would bomb the trap.
Another dragonfly fan chiming in. They are fun to watch. They follow me down to the vegetable garden in the morning sometimes, swooping and diving and getting the mosquitoes that I stir up walking through the grass. Lovely creatures.
At our swimming hole on the river, occasionally you get dragonflies and butterflies up in the air at different levels, giving it a WW1 aerial combat feel, not that either side is specifically shooting at one another.
Dragonflies are fantastic! There was one summer probably 15 years ago when the farm I grew up on was absolutely swarmed with them, to the extent there were basically murmerations. I’ve never seen anything like it before, normally we’d only get 1-2 at a time. That video is close but they’re lucky enough to get them up close, the ones I experienced stayed a good ways away from the house.
I understand that La Crosse in WI gets so many damselflies that their bodies get to be an inch thick layer after they die.
We have them around here but not in large quantities. If they fly too low our cat will eat them (she likes bugs) although we attempt to discourage it.
‘Murtaza Hussain
@MazMHussain
There’s a whole genre of videos on TikTok showing off the expensive homes and lifestyles of the super-rich in Pakistan. This is in context of a country where most people are poor to the point of food insecurity. You can imagine the warped political economy that allows this.’
How is this different to those American TV shows which show people not only buying mansions but there was one series where people were buying islands called “Island hunters”. I remember one very young couple doing so and the girl said excitedly ‘It’s our first island!’ It was so bizarre the display of so much wealth.
While i’ll freely admit to being more of a peninsula man, sometimes the idea of being an island unto oneself has merit.
Our neighbors have an island in the Kaweah River, about 25 feet long and 10 feet wide. It used to be a mess of trees and low growing stuff, but then came 28,000 cubic feet per second in March of 2023 and there isn’t much there, there.
Not quite Robinson Crusoe though, as its only about 10 feet to ‘shore’ on either side.
On Mount Desert Island, we had the Kellams, a well-to-do young couple who settled on Placentia Island off the coast and lived a bare-bones life for 30 years.
Their transport was one dory that they’d use to come in to shop. Often saw it going through our harbor.
https://brandeisuniversitypress.com/title/we-were-an-island-the-maine-life-of-art-and-nan-kellam/
‘Gimme Ten Feet Gimme Ten Feet, Mister’ LynSkyn
Rebels in Mali Display Ukrainian Flag After Wagner Defeat
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/36557
While the Russian flags get closer and closer to the Dniepr…
NewsGuard comes after Turley
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/29/the-most-chilling-words-today-im-from-newsguard-and-i-am-here-to-rate-you/
My library has Steven Brill’s ebook which sits in the “available” page meaning nobody wants to check it out. I did check it out but didn’t last long given the contents. Brill, who has been around a long time, made his reputation as a lawyer explaining newsy legal cases. That makes him a kind of journalist but hardly an authority on journalism and even those are suspect these days if in the academic world.
In fact given that the “misinformation” police are arguably anti-journalism he is now the opposite of a journalist but clearly eager to cash in on the fad. The thing speaks for itself.
It’s an election year. Seems like NewsGuard is the descendant of 2016’s PopperNut self-proclaimed media monitor site. / ;)
adding: thanks for the link. CJHopkins latest has this para, which made me flinch and think ‘that can’t be right’. But how else explain all this stuff that’s been happening almost in unison?
What people can do, if they want to do something helpful, is make as much noise as possible about what is happening, not just in Germany, but all throughout the West. Because what is happening is, well, what I tried to capture and analyze in my book. The Powers That Be are going totalitarian on us. They are gradually, and not so gradually, phasing out the so-called “liberal” or “democratic” rights and principles that it was necessary to placate the Western masses with during the Cold War era, which it is no longer necessary to do beyond a certain superficial point.
Trump made the mistake I think of calling the Biden exit a “fascist coup.” It was a kind of coup but the fascism will come later. After all Adolf and crew needed both censorship and coercion. We haven’t gotten there yet and hopefully never will.
The misinformation craze doesn’t seem to be having much effect other than among the elites. Like I say Brill’s book is not exactly a hit at my library at least.
They have to do it since they are also taking the bread and the butter and force people into military. Reminds me of Anthony Burgess novel “The Wanting Seed”…
Thanks Flora. I seem to recall that Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank had the same theme. Philanthropy? We don’t need no stinking philanthropy!
The story Coronavirus: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf says coronavirus approach ‘has failed’ is dated December 20, 2020.
A more recent (open access) collection gives a comprehensive treatment of Sweden’s Pandemic Experiment.
From the Abstract:
This book considers Sweden’s pandemic management which differed so significantly from much of the rest of the world: it provoked intense and wide-reaching interest, curiosity and criticism. Trans-disciplinary Swedish authors from the humanities, life sciences, social sciences, and cultural studies use a variety of tools to mine deeper into some of the central elements and dimensions in their country’s pandemic management such as understandings of freedom, the execution of power, denialism, exceptionalism, patriotism, the role of expertise and trust in the national state to give a deeper understanding of Sweden’s decisions, failures, successes, and the lessons to be learned.
Once again drove on my Baedeker for such things, namely Highway 99-which passes through the very heart of Godzone from Visalia via Pixley en route to Bakersfield, and in theory the bleeding red heart politically of Cali, but how come I didn’t see any Trump signs, and the only Biden ones were a couple of disparaging red team types which blamed everything on him, utilizing too small of a font to really discern what the actual message was, notwithstanding the goods being the subject of their ire, having been stale for a week now.
I also live on the Sierra’s west slope, though a couple hours drive north of you. This area, too, is very much the Red State part of California and I can corroborate your lack of sightings. Around here there are no where near as many signs and banners as there were in 2016 and 2020.
I did see a large placard sign in front of a home on an arterial road recently. One side read “Jesus is Love”. On the other side was “Jesus was Woke”. It lasted less than two weeks. Not sure if its disappearance was a case of the owner being informed they were unclear on concept or a neighbor removing the sign to express their displeasure.
Trump levied tariffs against China and they retaliated big-time against almonds & pistachios, cratering profits and also the price per pound (which to be fair was the product of much overplanting-there are more almond trees in California than there are humans in all of the United States) like a double whammy, and maybe the denizens of Cali Ag are twice smitten-thrice shy?
Tabbi and Ford Fischer’s latest. No paywall. Language warning.
Activism, Uncensored: Pro-Palestine Protesters Attempt to Disrupt Netanyahu Visit
https://www.racket.news/p/activism-uncensored-pro-palestine-4a9
re: US medics who volunteered in Gaza…
Although the Guardian article hits the main points, do click through and read the statement from the medical personnel. It’s more horrifying than I had expected. It’s in the Guardian article, but here is the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bf4mfymnmn4t1wyvdkx4h/Letter.pdf?rlkey=z3ekl4u9gtya2p33ek6ud2zet&e=1&dl=0
Fixing the Kyiv post headline. If Ukraine makes peace NOW it will lose ONLY a quarter of it’s territory.
Starting off the week with a bang: Biden wants to avoid a Bush vs Gore situation with the Supreme Court deciding the election, so he’s calling for reforming the court three months before the election. I want to snark here but this could have been attempted literally any time before an election year. Why now when it has absolutely no chance of happening? A whole lot of representatives are out campaigning.
I wonder if the headline writer was consciously referring by “The Black Knight” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs