Dear patient readers,
You got some extra links today because Lambert was not on Water Cooler duty yesterday and the Biden state of play is a rapidly moving target.
How a citizen scientist is trying to overhaul the American lawn Washington Post (Dr. Kevin)
Classics and Christians in the 12th Century Antigone (Anthony L)
An archeological revolution transforms our image of human freedoms aeon (Anthony L)
Ozempic Linked to Rare Cases of Vision Loss in Harvard Study Bloomberg (furzy). IM Doc has been talking about this for many weeks, and has had a case among his patients, which suggests it is more frequent than “rare”.
Debate: Is bird flu virus in cows adapted to better infect humans? STAT (Dr. Kevin)
Controlling Appetite Before It Starts: Scientists Identify Group of Neurons Linked to Feeling Full ScienceDaily (Chuck L)
Night owl behavior could hurt mental health, sleep study finds Stanford Medicine (Robin K)
#COVID-19
Zero Covid community Reddit (Paul R). A resource!
Immune response study explains why some people don’t get COVID-19 ScienceDaily (Kevin W). Have sent this to the Covid Brain Trust….
An outdated vaccine could be to blame for LA’s COVID surge NBC Los Angeles (Paul R)
Climate/Environment
Persistent heat wave in the US shatters new records, causes deaths in the West and grips the East Associated Press (Kevin W)
China’s Solar Sector Unlikely to Recover Soon as Glut Persists Bloomberg
Battery maker SK On declares ‘emergency’ as EV sales disappoint Financial Times
Nearly 2 million metric tons of wild fish used to feed Norwegian farmed salmon annually, report finds Seafood Source (Paul R)
China?
Trump cabinet hopeful wants the ‘Israel model’ for US China policy Responsible Statescraft
China’s subsidies create, not destroy, value Asia Times (Kevin W)
Japan and the Philippines sign a defense pact in the face of shared alarm over China Washington Post
Satellite images reveal China’s military build-up near Pangong Lake, India’s western border FirstPost
Japan protests China’s installation of buoy over its continental shelf RFA
European Disunion
Setback for the German export industry Tagesschau (guurst)
La belle France
French far right voters say ‘dirty tricks’ won election BBC (Kevin W). RN actually did get the most votes, and even a higher % of the total than in the first round. So the bitterness is not unwarranted.
Macron keeps France’s prime minister in place for ‘stability of the country’ after chaotic election Associated Press
Clashes break out in France following left’s surprise election win South China Morning Post
Old Blighty
Labour’s £10 Billion Crisis Bill Just the First Fiscal Challenge Bloomberg
New foreign secretary wants to reset UK-EU ties BBC (Kevin W)
South of the Border
La Rioja issues Argentina’s first emergency ‘quasi-currency’ in 20 years Buenos Aires Herald
Gaza
The Lancet Says Gaza Death Toll Could Exceed 186,000 Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Six-year-old Palestinian child Hikmat Badr died of malnutrition, Israel-enforced starvation and the prevention of food and medical supplies from entering the Gaza. pic.twitter.com/fJ3LGg6pvY
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) July 9, 2024
Israeli government accused of trying to sabotage Gaza ceasefire proposal Guardian (Kevin W)
Red Sea tension pushed up container prices 120% over last 6 months Middle East Monitor
New Not-So-Cold War
Hungary’s Orban unexpectedly visits China, backs Xi’s peace plan Reuters
Ukraine wants Poland to protect its skies near border Euractiv
Russian Breakthrough After Surprise Offensive in Toretsk HistoryLegends, YouTube
Ukrainian F-16 Saga Continues [i] Black Mountain Analysis (Li). Weapons porn!
West Admits Ukraine is Out of Air Defenses and Losing Ground, With No Way to Reverse it Brian Berletic, YouTube
Ukraine asks West for submarines RT (Kevin W). This would be funny if it was not serious.
🔌 In an attempt to cover the electricity deficit, Ukraine has increased purchases from its western neighbors twelvefold.@ukraine_watch pic.twitter.com/oEKWEN42fH
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) July 8, 2024
Syraqistan
Made in America: The ISIS conquest of Mosul The Cradle (Userfriendly)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Why GPS Is Under Attack New York Times (Dr. Kevin)
10 Billion Passwords Leaked in the Largest Compilation of All Time Cybernews
Imperial Collapse Watch
The U.S. Air Force Has a Big Problem It Can’t Solve: Its Fleet of Warplanes Is Old National Interest
Biden Agonistes
Democratic leaders rally around Biden as discontent grows within ranks The Hill
Since Lambert was traveling and had an open thread Water Cooler, here is Biden’s extraordinary, further self-discrediting call in to Morning Joe. Biden insisting on hanging on is going into mad king territory….when it was Trump who was supposed to be(come) the mad/bad king as the result of the Supreme Court immunity ruling. Oh, and as icing on the cake, Ryan Grim tweeted that at one point you could hear Biden stumble as he was shuffling paper, so it seems most if not all of this call was scripted.
President Joe Biden called into MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning. Here's the segment (part 1): pic.twitter.com/skpmZt9qlY
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 8, 2024
Biden’s handlers guide him with flash cards – media RT (Robin K)
This Nato summit could save or sink Biden’s candidacy BBC
Who could actually replace Biden? We break down the options. Politico
The irrelevance of Biden’s senility Asia Times (Kevin W)
Joe Biden Is the Biggest Loser in American History, Part III Richard Kline
Biden Sounds A Lot Like Trump Ken Klipperstein
” rel=”nofollow”>Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff tests positive for Covid-19 days after joining Biden for July 4 celebrations Independent (Paul R)
Supremes
“A Death Squad Ruling”: The Press and Pundits Make Wild Claims in the Wake of the Court’s Immunity Decision Jonathan Turley
Abortion
Rate of women getting sterilized doubled after Roe was overturned KFF Health News (Robin K)
Our No Longer Free Press
Fox News Suffers Blow as Billionaire Joins Lawsuit Against Network New Republic (furzy)
AI
GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT? Goldman Sachs
The Bezzle
How thousands of Americans got caught in fintech’s false promise and lost access to bank accounts CNBC (Li). Today’s must read because crazy. Also a warning NEVER to bank with a company with a cute name. We have our own version of this lesson. I thought my merchant processor had a boring suitable name like First Data but they branded themselves Clover. Beware!
Scammers swiping billions each year Associated Press
Class Warfare
Mike Bloomberg gives $1 billion to Johns Hopkins for free medical school Washington Post (furzy). Bloomberg has long been a HUGE charitable donor, and nearly always anonymous.
Laid-off tech workers advised to sell plasma, personal belongings SFGate. Paul R: “From July 1, but jeez.”
US workers in debt to buy groceries – ‘I had to downgrade my life’ BBC (Robin K)
Antidote du jour. William B: “Mama Pied-billed Grebe floats serenely on her nest.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
227 comments
Comments are closed.
I RUN THE WORLD
(melody borrowed from We Are The World by Michael Jackson)
During his Stephanopoulos interview last week, Biden said, ‘I’m running the world!’ which led griffen yesterday to suggest ‘We Are The World’ from 1985 as a song parody. Great choice—here ya go!
Here in my mind
I’m the guy who does it all
Here’s a list of all the things I have done
There is no denying
That these days I always stand
Near my wife
She leads me from the hall
Ice cream for me
At 4 PM each day
Vanilla is French and I take it plain
What I learn by heart, love
I recite for the TV
And mention Beau
When I feel the need
I run the world
There’s lots of killing
I am the guy who gets the final say
On who stops living
There are steps we’re taking
Your nation can survive
Just do what we say every day
And you’ll live free
Jill agrees that I’m smart
I have trouble climbing stairs
And I fall, a lot, I have to agree
In public speaking
I tend to lose my thread
So I launch—and God knows where I’ll land
I run the world
There’s lots of killing
I am the guy who gets the final say
On who stops living
There are steps we’re taking
Your nation can survive
Just do what we say every day
And you’ll live free
When I stand real still
That’s just me standing tall
I’ve got quite a team
I call them my cabal
Well, well, Hell’s bells
We don’t compromise
Oh no to compromise is dumb
We double down until the day we’ve won!
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!)
I run the world
There’s lots of killing
I am the guy who gets the final say
On who stops living
There are steps we’re taking
Your nation can survive
Just do what we say every day
And you’ll live free
(chorus repeats, umm, forever . . .)
Well done! I had that on my mind but couldn’t really focus on stringing together enough ideas for the multiple verses. And yes…the video for the original goes on, and on, like for a full 7 minutes.
and good luck getting that earworm out of your head . . .
“Where’s Your Ed At?” does a great job of using the Goldman Report linked above to dismantle all the hype around AI. It’s a better read than the original.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/pop-culture/
Unfortunately he doesn’t understand the US policy of containing China so he gets a few points wrong.
You’ll get some competition as China develops their own semiconductor industry and starts exporting to 3rd countries, it just won’t matter.
How is that relevant to the argument?
“Unfortunately he doesn’t understand the US policy of containing China so he gets a few points wrong…”
Please explain this comment further, when possible. How does China change the prospects of applications of AI in China and developing nations?
I just hopped over to see what The Duran was doing and there’s a part in there that shows how deep the global kool-aid goes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyrprXn3cQ&ab_channel=TheDuran
UK Labour takes over. Tories implode w/ Dr. Neema Parvini (Live)
They talk about the Tony Blair Institute’s influence on the new government there and how it’s all about AI hype.
Ukrainian F-16 Saga Continues [i] Black Mountain Analysis (Li). Weapons porn!-
Link exchanged with Berletic’s
Correct link:
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/ukrainian-f-16-saga-continues-i
Thanks, will fix.
“Night owl behavior could hurt mental health, sleep study finds”
Not really buying this study at all. I used to be able to stay up late till 2:30 and found that it gave me something that you could not get in any other part of the day – peace and quiet. There was even time to think. In the normal hours of the day it was constant interaction with other people and constant tasks that had to be done which made the day race by. Just the typical miscellanea of every day living. But those hours after midnight were mine to do with as I pleased and I used to be able to take advantage of them. But how many of those 75,000 people asked were not able to do this because they had jobs to go to in the morning or partners that went to bed earlier or kids to take care of in the morning? Can’t go to bed late when you have those sort of life demands on you.
Bachman-Turner Overdrive, a rock band from Manitoba, had many hit songs and here is one of them Blue Collar. Many can relate to different aspects of the lyrics.
Walk your street
And I’ll walk mine
And should we meet
Would you spare me some time
Cuz you should see my world
Meet my kind
Before you judge our minds
Blue Collar
Sleep your sleep
I’m awake and alive
I keep late hours
Your nine to five
So I would like you to know that
I need the quiet hours
To create in this world of mine
Blue Collar
I’d like you to know
At four in the morning
Things are coming to mind
All I’ve seen all I’ve done
And those I hope to find
I’d like to remind you at four in the morning
My world is very still
The air is fresh under diamond skies
Makes me glad to be alive
You keep that beat
And I keep time
Your restless face
Is no longer mine
I rest my feet while the worlds in heat
And I wish that you could do the same
Blue Collar
From what I know, the industrial revolution is when 8 hours at night became normal for everyone. And unless there has been a dramatic change, people who study sleep broadly categorize people as larks or owls.
I can literally miss a night’s sleep, drag all day, then then get my usual major energy burst late afternoon.
Get up early and get into the office!
Don’t forget that how we sleep nowadays is only a fairly recent invention. In the not too distant past it was common to sleep in two parts so people would get up in the middle of the night after their first sleep, maybe get themselves a drink of tea, go for a walk, talk to neighbours who were also up and then go back to bed for the second half of their sleep. Then came the industrial revolution and the 8 hours sleep pattern-
https://www.thecut.com/2017/03/sleeping-through-the-night-is-a-relatively-new-invention.html
In those days people had to tend to the fire. And occasionally fend off wild critters. Ask Amfortas.
In the really old days, oil/fat was too valuable as a food for most people to have lamps or candles. Candles were a big part of the budget for Jefferson’s Monticello. So most people went to bed after dark. I find it hard to believe that most people got up for very long in the middle of the night, although surely peasants got up in the dark.
Yes! Talleyrand was rich, had a big house in central Paris, lavish dinners, and often visitors who’d stay for a bit. Even so, he put his guests on a very strict candle budget.
But per the first and second sleep, on most low cloud nights, moonlight is pretty bright, not for reading but adequate for some navigation. I even once saw a moonbow in Hawaii! No colors, but the classic shape.
And kings. See Psalm 119:62
I came across the idea lately that people who stay up late are people who are, on some level, dissatisfied with how the day went. I can say that certainly speaks to me. I rarely have truly great days, and as a chronically single person have no reason to go to bed early.
I suspect this study confuses cause with effect. A life that leads to depression is going to make you stay up late, as your poor little brain spins it’s wheels trying to figure out how to get out of the unpleasant situation it’s in.
Like our President, i’m generally tucked into bed by 8 PM.
I was always this way, when I was a teenager in high school the coolest thing around was Saturday Night Live, which started @ 11:30 PM on the west coast-with no reruns, and i’d bravely stay up somehow to watch it, often falling asleep in the first 15 minutes, and then i’d have to bullshit my way through the skits I didn’t see, at school on Monday.
Do night owls feel the most alive @ midnight, versus yours truly who is sharpest @ 0’dark thirty in the wee hours after putting in my 7 or 8 hours worth of REM’s?
Seriously, does the time of day in which one is born have anything to do with one’s lifetime internal clock?
Not sure how your personal history and speculation on whether night owls feel most alive at midnight follows from my comment on the study authors attributing poor mental health to staying up late instead of the reverse, but non-sequiturs and a desire for attention is a bit of a pattern with your posts here.
AndrewJ, I am sorry you feel that way, but given that you do, I hope that next time you will just let it go, that is, let a fellow commenter’s reply pass without a response. I have been on this site for more than a few years, and appreciate Wuk’s contributions immeasurably. He is not merely wise, but the best punster on the board.
I’ve been here for a long time, and Wuk has made some valuable contributions to the commentariat, but this year he’s been on a tear of commenting on anything and everything without adding much to the conversation. I get it, it’s too hot to get outside and he needs something to do, but derailing a conversation I’d like to have about whether poor mental health leads to odd sleep patterns or vice versa isn’t appreciated. He’s welcome to add his non-sequiturs on this topic to the main comments.
This one does. Peak times are 11pm-3am
I don’t have a set sleep schedule. When I was in college, I would study until I felt like sleeping, which could take place at any time. When I was on a payroll, I was the sort at the gym door when it opened at 6 AM and wished it opened earlier so I could get more exercise in, but for many years when blogging, until I moved here, would work all night and try to turn in before sunrise (seeing the sun come up was very bad in terms of getting to sleep).
Another reason to stay up and be alert late into the night: it’s easier for people to sneak up on you under cover of darkness.
One of the benefits of working midnights is less management and management excitement to deal with.
Clicked “more” on Politico’s Gavin Newsom segment and while it’s possible Poltiico has mentioned Newsom’s dyslexia, it’s sure not mentioned in current articles about him.
Am I some kind of weird ableist that I think dyslexia should disqualify you from high executive office? Or any management position? Reading is fundamental, requiring aides to read memos to you reminds me of the Ethiopian civil servant Ryszard Kapuściński wrote about in “Emperor” whose sole responsibility was to slip a pillow beneath Haile Selassie’s feet when he sat on his throne. Not too soon lest it appear the Emperor’s legs are too short, not too late making it obvious that pillows were needed.
Newsom needs to address this upfront. Pritzker needs to very loudly and specifically spell out his relationship to Israel and how he wishes the US-Israel relationship to proceed. Whitmer needs to explain exactly what happened with that FBI entrapment/kidnap plot.
The rest of them need to shut the family blog up and go far, far away.
Some dyslexics are super normal compensators. Star litigator David Boies has a scary, better-than-Putin memory. In cross examinations, he is terrifying in his ability to SPECIFICALLY recall other testimony or depositions and cite exactly where it came from, as in quote it verbatim and cite so the court can confirm.
Boies was famously at a dinner with a group (at least 3 more at his table) with a noisy group of lawyers at a neighboring table (bigger, maybe 6 people). Boies was fully engaged in the conversation with his colleagues. They finished their evening first.
On the way out, Boies stopped at the boisterous table and told them it was poor practice to discuss client business in public. He then quoted verbatim about 3 minutes of their conversation, a juicy section, and indicated he could go on.
They few other dyslexics I have known are not remotely in that league. But they were great teachers, perhaps because they had so much difficulty learning.
But there is no indication that Newsome has honed any cognitive skills.
“Some dyslexics are super normal compensators.”
Another example: Dyslexia didn’t stop Tom Cruise from having a successful acting career.
https://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/success-stories/tom-cruise
Or Bill Hewlett doing very well in the business world.
I have dyslexia, and my therapist told me that dyslexics have higher “creative intelligence” which jives with my life experience.
Are you an ableist? I don’t know. But what you did say here revealed some ignorance. Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Barbara Corcoran, Steven Spielberg… just a few dyslexics.
It is not our dyslexia that gets in our way, it’s people that get in our way.
For a better understanding of dyslexia try reading: The Dyslexic Advantage. Much reccommended.
Glad I don’t have lysdexia.
Most of what has been written as ‘history’ is fiction, and if you look at what most ‘literate’ (yea, even ‘college-educated’) people read, it’s mostly the product of ChatGPT-level thought: Plausible sentences selected for their probability of acceptance. Even ‘scientific’ thought has often been infected. Good luck finding any thought that challenges any ‘norms’.
Most dyslexics can play this game very well without much reading. They usually have a tough time gaining acceptance in school, but out-of-school they can usually fake it with the best of us. Take Trump, for example.
Empathy is the important thing. When I was young, the only way kids like Trump and me could learn about different kinds of people was through reading, but that’s no longer true. Nowadays book larnin’ can git you a job, but in this culture, good luck getting a job that (a) pays a white man’s wage, and (b) has equivalent redeeming social value.
Democrats and the echo chamber of support for Dear Leader. Oh most Fearless and Great president Biden, please continue our exceptional country’s glide path upward and higher as Our Democracy is poised to celebrate it’s 250th year of existence. It will be an excellent display for the world that glorious July evening in 2026! Nevermind the naysayers and doomers, who speak of the poor, indigent or the homeless. Our country is great once again, after the four years of Tribulations under the 45th President.
By the way, Mr. President as well we suggest you forego the purchasing of green bananas. Every Day is a gift…you just never know with these Boeing airplanes lately !! \SARC
Biden:Breshniev
US:USSR
The MIC and other related shadow dictators are fine with a disabled leader!
The gasighting is blind!
Joe’s options are pretty clear here. First take advantage of the new SCOTUS immunity doctrine and have Trump arrested and deported to N. Korea or Iran. Next arrange an accident for Kamala (another official act) and pick any bucket of warm pudding to be the new VP. Then have seal team 6 take out Jim Jordan, blame it on Hamas and declare a state of emergency. This will show competent problem solving and a clear grasp of command. For full affect send all US citizens $600 no $2000. This will be inflationary but shut up a lot of commenters on NC and insure a Biden victory in November.
Shut us up for a mere two grand?
As for that $600 USD still owed; we should set up a ‘Biden $600 Collection Agency.’ Start the robocalls to the Treasury and the White House now!
“Hi! Is Joe Biden there? This is the $600 Collection Agency calling. We know you want to do the right thing. Do you know what an outstanding judgement against you in the Bank of International Settlement will do to your credit rating? Please don’t let this opportunity to forestall a claim against you pass. We accept dollars, euros, rubles, yuan, and other internationally recognized currencies as forms of payment. No cryptos please. When Joe wakes up, get him to call us. If he does not call today, rest assured that we will call tomorrow at regular intervals. Thank you on behalf of the American people.”
Food. Everyone eats. 94% concerned about price of it. Biden’s dead.
See the U.S. workers in debt to buy groceries article?
“even though the staggering jumps in food prices that hit the US and other countries after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine have subsided.”
Rate of increase has slowed down, but the all increase is still there, plus a slightly smaller addition to prices, and will never go down in this administration.
Also, it was Joe Biden that blocked the importation of really cheap Russian/Bylorussian grain and fertilizers into the U.S., not Putin.
How stupid do they think we are?
My vote is available to the highest bidder, for sure. But it’s going to have to be cash in hand before the vote. None of this “vote this way and you’ll get a $2000 check if we win” nonsense.
I took this comment in stride , and it is a far fetched scenario to say the bare minimum…and I greatly doubt the likelihood or ability to shut up our comments from the cheap seats.
As for any bucket of warm pudding…how is that different from what is already in place with our illustrious, highly accomplished VP? I say this in jest, as I cannot take her seriously and what she managed to do as the initial Border Czar, or czar of something else…
I used to refer to Joe as “Pudding skull” but maybe I shouldn’t have painted with such a small brush … Kammy certainly has some moments where I wonder if that gray matter got swapped out for some Kozyshack rice pudding (one of my faves.)
As for the delinquent $600 checks, my memory could be off, but I believe that originated from the 2020 GA Senate runoff which actually happened in early Jan, 2021. Raphael Warnock was in a runoff with I think Kelly Loeffler (details may be off, it could have been Ossoff who was the Dem in a runoff, or both.) Pudding Joe promised $1200 in confetti money to entice the voters to vote for Warnock/Ossoff. It ended up getting cut to $600 in the subsequent Pandemic-era check kiting spree.
Having committed fraud in the inducement, Joe may want to pardon himself before he skips town.
The equivalency I read then is that if a politician lying is fraudulent then to be a politician is fraud. Also presidents no longer need even think about personal pardons. They are now immune. And finally, it was John Garner who compared the vice presidency to a bucket of warm piss or maybe it was pudding.
Warnock, Ossof, and Biden, all three, promised in several video ads that if they won in GA they would guarantee that every taxpayer would get a check for $2000. Say again, a full $2000. We promise. Then for some reason, after they won the payment came — for $1400. I’d love to know which of Biden’s advisers decided they should count the last $600 Trump gave us as part of their $2000. Biden owes me $600.
Please. Biden might have immunity for an illegal order but no one following it would. Punishment for being an accessory to murder is often close to as bad as for murder, as one of many examples.
PALESTINE ONLINE
@OnlinePalEng
Six-year-old Palestinian child Hikmat Badr died of malnutrition, Israel-enforced starvation and the prevention of food and medical supplies from entering the Gaza.
So how can anyone see this, and many other, photos coming out of Gaza and not be horrified. How twisted and F&^k’d up is this society? The leaders at the helm of the gov’t can never, every justify this by appealing to ends. The means are demonic. Slaughter, starvation, subjection, deprivation, collective punishment will be a stain on their souls for all of history. And those who are not moved and outraged by this have no sense of the sacred in human life.
I saw that image and had a flashback to the sort of images that were coming out of Biafra in the 60s. But this wasn’t being done because of an African country under western guidance. This is all on the Israelis but here the west is trying to cover for them by threatening people that criticize Israel with new antisemitism laws because antisemitism is out of control in the west, don’tcha know? Here in Oz we just had our Attorney General say that criticism of Israel ‘absolutely can be’ antisemitic-
https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/jul/09/australia-antisemitism-jewish-communities-australia
The justification that he is using is that other countries are not being criticized the way that Israel is. But how many other countries are massacring people by the tens of thousand, trying to steal their land and showing a level of hatred against Palestinians that should be called out at the United Nations? But the person chosen for this new job will be objective as shown in that article-
‘Peak Jewish groups welcomed the appointment of Jillian Segal AO, who is a lawyer and the immediate past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.’
It reminded me of the photos from the death/concentration camps published in Life magazine, i think in 1947.
100%. The humanitarian west loses its mind over an apparent attack on a hospital in Ukraine, whilst twiddling thumbs over far worse in Gaza. And by that I mean actively supporting said atrocities in Gaza. Moral imbeciles, I cannot wait for the brics to end this for ever.
I’ve shed so many tears I’m numb.
I saw that and flashed back to 3rd grade and the 16mm film I saw of human skeletons behind barbed wire.
For years I have called Gaza an open air concentration camp and now the west is doing its best to prove they can do it better than the Germans. The end of this corrupt system can’t come soon enough.
Rather, an open-air extermination camp. Hideous irony, that.
How can we as a society countenance obvious genocide on the part of the Israeli gov’t with full support of its citizens? Well, to begin with we, in the US are faced with too much information constantly. We weed out info that disturbs us which is a natural defense mechanism. Also, we live in a culture of narcissism in case you haven’t noticed and its increasing dramatically with every new “escape” in gaming, drugs, movies (and Netflix series), we are just too busy in pleasing ourselves in our own unique way and have little interest of far-away tragedies. That’s just reality. So, the Israelis can gradually deplete the population in the West Bank and Gaza to their heart’s content and only if the oligarch-controlled mainstream media (which is solidly and even fanatically pro-Israel) raise a ruckus like they did with Biden’s infirmity and even then, will it make a dent?
Those of us who were raised at a time when information was relatively low have the ability to process significant and startling images better than members of a younger generation but even then we are a minority of the population.
An oldie but a goodie, to put things in some historical context:
https://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-newsletter-100-amateurs-talk-cancel-pros-talk-silence/
Perhaps this is one example of why some of our children (an appreciable percentage of our high schoolers, anyway) neither stand for the pledge of allegiance nor recite it. Unlike many adults, they don’t feel the need to try to gloss over such barbarism, much less excuse it.
Especially because of that picture, I’m getting real tired of avoiding this subject among my Jewish friends and co-workers. I feel like bringing it up and giving no quarter. I feel like saying “stand up at your local Temple and demand the end of this crime”. Then sit down for 10 seconds and stand up and yell the same thing – over and over. Funk Israel and I’m not referring to James Brown!
>Mike Bloomberg gives $1 billion to Johns Hopkins for free medical school – Washington Post
So WaPo, am I supposed to be impressed with MB’s generosity? How much does a citizen of Cuba have to spend to go to medical school? As a citizen here, in the U.S., are social goods bestowed on us from the largesse of billionaires? It is at the discretion of billionaires to allocate resources to social needs? Is that how this country was set up to “form a more perfect Union?”
As far as I understand how the tax deduction thing works in USA, Mr. Bloomberg donated $1 billion worth of government income to Johns Hopkins – a.k.a. other people’s money. I may be mistaken, though.
That said, I do agree that it’s not doing much to solve the actual problem – price of the education.
Exactly. Warren Buffet once said his secretary paid a higher percentage rate of income taxes than he did.
How much does a citizen of Cuba have to spend to go to medical school? Zero.
I’m pretty sure that was zagonostro’s point.
I’m still waiting for my free lifetime subscription to Bloomberg.
Bingo. I enjoy much of Bloomberg’s offerings, including the contributions of the great Tom Keene. However, as for its website, I have read often that cancelling a subscription requires a virtual act of Congress.
If you get past the mythology and really take a close look at how the US was founded, yes it most certainly was set up to work this way.
“Why GPS Is Under Attack”
At least the New York Times admitted that it was an Israeli Air Force base that was sending commercial airliner navigation into jeopardy in the Middle East, not that it made any difference at all with hindering that Iranian attack on that country-
https://x.com/SaadAbedine/status/1808481924374999297
But there was an odd omission in that article. They talked about GPS of course as well as the European Galileo system and China’s Beidou system but they never mentioned Russia’s GLONASS system at all. But then I remembered that this was a New York Times article and then it all made sense.
Fintech story and “banks” that weren’t actually banking institutions with the requisite deposit insurance. Well the fine print can be hard to find and understand but I’m sure it’s there. Banking adjacent just ain’t the same, it turns out.
Move fast and break stuff, isn’t that the start-up motto. Goodness this all looks bad.
By rights, you should be able to go online to a government website such as the US Treasury Department to find out if your bank is listed as being covered by an FDIC safety net. Should take just a minute to find out or not. As of March 31st, 2024, the FDIC listed 4,577 banks in total in the US so it is not a big ask. That way, if you find out that it is not but put your money into it anyway, then it is all on you.
Always been there if anyone would care to look: FDIC.gov
As much as I am not a fan of the Big Banks (looking at you, Jamie D), I hold a checking and savings account at Chase. And it just works, as it has for nearly 40 years. Automatic and manual deposits, checks, automatic payments, even individual transfers to people (“Zelle”). It’s a boring interface, no cute bells and whistles, but utterly reliable, which is actually the first functional requirement in the specification list for a depository and money handler — something that too many are learning the hard way.
(and if you want a better interest rate for your spare cash, get a Treasury Direct account).
I couldn’t agree more. My bank (5/3 and I hate them) gives me .01% on my money, no matter how much is in there. Last year I made almost 4% on that same money using Treasury Direct and short term T-bills.
‘Banking as a Service’ banks
Considering all banks already were a service (“financial services”), that non-sense description always struck me as shady.
Shady yes, but also a clear recognition that banks stopped providing much service to the depositors most dependent on FDIC protection decades ago. That protection was about the only service you got. (Well until Signature and Silicon Valley failed when suddenly the limit on insurance protection was erased and the wealthy were promised to be made whole. They got service AND full protection.)
And now with reports of banks freezing accounts, they don’t even get that.
So now people think it’s a good idea to add yet another middle man that can also cause accounts to be frozen?
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, this isn’t the answer, banks providing easy access and service is. However the shady services and their marketing recognized that weakness in traditional banking and capitalized on it.
And it’s not just start-ups. Acquisitions and mergers can have a similar effect.
Even if a bank is covered by FDIC, in my experience that’s not a guarantee they’re not “banking adjacent”.
I learned this the hard way through an insane adventure with BMO, in which they randomly blocked my account, and then were incapable of unblocking it for over six weeks.
Through this, I learned that my “bank” actually doesn’t manage my money at all — that has all been outsourced to another company called FISERV.
It took more than a dozen phone calls — some over an hour —, and while I first became angry, I came to really feel bad for the people in the call center. NOBODY in the bank has any clue what’s really going on, none of them are on the same page, in the dark about who has the power to fix things, who to call, etc.
Incredible Kafka-esque sh*tshow.
If you read the Bits About Money blog, it is just so. The sheer number of internal systems that don’t talk to each other, and banks intentionally configuring call centers to try to bounce annoying customers, and thus needing to know the right words to say as a customer, and so on, is dumbfounding and stunning. You actually definitely find yourself out of luck. And with the terror laws, banks can close your account for suspicious activity, and they aren’t allowed to tell you about it. You’re just locked out. Literally it is in a separate system, and normal CSRs can’t even find out. Fun times. Like the “no fly” list. So you really can lose access to your money, forever. Disturbing.
“Also a warning NEVER to bank with a company with a cute name.” – Yves
When I first arrived in the US from class-ridden England as a student in 1970, I was so astonished and pleased to see a sign for “The Workingmen’s Bank of Boston” (across the street from Symphony Hall) that I immediately opened an account there and remained a customer for the rest of my stay (I still have the passbook). Long gone now, of course.
Tech workers advised to sell plasma?? Oh my. In Argentina a government spokesman for Milei advised needy families to sell their children. An Argentinian Jonathan Swift no doubt. Now that’s family values.
Will the ideas meet in the center?
Sell the plasma of your children?
I understand that there is a big market for youthful blood in Silicon Valley. Aka. the Vampire Capitalists.
“The Vampire Capitalists” Sounds like a good title for a Hammer Horror. Oh, I almost missed it. Make that “…a Hunter Horror.”
from Saagar and Krystal. utube. ~5 minutes.
Ryan Grim LEAVING INTERCEPT, GOING INDEPENDENT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ_Wt4HIf-E
And why am I supposed to care if a pretty cautious and subtle apologist for the way things are can no longer play nice with other such people? Seems like behavior reminiscent of the fractionalism of the Erudite Left in days gone by. Will the Liberated Spirit now soar to new heights of Freedom of the Press ™?
Why care? Because Grim is career journalists with all kinds of contacts who knows how to play the game to, on average, come out with an income for him and those he loves. Journalists are people and struggle like the rest of us if they don’t have massive name-recognition like a Matt Taibbi or a Glen Greenwald. Journalists also have a social life with others in their profession and it’s socially really hard to lose friends because you don’t endorse Israel’s right to destroy the Palestinian population or bend a knee to WH staff or Hollywood stars etc.
Grim is clearly very cautious and avoids taking a position partly, I would guess, because he’s cynical. Cynicism has its virtues.
Well said.
Angry Joe
Sung to the tune of, “Candy-O” by the Cars
Angry-Joe, I need you
Vacant stare, spittled grin
Angry-Joe, I need you so
Could you still win?
Hearing aids, colored flash cards
Razor wit you’ll bring!
And all to prove your electoral odds
Aren’t vanishing
Angry-Joe, I need you so
Angry-Joe, I need you so
Edge of night, inject yourself
Last week’s dose won’t work
Oxygenize, metabolize, then go berserk
Different ways to see this through
All the same in the end
Peculiar star, that’s who you are
Can you really win?
Angry-Joe, I need you so
Angry-Joe, it’s time to go
Angry-Joe, it’s time to go
Angry-Joe, it’s time to go
Melody
I can’t stay, yes I know
You know I hate to go
But goodbye, being President was sweet
That finish line i’ll never meet
So I’ll cry just a little ’cause I loved it so
And I’ll die just a little ’cause I have to go away
Can’t you see how I feel
When I say your diagnosis of me was unreal
So goodbye, it’s been sweet
Even though incomplete
So I’ll cry just a little ’cause I loved it so
And I’ll die just a little ’cause I have to go away
Every night I still hear
All your sighs very clear
Now #46 is gone, gone away
As I once heard you say
Now I’ve cried just a little ’cause I loved it so
And I’ve died just a little ’cause I had to go away
Ahh… Ahh… Ahh… Ahh…
Just a Little, by the Beau Brummels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYneeXVOAyA
La Rioja issues Argentina’s first emergency ‘quasi-currency’ in 20 years Buenos Aires Herald
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’d prefer Argentinian money be Mendoza Malbec Theory, in 750 ml bottles.
Remember when California handed out “IOUs” in lieu of taxpayer refunds during the 2009 financial crisis?
The Internet never forgets:
Don’t cry for me, Sacramento
Promise Sorry Notes
A promised land, built on promissory notes.
Lest we forget, also from the quasi-nation of California, the dreaded Bank of San Andreas D-fault Notes. For those with strong risk tolerance, the 4D tranche promises the highest “yields.” Often cited as the most probable financial instrument to create ‘seismic shocks’ to the system.
Biden sounds like an old man I have lunch with……
He needs to be like us: retired!
C’mon, man. He can’t. He’s running the world! He told us so himself.
Considering the condition of the world, it is all the more reason to put him in restraints and transfer him to a retirement home with the ability to care for the mad kings.
First let’s get him into some clothing. His traipsing about in the nude like that is unseemly for the Leader of the Free World. A little kid watching the ‘debate’ in our living room with us pointed that out to the rest of us. Out of the mouths of babes and all that!
The inability of young consumers to internalize Rightthink from birth is a continuous problem in Progressive Pedagogy.
I nominate Biden’s dog, Commander to be on the ballot.
That would put some teeth in this campaign.
You think hanging chads were a problem? Wait until you get a hold of some chewed up by dogs ballots to decipher. (Available exclusively in Swing States this fall!)
That will be the best excuse for failure yet; “The dog ate my election.”
He needs to be unlike us, incarcerated!
Then we can argue about whether the bars are there to keep Joe in or the angry mobs out.
I think I saw a recent headline, that instead of building a presidential edifice to his time in the office, customarily it’s a library or some university affiliated center, that instead Joe should construct a presidential nursing home. He’s got a think tank already, at UPENN I believe.
Could’ve been on the satirical site the Bee…so to cue Blazing Saddles up it could be paired with the William Le Petomayne Center to treat the Insane Gambler.
“Ukraine wants Poland to protect its skies near border”
If this ever happened, this would be Poland officially being a party to this war. Zelensky would absolutely love for this to happen to get Poland tangled up in a fight with Russia but is Poland really willing to shoot off all it’s missiles to protect Ukrainian air space and maybe leaving them with none afterwards to defend their own airspace? Helluva risk that.
I do not know how it is going, Poland was being set up to do production of some parts of the Patriot systems they were “buying”. It was a place where US MIC executives could go and “see the world”.
I am sure what ever Patriot stuff expended by Poland for the Ukraine project will be fully paid by the US.
Yeah, but the war spilling over to Poland will be paid by the Poles, dearly.
How many Ukranian men are living in Poland? Could be a ploy to get them deported back home.
Only problem is that thing called the “Schengen Zone.” Any refuseniks can easily skip out of Poland for Germany, or better yet, Spain or Portugal. If they have the means, a flight to Mexico and a wide-open US border are possibilities.
Zelensky really sounds like the “buddy” who routinely gets drunk, starts fights with strangers, then blames the other party for starting things, and expects you to feel sympathy or even help him when some buff dude is beating the cr*p out of him.
To me he sounds like an actor who was paid to play the role of President of Ucrania, and is doing what the script tells him to do. He would probably like to retire, but that he fears for his career, and, probably, his life.
This is a real plus for Russia, if they can get Poland to disarm itself shooting at drones/decoys over Ukraine, the attrition of NATO just accelerates. Like the picture above of the electricity imports into Ukraine. Russia could presumably bomb the incoming connections, but as long as they are working, Ukraine just burdens their neighbors with energy drain and debts that will never be repaid.
Ozempic Linked to Rare Cases of Vision Loss in Harvard Study Bloomberg
~~~~~~~~~~~~
How cruel… you lost all those pounds, but can’t see what you weigh on the scale, because you’re blind.
In Europe, there is a definition for what is a “rare” or “frequent” side-effect of a medicine:
frequent: 1%-10% of patients;
infrequent: 0.1%-1%;
rare: 0.01%-0.1%;
very rare: 0.001%-0.01%.
I read that there are currently 15 million people in the USA under prescription for Ozempic — which would mean, in a first crude calculation, that up to 15’000 people are at risk of getting blind.
It’s remarkable. There’s a pill for everything. Even after they go through that list of risks at the end of these drug commercials (You can die from this pill!), people run to their doctors for more and avoid the obvious, natural cure, like exercise and eating and drinking less and better when obese.
I recently drove a friend to the doctor after she was complaining of dizziness for ten days. I suggested no caffeine, no sugar, “grazing” food consumption, more exercise, just, better living, because I’ve been through vertigo attacks, and that’s what worked for me. Nope, can’t be a prophet in your own house, the saying goes, so off to a doctor, who, of course, wrote a script for her and didn’t even mention diet. I think it was a placebo, but filled the pill need.
Does she use a massage gun on her neck? That has been shown to cause vertigo
Curious that. Phyllis has been having attacks of nausea and vertigo when she speaks on the 4G iPhone for more than two or three minutes at a time. It started very recently. Someone should look into an electromagnetic ‘trigger’ for vertigo attacks.
I’ve had bouts of what I think is called “positional vertigo ” where it triggers if you hold your head a certain way. A lot of people (say) incline their heads when they talk on a cellphone and that might be enough to set it off.
I’ll look into that idea. (I will have to observe Phyl from a distance the next few times she uses the iPhone and ask “innocent” questions later.)
Thanks for the tip.
From JAMA:
Question Are prescriptions for semaglutide associated with an increased risk of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) in patients with type 2 diabetes or patients who are overweight or obese?
Findings This matched cohort study of 16 827 patients revealed higher risk of NAION in patients prescribed semaglutide compared with patients prescribed non–glucagon-like peptide receptor agonist medications for diabetes or obesity.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-abstract/2820255
From STATnews:
Study links Ozempic to higher risk of eye condition that can cause vision loss
https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/03/ozempic-wegovy-naion-vision-loss-study/
My wife’s dentist recommended a surgical procedure to lengthen her jaw for a largely cosmetic problem. He had her speak to another patient who had done the surgery who was very happy with the out come. But digging a little deeper, it turned out the women could no longer feel half her face or taste her food.
So, would you rather be blind or FAT
We have that news in Links already, and anecdata t from IM Doc. Our house rule is that readers are required to read a post in full before commenting. It appears you didn’t.
That’s almost like the character in something wicked this way comes who gains beauty only to lose her sight.
This is too funny. The MSM has jumped the shark with this O’Donnell proposal, imo. on X-twtr.
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell calls for allowing Joe Biden to have aides with him on stage to speak for him and help him sound coherent during the next debate. This is where we are at now.
https://x.com/ModernityNews/status/1810247698542411873
Better remind those aides speaking for Biden that his Presidential immunity doesn’t extend to them.
Not sure O’Donnell is still capable of writing second rate scripts much less anything else.
If I could, I’d make a meme of Ralphie from the Simpsons with his finger up his nose and holding a briefcase saying “And I’ve got the nuclear codes!”
Whut, are you some ableist who expects him to have more than two neurons firing? \
I still can’t get over the apparently serious suggestion from HufPo that the Dems create AI deepfakes of Biden to trick voters into voting for Genocide Joe. It’s amazing the lack of self-awareness and how these people will suggest anything except that Biden is simply too out of it to be President.
Silly Huffpo, We’ve been seeing and hearing Biden deepfakes for years.
“The irrelevance of Biden’s senility” Asia Times
These people have all lost their minds.
Butchers and farmers aren’t part of an apparatus that passes laws that govern people’s lives.
Just read the article and it’s complete nonsense. The old mass media has completely jumped the shark now.
Philosophy majors can correct me, but I think the article falls under the banner of sophistry.
So… they expect me to vote for a Dem Politburo? The same Politburo that got us into this mess in the first place? riiiight. / ;)
Persistent heat wave in the US shatters new records, causes deaths in the West and grips the East Associated Press
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feels a bit like hell with space heaters, but you go with the atmosphere you have-not the atmosphere you want…
One more week of this and we’ll dip into the high 90’s, might need a parka!
Can’t help with the heat of course but here is a video that you can put on in the background that may help out-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGkh1W5cbH4
Exactly, They do this every year. Subject us to the July blast furnace then dial it back to the high 90’s and we are so grateful we go right back to that roofing job.
I admit that I know Joe Biden’s long history of plagiarism, lies, war mongering, misogyny and racism along with his fealty to the banks that got him to the Senate. (His international influence peddling was new to, thanks Hunter!). I could never really understand anyone voting for him. But I allow for the results of fear mongering and ignorance.
But if he is the final nominee, I will actively savage any Democrat that bangs on about how bad Trump voters are, regardless of the reasons. There is no mistaking or ignoring that Joe Biden is unfit to be President today and certainly incapable of it for the future. There are other options on the ballot. Fear of Trump does not and will not excuse this lapse of voter responsibility.
But by voting for Biden they will be able to stop Hitler–or maybe two Hitlers if you include Putin. Hillary has already declared Putin to be Hitler and has she ever been wrong about anything?
So it’s merely the traditional Dem lesser evil pitch taken to its illogical extreme. Biden even describes himself as the lesser evil and quotes his dad saying “but look at the other guy.” So the Dems are not so much the dog ate my homework party as the Hitler ate my homework party. Nazi fighting is distracting but virtuous.
I think it’s all moot as Joe will be gone before any voting. He’s embarrassing the people who really “run the world.”
“I think it’s all moot as Joe will be gone before any voting.”
I’m beginning to think not. The Dems are fighting a civil war among themselves, and the gangster element is taking off the gloves. The tweet that Lambert featured yesterday in Water Cooler is a good example. Public blackmail. Nice political career you got there. Shame something could happen to it. This morning I read that my governor, Moore, is saddling up behind Biden. Of course he is. He’s a rookie that suddenly needs a 4 billion dollar bridge, or Baltimore’s economy sinks even lower, and he has to leave politics and get a job. Multiply that by a hundred around the country with the “infrastructure” bill money being dangled in front of everybody.
Well admittedly I live in my own “silo” but I try to pick the one where people know what they are talking about. And most of those say the money boys will decide and so far they are treating Biden like, as Nicholas von Hoffman said about Nixon, the dead rat lying on the floor. Your can conceal things until they are revealed and then they are hard to unsee. I doubt local politicos or even Congress people have much pull here.
But if Biden does stay in only an insane country would re-elect him. Of course that’s no guarantee.
Biden basically said only God could take him out of the campaign. Do not assume God or his minions in the intel agencies will not oblige.
I’m thinking along the same lines as you Mr. Benny.
AOC got behind Angry Joe. She doesn’t want to go back to being a bartender.
There is certainly a schism with the more rational (!) camp like Carville and other consultants realizing what a potential debacle this is. But Congress is full of grifters and empty suits like Hakeem Jeffries, who will do what they’re told, or else. Schumer is probably too powerful to just stick a shiv in if he won’t go along, but he goes way back with Angry Joe and is probably loyal.
The one thing that is being seriously underestimated by the gangster wing is that this isn’t going away. There will be rumors of medical emergencies, secret Clinton skull-duggery, along with the Wizard of Kalorama sitting back and munching popcorn right up through the convention. That’s still over a month away. Lots of time for the polls to get worse, and Trump to cement his positioning. Practically nobody is going to change their mind about Biden after the debate debacle. So, if they’re gonna stick with him, the Donkeys will need to have the stoic resolve of a captain of a ship that’s taking on water and about to capsize, and the last lifeboat just got lowered into the water with the women and children.
Tend to agree that biden may not be going anywhere.
Senility precludes rationality. People don’t give up the car keys, they have to be taken away. That’s usually done by concerned family members, and there are none of those in evidence here.
It’s admittedly perverse, but biden’s diminished capacity is serving him well here. I’m sure he believes completely what he’s saying about being the only one who can beat Trump, that the polls are wrong about him and all his other delusions, since he is “unburdened” by a fully functioning, rational brain.
The problem for TDS world is that, having installed a dementia patient into the presidency, they now have a dementia patient in the presidency which is, as any memory care center employee can tell you, not necessarily the best position to be in when attempting to influence behavior in full view of the entire world.
If they want him out, it will have to be by some sort of “force.” But they’d better do it soon. He’s latched onto the idea that “the elites” want him out, and that just might resonate with those “voters” who inexplicably still see him as the man for the job.
I think you may be right about him not leaving. So on to plan X, whatever the plan number they are on. What might this be?
Throw more dirt on Trump. On Twitter, guess what’s trending? #TrumpPedoFiles
It appears Trump has a “well documented” history of 12 year olds, and according to my vote blue no matter who friends, this has been news for a long time but the media won’t cover it. Why? Because the news is in the tank for Trump of course.
I have no idea what is true and what isn’t at this point, but smearing your opponent has long been in the playbook, and at this point I don’t think anything is off the table.
Well not off the table in your comment.
Trying to force the process has become a lot harder when the blue are pushing the senile guy. They do have a credibility issue.
He was on Morning Joe in his post debate tour. I never watch it, it’s horrid, but this is pretty simple, they just let him rant, no questions or, “But, Mr. president”s. Just crazy old Joe ranting, and picking up momentum, and he finishes with “And Trump spoke to Putin before he invaded!”. It’s on YouTube somewhere. He honestly thinks the people want him because they voted him once, and he won all the primaries. It’s remarkable. He’s declared war against the donor class right before the convention. Stay tuned.
Forgive me if this has been linked here before–appropriately scathing from the WSJ, and well worth the read:
I agree.
https://archive.ph/xmHJx
I believe Patrick Lawrence quoted that at length.
It was always likely that Trump would win and he has been ahead in the polls for months. I’m not sure it’s too dramatic to say that Biden can take the party down with him if they let him. It’s not just about personalities. They are saying it’s ok for an incapacitated person to be commander in chief. If that’s true the all this money we spend on “defense” means nothing.
Well, whatever else they were, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and LBJ were certainly capable, not yes-men, and in the case of LBJ at least not particularly loyal. So I’d say the WSJ is over-generalizing about VPs.
“The progressive vessel?” This is Joe Biden we’re talking about here. Strom Thurmond’s old buddy, Mr Biden Crime Bill, “effective death penalty,” no bankruptcies for student loans…Joe Biden. The libertarian ritual gestures “more statism,” etc sound more hollow than ever and really undercut the main and irrefutable points.
Well, it is the WSJ — there must be ritual genuflection to libertarianism as a form of tribal signalling.
The Whitehouse may soon need to hire for some new positions in a Department of Presidential Taxidermy, with a few slots allocated for hiring some animatronic engineers from Disney … or is A.I. ready take on the job of animating a representation of our Leader.
I am actually looking forward for Biden as president of the US. As with the genocide in Gaza, the mask will come off as well when it comes to who, how, and why the US is run the way it is. There won’t be enough porcine maqueillage in the world to beautify US. Dorian Grey’s portrait as exhibit number 1!
“This Nato summit could save or sink Biden’s candidacy’
There won’t be any reckoning at that NATO summit. At least not publicly. If there was, then it would undercut European support for project Ukraine so they will nod their heads when he speaks, check their mobiles to see what is on offer for lunch and then give him a round of applause when he finishes and glad that he did not glitch out. Privately they may be panicking as it might mean that the Orange Man may be back next year. But in America, more and more people are calling for him to stand down. Would you believe that Stephen King and Rob Reiner have called for him to stand down?
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/joe-biden-out-president-hollywood-b2576143.html
The Dem party has bigger problems than one fading candidate in one race. The entire party apparatus has been exposed as let’s say less than democratic, indifferent to its voters, and wholly owned by the donors. And that’s not even the worst stuff. Who knew a mentally declining B would open their Pandora’s box upon them?
Today Elisabeth Warren came out swinging in Joe’s corner. I once actually said I was proud to have her as a Senator. That was back before she drove the shiv in Bernie’s back by saying he told her a “women couldn’t become President” and then staying in the primary race after the others dropped out. I’m using this as a good litmus text for who actually gives a s**t about the future of this country instead of themselves.
Liz really hates Trump after the Pocahontas stuff. He does have a way of getting under people’s skin and women in particular.
But she obviously hasn’t figured out that even if Biden stays in the race he is toast. Better to keep your mouth shut than to declare yourself a fool.
Now mind you there is supposedly polls out there showing Biden surging ahead in two swing states (I’ve seen that cited in two different comment threads by what I believe may be Biden bot accounts trying to turn the conversation around.) so the delusion is being fed things they should know is more gaslighting. But quite honestly despite my disgust at his ever becoming President I might be tempted to tell a pollster I was voting for him just to help watch the Democratic Party explode when he loses.
“Liz really hates Trump after the Pocahontas stuff…”
Nonetheless, Elizabeth Warren posed as an Indian for years. This is severe dishonesty.
Right. She was transitioning to indigenous but hadn’t had the full race reassignment surgery yet. Trump took advantage of that, bad boy that he is.
Check out the CSPAN video of then-VP Biden swearing in newly-minted Senator Warren. After the oath, there is a congratulatory handshake that includes a side-hug. It goes on and on. She keeps trying to retrieve her hand and move away and he keeps pulling her in closer, while her husband stands right there. And this is the man for whom she accused Bernie of sexism.
But hey, she’s “just a player in the game.”
RE: Vampire Squid starting to throw shade at AI
It’s beginning to look like we’re now in the mid-innings of the AI bubble. Cracks starting to form, pitchers arms wearing down, relief guys in the bullpen warming up.
It’s going to be epic when it finally blows.
Everybody acts like there weren’t calls for investigations after the dot.com bubble.
People forget because 2001 happened.
People are taught to forget. In his book “1984,” Orwell was not theorizing about some far future socio-political development. He was describing an already established and functioning system. Operation Mockingbird goes all the way back to the late 1940s. Bernays perfected parts of the system during and after WW-1. The Western governments were already practicing “information warfare” during WW-2. The Axis Powers were doing the same.
Now the question is, who are the Allies and who are the Axis?
“Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.”
In classic GS form, throwing shade is basically throwing a bunch of ideas out there then strategically sitting on the fence: “[D]espite these concerns and constraints, we still see room for the AI theme to
run, either because AI starts to deliver on its promise, or because bubbles take a long time to burst.”
Take a [bleeping] side, GS!
When the squid starts shorting NVDA and selling AI default swaps, they’ll take a side.
Of course, we don’t have any way of knowing this so maybe they already are.
One way of “knowing” which side they are on is to read their articles – they’ll be talking their book. Short positions on AI taken a year ago aren’t looking good. Could motivate the report.
My Doctor made an interesting comment the other day, thought I’d share.
So my routine blood work came back and it said my Vitamin D was bit low. I thought this was odd, as I take a multi everyday that’s supposed to be 125% of recommended, and also I’m getting maybe 15-20 hours of sunshine a week via driving and hiking. When I told my Doc this, he said, “I’ve never seen so many patients with low vitamin D levels, must be something in the water.” The water part wasn’t said in seriousness.
Anyone else out there have low D? Or heard something about this?
At my last wellness exam in Jan, my Vit. D level was 29.7 — 30 to 100 is considered normal per MyCharts.
Yes, it was Jan. but I too take supplements, have a good diet, and I am outside during the day at least 20 min. x 4+ days a week, even in the dead of winter.
If I am barely “normal”—-someone who is more sedentary must be in awful shape w/respect to Vit. D.
That is one hypothesis thrown around often—much of the latent lethargy, depression, etc. among people is Vitamin D deficiency—even in locations w/lots of sunlight.
Alas it’s expensive to craft a good study re. Vitamin D, and no one will get rich off of it unless Pfizer can design a long-term Vitamin D patch that Medicare will reimburse for $100 a unit.
I also got the Pfizer Covid jab 2x. (wound up getting Covid twice afterwards within the next 12 months)
I took supplemental vitamin D for a few years without successfully raising my levels. Then I was advised by a new doctor to take a gel cap instead of a tablet. Duh. It’s a fat soluble vitamin and needs the appropriate delivery system. Changing my source brought me to very good levels in a reasonable period of time. 125% of recommended is not a particularly high dose, especially with a deficiency. It wouldn’t be appropriate of me to say anything further about dosage.
I take a little oil or butter with my vitamin D precisely because of the fat solubility.
This came up recently on Twitter, actually. It’s disturbing. I didn’t click to dig deeper though.
Liver or kidney problems can cause low vitamin D. Liver cirrhosis cannot be found by bloodwork; you have to have a scan (or a biopsy).
I worry that the spike protein is causing widespread organ damage; I am seeing liver and kidney problems in people I know who have had covid.
Laid-off tech workers advised to sell plasma, personal belongings SFGate
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Awhile back I was walking along the circa 1900 flume in Sequoia NP that provides electricity in one of the state’s earliest hydroelectric projects, and at one point I came across a sluice gate that shluffed off excess water from going into the flume, and on said gate it read:
Union Iron Works
SF, Ca.
They made all sorts of things, from locomotives to battleships, now most of the industry in SF is invisible, including the laid off tech workers~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Iron_Works
Now manhole covers are stamped “Made in India.”
Disgusting abandonment of the American worker.
More like 40 years of shuttered foundries due to people wanting to breath clean air. We import our castings and export our pollution.
God forbid we actually set up tax incentives to invest in pollution control and that industry instead buying F-35’s or cut into the executive stock awards or company stock buybacks.
Working link for “Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff tests positive for Covid-19 days after joining Biden for July 4 celebrations” article at-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/doug-emhoff-covid-harris-biden-b2575669.html
So was this Kamala trying to get old Joe fatally infected by Covid by using her husband as a carrier?
Well it worked a charm for ol prince Charlie…..soon as he infected his mother, she was on the way out in a short six months, dying a full ten years before the age her mother died.
Nonsense, it was the formal meeting with Liz Trus.
The Cradle. Made in America, ISIS.
Well, the whole article is disturbing, so I recommend it to you.
Noting: “The possibility of “direct supply” of US weapons to ISIS raises the question of whether US forces delivered weapons to the terror group not only via so-called Syrian rebels, but directly by transport plane or helicopter.”
And the article gives eyewitness reports of U.S. deliveries to ISIS.
The question is: Who was directing this on the U.S. end?
These people simply cannot stop themselves:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/
The US connection to ISIS was completely obvious to me from the very beginning. ISIS did not just rise out of the desert from dragon’s teeth. They were supplied and trained by some combination of forces who also gave you Al-Qaida and who do this sort of thing on the regular in one form or another. Throw enough money around (the CIA has access to almost unlimited amount of it) hire mercenaries and some fanatics and voila. Those of us who have followed the career of covert operations since and including WWII know how these things work. After one has studied coups and wars involving covert operations (just watch the movie Syriana to get the flavor of the culture) most things that seem to come out of “nowhere” are brought to you by the covert ops community. Just so you know, I’ve run into covert ops types from time to time and they spoke very freely–whether CIA or SAS or free-lancers.
I read about a declassified/unclassified report from Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012, warning that the State Department support of ISIS was dangerous and might be counter-productive. Can’t find it in a search, but I saw several different stories about it.
I second the recommendation. Most Americans have no idea what the US and its allies did to Syria and how we continue to perpetuate its suffering. And while it is acceptable these days to question our actions in Iraq, this is usually discussed within the usual “incompetence” framework: intelligence “failures,” ignorant or inexperienced administrators, underestimation of the “complexities” of the region, etc. “We meant well, but we just didn’t grasp the full extent of…” etc.
This is such infuriating bulls**t. We *meant* to create chaos and destruction by fanning existing ethnic and religious tensions and civil war. This strategy of balkanization was always part of the neocon plan to divide and rule in forging a “New Middle East.” We’ve employed this strategy countless times before. And it is *always* the same afterward. We look back on the smoldering ruins and claim innocence; we were just trying to support “democracy” and “freedom” but gosh, we just underestimated how intransigent the problems were. Mistakes were made, etc. And of course our media colludes in this fake history.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/
[ An absurd, horrid article by a writer long intent on destroying the government of Syria. ]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html
August 2, 2017
Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War
By MARK MAZZETTI, ADAM GOLDMAN and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
The shuttering of the C.I.A. program, one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train Syrian rebels since the 1980s, has forced a reckoning over its successes and failures.
the article gives eyewitness reports of U.S. deliveries to ISIS.
The question is: Who was directing this on the U.S. end?
At the time, there was speculation that the Benghazi fiasco came about because Ambassador Stevens was running a ratline to funnel arms from the Libyan chaos to arm the “moderate” Syrian rebels. One of those things we’ll never know, since evidence was unfortunately wiped…
That article combines all that I have been reading about how ISIS was trained, equipped, financed and supported in the Iraq/Syria theater. It was only Iran and Russia that saved the situation there. The US has a long history of being behind all sorts of terrorist groups that they pretend to fight against though sometimes they go off the reservation as Hillary admitted when she was talking about how the US created Al Qaeda-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnLvzV9xAHA (1:23 mins)
So if it is ISIS-K attacking a civilian concert hall in Moscow or a terrorist group attacking Chinese engineers building new infrastructure in the Far East or maybe terrorists in Africa attacking government troops and civilians in places like Niger, know then that all those groups have the stamp ‘Made in the USA’ on them.
The Synapse failure amounts to roughly 1% of what the FDIC paid to make all depositors whole, (regardless of how far over $250k) at SVB and Signature banks. But this time around the FDIC thumps on the rulebook. Seems sort of like the financial equivalent of kill 1 you’re a murderer, kill a million you’re a conqueror.
The devil is in the details, and yes while SVB and Signature suddenly having all deposits covered in entirety rather than just up to $250,000 was an atrocity they were banks taken over by the government. If I understand this correctly the bank is not the distressed part of this, is not in danger of being shut down, and has not put under the government control.
In some ways this reads more like Sam Fine’s FTX mess with more incompetence and less malevolence. The middleman has filed for bankruptcy. It’s bad accounting doesn’t know whose money they have, where they put it, and even has pools of funds where none of that is clear. The article says some money has been released. I would not be surprised if some or all of that is the small portion of transactions that were actually deposited in the bank as they were supposed to have been. That space between making a deposit and the deposit making it to the bank when using a middleman can be huge if they don’t actually put the money in the bank.
I would feel defrauded as well, but on its face it is not the bank or the FDIC who defrauded these unfortunate people. I sincerely hope that the courts and yes attorney generals of the states involved help them get as whole as possible.
YOU MISSED THE POINT!
The entity that failed was not FDIC insured.
Do you expect State Farm to pay for your house fire when you don’t have a policy with them?
“The U.S. Air Force Has a Big Problem It Can’t Solve: Its Fleet of Warplanes Is Old”
I suppose the source of this problem goes back to the Clinton regime. Like with media corporations, the Clintons also demanded that all those defence corporations start combing into mega large corporations. Why they wanted this I do not know. But with the reduced number of corporations, it also saw a heavy reduction in competition. And when you think about it, there has not been a lot of new designs since then. The F-35 is a fiasco and the Osprey is an accident waiting to happen and are emblematic of the newer designs. Readers may remember how Boeing is going to be penalized but tonight I heard them say that if this happened, then maybe it will have a bad effect on their defence contracts knowing that there are not many places the government could go to as an alternative. So it looks like the US will be depending on all that old iron for a very long time.
I’m sure this is not news to you but war is a racket and the DOD is, as are most part of the Fed gov’t, systemically corrupt. That they get anything done at all is testament to a few hard workers who are not corrupt and may eventually lose their jobs because of it.
Big Newsletter recently this year covered in detail the defense industry consolidation in the 1990s, the “last supper”, and how this demonstrably has led to a weaker national defense capability. We really need to break up these large defense contractors, which mostly just outsource at this point and cash phat government contract checks.
An empire that can’t even build weapons; what a joke.
Re America’s out of date aircraft–even the F-35 is an old design as I used to see the test version making flights out of Dobbins north of Atlanta and that was over 20 years ago.
“The aircraft descends from the Lockheed Martin X-35, which in 2001 beat the Boeing X-32 to win the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35
Lockeed has a big plant in Cobb Country, GA. The plant was built in WW2 to make B-29s.
So this supposedly cutting edge plane had to go through decades of development and is still considered by many to be a boondoggle–which was the argument made from the beginning.
Ultimately the poor performance of our weapons is the strongest argument for switching from Russia–which we might in fact have to fight–to a phony war stance against China where the Pentagon can do what it does best which is spend money and not have to fight. One suspects the Pentagon knows this themselves. Ukraine was Biden/Blinken/Nuland’s project, not theirs.
Those of us who think about history have to understand that war is a racket, as I mentioned above, so the US war-fighting strategy is to carry on a war for as long as possible using massive numbers of bombs and ammo and never win so it can continue until it’s lost. The business model is always to lose a war. What is deeply surprising to me is why more people don’t pick up on this question: why does a country that spends as much as we do on the military almost always lose wars?
Maybe I notice it because I have had some experience of the criminal street in my youth.
Throwing this out for consideration, knowing we get frequent comments from an overseas contingent who might weigh into the conversation. But, that is a wild headline but incredibly appropriate for our most excellent timeline in 2024.
Not welcome I suppose? Hey get the local head of tourism on the line, pronto.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/09/barcelona-residents-squirt-travelers-with-water-to-protest-overtourism.html
I’m a US commenter but good for these Spaniards! (The cruise contingency are particularly vile tourists IMHO.)
The core issue for most of our problems is that there are simply too many people in the world.
I don’t know if it was listed above, but I noticed several stories in the mainstream about Russia deliberately destroying a children’s hospital in Ukraine. Why would Russia do that? If you already believe the narrative that Putin is a bloodthirsty ghoul who loves to see people, particularly those who are most vulnerable then it makes sense. Russia claims it’s from an AD missile gone astray which is quite common in that war. Having followed this war since 2014 in meticulous detail I wouldn’t be surprised if Ukraine or Western intel was responsible–it would be typical. To say the least Russia does not seek more negative PR.
Did you notice that Alexei Navalny died one day before a major Western conference? And his grieving wife, who was at that conference, made a powerful speech.
It’s interesting that this attack on the hospital happens just one day before the NATO anniversary meeting in the USA and by sheer coincidence Zelensky is that that conference.
I think both times were just sheer coincidence. /s.
And if I recall correctly, the Syrian government carried out a couple of vicious chemical attacks just as things were going bad for ISIS or other terrorist groups. Again just a coincidence.
These things are very easy to read if you’re paying attention–I think that may be deliberate as well saying to opponents, this is what we do–you may have hypersonics or whatever but we have this. So, are you sure you want to f*** with us?
Larry C. Johnson “Son of the New American Revolution” has a post about the attack:
https://sonar21.com/ukraine-bombs-its-own-childrens-hospital-and-british-journal-says-palestinian-death-toll-is-astronomical/
Comments are interesting too.
“To say the least Russia does not seek more negative PR.”
No, though frankly I think it’s already priced in. People already either hate us or hate America more than whatever misgivings they feel about us. There are moral reasons to (try and) avoid such targets (whether they matter or not to decision-makers), but PR is not and probably should not be an important factor.
Everyone forgot how Ukraine missiled the train station in Kramatorsk about two years ago to scare people away from leaving town?
And all those Russian sympathizers in Bucha…
A clip I have seen with a family of three (one young girl) in their lada, trying to skirt the front lines on some dirt, narrow agricultural road, being ambushed by a group of UAF and gunned down is still staying with me.
And the daily new clips with the conscription process in Ukraine…
Hannibal doctrine can be useful, eh?!
“Russia deliberately destroying a children’s hospital in Ukraine. Why would Russia do that?”
They ran out of maternity hospitals and kindergartens? /sarc
I still have “Pet Shop” on my bingo card. Syria or Ukraine.
Remember when Russia was going after all of the branches of The Last Hospital In Aleppo? /s
Aleppo as reported by “western” media
So I think this is important, and I come up with this stuff talking to myself endlessly like a hermit; So goes year 5 of the Pandemic.
Recognition of the dangers of SARS2 infection is blunted, I think, by a few things:
– People don’t turn blue and bleed out their eyes
– People, an overwhelming number, have gotten it and survived
Ultimately, lived experience matters. If you and many people you know got COVID and recovered, as far as you know or hear, why would you consider it a threat? If this virus killed on contact, we’d have a different story, possibly. (Although the 1918 flu strain did straight up kill a double digit number of infected people; it was also seasonal, not year round.)
When you’ve got public health messaging that it isn’t a big deal, when you’ve got some portion of the public that always believed it was not a big deal, due to a failing public health establishment at the onset, when you’ve got people’s own lived experience, and that of people that they trust — communities always have people that set trends, or that define acceptable behaviors, or engage in myth making — you aren’t going to see too many people taking it seriously. Because there’s no evidence from any direction to take it seriously. It’s easier to believe that nothing is afoot, when that’s what your senses and social circle tell you.
The more I fail on Dating App, the more crystal clear this becomes, and those insults and partial discussions have thus been valuable.
Unfortunately our failed public health response — because markets, go die — has ensured that people simply don’t have the facts, either. Eventually during the AIDS crisis, people did start getting the facts. We were taught in elementary school about it, and I remember being scared for years about getting AIDS as a small child! I can’t speak to the quality of the public health messaging, but there was some, and it was apparently widely disseminated after it was clear straight people could contract HIV.
And here we have SARS2, which also has dangerous implications for the immune system, although different than AIDS, to say nothing about being neurotropic. But there’s no Star Trek scanner that shows you have brain damage. For most people, none of what SARS2 does is part of their lived experience; even if they have lingering symptoms, there’s no basis for connecting this with a SARS2 infection. (And damage can surface months after a “mild” infection. The acute phase symptoms are not at all related to the actual damage that SARS2 can cause.) Why would there be? There’s no public health messaging on this; it’s subtle, so people go on what they see and hear and feel, which is that this Pandemic is over.
What an absolute debacle, and this bodes ill for turning the situation around, without significant population level disability: Another way that perhaps eventually lived experience will align with the stark reality. But by then it’ll be likely too late.
At least with H5N1, the mass death could be the default, and people might take that seriously, and if it proves seasonal, maybe it can be defeated? Impossible to say.
There’s also terrible public health messaging on the immunity system; people seem to think it is some magical shield that protects from all Evil. Or something. Rather than the last line of defense against deadly pathogens. If your house is at risk of fire, you don’t just keep a fire extinguisher; You trim back the foliage on your property, you conduct other risk mitigation activities. People seem to think the immune system is a Star Trek shield or something. (And simultaneously needs to be “exercised”.)
Anyway, public health in this country is a disaster, and so is the information level of our primary care providers in regards to SARS2. Shocking denial, hopelessly ill informed.
Stay safe out there! My new Envoid just arrived!
Good points. The denial concerning the SARS2 virus is well-nigh total here in the North American Deep South. Masking in public is nearly extinct. A blithe spirit of “everything’s normal again” permeates the society. The medical establishment chugs along with its denialist agenda. I still cannot get a prescription for the “I” drug without proof that I am traveling to some tropical danger zone. Prophylaxis is a “lost art” to the Medical Establishment.
The public has been trained to accept what would have been considered mass disabling events before as “business as normal” today. It all definitely ‘feels like’ a return to 1800s levels of disease and social compensation for said disease. Add to this the “new normal” of financial triage of medical cases, and we have a ‘Brave New (Old) World’ of Social Darwinian eugenics.
It is no wonder that the great popular movement in “Entertainment” has been, and continues to be, tales of plucky ‘Rugged Individualists’ opposing faceless Evil and triumphing over said Evil. It is all a compensation for the Public’s desperate and paralyzing realization of its own helplessness in the face of real Evil.
If one gives credence to the cyclic theory of History, then one can assert with confidence: “This will not end well.”
Think happy thoughts and plan for collapse.
fwiw you can get IVM OTC from pharmacies in TN, no prescription necessary, and they’ll ship it; It’s about $200 last I checked, not cheap by any means, but at least obtainable now without a physician’s blessing.
I always thought all the law and order style shows in the 1990s and whatever was an admission that Americans don’t see any actual justice in American society, and enjoy the fairy tales.
Push health (google it) will give you script over the phone. And there is always horse paste, works fine, I’ve used it. Just be sure to get the one that is only IVM
Thanks, I do use “pure” Ivm “horse paste.” My checking with the Healthcare Professionals for “Human Grade” Ivm is to see if the status quo has shifted or not. So far, four years in, no change on the Denialism.
I really do fear for us if the ‘Bird Flu’ does mutate into a human to human transmission super flu.
Also a major worry is the fact that the SARS-2 has not stopped mutating and doing its ‘dirty work.’
I get a giggle that where I live lots of church congregations figured out that early IVM led to early recovery. Trust the science.
Time to update the Foxfire book series.
I remember thinking, back in ’20, that if COVID had some visibly distinctive symptom, there would have been little difficulty in uniting everyone to eradicate the disease.
To have a good sense of what is happening, it is necessary to read the studies (or read about the studies), and look at charts. And it helps to have a low opinion of authority. It also helps to not yet have covid brain damage. It further helps to be willing to ignore social norms, and forego some common pleasures. You belong to a very small subset of the American population. It might grow to be a larger subset, however, depending on how many people die.
Regarding the Science Daily article on the Covid challenge study: I glanced at the original publication last month and noted that it was small, and the “immunologically naive” status of the subjects was determined via serology.
I’ll be very interested to see what the Brain Trust make of it. Personally, the media coverage I saw made me I think I smelled a rat. Specifically I think there may be an effort to sell us on the idea of inborn immunity to the virus, as if there were evidence of such a thing being relatively widespread, and not vulnerable to erosion.
Curious, (I have not read the study, so,) but I thought that there was no “immunity” possible to any coronavirus. Is this ‘article’ thus in the “first assume a can opener” category?
What the authors gain from pushing such a ‘narrative’ would be of interest.
I’m reminded of the excitement when it was demonstrated that some people lack a particular receptor necessary for HIV to infect lymphocytes. That gave rise to the prospect of some type of gene replacement therapy and/or immunity. I’ve heard of only a handful of patients who were able to receive bone marrow from people with that receptor deletion, who thereafter produced receptor-deleted lymphocytes. The only current tech I know that can allow that replacement is total body irradiation, with attending serious risks and colossal cost. Since HIV and SARS-CoV-2 are both retroviruses is isn’t a stretch to hypothesize that a similarly naturally immune cohort might exist. I don’t doubt, however, that the SARS-CoV-2 finding will be spun to bolster COVID minimization. Since high tech and gene-based medicine are super buzzy and tempting for both public and private investment, I also would expect some relatively unpublicized research projects get generous funding. The fate of the $1+ billion Long Covid project run by CDC is instructive of the opportunities for rice bowl management and enhancement.
Oh, wow, from the zero COVID reddit:
Oklahoma’s former US Sen. Jim Inhofe, known for climate, infrastructure stances, dies at 89
“How a citizen scientist is trying to overhaul the American lawn”
Was in and around De Panne and De Haan, Belgium last week, which has become our annual 4th of July getaway for the beautiful weather, fine beer, fried food and friendly people. There seems to be a competition in De Panne in unconventional lawns. Absolutely beautiful grasses and wildflower spaces in front of the 19th century houses on the edges of the seaside town. Next year I’ll send some photos to Lambert because these were very cool.
I so, so recommend the Belgian coast in summer. Cool weather and perfect sand.
Am I the only one who, when hearing of the Ukrainian demand for submarines, am reminded of the submarine request from the 1970 film “The Hot Rock?”
Ref – F16
Without getting into the whole support/logistical side of things it still revolves around pilots. 2 yrs for basic, still raw when they arrive at a Wing, all the way to 10 yrs for proficient weapons instructor. Add on the challenge of taking a USSR doctrine pilot and remold them into a NATO one – totally different.
Its not just a case of jumping into an F-16 and flying it. Layers and Layers of command and control associated with missions, pilot is basically there for situational awareness to be the pointy end of all the C&C and launch weapons. Only short cut is just to train for a very specific type of mission [one trick pony] or have so called advisors/instructors flying with them, big oops if it comes out.
So, a Ukrainian “Flying Tigers” squadron. Alas, the new and improved Ukrainian ‘Tigers’ will end up just as did the old Nationalist Chinese ‘Tigers.’ The Red Menace won out back then, and is looking to do so again in the present day; no matter how brave, accomplished, or motivated the “Flying Foreign Legion” is.
We are seeing the end game of an American attempt at a ‘filibuster’ that has failed.
Stay warm in the Antipodes.
Ukrainian forces are decimating Putin’s military.
Here’s proof:
Russia loses 1,220 soldiers, 7 tanks, 19 armored vehicles, and 49 artillery systems on July 8
Losses of personnel of russian troops on July 8 increased by 1,220 to 553,410 people; Ukrainian defenders also destroyed seven tanks, 19 armored combat vehicles, and 49 artillery systems.
This follows from a statement by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine posted on Facebook, the Ukrainian News agency reports.
Thus, the enemy lost seven tanks (total – 8,178), 19 armored combat vehicles (total – 15,704), 49 artillery systems (total – 15,015), 62 units of motor vehicles and tankers (total – 20,212), 13 units of special vehicles (total – 2,516), 29 drones (total – 11,922), and 36 cruise missiles (total – 2,378).
Since the beginning of the war, the enemy has also lost 1,115 units of jet artillery, 889 air defense equipment, 361 aircraft, 326 helicopters, 28 ships/boats, and one submarine.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the loss of personnel of the russian troops on July 7 increased by 1,200 to 552,190 people, equipment – by 16 tanks, 40 armored vehicles, and 29 artillery systems.
https://ukranews.com/en/news/1018786-russia-loses-1-220-soldiers-7-tanks-19-armored-vehicles-and-49-artillery-systems-on-july-8
Great, huh? Pull my finger…
As a matter of fact, Russians have lost all of the cruise missiles that they have used.