The Forgotten History of the Financial Crisis Foreign Affairs
How the world’s oldest bank brought a city to its knees FT
Climate
Paris Agreement thresholds crossed Arctic News
The Global Temperature Just Went Bump The Atlantic
Syndemics
The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better. TruthOut
Is COVID endemic yet? Yep, says the CDC. Here’s what that means NPR. Commentary:
If you look at the spread in any level of detail you can see the it is a series of superimposed epidemics.
Sometimes that looks like a high or low plateau.
It is constantly present… but not a truly steady state.
— Dr Noor Bari (@NjbBari3) August 11, 2024
USOPC CEO on Lyles’ COVID: ‘Not everybody is going to make it through the games healthy’ Nexstar
China?
China’s third plenum highlights the quiet rise of political theorist Wang Huning South China Morning Post
Myanmar
Forgotten war in Burma, ignored war in Myanmar New Mandala
Bangladesh chief justice, central bank chief quit amid protests, officials say Channel News Asia
The conundrums of Bangladeshi politics People’s Dispatch
India
Indian market regulator chief held investments in offshore funds used by Adani Group: Report Anadolu Agency
Gonna Make You a (Bangsawan) Star JSTOR Daily
The Cyberspace Impact of a Maritime Crisis in Southeast Asia The Diplomat
Syraqistan
Iran says will ‘decisively’ make Israel pay for acts of aggression but Iran seeks to prevent realization of Israel ‘dream’ of regional war: Acting FM Press TV
US president’s terse warning to Iran about possible Israel attack: ‘Don’t’ Anadolu Agency
Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza City school draws international condemnation France24
Dear Old Blighty
Riots response strengthens Keir Starmer’s claim Labour is ‘political wing of the British people’ Politico
Fascist violence and the imaginative failure of the Labour government Crooked Timber
Keir Starmer’s Reluctant Anti-Fascism All That is Solid…
Skin in the Game Craig Murray
Deprivation, a flashpoint and misinformation: How 2024 echoed the 2011 riots iNews
You will be refused bail even if you only watched riots from the sidelines, judge warns Telegraph
Why Scotland may have avoided far-right unrest BBC
We can breathe! London Review of Books
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia Pushes Back at Ukraine’s Cross-Border Assault, but Kyiv Presses On NYT
Gas, nuclear power plants, negotiations, destabilization in the Russian Federation: what are the tasks of the Kursk operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and how it is going (Yandex Translate) Strana
The logic of Ukraine’s Kursk offensive The Spectator
White House says US is finding out about Ukraine’s goals and strategy in Kursk Oblast Ukrainska Pravda. Oh.
* * * Rescuing NATO from crisis Responsible Statecraft
A Dark Masterpiece of Ukrainian Anti-Diplomacy: Offending the Global South by Loudly Supporting Insurgents and Terrorists in Africa Tarik Cyril Amar
China, Russia to reintroduce barter trade for the first time in 30 years to avoid US sanctions BNE Intellinews
* * * Thousands protest in Serbia’s Belgrade against lithium mining project Al Jazeera
The protests in Serbia are about more than lithium BNE Intellinews
2024
Trump’s 270-Page Dossier of JD Vance’s ‘Vulnerabilities’ Hacked by Iran The Daily Beast
Trump assassination attempt: 3 key takeaways from newly released bodycam FOX
Inside the powerful Peter Thiel network that anointed JD Vance WaPo
Aaron Sorkin Says If He Made ‘The West Wing’ Today, People Wouldn’t Recognize “Reasonable” Republican Party Hollywood Reporter
* * * Kamala Harris finally fields questions from press after dodging media for 18 days since becoming Dem nominee FOX. No doubt not asked:
Don’t worry it’s not like Kamala Harris’s closest advisor Tony West is the general counsel of this abusive company. https://t.co/P1cfnhkOGK
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) August 9, 2024
Harris campaign: Walz ‘misspoke’ on handling weapons ‘in war’ The Hill
The Supremes
Major Questions in the Trenches (PDF) SSRN. “This article surveys and performs an empirical analysis of the 44 decisions applying the doctrine which have been decided by lower federal courts in the eighteen months since West Virginia.”
Spook Country
Secret Service busted into a salon to let people use the bathroom during a Kamala Harris fundraiser, business owner says Business Insider
ASIO, Burgess and the miasma of spookdom Pearls and Irritations. Australia.
The Bezzle
The One-Hour Nurse Visits That Let Insurers Collect $15 Billion From Medicare WSJ (IM Doc).
Whatever else is claimed about it, crypto is not a currency Funding the Future
Digital Watch
OpenAI Generates More Turmoil Spyglass
UK monopoly police launch full blown probe of Amazon’s Anthropic tie-up The Register. The deck: “Poor cloud titans, just trying to give a helping hand to AI startups valued at billions of dollars.”
Zeitgeist Watch
No films, no music, no sleep: Is ‘raw-dogging’ long flights heroic or foolish? BBC
Boeing
Boeing’s New CEO Is Hands On. He’s Being Handed a Company in Crisis. WSJ
Class Warfare
The Well-Off People Who Can’t Spend Money The Atlantic
Beer and salt among Roman ‘mega-industries’ BBC
Recommended Reading: Captured States Nina Illingworth
Antidote du jour (Nhobgood):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
225 comments
Comments are closed.
PILLAGING ORCAS
(melody borrowed from Sinister Purpose by Creedence Clearwater Revival)
You can sail away
Ocean breeze feels great
Orcas come to get you
No more give and take
Pillaging Orcas
Sink your boat for sure
Paddle back to land
Orcas overtook us
Fed them fish in vain
They’re smart and they’re so hardcore
Got that big old brain
Pillaging Orcas
Not a sailor’s lore
Not the trip we planned
(musical interlude)
Muggers from the sea
Laughter in their eyes
They’ll pick whomsoever
You’ll end up capsized
Pillaging Orcas
Sink your boat for sure
You swim back to land
And there I was thinking air travel with narwhals was tricky.
‘Dr Noor Bari
@NjbBari3
If you look at the spread in any level of detail you can see the it is a series of superimposed epidemics.
Sometimes that looks like a high or low plateau.
It is constantly present… but not a truly steady state.’
At this point you could describe the infections, re-infections, waves of infections, dips in infection, etc. as some sort of viral Brownian motion.
I’m glad to see this article here. I’ve been fending off dunning phone calls from my Medicare Advantage insurer, Connecticare, to schedule a home health visit.
I keep telling them (the most recent was a woman in a call center in Louisiana!) that I am not interested. My GPs office is only miles away. I see her twice a year and phone when I have any concerns or questions, which are always handled courteously and promptly.
You should have told them that you might consider that idea if they tossed in a free massage. Otherwise no.
That home health visit article was enlightening and depressing. Behind the scenes, some wanker is calculating optimal closure rates for upselling, with bonuses and disciplinary actions for the upper and lower levels, respectively.
Next, how about carbon offset credits for net trips avoided, where each home visit is deemed to offset 5.4, say, office visits? /s
Or a punitive system, hat-tip new British demonstration laws, to increase premiums for non-participants, phone call screeners or just because? /ss
Or a jobs credit for employing temps, randos, re-entry candidates, parolees, contractors or order takers for following the directives on that little screen? /sss
At which point is the Hippocratic Oath ignored?
OMFG. Those calls are relentless.
I especially like it when I say, “No, thanks” and they come back with, “Why not? It’s FREE.”
But my favorite is when they say that if I don’t want someone in my house, they can do it by zoom or whatever. Then I say, “So how does that work. I take my own blood pressure? Then what do I need YOU for?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall at those telemarketing training sessions on overcoming “objections.” I’d imagine the word “free” is front and center.
We keep asking if they could offer bathroom cleaning.
There is a change coming to Medicare that will result in changes to Medigap plan operations that would eliminate discriminations such as preexisting conditions:
https://www.medicarerights.org/medicare-watch/2024/08/08/new-rules-may-curb-ongoing-discrimination-in-medigap-plans
We have Cigna’s Medigap coverage and they have been bought out by another company – Medco Containment Life Insurance Co. (MCLIC). I am trying to find out if this new company will have to follow the new guidelines as not all Medigap providers will have to do so. Only the Medigap providers that also have “any health program or activity, any part of which is receiving [f]ederal financial assistance.” Does anyone in the NC commentariat know more details? Thanks in advance.
I have been enmeshed in the tentacles of the UnitedHealth conglomerate on a Medigap policy for four years. These people are crooks! I migrated to a Cigna Plan, but have yet to test their services.
UnitedHealth is the parent company of UMR.com that is a third-party administrator for my Dental Plan (State funded). They are pro’s at delay and denial of payment. I’ve been working on the State benefit board to drop their contract ASAP.
UnitedHealth conglomerate are a bunch of thieves!
Dr. Seuss updating…instead of Oh the Places You’ll Go…Oh the Places You’ll Uber.
Can’t make up these convenient instances, aka Mr. West employer. We will fight these mean corporations from price gouging….but can’t do so quite yet ! \SARC. Yes we’ll trust all the lawyers to run things differently, next administration pinkie swear.
Re: UK riots
From TIKhistory on utube, ~1+ hr, the first 20-30 minutes make his case, imo. A view you will not find expressed in the MSM. Lots of twtr-X videos.
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Southport)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvA9odna5dw
Thanks for that link. Lots of parallels to my experience here in Germany re migration, crime, and leaders who blame everything on Russia / “the far right.”
I’m 8 minutes in and just getting more confused. The author assumes I have a lot of context that clearly I lack.
The MSM doesn’t provide context, it provides the narrative it wants you to accept. / ;)
The author appears to be making that points 1) immigrants present a danger to children, 2) the government is failing to protect these children by failing to control immigration, 3) the government is deflecting from this policy by talking about rioters and sending cops to control them, 4) Labour is made up of racists and protectors of child abusers. Is that what you understood too, flora?
One can’t understand the intense bile and indignation unless one is familiar with the Rotherham scandal and situations like it in other places in England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
The Labour party leadership under Corbyn forced Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, to quit as shadow-cabinet frontbencher after she wrote in a newspaper column that “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.”
https://www.newenglishreview.org/rotherham-mp-sarah-champion-left-failing-to-confront-truth-of-sex-crimes/
I “watched” the video (captions, 2x speed, no sound). The speaker had an alarming number of books on Nazis behind him. I don’t know who he is but he claims to have converted Nazis away from fascism so perhaps the books are like a doctor’s library of diseases? :-) However, he seemed rather aggressive in his anger and at one point said he disliked the social services too and stood with the Leeds rioters (when Ra children were taken into care).
However is point appears to be that Labour strongholds in the birth are hotbeds of child abuse by Asian male gangs and this is the result of Labour cynically refusing to hold to account its base under the cover of anti-racism.
But he muddies the water. He throws in Starmer”s alleged complicity on Savill. He also focuses mainly on illegal migrants but the northern towns he talks about are full of legal migrants, hired in the dying decades of the British mass textile industry to reduce labour costs, and their reunification migration extended families.
I don’t trust him, based on the emotion and the throwing mud.
But the point about the Rotherham scandal etc. Is well made. How can a riot be prosecuted in days and bystanders refused bail (!) but a mass rape of children has taken up to.25 years to charge and convict…?
I watched about 15 min and picked up most of those cues too.
The video has over 700k views!
> How can a riot be prosecuted in days and bystanders refused bail (!) but a mass rape of children has taken up to 25 years to charge and convict…?
There are a lot of mysteries like that in the annals of the European elites. For another example, even though Marc Dutroux was eventually tried and sentenced, I don’t think the voting public of Belgium ever did get a satisfactory accounting from the authorities regarding the many delays and other highly suspicious aspects of the case.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/05/dutroux.featuresreview
Killing History, Race Marxism, A World without Jews (which is hardly an accurate translation of Zur Judenfrage – this article a) being a response to two texts by Bruno Bauer that appeared in the same journal and b) one should see these texts in their context of left-wing Hegelianism of the 1840s) indicate that the good man is hardly a leftist (see also the book with the foreword by Ayn Rand).
Ah yes, headlines for useless oligarch exiting stage left. First landlord to google founders, wow impressive.
To quote the youth:
“Oh no! Anyway…”
I see a quote from Sheryl Sandberg…well this may seem a mean spirited response but Sandberg deserves her place along with the likes of Zuck, her former boss, and Gates and Bezos. Sandberg is a treacherous enabler of what Facebook unleashed.
That said, well the former YouTube exec seems awfully young* to pass away from cancer. Pass away, cease to breathe, die slowly from a terminal illness…pick one’s poison on how to say it I suppose.
56 isn’t that old anymore, now that the odometer for my life is firmly into the early 50s! “Get busy living or get busy dying…that’s damn right…”
It will forever be a question post 2020 whether someone with cancer was killed by hospital staff, not the cancer, due to nonexistent COVID protocols, such as universal masking, or whether the public health failure on COVID — or the embrasure of stochastic eugenics — led to a COVID infection that accelerated the cancer itself.
Fun times to be alive.
A friend had fought off esophageal cancer and was beginning to recover when RSV took him. Died of pneumonia.
“You will be refused bail even if you only watched riots from the sidelines, judge warns”
‘A judge has warned that anybody present at a riot will be remanded in custody, even if they were only a “curious observer”.’
Suppose that you were in the city one day when rounding a corner, you found yourself facing rioting protestors. Knowing that the nearby police could arrest you for being a “curious observer” and unable to leave because of more people coming in, you turn your back to them and face a building thinking yourself safe. At that point the police come up and arrest you on the grounds that you are watching the riot in the reflection of the shop window. It sounds like a Monty Python skit but that is the world that we live in right now. And now for something completely ridiculous.
What about a reporter observing? Off to jail?
Happens all the time and NC has show videos of reporters doing their job when the police come up and arrest them ‘for reasons’. Sometimes the reporter is very apologetic to the police when being arrested.
Yes. That a better outcome than what happened to Shireen Abu Akleh….
But still awful.
doug, quite right. She was shot in the head despite all the gear, including a helmet, clearly identifying her as “Press”. Everyone there knew her. American/Palestinian citizen as well. Christian, for what it’s worth. But have you seen what happened at her funeral? The Israeli attack on her dead body? The attack on her posthumous dignity? Beating her pall bearers with truncheons? Has there ever been anything as grotesque?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duesiyeKku4&ab_channel=AlJazeeraEnglish
She was shot in the head because of all the gear, not despite. Russian fronline reporters do not wear blue “Press” gear at all, because that makes them a primary target for the “USA side”.
Everyone in the same postcode is guilty by default. The Big Brother is merciful, and will only pick a few to crucify, as an example.
I can see it now-
‘Next! Crucifixion? Good. Out of the door, line on the left – one cross each.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lN4TSslz-0 (57 secs)
Until morale improves.
If you weren’t guilty, we wouldn’t have arrested you.
We wouldn’t have arrested you if you weren’t guilty.
Don’t make us explain it a third time.
Something like this happened to an (older) friend of mine who was in Paris in ’68. He was staying in NW Paris and had a friend living in SE Paris. Being naive young men, they agreed to meet up in the centre, on the Left Bank. They arrived on a street with students massed at one end and riot police at the other. Once they had found each other they tried to go back down the metro but that was now closed, and the shops and cafes on the street closed on them. So there they were, trapped between the rioters and the riot police and no route of escape. What to do? The police advanced, gave them a thump with their truncheons, presumably for the offence of being there, and threw them in the back of a police van.
In the van was a Dutchman with a stash of pot. The trio then spent the rest of the day, smoking pot in the back of a police van, while from time to time an extra body was thrown into the van to join them.
Realistic take – stay away from anywhere you suspect a riot may break out. People don’t have time for niceties in such situations.
The CPS (crown prosecution service) only charge someone if the likelihood of conviction is high. The judge was not there to decide guilt or not. So this may not be as bad as it sounds.
If the CPS fails to produce evidence at trial, or the number of not guilty verdicts is higher than normal then there may be a problem.
I presume they are all being prosecuted for something serious, rather than just standing around and filming. The police have other measures they can take to ban people from the area, which if ignored will lead to prosecution.
Disclaimer – My legal expertise comes from the TV and I’ve only been to Belfast once
You are innocent unless proved guilty. The right to bail for the accused is a rebuttable presumption in favour. Denying it summarily without apparently investigating the circumstances of the accused is shocking. This will get appealed and the judge will get an appellate spanking.
You are innocent unless proved guilty, in a perfect world where market is free and Santa Claus can fit trough the chimney. Reality is much more kafkaesque. If you don’t believe me, ask Julian Assange.
Gives back the original meaning to ‘reading the Riot act’ – passed in 1714, just 10 years before the Waltham Black Act, which extended the range of death penalties for crimes against property. All accomplished by the liberal governments of the UK following the Glorious Revolution. They kept the Tories out of power for 70 years.
The UK is pretty advanced in the arts of surveillance. They can keep dossiers on everyone if they put their minds to it. If your cell phone tells them you are near a demonstration then you’re toast and you could be rounded up. We’ll just have to see whether the English love freedom or Big Brother. I say the more likely answer is BB. The only question is can they build up the data bases and other mechanism to classify and detain those that might dissent from the Narrative fast enough or is chaos going to spread.
I’m just a bit disappointed that a country that produced an Orwell has crapified itself not just politically but culturally as well.
I like 1984 as a piece of literature, but the more time goes the more it comes off to me as classic British projection of their own psyche onto the barbarous (and also inevitably totalitarian) East. It’s no secret it was meant as a criticism of the Stalinist USSR, only set in the UK, but today it looks more like a kind of parody of the modern Five-Eyes, and to a lesser extent continental Europe.
That projection obviously originated with Orwell himself, by the way. His derision for the Soviet Union, which under Stalin had had the audacity to turn into an authoritarian, well-ordered, nuclear-armed superpower rather than a big, cosmopolitan, open and chaotic Paris commune, always smacked more of Orientalism and Russophobia (another British staple) than of any fanatic Trotskyism.
Another thing that struck me just now is that the Orwell archetype (so to speak) might partially explain how Kim Philby was able to stay undetected for so long. Philby famously said that the British upper class and civil service couldn’t fathom that “one of them” would be a Soviet spy, even though his Communist sympathies were well-known from his university days. The assumption was probably that just like with Orwell, once you scratched the red surface, British chauvinism and anti-Russian sentiment would reveal themselves underneath, and that such a person would never actually betray British interests for the Soviet Union.
Yes, Orwell was critiquing Stalin and the CP in the West. However, he was also dealing with human nature as we can see from people willingly willing to go to war to achieve peace, to champion democracy by crushing it everywhere it rears its head, to reward governments who commit genocide, while championing human rights–need I go on? Yes, the book is dated and, to me a horror story, but it is where we are going with an even stronger tincture of Brave New World unless we wake up and stop worshiping authorities.
My disillusionment with U.K. institutions has been deep and enduring ever since revelations 12 years ago of undercover police spies routinely luring the activist women they were targeting into long-term relationships, even fathering children whom they later abandoned.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/20/undercover-police-children-activists
Yes, the mask is really coming off the UK as the world’s premier dystopian hellhole. (But yeah, tell me again about the Magna Carta and “rule of law” or whatever). Stasi had their “Romeo agents” but I think fathering children with their targets and then abandoning those would be appalling even to them.
In 2010 that is precisely what happened when Toronto hosted the G20.
There wasn’t even any nearby protesting or rioting at Queen and Spadina but that didn’t stop the police from kettling the neighbourhood, trapping 300 people who weren’t even participating in protests and had all sorts of legitimate reasons to be at the busy intersection. E.g. one guy simply stepped out of a store to find himself in the middle of the kettle, others had been fetching food from various local establishments, it’s a popular spot to make connections between streetcars, etc. The police kept the 300 in the kettle for almost an entire day without water or the ability to use restrooms or facilities, during a rainfall, and then cuffed and detained everyone, carting them off to a makeshift holding facility.
Afterwards the police “apologized” and the then chief of police, Bill Blair, currently an MP, was charged and found guilty of excessive force and had to pay out $12 million. Toronto Police made apologetic motions and swore they’d never use the kettling tactic again. Nobody believes their sincerity, it was so obviously vindictive collective punishment, the officers participating were quite gleeful about it while they were doing it.
This was also the G20 where they were pre-emptively arresting protesters sleeping in their homes in the wee hours of the morning, snatching people off the streets in white kidnapping vans, and tried to charge one person with bombmaking for having common household items in his garage.
Who actually paid the $12 million though?
Paris Agreement threshold crossed
Oopsie!
Mile High Club 2.0 is nothing like the original one.
When I first read of this term a few weeks ago, the idea was to forego movies or music but to simply stare out the window at the real world passing by. I see that since then, the morons have take this idea over and made it something stupid for clicks and likes.
My zeitgeist has been anti-trends.
I’m going to do a little bit of everything my next flight. Watch a little media, read some, look out the window a bit, maybe walk down the aisle…
Jazz alert. Heres a little musical interlude to placate the boredom,. I’ve been a lifelong fan of FZ. I like to promote this jazz themed piece because it gives the listener a very good impression of what one got when one attended a Zappa show. I often recommend it to people who might not be familiar with FZ’s work. This show featured guest performers including the Becker Brothers, and Don Pardo(!). This song was recorded live in ’77. Headphones/good speakers are a must.
1966 – senior in high school – Frank’s first album – wore the album out – on a cold Michigan night in December 1967 The Mothers with same lineup as on the album played a small club in Ann Arbor – The Fifth Dimension – very lucky to have caught it – Frank is a stellar composer and incredible guitarist – always a tight band – great rotating lineup over the years – in the piece you linked isn’t that Ian Underwood’s wife Ruth on the marimba?
hard to pick best album but really like “Hot Rats” with ‘Little Umbrellas’ and ‘The Gumbo Variations’
Little Umbrellas – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR_ypEXdJQc
The Gumbo Variations – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw3wdm3pLM8
isn’t that Ian Underwood’s wife Ruth on the marimba? It is. Hot Rats is one of my favorites. I very much like the Filmore East lp from 71.
I saw him a handful of times between ’80, ’84 and ’88. No coincidence that those were election years. He would solicit the local chapter of the League of Women Voters to register people to vote in the lobby, which they were invariably happy to do.
Somewhere I’ve got a photo of him and Havel clipped from the front page of the Times. The pair are oblivious to the photographer, leaning in to each other over a table featuring an ashtray heaping with butts, deep in conversation. To be a fly on that wall.
left us too soon – have caught Dweezil a few times – Frank on Crossfire was priceless –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9856_xv8gc&t=5s
Not to assign homework but I wouldn’t mind seeing a Top 10 Zappa list from mrsyk or Jabura. You’ve got close to 100 (or more, not sure) albums to pick from.
I used to be a big fan the Shut Up and Play Your Guitar series but Billy the Mountain will always be my favorite song thanks to Ethel, the tree growing out of his shoulder.
I’ll stand these first two tunes off Bongo Fury. Zappa’s solo on the latter has always been my favorite. CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND FRANK ZAPPA debra kadabra / carolina hard core ecstasy
Released in the mid-’70s, I’m surprised Zappa and Beefheart weren’t considered to be a super group.
I saw FZ in 1988 too, and I remember him encouraging everyone to go register to vote out in the lobby during intermission. Not liking the other choices on offer, Frank got my vote that year.
Havel visited the town in Crete I was staying at in the early 90s, and he showed up wearing shorts and an FZ t-shirt. He invited a Czech waitress who was there for the summer to have lunch with him. Pretty down to earth guy for the president of a country at the time.
I’ll be seeing the Dweeze next month for the 3rd or 4th time. He plays with some incredible musicians. Definitely go see him if you get the chance.
re Havel: “Pretty down to earth guy for the president of a country at the time.”
At the time? Gee, and only last year…Swiss Pres. Alain Berset on the ‘love float’, sporting Panama hat and red feather boa… can you spot the secret service?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX8DqVK9djI&ab_channel=Zurichthebestcityintheworld
Yes, really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilKA7CnIJwg&ab_channel=Zurichthebestcityintheworld
I feel like I saw him at Wembley Arena in 88, but it’s a very vague memory. Apparently it was a week after Alice Cooper played there and I definitely went to that. I wasn’t a huge fan of either but I could get in free those days by working as a steward, so I saw a lot of bands I wouldn’t necessarily have paid for even if I could have afforded it.
I’d fallen in love with another cut with Don Harris, Ian &
Frank, earlier. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XduaWFznN5s We’d pick up incredible albums from ¢99 bins, like Lick My Decals Off Baby & I still have a Safe As Milk bumper sticker on my car, somewhere! There’d be some CONCERT at a HUGE ice hockey stadium (they’d torn down Crawford Grill & Bop era after-hours clubs & union halls to build) below Wylie Ave. Nasty sardonic snarky lyrics, from Flo & Eddie. Then a simply TREMENDOUS performance for a couple hundred at CMU’s Gym. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Sq0chFjps
No mention of conversing with the fellow sufferer you’re sitting next to. Speaks volumes!
I tried hard to be a member of the original mile high club, but while my girl was waiting in the john the flight attendant parked her cart directly in front of that particular door. Hopes dashed, and the opportunity never to be repeated.
Re: Multinationals in China
I’ve been perplexed by the drumbeat of news about China’s “failure to develop its domestic market”. At last an article that finally–in the last sentence–explains what all the fuss is about:
“A lot of the western brands are just being outcompeted by Chinese brands,” he said
The Chinese are masters of copying. The take a product then make their version at a very reduced price. The big difference is the cost of labor.
Not profit-ripping and price gouging and anticompetitive restraints of trade? Shipping and intermediary grift?
But let’s blame it on labor cost differences. Something the PTB can control, right? Of course Big Corp already moves production of crapification products to lowest cost labor markets. So what else? Must be commyanist central planning! Oh wait — aren’t most big Chinese businesses privately owned?
In articles posted here just yesterday, production cost of autos in China was pegged at 30% lower and that of chips a bit less than that. So seemingly not such a huge discrepancy that factors other than labor cost can help / partly / mostly account for it, but unlikely to cover all of it.
Like many other issues/policy areas, the heavy damage on that score was done long ago and a partial, bad-for-all near- or quasi-levelled outcome is in progress.
Or as I said about the U.S. State Dept. certifying “improvement” of extrajudicial killings in El Salvador and Guatemala 40+ years ago, “Yeah- when you kill 10-20k of a group annually for several years, you often find you have fewer left to kill.”
Don’t forget that they invest massive amounts in research and development as well as high-tech methods of production. There was a video shown on NC of a Chinese car manufacturer with hardly a worker in sight. That is why they can produce for example the BYD Seagull – an EV hatchback. Price? Twenty grand-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Seagull
And unlike a Tesla, you won’t have bits dropping off of them. I have always thought that if the Chinese took to heart the lessons of W. Edwards Deming like the Japanese used to, then you could stick a fork in western industry as it would be done.
US manufacturing productivity has been declining since 2011, or for the last 12 and a half years:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=m2mB
January 30, 2018
Manufacturing Productivity, * 1988-2024
* Output per hour of all persons
(Indexed to 1988)
Few people in the West understand Chinese culture–maybe I’ll go further and say that few people want to understand Chinese culture, rather, most people both in the public and in leadership positions (in the West) prefer a cartoon version of China which may be amusing but doesn’t help in making good policy.
China is a sophisticated and complex society where cooperation, and connection with others is valued more than in the West. Trust is higher there because people have bought into a culture that has been continuous for thousands of years. Discipline and commitment to work is stronger because alienation is less. The West cannot win a competition with China–also, China puts and emphasis on long-term industrial policy the West focuses on short-term industrial planning that is made, not with the welfare of citizens in mind, but with the welfare of oligarchs. In contrast, the Chinese leadership has a track record for caring about the citizens as an important consideration along with helping oligarchs. The ideal in China is harmony whereas in the West, conflict and war is the main cultural focus.
Well, I’ve been told by Chinese people that China’s culture is highly competitive, even treacherous — “every man for himself” as one friend put it. Since I’ve never been anywhere near China, don’t speak any of its languages etc I have no opinion.
I studied Chinese history and the influence of Confucianism. Their cultural ties are strongly influenced by order–however, they are human beings and within that structure they can go at it hammer and tongs so to speak, without disturbing that order.
If only they could discover DEI.
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/18/books/the-china-the-west-knew-nothing-about.html
April 18, 1982
The China The West Knew Nothing About
By Jonathan Spence
SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINA: A Comparative Perspective.
By Joseph Needham.
JOSEPH NEEDHAM’S immense work, ”Science and Civilization in China,” which will probably total some 20 separate volumes when completed, * is the most ambitious undertaking in Chinese studies during this century. Ranging across the fields of chemistry and mathematics, navigation and medicine, botany and mechanics among many others, the work covers each scientific discipline from the earliest periods of Chinese history up until the middle of the 17th century, when China joined in the general dialogue of world science…
* Twenty-seven books (1954-2008)
Jonathan Spence teaches modern Chinese history at Yale.
That means that Fukuyama was wrong again, with his book “Trust…” where he skewers the Chinese culture as one with low levels of trust, compared with the western culture or Japanese culture…?
Much of China’s economic and technological development is driven by the changes in it’s demographic profile. Wherever possible, replace labour by making effective use of new techologies created in their own research universities, institutions and businesses. In both the US and the UK we have turned our universities into less than competent businesses led by highly paid incompetents designed primarily to produce fodder for bullshit jobs that won’t even last long enough for most students to pay off their student debt.
The Nature.com Index * of high-quality science research publishing for the latest 12 months is just out. The Index 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 at number 2 and MIT is 15. German institutions are at numbers 6 and 13. A French institution is number 10.
* https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/generate/all/global/all
1) “A lot of the Western brands are just being outcompeted by Chinese brands.”
2) “The Chinese are masters of copying.”
3) Chinese new energy passenger vehicles sold in July were 51.1% of the market for all passenger vehicles sold in China:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-08-09/Sales-of-China-s-new-energy-passenger-vehicles-soar-in-July-1vV3tLaIyeQ/p.html
August 9, 2024
Sales of China’s new energy passenger vehicles soar in July
Sales of China’s new energy passenger vehicles registered robust growth in July, industry data showed.
About 878,000 units of such vehicles were sold last month, surging 36.9 percent year on year, according to the China Passenger Car Association.
China also exported around 92,000 new energy passenger vehicles in July…
Shouldn’t people be happy that China is going to build electric cars? It would be great to eliminate tailpipe emissions in the US, but it would be 4+ x greater to do it in China, no?
how are you going to pay for all of them? today the trade deficit is eating the west alive.
in america, their is dismal infrastructure for all electric anything.
Yes TomW, people who care about the environment should be happy that China is building so many electric cars.
Actually, I’m not really clear on why people would be upset about China building a lot of electric cars. People other than hegemons of course!
Well, it’s because the automobile (EV or otherwise) is an inefficient transportation method. Build living space for walking and eliminate the car and travel via hi-speed train.
(I live in a California beach city and all the tourists arrive with their Tesla’s on weekends (today) and life becomes a stressful mess for bikes and pedestrians. There is a better way to live.)
How the West invited China to eat its lunch, exact words “by the likes of former US President Bill Clinton”
clintons own advisors warned him a economic disaster would be the direct result of his free trade policies, he ignored them, and sold us out to the chinese communist party, and we reached that disaster by 2008.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59610019
“The promise, suggested by the likes of former US President Bill Clinton, was that “importing one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom”, would enable the world’s most populous nation to follow the path of political freedom too.
“When individuals have the power not just to dream, but to realise their dreams, they will demand a greater say,” he said.
But that strategy failed. China began its ascent to its current status as the world’s second biggest economy – and is on a seemingly inevitable path to becoming the world’s biggest.
Indeed the US trade representative responsible for negotiating China’s WTO deal, Charlene Barshefsky, told a Washington International Trade Association panel this week that China’s economic model “somewhat disproved” the Western view that “you can’t have an innovative society, and political control”
“It’s not to say that China’s innovative capacity is enhanced by its economic model,” she added. “But it is to say that what the West thought were incompatible systems may not be necessarily incompatible systems.””
————–
The High Cost of the China-WTO DealAdministration’s own analysis suggests spiraling deficits, job losses
Report By Robert E. Scott February 1, 2000
Issue Brief #137
https://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib137/
” President Clinton claims that the recently signed trade agreement with China “creates a win-win result for both countries”
“Let’s be clear as to why a trade deficit might decrease in the short term. China exports far more to the U.S. than it imports [from] the U.S….It will not grow as much as it would have grown without this agreement and over time clearly it will shrink with this agreement.”1
These claims are misleading. The Administration has proposed to facilitate China’s entry into the WTO at a time when the U.S. already has a massive trade deficit with China. In 1999, the U.S. imported approximately $81 billion in goods from China and exported $13 billion – a six-to-one ratio of imports to exports that represents the most unbalanced relationship in the history of U.S. trade. 2 While exports generated about 170,000 jobs in the United States in 1999, imports eliminated almost 1.1 million domestic job opportunities, for a net loss of 880,000 high-wage manufacturing jobs. 3
China’s entry into the WTO, under PNTR with the U.S., will lock this relationship into place, setting the stage for rapidly rising trade deficits in the future that would severely depress employment in manufacturing, the sector most directly affected by trade. China’s accession to the WTO would also increase income inequality in the U.S. 4
Despite the Administration’s rhetoric, its own analysis suggests that, after China enters the WTO, the U.S. trade deficit with China will expand, not contract. The contradiction between the Administration’s claims and its own economic analysis makes it impossible to take seriously its economic argument for giving China permanent trade concessions.
——————————-
(Sir James Goldsmith discusses his strong opinions on General Agreement on Tariff & Trade (GATT).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwmOkaKh3-s&t=2273s
Sir James Goldsmith discusses the ramifications of free-trade agreements that were about to take place in 1994 (GATT))
The High Cost of the China-WTO Deal
Administration’s own analysis suggests spiraling deficits, job losses
by Robert E. Scott…)
Re: China and Russia now using barter systems for trade
This proves the complete intellectual bankruptcy of the officials in the US and EU. Of course, these stooges worship mammon, so they could not comprehend that money is only a medium of exchange, and an abstraction.
There will always be a way around sanctions for a large country like Russia that is not landlocked and thus impossible to blockade from the sea.
Now their toothless sanctions are revealed as a complete failure. And yet they will no doubt quintuple and septuple down. Funny that Trump is not hitting this hard.
https://english.news.cn/20240809/b416e1f82a4e4278b08ac94cbe681144/c.html
August 9, 2024
China reports current account surplus in H1
BEIJING — China’s current account surplus was 94.1 billion U.S. dollars in the first half (H1) of the year, official data showed Friday…
https://english.news.cn/20240809/0223e29a9e4641429f78adb6b19d41b3/c.html
August 9, 2024
Russia’s foreign trade surplus up 16.2 pct year-on-year
MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign trade surplus increased by 16.2 percent year-on-year and amounted to 76.7 billion U.S. dollars, the Federal Customs Service of Russia (FCS) said Friday…
Air travel and the land connection between China and Russia make it even more workable.
The less a country has to traverse by ship or land through any other country, the more workable the arrangement.
Cashless barter seems like a great idea regardless of anything. Why don’t most countries do this?
No arbitrage and bezzle opportunities?
It’s really difficult to do. Marc Rich made a fortune lining up barter trades with sanctioned or otherwise not liked countries.
i have always said, why not set up a bartering system clearing house. its no panacea, it will not be a complete substitute, but it can and will alliveiate some problems when dealing with free traders.
there can be a small fee to help with insurance per transaction.
That’s basically what were talking about here. Soviet Union had many bilateral agreements for countertrading, here called bartering. Unlike bartering, it’s not cashless, but the two central banks are involved in making sure exports and imports overall are of equal value, so no money needs to actually pass the border.
Basically Russian exporters and importers use only rubles and Chinese exporters and importers use only yuan. Payments are to the central bank, and from the central bank once the goods are delivered. The advantage is that once the system works and participants are trusted, the exporters can get partial advance payments, so they don’t need other funding to fulfill bigger orders.
The requirement of balanced trade could be considered as a downside by some.
>Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza City school draws international condemnation France24<
I think Netanyahu and his government are basically involved in a mix of statistics and propaganda. The crucial question before them is; how many Palestinians can they kill every day and still be able to maintain that they are defending themselves against Hamas, as well as creating a reasonable doubt that they are guilty of genocide.
That is to say, a Goldilocks genocide.
Man walks into gun shop. Clerk greets him with a, “Howdy, what can I do for ya?”
Man says, “I need to kill a few folks across the river in Poortown.”
Clerk: “Well, we got what you need. Just how many do you need to kill?”
Man: “I don’t know, but to get the ones I’m after, I might need to kill everybody in the town.”
Clerk: “You’ve come to the right place. In fact, now that I know who you’re after, I’ll sell you some of the best weapons I got, not to mention the ammunition you’d need to kill everybody there ten times over, including the kids. And I’ll sell it to ya at half off. Actually, I’ll give most of it to ya for nothin.”
Man: “You’d be doing only what you should do. The whole lot of them is no good, including the kids, who’d just grow up to be killers anyway, so we may as well get rid of ‘em now.”
Lady walks over. “Hey, that’s a lot a huntin’. Who you goin’ after, anyway?”
Man explains.
Lady: “Oh, okay. Try not to kill ‘em all, but I do know a man’s got a right to defend hisself. So, whatever.” Strolls off….
Clerk whispers, “Don’t worry ‘bout her. That’s Kamala, the assistant manager.” He adds with a wink, “She’s one of us.”
Clerk wraps up the goods, and asks, “What’s your name, anyway? I gotta put somethin’ down on this form.”
Man: “Just call me Bibi. As for a last name, use any name you want.”
Clerk: “A pleasure. And my name’s Antony. Stop in again anytime.”
I think we’ll find out. The Israelis (including most citizens) want to kill or, at minimum,expel all Palestinians from WB and Gaza. This has been their policy since the end of the Oslo process (sabotaged by Clinton). In other words, the want to make life as unpleasant as possible for Palestinians and and kill as many as possible without alienating the US. They don’t care about Europe of course since they just follow Washington.
Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership and people want a wider war so they can eliminate Palestinians one way or the other within the fog of war. My guess is that Washington may allow ethnic cleansing in exchange for no wider war against Iran while pretending whatever is necessary to the people of the West whose minds (those that have any) will be easily controlled. Ethnic cleansing is the only logical solution to the Palestinian/Israel problem.
Or perhaps the Israelis are competing with us to see who can be the most cruel.
Palestinians were tortured, raped, and murdered in an Israeli prison. The US did the same at Abu Ghraib.
The US had to eliminate Hussein and the Baath Party in Iraq and Israel wants to eliminate Hamas.
US sanctions killed half a million Iraqi civilians and SoS Albright said it was worth it. Israel is still in the process of starving and bombing civilians. There’s still time for them to outdo the Americans and take the Gold for cruelty.
‘Palestinians were tortured, raped, and murdered in an Israeli prison. The US did the same at Abu Ghraib.’
The US military was using Israeli contractors to learn how to “deal” with Arabic prisoners and they were at Abu Ghraib. Imagine my surprise.
“Aaron Sorkin Says If He Made ‘The West Wing’ Today, People Wouldn’t Recognize “Reasonable” Republican Party”
Aaron Sorkin thinks he could still make The West Wing today and is looking for an idea. I have one. How about he goes with a story where the President is suffering from advance stage dementia but that the West Wing is covering up for him so that they do not lose power. Scandal threatens when the President’s son films himself using drugs, hookers and a gun and the videos become public. Meanwhile you have a sociopathic Secretary of State and his gang getting the country involved in a proxy war with Russia that threatens to become a fully-fledged shooting war up to an including nukes. At the same time war threatens in the Middle east where an ally who say never again a genocide, starts to commit their own genocide creating the problem of giving them every possible weapon while pretending to negotiate a truce. At home the economy is starting to swirl around the toilet but that is not a problem as the compliant media is telling everybody that ‘This is fine.’ You think that Sorkin would go for that story line or does it sound a bit too far fetched.
Adjacent thought to the above, briefly on the Insta media machine earlier and saw a Republican themed post in the list of suggested items or posters… political potpourri is prevalent to ones liking. Couldn’t tell if these “Russia Russia” propaganda or more up to date…Iran yes Iran. FFS.
The Republican themed post has the photo of our 46th President, Joe Biden. The tagline read as “36 years in the Senate, 8 years as the VP…blames Donald Trump for all of America’s problems..”. Summarized nicely. After all, of course Mr. Biden was a mere empty vessel for all these years in our American political system!
Never watched The West Wing – a trailer was more than enough.
I was thinking that both the couch-loving stuff and [a grosser thing that Don Jr is pushing on twitter which I won’t dignify by describing here] are both straight out of “The Thick Of It”.
IMO the greatest political comedy.
I notice the ‘Iran’ hack was a “276 page dossier Trump’s team had on JD Vance’s vulnerabilities”
Safe to say it will have made it’s way into Dem operative hands and will be used.
2016 redux sigh
Never watched West Wing myself and only saw bits of it on YouTube. Did find one that is relevant to today for two reasons. The second reason is that is showed the President smoking a cigarette which is almost unimaginable today. See if you can spot the first reason-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TmfSygkeO8 (3:12 mins)
Another memorable scene from the series that had several but as a whole was produced to give the PMC warm fuzzies all over. Still, the cast was exceptional. The star of the show (Gerard Antonio Estévez) has had his moments.
For a moment there I thought you were all discussing the original version, with Peter Capaldi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al7XJxlDoyQ
That memorable seen, Yeah, it is but maybe not for the reason that Democrats think. He starts of saying – basically – that this woman is not entitled to have an opinion as she does not have the appropriate qualifications or the right sheep skin. Unless you get your ticket punched by the right educational institute (Yale? Harvard?), that you can be ignored. He then lectures her by picking bits and pieces that supports his case giving her no opportunity to reply. He then ends by demanding that she stand due to his superior social position. Thirty years and this scene has not aged well at all with how we see the PMC treats other people nowadays.
I see your “The Thick of It” and raise you “Yes Minister”
Sorkin did a Broadway version of To Kill a Mockingbird where the children are played by adults. He also changed the story somewhat. I’m not sure he’s too worried about recognizable.
And of course the good Eisenhower Republicans that he prefers weren’t shy about creating chaos overseas if not in Nancy Pelosi office. In reality you elect a seeming Sorkin philosopher king and next thing you know he’s saying it turns out I’m very good at killing people.” Perhaps Game of Thrones makes for a better deep think approach to power.
I see “misspoke” is back in the lexicon. Must be an election year.
We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.”
That middle phrase is not a good look, not so much because it’s technically false, but for the bragging frat boy tone. I’m thinking Walz’s “regular guy” veneer is pretty thin.
His regular guy veneer disappears for me every time he does that weird upside down smile. Resting Walz face>?
That makes him look like some caricature of a muppet.
White feather for Walz
Haha, yeah, it’s pretty much down to angels saving our butts at this point.
I’ve been known to hope that these testimonies under oath are true and the aliens (or ‘non-human-intelligence’) will intervene and save us. Or at least put us out of our misery.
I refer to the 1939 movie. “The Four Feathers”
Geez, reference jeopardy. What is an obscure reference?
“The Four Feathers” (1939) is a movie classic. One of the best from a year of great movies. Beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted. It’s been a while since I last watched it. I need to see it again. Thanks for the reminder.
Alright then. MsSyk and I will seek it out. Thanks both.
Be warned, The Four Feathers is a good film of its kind but it couldn’t be less politically correct.
It’s essentially a time capsule from a planet long ago: a British film made in 1939 from a 1902 novel, which is to say it’s from an era when the British Empire was still just about extant — although that empire would be swept away during the next six years of WWII, essentially — and the story assumes it’s the duty of good Englishmen to go out and serve under General Kitchener in his imperial campaign to put down the Mahdi’s Fuzzies Wuzzies.
It has a young Ralph Richardson, among other actors. Amusingly, the Khalifa is played by an actor, John Laurie who later featured in Dad’s Army in the 1960s-70s, although also in Powell-Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Frankly, The Four Feathers is all right. But if you have the desire to check out terribly English films of the late 1930s-40s, anything by Powell-Pressburger — if you haven’t seen their films — is a far superior use of your time.
Martin Scorsese put out an ‘essay film’ a couple of months ago Martin Scorsese Presents: MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL & PRESSBURGER | Here’s the trailer —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDBQghgPFw
I vote to ban the prefix “-mis” from the English language.
People keep attaching it to words it has no business being attached to and it fucks up the language.
Perhaps you would allow at least a few exceptions? Upon being asked a question for which he was apparently unprepared, one of my classmates asked the professor to repeat the question, as he (the classmate) had “misunderheard” it.
Sorkin is clearly a cable news ingested as the reasonable GOP of his day includes:
-Newt
-Dennis Hastert
-Tom Delay
-lobbyists like Abramoff
-Mitch was a player.
-Trent Lott, it must be the jockey statue and seer sucker suits
-McCain. I know he’s friendly on tv.
Fear was the onlyvway to reach these people. And Shrub was on tap.
It’s funny “The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985. It’s not about Trump and Putin denying Hillary.
I dunk on Sorkin, but he wasn’t there when Lawrence O’Donnell was pending the most vapid episodes imaginable.
*cough cough* the two guys that published the voluminous “west wing thing” podcast will meet your ante and raise you. It’s quite a ride.
It isn’t just that Sorkin doesn’t acknowledge that the Republicans of his day were hardball jerks, it is that he doesn’t realize how well so many of today’s Democrats fit right in with the authoritarian jerks of his time and even now. I feel like if I made a little quiz of things done by Congress that the supposedly progressive Bartlett and staff would hate, sorkin would mistakenly attribute Democratic and bipartisan congressional atrocities as strictly Republican.
RE: Recommended Reading: Captured States
“Meanwhile, the wealthy whites and business interests who back people like Robinson use the state’s limited regulation, low taxation and rock-bottom minimum wages to line their own pockets.”
This is really beginning to gnaw at me. The article implies that if you are some combination of a wealthy white, own a business, support a person like Robinson, or are a Republican then you don’t support higher minimum wages. This isn’t an accurate viewpoint. The Democratic Party has not raised the federal minimum wage even when they had control of the presidency and the congress. Why can’t we simply state that the legislature of the system, regardless of political affiliation, does not believe in a higher federal minimum wage.
Because then people would start putting 2 and 2 together and understanding that both the Dems and Republicans are simply tools of the capitalist ruling class and therefore US democracy is simply performative.
Enter Congress with little wealth, exit with great wealth.
Exhibit A is Pelosi, and she has plenty of company. :(
If only they cared as much about the people as they do for themselves and their families!
Dave, just the tip of the critique. If you’re not an Anarco-Syndacalist you’re an I guess. I wish she would tell who she likes for once.
https://theprint.in/world/st-martins-in-bangladesh-the-tiny-island-that-hasina-has-accused-us-of-wanting-its-importance/2218803/
“Secret Service busted into a salon to let people use the bathroom during a Kamala Harris fundraiser, business owner says”
Good thing that there was not an assassination attempt on Kamala Harris’s life with a sniper posting themselves on top of the roof of that salon then.
The article on tightwads…the Atlantic writer uncovers the tightwads amongst us. You see these people just can’t bare to release the inner hounds of delayed consumption. Bad people these lot, bad indeed. Spend money Americans! I remember this cry from Bush 43, a few mere weeks after the horrors visited upon NYC on 9/11.
Blech. Guess I’m more in the spendthrift category…I’ll keep my rainy day funds happily as I may need them in a rainy season. The ant and the grasshopper anyone?
You can never have too many reserves. And you have to discern between “wants” and “needs”. But an article like this would have been incomprehensible to someone that lived through the Great Depression.
Cary Grant, who grew up poor in Bristol England, was famously a tightwad who counted every dollar. It is said that the Chinese have trouble igniting a consumer economy because their own former poor are similarly insecure and hoard their money.
Maybe the Masters of the Universe in the US need to relearn the lesson of Fordism–poverty is bad for capitalism. But a social contract is so beyond these Randians.
I remember reading Cary Grant’s autobiography and been amazed that my mum’s favourite matinee idol had taken more acid than my friend group had in total
Bristol’s Archie Leach said nobody knew how hard it was to play the part of being Cary Grant. None of the above should be taken as a diss since he was an iconic performer. Egghead Pauline Kael wrote an article about how much she loved him.
Yes, and add in the insecurity that is an actor’s professional lot and frequent emotional make-up.
My mother was a working character actor for the first half of her long life, and I still remember her response when, watching a tv news review of some dreck, throwaway Paul Newman feature from the ‘70’s, I asked her why someone of his stature would make such a film. She immediately said, “You don’t understand, it doesn’t matter who you are: once a job ends you’re terrified the phone will never ring again.”
Watching a bit of CBS this morning and they interviewed Carol Burnett. The feature of this story was the production of a play that propelled Burnett into the star she would become years later. Plus it brought the new star of this play into the story…I don’t follow Broadway at all for the record.
Carol Burnett’s story was similar, not owning a functional bed or mattress, or a rightly fitted pair of shoes until firmly into adulthood. Finally began to experience some independence and success. She described that poverty level background as what drove her work ethic.
I wonder how many of the Sorkin style wonks running the Biden administration can count themselves children of poverty. Apparently Kamala, child of college professors, once tried to sell herself as such. Now Vance, an actual child of poverty, is called weird.
Perhaps what is needed is not making America great again but making America a bit more humble again. It’s a big ask.
JD Vance grew up thoroughly middle class. His memoir is about a summer visit to his poor relations when he was 17 and he is quite contemptuous of them.
Once Upon a Mattress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6_CDvd-BFU
Current version stars Sutton Foster
There was also a 2005 TV production, in which Ms. Burnett switched roles to portray the aptly named villainess of the piece, Queen Aggravain — with her original part of Winnifred (Princess of Icolmkill, Guardian of the Midgard Serpent, and Warden of the Ragnarok Marsh Lily) played by Tracey Ullman!
I suspect my first attempt at thus comment foundered on the rocks of an, um, overseas-based video link — no reference to any national “Panic” dance intended. So I won’t include it this time. Instead, I’ll just say there is one in DDG’s video search results, and direct you to iMdb for a full cast list and other info tidbits.
Cary Grant wasn’t just poor, he was dirt poor. Monty Python three Yorkshire men sketch poor. Destitute.
It’s not only that you can never have too many reserves, it’s also that over my lifetime in the US (60-ish years) more and more of the broad societal financial supports have been ripped out from under the populace. Pensions are gone, health care is astronomical, general living expenses continue to explode (minor example: was at big box home supply yesterday and noticed that a box of drywall screws – cheap screws – are now $7.50 up from around $1.25 twenty-five years ago), etc. etc. And our leaders regularly talk about how we can’t “afford” to do anything for the majority, let alone for the truly poor among our population.
So in a “devil take the hindmost” world, is it any surprise that reasonable people are apprehensive about spending?
check the box, most likely, made in china, or made with global components. yea free trade lowers prices/sarc!
“Global Temperature Just Went Bump”
Friendly reminder that the Hunga Tonga eruption increased atmospheric water vapor (a potent greenhouse gas) by 10%, the largest such suge in hundreds of years. If an the article discussing the sudden warming and sea temperature rise doesn’t feature Hunga Tonga prominently it is propaganda, not news.
Atmospheric science didn’t just change overnight, water vapor increases always create short term (5-10yrs) warming. If you read otherwise it is gaslighting, not science.
They also produce a longer term rebound cooling effect, so we have that to look forward to as well.
Your post fails to mention that temperatures have been going up consistently over the past few decades, if not longer, while the Hunga Tonga eruption was in late 2021.
Why people continue to try and push back on the fact that climate change is real and caused by humans with all the extreme weather events we have seen over the past decade or so is beyond me.
That isn’t really what the data shows. The data reflects a gradual increase that leveled out about 20 years ago and has been bouncing around in about the same range since then.
Starting last year it took a sudden jump out of the range it has been in. It is quite pronounced, which is why these articles are being written. If the latest change was due to global warming it would be more likely to be a gradual continuation of the previous upward slope, not a sudden discontinuous jump. Sudden jumps are more likely the result of a major anomalously event.
It is this manner of playing fast and loose with what the data actually shows that destroys credibility around global warming science.
Does the data show that ice fields, glaciers, etc. stopped net-melting and net-shrinking 20 years ago and only began net-melting and net-shrinking after Hunga Tonga eruption?
Also, does the data show that permafrost stopped net-thawing and softening 20 years ago and only began net-thawing and net-softening after Hunga Tonga?
As long as we’re talking about ” what the data shows” . . .
The rise in global temperatures is ongoing, rapid, and precedes the Tonga eruption. Geologic forces will always help to quicken or slow atmospheric temperature, but your omission of the overwhelming drivers of global warming, carbon pollution paired with land degradation in ever-more-vicious feedback cycles, implies a lack of agency and responsibility favored by fossil fuel and complicit industries, themselves well-documented purveyors of propaganda.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series
August 10, 2024
Climate at a Glance, 1895-2024
Temperature and Precipitation
Global
National
Regional
Statewide
Divisional
County
City
I am very skeptical when I see very accurate (upto two decimal points) numbers going back in decades.
Just this month, trillions of dollars were made and lost based on few thousand of jobs/unemployed reported out of tens of millions of workers in the U.S. A silly reaction if you ask me.
What can be said about the repeatability & reproducibility of the measurement of the earth temperature expressed in one number?
Are there any methodology to compansate for the difference in the equipment utilized over time?
Yup. It’s called climate science.
If you have more than one measuring point and time, you will have decimals when the data is averaged over them. That’s so basic stuff of… anything that is measured it’s kinda amazing you don’t get it.
There’s a very common method used on all climate datasets… It’s called reanalysis
Although I spent several decades developing test systems requiring extensive data collection and analysis, I was naively thinking that the alarming rise in earth temperature is based on the “actual” historical measurements, not some models.
I hope the climate models are better than the models used by FOMC to manage the economy.
Yeah, nothing to do with the multi-decadal rise in temperatures due to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases with the El Nino super-imposed on it. Scientists estimate that Hunga Tonga added 0.035 degrees centigrade to the Earth’s temperature, within the range of normal noise in the system. Nice try of trying to talk it up. Here is an actual scientific assessment of Hunga Tonga:
“The model calculated the monthly change in Earth’s energy balance caused by the eruption and showed that water vapour could increase the average global temperature by up to 0.035°C over the next 5 years. That’s a large anomaly for a single event, but it’s not outside the usual level of noise in the climate system, Jenkins said. But in the context of the Paris Agreement, it’s a big concern.”
https://eos.org/articles/tonga-eruption-may-temporarily-push-earth-closer-to-1-5c-of-warming
I am surprised that your comment has not been deleted as it is most definitely misinformation.
Water comes out of the atmosphere really quickly. The water cycle lasts a few weeks. CO2 in the air cycles over a period of several hundred years which is why CO2 is such a problem.
Volcanic emissions also introduce dust for several years (NOT long term) into the stratosphere that leads to atmospheric cooling. Hence the summer that never came in 1816.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
Volcanic CO2 and other long lived GHG are in the geological contribution of GHG budgets; however, as a stochastic, transient process they are constant on climate change timescales. Any one eruption is canceled out by the time until the next when there are no eruptions.
So NO, it should not have been mentioned unless you are prophesying that the rate of volcanic eruptions is going to uptick.
Hunga Tonga was only the 119th known Submarine Volcano to have erupted in the past 12,000 or so years, and there are no records for what one of its size is capable of doing. Nobody expected the winter of record in the southern Sierra for the past 125 years in 2022-23. we had gone through 3 drought years and the forecast in the fall of 2022 was bleak bordering on maybe getting an average winter, please!
Our rapid wait gain meant that others on this orb got the shaft, as in dire droughts down to the dregs out of the tap.
Volcanoes are often game changers, as in the fall of empires that were teetering, such as late 1780’s France, when a series of bad harvests made the price of bread go well beyond a day’s wages-enter revolution.
No other country in the western world experienced revolution in the aftermath of 1783 to 1785 when Laki was doing it’s thing in Iceland.
There seems to a host of teetering going on these days…
Another example of what volcanoes can do…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1601%E2%80%931603
US men’s basketball wins Olympic gold for let’s see a 5th straight time. Steph Curry makes the daggers from 3 point distance to seal the victory over a very competitive France team. Watched most of the last 10 to 15 minutes.
Well done for the US Women’s soccer team as well. Sorry if I wasn’t watching this one, but soccer is not always or ever been in my wheelhouse so to speak.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2024/08/10/paris-olympics-live-results/74191196007/
I saw part of the semi final between the US and a very scrappy Serbia. I offended the person I was with by rooting strongly for Serbia. Call me crazy, but basketball where the team is made up of multimillion dollar professionals is the one that makes me bemoan the fact that professionals were allowed. (I don’t know enough to know if soccer is as bad, but at least in tennis the professionals seem spread amongst a large portion of the entrants.)
I watched some of the two finals in basketball, and I’d say the US hegemony is coming to an end here too (and as with the military, the price-performance ratio seems a bit unbalanced).
Let me put this as simply as I can. The Olympics are not good sports, in my view, and I pay no attention to it. In terms of basketball a better competition would be the USA vs. the world.
Yes, those 3’s were ball busters.
But the competitive match was us vs Serbia, us was trailing near the end and coulda lost. Serbia also had nba pros, I was reflecting on the total salary on the court.
GREAT sea creature (squid?) photo!!!
A bigfin reef squid from the Komodo National Park showing vivid iridescence. They are often attracted to divers’ lights at night. [Wikipedia]
Tommorow we should have Komodo dragon, to go along with the Komodo squid.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/10/nhs-staff-asking-men-if-pregnant-before-x-ray-scans/
NHS staff told to ask men if they are pregnant before X-rays
Radiographers at multiple hospitals have been told they must check whether all patients aged 12 to 55 are pregnant, regardless of their sex, as part of inclusivity guidance.
The guidance was written after an incident in which a trans man who was unknowingly pregnant had a CT scan, and tells staff to be inclusive of transgender, non-binary and intersex patients by not making assumptions about people.
Cock-up not conspiracy. I (male in his 50s) had CT abdomen a few weeks ago me was asked. My 20 year career in survey design involved a lot of idiot-proofing so I didn’t bat an eyelid.
When the barely trained nurse assistant has to follow instructions that include multiple checks to avoid previous NHS scandals then you understand why this is happening. Many mainstream media (particularly ones like the Telegraph) get their clicks from this guff.
If a scan had led to a miscarriage then the Telegraph would be screaming about NHS incompetence. Don’t listen to this nonsense. If we had a properly trained and paid workforce whose common sense could be relied upon then none of this would be an issue. Unfortunately we’ve had neoliberalism since late 1970s and are seeing the consequences.
“US president’s terse warning to Iran about possible Israel attack: ‘Don’t’ ‘
If the old fool had told the Israelis the same after their attack on that Embassy back in April, the present mess would not exist. That attack is coming and nothing will stop it. The only reason that it is delayed is that the Iranians are getting their ducks lined up and they have already gotten the Arab nations to give them the nod. Another reason for the delay is that the Russians have flown in radars and air defences – manned by Russians – so it will take them a while to integrate them with the defensive network. I guess that Likud should not have declared Russia to be an enemy of Israel then.
I notice that he says “stop” to a nation he has no leverage over, but is unable (read: doesn’t want) to say the same to a nation totally reliant on America’s favour
Through various means the Iranians have made it clear they do not want war. No one wants a war in the region other than Israel. My guess is we will see some equivalent actions as were done in April. I believe there will be a deal with be to allow Israel to ethnically cleanse Gaza in exchange for Israeli “restraint.” Remember the Israeli leadeship and the wide Israeli society do not recognize morality in this conflict. This should be obvious.
No, Israel will not show restraint. It owns the Congress and both parties and is run by people who explicitly are out either to wipe out or ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in what they tell us God says is their land. And Iran has already rejected a negotiated, pre-announced retaliation like the one in April. However the desperate-to-help-Mr.-Market by-propping-up-the-Confidence-Fairy Administration will keep selling the garbage barge that it has persuaded Iran to act nicely until Iran shows that to be a lie.
Thanks. Simple and, sweet(?).
Iran needs to hold about 6 weeks then the USN carrier will come around Cape Town and be a target.
I saw not too long ago that Russia still required covid testing at a major economic meeting. Does anyone know if Russia does anything to protect the general population or are they left to their fate like almost everywhere (everywhere?) else?
The campaign is saying Walz’s misspoke, no it was willful misrepresentation not only of his experience but of his entire military career.. yes he spent 24 years in the National Guard, and part of that tenure occurred when many National Guardsmen found themselves in active foreign combat. And that allows for an impression of being a war veteran.
Much of America, probably most younger than I am, really don’t understand how rich frat boys like George W Bush would use influence to get into the National Guard during Vietnam. Both because their experience is of the volunteer army and because the National Guard became just another military unit somewhere in the last thirty plus years. For half of my life, the National Guard was largely a local militia used for emergencies and regional backup in the unlikely event of invasion. Overseas combat assignments were rare to unheard of but became common, even long lasting in many cases.
Walz is probably one of the few long term reservists to have retired in the last twenty or so years to never see combat. People now hear you were in the National Guard for twenty years and they are going to assume you saw combat. And yes Walz has used that assumption, in the instance cited actively, but even generally. The best that can be said of this is it is opportunistic.
Perhaps so, perhaps not. I spent six months on active duty and 5 1/2 years of active reserve as a member of the National Guard from April 1959 to April 1965. When the Berlin wall went up in August 1961all active and reserve enlistments were extended for one year. Many reserve and National Guard units were called to active duty.It was the luck of the draw or the needs of the service as to which units were called to active duty. Mine was not.
The Vietnam War heated up during my time in the reserves. I did my military service as was required and expected at the time. I have never thought of myself as a veteran of anything but two weeks in the summer at what was then Camp Drum, now Fort Drum. There, unless you did something idiotic, and a few did, it was not dangerous much less lethal.
Willful misrepresentation? Poor choice of words? Tangled syntax? Take you choice. Walz does not strike me as the kind of weasel that so many of our politicians are. I take him at his word and give full credit to the testimony of members of his unit.
Lest you think this is said as a potential voter for that ticket or for their opponents,let me assure you that their stated or implied support for Israel as it commits genocide disqualifies all of them for me. I did not cast a vote for president in 2016. I shall not do so in 2024. The specifics are different, but not my distaste for the candidates.
If you won’t vote for genocide (neither will I), here’s one page you can check to see if you have an alternative you *can* vote for on your ballot:
https://www.jillstein2024ballotaccess.com/
Odd. I personally know 3, and I doubt that I’m all that atypical.
re: Trump’s 270-Page Dossier of JD Vance’s ‘Vulnerabilities’ Hacked by Iran The Daily Beast
Riiiiiight. There should be some kind law, similar to Godwin’s law, that whichever country is claimed to be doing the hacking or cyber attacking is not the country doing it. I can think of two more likely countries.
These things are impossible to prove and easy to fabricate. Ewps, the hacker “just forgot” they had set the language to Farsi, or Cyrillic, or UTF-16 or whatnot, or they literally used evil Russian words that gave it all away! Proof positive of evil deeds and could not have been planted by anyone else, nossir!
Would be funny if Trump and team leaked it themselves to have an excuse to drop Vance now that he has become an embarrassing meme
Vance would fight very hard against being dropped.
Boeing again! This time the Artemis rocket being assembled by Boeing at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. It is worth noting this is the same facility that built the Saturn V first stage for Apollo and the Space Shuttle main stage (not the solid fuel booster that blew up the Challenger).
NASA says lack of trained New Orleans workers led to issues with Boeing Artemis rocket program NOLA.COM archive
This is exactly the same issues with the 787 line in Charleston and the rampant outsourcing of the 737 max and 777X. The company is run by MBAs and lawyers. It simply cannot replicate the huge successes prior to the mid 90s.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/deadly-covid-now-all-year-33428194
Deadly Covid now ‘all-year-round’ virus as expert warns you could get it ‘five times’
https://people.com/gianmarco-tamberi-finishes-second-to-last-in-high-jump-after-hospitalization-8693647
Italian High Jumper Gianmarco Tamberi Finishes Second-to-Last in His Event After Leaving Hospital to Compete
The Truthout article about Covid is milque toast. One section of the article is: “Good Information Is Available” including a list of three services: People’s CDC, the Public Health Collective and the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative. I read through all three of their sites and found nothing about vitamin D, Zinc, and of course nothing about the dreaded IVM. It’s all about masks (good start), ventilation, and of course “keep your vaccine up to date with boosters”. They are still (essentially) following the corporate party line. I call BS.
No thanks Truthout and wanna be “health groups”. I’ll stick with the FLCCC for accurate information.
I second you call of B. The “left” too easily accepts the government and the mainstream media’s Narrative. Money talks and bullsh*t walks that’s the reality of our culture.
In April of 2022 I caught Covid while working for my employer and used the company website to register being infected. The next step was a CDC flowchart of how long I should stay out from work. At the end of the process I was instructed to rest up and take vitamin C, D3 and zinc. I would have expected C/D3/zinc* should have been well advertised before anyone got infected since we have safety posters for proper hydration, masking/hand washing and other safety concerns.
*I was surprised watching Atlanta TV news in late 2021 and a person from the CDC was being interviewed and they mentioned C/D3/zinc as being beneficial when Covid was spreading, but I never found that in published information from the CDC.
“At the end of the process I was instructed to rest up and take vitamin C, D3 and zinc”
Can you clarify: How were you so instructed? Verbally? In writing? I have never seen CDC advocate for any of these…
The company guide was based on CDC information supposedly and the vitamin recommendation was at the end of the PDF slide deck. The company was also large enough to hire an epidemiologist from some big name clinic. (A lot of help that did for Safe-And-Effective. Well, maybe the marketing. The person had a lab coat.) The guide was conditional on vaccinated/not vaccinated, having symptoms/not having symptoms, etc for how long to stay out and if you had to wear a mask on return to work.
Again, the only other place I heard about C/D3/zinc outside of the FLCCC group was a CDC person on a TV news interview. Having thought the FLCCC information was useful hearing a CDC person say something just about knocked me off the couch.
The stay out of work and then come in guidelines made me think of the opening of the Monty Python school part of The Meaning Of Life film:
Humphrey:
All right, settle down. Settle down… Now, before I begin the lesson, will those of you who are playing in the match this afternoon move your clothes down onto the lower peg immediately after lunch, before you write your letter home, if you’re not getting your hair cut, unless you’ve got a younger brother who is going out this weekend as the guest of another boy, in which case, collect his note before lunch, put it in your letter after you’ve had your hair cut, and make sure he moves your clothes down onto the lower peg for you. Now…
I also wanted to add that I prefer local news over national news (outside of the daily body count tally, and the “something happened but we can’t figured out why” reporting). A lot of coverage in local news is ignored by the national news if it doesn’t align with their narrative.
An example was the suburban county in the state that had the lowest vaccination rate was also a county that would have had few MAGA supporters. The same county gunned up rapidly during the protests.
I think we are also seeing some of this awkward news from the Trump assassination attempt.
Bsn
The best compilation of real-time meta analysis of all studies on Covid-19 done anywhere in the world is here, and each treatment is listed in the column on the right-hand side:
https://c19early.org/qmeta.html
There are more treatments listed under the “more” link at the very top of the page. This site is updated every day.
IVM rates high, but quercetin is right up there. From the quercetin page:
“Studies to date show that quercetin is an effective treatment for COVID-19. Statistically significant lower risk is seen for ICU admission, hospitalization, recovery, cases, and viral clearance. 10 studies from 8 independent teams in 7 countries show significant improvements. Meta analysis using the most serious outcome reported shows 49% [21‑68%] lower risk. Results are similar for Randomized Controlled Trials and higher quality studies, better after excluding studies using combined treatment, and slightly worse for peer-reviewed studies. Results are very robust — in exclusion sensitivity analysis 8 of 11 studies must be excluded to avoid finding statistically significant efficacy in pooled analysis. Studies typically use advanced formulations for greatly improved bioavailability. Other meta analyses show significant improvements with quercetin for mortality3, ICU admission3,4, and hospitalization3,4.”
The advanced formulations they mention include liposomal quercetin and enzymatically modified isoquercetin. I take enzymatically modified isoquercetin for MCAS and it works, but you have to take a lot of it. Fortunately, it’s cheap and available at any health food store. Natural Factors EMIQ.
Thanks for the very interesting link.
Yes, the FLCCC actually tries to keep people alive. That is a rarity.
“…the decision by Ukrainian forces to cross the border into Russia apparently surprised not just Russia, but also the United States, other Western partners and analysts who spend their days following the war’s troop movements.”
If true, the US has lost control of its proxy, who want nothing more than dragging the US into its war. Is it true or US disinformation? I think it likely that the White House and high level diplomats were unaware. Less sure about the US military, who are 1/2 running this war.
If it succeeds, even as a stunt, it’s red meat for a demoralized American public.
Russia has its proxy’s also who they could ‘lose control’ of.
I have seen some commenters claiming Ukraine cooked this up with MI6. It seems unlikely MI6 would be involved in this without giving a head’s up to the CIA, but maybe there’s some kind of rivalry going on that would get in the way of that. On MoA and Andrei Martyanov’s blog there have been reports that French and Polish soldiers (“mercenaries”) are part of the assault, so perhaps there is some additional NATO involvement.
The whole operation does appear more designed to let NATO do some crowing rather than helping Ukraine, but maybe the AFU has some other surprise to spring that will reveal their fiendish (and so far unobserved) cleverness.
This reminds me of what General Patton said after the Germans started the Battle of the Bulge. He said that the Germans did it this time. That they just stuck their heads into a meat grinder and he has control of the handle. Those Ukrainians may want to pull back but I doubt that the Russians will let them.
Bigger powers than Ukraine have regretted invading russia notwithstanding early success.
Charles Hugh Smith’s latest:
There’s Just One Problem: AI Isn’t Intelligent, and That’s a Systemic Risk
August 8, 2024
Mimicry of intelligence isn’t intelligence, and so while AI mimicry is a powerful tool, it isn’t intelligent.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug24/AI-mimicry8-24.html
Patrick Lawrence speaking truth.
“In my view the power the Israelis assert to influence U.S. politics and policy—an influence that comes close to dictating it—is ephemeral. It is based on the aforementioned bribery, threats, and coercion on the administering side. On the receiving end, things proceed by way of greed and fear. Israel’s power depends, in other words, on human frailties. Its wellspring is our greater or lesser givenness to corruption. The difference between greater and lesser can be measured in the fates of Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman.
The United States’ power is altogether of another kind. It rests at bottom on material advantage, as Western hegemony has done for the past 500 years. It coerces, bribes, and threatens, of course, but it can also invade and destroy—all this to state the very obvious. Reducing this to the simplest terms, while the Pentagon could invade Israel were it ordered to do so, the Israel Defense Forces could not invade the U.S. The latter, indeed, is incapable of invading even Lebanon or Iran without the assurance of American backing. ”
https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/10/patrick-lawrence-israel-runs-the-u-s-no-the-u-s-runs-israel-no-wait/
His point is that recent AIPAC muscle flexing in our elections is a sign that they are losing the American public rather than winning. I’d say that just reading this blog over time that attitudes have changed and not in favor of the 9.5 million.
Whether Netanyahu really is a bit mental, our policy on the ME most definitely is since it doesn’t serve US interests, only those of some well bribed DC-ians. That which cannot continue won’t.
Most policies coming out of Washington do not serve the interests of the American peopls as a whole. Israel is solidly integrated into the US political system and does not, in any way, depend on public approval–this has been the case since the coup of ’63.
It will continue since the power-elite control the Narrative despite the excellent stuff on the internet that counters that Narrative because people want to be told by authorities what to do even if its harmful to themselves. People posting here are not typical of US citizens or citizens of what we can call “the West.”
“Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”
“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”
“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”
“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”
“Just so… yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”
“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”
“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or… another?”
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”
Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
“So power is a mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d feel sad about it.”
“I will take that as high praise.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors…
Am I the only one here who resents the use of Air Force Two to carry Harris to the campaign event in Michigan where she finally had to “answer” some questions? (The linked article didn’t mention any public business she was going there to do.)
I’m sure it’s legal — at least, as long as her campaign pays at the official per-mile/per-hour rate and percentages and such. (DNC filtering of private donations? Less sure about it in that case.)
https://apnews.com/article/biden-campaign-travel-reimburse-federal-government-6885c172b11d972920f8fb60869868ac
And I’m even more sure other officeholders from both rich wings of the duopoly have done the same.
But it feels *wrong* to me. At the very least, if they’re going to use public-funded government assets like those, shouldn’t they be held to fully and speedily public account for it?
Not commenting on whether it is right or wrong for Kamala to do this. Just pointing out that this has been standard practice for every in-office politician as far back as I can recall.
I acknowledged this, and acknowledge it again to you.
My question remains: does anyone else here resent the fact that it’s standard practice?
Yes. I also resent that a person who argued for equal billing in the Biden-Harris Administration is given a complete pass by the media on all the crappy stuff that happened over the last 4 years.
Thank you. And on your point, I’ll borrow the understated words of Dan Aykroyd as Tom Snyder and respond: “Fair enough, sir, I’ll buy that.”
Craig Murray’s latest is good. Read it.
But I have a question: To what extent did Starmer hitch the Labour Party to Israel in the process of defeating Corbyn and purging the left-wing of the party? I see in a 2018 BBC news story that says Labour fully adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism into its code of conduct and that it went beyond even that. Presumably that means members may be disciplined for criticism of Israel.
Has Palestinian rights been purged from the party too? That used to be normal in Labour.
Code of conduct is just one data point. What are the others? Is there funding or donations in kind?
I suspect the answer to your question, .Tom, is “To the greatest possible extent.” These links suggest that:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-labour-leader-starmer-opens-up-about-his-familys-jewish-traditions/
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-808065
I’ll add two more links to that list
https://www.declassifieduk.org/israel-lobby-funded-half-of-keir-starmers-cabinet/
It predates Starmer.
Al Jazeera’s expose of Labour Friends of Israel was during the Corbyn time. The party is captured. Starmer is their preferred candidate (or he never would have become leader)
Thank you, Ben.
> ASIO, Burgess and the miasma of spookdom
View that Burgess is a media-slut misses important point that this provides Burgess with a platform to call out Australian politicians’ bad behaviour:
“The nation’s top spy says Palestinians who have expressed rhetorical support for listed terror group Hamas will not necessarily be blocked from entering Australia, as the federal government prepares to announce a new visa pathway to help those fleeing the war in Gaza. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess also urged politicians to moderate their language, warning that inflammatory rhetoric could encourage aggrieved individuals to turn to violence. .”
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/not-a-problem-spy-boss-says-hamas-sympathy-not-a-visa-dealbreaker-20240811-p5k1fc.html (paywalled)
At first, I though the BNE on Russia China barter meant they were a front. After all, the use of swift alternatives was reported long ago. But google tells me lots of articles are fronting the same meme (along with the Russian economy is dead) from all the usual western infowar outlets – aka the Main Stream Media.
I did find this article (not from a western propaganda outlet), but Russian, trying to confuse the issue months in advance with facts of the truthiness category.
https://www.rt.com/business/598707-russia-china-swift-replacement/
which said that there were 557 Russian Banks already using CIPS.
So the idea that the “problem” will torpedo Russian-Chinese trade growth is ludicrous given the growth since the West began sanctioning Russia (and a third the world) and the obvious synergies between China (2023, main categories-machine tools, automotive, and broadcast equipment) and Russia (2023- main categories: oil, gas, grain, and military?). These categories are large BtoB sales and now would imagine easily handled by the 557 banks (probably growing), one would think.
That said, it would not surprise me if Chinese officials were playing up (actually, just playing) to the West about how onerous the sanctions are and will be and how they are trying to implement blah blah blah blah. And I imagine some of the enterprising intelligence assets employed by Reuters, CNN, BBC, etc., fed the meme into the context-free MSM infowar against their own citizens.
Pat Landcaster in Russian command center. 35 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkn3WOHSCyM
From 1 year ago, Thomas Frank on Due Dissidence, utube, ~10+ minutes. (I can’t wait for Frank’s next book , (I hope he writes one), about the post 2019 era, our current political era.)
Thomas Frank: “UTTERLY POINTLESS” to Teach Liberals Their Mistakes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFKdwSatQPE
Adding: the full interview from 1 year ago on Rumble, still pertinent. ~1hr, 58+ minutes.
Thomas Frank on Populism, Anti-Populism, Third Parties, and 2024
https://rumble.com/v342gxg-thomas-frank-on-populism-anti-populism-third-parties-and-2024.html
Thank you for this Flora. I have read his books and will listen to this.
Presented without comment or question by the Guardian, the Russians decided to set fire to a nuclear facility that they control.
I can’t wait to hear the Guardian and the NYT and WaPo annouce that Russia also decided to detonate bombs in downtown Moscow. Those crazy Rooskies! What will they think of next?!
Like the Yankees shelled their own Ft Sumter, I guess….
This article is nuts!
Nagasaki shouldn’t have politicized its A-bomb ceremony (Spectator)
“But once you start excluding countries from memorials, or indeed sporting or cultural events, as a result of the actions of their governments, it raises inevitable and impossible to satisfactorily answer questions. Why do some countries become pariahs and others do not? Who actually suffers as a result of these sanctions? And who gains? And what do they gain?”
That article is run-of-the-mill stuff that MSM have been producing since forever, and is rather bland. For proper level of nuttines, check out the one from the previous post, about Rooskies setting their own nuclear facility on fire.
Sal of What’s Going on With Shipping reporting on a new round of port congestion:
CONGESTION: It is Back? | West Coast Ports, Much Like Other Global Ports, Are Seeing Backlogs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_tVfck_sVY
Hillbilly Minstrel: JD Vance is a Redneck Uncle Tom
If you ask either side of the partisan divide who JD Vance is, political gripes aside, they are both likely to tell you the same story. The story of the son of Appalachian junkies who pulled himself up by the bootstraps and made something of his life, rising above the mud to become an inspiration to hillbillies and rednecks everywhere. A war hero and bestselling author turned working class populist crusader, storming the Senate and putting America, our America, first. There is just one problem with this narrative but it’s a pretty big one. It’s about 90% bullshit…
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2024/08/hillbilly-minstrel-jd-vance-is-redneck.html
Redneck Uncle Tom… I’m gonna use that.
Will be interesting to see what Russia does with Ukraine while Iran undertakes its revenge on Israel. Will Russia formally declare war against Ukraine over Kursk? Now that SMO has the 4 Oblasts within its sights now time to take the rest? Zelensky likely thought attacking Kursk would improve his negotiating position. End result may be the exact opposite.
Labour Against Antisemitism has called on Sir Keir Starmer to expel Clive Lewis [BP: an MP] over a post he wrote in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza (Sky News)
The Tweet:
“The link between the daily inhumanity being metted out to Palestinians and rising Islamophobia in the UK, are not unconnected.
The inhumanity being shown to one is giving ‘permission’ for the other.
These actions diminish us all.”